Nothing is mine.

Harry gets his Gold DoE award, or something like that, anyway!

His Journey's Just Begun

Uncle Vernon glowered over the top of the Daily Mail at the owl perched upon Aunt Petunia's chair as he smeared butter across his toast. The owl stared back with its bright yellow eyes, looking, in Harry's opinion at least, entirely unbothered by the glowering and muttering.

'It's Sunday.' Uncle Vernon took a huge bite of toast and chomped on it with vigour. 'Sunday.'

Harry laughed. 'You might have to let it go; I don't think they have the same rule about post.'

Uncle Vernon huffed and brushed crumbs out of his moustache. 'Uncivilised people,' he griped, waving the knife at the owl. 'Just take your damn letter and get rid of that dirty great bird, boy. If it craps all over the furniture, your aunt will make you scrub it all clean.'

Harry patted the owl on the head, ruffling its speckled, tufted ears as he tugged his letter from beneath its foot. 'It has a D of E stamp on it. Which I assume means Department of Education and not that I've accidentally completed my Duke of Edinburgh's award. I don't think breaking into the Ministry really counts as the volunteering section. Maybe as the expedition?'

Uncle Vernon raised the Daily Mail to obscure Harry and the owl away from him and his breakfast, muttering under his breath and munching on his piece of toast as loudly as he possibly could.

'Let's see how well I did. It had better be well or Hermione will never let me hear the end of it over that goblin essay.' He opened the letter with a flick of his wand. 'We are delighted to inform you that you have achieved the following grades—' Harry skimmed the page, slipping his wand back into its sheath on his back '—mostly Os. Hermione's not going to be happy I got an O for that goblin essay. Damned either way, really.'

'What on earth is an O?' Aunt Petunia poked her nose into the kitchen and let out a little shriek. 'What is that?!'

'It's an owl—' Harry glanced at it '—which, I mean, it looks pretty owl-like, so… I guess your question is silly? Although the Os are my grades, which are also called OWLs, for reasons that honestly have never really been sufficiently explained to me. Do you know, owl?'

The owl stared back at him, completely unruffled and unblinking.

'We're not keeping you,' he said. 'I already have an owl. Somewhere. Oh, I think I might have left Hedwig at Hogwarts.' Harry frowned. 'Normally she just comes to find me though, so she's probably fine.'

'Get it out!' Aunt Petunia cried. 'Before it makes a mess!'

'Honestly, it's being very calm,' he said. 'Uncle Vernon's made a way bigger mess with his toast. There are crumbs all over the table.'

'Vernon.' Aunt Petunia huffed and bustled over, flapping her hands at him.

Uncle Vernon lowered the Daily Mail just far enough to fix Harry with a long glare.

Harry cackled and shooed the owl out the window. 'I'm going to find my cousin.'

'Tell her to fix her clothes!' Aunt Petunia snapped. 'All the neighbours have been talking.'

'I'll tell her.' He strolled through to the hall and stuffed his feet into his trainers. 'But I don't think she's going to listen; she's much too proud of being a hottie and making everyone stare.'

Aunt Petunia sniffed somewhere in the kitchen as he skipped out of the door, but Harry just laughed and sauntered down along the neat hedges and fences through the subway to the park.

Tonks lay upside down on the shining slide, bouncing her heels on the metal and basking in the Sunday morning sun. Harry wandered across and stood over her, admiring the smooth skin of her stomach where her bright pink t-shirt had slipped to bunch at the bottom of her bra.

'Stop staring at my legs, brat.' Tonks yawned. 'Or I'll cover yours in bruises.'

'I'm not—' Harry laughed '—your t-shirt has come down a bit.'

She patted her bare stomach. 'Oh.'

'But now you mention it.' He let his gaze drift to where the hem of her black skirt lingered, caught between Tonks's legs and the slide just above mid-thigh. 'Aunt Petunia says fix your clothes by the way; I told her reasoning with you was futile, but there you go.'

Tonks reached out and flicked him on the knee. 'Oi, no unwrapping this girl for another six years, not even with your eyes.'

'It doesn't count if you've already unwrapped yourself,' Harry retorted 'I am an impressionable underage boy, I can't be held responsible for my actions.' He spared her legs one last glance as she spun around on the slide and sat up. 'Do you have any socks that are about knee-length anywhere?'

She snorted. 'Figuring out what you like, baby cuz?'

'So far it's a short list,' Harry confessed. 'Short skirts. Short shorts. Short—'

Tonks snickered. 'You're a pubescent menace. Did you get your results yet?'

'Yeah, I got an O in everything but Divination. But nobody's ever going to convince me they saw something important in a teacup anyway.' He patted his pocketful of scrunched up letter. 'I was initially overjoyed that Hermione wouldn't scold me for writing about how the ICW caused goblin rebellions, but have subsequently realised she will be equally upset I got an O by deviating from the syllabus; there's just no winning for me.'

'You what?!' Tonks sat bolt upright. 'Did you write an entire exam essay criticising the ICW?!'

'Constructive criticism,' Harry said with a laugh. 'That's better, right? I'd hate to think I was emulating Snape.'

She grabbed his arm and yanked him down beside her on the bottom of the slide. 'Stop joking around and be serious. Pendragon does not suffer rivals or threats. You are powerful, Harry. You are powerful, you are popular, you are famous, and you are going to inherit a Wizengamot seat with which you can wield those things. If Pendragon thinks you're going to cause trouble in the future, particularly now when he already has Voldemort going around, he will kill you.'

'Everyone that tries to kill me tends to end up regretting it,' Harry said. 'Just ask Voldemort.'

'Harry!' she snapped, her grey eyes sharp as steel. 'I am being serious. In fact, let me tell you a short story just to show you how serious this is. Are you listening?'

Harry nodded.

'There was, about ten years ago, a married couple who disagreed strongly with the ICW, the Ministry and how it does things. One of them was already under Ministry observation for experimenting with dark magic, and the other ran and wrote his own paper. They were not careful or restrained in their criticism, and after they met, married and joined efforts, they started to raise questions that Pendragon did not like. The witch died in a magical accident and the wizard has never quite been the same since. He still writes, but all his criticism of the Ministry is twisted up in madness and he has become a laughing stock, discrediting everything he and wife said before.'

Harry considered that. 'Do you think if we're lucky they might get rid of Rita Skeeter, too?'

She flicked him hard on the nose. 'What part of this are you not getting, Harry?! You are much more dangerous to Pendragon than those two were; if you stop Voldemort as Dumbledore believes you will, you'll wield huge influence and power in Britain. Pendragon rules with a clenched fist and he knows full well that if that grip ever slips, his retainers and enemies will tear him down. He will suffer no potential rivals to rise, so do not stupidly make yourself out to be one!' Tonks prodded him in the cheek with her finger. 'Tell me you understand.'

'I understand. I do.' Harry glanced away through the swings up at the blue summer sky. 'Pendragon does whatever he wants. He has all the power. He kills anyone in his way. If he finds you, he'll force you to do… things with someone you don't want to; he wants to destroy everything Daph believes in because he's scared of some nonsense prophecy. And nobody can stop him because everyone's too afraid of all his aurors.'

'Good.'

'I'm not afraid.'

'You should be.'

'I'm not,' Harry murmured. 'And if he tries to touch you, or Daph, or any of my friends. I'll stop him.'

Tonks sighed. 'Your heart's in the right place, baby cuz, and don't think I don't appreciate you wanting to get yourself killed over me, but you will get yourself killed.' She ruffled his hair. 'Come on. Get up. Was going to do this soon anyway, but let's do it now. It'll help you see.'

Harry jumped to his feet. 'You just want to give me more bruises.'

'Not this time.' She flashed him a grin. 'Wand out. Conjure that Agwyd. We're going to see if you can stop me chopping you up, favourite baby cuz.'

He reached behind his back and drew his wand from its sheath beneath his t-shirt, pushing his magic, letting it blaze from him, bright as the countless silver stars holding back the dark, and near blinding where it shone upon the smooth steel of the slide. In that reflection, he saw himself radiant — another star of brilliant silver — so bright even that he could not make out the sun in the gleaming metal.

'Sixteen,' Tonks muttered. 'Just insane…'

Wisps of bright, neon-pink magic rose from her shoulders, then shivered into a trembling veil of light, and a blade of fierce hot-pink sprang up around her wand.

'Hold out your hand,' she said.

Harry eyed the neon-pink blade and shrugged. 'Don't chop it off, please.'

'I can't teach you how to do the blade bit, so I'll test it like this,' Tonks said. 'Don't worry, I'll let you keep your hand. In six years, I might quite want you to have those fingers.'

A little heat crept up Harry's cheeks. 'Why is underage so hard for you to grasp?'

She sniggered. 'Are you hard to grasp right now, baby cuz?'

'Shut up.' He flushed as Tonks waggled her eyebrows at him. 'Just get on with it.'

'Hold still.' Tonks reached out and touched the tip of her blade to his Agwyd, pressing it forward against the silver light shrouding him. 'Okay.' Her knuckles whitened and she pressed it harder, then put a second hand on it and grit her teeth. 'Wow. Well… that's a bit embarrassing.'

'What?' Harry demanded. 'I don't know what you're trying to do.'

'Pierce your Agwyd with mine,' she replied. 'Which I figured I would be able to do, but apparently not. I guess it makes sense; you're still a kid, everything's pretty black and white and certain for you, and it's easy to have no doubts when we're just out here together.'

Harry turned that over in his head. 'So you can't chop me up?'

'Not right now.' She let her Agwyd fade. 'Obviously, in a real fight against someone else who can use Agwyd, it's very different — all sorts of doubts start to creep in then. But we don't care about that, we just want to make sure nobody can get any spells through. And if I can't stab through it, we're good.'

He let his magic go, let the hungry cold dark swallow them all. 'Actually, I have a question. If I could conjure a blade and was a proper Agwydkleze…'

Tonks cocked her head.

'What?' Harry asked. 'I swear there wasn't a euphemism in there.'

'Your girlfriend taught you that word?'

'I think Bellatrix said it first, but yeah.'

'Makes sense,' Tonks muttered. 'That's the… older word for it. Be careful who you say that in front of, baby cuz.'

'Right.' He waved that all away with his hand. 'But if I could conjure a blade. And you could chop through my Agwyd. Couldn't you just cut right through my wand?'

'Yes.' She tucked her wand away. 'Fighting first-class aurors tends to end in death if neither is able or willing to withdraw. Wands are… important. You don't risk having it cut in half unless you're willing to die.'

'Sacred,' Harry murmured.

'To some,' Tonks said. 'Sacred's a bit strong for me. But… it's your life, little cousin. You lose it, you're dead.'

'Yeah, Daph says they're sacred.' He felt the heat rise on his cheeks again and a few rogue butterflies stirred somewhere inside. 'I offered her my wand and she told me that doing that had connotations.'

'Oh you offered her your wand did you, baby cuz?' Nothing but mischief shone in her grey eyes. 'Is it a big wand? Thirteen inches? Inflexible?'

'Supple, actually,' Harry retorted.

Tonks snickered.

'You need help.'

'How is your girlfriend? Not kidnapped you and sent you to Voldemort yet?'

'Not yet,' Harry promised. 'She's very sweet really. Only mildly evil. But her favourite colour is red—' he laughed to himself '—which is very Gryffindor, so she must be okay.'

'Yellow's better.'

'Yellow?'

'Yes. Hufflepuff.'

'Oh yes, that house exists. I guess it's important there are enough people to make up the numbers for the school.'

Tonks swatted him over the head. 'I was a 'Puff, brat.'

'You really weren't in Ravenclaw? Or Gryffindor?'

'No. 'Puff and proud.'

'Sounds like Dudley at house parties when he sees free cigarettes.' Harry grinned. 'Anyway, do you want to give me bruises? I'm looking forward to the day when I finally give you more bruises than you give me; it's getting closer.'

Tonks dropped back down onto the slide. 'Not today. I'm actually pretty knackered. Night shift last night.'

'So you had night shift and then came right here?'

'Yeah.'

He frowned. 'Did you get to sleep?'

'I was having a bit of a nap while waiting for you, but not really.' She shrugged. 'It's part of the job. Aren't many first-class aurors about and I'm out here looking after you as well.'

'You can — and I know you're going to make a joke about this but I don't care — borrow my bed if you want?'

'Trying to get me in bed?' Tonks rested her head back on the warm metal. 'Honestly might work. But no, I need to be at least half-awake. Just in case. Thanks, baby cuz, but no thanks. I can suck it up. I have a day off in a couple of days and I'll just sleep for the whole thing and catch up.'

'Unless you get weird dreams.'

'I grew out of those,' Tonks said. 'No more waking up with damp pyjamas and fading impressions of a tall hot dark wizard who took me prisoner and made me do all sorts of naughty things.'

'Not those dreams.' Harry paused. 'Actually, no, please do tell me more, Nymphadora. I've changed my mind.'

She cackled. 'Too late. But no. No weird dreams for me anymore. I don't dream too much at all, actually. Usually too tired, I guess; I lie down and I'm out like a light.'

'I'll trade you?' Harry offered. 'You can have weird dreams about smiling women in the snow—'

'I'm not gay, baby cuz.'

'Yeah… they really weren't that sort of dream.' He laughed. 'How about seeing what Voldemort's up to in his overly complicated schemes? His sneaky plan seems to be going fairly well so far; he went off to some island and found a whole load of people I think were werewolves, but he called them Grimgenvig — or something like that but with even fewer vowels—'

'Grymgwenvydg.' Tonks sat up, her grey eyes sharp. 'It's the Brythonic word for those we would call werewolves. What else did you see, Harry?'

'There was a really big guy called Fenrir, who was covered in scars and really hates Maerdrid, but, to be honest, Maerdrid does sound like a bit of a dick so that's not all that unreasonable.' Harry paused. 'Definitely don't date him, Nymphadora; he's not good boyfriend material.'

Tonks flicked him on the knee. 'Focus, baby cuz. You saw Voldemort speaking to them?'

'Yeah, they all left to go fight for him. And there was another island, one that was kind of falling apart; it had a giant guy on it with a huge sword covered in weird writing.' He wracked his brain. 'His name was something like Tetris?'

'Tethra,' Tonks whispered. 'Was it Tethra?'

'Yeah, that sounds about right.' Harry replied. 'Who is he?'

'Remind me and I'll tell you later.' She stood up. 'What else have you seen, Harry?'

'Er… there was some girl? Can't remember her name. She was someone important's daughter. And someone else important's sister. They were who Pendragon is sending after Bellatrix, basically, but she wants Pendragon to lose so she was going to tell Voldemort what they're doing. I don't think anyone's told Pendragon that it's Voldemort not Bellatrix, which I guess is Fudge's fault.' Harry shrugged. 'But I don't know about all of that, I just see things. I know Voldemort's pretty happy with his sneaky plan, though. He's got loads of people convinced he's going to be a lovely saviour so they'll do whatever he wants, and he's got some puppet in the Ministry so he can take over from within and pretend to be fighting it while he gets stronger and stronger. His plan hasn't got to the part where he involves me and I ruin everything for him, though.'

Tonks cursed under her breath. 'Greyback. Tethra. Puppet minister,' she said. 'Greyback. Tethra. Puppet minister. Right, got it.'

'Got what?' Harry scratched the back of his head. 'Voldemort said Dumbledore knows all this already.'

'Dumbledore's disappeared doing something,' she said. 'I got one very short letter out of him when you decided to spend the night with your girlfriend and I thought someone had kidnapped you, and that's all anyone has heard all summer.'

'Oh. Well…'

'I need to go speak to Bonesy,' Tonks muttered. 'Harry… if you see things like that, you tell me. From what I've been told, what you see is disturbingly accurate.' She shuffled her feet. 'Bonesy wanted me to watch out for it, actually, just in case.'

'I'll tell you if you want.' He stole her seat on the slide. 'I'm pretty sure Dumbledore does know it all, though.'

'If he does, he didn't mention it to me or anyone else.' She glanced down at her clothes. 'And he would mention it, why wouldn't he?' Tonks scowled. 'If Voldemort can get some Death Eater to be minister, then that person can reshuffle all the department heads when they're sworn in; they could very easily have us all chasing our tails until Voldemort is strong enough to take a swing at Pendragon. And then we're all fucked.' A mirthless little laugh escaped her. 'Probably literally, in my case, if Pendragon finds out about me and decides he's just going to stamp on anyone not doing exactly what he wants...'

Harry reached out and took her wrist. 'He won't find out. And if he does, it won't happen because I won't let it.'

Tonks glanced down at him, a faint smile flitting across her lips. 'That's sweet, Harry, but if Pendragon wants to do that to me, it'll take more than one sixteen year-old first-class auror to stop him.'

'He can't be worse than a giant, highly venomous snake that can kill you by looking at you.' He grinned. 'Or Professor Lupin at his time of the month.'

She ruffled his hair and bent to kiss him on the cheek. 'I'll be back as soon as I can, baby cuz. Stay here. Stay safe.'

'I'm going to stay right here on this nice warm slide and nap for you.'

Tonks vanished with a deafening pop.

'I bet she just apparated into something again.' Harry laughed to himself for a moment, but the humour slipped away, like dark water trickling back through a crack in the ice, leaving nothing but icicles as sharp and hard as fangs. 'Pendragon won't touch you,' he vowed beneath his breath. 'Not you. Not Daph. Not Hermione, Ron, or Lav or anyone at all. I won't let him.'

AN: Lots more of this story and others via the link and Discord!

linktr . ee / mjbradley