Harry Potter: Don't touch

Chapter 55: The Tonks Family



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- Accio! - Harry Potter said, pointing his wand at the owl.

The elemental paid no attention to its master's words and continued to sit in its open cage, trying to sleep.

- Accio! - Potter repeated. - Accio! Accio!

Ted Tonks, sitting next to him, furrowed his eyebrows in frustration. He had been trying to ignore his adopted son's annoying behaviour for fifteen minutes now.

- Accio! Accio the Elemental! Accio owl! Accio the cage! Accio!

- Harry, can't you just shut up already! - Ted couldn't take it anymore. - I'm trying to read here, by the way. Could you study spells in your room? Or better yet, at school, you're taking Accio this year. What's the rush?

- Finch-Fletchley sleeps in my room and I don't have non-verbal magic. So I can't study spells in there! - Harry objected.

- You know you're not allowed to use magic outside of Hogwarts, right? If because of Nymphadora and Moody we look the other way, that doesn't mean you can.... - Ted regretted bringing it up for a moment. - And anyway, it's twelve o'clock, it's time to get up. Besides, don't you think Justin's been here a little too long? He's got his own parents. Why does he spend more time with us than he does with them?

- He's not spending time with you, he's spending time with me. I could go to him myself, but you said yourself I can't leave the house for too long because Black might appeal.

- Well, then... Then..." Ted hesitated for a moment. - Andromeda!

Mrs Tonks came into the room a moment later.

- Is there anything you can do for the boy? I'm getting a buzzing in my ears from his spells.

- Harry, you can help me in the kitchen," Andromeda quickly found tasks to do. - Or better yet, help Nymphadora with her things.

- Okay, okay," Harry relented and cast an unkind glance in Ted's direction. - I'll help Tonks.

He went up to the first floor, but he didn't go to help Nymphadora, instead he started composing a letter to Ron Weasley. In the previous message he had written, he had recounted in detail the play of the paddles at the Quidditch World Cup final match, which Potter himself had been unable to attend. In fact, it was worth writing letters to more than just Ron alone. One should reply to Zhou again, in as much detail as possible. Regularly exchanging letters with Chang, Harry was able to continue to communicate with her, even being at a distance of many kilometres from each other.

It was also worth writing to Professor Lupin, who was the first Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher in the last many, many years to hold his position for more than a year. Remus was a friend of the Tonks family and visited the house periodically, but the last time he had fallen into a trap Moody had set for Potter. So now the professor had asked Harry to inform him of such planned 'inspections'. By the way, after it turned out that Black was actually innocent, he suddenly stopped the surprise attacks, apparently believing that Potter had finally grasped the essence of "constant vigilance". And indeed he had! Harry was able to calmly fend off all of Mad-Eye's attacks and even last an average of five seconds in battle.

He could have also written a letter to Black, asking him to let him know regularly that he was alright. But writing to him was not Harry's intention. He still hadn't figured out how he should feel about his godfather. Over the summer they had spent a great deal of time together, in the courts... In the courts....

At first, Harry had testified that Sirius Black's animagic form, a huge black dog had not tried to attack him, but had just watched. After his acquittal, Black decided to find out how his godson had lived while he was in prison... And Sirius, after learning only a little, came to be horrified! Pierce's father and Pierce himself ended up in hospital with a broken jaw, while Black temporarily visited the prison, and soon found himself in court as well. Sirius got away with it again, and went on the attack himself in a surprising way - he sued... No, not Piers, not the Dursleys, and not even Madam Figg, who "didn't watch", but Dumbledore!

It was a very strange and complicated trial. Harry had thought Sirius was a saint for beating up both Piers at once and getting away with it, so Potter had begrudgingly agreed to testify about what he knew of Dumbledore's actions. He remembered everything, right down to the Headmaster's words before the allotment when he had tried to get him back to the Dursleys. Potter had thought it was the right thing to do at the time, but he was soon ashamed of his words, but Dumbledore had assured him after the trial that Harry had done the right thing and that the truth could not be the wrong thing to do.

On one side was yesterday's most wanted serial killer who had recently beaten up two Muggles, and on the other side was the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Commander of the Order of Merlin First Class, Supreme Wizard of the Wizengamot, founder of the Order of the Phoenix and Chairman of the International Confederation of Mages. Few doubted Albus Dumbledore's victory, but he was almost found guilty! The headmaster was saved by the fact that Arabella Figg, who, as Potter had learnt, was supposed to be monitoring his condition, took the blame. Figg was eventually sentenced to a year of Azkaban for such negligence, and afterwards excommunication from the magical world.

And after that, Black had done the one thing that drastically changed Potter's opinion of him - tried to take him away from Tonks. He clearly had more rights, considering that Harry's past custody court had ignored the older Potters' will, which stated that Sirius Black was the one to whom Harry Potter was to go to in the event of their deaths. However, even with his parents' will and Harry's real guardian, the court had to take into account the boy's own opinion, which was very clear: his real guardians were the Tonks. Sirius, instead of agreeing to Harry's wishes, had tried to contest the guardianship of Ted and Andromeda Tonks and, having failed, had lost Potter's favour completely.

Now Harry didn't know how he should feel about Black. He consulted his friends: Zhou was against Sirius, Justin was in favour, Ron was hesitant. But he hadn't been able to talk to Tonks yet: she was at the Ministry all day and only came home at night, when everyone - except Justin - was asleep. Potter had spoken to Tonks only a few times over the summer. The only time they'd had a good conversation was at his birthday party. Nymphadora had given him a mocking gift then, which was obviously revenge for the alarm clock he'd been given last September-a ring with a talking glass eye that periodically shouted "constant vigilance." Tonks had somehow learnt how to non-verbally activate the order to the eye, and so whenever she was free - which was infrequently - she harassed Potter by activating that very eye.

When Harry got tired of it, he started referring to Tonks exclusively as Nymphadora, which didn't do much for her desire to socialise. During the last few days of the summer, she finally started staying home all day. Tonks had managed to save up a small amount of money and rent a room for herself somewhere near the Ministry of Magic, and so she began to slowly pack up her things, of which there were countless.

- Hey, I heard that! You volunteered to help me! - The door to Potter's room opened and Tonks appeared on the doorstep.

'Well, yeah, remember g... here it comes,' Potter thought to himself.

He didn't feel like helping Tonks at all, he was just about to get his thoughts together and text Zhou.

- Hello, Nymphadora," Harry smiled widely, trying to use the tried and tested technique of turning Tonks away.

- No!" Nymphadora declared. - It won't work this time! Let's go to my room, I need to take the books to the ground floor!

- Are you sure it won't work, Nymphadora? - Potter made one last attempt, emphasising the last word.

- If you call me that again, I'll put Silenzio on you and you'll only speak in your mind until fifth year," Tonks said smiling affectionately.

Harry could have said that a simple Finite would remove the effects of the mute spell and that he wouldn't let himself be attacked so easily, but he decided not to argue: after all, Tonks was an Auror, and he was only in his fourth year. Yes, he knew a lot of Riddle's nasty spells; yes, thanks to Moody, he was hard to catch off guard; yes, he had learned almost all of Hogwarts' spellcasting programme, except for the most difficult spells, which included Silenzio and Accio. But his combat experience was a pittance, having only fought duels in his second year and with Moody, which had been reduced to a game of 'dodge the flash spells'. The rest of his petty conflicts don't count.

- Okay, I hear you," Harry accepted his fate and followed Tonks out.The room was a terrible mess. Piles of things were stacked in boxes by the entrance, and many more clothes, strange cosmetics, some magical orbs and books were lying in their places.

- Do you even pack at all? - Potter asked, looking round the room critically.

- Partially... You're the one who's going to help me pack them. Can you take these books to the ground floor? Just take one at a time, they're very heavy! - Tonks pointed to three boxes near the entrance.

- Vingardium Leviosa! - Harry pointed his wand at the boxes of books. - Locomotor three boxes! Is that everything? - Potter asked calmly as the boxes floated through the air out of the room.

Harry was actually controlling the flight of the boxes with his wand and was only pretending that it wasn't too difficult for him.

- Harry, that's... That's awesome! - Tonks marvelled. - I want to do that too!

- You can do it! First year spell and fifth year spell. Maybe we should use a wand at least once in a while for a change?

Potter lost control of his flight for a moment and heard the boxes fall, but a moment later control was regained and the books took their place.

- 'Oh, right, yeah, there was something like that in there,' Tonks pondered. - But it's not nearly as useful in Auror work, so I learnt it and forgot about it. I didn't pass all my exams in third year except Potions with an 'Excellent', so I'm no match for some of the others!

With Riddle's help, after transfiguration, Harry had passed all the other subjects with flying colours. Only Severus Snape, purely because he was a bastard, gave him a "Satisfactory." Potter overtook Hermione and became the best student of the third year. Hufflepuff even got twenty points for his success, which didn't stop him from giving Gryffindor a hundred-plus points.

- And anyway, what's with the "use a wand for a change" thing? That's Moody talking! I'm reminded of that "did you borrow Ollivander's wand to pick your nose or use magic?" thing."- Tonks turned into Moody for a moment and said that phrase exactly as Mad-Eye would have said it. - It's so good that you two found each other and he finally stopped pestering me. I can't stop being happy about that.

- Well, you should be, you've lost a lot! - Potter remarked. - Since there's no more work for me, can we talk? I was wondering what you think about Sirius Black.

- About Black? - Tonks interjected. - I honestly don't even know. We've never really spoken. Although he offered to meet me at a café the other day, and I declined. You know we're related, don't you?

- Of course we are! Andromeda Tonks is Sirius Black's cousin. What kind of question is that? Did you think I didn't know? - Harry wondered.

- Well, little did I care about my distant relatives up until a certain age. But I'd only heard good things about Sirius from my mum; he was the first Black to be in Gryffindor, made friends with the good people and fought with the bad. Always defending my mum from my parents' attacks! Mum couldn't believe he'd betray the Potters. And she was so right! - Tonks thought for a moment. - And then we started to fight a lot, and I didn't talk to my mum much, only to my dad, and not very often at that. And my dad doesn't know anything about Black, so that's all the information I have. Why do you even want to know? You're thinking of leaving us and going to him?

- No way, I'm just not really sure how I feel about him. Is he taking too much interest in me? I can't understand what could be causing this behaviour. I cross-referenced the dates, so it seems that after he escaped from prison he immediately started looking for me, found out I was living here and watched me as a dog for a while, then showed up at Hogwarts and watched me again, and after he got me acquitted he had a fight with Dumbledore about me, then tried to take custody of me, and now he's written me a letter to tell me how I'm being treated here. Why all the attention? It was the first time I saw him in court! Was he so friendly with my father that he wants to help me in any way he can? Or is he crazy? I don't understand his motivation, and that bothers me. That's why I came to you. You must know something, even if it's just a story.

- If you want that information so badly, you should go to Andromeda. But I wouldn't do that. It's best to keep Sirius Black's name out of this house as much as possible, because even my mother lost all her fond memories when he tried to take you away. So, anyway, you want my advice? Just let it go.

- Let it go? Explain," Harry didn't understand.

- What difference does it make what kind of person he was or what kind of opinion you have of him? You didn't gather information about me before you met me, did you? We just happened to be in the same training together, that's all. Coincidence. I bet you met your Justin the same way, and the rest of your friends, if you have any, you don't tell me anything," Tonks frowned. - It's like someone told me - a person's past is not important, it's their future that's more important.

- It was Moody, wasn't it? - Harry surmised.

- No! Do you really think I've only been in contact with that ever-vigilant bloke all this time? For Merlin's sake, don't tell him I called him that. Dumbledore said it to me in fourth year. And three years ago, Lupin said the same thing, only in different words.

- So you're saying that I should just pretend that there's nothing strange about Black's behaviour? And I should just keep my correspondence with him quiet?

- Well, not quite that rude, but, well... Yeah. Just don't tell your parents I told you about it. Just use your owl and quietly exchange messages. Parents aren't Moody, they're not gonna check your mail.

- Okay, I hear you," Harry said. - I'd still like to clarify one thing. You said Black invited you to the café, why did you say no?

- It was business, I texted him, and he probably took it as some sort of excuse, but there was nothing I could do about it. Now it's the end of summer, I'm moving and then back to work for the Ministry. I'm hoping to take another holiday and visit Hogwarts, you're having a very cool event there, but I won't tell you about it," Tonks closed her eyes dreamily with a sly grin.

- Yeah, really, what could it be? - Potter ruffled his hair and stared smugly at Nymphadora. - Could it be the Tri-Wizard Tournament?

- How would you know? - Nymphadora was indignant.

- Moody said, back at the beginning of the summer, that Finch-Fletchley and I were going to participate, and Justin was going to throw a hundred notes with his name on them into the cup. He reckons it'll give us a better chance. By the way, I was hoping you could tell me, too. Are we friends or what?

- Friends, friends, but I'll be sacked by Merlin if I start telling everyone left and right. They made it clear that the information was classified, and how did Mad-Eye know?

- I didn't ask. He said there'd be an age limit, but a good Confundus could lift it. So we're going to try, because third year went off without a hitch, and fourth year without Quidditch is going to be pretty boring. So I'm planning on having some fun. I'm going to see what I'm worth, because I've learnt spells, but I can't use them. And even more than that, Mad-Eye himself offered me to participate, so I'm not to be blamed if anything happens. Anyway, you come and cheer! And I'll go practice my beckoning charms on Finch-Fletchley's bed, for there's no need to sleep at one o'clock in the afternoon.

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