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It was the second time Tonks met Harry Potter that sent her permanently down the road to custody of a fifteen year old at her ripe age of twenty-one.
She had spent the afternoon, one of her rare days off, helping the Order - mostly Mrs. Weasley, plus the kids and Sirius - wrestle a homicidal ghoul out of a defunct toilet and throw it out of the house. "How did this thing even get in here through the protections?" she had asked Sirius, as the two of them lugged its unconscious body to the back garden.
"Merlin knows," Sirius said. "Maybe my mother had Kreacher let it in when she was dying, thinking I might possibly get out of prison some day... Or she was just hoping Narcissa's husband would be the one who came to check the property when I croaked, my family always hated the Malfoys."
"Why'd Narcissa marry him, then?" Tonks asked curiously.
Her mother hated talking about her family. Tonks knew just enough around the edges, from nightmares and things Dad had said to her and times when Mum had been tipsy, to guess some of why and not want to bother her about it. But Tonks couldn't help her curiosity. She had been hassled for most of her life over being related to the Blacks, from Hogwarts to her career at the Ministry, and she wanted to know who they were.
Sirius, who equally hated his family but was constantly lost in memories these days, stuck in his parents' house, was a much better source of information than Mum. Half the time he seemed to want to talk to anyone who would listen to his ranting.
"Well," Sirius said, "I don't think Narcissa really wanted to from what I remember, but you know his father was big with Voldemort in those days. My father cared about that kind of influence." He shoved the back door open with his elbow. "Come on, on three?"
They tossed the ghoul outside and slammed the door. It would revive in time and go find a more hospitable den. Hopefully.
"That," Sirius said, "Or my mother's idea of scenic garden plants will eat it while it's asleep."
"So that's why we're not letting the kids out back?" Tonks said.
"Exactly. C'mon, let's see if Molly's got lunch ready," Sirius said, and locked the back door.
It was weird, for Tonks, to be around Sirius again, but not as weird as it was for the others. He had an awkward relationship with the adults who had known him before, Remus Lupin the most so, but Moody and Dumbledore, too. He'd been over for tea with Tonks's parents once, just after the Order was re-convened and before Dumbledore had told him not to leave Grimmauld Place.
Mum had apologized repeatedly for believing he'd been a traitor. She'd been trying not to cry. Sirius had been stone-faced, uncomfortable and uncertain rather than unforgiving.
Tonks remembered him too, but she'd been seven when he went to prison, and he'd been Uncle Sirius, the Cool Baby-Sitter. She hadn't really understood why he had vanished. Her parents had explained the whole thing to her later, when she was older and at risk of mentioning him to someone at school. A lot of people had vanished from her life before the war was over, after all, he'd just been one more. So things were less awkward between the two of them. Sirius didn't have to hold a grudge against, or deliberately forgive, Baby Dora for not preventing him from being sent to prison without a trial.
Mrs. Weasley did have lunch ready by the time they got back upstairs, in the form of another platter of sandwiches. The kids were clustered around the drawing room sofa and armchairs, gnawing on them and talking about something to do with school, except for Harry. He was quiet, staring at his lap. When the door shut he snapped upright, eyes going immediately to Sirius with laser-like focus. Tonks had seen him do that a lot this week. Sirius didn't seem to notice, or maybe he just didn't believe it.
"Hey," she said, brightly, dropping onto the edge of the sofa next to Harry. "How are the sandwiches? Any corned beef?" She'd noticed the Weasley kids mostly hated it. It was cheap and they'd probably had loads growing up, just like Tonks had. "I call dibs." She snagged two off the pile and started eating vociferously. She'd learned in Auror training to eat whenever there was food and sleep whenever there was time. "What've you got, Harry?"
"Er, boiled egg," Harry said, blinking at her with his vivid green eyes, magnified by his cheap glasses. Most of the rest of the Order talked about the eyes reminding them of Lily, but Tonks had never met her, so they were just Harry's eyes to her.
"That your favorite?" Tonks asked.
Sirius was crossing his arms, staring into the sandwiches and brooding again. Well, if Tonks had been stuck in her childhood home without so much as a walk to the corner for a month straight she'd have murdered someone, and she got along with her parents.
"Uh, it's all right." Harry seemed disconcerted to have his opinion asked.
"What's your favorite food?" Tonks asked, mostly trying to make conversation. "Hey, you didn't have a birthday party, did you, with all the political problems? Should we talk to Mrs. Weasley about having one, what do you think?" She was pretty sure his was summer, she'd been six when he was born and Uncle Sirius had been excited about it. "Or haven't you turned fifteen yet?" She was sure of his age, mostly because the kids in school with him, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, had been worried about O.W.L.s.
"End of July," Harry said. "It's alright, I've never really had a birthday party."
"Were your aunt and uncle worried about security?" Tonks asked, slightly taken aback. O.K., she'd had a general guess of what type they were based on the house, or she'd never have had that Suburban Lawn Competition idea in the first place, but she tried to be charitable about people's families. At least to their faces. It had been a necessary survival school back when she was at Hogwarts, knowing some of her pureblood classmates' parents cursed her mother's name when she came up in the tabloids.
"They don't like spending money on me," Harry said with the resignation of a child who was used to explaining these things and did not want sympathy. "I had my first birthday cake when Hagrid brought my Hogwarts letter, though. It was great, it was chocolate, and he bought me Hedwig--"
"Hedwig's your owl, right? She's a gorgeous bird," Tonks said absently, but her eyes were seeking Sirius's over Harry's shoulder, where he had gone to lurk behind the couch.
Sirius didn't look surprised. Sirius looked furious, but in no way as though he was receiving news.
"Okay," Tonks said a couple of minutes later when she had gotten Mrs. Weasley and the other kids interested in the idea of having a late birthday dinner and absconded, dragging Sirius with her 'to check if the ghoul's awake and gone yet.' "What's up with his guardians?"
"They're scum, is what," Sirius said flatly, which was the sort of thing Tonks normally discounted purebloods saying about muggles categorically, but he went on, "The first time I saw him - I mean, after he was a baby - he was running away from home. I was listening outside as a dog, trying to figure out where he was and if he was - safe - and that man's sister was there going on about James and Lily in - the worst sort of language, the sort of thing my parents used to say--" He laughed harshly. "I'd love to introduce them.
"They hate Harry," he added, coming back to earth and focusing on Tonks "Harry told me last summer that they were letting him do his homework over holidays this year because he mentioned his godfather was an escaped mass murderer and 'forgot' to add I was innocent. Just, casually.
"I don't think he realizes how absurd it sounds," Sirius went on. "By the time we went to school our parents had us drilled, you know, 'don't let the commoners see your weaknesses,' and 'don't air the family's dirty laundry in front of People Who Won't Understand,' but I get the feeling the Dursleys just never let him talk to anyone outside the family in the first place."
"When we went to get him," Tonks said as she recalled it, "He said him being safe would only disappoint his aunt and uncle. I sort of thought he was joking, though. I mean, he's fifteen."
"I think most people do." Sirius shrugged. "If Dumbledore would do something about it--"
Tonks was not touching the whole issue with Dumbledore, but, "So - I'm your cousin," she said, thoughtfully.
"Yeah, I know, Dora," Sirius said, and tried to ruffle her hair.
She knocked his hand away absently and went on, "And you haven't got any family left - besides me and my mum, I mean," and the Malfoys, who they weren't going to discuss, "And his father's got no family, not close family, and his mother's just got the Dursleys, who are muggles..."
Sirius had obviously figured out where she was going with this. "I can't imagine Fudge will like that," he said. "I mean, I am the notorious, escaped felon Sirius Black, and your only claim's through me."
"He might," Tonks said. "If he thinks it means getting Harry Potter away from Albus Dumbledore and into the guardianship of a Ministry employee."
Sirius's eyebrows rose slowly. "He just might," he said.
Obviously they had to ask Harry about it before doing anything, but Tonks decided to play it safe and leave that for another day. First, she went home for dinner and to talk to her mother.
Sirius had given her more detail once he realized she was - hah! - serious about it, enough that she could bring notes on all the probable issues with his current guardians, although most likely Harry would be able to give her more if he went along with the plan. She spread the notes out on the kitchen table for Mum to look at it - 'inappropriate clothing, badly sized and full of holes' - 'has to ask friends to send food over school holidays' - and said, "So I might be about to do something really stupid, but I think I've got to. I'm going to try to make a custody claim for Harry Potter via Sirius."
Mum made a thoughtful little hm noise and sipped at her tea. She did it with impeccable grace as always. Tonks had once been envious until she overheard Mum mention her aunt used to enforce table manners by means of tying anyone who slouched to their chair with Incarcerous and using pain hexes on them while they couldn't dodge. Then Tonks had decided she would go ahead and become the clumsiest, messiest slob her heart desired.
"This is what he told you?"
"It's what Sirius told me, I haven't talked to him yet," Tonks admitted. "I'll ask first, but I wanted to see if you thought it was possible before I got his hopes up."
Mum skimmed the list, frowning slightly. She said at the bottom only, "He's living with muggles now?"
"Yeah, Lily Evans's sister and her husband."
"I imagine the case will at least get him removed, then," Mum said. "Only I wouldn't necessarily make your claim solely via Sirius. I'm also family to the Potters, you know, my first cousin twice removed was Dorea Potter nee Black. I wouldn't dare assert it if there were other Blacks around, but with them gone... Of course you understand that the risk either way is that Fudge will say 'ah, of course' and offer it to the Malfoys first and he'll be dead."
"Yeah," Tonks said, and bit her lip. "So it's got to be Harry's choice, but it should be anyway. I was thinking I was going to want to come up with a personal relationship to claim, in addition to the family stuff. Something to explain why I know his guardians are unsuitable. And, I mean, Fudge needs the Malfoys' favor, but he knows he can't control them, doesn't he? So he should want Harry Potter in the guardianship of a lowly Auror. Somebody he can threaten to fire."
Mum smiled, slowly. "It's good to know you're occasionally paying attention to what I tell you," she said.
The next day Tonks had work, and she was on night duty for the Order too, because it was easier to have her or Arthur or Kingsley stay late in the Ministry "catching up" than to get someone else who wasn't allowed in the building inside. Her colleagues thought she was hustling for a promotion lately, or fighting with her parents. She kept volunteering to handle the scut jobs so she'd have more paperwork to do.
That particular night she waited for her last coworker to leave before getting up, stack of concerned citizens' reports about Sirius Black under her arm, and whisking her Invisibility Cloak on. Once she reached the right corridor she camped out in a niche, propping up the first scroll on a clipboard on her knees. Mary Whittaker, of Derbyshire, had written in to report a suspicious figure bothering her goats...
An image of Sirius in Animagus form, wagging madly as he charged up to an unimpressed billy goat, intruded. Tonks bit her lip to stop herself giggling and bent to read the rest of the text. This was going to be a long night.
The whole thing was so stupid. Tonks wanted her cousin back. She wanted her mother to stop looking so brittle, scared to death she was just going to lose Sirius again after finding him, unable to say anything to people who muttered about how she was sure to be just as bad as the rest, no better than Sirius Black. Tonks wanted vindication against the people who said she was sure to turn traitor, too. And this thing with Harry...
She needed to swing by Grimmauld Place to talk to him, but she couldn't stay up any later than necessary tonight, she had work again tomorrow and she'd collapse when she got home. Maybe she could buy some Stay Awake Potion down Diagon Alley after work tomorrow, she could afford it on an Auror's salary... But no, they weren't supposed to be making suspicious purchases... Then again with the amount of paperwork she had been staying late with her colleagues shouldn't wonder...
The hours ticked by piece by piece, far too slow. Tonks tried not to check her watch too often, but she always lost the battle on these night shifts, sitting by herself under the cloak, jumping every time she heard a noise, wondering if every late night Unspeakable was really a Death Eater in disguise she hadn't thought to stop, wondering if she was going to get caught any minute and trying to come up with a good story just in case. ("Sorry, sir, office bet--" Kingsley would back her up if he had to. "Sorry, sir - training exercise - I just can't work in the Auror offices..." Hah.)
There were no windows in this corridor, only dim lighting at any time of day, so she could only tell that time was passing at all by her pocket watch. It ticked on: midnight, one, two, three. Finally, in the midst of a ten page report sent by a Concerned Citizen explaining that Sirius Black was in disguise working at his village pub and had deviously replaced the house brew with Carling, Tonks heard the roar of footfalls rise as the morning workers came in upstairs. She gathered up her papers, packed up her ink and quill, and slipped quietly out of the building to get a couple hours' nap before her next work day started.
Over the sleepless hours, Tonks's resolve had hardened, and it hadn't faded when she got up. Therefore over her lunch break, instead of making up a questionable meal from the Ministry canteen, she went out to the Apparition point, and from there to Grimmauld Place.
Mrs. Weasley and the kids were upstairs cleaning again, Sirius said, greeting her from where he had apparently been loitering by the banister. He also grabbed her arm and steered her away from the troll foot umbrella stand.
"I swear that thing is cursed," said Tonks, once they were out of Sirius's mother's portrait's earshot.
"Kreacher might be moving it to mess with you," Sirius said, although he didn't sound convinced. "Well?"
"Well?" Tonks asked, stifling a yawn. "Is there food? I'm supposed to be at lunch now..."
Sirius rolled his eyes and started to the stairs down to the kitchen. "There should be something, I'll find it. Well, what did Andy think about Harry?"
"Oh." It took her a minute to remember the conversation she had had - yesterday? The day before? Tonks shook her head, disoriented. "--She thinks it's doable," she said, hanging onto the banister all the way down the stone steps just in case she stumbled on them while sleep fogged. "Depends on how Fudge reacts. She said I could bring up - Dorea? Who I guess married a Potter? too, but she was a little worried Fudge will go 'oh, you're right' and usher him off to the Malfoys to murder.
"Yeah, Aunt Dorea's your first cousin three times removed and she married James's second cousin, so she's Harry's second cousin too, once removed," Sirius said, brightening immediately at the news of her mother's opinion.
"If you say so." Tonks collapsed into a chair at the wide, scarred table and watched Sirius fish in the cupboards. Dully, she thought of getting up. "Let me help?"
"Stay put," Sirius said. There was a positive spring in his step, Tonks thought, and rubbed her eyes in case she was hallucinating. "You've been up for how many hours of the last two days? Don't tell me, it won't make it better to think of it."
"Which you know from your copious experience in the work force."
"Order stakeouts, last time," Sirius said cheerily, banging a mug on the counter. "Seeing as I am an aristocratic layabout I was always available. Moony used to make this awful counterfeit Stay Awake Potion - I think it was fifty percent pure caffeine. Here you go, tea." He set a steaming mug of it down in front of her and went back into the kitchen itself.
Tonks squinted hazily. "Where on earth did you learn to cook?" she asked. Hazily the thought intruded that she had seen him cook before, earlier in the summer, before Mrs. Weasley had moved in.
"Lily said it was a necessary life skill," Sirius said, a shadow passing over his face. Tonks regretted asking. Then he said, briskly, "I'll go get Harry, shall I?" and passed a bowl of reheated soup over to her.
"Yeah, sure," Tonks said, and tried not to fall asleep in it.
Sirius arrived a few minutes later with a mystified Harry, who was wearing those odd, billowing muggle clothes with the gaping sleeves rolled up to his shoulders and dust and grease smeared on his arms to the elbow. Tonks wondered for a moment if this was some new punk fashion she'd missed out on, then remembered Sirius saying his guardians didn't give him appropriate clothing. Merlin. Even if she couldn't get custody she resolved to take him shopping in London before he went back to school.
"Sirius said you wanted to talk to me?" he said, going over to the sink to wash his hands, thankfully. Whatever room they were working on today must be filthy.
"Yeah, if you've got a few," Tonks said, and stifled another yawn. "--Sorry, you're not boring me, I was on night duty last night again."
Harry's eyes brightened. "You're guarding something? Is it the weapon Voldemort wants?"
"Something like that," Tonks said, and felt guilty at the disappointment, but she knew, in the back of her head where she had been shoving the knowledge, that this whole thing wasn't going to make Dumbledore happy. There was no need to make it worse. "Look," she said, glancing at Sirius, who did not make any indication he wanted to take over the conversation, dammit. "Sirius says you're not happy living with your aunt and uncle, right?"
The hand washing motions paused for a moment. Harry turned the sink off and dried his hands for a long time before he came over to the table. "Yeah," he said, cautiously, like a child who wanted to reach for a piece of cake but wasn't sure it was allowed. "We don't get on, they don't like magic."
"So," Tonks said, taking a breath. "I can't promise you this is going to work out," and already Harry was shutting down, hope receding, "But Sirius and my mum think it might - Mum's a lot better with politics than me. Uh, you know she's Sirius's cousin, right?"
"Yeah, he mentioned when we were cleaning the drawing room," Harry said. "She got, er..." He glanced at Sirius as though searching for a cue, but Sirius was staring flatly down at the table.
"Disowned for marrying Dad because he's muggleborn, yeah," Tonks said. "And they threatened to kill her and everything, it was a whole thing during the last war." Harry rocked back, obviously not knowing that. She rushed on, "But, the point is, I'm Sirius's family and I'm technically related to you, too - your father's cousin Charlus Potter married Dorea Black, who was my first cousin, er, three times removed, and Sirius's..." She paused, trying to redo the family tree in her head.
"First cousin twice removed, same as your mum," Sirius said.
"Right. So, it's a pretty sketchy legal claim but it might work because you're with, well, muggles." She smiled apologetically as she said it. "And since I'm not really known to be part of Dumbledore's crowd, we were thinking Fudge might jump on it because I'm an Auror and if he thinks I'm a loyal Ministry employee and he's getting you out from Dumbledore's thumb, well..."
"I don't want to badmouth Dumbledore," Harry said, scowling slightly.
"I'm not suggesting you'd have to," Tonks said quickly, although his eyes were going distant like he was thinking something else now. "The idea is basically - this is stupid, but you're just a kid to people like Fudge, right? So if we make it sound like Dumbledore's manipulating you, and maybe you'll see sense on your own..."
"It might get me away from the Dursleys," Harry said, slowly, then frowned. "But..."
"Yeah?" Tonks said, carefully. "We'll only do this if you want to, Harry, it's up to you."
"I just don't know why - the Weasleys have always been happy to have me over the summer, and everything." He glanced at Sirius uncertainly. "So..."
"My understanding," Sirius said, carefully, staring at the table, "Is that Dumbledore feels the best place for you is with your family." His tone went very dry on the last part. Tonks thought about Mrs. Black upstairs, caterwauling about Sirius being the shame of her flesh.
"But you were going to take me, right, if you were freed?"
"I've never felt it my obligation to do exactly what Dumbledore says at all times." Sirius shrugged, and finally looked up. "Harry, you're my godson, and I love you like my own son, I have since you were born and James and Lily--" His breath hitched; he stopped, then went on, "It is my responsibility to see you taken care of, whatever Dumbledore thinks about it. I can't ask the Weasleys to do that duty for me, and it's up to Arthur and Molly how they feel about the issue - and you've seen what Molly thinks of," his mouth twisted, "Dumbledore's orders. But," he said, voice clearing as he went on, "Tonks is my cousin - and this was actually her idea in the first place."
Harry looked back at Tonks, then. "You're not worried about ignoring Dumbledore?" he said, not like he was angry, but like he was trying to work something out.
Tonks had mostly just not been thinking about that. She hadn't had enough sleep or time. But she was aware that answer would not inspire confidence, so she tried to think on her feet. "We didn't swear an oath of obedience or anything when we joined the Order," she said, slowly, and watched Sirius twitch in reaction out of the corner of her eye. "I agreed to serve the cause of fighting Voldemort, because it's important to me and my family, and I believe Dumbledore is the best leader for it... The only leader, really. But it doesn't mean that he gets to tell me how to live my whole personal life, or what I do for my family. And you're my family. So, if you want to try, we're going to try." She paused. "You should hear the other possible problem, though."
"Yeah?" Harry asked. His face had opened up as she spoke, hope emerging again, but now his eyes went hard and cynical.
"So, the other cousin of Sirius's is Narcissa Malfoy, nee Black," Tonks said. "And she's big with Fudge, and--"
"And if Fudge decides to ask them if they want custody, they might just deliver me straight to Voldemort," Harry finished.
"Yeah. You can think about it if you like, give it some time," Tonks urged gently.
"I mean," Harry said, "Do we really have to go to court? Or could I just go home next summer with you instead? It's not like the Dursleys are going to go calling the police if I don't show up. They'd be thrilled."
Tonks and Sirius exchanged looks again.
"Well," Tonks said carefully, "Dumbledore is responsible for your protection at the Dursleys', and if he knows you didn't go home next summer but not why, there might be a panic, or a legal challenge, then."
"In the meantime, part of what I like about this idea," Sirius said, finally giving Tonks a break, "Is that it gives Fudge hope you can be salvaged as a good little citizen before the hearing. I don't want--" He twisted his face and said, "You'll get off, of course. It's ridiculous to think of you being expelled for this."
Just as ridiculous as a man being sent to Azkaban for life without a trial, Tonks thought.
"But - just in case--" Sirius said.
"But you think it's more likely that I'll be convicted than that the Malfoys would get custody of me from Fudge," Harry said.
"Yeah, that covers it," Tonks agreed.
"Okay." He looked up and smiled at Tonks, awkwardly pushing his glasses up. "Anyway, it's not like I'd just go quietly if they did. So, what do we do now?"
It turned out to be kind of a complicated question. Mum came over to Grimmauld Place the next day, while Tonks was sleeping through half of her day off, to talk to Sirius and Harry about it. When Tonks got up and poured some sort of food down her throat and made off to Grimmauld Place after noon, most of the way dressed, she found them sitting in a group in the drawing room along with the two other kids in Harry's year, going over books.
"The problem," Mum was saying, flicking through pages of A History of Children's Welfare in Magical Europe rapidly and sitting ramrod straight on the sofa, "Is that this sort of situation - a magical child placed with muggle relatives who aren't the natural parents - just doesn't come up in the law because no one imagined it ever happening. I'm sure he's not the only case after the last war but everything is being handled informally without real legal precedent. I'm not even entirely sure Dumbledore telling Mr. Dursley about magic in the letter was legal in the strictest sense. And I would hate to set a precedent that would be use to harm children with appropriate family, but..."
"So do we have a verdict?" Tonks asked, yawning again and dropping into an empty chair. "Or should I take a book?" She actually did a lot more paperwork at work than she had imagined during N.E.W.T.s, back when she was telling herself that passing her exams high enough would mean a life of fighting Dark wizards. Law came up a lot, but she wasn't usually involved in child custody. That was more an MLE enforcement squad thing when it came to the Ministry at all.
"I've looked over most of the available precedent since the 1945 law on muggleborn guardianship," Hermione Granger said, ducking her head over the scroll she was reading from briefly, and squinting at what looked like practically microscopic handwriting in her notes. "And I think the closest thing there is would be the procedure for parents of a muggleborn child giving up custody to a designated magical guardian if they feel "overwhelmed." Of course, the Dursleys aren't Harry's parents, and I'm not even sure they're his legal guardians in the muggle world--"
Tonks looked at Harry, who shrugged. "I don't know, I was a baby, I might not remember it if they went to court or anything," he said. "But they said - before - that they had a lot of trouble explaining who I was to the school and everything, they complained about it... It didn't sound like there was a court order..."
"So," Hermione went on, "It's sort of questionable whether they're really his guardians with authorization to designate anyone to replace them but frankly I don't think the Ministry will realize that in the first place, to judge by how archaic their understanding of muggle law is." She banged the propped up next to her shut angrily as though to punish it for its contents.
Tonks looked at Mum, who half-smiled and inclined her head. "We need you - or rather, a party including you - to persuade Mr. and Mrs. Dursley to sign a form indicating that they are no longer able to handle guardianship of a magical child and designate you, or whoever else, as their replacement. Then the form is supposed to be witnessed by a magical court, which in your case would just be the Wizengamot, since we live in London."
"I probably shouldn't have sent that letter on the All England Best-Kept Suburban Lawn Competition, should I have," Tonks said glumly. "All right, what do we do? Harry, any suggestions?"
There wasn't a lot of time to waste, it was still an early hour of the afternoon, and according to Harry his aunt didn't work. So as it turned out they went that very day.
Those of them going to the Dursleys' had to be appropriately dressed first. Mum kept good clothing for muggle and magical worlds, and Tonks had a suit she'd bought for interviewing for summer jobs in the muggle world and kept magically tailored because of the occasional need to speak with muggle witnesses. Harry, though, had nothing nice, and while this was his aunt's fault, Mum was of the opinion that she would be more likely to sign if she thought they would 'improve' her nephew and were not merely indulging him. So first they all trooped out to Marks & Spencer with Remus as an additional guard, and Dad, to find him some muggle clothes that fit.
They got the sort of clothing a woman lured by the thought of a lawn keeping competition would want to see on a troubled nephew, slacks and a collared shirt and a tie, but Tonks, touching the side of her own jeans and looking at Harry's over-sized sweatshirt said, "Okay, while we're here, what else do you want? Some jeans that fit for a start?"
"I," Harry said, and stopped. "Yeah, sure," he said. "I've never really bought muggle clothes new, the Dursleys don't take me shopping."
"Might as well while we've got the guard here already," Tonks said, and watched Remus smile encouragingly at Harry, which seemed to be what did it.
Then he tried to pay for the clothes himself and there was nearly an argument before Tonks preempted both him and her parents stepping in. "I get an excellent salary as an Auror, you know," she said in an undertone to Harry and hoped her parents were listening too. "Which I use on almost nothing, since I live with Mum and Dad." Single Aurors did not make good house keepers and Tonks didn't want to hire or buy a house elf. And there hadn't seemed to be any point in moving out yet. "If I'm going to be your guardian it's my responsibility anyway, c'mon, it'll look good to the Ministry," she tried, and finally overcame his protests.
A reduced party of three went to knock on Number 4, Privet Drive. Mum had done her hair up and put on her own skirt suit, along with one of the few pieces of jewelry she had kept from her family - diamond drop earrings. Tonks had grown her own hair out in the mirror and darkened it to a brown that matched her mother's, then put it up and let her mother loan her a silly looking heart-shaped pendant she had apparently bought herself at fourteen that didn't have any curses against halfbloods or muggles on it, and was embedded with emeralds. It was probably just Mrs. Dursleys' type of thing for a young woman.
Mum helped Harry fasten his tie, and off they went. Harry had seemed happy enough earlier, once he got over the awkwardness of shopping in a crowd of adults, but walking up the pavement to Number 4 his face turned queasy. Tonks sympathized. She wanted to let Mum knock for her, but she was going to ask for guardianship of a teenager so she'd better do it herself. She told herself to stiffen up and pretend this was work and she was interviewing a witness, and she rang the bell.
There was a long silence, and Tonks was debating whether to try again, or check whether anyone was inside, before the door opened. "We're not buying anything," said a woman with a face remarkably like a horse and flashing eyes.
"Mrs. Dursley?" Tonks said, putting on her best professional tones. "I hope you have a few minutes. I'm here to speak with you about your nephew."
Mrs. Dursley went positively white, then looked over Tonks's shoulder and saw Harry, trying to hunch his shoulders and make himself even smaller although he was already a small fifteen year-old. Her eyes flashed like light off a sword. "This had better not take long," she said, sharply, and stepped back, eyeing them as though their feet might taint the floors.It reminded Tonks of when she had to deal with purebloods who recognized her name.
"Whatever it is he's done, I apologize, but you can't hold me responsible," Mrs. Dursley said tautly. She did not look at Harry or in any way acknowledge his presence. "He ran off - again, he's run away repeatedly - and I haven't seen him in nearly a week."
So she wasn't entirely sure Tonks and her mother were witches, was she? They might be her sort, she wasn't yet sure. Tonks took a deep breath and said, "Actually, he hasn't caused any trouble, he's been staying with a friend of ours."
"Were you the ones who sent that letter? Because my husband was going to have a word with someone about fraud."
Best not admit responsibility or lie about it. "I understand that your relationship with your nephew is difficult," Tonks said, wishing now that they hadn't brought Harry along for this. She knew how to make a hostile witness - or a suspect - cooperate, it was to relate to them, but she didn't want to do it in front of Harry. "He seems to feel that everyone involved might be happier if other living arrangements were found for him. Do you agree with that?"
Mrs. Dursley's eyes narrowed. She frowned at Tonks, and her mother, and Harry in turn, suspecting a trap. Tonks wondered for a moment if she suspected she was being set up for child abandonment.
Then, with great reluctance, she said to Harry, "Boy, come here, I want to talk to you in the kitchen.
Harry looked desperately at Tonks, who said quickly, "You don't have to go."
But he shook his head and said, "It's alright - I guess," and he followed her out of the room.
They weren't gone for long. Tonks stood stiffly, hand on the opposite sleeve where her wand was kept, wishing she had followed them, and thinking of what she was going to say to Dumbledore - or Sirius - if it turned out Harry Potter's muggle aunt had been put under the Imperius Curse or something and strangled him in her kitchen.
But only a couple of minutes later the door opened again and Mrs. Dursley came marching back, followed by a Harry who looked torn between fear and hope. "The boy says you want me to sign something giving up responsibility as his guardian to you," she said, gaze sliding between Tonks and her mother, like she wasn't sure who she was addressing. "Is that right?"
"That's correct, Mrs. Dursley," Tonks said, fishing the scroll out of the appropriately feminine, professional bag Mum had lent her. "Would you like to look it over first?"
She didn't take it. She said, "If I sign this, I won't have to see him again."
"That's right," Tonks said.
"No matter what happens. I won't have any sort of - financial liability, or parental responsibility, or need to give permission for him to be seen in hospital or taken on trips."
"Nothing else whatsoever," Tonks said. "You would be relinquishing your guardianship permanently."
"Even if I changed my mind, I wouldn't be able to get it back, he says," Mrs. Dursley said.
"That's... correct, unless I were to relinquish it in turn," Tonks said, although she had no intention of doing so. Honestly, if Mrs. Dursley refused to sign Tonks was sorely tempted to simply cast a nasty bludgeoning hex at her head and claim she'd fallen on the stairs.
"So no one could make me change my mind and take him back after?" Tonks nodded. "Well! Give it here," Mrs. Dursley said abruptly, and nearly snatched the scroll out of Tonks's hand. She did read it first; then she fished a pen off of the front hall table, signed with a flourish, and gave it back with the air she would be scrubbing her hands immediately. "Get out of my house, then," she finished, almost triumphant.
"Glad to," Tonks said curtly back, and turned on her heel, taking Harry's elbow to Apparate him.
They arrived on Grimmauld Place and entered the house to an atmosphere of total chaos.
"--can have happened in an hour," Sirius was saying loudly, in the tones he used when he was trying to be a reasonable adult. "We just saw him, and there hasn't been an alarm--"
Dumbledore seemed to have just stopped talking. He was standing in the hallway that led back into the house, armed folded, his glare terrible. For a moment, Tonks felt weak and ashamed, like a first year caught out of bed at night. Then she told herself she was an Auror Merlin's balls and made her back straighten.
Mrs. Black's portrait was screaming, but for once no one was paying attention to that.
"Sir, Sirius, what's going on?" Harry said loudly from behind Tonks and her mother.
Dumbledore looked up. For a moment Tonks thought he was going to shout at Harry, or maybe curse him or something; the anger on his face was frightening to behold. Tonks, with instincts born of a thousand tense standoffs, moved slightly between them to cover Harry before thinking that this was Dumbledore.
Then Dumbledore's face went perfectly blank and he turned, avoiding Harry's eye. "The protective enchantments on Privet Drive have collapsed," he said. "I had thought Harry was dead."
"Protective enchantments?" Sirius said before Tonks could ask what she hadn't been told, so apparently he hadn't known about them either.
"Mrs. Dursley relinquished guardianship," Mum said, in the crisp voice she used when speaking to Ministry officials, back very straight and head up. "I assume that the protective enchantments depended on him having a home there. This is certainly not an imposter, if that is your concern."
It was obvious that she had shocked Dumbledore, and that gave Tonks just an instant to cut in. "Maybe we should take this upstairs?" she said, and gestured towards Mrs. Black, still going on with the kind of language Tonks's meanest classmates had used for her when the teachers weren't looking.
"Of course," Dumbledore said, coldly. "After you."
They all - which was to say, Dumbledore, Sirius, Mum, Tonks, and Harry - trooped up the stairs to the drawing room, the focus of stares from the Weasleys and a few other Order members who had evidently been around. Tonks hung back to shut the door, and spell it against eavesdropping, too. She was certain that some of the older Weasley children were overhearing details from the meetings somehow, even if she wasn't sure how.
(And honestly, they should either let the twins in and give them an incentive to stop trying to break Order security constantly or at least get them working on figuring out ways around it officially so they could close the loopholes. That was going to end in disaster one of these days otherwise, especially since nobody in the Order knew who their financial backer was except that they must have one.)
Tonks sat, last, next to Harry at the edge of the couch. Dumbledore was arrayed facing everyone else, like troops in rows. Sirius looked contemptuous, Mum aristocratic and blank, Harry anxious and guilty.
Nobody was talking. Tonks took a deep breath and said, "So, now that Harry's guardianship is in the hands of someone who can participate at a disciplinary hearing, I was thinking I should stop by Madam Bones's office and let her know I'll be there. That will probably take care of it, if I have a chance to give her the facts in advance, she's pretty fair. It would be easiest if I could get the official petition recognized beforehand, though - do you know what the procedure is, with the Chief Warlock position vacant right now?"
They weren't enemies. If Tonks could get them to work on the actual problem at hand, maybe they would all remember that.
Four pairs of eyes turned, startled, to stare at her. Tonks smiled back, trying to look like her usual, perky self; trying to be reassuring.
"How well do you know Amelia again?" Sirius said, frowning thoughtfully. "If you think she'll listen to you like that..."
"I would have appreciated," Dumbledore said in his gently cutting voice, "Being consulted on this matter in advance."
"All due respect," Sirius said curtly, "You're not Harry's guardian. You're not even in loco parentis unless he's at school, and right now, he's not."
"Those enchantments were of the utmost importance--"
"And if you had told anyone that, we might have been able to take it into account," Mum said curtly, closing ranks instantly with Sirius even though as far as Tonks knew they'd only had that one awkward conversation since before he went to prison.
"How did they work?" Tonks asked, interjecting herself into the conversation, making her body language loose and relaxed in contrast with the stiff manners Mum and Sirius adopted by habit, trying to make herself seem like the neutral party. "What was important about them?"
Dumbledore glanced at Harry only briefly; then his gaze turned on Tonks, who fought to keep her composure under it. "When Lily died," he said, "Her sacrifice enacted a powerful protection that was carried by Harry's blood. It prevented Voldemort, when he possessed Quirrell, from touching Harry directly, which saved his life. I believe that this protection is anchored in the house - or rather, in Harry dwelling with his mother's blood family."
"Okay," Tonks said, "But it didn't prevent Voldemort from using the Killing Curse on him last June, that was the wand cores matching, right? And Voldemort's probably not going to need to kill him with his bare hands at this point, so--"
"It also," Dumbledore said clearly, "Prevented Voldemort or his followers - anyone acting on his behalf - from attacking him while he dwelt at Privet Drive."
"So that's why you're so sure that the dementors were sent by someone else?" Sirius said, derailed by this information.
"Wait, you think they were?" Harry said. "Do you know who?"
"We think it may have been someone at the Ministry," Tonks said. Looking into that issue in her spare time at work had been a duty of hers, since MLE managed Azkaban and Tonks was junior enough for Kingsley to send her on errands copying papers and looking up numbers she supposedly didn't know the purpose of. "Azkaban is under MLE jurisdiction, so if they weren't rogue Dementors it would have to be - did no one tell him this? Seriously?"
"You think the Ministry was trying to have me killed, and I'm just supposed to go to the hearing and hope they changed their minds?" Harry said.
"Amelia Bones isn't likely to have known about that," Mum said crisply. "Most likely it was one of Fudge's allies, so as long as she's presiding over the hearing it should be fine."
"Anyway," Tonks interjected, "If it is the Ministry, it's just as well we get him away from Privet Drive, since they know the address and there aren't any other wizards or witches around to be reliable witnesses there. So," she said, remembering she had been trying to act as the neutral party and looking at Dumbledore again, "Who do I have to go to to get the petition expedited while the seat's empty? Not Fudge, is it?"
"If you are unwilling to consult the Order of the Phoenix in your doings," Dumbledore said, finally appearing to lose his temper, "You will have to manage without it." And he got up and left abruptly.
There was a stunned silence.
"What just happened?" Tonks said, blinking.
"What is with him lately?" Sirius hissed under his breath.
"If Voldemort and the Ministry are trying to kill me," Harry said, crossing his arms, "Is there anyone else I wasn't told about?"
"Oh, well," Mum said, and sighed. "Dumbledore never did like it when people didn't listen to his advice. Must we stay here for the rest of this conversation? I hate this blasted house."
Sirius was apparently all for leaving immediately, Mum said the walls made her skin crawl, and Tonks agreed it was unpleasant; so Harry was the main reluctant one.
"Please, if you're worried about the danger you don't have to risk yourself," Mum said, "But do you know how many people were trying to kill Ted and I for eloping in the seventies? Our house may not be as good as what Sirius's father could do to it, but on the other hand the furnishings are considerably less likely to do you in themselves. I would be delighted to have you all at least for dinner."
"I'll just - go say goodbye to Ron and Hermione, and pack, then," Harry said, glancing uncertainly at Tonks, who nodded encouragingly; then he went.
"I hope we haven't just inspired Dumbledore to join the list of family enemies," Mum said, resigned, but not apparently terribly bothered by the prospect.
"He had better not," Sirius said, and laughed darkly, "They're all technically my house guests anyway, I can use my father's enchantments to throw them out if I've got to."
"Shite," Tonks said, "If I've just adopted a teenager am I going to need my own house?"
"Relax," Mum said, sounding amused, "We've still got the guest room. Just don't go falling pregnant and we'll be alright."
"Mum!"
The house Tonks had grown up in was small, at the end of a row, made of brick that looked shabbier nearly every year. They had bars on the ground floor windows because, although the real security was her mum's spells, the incident when Tonks was seven and they had come home to a would-be burglar baffled, swinging a crowbar into glass and seeing it bounce off repeatedly, had required the Ministry's Obliviation Squad and having people's memories wiped made her parents uncomfortable.
It hadn't really occurred to her before, but watching Harry lug his trunk up the steps while she carried Hedwig's cage for him and Sirius bounded around in circles in Padfoot's form, Tonks worried it would seem too small to him, or too poor. The Dursleys were obvious social climbers, middle class to the cynical, grasping core, and her mother had had the upbringing of the really wealthy but of course once she'd left home...
Mum unlocked the front door and let Harry in. Tonks, following, saw him look around the messy sitting room just inside; and beam. "This is great," he said.
"I'm glad you think so," Tonks said, relieved. "Let me show you the free bedroom upstairs." She hoped they weren't going to keep Sirius with them or they might have to make him sleep on the sofa indefinitely, or possibly in the unfinished attic.
She took Harry up to the middle bedroom and set down Hedwig, showing him how the window had to be propped open. "--Want me to change the wallpaper?" she asked, dubiously eyeing the carefully nondescript stuff Mum had put up. "I can do the bed clothes and curtains too." Tonks had rebelled against her mum's lacy choice of curtains and bedspread many years back herself.
"This is okay," Harry said, but then he looked at her face and said, hesitantly, "Solid colors, maybe? Can you do - I dunno - red, like Gryffindor colors, on the bed?"
They cycled through several options before picking ones he liked. Then Harry let Hedwig out the window and turned back to Tonks. "So," he said, looking almost shy. "I guess you're my new guardian, right? Is there something I'm supposed to..." He trailed off.
"Do? Merlin, I have no idea," Tonks said. "You understand I figured I'd be having kids someday but not immediately, and definitely not as close to my age as you are. --Just keep calling me Tonks and try not to destroy the house or anything."
"It's okay," Harry said, looking relieved. "I'm used to looking after myself."
"Let's go downstairs and find out what the plan is, yeah?" Tonks said.
At least, given she had acquired a teenage child at this age, she did have her parents around. And she knew they had wanted more kids, so she didn't have to feel guilty about it either. Harry was shy during dinner, but Sirius was relaxing, out of Grimmauld Place, and that seemed to help Harry relax, too; and Mum and Dad were careful to talk to him, not just each other and Tonks.
Tomorrow she was back at work. So she was going to have to talk to Madam Bones, too, tomorrow.
Madam Bones, as director of MLE, had an office suite with a sitting room and a fireplace. Tonks clutched the papers she had brought and knocked on the door to the office itself, hoping against hope she was actually going to be able to get a few minutes of time. Having to duck into the head of her department's office with no appointment had seemed like a worse idea the closer her lunch break had come.
Madam Bones called permission for her to enter, and then frowned. "Auror Tonks, right?" she said, as though there was more than one Auror with pink hair. "You're not having trouble with your colleagues again, are you? --Come, sit."
"No, madam," Tonks said, trying not to blush. She had had no idea Madam Bones had heard about the problems back when she started.
"Glad to hear it. What have you got?" Madam Bones asked.
"It's actually only indirectly work-related," Tonks said. "I hear you've got a hearing with Harry Potter this week, Thursday, is it?"
"Potter, yes." Madam Bones frowned. "Stupid thing if you ask me, a Patronus conjured in London. It's the kind of things kids do messing around and nobody would care if it was a magical household but Fudge is pushing for the highest penalties possible - in confidence between us, Tonks, I could strangle that man. Scrimgeour's ready to do it, too."
"Well," Tonks said, "He thinks Dumbledore's out for his job, doesn't he?"
"As if Dumbledore hasn't turned down more honors than Fudge could ever hope to accumulate..." Madam Bones rolled her eyes. "What are the papers you've got, Tonks? Something to do with it?"
"Sort of," Tonks said, and didn't take a deep breath in case it made her look too rehearsed. "You know my parents live in muggle London, like the Potter kid? I met him over the summer a while back - the scar makes him pretty distinct - and got to know him, some. He doesn't get on great with his guardians - his mother's sister and her husband - and, well, what with what - Mum's cousin did, we felt responsible..."
Referring to Surrey as 'In London' was questionable, and getting from the Dursleys' street to the Tonkses' via any form of muggle transportation would have taken multiple hours, but Tonks would readily bet Madam Bones had no idea about any of that, or the slightest notion of how to find out.
"Were you there when he cast the Patronus?" Madam Bones said, frowning. "If I can sell it to Fudge as supervised..."
"Wish I had been," Tonks said, but she had been on duty that night so there was no use in lying and saying she'd been present. "But no. But his aunt was pretty upset by all the Ministry owls - she actually went and said she didn't want him in the house if he was going to go around stirring up legal trouble--"
"Oh, Merlin," Madam Bones said, sitting bolt upright. "Have we lost track of him? If Fudge got the Boy-Who-Lived kidnapped--"
"No, no," Tonks said rapidly, and suppressed the urge to grin. She peeled the permission form off the coiled pieces of parchment. "But Mum and I went round to talk to her about it - he took the Tube down and knocked on our door when his aunt threw him out - and, well, she wouldn't come around. We thought it was better to get the paperwork straightened out." She handed over the form. "I've got some of the stuff he told us about them, too, just as a demonstration of why, I don't know if you'll want it..."
Madam Bones was securing her monocle. She skimmed the routine form first, then started looking over the other papers, and Tonks heard her inhale sharply. "Bleeding idiots," she muttered, reading. "No, no, thank you for letting me know, Tonks - he's still with you, then? I remember your mother's enchantments, saw them back during that horrible Death Eater attack in '80.. I'll see if I can talk Fudge down if he's under adult supervision now anyway, but I'd be on time at work the next week if I were you. And maybe tone down that hair," she added.
"Yes, madam," Tonks said, and made her escape.
The afternoon was excruciating. She wanted to skip one moment, to hide in the bathroom and heave the next. She followed Madam Bones's advice, much as it grated, and went to the mirror immediately after lunch, turned her hair dark and long and coiled it up. Normally, she avoided wearing her hair long, curly or dark in public and all three like the plague at work, because the last thing she needed was to look more like bloody Bellatrix Lestrange than she had to. But just now she thought that the Minister remembering she was almost from an old pureblood family might be a good thing. After all, he was the one who swanned around with good old Aunt Bellatrix's brother-in-law.
She was beginning to think that either Madam Bones had been wrong, or the Minister would wait another day or two and keep them guessing, when a hush fell over the Auror offices.
It was around three-thirty, and Tonks was finishing up an account of her morning suspect interviews on a thoroughly boring case involving the smuggling of restricted Dark potions ingredients via muggle entrances to Britain. She glanced up and saw the lime green hat, and bit her lip to stop from swearing. Industriously, she bent her head to her work, and rapidly shoved her muggle denim jacket under the desk where it wouldn't be as visible. She heard the Minister asking after Auror Tonks.
"Sir," she said when he rounded the bend, standing rapidly and fighting the urge to sketch a muggle-style salute. He wouldn't get the joke. Or worse, he would.
Fudge looked surprised when he saw her, and it might have been her imagination but she thought he paled a bit. She might have overdone the resemblance to her Mum and therefore Auntie Bellatrix in the mirror. But he said, probably trying to sound friendly, "Auror Tonks, is it? --Madam Bones just mentioned you to me - recommended you, in fact - if we could have a few words--"
"Of course, Minister, I'm honored," Tonks said, and quickly spelled her notes to secure them before she followed him out of the Auror offices.
"Madam Bones said," Fudge told her as they got out of the corridor, "That you happen to be acquainted with - ah - a certain troubled youth of my acquaintance?"
"If you mean Mr. Potter, yes," Tonks said, trying not to pay so much attention to her accent she started over-correcting. "I met him over the summer a while back in muggle London, where my parents live." If she pointed out to Fudge that she lived in muggle London he would stop listening immediately, but painting it as her parents' foibles, the result of a mixed marriage, should stop it from clouding her too much.
"You didn't feel he was a bit - er - unstable?"
"No," Tonks said, firmly. "I think he's had his share of trouble with his family, but what do you expect of a boy who's sent off to live with muggles who don't understand him?" The second part helped it sound sincere from her, but of course Fudge was a dedicated blood purist of the supposedly nonviolent, segregationist school, and the first part would make sense to him. She went on, "He's always seemed pretty responsible to me - offered to help my mother out with the garden, you know, that sort of thing." This was a wild improvisation, but she hoped it would sound good.
"Mm," Fudge said, sounding unconvinced. "You weren't - concerned - about the stuff that Dumbledore said?"
"There's what Dumbledore says about it, sir," Tonks said slowly, "And there's what Mr. Potter says, isn't there? He hasn't given any press interviews, or public statements, he's been in muggle London all summer." That was undeniably true. "And Dumbledore certainly hasn't been visiting him to ask him questions." If Harry was reluctant to badmouth Dumbledore to the Ministry, Tonks was annoyed enough about his reaction to do it. And if it stopped Harry from having his wand snapped, it would be worth it.
"Well, that's true now," Fudge said thoughtfully. Tonks could practically see the little gears turning in his head, thinking how to put this to his advantage. "And what does Mr. Potter say?"
"Not much," Tonks said. "But I know seeing Mr. Diggory die has been eating at him, as it would any decent child. He doesn't like talking about it at all, to tell you the truth. I'm not sure how much he even said to Dumbledore." If she could push the idea that the magic outburst had been just that - an understandable result of grief...
"And I believe something happened at the end of the Tournament. I don't think Mr. Potter is really old enough to understand the details, but the cup certainly took them somewhere it shouldn't have. Think," she said, enjoying the panic behind Fudge's eyes, "It might be a totally different aspiring Dark Lord, and Dumbledore is too obsessed with You-Know-Who to realize it - but that's why the Ministry has Aurors, isn't it?"
"Of course, of course," Fudge said, voice going rather high pitched in panic. "Well, I'm glad to have spoken with you, Auror Tonks - always good to have a sense of what's going on with the Aurors - I'll let you get back to your work, shall I?"
Finishing the reports and waiting for the work day to end was nearly unendurable. Tonks went home and recounted the whole conversation in as much detail as she could remember to Harry (who was terrified), Sirius (who was amused) and her parents (who were thoughtful). None of them could quite decide how it had gone, although Madam Bones's reaction was encouraging. As Mum pointed out several times, whenever Harry started to look ill from nerves again, she was the most important one when it came to the hearing.
The answer came, as it turned out, the very next morning before Tonks left for work. An official looking owl swooped in through the kitchen window to drop a letter in Harry's lap. With shaking hands, he broke the Ministry seal and read the contents.
"Well?" Mum said impatiently.
"What's it say?" Tonks said.
"It says--" Harry's voice broke and for a moment Tonks was worried; then he swallowed and said, "They've dropped all charges - they've reclassified it as an accident in light of 'recent tragic events,' and I don't have to go to the hearing."
"Thank Merlin," Tonks said.
"Hah!" said Mum.
"Good," Sirius said, fiercely, and swooped Harry up in a hug, whirling him around.
Harry looked stunned by it; he didn't seem to know what to do with his arms. But when Sirius set him down he said, nearly laughing in relief, "--Can we go to Grimmauld Place? I need to tell Ron and Hermione!"