It's a few days later, when Harry is hiding in my classroom after dinner, that Narcissa Malfoy arrives to speak with me.
"Hello Mrs. Malfoy, please step into my office. Hedwig, keep an eye on Mr. Potter."
Hedwig nods, ignoring Harry in favour of some godawful romance novel. She's been avoiding me all winter break, especially after I said I wasn't going to the Potter Christmas party. She's up to something. I'll worry about it later. Right now, I get to play cat and mouse with a goddamn lioness in a snake's skin.
"So, Mrs. Malfoy, to what do I owe this pleasure?" I say, taking my seat behind my desk, unconcerned with her. The basilisk skull barely gets to her. It's amusing to watch.
"It is to my understanding that my son has seen an inordinate number of detentions with you," began Narcissa. "I am curious as to why."
I lean back in my chair, and stare her directly in the eyes as I speak.
"The reason your son serves so many detentions with me, is actually rather frustrating on my part, and I hope you will help me with it." Actually, no I don't find it frustrating. Malfoy was always a gigantic twat, especially after he married Astoria. What man names their son Scorpius? I mean, really. Scorpius. That he regularly rubbed it in my face at the occasional society ball I bothered with attending was just icing on the cake. "Your son's grades are impressive. He regularly performs EE work, with the occasional O. Those two bookends that he spends time with don't help, mind you."
"His father's decision," replies Narcissa. "Get to your point, Evans."
I raise an eyebrow.
"Fine. I'll be blunt. I've assigned your son enough essays to make sure that he has a brain in his skull, and that he knows how to use it. I just don't understand why he stops using it once he leaves a classroom."
Narcissa looks at me in silence. She expects a demonstration.
"Fine, we'll use Mister Potter," I say, and we both head back into my classroom. "Mister Potter, we're going to give a demonstration on common stupidity. You've been exposed to enough to have some base understanding of it, so follow me."
There's a snort from Hedwig, as Harry frowns and walks with us out into the hallway.
"Mister Potter, I'm afraid you'll have to stand in for Mister Malfoy for this demonstration. Stand there. Mrs. Malfoy, I'm afraid you'll have to stand in for Miss Granger, and stand there." I position them how I came across Draco insulting Hermione in the hallway. "I, naturally, will stand in for myself." I give both of them a sarcasm laden smile. "Now, from these positions, Mister Potter, call Mrs Malfoy a mudblood whore, if you don't mind?"
"Er- No?" replies Potter.
"Thank you, Mister Potter, five points to Gryffindor for not offending my sensibilities and following the blatantly stupid orders of authority. Mrs. Malfoy, the reason your son has so repeatedly served detention with me, is because once he steps foot out of the classroom, he turns into a blithering idiot."
She glares at Harry, and Harry looks to me.
"Back into the classroom."
He nods, and then walks back into the classroom. I wait a moment, holding up my hand to signal to Mrs. Malfoy to wait a moment.
"AND CLOSE THE DOOR."
The door closes. I roll my eyes.
"I apologize, but I often find the simplest demonstrations to be the best, Mrs. Malfoy. That was how I found your son two days ago. He paid absolutely no attention to my presence, and whined about how his father would deal with me."
At this, Mrs. Malfoy nodded.
"I informed him, rather plainly, that he was performing conduct unbecoming of a Malfoy, and that his father would put him over his knee if that weren't conduct unbecoming of a Malfoy."
I see the barest glimmer of a smirk on Narcissa's lips.
"He honestly doesn't seem to understand it!" I add, throwing my arms up in the air. "I apologize for disparaging your heir, but he's an obnoxious little shit with no understanding of how the world actually works. He seems to believe that if he snaps his fingers, someone will clean up his mess and wipe his arse for him."
The smirk actually does visibly form on her lips as she watches me rant about her son.
"Is there something you find amusing, Mrs. Malfoy?" I ask, recognising that look.
"Please, call me Narcissa, Miss Evans."
"Then call me Jamie, Narcissa. Shall we discuss this over tea?"
She smiles and nods.
0x0x0x0
Important fact I have just learned: Narcissa is a favoured customer of Bernadette.
Small world.
No, we don't have sex. I'm not an idiot. She does try to seduce me. In the process, she mentions that she received a very interesting product demonstration from Bernadette earlier this week, and wanted to thank me for my work.
Personally.
She even brought along one of said products if we wanted to test it together.
I defend myself professionally.
"Mrs. Malfoy, I will not be intimate with one of my student's parents, and I will not be intimate with a married woman."
She sighs, and then smiles.
"Andromeda was right about you. And she's right to be angry with our idiotic cousin. Do hex him a few times for me, will you?" At this, she smiles, we exchange closing pleasantries and she leaves.
And now I know why she was here. Just to test me.
Christ!
0x0x0x0
The Weasley twins have detention with me on Saturday. Their punishment?
They're helping with my little tea parties.
Wearing lacy, frilly French Maid Costumes.
Misery loves company.
I give them an evil grin before we start.
"Gentleman, and I use that term extremely loosely with you two, I would like to remind you. You will act as you're supposed to, or else."
One of them, Fred, is stupid enough to ask, "Or else what?"
I give a wave of my hand, and both of them wince, and start to whimper. Knees knock together, but neither of them actually fall.
"Any questions?" I ask.
Both of them shake their heads as they get used to the increased tightness below their frilly skirts.
I am a cruel and terrible person. This I freely admit to.
The girls are pleasantly amused by the participation of the Weasley Twins, and I don't have to perform any reminders on them, as the conversation avoids their presence. There are several light smiles on the Slytherin girls. Davis has been joined by Greengrass, and Adrian Pucey's younger sister Mathilda. She's a second year, and was dragged into this by Teresa Edgecome, Marietta's cousin in Ravenclaw. Definitely a family house, there.
Sally-Anne and Mathilda are actually having a discussion on the differences between Muggle and Wizarding fairy tales. There's some overlap with the Brothers Grimm, apparently. Hermione looks like she wants to join in, but keeps to talking with the two girls next to her, Su Li and Lisa Turpin, about differences in methods of procuring potions ingredients, and their resulting effects on brews.
Is it wrong I find it frightening that a bunch of first years are discussing something that's over my head?
0x0x0x0
"Alright you two, you're free to go," I say, as the twins put the last of the dishes on the drying rack next to the sink.
"Err… there a chance our clothes will be changed back?" asks George.
"Changed back?" I ask, acting confused.
"You know, our school robes?" asks Fred, the horror of what I'm about to make them do dawning on them.
I scratch my head, not entirely understanding what they're asking.
"Are you going to change them back?"
"No," I reply. "Why would I?"
They stand there in silence. George tugs at the lacy hem of his shirt, while Fred stands in confused horror.
"Be thankful I'm not making you walk back like this," I add, and then make their skirts end mid-thigh rather than ankle-length, showing off the pink nylons I made them wear, followed by raising their heels of their shoes by two inches. "Oh, wait. Now I am. Have a good day, gentleman." I give them both a big smile, and then disillusion myself while making a run for it. My cackle of sadistic glee echoes through the corridors of the school, while they try (and fail) to chase after me, shouting indignantly.
We are on the third floor. The evening meal let out five minutes ago. Students are steadily filling the hallways, as no one wants to go outside.
Best of all? I mentioned to Harry on Friday that he should wait in the common room with a Wizarding Camera.
0x0x0x0
Harry delivered the camera, and we both have a nice, long laugh at the pictures of an embarrassed Weasley Twins trying to sneak into the common room.
Complete failure.
They take it like the drag queens they are, and have a good laugh about it, but I know they're plotting humiliation and vengeance. Given how often I test my food (a habit that Minerva considers uncouth) I doubt they'll get me from that direction. We'll have to see how it goes, now won't we?
"Alright, Mister Potter, back to your common room with you," I say, having duplicated the pictures.
Harry is smiling as he leaves, and waves hello to Tonks. Tonks smiles and nods at him, the anxiousness in her face self-evident after Harry leaves. Hedwig is perched on her shoulders, giving me a very Snape-like sneer.
I clasp my hands, elbows on the desk, and rest my chin on my hands. I'd conjure a pair of orange sunglasses, but I can't grow a beard anymore. One must always pay homage to the classics, even if they don't exist yet.
"Knock it off," says Hedwig.
"Hedwig-"
"Sirius didn't ban you two from talking, you goddamn idiot," barks out Hedwig. "Your self-esteem and ego once more causes you to sky-dive to conclusions."
"You know, you've been hanging around Snape a little too much."
Hedwig rolls her eyes.
"Sirius really didn't stop us from talking," says Tonks.
"Then why did he spend the entire damn dinner insulting me," I ground out, my hands still clasped.
"He wasn't!" says Tonks. "He… he was making fun of me."
I'm silent for a long moment. I'm also disbelieving.
I receive another death-sneer from Hedwig, as she flaps her wings, silently landing on my desk, and giving me a swat with her wings. She motions me to stand up.
Sodding bird has always been smarter than me, so I listen to her.
"If it makes you feel better, I decked him."
Tonks gives a small smile, as I walk around the desk, taking a seat on it.
"So now what?" I ask, curious.
"Well… um," she begins. She's cute when she's shy, not that I'll ever say-
Oh. Maybe I will.
She kisses me.
Maybe I won't stab fate too many times.
She draws back, because I'm a little too surprised to properly respond. She starts that stuttering fear that I sometimes get when I feel like I've done something stupid.
So I fix that by gently taking hold of her (hah, that's a lie, I grab her like I don't want to let go - which, maybe, I don't) and bring her to me.
I'm a better kisser than she is, and she knows it. I don't know how many boys she's kissed, or girls for that matter, but she definitely likes it. I send a locking charm at the door as we fall or collapse or something onto my desk.
"Why Miss Tonks, are you taking advantage of me?" I ask, amused, when we break for some air.
"I think I might," she replies.
0x0x0x0
We don't have sex. We don't even remove any clothing. I do, however, know how to put a broom closet under a Fidelius Charm. Mostly because we didn't quite want to make it back to my quarters for a bit more in-depth investigation of each other. That and it'll annoy Flich.
The more I think about it, the more I realise I never did manage to snog in a broom closet. I suppose it's silly, but I'm young again. I should have youthful indiscretions.
0x0x0x0
Minerva and Sirius are both insufferably smug when I enter the Great Hall for the evening meal. I only know Minerva is smug because of my experience with the old battle-axe. Sirius, however, spends the rest of the meal as a French poodle. With bows on. Frilly pink ones.
I sit next to Severus, and ask what potions make use of dogs, a subject he can expound upon for a very long time.
0x0x0x0
Dinner with the Tonks family (sans Sirius) is a much better time. It's more personable, and less like some sort of carnival side-show.
"Mother!"
"Now, Dora, I just want to be sure you're using protection. I don't want to be a grandmother yet."
I'm not entirely certain how that's supposed to work.
"I didn't even tell her!" says Tonks.
"Tell me what?" I ask.
They both look at me, and I realise they put up a silencing charm that I wasn't supposed to instinctively modify so that I could listen in. Oops.
"Sorry, paranoid habit," I add.
"Err-," begins Tonks, as Andromeda modifies the charm to cover the entire table.
"You're aware my daughter is a metamorphmagus?"
"Of course," I reply, digging into Madam Rosemerta's Treacle Tart. Oh, it's been far too long. A wave of my finger has Tonks' pink fringe jump into the air. "A little difficult to not figure out, if you ask me," I say, and she pokes me in response.
"Are you aware of the… gender ramifications this entails?" she asks.
"Ah… no, not really."
"I'm sort of listed as 'other,'" says Tonks.
On this, I am quite silent.
"So… does that mean you have both?"
Tonks nods.
"Fully functional?"
She nods again.
I take another bite of treacle tart as I take a moment to think. It's a long moment, so I take another bite. I final come to the only inevitable conclusion. I note that Ted is sitting across from me in an embarrassed silence through all of this. It also raises interesting questions about Remus that I don't feel like ever asking.
I recall the feeling of Bernadette inside me, and realise I wouldn't be against Tonks doing something similar. It might take a little getting used to, but if anything can be said, I adapt to whatever bullshit fate dumps on me with terrifying ease. Besides, there is an obvious benefit to all of this.
"I suppose this means I'm having the children," I say, giving voice to that benefit.
Tonks attempts to break a few of my ribs via hug. I pat her on the back, my fork hanging in mid-air with treacle tart still on it.
"Thank you," she whispers.
0x0x0x0
Valentine's Day is probably the most annoying day of the year, and it is why I'm horribly tempted to barricade myself in my office. Even when I was pushing sixty, I received unending valentines, marriage contracts, filthy pictures along with marriage contracts, requests for hair/blood/semen/all-of-the-above, and anonymous love notes.
I think it was the anonymous love notes that were the worst, frankly. Many of them were endearing, some of them beautiful. It was the reason I read them.
The contracts I burned.
The filthy pictures I generally just scanned and posted on the internet. I was actually considering putting together a pay site for "Victorian Ladies of Low Morality," at least until I lost my hand. Then I sobered up.
The world was far more difficult when sober, but I did a much better job of dealing with it then.
I wish I still had those notes though.
Instead, I have what's piled nearby my breakfast plate. Most of its from the seventh years, although there's a smattering of notes all the way down to the fourth years, and a certain pair of third years. Most of them are just anonymous, but a few of them made an attempt to mask their handwriting. The Weasley Twins, of course, included some sort of potion in theirs. I levitate it to Snape, along with two notes covered in a contact attraction cream. Let him have fun with those.
The rest… well, the rest I examine with a professional's eye. I sort most of them into a pile, and light them all on fire. Empty platitudes, worthless gestures, and vacant prose. A waste of parchment that's better as ashes. There's an anonymous note, professionally done to hide the creator (not well enough, but I don't endeavour to determine who), it's actually somewhat nice. I keep it.
The final ones are the ones I mark by hand, identifying the authors from handwriting, magical analysis, and even an odd fingerprinting charm I learned in Japan. I hand those to Minerva.
She examines the letters with a disgust I don't show on my face, and then reads my note on top. She nods, and then hands back the letters.
I sit back in my chair, and smile.
0x0x0x0
Tonks, apparently, is a romantic. So much so, that I have flowers waiting for me at dinner.
I smirk at them, then at her, and kiss her anyways.
I'm not one for romance. For most of my life, Valentine's Day was that day other people went out and did stuff. It's… weird to do stuff on it. Especially without-
Hmm. That's going to make next year troubling. Or maybe just weird.
Enough about that.
I'm in the here and now. I've mourned. I'm past it (uh-huh. Sure I am. I stepped back in time, didn't I?) (Of course I'm past it. She's alive. She won't die. And maybe she'll still snag the Boy-Who-Lived. Or maybe not? That's an improvement, right?)
Either way, we chat idly about work.
"How's this for weird?" begins Tonks. "You know who Rabastan and Rodolphus LeStrange are, right?"
I nod. I should hope so.
"Well, it turns out they died in prison."
"Alright."
"Here's the kicker. Bellatrix, my dear and wonderful aunt, escaped."
"Really?"
"They think somebody broke her out, because there was a false corpse, and a bit of tricky charms and potions work. It happened back in July. Fortunately, the Dementors realised it was a fake, and only just got around to telling us."
Huh. Hadn't realised they could do that. I guess I shouldn't be surprised though.
"So any leads on who did it?"
"Not really. The weird part, though, is this. Bellatrix went to Diagon Alley, and emptied her vault."
"Alright."
"And then she was murdered by the Goblins."
"That's… strange." Not surprising. They were nice enough to do a fair amount for me. I figured I'd give them the benefit of the doubt.
"They didn't tell anyone?"
"No, they wouldn't tell the ministry if it was on fire. We had to ask about it. That's not the big worry, though. The big worry is where all the money went, and who Bellatrix gave it to before she died."
"Something I'm sure the Malfoys want to find out, very badly."
"According to the scuttlebutt in the department, yeah."
I nod, sagely.
"So should I mention anything about your crazy aunt?" she asks, joking.
I close my eyes and sigh. I should have figured this would happen. I mean, what should I have expected, trying to date an Auror-Trainee? All my own fault, really.
"Oh, no," whispers Tonks.
"Ask Lily and James about the cup," I say.
"What?"
"Please. Before you do anything, please ask Lily and James about the cup."
I can feel her eyes staring at me.
"Why?"
"Who are you going to believe? Me? Or them?"
She's silent. At least she's not screaming, or trying to arrest me.
"Why the cup?"
"It was in Bellatrix vault," I reply. "Please talk with them. Please at least understand why I did it, and why it had to be done. And…" I actually open my eyes, to look at her. She's a mixture of confused, worried, and anxious. I can see it in her face, in her body. The cycling of colours in her hair, the intermixed white and green telling me all I need to know.
I sigh, and give her a sad smile.
"It was nice, I guess, to be normal for a little while." I shake my head, angry with myself. "I shouldn't be surprised. I can't be happy, you know? Good luck Tonks, with everything. You'll probably hate me soon enough."
I get up, pay for the meal, and leave her.
Occlumency is great for making sure you look like nothing's wrong.