World's Smallest Violin

Chapter 3: Fight

Three days later and Tonks still had only seen the inside of her flat for about five minutes in total. She was standing at the back of a meeting of the Order of the Phoenix, the first since the fight they had begun calling the battle of the Department of Mysteries. Everyone was present, less those on duty, and it was shaping up to be a record breaker. Professor McGonagall had volunteered the sitting room of her predictably austere house for the occasion, which was somewhat fortunate: it was a strange and awkward enough location for a recent Hogwarts student to find herself that she was prevented from drifting off where she stood.

Tonks crossed her arms and shifter her weight to her other foot. Dumbledore had agreeably yielded the floor to Mundungus Fletcher, who had a few ideas about what to do with Grimmauld Place now Sirius was gone that soon had the entire meeting derailed. In a few minutes Tonks would have to take over for Hestia Jones, who was patrolling Privet Drive, and she had been hoping that the might get into some discussion of strategy before then. Little chance of that now.

"I've got a Sickle that says Arthur will throw the first punch," Lupin muttered to Tonks, nudging her with his elbow.

Arthur was indeed looking very antsy in his seat near the front, probably only restrained by Molly, but there was another person in the room still closer to informing Mundungus exactly what he thought about the plan to ransack Sirius' house. A single glance was enough to tell her that.

"Smart money's on you, my friend," she whispered back.

"Me?" Lupin scoffed. "I could hardly strike someone in the middle of a peaceful argument."

"In defense of the memory of your friend?" Tonks pointed out. "I've seen you fight, you could."

"Hardly a fair bet, though," Lupin said.

"I'm in," Tonks replied.

"Fine," he agreed, shaking her outstretched hand.

"I'll be expecting that sickle and extensive details next time we see each other," Tonks concluded, the clock telling her it was time to be off.

"Say hello to Harry if you see him," Lupin replied. "Then tell him to go back inside where it's safe."

"If you do end up going back to Grimmauld Place, make sure someone grabs the hat on the arm of the chair near the fire," Tonks said. "It's my favorite one."

Tonks stepped outside to Disapparate. The key, she had discovered, to remaining untroubled by the residents of Privet Drive during her patrols was to make her appearance as eccentric as possible. Toward that end, she had brought along a stuffed toy cat to drag along on a leash, accompanying the tousle-haired, snaggle-toothed, and generally bedraggled appearance she had prepared for the occasion.

She sorted out her clothes, face, and props in the shadows of the path between Magnolia Crescent and Privet Drive, the designated meeting point for those on patrol duty. When she was finished a few minutes later, Hestia Jones still had not appeared.

Assuming that Hestia had simply lost track of the time again, Tonks walked to Privet Drive, calling softly, "Hestia! Hey, Jones, it's Tonks. Where are you, you silly- Expecto Patronum!"

A cluster of no less than thirty Dementors was gathered a short ways down the street and Tonks chased her Patronus toward it. Fatigue forgotten, she fought her way to the center of the Dementors where Hestia Jones was lying unconscious.

Thinking fast, Tonks sent a Patronus message to the Order, but doing so sapped her concentration and weakened the Patronus that was defending them. She was forced to recast, but the Dementors were already beginning to drain her will and strength. These Dementors were acting with purpose and intent that she had never seen before and Tonks knew she could not hold them off for long. There were too many of them for her to escape the circle on foot without a distraction and Disapparating would leave the Dementors without any thing to keep them occupied, it would be akin to setting them loose on Harry and his neighbors. Tonks realized all this, and then she realized that something was wrong.

Almost the entire Order was at the meeting she had just left. It should have taken no time at all to organize a rescue. They should have been here already.

The length of time it took Tonks to realize why help was not coming was a testament to the influence of the Dementors on her ability to think. Feeling as though she was looking through a thick fog, Tonks caught a glimpse of her Patronus as it raced past: no bear was that but some smaller four legged creature, gone out of sight before she could fully register what it was. No matter, though, unless the Order received a Patronus they recognized, they would assume it was a trick.

"Hestia, wake up!" Tonks shouted urgently, prodding the witch roughly with her foot, blinking images of her mad Aunt out of her vision. "I need you to send a message!" Magic had no effect either, Jones was too far gone. Tonks could feel that her face and hair had returned to their natural appearances and she was beginning to wonder if she could even Disapparate anymore.

A final desperate idea occurred to her, but she dismissed it roughly. Certainly Harry would come running to help, but she would die before she would ask him. Tonks knew she had to at least find a way to warn him, though. Her fight was fought, but with a little notice Harry could find a way to escape before they came for him.

Without hope, Tonks sent a final message to the Order and watched her new Patronus fade out of existence as a result. It was not just grey fog and rattling breath filling her senses now, but the sparks of flying spells of old, the shouts and screams of the chaos of battle, her Aunt's mad laughter. Tonks knew she was about the pass out. She had to send a warning to Harry, but still she delayed. Her knees ached from contact with the asphalt road. She could not remember falling but she clung to the pain of it because she knew it was real. Tonks tried to cast a final spell, but her arm was too heavy to lift.

Then it was gone. Tonks fell to her side, shoulder impacting the road painfully, and sucking in a grateful breath that felt like it must have been her first in a hundred years. Four Patronuses swept over her head, scattering the Dementors like bowling pins. Tonks found this very funny for some reason. Three people rushed past, sending the Dementors on their way, another dropped to his knees at her side.

Tonks was helped to a seated position and found Bill Weasley beside her. "How are you feeling?" he asked, turning to Hestia.

"Never better," Tonks replied dizzily, then fell into a fit of coughing, overcome by the memory of the Dementors and their horrible, rattling breath. "How is Hestia?"

Bill managed to bring Hestia around, but she lay so quiet and still that they were both afraid she might have suffered the kiss. Neither of them truly breathed again until Dumbledore returned with Shacklebolt and Lupin and determined that she was simply in a severe state of shock. Bill promptly offered to take Hestia to St. Mungo's and Disapparated with her in his arms.

Tonks, meanwhile, had struggled to her feet and was making her stiff and unsteady way in the direction of Harry's house. Lupin fell in step with her.

"You really ought to go to St. Mungo's too," he suggested.

"I'm fine," Tonks contradicted, soldiering on,

"You're shaking all over," Lupin protested. "I can see it from here. Don't worry about Harry, I'll check on him."

"I'm fine," Tonks repeated.

"In that case," Lupin said, pulling a sickle from his pocket and passing it over. "Take your blood money."

"You punched him?" Tonks exclaimed gleefully. "Wait...there was blood?"

"Man had it coming," Lupin replied, examining his hand. "Anyway, say what you like about that meeting, in the end it wasn't boring."

"Details!" Tonks demanded. "What did old Dung say that finally broke the refinement of one Remus Lupin?"

But Lupin was already past that. "Tonks, I'm sorry we didn't come sooner. It was your Patronus, no one recognized it."

"I know," Tonks said. "But since when can the form of a Patronus change?"

"I've heard of it happening sometimes, when someone has a big shock or a life changing event," Lupin replied. "Anything like that happen to you?"

"Do you mean since ten minutes ago?" Tonks joked. "I guess it looked a bit like Sirius, in his dog form, I mean." But even as she said it she knew she was wrong, the Patronus she had seen was bigger than a dog, stronger, fiercer. "I didn't get a very good look at it, though."

"I did," Lupin said. He hesitated, then plunged ahead. "It was a werewolf."

"Really," Tonks replied, sizing him up. He appeared tense but otherwise unreadable. "Well don't let it go to your head, wolf man. There's really no telling what's going on in this bean of mine. Besides, I know plenty of werewolves."

Again his reaction was unreadable. In spite of her words, Tonks searched her mind for a reason why her Patronus would change to resemble Lupin's wolf.

At last they turned a corner and came into view of number 4 Privet Drive. All was quiet. A few lights were on in the house and the noise of a television floated through an open window. Tonks heaved a sigh of relief and sank gratefully onto the nearby retaining wall of a garden across the street. Lupin sat down next to her.

"How long was it?" Tonks asked, "between the first and second Patronus?"

"A couple of minutes," Lupin replied. "Maybe three."

"Felt like hours," Tonks said.

Dumbledore caught up to them a few minutes later. Tonks started to get to her feet, but he waved her back and took a seat next to her on the opposite side from Lupin.

"Nymphadora, I must thank you for your excellent work," Dumbledore began. He was one of the few people permitted to call her by her given name. "Your quick thinking and selfless attitude may well have prevented a much larger disaster tonight."

"Any time, sir," Tonks replied with a shrug, trying to think of a single thing she had done which might be misinterpreted as quick thinking.

"Now then," Dumbledore continued, "you certainly could use a good night's rest. Kingsley has agreed to take over the remainder of your patrol and I myself must check the wards surrounding the Dursley residence. Remus, would you be so kind as to see Miss Tonks home safely?"

"Certainly," Lupin replied. He got to his feet and held out his hand. "Would you like a side-along?"

Tonks cast him a disparaging look, got to her feet, and Disapparated.

"I was just asking," Lupin muttered when he appeared a few seconds after Tonks in the hallway outside her flat. "Professor Dumbledore is having a good laugh back there."

"I try to cheer up at least one person every day," Tonks replied as she released the last layer of protection on her door and led the way inside. While she was restoring the charms, Lupin found his way into the kitchen and began rummaging through the cabinets. "Please make yourself at home," Tonks called pointedly.

"You don't have any chocolate?" Lupin replied. "Or food?"

"There might be some tea somewhere."

Tonks sat down wearily at the table under the flickering light while Lupin prepared the tea. She pulled a lock of hair in front of her eyes and found it a dull shade of brown, but she could not summon the energy or concentration to change it back to pink.

"Not very domestic, I take it," Lupin observed, taking a seat at the table with two cups of tea. It tasted a bit like dust. The stack of books from her parents' house was still on the table where she had left it during a brief visit two days ago.

"I've been busy," Tonks countered. "Anyway, the commissary at the Ministry isn't half bad, Molly usually brings food to the Order meetings, I can go to my parents' house for a proper meal, and the entire arrangement prevents me from having to try and explain how I burned down the building while making a cold salad."

"The light, though, that must be irritating," Lupin added, gesturing above them.

"I'm not really here enough for it to get annoying," Tonks replied. "And right now it's that or candles."

"I think I'd prefer the candles," Lupin said, then froze as they both noticed the subtext of the statement, intentional or not. "I think I'd better go," Lupin blurted. "Good night, Tonks."

"Wait," she called, but he was already gone.

======

Tonks was in a terrific mood. She had thought that she would be unable to sleep after forming a habit of defying fatigue at every turn over the past several days, not to mention her unsettling run in with the Dementors, so she was pleasantly surprised when she woke up completely refreshed the next morning with no memory whatsoever of actually getting into bed.

A check on the time told her that she had missed an Auror meeting that morning, which was usually punished with a week of street patrol duty. Figuring that the damage was already done, Tonks set about a leisurely breakfast in a coffee shop near her flat and strolled into the office over an hour later to discover that Shacklebolt had covered for her at the meeting and she would not be walking the beat on the streets of London after all. The rest of the day was spent in a fascinating and all consuming discussion with a few other junior Aurors and some seasoned Aurors who had just returned from some undercover work, charting the known movements of the Death Eaters they were surveilling.

Tonks was hardly even fazed when an owl from her mother arrived that afternoon, requesting her presence for dinner that evening. However, when the appointed hour arrived and Tonks found herself raising key to lock at her parents' door, her optimism faltered, but she quickly hitched it back into place and stepped inside, refusing to let Malfoy ruin her day.

The sniveling weasel was sitting exactly where she had left him, but he was reading The Red Badge of Courage this time, so Tonks could only assume that he had moved at some point.

"Oh, good, you're here," Andromeda said, poking her head out of the kitchen. "Be a dear and set the table, will you?"

Tonks obliged, quietly amused at this development: her mother rarely trusted her with the fragile tableware.

"You're in a good mood," Andromeda observed from where she was transferring food into serving platters in the kitchen. "What's his name?"

"What?..Who?" Tonks stammered, catching on very slowly indeed. "Mum, will you please lay off about - Why was that your first - I got a good night's sleep, alright? How could you tell, anyway?"

"Your hair is orange," Andromeda replied.

"Aw, man, how long has it been like that?" Tonks exclaimed, examining her reflection in the back of a spoon to make sure she changed it back to pink properly. It had been a very long time since her hair had last displayed mood ring properties and she was not at all pleased to find the trait reemerging.

"Where's Dad?" Tonks asked when she was satisfied with her hair, hoping to change the subject.

"He's finishing up a few things in the office," Andromeda replied. "He'll be here soon."

"Why did you ask me to come?"

Andromeda lowered her voice. "It's Draco, I don't think we're getting through to him. He won't talk to us, and I can't tell if he's listening. We thought you might have better luck."

With a huge effort, Tonks managed to resist the urge to point out the fact that she had told them so and instead replied, "I'll see what I can do."

Dinner itself was an awkward and largely silent affair. Ted Tonks was the type of person who preferred just to listen in these types of situations, and though he did make a few game attempts it mostly fell to Andromeda and Tonks to maintain the conversation, and Tonks wondered uneasily what it was like when she was not there. They soon discovered that they really did not have much to discuss, and they could talk about even fewer topics with Malfoy present, so once they exhausted the weather and the prospects of the Holyhead Harpies in the next Quidditch World Cup they found that they had very little left to say. Malfoy himself was no help, of course, and Tonks was slightly surprised and put out when the topic of Quidditch proved insufficient to draw him into conversation. The largest response anyone got out of him was a satisfied look when Tonks asked him directly how he thought he had done on his O.W.L.s, which at least gave her an idea on how to proceed.

When they were finally dismissed from the table, which could not possibly have happened soon enough, Tonks followed Malfoy back to his usual pace on the sofa.

"Would you like me to just arrest you? Get it over with?" she asked sharply before he even had time to open his book.

"What are you doing here?" she pressed. It was nearly enough to surprise him into a response and Tonks smiled inwardly as she watched him bite down on his words. Progress.

"I'm serious," Tonks continued, "you're like a parasite. You sit on my parents' couch all day and eat their food and read my books and sleep in someone's bed, and what are you actually doing?"

Malfoy's look had grown surly, time to bring it around to the point.

"You're sixteen years old, you don't need a babysitter, yet your mother sent you here. Do you have any idea why?"

Malfoy stared irritably at her for a moment, then dropped his gaze and admitted, "No."

"Then I suggest you stop being angry about your current situation and start trying to figure out why you're in it," Tonks said. "Of all the places your mother could have sent you: the rest of her family, your father's family, your friends from school, she sent you here, to her estranged sister. Why?"

Tonks could see the wheels turning as Malfoy pondered that, but she knew better than to request his conclusion. Instead she asked, "What homework did you get saddled with this summer?"

An angry look.

"I guess you've already finished it all, then, if you've got time to sit around reading books all day."

A guilty look, hastily disguised.

"No? Well, I don't know if anyone's told you this, but I am an Auror. That means two things which are of immediate importance. The first is that I know a hundred and seven different ways of knocking you unconscious right now. The second is that I scored Outstanding on five N.E.W.T exams."

"Why do you want to help with my homework?" Malfoy asked.

"Wait until after you've left Hogwarts," Tonks replied truthfully. "I promise there will come a day when the only thing you want in the world is the simplicity of a homework assignment. Now come on, what have you got? I'm an encyclopedia on any subject. Except Herbology, you're on your own if it's Herbology."

Finally convinced, or at least willing to find out what her help was worth, Malfoy fetched his schoolbag from the guest room and they spent the next few hours elbows deep in the tricky and subtle theory behind the transfiguration of sound.

"This is great," Malfoy gloated when he had finally grasped the fundamentals. "Granger won't know what hit her next year."

Privately, Tonks did not think so. This was one of the few topics she had observed where Muggle-borns typically outperformed students raised in the wizarding world, something about early exposure to Muggle electronic speakers making it easier to understand the nature of sound waves. Still, she made a mental note the offer the same assistance to Harry, Ron, and Hermione the next time she saw them. The other thing Tonks did in response to this was to go to her childhood bedroom and retrieve a book from the shelf. She tossed it to Malfoy on her way to the front door.

"Give that one a try," she instructed.

"To Kill a Mockingbird?" Malfoy replied, reading the title.