World's Smallest Violin

Chapter 7: Fight

Tonks found her upcoming mission to rescue the werewolf Rachel Munroe to be all consuming, and as a result she was reprimanded several times over the next few days for lack of attentiveness while she was at work as an Auror, once even by Kingsley Shacklebolt. That last rebuke was probably well deserved, however: he had caught her experimenting with changing her hands into wolf paws at the back of a meeting. All in all, Tonks was coming to deeply regret that she could not tell any of her coworkers that she was moonlighting as a member of the Order of the Phoenix; it certainly would have helped in situations such as this. As things stood, however, Tonks knew that a stiff punishment would be coming her direction just as soon as her superiors had time to think of it.

For the time being, the entire Auror office was busy enough to let a bit of absentmindedness in an otherwise valuable agent slide temporarily. The Ministry had recently distributed several pamphlets describing precautions the magical community should be taking in light of Voldemort's return and asking for assistance in locating possible Death Eaters or cases of people under the Imperius curse.

So far, this had been of very little use to the Aurors in their law enforcement efforts but created much more work for them nevertheless. Many of the more nervous minded members of the population inevitably took to reporting every person who looked at them sideways, and all reports had to be investigated in case one of them was legitimate.

More often than not, however, people would swear they saw a Death Eater on their street, then, when the Aurors arrived, claim that the Death Eater had already left, but could the Aurors please help put an apparition jinx on their house. The junior Aurors had created a lengthy list of things they would like to do in those situations, and a betting pool soon materialized as well. So far, most people seemed to suspect that Ernest Savage, an Auror who joined the ranks a year before Tonks, would be the first to crack and commit one of the offenses on the list.

As a result of all this, Tonks was very grateful when the night of her meeting with Lupin finally came. She arrived directly from her last call of the day, where she had nearly lost a significant amount of money for herself by committing number seventeen on the list. Following the instructions Dumbledore sent her that afternoon, Tonks walked up to the gate to Hogwarts and sent a Patronus message to the castle. A few minutes later, Lupin appeared, striding down the path toward her.

"This is new," Tonks commented as he let her inside and they began the walk up to the castle.

"Professor Dumbledore's been enhancing security," Lupin explained. "He, McGonagall, and Snape have been putting up anti-intruder hexes I've never even heard of."

"Too right," Tonks approved. To her, like many others, Hogwarts was a sacred space, even when it was not filled with hundreds of young witches and wizards. The idea of it falling into the wrong hands was not something she wanted to think about.

"Anyway, how's the plan?" Tonks asked as they entered the castle and climbed the steps to the first floor. "Has anything changed?"

"Just one thing," Lupin replied with irritation in his voice. "I won't be using Wolfsbane. Dumbledore says that if I don't transform completely on the same night Rachel disappears it will be too easy for the rest of the pack to guess that I was the one who helped her."

"He may have a point," Tonks replied cautiously. Lupin held open the door to a classroom for her, and when she looked up at him she saw fear and anger. "Anyway, there's nothing to this. I'll just Disapparate at the first sign of trouble."

"When's the last time you Disapparated at the first sign of trouble?" Lupin scoffed.

He might have had her there.

"That's just with wizards. I'm a real coward when it comes to werewolves."

"No kidding," Lupin replied, stone faced.

"None at all," Tonks said, "not with all the gibbering and crying and pants-wetting, it's not pretty."

"Did you actually see anything, any bad or scary memories, when you held back all those Dementors?" Lupin asked.

"Yes."

"Sorry," Lupin replied, looking properly abashed.

"Are we going to get started or what?" Tonks demanded.

Unluckily, clothes and werewolf transformations did not mix in the slightest. Aware of this, both Lupin and Tonks had done a bit of forward thinking. Tonks had brought a long coat, and Lupin had set up a couple of chalkboards in the corner as a screen. Of course, gentleman that he was, Lupin respected her modesty as much as he was able, and banished himself to the opposite corner and faced the wall while she carried out the bulk of the transformation. In addition to that, he took advantage of the fact that she was frequently unable to articulate a verbal response and kept up a rather humorous running commentary about his observations of the werewolf pack.

"Fenrir Greyback is..." Lupin began, "he...well...you'll know him when you see him. Um, can you add a few silver streaks to the fur on your back? Bit lighter...there you go. Anyway, the rest of the pack, most of them are like your friend, they're not bad people by nature, they're just in a bad situation. Er, is your fur bothering you?"

Indeed it was, all the extra hair was making her feel more sensitive to everything she touched, even the slight air drafts in the room. More than that, she had an itch on her back that was becoming difficult to ignore, but her wolf shoulders would not rotate enough to let her scratch it. Lupin had probably deduced the issue when she inexpertly tried to use one of her back legs but still could not contort herself enough to reach.

"May, I?" Lupin asked, reaching out a hand. Tonks nodded, and he ran his hand down her narrow back. Before long the itch was gone, but she found herself hoping he would continue anyway.

Sooner than she would have liked, Lupin lifted his hand and asked, "Better?"

Reluctantly, Tonks nodded.

"Back to the pack, then, Greyback offers leadership, protection, and community when most of society hates werewolves and would rather pretend that they don't exist. I wouldn't expect you to understand, but it's a powerful draw. If several things in my own life had not gone exactly the way they did, I might be a true member of the pack instead of a spy."

Surprised, Tonks looked up at Lupin, an oddly different maneuver. Lupin, however, made no further comment on that subject and instead informed her, "Your eyes should be blue."

Tonks made the requisite change without looking away.

"That's very creepy," Lupin observed, and Tonks snickered, though it did not sound anything like she thought it would. "Also, you're eyes still look too human. Can you make your irises bigger? With wolves, and most animals, you usually can't see the whites of their eyes."

That was a tricky one. Tonks trotted over to a mirror they had propped against the wall to see what she could do. In the meantime, Lupin continued his exposition.

"There are about twenty werewolves in the pack and since this is taking place on a full moon all of them will probably be there. Anyway, this isn't like your Aunt's sewing circle." Lupin paused to reconsider. "This might be exactly like your Aunt's sewing circle."

Tonks tried to laugh, but snorted and sneezed instead. Trying to control a wolf body with a human brain was no easy task. When she had herself under control again, Lupin continued.

"My point is that some members of the pack are truly unpleasant to be around. I'll do everything I can to help you, but, honestly, it would probably be safest for you to just stick with Greyback, he looks out for Rachel."

Tonks turned around and allowed Lupin to inspect her eyes.

"Much better," he pronounced. "Your tail, though. I take it you haven't had much luck."

Tonks shook her head in the gravest manner she could manage. Despite having far more success in using her Metamorphmagus abilities to transform into a werewolf than she had dared to expect, try as she might it seemed that spontaneously growing the extra vertebrae required to form a tail was a step too far.

"Well, if all goes to plan then you'll be long gone before anyone has a chance to notice," Lupin supposed.

Tonks could not think of the last time everything had gone to plan and would have liked to have said so, but changing her mouth enough to actually form the words was far too much trouble to go to just to tell Lupin something he already knew.

"Can I take a look at your paws?" Lupin asked after a moment.

Obediently, Tonks sat back on her haunches, lifted her front paws for him, and immediately fell over. It was very fortunate for Lupin that he did not laugh.

"Sorry," he apologized instead, taking a seat on the floor nearby while Tonks got her feet back underneath her. "It's the tail I'm afraid, they're useful for balance. Why don't you sit and shake."

He held out a hand and Tonks placed one paw in it, but also informed him, in no uncertain terms, that she did not appreciate being commanded like a dog by reminding him who had the teeth. Of course, getting all of her teeth back into her mouth again took a bit of effort, but she only bit her tongue twice, a vast improvement over the last time she had tried this.

"Sorry," Lupin said again. "Do your paws bother you?"

Tonks moved her head in a so-so motion. She did not find it very comfortable walking on her fingers and toes, but she was certain that she had the bone structure right and so had planned not to complain about it.

"It might help if you make the pads on your feet a little thicker," Lupin suggested. "Also, I think you might be walking too far forward on your feet, if that makes any sense."

It did not, at least not until Tonks took a few tours of the room, experimenting with how she distributed her weight among her feet. She nodded at Lupin happily when she returned to sit in front of him.

"Great," Lupin said. "If you don't mind, there are some last things I should check."

Tonks nodded her consent and Lupin proceeded to inspect the rotation of her shoulders and elbows, her ears and forehead, the texture of her fur, and took a closer look at her teeth while Tonks tried to decide exactly how she felt about being poked and prodded all over. All the while, Lupin kept up his running dialog.

"There's one werewolf you should keep an eye on, aside from Greyback anyway, Marcus Bower. He was a tailor before Greyback got to him, but since then he seems to have taken to being a werewolf. He's always very vocal at meetings, and he's been giving Greyback money. He doesn't have any wealthy family, though, and he wasn't that successful as a tailor. I think he might be robbing Muggle banks. More than that, he's clearly jealous of Rachel's standing with Greyback. You'll have to be careful not to slip up around him."

Tonks nodded, but in truth she had not been paying complete attention, she had found Lupin's gentle hands on her arms, shoulders, and ears to be far more distracting than expected.

"Well, everything seems to be in order," Lupin declared at last. "I guess we should move on to the transformation." He stood, retrieved Tonks' coat from the floor, and draped it over her, then stepped away and turned his back.

It was well after midnight before Lupin declared Tonks' impersonation of Rachel transforming into a werewolf a success. Tonks was exhausted and sore at that point, and only the thought of a house elf or teacher finding her the next morning prevented her from curling up in the corner of the room and falling asleep still looking like a werewolf. Instead, she trotted over behind the chalkboard where her clothes waited and changed back into herself.

"Where is all this going to happen anyway?" Tonks asked when she was dressed. "You can turn around."

"Near St. Davids, in Wales," Lupin replied. "At least that's the last place I've heard. Greyback tends to change his mind a lot."

"When you say 'near St. Davids,' you mean close enough to cause some damage, don't you," Tonks inferred.

"I have two jobs," Lupin replied, leading the way out of the classroom, "convince werewolves to come over to our side and tell the Order where the pack is going to be on the full moon so they can warn and protect the people in the area. It's not glamorous work, but someone has to do it."

"I'm sure the people in those cities and villages appreciate it," Tonks replied, touching his arm.

"Thank you for your help in this, Tonks," Lupin said, shrugging away. "You...you put more heart into everything you do than anyone has a right to ask for."

"Aw, thanks," Tonks said, feigning bashfulness. "You're a good teacher. Anyway, and more importantly, do you think the house elves will make us some coffee if we ask?"

"I suppose they would," Lupin replied, "but you look dead on your feet, wouldn't some actual sleep serve you better?"

"Ordinarily I'd agree, but it's been over five hours since I last got called out to a dark wizard sighting. What's more, I'm about due for a legitimate one by now."

"Actually, there is one thing I wanted to mention," Lupin said.

"Okay," Tonks responded.

"Your smell."

"What?" Tonks asked, deflating slightly. It had been a long day, but she had taken a shower that morning, at least she thought she had.

"I mean, you smell fine," Lupin continued quickly. This sounded rehearsed. "But you don't smell like a werewolf."

"Oh," Tonks said. That did not sound so bad until she thought about it a moment and realized what a tricky thing it would be to manipulate her own scent. It was not something she had needed to bother about before, most people could not tell the difference, werewolves obviously could. "What do werewolves smell like?"

"Well," Lupin began, but not fast enough.

"Ouch, there you go." Tonks interrupted and quickly pulled a small object, the approximate size and shape of a pebble from an inner pocket, tossed it in the air, and caught it with a levitation spell. "Auror communications," she explained at Lupin's questioning look. "It can get pretty insistent if you ignore it for too long. Is there anything you can tell me about how I should smell in the next five seconds?"

"More musk, less flowers," Lupin summarized.

"I do not smell like flowers," Tonks replied. "Care to eavesdrop?" she invited as she grabbed and answered her communications device. "Ach! Merlin's pet gerbil, who invented this thing? Tonks here."

"Immediate assistance from all available Aurors is required," said Shacklebolt's voice from the stone. "Diagon Alley."

"Acknowledged," Tonks replied, checking her pockets for floo powder even though she knew that she had none. "Kingsley, I'm at Hogwarts, I'll need a few minutes to get off the grounds before I can Disapparate."

"You are authorized to use a Portkey," Shacklebolt replied.

Tonks felt her stomach drop. This was serious. Lupin touched her arm and caught her eye. "Um, Moony is with me, can he be of assistance?"

"Negative," Shacklebolt replied shortly. A moment later a loud crash sounded from the device Tonks held in her hand.

"I'm on my way," she said, unsure if Shacklebolt could hear her, and cut the connection. "Sorry, Lupin," she added, searching her pockets for something to use as a Portkey and eventually settling on her left shoe. "He's probably just worried someone might recognize you. Make sure the Order knows that something's going on. I'll get you more information as soon as I can."

"Be careful," Lupin said. It was the last thing she heard before her shoe yanked her out of the peaceful corridors of Hogwarts and dropped her at the edge of a war zone.

Never much good at the dismount when it came to Portkeys, Tonks missed her feet and landed painfully on her knees in an alley between two shops. This turned out to be a fortunate turn of events, because a figure she could not see properly in the dim light aimed a spell in Tonks' direction at the first sight of her, missing by inches. Abandoning her shoe, Tonks scrambled into the questionable but nearby cover provided by a waste bin and fired back. They exchanged spells for a few minutes, neither making much headway, until Tonks' opponent finally elected to take a manual approach and rushed her. Far from surprised, however, Tonks took the opportunity to rapidly trip, disarm, and tie up the assailant. A quick examination told her that he was no one she recognized, he did not have a Dark Mark, and he would not be able to escape his bounds without his wand, which Tonks picked up and pocketed for safe keeping before rushing out of the alley to join the rest of the fight.

A quick glance was enough to tell Tonks all she needed to know about the battle at hand. At least twenty Death Eaters or followers of Voldemort with lesser ranks were rampaging Diagon Alley, smashing storefronts, uprooting benches, and destroying merchandise and a handful of Aurors had taken up defensive positions to oppose them.

For the moment, Tonks had a distinct advantage over her fellow Aurors: she had arrived a short ways down the street from where the majority of the action was taking place, on the opposite side of the fight from the other Aurors, and no one had noticed her yet. Taking careful aim, Tonks managed to stun five of the looters before the rest cottoned on and she was forced to take cover. Now pinned down by a barrage of spells, Tonks could only hope that the other Aurors were taking advantage of the distraction, but the crash of another store window disintegrating was not a good sign. Tonks was just reviewing the layout of the fight as she'd last seen it, trying to pick the best place to Apparate to, when everything went dark, not just dark, but a black so thick that she could no longer see the flashes of spells, it was as though someone had turned off her eyes.

"What the..." Tonks wondered aloud, and then two pairs of hands grabbed her arms and pulled her back into the comparative brightness of Diagon Alley in the middle of the night.

"Wotcher," she said automatically to Fred and George Weasley as they ducked around the side of a building to watch the as spells emerging from the cloud became increasingly unfocused as those inside lost their bearings. Tonks itched to send in a few stunning spells, but restrained herself since she could not see where the other Aurors were.

"Peruvian darkness powder," Fred said, "what do you think?"

"Bet it works even better in the daytime," Tonks replied dryly.

"Daytime," George breathed, "why didn't we think of that?"

"Don't make fun," Tonks muttered, "how long does it last?"

"I was just saying to George, not fifteen minutes ago, how nice it would be to test some of our products in a real fight," Fred responded, "wasn't I George."

"It's true," George agreed. "Very obliging chaps, these."

"You're saying you don't know," Tonks inferred irritably. "What else do you have?"

Fred and George immediately turned out their pockets, of which they had a surprising amount considering that they were both wearing pajamas.

"Shield hats."

"Decoy Detonators."

"Self-guiding throwing stars."

"Invisibility cloaks, the cheap kind."

"Edible Dark Marks."

"And a boomerang, haven't worked out how to improve it yet, though."

Tonks resisted the urge to ask if they were taking this entirely seriously and inquired instead, "Anything that can tell the Aurors on the other side of this mess that I'm clear of the darkness powder and prepared to take down any looters who try and escape this direction?"

"Just this," Fred replied. He pulled out a piece of paper, hastily jotted down her message, folded it into a paper airplane, and tossed it in a high arc over the fray still contained in the Peruvian darkness powder.

"Brilliant," Tonks muttered, "You've invented the interdepartmental memo. Are you sure it will reach them?"

"You didn't think we tested our charm for self-guided throwing stars using actual throwing stars, did you?" George said.

As a matter of fact, she had, not that she would admit it now, and in any case the time for conversation had abruptly ended. It was just becoming possible to see into the dark cloud that crossed Diagon Alley, but more than that, the sounds from the space before them changed as the Aurors commenced their attack. Four looters emerged on Tonks' side and were promptly stunned, then all was quiet.

Tonks left the Weasleys, who were contemplating the damage to the nearby stores, and saw to the disarming and restraining of the stunned looters, working her way down the street until she met Shacklebolt in the middle of where the Peruvian darkness powder had been.

"Tonks," he said in greeting, bending to remove the wand from the slack grip of a final looter.

"Shacklebolt," she returned. "What do you figure?"

"I'm not sure yet," Shacklebolt replied. "Do you recognize any of these people?"

"Um," Tonks said, considering this and shining the light of her wand into a few nearby faces. "None so far."

"Well, we'll have a better idea once we've questioned a few of them," Shacklebolt decided. "Alright, you and Henderson assess the damage. Ask the owners of the looted shops for a list of what's missing. The rest of us will gather up this lot and see what they have to say for themselves."

"You've got it," Tonks replied. "There's another looter tied up around the side of Flourish and Blott's, so you know." She retrieved his wand from her pocket and handed it over.

"Tonks, where's you're shoe?" Shacklebolt asked as she turned to go.

Tonks, jumped and turned back, she had forgotten all about that. "Around the side of Flourish and Blott's, I suspect. I used it as a Portkey."

"Well you're bleeding pretty badly," Shacklebolt observed. "You must have stepped in glass. Go get it checked out at St. Mungo's, we can handle things here."

Tonks looked down in surprise. Up until Shacklebolt mentioned it, she had not noticed the injury. It still only barely hurt, and she did not like the idea of leaving with the job unfinished.

"I'm fine," she insisted. "I'll patch it up here and go to St. Mungo's when we're done."

"Alright," Shacklebolt relented, "but not a moment later."

Day was breaking properly and Tonks' foot was throbbing by the time she and Henderson finished interviewing the shopkeepers and made their report to Shacklebolt. Their findings were frustrating at best. Fourteen shops had been damaged in some way. Of those, ten had been ransacked, including Eeylops Owl Emporium, Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor, Flourish and Blott's, and Ollivander's. Aside from the few owls that escaped in the chaos, not a single shopkeeper had found anything missing, not even so much as a cockroach cluster. Tonks and Henderson were completely stymied by this and Shacklebolt seemed near the end of his rope.

"Imperiused!" he exclaimed when Tonks asked about the prisoners. "Every last one of them. They claim the entire thing is a haze."

"You're sure?" Henderson pressed. Tonks was curious about that as well, they had been deceived by the Imperius curse in the past, though she was glad that Henderson had been the one to ask.

"We used Veritaserum," Shacklebolt replied, squeezing the bridge of his nose.

"Who are they, then?" Tonks asked. "They put up a fight; you have to train to get skills like those, Imperiused or not. Maybe there were Death Eaters nearby, controlling them through the fight."

"They are the Edinburgh Dueling Club," Shacklebolt sighed.

"You're kidding."

"I wish I was."

"Do you have all of the members of the dueling club?" Tonks asked slowly as a thought formulated. "Whoever cursed them would need access to all of them. Maybe whoever's missing is the Death Eater."

Shacklebolt looked up with interest.

"There are about to be a few Aurors who wish they were the ones to think of that," he said. "We've done all we can here. Henderson, report back to the office, Tonks-"

"I know, St. Mungo's," Tonks muttered.

"Actually, I need a word with you," Shacklebolt waited until Henderson had Disapparated before continuing in a confidential tone.

"Tonks, I've been reassigned."

"What?" she burst out. "Where?"

"10 Downing Street," Shacklebolt replied.

Tonks had to think very hard for a moment to realize what he meant. "The Muggle Prime Minister?"

"The very one," Shacklebolt confirmed.

"That's..." she had to search for the word "...great, important. Anyway, he's in good hands." But in spite of herself, Tonks could not help but realize that she was now the only regular Auror who was also in the Order of the Phoenix. She had not realized how much she had come to rely on Shacklebolt's strong and steady presence, now all that responsibility rested on her alone.

"Just remember to keep an eye out for anyone acting strangely," Shacklebolt said. "And if you think someone would be a good candidate to join the Order, point him or her out to Dumbledore or me. Good luck."

"You too," Tonks responded automatically, feeling numb.

"Now you should really get to St. Mungo's," Shacklebolt finished, and shoved her on her way.