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'You could just stay here for the night, you know," said Hestia, as Tonks got ready to leave. "We haven't exactly talked about… things since…"
"You mean that time when you cast exploding curses at your bestie?" asked Tonks.
Hestia looked stricken. "It was — "
Tonks waved it away. "You don't need to justify it. I understand. Things had gone nuts, and I would've stunned or injured Potter, and you didn't have the time to explain."
"Explain?" Hestia snorted. "Would you even have listened?"
Tonks grinned. "I probably wouldn't."
Harry had finished giving what he called his 'prelude' to things, and anything beyond this would be shared between those he trusted explicitly, with several more oaths involved in the process.
Naturally, Tonks had gratefully taken the 'time-out' to leave and think about things. All that she had learned was pretty much world-shattering, and she needed time to digest it all before deciding her way further.
"That thing you did back then… morphing yourself mid-battle like that… It was amazing. I didn't know you could do that. Makes me wonder what else you've been hiding."
"Eh.. call it instinct, I suppose. I was disarmed, and I had two competent witches attacking me."
"Didn't feel like instinct though. We both know how long it took you to get past your clumsiness during Auror training."
Tonks shrugged. She hadn't exactly given it much thought. She had just done whatever had come to her naturally then. She was a metamorphmagus, Change made manifest. It was only natural that her body would change to adjust to situations.
"So… should I ask Dobby to set a room for you?"
"Nah," Tonks shook her head. "It's better I go home. Need some time to digest all the curveballs your lover has thrown my way."
"He can be yours too."
"Subtle, Hestia."
"You sure I can't convince you to shack up with me?" asked her best friend. "Harry's going away with Hermione to Hogwarts, and he'll be there for the major part of the year. It will be lonely here."
"There's still Clearwater."
"Pfft!" Hestia sneered. "Not my type."
Tonks rolled her eyes. "You'll survive, Hestia. Plus, you even have a new job ready."
She was alluding to the new Assistant position that Amelia Bones had offered Hestia.
"Uh, I haven't exactly —"
"You're going to accept that job and you know it," said Tonks. "Anyway, see you later, I guess."
Hestia said nothing and was not smiling.
She was probably just being a good friend, but there was always the possibility that something sinister might befall Tonks by staying the night there. It was entirely possible that Potter's grand statements about walking away after that vow might just be a ruse, and he might just be attempting to kill her off for good.
Or maybe she was just channelling her inner Mad-eye.
Constant Vigilance for the win.
The two-minute walk from the conference room, down the hall and past the outer gates to the closest apparition point outside the wards was uneventful, a silent contrast to the tumultuous storm raging inside Tonks's head as she mentally reviewed everything she had heard Harry Potter, the time-traveller make.
The harsh reality he had shown her. Even now, she couldn't control the sudden tremors, nor did his ominous narration didn't stop ringing in her ears.
Her heart buried itself in her throat. The coldness of her palms and the tightness of her lungs made it hard to breathe. For the longest time, she, like the other members of the Order — everyone threw their all into making things better. They trained daily, risked life and limb, broke bones, and regularly risked their jobs in an attempt to gain information, spy on relevant people, and create strategies to ensure that the Death Eaters weren't gaining power. Members of the Order periodically visited the giants, ensured that the vampire clans were not terrorising the local folks in the extremes of the continent, offering betterment for werewolves to motivate them to shift from Greyback's control into becoming more peaceful and living a happy, civilised life in Britain. Of course, such changes took time, so patience was the key. They believed that because of them, the corruption in the Ministry was being kept in check, that Harry Potter, beacon of the light, was growing up safe.
Tonks wanted to believe that the Order, that she was making a difference. Yet, like Potter had pointed out, the situation was still the same. The same murderers were in power. Occasionally there would be good news, like Arthur getting a successful raid in Malfoy Manor. Information would be collected, evidence gathered and placed in a way to make it look like Kingsley and herself were doing excellent work, allowing them to rise in the DMLE, and gain more support. Make things better. But then Lucius Malfoy or some other Pureblood bigot would come in, throw their gold, and all their good work would go down in the drain. The people in prison would be released, and the DMLE would go back to collect evidence for a new case, attempt a re-capture and the cycle continued, seemingly without end.
And then Harry Potter happened. He twisted Lucius Malfoy's littler plan onto itself, and decimated over three-fourths of the rogue werewolf population troubling Wizarding Britain for decades in a single night. Lucius Malfoy was dead, yet the DMLE was now keeping him 'alive' and a fugitive, just so they could use the advantage and scour the entire country for the other criminals and capture them. Several of the blood purists that were following Lucius's path were imprisoned and sent to Azkaban. Those left were too scared to go back to crime. Diagon Alley was breathing again. The apothecaries were actually happy to do business. Even Knockturn Alley felt more excited to do business.
Harry Potter, one who had admitted to murdering Lucius Malfoy, and practised Necromancy to commit unspeakable actions, had done more for Britain than the Order had done in decades.
How was that fair?
Hestia probably thought her too egotistical, too blind in her unshaken belief in Dumbledore's ideology and way, but Tonks wasn't. She noticed things too. Ever since Potter had taken over Sleekeazy, there had been a lot more hiring of halfbloods and muggleborns in the company. Penelope Clearwater, the talented muggleborn that had been forced to waitressing at Fortescue, was actually the head-researcher, leading Potter's company Moonforge into new developments, and hiring muggleborn, pureblood and halfblood alike, without the least bias.
And as horrified as Tonks was about whatever had transpired with the Director, she preferred her alive than dead. That Bones could utilise the Malfoy fortune to bolster her army after years of Lucius Malfoy being a thorn on her side was both ironic and amusing.
The real question was — whose army was it? The Ministry's, or Harry Potter's?
Truth be told, Tonks was still flabbergasted and traumatised at the idea that the Boy-Who-Lived, time-traveller or otherwise, was preparing to go offensive against the current government. That he already had the defensive and offensive wing under his influence was a horrifying fact. Potter's desire for vengeance was too raw, too distinct, too exposed for it to be false. He was no child, he was a war veteran that was now acting out of sheer paranoia of what was to come, alternate timeline or otherwise, and was willing to throw the tentative peace everyone was enjoying into the brutality of war. No matter how valid his points were, no matter how well-intentioned his plans were, it was the stark truth that wars meant tremendous collateral damage. While Potter might not be a magical titan of Dumbledore or the Dark Lord's league, he showed tremendous potential to be there in due time. But more importantly, his insidious ability to charm ladies occupying prime positions in society was far more dangerous than his raw power.
Amelia Bones, Director of the DMLE. And Susan, her niece and the future Lady of House Bones.
Emmeline Vance, Head-Obliviator.
Anastasia Greengrass, Lady of the Greengrass clan, and according to the recent reports, the brain behind the Company's success with greenhouses. Not to mention her connection with the Selwyn dynasty.
And finally, there was Narcissa Black. Even without the Malfoy name, she was a viper, one that potentially knew of hidden skeletons in the closets of those Lucius worked closely with. If nothing else, she'd be a veritable source of blackmail material for Harry to use at his whim.
And it was just a couple of months into the summer.
Tonks had paid attention to the news. Harry Potter's actions had earned him commendations in France and Bulgaria and other nations. Given his current political and economical standing, if he were to establish connections with House Delacour, and others, he could very much influence matters on a world-level.
He would become a titan.
And when these titans fought, it was the common populace, the grass, that suffered the most.
Unacceptable.
Not for the first time, Tonks cursed herself for taking the vow. If that hadn't restrained her, she could've reported his heinous crimes and intentions to her senior. Auror Robards shared her zeal for justice, and the fact that his own boss was working with Potter wouldn't make Robards pause. But even if she could have done it, would it really be the right thing to do?
Potter was a criminal, and he was going to commit even more crimes. But if she stopped him, unveiled his actions to the public, perhaps even sent him chained to Azkaban for lifetime, what would she accomplish?
She'd uphold the law. Yes. But would it serve justice?
People like Nott would take advantage of Potter's actions and cause unrest in society. Potter's companies would be denigrated, their registrations cancelled, their employees sent back to the streets, to the life of unemployment or worse, slave labour like they were enjoying before this summer. Amelia Bones, who had been the backbone of the DMLE, would have to resign, and the DMLE would be crippled in her absence. And in the middle of all of it was the Dark Lord….
One that Madam Bones had apparently encountered very recently, together with Emmeline and Potter himself.
What had happened then? Since they were alive and fine, either there was no clash, or the Dark Lord was weak, or they managed to escape before the monster could kill them. Tonks realised she wouldn't get any answers until she swore the necessary vows.
Vows that would mean betraying the Order, betraying the Ministry, betraying Albus Dumbledore, and working with a paranoid sociopath that was hell-bent on bringing war to the nation.
Would she do it?
Could she do it?
Hestia had deserted the Order. As had Emmeline Vance. It was obvious that Potter was aiming for an all-women cabal for himself, probably something to do with his sexual powers. No doubt that was why he was angling for her. Her metamorph powers would be dead useful for intelligence gathering, putting false alibis, and spreading misinformation. She would —
Halfway down that thought lane, Tonks paused suddenly, for up ahead, she noticed two suspicious blue-robed, hooded figures at the edge of the alleyway that led to her house. They didn't seem to notice her at first, and out of instinct, she paused, and shifted slightly to the right to see them from behind a pillar. Then, one figure turned to look in her direction, and instantly camouflaged themselves against the yellow wall behind them.
Amateur.
Tonks instantly morphed her eyes, her eyeballs turning flatter at the back, and more rounded overall. Her vision shifted from the usual 20/20 to a 20/5, generating a 340-degree visual field, with far superior depth perception, allowing her to see things twenty-feet away with absolute clarity.
Pulling out her wand, she instantly disillusioned herself. As a metamorph, illusion spells came deadly easy to her. She cast an anti-gravity charm at the two camouflaged figures. The sensation of suddenly losing one's footing was extremely disorienting, and Tonks took advantage of that by firing consecutive stunners. She stayed for a moment, waiting for potential attackers that were still hiding, and when nothing came out of the shadows, spellfire or otherwise, Tonks cancelled her disillusionment, and walked towards her incapacitated attackers.
"Disappointingly easy," she said. Restraining them with a quicksand spell, and relieving them of their wands, she revived them.
"Now, who sent you?"
"I did."
Tonks whirled behind, her eyes widening in shock at the person's identity, her wand almost halfway raised, before the familiar voice whispered.
"Sleep."
Sometime later, Tonks woke up with a pounding headache. A brief glance told her that she was lying on her bed, in her apartment, and that there was someone, or more, in the very room with her, watching her. For a moment, she wondered if her worst fears about Harry Potter attempting an assassination on her had come true, but then the memory of the last face she had seen swam before her eyes.
No! She told herself. It couldn't be him! It couldn't be him! There were endless possibilities! Polyjuice, transfiguration, illusion spells, and so on. Shaking her head slowly, she realised she was unharmed, a fact that actually surprised her in light of how such encounters usually went. Then, she stiffened in worry. Her wand was not in her holster, nor anywhere in her immediate vicinity.
Then she turned around and found her attacker sitting in the same room, patiently waiting for her to wake up.
"Who are you?" she demanded.
"Albus Dumbledore," said the old wizard sitting peacefully in the chair before her. "And while I could go through the list of passphrases to prove my identity, I'm afraid time is of the essence. Hence —"
He flicked his wand, and Tonks felt her eyes sting, as something that was apparently placed there was switched with empty air, and two pairs of magical lenses appeared on the man's open palm.
That — was that thing in my eyes all this time?
"What's —"
Another spell hit her, petrifying her for good. Tonks watched, shocked, surprised and a lot more intimidated than she'd have liked as Albus Dumbledore placed the lenses upon another contraption the size of a cup, which let out strange noises. One of the blue-robbed individuals conjured a vial and held it at one point of the contraption. Tonks watched with growing dread as a memory-thread began to fizzle out of the contraption, collecting at the base of the vial. The figure handed the vial to Dumbledore who inserted it into the pensieve floating next to him.
A memory? Of — Of what had happened earlier? Her feet went cold. She had taken oaths to not say a single word. That device, if it had been planted in her all this time, if it could truly generate the memory of the event, then she — she —
"You must be wondering what this is," said Dumbledore in his usual jovial tone. "This is the Neuronest, an invention that the BRAIN division of the Department of Mysteries have been working on for quite some time now. You should know that you are, in fact, its first official volunteer."
"I… am?"
The Department of Mysteries? What was going on?
"Yes. It must sound confusing to you, but I promise it will make sense once I say the words."
"...what words?"
He met her eyes, and with a weak smile, said. "Taskforce for Observing and Nullifying Known Scourges."
Tonks frowned. "Was that supposed to mean something?"
"It should kick in any minute now, my dear."
Tonks opened her mouth to shout at the man for spouting nonsense, accuse him of being an imposter, and demand why she was stunned and where her wand was. Instead, she paused midway, blinked her eyes repeatedly, and nearly screamed in pain as a headache greater than anything she had ever felt in her life slammed her down. Images, millions of them, rushed through her mind.
No, not images. Memories.
Her memories.
Memories of her growing as a metamorph, raised by parents with no clue what to do. Being a point of curiosity for the people of Diagon Alley as they came to her mother for treatment.
Memories of her being taken to the Department of Mysteries under promises from Albus Dumbledore to be trained to use her powers properly. Of her developing a secondary personality to fool the entire world.
Memories of her being in school and being bullied and fighting with others, often saving other bullied students from those bullies, all the while trying her best to control her metamorphmagery that never seemed to stay in her control.
Memories of her being trained by the best of self-transfiguration experts in the DOM, including another metamorphmagus from Sweden.
Memories of her applying for Auror training. Getting selected for private training under Auror Moody, yet for some reason, left at Rookie stage despite passing with top marks.
Memories of her being ordered to go through standard Cadet training despite being a fully trained Operative. Agent Flux.
Memories of her being flustered as a Cadet Auror, unsure about what to do with the mystery of Harry Potter.
Memories of her being ordered by Dumbledore to work on Harry Potter to figure out his mystery through whatever ways she finds useful. About their plan to infiltrate, and find out whatever his secret was, without him getting any wiser.
The memories burned themselves into her brain and Tonks began to scream. She had the distinct sensation that she was being restrained by those hooded, blue-robed people. She couldn't care about them, for her skull was several sizes too tight. A chisel was making its way into her brain, carving and slamming away at her core, with reckless abandon.
She squeezed her eyes shut, and slowly began to make sense of all she was seeing. The horror came first, then slow, methodical understanding followed.
Almost as quickly as it began, it ended.
The blue-robbed figures — her Unspeakable team — let her go as she sat on the bed, breathing heavily, letting the memories settle.
"Your plan worked," she said at last, rubbing off a trickle of blood oozing down her left nostril. "Agent Flux at your command."
"Good," said Albus Dumbledore. "I was waiting for any warnings and context that might apply before I view it."
Flux frowned. "...Nothing I can help you with. Whatever happened at Potter's party is strictly between us, and you've no business knowing any of it. Now, can you kindly ask my overly dramatic boss to stop camouflaging himself first? He's not fooling anyone by standing against the wall to your left."
The disillusionment faded, and the man came into focus. He was short, with greying hair, and a neatly trimmed beard. His dark eyes worked well with his impressive moustache, adding weight to his gaze where his stature failed. That, and the fact that he looked very much like a large teddy bear without the moustache, she recalled.
"Hello, Croaker."
"Agent Flux," said Wilbert Croaker, her trainer and Voice of the Unspeakables. "It's about time you returned to work."
"I suppose your age is finally getting to you, Croaker. In case you forgot, I was working all this time."
"Noted," said Croaker. "Now Albus, shall we?"
Dumbledore flicked his wand, and instantly, Flux's world went white.
When her senses returned, she found herself lying on the bed, with an extremely grim-faced Albus Dumbledore and an equally worried Croaker sitting next to her bed. Several of the other Unspeakables were standing at different places in the room, while two healers were busy performing diagnosis on her.
"What's… going on?" she asked, trying her best to ignore the headache tearing through her skull.
"Something unexpected," said Dumbledore. "The moment I activated the memory, you were instantly afflicted with a debilitating psychic attack, one that took me and two of our healers to mitigate."
"To a degree," said Croaker,scowling.
Flux stared at her senior with growing trepidation. "...just what happened to me?"
Dumbledore sighed. "It killed Nymphadora Tonks."
Her eyes went wide. "You can't possibly —"
"The curse was aimed to complete information control, I'm afraid," said the Headmaster. "It did not leave any lasting impacts upon your psychic architecture, but it did, however, utterly eliminate your other personality. You, as you are now, are the only one left. I suppose it's lucky that you have access to all of your other's memories. Indeed, whoever cast this must be quite skilled, and equally sadistic to come up with something insidious like this."
"Emmeline —"
"Lady Vance is many things, my dear, but a collector of obscure psychic curses, she is not. If I had to wager a guess, it would be a spell from the Black Family Library."
"I… I took an oath to —"
"I know," said Dumbledore, stopping her. "You saw me extracting the lenses, and the memory thread from it. The moment I activated the projection, you must have acknowledged that I got the secret from you, and the oath's magic punished you. I'm afraid if you weren't already injected with Felix Felicis before you went to the party, we would've completely lost you."
She took several seconds to register what Dumbledore had just shared with her. Emmeline had used a lethal psychic curse that would have definitely killed her the moment she babbled before someone else. One so insidious that it was able to affect her so lethally despite all the precautions taken by Dumbledore and the Department, as well as being dosed with Liquid Luck.
The sheer ruthlessness both terrified and impressed her.
Wait. She was dosed with Felix. The liquid luck potion caused the drinker to have good luck for a limited period of time, during which they were likely to succeed in all endeavours in which success was possible. The more of it the drinker ingested, the longer their good luck would last, but once the lucky phase was over, causality would catch up and more often than not, could inflict massive misfortune to the individual in a multitude of ways.
And if the liquid luck had lasted her the entire party and afterparty and everything that had happened afterwards then…
"Prof—fesor, what will happen to me once the effects vanish?"
Dumbledore frowned, looking despondent. 'As much as I would like to keep you dosed on the Draught of Living Death for the next few weeks, I would not dare to cheat causality like that. It is entirely possible that the curse might act out in an unexpected way, and interact with the draught to produce unexpected results."
"You could die," said one healer. "Or perhaps land in a coma for a long while. Or it could severely affect your main psychic personality. The possibilities are endless. Thankfully, we have managed to mitigate the curse to a great extent. Whatever happens, we will be ready."
The healer's words did little to ease her. Still, risking her life was part and parcel of being an Unspeakable.
"What are we going to do about Potter? I imagine you… have watched…"
She hissed out loud, feeling her head burn. Quite literally.
"It's best if you do not even mention anything at this point," said Dumbledore. The man looked every bit of the hundred and sixty five years that he was. "And no, we haven't. We were too busy trying to ensure your survival."
"But I'm certain you won't be affected by it now," said Croaker.
That sounded better. Having two personalities in one body was a tricky thing to manage. Especially with her 'Rookie Auror Tonks' personality being utterly unaware of her other self, while the latter watched and observed everything through her eyes. Normally, this was never a problem, except for those specific situations when the skills and instincts of one bled into another.
Like at the night of the World Cup.
Not that she'd have to concern herself with that any longer.
"Okay,' she said at last. "I'll keep that in mind."
"Fine," said Dumbledore, standing up. "I suppose it's about time we decode the mystery of Harry Potter for good."