A/N: Many thanks must go to my beta Chriss Corkscrew who, on hearing my plaintive cries from the bottom of the whopping great plothole I had somehow managed to miss and promptly tumbled into, cheerfully grabbed a shovel and a fold up ladder and leapt in to haul me out. And a hell of a rescue it was too. I really wish I'd thought of that...:)
33: A Fine Mess
CRASH!
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”
“Honestly, Miss Tonks!”
Remus jerked sharply awake at the sudden burst of noise that invaded the drifting, peaceful world of dreams and pulled him abruptly back into a darkened Hospital Wing bed and a fair amount of pain. Metal pans rotated against the stone floor, vials smashed and clanked glassily against one another and potions sloshed. A torrent of swearwords cut a path across the air.
“Language!” The shocked exclamation was unmistakably Poppy’s. “Nymphadora, this is a school!”
Remus fought back a grin. There was no mistaking what had happened, though it would be interesting to know how Tonks had managed to collide with the vast supply cabinet by the entrance to Poppy’s office. A piece of furniture that size really was quite difficult to not to spot.
There was an awkward scrabbling noise, a squeak and a thump. And then, inevitably more swearwords.
“Oh for goodness sake.” The tone of resigned exasperation in Poppy’s voice made it very plain that this was not her first experience with Tonks and a large cabinet full of delicate items. “Just stand back and let me clean it up. And keep your voice down. You’ll wake Remus.”
“Too late.” Remus volunteered wearily from behind the safety of his curl of curtains. “Though I must say the quality of in-house entertainment around here has improved since my day.”
There was an abashed silence. A moment later, soft, awkward footsteps padded across the stone floor; a hand appeared and gently drew back the white curtain to reveal an extremely messy Hospital Wing and an equally messy and distinctly embarrassed Nymphadora Tonks. She smiled wanly.
“Wotcher Remus,” she ventured. “Sorry I woke you.” She proffered a battered box that was wriggling alarmingly, its contents apparently spooked by the fall. “I come bearing chocolate frogs, if that helps. Your dad said those with chocolate got priority.”
It took a moment for Remus’ brain to acknowledge that the swirling rainbow-strewn figure before him was not a result of faulty vision. Splattered was probably the kindest description for the state of the young Auror after her collision with the cabinet and its contents; for once her short bright purple hair was not the most interesting colour she was sporting. Her robes, her skin, even her hair were drenched and dripping with an astonishing maelstrom of potion hues; bright, eye-aching pink, golden yellow, electric blue, emerald green, painful violet, vivid red and sparkling silver made for a look that no one could have created on purpose. She looked like a rainbow that had eaten the wrong type of mushrooms.
Remus grinned. It just had to be done.
“You know, I really love that outfit,” he said with deliberate dryness. “And the dyed hair looks great.”
The wrinkle of Tonks’ nose made it very plain his payback had not gone unnoticed. “Git,” she said with feeling, although a smile curled unmistakably across the corner of her mouth. With exaggerated force, she slapped her fingers against his shoulder, leaving a sticky emerald stain. “You are a sick and deranged man.”
“And proud to be so.” Glancing past the multi-coloured Auror, he caught a glimpse of the carnage that the young Order member had managed to leave in her wake. The cabinet had been all but emptied, its contents, both containers and their liquid, spread across a wide expanse of floor. A slightly damp and distinctly disgruntled Poppy Pomfrey was making short work of the vials and bottles with a nifty series of Reparos but there was little to be done about the potions that had so dramatically gained their freedom over floor and Auror both.
Tonks followed his gaze. Her blush deepened.
Remus shifted his eyes back to his visitor who had just deposited her lively load of chocolate on the night stand and retrieved a towel from one of the drawers; now her hurried rubbing was proceeding to dye the unfortunate whiteness in new and psychedelic shades. He smiled fondly.
“I’m sorry but I have to know,” he said curiously. “How on earth did you manage to do that?”
Tonks buried her face in the towel. “Truptovamarobes,” she muttered indistinctly, her voice muffled by both material and embarrassment, leaving the towel well informed but Remus none the wiser.
“Pardon?” he said gently.
Tonks dropped abruptly into the chair beside his bed, depositing the towel with a thump in her lap. Extensive towelling had done nothing to remove the vivid red stain from her cheek. “I tripped over my robes,” she declared more articulately. “They’re new, and kind of long, and well…”
“Householdy spells aren’t your thing?” Remus smiled as she nodded reluctantly. “Give me a few days to get back on my feet and I’ll take a look at them for you. After the hole you pulled me out of at The Howling it’s the least I can do.”
Tonks flashed a more genuine smile. “Really? Thanks, mate, that’d be great!” She picked disconsolately at the material, which was vibrating slightly under the strain of so many mixed potion ingredients. “Though I doubt they’ll ever be the same again.”
Remus settled down against his pillow, blinking the last shreds of sleep from his eyes. “I also have a recipe for an excellent cleansing potion. That, however, you will have to make yourself. Household spells may not be your sort of thing, but potions most definitely aren’t mine. My poor mother quite despaired of me.”
Tonks laughed. “Your talents seem to bend more in your father’s direction. I was chatting to him earlier today and he was telling me about that menagerie of his and the number of times he caught you sneaking out at night to peak at the creatures when you were small.” She grinned. “I like your dad. He’s a character.”
“That’s a polite way of putting it.” Wincing slightly, Remus pulled himself into a slightly more upright position. “So, Tonks, what brings you here? I’m sure you didn’t come along purely to torment poor Madam Pomfrey.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me.” Poppy’s voice drifted irritably across the Hospital Wing. Remus chuckled as Tonks gave a rueful smile.
“Nah, the torment was entirely coincidental,” she said with awkward cheerfulness. “Actually, I’m here for two reasons and for two different people.” The smile dropped away into a more serious expression that made Remus stop laughing in turn.
“Ministry business first. Dawlish wants another interview and this time he wants to do it officially. I am supposed to ascertain whether or not you are fit enough to be dragged up to the Ministry for questioning.”
Remus felt a nervous flicker in the depths of his stomach. “Why?”
“Because Dawlish is a prejudiced arse,” Tonks proclaimed with all seriousness. “And he is incapable of getting his head round the idea that a werewolf could possibly have stood up and done something good without an ulterior motive. Don’t worry too much though.” She looked him up and down. “You’re not fit for interview,” she exclaimed briskly. “And in my professional opinion, you won’t be for at least as long as it takes Kingsley to talk him down, whether you’re feeling better or not. It’ll be all right, Remus. Dumbledore won’t let anything happen to you now. Not after this.”
Remus nodded reluctantly, trying to force down the sudden surge of worry in his stomach. Surely there was no way even Dawlish could make this his fault…
“Speaking of Dumbledore, the second order of business is Order business.” Tonks grinned once more. “I’ve been pretty thoroughly briefed by both sides of the fence on what happened last weekend, so the headmaster sent me to answer any questions you may have. Your dad said he only really got around to the basics and he hasn’t been much involved in the logistics of the thing anyway. So, what do you want to know?”
Instantly, a thousand unanswered questions surged through Remus’ head. There was so much confusion regarding the events of last weekend, so much he did not know or could not understand. His own involvement was clear but how things had come to be the way he found them remained a mystery. He barely knew where to start.
“Everything,” he stated frankly. “What happened in Hogsmeade, how Kane managed to get inside and…” A horrified thought struck with substantial force. “Hagrid!” he exclaimed, appalled that he had not thought to ask sooner. “What happened to Hagrid, Merlin, he wasn’t moving …”
Tonks raised her hands sharply to cut off the guilt stricken torrent. “Hagrid’s fine,” she reassured him quickly. “Or at least, he’s pretty battered, but he was very lucky. If he’d have been anyone else, he’d probably be dead by now.”
Registering the confusion on her friend’s face, Tonks sighed. “Look, the best thing is probably that I start from the beginning. Okay?”
Remus nodded obediently, trying to slow his hammering heart as the moment of panic faded away. “That’s fine.”
Resting her hands in her lap, Tonks leaned back in her chair and twisted her head sideways to gaze down at the resting professor beside her. “Well, the first we knew of the trouble in Hogsmeade was when Minerva McGonagall popped up in the emergency fire in our Ministry offices and told us there was a Dark Mark over Hogsmeade.” She flashed a brief smile. “We have you to thank for that warning, I believe.”
“Pure luck.” Remus gave a shrug as he settled himself more comfortably back down beneath the covers, carefully wiping the last remnants of gunk from his shoulder. “I happened to look out the right window.”
Tonks shrugged back. “And ran down far too many flights of stairs whilst feeling appalling to raise the alarm. But anyway, as you can imagine, all hell went and broke loose at that information and suddenly there were Aurors rushing around left, right and centre, bolting for the lift and the apparation points in the foyer; it took Kingsley and a couple of other bright sparks bellowing like lunatics to get the Ministry’s finest lined up neatly and jumping one by one down the floo to the Three Broomsticks and the Hogshead. Being lowly as I am, I was well down the pecking order so by the time I went through, it was pretty much over.” She shook her head with a whistle of awe. “Dumbledore in his full glory. It’s quite a sight. Makes me glad I wasn’t the one he was angry with.”
Her eyes flickered as she sighed. “There were casualties though. Seven villagers died before help could arrive and another two got caught in the crossfire. And two Aurors were killed.” She glanced over at Remus with an expression that mingled concern, sadness and guilt.
“One of them was Rowley,” she admitted shakily. “I mean, he was an annoying prat but I never would have wished…”
Gently, Remus reached over and gave her hand a comforting squeeze. “Of course you wouldn’t,” he said softly, fighting his own hint of guilt at the memory of Rowley’s vague and dreamy expression in The Howling. “There’s nothing you could have done, Tonks.”
“I guess that’s true.” Leaning back again, the Auror’s face darkened considerably. “It seems that my dear Auntie Bellatrix was behind it -a bit of random terror for the weekend sets her right up - but of course she successfully managed to slip away into the night. A couple of her cohorts didn’t, though, and they are being questioned right now. We’re hoping to get some useful information.” She frowned. “We’ve got hold of one decent nugget though. We have it on reliable authority that Bellatrix personally invited Abraham Kane along for the ride. Liked his style apparently. But here’s the thing “ he turned her down.” She pulled a face. “It seems he was already making his own plans for the full moon.”
A dawning realisation struck Remus. “But Bellatrix had just provided him with a free distraction,” he said softly. “And for clearing the school of full grown wizards, he couldn’t have had a better one. He must have known the teachers would go to the villagers’ aid and leave the children temporarily more vulnerable.”
Tonks nodded. “Exactly. But here’s the bit that’s really ironic “ it seems we inadvertently helped him get in.”
At Remus’ frown, she sighed again. “I don’t know how much you remember about the time he attacked you in Hogsmeade,” she said softly. “When we were chasing Kane, we lost him in the woods near the Shrieking Shack. One minute he was there, the next he was gone. We thought it was because he was a sneaky bugger, but we turned out to be wrong. Kane had a bit of an accident.”
This time the thought struck like a thunderbolt. “The passage,” Remus heard himself whisper. “The secret passage from the greenhouses, the one Hagrid was in. It leads to those woods.”
Tonks rolled her head back and stared at the ceiling. “I guess the trapdoor must have gone rotten,” she confirmed with sudden weariness. “Whatever the reason, Kane fell right through into the passageway. He probably couldn’t believe his good fortune, a perfect hiding place by pure chance. And then, to cap it off, he follows the passage back and finds himself in Hogwarts!” She snorted bitterly. “Why do the bastards get all the luck?”
“They bribe the gods,” Remus replied, trying to ignore the sick feeling in his stomach. He suddenly had an ominous feeling about where this story was going to go, bits and pieces of conversations and situations adding themselves together in his head. And if he was right, he had been right there, right there in the same bloody room as Kane and he had attributed the feeling of his presence that could have prevented all this to his aconite poisoning. “Go on.”
“We reckon Kane probably lurked in the passage the rest of that day and made his escape overnight when the search parties retired. He probably rigged the broken trapdoor to cover himself; somebody certainly had.” Tonks groped absently in the box she had brought, grasping one chocolate frog firmly as she pulled it from its card and bit off its head, before tossing a companion frog to Remus. He accepted it with a nod and awkwardly subdued it. “Now he had a way into Hogwarts and a distraction on the perfect night. All he needed now was a way into the castle itself. And that he picked up on the weekend we saw him at The Howling. We have reliable information to say that Abraham Kane paid a visit to Knockturn Alley that Sunday and we now know what he bought; a nice fresh batch of....”
“Polyjuice potion.” Remus felt sick as his worst fears were confirmed. “That’s it, isn’t it? He bought Polyjuice potion, followed the tunnel onto the Hogwarts grounds and ambushed Hagrid as he checked for intruders.”
Tonks nodded again. “Knocked him out cold. If it hadn’t been for that tough half-giant physiology of his, it’s fair bet that Kane would have killed him; in fact he probably thought he had. As it is, poor old Hagrid kept you company in here for several days.”
Remus took up the tale once more, his mind running overtime. “And then Kane took the apparent body and hid it back in the tunnel where I saw it on the map “ he couldn’t afford for anyone to come across Hagrid and blow his cover and that passage is more than big enough to hide even a half-giant in. And then he took one of Hagrid’s hairs, dropped it in his potion, drank it down and walked back into the castle, bold as he liked.” He gritted his teeth. “Right past me in fact. The bastard.”
Tonks gave Remus a sideways look at the unexpected curse, unaware as Remus was of the added literal truth of the statement, and raised an eyebrow. “Quite,” she added with fervour. “But there was a little more to it than that. You see, Hagrid wasn’t Kane’s originally intended target.”
Remus glanced up at the Auror as he eased his frog away from its card. “How do you know that?” he asked.
Tonks frowned grimly. “Because Kane told us so. Proud of himself, he was, the foul, stinking son of a b…” She broke off, biting her lip at her companion’s raised eyebrow as the irony of her almost insult struck home. “Anyway,” she continued determinedly. “The Polyjuice was never intended to be used on Hagrid at all.” She met his eyes with solemn sympathy. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but it can’t be helped. Remus, Kane was planning to impersonate you.”
Remus felt his stomach drop as a cold hollow of ice tightened around his chest. “What?” he whispered in shock.
Tonks rested comforting fingers against his hand. “Kane was planning to be you,” she repeated softly. “His master plan was to sneak into Hogwarts before the Hogsmeade attack, sniff you out in whatever safe place he was sure you’d have sequestered yourself in for the pending moonrise, incapacitate you, smear a bit of blood about and knock back a dose of Polyjuice with your hair inside.” She took a deep breath. “And then he planned to go downstairs…”
“…and transform in the Great Hall.” Remus closed his eyes as the full horror of the prospect struck home. “And everyone would have thought…they would have blamed me…”
“Exactly. Harry and Merlin knows how many other kids dead, Voldemort grateful and you copping the blame. All he had to do was bite and bolt, wreak his havoc then get out the way he came in and the only person they’d find to arrest tomorrow would be a blood-covered you. It would have been Christmas come early for the feral git.”
Remus suddenly felt ill and alarmingly fragile; he could feel his hand shaking in Tonks gentle grasp. Dear gods, what would have happened if…
But it didn’t happened. Why?
Remus opened his eyes sharply, startling Tonks who had been reassuringly stroking his arm.
“What stopped him?” he questioned abruptly. “Why didn’t he go through with it as planned?”
Tonks gave a twisted smile. “Because by some divinely ironic twist of fate, Auntie Bellatrix did us a favour.” She released his arm and sat back with a sigh. “It seems that as Kane was sneaking though the woods outside Hogsmeade to slip down his tunnel onto the grounds, he found the Death Eater raiding party had chosen exactly the same spot to congregate before their offensive. And good old Auntie decided to take one last shot at persuading the feral to join her team. By the time he shook her off and bolted down the passage, he was already too late. The raid had begun, Hogwarts castle was locked down tighter than a drum by Dumbledore’s emergency wards and you were standing in the middle of crowded room surrounded by witnesses. His chance was gone.”
Remus sighed as he toyed with his chocolate frog absently. “Until poor Hagrid came along, searching the grounds for danger and gave him a second chance.”
The Auror gave a grim nod. “Hagrid spotted him lurking about as he came back from sealing the gates and of course he tried to confront him. But even a half-giant doesn’t stand a prayer against the strength and speed of a feral. And suddenly Kane had a chance to salvage his night of brutality, even if he couldn’t blame you anymore.” She gave a sudden crooked smile. “But his stroke of good luck wasn’t quite as lucky as he’d thought. Polyjuice is only intended for fully human transformations.”
A light clicked on sharply in Remus’ head. “And Hagrid is half-giant,” he exclaimed, allowing himself a slight smile. But then confusion replaced it with a frown. “But we know the potion worked…”
“Oh, it worked right enough.” Tonks grinned. “But not quite as it should have. Not that Kane knew that at the time, of course; he just drank it down, and strolled inside as Hagrid.”
The Auror gazed thoughtfully out of the window at the scattering of evening stars and the gleam of the waning moon. “He obviously didn’t tell any of the Death Eaters in advance of what he was planning to do at Hogwarts “ after all, it’s pretty clear none of the Death Eater’s kids had been warned that a werewolf might be dropping by for dinner. He just went ahead and did it. Some nerve, really.”
Remus frowned as he took a comforting bite of chocolate. “That’s not necessarily a good thing.”
“I didn’t say it was.” The Auror sucked thoughtfully on her final frog leg for a moment. “Of course, no one questioned Hagrid’s presence. He lurked about the Great Hall, waiting for moonrise. But then things started to go wrong for our over-ambitious feral. You see, a minute or so short of moonrise, the Polyjuice began to wear off.” She tapped a thoughtful finger against the side of her chair. “Hagrid’s half-giant blood meant that the disguise couldn’t be maintained for the hour that Kane had expected he had. And suddenly Kane found himself on the verge of turning back into a magically vulnerable human shaped werewolf in a room full of wands.”
She shifted her gaze back to her wounded friend once more. “And then, he panicked, tried to get out. He rushed over to where his biggest threat, Professor Snape, had just finished sealing the Great Hall doors, picked up a candlestick and smashed him over the head with it. Realising those doors weren’t going to be opened again in a hurry, he started to make his way down the centre of the hall to make an escape through the far end windows. At that point, it rather dawned on the kids that something was amiss but by then the doors were sealed and it was too late. A moment later, the moon came up, Kane no longer needed to run and the threat of any magic they could have mustered against him became irrelevant.”
She patted him gently on the arm. “The rest, I think, you know.”
Remus gazed at the ceiling as he swallowed the last of his frog. Indeed he did.
“I don’t understand why he didn’t just get out after moonrise,” he remarked softly. “He must have known the teachers wouldn’t stay away forever and a feral werewolf still has enough human intelligence on a full moon to know when is a good time to leave. Once the children were behind the barricade, I’m amazed he didn’t abandon the whole thing as a lost cause, jump out the window and either chase down the students that had run outside or go and join in at Hogsmeade.”
Tonks sighed. “I overheard Dumbledore talking to some werewolf expert from the Ministry a few days ago,” she said. “From what I could hear, she reckoned that the sheer frustration of his continually collapsing plans and his inability to sate himself on blood may have driven him into a bloodlust frenzy. He was so hacked off that he lost his grip on his human sense of logic and went into full crazed werewolf mode. And as I’m sure you know, a werewolf will always go for the nearest target; hence, the head-butting of the barricade. He needed to taste blood so badly, he went a bit berserk for a while. Escape was the last thing on his mind.”
Remus stared absently into space as he drank this information in, ambiguous feelings running riot in his mind.
Where is Kane now?” he inquired, trying to make the question sound innocuous. The look of Tonks’ face implied that he’d failed.
“Custody at the Ministry,” she answered vaguely, the furtive look in her eyes suggesting that this was one subject on which she had been briefed not to provide too much information. “They’re holding a hearing at the moment to decide what to do with him. Azkaban isn’t the punishment it was without the Dementors running the show and, in spite of the big talk, nobody likes the sound of straight execution. The Ministry even have a couple of Dementors tucked away somewhere that are still mostly under their control; there’s not enough of them to use on Azkaban, but there’s talk of maybe administering the Kiss. But it’s a mess all round “ they just don’t know what to do with him. I think they were hoping for him to die in the course of his capture and save them the trouble.” She puffed her cheeks absently. “Mad-Eye’s there giving evidence today and he’s going to be there tomorrow when they give the verdict. He’ll let us know what they decide.”
Remus sighed. He was unsure of exactly how he was supposed to feel about the fate of his mother’s killer, but he had certainly not expected the odd hollowness that had settled in his chest. A Ministry hearing? That didn’t exactly fill him with confidence. Oh, Kane’s guilt was in no doubt, but somehow he couldn’t shake the feeling it would all backfire. Surely it couldn’t be so simple after so much.
And there was still so much he did not understand. The full moon scrap as his father had designated it, had dealt with issue of the threat, but Remus felt somehow incomplete and unresolved. They should have spoken at least. There should have been words, not growls…
“Remus?” Tonks voice interrupted his musing. He glanced up, surprised to find that she had come to her feet. She was smiling at him.
“It’s getting late,” she said, fiddling slightly with the hem of her sleeve. “I’m going to nip off for a bath and some sleep before my clothes solidify.”
Remus smiled back. “That sounds reasonable.”
The smile on the Auror’s face spread suddenly to a grin. “One thing before I go though. The Three Broomsticks, 6pm a week today. You, me and several bottles of good old butterbeer. I will accept no excuse but death.”
Remus blinked. “Pardon?”
Tonks laughed wickedly. “I’ll spell this out, since you’ve had a long week. I want you to come for a drink with me. Next Tuesday. The Three Broomsticks.”
“You…I…what?” Remus blurted. He had never been at his most articulate or intelligent when he was tired but surely she wasn’t asking....
One word leapt insensitively to the forefront of his mind and emerged before he could stop it. “Why?”
Tonks shrugged easily. “Because I like you, you daft sod. You’re good company and we both need a decent mate right now who knows what’s really going on. Not to mention the fact that you’re painfully in need of a social life.”
Remus re-gathered his faculties sharply. “Thanks,” he drawled dryly.
“Don’t mention it.” Tonks beamed brightly. “Oh, don’t look so scared. It’s just a drink between friends. Trust me Remus, if I was planning to seduce you, I’d be plying you with firewhiskey, not butterbeer and chocolate.”
She wasn’t asking. Feeling a little silly, Remus regarded her. “You scare me,” he confessed frankly.
The Auror grinned back as she stepped towards the gap in the curtains. “Pleased to hear it. I’ll probably see you tomorrow. And I will definitely see you next week. No excuse but death, remember?”
Remus gave his best pathetic look. “Make sure I get a nice eulogy, won’t you?”
Tonks laughed. “Watch it, or I may have to take my chocolate back. Goodnight Remus.”
“Goodnight Tonks.”
With a last sunny smile, the Auror turned and disappeared into the Hospital Wing. Quietly Remus settled back comfortably and counted under his breath.
“Three, two, one…”
CRASH!
“Nymphadora Tonks!”
Chuckling to himself, Remus rolled over onto his uninjured side and closed his eyes. But with the tinkling of glass, the swearing and the apologies that echoed from the room beyond, it was some time before he got back to sleep.
A/N: Ah plotholes. Like bear traps, they linger waiting in the undergrowth for the moment when the fool who placed them there forgets their presence and stumbles blindly in. Ow. It was my own fault really. Way back when, in the days when Oblivious was only supposed to be 12 chapters long (hey, it only ended up more than three times longer than I intended. That's not that bad for me...) I had intended for Kane to remain Polyjuiced a great deal longer than he eventually did; one hour to be exact. But in the process of adaption as I wrote and everything changed, I managed to forget this crucial detail and it was not until I came to write this chapter and realised that Kane's Polyjuice had in fact worn off after only twenty minutes, that the bear trap was sprung. However, handy with a crowbar and medical equipment was my trusty beta Chriss, who after pointing out the lameness of my attempt to patch this hole, came up with the Hagrid's physiology explanation that you see before you. So please, direct your adulation for such insight in her direction. I'm still prizing off the bear trap....;)