7: A Little Entertainment
Nymphadora Tonks watched Remus go and felt herself give a weary sigh.
Poor Remus.
It would have been a lie to say that she wasn’t more than a little worried about him “ even the world’s thickest prat could see the stress that the weight of this place and fresh encounters with what was left of that utter git Kane was inflicting upon his mind and emotions. He had been through so much already and yet somehow fate managed to just keep his troubles coming. There was no denying it. Fate stank.
Especially considering it had seen fit to shove him into the midst of the “ ahem - infinite joys of the Feral Institute and its staff, an insane feral and a potential Death Eater plot. It just wasn’t fair.
She did her best to help, of course, surrounding him as much as she could with laughter and banter, with silliness and jokes, or just an understanding ear to lighten the load that he carried. It was always so easy to be with him once he did let himself relax, their daft chats and conversations flowing like a bubbling stream, untamed, un-dammed, unstoppable. She had to admit that when she had first encountered the pale, tired-looking werewolf who had smiled wanly at her in the kitchen of 12 Grimmauld Place at her very first Order meeting, she couldn’t have imagined he’d end up being one of the best mates she’d ever had.
True, she also teased him with a ruthless lack of mercy on the subject of Felisha, but that was not just for the fun of it; there was something oddly endearing about watching her usually calm and reasonable friend dissolve into a flustered mess at the memory of a teenage embarrassment and it certainly took his mind off other things. Beside, strangely, it was almost reassuring to realise that once upon a time, Remus had been as much a hormonal teenager as the rest of them. Somehow, it made him more…more…
An appropriate word failed to materialise. But Tonks knew what she meant.
She smiled.
Well anyway, back to business. It was time to entertain herself.
To be honest, she had intended to lurk around in reception being vapid and perky with Cymone until Remus returned from his visit with Rebekah and Kane. The assistant had proved a valuable source of information on their last encounter, one Tonks considered to be worth re-tapping; but before she had the chance to even open her mouth, the little woman, who had until that moment been watching Remus and Aylward depart together with an oddly pensive expressive, suddenly shuffled her ever present handful of papers, muttered something about filing and abruptly vanished in the other direction.
And Tonks found herself suddenly alone.
It was then that she noticed the door to Rebekah’s office had been left ever so slightly ajar.
Hmmm…
She glanced left. The corridor was empty and silent. She glanced right and saw the same. The lift was still and showed no signs of motion.
Zelia and Dolph had gone downstairs. Rebekah, Croll and Aylward were upstairs with Remus. And now Cymone was filing.
She was not going to get a better chance than this.
She could almost imagine the look on Remus’ face when she told him about this. She could certainly imagine the look on his face if she was caught. But this was no time to faff around.
Grasping her clipboard firmly in one hand, Tonks crossed the reception in a few swift steps, turned the handle and stepped hurriedly inside.
The room beyond wasn’t as large as she’d expected, a small blocky office utterly lacking in windows, its walls lined with bookshelves, cabinets and boxes piles with files and folders. A broad desk dominated its centre, quill pots inset into the stained wood next to neat wooden trays stacked with documents and a red notebook propped against a square open-topped box filled with a crisp pile of notepaper. Two photo-frames had been precisely placed in one corner; the newer showed a smiling, brown-haired man laughing and waving as he slung his arms over the shoulders of a teenage boy and younger girl while the older, grainier image showed a family of five, two parents, two girls and a younger boy all smiling from the front lawn of a decent sized stone house set against a backdrop of hillside. The younger of the girls bore a noticeable resemblance to Rebekah.
Aside from the photos, the room was bare of any decoration. There was no dust, no mess and not a paper out of place. There was an almost stiflingly clinical quality to the cleanliness here that almost reminded Tonks of her visit to the Dursleys. Raised in clutter as she was, such orderliness always seemed distinctly unnatural.
There were also a great deal of places in which to poke around for clues. The bookshelves were crammed. Folders and files were neatly piled all around the office. There were several locked cabinets and the desk had five closed drawers.
In other words, she had kappa in hell’s chance of covering everything before Remus got back.
Great. Just great.
Take your time, Remus, she thought silently. Now is not the time to rush.
The shelves would take hours and probably so would the cabinets. No, trawling through all that stuff was pointless; the best bet for now would be to stick with the desk.
She glanced at the immaculately stacked papers, painfully aware that was unlikely to be able to return them to a similar state of perfection once she had rifled through them. Besides, how likely was it that an intelligent woman like Rebekah Goldstein would leave evidence of a Death Eater conspiracy lying in the open in her in-tray?
Drawers then.
She tried the first drawer on the right. It was locked. She tried the second. It was also locked.
The third burnt her fingers.
Darting back in shock, Tonks just managed to catch the older family photo that the jerky sweep of her elbow had sent flying. Sucking one tender finger, she replaced the photo carefully as she examined the drawer with irritated eyes.
Bugger.
Warded. Seriously warded. Possibly even wand-sealed.
Tonks allowed herself a moment to swear. She felt that she’d earned it.
More in hope than expectation, she moved to the left and tried the fourth and fifth drawers too. But they neither opened nor burned; both were locked and placid.
She sighed deeply. As far as she could tell, no additional magics appeared to be in place on the four more innocent drawers “ a simple alohamora would probably do the job. But would anything that opened with a simple alohamora be worth finding?
No. The only draw worth fiddling with was the third drawer on the left. And that wasn’t looking very likely.
Never simple, is it? Never flipping simple.
If it was wand-sealed, the battle was lost before she started “ without the wand of Rebekah Goldstein or someone else authorised to access the contents, an army of rampaging giants wouldn’t be able to drag the drawer open. But if it was just a ward, then maybe…
She hadn’t wanted to mess about with magic “ she had no idea what kind of security precautions the Institute might have in place to detect illegal use of a wand. But the very fact that this drawer was so comprehensively locked suggested that any information significant to the investigation was likely to be kept inside and Merlin alone knew if she’d ever get a shot like this again. She had to try or there was just no point in coming.
But if there were alarms…
Bloody hell. I wonder if they’d believe I was still looking for the toilet.
Do it. Just do it.
Placing her clipboard carefully down upon the polished desk, Tonks reached for her wand.
And then she heard the footsteps.
“…think I left it in Rebekah’s office, Felisha. Hang on, I’ll take a look…”
Cymone!
There was no time to morph, no time to get out, no time to do anything but swipe her clipboard off the desk and dive unceremoniously beneath it. She winced as she heard the clatter of the box of notepaper tumbling to the floor, its loose sheets tumbling across the carpet and drifting near the desk to join her, victims of a glancing blow from her fingers. The red notebook bounced once and fell open just beside her, notes in a concise, neat hand visible against a slant of light. A tatty scrap of paper had fallen free from its pages and landed with a gentle forward drift upon her foot.
But it was too late to undo the damage, to tidy, to cover her trail “ the door creaked open and Cymone’s booted feet came shuffling into the room.
Holding her breath, Tonks pressed her herself back against the dark wood as hard as she could, clutching her clipboard tight against her chest. Her eyes drifted to the sheets of paper scattered mere inches from her left leg, to the notebook all but touching her hand. If Cymone bent to retrieve them…
“What the…?”
Stubby, silver nailed fingers closed around the fallen paper box, lifting it from the floor. Tonks heard it drop with a clonk onto the wood just above her head.
Please leave the paper, please leave the paper, please leave the paper…
Cymone was muttering rather bad-temperedly as she fiddled around on the desk. “…should just leave it… not a bloody servant… Accio notepaper!”
With a flutter, the papers cascaded into the air. Tonks felt the tattered note upon her foot twitch slightly, but it did not follow. She could hear Cymone shuffling the paper as briskly piled it back together within its desk top container.
But there was still the notebook.
Perhaps Cymone had not seen it, would not see it as it lay, half in, half out of the light. Perhaps she could hide it, pull it out of sight; but if Cymone had seen it fall, decided to look under the desk for it, that would be the end of that. Or maybe the other way was the answer; perhaps if she could just push it a little further away, just far enough so that she would not be seen or felt when Cymone leaned down in search of it…
She glanced down at the open pages almost desperately, grasping her wand. Perhaps a subtle pushing spell…
And then she caught a glimpse of the writing. And froze.
Need Lupin, it said. Underlined three times.
Pushing spells were forgotten. Her eyes locked on the page as she hurriedly drank in the rest of the visible words.
It was a diary. The date was almost a month previously.
Need Lupin before first test but keep out of lower levels. Establishing non-rec vital for hold; subject may die w/out it. Care needed - hold fragile but lapse corrected. Also require back-up for res. D-tests “ after full moon? Acquire Lupin if possible “ v useful for HW work if successful…
“What’s that doing out? Accio Diary!”
And then the diary was gone, whipped out of sight as Cymone’s feet rounded the desk briskly. Tonks shrank further back into the shadows, daring not to dwell on the confusing words she had just read in an effort to concentrate on not getting caught… don’t bend down, don’t bend down, please don’t bend down…
A wand tapped against the third drawer on the right. There was a flare of blue.
“Liber Emitto!”
Liber Emitto. Wand-sealed. Damn!
The drawer opened. Tonks caught the briefest glimpse of something red and diary-like clattering against the corner of what appeared to be a dark, ebony box but before she could get a better look, the drawer slammed shut, flared blue again and locked with an audible clunk.
“Cymone?” A vaguely familiar female voice drifted in from the reception area. “Are you all right?”
“Coming!” For a few moments more, Tonks heard Cymone bustling about above her, and then, thank Merlin, Circe and Nimue, she turned and scurried out, closing the door behind her. Muffled voices sounded in the reception beyond.
Tonks allowed herself to release the breath she had been holding. Dear Gods, that had been close!
And the diary “ why hadn’t she looked in the blasted diary when it was just sitting on the desk? Need Lupin for first test, acquire Lupin if possible… What did that mean? Just what did they want with Remus?
She fought a chill. Nothing good. She’d bet that much.
Suddenly Tonks really wanted to be anywhere but inside the Feral Institute. And she really, really wanted Remus to be elsewhere with her.
Just what was being done to him up there?
She had to get out of this office. She had to get him out…
She started to rise.
“Ow!”
Pain, bright and vivid, echoed through her skull as the top of her head impacted solidly with the underside of the desk. Stars danced before her eyes “ she rolled sideways to lie gasping on the floor, dropping her clipboard as she clutched her crown, fighting back the waves of pain. Biting her lip she forced herself to rise, gathering together her scattered clipboard papers hurriedly “ she spotted the tatty scrap of paper that had dropped out of the diary and swept that up too - as she scrambled to her feet. She glanced resentfully once at the third drawer on the right, but a wand-seal was a wand-seal “ she wouldn’t be getting that open in a hurry. The call with Cymone had been too close. She had to get out of here.
Staggering to the door, she gathered herself sharply and placed one ear against the wood. She heard no voices. Tentatively, nervously, still struggling against waves of pain, she turned the handle and slowly peered around the door.
Reception was empty.
Well, at least something had gone her way.
Moving rapidly, Tonks stepped back into reception and turned to close the door behind her.
“What are you doing?”
Tonks jumped violently, her eyes darting back over her shoulder. She froze.
Felisha Hathaway was standing in the mouth of the corridor, hands on hips. She was regarding her with outright suspicion.
Tonks smiled as brightly and vapidly as she could as she clutched her clipboard, her throbbing head blanking her mind of any excuse as she desperately turned to face the researcher with Undine-esque blitheness. Almost unconsciously, she found herself jiggling on her feet.
Felisha’s eyebrow raised as her eyes drank in the strained smile and the nervous shuffling. The corner of her mouth twitched slightly.
“If you’re looking for the toilet,” she remarked helpfully. “It’s just down the hall.”
Tonks’ smile was the dawning of utter relief. “Oh really? Thanks ever so, I do get turned around in here!”
And then clutching her clipboard, she turned and fled the reception, breathing deeply in and out as she rushed away from Felisha’s slightly bemused stare. Thank Merlin for nervous twitching!