Chapter- 77 : Misunderstanding Part - 7

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"They were good people," he said instead.

"So are we," she whispered. "Good intentions all around. Welcome on the road to hell."

Irritated, Harry shook his head and climbed to his feet. "Can I have my wand back now?"

Tonks furrowed her brow in confusion before her eyes cleared. "Oh! Sure, here. Forgot I had it, really." She tossed the foot-long stick at him and tilted her head. "You're not going to curse me, are you?"

Harry sighed. "No. I'm just going to go. Away."

She bit her lower lip again. "What about..." She gestured between the pair of them. "You know?"

"Well I'm not sleeping with you again, that's for damn sure," Harry bit out.

"Oh," she said dejected, averting her eyes. "Are we still friends, though?"

He gritted his teeth, but stopped himself from snapping at her.

She was his only friend. A poor one, it turned out, even if the friendship came with benefits. He just couldn't see past the betrayal that soured his heart and poisoned his mind. He didn't know if he believed her about the assertions that she was her own person first and the Order's instrument second. All he wanted was to lash out, which would solve nothing.

"Maybe," he said as another thought seeped from one of the darker crevices in his mind.

Turnabout was fair play, wasn't it? Reaping what she'd sown, using her to spy on the Order was a kind of poetic justice. And if she turned out to be trustworthy in the end... well, she couldn't exactly fault him for doing as she had.

"I can't think clearly at the moment," he allowed. "Best not push beyond the breaking point until I have calmed down."

Tonks hummed gratefully and shot him a watery half-smile. "Thank you. Before you go, could you... could you tell me about my son?"

Harry let out a breath and closed his eyes before he sat down again across from her. Teddy. "Yeah. I can do that."

After leaving Tonks at the gate Harry walked Hogwarts' corridors, heading from the seventh floor to his living quarters in the Divination Tower, absently twirling a brown cotton pouch he had just picked up in his left hand.

His mood was pensive after the emotional roller coaster that had been his day. So much had happened and he felt battered and bruised after being assaulted from all sides.

The subject of Tonks was emotionally volatile but murky. Despite himself, he couldn't help but be a little moved by her impassioned arguments on behalf of his counterpart. It was hard to hate someone who sought to help another version of himself.

He climbed the awkward ladder to his questionably safe haven and slammed the trapdoor shut behind him. Tossing the pouch from hand to hand he looked around until he found what he was looking for and fetched the only remaining bottle of cooking sherry from where he had stored it next to Cassandra's portrait in a mocking tribute to her late descendant. It was a large one, with a base as wide as a saucer and completely filled with dark amber liquid. The seal on the top remained unbroken.

Placing it and the pouch on his desk it took him a few tries to conjure a jug large enough to contain the contents of the entire bottle. The cutting curse that sliced through the neck without breaking the seal looked like a first-year spell for all the effort it took him. Upending the remains of the bottle he drained the entire thing in the jug. Finally, he shot a second cutting curse at the body of the bottle, slicing the thing apart until it lay in three pieces on the desk.

His eyes glinted as he very carefully undid the knots in the pouch and levitated the tarnished diadem out of the cloth and into the remains of the base of the bottle. It was a tight fit – a little too tight, to be honest – but then again he wasn't all that concerned about keeping the thing in one piece. He tapped it once, murmuring the incantation to the Dissolusionment Charm turning it completely transparent.

Careful not to touch it with his bare skin he placed the second piece of the base back like a puzzle, completely enclosing the invisible diadem in glass like a demented version of a ship in a bottle.

"Reparo," he whispered, sealing it in, before carefully pouring the sherry back.

"I hope you drown, you son of a bitch."

Voldmort had made his opening move by attacking and no longer did Harry have a chance to remain on the sidelines. If he could have he would have destroyed this piece of the monster's soul in retaliation, but being found speaking Parseltongue near the Chamber of Secrets would fuel Dumbledore's paranoia like nothing else so that would have to wait until the corridors were crawling with students and his visit would not be quite so obvious.

Until then, keeping this thing safe in the most dishonourable fashion imaginable would have to suffice. It was a good start.

A final Reparo restored the bottle to its former pristine appearance, only the fact that the liquid reached half an inch higher in the neck than it had betraying that anything about it had changed. Harry carefully placed it back next to the portrait and stepped back, finally letting out a tense breath.

That was one.

Now what to do about this latest action against him by the Order? His thoughts on that matter were not ambivalent at all. Instead he was filled with an ice cold clarity.

"Set a spy on me, will you?" he whispered as he paced.

He pursed his lips as he mulled over his options. An eye for an eye appealed to him. Tonks wasn't the only way to get information on the Order. In as close proximity as he was to Dumbledore and his flunkies there should be all kinds of opportunities to return the favour.

He may not have a staff reporting to him, a castle filled with portraits to eavesdrop or a horde of house-elves to obey his every whim, but then... he didn't need that.

"Tilly!"

The elf popped in without delay, carrying a sponge dripped in some kind of black ichor in his outstretched hand, holding it as far away from his body as he could, cringing back, clearly horrified at the idea of staining his pristine white pillowcase. His eyes did not waver from it for a second.

"Master Harry calls for Tilly?"

"Yes, Tilly. I have a bit of a problem, you see."

The black sludge on the sponge bubbled and moved, like a colony of ants dripped in motor oil and a single drop fell prey to gravity. Tilly shrieked in outrage and snapped his fingers, conjuring a second sponge that caught the drop before it could stain or possibly eat a hole in the carpet.

He glared at it fiercely. "Tilly knows about problems."

"I see..." Harry said hesitantly but couldn't quite contain his curiosity. "What is that?"

Tilly drew himself up, squaring his shoulders and sucking in air through his nostrils until his little green chest expanded as far as it could go with an expression of absolute outrage.

"Filth!" he spat as if that was the most vile imprecation in his vocabulary. "Grime and stains and unclean things."

Harry stared for a moment before wearily running his fingers through his hair.

"I don't want to know," he muttered. "I'll let you get back to cleaning Tilly, I just had a quick question."

He sat on his haunches, though well away from whatever magical sludge the elf was battling. Still, he made an effort to look the elf in the eye.

"I've been practising all sorts of Divining very hard, but I'm running into problems when reading tea leaves. You see, I don't feel like drinking gallons of the stuff so I came up with a workaround." His lips curved upwards in a smile filled with innocent guile. "Lots of other people in this castle drink tea. I was hoping that the elves could collect all the tea-cups with dregs in them and bring them to this room, putting them under stasis."

It took only a second of deliberation before the elf nodded happily. "We can do that, Master Harry."

"Fantastic! Can you leave a little note with each cup that says who drank the tea? And when and where?" His eyes glinted. "That would be a great help."

One ready-made spy-network coming right up.

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If you're eager to delve deeper into the story, consider joining my Patreon for exclusive content and early access to new chapters

50+Advanced Chapters there.

(P).(A).(T).(R).(E).(O).(N)

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