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-/-

Sitting on the stone floor with his back against the wall when one had stacks of parchment to go through wasn't necessarily comfortable. But that's how Harry had completed his grading of the first-year DADA essays in front of the unused class-room that he and Tonks had used for their duel the first and last time they'd done so. He sighed, everything ached, he put aside the last essay. Casting an absent-minded tempus he noted that the girl was late, before putting up his arms to stretch his back and really appreciate the burn that his muscles were experiencing after the little aerobic dance class he'd had today against every single animal in the encyclopaedia that had either fangs, claws or hooves. Considering that transfiguration was greatly helped along by an intimate knowledge of the subject, one had to wonder if James Potter had ever worked in a zoo, or if he was simply good enough to brute-force a variety of transformations through skill alone.

He was broken out of his musings from a pair of foot-steps approaching from behind an intersecting corridor leading to the grand room with all the moving stairs. He was just about to disillusion himself in case anyone was coming by to ask him what he was doing in this particular abandoned area of the castle, but relaxed once he recognized Tonks' voice.

He wasn’t completely sure why she was engaged in a conversation with someone on her way to their clandestine meeting, but soon had his question answered as he heard obnoxious moans and kissing sounds come from the corridor in question. They thankfully didn't last long. He´d been just about ready to rip his tie in half to stuff his ears.

Another conversation he couldn't quite make out was then followed by a more messy haired than usual Tonks emerging from behind the corner, a flash of red, be it from a tie or from someone's hair briefly appearing as well.

"Sorry I'm late," Tonks said as she walked up to him, after a few tentative and hopeful glances backwards. "What?" she asked when she saw his raised eye-brow.

"Are you done rewarding Hogwarts's second sexiest red-head for killing our houses' hopes to get the Quidditch cup? Or do you need another minute?" Harry asked sarcastically as Tonks tried to put her pink hair in order. Considering that she was doing that with her metamorphmagus powers and not her hands, it looked weirder than it probably sounded. Medusa with her snake hair came to mind.

Tonks grinned as she leered at him. "Jealous?" she asked as she pushed her chest forward in a manner that would have gotten her arrested if she were a full adult, and Harry remained his current age.

Considering that he was slowly entering puberty Harry was actually a bit jealous, but considering Tonks was a teenager he was alright with that. Perhaps he would be horny enough to not care one of these days, but for the moment, putting a shotgun in his mouth sounded preferable than having to put up with being in any sort of romantic relationship with a 16-year old girl, no matter how much awkward and low quality sex it would give him access too.

"What happened to you? You looked like you got run over by a stampede of elephants," Tonks said after she'd gotten a better look at him. He probably looked quite dishevelled, he knew that he felt like it. He couldn't help but laugh at Tonks' unintentional accuracy though.

"It was just one, very small at that," he said with a pained grin. Tonks frowned and glanced at the pile of parchment next to him, she picked one up and read the title.

"Flipendo: the knock-back jinx," she read aloud. "Shouldn't you have covered this in first-year?" she asked.

"I'm correcting the first-year home-work assignments for DADA. In return professor Potter is giving me the opportunity to be destroyed by him in a duel," Harry explained.

Tonks froze at the mention of their professor and seemed as if she was pained to hear the factoid of Harry's learning.

Harry didn't notice, as he was packing away the parchment rolls. "How has your NEWT year been going?" he asked innocently as he opened the door to the classroom.

"It's been tough, especially the charms. We've been learning some really odd spells recently, such as the fire-taming spell," she said with a frown as she entered the room. "I'm a bit worried, to be honest."

"I'm sure you'll do fine," Harry said with a shrug, remembering how Tonks had been an auror in the original universe.

"Not all of us are born with more talent than empathy and then also receive private instruction from a professor," Tonks snapped as she stood still and glared at Harry.

The wizard for his part gave her an odd look. "That's the kind of anger you could channel into doing better in class," he said brusquely.

Unsurprisingly his words didn't at all seem to calm Tonks down from whatever self-pity attack she was experiencing. It rather seemed to enrage her, something that expressed itself in a grimace and a duellist stance once they’d entered the room. Her wand was pointed in Harry's direction.

"You know, if you really wanted to be an auror you could probably manage. All it would require would be some initiative. You'll find as you grow older that all those clamouring masses that bog down one's expected success in a desirable career path aren't really working towards the goal in any significant way and thus don't actually represent qualitative competition," he said as he tiredly entered his own stance.

"You're twelve," Tonks bit out, at which Harry could only sigh. He was, currently, indeed twelve. He was getting a bit pissed at the attitude though, so he raised his wand.

"This twelve year-old is going to whoop your ass," he taunted instead and in the very next second, found out why duelling was forbidden at Hogwarts. The malformed but extremely angry mastiff that Tonks transfigured out of a chair was probably capable of killing someone with its sharp teeth if left unattended against an unprepared defender. Tonks, as a sixth year student, likely didn't have the control to dispel the transfiguration before it ripped out his throat.

In some way, Harry was scared. As an amateur Tonks represented a much larger threat than James Potter. However, for some reason, as the animal went for his neck, Harry's blood rushed into his head and a wide grin split his face in two. He swept out his wand grandly to the side and rather than incanting or even casting a spell, he channelled his magic through his wand, into the dog, gripped it telekinetically and swung it to the side. It smashed against the wall and erupted in viscera and gore, before reverting back to the now broken components of a chair.

Surprised, but refreshingly undeterred Tonks simply transfigured another dog. This one, Harry blasted with a bombarda before it could even be animated to attack him. Shards and spikes of wood crashed noisily against a hastily erected shield.

"Do you really think I wouldn't work on such an obvious weakness," Harry taunted, and before Tonks had the opportunity to renew her attack, he set the room on fire with a large, but not particularly hot incendio. He couldn't even see Tonks, or the state of her shield, so bright and large was the flame spewing forth from his wand. He cut the fire after a second, unwilling to actually burn his opponents. What he found after it dissipated surprised him.

Tonks was standing there, out of breath, all the fire that he'd thrown at her seemingly floating in a big ball above her raised wand. She pulled her arm back, before whipping it forward. The fire ball flew at him and exploded into a large conflagration mid-way

"Aquamenti!" a wide-spread blast of water met it, dousing the flame. A gout of steam erupted from the point of contact, burying the room in a temporary fog. Something tickled at Harry's senses and for all that he couldn't see anything, he side-stepped a bright red stunner.

A grin.

He closed his eyes.

He felt the incoming spells and as if it were the easiest thing in the world he simply stepped out of their way as they came. He opened his eyes and his wand whipped up, sending a disarming charm of his own into the now disappearing fog, through which he could vaguely make out a silhouette.

It seemingly missed its mark, going by Tonks' next spell. "Ventus," she enunciated, a gust of wind throwing the rest of the steam Harry's way. Once it was completely gone they started circling each other warily, sending out the occasional jinx, hex or charm, but not to much effect.

Deciding that he should warn Tonks about his intentions, Harry didn't cast his next spell silently. "Bombarda,” a ball of explosive force flew the older girl's way. Rather than shielding or initiating any evasive manoeuvres Tonks decided to fight explosion with explosion.

Her, "bombarda maxima," swallowed his and impacted a reluctant shield. Harry frowned as a barrage of spells followed, making him unable to drop it and take initiative. He sighed as his shield began to crack and a migraine developed behind his eyes from the effort of upkeeping the spell.

He was in a losing position and rather than going through the trouble of waiting for his inevitable end he simply shouted, "I surrender." A few more spells came his way, before the barrage tapered off and two very exhausted students were left standing in a well and truly destroyed room, their tired pants filling the silence.

"Good hustle," Harry said eventually, after he'd regained his breath. "Again?"

Tonks, however, rather than being enthused about the duel just stood there, looking horrified, angry and sad, all at once. During their movement she'd ended up close to the door of the class-room, which she, in lieu of answering him, simply opened and left.

This left Harry to stand there all alone like a muppet. He tilted his head at the room and sighed, starting to run the whole thing through a sequence of repairing charms. After fixing everything up his curiosity at what exactly had gone through Tonks' head today, that had caused her to behave in such an odd way, was beaten by his desire to go to the room of requirement and continue his practice. She’d appreciate the space to think.

He'd felt the spells through the fog during the duel, for the first time. He needed to solidify the experience. Was it weird that he was almost giddy to get to the room of requirement and go through the torture that was the sense-deprivation chamber?

Maybe he was becoming a bit weird.

-/-

It was in a miserable December rain that the students who wanted to return home for Christmas waited for the Hogwarts express. A deluge from the skies obscured the view one would have had down the tracks, while also making the train late. Harry looked at the sky, lamenting that he didn't have any spell that would protect him. Protego, the shielding charm, helped against magical attacks, not bad weather, and while an explosion charm sent upwards would displace the water for a few seconds, it wasn't really a sustainable method. The only thing he could do was apply the heating charm to himself and his friends, who were similarly returning to their families.

He swished his wand at Penny and Cedric and muttered the incantation, receiving two relieved sighs from the second-years, who were both staring jealousy at the small covered waiting area currently occupied by the entirety of Hogwarts seventh year, wands out and looking around suspiciously. It was a beautiful moment of inter-house relationships, Gryffindors standing next to Slytherins, Ravenclaws next to Hufflepuffs.

All united against a common cause, the lower years unionising  and redistributing the right for cover.

"Don't they learn the impervious charm in seventh year, it repels rain from your face," Harry muttered darkly, as he threw a glare at the seventh years, amongst whom were also the occasional sixth years, mostly those who were dating one of the older students. Such as Tonks, who was still together with Charlie Weasley and who had been avoiding him ever since her flip-out a few weeks ago.

Honestly, considering that Harry had been the one mostly affected by her emotional instability it should have been him avoiding her, but it seemed like he was the one with thicker skin. Also, while not really, Tonks was the older one of the two, so she should take responsibility to mend bridges.

A loud screech suddenly broke him out of his musings. A screech that he recognized to be a whistle distorted by bad weather. The Hogwarts express broke through the rain-cover and ground to a halt. Before he knew it, Harry was assaulted from all sides as the students physically fought to get on the train. He was pushed, shoved in the direction of the doors and carried inside, luggage and all, without actually having to move his feet. Before long he found himself in a compartment with the other Hufflepuff second-years, sans Cedric who'd joined the Quidditch team at some point. Confused, and slightly bruised he nonetheless helped everyone levitate their luggage to its place and sat down.

Having a genius idea he idly decided to cast a cleaning charm at himself, with the thought that water was an unwanted part of the current soggy existence of his clothes. He didn't put much power into the charm, just in case it tried to remove the water from his veins instead.  It worked perfectly however, and under the jealous gazes of the other puffs he was able to run a hand through his now dry red hair.

"Scourgify works, if you consider water undesirable," he told them and bore witness to a hilarious minute in which all of the students who'd never bothered learning or retaining the charm in their repertoire mispronounced the spell horribly, to comical effects.

Penny, of course, had gotten it down perfectly on her second try. Maybe because she used the spell a lot in her independent potion-making, or maybe because Harry's genius was rubbing off on her.

The same couldn't be said for one boy, who'd somehow managed to turn his ears into flowers. Or another, who'd apparently managed to soap his own mouth, which was scourgify's effect when used on a person, when one desired to harm them.

Harry took mercy on the boys and cast a reparifargo and a finite at them respectively, before scourgifying them himself. They shot him a grateful and embarrassed look.

Deciding to go the full length, if he was already trying to create a cosy next few hours, until they reached London, he created a ball of fire and hung it up in the middle of the compartment. He would take it down once everyone's teeth stopped chattering, which in hindsight had probably contributed to the difficulty of the scouring charm.

"What a shit weather," Harry idly commented, once everyone had relaxed and sighed in relief.

"I hope it snows for Christmas, my parents already booked the skiing," one of the muggle-borns muttered.

"What's skiing?" Penny asked suspiciously, in accordance with the interest of the other pure-bloods present. Harry and Michael, the muggle-born, shared a surprised look.

"I'm surprised wizards don't do it, being able to apparate on top of the mountain would save so much time," Harry mused, while Michael nodded along.

"Skiing is when you strap two wooden boards to your feet to ride down a snowy mountain, it can get pretty fast," he explained to their confused year-mates.

One brown-haired girl recoiled, as if struck. "Isn't that dangerous?" she asked.

Harry crossed his arms. "Excuse me, it's much safer than Quidditch," he retorted.

That was the wrong thing to say, clearly. Even without Cedric present, that comment was enough to hijack the rest of the conversation until London, about which sport was the best, the most dangerous and the most fun.

-/-

AN: This was a tough chapter, actually. Hope Tonks being mad that came off as authentic. Harry can be quite abrasive as well, which likely didn't help.

This came a day early because of the help I got over on Royalroad in terms of ratings and followers :)

184/190 patrons to next quick chapter release.