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author_by_night) wrote2007-08-29 08:47 am
Prompt #1
I don't think she had an
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linda_lupos, that's what you got!Title: The Trainee
Word Count: 2,302
Characters: Tonks, Kingsley, Scrimegour, Amelia Bones.
Ships: None.
Summary: Kingsley meets his new assignment - Nymphadora Tonks.
Rating: PG.
“Kingsley.”
Kingsley knew Amelia Bones had had a very rough meeting, for she had stopped him in the hallway, holding one hand to him, the other to her head as she rubbed it.
“Is everything all right, Amelia?” Kingsley
“Not really,” Amelia sighed. “Scrimegour and I need to have a word. Come into my office.”
Kingsley walked into Amelia’s office; to his surprise, Scrimegour was not the only one present. Next to him was a girl with pink hair.
Nymphadora Tonks – Tonks to friends and colleagues – , age twenty-one, Trainee Auror Wizard by hand of Auror Alastor Moody, cousin of Sirius Black, recent Azkaban escapee. Metamorphmagus. Hair color varies between pink, purple, red, brown, and black, although the latter is natural and therefore rarely used.
“Good morning, Kingsley,” Scrimegour said. “You may know Nymphadora Tonks?”
Kingsley smiled. “Yes, we are acquainted – she has been training for nearly three years, after all.”
For some reason, Tonks muttered something that sounded rather like “exactly.”
Scrimegour looked uncomfortable. “Well – yes, yes. That is why we are here. We have made a few… alterations.”
“Is that so?”
Scrimegour nodded. “Dolores Umbridge – ah – strongly recommended that given Nymphadora’s circumstances, she be lended an extra year to… prove herself.”
Kingsley raised his eyebrows. “But she has. I saw her myself once, and Alastor told me…”
“The decision has already been made,” Amelia said heavily, and Kingsley knew that, despite being the Head of Magical Law Enforcement, she had probably been very much against it from the start.
“You know, in case I use my powers to shelter Sirius in the Himalayas,” Tonks added.
“Nymphadora,” Scrimegour warned. “And this is where you come in, Shacklebot.”
“Me?” Kingsley was confused. “What about Alastor?”
Amelia looked almost angry now. “Scrimegour saw to it that he was removed.”
“Amelia, we discussed this before, I had no choice!” Scrimegour said hastily. “He was beginning to spot Death Eaters on muggle children’s swingsets!”
You wouldn’t have been fussed had Crouch arrested the muggle children, Kingsley thought with a frown. But he kept silent.
“The point is,” Amelia continued, “Tonks is now without an Auror to train her.”
“And considering you are investigating her Sirius Black’s arrest, we felt you would be appropriate,” Scrimegour finished. “You can show her how such an investigation would be handled-”
“Make sure I don’t have Sirius in my knickers-” Tonks interrupted.
“Nymphadora,” Scrimegour said, “we are not having Kingsley question you. But we cannot deny it… you almost finish Auror training, and a few months before, your cousin escapes prison? Your cousin, whom your mother still will not acknowledge is indefinitely guilty of his crimes? Not to mention-”
“Rufus!”
Amelia had stood up, looking furious.
“I am stating the truth of the matter,” Scrimegour said.
“Nonetheless, you may be her supervisor as the Head of the Auror Department, Scrimegour, but you are not the Head of the Magical Law Enforcement.”
“The Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic, Dolores Jane Umbridge, agrees with my concerns.”
Amelia sighed.
“Kingsley,” she said, “why don’t you and Nymphadora accustom yourselves to one another while Rufus and I discuss some departmental issues?”
Kingsley nodded, and walked out of the room, Tonks following.
“I’m sorry about Scrimegour,” he said. “And about Alastor.”
Tonks shrugged. “Alastor was getting to retire anyhow. He just wanted to finish training me.”
“He’s a good man,” Kingsley said. “He trained me, you know.”
Tonks grinned. “Did he do that test where you had to go through a muggle tunnel at midnight, wearing his invisibility cloak, looking for-”
“-the Red Object that wasn’t even there? Yes,” Kingsley laughed.
“I nearly gave him a swift kick in the arse. But you know, it was a good test. Always be on the lookout for misinformation and traps.”
Kingsley nodded, impressed, though not surprised. “That’s correct.”
They did not say anything else as they made their way towards Kingsley’s desk, and Kingsley suspected Tonks was more upset than she was letting on.
“Listen,” he said quietly, “if you need to go home…”
Tonks’s eyes narrowed. “Is that a hint?”
“Is that a… oh heavens no, I just thought maybe you wanted to relax. You’ve had a hard day.”
“You could say that,” Tonks admitted. “But I don’t want to prove Scrimegour right. Besides, for an Auror, this is nothing… I mean, I remember when Sirius sometimes came back from-”
Tonks stopped herself abruptly, her hand to her mouth.
“I didn’t know he was an Auror…” Kingsley said.
“He – he wasn’t,” Tonks replied. “He just did a lot of work for Dumbledore… at least until…”
She stopped.
“So you knew him, then?” Kingsley asked as they approached his desk.
Tonks hesitated. “Well, clearly not as well as I thought… though I never really knew him well anyhow. Mum’s his cousin, but the Potters were always his real family. He and Mum were born to a circle of people who never earned that title. So what’s on the agenda for you today?”
Kingsley remembered, and hesitated.
Could he really put her through that?
He supposed she’d have to go there soon anyhow, of course; maybe she had already been. But all the same, she would not react well when he told her.
“I’m supposed to inspect Azkaban,” he replied carefully. “Again. Have you… have you been?”
“Not actually inside, no,” Tonks said. Her voice was level, but there was something about the look in her eyes. “Just on the outside, and I’ve seen a map. I was supposed to go last week, but you know what happened then.”
“Are you going to be okay if we go today?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
Kingsley raised his eyebrows. She was resistant, too. “Well, considering-”
“I’m going,” Tonks interrupted. “You know I can’t get my Auror license if I don’t know my way around the place.”
“Anything we find could aide in the capture of Sirius Black,” Kingsley warned her.
“Better us than the Dementors,” Tonks said.
Kingsley had to agree with her – he had never quite understood why they used the horrible creatures. Besides, they did not punish those who were truly wicked.
When they arrived at Azkaban, Tonks looked tense, but followed Kingsley inside without a word.
“Think about the best time in your life,” he told her as they made their way past the Dementors. He was used to having to think happy thoughts, but was not sure Tonks would be as used to it.
“Can I just cast a Patronus?”
“They’re our partners here.”
Tonks snorted. “Deal with the devil.”
Kingsley was almost heartened by her response, for some reason. Perhaps it was that seeing an Auror who clearly didn’t want to use torture as a means for punishment was refreshing.
“So where is his cell?” Tonks asked. “Or is that not where we are going?”
“We’ll go there first, yes,” Kingsley said, walking towards a lift. “He’s on the second level.”
Tonks raised her eyebrows. “He escaped on the second level?”
“There’s stairs he must have found,” Kingsley explained.
“Interesting,” Tonks said.
They got into the lift..
“So how did he escape?” Tonks asked.
“That’s what we’d like to know. Druella Rosier-Black-”
“Oh yeah,” Tonks said, with almost a moan. “I forgot, you questioned her. Did she hurt you?”
“Almost,” Kingsley said. “But then I reminded her she could go to Azkaban, and I didn’t think it suited her.”
Tonks snorted. “So that’s what the ‘at least he noticed my new haircut’ was all about.”
“You keep in touch with her?”
Tonks sighed as they left the elevator. “Not willingly. But she calmed down slightly after the war and all, and she’s actually civil to dad now, so sometimes Mum has her over for tea. When she wants. And after I’d heard you questioned her, I went to her place before she burned it down in a rage.”
“Had she?” Kingsley asked with a twisted smile.
“No, but she came close.”
“I didn’t know she’d come to like muggleborns,” Kingsley remarked suddenly.
Tonks rolled her eyes. “Hardly. But when you only have two children and two grandchildren left, you start to make exceptions. Druella puts her family first. We all do.”
Kingsley was a little bit stunned by this revelation. “I had not realized that.”
“It’s not as though we’ve done much to live up to it,” Tonks admitted, “But Mum, Druella and I are better examples.”
She shuddered as a Dementor passed, closing her eyes. Kingsley had to take a deep breath himself, forcing himself to stop hearing Alice Longbottom’s screams.
“We’re okay,” he said after a moment, smiling weakly. “Let’s get to the interrogation-”
“YOUUU!”
Kingsley stopped, and turned.
Bellatrix Lestange was leaning against her bars, staring at Kingsley and Tonks.
“BLOOD TRAITOR!” She screeched.
Bellatrix’s eyes fell on Tonks. “My niece. Come to auntie, dear…”
Tonks just stared back at her aunt.
“What’s wrong, doggy got your tongue? How’s your daddy? Has he burned any witches yet?”
Kingsley gave Bellatrix a warning look, grabbed Tonks’s arm, and led her away.
“It’s okay,” Tonks said quickly as they walked. “I could’ve handled it. I’m going to be an Auror.”
But Kingsley could tell she was shaken; in fact, her pink hair was now brown, laying limp on her shoulders, and her face was pale.
“You’ll learn,” Kingsley said, “and besides, you also have the Dementors at you. I’m surprised you’ve held out this long – though also proud. It will be useful.”
They walked into the Examination Room, shutting out the Dementors behind them.
“Thank God,” Tonks said, leaning against a wall and panting. “Mum’s sobbing was getting loud.”
“They’re dreadful things, Dementors,” Kingsley said.
Tonks arched an eyebrow. “So why does the Ministry use them?”
Kingsley hesitated. “Between you and me, Tonks… the Ministry has a lot of things to amend, and the use of Dementors is one of them.”
“That’s what my friends say,” Tonks said. “One wanted to be an Auror too, but decided the Ministry was too flippant with certain things. The other felt that way all along, even though most of his family – I should shut up, shouldn’t I?”
“It’s not as though I don’t know what people say,” Kingsley told her. It was true, and sometimes, he agreed with them.
Tonks looked around the room. “So what’s this? I’ve never been in here, but Moody mentioned it.”
The room was small, with a round table and some chairs, one of them with chains on it. There was a gigantic cabinet, marked “Hazardous Objects – Do Not Open.”
“This room is where we sometimes question prisoners, if we are considering releasing them,” Kingsley explained. “There are also times in which visitors may choose to come in here, although this is not often allowed, due to cases wherein the visitor was attacked.”
Tonks shuddered. “That’s horrible. I thought visitors weren’t allowed?”
“Not with the frequency of muggle prisons, no,” Kingsley said, “but special exceptions can be made. Barty Crouch used to visit his son often, although he opted for the cell for reasons I am not sure of.”
“Because he’s morbid as hell?”
Kingsley couldn’t help but laugh. “Yes. We also do sometimes question prisoners here, prior to release. I believe Alastor went over those questions with you?”
“Yes,” Tonks nodded. “Made me memorize them, and we practiced asking the questions and watching for any sudden hand movements at the same time. So what’s in that cabinet?”
“Wands,” Kingsley replied.
“That’s stupid,” Tonks said. “If there’s a mass breakout…”
“I didn’t make the rule,” Kingsley told her. “But I agree.”
There was a long pause.
“Is Sirius’s wand in there?” Tonks asked, and Kingsley was suddenly aware of how young she truly was.
“Yeah,” Kingsley said. “Do… do you want to look at it?”
Tonks hesitated.
“No,” she finally said. “I need to let go.”
“Do you… miss him?” Kingsley asked, hoping he wasn’t out of line.
“I – I don’t know,” Tonks sighed. “I mean, I never knew him that well. But he was always the good relative, you know? Or at least, I thought he was. And although I didn’t see him much, when I did see him, you’d think we saw one another all the time. He used to take me for rides on his motorcycles… and Mum adored him. Sometimes.”
“Sometimes?”
“They fought a lot,” Tonks said. “Sirius made James Potter his family, denying the Blacks were – including Mum. I think it hurt her a lot that he practically considered her a survivor of the same cult, rather than a cousin. If he actually did think that way. But they always made up, and she still thinks…”
Tonks stopped.
“Thinks he’s innocent?”
“No,” Tonks said. “Not exactly. But Kingsley, the Potters were his life. It makes absolutely no sense that he’d turn against them in a whim. Mum thinks he either went insane, or did something stupid while trying to save them.
Kingsley had to admit to having noticed this problem too, but he had been unable to deny the evidence. “What about Peter Pettigrew?”
“I never said it made sense,” Tonks insisted. “Just that – believing his guilt doesn’t either. Plus, the world has so many shades of gray, you know.”
This was a bold statement, but not one Kingsley disapproved one. In fact, he felt himself marveling at the young Auror Trainees ability to observe such things when grown Aurors didn’t seem capable of it. He marveled at the fact that she was willing to face her own aunt in a jail cell, and walk away calmly despite the Dementors present.
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And oooh foreshadowing with Bella there. ^^
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