Chapter is 3 days late, had some issues to resolve. Next one will be in seven days to keep the 1ch/10 days schedule
Thank you to my new Pat%& rons: Burr, john, TheSlavicFool, Ryan Sanford, Tikihut, Mason Pederson, Aydan Mam, Jp, Bolticrontic, Mat, Spook1918, Journeyman_Mike, SouthMonk
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Gringotts broken into! Wizarding Britain in shock!
After having stood as an unassailable bastion of wizarding banks, we here at the Daily Prophet are shocked to report that Gringotts has been broken into during the previous night. While the Head chief of the bank Sir Gribblybock tells us that the vault broken into was one that has been dormant for the last ten years and that nothing was stolen, people are, understandably, concerned about the safety of their funds.
A specific timeline of the break-in has not been released yet and likely will not be due to security concerns about copycat robbers.
Soon-to-be former minister Crouch, whose mandate is running out at the end of this winter session had this to say about the potentially worsening goblin relations in the context of this most likely wizard-planned robbery.
"It is truly concerning that the black underbelly of our wonderful country is growing impetuous enough to challenge institutions as old and powerful as our national bank. This situation is certainly troubling when one considers the recent tension between the government and the bank over the requested personal information of several disreputable clients…"
Having managed to read a bit, and had remained mostly undisturbed on the blissfully empty train as it drove into the Manchester Victoria train station. Exiting the quickly, not encumbered by the luggage that he'd reduced the weight of, he made his way to the adjacent parking lot where he'd discussed meeting Tonks.
It didn't take him long to find her, mostly because she was involved in some sort of altercation with a pair of teenage boys, or young men.
"Come on, Luv, why wait around this groggy train station when there's so many more exciting things to see," one of them said, with his stupid bright red mohawk hair. He was leaning on the car Tonks was with his right hand and was holding a beer bottle in his left.
Tonks for her part, remained firmly unamused, standing there with her arms crossed, but with her right hand twitchy. "Will you two bugger off already, I'm here to pick up a friend. Not to get harassed by two punks with no style," she ground out, her eyes flicking to Harry when she noticed him approaching out of the other parked cars and the throng of people decisively ignoring the developing shitshow in their midst.
The other punk looked over, shaved head this one, super tall and built dude, but with a bit of fat around his torso. Too many chains, Harry thought. "Is this yours little brother?" the man asked.
Harry couldn't help but laugh. "She wishes I was her little brother, it would make her genes more valuable by the default of association," he said, approaching the situation.
The two punks both turned to him and gave him a queer look at that. "He a London twat or what?" they asked almost in unison.
The young boy rolled his eyes. "Look, no matter which part of England we're from, we're all brothers in the end. Does it matter if we're having an angin or a horrible day? If Manc United wins the Champions League I'll cheer just as much as if it was Arsenal. Quite frankly I just want Madrid to lose, I hate those Spanish bastards. Think they're better than me just because they have some fancy ham." He turned to Tonks. "Can we ditch this place? I hate train stations."
The two men looked at each other, obviously a bit confused at the confidence with which Harry was entering the situation. They were probably more used to eliciting fear, or with their dress style, disgust.
"Yeah, let's go," Tonks said with a sigh and got into the car.
"Have a good one," Harry told the punks. Once he entered the car he rolled down the windows so that he could address the two punks one more time as they quickly drove off. Tonks managed to choke out the vehicle by starting too quickly twice. "Don't do drugs," Harry said and waved.
The two punks waved goodbye as well, nodding half-heartedly.
"Sorry you had to go through that," Harry said as they exited the parking lot and entered their first traffic jam. Getting out of the city would take a while. "Worst types of people at train stations, no idea why, it's not like it's very residential."
"Dad always said poor people take the train, which means there's always rats there," Tonks joked. "But don't worry about little old me, a spell or two would have fixed that. My trace is already gone."
"And what if you didn't have your wand? Or if it was a muggle in that situation. It's fucking horrible. Those people piss me off," Harry said as he watched buildings slowly move past him as their little red Fiat Panda traversed the urban landscape.
Silence descended on the vehicle for a minute as they waited at a red light before Tonks broke it. "Yeah, well. One of the joys of womanhood," she said bitterly.
"I'm sorry for ruining the mood."
The girl sighed. "Don't worry about it. Life always finds ways to drag you down if you let it."
"I see that turning 17 has made you very introspective," Harry joked.
"I'm finally an adult in one world," she joked, gripping the steering wheel and not taking her eyes off the road. It was odd seeing a witch drive a car. She wasn't dressed in anything special, just jeans and a t-shirt, and she'd actually come with her natural black hair today. But, there was something so casually mature in picking up a friend from the train station with a car. Harry sighed.
"Well, it suits you, being an adult," he said.
"Thanks. It suits you as well. You've grown a bit," she noted.
Harry had, in fact, grown a bit. In several directions. He'd gained a few inches, but also some muscles since he'd started working out with the sword. His birthday would be coming soon, in Vienna. "I'm hardly an adult," he said bitterly.
"Well, you know more about wine than I do, so that adds at least a decade."
"Oh, you're younger than me then? I'm not sure I'm comfortable spending the weekend at your place then, someone might accuse me of being a cradle robber."
"Your sense of humour is as exquisite as always," Tonks remarked as she took an exit from the highway they'd taken to get around Manchester. "We're almost there."
"Got the grades yet?" Harry asked.
"Yes, actually. I got an O in DADA, Transfiguration, potions, Herbology and care of magical creatures. EE in runes and an EE in Charms. Got unlucky with the last one, some stuff I didn't expect."
Harry whistled. "You got an O in four out of five cores, I think that's pretty impressive," he said. "As long as you just got unlucky in Charms, maybe you can go for all five next year."
"Maybe someone will help me with the Patronus charm."
"It's not that hard," Harry mused. He'd already promised to help her anyway. "It's just light magic, it's different. Takes some getting used to."
Tonks remained silent as she turned into the drive-away of quite an average-looking two-story red-brick house with a green lawn and some flowers. "Yeah, sure, it's so easy picking up types of magic you've never cast before," she said sarcastically as she pulled the handbrake and turned off the car.
"Most things are quite easy if you're willing to invest 40 hours into it," Harry replied as he opened the door of the red Fiat Panda and got out, taking a look around the neighbourhood. It was frankly, just a random Manchester suburb a dozen or so minutes out of the city centre.
"Have you ever considered investing 40 hours into knowing how to act normal?" Tonks joked, before noticing something. "Where's your luggage anyway? If you think you're wearing my clothes you can keep dreaming."
They went up to the front there, where Harry bid Tonks to stop what she was doing as he focused inwardly, then outwardly, trying to nail down what he was feeling. He wasn't an expert or anything, especially wards. It was hard to be considering that the Hogwarts ones were so big it was hard to tell when one was in them. But, there was a layer of something on the house. A sort of stickiness. Like a film of magic clinging to the property. Harry growled when after a minute of trying he couldn't distinguish anything important or relevant or even slightly useful. He could feel that there was something there. But he couldn't tell exactly what.
"What's up?" Tonks asked when she noticed his frustrated countenance.
"Nothing, just not good enough yet to try something I wanted to try," he muttered as they entered the house. "So this is where you grew up, huh?"
Unlike the outside of the house, the inside was a tad more magical, but not by much. Everyone followed the standard system of corridor into the living room and kitchen which was the norm for several-story houses in the UK. The Tonks family had a fridge, a television and a dining table. It was just that all these everyday objects and flowery patterns were interspersed with the occasional magical item, like a potions book, a moving poster, a magical radio, the floo powder next to the fireplace or a cauldron.
It looked like something Harry would have probably grown up with, had his mother survived long enough to raise him. A mix of muggle and magic. Decisively average in both.
"It's a house, I guess," Tonks muttered from behind him. "Inherited it from my dad's side of the family so there was never a reason to move elsewhere. When you're magical it doesn't matter much where you live anyway. Apparition can get you anywhere."
"The wizards," Harry said quietly. "They truly live, amungus."
"What?"
"Nothing, anyway, where's my crib?" Harry asked quickly.
"Guest bedroom is right next to mine," Tonks said as the two of them took off their shoes and started going upstairs. Harry went behind and enjoyed the view as Tonks led him to the second floor, where it was quite obvious which room was hers. The band posters and the stop sign were pretty good indicators. Tonks was just about to open the adjacent door when Harry's spidey sense got tripped, before she could put her hand on the knob his arm shot forward and grabbed hers, pulling her back.
"Stop!" he hissed loudly as he looked suspiciously at the door.
"You got some strength for a brat," Tonks complained as she uncurled her arms from his and rubbed it with a wince. "Well, you did kill a werewolf with a sword so I guess that kinda makes sense, fuck," she muttered and shook her head. "What's up?" she asked suspiciously, but not at him. Considering their shared near-death experiences, they were a team. Dysfunctional, but together, against the world, for better or worse.
"Let me double-check," Harry said and stepped forward, extending a hand and focusing his senses on the simple brown door in front of him. After a few seconds of what must have looked like him mysteriously waving his hand up and down in front of the door, he stepped back and nodded once. "Doors warded with something. So, unless you spelt the door-knob to prank yourself, there's something up with this room," he concluded.
Tonks pulled a face and pulled her wand out of the back pocket of her jeans. It was a thin light brown thing under the mercy of which Harry had been quite a few times now. She pointed it at the door and began humming. A light vibration started originating from her hand, making her handshake a bit, she bit back a curse and put it away. "Ughh, really, mom?" she asked exasperatedly.
"How did you figure it out by waving your hand around?" she demanded.
Harry gave her a queer look. "How'd you do it by waving your wand around?" he returned.
"Harry," Tonks said softly as her hair turned purple, stepped up to him and put her hands on his shoulders. "You're a good friend. I love you. But please, stop being a little shit," she asked politely.
"Ok, ok," the boy sighed. He'd been so secretive for so long that it had become a part of his nature. "Once you're in tune enough with your magic you can turn that sense outwards to get a feel for magic that isn't your own. It's an integral part of curse-breaking and quite frankly, helps with most disciplines."
"Harry," the girl said with a smile and closed eyes. Then she violently shook him for a second. "What the fuck are you talking about?!" she shouted. Then she shook him again. "AAAHHHHHHHH!" she screamed, before sinking to the floor. She was a bit taller than him so her hands didn't actually detach from his shoulders to do so.
"I mean, the Hogwarts curriculum isn't really the end all be all of magic, overall they definitely teach maybe 1% of what you can learn all in all?" he said softly while awkwardly scratching the back of his head.
"Is it a genius thing? Do I not know about it because it's a genius thing?"
Harry nodded. "It's either an adult or a genius thing," he said confidently.
"Alright…" the girl said softly. She had somehow teleported while Harry had spoken and was now hugging her knees and drawing circles on the floor while hanging her head.
"What's that spell you did, looked cool?" Harry asked, trying to cheer her up.
"It's just a diagnostic spell I learned recently. I got a summer practice as a healer in St. Mungos. Was supposed to be a surprise," she mumbled.
"Healing, huh? Well, the Aurors will love that, that's for sure," he muttered. "How about an exchange, I will teach you some stuff and you teach me some stuff."
She looked at him over her shoulder. "You'll need a wand without a trace…"
"I have one," Harry nodded. Tonks just stared at him.
"Go fuck yourself, seriously."
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AN: Let's do some friend stuff to distress. Makes me feel all warm and cuddly inside writing it since I recently moved and am still building a social circle. You can read up to 25 chapters ahead on Patr%& eon (24 chapters and one interlude chapter) That's like 25% of a 100. Crazy.