Damn it." Tonks softly cursed, holding up a quill. She looked all around the common room before spotting Harry and his friends sat at one of the sofas, with the exception of Laura, apparently doing their homework. With a grin she stood up and walked over to them. "Harry, my best-est friend in the world, you wouldn't mind doing me a favour would you?" She asked in a sweet voice as she stopped in front of them.
"Depends on the favour." Harry replied, giving her a questioning voice.
"Sharpen this for me, please." She said, holding out her quill.
"You are aware that magic exists?" Emma asked, in an odd mix between sarcasm and genuine curiosity, as if she couldn't decide which to use.
"I've been doing magic for the last seven years, I only get to see Harry's claws this year." Tonks pointed out before pausing and quickly turning to Harry. "Not that I consider you to be a toy or anything." She said apologetically.
"It's fine." Harry said, rolling his eyes. He closed his right fist and let a single metal claw come out before taking the quill from Tonks with his left hand. "There you go." Harry said a short while later.
"Thank you." Tonks grinned as she took her quill back. "So, anything I can do to help you four with your homework?" She asked as Harry's claw disappeared back into his body. "As a thank you, you know?"
"No, thank you." Jean said politely. "We're nearly done, anyway."
"Okay, suit yourself." Tonks shrugged. "Let me know if you guys need anything."
"We will," Emma replied. "but I don't think that..."
"Guys," Laura interrupted as she walked into the common room while holding a blue laptop while Felix followed after her. "Grandpa and the Ororo should be calling now."
"What's that?" One nearby Hufflepuff asked, looking at the device in Laura's hands.
"It's a laptop." Jean said simply, frowning as she wondered why the Hufflepuff looked so confused. Sure, she knew that wizards and witches didn't use that much technology, but surely they at least knew what a laptop was.
"Well, what's that?" Another Hufflepuff asked.
"It's like a portable computer." Laura said helpfully as she sat down while Felix curled up at her feet.
"Okay, what's that?" The first Hufflepuff asked, causing Jean to blink. 'They're surely not that clueless, are they?' She couldn't help but wonder.
"It's basically a muggle device that you can use to research stuff, play games, watch videos of things, take pictures and do work." Tonks answered for them before turning to the four first years. "You do know that they don't work in Hogwarts though, right?" Tonks asked.
"You mean like how it's seemingly impossible for a first year to do magic without a wand?" Emma drawled, gesturing to Harry who responded with a simple wave of his hand.
"Fair enough, but nobody's been able to do it so far," Tonks replied. "so I wouldn't get your hope up, and I think that..."
"Um, Tonks," Jean gently interrupted. "it's already on." She said, gesturing to the laptop.
"Huh?" Tonks said eloquently as her hair shifted from pink to a light blue, she looked down at the laptop's screen and saw it was indeed turning on. "That's amazing!" She breathed out before looking at the kids, only to stop when she noticed them looking at her with wide-eyes. "What?" She asked in a confused voice.
"Your hair, it changed colour!" Jean blurted out.
"Is that a spell or something?" Emma asked after taking a moment to compose herself.
"Oh no," Tonks said with a sheepish grin as she let her hair turn back to shoulder-length pink. "I'm a metamorphmagus, that's basically a fancy term for shape shifters. I can change my hair and even my face," She said before shifting so she had Emma's face and hair. "I look quite pretty now, don't I?" She said in Emma's voice before turning back to her usual face and pink hair.
"Wow." Laura blinked.
"Indeed," Emma hummed in agreement before giving Tonks a thoughtful look. "and I must say that I agree, you did indeed look quite pretty." She said with a small grin.
"Thanks!" Tonks said with a laugh. "I can even do animal faces!" Tonks added before turning her mouth into a duck beak and then a pig snout.
"Awesome!" Jean grinned as Tonks turned back to normal.
"Why, thank you!" Tonks said, smiling widely. "I live to impress!"
"What can you do with your hair?" Laura asked, she and Harry both looked very interested.
"Well, you know I can change the colour, but I can also shorten it, make it longer as well." Tonks answered. "I can also change the style of it a well." She said before her hair grew so it reached all the way down to her lower back before it returned to its regular size and then transformed so she was now supporting a mohawk. After that it copied the same hair style as Harry, albeit pink, before changing back to her regular shoulder-length pink. "Pretty cool, huh?" She grinned.
"Um..." Laura hesitated as she looked between Harry and Tonks. "...I think me and Harry might be meta...morphs." She frowned.
"Metamorphmagus's," Tonks gently corrected. "but yeah, just call us metamorphs if you want to keep it simple. So, what makes you think that you and boy wonder over here are metamorphs?" She asked curiously, a hint of excitement in her voice.
"Well," Harry spoke up. "Laura and I can change our hair as well." He said before he allowed his hair to go from spiky to flat and combed before making it shoulder length and then returning it back to short and spiky. Tonks gaped and looked at him with wide eyes before sending a questioning gaze to Laura, the unasked question did not need to change its status since Laura easily understood what she meant. Laura allowed her hair to change through various lengths before letting it settle back to her normal length.
Tonks stared at the two mutant twins for several long moments, moments that were so long that the group of first years had begun wondering if she had forgotten how to function. Thankfully Tonks eventually regained the ability to function, and squealed with delight.
"I can't believe it!" She said excitedly. "I've never met another metamorph, let alone two!"
"We're not sure if we are metamorphs," Harry admitted. "for all we know, this could just be another mutant ability of ours."
"Still! You could possibly be metamorphs!" Tonks said with a wide smile.
"Hmm, maybe." Emma hummed thoughtfully. "But it's also possible that they are both just..."
"Metamorphs!" Tonks insisted, her smile not dropping in the slightest.
"Look, as lovely as this is, we do have a call to make." Harry reminded Jean, Emma and Laura.
"Right," Laura nodded in agreement before turning to Tonks. "maybe we can try practising later."
"Hold you to it!" Tonks grinned before walking across the room and sitting down before aiming her gaze at the group.
"When do you think 'later' is?" Emma couldn't help but ask.
"Technically now counts as later." Tonks pointed out. "Either way, I can wait, I...I can probably last until tomorrow….maybe." She admitted.
"Hey, is this thing on?" A voice called out from the laptop, surprising a great many students in the room.
"Is that a ghost in there?!" One person blurted out but was ignored.
"Hi Grandpa!" Laura waved at the screen.
"Hello sweetie." Logan waved back before looking towards Harry. "Kid." He said in a fond voice.
"Old man." Harry replied, just as fondly. "Red and white are here as well." Harry said, gesturing to Jean and Emma.
"We have names, you know." Jean glared at him before turning her attention to the screen. "Hello Logan." She said.
"Hello Mr Logan." Emma said, adding in her piece.
"It's nice to see you again." Laura said.
"Same goes for you, it feels like a long time since the last we saw each other." Logan replied.
"Yeah, it does. Oh, and hi Ororo!" She added when Ororo shoved Logan to the side just enough for herself to enter the screen.
"Hello Laura," Ororo greeted her warmly. "oh and Harry, it's great to see you as well."
"Thanks." Harry and Laura said at the same time.
"Hello Jean, hello Emma." Ororo said, turning to the other two mutants. "I do hope that you are both keeping the twins out of trouble." She smiled.
"Yep." Jean chirped just as Emma nodded, both of them ignoring the protesting noises from the twins.
"Actually, we might have failed somewhat at that." Emma admitted, sounding almost apologetic over not being able to stop Harry from getting into trouble, but she wasn't apologetic. Because first of all, she was the one who attempted to stop him from stabbing Snape, secondly his powers negated her powers and thirdly because it was not her fault if her best male friend could not resist his urge to stab people and finally because Snape had brought it on himself.
"What did you do?" Logan and Ororo asked Harry at the same time, the former sounding amused while the latter's voice sounded somewhat resigned.
"Why do you assume that it was me who did it?" Harry complained.
"Because we know you," Ororo said, not even pausing to think about it. "while we don't deny that Laura gets into her own mischief from time to time, it's you who is normally responsible so it makes sense to suspect you first. Now, what did you do?"
"I didn't do anything wrong." Harry said, crossing his arms.
"You remember that greasy haired teacher?" Jean asked Logan and Ororo.
"The ugly one with the long nose? Yeah, I remember him." Logan frowned. "Doesn't really look like the sort of person a responsible or even half intelligent person would leave with a bunch of kids."
"Yeah," Harry snorted with amusement. "yet they do."
"Anyway, one day he showed up and started bothering us." Emma spoke up.
"Ugly bastard." Logan said before gesturing her to continue, ignoring Ororo's disapproving glare which he no doubt earned for his choice of language when speaking in front of children.
"He started insulting Harry," Emma continued. "which then turned into him insulting Laura, and then Harry ended up stabbing him. Though, in Harry's defence, he did try his best to restrain himself."
"I did do that, yes." Harry said, quickly agreeing with the last part.
"Harry had stabbed him in the butt." Jean helpfully added.
"You what?!" Ororo blurted out while Logan, who had unfortunately chosen that moment to take a sip of beer, ended up spitting it all over the screen. After a minute for the two to process what they heard and clean the screen, they both gave Harry questioning looks.
"I did not stab him in the butt." Harry sighed. "I stabbed him in the left butt cheek, there is a difference...I think."
"Why?" Logan frowned.
"It was right next to me." Harry shrugged.
"Did you at least clean your claws?" Logan asked.
"I didn't use my claws." Harry said in an insulted voice. "you think I'd put my claws in his left butt cheek?"
"Why is that last part always specified?" Jean groaned while Emma shook her head as if to say 'don't ask me'. "He always specifies that part." She muttered to Emma who simply shrugged her shoulders.
"Thank you all for coming." Professor Dumbledore began as he sat at his desk. Opposite him was Professor Sprout and sitting in-between himself and Professor Sprout was Jean Grey and Emma Frost along with Harry and Laura Potter, the latter was holding her blue laptop in her hands. "Now, I've been told that this laptop, a muggle device which should not work within Hogwarts, does in fact work within Hogwarts." He said in a questioning tone.
"Oh it does, Headmaster." Professor Sprout confirmed with a wide grin. "These bright young kids showed me it, such an amazing invention, these muggles are clearly much smarter than we wizards and witches are willing to credit them as. Can you imagine if we can get more of these liptops?"
"Laptops, Professor." Jean corrected.
"I beg your pardon?"
"They are called 'lap-tops', not 'liptops'." Jean explained.
"Oh, thank you dear," Professor Sprout smiled at her before turning back to Dumbledore. "anyway, where was I? Oh yes, these LAP-tops, can do so much, the children told me how they can be used of research, playing games, contacting others and if we connect them to one of those print thingies they were talking about then the children can do all their school work on the laptop!"
"How interesting!" Dumbledore said with a beaming smile, though internally he wasn't quite as happy as he let on. He saw no need for 'laptops' or whatever they wanted to call them, Hogwarts had used quills and parchments and books for hundreds of years without complaints or changes. Besides, he didn't want the children getting too attached to these muggle devices, if they did then they could lose interest in the wizarding world and he couldn't have that, it might tempt them along with other witches and wizards to leave and migrate to the muggle world. Plus he could not afford for Harry to value the muggle word over the wizarding world, the boy had to stay here for Voldemort's eventual return, it was bad enough that the boy would try to return to America during the summer and he hadn't yet figured out a way to prevent that, he needed Harry to value the wizarding world and that was far less likely if he stayed so attached to the muggle world. "Now," He said as he turned to the children. "I do apologize but I will have to confiscate that device," He said as he gestured to the laptop. "unfortunately it is not allowed in Hogwarts."
"Oh," Emma spoke in a curious voice before any of her friends could protest. "really? I hope you don't mind, Professor, but I would like to ask you a question."
"Of course you can, my dear." Dumbledore smiled at her.
"Thank you sir, now, I am curious, where in the Hogwarts rules does it say that laptops are banned from the school?" She asked, delicately raising an eyebrow.
"Well," Dumbledore lightly coughed as he stroked his beard. "there is no official rule," He admitted. "but there is..."
"Then you have no right to take ours." Harry half-growled.
"Harry, I will handle this." Emma said patiently before turning back to Dumbledore. "Then you have no right to take ours." She said to the elderly headmaster.
"Miss Frost, the device could be dangerous." Dumbledore argued. "It could very well end up harming yourselves or another student."
"With all due respect, Headmaster, you're not really knowledgably enough on muggle technology to say that, are you?" Emma asked. "I've seen books heavier than this laptop, sure it would hurt if thrown at somebody else but so would the swords in the suits of armour that scattered all around the school. If it does malfunction then it will simply stop working, it is state of the art and had lots of safety features. There are plenty of muggles that safely use laptops and computers that aren't as advanced as ours."
"Oh, come on Albus, it's perfectly safe." Professor Sprout agreed. "I'd quite like Professor Flitwick to look at it, I'm sure the man would find it fascinating."
"Very well," Dumbledore said, biting back a sigh, knowing he wouldn't get anywhere close to victory without damaging his relationships with these students. "that will be all." He said, dismissing them. 'I don't like this,' He thought to himself. 'those American mutants are bad influences'. He decided.