"Hello Harry, Tonks!"
Tonks smiled and walked over to the girl and said, "Wotcher Hermione, it's good to see you."
Hermione smiled and said, "And you, I'm curious as to how your marriage has been?"
"Oy Hermione, not even here an hour and you're trying to learn more!"
"Wotcher Ron, Ginny, we weren't expect any guests today."
Ginny glared at Ron and said, "Of course you weren't, my pigheaded brother didn't send you the owl as he was asked too."
Ron glared as he said, "Well, I was hungry mate, you know how it is. And, I didn't even learn that we were coming here until breakfast!"
Mrs. Weasley sighed and said, "Now you see what I'm dealing with this summer, it was better when the twins were here to keep peace. I'm telling you, Harry, Tonks, when you have children make sure to appreciate your troublemakers!"
Harry blushed at the implications that Mrs. Weasley was stating. He looked at Tonks, who too had a look of embarrassment on her face. "We're not having children, yet, Mrs. Weasley. The potion we took prevents her from getting pregnant for up to a year."
The woman's face fell as she heard this, and it was noticed that her demeanor changed just a bit from the happy woman to one of a sad, hurt woman. Ron smiled, "she was hoping that she'd at least be able to coddle your children, mate. She's a mother, she can't help it."
Tonks laughed. "Don't worry, Molly, as soon as I'm knocked up, you'll be the second to know, after my own mum of course."
She nodded her head and said, "Alright children, the food will be ready in a few minutes, and let's leave Harry and Tonks to whatever they were doing before we interrupted, eh?"
Hermione hugged Harry and Tonks and said, "Congratulations, I can't believe one of my best friends is married."
They smiled at the energetic learner and walked up the stairs, as the last few lines of conversation flowed up to meet their ears, "but mum, I don't see why you want another child so bad! I mean, you've still got Ginny!"
As they reached the room that had been clamed as their own, Harry looked at his wife. She had been honest with him, and asked him only one thing in return. He smiled at her. "Um... you have to understand, growing up with them was not a pleasant experience. I... I was basically a slave, Dora. For the first seven years, I didn't even know my birthday, as it was deemed that I didn't need to know.
I didn't find out till I tricked the date out of her, and she put me in the cupboard under the stairs for that. I found out, of course, that i was born on July 31, 1980, to a drunkard and a whore.
My own aunt called her sister that, Tonks. I realized, then, that maybe I wasn't cut out to be in a family, because if I was the sun of those two elements, I must really be the freak they had always called me.
Then, when she finally brought me out of the cupboard, my hair needed cut. She sent me to the barber, and I got my hair cut. I spent ten pounds. After I got home, my hair was the same as before and I was ten pounds short, she had Uncle Vernon beat me with a belt. After that, I just realized that to cry, to show any emotion, would get me in trouble, as I hadn't wanted my hair cut, but didn't want the beating more.
After I started Hogwarts, I guess I hoped that I'd be safe, and able to do magic to protect myself. I... hated the Headmaster in that moment for allowing me to go back to a muggle household where I was beaten, humiliated, and overall treated like a slave, without the protection of the one thing they feared.
Even though, even through all of that, I still persevered, Dora! I still stood out among people like Voldemort and stood up for them when I could have allowed them to die. And what do I get for that? I get hit for suffering through Voldemort."
She sighed and wrapped Harry in her arms, hating herself for asking him about his past. She sighed and lifted his chin to where he could make eye contact with her. "Harry, no one would have hated or degraded you for hating your relatives. They did treat you like shite, they abused you, and they made your life a living hell, literally.
None of those things, my dear husband, were your fault, just like the meeting was not your fault. None of the things that you've suffered through, none of the things that you've persevered through were, or are, your fault.
They, and sometimes the wizarding world, didn't realize what they had when they saw you, see you. Harry, its okay to want someone to love you."
He looked in her eyes at that moment, tears running down his face. She sighed, as if realizing her husband was, and remains, a teenager. A teenager, she realized with growing pain, that had never been loved as he should have, never been treated the correct way. Sighing, as if realizing for the first time, Harry was teenager with a child's heart.
She was abruptly brought out of her stupor as he doubled over, his scar burning with a thousand knives. She screamed as he passed out, falling into a state of oblivion.
Pain, untested and unmatched, ran along his scar as Lord Voldemort watched, reveled in the carnage he was being treated too. He wanted to reach out, save the children, the women that were being subjected to treatment unimaginable. The men forced to watch as they're families were killed, leaving only few women.
Briefly, he grinned, as he saw the elevator number light up signifying that someone had escaped, hoping for the escapee's sake that they could run.
Again, he saw as Voldemort himself took vengeance on a muggle that spat in his face, of the little girl that had slapped Avery before she was tortured, of the woman that did fight back and kick her attacker where no man should be kicked.
He watched as the woman stuck a knife in her heart, flinging Voldemort the middle finger as a sign of "fuck off, bastard", and Voldemort's inherent confusion over the muggle gesture.
He noticed, as in pain, a man died as his brain snapped under the pressure of the Cruciatus, the perpetrator, Bellatrix Lestrange, reveling in the feeling of chaos.
Then, he saw him, all the proof he needed. Draco Malfoy, holding a girl his age in the Cruciatus as he took her virginity and his in the most horrible way possible.
He felt the curvature of Voldemort's lip as the carnage of the atmosphere changed from one of peaceful to one of pure devastation. Voldemort, looking on the carnage as the best thing on earth, stood idly by as Death Eater after Death Eater came back out the building, holding a child in his or her own version of the Imperious.
All save Bella, who stood holding a child in her arms as if her deepest dreams had come true.
The man smirked as he called out to Bellatrix and ordered she bring him the muggle child. She bowed her head in shame.
"I'm sorry My Lord, I fell into a moment of weakness."
"Bellatrix, it is within your person to fall to your instincts, to protect a child though it is not yours. Is it not, on your authority these children are not dead?"
She nodded her head to the Dark Lord. The man looked at her, Bellatrix, I would be remiss to deny my most loyal anything. You will raise this child to serve the Dark Lord, and he will, alone, be the one muggle to learn our ways. He will know his place in the world, Bellatrix, and he will serve me well, as his mother has taught him."
Her face lighted up and she smiled, kissing the hem of her master's robes at the chance to raise a child.
He nodded his head as she took the child into her arms. As she apparated to take the child home, Lord Voldemort looked to Draco, "make it seem as if Harry Potter has killed that child, Mr. Malfoy, and I will consider getting your father from Azkaban."
"Yes My Lord, I will do as you command."
"Of course you will Draco, your father will be most pleased with the way you have served me, even with your one failure that cost us millions of galleons."
The Heir of the Malfoy fortune bowed and, holding his head, kissed the robes of the Dark Lord before he was dismissed. As he exited, the boy immediately started planning, remembering his father's final order when he last visited him in Azkaban, "do whatever the Dark Lord orders so I may get out of this hellhole"
When he awoke, Harry noticed with abrupt horror, he was in a room filled with white linen. Tonks was on one side, and on the other Mrs. Weasley, who was holding Ginny and Hermione close to her. Arthur Weasley stood there with Ron, his right hand on Ron's shoulder, as if he let go Ron would run over and start pressuring the boy on the table.
"How bad was it Harry?" Tonks asked, her voice grave with concern. Harry looked at her and bowed his head. "They've destroyed your apartment completely, Dora."
She gasped as she heard the one thing that she didn't want too. Harry looked at her, "there's one survivor, but the others are dead. They did horrible things, Dora, things that are going to be with me, as if I were there and didn't stop them. They...."
She sighed and hushed him, laying his back to the wall. Arthur asked her where she had lived previously and she told him, the man sighed and apparated to the Ministry to give his report.
"Harry... Harry we just had this talk, it wasn't your fault."
A few minutes later, the Headmaster enters the room to find Tonks laying beside Harry, smoothing his hair atop his head. Walking over to the woman with the familiar twinkle missing, he looks and says, "Mrs. Potter, you need to come with me, there is a survivor that we need you to interrogate."
She glares at the old, manipulating man and stands Harry up. He looks at his wife and the pleading look in her eye before walking towards the flame.
The survivor, a young woman about pregnant with two children, flinched as she saw her ex-neighbor, now married, enter the room.
"Hey there Natalie," she said, silently. The girl looked into her neighbors eyes and says, devoid of emotion, "hey there Tonksy."
"I'm here as a part of a special investigations unit, Natalie, trying to figure out what happened. From what we understand, it was a raiding party?"
The girl shivered in her seat, not wanting to recount the horror she had just seen. Tonks stood up to console the girl, but was stopped by Harry. "It's okay, I can give you a detailed outline, Tonks. You don't need her, it's too soon."
Tonks looked at Natalie, and agreed. "I've been ordered to let you know we are paying for years rent on any apartment you want to get. Save your money up, Natalie, and we'll try to figure something out for you."
She stood up, rubbing her extended stomach. Tonks smiled, "and we'll have one of our one hand doctor's check out your children."
She nodded her head and hugged both Tonks and Harry, thanking them for the support. Harry sighed, tiredness raking through his body, as Tonks walked over to him. A few other aurors came in the door at her beck and asked if there was anything to do. She nodded and said, "Get a pensieve, we've got a magical witness to the activities of earlier today."
She looked at her husband, in pity truth be told. "Harry, I need you to supply your memory, in exact detail, of what happened during the attack at Westhaven Apartments."
Harry looked at the pensieve and into her eyes. Looking towards the Aurors, Harry asked the unspoken question of, 'what about them?'
She looked at him and said, "Standard procedure, my husband, is to have two on duty aurors in the room when the pensieve is in use. It's like this because fifty years ago, we had a pensieve go missing."
Harry laughed and said, "Alright, well... I'll just buy my own, thanks. Alright, how do you use this, my wife?"
She sighed and looked at him. "You take the tip of your wand and place it to your temple, then think of the memory you want, pull it out and place it in your pensieve. To use the pensieve, you simply tap it."
Harry nodded his head, in accordance with the rules, he had to accommodate the aurors in any investigation they were conducting. He looked at the Aurors in the room, of only two he knew Kinglsey was there, on behest of the Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge. Then another, taller looking auror was there looking at Tonks with a predatory eye. Then, there was his wife, who was ignoring the other man, and talking to Kingsley about something.
Turning back to Harry she flashed him a smile and said, "Alright, my love, please place your memory of the attack in this pensieve. When you are ready, we will enter the memory and you will, according to Kingsley, be able to find out other preceptor information that at first you did not notice."
He nodded and tapped the side of the pensieve. Then, taking his wife's hand, tapped the pensieve. He and Tonks entered the object, and Harry watched, again, the slaughter that Lord Voldemort, and only he, could cause in such a little amount of time.
Kingsley looked disgusted as he saw a Death Eater taking a woman's virginity before he had her killed. He watched as Draco Malfoy finished up with what he was doing, and wrote down all that he needed.
They strode around, taking notes, and making observations that seemed accurate.
No where, however, did they see Lord Voldemort. The younger one pointed this out and asked Harry plain to his face where the "dark lord" was.
He looked at Kingsley, knowing that the Headmaster had told certain people. Kingsley did look knowledgeable and said, "That is a matter of confidentiality, Mr. Goldsmith."
The man glared as the memory ended.
"Hey Tonks!" Auror Goldsmith called out to the auror. Harry and his wife turn around as the Auror walks up to the woman, smiling.
"So, a couple of the guys are getting together tonight, Tonks. You want to come?"
Tonks glares at the man. He smiles and, pushing Harry out the way, says, "You know this little brat isn't really married to you, Tonks, dear. I mean, you want me, and you know it."
Everyone hears the resounding slap that comes as hand meets flesh.
