Thursday, July 31
"You have lost your mind," Sev said as he entered the backyard and saw the party that Tonks and Sirius had spent part of the night and most of the morning setting up. "Harry may actually kill you."
"He won't," Tonks said confidently. "He's going to love this, Sev, just watch."
"Or he will feel incredibly offended and infantilized and he will kill you," Sev countered with.
"Or he's going to think 'wow, Tonks is super brill, I should really get over that one time she slept on my sofa'," Tonks laughed.
Sev shook his head, but he smirked a little too, so Tonks felt confident that Harry would probably love it.
"Is Harry back yet?" Sirius asked Sev.
"Not yet, I am certain that you will feel the wash of chaos when they return," Sev said sarcastically.
"Harry's going to love this, right?" Tonks asked Sirius, a smidgen nervous after Sev wandered back inside, probably to avoid dealing with Sirius who really wasn't all that bad.
"Right," Sirius nodded. "Harry's never gotten to have a party like this, and honestly, he probably won't even realize the theme is usually meant for kids."
Tonks bit her lip as she surveyed the backyard.
A super soft seventeenth birthday sounded like something that would be normal fun for the most abnormal wizard she knew after he spent the last week doubtlessly hardcore partying with his friends, but…
"The bounce house may have been a bit much," Tonks murmured to Sirius.
"Nah," Sirius tossed an easy arm around Tonks' shoulders as they stood in the yard and surveyed it all. "Ten galleons says that Harry's never been in one before and he's not even going to realize it's made for smaller kids."
"Not anymore it isn't," Tonks grinned. The bounce house they had was magically stretched to it's absolute limits and was more of a bounce mansion than a house, but still bright red and yellow with a clown on the front of it.
"This sounded better when we were drinking," Tonks murmured to Sirius as she eyed the matching balloons and streamers and other ridiculous things that sounded fun to plan.
The idea was that they realized Harry had little get together and parties like that, but he'd never had the pleasure of having an actual birthday party as a kid.
And Tonks knew that it was really now or never.
If they wanted to give Harry an experience every kid should have had before adulthood, they had to do it now because Tonks had no idea how to get Harry to survive getting the horcrux out of him.
"The piñata was your idea," Sirius reminded her.
Tonks squinted at the huge donkey shaped muggle thing they had, once again, found and magically tinkered with. It was a neat idea, she thought, you fill it with candy and then beat the hell out of it until it rains candy. They filled it with candy and tiny bottles of liquor, just to make it more geared for the wizards adult birthday.
That was actually one thing that Tonks knew Harry was going to enjoy.
***
"HAVE YOU LOST YOUR GOD FORSAKEN MINDS?! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?"
"Oh, great," Tonks grinned at Sirius from their spots in the yard, "Harry must be home."
"Do we go inside and help Harry or do we hide out here?" Sirius asked her with a matching grin.
Of course they were going inside. Anything that Harry did that already was causing Sev to scream had to be hilarious.
Tonks and Sirius scampered inside as quickly as they could and found Harry, allll of his friends—
What the hell kind of creature was on Luna's shoulder?
—and the Weasley twins standing on one side of the room with a seemingly furious Sev, bemused Cissa, and mildly irritated Lucius on the other side.
"Wotcher, Harry! Happy birthday!" Tonks told Harry as she stepped up by Sev. She saw Hermione averting her eyes and she waited until she glanced at her again to wink.
She was quite a prude for a teen mom.
Tonks personally thought it had been hilarious the way she yelped after she apparated in the middle of a rather private moment in a public area.
Sev didn't think it was funny at all, but he hadn't let it distract him long either, good man that he was.
"What's got Sev screaming so loud?" Tonks asked Harry brightly. She added another wink for Susan, who giggled quietly at the unintentional innuendo.
"My tattoo," Harry told her with an unrepentantly charming smile. He pulled his jean leg up a little and flashed a black and white tattoo of a potions vial on his ankle at Tonks.
"Neat!" Tonks cried. "Did it hurt?"
"Horribly," Hermione grimaced.
"You all got muggle tattoos?" Sirius asked, shocked. He went straight to Harry and wrapped him in a quick hug and ruffled his hair affectionately. "Happy birthday, Pup."
"Thanks," Harry said, "and yeah."
"Matching tattoos, on their right ankles," Sev growled. "Like absolute morons."
"They don't match, and better than our left forearms, yeah?" Harry smirked at Sev. "What kind of an absolute idiot would do something like that, hmm? Lucius? Sev? Any ideas?"
Cissa coughed lightly, probably politely hiding a laugh, a nicety that most of Harry's friends didn't abide by.
Tonks didn't either. She moved to Sev's side and laughed right along with the others.
"Did you get it for Sev?" Tonks asked Harry, curious about the design. "Potion vial for the potion master's kid?"
Harry opened his mouth, and Susan stepped on his foot.
"Exactly," she nodded and smiled politely. "I wanted Harry to get a broom, since he's such a wonderful flier, but he insisted on getting the potion vial in honor of Professor Snape."
Sev looked suspicious, which was fair because Tonks was pretty sure they were being fed quite a line, but Harry and Susan kept up their 'polite' smiles and Sev finally sighed and Tonks knew Harry won that battle.
Truthfully, Tonks presumed that Harry won most battles right now with his 'I'm going to be dead soon' armor.
Kind of hard to fight with the kid when you realize that nothing is going to matter in a year.
Tonks did force Harry to wait inside while she drug everyone else out to the backyard to get in position after the others arrived though. Harry didn't seem to mind, he just hissed up the stairs and smirked when his snake came slithering down the steps to wrap itself around Harry's legs.
"He's seventeen, not seven," Susan told Tonks with a roll of her eyes as they ducked behind the bounce house together to hide.
"Remind me… when did Harry ever get to have a silly birthday party as a child? Big thing they did in homeless shelters?" Tonks whispered back. "And, please correct me if I'm wrong, but are we not more than a little worried that this might be his last birthday?"
Susan didn't have a response. She merely bit her lip and nodded, causing Tonks to feel guilty for being so blunt.
"I'm sorry," Tonks whispered. "That was cruel."
Susan grabbed her arm and squeezed it briefly. "It's not your fault. This was a lovely idea, thank you."
Tonks nodded and they waited for the others to finish hiding before Sirius set off a bang with his wand, the signal for Harry to come outside.
"SURPRISE!" They jumped out and yelled when a very bored and exasperated Harry walked outside.
"Oh, my," Harry deadpanned. "I am so…" Harry looked around then blinked. "Surprised…"
Tonks and Sirius exchanged smirks when Harry looked more curious than angry as he eyed the balloons and streamers and the piñata and the bounce house.
Sev went up to Harry and whispered something that made Harry give him a crooked grin before turning that grin on Tonks and Sirius.
"Seemed like a lot of work," he told Tonks evenly.
She translated that to mean: 'I love it, thanks'.
"So what the fuck is all of this?"
"A party, do keep up, darling," Susan said with a wink. "Come on, I've never been in one of these bouncy things before!"
Harry look bewildered as Susan drug him to the bounce house and Tonks was smug when Sev stepped up beside her.
"I thought I was being murdered by Harry?" Tonks asked him.
Sev scoffed, but his eyes were light as Harry let out a startled laugh as his friends clambered in the castle and began jumping with him. "Perhaps he is waiting for cake to be served. Harry has a terrible sweet tooth."
"Perhaps," Tonks agreed, attempting to imitate his precise drawl, and failing. She turned and grinned up at him. "Are you coming to jump?"
Sev shuddered. "If you attempt to drag me inside that insipid contraption, it will be I who kills you."
Tonks laughed and pecked him on the lips quickly. "You would never."
"No." Sev's eyes had the little sparkle in them that he always saved just for her. "I suppose not."
He didn't say 'I love you', but he still did.
Tonks truly thought the 'super soft seventeenth birthday party' was a smashing hit.
Almost everyone wound up in the bounce house at one point or another. Even Narcissa jumped when Draco and Luna twisted her arm into it, though Sev and Lucius did not.
And if there was anything funnier than having Bill, Charlie, Fred, George, and Ron having a wrestling match inside a bouncy castle originally made for little kids, then Tonks hadn't seen it. They all placed bets- and Susan was gloating when Charlie won.
"Course he won," Harry snorted, shaking his head with mock-disappointment at Fred. "Charlie's fuckin strong, isn't he?"
Tonks wasn't sure if that had been a compliment or an insult, but Charlie seemed pleased about it. He seemed a lot more pleased when Susan gave him a 'victory kiss'.
Tonks had the feeling that Susan would have quite a few stories to share next time they were alone.
And Tonks was right again, Harry loved the piñata. He had even laughed genuinely when Neville finally busted it open and tiny bottles of alcohol flew out with the sweets.
"Delightful," Sev sighed. "Precisely what Harry needs, a lowered inhibition."
"He's seventeen now, can't really stop him," Sirius said. He was grinning as Harry and his friends began swapping drinks out to get their preferred flavors.
Sev snorted. "As if I could stop him before."
Tonks didn't say anything, but she was pretty sure Sev could have stopped Harry before, she just didn't think he cared much. He was a lax parent with odd rules- Harry could blow up mansions and kill death eaters and sleep with his fiancé, but god forbid he get a tattoo.
It was funny, really.
Tonks and most of the Weasley boys went the traditional route and gave Harry alcohol for his birthday. Fleur did give him a thick book from France on elemental magic that made Harry just as excited as the alcohol did.
Hermione and Theo gave him a framed photo of their unborn daughter. It was a little grainy and in black and white, but Tonks thought the little baby looked quite a bit like Hermione already.
Narcissa and Lucius gave Harry clothes, which made Harry sigh a bit at the undoubtedly expensive labels.
"This isn't really from me," Sirius said, his voice soft as he handed a gift to Harry. "It's… well, I found it in Minnie's office. I'm pretty sure it was meant for you."
Everyone was quiet while Harry gently unwrapped the plain paper from the box. Tonks stood on her tiptoes so she could see what was inside of it.
Not that it made any sense to her, honestly.
"Oh…" Harry pulled a clear bag full of leaves from the box and held them up for everyone to see. "Mandrake leaves," he said. He put them back in the box and pulled out a few scrolls of parchment. He unrolled one and his eyes flicked over the neat writing for a moment. "She… she wrote instructions for me," Harry told them all. He swallowed before continuing, "So I could become an animagus."
"She had it already packaged," Remus told Harry after a solemn and silent moment. "I think she wasn't sure if you would go back to Hogwarts this year or not and if not then she planned on mailing it."
Harry nodded and folded the box closed and set it off to the side. "That was our deal," he said, a flat affect in his tone now. "I did all the research and she'd give me instructions and ingredients on accomplishing it."
Tonks raised her brows at Fred when the moment got too serious for the occasion.
"Ours next," Fred cried. He and George leapt to their feet. "Nobody move!"
"It's from me and Moony too," Sirius told Harry, his grave expression giving way to a more joyful one. "And don't kill yourself, because Sev will kill us all."
"I will kill you regardless," Sev muttered darkly with a scowl.
Harry was obviously interested when Fred came running back with something in his hand.
"Close your eyes," Fred ordered him.
Harry looked around the yard then quirked a brow at Fred. It was eerie how Harry and Sev seemed to have perfected the art of communicating with only their eyebrows.
"Turn your back?"
"Here." Luna jumped up from where she'd been sitting on the grass with Draco and their queer little monkey creature thing. Luna called it a 'meerkat', but Tonks wasn't entirely sure that Luna was a good resource to get factual information from. Either way though, she moved over to Harry and smiled at him. "Don't curse me," she said before covering his eyes with her hand and causing Harry to go absolutely still.
Fred moved quickly. He set the gift on the ground directly in front of Harry and then backed away before shooting a spell at it.
Sev groaned, loudly, as the gift grew to size.
"Open them!" Fred cried.
Luna moved her hand and backed away and Harry blinked.
Then he rubbed his eyes.
Then he blinked again.
"This is a dream…" Harry breathed, his eyes now wide and sparkling with something that looked like both pleasure and utter shock. He looked from Fred and George to Sirius and Remus and then tilted his head at Sev. "I've already died?"
Sev shook his head slightly and Tonks winced at Harry's choice of words.
Was the motorcycle that they got Harry wicked looking and brilliant? Absolutely. It was sleek and looked fast even while motionless and Tonks really hoped that Harry would let her ride it with him at some point.
Was it also painful to be reminded that when Tonks got Harry from Azkaban, it seemed like pieces of him stayed there? Terribly so.
"You certainly will die if you don't wear a helmet," Narcissa sniffed with a dubious look at the street bike after Harry eagerly thanked the others. "Do you even know how to drive it?"
Harry said yes at the same time his friends said no and Tonks just knew there was a good story there.
"Tell me later?" she whispered to Susan.
Susan winked, "I have so much to tell you."
Tonks sent a pointed look at where Susan's hand was entwined with Charlie's. "You really do."
Susan laughed quietly and Charlie was practically preening.
Tonks hated the circumstances that brought them together- but she truly adored her relationship with Susan. Susan was like the younger sister she'd always wanted.
A younger sister she felt a hell of a lot of responsibility for, sure, but a gossipy and silly younger sister all the same.
"Ooh!" Susan let go of Charlie and darted to Harry's side when Ron tossed him a neatly wrapped green package off the table and told him to finish opening gifts before taking his bike out. "That's from all of us," she told Harry.
Suddenly, Harry was more wary as he eyed his grinning friends. He slowly unwrapped the package and revealed a thick black book in a leather binding.
Tonks edged forward and tried to get a peek at the book as Harry opened the cover.
"It's…" Harry's lips twisted in either a grimace or an attempt to hide another expression. "It's a photo album."
"Tradition, right?" Susan asked Harry. She knelt down beside him and began flipping through pages. "It's all of us, all of our photos, in one place."
"And we added stories," Theo told Harry. "All the mad stunts you've made us become involved in."
"Like that thing in first year," Ron laughed, wiggling his eyebrows at Harry.
Draco rolled his eyes. "Or the thing in second year."
"That thing in third," Blaise added.
"All the things in fourth," Hermione said.
"And that stuff in fifth year," Susan said.
Neville grinned at his friends, "Then those things in sixth."
Harry scowled and closed the book. "What things?"
"All of it," Theo said, sounding amused despite the sarcasm. "All your mad stunts." He slapped the book lightly, "This is the Harry 'Chaos' Potter Biography."
"You can give it to your kids one day and let them see what a madman you were in your school days," Bill chuckled.
At that comment of an impossible future, Sev winced along with Tonks.
"Harry, may I speak with you?"
Harry had just gotten back from taking the 'test run' on his motorcycle and looked much happier than he had been before he left. Harry put the kickstand down and cocked his head to the side as he looked Sev over quickly.
"Alright then," he agreed. He nodded toward where Susan was practically bouncing on her feet. "You can drive, Sue, I'll be back in a bit."
Susan squealed and pulled Charlie to the bike. "You can ride on the back," she told him. She looked over her shoulder and winked as they sat on Harry's bike, "Hold on tight, dragon boy."
Tonks adored Susan.
Aaalmost as much as she loved a good mystery. And Sev leading Harry off to the house and guiding him inside the kitchen without so much as a hint to what he wanted to discuss was certainly a mystery.
So Tonks followed them, obviously.
She waited until they stepped inside to casually get up and wander over there. Nobody seemed to be paying her any mind as they ate cake that Mavis so happily baked for Harry and chatted amongst themselves. The backdoor was still open and Tonks knew she probably shouldn't eavesdrop, but…
She leaned a little closer so she could hear what they were discussing. .
"It is tradition that on a wizard's seventeenth birthday that they receive a watch from their parents. It signifies your adult duty to ensure you arrive to all your future events without the assistance of an adult."
"Oh."
Tonks rolled her eyes up to the sky.
If Sev was the most emotionally repressed person she knew, then Harry was the most oblivious. She would bet a hefty amount of gold that Sev was standing there, awkward as hell, explaining something that didn't really need explaining while Harry wondered what he was going on about.
Sure enough…
"That is to say… I want you to have this."
Tonks couldn't resist a quick peek.
Harry had his head ducked as he slowly opened a box and Sev was in front of him, actually fidgeting.
They were adorable, honestly.
Harry looked from the box up to Sev. "This is your pocket watch, isn't it?"
"It was. I received it from my mother's vault on my seventeenth birthday, a Prince heirloom, I presume, and now I am passing it on to you."
Tonks couldn't see Harry's face, but she thought there must have been quite a look on it considering Sev's shoulders were curling in the slightest bit now.
"I… thank you," Harry said quietly. "But… Sev, you should save this and have another kid… I- I'm just going to have to give it back to you soon."
Oh.
Oh.
That… that was so bloody sad.
Tonks' eyes welled up a little bit and she worked to keep her breathing slow and quiet.
Sev took a step towards Harry and put his hand on his shoulder. "You are my ward, my heir, and my only son. I want you to carry this watch for however long you may."
Tonks saw Harry bob his head in a little nod, but now her heart was aching for them both.
Harry didn't deserve this.
Sev didn't deserve this.
And she thought that a birthday party would somehow just cheer Harry right up?
Tonks bit her lip harshly. She was daft. What kind of agony was Harry in? And how brave was he to be putting on a happy face for everyone else's sake while he planned his own death?
And how could Sev even bear to walk around as he did while his heart had to be surely breaking?
If there were stronger men in this world than Harry Potter and Severus Snape, Tonks didn't know them.
***
"Hey, Tonks?"
Tonks looked up from the cup of spiked tea she'd been nursing in Sev and Harry's office. The party had been over for hours- Tonks just couldn't sleep and didn't want to keep Sev awake from her own inability to rest.
She looked at Harry's messy hair and the oversized pajamas he probably stole from Fred and felt a pang of wistfulness in her chest.
She wasn't an idiot, she knew that Harry was Sev's kid and that she didn't really have a place in his life. She was Harry's best friend's guardian, or, she was, until Susan turned seventeen back in February, and Tonks wouldn't even say she liked kids, necessarily, but…
But she would have been happy.
She would have been thrilled to marry Sev one day and be his wife. She would have loved to have had holidays with Harry and Fred, Theo and Hermione, and Susan and Charlie and all the rest of Harry's friends turned family.
The worst part was, Tonks could imagine it so perfectly. She would lovingly irritate Sev with Harry. She would tease Charlie and Susan about making her a young grandmother. She'd change her nose to silly shapes to make Theo's daughter laugh. She would bake treats and fill stockings for any other kids that Harry's friends would have had.
They would have been a fun, if a bit unconventional, family. They would have been happy.
"Hey, Harry," Tonks forced a smile on her face for one of her favorite people in the world. "What's up?"
Harry's eyes were wary and his shoulders were taut, but he had a determined set to his jaw as he moved in the office and closed the door quietly before taking the chair adjacent to Tonks'.
"I need you to do me a favor," Harry said solemnly.
Tonks didn't know if it was a trick of her mind considering it was Harry's 17th birthday or not, but he looked much older than usual in that moment.
"Anything," she said honestly. Call it a Hufflepuff thing, call it a Tonks thing, but there was a list of people who Tonks loved and those were the people that she would do anything for.
She gave up her job for Harry.
She risked imprisonment to speak with Grindelwald for Harry.
When Nymphadora Tonks said anything- she meant it.
"It's two favors actually," Harry corrected himself with an amused look in his weary eyes. "And, as you know, I've got nothing to offer you in return."
"You don't need to offer me anything," Tonks assured him, feeling a heavy blanket of grief at why Harry felt as if he had nothing to offer.
What could a kid with a timer ticking above his head offer anyone?
Besides his entire life.
Harry nodded and then averted his eyes away from Tonks- a relief, in a way. It was painful looking in those eyes and imagining they would be lifeless before they got to see eighteen.
"I've got to die soon," Harry said bluntly, his eyes dancing around the bookcase, never settling in a single spot, the only betrayal of his anxiety. "And I've wrote letters to all of you guys, left things behind, you know…"
Tonks bit her lip and nodded.
He wrote a final words for his friends and bequeathed his belongings.
He was seventeen.
Harry saw her nod out of the corner of his eyes and went on. "I need you to give them to everyone, the letters and stuff," he clarified. "I'm going to add you to the ward on my wardrobe. Just tap it with your wand, say the password, and it should open for you. Everything's on the top shelf in a shrunken box."
Tonks would not cry. She refused to cry in front of this stoic young man who was so calmly discussing his death. "The password?" she asked hoarsely.
"Heir Potter Snape Black."
Tonks' lips curled up in a sad smile. "What's the second favor?" she asked him.
Harry stared hard at the bookcase for a long moment. His eyes looked mildly glassy before he blinked and shuttered the emotions swirling in those endless green eyes. He turned and this time he met Tonks' eyes dead on and held them with an intensity that she could never break.
"You have to take care of Sev," he said, quiet but forceful. "Sev loves me, he loves me more than anyone has ever loved me. He's going to try and follow me, I just know it. You can't let him, Tonks. Sev gave me a reason to live every time I wanted to die before, now he's going to need one. I'm going to keep you alive until the end- and then you're going to keep him alive. You can't fuck it up. Understand?"
She did.
Tonks understood that Harry Potter loved Severus Snape more than anyone else in his world and he was trusting her with him.
It meant more than words could express.
"I understand."
"Good." Harry stood up and offered her a hand and a wry smile with emotionless eyes. "Suppose we can shake on it?"
Tonks gripped Harry's hand and used it to pull herself up. She pulled him forward and hugged him fiercely- politely ignoring his tense muscles that slowly relaxed.
"You're a good person," Tonks whispered before she let go of him. She ducked her head when he looked down so she could look him in the eyes when she added, "This isn't fair."
"Things usually aren't," Harry shrugged his shoulders in a careless gesture that she didn't believe. He looked over Tonks' shoulder and took a careful step backward, causing her to drop her arms to her sides. "Hey, Tonks?"
"Yeah?"
Harry's eyes flicked to her and scanned her face quickly- looking for something she couldn't begin to guess at. "Do you want kids one day?"
Tonks let out a laugh, one that she cut off quickly as it sounded mildly hysterical. "Do I want kids? Sure. Do I think I'll have any more other than you, Theo, Luna, and Susan? Probably not."
Sev would never want kids after they buried his son. And she wanted him more than she wanted a kid born of them both.
Harry had dropped his eyes to the floor and then snapped them right back up and squinted at Tonks. "Me?"
Tonks tried to grin, tried to add some levity to her mad confession. She couldn't force one though, so she just shrugged and stared hard at a piece of yard unfurling from the shoulder of Harry's knitted 'F' jumper. "I mean, I know you're not my kid, but… but I love Sev, I want to be with him for the rest of my life, and you're his kid. And Theo and Luna are kind of his too. And Susan is mine, so…" Tonks cleared her throat and pushed down the emotions choking her. "So we're like a family, in a way, right?"
She could feel Harry scrutinizing her for a split second.
"Yeah," he eventually said softly, "we're like a family, Tonks."
There wasn't really anything more to say past that.
Harry turned toward the doorway and paused after he opened it up. "Your hair is white, Tonks," he said over his shoulder.
Tonks snatched a lock off her shoulder and saw that Harry was right, it was white. "It does that sometimes," she said quietly.
Harry nodded. "Right. Night then."
"Goodnight, Harry."
As soon as the door closed behind him, Tonks let herself feel all the things she had pushed down during their odd little meeting.
The night before Harry's wedding, he was up at midnight, ensuring Sev lived after he died.
It was so morbid and fucked up and terrible that sobs wracked Tonks' body and she realized that she might be an excellent soldier- but she could never lead an army. She didn't know how to make those sort of sacrifices.
She would die for someone she loved in the heat of a battle. She would kill to protect her loved ones and anyone innocent.
But she was too cowardly to face death head on, plan for it, embrace it, like Harry was doing.
Harry was right, she thought as the grief consumed her. Life isn't fair.
*****
Tonks,
I didn't used to like you.
I didn't like your weird pink hair and I hated that you were a cop. Also, you pissed me off when I was 13 and I never really got over it.
Then you went and joined my gang. You made Sev blush and you made him smile. You fought in the battle with Sev and you saved Susan's life.
So I stopped hating you. Then you broke me out of prison and I started actually liking you a bit. And then you tried to die to save my friends and now you're one of my people forever.
You're persistent and stubborn and powerful and annoying. All those things I once hated about you, I need you to keep up now.
Because I'm leaving you the single most important thing I have- Sev.
And if you let anything happen to him then I will have Susan kill you.
I'm also leaving you Sev's watch he gave me. I want you to hold on to it and I want you to give Sev another son one day and then have him give his next son this watch on his seventeenth birthday.
I'm trusting you, and I don't trust many people.
Thanks for everything you've done and everything you will do.
For a cop, you're not bad at all really.
Good luck,
-Harry
Ps: You should have a son with Sev one day, name him after me, yeah? Maybe 'Severus Harry Snape-Tonks' or something. Don't use James, Sev doesn't like him much.