Day in, Day Out

Tonks had had just about enough, and said so.

Teddy feigned innocence regarding the mess around him. "Mummy, your hair's gone green again."

"Does that when I get angry."

He looked at her for a moment, then promptly turned into a Cairn terrier the color of dishwater – well, part of him did - and slunk away, tail and ears drooping.

"Stay!" Tonks shouted, as she did every time he attempted to get out of trouble by showing her his hangdog look. She couldn't let him get away with it, even though his Metamorphic abilities had yet to stop being amusing. She set her face in what she hoped was a stern look. "Change back. That's not how we deal with problems around here."

He morphed back into a child, one covered with the evidence of his crime. "You turn us into ferrets when you want people to think we aren't home," he said.

"That's different."

"How?"

Tonks took a deep breath. "Because I'm your mother, so when you've clearly broken the rules, you can't expect to get away with it by becoming something else. Underneath it all, you're still my child, and I still know what you've done."

"I didn't mean to," he said forlornly.

Her eyebrows shot up to her hairline and would have kept going if she hadn't got hold of her magic in time. "Didn't mean to? You dragged the stool half across the kitchen and used it to climb onto the counter. You then used the cabinet shelves to hoist yourself up to the top of the icebox, whereupon you ate an entire plate of cookies. Which part of that did you not mean?"

"The part where you caught me trying to get down again."

I will not laugh. I will not. She turned her back on her only child.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "But they were very good."

"Get those clothes off. You need a tub." She still could not look at him. He was crumbs from the tip of his mussed hair to the bottoms of his dirty little feet, with smears of chocolate like war paint across his cheeks, his arms, his forehead. She'd taken a picture before he realized he'd been caught in the act.

Remus would have loved the abandon with which their child devoured the treats, though he would likely have handled the aftermath more sternly. A familiar pain lanced through her at the thought of her late husband, lingering only long enough to steal one breath, perhaps two. That was an improvement over having to run into the bedroom and scream into her pillow so she didn't scare the baby.

"Muuuuuum!" Teddy's voice echoed down the hall.

Not a baby any longer is he? She poked her head into the bathroom and flicked her wand to start the tub running. A bottle of bubble bath rose up and tipped until a thin stream met with the water. Teddy stayed in longer if he had mounds of bubbles, just like any child.

"At least one of us is normal," she murmured, as her naked son careened down the corridor.

"Bubbles!" came his war cry as he flung himself into the tub. He popped up with fish scales covering his face.

"Almost normal," she amended.

She pulled a stool into the corner, just out of splash range, and leaned her head back, one eye on the bits of her son she could see. Teddy was the reason she wasn't dead, though they'd thought her so. Seeing Remus cold and still, she'd almost let go and joined him. It would have been so easy, so peaceful. Narcissa screaming for Draco had brought her back, though she'd never tell her aunt that. Lying on the ground, wounded, soul-blasted, she had not thought of her son until a mother's cry reminded her of who else she was. The guilt of that was wrapped up firmly and kept in a box to be dealt with sometime in the future.

"What's done is done," she said softly.

"I don't want to be done!" wailed Teddy, whose hearing was as sharp as his sense of smell. Some things, he had inherited from his father, though no other indication of lycanthropy had surfaced.

Yet. She took a calming breath and let it out, just as she'd been taught. If Teddy ended up being a werewolf, so be it. She'd certainly not love him less, though she might have to consider reinforcing the shed.

"If you wash up now, I'll let you play until the bubbles are flat." She left out the bit about how she'd slowly dissolve them, so he'd end up going to bed at the usual time. Eventually, he would figure it out, but by then he'd be old enough to bathe without supervision anyway.

By the time she'd finished tucking him in, reading a story, singing a song, turning into a bird, a hamster, a cat, and back into his mother – albeit with a dragon snout and rather impressive wings – and insisting that he go to sleep without another word, she was ready for bed herself. A ping on her mobile made her sigh, but she checked it anyway.

Floo my mum. It was from Ron, whose number she recognized from a series of drunk texts a few weeks back. None since then, though he apologized every time he saw her in person. She'd taken to avoiding the elevators at the Ministry. If he was making the enormous step of sending a text, she might as well find out why. Only those who were tasked with keeping an eye on Harry were allowed by the Ministry to have the full range of Muggle technology, though plenty of others used the devices on the sly. They were half a step away from being magic, but it was an important half-step.

Tonks preferred talking by Floo, which was good, as Molly Weasley had forbidden Muggle artifacts being brought into her house.

"Oh, Tonks, thank goodness you got my message! May I come through?" As usual, Molly did not wait for an answer. "It's about Harry. He's asking for help."

"What sort of help?" Tonks said with trepidation.

"Yours," Molly said, as if that made it all clear.

"No offense, but why did he send you to ask?"

"None taken. I think he's afraid you'll refuse him."

"And so I might, but if he wants an answer from me, then he should ask me, not you."

Molly sighed. "He's not himself, you know."

Everyone knew. Harry's complete breakdown and subsequent recovery had been watched with fascination by the entire wizarding world. His decision to withdraw for a while was understandable. His failure to return was another matter entirely.

"I suspect he's exactly himself, Molly. He's just not who everyone wants him to be."

Molly gave her a sad smile. "You always did know how to read him. No wonder it's you he wants to see."

"It's because of our time in St. Mungo's." And after. There were some things the world had not witnessed.

"It's because he trusts you."

"He has a funny way of showing it. We've all had it rough, some worse than others, but everyone continues to treat him like he's more special than any other person who lived through the war." That was as good a reason as any to be angry at him, even if it wasn't her primary reason.

"Well, he is special, isn't he?"

"Yes, fine," Tonks conceded. "But does that mean we should allow him to turn into the boy who refuses to live? He's set up in his Muggle hideaway where he doesn't have to see the world he fought to preserve, and everyone tiptoes around him like he's already shattered and they're afraid to step on the pieces. Even the Ministry, because it's easier to pretend he's taking a little break than to admit he doesn't cut a very heroic figure right now. Here's the truth of it; he is broken and no amount of wrapping him in cotton wool will fix that."

Molly blinked, opened and closed her mouth, and said nothing.

"You can all do as you please, but I won't put up with him acting like he's the only person who's been damaged. So, if the amazing Harry Potter wants to ask me a favor, he should find the stones to do so or go back to sulking in the bloody corner."

"Shall I tell him exactly that?" Molly's mouth twitched as she obviously fought a smile.

Tonks sighed. "If you'd like."

"You have good reason to be upset with Harry," Molly said.

"Several. He hasn't contacted me in a very long time, and when he does, it's because he needs something. The least he can do is ring me up himself." Her hair turned crimson. "The absolute, very least. So yeah, feel free to tell him I think he's a coward and a selfish git, but that's no reason not to call if he needs help."

"I think perhaps I'll send him an owl instead." Molly's missives were the only owls Harry regularly accepted, a fact which had irked the Ministry to no end.

"Thanks for running interference, Molly, and I apologize for ranting at you."

"Not to worry, dear. I'll be sending the Minister a bill for services rendered." She patted Tonks on the arm, then went back through the Floo.

"That'll be Hermione's influence," Tonks said to the empty room. Events all over the world, both worlds, really, had Hermione's signature, and though no one could find hard proof that the activist witch was behind the recent spate of uprisings, she made no secret of her campaign for equal pay for witches.

"All that rabble-rousing, and she makes time to pay us a visit." Tonks continued to mutter to herself as she straightened the kitchen. Then she set about making cookies for the second time that day. Try as she might, she could not convince herself that the flush she felt at the idea of seeing Harry again was due solely to the warmth of the oven. Unfortunately, her stomach was tied in knots, thus ensuring there would be another plate of cookies for Teddy to steal in the morning.

It was comforting to know exactly what would happen in at least one area of her life.

For itchyfoot, who has waited patiently for Tonks to appear. :)