Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes and Whatnot

The next weekend was our first extra Apparition lesson. I felt fairly confident I would be able to master it this time, but Ron still looked queasy. Harry walked down with us, wishing us luck, and then we made our way into the villages.

We got back around lunch time and sat in the Great Hall, all in a fairly jolly mood.

“I did it – well, kind of!” Ron said enthusiastically to Harry when he arrived. “I was supposed to be Apparating to outside Madam Puddifoot’s Tea Shop and I overshot it a bit, ended up near Scrivenshaft’s, but at least I moved!”

“Yes, it was brilliant. I did it too, and on my second try, just for fun, I Apparated right next to Wilkie. I swear it almost gave him a heart attack” I said.

“Good one,” said Harry. “How’d you do Hermione?”

“Oh, she was perfect, obviously,” said Ron. “Perfect deliberation, divination, and desperation or whatever the hell it is – we all went for a quick drink in the Three Broomsticks after and you should’ve heard Twycross going on about her – I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t pop the question soon – “

“Hermy and Wilkie sittin' in a tree” I sang.

Ron and I laughed about Wilkie’s love of Hermione’s decoration, divination, and documentation, or whatever.

She just ignored us, “And what about you? Have you been up at the Room of Requirement all this time?”

“Yep,” said Harry, “And guess who I ran into up there? Tonks!”

“Tonks?” we all asked, surprised.

“Yeah, she said she’d come to visit Dumbledore…”

He explained the scene between him and Tonks and how weird she was acting.

“If you ask me,” said Ron, “she’s cracking up a bit. Losing her nerve after what happened at the Ministry.”

I took a sip of my drink, looking down and saying nothing. If anything, I felt I understood more of what Tonks was feeling. My dad had died because of the Ministry, her cousin had died because of the Ministry. I, of course, hadn’t seen my dad die, but it was still fairly fresh in my mind which made it still hurt.

“It’s a bit odd,” said Hermione, looking very concerned. “She’s supposed to be guarding the school, why’s she suddenly abandoning her post to come and see Dumbledore when he’s not even here?”

“I had a thought,” said Harry slowly. “You don’t think she can have been…you know…in love with Sirius?”

“What makes you say that?”

“I dunno,” Harry shrugged, “but she was nearly crying when I mentioned his name…and her Patronus is a big four-legged thing now…I wondered whether it hadn’t become…you know…him.”

No, I disagreed. They loved each other, but they weren’t in love. Her Patronus could be any type of dog, or maybe a fox, or…a wolf.

“It’s a thought,” said Hermione. “But I still don’t know why she’d be bursting into the castle to see Dumbledore, if that’s really why she was here…”

“Goes back to what I said, doesn’t it?” said Ron. “She’s gone a bit funny. Lost her nerve. Women,” he said wisely to Harry, “they’re easily upset.”

“And yet,” said Hermione, “I doubt you’d find a woman who sulked for half an hour because Madam Rosmerta didn’t laugh at their joke about the hag, the Healer, and the Minmbulus mimbletonia.”

I laughed as Ron scowled.