Remember Me

Tonks sighed. The longer she had to spend in this street, the more boring her job seemed. Auror? Fighting Dark Wizards? The job description never said anything about standing, freezing cold, outside a broken down joke shop, with nothing to do but make faces in the shop window.

Brilliant.

She idly changed her hair from yellow to blue and back to her favourite bubblegum-pink, examining the effect. Fred and George could by Zonko’s…she would mention it to them next time she saw them.

When she was at Hogwarts, Hogsmede was just about the most exciting place ever. It you were cool, you hung out in Hogsmede, visited the Three Broomsticks, Zonko’s, The Shrieking Shack. It was ‘the place to be’.

She had never thought then that she would be standing outside a deserted shop, in a deserted street, in a deserted Hogsmede, bored out of her brain.

Anything for excitement.

Anything for something slightly interesting, for that matter.

She yawned and banged her head on the wall again. Harry had ideas of being an Auror. She would have to discourage him.

Nothing could be more boring than this.

Tonks idly considered jobs she could have done, mentally crossing them off in her head. Nope, it seemed that the only thing she was good for was this. Doing nothing.

It wasn’t as if she actually ever did anything. It was always Proudfoot, always Dawlish, always the really high up boot-licking Scrimgoeur-loving morons who got to do all the fighting stuff. And then they always failed, turning out not to have caught the damn Death Eater in the first place.

A faint blur of movement in the alley opposite. Probably a fox.

Tonks sighed, and moved away from the joke shop. She did not hear the conversation that was held in low voices between two wizards, dressed in long, flowing black robes.

*

“It says here you would like to take Defence Against the Dark Arts, Potions, Charms, Transfiguration and Astronomy.”

Cassandra nodded.

Professor McGonagall tapped a blank piece of parchment with her wand. “Here you are then. Your new timetable.”

“Thank you.”

Cassandra suppressed a groan as she walked out of the Transfiguration teacher’s office, examining her timetable. She seemed to have taken all of the hardest subjects possible for her NEWT’s, except, of course, Arithmancy. Still, there was a free period first.

Not knowing quite what to do, she wandered back to the Gryffindor common room, feeling impressed about how well she remembered her way around. She had only been tricked once by a door once, and she hadn’t even met Peeves yet.

The common room was fairly empty, but Cassandra noticed Dean and Seamus sitting in the squishy chairs nearest the fire with relief. She walked over to them quickly, and was greeted enthusiastically by Dean, who put down the Daily Prophet he was reading.

“No lesson now either?”

“No,” Cassandra said, her attention much more focused on the newspaper headline. Seamus noticed her gaze.

“People seem to be seeing You-Know-Who about twenty times every day! Wouldn’t believe it if I were you.”

“True,” Cassandra grinned at a memory, sitting down in an empty chair. “I went to a Halloween party dressed as Voldemort once.”

Their shock of hearing Voldemort’s name soon evaporated. “What?” asked Dean, grinning.
“Big mistake – they didn’t get the joke. Had about fifty Stunning spells shot at me. Woke up in St Mungo’s a week later.”

Dean sniggered; Seamus grinned.

“I’ve still got the outfit.”

The three of them began to laugh loudly at the thought of You-Know-Who finding himself as a popular costume for Halloween. It was as Cassandra bent to put the newspaper back on the table that she noticed a flash of red hair.

“Back in a moment,” she said, and crossed over to where Ron Weasley and Harry Potter were sitting. They both seemed determined to ignore her.

“Look, I just want to apologise for saying all that stuff to you,” Cassandra stated, sitting opposite Ron. “Especially the bit where I said you were a flesh-eating slug.” She thought afterwards that bringing that up again wasn’t the best thing to do. “So…can we just forget about it all? Just… I do exist, you know,” Cassandra added on angrily when Ron showed no sign that she was there, staring right past her ear.

“Come on, Harry, let’s go,” said Ron, still carefully ignoring Cassandra. The two of them got up and went out of the common room.

Cassandra stared after them indignantly before folding her arms and flinging herself into a chair. “Don’t notice him apologising. Oh no, because he’s far too pig-headed, ignorant-minded…” she tailed off into a stream on insults, muttering darkly, so caught up in it that she didn’t notice a bushy-haired person sit down next to her, dumping a huge pile of books onto the floor.

“They didn’t like me first of all either,” said Hermione. “Thought I was annoying.”

Cassandra turned round, amazed. “But you’re like…best friends.”

“We’re friends now, but at the first months of first year they really hated me.”

“How did you become friends then?”

Hermione twisted a strand of hair over her fingers as she thought, a smile creasing her face. “Well…a troll was coming to kill me, and they rescued me.” She broke off, laughing at the look on Cassandra’s face. “They didn’t do much. Harry stuck his wand up its nose.”

“Bit drastic,” Cassandra said. “So to make them like me I have to sneak a bloodthirsty monster into the school, right?”

Hermione laughed. “I didn’t mean it like that. Have you got defence next?”

“Um…yeah.”

“Let’s go then.”

They walked together to the classroom, which was already filled with chattering sixth-years. Cassandra was faintly surprised when Hermione steered her over to a desk at the back and sat next to her, instead of going to where Ron and Harry were already sitting. Gradually, the class quieted, looking around for the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher.

The door opened.

A tall, sturdy muscled man stormed in. The top of his head was shining, completely bald, but around his mouth a neatly trimmed white beard grew, flecked with strands of metallic grey. Harsh lines were placed around his dark, serious eyes, which roved around the class, resting on each of his students.

“Welcome,” he said, in a smooth, oily voice, “to sixth-year Defence Against the Dark Arts. My name is Professor Grimstone, and I will be your teacher.”

The class shrank back as one as he took his wand out, almost lazily. “To defeat dark magic is not an easy thing. You will need to have your wits about you every second, because otherwise you will not live another. Be careful who you trust. With dark magic, even your closest friends can become traitors. Be on your guard at all times. For instance,” He took out his wand and aimed it as Ron, who pushed his chair back as far as it would go against Ernie Macmillan’s desk, “look how easy it would be for me to attack this boy. He is unarmed, not ready. Not expecting an attack. And if you do that, if you let your defences down, you will be in danger. And you will be the one to suffer for it.”

The class silently gripped onto their wands.

“And this is what I am here to teach you this year. To defend yourself. And how to defend yourself when you are unarmed. What to do, how to cope, how to react. Some wizards undermine Muggle fighting. I do not. How else would you fight if your wand was broken?
“You will all fight in different ways. Some will prefer to attack, others defend. But the most important lesson I hope to teach you this year is how to stay alive.”

Professor Grimstone smiled, his yellow teeth appearing from beneath his neatly trimmed beard.