average human’s Reviews > Veritaserum > Status Update

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“Theo and I were going to go check out the Owl Post Service,” Hermione said hesitantly. “We thought maybe you guys would want to meet up in a couple of hours at the Three Broomsticks?”

Harry turned just enough that he could see Hermione and Tonks both.

“I thought we were all hanging out together?” he said.

Hermione blushed as Theo took her hand.

“We just wanted a couple hours alone,” Theo said with a pointed look at their joined hands. “You know, in private.”

“Oh, er okay, but it’s rather cold out for sex, isn’t it?”

Harry had seen a lot of street kids and prostitutes shagging in alleys before, but he didn’t think Hermione would like that much.

“We- no- Merlin,” Theo sputtered added the rest of their friends laughed and Hermione’s face lit up bright red. Tonks nearly fell on the ground she was laughing so hard.

“We are not doing that,” Hermione hissed. “Jesus Harry. We just wanted to spend time together as a couple. Like a date.”

“Oh,” Harry blushed a bit himself now. “Well... I guess we’ll see you in a couple hours, be careful, yeah?”

“You be careful,” Theo said before hustling Hermione down the pathway.

“Great, where to?” Tonks said brightly, shifting her appearance to mimic Hermione.

“We’re wasting time,” Susan whispered, stepping up to take Harry’s hand. “She can come without knowing what we’re doing.”

Harry tilted his head slightly in concession to Susan’s point.

“New plan,” he said, watching Tonks out the corner of his eye. “You guys-“ he pointed at the other boys standing around them, “-go do whatever. Susan, Tonks, and I are going to explore. Meet up in two hours at the Three Broomsticks, yeah?”

“Sounds good,” Blaise said easily. “C’mon Longbottom, let’s go introduce Weasley to real joke products.”

Draco stood with an uncertain look as the other three boys took off towards the town. He squared his shoulders and turned back to Harry, a determined glint in his eyes.

“I’ll go with you guys,” he said.

“Good man Draco,” Susan said. She shifted so she could link her arms with Harry and Draco both.

“Where to?” Tonks asked again, rudely linking her arm with Draco and changing back to her blonde haired previous appearance.

“Shrieking Shack,” Harry said immediately.

“Ooh, so you are searching for Black,” Tonks said brightly, stumbling slightly at the quick pace Harry and his friends were setting. “Kingsley said he thought you were but I thought ‘no way a little kid would go looking for a man who wants to kill him’.”

“Harry is not a little kid, Nymphadora,” Susan said, glaring at the other witch. “And I believe he said we’re going to look at a historical landmark, not that we’re going to look for an escaped prisoner.”

“Thats your job anyway, ain’t it?” Harry added.

“Testy,” Tonks said with a wink at Draco. Draco loyally huffed and turned his head away from her.

Tonks was unflappable during the walk to the Shack. She kept up a steady stream of chatter about her own school days and Auror training, which she just finished.

“You’d be a great Auror, observation skills like yours,” she said to Harry. “How’d you even know where I was?”

“Magic,” Harry said drily. Tonks just laughed again.

Harry eyed the Shrieking Shack carefully as they approached the fencing around it. If Tonks hadn’t been with them his plan was to get his cloak and sneak in.

“Think we can get in?” Susan murmured quietly.

Apparently not quietly enough.

“Oh I wouldn’t,” Tonks said with a big smile. “I’d have to stop you if you broke in to a forbidden area. Plus, it’s haunted anyway.”

“You could try and stop us,” Susan said with her own polite smile.

“And it’s not fuckin’ haunted,” Harry snorted. “A giant wolf used to transform there every month, didn’t they?”

“A wolf?” Tonks said, her eyes getting round with excitement. “Really?”

“Merlin Tonks, aren’t you a witch?” Draco muttered.

“Careful little cousin, I’d hate to have to prove that I’m a witch to you,” she winked.

“Let’s just look around, yeah?” Harry suggested.

They were halfway around the side of the Shack when the large black dog Harry had taken to leaving steaks out for came slinking slowly out from underneath the house.

“Hey, there’s your dog!” Draco said, his eyes lighting up at the sight. “Come here boy!”

“His name is Grim,” Harry said. “Not ‘Boy’.”

“You named a huge black dog ‘Grim’?” Tonks asked as the dog came running up to Harry. “You’re a bit mad, aren’t you Harry?”

“He is not,” Susan said harshly. “Shut your mouth.”

Harry grinned at Susan before turning to Tonks.

“My dog, my name,” he said as he scratched the dogs ears. “Feel free to fight me over it.”

Tonks laughed again as she reached towards the dog, who very loyally growled at her.

“Good boy,” he murmured. “You can bite her if you want.”

The dog yipped and wagged it’s tail in a decidedly excited way that made Harry laugh.

“C’mon then, let’s keep looking,” he muttered to Susan.

The four of them, plus the dog, walked around the edge of the shack twice before Harry had to admit defeat. Without getting a look inside he had no real idea if Black was in there.

“Where are we ‘not looking for Sirius Black’ at next?” Tonks asked.

Harry rolled his eyes at her as Grim edged closer to Harry.

“Ignore her boy, she’s an imbecile,” Harry said loud enough for Tonks to hear.

“Are you sure you’re Harry Potter?” Tonks asked. “Because you sound an awful lot like Severus Snape.”

Grim growled at Tonks as she changed her hair and nose to mimic Snape.

“One more word and we’ll see how good of a witch you are,” Susan said darkly.

Tonks laughed as she shifted back to her student-like appearance. She held her hands up in a ‘I mean no harm’ kind of manner.

“If you guys want to go to the village I’d be thrilled to give you a tour.”

Draco turned to Harry with a remarkably pleading look in his grey eyes.

“Fine,” Harry huffed. “Let’s go.”

Draco lit up and practically pulled Susan along with him as he all but ran towards the village.

“Slow down,” Tonks cried. “I’m clumsy.”

Harry laughed unkindly when she tripped over a stone not thirty seconds later.

“Feel free to go away,” Susan said with a sweet smile.

“You guys aren’t very nice,” Tonks said with what Harry was sure was a fake pout. “I thought a fellow badger would be more welcoming.”

“You thought wrong, didn’t you?” Susan hummed.

“Are we fighting or are we going to Honeydukes before we have to meet up with everyone?” Draco said.

Harry would have preferred to fight, but Draco pouted in the most ridiculous way.

Tonks chattered about the different shops they passed alongside the sidewalk. Despite Harry’s best efforts, he found himself listening along to her chatter. She was ridiculously cheerful, very clumsy for a cop, but she had a lot of interesting stories.

When they got to Honeydukes Harry made Grim wait outside with a firm command.

“Do not run off or I won’t buy you anything to eat,” he said. “I’m not chasing you around town all day.”

Grim wagged his tail and obediently slunk off to the alleyway entrance beside the shop as Harry and the others went inside.

Harry felt his jaw drop before he caught himself once he stepped inside.

“Brill,” he breathed taking in the sight. Everywhere he looked there were shelves and shelves of brightly colored sweets.

“Cmon!” Susan grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the shelves. “Let’s find something wild for Lue!”

Harry ignored Tonks as he spent a very fun hour picking out a huge variety of treats with his friends. They filled a huge bag with all sorts of different stuff for Luna, including some sort of gummies that were shaped like different creatures. Harry grabbed a handful of ‘Pup Treats’ for Grim and even found some owl biscuits that he snagged for Sevvie.

He watched carefully as he saw Fred and George Weasley disappear in to a trap door behind the counter when they thought nobody noticed.

He wondered if they were robbing the place and made a mental note to ask them about it next time he saw them. He couldn’t do it now with the blonde cop he had stuck to him.

They eventually left the shop with arms full of candies and all thoughts of finding Black temporarily forgotten.

“I can shrink those so you can carry them easier,” Tonks offered.

Susan, who Harry was beginning to suspect did not like Tonks at all, snorted before holding her packages out to Harry.

He smirked at Tonks before pointing his pinky at Susan’s bag. “Shrink,” he drawled.

He was showing off a bit, as Susan’s bag immediately shrunk down, but the look of surprise on Tonk’s face was worth it.

“How’d you do that?” she asked with a big smile as he repeated the process on Draco’s bag.

“Magic.”

He pulled out the Pup Treats for Grim before he shrunk and pocketed his and Luna’s bags.

“Grim, c’mon buddy, want a treat?”

Grim ran up to him and jumped up, putting his giant paws on Harry’s chest.

“Get down stupid,” Harry laughed as he nearly fell at the huge weight. “If you knock me down in front of all these people I’m not giving you a treat.”

Grim jumped down immediately and looked up at Harry with his tongue wagging out of his mouth.

“You’re ridiculous,” Harry laughed as he tossed a few treats to him. “You can have more if you come back to Hogwarts tomorrow, yeah? C’mon, let’s go get you food.”

Grim followed behind the four of them, occasionally dodging between their legs. After he knocked Tonks down and Harry laughed, it seemed like he purposefully kept trying to trip her.

Which was fine by Harry.

They got to the Three Broomsticks and Grim whined at the door.

“You can’t come in Grim,” Susan said with a fond pat to the dogs back. “We’ll get you some food though, okay?”

Grim wagged his tail again before trotting off to the side alley.

They stepped inside and Harry felt the warmth of the building chase away any lingering chill from the dementors presence in the village.

“Over here!” Harry saw Blaise waving them down to a booth in the corner where the rest of their friends were already seated.

“You can go be a tail over there,” Harry said, gesturing Tonks towards the bar top.

“Fine,” Tonks sighed dramatically. “I guess I’ll just be an adult in a pub then,” she winked one last time before shifting back to her normal appearance and sitting down at the bar across from them.

“Find anything?” Neville asked softly.

“Not a thing,” Harry said rather crossly. “If Black’s at the Shack then he’s inside and I couldn’t shake Tonks to get in, could I?”

Neville gave him a sympathetic grimaced before Ron jumped in with an offer to go get everyone a drink.

“He just wants to flirt with Rosmerta,” Theo laughed.

Harry watched as Ron walked up to the bar and his ears turned red almost immediately as the bartender, a curvy woman with a low cut top, approached him.

“Boys are ridiculous,” Susan said to Hermione who nodded sagely.

Harry didn’t bother protesting since Ron did look rather silly as he gawked and blushed at Rosmerta while she grabbed eight butterbeers.

“Rosmerta said Tonk’s bought ‘em for us,” Ron said with a soppy grin on his face as he handed out the drinks.

Harry glared at the grinning Auror and levitated a couple sickles to her.

There was no chance he’d be indebted to a cop.

“What did you guys get up to?” Draco asked the other kids.