Roomies


Tonks stood at the door to Harry's bedroom, watching the sleeping girl
with a soft smile on her face. She had to resist the urge to sit on the
bed and stroke Harry's face, to feel the softness of her cheek, feelings
that she recognized as Harry's Veela-like allurement, still operating
even in her sleep.

"It's a good thing we got her out of the dorms right away. One night of
this and she would have been raped by her whole dorm room. Then we'd
really have a mess," Tonks murmured, gently drawing Harry's door closer
to the jamb. She left a good three inches, and settled herself down on a
couch that the house-elves had drawn out of storage to put in Harry's
living room.

She wanted to stay close enough that she would hear if Harry had a
nightmare. Her heart ached for him, and would, she knew, even without
the allurement. So much pain he had to endure. She almost laughed at her
own thoughts when she realized that as long as she wasn't looking at
him, she referred to him as a male. In his presence, she could not think
of him that way, and it always came out 'her.'

She curled up, pulling her feet onto the couch and shedding her shoes,
pillowing her head on the arm of the sofa. Tears slowly dripped from her
eyes as she imagined the pain Harry must have felt when they had to tell
her that she would not be able to see her friends again, that they had
to isolate her completely. At the same time, she cried for herself.

As one of the very few friends she had ever had that had looked right
past the Metamorphmagus and just seen Tonks, that had never asked her to
look like his crush, or an old flame, not to mention one of the bravest,
handsomest, and kindest boys she had ever met, Tonks had been entirely
unable to refuse to look after him. 

After following his relationships from afar, then closely watching his
interactions with Hermione and Ginny, and crying with him when his first
crush ended in tears, she had held out the hope that he would last long
enough to become legal for her to chase. She would have happily become
anyone for him, if only because she knew he would never expect it of
her. She had even entertained impossible fantasies of being the older
woman to his naive boy, of teaching him the arts of pleasure, one of the
reasons she teased him so avidly, in a way she did not tease Ron, nor
the other men around Harry. And now, because of the love she held for
him she had been unable to refuse, and he would soon come to see her as
his jailer, and instead of loving her, he would hate her.

She finally fell asleep, tears still trickling down her face, her heart
filled with pain, her soul with sadness.

---

Harry turned over, and awoke instantly at an unfamiliar pressure on his
chest. His mind quickly caught up to him, and he realized that he had
just turned over on his chest, squashing his breasts.

His head jerked up as he felt a wave of sadness wash over him. He
scrambled out of the bed, then feeling suddenly fearful, he focused on
being intangible, as he had been when he passed through the door. Surely
nothing could hurt him if it couldn't touch him, right? He passed his
arm readily through the bedpost, confirming his intangibility, then
strode towards the door, only then realizing that he did not recognize
the room he was in. It definitely was not in the Hospital Wing. None of
the smells were right for that.

To his surprise, there was a floor-length mirror on the door itself, and
to his utter delight, it was reflecting an empty room! Distracted
momentarily from the sadness that still emanated from beyond the door,
he played with his visibility, discovering that if he was actually
thinking about it, he could become intangible without being invisible,
and vice-versa. He could even go halfway, becoming intangible and only
partially invisible. Even better, his clothes stayed with him, turning
invisible and intangible as he did.

Another wave of sadness restored his attention, and becoming once again
fully intangible and invisible, and able to recognize now the feeling in
himself that told him that he was so, he passed through the mirror and
into the next room.

There, to his shock and dismay, he found Tonks, who he had always found
to be irrepressibly upbeat and endlessly amusing, crying in her sleep.
He moved towards her, reaching out with an intangible hand, and to his
shock, when his hand reached her head and slid partway in, he found
himself sucked into what he instantly realized must be her dreams.

Harry watched in shock as Tonks, curled into a ball, shivered and sobbed
under the hateful gaze of a female Harry trapped in a steel cage,
cursing at his 'jailer.'

With a cry of dismay, Harry leapt forward and wrapped the crying Auror
in his arms. He glared viciously at the jailed image of himself and it
vanished, fading into smoke, leaving them alone in white emptiness.
Tonks clutched at him, and he groaned involuntarily when she
accidentally brushed against his breast.

Summoning his will, he pulled her and himself up off of the floor, still
holding her close. It was surprisingly easy to impose his will on her
dreams, recreating the bedroom he had so recently awoken in, which he
now vaguely remember seeing before Dumbledore had pressed him into
slumber with a spell. He was interested to note, as he carefully lay her
on the bed, crawling in beside her as she clutched at him, that he
seemed solid in her dream, though he had been intangible when awake.

He wondered for a moment if he was really completely here, or if he was
really still standing outside, leaning over Tonks with his hand just
dipped beneath her brow, but discarded the thought as irrelevant.

Recognizing his situation as being something like a mix of legilimency
and entering a pensieve, he continued to cradle Tonks' consciousness,
while summoning up the memories and feelings that would explain her
situation, careful to focus his queries. He did not want to invade her
privacy too deeply, but he cared too much for the ever-friendly Auror to
leave her in such a state.

He was surprised to see many of his own insecurities mirrored in one
whom he had always viewed as a confident, self-assured, and capable, if
somewhat clumsy witch. She did not have the same weight of the world's
expectations that he suffered from, but she did face a similar weight on
an individual basis. Almost everyone she had met in her life so far had
expected her to use her Metamorphmagus talent to keep them amused and
happy, even going so far in some cases as to only kiss or even touch her
if she was wearing the 'correct' appearance.

She had many of the same misgivings about her natural appearance as he
had about his. Well, alright, she did not have knobbly knees, but she
was, in her opinion, too lanky, as if she had never managed to grow past
the uncomfortable gangly period of adolescence when the body has
only partially matured.

Even after having achieved her goal of becoming an Auror, something that
she had felt would give her the recognition for herself that she had
always desired, she still felt that her coworkers saw her as a walking
disaster, and largely tolerated her because of her usefulness in
subterfuge.

He was moved to tears when he found her feelings and memories of him,
the hopes and desires and hidden fantasies she had entertained about
him. Was he really the first person she had met that appealed to her and
yet did not see her as a Metamorphmagus first, a woman second, and a
person last, if at all?

Realizing that he was no longer hearing sobs, Harry looked down to find
Tonks staring up at him with fear-filled eyes. But not fear of him. He
could taste it, taste her fear of his rejection, his hate, as she
reached a trembling hand up to touch his face. Her eyes filled with
wonder when he did not react, did not strike her hand away.

He could feel her desire rising, and behind it, he could hear her mental
plea for one, just one last good dream before she awoke to harsh reality
and had to face his anger at his imprisonment, had to face watching him
slowly lose whatever liking he may have held for her.

She lifted her face to him, and he leaned forward, just a little. His
lips met hers, a touch as soft as a lily petal and her eyes sparkled.
She pressed forward, leaning into the kiss, her tongue brushing his
lips. Her emotions washed over him, her soul-filling gratitude at being
given this one last illusion of love, the hidden resignation of knowing
that it would never be hers, and the utter determination, both to enjoy
this last fantasy to the utmost, and to protect him with her life, even
in the face of her own death.

She kissed him hungrily, her hands moving over him, brushing his cheeks,
running through his hair, pushing and pulling on his shoulders. He
gasped into the kiss, his mouth opening to the advance of her tongue,
when her hand found his left breast and kneaded it gently. A glowing
warmth suffused him with her regard and love for him, and his own
growing desire for her.

As had happened the last time his need was aroused, his instincts came
to the fore. Their clothing vanished before his will. He pushed her
down, dropping to lay kisses on her neck even as he pressed her to
assume her own natural form.

Tears dripped from her eyes as he lifted up to look at her, soft black
hair framing a face that was perhaps a bit too thin for classic beauty,
but beautiful nonetheless, with deep black eyes that seemed filled with
an endless warmth. "How?" Tonks began, but Harry pressed his delicate
finger to her lips, then grinned when she wrapped her lips around it,
sucking lightly.

He bent over again, and kissed her neck, then sucked hard, enjoying the
salty taste of her skin, and the moans she could not suppress. He
drifted down, his finger still in her mouth as he kissed and nibbled on
her collarbone, pulling lightly at the flesh with his teeth, then
kissing away the fleeting pain.

Her hands curled in his long hair as he kissed and licked his way down
her breastbone between two pert breasts. Her natural endowments were not
large, but well-shaped, her nipples already taut and pointing straight
up. He followed the swell of her left breast, laving the line where her
breast met her chest.

His left hand drifted down to caress the smooth skin of her taut belly.
She certainly had nothing to be ashamed of in terms of her natural
conditioning. Auror training had left her with firm muscles that rippled
pleasantly beneath his questing hand as his light movements tickled her,
and she arched beneath him, pushing her breasts up.

His fingers found her bellybutton even as his mouth, working its way
around her breast, found her nipple. He circled her nipple with his
tongue, avoiding the nubbin in favor of tickling the little bumps of her
areola. His fingers circled the outer rim of her bellybutton at the same
time, and she shuddered, tossing her head back and forth. One hand flew
from his head, thumping against the sheets and twisting them as she
grasped futilely at nothing.

After dipping his little finger into her innie at the same moment that
he took her nipple gently in his teeth and tugged, his hand slid further
down, finding a neatly trimmed nest of soft black hair. He sucked
strongly for a moment, as she pushed up towards him, her other hand
falling from his hair to join the first in twisting and kneading the
sheets as she tried to thrust her pelvis up to meet his hand.

Having mercy on her, he slid across to take her right nipple in his
mouth, drawing his right hand out of her mouth and down to roll her
spit-moistened left peak between two fingers, while his left hand
dropped further, cupping her mons and insinuating one finger between her
fleshy lips.

A mild pain twinged in Harry's forehead, and he stilled, lifting his
head and eliciting a cry of protest from the panting witch beneath him.
Recognizing the touch of Voldemort, Harry felt a sudden surge of
absolute fury at the timing of the bastard's interruption and without
fully realizing what he was doing, Harry dumped that fury, along with
all the confusion and fear he had felt in the past days, down his
connection to the snake-faced freak, before quite effectively slamming
it closed and returning his attention to his witch.

He captured her lips in another searing kiss as he parted her folds,
running his fingers along the moist lines of her inner labia. He
captured one slick lip between two of his outstretched fingers, and
pressed lightly, massaging the entire length of the lip at once. Tonks
arched her back and cried out his name in a high keen.

He grinned as he pierced her lips with his tongue, tasting the depths of
her mouth, and simultaneously slid the finger that was between her folds
into her hole to a depth of one knuckle, testing her readiness. She
opened easily before him above and below, and he greedily took advantage
of both. He pumped his finger in and out, driving it steadily deeper,
responding unconsciously to her readiness.

He did not realize, instinctual as his actions were, that he was reading
her reactions and expertly avoiding anything that would dampen her
pleasure.

She screamed when he drew out his moistened finger and ran it smoothly
around her clitoral hood, applying light, indirect pressure to her
center. He merely grinned, leaning down to capture the scream with his
mouth, shifting to press his nipples against hers as he dipped again
into her petals, drawing forth her juices to spread over her clit,
making it shine as it peeked forth from within her folds.

He caught her pouting bottom lip between his own, and leaned back,
tugging on it, before releasing it as he twisted around, sliding his
left leg in under her right, catching his weight with his arms, propping
himself up as he bent and lifted his right leg, finally laying it over
her left leg and then he scooted up to her. She moaned loudly when he
pressed his folds against hers, his hips beginning to rotate.

He was as wet as she was, from the sensations of stimulating her, and
their juices flowed together as her hips began to move, pressing against
him rythmically as he picked up the pace.

Mentally giving thanks for the advantages of a dream realm, Harry
grabbed her legs and pulled her tight against him, eliciting a sobbing
cry of release. A cushioned support had appeared behind him, giving him
the brace he needed to free his hands and pull her to him.

He did not wait for her to come down from her orgasm, as he picked up
the pace yet again. Far from feeling tired, her release seemed to have
fueled him, sending a flood of new energy into him. She did not seem to
have received the same, but he could feel that she could take several
more highs before she was exhausted. He wanted to leave her totally
sated, he mused as his hips seemed to blur. His own orgasm was fast
approaching, but she reached her second before him still, as close as he
had kept her, and she screamed and sobbed his name throughout it, her
chest and face flushing red as she came.

His hands twitched and lost their grip on her legs as he followed a
minute later, keening as all of his muscles seemed to tense at once
before releasing with a deep, bone-shaking shudder. She took advantage
of his distraction, recovering faster than he expected and pulling out
from beneath him, twirling her legs around behind her as she leaned
forward and attacked his pussy with her tongue and lips.

Her hands grasped his thighs as she drove her tongue into his hole,
sucking hard, then licking from top to bottom, swallowing continuously
as she drank in his fluids. He screamed in pleasure never before
experienced, his head whipping from side to side against the cushion
behind him, his hands clenched into tight fists, when she latched onto
his clit, taking it lightly between her teeth, and sucked hard, lashing
it with her tongue as she held the pressure.

She spasmed and gushed when he came, as his control was temporarily
broken, flooding her with the sensations of his orgasm, triggering her
own in response. "Oh, Tonks," he groaned as she released his clit,
resting her face against his moist mound, panting hard.

He reached down and pulled her up, remaking the bed in his mind so that
he lay normally upon it, his head propped up on a pillow against the
headboard. Her mouth found his right nipple and sucked it in, and she
curled up against him, humming softly and sucking on his nipple.

He pulled the shattered remnants of his control back into place,
shielding her from his emotions and she quieted, resting against him,
with only the occasional suckle, more for comfort than lust, as he could
tell by the feel of her emotions.

He held her gently, stroking her hair and enjoying the soft comfort of
her suckling as she slowly drifted off to a deeper internal sleep, free
of dreams and fears.

When she finally dropped off completely, he found himself suddenly back
in the room, his hand just pulling out of her head. Willing himself
tangible again, he leaned over and kissed her cheek as she lay quietly
sucking her thumb.

Then he retreated back to his room to think about what had just
happened. He knew it had to be related to what he was. After all, he had
never had sex before, there would be no way that he could please a woman
so expertly if it was not coming from his form, which only confirmed his
estimation of what he was. But he had more to mull over than just his
unexpected prowess.

He had somehow entered Tonks' dreams. He had been able to view her
memories and feelings as if he were a true Legilimens, even though he
had never been trained as such. He could not be sure that it was not
merely part of the dream, but he remembered successfully attacking
Voldemort, though he remembered being furious, which Dumbledore and
Snape had said would make him more rather than less vulnerable. What is
more, he had then almost casually constructed a wall against his return.
Was that real? Was a succubus somehow a natural Occlumens?

And then, perhaps most critically, what of the energy he had felt enter
him when Tonks had come? Each time she orgasmed, it seemed to him that
she gave him a jolt of energy. Had he stolen that from her? Had he
inadvertently weakened her?

He also could not stop thinking about her feelings towards him, though
he tried. He should not even know them, nor did there seem to be much he
could do about them. It was not really appropriate to act on them. After
all, he was trapped as a girl now, and though Tonks did not know it, he
was a Dark creature. He could do his best to avoid targeting any of his
anger or frustration about his situation at her, but as much as she
might have wanted him as a guy she would not want to get involved with a
demonic girl, even if she had done so in a dream out of sheer
desperation. It was not fair to her, at any rate.

---

Tonks woke slowly, feeling tired but sated. Her thumb slipped from her
mouth as she sat up, and a fiery blush heated her cheeks as her dream
from last night returned to her. Her hand flew to her lips, remembering
the press of Harry's soft lips against her. "I think his allurement must
have hit me harder than I thought," she mused, wiping her thumb off on
her pants, trying not to think about what she had apparently been doing.

She pulled herself up off the couch and walking a bit unsteadily, made
her way across the room to Harry's door and eased it open. Her heart
leapt into her throat as she stared at the girl, sprawled across the
covers in the pajamas Tonks had dressed her in. Magically, of course;
she had not dared strip the girl by hand lest she lose control. With an
unsteady stride, Tonks made her way to the chair by the bed, and eased
herself into it. Harry's hair was spread out beneath her, her lips
moving now and then in soundless murmurs, and the smooth curves of her
breasts pushing at the buttons of her shirt seemed to invite a hand's
caress. The pajamas, loose though they were, aside from where Harry's
twists and turns in the night had gathered the loose fabric of his top
beneath him, were properly fitted to his size, and did little to conceal
the inviting swell of his hips, nor the flat line of his panties where
his movements had pushed the pajama bottoms down a bit on one side.

Tonks sighed, running her hand through her hair, as she realized with a
sinking heart that her love for this boy who had been through so much
was not going to fade over time, even if Harry's anger towards her did.
Just looking at her now brought back all the fantasies she had held
towards him, and last night's dream had given her all new ones towards
her. "It doesn't matter what you look like," Tonks murmured in
realization. "I can't stop loving you."

Harry moved in her sleep and a lock of hair slid into her face, shifting
slightly at her breath. Tonks could not resist reaching out and gently
brushing it out of Harry's face. Harry's eyes fluttered and opened, her
brilliant green eyes seeming somehow more luminous than ever now that
they were framed by long black lashes and no longer concealed by
thick-framed glasses.

To Tonks' surprise, Harry focused on her face right away, though she was
sure she remembered someone saying that he could see little more than
shapes without his glasses, probably in a discussion of what would
happen if Voldemort or one of his cronies would wake up and Accio his
glasses. A look of wonder spread across Harry's face, and her eyes
gleamed as they roved over Tonks face. For just a moment, Tonks dared to
hope that wonder was for her, though she knew, as was confirmed by
Harry's whisper of, "I can see!" as her delicate hand flew to touch her
face, that she was merely staring in wonder at not being nearly blind
without her glasses.

"Well, that's something good to come out of all this, then," Tonks said
brightly. "Though it's a bit unnerving to think that changes are still
happening."

"Yeah," agreed Harry, sitting up, blithely not mentioning the minor
point that in fact this change had happened before even the potions
accident had. He had simply decided, upon seeing Tonks that morning,
that he could not look on such beauty and pretend he could not see.

Tonks hid her disappointment as Harry's motion freed the trapped folds
of her pajama top, loosing it so that it no longer hugged the line of
her shapely breasts.

"You were in shock, I think, yesterday, Harry. Are you feeling better
now?"

Harry nodded, running his hand through his hair before flattening his
bangs against his scar. "I remember most of it, I think," Harry said.
"Someone sabotaged our potion and it blew up. I tried to shield it, but
I think I cast one that was too big and I ended up inside it. Is Neville
okay?"

"Neville's fine," Tonks assured her, smiling at this evidence once more
of the inherent kindness of the Boy . . . err, Girl-Who-Lived, and the
wrongness of Snape.

"So . . . what happens to me now? I mean, I know I have to stay here . .
. but what about school? I've still got to take the NEWTs, haven't I?"

"I'm going to teach you, one-on-one, mostly."

Harry frowned, her forehead wrinkling cutely, and Tonk had to suppress a
grin. She did not think that Harry would appreciate being referred to as
cute. He had certainly done enough in his life to be taken seriously.

"But what about your DADA classes?"

"Dumbledore will figure out something, I'm sure. I don't know what he is
going to do, but that's not my problem anymore. I'm going to make sure
that you pass the NEWTs, and I'm going to teach you everything and
anything I can think of that will help you against You-Know-Who."

Harry shook her head, sliding forward. "You need to get past that," she
said, looking into Tonks' eyes. "If you can't say Voldemort, call him
Tom. I'll know who you mean."

"Tom? Alright, sure, but it'll probably take me a little while. Habit,
you know," Tonks said, nodding, then she started, and glared playfully
at Harry. "Hey, who's the teacher here, anyway?"

"You are," Harry answered, tapping Tonks on the nose with a single
finger.

Tonks sighed then, dropping her gaze. "There is one thing, though.
Dumbledore absolutely insisted. I protested, I really did, but he's
right." She raised her head resolutely, her expression one of abject
misery, "You've got one class with Snape, still. Occlumency." She
reached out to grab one of Harry's hands, looking into his eyes and
trying to convey her understanding of his disgust. "Dumbledore is afraid
that Voldemort will be able to tell that something about the connection
has changed if he enters your mind. I don't think he is going to budge
on this."

Harry growled but nodded, thinking of the wall he had set up against
Voldemort. He would try the same thing against Snape. If it worked, he
would be rid of the annoying overbearing bat, if not, then he probably
needed the training. He shuddered at the thought of the alternative,
picturing himself in chains by Voldemort's side, powerless as Voldemort
used his stolen power to destroy his friends. This must be the task
Dumbledore had mentioned. If he could manage a proper shield, then Snape
might be Obliviated in just a day or two, which would also help minimize
his exposure to Voldemort.

Remembering what Dumbledore had said about the need to build up his
shields, he went ahead and focused on setting up the wall. He would
renew it regularly, and hopefully by the time Snape came to tutor him,
it would be strong.

He focused on Tonks again to find her staring at him worriedly. "I'm
okay, Tonks," he assured her. "I was just doing my Occlumency exercises.
It'll be too late to do them when Snape gets here."

Tonks grinned. "That's the spirit, Harry. Now, in addition to everything
else, Dumbledore wants me to work with on trying to get any
Metamorphmagus talent you might have to come out. He says that Hermione
told him that you've never had a haircut?"

Harry nodded. "That's right," he agreed, wondering how his form's
malleability would interact with Metamorphmagic. Should he just fake it,
or should he focus on doing it the way she did? Maybe if he managed to
be a real Metamorphmagus, he could change back to a guy that way. With
that thought, he decided to start out by trying her lessons while doing
his best to suppress his form's shape-changing abilities. He hoped it
would work, or that he could even begin to figure out how to start. All
of his control so far had merely been instinctual. He was not even sure
how he had suppressed the attractive allure, or why he could not seem to
suppress it completely.

"So, what's first?"

Tonks grinned, and pointedly looked her up and down. "Well, first, we
get you dressed. Which means a little education is in order." Tonks got
up and pulled open a drawer on the dresser, and pulled out a bra and
panties and tossed them to Harry, who stared at them in vague horror.

"You're going to . . ." He stared at her, and Tonks laughed
hysterically.

"Oh, your face!" she chortled. "No, Harry, I'm sure you can figure it
out. I'll just give you a bit of advice, hook the bra first, then get it
in place. I'll leave you to it, come out when you're dressed." With
that, she left the room, closing the door behind her, still laughing.

Harry snorted, looking at the bra and panties he was holding, before
shrugging. He got dressed quickly, finding that the closet and dresser
had been filled with clothes that fit him. He was not sure who had
obtained them, but he knew why. There was absolutely no chance that he
would be allowed to go to Diagon Alley, much less London, to get new
clothes, so someone had to do it on his behalf. He was amazed at how
quickly they had gotten everything, especially since he had not stood
for a fitting. As delightful as it was to have new, fitting clothes to
wear, he could not help but be aware that he had not purchased these,
nor had anyone borrowed his Gringott's key to use his money to pay for
them. Until someone stated that they were a gift, he would have to take
good care of them, operating on the assumption that they were a loan, or
worse, they might be magic, something like the Room of Requirement, and
not evidence of anyone's concern for him at all.

He had no difficulties with dressing, however. His body seemed to know
just what to do with the bra, and when he walked into the outer rooms,
Tonks was visibly startled. When he asked her why, she said that she had
not expected him to have put together a matching outfit so quickly. She
had expected to have to train his fashion sense.

She sent him back to his room to find his trunk and get his schedule and
the books for his first scheduled class that day, then she led him
through another door into what looked to be a training room. There were
mats on the floor in the center of the room, and a pair of desks off to
one side. There was a large bullseye target on the far wall. To his left
was a long mirror covering most of one wall. Three doors led out of the
room, including the one they entered through.

"Alright, let me see your schedule." 

Harry handed it over and waited while Tonks looked over it. 

"Okay, we'll go with this for now. We'll slot your Occlumency in one of
your free periods, along with the rest of your training. That way we'll
stay on track for your NEWTs." She looked over and grinned at Harry. "I
wouldn't worry too much about them, by the way. Spending the same time
as your classmates, but in one-on-one personal instruction, you should
finish the necessary work much faster, as long as you focus on it."

"I will," promised Harry.

"Let's get started then," said Tonks, clapping her hands.

"Oh, wait! My wand?" Harry scrambled through his robes, putting on a
good show as Tonks' face fell.

Tonks pulled out her own wand and brandished it. "Accio Harry's wand!"
Tonks cried out. Harry felt a tug on his hand, but concealed both it and
his shock. He had not felt that last night, but then maybe that was
because he was trying to summon it to his hand, where it already was?
But he had been holding it in his teeth, shouldn't he feel the pull
there, if it was somehow still part of his animagus form?

Tonks shrugged. "You'll just have to do theory today, I guess. I'll talk
to Dumbledore, see if anyone has reported finding it. If not, I guess
we'll have to get you a new one." She sighed, looking at her hands
before spreading them apologetically. "I don't know what else we can do.
Maybe Dumbledore will be able to summon it."

---

"Potter!"

Harry cringed, looking over and seeing what he expected, Professor Snape
standing glowering in the doorway. Snape looked at Tonks and waved his
hands dismissively. "If you would excuse us, Tonks, I have the dubious
honor of trying to make this arrogant brat learn to close off his . . .
oh, excuse me, her mind."

Harry bristled at Snape's tone, irritated more on Tonks' behalf then his
own, but before he could say anything, Snape had whipped out his wand
and shouted "Legilimens!"

Harry quickly threw everything he had into his wall, staring angrily at
Snape. He felt Snape probing at his wall and cheered inwardly. It had
not shattered at first touch, at least. He was surprised at how clear
his perceptions of Snape's invasion were, and gaining confidence from
Snape's discomposure, as the man pondered the unexpected wall, he
dropped the wall completely, and crafted instead the mental equivalent
of a funnel, dropping Snape's invasion directly into the memory of Snape
lying against the wall, blood trickling from beneath his hair. It was
what he had seen after he, Ron, and Hermione had cast Expelliarmus
simultaneously at the gloating Professor when he had been carrying on
about having Sirius Black fed to the Dementors.

Harry grinned as he easily fended off Snape's attempts to move to
another memory, but he allowed the probe to withdraw when Snape tried to
pull out of his attack. Tonks, who had never left the room in spite of
Snape's comments, preferring to remain and protect Harry from unfair
treatment, fairly goggled at Snape as he gasped, trying to catch his
breath, sweat pouring down his face. Snape was staring at Harry in utter
disbelief.

Finally he found his voice. "How!? You knew nothing the last time . . ."

"No thanks to you," Harry snarled. "Losing my godfather was plenty of
incentive, and once I started looking to something other than you, I
picked it up plenty quickly." Harry was deliberately equivocating. He
had in fact sought other sources of information on Occlumency after
Sirius fell through the veil, but he had gotten nowhere until his
strange transformation. "I'd say you aren't quite the teacher you think
you are."

"Watch your tongue, Potter," Snape snapped. "Twenty points from
Gryffindor!"

Harry looked at Tonks and grinned. "I'm not really attending Hogwarts
right now, Professor. I don't see how you can take points from a house
I'm no longer in. Besides, Occlumency isn't a Hogwarts course."

"The points stand, Potter," the professor spat, turning and striding out
of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Tonks just grinned. "I'd say that remarkable performance of solid
Occlumency against an acknowledged master Occlumens and Legilimens must
be worth a good forty points to Gryffindor, wouldn't you say Harry?"

Harry nodded, smiling gratefully as he collapsed into one of the chairs.
"That was amazing! When he started teaching me, he told me nothing but
to clear my mind, then attacked me. His lessons used to leave me
weakened. They were supposed to help me guard against Voldemort, but
every night that I had Occlumency with him, it seemed like my visions or
nightmares would be ten times worse. This time, my shields not only
held, I was able to drop them and force him to view a memory of my
choosing, not his!"

"Excellent work, Harry. Do you feel tired? The stupid bat was supposed
to schedule his lessons with me, not just barge in here."

"No, actually, I feel fine, Tonks. And I wouldn't bet on seeing him
again. He's probably going to Dumbledore right now with a sob story
about how I attacked him."

"What did you show him?"

"Hah! Ron would have loved that. In our third year, he tried to have
Sirius given to the Dementors, and he wouldn't listen to what they or we
had to say. I cast an Expelliarmus at him, and Ron and Hermione did the
same thing at the same time. Pure coincidence, but it left him
unconscious against the wall. I held him in my memory of him lying
against the wall."

"Bravo, Harry," Tonks congratulated her, clapping enthusiastically.
Surreptitiously, she examined Harry's face for her reaction to bringing
up Sirius. She's doing a lot better than I expected, though I guess
having just gotten a measure of payback against that greasy bastard
might have something to do with it. It does sound like a prank Sirius
would have loved.

She sat in the other chair. "Let's try a little Metamorphmagic now,
Harry, since your regular lesson this period has already been ruined."
She held up her hand and her nails grew quickly, stretching out until
she was wielding two inch long talons. "The key is not to visualize. I
can see how you might think that, but really, having any kind of mental
picture is just going to make it harder, which is why I think doing this
after your Occlumency practice may be a good idea. This is all about
your magic and your body. Your mind only comes into it for desire."

Harry shook her head and Tonks grinned gently, waiting for his protest.
"That doesn't make sense, Tonks. How can you change your hands like that
without having some idea what it's gonna look like?"

"Let's start with your hair, Harry. Hermione said you've never had a
haircut. I don't quite buy that. Surely your aunt or uncle tried at
least once?"

Harry nodded, grimacing. "She cut it all off. It looked terrible. I went
to sleep thinking about how horrible it was going to be in school the
next day, but when I woke up, it was back to normal."

Tonks stared at him with her mouth open. "You what?! Why didn't you tell
me that to begin with? That's Metamorphmagic, no question about it. I
thought I was going to have to lead you to the right conclusions, but
that was it stated in a nutshell."

"I don't understand, Tonks," Harry protested. Tonks suppressed her grin
at the way Harry's nose wrinkled as she stared up in confusion.

"You did not picture your hair being normal, Harry! You just wanted it
to be. You just needed it to be!"

Harry looked at his hand. "So . . . you don't picture it someway, you
just need it that way?"

"That's right, Harry. If you think of Hagrid, for example, you
immediately have a sense of the man, a sort of knowing, composed of
everything that means Hagrid to you, but if I told you to picture him,
you would start to think about pieces, like his nose, or his hair, and
you would lose the big picture. You can't picture it, you need to just
know, deep inside, that that's the way it should be. It can take a bit
of effort to learn to feel that way about something other than the way
you normally look, which is why most Metamorphmagi first show up by
returning to the way they expect themselves to look."

She pulled out her wand and gave a wave, turning Harry's fingernails a
nice shiny fire-engine red. Harry flushed, staring at his hand. He
grimaced, and the color faded away.

"Excellent! Now try and change them. They are supposed to be long! You
need to have long fingernails, think up a reason."

Harry turned his hand this way and that, then grinned. "To rake Malfoy's
face when he reacts to seeing me look like this," he said, picturing,
not her nails, but Malfoy's sneering face. He slashed at the image, then
stilled his hand, where each finger ended in a talon.

Tonks took Harry's hand in hers, bemused. She had not merely extended
her fingernails. They had actually become bird's talons, as best as she
could tell.

"Hippogriff," Harry muttered, and Tonks looked up.

"What was that?"

"I think I accidentally turned them into Hippogriff talons, like
Buckbeak. Hagrid brought him in with several others for our first class.
Malfoy insulted Buckbeak and got slashed for it. Went on and on about
it, and got Buckbeak's death ordered. I guess that was what came to mind
when I focused on needing to slash Malfoy." Harry still wasn't quite
sure if he had managed Metamorphmagic or merely invoked his new form's
flexibility in spite of his intention not to.

"Try something else," urged Tonks, as Harry returned his hand to normal.
She did not bother commenting on that, since returning to normal was the
easiest transformation for a Metamorphmagus.

Harry stood up, walking over to stand by the mirrored wall, staring at
her reflection with an angry gaze. Tonks came to stand behind her, a bit
worried about the anger on her face until she spoke, at which point she
understood completely.

"I need to not have this bloody scar! I need to not have people stare at
me everywhere I go. I need to not have searing pains in my head whenever
Voldemort gets a bug up his arse." Harry glared at the mirror, but
nothing happened.

She slumped and Tonks put a hand on her shoulder comfortingly. "One more
try, Harry. It is a curse scar, you may not be able to get rid of it.
But you might be able to move it."

Harry's eyes flashed and before their eyes, her scar vanished, while a
lock of Harry's black hair turned white in front. "Cool," Tonks
commented. "I take it you moved it up a bit."

Harry nodded. "Exactly," he affirmed, turning his head this way and
that. He reached up and ran his head through his hair, fingering the
white lock. "I don't even look like me, now."

Tonks reached up, running her hands through Harry's hair, sweeping it
back and holding it all in her hand in a high ponytail. "Now you really
don't. The Harry we all know would never expose his forehead. If you
changed your eye color . . ."

Harry grinned and Tonks started and gasped, dropping his hair as his
eyes glowed red in the mirror. "Just kidding," he told her, as they
faded to a light blue.

"A bit darker," Tonks advised, and Harry complied. "Accio hairband,"
Tonks called out, grabbing the tiny piece of elastic that appeared, and
pulled her hair back again, easily binding it with the hairband. She
stepped back as Harry turned in front of the mirror. "Wow. In girl's
clothes that fit, your hair in a ponytail, your forehead exposed, blue
eyes and white lock, I don't think anyone that doesn't already know you
are a girl is going to be able to recognize you."