Tonks dragged herself through the front door late that evening, her boots scuffing the polished hardwood floor with a heavy, rhythmic thud that suggested she weighed twice her actual size. Every step felt like a victory against gravity, her muscles screaming in protest after a shift that had stretched far beyond the boundaries of a standard duty roster. She wanted to cry, she felt like she was both running the ministry and doing the grunt work.
"Arg…" she groaned, the sound catching in her throat as a ragged rasp of pure exhaustion. She didn't even possess the mental energy to unbutton her Auror robes or kick off her mud-flecked boots before collapsing onto the sprawling velvet couch in the living room.
She let her limbs splay out in every direction, looking less like the lethal law enforcement officer she was and more like a puppet whose strings had been abruptly severed. Why did she have to be too stubborn and want to work.
Work had been brutal, and it wasn't even the action that made her like this, no, it was the soul-crushing, bureaucratic exhaustion that came from dealing with pure, unadulterated human stupidity.
This was the kind of enemy no Shield Charm could block, and no Killing Curse could fully kill, a relentless tide of idiocy that simply wore one down by sheer volume.
A fringe group of Pureblood extremists, mostly the desperate dregs of families that had been too cowardly to join Voldemort during the war before openly but still supported his ideals, but were now too stubborn to accept that nowadays those ideals don't mean anything to most of the people around.
So they had attempted a pathetic "revolution" in the Ministry atrium that morning. They had stood there, waving rusted family crests and screaming about "reclaiming the old hierarchies," as if the clock of history would politely reverse its gears for a few angry fools who don't seem to understand that things were moving forward regardless of whether they were along for the ride or not.
Tonks had nearly laughed in their faces while she was snapping the anti-apparition cuffs on them. The Pureblood movement wasn't just wounded, it was dead and buried, its grave salted by the very man who owned this home.
Most of its former champions had been humiliated, stripped of their power, or removed from relevance by Harry years ago after the whole massacre. The wizarding world had already shifted its axis, moving toward a future where blood was just a liquid, not really holding that kinda power anymore.
Anyone still clinging to the old narrative of blood purity wasn't a threat to the state, they were an embarrassing echo, a group of roaches scuttling in the harsh light of a new sun.
But roaches were still annoying to sweep up, and the "revolution" had kept her on her feet for fourteen hours of tedious processing and paperwork.
A cup of steaming Earl Grey appeared on the side table, the sharp, citrusy aroma of bergamot cutting through the stagnant air of her fatigue.
"Thank you, Peeky," she murmured to the empty air, assuming the house-elf was hovering somewhere nearby in her usual state of invisible vigilance. She took a long, grateful sip, the heat settling her jagged nerves and slowly thawing the cold ache that had settled in her shoulders.
It took her a few minutes of blissful, eyes-closed silence before something in her Auror instincts began to prickle. Something about the atmosphere of the manor felt... off. It wasn't a sense of danger, but a shift in the house. Something was different from the past few days.
She knew Anya was out at the Mage Association, the woman had mentioned a breakthrough in Babylonian ley-line theory that required her presence until at least late in the night or the early hours of the next morning, depending on how fast work gets done.
But Daphne should have been here. Daphne Greengrass was many things, but she was not a woman who enjoyed being cooped up in a bedroom for an entire evening. She preferred the social theater of the living room or the quiet power of the study, usually reclining with a glass of expensive wine and a stack of financial reports to "relax" with. She really didn't understand how that was relaxing, but everyone relaxed in their own way.
Tonks opened one eye and surveyed the room. Daphne was definitely home, her leather-bound planner and a stack of meticulously arranged papers sat on the side desk. Daphne did not leave her work lying around if she was out of the house, and she certainly didn't leave her fountain pen uncapped.
"Peeky!" Tonks called out, her voice slightly stronger now.
With a soft, melodic pop, the elf appeared, bowing so low that her oversized ears brushed the rug. "Yes, mussis Tonksy? How can Peeky be helping the tired, grumbling mussis?"
Tonks' eye twitched at the mangled honorific. She had spent time trying to get the elves to call her just Tonks, but it was a losing battle against their ancient programming. "Where's Daphne? I haven't seen her since I got in."
The elf's large, tennis-ball eyes sparkled. "Mussis Daphy is with Great Lord Harry in the bedroom, mussis. They is being... very occupied with the King's business."
The words took a few seconds to filter through Tonks' brain. Then she shot upright on the couch like she'd been hit with a Stinging Hex. "Harry? Harry is back? Since when?!"
"This afternoon, mussis!" Peeky chirped, her hands twisting excitedly in her tea-towel uniform. "Great Lord came through the wall! Made a big, loud hole! Stone flying everywhere! Very exciting, very messy!"
"That son of a..." Tonks started cursing under her breath, her hair flashing from a dull brown to a jagged, electric crimson as she marched toward the stairs. "Nine days. Nine long days of me worrying myself sick, and he didn't even think to send a single Patronus? Not an owl?"
The more she thought about it, the more her irritation grew. She was half-convinced he was ignoring her, or perhaps the dimensional jump had scrambled his brains enough to forget she existed.
She stomped up the hallway, her boots echoing with the fury of a woman who had spent too long waiting for her man to return. She reached the master bedroom door, her hand already raised in a clenched fist, ready to slam it open and demand a full judicial inquiry into his absence.
But just as her knuckles were about to make contact with the dark wood, a sequence of sounds drifted through the heavy door. There were loud, rhythmic thuds, the screech of a heavy bed frame being pushed against the stone wall, and a series of moans and grunts that were far too familiar to be anything else.
Tonks froze. Her anger didn't exactly dissipate, but it was suddenly sidelined by a dawning, slightly embarrassed realization. She stood there for a long moment, her hand hovering in mid-air. Then, a slow, pervy smirk spread across her face. She opened the door slightly as she leaned her head in, picking up the frantic, desperate quality of the reunion inside.
"Well," she whispered to herself, clicking her tongue as she stepped back and closed the door. "I guess I'll forgive him for the lack of a message. He's clearly busy with... very, very important things. Very intensive things," she chuckled.
She felt a momentary, sharp pang of jealousy. Daphne was the lucky one who seemed to catch him first, but the unwritten 'Girl Code' was absolute. She wasn't going to be the one to interrupt her lover's homecoming, especially not when he was clearly making up for lost time. She turned on her heel and headed back downstairs to wait, her annoyance replaced by a simmering, playful anticipation. She'd get her own time, oh, she would.
It was nearly three hours later when the pair finally emerged from the room and descended the grand staircase.
Daphne was leaning heavily into Harry's side, her steps slightly uneven and her hair a chaotic, beautiful bird's nest that she hadn't even bothered to try and tame. She was wearing nothing but one of Harry's oversized shirts, which hung off one shoulder and barely reached her mid-thigh.
Harry followed a step behind, looking entirely too smug for his own good. He was wearing only a pair of loose black trousers, his chest bare. The scars across his torso, each a trophy from a dead god.
"I can't believe you!" Tonks called out from her sprawl on the couch, startling them both as they reached the final step. "You come back after nine days and not even a 'hello'? Not even a 'Hey Tonks, I haven't been eaten by a trans-dimensional horror'?"
Harry blinked, looking uncharacteristically sheepish under her emerald gaze. "Ah... Tonks. I didn't see you come in. Sorry. I was... a little busy."
Tonks wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, her hair shifting to a teasing bubblegum pink. "Oh, I'm sure you were."
Harry didn't try to defend himself at all, even looking smug. Instead, he moved toward her with a warm, genuine grin, opening his arms wide. He swept her up in a crushing hug, lifting her feet off the floor and spinning her once. He pressed a firm, lingering kiss to her cheek.
"Sorry," he whispered against her ear, his voice vibrating through her chest. "I missed you, too. More than you can imagine."
Tonks melted instantly, all her fabricated anger vanishing like mist in a summer gale. She leaned her head against his shoulder, sighing contentedly. "Welcome home, you idiot."
They settled onto the large sofa, Tonks immediately claiming her "prime real estate" on Harry's lap without a hint of shame. A short while later, Anya returned from the Association. The moment the mage saw Harry sitting there, her usual composure shattered, she practically launched herself at him, clinging to his neck for several minutes.
As the night deepened and Peeky kept the tea and snacks flowing, Harry finally began to weave the tale of his journey. He spoke of the jump to a version of their world. He described meeting his younger self, or at least that world's version of Harry Potter.
"I saw another Tonks," Harry mentioned, a slightly amused glint in his eyes. "She was... different. Much more clumsy, tripped over a troll-leg umbrella stand twice in five minutes. She was orbiting around a Remus Lupin, I think they are dating, or at least she's interested, and the man just seemed like he didn't know what to do."
Tonks laughed, her hair turning a vibrant, amused violet. "Poor Remus. Seems, in any reality, the man is a disaster with women. I'm glad I got the Godslayer instead of the werewolf, honestly."
Daphne, however, remained the pragmatist, her mind focused on the mechanics of his return. "You told me you didn't think the fight even lasted forty-eight hours. So how in the hell was it nine days in this reality?"
"Time dilation," Harry explained, his expression turning uncharacteristically grim. "The multiverse doesn't run on a single synchronized clock. Each world is a gear in a massive, cosmic machine, and they don't all turn at the same speed. It's the greatest risk of the rifts if I'm not careful, I could spend a week in a 'slow' world and come home to find a century has passed here. I could come home to find you all gone."
The room went deathly silent at that realization.
"And if you'd landed somewhere with faster time?" Anya asked.
Harry's green eyes flashed with a sudden, the terrifying look of a man who would tear the stars from the sky if they stood in his way. "Then I'd tear my way back through the Void, through space and time, and make sure to get back to you three regardless of what happens," he sighed softly, looking at their faces, "I'm not going lose you three, I'm certainly not letting time take what belongs to me. No matter where I am, no matter how far I go, just know I'll always make it back to you."
Tonks smirked, breaking the heavy tension as she leaned back against his chest, feeling the steady thrum of his heart. "Good. Just be careful when you're out there."
He could see that they wanted to say other things, but decided not to.
Harry grinned, gesturing for the other two to come closer, pulling them all closer in a silent promise of protection. "No promises."
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