Hermione is Getting Married, Part II

[wildmagelet]

Title: Hermione is Getting Married (Part II)
Author: wildmagelet
Rating & Warnings: T, warnings for mild sexual references and a bit of swearing
Prompts: Magical Object: Talking Mirror, Characters: Ginny, Hermione & Snape (sort of), Verb: Break, Genre: Romantic Comedy
Word Count: 12,871 (so much for short and succinct this time!)
Summary: T'was the night before Remus Lupin's birthday and all through the house, not a creature was stirring... Largely because all of the women were at Hermione's hen's night. And with drinks aplenty, disturbing homemade presents, an exiled Umbridge back in town and policemen on the prowl, it looked set to be a memorable evening...
Author’s Notes: Again, un-beta'd and rushed. Just sneaking in before the midnight deadline here, actually! And the last third probably reflects my head cold fog. This is dedicated to kileaiya - if we have our own expedition into London, hopefully we can avoid a similar outcome! :)


Their guard managed to demonstrate an unexpected efficiency - borne of sheer enthusiasm - and less than ten minutes later, Tonks found herself on the inside of a gaol cell for the first time in her career. She couldn’t say that she cared for the experience. Particularly since they’d decided that enough was enough and cast a sobering charm on Hermione, who had performed as expected. All over the floor.

Ginny, proving once and for all that she was Molly’s daughter, performed an extremely impressive non-verbal scourgify. After the debacle at the junk shop, they’d abandoned the policy of no spells around Muggles, which had been stringently enforced since the war. It was Saturday night, so Tonks could only hope that things were busy enough in wizarding London that they wouldn’t be slapped with a fine for misuse of magic.

She pressed her face against the bars and peered down the narrow hallway of the Lower Hamblett Police Station, which had turned out to be the ground floor of Sergeant Stupor’s cottage. She could hear the vague sounds of tea-making several doors down. The policeman, who obviously couldn’t believe his luck, had originally seemed inclined to stay and chat with them all night. He’d already informed them that, as Tonks had suspected, nobody had committed cause for arrest since Mr. Hicks had tried to poison Mrs. Bale’s cat. They were a big event in Lower Hamblett.

Tonks had lived in an almost identical village for two years during her childhood and knew that every resident of the hamlet, including Mrs. Bale’s cat, would show up for a gander at them once the paper boy delivered the morning gossip. Fortunately, as they had no intention of sticking around to make an even greater spectacle of themselves, their new friend had belatedly remembered to ask for their names. Ginny, who had years of experience in talking her way out of a telling-off, had immediately introduced herself as Dolores Umbridge. Hermione had been too busy being sick to respond or care. Tonks had been caught unawares, surveying the physical layout of the cell, and had given her real name. Which was pretty appalling for an Auror, she had to admit. The sergeant - or constable, he hadn’t bothered to return the favour and introduce himself - had taken personal affront to her cheekiness, given her a lecture on the evils of supplying a fake alias to the “poliss” and stalked off to make himself a cuppa, looking askance at her pink hair and muttering something about young people and their drugs as he went.

Apparently he didn’t find Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin a sensible name, either.

Tonks leaned back against the bars and sighed.

“I suppose it’s easiest if we give Hermione half an hour to recover and then Apparate back to the Leaky. I’m the only one who was a big enough prat to give my own name and nobody will believe it’s a real one, anyway… Ginny?”

The younger witch was gazing around with the avid interest of a Muggle Studies student on a field trip.

“What… Oh, sorry,” she said, catching glance of Tonks’s pained expression. “My dad’s always wondered if Muggle gaols are like wizarding prison.”

“Somehow I doubt that’s the first question he’ll ask about tonight,” Tonks told her sourly. “So, Apparition…?”

“Not for at least half an hour after a sobering charm, yeah?” Ginny looked over at Hermione, who was hunched and miserable in her corner. “I reckon it’s best we get her moving around. Don’t worry, I’ve got this covered.” And she reached to pull up the hem of her dress.

Tonks’s eyebrow shot up.

“I beg to differ. And if you’re suggesting that we seduce the guard,” she said warily, “it’ll be beauty before age, kid.”

Ginny gave her a quick grin, before patting around the line of her stockings. Producing a small round object, she shook her head dismissively and gave it to Tonks to hold. A small box then appeared, which grew by several inches when she tapped it with her wand.

“Should I even ask what that is?” Tonks was prepared to be concerned by anything that a Weasley would be carrying strapped to their leg in a small box. She tossed the round ball in her grasp, a new Exploding Decoy Detonator, from one hand to the other a few times.

“It’s Fred and George’s Gaol Break Kit, of course.”

“Of course it is.” Despite the fact that this entire situation had ceased to be funny the moment that Dolores Umbridge had come onto the scene, Tonks couldn’t help but laugh. “Because who would go to a party without a Gaol Break Kit?”

“Exactly.” Ginny opened the box. “It’s especially designed for Muggle locks, too. The twins reckon that they can get up to just about anything in wizarding London without being arrested, but the first time they went to a Muggle party, they ended up in a holding cell in Bayswater. So now we all take one of these when we go out, just in case. Except Percy, but he wouldn’t get arrested, the prat. We’re not that lucky.”

Tonks peered over her shoulder, fascinated by what Fred and George might consider essential in a Gaol Break Kit. Inside the box, nestled on a bed of black velvet, was a strange-looking key.

“Is that it?” she asked, disappointed. “A skeleton key?”

Ginny pulled it out and held it near the locked gate. It immediately began to shimmer and bend, wiggling itself smoothly into the keyhole and aligning to fit. The lock clicked, the door swung open and Ginny shrugged.

“It’s just a Muggle lock,” she said, a bit scathingly. “What else do you need?” With a grand gesture, she indicated the empty hallway. “Shall we?”

“Poor Sergeant Stupor.” Tonks wrapped an arm around Hermione’s waist, supporting her as she swayed on her feet. The poor kid was a visible shade of green. “He’ll be so disappointed. I reckon we made his whole career tonight.”

They headed for the front door as quickly as they could. Hermione was dragging her feet and muttering something about her stomach, a threat which Tonks took very seriously given their proximity. Ginny rounded the corner of the hallway first and came to a dead halt.

It took some fancy footwork to avoid a reversal of the earlier incident on the stairwell.

“Ginny?” A weight settled in Tonks’s belly. What now, for Merlin’s sake? She came to stand at Ginny’s shoulder and followed her gaze. Oh, bugger. Their policeman friend, who was proving surprisingly competent after all, was standing between them and the front door, having apparently left the kitchen by another route. With his cup of tea raised halfway to his mouth, he too seemed frozen in surprise.

Actually…

He seemed frozen, full stop. Tonks frowned, the flesh starting to creep at her neck. He had never seemed like a vastly energetic bloke, true, but still… The man had definitely been immobilized. Her hand immediately went to her wand, her body locking down into combat stance. They hadn’t come far enough from the war for this situation to feel at all comfortable.

Ginny tucked her left hand through Hermione’s elbow and brandished her own wand in her right. She turned to look behind them, her eyes suspicious and excited.

“Do you think… You don’t reckon it’s Death-Eaters?” she asked tentatively.

Tonks didn’t reply for a moment, as she strained her ears for the squeak of footsteps or the whistle of a hex. It wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility. There was still a long list of Voldemort’s former followers on the loose, most of whom were indulging in petty crime to survive on the run. And there was obviously something going down in Lower Hamblett…

Motion flickered at the front door and she reacted instinctively. Her stinging spell narrowly glanced off a shield charm and raised an indignant shout. Three pairs of outraged eyes focused on her. Tonks flinched in response to the spectacle before her. The men were all dressed in badly transfigured suits of a shade of green even sicklier than Hermione’s face.

“Wands down and hands up,” said the recipient of the stinging charm grimly. “Under the legislation of Act Eight-Two-Six-Three, Paragraph Twelve, you are all charged with misuse of magic, destruction of property, attempted theft and the use of the Imperius Curse on one Mister Walt Johnson of Twee Antiques, Lower Hamblett. You are entitled to legal representation, which will be assigned to you at the Department of Criminal Justice.”

“Not Death-Eaters,” Tonks said to Ginny flatly. “Worse.”

The Frog Squad.

The Ministry’s Inquisitorial Combat Squad had been instituted by Umbridge herself during the last months of the war, for the purpose of uncovering followers of Dark Magic and compensating for the failures of the Auror Department. The bloody twats had been responsible for the incarceration of a quarter of the population of Britain. After Voldemort’s fall and Umbridge’s exile, the Squad had been kept on by Scrimgeour to “help tie up loose ends”. They’d been making a nuisance of themselves ever since, filing screeds of useless paperwork and mincing about in robes of lurid lime green.

They were a joke. Unfortunately, they were a joke with authority to arrest and she’d just fired on them.

Reluctantly, Tonks lowered her wand.

In the process of doing so, she accidentally dropped the Wizard Wheeze that was still clutched in her hand. The Exploding Decoy Detonator got to its feet and skipped happily across the floor. It then blew itself up, in a spectacular display.

Beneath the lurid lime green robes of an Inquisitor.

As their colleague leapt about and produced a volley of words that would have raised eyebrows in a giants’ pub, the remaining agents turned to her grimly.

“Madam,” one snapped, and Tonks winced. She may feel like a veritable grandmother in comparison to Ginny, who was now in hysterics and getting entirely too much enjoyment out of this little adventure, but surely she wasn’t old enough to warrant a “madam”. Even Remus had only just turned forty.

A wand pointed menacingly at her and she raised her arms in resignation.

“Madam - ”

“Don’t tell me,” she said glumly. “I’m nicked.”

&&&&&

And so here they were. Behind bars for the second time in one night, which was a feat that would impress even Fred and George. Their arrest had been processed at the Ministry, which would ensure that every joker in the Auror Department would hear about this before her next shift. They had then been transported to the holding facilities at Little Deadbeat Gaol. As she’d hoped, it was shaping up to be a busy Saturday night for the Department of Law Enforcement, so much so that the Ministry cells were already full. There were, however, an abundance of cottage prisons left empty since the persecution mania of the war had ended.

Tonks, gazing around at their dreary cell, had new empathy for the poor souls who had found themselves here for months on end. For much less reason than the list of charges that they had been stuck with. Under great protest, cold threats and the display of her Auror’s badge, the offense of using an Unforgivable on the shopkeeper had been dropped and a search had been launched for Umbridge. Probably a half-assed one, given that the Frog Squad still adored their toad leader. As soon as she was released, Tonks would get on to Kingsley and Remus about it. The woman was buggering about in the middle of the night with shady accomplices and the Imperius Curse. She belonged in Azkaban, not Ibiza.

Of course, that might not happen any time soon. With the charge of destruction of property, in particular, they didn’t have a leg to stand on. Especially since Ginny, in a well-meaning attempt to secure their freedom, had pointed out that if they’d been trying to rob the store, they’d done a piss poor job of it. They’d broken everything.

A large red “Guilty” stamp had closed the investigation on their case.

Tonks tugged crossly at an anti-magic cuff. They were bloody lucky that this hadn’t happened during Umbridge’s reign of terror, not that anyone had been in the mood for parties then. All joking aside, they could now have been facing an execution sentence. One that would have happily been pushed through by some people at the Ministry. As it was, they were looking at a hefty fine and a magic ban of up to three months. Which would mean desk duties at work for the same amount of time.

Cheers, girls.

No. That wasn’t fair. Hermione had hardly been herself and Ginny had made an honest mistake with the potion. Tonks had been an adult for quite some time and she was a trained professional. It was largely her own fault that Molly’s babies now had records and she was going to miss birthday morning sex with her husband. Who would probably never speak to her again if she couldn’t get home by the afternoon and he was stuck with ninety party guests, forty-five of whom they hadn’t liked enough to put on the invite list in the first place.

The first rays of dawn were beginning to slide across the concrete floor before Tonks heard a familiar voice floating down the hallway.

“I’m not saying you don’t know your job,” Ron Weasley protested. “I’m just asking. Are you sure you’ve got the right girl? You’ve arrested Hermione Granger? H-E-R-M… Look, mate, there’s no need to get worked up about it…”

Hermione lifted her head from her folded arms. She didn’t look very enthusiastic about the impending reunion with her fiancé.

“Oh, no,” she muttered, swinging her legs to the ground and sitting up to stare out through the bars with a hunted look on her face.

Ginny, who had finally abandoned her conversation with the neighbours an hour earlier, bounded from the bench with renewed energy. Wrapping her hands around the bars, she craned her neck to look and a smile broke out on her face.

“About time, big brother,” she said, with incomprehensible cheer. “Hello, Professor Lupin. Happy Birthday. It’s all right, Harry, I’m fine.”

Tonks shook her head. Nobody over the age of five had the right to that much resilience. As relieved as she was that the cavalry had arrived, she still felt like a deflated Quaffle.

Escorted by two members of the Frog Squad, Remus, Ron and Harry came into view. They bore the unmistakably harassed expressions of an encounter with Rita Skeeter.

“Wotcher, boys,” she said sheepishly, getting to her feet and giving a weak shrug in response to Remus’s disbelieving stare. “Thanks for coming.”

There was a moment of complete silence. Even the woman in the adjacent cell with the perpetual sniff was watching them with bated breath.

Then Ron started to laugh. Loudly.

“You…you actually…you…” He clutched at his sides and gave up his attempt at speech.

“Oh, shut up, Ron,” Hermione snapped, in a less than lover-like greeting. Her face was bright red and her eyes shone as she glared at him.

Tonks sympathized with both of them. On the one hand, it was bit unromantic when your fiancé found you after a harrowing night and dissolved into giggles rather than tears of gratitude at your safety. On the other hand, if the situation had been reversed, she’d have split her sides laughing.

“Don’t worry, Hermione,” Ginny said, fighting a smile. “They’re just jealous. What was the most exciting thing that happened at your stag night, Ron? Dobby’s rendition of “You Charmed the Heart Right Out of Me”?

Harry, the colour having come back into his cheeks at the sight of a perfectly whole, wisecracking girlfriend, snorted.

“Sure you’re okay?” he asked, reaching a hand through the bars, which she grasped, nodding.

“Fine. These heels have had it, I reckon, but otherwise unscathed.”

“Can you let her…them out of there, please?” Harry said tightly to the Inquisitorial agents, who nodded reluctantly and released the lock charm on the door.

“The two young ‘uns are free to go. For now,” he added ominously, before leveling a cold stare at Tonks. “We’re still processing Pinky over there. Few extra charges on that one.”

“Extra charges?” Remus spoke up for the first time, his eyes narrowing on the man. “And what extra charges might those be?” His voice was cool.

“Assault on an arresting officer,” said the man, jerking his head at his scowling companion. “And disrespect to the arm of the law.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“She made certain comparisons between our highly-trained Squad and the inhabitants of the amphibian community, sir,” came the stiff reply.

Remus’s mouth twitched.

“I see,” he said with admirable calm. “Harry, Ron, take the girls home please. It’s all right.” He had spotted Hermione’s barely suppressed alarm at the prospect of traveling by Floo, Apparition or - worse - broom. “There’s a Ministry car outside. Supplied courtesy of Kingsley Shacklebolt, who extends his very best wishes for your upcoming marriage.”

Tonks groaned.

“Now,” said Remus, when the kids had departed, Harry and Ginny hand-in-hand and Hermione ignoring a still-chuckling Ron. He directed an authoritative stare at the Frog Squad, the one that could make even Mundungus Fletcher jump to do his bidding. “It’s my birthday and I’d like to be with my wife, so you can let me in with her until her bail has been processed, thank you.”

“Now, look here,” began the first agent, bristling.

Remus pulled back the lapel of his coat and displayed the official pin attached to his jumper. Umbridge’s legacy still lingered on Ministry premises and the word “Werewolf” jumped out in bright red ink.

Both of the Frogs took a visible step back.

“That doesn’t mean that you can just…” The larger of the men made a valiant attempt at rebuttal, his throat jumping nervously. Then he gave up, obviously wanting to get the hell away from both of them. “Oh, just let him in,” he told his colleague. “He’ll be locked up, won’t he? Not in a position to attack anyone. Except her, I suppose,” he realized doubtfully.

“And wouldn’t that be a shame?” said his colleague. Since the man must still have bits of Decoy Detonator lodged in his underpants, she had to forgive him the sarcasm.

The highly-trained Squad was beating a hasty retreat before the lock had slammed closed.

Remus removed his hands from his pockets and surveyed the interior of the cell with great interest.

“They built thirty of these in less than three months, you know,” he began conversationally, hitching up his trousers and taking a seat beside her.

He looked perfectly at ease. They might have been having tea in the garden of the Burrow.

Tonks set her jaw and waited.

It didn’t take long.

After gazing at her thoughtfully for a couple of moments, Remus broke down and began to laugh, as helplessly as Ron before him.

“Since I left you at the party at nine o’clock,” he said, wiping at his eyes, “you’ve managed to destroy an antiques store in Northampton, assault one Inquisitorial Combat agent with a Wizard Wheeze, insult the rest of the Squad and get yourself arrested twice. Did I leave anything out?”

“Apart from a very long train journey with a very drunk teenager, a short sojourn in a mulberry bush and a mind-numbing conversation with a Muggle copper? No.”

“I wasn’t sure if I ought to be appalled or amused when Kingsley’s owl arrived,” Remus said, examining the cuffs around her wrists.

“You’ve obviously made up your mind on that one,” Tonks snapped, giving him a sour look. She was suddenly wholly in support of Hermione’s attitude. It was more than a little galling when the love of one’s life didn’t have a drop of sympathy to spare. His unrelenting chuckles were grating on her already finely-drawn nerves.

As if he’d read her mind, Remus sobered suddenly.

“You’re lucky that I have a sense of humour about this,” he told her sternly, dropping her hands. “I didn’t enjoy waking up to a Ministry owl, you know. The notification of my wife’s arrest for attempted larceny wasn’t exactly the first possibility that jumped into my mind. I was assured, however, that you are perfectly unharmed, which is more than can be said for the string of men whom you felled by various means tonight. You are all right?”

His eyes were dark with concern rather than merriment now, and Tonks felt a rush of renewed warmth for him.

“I’m fine,” she said firmly. “I’m just sorry that I’ve ruined your birthday.”

A spark of humour lit his gaze once more.

“You have to be joking, love. It’s not even half seven in the morning and I’m already behind bars. That ought to silence any more ‘old codger’ remarks from the twins this afternoon. This may just be the best birthday I’ve ever had. I’m only sorry that Sirius isn’t here to witness it.”

“Oh, Fred and George don’t think you’re an old codger.” Tonks managed a genuine grin. “You ought to hear their theories about werewolf sex under the waxing moon.”

“Is that right?” Remus cast a quick look around the cells, but as Harry Potter had departed and it was clear that the pink-haired witch and her husband were not going to get into an argument, the other inhabitants had lost interest in them. He cupped her chin in his hand. “You can fill me in tonight. When, I believe, there may just be a waxing moon. Isn’t that convenient? And for now, you can kiss your old git of a husband on his birthday.”

His mouth was warm and welcome against hers and Tonks raised her cuffed hands to entwine her fingers in the folds of his jacket.

“This is very scandalous behaviour for a forty-year-old man,” she murmured, pulling away to nip at his lower lip.

His grin was so wide that their teeth clashed briefly.

“I know,” he said, tugging her unresisting form closer.

She had almost forgotten her stressful night when his body began to quiver against hers.

And not from a surge of passion.

He sat back, gripped by another spasm of laughter.

“I’m sorry,” he apologised unconvincingly. “It’s just bloody unbelievable. Tonks, what were you thinking?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted gloomily. She gathered that the snogging was temporarily on hold and sat back regretfully. “I wasn’t thinking. I just see that woman and every rational thought, except “Hex her! Hex her now!” goes flying out of my head.”

“Ah, yes, Umbridge,” Remus said, his mouth straightening into a grim line. “We have a new mission for the Order, I understand.”

“I don’t know what she’s doing,” Tonks admitted, “but it can’t be good, can it? Everything she touches turns to rot. Today, we celebrate your birthday. Tomorrow…” Her mouth quirked. “We go toad hunting.”

They sat in silence for a minute, listening to the drip of a pipe and the nose of the woman next door, before Tonks swore loudly and made Remus jump.

“How long do you think those twats are going to leave us here? I was supposed to help Molly with your cake this morning.”

“Were you?” Remus tried, belatedly, to hide his astonishment and she glared at him.

“She was going to let me ice the top. Calm down. I’m not allowed near the actual baking process.” Then she groaned. “I probably won’t be allowed near her house. Does she…”

“Molly is currently sleeping off a gallon of your punch. And Arthur has fortunately seen the funny side of your excursion. We’ve agreed that Ginny will give her mother an…edited form of events.”

Tonks didn’t feel any more reassured.

“I think she’ll get the general gist when we have to appear before the Council, won’t she? Reckon that’s the last of my Christmas jumpers.”

It was probably too late for Molly to lock down the Burrow against Tonks and her party guests. She wouldn’t, anyway. It was Remus’s birthday and she would still be fond of him in a couple of hours.

It was almost a pity. Tonks wasn’t sure that she ever wanted to attend a party again. After today, she decided, that was it. No more parties. Particularly with members of the Weasley family. They were bloody dangerous.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” said Remus absently. “Fred spilt the beans late last evening. He wasn’t supposed to announce anything until after this weekend’s celebrations, but he and Angelina are engaged.”

It was news that had been a long time coming, but it was still a very welcome bright spot in a grey morning.

“And she wants to talk to you and the girls about plans for her hen’s night.”

Tonks’s smile vanished.

“Don’t worry, love,” Remus said soothingly, correctly interpreting her expression. “You can always get yourself blacklisted from that wedding. I understand we all have to purchase a vast quantity of broken china. There ought to be more than enough for another mirror. Perhaps you could make them one each.”

Her anti-magic cuffs might prevent her from firing off a hex or two, but they at least made a satisfying thunk when she punched him.

He dodged away, still chuckling and looking much happier than he had all week, after well-meaning birthday greetings and jests about grey hair had sent him into periods of morose contemplation.

And all it had taken to cheer him up was her arrest and incarceration.

To think, she had expected the worst outcome of the night to be a hangover at Remus’s birthday party.

He was right. It was unbelievable. It was ludicrous.

As the other unfortunates of Little Dicking Gaol exchanged wary glances, Tonks finally gave into laughter.

The woman with the sinus problem looked up from her miserable contemplation of the floor drain and watched as they held onto one another for support.

“Knew she had to be a nutter,” she said, to no one in particular and with the smug triumph of one proved right in their assumptions. “Look at that hair!”

And she sniffed derisively.