Expelled - Harry Potter Fanfic

Ten - Awake

The first thing Harry remembered waking up was distinct voices, somewhere close but not by him. Keeping his eyes closed, he gingerly moved his stuff head towards it.

"...I think he knows," said the first voice, a woman's.

"I think he shouldn't," growled a second one, this time a man's.

"Arabella said that she told him and he had every right to know," a third voice said, sounding defeated.

"I'm surprised he was able to evade everyone for this long," the woman's voice said quietly.

"Me too," the third voice agreed. "But he took off when he saw me and we should know why."

Harry took off? His brain was working as fast as it is to move through a swamp, or possibly Hagrid's pumpkin patch in the rain.

Then he remembered everything from that day: Lupin finding him, Sirius waiting, Tonks grinning, the umbrella, the rain, the splinching, the spell Lupin had put over him.

Harry groaned softly and tried to get up, but all he could do was lift his head about an inch. None of the people who had been talking had heard him. He opened his emerald eyes, trying to see in the dark... wherever he was. Then he realized he was lying on a bed.

There was a pressure down by his feet that suddenly evaporated and moved to the voices by the hall.

"He's awake?" The woman's- he now recognized as Tonks- asked.

"No," Harry thought, "No no no no not yet." He wasn't ready for anybody to start questioning him. He pretended to be asleep once again.

"Remove his restraints," the second voice growled.

Restraints! "Oh, probably because of the Obscrus." They probably wouldn't appreciate it if he had suddenly woken up and disappeared again.

Then again he doesn't appreciate being lied to, being followed, having a spell cast over him, or having to leave a place he had almost considered a home.

While it looked like Harry may be asleep to any onlookers, he was really trying to harness that anger that always seemed to be just below the surface, trying to let him be the Obscrus, but not the 'danger danger fight destroy' part.

Soon enough his solid human form disappeared and he became that black mist, and hid in the corner of the roof, accidentally bumping into a hanging light and causing it to swing and creak.

The people by the door- who he now recognized as Tonks, Mad-Eye, Sirius, and Lupin- came rushing in.

There was silence as they stared at the bed Harry had been confined in a moment ago.

Finally Lupin sighed. "Find him."

Mad-Eye, Lupin, and Sirius all went downstairs to look, but Tonks stayed, surveying the room.

"Impressive how a teenager who acts like an adult around people can still act like a teenager," she said to herself and making no sense in the process.

Harry watched as she looked at the ropes- that were probably restricting his movements- and frowned when they were unharmed. She glanced up at the still creaking light and silenced it with her a flick of her wand.

Tonks glanced down, then sharply back up, scanning the ceiling. Harry pressed him self even more in the corner, hoping beyond hope that she wouldn't see him.

Of course for the boy-who-lived, things don't go his way.

She caught sight of obscrus-Harry trying to be invisible and gave a small smile.

"Impressive you can do that without attracting attention."

Harry hissed in response, for there was no way an Obscrus to communicate in English. Tonks conjured up a chair and sat down, still looking up at him.

"What's it like? Being an obscrual? Is it fun? Scary? Destructive?" She asked in a rapid-fire way.

Harry hissed in response again, and now realized that the window was slightly open. If he made a dash for it now, he wouldn't need to speak, but Tonks would almost certainly see him dive for it and close it.

"Do you think it's possible that you could come down and we could talk, just you and me?"

Harry thought about it for a moment. One one hand, of the four adults that are in the house (he thinks), she does act most like Fred and George. She did love to tell them stories of pranks she played when she was at Hogwarts, and seemed to hold that almost childish wonder and limits, where there are none. On the other hand she's an adult, and Harry knows better than anyone that adults cannot be trusted to keep secrets, unless it's from kids. On the third hand, Tonks does have that listening quality, and she never lied to him before that he's aware of. On the fourth hand she'll likely tell everyone in the house about it.

Making up his mind, Harry crept over to the corner by the window in case of a speedy escape, and gently lowered himself to the ground, pushing his obscural into the corner of his mind once more.

Tonks had gotten up and gently shut the door, sure that no one would downstairs would hear. She turned around to the tentative boy behind her and gave a reassuring smile to him, one he did not return.

"Your pretty good at avoiding everybody. And surviving. And controlling your Obscrus. Very impressive," Tonks started off, hoping for a response. Harry said nothing, his eyes darting to the window and back to Tonks.

Tonks sighed. This was going to be much more difficult than she thought. She hopes that Mad-Eye will be quick to see Harry before she ruins anything else.

Getting desperate, she said, "Did you know that if you fed a fire salamander a firework it'll be coughing fireworks for an hour?"

The corners of Harry's mouth twitched as he said, "I believe George and Fred had tried that back in my second year." His voice was a bit raspy from lack of use. He may not know it, but he was unconscious for a week.

He coughed several times, making his entire body shake. Tonks waited patiently as the door opened.

"Harry?" Sirius asked, approaching him slowly.

Harry's eyes widened in fear and he darted by the window.

"Don't," Sirius warned.

"Think of the salamanders," Tonks said in a phony ghost voice, hoping for a laugh.

She was rewarded with an amused expression. She would take that.

"You four sort this out," Moody growled and hobbled downstairs.

Lupin raised an eyebrow at Tonks and she gave her head a slight shake.

"We're not going to hurt you," Lupin said gently.

"Anymore than we've already done, intentionally or unintentionally," Tonks said rather unhelpfully.

Harry gave them all a doubtful look, moving in front of the window and beginning to fiddle with the lock. None of them said anything until the heard the click. Lupin checked down the hall, thinking it was the doorbell.

Knowing that this was his chance to escape, Harry threw open the window and jumped.

Author's Note:
I'm sorry! I didn't realize that I had accidentally switched to Tonks' pov then back to Harry's till after I finished. Also, I'm trying to make Tonks' kind of a goofball. Please let me know if I'm succeeding!