The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part Two

XLVIII: 15 March, 1994

"Wotcher Hagrid!"

Tonks knocked on the door of the cabin persistently. "I know you're in there so you might as well open up the door! You know what happened last time I tried at blasting it open, don't want it happenin' again, do ya? C'mon Hagrid!" She danced about on the door step, her hair turning from pink to purple to blue to green to yellow to orange to red to pink to purple and so on rapidly. "Guess what color my hair's going to be when you open the door!" she laughed.

The door opened, and from the dark inside she heard, "Pink," come roughly.

It was orange.

"Aw too bad ya didn't win," she said as she slipped in through the door, "Only a couple breaths off it being pink again, too, I s'pose you could sort of call this shade here a bit of a salmon, though, somewhere between orange and red so it does sort of look pink, I reckon we could call it a draw and I'd give you the prize just the same, if there had been a prize, that is."

The cabin was an absolute mess. Things were strewn everywhere and Fang was cowering beneath the massive bed, his paws crossed over his snout, covering his eyes as though he were human or something.

Tonks always felt a bit like a pixie when she stood in Hagrid's cabin, even as a full grown woman she did. She looked around, then looked back up at Hagrid, her eyes wide and green today. "Hullo, friend-Hagrid," she said.

"Now I haven't got the energy fer yeh to be stayin', Dora'r," he said, adding an extra R-sound to the end of the -dora part of Nymphadora. Hagrid was one of the only people on the planet that she allowed get away with calling her even a part of that dreadful name. The other two people were Remus Lupin and Charlie Weasley.

"What do you mean you haven't got the energy!" Tonks asked. "Are you saying that I'm tiring?"

Hagrid eyed her.

Tonks laughed, "I know you won't say it but I also know it's true. So it's quite alright if you think it."

"It ain't that yeh ain't worth it, getting tired out, it's jus' that I ain't got it in me ter be givin' ter yeh today, I ain't got the energy to do much - much - much of anythin'," Hagrid snuffed and dropped himself into one of the huge chairs at his oversized table, and he hung his head.

Tonks walked over and put her palm on his arm. She couldn't really reach his shoulder so good, so his bicep would have to do. "Oh Hagrid. I heard about the Ministry ruling. Ol' Mad-Eye told us all about it this mornin' in the department meeting and I asked him to put me on here today just so I could come and visit you. It was supposed to be Mulligan out here today, but I said to Mad-Eye that I was going to come out here whether he assigned me or not and that he might as well assign me and save us both the paperwork of having to report subordination!"

"Yer the only person what gets away with talkin' back at Alastor Moody like yeh do!" Hagrid shook his head. "Anybody else I reckon he'd have blasted 'em away fer talkin' like that!"

Tonks smiled. She knew she had Mad-Eye Moody wrapped about her finger.

There was a loud sound - something between the whinny of a horse and the squawk of a large bird. It came from the bedroom.

Tonks's smile slipped from her mouth. "Hagrid..."

"Wot? Am I s'posed ter leave him out in the pun'kin patch when he's in as right a state as I am bein' handed over his death warrant!?"

"But your bedroom, Hagrid, those things are right messy! You'll go in there later to find he shat all over, won't you?"

"It'll be worth the cleanin' up!" Hagrid said sniffily.