The Contract

Chapter 1: The Deal.

"This is an interesting proposal Madam," Albus Dumbledore commented from behind his desk at Hogwarts.

"I cannot tell you anymore than I already have. I can only hope that you will agree to my terms. My grand-niece speaks very highly of him and I think that we can offer him a great deal in return.

"You realize that you are asking me to turn over one of the most important people in the Wizarding world into your custody and you won't even give me a concrete reason?"

"The reason is not meant for you to know. It is for him and him only."

"I'm afraid that I won't be able to comply without knowing your reasoning. You must understand that he is very important to a lot of people. I cannot willingly send him into your custody for an undetermined amount of time. He is also set to undergo more extensive training this year since he is finished with Hogwarts.

"In the unlikely event that you haven't noticed; we are in the middle of a war; a war in which he plays a key part."

"I am certainly aware of his part in this war. As you should know; magical creatures have their own methods of knowing what the future holds without relying on prophecies from Seers who cannot even remember what they Saw.

"Part of the reason we wish to keep Mr. Potter with us is because, as you well know, we have a different way of using magic than humans do. We are more in tune with magic since magic, in a sense, created us. One of our goals while Mr. Potter is with us, is to train him to use his magic as we do. Humans, in general, will never know the full extent of our magic, he will be the exception. It's almost laughable that this Dark Lord looks down on half-bloods and magical creatures.

"My grand-niece probably has a better grasp on magical theory than even you can ever hope to achieve. She simply doesn't have the raw magical energy to compete with you. With his raw magical energy and our training, there is no way your Dark Lord will stand a chance against him.

"We can, and will, help Mr. Potter become the man he needs to be in order to end this war. There are some things that are beyond even your understanding Albus."

Albus Dumbledore sat in thought for a few minutes. He knew what she said to be true, but that didn't mean he liked the fact that he would be handing over custody of Harry to someone who may not be able to keep him safe.

"If I agree to your terms I will have to add one of my own."

"Continue," The unnamed women waved her hand noncommittally.

"I wish to send a guard from my Order to stay with him and make sure he is safe."

"Do you have somebody in mind? You should know not to send a male guard with him if you wish the guard to do anything productive."

"I have a young ex-auror that would be perfect for this job. She and young Mr. Potter have formed a rather close friendship of late. She was related to his recently departed godfather and it would appear that that link has formed the closeness between them."

"I agree to your terms."

"And I agree to yours, Ms. Delacour."

Section Break

"AUNTIE! I can't believe you actually did that," Fleur yelled.

"Why is it such a hard thing to believe," Madame Delacour, replied smoothly. "We need a male in our village, one that is single, and it was also Seen by your mother that we would be responsible for training him. This shouldn't come as a shock to you."

Fleur groaned in response. "Have you even talked to Harry yet? Does he know what you and his Headmaster are planning for him?"

"You know as well I do that I would never tell Albus the main reason for sending him here. You also know that since I only left an hour ago that there was no way I could have gone and talked to young Mr. Potter."

"I can't believe this is happening. What am I going to do?"

"You are not required to take part in anything. It is only required of the full blooded Veela and even then they have to be willing participants. This truly has nothing to do with you."

"How can tell me it has nothing to do with me? I am his friend. I may not be a close friend but I would like to believe that we were friends by the end of the tournament. Now you are going to force him to move into our community. It's not exactly like I can avoid him. There are only three hundred Veela living here."

"You will have to accept it soon, my flower. He will be receiving the notice from his Headmaster later this evening and if all goes well then he will be moving here within the week. I have nothing else to say on this matter, and I have a community to run."

"Yes, Aunt Cassy," Fleur muttered dejectedly.

Section Break

"Hey Nym," Harry said as he saw Tonks climbing into his room that night. It was something she had taken to doing whenever she was on guard duty the last couple of summers.

"Wotcher Harry. You're lucky I like you or you would have been on the receiving end of a hex for that name."

"What," He shouted in mock horror. "I'm offended. I thought you would like a nickname. Oh well……I guess I should add that to my list of things you don't like.

"One, no sugar in her tea. Two, hates her whole first name. Three, hates nicknames bases on her first name. Four, hates anything with spelled with the letter 'H'."

"Come on, I don't hate all of that. Though the things starting with the letter 'H' was spot on," She finished cheekily.

"Oh don't act like that comment actually hurt." Tonks swatted his arm as he made a mock pouting look. "You've become too much of a smart ass these last two months to let a comment like that bother you...Besides, you're horrible at acting."

"Not true," He said indignantly. "I think my acting has improved a great deal," Harry finished somewhat arrogantly.

"You can't even act the part of being arrogant, Harry," Tonks deadpanned.

"Did you just come here to insult me all night?"

"Of, course not. I would never do such a horrible thing."

Harry snorted.

"Seriously though, Harry, I didn't come here to trade insults, no matter how fun they are."

Harry couldn't stop the smile from forming when he saw her cycle her hair through the colors of the rainbow while talking to him.

"What's going on, Tonks?"

"Dumbledore pulled me aside after an emergency Order meeting earlier. He called the meeting because of you."

"I haven't done anything noteworthy yet."

"I know. All you did was sit around a mope the first week back until we started having our talks.

"Professor Dumbledore isn't going to allow you to go back to Grimmauld Place to see your friends before Ginny goes back to school."

Harry looked at curiously; as if he didn't believe a word she was saying.

"I know by that look on your face you don't believe me, but I am dead serious about this. Here, read this note." She told him as she handed him a folded piece of parchment."

Harry,

I know that we haven't seen eye to eye on many things in the past few months, years even. That is going to make my decision now even more difficult.

Earlier this morning I was approached by Madame Cassandra Delacour. She is Fleur's Great-Aunt. She had a most unusual request and I was reluctant to agree to it. She was not forthcoming with the details of what she wanted other than to offer training to you.

You are scheduled to leave Privet Drive and make the journey into France, where you will be staying in a veela community on the north coast. The time that you stay there will be determined by how quickly you finish your training.

I want you to understand the reason I agreed to this. Actually there are two reasons. The first, and probably most important, reason is that magical creatures have a different understanding of magic than most humans do. Madame Delacour is offering to take you into her village and have you trained with the best in every field they have to offer.

This kind of training cannot be matched. As I said, they understand magic differently than humans and they are willing to teach you how to manipulate magic as they do. I certainly hope that this is the key to unlocking the power you will need to destroy Voldemort.

The second reason that I agreed to the deal was that, this specific Veela community was thought to have been completely destroyed during Voldemort's first rise. As such, the ones that escaped from death have since set up a new community that Voldemort is unaware of and will, therefore, not be looking for it.

The last thing I wish to point out is that I know this seems unfair to you. You will be sent away and will not be able to spend time with your friends. That being said, I requested one change to the agreement made between myself and Cassandra. I requested that I be allowed to send somebody with you. She agreed to the terms and I have chosen a person that I feel you will be happy to spend some more time with.

Ms. Tonks, as I am sure she has told you, is no longer an auror due to Cornelius' purging the ministry of any suspected Order members. I have asked her, and she has agreed to accompany you to the veela community and stay with you as long as you like. I will also be working out a way for you to be able to send messages to your friends in an undetectable manner.

I regret that this comes on such short notice, and without asking you first, but I truly believe this to be in your best interest.

Sincerely,

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore

Headmaster, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Harry crumpled the letter and threw it in the rubbish bin and sighed.

"I know, Harry," Tonks said, rubbing his back. I don't know if he truly thinks things through or not before he makes his decisions. It seems that he doesn't when you are concerned."

"I'm not as angry as I probably should be about this. It's been a long time since I have been able to see Fleur and I think I could really learn something new through this. I'm only angry because he never asks before he takes control of my life. He legally has no more control over me.

"I'm no longer his student and I became of age last year."

"I know Harry. The fact that you are taking his advice at all shows how much you have matured the last few years. You almost don't seem like the same person anymore.

"I know that he's done a lot to you to make you on guard around him, but you still recognize that, regardless of his mistakes, he is not the enemy."

"I guess I'm supposed to take that as a compliment?" He asked with a grin.

"Of course," she smiled widely and bounced up and down a bit.

Her nervousness overcame her jovial mood as she realized that Harry may not want her to go with him.

"Do you want me to go with you on this trip? I mean, I told Dumbledore I would but I don't have to. I was just th-"

"TONKS!" he shouted to get her attention. She immediately closed her mouth and looked at him sheepishly.

"Of course I want you to go. I haven't even heard a word from my other friends all summer. I broke up with Cho when she said she was being transferred to a job in Italy, and none of them even bothered to think I might have been hurt by everything. You're probably the best friend that I have now. Are you sure you can give up being around the rest of your friends to spend a year with me."

She teared up a bit at hearing him say this. "You're the only friend I've got, Harry. Every guy that ever approaches me wants me to change into their perfect woman, and every woman I meet thinks I will steal their guys. I haven't had any real friends since muggle elementary school. My parents have been out of the country traveling for a few years. I'm not even sure if they know that a war is going on. Not to mention the fact that I lost my job. I don't have any reasons to stay around here anymore."

He still looked a little unsure but along with his maturity came reasoning. It wasn't his decision to make. It was Tonks' decision since it was her life.

"I'd be happy if you would go with me to France, Tonks."

"Good. You won't be getting rid of me that easily. School starts a week from Monday and we are leaving the Wednesday prior. That gives us three more days to get packed and ready to go." She had just finished talking when they were interrupted by a rapping sound at the recently closed window.

Section Break

Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were sitting in the living room at Grimmauld Place. They had just been told be Dumbledore that they would not be seeing Harry for at least a year.

"Why won't they let us write to him," Hermione yelled; tired of being frustrated.

"Don't know Hermione." Ron answered.

"I can't believe neither one of you has written to him yet this summer. He's probably really mad at both of you now," Ginny added before saying more quietly, "I know that I would be. He just ended a two year relationship with Cho and none of you, his best friends have even written to him."

"What do you want me to do Ginny? The Headmaster forbade it. You know he wouldn't do such a thing if it wasn't necessary."

"Did you ever ask him if you were still forbidden from writing him, Hermione? Or did you just assume that the rules from the last two years were still in place?"

"I-," She kept opening and closing her mouth but could never get passed "I."

"That's what I thought. I can't do this anymore. I'm going to ask him," Ginny seethed as she stomped out of the room and into the kitchen.

The order meeting had let out some time ago but they were lucky that Dumbledore was still there. They watched as he finished having a whispered conversation with Tonks and then they saw Tonks disapparate.

"Sir, I have a question about Harry."

"What would you like to know, Ms. Weasley?"

"We weren't allowed to write to Harry two summers ago and last year we were told the same." Seeing him nod that it was true, she continued.

"We automatically assumed that the same rule was in place this year. But now he is going to be gone all year and we haven't been able to say anything to him since he got off the train."

"None of you have written anything to him this summer?" He asked with more of his age becoming visible.

"No, we haven't."

"Oh my."

"What's wrong Professor?"

"I just sent a letter to Mr. Potter via Ms. Tonks. She has been hand delivering his mail to him all summer. I thought he would appreciate being able to communicate with his friends a bit more. Ms. Tonks has been spending much of her free time, as well as her guard duty time, talking to Harry and becoming his friend."

"You mean we could have been writing to him all this time?"

"I'm afraid so, Ms. Granger."

"We need to go write to him, now," She finished with conviction. She headed out of the room and up the stairs with Ron and Ginny following.

"Do you think he'll forgive us," Ginny asked "I wanted to get to know him better, now that he wasn't dating Cho. Now I won't get to see him at all for a year. I figured he would spend most of his time at Hogwarts doing training and I could be there for him."

"You still have feelings for him, don't you?" Hermione asked

"I think that answer is obvious. Michael was just something to pass the time away while Harry came to his senses. Dean, well, Dean was a mistake. Now Harry's going to be gone for a year and I won't get to see him at all."

"I wouldn't worry about it too much. I'm pretty sure that Dumbledore is sending him somewhere to get a lot of training. What are the odds that he could find someone to fall in love with while he's training?

"He's not even over Cho yet, as far as we know and now he's going to be somewhere with no one he knows."

"I hope you're right Hermione."

Section Break

"Ready to go Harry?"

"As ready as I can be Nym."

"I really wish you wouldn't call me that," She said, though secretly she was kind of glad. No one had ever given her a nickname before and she kind of liked it.

"Since you can apparate, legally, can you take these letters to my friends before we leave?"

"Sure thing, lover boy."

"I'll stop calling you Nym if you stop calling me lover boy." He grumbled.

"And I'll stop calling you lover boy when you stop calling me Nym."

"I guess we both better get used to the names then huh."

She just winked at him and disapparated.

He was a little frustrated with her from a few nights ago but he had mostly moved past it. At first he didn't even want to read his friend's letters but she had been adamant that he at least read them. She told him he didn't have to respond to them if he didn't want to but he owed them enough to at least read the letters.

Grudgingly he agreed. His friends had been there for him a lot in the past and he owed them that much. So he took out the letters and read all three of them.

He was still a little angry with his friends even though they had a semi-valid reason for not writing most of the summer. And it was only through Tonks' persuasion that he wrote them back.

His musings were cut short as Tonks reappeared in his bedroom with her trunk and a short piece of rope.

"Grab hold, lover boy," Tonks smirked.

Shaking his head at the antics of his, now best friend; he grabbed the rope and they disappeared in a swirl of color.

A/N: Few story line changes and time line changes to match where I want the story to go.