Tonks Joins the Team

With the C4 explosives ready, the next step was to lure Professor Dia, their inside contact, into the operation.

After sending Fred and George off, Roy spent an entire night turning one of Voldemort's old notebooks into a convincing "cursed" object.

Of course, there was no curse. Roy didn't know how to cast one, and his forgery skills were mediocre. He had never intended to make a genuine-looking object cursed with Dark Magic. All he needed to do was saturate an object with its aura, and that was easy enough.

Roy's method was brutally simple: pour magic into it. He pumped raw Dark Magic into Voldemort's notebook without bothering to give it any structure. The magic would quickly dissipate, but that was exactly the point. All he wanted was for the entire notebook to reek of Dark Magic afterward.

Fortunately, Roy had magical power to spare. He set up a simple Magic-Infusion Array, poured in enough power to steep the notebook for a week, and tossed it into the array like a block of stinky tofu into marinade. Satisfied, he went to bed.

The "stinky tofu" needed time to ferment. Over the following days, Roy and Aisling steadily worked through their preparations. Dumbledore wasn't idle either. Tonks had few classes in her sixth year, so he invited her to his office and spent an entire afternoon having a very "sincere" heart-to-heart with her.

The inexperienced Tonks was no match for him. When she learned how highly Dumbledore thought of her, she nearly dropped to her knees. Her whole family had supported him for as long as she could remember. She was one breath away from declaring, "If you'll have me, sir, I'll gladly pledge myself to..."

And so, on December 1, Nymphadora Tonks, newly named a prospective member of the