"Diagnostic spells are always the very first step to any kind of healing. You know how to heal a cut, and how to identify one. But, a diagnostics spell is more than just the identification of a wound or a malady. It actually sort of gives you a blueprint of how the wound, ehh, feels?" Tonks asked more than explained.

"You don't sound that sure of yourself," Harry prompted from where they were sitting on the living room rug. They'd decided to do a little magic exchange today. Harry was once again in his younger form.

"It's hard, ok!" the girl exclaimed. "Teaching isn't easy. I'm just an intern anyway, I was only taught how to identify the physical wounds. Most stuff Mungos deals with is magical."

"Lots of potions?" Harry asked, receiving a nod.

"Anything slightly more complex requires a regime of potions alongside a healer using some magic themselves. Like that guy who had a tree growing out of his ear. Can't just cut it, have to give him a potion symbolically opposite to tree growth first so the wood turns dead. So much weird stuff, I hope being an auror is less complicated."

"So, I guess I should learn the diagnostics spell first?" Harry asked curiously as he pulled out his second-hand black wand and twirled it between his fingers.

"No, eeh, actually. Diagnostics is the first step, but it's not the first thing you learn. Episkey is the most minor and thus the least complicated healing spell there is. It just works on purely physical injuries and it's not very strong."

Harry thought back to the light magic spell that had been in the book from which he'd lifted the instructions for the patronus. It had necessitated love and had conferred a certain level of regeneration on the target if he remembered correctly. "What about light magic, do you use that?"

Tonks shook her head, before hesitating and nodding. "Supposed to be unreliable, but I heard some healers know how to use it. Not part of the curriculum though."

"Alright, let's start with episkey then," Harry said and rolled his shoulders in preparation as if he was going to enter a boxing match or something.

Tonks, for her part, explained the spell in more detail, and showed him the incantation and the wand movement, before pausing awkwardly. "We don't really have anything to practise on, we used a fish at the hospital. Supposedly they don't feel pain like we do."

"A small cut would do?" Harry asked, repeating the wand motion again and again. It was just a circle, really. When Tonks nodded he pointed his wand at one of the napkins left lying on the table from their previous meal and transfigured it into a needle. Picking it up he lightly pricked himself, enough to draw one drop of blood.

Tonks looked at his finger with a grimace. "Well, we could do that, I guess," she said with a sigh.

It didn't take Harry that long to get the spell down, but it did necessitate several more pricks and even a small cut to really feel confident in adding it to his repertoire.

He took a glance at the clock, seeing that the whole process had only taken one hour. "That didn't take that long. I think we can even do some more, maybe the diagnostics spell?" Harry suggested. It was only noon, and there was no point in going on a quest for weed before the evening.

A gleam entered Tonk's eyes. "Oh no, this is a two-way street, now it's your turn to teach me something I don't know. Something cool. Occlumency, magic sensing, wandless magic."

Harry tapped his chin with his wand in thought. He couldn't start with occlumency, since he hadn't brought the hat and he wanted to discuss the Legilimency spell with it before he committed to anything. "I don't feel comfortable with the mind arts yet, need to consult some more sources first. Magic sensing…" he paused. "The room in Hogwarts where I already showed you the dummy. Ask it for a deprivation chamber. To learn it you need to be in tune with your magic, then spend some time in a magicless environment. Can take a few days but to me the method seems foolproof. Wandless magic…" he trailed off, put down his wand and pointed his hand at the bloody needle. A slight flex of his magical muscles transformed it back into a napkin.

"I don't really know how to explain wandless magic," he admitted. "You sort of just, take the magic and do stuff with it. It's all willpower and imagination." He raised his hand. "You just go, shazam, or something," he said weakly, brought down the hand and levitated the napkin so it floated above the table.

"Wow," Tonks said with a deadpan. She raised her hand, pointed it at the napkin and pulled a face. She was probably trying to concentrate, but it just looked like she had to go to the toilet. "Shazam," she said. Nothing happened. She put her hand back and thrust it forward. Nothing. She looked up at him.

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"You're kinda useless, aren't you?" she asked.

Harry considered his repertoire of spells, which he'd learnt at Hogwarts, which meant that Tonks probably knew them. "I can teach you some cool cleaning spells and Arithmancy," he eventually suggested weakly.

Tonks just stared at him, before slowly shaking her head. "It's alright," she said pityingly.

"I swear, I just have skills that need a lot of effort, not many spells," Harry argued.

Tonks laid a hand on his shoulder. "You're a third year, Harry, it's expected that you know less than me," she said sagely while nodding her head.

Harry slumped his shoulder. "Diagnostics?" he asked.

"Diagnostics," Tonks nodded.

-/-

The day ended up consisting mostly of Tonks teaching Harry in the end, which sort of made sense. The boy was younger, and despite having practised magic for longer, it was the older girl who'd received four additional years of magical education.

It was sort of humbling in a way, and good that it had happened as such. Harry had needed to be reminded that simply because he was now capable of beating a sixth-year student in a duel, this didn't make him the magical equivalent of a sixth-year student. NEWT years were hard, it was when children matured into adults and were given an age-appropriate workload. Hogwarts didn't teach a course specifically directed at learning how to fight. DADA didn't count as it taught methods of defence, and the appropriate spells, but never put any real practice into, well, practice. Thus, being good in a duel was probably not the best way of determining the magical prowess of a Hogwarts student.

Although, to be fair, someone who had better grades likely had a better chance of being good at duelling as well.

"Thank you for your teachings, missus Tonks," Harry said once they'd finally given up on shovelling new spells down the endless gullet that was his capacity to cast them with little to no explanation. Overall he'd learned several new and interesting, but realistically useless jinxes, some interesting bits of magical theory, and the healing duo of diagnosis and minor regeneration. He felt quite good about that and wondered if it made sense to maybe get a private tutor himself with the money he'd be getting off the Malfoys. While all his classes at Hogwarts provided his knowledge base with more depth and interconnections, just sitting down with somebody and having them teach spells was probably also useful in some way.

Tonks, for her part, looked exhausted. She was slumped in her chair doing a perfect rendition of Stanczyk the Polish court jester.

"You know, with your metamorph powers you could technically wreak a lot of havoc, no?" Harry suddenly asked. "Like pretending to be Clint Eastwood to get admittance into a club and get the special treatment."

"That's what we call illegal in our special little club of sane people, Harry," Tonks snarked and rolled her eyes. Then she grimaced. "Also, eww."

"Serious question, have you ever shifted into a man and experienced an orgasm? With the existence of polyjuice, I have been seriously considering experiencing the pleasures of the female body. Would have to wait until I have a girlfriend though, get some consensual bio-material," he mused.

Tonks didn't say anything at that, which is how Harry knew that something was up. He grinned. "Usually you'd be denying it and calling me gross. Whose willy did you give yourself?" he asked.

To say that Tonks blushed was an understatement, her whole face and hair turned red.

"How did it feel, did you feel tired after?" Harry continued.

"Gods, Harry, it didn't work, ok!" Tonks shouted, covering her eyes with her hands. "Metamorphs need a mind-boggling amount of anatomical knowledge to reproduce anything functional. We just shift the shape, not the insides."

"Oh," Harry said, somewhat disappointed. "That sucks. Is that why you decided to do an internship at St. Mungos?"

"No, that is not the reason I decided to do an internship at St. Mungos," Tonks said with a roll of her eyes, before standing up and getting the two of them glasses of orange juice and some snacks. All that learning sure made me hungry. "I wanted to ask though…" she trailed off for a moment. "How is it that you never ask more about my talent? Everyone I know has asked me to turn into something, other than you. My body feels oddly static when we hang out since you never prompt me to change."

Harry let his eyes rove over her, shorts, stomach-free t-shirt, messy purple pixie cut and a, quite literally, perfect face. Tonks already had a perfect body, after all, if she could change it then why settle for anything else? "I don't know girl," he started in a low voice. "You already look hella fine to me, why change anything," he finished while exaggeratedly biting his lips.

"Merlin, you're so gross sometimes," the girl muttered. "But, no really."

She didn't seem like she was going to let this go, but it wasn't like the answer was very revolutionary. "Look, I know how to do wandless magic, I'm a god in comparison to some of the plebs attending Hogwarts. You're not that special with your little parlour tricks. Also, do you have any idea how annoyed I'd get from all the requests to show off some sorcery if other people knew I could do it? I'd show them sorcery all right, with a fireball straight to their face." A pause and a sip of the orange juice, a nibble, two or maybe a fistful of the vinegar chips. Disgusting, was there anything Manchester couldn't ruin? "Also, I don't know about you, but I respect your boundaries, you've never given me the indication that you wanted me to be invested in a particular form, so I've never done so."

"If you could have me be anyone you wanted, who would I be?" Tonks suddenly asked.

A possibility flashed through Harry's mind. Of a family he'd lost, seeing them again. But, how was this different to the Mirror of Erised? "You know," he muttered. "There's a dangerous magical artefact called the Mirror of Erised, desire if you reverse the last word." He wondered if it would be at Hogwarts next year. He was trying not to think too much about the possibility of being in the same building as Voldemort. "It shows in its reflection nothing else but our most heartfelt desires, no matter how buried."

"That sounds nice," Tonks said with a smile.

"People get stuck in front of it, lost in the visions, they sit in front of the cursed thing and starve to death," Harry finished explaining, causing the smile to flee Tonks' face. "There's people I've lost. My mom for example. You could shift into her, I have the pictures. You could tell me how proud of me you are, how you love me, how you didn't want to leave me and how I should eat all my vegetables and lay off the drinking. Then you'd kiss me on the forehead and tuck me in at night, read me a little bedtime story."

Tonks was looking away from him now, refusing to meet his gaze which was boring directly into her cheek.

"There wouldn't be a point though. At the end of the day, you're Nymphadora Tonks, not Lily Evans. Lily Evans is a rotting corpse in an unmarked grave. It would just be an illusion that would bring up old pains." Harry let the deafening silence descend into the house, suddenly in a bad mood. It wasn't Tonks's fault, however, so he tried to break out of the funk.

"If you're talking sexually, however... Can you do elves? With pointy ears and stuff?" he asked, trying to lighten the mood. It didn't work, Tonks just gave him a sad look, eyes glistening with what could be tears soon.

Her ears suddenly turned pointed, slanting and extending upwards. It was a horrible contrast to her miserable-looking face.

Harry didn't know if he should laugh or cry, what he did know however, was that he needed some weed.