Wishes

Wishes-

I had always wished for a boy. I wanted a little Black boy, dark hair and dark eyes, fierce and devoted. Since I was little, I had been brought up to honour my cousins, the heirs to our family. Ever since I could remember, I was made to realise that while I was of the pure ones, I could never hold status with the boys. They were the lords of the house, the purest of the pure.

Girls get married and move away. Girls lose their names and their honour to their husbands.

But boys… boys make sure the family line goes on, carrying the name forward for another generation. Boys carry the family honour with them.

When I left home, no one cared. No one came after me.

When Sirius ran away, Auntie went mad. Uncle died.

Perhaps that was why I wanted a boy. I wanted to laugh in the faces of those who had cast me out and show them my son. I wanted to show them that I could produce an heir, albeit not to the line of Black, but to that of Tonks.

I wanted to show them that I was worth more than they could ever imagine.

Growing up, I had always been told that little girls were to be seen and not heard. I had to endure being painted up for hours and then wait demurely in the sitting room while my father spoke to the great pureblood families. They would coo over me, remarking how pretty I was, how I had inherited great magical power from my parents, how I would make the perfect bride. The Malfoys got Narcissa; the LeStranges took Bella.

But despite all their talk, no one ever picked me.

I wanted a son so I would never have to subject a daughter to that shame. I wanted a son so that even if, by old blood rights, my relatives wanted to spirit her away and demand she be betrothed to one of those rich old pureblood families, they would not be able to.

In the wizarding world, it is the man who chooses, and the girl who is chosen.

I wanted a boy so that he could have his own free will.

My mother had barely talked to us when we were younger. She left our upbringing on the house elves. She was a proud woman, proud of her beauty and of her newfound name. She was always hungry to be noticed, to be admired, to be complimented. She spent her time on beautifying herself, a magnificent queen who went to parties and balls, who was toasted on her beauty and her brilliance.

We were left at home, and largely on our own. We had to bring ourselves up.

Narcissa ended up spoilt beyond belief, pampered because she was always the prettiest of us all. She enjoyed the attention. She was just like Mother. She was the only one Mother ever took to parties, because she was the only one who ever wanted to go.

Bella was left largely alone. The house elves were scared of her. She was beautiful, but she was a Black beauty, all dark eyes and hair and olive skin. She fairly crackled with magic and it was this magic which drove her wild, which made her untameable.

I was the good little girl. I listened when Father beckoned, when Mother commanded, when the house elves relayed the command. I was the good child, so I never told them that I resented the way we were treated.

When I look back on it, I realise that perhaps, this is the biggest reason I wanted a boy. I had no one to look up to when it came to raising a girl. I was afraid that one day, I would wake up and find my mother staring back at me from the mirror, and that I would leave my girl crying in the night just as my mother had done to me, so many times.

I was afraid I might fail as a parent, as a mother.

But it's funny how these things work out.

When I look at Nymphadora, I cannot help but smile. She is not the boy I wanted; she is a little girl. She is a beautiful little girl. She is the darling of the family, the very soul of her father.

She is strong. She is tough. But she is also so, so fragile. When she falls, she cries. She cries until her father comes to pick her up, and then she smiles again as she dances to the wireless with him.

I had always wanted a little boy. I never wanted my child to go through what I went through. I never wanted a girl because I thought that I would be creating another victim, another child who would be suppressed because of the traditions she never chose to be born into. I see them all in her, little traces of the family I left behind, and it still scares me even though I know no-one can take her away from me now.

But she will never have to worry about facing what I faced, she will never have to sit and be pushed around just because she is a girl. No. It is exactly because she is a girl that she will never have to face this.

I am not my mother. I will not fail.

And she is not me. She will not be suppressed.

She will be strong. She will show this world exactly who she is. No one can stand in the way of Nymphadora Tonks.

No one can stand in the way of my girl.