Nymphadora

"Oh, well, I would have to stop soon anyway, I can't hold liquor well at all." Tonks righted her glass and watched with interest as the spilled patch of grass fizzled and turned orange. "And with good reason, hm?"

"I've heard of that attack," said a new, male voice from behind Harry. The three turned to see Dean Thomas standing there. "You know who the Death Eaters went to as a replacement for Regulus? My father, Jonathan Anduril."

"What?" asked Hermione, surprised.

"Ginny told me." He stood there awkwardly before adding quickly, "She told me about Sirius Black too, so don't worry about that." Dean explained, playing with his belt loop, "My father walked out on my mum soon after I was born. But she didn't know he was a wizard. Mum remarried Dad - well, my step-dad - and my whole family's Muggle, 'cept for me. See, Mr. Weasley knew Jonathan before the Death Eaters killed him. He knew that Jonathan had married a Muggle from London but had to leave to protect his family. When I met Mr. Weasley, he said that I looked like an old friend of his. So Ginny figured it out."

"Wow," said Harry, a bit stupidly. The Death Eaters had affected nearly every single one of his classmates, even the ones who lived with Muggles. Dean got out a chair and sat next to Hermione as Harry thought about what Tonks and his classmate had just said. "Hey, Tonks, did your parents ever get harassed by the Death Eaters?"

"No, thankfully. Maybe if You-Know-Who grew any more powerful...but I suppose mum's separation made the Blacks never try anything with us. Like we weren't worthy of destruction or something."

"How did your mum get out of the Black family?" asked Hermione.

"Not easily," Tonks replied flatly, shaking her head. "I can actually remember the last time Mum spoke to her family. I can only place it now by drawing on my mum and dad's memories of the occasion, which are a bit more lucid considering they were in their twenties and I was still aging in months...."

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Andromeda, my mum, disliked her family greatly. I would in fact, be tempted to say that she hated them, but she was never one to admit something disgusted her to that breaking point of unnecessary abhorrence that plagues the world, wizard and Muggle alike. If there were one thing she hated, though, it would be her family. She was the middle child of the three Black sisters, and as you already know, they are one of the most conceited, sickeningly wealthy, and outright foul families you can find in these isles. And that's not even including their numerous connections to You-Know-Who.

Her older sister, Bellatrix, was an outright terror of a bully I'm told, while the youngest, Narcissa, was pampered and babied almost to the point of incompetence. My mum, left to her own devices, was (and still is) a ridiculously clever girl - a Ravenclaw among countless Slytherins - but her tradition-driven clan largely ignored her.

The real cinder in the eye for the Blacks, though, was her cousin Sirius, who had the cheeky audacity to become a Gryffindor a few years after my mum began Hogwarts. His own particular branch of the Black family gave him much more corporal distrust for his rebellion, practically forcing him to move out on his own in his seventh year, and the admiring Andromeda soon followed suit.

But the luxury of growing up in Grimmauld Place, with a house-elf at every beck-and-call, made nearly knutless living very hard on Mum. Great-Uncle Alphard could have only helped her and Sirius so much, as nearly all the money he had left behind was gone. My mum, working two jobs in Diagon Alley, had to find a way to help herself out of her financial straits. Enter Theodore Tonks, my dad.

The story of their meeting is a sweet one, which warrants a whole 'nother story, however, as I'm digressing further and further from my original point I'll just mention it in brief. My mum was working a late night in the bookshop when dad came strolling in looking for a tome on the twelve properties of dragon's blood. I can't recall exactly why that book was his query. My guess is its use as an oven cleaner as my dad is quite a slob, and somehow the topic of his recently purchased residence came in. Let's just leave it at that. They were married five months afterwards, and I was born four months after Mum became Andromeda Tonks.

So - I'm getting to my memory, I swear, - she left her cramped flat in Diagon Alley to move in with Ted. For some reason, the Alley has become des res in the past few years, I suppose due to the removal of the persistent bundimun infestation in all the upper-level boxes. But anyway, they relocated to Ted's two-bed flat in Cheapside. Obviously, she was keeping herself entirely separated from her family - they would find her elusion deplorable yet perhaps forgivable, but it was her marriage to the Muggle-born Ted Tonks that would really do her in. Not that she really cared, of course, but her aim was to avoid trouble and any further contact with her family. She almost got her wish. Almost.

Narcissa, although appearing to have all the cunning of a pudding, was interested enough in the disappearance of her sister to seek her out. After following a tip from Knockturn Alley, to Diagon Alley, to Cheapside, it was a brisk autumn day when my mum's 'black' past came to call at her front door.

Now, this is where I can still recall some of that afternoon. Mum, looking for all the world like a domestic servant, with her soft blonde hair held up with a kerchief, had been mopping the tiling in the kitchen with the pungent Mrs. Skower's All Purpose Magical Mess Remover. I can remember the acrid smell vividly, though right up until I asked Mum about it I always thought it was due to the air crackling into noxious chemicals around my ex-aunt's person. Narcissa arrived entirely unannounced, my mum tells me, and looking like a witch queen - which, in a way, she was - in a black and silver dress of velvet. I'm sure the difference between the two sisters was startling. Mum offered her a cuppa, which Narcissa refused disdainfully and launched immediately into a terrifying warning.

When Mum tells this now, she tells it as if it were on the WWN a few nights ago, but I'm sure for years a tear would come to her dark eyes. Narcissa had come to inform Mum that her expulsion from the Black family was imminent, unless she returned to Grimmauld Place immediately with a full apology to family, both living and ancestral. "And stop seeing that wizard-trash Muggle-born immediately -" Narcissa had begun, and then turned in a suspicious half-circle to where Dad was standing, with myself in his arms.

This is what I can still remember: the look of failure, loathing, and disbelief on Narcissa's face as she caught sight of me, her ex-niece. She would not even meet Dad's eyes, he can still remember. Instead, she stared coldly at Mum, who said casually, "I hear you and Lucius are engaged."

"Andromeda, I always thought you were the clever one, but your brains are quite clearly addled. The Dark Lord is rising and the purebloods are regaining their proper power over the wizard world. They will spare none who dare contest their lineage. You have very foolishly chosen a Mudblood -"

"Narcissa, a child is present -"

"You may not consider yourself a Black."

"I never did."

Neither she nor Dad have ever confirmed me on this, but I'm sure she stood up and shouted, in the peculiar, cold, hard voice she only ever uses for punishment, "Get out of my house and if you ever dare tread within ten feet of this flat again you will never again exist as a corporeal being!"

Then, it could just be my imagination.

But whatever she said, Narcissa and the rest of the Blacks left us alone. Except, of course, for Sirius, who was the first, and only person outside the household she talked to about the encounter. The funny thing is, even though Sirius was in the flat quite frequently from then until we moved into our current home, I have absolutely no memory of him there.

It was Sirius who found us a wizard residence on Cecil Court, a quaint little street in London lined with a mix of wizarding supply shops and Muggle occult stores, and rather close to his own hideaway, I hear. I never visited his little place, or at least I don't remember it, but I do recall his visits to Cecil Court. He, Mum, and Dad put a heap of protection spells on the place, and called it our home ever since.

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"...well, until Mum got hit by a bus next to Trafalgar Square when I was at Hogwarts." Tonks raised her eyebrows. "But that wast, might I add. She was working two jobs when she definitely didn't have to, and Dad tells me she was so tired she didn't even bother to look at the crossing. Madame Bifurk, my pre-school teacher, was there, but there were so many Muggles she couldn't heal Mum's head injury even enough to get her to St. Mungo's. She was dead in about two seconds, anyway." Tonks shrugged, but with a certain kind of heaviness that hinted she was making light of something very grave. "And now with Sirius gone, it's just myself and Dad."

"You went to a pre-school?" asked Harry, interested. Hermione and Dean were both Muggle-born, well, Muggle-raised, and it suddenly occurred to Harry that he didn't know if or where wizards went to primary schools. "Do most wizards?"

"Many go to some sort of a wizarding pre-school nowadays. If they need it," she added quickly, remembering that the Weasleys, who couldn't afford it, were all home-schooled. "There are some grammar schools cropping up here and there just for wizards and witches, but they're rather new. Most were taught at home or just down the street, like me. You would never give up your children to a school other than Hogwarts in my childhood. Too dangerous." She smiled. "The times are changing, quite for the better, I say."

"What was your pre-school like, then?" said Hermione. "With Madame, what's her name, Bifurk?"

"Well, expensive, I guess, considering Sirius and my parents had to save up until I was seven and a half to pay for it. And I suppose any one of them could have stayed home and taught me the basic skills I learned there, but the chance I had to finally mingle and play with children my age was priceless...."

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My dad, of course, was taught to read, write, and do math at a Muggle primary, while Mum and Sirius were educated at home. I was already seven and a half and could barely read, let alone write, so they knew they had to do something. Their first concern was my safety, of course, but the very same Madame Bifurk had educated one of Mum's friends at Hogwarts.

So, beginning in September, Mum would hold my hand and walk me down Cecil Court, past her cauldron shop, to the cheerful little flat of the elderly Madame Bifurk. There, along with five or six other children of various levels of instruction, I learned how to read comprehensively, write in cursive, and add two grams to a decagram to make a twelfth of a hectogram.

I'm still rubbish at arithmetic but that wasn't Bifurk's falt.

In the mornings, Bifurk would read us a story or a piece of history with the wizarding world in mind. Then the three of us in our first or second year would join the jolly, squat Bifurk in her funny, flat, aubergine-colored hat to read and work on short simple stories while the older children read on their own. Next, Bifurk would give us sentences to copy with quills and parchment as she assisted the older students in writing summaries of the books they had just read. This was always the time I would doodle, but eventually she gave up when she noticed that I got better at the quill by drawing than writing. Lunch, my favorite subject, followed, and we ate prepared pasties and sliced fruit as we chatted with the other students.

Since I had a late start, I was the oldest of the beginner students. There was a girl from clear across the city who Floo'd from her own house into her aunt's on Cecil just to go to Bifurk's every morning. You-Know-Who forced people to do weird things for their safety, and Alice - that was her name, I think - was only allowed to go to people whom her parents trusted. The other student was a boy named David, barely six, who was a true genius. He was in my house in Hogwarts and I can remember he was the best of his year.

After lunch was arithmetic for Alice, David, and me, but the food in my stomach and the restless morning usually made this time of day dreadful. It's bad enough to be told off by a mean teacher, but Madame Bifurk was so sweet that every time she had to tell me I was multiplying wrong again felt twice as worse.

Finally, after math, or "the aftermath" as I like to call it - I still can't believe I took Arithmancy at Hogwarts - we younger students would take a nap so when our parents came we would be slightly less cranky. The older students got to talk about current events with Bifurk, to make sure they always knew what was going on in the wizarding world. Well, there was one day when we did nothing but current events - the day after You-Know-Who fell.

Mum was thinking of taking me out of school that day, but the really funny thing was, the wizards outside were partying so hard that going to my teacher's house was about a hundred times safer. Also, Sirius had gone to Godric's Hollow because of the Potters, and Mum and Dad were worried about him as well.

So I went to Bifurk's, where Alice and David were, and with the older students we ate chocolate cake made especially for the occasion. Bifurk sat all of us down right then and explained everything about You-Know-Who: his rise to power, the Death Eaters, the Unforgivable Curses, everything that she wanted us to know but was too worried to tell us before. To us children, it was all a bunch of fiction; we thought that such terrible things could never happen to us.

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"See how things change?" Tonks shook her head. "That's why I'm a part of the second Order of the Phoenix. You-Know-Who never touched me directly, but my family and friends were all so affected by his reign of terror, I just can't be passive. Dad thought I was crazy for be years ago. But I knew You-Know-Who wasn't dead. He's back, and this time -" a coldness came into her voice "- I'm ready for him."

"We all are," remarked Hermione.

There was a resounding silence in the group, which Harry interrupted by coughing exaggeratedly. "I thought this was supposed to be a party, not a death sentence."

Tonks chuckled. "Right! I'm making everything sound so dreadful, aren't I?" She ran her fingers through her dreadlocks and shook them out. "I really didn't have that poor a childhood. After You-Know-Who's downfall, things got a lot easier. Well," she corrected herself, biting her lip, "except for Sirius disappearing. After he gave his bike to Hagrid, see, he went off for a year. He knew that there would be accusations against him because of the Fidelius charm, and the combination of two of his best friends being killed plus his suspicion could have easily put him over the deep end."

"So what did he do?" asked Dean, interested. The concept of Sirius Black as an innocent man was still new to him.

"He ran off. He spent some time in Scotland, as a dog in a fishing village somewhere in the Shetlands. He told me a few months ago. I have no clue how he managed being a Muggle pet for so long, but if it made him feel better, it's horses for courses I guess. He was on his way back to his and Lupin's flat when Pettigrew caught up with him and...." She petered off. "Well, you know the rest of that story."

"You never knew Sirius was innocent until now?" Hermione felt terrible for Tonks.

"Pretty much. I was sure for years that he couldn't have been a mass murderer, but after so long...I had to give in to the so-called 'facts' and admit that my uncle was crazy." Hermione looked so pitying that Tonks had to add, "But if you think I got it bad, try Remus!"