Tenderness on the Block

Tenderness on the Block

By Lola Ravenhill

"So, Nymphadora, have you got any tales of all of your magnificent beaux to regale your Nan with?"

Inevitably, Nymphie spit out her drink and proceeded to knock over her glass, no doubt from the shock of my mother's question. You'd have thought age would mellow her a bit, but like all grandmothers, the older they get, the ornerier they become.

"Nymphadora!" Andie scolded her, casting an evanesco to clean up the wine currently staining the tablecloth. There wasn't too much venom in her voice though; after twenty-four years of non-stop klutziness from our baby girl it was more habit than punishment by now.

"Sorry," Nymph mumbled, wiping her mouth off with a napkin. Her hair was slowly going from pink to tomato red with embarrassment. Although, I had to admit to a bit of curiosity myself about that matter. It's a father's right to know what's going on in his daughter's life. "Just a bit of a shock, you know?"

"It's just an innocent question, Nymphadora love," my mum said. I recognized that glint in her eyes though, and traded a look with Andie, who brushed a wing of dark hair out of her eyes. Even after so many years of marriage I can't remember the exact number, she's still the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. However, such moments of sappiness are usually for when the two of us are alone. "Can you blame me for asking?"

"Well, Nan," Nymphie tugged at the front of her shirt, obviously nervous. "Nan, you know that my job as a magic police officer really takes up far too much of my time. I barely have time to see my friends, let alone date anyone. Maybe once things...settle down." The three of us had made the hard decision not to let my mum know anything about the war going on in the wizarding world. It wasn't so much out of fear of her knowing about things in the magic world; rather it was fear of her storming the Ministry of Magic and asking to help. Mum had stayed behind in London during World War II when everyone else was running for the hills and worked in hospital, taking care of the meals for the wounded and ill. Things haven't changed in fifty-odd years, and so Mum stays ignorant of the state of wizarding kind.

"Still, it would be very nice to have a man take care of you, don't you think?" And there we go. As modern as my mum can be, she still thinks young ladies need to be taken care of. Andie squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lower lip. It looked like pain, but I knew she was resisting the urge to say something potentially disastrous. We'd raised Nymphie to be an independent woman, that she could take care of herself rather than rely on someone else to care for her. I highly doubted that my mom would change that after a few minutes of talking, but she says this nearly every time we have a family dinner. It's bloody tiresome.

"Rachel," Andie interrupted, sitting up straight. "Why don't we go into the kitchen for a little bit? I've got this dessert going that I'd really like your opinion on." She stood up and waved her wand around, the plates magically lining up and proceeding into the kitchen.

"That would be lovely, Andie dear." My mum stood up and followed the parade of plates into the kitchen, leaving me to slouch back in my chair and sigh in relief.

"Mum, why don't I take care of the glasses?" Nymph offered, getting her wand out of the arm holster.

"No, I've got it!" Andie called out. The glasses were brand new. We didn't want to replace them so soon.

"Why don't we move to the den while they take care of dessert, okay?" I said, standing up. It's not that I didn't want to help Andie clean up; it's that I've been banned from the kitchen because I am absolute crap at cleaning. It's obvious Nymph gets that from my side of the family rather than the fastidious Blacks. It's okay by me though, the more we can distance from those fellows, the better. Bunch of rotten apples, the lot of them.

Nymphie and I went into the den, my haven of slobbishness where Andie and her spells can't make it past the door. I cleared a few bills and whatnot off of the couch, transferring them to the pile on the desk. After I sat down Nymph followed, acting like she was five years old again and lying down with her head in my lap. Okay, not quite five years old, she still did that even after she'd moved out and started the Auror training programme. No matter what, she's always going to be Daddy's little girl.

"So how are things really going?" I asked, reaching for the remote to turn on the telly. Wizards may have their wireless, but give me the idiot box any day for entertainment. Football's better when you can actually see it. Nymphie sighed, and I looked down to see her bite the edge of her thumbnail. She doesn't suck her thumb anymore, but this has become a substitute.

"It's getting rougher out there, Da. I mean, I thought we were in a war before, but it was nothing at all like this."

"I remember the first time around, back when you were little. So many times we were tempted to pick you up and make a run for the mainland, try and leave all of the fighting behind." I shrugged. "Obviously, that didn't happen."

"Maybe it would have been better, I don't know." Nymphie's hair went from red back to pink. "Wouldn't have stopped the war though, and maybe I'd have come back anyway joined the fighting."

"You always were a bit of a hell raiser. At least it's good to see you putting it to some use."

"Is hell raiser a synonym for klutz now?"

"So you'll never be a dancer. You're saving the world." My daughter the hero, fighting Death Eaters daily. No wonder I've been getting steadily greyer over the past two years. I used to have a nice head of thick blond hair. Now it's a lot thinner than it used to be and more of an ashy color than flowing golden locks. And my hair has never flowed in its life. Why am I nattering on about hair?

Nymphie rolled over to look up at the underside of my chin. "Saving the world can be pretty damn dangerous though."

"Well, yes." I frowned. It was something I tried not to think about, yet was on my mind daily. No one wants to think about their kids in danger. No one wants to even entertain the possibility that their child could be dead before they are. "But I know you'll make it through fine to the end of this war. Then you can focus on finding a man like your Nan wants you to."

"Oh, for Merlin's sake," Nymphie groaned, sitting up and burying her face in her hands. "She can't stop talking about it, can she? Every bloody stinking time we have dinner together she always brings it up. She keeps going on like this, I'm not even going to tell her about R..." She slowed to a stop, glancing over at me. I simply raised my eyebrows.

"Really? Is there something you want to tell us, Nymphie?"

"Don't call me that, Da."

"I'm your father, I'm not calling you Tonks." She's been insisting since she was twelve for us to call her Tonks. It hasn't happened yet. "Now come on, spill all to your dear old Dad. I promise I won't tell Mum."

"All right, but if you do tell Mum I swear I'll come over here and hex your telly so you can only pick up soap operas twenty four hours a day."

"Ouch, that stings. Now dish."

"You're such a girl sometimes, this thing for gossip that you have."

"Nymphie."

"All right!" She ran a hand through her hair, making it even spikier than before. "There's...kind of a guy. We're still working on things." The next part was muttered, I could barely hear her. "Bloody stupid martyr complex."

"Nymph, that's great," I replied. "Does he make you happy?"

She laughed a bit. "Happy, sad, frustrated, joyous, angry...happy."

"Definitely sounds like true love then. They can piss the living daylights out of you, make you frustrated as all hell, and at the end of the day you still want to snog them senseless."

"Too much detail, Da!" Nymphie winced.

"Oh, come on, you see your Mum and I kiss all the time," I teased her. Sometimes it was fun to get under her skin a bit.

"Totally different situation."

"How?"

"Well..." She twisted her lips, obviously having no idea what to say. I took the moment to pounce with another question about the mystery man.

"So tell me all about your guy."

All of a sudden Nymphie's face softened, and she almost smiled. I recognized the look. It was the same I wore when I was first going out with Andie. "He's just...a really good guy. Not like any of the trolls I wrote home about during Hogwarts."

"Well, that's a relief."

"For both of us. He's someone I met through work, through the special group, you know. S'why I can't tell you his name just yet, is that okay?"

"That's fine. I'll hold off my curiosity long enough for you to save the world, but after that--no mercy."

"By that point I'll be hiding out on a tropical island getting a tan with a drink in my hand, so good luck finding me," she winked at me.

"And with your guy in the other, no doubt. So what else about this guy makes him so wonderful?"

"Well, he's a smidge older than I am, and excellent with kids." Nymphie pointed her finger at me. "Don't get any ideas about grandchildren."

"God, no. I'm forty-eight, don't make me feel any older."

"That really is a very muggle point of view. As witches and wizards we've got a bigger life expectancy than your average muggle. In the wizarding world you're not even truly middle aged yet," my dear daughter reminded me.

"Old habits die hard." I groaned myself. "Oh, bad choice of words."

"I'll say."

"Anything else about this guy then?"

"Boy, you're stubborn."

"Where do you think you get it from?"

"Mum."

"Yeah, that's true." Andie always was a bit hard-headed. Still is, really. No doubt once she finds out that Nymphie's even just considering someone, she'll get her hooks in and not let go until she knows everything from what size shoe his father wears to what sort of toothpaste he uses at night before bed.

The smile on Nymph's face faded, or at least became a bit sadder. "He thinks he's not good enough for me. Thinks that some blasted furry little problem is going to scare me away from him. But he's coming around a bit. We've been...talking since Dumbledore's funeral, and things are getting better. He really does care for me, and in his deluded mind thought that what's best for me is for him to stay away." Nymphie glanced sidelong at me. "Needless to say I gave him a bit of a thumping over that one, even if it was only verbal. The problem was the timing, and the fact that it was a little more public than either one of us would have liked."

"Us men are, on the whole, not exactly known for being the most intelligent out there when it comes to relationships," I said, playing the wise father, although my mind was shooting off in other directions.

Many, many years ago Andie's cousin Sirius had brought a few friends over to the flat we were living in at the time. One of them was James Potter, future father of one Harry Potter whose name we all know now, and the other was a shy, pale young man with an extremely friendly disposition and a quietly wicked sense of humor that, when he decided to show it, could have us all rolling on the floor. Sirius had informed us later that this young man had a bit of a 'furry little problem' as they had called it--lycanthropy, not a badly behaved rabbit to put the one from Monty Python and the Holy Grail to shame. Come to think of it, his name began with an 'R' also. If this was the same guy that Nymphie had fallen for, she could do a hell of a lot worse. I rather liked Remus those few times I had met him.

I guess that's one of the other advantages us muggleborns have over the purebloods. We view things like lycanthropy as any other chronic disease; it's a pain in the arse, if you're not careful it could be contagious, but on the whole, it's not going to stop you from living your life. It's those halfwits running things in the Ministry that make things miserable for those chaps. But I'm not going to rant about it. I promised Andie I wouldn't.

"I don't know about that, Da," Nymph said, shooting me a grin. "You've been with Mum how many years now? I can't even remember. But it's been successful; you guys are still together and really love each other. I'd say you obviously know something about how to make a relationship work."

"I'll let you in on a little secret my father told me," I leaned in close to Nymphie, ready to impart the wisdom of the ages that my Pop had told me on my wedding day. "The woman is always right."

"And don't you forget it," Andie said with the same grin Nymph had on her face, leaning against the doorjamb. "Dessert's ready, you two. Rachel's turned my humble Cherries Jubilee into a creation worthy of the Gods."

"Ooooh." Nymph leaped up from her seat, then caught her toe on the carpet and tumbled to the ground. "I'm all right," she sighed, flipping onto her back.

"So what did you two talk about? Anything interesting?" Andie asked, stepping into the room to help Nymph to her feet.

"Oh, this and that." Nymph smiled up at Andie from her position on the floor and spread her arms wide. "'The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things. Of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax--'"

"'And cabbages and kings,'" they finished together. "Sometimes I feel like I've fallen down the rabbit hole living with the two of you," Andie smirked, hauling Nymph up and pushing her out of the room.

"I don't live here anymore, so you can't say that!" Nymph hollered as she walked down the hall into the kitchen.

Andie just rolled her eyes and turned to me. "So did you two chat about anything interesting?"

Of course it was interesting. It was also enlightening, and a bit heartbreaking. Nymphie's not the little girl whose biggest problem was scraping up her elbows on the playground anymore. She's an auror, a soldier, a woman, and in love. She'll always be my daughter, but now it's time to share her. "Not really." I looked up at Andie, a small smile twisting the corner of my mouth up. "Just realizing that Nymphie's a real woman now, not a baby anymore."

Andie sat down next to me and leaned her head on my shoulder. "I know. I don't like thinking it either." She kissed me on the cheek. "But that's what parents do. We raise them the best as we know how, then we send them out into the world to make their own way, and support them as much as we can."

"Aye, that we shall," I nodded, wrapping an arm around my wife. "And I know that we are both very proud of our Nymph."

A clatter echoed down the hall, followed by a loud groan. Andie and I traded a look, stood up and started to move into the kitchen. "Oh yes. Now all she needs is to bring a guy home and Rachel will stop hounding me about things, and all will be right with the world."

I cocked my head thoughtfully. If things were going like they sounded, my mum might get her wish sooner than she thought...

She'll be okay

Let her have her day

'Cause it's a long way

It's a long walk

But she'll find true love

And tenderness on the block

--Tenderness on the Block, by Warren Zevon