Woo! Back for another story I see! This is the fourth story in the Inferiorum series. (You guys who know what's coming can skip ahead to the story.) But you can read this story without reading the others and they won't be spoiled. (However, I prefer reading stories in order—but do what you will.) The first story in the series is Doppelganger. The first five stories can be read in any worry.

Also, there's been some questions about the stories:

The first five stories feature the background of certain characters who will be important when the sixth story, or the first big story in the Inferiorum (or as my sister and I now affectionately refer to it as 'The B.L.W. series' (Big Latin Word)) series starts up.

It is important to note that although I've done certain characters back stories, such as Fred and George, Hermione, and Draco so far, doesn't mean they will be the only characters who are important in the rest of the series. A very certain character doesn't get a back story but is very important. (I can't say who. It's a surprise.) The reason I picked these certain characters were because I could think of interesting back stories for them. When I started it, I was only going to write a Fred/George story for Teresa but then I got a bunch of ideas and before I knew it…well, I had a monster on my hands. A ten story monster to be exact. Five of which are big stories. I'm very excited to write them though and I hope that everyone reading sticks around for the whole thing. And now, enjoy.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Warnings: Mild swearing, that sort of thing.


Shape Shifter

Part the First

"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative."

Oscar Wilde


Andromeda Tonks had been a bit worried when her only child, a girl, turned out to be a witch. After all, witches were "processed" but they didn't tell the Guard. She was fairly sure she could keep it a secret. And maybe they could have.

She began writing letters to a cousin of hers, whom she knew could also do magic and so perhaps could help her. He had once been part of the families that ruled over the land, but he had left all that behind, just as she had. If only she knew how to reach him! And so, her letters went out into the world and she could only hope he received them.

In the meantime, she just had to hide the girl's wand, and then proceed as if life was perfectly and terrifically normal.

But Nymphadora Tonks proved to be a most unusual case indeed.

She had the very odd talent of being able to change her appearance at will. Her skin, her hair, her eyes, her nose, her mouth, her body…it was definitely out of the ordinary. And being that she was a mischievous little girl, it didn't take long for her to realize what she could do. At first, Andromeda didn't know what to do but then, when Nymphadora was old enough to understand, she explained to her quite patiently that she mustn't use her strange powers in public. Only at home.

"It will be our secret." Andromeda told her little girl who grinned wickedly and her hair went from short and pink to long and red in a matter of seconds. Her husband, Ted, seemed to find the whole thing very cute and would often just roar with laughter when he saw his little girl going about with a strange hair color and pat her on the head.

"Never thought she'd be normal…" Ted shook his head with an amused look on his face. "Nope…not with her mother!"

He meant that in a gentle, teasing way. Andromeda had not been raised to live in a simple village and lead a simple life married to a man named Ted Tonks. No, when she was born, she had been born to the autocracy as well. But that life was behind her now, far behind her.

Instead of the pampering and luxuries her childhood had given her, Andromeda found herself chasing Nymphadora around the house and keeping her from misbehaving in public which was a rather hard thing to do. She tried to leave Nymphadora at home and the little girl would pout and promise that she really would be good this time. To prove this point, she would often make her hair and eyes go a plain mousy brown. And then Andromeda would give in and before she knew it, she would be trying to cover her daughter with a blanket when she turned her eyes bright yellow and someone happened to be passing by.

Around eight, Nymphadora began to grow very clever about things. She discovered that she could turn into a person! She could be the mirror twin of her mother if she just pictured her in her head!

There was minor setback. Of all the things Nymphadora could change, there was one thing she couldn't: Her height. She was the same height no matter what. So, if she decided to play a joke on her dad by turning into her mom, it didn't get very far because she was not nearly as tall as her mother.

This was not a drawback when she played with other children her age, for they were nearly all the same height and she could turn into one of them when no one was looking and play jokes on them. If they were all playing Hide-and-Seek and she was named it, Nymphadora would turn into one of the other children and find where everyone was hiding before turning into herself again and finding them all. It was a bit like cheating, but it was still fun watching the confusion on the other children's faces as she seemed to know exactly where they all were.

Her mother was constantly worried about whether or not Nymphadora would slip up and accidentally reveal her hidden talent to the other children, but she never did. Even if she did use it to get into an awful lot of trouble.

For instance, the pies.

In Nymphadora's mind, anyone who set out pies was just begging to have them stolen. They just set them out on the window sill with the window wide open. They'd even walk off and start doing something else! What kind of signal did they think they were sending to small children. To cover her tracks, just in case, Nymphadora would turn into one of the other children. Usually, she mixed up their features in her head so that she didn't really look like any of them.

Unfortunately, she was terrible at sneaking up to a window and just stealing a pie. She was dead clumsy. She could trip over things that weren't even there. Ted and Andromeda Tonks were so used to this that now, if they heard a crash, and they didn't hear a scream of pain, they just shrugged their shoulders and called out an 'Are you alright?'

Mrs. Mackeray was the one baking pies that day. They smelled delicious. Apple pieces, glistening with apples and cinnamon and they were so irresistibly scrumptious looking that Nymphadora just knew she had to have one. She hid behind a building and screwed up her face, remembering and picturing the features she wanted very clearly in her head. She, even when she was young, paid spectacular attention to detail. Every part of the face, the skin, the eyes, the bumps, the freckles, she could remember exactly in her head. She wondered if being able to picture it and imagining her skin being like that was what really caused her to be able to change.

She grabbed the pie off the sill. Success! Or it would have been if she had seen that rock a little sooner. She dropped the pie, crashing into a pile of glass bottles. Of course Mrs. Mackeray heard this and came running out of the house. There was disguised little Nymphadora Tonks, her face in a pie, picking herself up off the ground. She saw Mrs. Mackeray coming towards her.

Nymphadora leapt to her feet and took off. Even if she was a klutz, she could run fairly fast when the occasion called for it. Mrs. Mackeray was heard shouting up the street at her, warning the disguised child that when she found out who she was, she would be telling her parents about it. She found a good place to turn back into a very plain Nymphadora, with mouse brown hair and mousy brown eyes. She didn't like to do this. She thought dark hair suited her much better but she liked to please her mother by looking as normal as possible. She was still a very pretty little girl. She had inherited her mother's pale, heart-shaped face. The smooth, even complexion. From her dad, she decided she had his feet.

The problem with transformation is that it did not get rid of the evidence that Nymphadora recently had fallen face first into a pie. As soon as she walked in the door, her mother turned from the floor she was scrubbing (Nymphadora's father worked at the town store during the day) and saw Nymphadora's face.

"What do you have on you?" Andromeda sat up, wiping her hands on an apron. She didn't really like scrubbing floors. Oh well, it was Ted's turn next week. "Is that…pie?"

"Er…no." Nymphadora was too young at the time to realize that she was completely caught.

"You've been stealing pies, haven't you?" Andromeda's lips pursed.

"I didn't actually get the pie, I fell into it." Nymphadora protested, looking a bit sour about it. It was no fair that she had tripped over that rock!

"No dessert for a week." Andromeda put her hands on her hips. A week was an awfully long time in Nymphadora's mind. It would always remain so, just because she wasn't the most patient person. "Now come here so I get that off of you, Nymphadora."

Nymphadora wasn't the biggest fan of her name. Even when she was small. But she endured it. The other kids made fun of her name, though some of them had taken to calling her 'Dori', which she supposed wasn't too awful. It was still pretty bad, all things considering.

Her mother gave her a good scrubbing which Nymphadora changed her noses during to complicate things for her mother. When Andromeda was done, she sat down at the table across from Nymphadora, who still for some reason could seem a bit grubby, even after a good washing.

"Nymphadora, we need to talk." Andromeda told her daughter. Nymphadora recognized the serious tone of voice and directed her attention to her mother. Even when she was trying to look serious, she still looked playful and it nearly made Andromeda laugh. "I've told you repeatedly not to steal pies or cookies or anything. And yet you still do."

"They're just sitting there!" Nymphadora protested.

"But they aren't yours." Andromeda spoke sternly. "They are somebody else's. It takes money and work to make those things. Besides, they were probably made for that person's family. That means that a lot of feeling and love was put into them."

This was something Andromeda had not been taught as a child. But it's what she knew then to be right.

"And to steal it is wrong." Andromeda reminded her again. "What if I had made that pie for us? And someone stole it? How would you feel?"

"Not good." Nymphadora confessed, looking downcast.

"There you go." Andromeda gave her a small smile. "Do you understand now?"

"Yes!" Nymphadora nodded. "I understand!"

If I steal pies or cookies, I've got to wash my face and hand afterwards!

At least Andromeda's talk had caused Nymphadora to be a much cleaner child afterwards. Yes, she was mischievous. She didn't understand consequences as well as others do. But she would one day. On her fourteenth birthday to be exact.


To Be Continued