Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and elements from the Harry Potter series belong to J.K. Rowling. No copyright infringement is intended.
Tonks remembered the first time she saw Bellatrix Lestrange nee Black. It was also the first time she saw her mother cry. She was six years old and she already knew there was no Santa Claus, that Mum and Dad bought her Christmas gifts and put them under the tree while she was asleep. Christmas was only two days away, but she was so excited and impatient that it might as well have been two years away.
Dad was at work and Mum was having tea with Mrs. Oldridge down in the sitting room so Tonks was free to search her parents' bedroom. She didn't find the talking doll she was looking for, but she found something else of interest under the bed. It was a pretty box printed with flowers and smelling of perfume - no little girl could have resisted it. Tonks opened it and found photographs inside. She was disappointed at first, but as she began to look through them her interest was piqued.
Many of the photos showed her mother with a woman who looked just like her as well as with another blonde woman. There were plenty of photos of the three women with two black-haired boys too, and photos of five children who looked like younger versions of the women and the boys. Tonks recognized her mother easily enough, but it was the other dark-haired woman who held her transfixed. She resembled Mum, but Tonks knew it wasn't her. Her mum would never look so mean. The woman was glaring from the photo as if she could see Tonks looking at her.
"Nymphadora!"
Tonks jumped, startled, and the photographs flew out of her hands and scattered all over the floor. "Mum."
"Nymphadora, you said you wanted a nap," Mum reminded her. "Santa doesn't bring gifts for naughty children."
"I'm sorry," Tonks said. She wasn't too worried. Santa might not bring gifts for naughty children, but Dad would, and so would Mum once she wasn't mad anymore. She picked up a photograph of her mother and the mean woman with their arms around each other. "Who is this, Mum? She looks like you."
"It's nothing." Mum was gathering up the photographs and piling them back into the box. "Will have to Charm this locked," she muttered under her breath. To Tonks she said, "You know you're not supposed to go through my things."
Tonks persisted. "Who is she?"
Mum stared at her for a long time, as if thinking. Then she sighed. "She's my sister."
Tonks had always taken it for granted that Dad's parents and his brothers and sisters came to visit and sent Christmas gifts, but Mum's family never did. She'd never even realized that Mum must have a family too. Now Tonks wondered why her mother's sister didn't send her birthday cards and cheques. "Did she die?" Dad's aunt had died this past summer so Tonks understood about death.
"No, darling." Mum pulled Tonks into her lap and hugged her. "I'm afraid she's not a nice person, but she's somewhere where she won't be able to hurt you ever."
Tonks was going to ask why her aunt would want to hurt her, but then she realized Mum was crying. It frightened her and she began to cry too. Mum tried to shush her even though she was still crying herself, but Tonks only cried harder.
Dad found them like that when he came home. He gave Tonks a bath and put her to bed and made her promise not to ask Mum about her family again. Tonks kept her promise.
The next time she saw Bellatrix she was a new Auror and, against Mad-Eye Moody's advice, she'd gone to Azkaban to take a look at her aunt in person. The woman huddled in the cell before her had the same long black hair as the woman in the photograph, but she was thinner and no longer beautiful. She paid no attention to Tonks, staring at her hand where she'd scratched herself hard enough to draw blood.
Aunt was out of the question and Mrs. Lestrange was more respectful than such a monster deserved. "Bellatrix," Tonks said, "Do you know who I am?"
"Do you know who I am?" Bellatrix mocked, looking up at her. "I am first among His followers and He will return. I know who you will be then, vermin."
Nervousness made her hair change from its customary bubblegum pink to a jet black. Tonks took a deep breath and fought to regain control of herself. She lightened her hair to dark brown and willed her cheekbones to sharpen and her lips to become fuller. When she was finished, she knew she looked like she could be the sister of the woman in the cell.
"Why do you take that face, Metamorphmagus?" Bellatrix demanded.
"It's my mother's face."
Bellatrix threw herself at the bars of her cell and futilely tried to tear them out of her way. "Half-blood scum," she hissed.
Tonks glanced around the empty hallway, grateful no one had seen her start in fright. She had read all the files the Ministry would allow someone of her security clearance to read. This woman in this cage - this woman she had seen kissing her mother's cheek and arranging flowers in her hair - this woman had tortured two Aurors until their minds broke and they were lost to madness. Tonks was not so cocksure to think she'd succeed where Frank and Alice Longbottom had failed. She slipped her hand into the pocket of her robes, gripping her wand for reassurance.
"It makes you angry, doesn't it?" she asked. "That your own sister married a mudblood and had a half-blood child?"
"The blood traitor who bore you is no sister of mine. She will be dealt with like all other traitors when He returns."
"No. You'll stay in here 'til you forget him, 'til you forget your own name – and then you'll die."
Bellatrix didn't seem to hear her. She gave Tonks a malicious smile. "You will be dealt with too, little Auror. You and your mudblood father. I will see to it personally."
A Dementor floated by, bringing a wave of cold and fear with him. Tonks shivered. "I wish I could say it's been good chatting with you, Auntie." She expected Bellatrix to curse her and shout more threats, but she only laughed as Tonks walked away.
"I hope you're in it for the fun and not some stupid attempt to atone for Black sins." It was the first thing Sirius Black had ever said to her. Tonks had lied to him, assuring him that she'd become an Auror for the excitement.
As she lay in her hospital bed, she regretted not answering him truthfully. They could have had a real conversation. She could have asked him what her mother had been like as a girl, what it had been like to grow up in a family of pureblood supremacists. It was too late now. Bellatrix had killed him. She'd done it easily; that he was her cousin had not made her hesitate at all. She would have killed Tonks just as easily if Sirius hadn't interceded.
Tonks closed her eyes when the door opened, not yet ready to face anyone. She recognized her mother's perfume before she spoke, but she continued to feign sleep.
"Oh, Nymphadora." Mum smoothed her hair back from her forehead.
I'll kill Bellatrix, Tonks vowed, as Andromeda Tonks nee Black began to cry. I'll make things right, I swear. I will kill her before she gets to Mum and Dad. I will.