Hi, new story.
By the way, Tonks has absolutely nothing to do with this. I didn't really like the Tonks/Remus pairing, so he's with someone a bit more his age. Still, I wanted some element to tie in with canon, so I made his daughter a metamorphagus.
No Mary-Sues, don't worry.
Also, the grammar errors are on purpose. I'm trying to make their dialogue sound the way children would actually speak.
Disclaimer: I don't own J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter or the quotes seen here. This is for entertainment purposes only.
"Friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life." -Thomas Jefferson
Crossed My Heart
The air was alive with spring. The last of winter had died and nature was rejoicing at its triumph. Colorful, delicate flowers were fighting their way up and opening their faces, welcoming the warm, brilliant sun. Trees were gaining back their jade-colored leaves. Some were even sprouting blossoms.
Streams were flowing fast and rapid, having to accommodate the melted snow and ice, and wash it away to make room for spring's new. Rain clouds drifted in and out occasionally, just to expel the last of their water.
The air was filled with the sounds of animals coming alive again. The birds sang their sweet songs of welcome to the end of a long, dark winter. Small animals were racing out to collect new food after having depleted their original stash.
Children began to joyfully play outside, a few at a time.
At East Willow Park, a single young girl was happily playing by herself.
She was a very young girl, no more than four or five years of age. Even for her innocent, young age, she had a small frame, not that she ever let that get in the way. She had large honey-brown eyes that were always on the alert, looking for the next adventure. Her short hair was an odd shade of jade green, pulled into two short ponytails.
She was the only child at the park that day, something she tried to enjoy. She played on the jungle gym.
Her parents watched her from the park bench on the other side of the sand pit. When she knew that they were looking, she would merely climb and simply hang around like a good little girl. It was only out of her parents' watchful eyes that she actually had some fun.
She would do the daring stuff that she loved. She would jump from one side of the gym to the other, vault over a bar and land on the next, do a loop like an acrobatic, that sort of thing.
She didn't worry about falling or getting hurt- that sort of risk was what made it fun.
It was at some point when she was hanging upside-down that she saw another child. Even upside-down, she could see that he was about her age. He walked completely alone, his hands in his pockets, his little coat wrapped tightly around his small body. Anyone would say that he was lost. He looked lonely, at least.
A cold, sharp breeze raced through the park. The little boy pulled his coat tighter around him and sat down against one of the trees.
The little girl flipped right side-up and glanced at her parents. They didn't appear to have seen the boy. They both caught her eye, smiled and waved simultaneously to their little girl.
She just returned it with a quick wave before hopping off of the metal bars. Being young, she figured that the boy might readily want to play with her- maybe a game of tag.
She skipped over to the tree that he sat under, looking almost unsure of himself.
"Hi!" she greeted excitedly.
He jumped at turned to look at her. He was about her age. His skin was pale, as though he didn't see much sun. He had neat, white-blond hair and sharp gray eyes. He wore an expensive-looking heavy black coat with silver fastenings- his emerald scarf wrapped neatly around his neck.
He didn't say anything, he just looked at her, as though trying to figure out what to do.
"My mummy an daddy are over there," she eagerly pointed to the couple sitting on the wooden bench, talking to each other. The man had sandy-colored hair and various scars all over him. The woman was gentle and fair-looking, her golden hair pulled into a long braid running down her back. "But where are your mummy and daddy?" she asked him in a high-pitched voice.
The boy continued to looked uncomfortable as though he shouldn't even be talking to her. But he still answered, "They left the house because of work for something."
"You are here all by yourself?" the girl sat down under the tree with him.
He scooted away from her slightly, but he nodded, "They weren't around and I wanted to go to a park to see what a park was like."
"You are all alone? Wow, you're brave! Aren't you scared?" The little girl asked in childish amazement.
The little boy smiled a small half-smile. He liked being called brave. "My father and mother wouldn't ever let me come to a park," he explained.
The girl looked confused, "Why won't they not let you go to a park? It's fun!"
He shrugged his small shoulders, "They don't want me to be around other people" he whispered like it was a secret. he suddenly remembered something and then scooted away from the girl even more. He glanced at her green hair, like he noticed it for the first time, "Why is your hair green like that?"
The little girl's face brightened for some reason, "I can make it pink too! Daddy says I'm a meta- meta- metamorphagus," she stumbled, having trouble pronouncing such a big word.
For some reason, the boy relaxed slightly. The little girl noticed.
"Do you want to play?" she asked hopefully.
The little boy still looked hesitant, "Father said I shouldn't be playing."
The girl was puzzled again, "But playing is lots of fun!"
"Father doesn't want me to be playing," the young boy repeated.
The girl's face fell even more, "You don't like me," she reasoned sadly.
The little boy looked surprise. He shook his head quickly, "No, no, no! I like you but you probably don't like me because nobody likes me! Everybody hates me!"
The little green-haired girl looked straight at him, "I don't hate you."
The blond-haired boy stared at her.
She stood up and said, "Let's play tag!"
He still looked hesitant, "I don't know if I should."
She put on her 'please' face, "Please, it'll be fun! And your mummy and daddy sound mean!"
The boy slowly stood up, but he didn't go anywhere.
The little girl tried again, "It'll be lots of fun!" she repeated, "Promise! Look," she made an invisible X over her chest with her index finger, "Cross my heart, okay?"
It took a little while, but finally he asked her, "How do you play tag?"
She smiled excitedly, "If you're 'it' you just chase after me to tag me and make me 'it.'"
She tagged him on the shoulder, "Tag! You're it!" she squealed and she went running off.
The boy started to chase after her. They ran all over. The boy seemed slightly awkward at first, but, eventually, he warmed up to the idea having a playmate. He even started smiling and laughing like a kid should.
Their game of tag soon turned into a game of hide-and-seek.
After the girl gave him a quick tutorial, he ran over to one of the trees and covered his eyes with his little hands and counted, "One, two, three..."
The energetic little girl looked around for a good hiding place. She didn't want to hide in one of the bushes, it would be too obvious. She glanced at one of the trees, it looked like a good climbing tree.
She ran over to it and hoisted herself onto the lowest branch.
"eleven, twelve..."
She worked her away into the more branch-crowded section of the tree, sat herself down on a sturdy looking one, and waited.
"eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Ready or not, here I come!" the boy shouted.
He looked in the bushes, around some of the trees, and even in a flower patch, but he couldn't find the girl.
All the while, she sat from the tree, dangling her feet, still waiting for her playmate to find her.
He got farther and farther away from the tree she was in. She climbed higher to be able to see him better. The branches became thinner and more brittle, but she didn't notice. The boy looked in another bush, and the girl kept climbing.
She put her foot on a particularly flimsy branch and-
SNAP!
There weren't any sturdy branches below her to break her fall, just grass. She was too surprised to be able to scream or shout. She felt the wind rush past her.
The little boy heard the branch snap and he whipped towards the source. He saw her falling for a split second before he heard her hit the ground with a heavy THUMP.
He ran over to her with his little legs.
"Are you hurt? Are you okay?" he shouted.
She lifted herself off of the ground, slowly. She looked disheveled, but otherwise, surprisingly, unharmed, for the most part.
Still, she rolled up her ripped sleeve. On her small arm was a deep-looking cut, probably from one of the branches. "I got a boo-boo," she stated simply, but a little tear went down her cheek.
The boy ripped off a strip of his coat. He walked over to her and wrapped it tightly around his playmate's arm. "Any better?" he asked.
She smiled a little and wiped away the tear. "Thank you," she said.
"We should maybe play something else, I think," the little boy said.
They sat down in the grass. They played I Spy, some Charades, and Funny Faces. Funny Faces was particularly funny as the little girl was a metamorphagus.
She morphed her nose into almost a pig snout and the little boy fell backwards, clutching his sides and laughing harder than he ever remembered.
The sky began to darken, but neither of them noticed- they were having too much fun. But she heard her daddy call, "Honey, it's time to go back to your aunt's house."
She stood up sadly, "I have to go," she told her new friend.
"I don't want you to go," he mumbled.
"I said it was going to be lots of fun," she reminded him.
He looked at the little girl, "Can we meet here tomorrow maybe?"
The little girl looked sadder, "We have to go back home. We were visiting my Aunt Cassedy for a week and that was a week ago."
The little boy stood up, "But we'll always be friends right?"
"Right," the little girl agreed.
"Promise?"
"Promise." she made an X over her chest again, "Cross my heart."
Her parents called her again.
"We'll both come back to here, right?" This time, the little girl asked, "Promise?"
The little blond-haired boy mimicked her by drawing an X over his chest. "Cross my heart," he repeated.
As her parents called her for the last time, she told her friend goodbye and ran over to them.
The little boy was left alone in the company of the trees. The darkness began to fall. He watched his playmate leave, her silhouette getting smaller and more distant.
"Cross my heart," he whispered to himself.
He walked back to his less-than-wonderful life.
They both immediately missed their new friend
and they didn't even know their name.
Being children, they didn't want to give up that little ray of hope that they would see each other again. But as children do, they grew up.
They made friends, made enemies, developed their personalities, and matured. They changed in almost every way- they would probably be nearly impossible to recognize even if they did see each other again.
As they grew, childhood memories began to blur and fade. It was only sometimes, when they drifted off, that they randomly remembered something about that day. But the immediate here and now of real life had a tendency to sneak back in and turn their attention away.
Months went by, not a sign of each other. Months turned into years, and the years went flying by.
But a promise was a promise
and a promise knew no age.
"Sometimes it takes a lot of courage to keep a promise." -unknown