Yes, I know. A new story. I just couldn't resist this one! :) Tonks is the BEST!
Hope you all like it! Leave reviews, I'd love to know ideas for later storylines, creative criticism, kind reviews or whatever else you'd like to leave me!
Disclaimer: Don't own anything :( Sadly... maybe the computer I'm typing this on. But that's about it...
"Dora, we need to get going, your Mum is already downstairs waiting, you do still want to attend Hogwarts... don't you?" I heard Dad call from the bottom of the stairs. Parents. They were always reliable to be dramatic.
"I'll be down in a moment!" I called back, before returning my attention to the mirror in front of me, attempting to get my hair to turn the perfect shade of brown, so that it matched Mum's perfectly. I scrunched up my face in one final attempt, luckily hitting the color (or close enough to the color that no one would be the wiser) and trotting down the stairs in the full Muggle attire that was required if you were attempting to go to Kings Cross Station, because, being a Muggle establishment, it was swarming with Muggles. That should be obvious.
"That took a bit longer than expected, darling." Dad frowned as he grabbed my trunk from the foot of the stairs, where I had placed it earlier that morning in anticipation of the first day of my education at Hogwarts.
"Well, I can't exactly have my hair bright green, as I have for the past few days now, can I?" I asked, frowning. Being eleven years old, and having a father who obviously didn't understand the subtleties of being a Metamorphamagus could very easily be frustrating.
"A fair point you have there, dear. But does it really take that long to change your appearance to seem... more like a Muggle?" he asked, obvious skepticism in his voice.
"You wouldn't understand, Dad," I told him, shaking my head, to which I earned a chuckle and the usual ruffle of my hair.
"Alright then," Dad smiled, taking my trunk out to the car. His parents, having been Muggles, had insisted he learn how to drive a car. Obviously, there were times that it turned out to be a good thing.
"You two took quite a while." Mum noted as I climbed into the back seat of the car and Dad placed my trunk on the seat next to me, before getting into the drivers side.
"Well, Dora decided that she needed to have the perfect Muggle appearance," Dad explained.
"Oh, did she now?" Mum laughed, looking back at me. "Is that true, Nymphadora?"
I had long since accepted the fact that since Mum had named me, she wasn't going to stop calling me Nymphadora any time soon. Dad, however understood my distaste for the name, and had supplied me with my choice of nicknames, some more acceptable to me than others. Dora had been the one I'd chosen, and he'd addressed me as such ever since.
"Yes, Mum. I couldn't exactly pass as your daughter without having the appropriate shade of light brown for my hair color, now could I?" I asked, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Why didn't adults understand that? No adult ever had, and I didn't suspect that one would any time soon.
"Of course not, dear," Mum smiled after a moment, but it was only a faint smile, as if she still doubted my reason.
"I mean, it isn't that I particularly like this color, it's just... well, it blends better, you know?" I asked, feeling as though I was talking to myself. Both of my parents merely nodded, and I decided to look out the window rather than try to keep up a conversation. But within a few moments I couldn't very well contain myself any longer.
"What house do you suppose I'll be in?" I asked, slightly dreamily as I still gazed at the scenery outside as it flew by.
"Well, I think you could be in any one of them," Mum mused, thinking. "I was in Slytherin, though... I'm sure not many of those students will take too kindly to you after my marriage to your father," she noted, with obvious sadness in her voice for a moment before she smiled again. "Your father was in Hufflepuff, but, like I said, I think you have qualities that could have you placed in any of the four houses,"
"That's sure specific," I frowned, sighing. "I supposed I'll have to wait until tonight to find out, and I'll send you a letter at the first opportunity I get, probably late tonight, since you were so kind as to finally allow me to get an owl," I smiled a bit at that. "Then I can have a letter at breakfast!"
"You sure can," Dad laughed, and I noticed that we were pulling into the train station. My excitement was obviously at a peak now, I mean, I was mere minutes away from seeing the grand scarlet steam engine that my parents had described to me since I'd been small. Well, smaller than I was now... eleven wasn't exactly that old. Now that I really got thinking, this was going to be a very intimidating experience. Unless things had changed much since Mum and Dad had attended Hogwarts, which I highly doubted, the first years were paraded through the Great Hall in front of all the other students and the whole staff.
"Are you coming, Dora? Or have you decided that you aren't ready for school yet?" I heard Dad ask, and turned to see his head poking through the other door, my trunk and owl were on the ground next to him.
"Oh. I'm coming!" I told him, pushing my door open, and jumping out of the car, luckily Mum was waiting for me and she grabbed my arm as I headed for the pavement, face first.
"Be a bit more careful, will you Nymphadora? You don't want to spend all your time at Hogwarts in the Hospital Wing, now do you?" Mum asked, as if I had decided to fall on my face of my own free will.
"I wouldn't put it past Dora to not spend plenty of time there anyway, 'Dromeda," Dad told Mum as the three of us headed into the front doors, I chose to ignore that particular comment, instead choosing to look at the large clock on the wall, it read 10:45. A full fifteen minutes until the train left. Plenty of time to get there, accounting for the fact I would probably trip quite a few times over nothing.
"Ted! Andromeda!" I heard a voice somewhere ahead of us in the station call, and I looked around trying to find the person who was speaking to my parents.
"Molly!" Dad smiled as a large smiling red-headed woman approached. "It's nice to see you. Do you have a child going off today as well, then?" he asked, looking for what I assumed would be another red head.
"Oh yes. Charlie is starting his first year... and Bill his second. Percy is due to start in three years, and Fred and George are turning out to be quite a handful. Ron and Ginny are too small for us to determine yet, but hopefully we won't have two more pranksters on our hands," Molly told dad. She had a lot of kids! In my family I was the only child, but to have six siblings! That would be too much!
"Do you have one starting this year?" she asked, apparently she hadn't spotted me, standing behind Dad, holding Mum's hand.
Mum spoke up this time, "Yes, Nymphadora is starting her first year," I turned to glare at her. Calling me Nymphadora in private was one thing, in front of hundreds of people in a train station, well. That was different. She obviously saw my glare to which she responded. "I don't see why you don't like the name, Gift of the Nymphs... nothing at all wrong with that," she told me, before walking along after Molly and her family of red heads. I felt a smile pull across my lips as I imagined myself with that shade of hair. How fantastic would that be?
"Dora!" Dad yelped. "What happened to conspicuous in front of the Muggles, darling?" he asked.
"What do you mean?" I asked, dazed.
"Your hair... it's bright red!" he told me exasperatedly.
"Is it?" I asked with a giggle. "Oops." I shrugged, scrunching up my face and meeting Dad's eyes with a questioning gaze, obviously meaning to ask if my hair was the same brown it had been moments ago.
"Much better," he nodded, and we continued forward, finally stopping between two platforms that read 9 and 10.
"So... where's the train?" I asked, looking from my mothers face to my fathers.
"Just through the barrier," Mum smiled and walked forward, holding my hand, and leaned against the wall, I did the same, and found that we were standing in a completely different place with a long train sitting in front of us with the words 'Hogwarts Express' in bold golden letters, with a crest that had the symbols for the four houses on it.
"I feel like the last time I was here was only yesterday," Dad announced, shaking his head as he joined up with my luggage.
"Well, it wasn't, Ted. It was years ago..." Mum said, sounding sickeningly nostalgic.
"Can't I get on the train already? It's going to be leaving soon!" I told them both, feeling particularly impatient.
"Of course, Dora. Of course." Dad nodded, and walked toward the train to load my trunk, but not before handing me the owl that I'd gotten in Diagon Alley, and had yet to name.
"We'll miss you," Mum told me, crouching down to drown me in a hug, "Both of us love you," she smiled, letting go. I knew now that I was free to change my appearance, so I switched it back to the shade of electric blue I'd preferred for the past few weeks.
"Lovely, Dora," Dad smiled coming up behind me and lifting me off the ground in one of the tight hugs I'd come to only expect from him. "Your mother is right, we'll miss you, and we'll be sure to write," he assured me as I wrapped my arms around his neck to return the hug. "And we'll see you at Christmas," he added.
"Okay, daddy," I nodded, as he set me down.
"Be good, Nymphadora," Mum reminded me for what felt like the millionth time this week.
"I will, I promise Mum," I told her, smiling, and running off to the train, waving the whole way with my empty hand, careful not to drop the owl cage I held. I rushed quickly to an empty compartment, and pushed the window opened, only to continue waving. I was very pleased to see the waves I was receiving from both of them.
Despite my excitement, I felt butterflies flood my stomach in a wave so sudden I thought for a moment I would be sick, as soon as the train started moving. My waving became more frantic and my smile even more forced, until the train rounded the corner into a tunnel and my parents were out of sight. I then closed the window, and sat, stroking the black feathers on my owl gently through the bars of the cage, but that was only until she decided biting me would be enjoyable, at which point I withdrew my hand and scowled at the gleeful looking owl before glancing at my now bleeding finger.
"That doesn't look too serious," I heard a voice say, and I jumped up, startled.
"It's not, but the dumb owl decided to bite me," I defended, holding onto my finger firmly.
"Right," the boy nodded. "Mind if I sit with you? I'm starting at Hogwarts this year too, and my older brother doesn't want me sitting with him, apparently him and his friends are too cool for a first year," he shrugged. "Charlie Weasley, by the way. I think I saw you in the station, or someone who looked similar, maybe a sister or something. She had brown hair."
"Oh, I think my parents were talking to your Mum. You sure have a lot of siblings, and no, that was me you saw, I don't have a sister," I told him, grinning. "Go ahead and sit," I added.
"Then... how did you have brown hair there, and now it's such a... lovely shade of blue?" Charlie asked, sitting across from me.
"Promise you won't laugh or call me a freak?" I asked warily, looking Charlie straight in the eye.
"Promise," he nodded, looking completely solemn.
"Alright," I smiled, scrunching up my face and turning my hair to match his.
"Woah! That's wicked!" he grinned. "How do you do that?"
"I'm a Metamorphmagus," I explained, shaking my head, changing my hair back to blue. "Nymphadora Tonks, but please... don't call me Nymphadora, I hate the name," I thought for a moment of a suitable nickname, I only wanted Dad calling me Dora. "Hm... you can call me Tonks,"
"Alright, then Tonks. Nice to meet you," Charlie nodded with a dazzling grin, holding out his hand for me to shake. I took it and nodded.
"It's nice to meet you as well, Charlie Weasley," I told him truthfully, glad making a friend had been so easy.