Summary: It's the beginning of the school year and Andromeda receives a letter from her daughter detailing exploding cauldrons, Charlie Weasley, how excruciatingly painful seventh-year-classes can be and a little footnote about a small blond boy.
Hell! Damn! Bloody damn hell! Draco Malfoy alternately cursed and cast blasphemies upon anything and everything, from Crabbe's toenails to Dumbledore's nose, throwing eleven years worth of vim into words he'd never before dared to even think of in front his mother. Some castle this is! Really, I must inform father – imagine me, the Malfoy heir, being forced to scurry through the entire school in search of the Transfiguration classroom…why it's positively undignified! He'd only been at Hogwarts a week but he was already learning, much to his surprise, that the world did not revolve around him. He'd deserted Crabbe and Goyle at breakfast, not a little revolted by their table manners. The thought had never occurred to him that he might actually get himself lost in the huge castle.
This must be the right place, he thought in desperation, glancing at the slim gold watch set flashing with genuine emeralds on his wrist. He didn't want to find out the punishment for those who were ten minutes late for Transfiguration Class – Professor McGonagall was as notoriously strict as Snape. He clambered up the stairs, into a narrow corridor that ended in a closed door. The Transfiguration Class was situated like this, he remembered, running to the door, his fingers already reaching for the knob…
"Wotcher, boy," a voice called from behind him. "I wouldn't do that if I were you."
Startled, Draco turned around. A slim girl, a Hufflepuff from her uniform and a seventh year from her height and bearing, with electric blue hair dancing down to her hips was advancing towards him, an amused smile on her face. "Being brave aren't you?" she grinned. "Was it a dare or a bet or perhaps a girl?"
"Isn't that…isn't that, the Transfiguration classroom?" he asked, a trifle of uncertainty creeping into his voice despite his best efforts.
The girl raised her eyebrows and Draco saw that her eyes were almond-shaped and emerald green – uncannily like Harry Potter's. "Do you really think so?"
"Yes," he said defensively, wondering whether she was some long-lost cousin of Potter's, reaching for the knob again. "Yes, I'm sure of it." He didn't care if she was a seventh year or not or even a quasi-Potter, he was a Malfoy.
"You're a first year, aren't you?" she asked him, peering sharply into his face.
He nodded and said stiffly, "Draco Malfoy," extending his hand.
"Nymphadora Tonks," she said wryly, reaching down to shake his hand and then grip his wrist. "C'mon, the classroom is on the next floor – we'd better race though, McGonagall's bound to take some points from…ah, Slytherin. And don't come round here again, little Malfoy, this is the third-floor corridor." A glint of mischief entered her eyes as she dragged him up the stairs. "They keep a giant, three-headed, flesh-eating dog there." She asked suddenly, "By the way do you like my hair? Do you think it suits me? Would purple perhaps be a better color?"
"No," Draco said determinedly, speaking with the assurance that came from a decade of watching – and occasionally helping – his mother color-coordinate guest bedrooms and his father's evening wear during house-parties. "It'd make you look peaky. But bubblegum pink would be nice."
She smiled and pushed him towards a door. "Tell McGonagall you don't know your way about yet – she'll take five points instead of ten." She patted him lightly on the head and strolled away. He'd just reached the door when a sudden impulse made him to turn around. The slim girl in the long black robes now had shoulder-length bright pink hair.
000
Dear Mum,
We're all pining, simply pining, for our hero, Charles the Glorious Weasley. Well not really for me – you know how my relationship with the truly exotic Professor Binns stands – but as every other girl from fifth to seventh year is writing sonnets to his sweet, sweet smile I see fit to jump onto the bandwagon to console them. The girls keep begging me to transform into Charlie and I fear that my resistance to them is crumpling – would you really mind having a strapping redheaded son instead of a pretty pink-haired (I am no longer the ravishingly beautiful blue-tressed damsel of sixteen I was this summer – I have grown wise and pink-haired and even more stunning than before) daughter? He's off studying dragons in Romania now. You can imagine how happy that's making the fair Minerva and gentle Madam Hooch and all other true Quidditch connoisseurs – if I hear one more cry of "But he could have played for England!" I shall Disillusion the speaker so that they are invisible.
Disillusionment Charms are a pain in the…, well never mind that Mummy and don't bother sending me a Howler but seriously, I can't understand how it'll help an Auror! I mean, even if I do Disillusion the speaker s/he can still throw curses at me! A simple combination of Silencio-Expelliarmus and a charm for ropes preventing Apparation ought to do the trick but no, the good masters and mistresses must torture us until our brains slowly turn into mush (and don't tell me my mind is already mush).
The stress is really getting to us – poor Isabel Stimps blew up a cauldron in Potions and you should have seen Snape's face! It blew up into his precious mistress's – that's Delia Greengrass – face and he was all one-billion points from Hufflepuff and ten years' worth of detentions! I managed to accidentally vanish (my disillusionment charms work wonderfully) Delia in Transfiguration and got away without losing points!
We've got very interesting new students this year – little Harry Potter (he has such lovely eyes – I'm trying them and I really do look fetching with bubblegum pink hair and emerald green eyes) and the nice little boy who advised me about my hair color. Slytherin, funny little chap – one of the princes-in-the-manor type if you catch my drift – and very, very blonde – I'll try his hair color after I'm bored of pink. Said his name was Draco Malfoy – I seem to remember the name somewhere, but I've really forgotten all about it…do you remember anything? Ah well – my latest conquest is…
Your dearly beloved daughter,
Suffering under the name of Nymphadora
Andromeda Tonks crumpled up the parchment and threw it into the flames, her head spinning with images of a laughing young girl with long blond hair and a smaller version of a man who when she'd last seen him had been tall and dashing, with a Dark Mark etched on his forearm.