I'm picking this up again, guys. Next up I'm thinking a Weasley boy- Charlie maybe?
Nymphadora Tonks Lupin
1) The first time she ever saw the Malfoy's, she didn't know who they were.
She saw a tall, blonde man who looked mean and who was yelling at somebody. They were in Gringott's, and he was shouting at a goblin. She had never met anyone who would yell at a goblin!
Then, she saw a woman standing next to him. She was shorter, thin and blonde, and when she turned around Tonks saw a pair of steely, grey eyes, eyes just like hers.
Tonks never left her eyes their natural colour again.
2) She loved her powers. She loved being able to change her appearance at will. She loved how one minute, she could have brown hair, and the next, she could have pink. She loved how she could go from normal and plain to special, outspoken. Different. Because her mother always told her she should be different, she should think for herself.
Then she went to Hogwarts, and people made fun of her. They called her freak, pointed and laughed. Her mother told her they were just jealous, but Tonks knew the truth- she was a freak. She was different, but different wasn't so great anymore.
For two months, Tonks never changed her appearance. And then Sirius Black told her that she shouldn't let the other kids change her, that she should make her own decisions. Sirius Black told her that by not changing her appearance, she was giving in, quitting, letting them win. He told her that if she wanted to have her hair pink, then who was going to stop her?
The next day, she walked into the Great Hall with pink hair and purple eyes, and ignored anyone who made a snide comment.
3) Sirius was great. Sirius would bring her little gifts, and he would tell her stories about Hogwarts. Sirius taught her that it was okay to be different, that she was her own person, that she made her own decisions. And more then anything, he taught her that friendship was more important then anything. She even met James Potter once, and watching him and Sirius, she wanted nothing more then to have a friendship like that.
Which was why it just could not be true. No way could Sirius ever do that! No way could he kill James Potter and his wife- no way could he kill Peter Pettigrew or 12 other muggles. Sirius couldn't do that! He wasn't capable of it. Sirius gave her gifts and played with her and cheered her up. Sirius loved James and Lily. Sirius valued friendship over everything else.
But after a long time of convincing herself it wasn't true, Tonks realised that it was a lot easier to just give in and accept that some people just weren't who you thought they were.
4) She had never thought she could do anything worthwhile with her gift. Sure, she could make people laugh by transforming her nose into a pig's, and she could do impressions perfectly, but she had always thought that would be the end of it. But suddenly, she knew just what she could do. She would be an auror. She would help people, would find evil wizards and actually do something worthwhile with her ability. And even though she was clumsy and loud and always messed things up, she knew it would be okay. And it was. She wasn't the best there- but she wasn't the worst. But suddenly she knew her place- she was meant to help people.
5) Even if she had been warned, it was still a surprise seeing Sirius. She knew he was innocent, of course, but just the look of him- so haggard, so hollow, as if he had seen death, had faced it down, had seen horrors no one could even imagine. And he had, she knew, and that knowledge alone was enough to make her look at him differently.
But when he saw her, he grinned, that old Sirius grin she remembered so well, and she grinned back and even if it was still slightly awkward, she couldn't help but feel at home with him.
6) Which just made it so much worse when he died. They had just reconnected, and he was gone again, so suddenly? And this time, it wasn't as if he could come back. He wouldn't be proved innocent and reappear in her life like before. He was dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Forever.
The thing that hurt the most was that she felt as if she didn't deserve to hurt over his death. She didn't even know him that well- surely she had no right to curl up in a ball and sob over him. Surely she had no right to miss him as much as she missed him. She shouldn't feel the way she did when Harry had just lost his godfather, a man who had meant so much to him, one of his last ways to be close to his father. And what about Remus, who had lost his only closest friend, who had finally reconnected to the man he had spent his entire childhood with? Surely Remus had more reason to be upset?
7) And Remus was upset. When she found him in the morning, eyes rimmed red from tears, his head in his hands, no more tears to cry but still so much anguish in his heart, her heart went out to him. She knelt down and hugged him, wiped his tears, took care of him. She and Remus had talked before that, but they had never exactly been close. She had taken an interest in him, but she never thought much of it. But suddenly, he was all she could think about. She never mentioned to anyone about what had happened, but everyone knew something had happened- something had happened to make her fall head over heels with a man so much older, so much poorer, and, though she was the only one to ever realize it, so much better then her.
8) Remus took a lot of convincing. His constant mantra was, 'I'm too old, too poor, too dangerous' but she never paid attention to that. She loved him. And when, one day when she got a little carried away, she kissed him, and he kissed her back. Kissed her back with so much passion her knees became weak, before he wrenched himself away from her and ran, repeating the same words, too old, too poor, too dangerous, and she sunk into darkness. She wondered if she would ever see the light again when he came to her.
He told her that he loved her and that he was sorry he had hurt her, that he never wanted to see her hurt. He told her that he pushed her away because he was afraid of all that he could do to her, afraid of his love for her, afraid that he would lose her. And she had cupped his face and told him that she was scared witless, too, but that they both loved each other and that was the only thing that had mattered. Then they had kissed and walked somberly back to the school, where they were all mourning Dumbledore's death.
9) She never thought she could love anybody as much as she loved Remus. Then she found out she was pregnant.
At first, it was fear. Fear for bringing a child into the world at a time like this, fear for being pregnant for the first time, fear that maybe, just maybe, Remus's condition would be passed on. Nothing but fear for a while, but then, once the fear passed, jubilation.
She had always wanted a large family, a happy family, a large house with a loving husband. She knew that dream wouldn't be able to occur until after the war, but it was a dream she held close to her. And when Teddy was born, it was a dream she thought might be able to come true.
She loved everything about him, from his toes to his head; from his constantly changing hair to his drool to the way he seemed to already know her. She loved Teddy more then anything, loved him enough that she would do anything for him. Loved him enough to stay behind when Remus left. Loved him enough that she stifled her tears, that she worked hard to keep her heart in tact so that she could give it to Teddy, so that she could take of him like a proper mother should.
Loved him enough that when Remus appeared at the door, she stepped aside and let him in, because they were family (she told herself it was for Teddy, but the truth was she hadn't slept properly since Remus had left, hadn't been able to concentrate on anything but how much she missed him, how much she needed him, and when he held her that night and peppered her face with kisses and apologized over and over again, she knew she would have let him back in the house even if it was just her- she loved him).
10) She had had feelings of foreboding before. When she had seen the Malfoy's for the first time; the last time she had spoken to Sirius. The last time she had spoken to her father, before he died. She knew the feeling, could recognize the fist in her gut, the bile in her throat, the uncontrollable urge to turn around and run.
But none of those could be worse then the feeling she had as she hugged Teddy close to her chest, as she whispered in his ear how much she loved him, as she cried into his hair, a bright blue, as she handed him over to her mother and stepped out the door into the night. The feeling of foreboding was more then just a feeling- she would never see her son again. Would never hold him again, would never tell him how much she loved him. She wanted to turn around and run back in the house and grip him tight to her. But she didn't.
She battled furiously. She battled for her son, for her husband, for Sirius, for her father and her mother, for Harry and Dumbledore and Mad-Eye, she battled to survive. Because that was all she wanted- she wanted to survive. She wanted to go home and hold her son. She wanted that dream, with the big house and the happy family.
But then she saw Remus, and she turned her head and went to go to him, to hug him, to assure herself that he was real, he was alive, but then suddenly a flash of green and he slumped to the floor and no no no, he wasn't dead, he wasn't!
She rushed over to him, sobbing, sobbing so loudly she didn't hear Bellatrix Lestrange until it was too late.