In the original responses in this one, I promised to go into how Nym picked up the nickname Tonks. Thirty chapters done, and I still haven't even touched on the subject. Oops, forgot. Although to be fair, I still haven't reached the point when I planned to bring it up, so it isn't a problem. It just means I'll have to keep going, doesn't it? On another note, I don't like Peter. He gets a hair more personality, and that's about it. Personally, I find him boring. So if you're a big fan, I'm sorry, but that's how it goes.

I'd like to point out that, while there is a lot of Remus/Tonks interaction in this, that does not mean there is any sort of romance between them. She is eleven. He is seventeen, maybe eighteen. An age gap like that will not matter when she is in her twenties, but for a first boyfriend, Remus is not my first pick for her. So, potential inklings that there might someday be foreshadowing may come up (since Rowling recently revealed RL/NT in HBP) but actual romance? No.

Christmas

Chapter Eight

Christmas morning dawned just the way Nym thought a Christmas should dawn. She assumed it did, anyway. She slept in until nearly noon, when she stumbled down the stairs to the Common Room to find Remus reclined in front of the tree.

"Good morning. What's left of it."

Nym yawned inelegantly. "What time is it?"

"Quarter after eleven."

Nym spotted pile of presents under the tree. By the wrappings strewn all around the room she guessed Lupin had already opened his, so these must be hers. She sat on the floor by the presents and picked the top one up. "Why didn't you wake me up?"

She carefully lifted the corner of the wrapping. She couldn't see any tape, anywhere on the package. There must be some magical way of wrapping presents, she reasoned, because all of hers were wrapped like the display ones in department stores.

"I can't get into the girls' dormitory."

"Why not?" Curiosity had taken her into the boys' one day. She wasn't sure what she'd expected, but it wasn't what she found. The same big beds are the girls had, in the same sort of rooms. The major difference was that most of the girls kept their things in some semblance of order, where most of the boys had socks hanging off the edges of their mirrors. If she could get up there, why couldn't Remus, who was a much better wizard than she was a witch, get into hers?

Remus stood lethargically, stretching as if he'd been draped over the chair for quite some time. Considering the foot-thick book he dropped on the seat cushion, he probably had been. It was only a few yards to the base of the stairs, but he walked slowly. Up one stair, two. As his foot touched the third stair, the whole staircase dropped out, the stairs flattening themselves into a slide. Remus slid back down with the same poise he'd walked up.

"First time I did that, I slid all the way to that table. Frank nearly died laughing."

Nym didn't bother asking who Frank was. Remus often made references to people long gone from Hogwarts. Instead, she asked, "What if you jumped the third stair?" The stairs were already reforming.

"Tried it. Beyond the third step, you're toast."

"But I can get into the boys' dormitory."

"It's an old and chivalrous spell. Stupid thing." He glared at the offending piece of architecture. "I was going to get Evans but good, and then I couldn't even get up the stairs."

"What'd she do?" Nym asked, the present in her lap forgotten.

"Ratted. It was our third year. We'd cornered Snivellus, and were going to switch his ears with the ones from his pet rat." His mouth twisted. "We only just got away before Tofty showed up. Evans was always too soft towards Snivellus."

"But Prongs still picks on him, doesn't he? What does Evans think of that?"

"That's James to you, or Potter," Remus told her sharply. Then the lines in his face relaxed. "Evans doesn't know anything about what James does to Snivellus, stupid. He's not stupid enough to tell her."

Nym didn't completely understand who Snivellus was, or why Sirius and Prongs liked to pick on him so much. Sirius had pointed him out to her once, with strict orders to 'stay away from that slimy git', but beyond that things got a little more hazy. Snivellus was a constant annoyance to the two boys, and to a lesser extent Remus. Naturally, Wormtail had to jump on the bandwagon. So there was something of a war between the four and Snivellus, and between Sirius and Regulus, and between James and any Slytherin quidditch player. Luckily, or so it seemed to Nym, it hadn't occurred to any of the Slytherins to join forces against the Marauders.

Remus grinned at her suddenly. "You going to open that?" With a start, Nym remembered the half open present in her lap. Sheepishly, she turned back to it, destroying the beautiful wrapping in her haste to get it open. Oh well, she thought as she glanced at the shredded paper, that's half the fun anyway.

It was a large bar of Honeydukes chocolate. Riffling through the wrappings, Nym found the card. It was really just a handwritten slip of paper with her name on it, and a Christmas greeting. Zack had signed his name with a flourish, so the Z seemed to have been slashed across the page. It reminded her of something. It niggled her mind as she stared at the card. Something to do with home. Of course, she remembered with a start. It looked like that thing from Zorro, her cousin Robbie's favorite movie. After watching it he'd always run around with the plastic rapier Uncle Rod had given him.

She felt a stab of homesickness, but pushed it away. That wasn't really her home now. You could never go back, as the saying went. She'd always love her parents, and her Uncle Rod and Robbie and all the rest of her family, but they were only a part of who she really was. The other part was what they'd never understand. She was a witch, and even if she'd only known it for a year, it was ingrained in her like part of her soul. She could never give up the magic and go back to being plain, muggle Nymphadora Tonks.

The next package, a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, came from Rick. "Every flavor is right," Remus said when she showed him. "There's every flavor imaginable in there. Wormtail thought he found a puke flavored one, but I figure he was just trying to copy James, who found Old Socks."

From her mother Nym received a thick book, which the card said contained 'all manner of useful things'. Flipping through, Nym found a fudge recipe, quotes from various religious texts, and a number of quotes about peace, tranquility, and general thoughtfulness. Her father, it seemed, had disagreed with Andromeda's choice of Christmas gift for their daughter, and had sent a separate package.

Nym lifted the largish box into her lap, noting that its contents shifted as she did. She paused for a moment before opening it. How much time she'd spent missing her mother, so often forgetting that her dad was equally dear to her. He just spent less time interfering in Nym's life. For all that, he hadn't forgotten his little girl. He'd remembered that her favorite color was a brilliant emerald green, and he'd tied it with thick gold ribbon that glittered with stars.

She untied the ribbon, coiled it neatly, and put it in the pocket of her jeans. They'd been the first thing to hand this morning, and she hadn't bothered looking for anything more festive, or even cleaner. The wrapping she didn't bother saving, but she didn't tear into it the way she had the other presents. Underneath was a plain brown box with holes in it. Nym had seen boxes like this enough to know what it contained. Her heart hammered in anticipation and hope and she opened the box. Please let it be what she thought it was.

It wasn't. Where she'd hoped – expected, even – to see soft feathers was soft fur. The kitten opened its eyes and mewed piteously at her. She reached into the box and lifted the little body up, cradling it to her chest and looking into its big green eyes. It mewed again and stuck a little of its tongue out.

It's not your fault you're not an owl, Nym thought as she cuddled it. The little creature cocked its head to the side and blinked at her, as if to say it was sorry, but it wasn't going to change any time soon. Perhaps Nym read more into than there had been – it was only a kitten, after all – but her interpretation reminded her of her thoughts that day she'd gone to Hogsmeade with Remus. She wasn't pretty and cute and all those things that Hope and Opal and Rose and Mary were, and she wasn't Minetta, but being Nym wasn't really so bad, most of the time. Perhaps the kitten would be alright.

"What'll you call her?" Remus asked, leaning over her shoulder to look at the kitten. Nym thought of all the witchy sounding names that cats had in movies, things like Hex and Jinx and so forth. But those seemed better suited to a black cat of noble bulk, not a little rag of gray fur.

"I don't know. Maybe I'll think of something later." Remus shrugged, accepting her choice. That was one of the things she liked about him; he never seemed to think she was too young to do things, like have her own opinions. He didn't offer any names for the cat.

The kitten, looking at her with those wide eyes, didn't seem to mind.