AN: I'm really sorry for taking so long to write this chapter. Somehow, it's been really hard to write about Christmas in June. I tried to find some popular songs on the Internet and stumbled over Medieval British singing contests between men and women over holly and ivy as well as ethical discussions about the content of the song "Do they know it's Christmas." My curiosity took away quite a lot of my writing time but now I've finally finished and I promise to be quicker in future.

Photographs

Two days later Christmas, Dora's grandparents arrived. Her grandfather was a psychologist in a psychiatric hospital while her grandmother taught French and Spanish at secondary school. The older Tonks seemed to be quite comfortable with magic even though they didn't have any of their own. Both of them were very polite to Mandy and me.

Aunt Andromeda told them how I had been left at the orphanage without anyone informing her as soon as the opportunity arose. She still seemed to be angry about that. It gave me a warm feeling. Life at the orphanage had been alright but it still felt good to know that someone cared.

Mr Tonks had actually heard of our orphanage before. "It's an excellent address," he said. "They have a very low number of charges who grow up to cause problems and many who do well in school. One of the places where we send children who have to be separated from their families."

Mandy and I could confirm that we had really been treated well there. "I was quite good at school too," Mandy said. "Sometimes, I'm rather sad that I didn't go to an ordinary secondary school. Everyone thinks that magic is so wonderful but not everything about it is great."

"Quite understandable," Mr Tonks said. "You're still free to make a living in the non-magical world if you want to. It does require some tweaked paper work but you've got the opportunity. I think it's necessary that you learn to control these powers you have. If you suppress something like that, there will surely be problems. We always knew that Ted was different in some way and not for medical reasons. I'm really glad that he got the opportunity to learn even though some people seem to be against it."

I sighed. Why did my parents have to be such bigots? Mum's sister was completely different and I liked her attitude much more. What was supposed to be wrong with Muggle-borns? Dora's grandparents seemed to be much more intelligent than many wizards I had met.

Mr Tonks glanced in my direction when Mandy spoke.

"Have you been very shocked when you learned that your son is a wizard?"

"I would have to lie if I said we weren't surprised," he said. "We had the proof in front of us though. There simply weren't any different explanations for some things Ted did."

Uncle Ted grinned. "Once, I let Mum's hair grow back when the hairdresser had messed up really badly. And another time, I made an expensive porcelain bowl whole again after dropping it. You couldn't really explain this any other way."

Mandy laughed. She had used her magic to make a plate hole again as well.

"Yes, and all in all it went really well," Mrs Tonks said. "People in his house, Hufflepuff were really tolerant. Most people who had a problem with him were in this place called Slythering or something and the others simply avoided people from there. Well, until Ted thought he had to fall in love with one of those spoilt, prejudiced princesses."

All the Tonks laughed so Andromeda didn't feel insulted by her mother-in-law's words.

"It was quite impressive though, how you had the grandness to question the things you've been raised with," Mr Tonks said. "It's not easy at all and I'm very sorry about the way your family has been reacting."

"That's not your fault," Andromeda said. "It's theirs alone."

Mr Tonks looked at me once more. "For a while, I thought your father was more open-minded as well, Vivien. We've met quite a few times though we had to keep it secret from his fiancée and later wife."

This really surprised me. According to everything I had heard so far, my father had been extremely prejudiced against Muggles as well. He had fought for a terrorist organisation who wanted to exterminate Muggle-borns after all.

"You knew my father?" I asked.

"Well, claiming that I knew him would take it too far. He was training to become some sort of medical professional in the magical world and he was very interested in psychology. I used to be rather fond of him. He was always polite and respectful and seemed to be highly intelligent as well. I lent him lots of books and told him stuff. About trauma therapy mainly."

He furrowed his brow and pressed his hand together rather tightly.

"At first, he wanted to know about treatment for abused children. Later he asked about the after effects of torture and treatments thereof. If I had known... It might be hard to believe but this kind of knowledge can do plenty of harm in the wrong hands. It never once occurred to me, I had heard of such things happening in the past and in foreign countries of course but..."

Aunt Andromeda gave a clearly audible cough.

"There's nothing you have to blame yourself Dad," Uncle Ted said. "You barely knew anything about the political situation in the magical society."

"Yes, but I did have my suspicions about that. I simply hoped the relationship with Andra's family could improve after all. Back then, I thought it was just a normal family argument. I knew too little about the background."

Aunt Andromeda looked out of the window. "It's still raining," she said. "And much too warm for the season. I wonder if we'll ever have a white Christmas again."

Everyone realised that this was an attempt to change the subject. I was rather glad about that as well. I hadn't really like the direction this had taken. The relationship between my father and Mr Tonks clearly hadn't ended well. Was he implying that my father had actually tortured people? So far, I had believed that he had been involved in some sort of terrorist attack which was horrible enough but torture? I had read two books in the orphanage library which involved torture; one had been about some country in South America and the other about someone who had been imprisoned in Nazi Germany. People had told me I was too young for those books but I had read them anyway and regretted it because I hadn't gotten those pictures out of my head. I really didn't want to imagine my own father or maybe both parents involved in something like this.

No one really started on Andromeda's remark about the weather and Mandy was the one to break the awkward silence.

"Mr Tonks, have you ever treated magical people as well?"

"Yes, I have but please don't ask me for names. The magical world is rather small. Why do you ask?"

"Well, there is this boy in our year and both Vivien and I think that he might need a psychologist. And wizards really don't seem to have something like that."

"Are you talking about Neville?" I asked. My aunt and uncle shared a long look. "I don't think he'd want help from anyone who's related to me no matter how distantly."

"If your classmate wants my help he will receive it," Mr Tonks said. "And you're welcome to tell him so. He can go to my colleague Ruth Goldstein as well though. I've heard that her son is in your year as well. I'm glad you're looking out for others that's very important."

"Thank you," Mandy said.

I thought that the world was really small if Dora's grandfather knew Anthony's mother.

"Ehm, Dora, didn't you want to show the girls your broomstick?" Aunt Andromeda said. "Maybe you could do that now. It seems to have stopped raining for the moment."

"Course. If you want to see. It's only a Comet Two Sixty though."

Both Mandy and I were glad to get out for a bit and even though Dora's broom "only" was a Comet Two Sixty it flew much better than the school brooms we were usually using. Having a broomstick of my own would be really great. I thought of my family's vault stuffed with gold. Both Aunt Andromeda and Mr Selwyn from the Ministry had told me that I wasn't allowed to spend too much money before I wasn't of age though. I didn't want to show off with the money either so I'd probably have to do with the school brooms.

On Christmas Eve, Ted and Mr Tonks put up the Christmas tree and decorated it with Mrs Tonks' help. They didn't want to use magic for this, a family ritual as Dora told me. Doing something like this with magic probably felt really strange for the older Tonks I thought. They had grown up with something entirely different after all. We only sang Christmas carols I already knew from the orphanage now.

To us, Christmas with the Tonks was rather unusual as well but I really liked it. I had never celebrated with family after all. Mandy was rather sad for the same reason. She still remembered how she had spent Christmas with her parents in the past and being with the Tonks reminded her of it.

When the Muggle radio played "Do they know it's Christmas?" I had to think of my own parents. I knew that the song was about famine in faraway countries but it still made me wonder if they even knew what day it was. They were all alone in their prison cells, maybe hungry and in pain as well. I really wished to send them some kind of sign that I was alive and thinking about them but there didn't seem to be a way. I had asked Aunt Andromeda if it was possible to send a gift to Azkaban but obviously it wasn't. There didn't seem to be any chance for me to contact my parents. Andy had always visited his parents on Christmas but they didn't seem to allow this here. I didn't even know if they were really still alive. The books I had read came to my mind again. The people from the secret police there had often lied about the fate of their prisoners.

"What's wrong Vivien?" Aunt Andromeda asked me.

"I've been thinking about my parents. They're all alone in Azkaban on Christmas and don't even know that I'm still alive."

Andromeda sighed deeply. "Yes, I know that this is hard for you. They never really cared about Christmas though. I don't think it matters to them."

This wasn't much of a comfort but I knew that she couldn't do anything about it either. The others quickly took my mind off their fate once more.

When we got up on Christmas day, we were greeted by quite a few presents. We never had been able to buy much for each other from the welfare money we received. Dora had bought me an album from the Weird Sisters, a record of Celestina Warbeck's Quidditch song and a self-made sampler with various songs we both liked. She was happy about the Weird Sisters' shirt I had bought for her as well and put it on right away. Her mother told her it was too cold for that but she didn't care.

Mandy seemed to like the magical novel as well. Ted and Andromeda had bought us books as well. Andromeda gave both of us books called "Wizarding Holidays through the Seasons" and "Defence from the Shadows." I didn't really know what the book was about but it sounded quite interesting. Ted gave me a book about Quidditch while Mandy got a non-magical math book which she was really happy about, a sentiment I probably wouldn't have shared.

Dora's grandparents gave us a bag with trail mix each and some chocolate. "You need a remedy if you ever come across a Dementor," Mrs Tonks said with a smile.

After breakfast, Mrs Tonks announced that she was going to prepare the traditional Tonks family Christmas goose and Dora was supposed to help so the family recipe would be preserved. With a slight frown, she went with her grandmother. Cooking wasn't among her hobbies.

We asked if we were supposed to help. Kitchen service had been obligatory at the orphanage because the care takers had thought that we weren't supposed to expect to be waited on. Mrs Tonks agreed but Aunt Andromeda had different plans for me. "It's nice that you want to help Vivien, but there's something I'd like to show you while the others are busy."

I wouldn't say it aloud but I preferred this to cooking. The things I heard from my aunt almost always were very interesting.

Andromeda led me into her study. "There's something I want you to have," she told her. "It's not really present, that's why I didn't want to give it to you in front of everyone else."

She opened one of the drawers and took a leather bound book out of it. When she opened it, I realised that it was a photo album. "Pictures of my former family," she said. "I've kept them all those years but never looked at them. I think it's better when you have them."

"Oh thank you," I said. I had never seen any pictures of them, there were only my faint memories.

"I don't want you to be alone when you look at it for the first time," she said. "Do you want to take a look?"

"Yes, of course. Thank you."

We said down side by side and she opened the book. The first photograph showed five people. There was a pale woman with long blond hair and heavily-lidded eyes. She seemed rather cold and arrogant. The dark-haired man by her side gave a very different impression. He seemed serious as well but his face looked as if he normally liked to smile. Between them there stood three little girls, the older ones dark-haired like their father, the youngest fair like her mother.

"I'm the middle one," Andromeda said. "The oldest is your mother, the youngest Narcissa, the mother of Draco Malfoy."

"Ah. So these are my grandparents? What happened to them?" I'd really like to get to know my granddad.

Andromeda swallowed. "Our father Cygnus and his cousin both died two years before You-Know-Who fell. I'm quite sure he killed them though no one knows for sure. Officially, father died from a sudden heart attack and Uncle Orion from a stroke. I can't believe that this was coincidence though."

I couldn't believe that it was coincidence either. Both of them in the same year and still rather young as well.

"Our father was never happy about Bella becoming a Death Eater like mother. He thought that a Black shouldn't get so deeply involved in something like that and he didn't approve of the way he was treating his supporters either."

"But Mum and Dad still followed this You-Know-Who person even though he killed grandfather?"

"Bellatrix never believed that I assume," Andromeda said. "And even if she did, she was totally obsessed with him. Nothing else mattered more to her. Our mother Druella is still alive but she would never receive me. I don't really like the idea of you meeting her either, I have to admit. She's been a Death Eater herself and she's the one who's mainly turned Bellatrix into this kind of fanatic."

"If that's true, I don't want to meet her either," I said.

Grandmother Druella didn't look like a very agreeable person anyway.

"No, I don't think that would be a good idea," Andromeda said. "I hoped that my father and I might get closer once more but we never got the chance. For my mother, I had died as soon as I admitted that I loved a Muggle-born."

"I'm sorry," I said. I hadn't thought that our family history was so depressing.

"Let's look at the others."

The next photograph showed the three girls alone. Bella, Andra, Cissy, the caption read. So these were their nicknames. On another photo, the three girls sat on a large swing in a beautiful, well-kept garden. There was a little boy with reddish dark hair on my mother's side. All four of them were laughing as they made the swing move very quickly. I asked who it was. He couldn't be my father, could he?

"That's Evan Rosier, our cousin," Andromeda told me. "He became a Death Eater as well, probably never had a choice because both his father and aunt were Death Eaters. Aurors killed him after You-Know-Who's fall."

I felt a surge of anger against the Aurors. This happy-looking boy simply couldn't be evil, could he?

There were other pictures of the girls and their cousin, some of the later ones showed two other little boys. Sirius Black who was in Azkaban like my parents and his brother Regulus who had tried to stop being a supporter of Voldemort and died for it. There were tears in Andromeda's eyes and I felt like crying as well. This damned war had really devastated our family.

There was a picture of my mother wearing Hogwarts robes with a green and silver crest on them. "Our Bella in Slytherin," the caption said. I looked a lot like her but hadn't inherited her heavily lidded eyes. Pictures of Andromeda and Narcissa dressed the same way followed.

In their fifth year, my mother and Evan Rosier had been made Prefects. They proudly showed their badges, both of them were very good-looking.

"So Mum's been a Prefect?" I asked.

"Yes, even though she was rather mischievous. Evan was the more calm and sensible one. All three of us have been Prefects. Don't be upset if you don't become one though. With everything that's been going on, they'll probably be reluctant to do this."

"Well, I'll worry about that when I'm going into fifth year," I said.

The next picture was taken on the Quidditch pitch. I remembered that my mother and Uncle Barty had talked about Quidditch. My mother and a very handsome boy in Gryffindor Quidditch robes were reaching for the Quaffle at the same time. The Gryffindor boy had windswept chestnut hair and sparkling brown eyes. He reminded me of someone but I couldn't say of whom.

Aunt Andromeda smiled for a moment and stifled a sob the next. "It was the big match Gryffindor versus Slytherin. Jerry Wilkes took the pictures, another friend."

"Do you know the Gryffindor's name?"

Andromeda hesitated. "Yes. It's Frank Longbottom, the father of your classmate Neville."

"Oh," there wasn't much more I could say. I wondered if Neville would look like that as well in a few years. It seemed rather unlikely. His father gave of an air of casual confidence and he really seemed to enjoy doing quick manoeuvres on his broom. Completely unlike Neville. Obviously, not everything was hereditary. In my case, this was probably a good thing.

Finally, there was a picture of my father standing next to my mother. Unlike Neville's father, he was rather ordinary looking. As he stood next to my stunningly beautiful mother, this became even more pronounced. He had short, flax-coloured hair and grey eyes like my own. Apart from that, he gave the impression of someone who had grown a lot recently and didn't feel very comfortable in his body. Judging by the look on his face, he was rather surprised by having ended up on a photograph with Bellatrix.

The next picture showed him as well. He was sitting under a tree on the Hogwarts grounds and read a book while the sun was shining and others were playing on the edge of the lake. A very Ravenclaw thing to do, I thought.

"Has my father been in Ravenclaw too?" I asked.

"No, he was a Slytherin but he sat on that stool for a very long time. What people call a Hatstall," Andromeda said. "It's quite likely that the hat considered putting him into Ravenclaw."

"Alright." So both my parents had been in Slytherin.

There was a picture of some sort of summer festival with many dancing people and a Midwinter celebration with a duel between Frank Longbottom and Sirius Black who had grown up into an extremely handsome young man as well.

"That was fun to watch," Andromeda said with a reminiscent smile that was wiped away by sadness quickly again.

We were almost through with the album now. There was a picture of my parents with their Hogwarts certificate and another one that showed my father wearing lime green robes and a bracelet with strange-looking runes around his arms. The awkwardness from the earlier pictures had been replaced by an expression of pride and confidence.

"That was the day when he took his Healing Oath," Andromeda told me.

There was a picture of my parents' wedding. My father stood there in formal robes in blue and silver while my mother wore a beautiful diadem with a small golden serpent on it and long, softly-flowing dress robes in dark blue with sparkles that looked a bit like the stars on the night sky. They were smiling at each other, their arms entwined. Evan Rosier and Narcissa stood by their side and I spotted Uncle Rabastan as well.

"Uncle Rabastan was my father's brother, wasn't he?"

"Yes, that's right."

"But what about Uncle Barty? Why is there no picture of him anywhere?"

Aunt Andromeda hesitated for a long time. "I had been cast out off the family already when your parents got to know him," she said finally. "He was much younger than us. Not really an uncle either, more like a distant cousin."

"Ah, okay," I said. I would have liked to have a picture of him as well. Maybe I could get it from somewhere else.

There was one last picture of my parents. It showed my father proudly holding a certificate at some sort of celebration where my mother was as well.

"This was the day when he became a qualified Healer," Andromeda told me.

The other pictures were of the Tonks family. Some of them showed a little Andromeda who already changed her hair into strange colours at a very young age.

I took a deep breath. So this had been my parents' life before they decided to get involved in this madness.

Andromeda looked very sad as well. "Your mother has made the wrong choices," she said. "But she hasn't always been like that and she's not been born an inhuman monster. Don't listen to anyone who says something like that. You are free to make the right choices and at the moment, I'm confident that you will do so."

This almost sounded like the things the Auror Cordelia Savage had said. I thought it was terribly sad that my mother had chosen to follow this Lord Voldemort who actually seemed to be an inhuman monster and who even had her own father killed. Why she had done this, I'd never understand but I still loved her and wanted her to be a bit happier in Azkaban if that was even possible.

When we went back to the others, everything felt much too loud.

I still saw all those pictures in front of my inner eye and heard the things my aunt had told me. My mother and my grandfather who had probably been murdered by the man his own wife and daughter supported, my father who had seemed to proud about being given the chance to cure people from diseases and who had still decided to do terribly things if Dora's grandfather was right and my mother's cousins who were either dead or in Azkaban, all because of Voldemort. Maybe I should be friendlier to Harry Potter from now on. This man had really deserved to die.

I went upstairs to my room and looked at the pictures once more. There was still so much I didn't understand. I still hardly knew anything about my father and his side of the family but there were people still alive there. Maybe I could get the chance to meet one of them, Rodger had seemed to be nice enough and Dora knew him. I was definitely going to talk to her about it.

At first, I didn't feel like eating Christmas dinner at all but when I smelled the delicious goose, I changed my mind after all. The cooking with Dora didn't seem to have gone too well though. She had obviously been rather clumsy and her grandmother had done most of the work by herself and with Mandy's help.

"I'd rather use magic for this," Dora said.

"Either way, it's very good," I said.

The same was true for the Christmas pudding we had afterwards and we didn't discuss anything too serious over dinner. Dora talked about various Quidditch teams and their success and later once more about music and the weather which was still rainy.

When I went up to my bed, I felt extremely tired and I shivered when I changed into my pyjamas. Had the room always been so cold? It had never felt that way before. Anyway, now I only wanted to sleep. I drifted asleep to images of beautiful dark-haired people that seemed to glide away from me. When I finally slept, I dreamed about someone whose face I couldn't see being tied up on some sort of cot and subjected to the electric shock torture from the book I had read. At first, it felt like reading the book, but when I continued reading, I realised that the physician overseeing the torture looked like my father. I woke up in sweat and looked at the alarm clock beside my bed. I had only slept for two hours but now I suddenly felt very cold again. In the next dream, I was searching for my mother in some labyrinth of dark stones. When I woke up again, the night was still far from over.