Soooo, here's the latest chapter of Tempted. Sorry it took a little longer to get it out, there's been lots of stuff going on. BUT it's here now :D Sooo. . . .
Please do read, enjoy and if you have a moment please do leave a review, I love hearing your opinions of my works.
Nymphadora Tonks stared out of the window of the Hogwarts express, the old scarlet steam train slowly chugging its way along the English countryside as she knew she would soon be back at platform 9 ¾. She had avoided going home for her first Christmas at Hogwarts, convinced that she would be better off staying and avoiding her parents, something her Aunt wholeheartedly agreed with. So after not seeing her parents since that September morning so long ago it was fair to say that Nymphadora Tonks was nervous. Her mother had warned her of the prejudice of Slytherin, that it was full of Pureblood children who wouldn't make life easy for her.
She couldn't deny that her mother was right. She had spent the entirety of her first year with sniggers behind her back, the girl that no-one really wanted to be paired with in class, she had become a girl to be avoided. It was exactly what had left her to be sitting alone in a carriage at the end of the year, her caged owl her only companion as she clutched the last letter from her Aunt in her hand. Aunt Bella had promised to visit her in the summer, to see how she was doing and give her a present. She loved seeing her Aunt, not only as she had become so close with her but also because she always seemed to bring her a present of some sort of late. Not that the presents mattered.
As the train finally came to a grinding halt Nymphadora sighed, screwing up her features to make her black hair turn a deep purple (she couldn't quite muster up the strength of a vivid pink). Her mother was already visible from the window, looking around the train from where she stood in search of her daughter. Dora couldn't help but smile slightly, she had missed her mum even if she was dreading talking to her.
"Nymphadora!" Andromeda couldn't help but call as she saw her daughter, frowning as the girls face blushed a vivid red.
"Don't call me Nymphadora." Dora said as she went up and accepted the woman's request for a hug.
"Why not?" Andromeda asked "That's your name."
"Can we go please?" Dora avoided the question, smiling innocently up at the woman until she nodded.
As the familiar sense of side along apparation took over her Dora squeezed her eyes shut, she waited a few moments when she knew she was home to slowly let go of her mother. Andromeda was smiling down at her, reaching out and stroking her hair out of her face.
"You still hate apparating, don't you?" Andromeda said with a hint of amusement.
"No." Dora lied, watching her mother put her owl and trunk down by the door before flicking her wand to send them seamlessly up to the girls room.
"Right." Andromeda nodded "Of course. Do you want a sandwich?" Dora nodded, immediately following her into the kitchen, she pulled out the nearest chair and slumped down in to it as her mother turned to make her a sandwich. "Sit up, Dora." Andromeda spoke without even turning her back "Don't roll your eyes are me either." Dora begrudgingly sat up straight, perhaps her mother knew her a little too well. "So!" Andromeda turned back to her daughter, smiling as she sat down opposite her and slid her food across the table "How was school? You've barely written to your father and I all year."
"It was good." Dora said, beginning to eat the food in front of her.
"Good?" Andromeda couldn't help but laugh slightly "Just good?"
"It was great." Dora smiled "Classes are fun—I'm top of the class for transfiguration."
"Of course you are." Andromeda said "Transfiguration is a natural talent of yours, it's only expected that your talents would extend to more than just your morphing skills. What about the other classes? Really Dora you have barely told me anything all year, amuse me."
"I wrote." Dora frowned.
"Barely—I'm not telling you off." Andromeda shook her head "Merlin no, I understand. You're first time away from home, it's exciting and new and you don't want to be seen writing to your parents every day of the week."
"Yeah . . ." Dora agreed, thinking about how she had written back and forth with her Aunt more times than she could count in the past year.
"So," Andromeda said "How are the rest of the lessons? All okay? Do you enjoy them?"
"Flying lessons are cool, umm, I might try and join the team next year—but I don't know." Dora shrugged. "The rest of the lessons are fun too I suppose—I suppose potions is probably my least favourite. Though that's partly because of my clumsiness problem. Professor Snape doesn't seem to like that very much."
"Understandable." Andromeda couldn't help but smirk slightly, she herself had had to repair many objects around her home over the years due to her daughter's chronic clumsiness, she had to admit it had made her very good at many household charms along with repairs. "Your father always loved flying. He played Quidditch," Andromeda commented "Hufflepuff team of course, he was quite good as far as I can remember . . . How are you finding Slytherin?" Andromeda tilted her head slightly as she looked at the girl, not missing the slight hesitation nor the nervous look as she tried to come up with a reply "It's not easy is it? I remember when I was at school, being in Slytherin . . ."
"Tell me about it." Dora sat up slightly, she rarely heard her mother talk about her life before she met her father and not even Aunt Bella said much about her mother. All thought of the half of her sandwich that remained in front of her forgotten.
Dromeda frowned for a moment in thought before she sighed deeply. "Well, it was a long time ago . . ."
"You're not that old." Dora commented, causing her mother to laugh.
"Thank you . . . Well, most of Slytherin have a sense of being . . . superior, better than the rest of the school. Most simply because of their blood or for the pure reason of being a Slytherin. There were . . . There were a few half-bloods in Slytherin when I went, not many, but a fair amount for the house. They always seemed to have to work twice as hard to earn the respect of their peers within the house."
"Were you friends with any of them?" Dora asked.
"I—" Andromeda bit her lip, she never wanted her daughter to know how prejudice she once was. "No . . . I only had two people I would have considered good friends in that house." Andromeda shook her head as her daughter went to interrupt "Listen, Dora, Slytherin's respect power. You have power . . . just . . . don't show off—and try not to make a fool of yourself."
Dora couldn't help but smirk at that "I never make a fool of myself."
"Mmm." Andromeda held back a laugh at that comment, as much as she loved her daughter she did have a habit of doing just that. "Come on, go unpack. Your father will be home soon, I'm sure he'll give you a game of exploding snap if you ask him nicely."
"Okay." Dora smiled, jumping out of her seat. She eyed her half eaten sandwich, quickly grabbing it and running off to finish eating in her room.
"Be careful, Dora!" Andromeda called out, wincing as she heard the all too familiar thump of Dora running into the book case in the hallway. It had certainly been more quiet with Nymphadora at school, but Andromeda Tonks was grateful to have her only child back under her roof for the summer.
It was the middle of the summer and possibly the hottest Nymphadora Tonks could ever remember England being. Luckily her mother was handy enough with household spells to put cooling charms on the most of the house so she didn't simply die from the heat (in her opinion it was very real possibility), though today she had a reason to venture out in the sun. She peered out of the kitchen window in to the back garden, grinning to herself as she realised her mother had fallen asleep in the afternoon sun with a book on her lap. Her father wasn't due home for at least a few more hours, now was her opportunity. Before she knew it Nymphadora Tonks was near enough skipping down the street, running through the local park and skidding to a half as she got to the shelter of the trees. She panted for breath, pushing her bright pink hair out of her face before she slowly walked through the trees. She had already been walking for a few minutes when she heard the familiar voice she was looking for.
"Hello Dora." Bellatrix Lestrange was leant against one of the trees behind her, she was sure she had already checked that spot. She had her usual smirk set upon her features as she regarded her young niece. "Long time no see."
"Aunt Bella!" Dora grinned, running up to the woman and hugging her fiercely.
Bellatrix paused for a moment before she gave her a quick hug in return before she placed a hand on her shoulder and held her away from her. "Miss me?"
"Of course." Dora laughed.
"Good." Bellatrix gave the girl a wink before she nodded towards an old fallen tree "So," Bella sighed as she sat down, waiting for Dora to sit next to her before she continued "how are you?"
"Good." Dora forced a smile "I'll be back at school soon . . ."
"Which doesn't sound like something you're excited for." Bellatrix said. "Still having problems with the other children?"
Dora took a deep breath, staring down at her hands as she wrung them in her lap "I spent the last two days at school trying to find all my things. Some of the other girls thought it would be funny to hide them—I found the book you gave me thrown right to the base of the Whomping Willow. The thing tried to attack me when I ran for it—I was lucky I got it in one piece. I don't know what to do any more, Aunt Bella. I tried gaining their respect like you told me, they know I have my morphing powers and they certainly don't care about that as far as I can see. I—I just . . ." Dora sniffed, blinking back tears "I don't know."
Bellatrix hesitated for a moment, grateful that the girl could not see her rolling her eyes as she stared into her lap. She forced herself to put on a sympathetic tone, reaching around the girl and pulling her into her in a half embrace. "Come now, Dora. There are other ways."
"Like what?" Dora murmured, leaning into her Aunt as she hugged her. "Maybe Mum was right—I shouldn't have gone into Slytherin."
"No." Bellatrix said suddenly, standing up to face the girl now frowning at her "You are strong and powerful and I will not let you think you are anything but a Slytherin." The girl frowned up at her Aunt, biting her lip as she tried not to seem sad anymore. "Get up."
"W—Why?" Dora asked.
"Because I said so." Bellatrix spoke impatiently as she drew her wand. "You brought your wand like I asked you to?"
"Yes . . ." Dora hesitantly reached into her bag "but we're not aloud—"
"You'll be fine with me." Bellatrix smirked "If I didn't know wards to disguise magic use I would have been in trouble with the ministry a very long time ago. Now get up."
Nymphadora Tonks did what her Aunt said, still nervous as she eyed the woman's wand, though she couldn't help but feel a little excited at the prospect of breaking the rules and seemingly getting away with it. "What are we going to do?"
"I am going to teach you how to duel—the basics of course." Bellatrix shrugged "The very basics. But you need to learn and you need to learn fast."
"B—But the girls don't try and duel me." Dora spoke with wide eyes.
"Of course not." Bellatrix laughed "But you need to learn how to put them in their place, if you can't convince them to respect you the easy way you're going to do it the hard way—well, hard for them."
"You really think I can learn to duel? I'm only twelve." Dora bit her lip, though she held her wand firmly.
Bellatrix shrugged "Teach them young. Besides, I could duel on a basic level at your age—I see no reason why you shouldn't." Bella smirked "Duelling is an important life lesson, Nymphadora. It can come very much in handy in the future."
"In the future?" Dora asked. "What, like if I want to be an Auror?"
"No." Bellatrix wrinkled her features in distaste. "You do not want to be an Auror, child. You want to be better than the Aurors, able to outwit them and out duel them at a drop of a hat if needs be."
"W—Why would I need to duel an Auror?" Dora asked.
"It was an example." Bella said quickly.
She would let the child know all about Death Eaters, The Dark Lord and how she could be the most perfect faithful servant one day. One step at a time she would inform her of her world, the adventure and beautiful work they could do together. But not yet. Nymphadora Tonks was far too young and Bellatrix Lestrange had so much more work to do with her before she slowly introduced that part of her plan. For now, though, Nymphadora Tonks was the perfect mouldable piece of clay. Eager to take in all that her Aunt told her, ready to be taught anything the woman wanted to, easy to manipulate to her way of seeing whilst all the while the girl simply thought she had a 'best friend' of sorts in her Aunt. Bellatrix had already worked too hard for three years now to simply rush in to things. No, this was a slow game and Bella had known that from the start, but from what she could tell her plan was going perfectly so far.
So much was confirmed to her when merely two weeks after returning to Hogwarts Rodolphus brought a letter her had taken from a Hogwarts owl for her. She woke up that morning to read news that not only had Nymphadora used her new found skills to win a duel and put a 'cow bag' in her place, she had seemingly gained some recognition from her fellow dorm mates. The letter declaring the young girl's achievements, thankfulness and love for her Aunt was more than enough to prove to Bellatrix that she was doing well in her self assigned mission. She would indeed make her master proud when he rose again to find such a talented and well moulded new servant to add to the ranks. She would make him proud of her. She would prove she remained loyal regardless.
Thank you for reading! I really hope you enjoyed this latest update, please do leave a review if you have a minute and let me know what you think!
The Purple Black