fic for heartsncraftslb: Second Day (Tonks, Snape, G)
Title: Second Day
Recipient: heartsncraftslb
Rating: G
Character(s): Tonks, Snape, and appearance of Charles
Warnings: none
Author's Notes: Beta-ed by the great zhynchan! Hope you enjoy it.
--
Dear Mum,
I hate it here.
I WANT TO GO HOME.
Second Day
Everything in Hogwarts Castle looms.
There is no other word for it. Everything looms: the high ceiling decorated with paintings, the elaborate columns carved with noisy statues, the stained windows that tells a new story everyday. The teachers loom: the Official Groundkeeper with his towering form, the Deputy Headmistress who stares down at them from the steps of the Great Hall, and especially the physically small Headmaster-but who stands tall on the dais as he welcomes them.
Next to them, Nymphadora Tonks feels small-smaller than usual. Her hair is thankfully a dull brown right now, making her inconspicuous among the other First Years. She wonders if they are all the same age as she is, because she feels like she is looking up to them as well.
The Slytherin dormitory is cold. The Head of House is too unaccommodating. Although her new bed is big, she finds it uncomfortably lumpy. Her new roommates are too awed and tired to talk. She wants someone to talk to. She wants to hug her Mum. She wants to play Exploding Snaps with her Dad.
She hates it here.
***
The first day of school is just as hateful.
She wakes up late because she couldn't sleep the night before so she is the last to the shower. She gets two owls from her mother during breakfast. She cannot find her classroom. She is late for her first class. The professors cannot pronounce her name right.
To make matters worse, her roommates seemed to have paired up without her. Nymphadora thinks being in class with her fellow first year Slytherins is annoying, because now she also has to spend the entire day with her roommates who now know each other's names and have proclaimed each other "best friends".
At lunch, she gets another owl from her mother. At dinner, to her great embarrassment and to the amusement of the rest of their table, she gets another three.
By the time she goes to bed, listening to her roommates giggling at each other, Nymphadora is ready to pack her trunks and be on the first train back home. The seven owls her mother sends her all say the same thing:
You'll do fine.
You left your orange socks in the laundry.
If you're still not used to it by the first week, I'll visit.
I know it's hard.
I love you.
Should I send your socks?
"Nymphadora," one of her roommates calls haltingly, testing her name like all the teachers did, "we have some juice that the Prefect gave us. Would like some?"
The end of Nymphadora's quill snaps and she sighs, not turning around. "I'm fine."
There is a hesitant lull in the conversation but it picks up soon. Nymphadora is not asked to join in again.
A little later, while they are busy exchanging their family albums and talking about their families, Nymphadora takes her cloak and leaves the room, angry at herself for missing her home and her parents too much. In her mind, she can hear her father telling her fondly, "You're the bravest girl I know!" and her mother telling her, "Well, you're quite determined to get everything you want."
She hates this side of herself, this silent and unremarkable girl who cannot stop her stutters. Where has her confidence gone? At home, she could not stop chattering, even forgetting to breathe sometimes that her face would go red with talking until her friends would gasp out, "Stop talking, Nymphadora! Breathe!"
She ducks out of the portrait, knowing that none of the people in the Common Room will notice she was there. The corridors of the school look strangely quiet and more ominous at night, but she finds them comforting. She walks through the shadows, hops into the moving stairways, watches the paintings visit each other and talking to each other in hushed whispers so she cannot follow their conversations.
"What are you doing up?" a portrait of a particularly tubby man seated next to a window asks her.
Nymphadora blinks up at him. "Going for a walk."
"It's late!" two women from a single frame tell her. "You should be in your bed, asleep, or he'll catch you."
"Who will?" Nymphadora asks.
"That will be me."
From the shadows, a form emerges, and Nymphadora does not hesitate to whip out her wand and yell, "Stupefy!"
But the form quickly deflects this and Nymphadora sees with mounting horror that it is her Head of House, watching her with his cold eyes. "P-professor," she stammers, tucking her wand into her cloak pocket, "I'm so-I was just-I mean, I didn't-"
"Roaming the corridors at this time of the night," Professor Snape interrupts. "Attempting to hex a professor and your Head of House. And using a hex that should not be used by First Years. I am tempted to haul you off to the Headmaster right not, but I am required to extract a reason for your being out of bed before that, unfortunately."
"I was just...it wasn't..."
"And if it is not valid," the Professor goes on as if not hearing her, "I am also required to bring you to Filch for a suitable punishment."
Nymphadora's tongue feels twisted. Filch, she hears, treats first years awfully. "But sir!" she protests. "It was-it's not because-"
"What is also unacceptable is that you, one of my wards, are caught walking on your own, after curfew, beyond the accepted premises of the Slytherin Dorm, and seemingly without a valid excuse. What, no answers for me? No righteously indignant responses? No witty comeback?"
"I was homesick," she blurts out, then claps her hands over her mouth in horror.
Professor Snape seems stunned at the reply although he recovers quickly enough, yet the scowl on his face seems deeper. "You were homesick," he repeats.
Nymphadora nods, hands still over her mouth.
"You were," the Professor says.
Nymphadora nods once more.
"But not anymore."
Wide eyed, the girl only stares up at her professor, who continues to watches her with some contempt.
"Miss Tonks," he says, and Nymphadora gives a small sound. "Yes, surprising, isn't it? I know the names of each my wards, but I will not be calling you by your appalling first name."
"It's ugly, isn't it?" Nymphadora bursts out, finally finding a topic she can rage about. "I hate it, it's too long and no-one knows what name to call me, and they either call me 'Nym' or 'Dora' or 'Nymphadora' and then they stop calling me anything at all, and no-one talks to me now, and I want to go home!"
"I was simply going to tell you to follow me," Professor Snape tells her dryly. He does not even blink during her tirade. "Loathe as I am to give one of my wards detention during the first day, I am afraid it has to be done." He holds out his wand.
"But I'm a Slytherin!" she protests,
He raises an eyebrow. "Do not think that will ever save you from anything. Have you not listened to virtues that are encouraged in our house?"
"Taking advantage of every opportunity?" she asks meekly.
"Do try to remember that for the next six years," Professor Snape sneers, "with Slytherin being your House and all."
"Professor," Nymphadora says timidly, thankful he does because his face scares her. "Is it...is it always lonely during the first day?"
The professor turns. His pallid face is strangely grotesque even as his scowl disappears. The dark corridors, the shadows, and his black robes makes his head look as if it is floating in the air. Nymphadora bites her lips.
"The first day is of no consequence, Miss Tonks," he tells her, voice devoid of expression, "but what matters are the days that follow."
Nymphadora gapes at him.
"To bed, Miss Tonks. I will not waste anymore time lecturing you about needless things. It is the first day of school. I shall be lenient...once."
She does not have to be told twice. She flees.
***
When Nymphadora wakes up the next day, there is still the uneasy flopping in her stomach that tells her she is still not home. Once again, she is the last one to wake so she has to wait for the shower stalls to clear up. One of her roommates offers to wait for her so they can go up to breakfast together, but Nymphadora, who still speaks without thinking, tells her to go on ahead. And later sincerely regrets not taking the opportunity.
"Heads up," one of the older year Slytherins shouts as she sits down, just as three letters drop on her plate.
Her face burns a bright red as she grabs the letters, shoving them between her parchments. The return addresses tell her it is from her parents, and the ache in her chest seems to grow and grow.
"Is the ickle Firsty missing her mama?" one of the older Slytherin teases. Roars of laughter come somewhere from the next table.
Seething, Nymphadora glares down at her breakfast. Being teased by her fellow Slytherins stings more than being teased by the other houses. She imagines herself shrinking, becoming infinitely smaller: smaller than when she first arrived, smaller than during the first day of school. No-one will help her, not even her Head of House. Her roommates do not know how to say her name. Her family is so far away. The six years of her future seems to be stretching impossibly before her, making her unable to breathe. It burns her blood, makes her grit her teeth in frustration.
"Want me to write your mama?" a Gryffindor calls from the next table, followed by a laugh.
"Leave her alone," someone says loudly, and it is surprisingly from the same table.
Nymphadora's head shoots up at her sudden defender, and she catches sight of a slightly short red-haired first year, someone from Gryffindor, glaring at one of the older years. "She's not in our house anyway," the boy goes on.
That...arrogant little...
She looks up to the dais. Professor Snape, she notices, does not lift his head from the Daily Prophet. The Headmaster is speaking with Professor McGonagall. Professor Sprout is placidly eating her sausage. She looks at the Slytherins. They seem torn between defending one of their housemates and agreeing with their rival Houses.
Well. Never let it be known that Nymphadora Tonks is not a Slytherin!
She stands and whirls to the boy, putting her hands on her hips. "You arrogant prat, I don't need your help!" she shouts. "I can defend myself just fine!"
The boy seems taken aback, but quickly recovers. "Oh yeah?" he shouts back. "You look like you were having a pretty hard time back there."
She sniffs, rubbing her nose. "Apparently, Gryffindors can't distinguish between joking and bullying."
"Well, Slytherins only know how to bully!" he yells back.
"Hey!" One of the Slytherin upperclassman stands up. "What the-that big-headed Gryffindor-"
"Sit down, Bletchley! Tonks!" the Slytherin Prefect barks just as someone from the Gryffindor table also yells, "Sit down, Charles!"
Bletchley obeys with a huff but Nymphadora gives the boy Charles an angry look before whirling around and sitting on her chair once more. Someone at Nymphadora's right-one of her roommates-leans toward her to whisper, "Nym-Nymph-er, hey, your hair is pink!"
Nymphadora blinks, then picks on a strand of her hair. "Oh. That happens a lot. It'll probably be a different colour later." She grins back.
"Wow! Is that-" But the bell from the head table interrupts them and the girl-Ellen?-looks disappointed. "Want to walk to class together? I was going to ask if you already did the research on Charms..."
"No, I haven't," Nymphadora says truthfully just as the Gryffindor crowd passes by them.
The red-haired boy stops next to her, glaring. "Hey, you. Tonks. Don't think I'll forget this."
Nymphadora glares back, not even deigning it with an answer. And she doesn't have to, because Ellen snaps, "Will you leave us alone? Really, only Gryffindors would interrupt a conversation like that. So unrefined."
"True," Nymphadora half-heartedly agrees because she thinks Gryffindors are nothing to take note of, anyway.
"Hey." Another first year joins them just as they are standing. "Did you do the Charms research? Oh, hi, you're the girl whose name no-one knows how to pronounce, right?"
Nymphadora looks up at the dais, grinning when she catches Professor Snape turning his gaze away from their direction. The second day of school is starting to look promising.
And Slytherins, she thinks, take advantage of every opportunity.
"I can't pronounce it either," she tells them brightly, tucking her wand in her robes. "But don't worry. You can call me 'Tonks'."
.fin
***
.epilogue
Dear Mum,
I just had dinner.
I am fine.
I will owl you if I have an accident.
Or if I set anything on fire.
Or if anyone sets me on fire.
I've gotten 17 owls from you.
I HAVE ONLY BEEN HERE FOR 3 DAYS.
And please send me the orange socks that I left in the laundry. Thanks!
Love,
N.Tonks.
Recipient: heartsncraftslb
Rating: G
Character(s): Tonks, Snape, and appearance of Charles
Warnings: none
Author's Notes: Beta-ed by the great zhynchan! Hope you enjoy it.
--
Dear Mum,
I hate it here.
I WANT TO GO HOME.
Second Day
Everything in Hogwarts Castle looms.
There is no other word for it. Everything looms: the high ceiling decorated with paintings, the elaborate columns carved with noisy statues, the stained windows that tells a new story everyday. The teachers loom: the Official Groundkeeper with his towering form, the Deputy Headmistress who stares down at them from the steps of the Great Hall, and especially the physically small Headmaster-but who stands tall on the dais as he welcomes them.
Next to them, Nymphadora Tonks feels small-smaller than usual. Her hair is thankfully a dull brown right now, making her inconspicuous among the other First Years. She wonders if they are all the same age as she is, because she feels like she is looking up to them as well.
The Slytherin dormitory is cold. The Head of House is too unaccommodating. Although her new bed is big, she finds it uncomfortably lumpy. Her new roommates are too awed and tired to talk. She wants someone to talk to. She wants to hug her Mum. She wants to play Exploding Snaps with her Dad.
She hates it here.
***
The first day of school is just as hateful.
She wakes up late because she couldn't sleep the night before so she is the last to the shower. She gets two owls from her mother during breakfast. She cannot find her classroom. She is late for her first class. The professors cannot pronounce her name right.
To make matters worse, her roommates seemed to have paired up without her. Nymphadora thinks being in class with her fellow first year Slytherins is annoying, because now she also has to spend the entire day with her roommates who now know each other's names and have proclaimed each other "best friends".
At lunch, she gets another owl from her mother. At dinner, to her great embarrassment and to the amusement of the rest of their table, she gets another three.
By the time she goes to bed, listening to her roommates giggling at each other, Nymphadora is ready to pack her trunks and be on the first train back home. The seven owls her mother sends her all say the same thing:
You'll do fine.
You left your orange socks in the laundry.
If you're still not used to it by the first week, I'll visit.
I know it's hard.
I love you.
Should I send your socks?
"Nymphadora," one of her roommates calls haltingly, testing her name like all the teachers did, "we have some juice that the Prefect gave us. Would like some?"
The end of Nymphadora's quill snaps and she sighs, not turning around. "I'm fine."
There is a hesitant lull in the conversation but it picks up soon. Nymphadora is not asked to join in again.
A little later, while they are busy exchanging their family albums and talking about their families, Nymphadora takes her cloak and leaves the room, angry at herself for missing her home and her parents too much. In her mind, she can hear her father telling her fondly, "You're the bravest girl I know!" and her mother telling her, "Well, you're quite determined to get everything you want."
She hates this side of herself, this silent and unremarkable girl who cannot stop her stutters. Where has her confidence gone? At home, she could not stop chattering, even forgetting to breathe sometimes that her face would go red with talking until her friends would gasp out, "Stop talking, Nymphadora! Breathe!"
She ducks out of the portrait, knowing that none of the people in the Common Room will notice she was there. The corridors of the school look strangely quiet and more ominous at night, but she finds them comforting. She walks through the shadows, hops into the moving stairways, watches the paintings visit each other and talking to each other in hushed whispers so she cannot follow their conversations.
"What are you doing up?" a portrait of a particularly tubby man seated next to a window asks her.
Nymphadora blinks up at him. "Going for a walk."
"It's late!" two women from a single frame tell her. "You should be in your bed, asleep, or he'll catch you."
"Who will?" Nymphadora asks.
"That will be me."
From the shadows, a form emerges, and Nymphadora does not hesitate to whip out her wand and yell, "Stupefy!"
But the form quickly deflects this and Nymphadora sees with mounting horror that it is her Head of House, watching her with his cold eyes. "P-professor," she stammers, tucking her wand into her cloak pocket, "I'm so-I was just-I mean, I didn't-"
"Roaming the corridors at this time of the night," Professor Snape interrupts. "Attempting to hex a professor and your Head of House. And using a hex that should not be used by First Years. I am tempted to haul you off to the Headmaster right not, but I am required to extract a reason for your being out of bed before that, unfortunately."
"I was just...it wasn't..."
"And if it is not valid," the Professor goes on as if not hearing her, "I am also required to bring you to Filch for a suitable punishment."
Nymphadora's tongue feels twisted. Filch, she hears, treats first years awfully. "But sir!" she protests. "It was-it's not because-"
"What is also unacceptable is that you, one of my wards, are caught walking on your own, after curfew, beyond the accepted premises of the Slytherin Dorm, and seemingly without a valid excuse. What, no answers for me? No righteously indignant responses? No witty comeback?"
"I was homesick," she blurts out, then claps her hands over her mouth in horror.
Professor Snape seems stunned at the reply although he recovers quickly enough, yet the scowl on his face seems deeper. "You were homesick," he repeats.
Nymphadora nods, hands still over her mouth.
"You were," the Professor says.
Nymphadora nods once more.
"But not anymore."
Wide eyed, the girl only stares up at her professor, who continues to watches her with some contempt.
"Miss Tonks," he says, and Nymphadora gives a small sound. "Yes, surprising, isn't it? I know the names of each my wards, but I will not be calling you by your appalling first name."
"It's ugly, isn't it?" Nymphadora bursts out, finally finding a topic she can rage about. "I hate it, it's too long and no-one knows what name to call me, and they either call me 'Nym' or 'Dora' or 'Nymphadora' and then they stop calling me anything at all, and no-one talks to me now, and I want to go home!"
"I was simply going to tell you to follow me," Professor Snape tells her dryly. He does not even blink during her tirade. "Loathe as I am to give one of my wards detention during the first day, I am afraid it has to be done." He holds out his wand.
"But I'm a Slytherin!" she protests,
He raises an eyebrow. "Do not think that will ever save you from anything. Have you not listened to virtues that are encouraged in our house?"
"Taking advantage of every opportunity?" she asks meekly.
"Do try to remember that for the next six years," Professor Snape sneers, "with Slytherin being your House and all."
"Professor," Nymphadora says timidly, thankful he does because his face scares her. "Is it...is it always lonely during the first day?"
The professor turns. His pallid face is strangely grotesque even as his scowl disappears. The dark corridors, the shadows, and his black robes makes his head look as if it is floating in the air. Nymphadora bites her lips.
"The first day is of no consequence, Miss Tonks," he tells her, voice devoid of expression, "but what matters are the days that follow."
Nymphadora gapes at him.
"To bed, Miss Tonks. I will not waste anymore time lecturing you about needless things. It is the first day of school. I shall be lenient...once."
She does not have to be told twice. She flees.
***
When Nymphadora wakes up the next day, there is still the uneasy flopping in her stomach that tells her she is still not home. Once again, she is the last one to wake so she has to wait for the shower stalls to clear up. One of her roommates offers to wait for her so they can go up to breakfast together, but Nymphadora, who still speaks without thinking, tells her to go on ahead. And later sincerely regrets not taking the opportunity.
"Heads up," one of the older year Slytherins shouts as she sits down, just as three letters drop on her plate.
Her face burns a bright red as she grabs the letters, shoving them between her parchments. The return addresses tell her it is from her parents, and the ache in her chest seems to grow and grow.
"Is the ickle Firsty missing her mama?" one of the older Slytherin teases. Roars of laughter come somewhere from the next table.
Seething, Nymphadora glares down at her breakfast. Being teased by her fellow Slytherins stings more than being teased by the other houses. She imagines herself shrinking, becoming infinitely smaller: smaller than when she first arrived, smaller than during the first day of school. No-one will help her, not even her Head of House. Her roommates do not know how to say her name. Her family is so far away. The six years of her future seems to be stretching impossibly before her, making her unable to breathe. It burns her blood, makes her grit her teeth in frustration.
"Want me to write your mama?" a Gryffindor calls from the next table, followed by a laugh.
"Leave her alone," someone says loudly, and it is surprisingly from the same table.
Nymphadora's head shoots up at her sudden defender, and she catches sight of a slightly short red-haired first year, someone from Gryffindor, glaring at one of the older years. "She's not in our house anyway," the boy goes on.
That...arrogant little...
She looks up to the dais. Professor Snape, she notices, does not lift his head from the Daily Prophet. The Headmaster is speaking with Professor McGonagall. Professor Sprout is placidly eating her sausage. She looks at the Slytherins. They seem torn between defending one of their housemates and agreeing with their rival Houses.
Well. Never let it be known that Nymphadora Tonks is not a Slytherin!
She stands and whirls to the boy, putting her hands on her hips. "You arrogant prat, I don't need your help!" she shouts. "I can defend myself just fine!"
The boy seems taken aback, but quickly recovers. "Oh yeah?" he shouts back. "You look like you were having a pretty hard time back there."
She sniffs, rubbing her nose. "Apparently, Gryffindors can't distinguish between joking and bullying."
"Well, Slytherins only know how to bully!" he yells back.
"Hey!" One of the Slytherin upperclassman stands up. "What the-that big-headed Gryffindor-"
"Sit down, Bletchley! Tonks!" the Slytherin Prefect barks just as someone from the Gryffindor table also yells, "Sit down, Charles!"
Bletchley obeys with a huff but Nymphadora gives the boy Charles an angry look before whirling around and sitting on her chair once more. Someone at Nymphadora's right-one of her roommates-leans toward her to whisper, "Nym-Nymph-er, hey, your hair is pink!"
Nymphadora blinks, then picks on a strand of her hair. "Oh. That happens a lot. It'll probably be a different colour later." She grins back.
"Wow! Is that-" But the bell from the head table interrupts them and the girl-Ellen?-looks disappointed. "Want to walk to class together? I was going to ask if you already did the research on Charms..."
"No, I haven't," Nymphadora says truthfully just as the Gryffindor crowd passes by them.
The red-haired boy stops next to her, glaring. "Hey, you. Tonks. Don't think I'll forget this."
Nymphadora glares back, not even deigning it with an answer. And she doesn't have to, because Ellen snaps, "Will you leave us alone? Really, only Gryffindors would interrupt a conversation like that. So unrefined."
"True," Nymphadora half-heartedly agrees because she thinks Gryffindors are nothing to take note of, anyway.
"Hey." Another first year joins them just as they are standing. "Did you do the Charms research? Oh, hi, you're the girl whose name no-one knows how to pronounce, right?"
Nymphadora looks up at the dais, grinning when she catches Professor Snape turning his gaze away from their direction. The second day of school is starting to look promising.
And Slytherins, she thinks, take advantage of every opportunity.
"I can't pronounce it either," she tells them brightly, tucking her wand in her robes. "But don't worry. You can call me 'Tonks'."
.fin
***
.epilogue
Dear Mum,
I just had dinner.
I am fine.
I will owl you if I have an accident.
Or if I set anything on fire.
Or if anyone sets me on fire.
I've gotten 17 owls from you.
I HAVE ONLY BEEN HERE FOR 3 DAYS.
And please send me the orange socks that I left in the laundry. Thanks!
Love,
N.Tonks.