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winterthunderTitle: Desire
Word Count: 2011
Rating: G
Author's Notes: Thanks togoseaward for the beta. And I don't own the characters, unfortunately.
Nymphadora Tonks sat on the bench beside her mother and watched, entranced, as brooms soared above her. She tried to visualize the paths that each of the players followed, imagining a shimmering web of broom trails that combined to create a delicate magical fabric. The World Cup teams were so graceful and acrobatic! She vividly remembered falling off of her first broom a year ago, sparking a heated debate between her parents and Sirius, whose gift the broom had been. The broom had taken up temporary, then permanent residence in their garden shed.
“Hey Dora, ever wish you could fly like that?” Sirius’s voice was soft in her ear, so soft her mother couldn’t hear. She nodded vigorously, but he said nothing more.
*
“Andi, now that I have a place of my own, how ‘bout I take Little Miss Dora off your hands every so often?”
Dora paused, listening hard from the corner where she was playing with her model of Scotland’s Beater.
“She can be quite a handful, Sirius, are you sure you can handle her?”
Sirius scoffed. “After all those years of watching after Remus, James and Peter?”
“Oh, is that what you were doing? Odd, you’d think Dumbledore would have let you off now and then if your motives were so pure.”
“Dumbledore knows all about keeping up appearances, you know, he had to make sure I did my punishment with the rest of the troublemakers.” Dora couldn’t understand why her mother was having trouble keeping a straight face. As she watched, Sirius flashed a winning smile and Andi broke down entirely. She leaned helplessly against the wall, laughing.
“I’ve missed something, haven’t I?” Ted asked, walking into the room with a bottle of wine in one hand and three glasses in the other.
“What do you think, Ted, should Dora visit Sirius for a day?” Andi asked, trying to regain her composure.
“Why not? She’s certainly old enough and she’d probably enjoy a day away from her Mum and Dad.”
“It’s not Dora on her own that I’m worried about-“ Andi began, but Ted cut her off.
“Plus, I think her parents might enjoy a day to themselves as well…”
*
And so, the next morning, Dora found herself pushed through the Floo at what seemed, even to her, to be a ridiculously early hour. Cousin Sirius obviously agreed, as the first thing he did was to set her on the couch with a blanket and tell her to go back to sleep. That soon proved futile, however, and within the hour the house was humming with motion. Dora happily found herself the center of attention as Sirius, Remus, James and Lily ushered her to the table for a second breakfast.
“Any exciting plans for your big day out, Dora?” James asked, reaching over Remus for a third piece of toast.
She didn’t quite know what to say. It was rather overwhelming, being with all of these big people who had already left Hogwarts. Sirius she knew, he came around every so often, but the other three unfamiliar faces quelled her typical loquaciousness.
“Quiet little thing, aren’t you?” Lily said. Sirius laughed.
“Enjoy it, once she gets used to you she’ll talk your ear off!” He reached over and ruffled Dora’s hair, which was short and blue that morning. “But don’t worry, I’ve got enough exciting plans for all of us.”
“Uh oh,” Remus said dryly.
“No, Moony, they’re good plans! Would you believe that this little lady here is almost six years old and her parents still haven’t taught her to ride a broom?”
“We can’t have that!” James said.
“I knew you’d agree! Today we’re going to go broom shopping, then the world is going to watch little Miss Dora learn to ride!” Dora broke into a smile at Sirius’s announcement, and he grinned back at her.
*
Two hours later Dora stood in Sirius’ back garden, nervously clutching a shiny new Cleansweep 5. On Lily and Remus’ insistence, Sirius had also purchased a helmet and set of pads.
“You can’t send her back to her parents in multiple pieces, Pads, and there’s a limit to the healing charms we know,” Remus had said.
So she stood, decked out in her safety gear, with James and Sirius on either side of her trying to offer instructions.
“Right. Now, you don’t want to be nervous or tense,” Sirius said. “If you’re tense the broom can’t sense where you want to go.”
“But you don’t want to be too loose either, you’ll fall off,” James added.
“And you’ve got to really bond with the broom, you know, it’s a connection…”
They went on like this for several minutes before Lily, rolling her eyes, stepped forward and gave James a friendly push out of the way.
“Oh stop, you’re just confusing the poor thing. Look, Dora, you’ve seen people on brooms before, right?” Dora nodded. “Show me how you get on.”
Dora tossed one leg over the broom and gripped it tightly, her stomach lurching as it rose about a foot into the air.
“Excellent, perfect!” Lily exclaimed, gently correcting her grip. “Now if you want it to go up you lean just a bit backwards and then lean forwards to bring it back down.”
Dora leaned backwards, but too quickly, the broom shot into the air and deposited her firmly on her arse in the grass before floating down to hover in front of her.
“Oh dear, are you all right?” Lily crouched next to her.
“She’s fine, she didn’t fall very far. Come on Dora, up you get and let’s try again!” She took Sirius’ offered hand and tentatively approached the broom again.
“Why does it do that?” she asked.
“Well, because you’re new to this and you don’t have a feel for the movements, to start with. And it doesn’t know you yet. Give it another shot.”
Dora hopped on the broom again, carefully correcting her grip to what Lily had showed her. Then, moving very slowly, she leaned back a tiny bit. The broom rose into the air, accompanied by the cheers of those on the ground below.
“All right, now come back down a bit so we can-“ James’ sentence was cut off when Dora leaned forward too quickly and was deposited face first in the grass. By the time Remus and Lily had stopped her nose from bleeding and spelled away the stains in her clothes the broom had taken an unaccompanied lap around the garden
and come to rest, once again, in front of her.
“Maybe I should give this thing a round right quick, just to make sure it’s calibrated properly,” James said, approaching the broom. “It shouldn’t have dropped that quickly on her.” He mounted the broom and took off, making it shoot around the garden at top speed and forcing it into hairpin turns that made Lily’s breath catch.
“It was a bit off,” he said, bringing it to an abrupt stop in front of them. “You want to try it again, Dora?”
“Is it broken?”
“I think I’ve fixed it. It wasn’t… you know how sometimes when you use something for the first time you have to go through a series of steps to make sure it’s working properly?”
“You mean like how Mummy always tests the food?”
“Well, sort of, I suppose. And if your Mum didn’t like the way the food tasted she would add something to make it better,” James replied. “I didn’t like the way your broom was behaving so I’ve made a few changes and now it should behave better.” He held it out to her. “Give it another try.”
Dora didn’t really want to, but they were all looking at her and they were all so big and brave and she wanted to be just like them, really, and they all rode brooms. So she stepped forward.
She leaned back. The broom went up. She leaned forward. The broom went down. She did it again, and again, and again. Then, looking over to where James, Sirius, Remus and Lily were standing, she broke into a huge grin.
“Jolly good! All right, to go forward you just slide your hands up a bit on the stick. Only an inch or so, for now.” Sirius put a finger on the handle to show her where. “Then to stop move them back.”
It took her a few more tries, but soon she was zipping around the garden, laughing and chattering. It wasn’t long before her instructors joined her in the air and the sunny afternoon was filled with games and fun. Dora was quite sad when the setting sun reminded her companions of the time.
“But Sirius, I want to keep playing with you and Lily and Remus and James!”
“We’ll have you back, Dora, don’t worry! But now I think we ought to keep your broom here for you, what do you think? That way you can ride it whenever you come over!”
“But I want to keep riding it now!”
“I know Dora, but it’s getting dark and-“
“Nymphadora Tonks, what on earth are you doing up on that broom?” Andromeda was standing in the kitchen door, her face a mixture of amusement and disapproval.
“-Your parents will be wondering where you are,” Sirius finished weakly.
“Mummy, look what I can do!” Dora took off on a lap around the garden, tossing in a few minor dives and a loop-the-loop for good measure. Then she landed in front of her mother, grinning broadly.
“Sirius and James and Lily taught me all about how to ride a broom and Remus fixed my nose when I hit it and then we played tag and Aurors and Bandits and we had tea 10 feet above the ground and it was so much fun and Sirius says I can leave the broom here so that I can ride it whenever I come over and can I please come tomorrow, Mummy, please because it’s so much fun here and I want to be just like Sirius and James and Remus and Lily when I grow up and have a house just like this and ride brooms with them every day and-“
“Now Dora, it’s up to Sirius when you can come back, but Daddy’s getting dinner ready and we need to get home now. Tell Sirius thank you.” Dora ran over and wrapped her arms around Sirius’s legs.
“Thank you thank you thank you can I please come back tomorrow?” Sirius looked down at her with a look of utter bemusement on his face as James and Lily dissolved into giggles while Remus and Andromeda tried and failed to keep their faces straight.
“I don’t know about tomorrow, Dora, but maybe this weekend?” Sirius looked over at Andromeda.
“I’ll have to talk with Ted about it. We didn’t want her flying so young, Sirius, but she doesn’t seem to have sustained any permanent damage and she’s obviously enjoyed herself…” Andromeda looked over at Dora and laughed to see her systematically hugging everybody in the garden. “All right, Dora, come along. If you’re good for the next few days you can come back this weekend.” Andromeda thanked Sirius once more and stewarded Dora through the door and towards the fireplace. As they went, Dora’s voice could clearly be heard, drifting back to the four remaining occupants of the garden.
“Yay! You and Daddy should come too so you can see all the cool things I can do with my new broom did you know James showed me how to fly in an upside-down circle and Lily told him that was just dangerous but he said I could do it and I did and then Remus levitated a gnome from the ground into a tree and it was so much fun and I want to be able to do things like that someday do you think I can do things like that someday? How long until I’m grown up Mummy I want to be just like them!”
Word Count: 2011
Rating: G
Author's Notes: Thanks to
goseaward for the beta. And I don't own the characters, unfortunately.Nymphadora Tonks sat on the bench beside her mother and watched, entranced, as brooms soared above her. She tried to visualize the paths that each of the players followed, imagining a shimmering web of broom trails that combined to create a delicate magical fabric. The World Cup teams were so graceful and acrobatic! She vividly remembered falling off of her first broom a year ago, sparking a heated debate between her parents and Sirius, whose gift the broom had been. The broom had taken up temporary, then permanent residence in their garden shed.
“Hey Dora, ever wish you could fly like that?” Sirius’s voice was soft in her ear, so soft her mother couldn’t hear. She nodded vigorously, but he said nothing more.
*
“Andi, now that I have a place of my own, how ‘bout I take Little Miss Dora off your hands every so often?”
Dora paused, listening hard from the corner where she was playing with her model of Scotland’s Beater.
“She can be quite a handful, Sirius, are you sure you can handle her?”
Sirius scoffed. “After all those years of watching after Remus, James and Peter?”
“Oh, is that what you were doing? Odd, you’d think Dumbledore would have let you off now and then if your motives were so pure.”
“Dumbledore knows all about keeping up appearances, you know, he had to make sure I did my punishment with the rest of the troublemakers.” Dora couldn’t understand why her mother was having trouble keeping a straight face. As she watched, Sirius flashed a winning smile and Andi broke down entirely. She leaned helplessly against the wall, laughing.
“I’ve missed something, haven’t I?” Ted asked, walking into the room with a bottle of wine in one hand and three glasses in the other.
“What do you think, Ted, should Dora visit Sirius for a day?” Andi asked, trying to regain her composure.
“Why not? She’s certainly old enough and she’d probably enjoy a day away from her Mum and Dad.”
“It’s not Dora on her own that I’m worried about-“ Andi began, but Ted cut her off.
“Plus, I think her parents might enjoy a day to themselves as well…”
*
And so, the next morning, Dora found herself pushed through the Floo at what seemed, even to her, to be a ridiculously early hour. Cousin Sirius obviously agreed, as the first thing he did was to set her on the couch with a blanket and tell her to go back to sleep. That soon proved futile, however, and within the hour the house was humming with motion. Dora happily found herself the center of attention as Sirius, Remus, James and Lily ushered her to the table for a second breakfast.
“Any exciting plans for your big day out, Dora?” James asked, reaching over Remus for a third piece of toast.
She didn’t quite know what to say. It was rather overwhelming, being with all of these big people who had already left Hogwarts. Sirius she knew, he came around every so often, but the other three unfamiliar faces quelled her typical loquaciousness.
“Quiet little thing, aren’t you?” Lily said. Sirius laughed.
“Enjoy it, once she gets used to you she’ll talk your ear off!” He reached over and ruffled Dora’s hair, which was short and blue that morning. “But don’t worry, I’ve got enough exciting plans for all of us.”
“Uh oh,” Remus said dryly.
“No, Moony, they’re good plans! Would you believe that this little lady here is almost six years old and her parents still haven’t taught her to ride a broom?”
“We can’t have that!” James said.
“I knew you’d agree! Today we’re going to go broom shopping, then the world is going to watch little Miss Dora learn to ride!” Dora broke into a smile at Sirius’s announcement, and he grinned back at her.
*
Two hours later Dora stood in Sirius’ back garden, nervously clutching a shiny new Cleansweep 5. On Lily and Remus’ insistence, Sirius had also purchased a helmet and set of pads.
“You can’t send her back to her parents in multiple pieces, Pads, and there’s a limit to the healing charms we know,” Remus had said.
So she stood, decked out in her safety gear, with James and Sirius on either side of her trying to offer instructions.
“Right. Now, you don’t want to be nervous or tense,” Sirius said. “If you’re tense the broom can’t sense where you want to go.”
“But you don’t want to be too loose either, you’ll fall off,” James added.
“And you’ve got to really bond with the broom, you know, it’s a connection…”
They went on like this for several minutes before Lily, rolling her eyes, stepped forward and gave James a friendly push out of the way.
“Oh stop, you’re just confusing the poor thing. Look, Dora, you’ve seen people on brooms before, right?” Dora nodded. “Show me how you get on.”
Dora tossed one leg over the broom and gripped it tightly, her stomach lurching as it rose about a foot into the air.
“Excellent, perfect!” Lily exclaimed, gently correcting her grip. “Now if you want it to go up you lean just a bit backwards and then lean forwards to bring it back down.”
Dora leaned backwards, but too quickly, the broom shot into the air and deposited her firmly on her arse in the grass before floating down to hover in front of her.
“Oh dear, are you all right?” Lily crouched next to her.
“She’s fine, she didn’t fall very far. Come on Dora, up you get and let’s try again!” She took Sirius’ offered hand and tentatively approached the broom again.
“Why does it do that?” she asked.
“Well, because you’re new to this and you don’t have a feel for the movements, to start with. And it doesn’t know you yet. Give it another shot.”
Dora hopped on the broom again, carefully correcting her grip to what Lily had showed her. Then, moving very slowly, she leaned back a tiny bit. The broom rose into the air, accompanied by the cheers of those on the ground below.
“All right, now come back down a bit so we can-“ James’ sentence was cut off when Dora leaned forward too quickly and was deposited face first in the grass. By the time Remus and Lily had stopped her nose from bleeding and spelled away the stains in her clothes the broom had taken an unaccompanied lap around the garden
and come to rest, once again, in front of her.
“Maybe I should give this thing a round right quick, just to make sure it’s calibrated properly,” James said, approaching the broom. “It shouldn’t have dropped that quickly on her.” He mounted the broom and took off, making it shoot around the garden at top speed and forcing it into hairpin turns that made Lily’s breath catch.
“It was a bit off,” he said, bringing it to an abrupt stop in front of them. “You want to try it again, Dora?”
“Is it broken?”
“I think I’ve fixed it. It wasn’t… you know how sometimes when you use something for the first time you have to go through a series of steps to make sure it’s working properly?”
“You mean like how Mummy always tests the food?”
“Well, sort of, I suppose. And if your Mum didn’t like the way the food tasted she would add something to make it better,” James replied. “I didn’t like the way your broom was behaving so I’ve made a few changes and now it should behave better.” He held it out to her. “Give it another try.”
Dora didn’t really want to, but they were all looking at her and they were all so big and brave and she wanted to be just like them, really, and they all rode brooms. So she stepped forward.
She leaned back. The broom went up. She leaned forward. The broom went down. She did it again, and again, and again. Then, looking over to where James, Sirius, Remus and Lily were standing, she broke into a huge grin.
“Jolly good! All right, to go forward you just slide your hands up a bit on the stick. Only an inch or so, for now.” Sirius put a finger on the handle to show her where. “Then to stop move them back.”
It took her a few more tries, but soon she was zipping around the garden, laughing and chattering. It wasn’t long before her instructors joined her in the air and the sunny afternoon was filled with games and fun. Dora was quite sad when the setting sun reminded her companions of the time.
“But Sirius, I want to keep playing with you and Lily and Remus and James!”
“We’ll have you back, Dora, don’t worry! But now I think we ought to keep your broom here for you, what do you think? That way you can ride it whenever you come over!”
“But I want to keep riding it now!”
“I know Dora, but it’s getting dark and-“
“Nymphadora Tonks, what on earth are you doing up on that broom?” Andromeda was standing in the kitchen door, her face a mixture of amusement and disapproval.
“-Your parents will be wondering where you are,” Sirius finished weakly.
“Mummy, look what I can do!” Dora took off on a lap around the garden, tossing in a few minor dives and a loop-the-loop for good measure. Then she landed in front of her mother, grinning broadly.
“Sirius and James and Lily taught me all about how to ride a broom and Remus fixed my nose when I hit it and then we played tag and Aurors and Bandits and we had tea 10 feet above the ground and it was so much fun and Sirius says I can leave the broom here so that I can ride it whenever I come over and can I please come tomorrow, Mummy, please because it’s so much fun here and I want to be just like Sirius and James and Remus and Lily when I grow up and have a house just like this and ride brooms with them every day and-“
“Now Dora, it’s up to Sirius when you can come back, but Daddy’s getting dinner ready and we need to get home now. Tell Sirius thank you.” Dora ran over and wrapped her arms around Sirius’s legs.
“Thank you thank you thank you can I please come back tomorrow?” Sirius looked down at her with a look of utter bemusement on his face as James and Lily dissolved into giggles while Remus and Andromeda tried and failed to keep their faces straight.
“I don’t know about tomorrow, Dora, but maybe this weekend?” Sirius looked over at Andromeda.
“I’ll have to talk with Ted about it. We didn’t want her flying so young, Sirius, but she doesn’t seem to have sustained any permanent damage and she’s obviously enjoyed herself…” Andromeda looked over at Dora and laughed to see her systematically hugging everybody in the garden. “All right, Dora, come along. If you’re good for the next few days you can come back this weekend.” Andromeda thanked Sirius once more and stewarded Dora through the door and towards the fireplace. As they went, Dora’s voice could clearly be heard, drifting back to the four remaining occupants of the garden.
“Yay! You and Daddy should come too so you can see all the cool things I can do with my new broom did you know James showed me how to fly in an upside-down circle and Lily told him that was just dangerous but he said I could do it and I did and then Remus levitated a gnome from the ground into a tree and it was so much fun and I want to be able to do things like that someday do you think I can do things like that someday? How long until I’m grown up Mummy I want to be just like them!”