"Young lady, I am very disappointed in you."
It was the first time Harry had met his Aunt Andromeda, and he sort of wished it was under different circumstances. Of course, she had wanted to maintain her distance until she saw how the Malfoys treated her husband and daughter, and she hadn't really trusted Father's intentions until he removed the Dark Mark. And she was very busy with her work as a Healer. Harry understood all that.
But he didn't like the way she was shaking her head at Tonks, her face heavy and stern with the disappointment she'd talked about. It reminded him too much of Aunt Petunia, although less shrill.
Luckily, Tonks didn't look as if she cared. She turned her hair bright red and spiky and her noise into a pig's snout, which she wrinkled up for a sniff at her mother. "It was fun, and it didn't hurt anyone."
"I got a Floo call from Professor Dumbledore at eleven at night!"
"Not my fault he doesn't have a sense of humor, Mum."
Draco snickered. Harry caught his eye and smiled, too. He had to. They'd watched Tonks's memory of the first two dances of the Yule Ball in Father's Pensieve, and what she'd done when she was tired of masquerading as Harry was fun. Harry almost wished he could have been there to see it, instead of coming home right away after exams were done.
Aunt Andromeda opened her mouth to scold again, but Mother sailed into the Malfoy Manor sitting room then, her long white lace sleeves—identical to the robes Aunt Andromeda wore—swinging around her arms. She held gleaming golden cups of something that smelled rich and smoky.
"Now, now, Andi," Mother said, and handed one of the cups to her sister. Aunt Andromeda took with a frown. "It was a harmless prank, and it didn't last long enough to truly frighten anyone. You saw the memory. Professor McGonagall understood what was happening right away and yelled at Nymphadora to stop it. There can only have been a few seconds of genuine terror, at most."
"She turned into You-Know-Who!" Aunt Andromeda snapped.
Harry couldn't help it. He started laughing again. Draco leaned against Harry, he was laughing so hard, and Tonks laughed right along with them, hard enough that she lost control of her nose and it became a human one again.
"I am still disappointed in you, Nymphadora!" Aunt Andromeda sipped from her cup, though, and her eyes went a little misty. She sighed. "You remembered the recipe, Cissa."
"Grandmama made it every Christmas," Mother replied softly. "Of course I did."
Harry wondered what it was, and what was behind the private look that Mother and Aunt Andromeda were exchanging, but then Ted came into the room, bouncing on the balls of his feet and rubbing his hands together. Behind him floated a whole stream of presents, wrapped in everything from neat silver paper to floating things that looked like fluffy crystal balls to Harry.
"Ted!" Aunt Andromeda seemed to enjoy having someone to yell at, and switched effortlessly to her husband. Behind her back, Tonks wiped her forehead with one hand and mimed sighing with relief, which made Harry and Draco snicker again. "We said that we weren't going to open those until Christmas Day!"
"Which is tomorrow, Andi," Ted said, and waved his wand so that the procession floated into place under the tree. "And I thought that the children should be able to open one tonight. It was a tradition in my family." He glanced at Harry and Draco.
Harry nodded eagerly. He still wasn't used to the thought that someone besides his friends wanted to give him gifts. Draco was doing the same thing. Tonks stuck her hand into the air and waved it around.
"Me!" she said loudly. "I'm a child!"
"You certainly acted like one in that memory, Nymphadora," Aunt Andromeda muttered, apparently not able to let it go yet.
"Can I get an amulet that will force people to say my real name?" Tonks said, and turned her hair a lime green that was almost too bright to look at.
"Tell me if you find one," Harry whispered to her, during the bustle of Ted finding presents for Tonks, Harry, and Draco in the new heap under the tree. "I'd like to make some people say Harry, though, and some people say Henry, so I don't know how well it would work."
Tonks gave him an unexpectedly solemn look. "I know. There are times that I want to go by Dora. But Mum won't compromise."
Harry blinked, surprised by his fellow-feeling with his cousin, and also that Mother and Father had been flexible enough to realize that Harry would have been unhappy going by Aldebaran. "Well, that's stupid," he muttered, a second before he got an armful of one of the fluffy crystal balls. This close, he could see it was opaque enough to conceal its real contents, although he caught a glimpse of gold.
Draco was holding a similar present, while Tonks held a nicely-wrapped gift up to her ear and shook it with a wide smile. Harry recognized it as one that he'd seen Ted wrapping up a few weeks ago at Hogwarts, before he caught sight of Harry and chased him out of the room.
"It is stupid," Tonks agreed, stopping the shaking to tear into her gift. "But presents are brilliant."
....
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