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Along with her Hogwarts letter and a list of supplies, they send Dora another note: a polite explanation that though it’s been decades since a Metamorphamagus attended Hogwarts, school regulations necessitate that she cannot change her appearance while on school grounds. Mum reads the letter twice in silence, then lets out a short laugh that sounds a tad unnatural. “You see, Dora?” she says, “Hogwarts doesn’t want you making silly faces any more than Daddy and I do. You’ll have to behave now that you’re old enough to go away to school.”
Dora knows enough to scoff and look offended as though everything’s all right, but she watches Mum the rest of the day, noticing the way her hands shake as she sets the table, the way she switches off the wireless when the Harry Potter commemoration comes on.
That night, when Dora’s meant to be asleep, Mum tells Dad: “You see? Dumbledore and his friends suspect her already, for no better reason than that she was born my daughter. Sanctimonious hypocrites, the lot of them!”
“’Dromeda,” says Dad, but his voice is clearly unhappy. “She’s eleven. And everyone knows you turned your back on the Blacks years ago. Maybe they’re right. Maybe it’s only the principle of the thing.”
“So did Sirius,” counters Mum. “Look what happened to him. And the Dark Lord’s cronies like to start young, Ted; my cousins are proof of that.” She laughs as joylessly as she had earlier. “A metamorphamagus who can look like anything she wants to. What more could you ask for in a spy?”
She must hear something then, because she calls Dora’s name. Dora has to climb downstairs then and admit that she’s not asleep, and Mum rounds on her for staying up so late when they have to go shopping for her school things in Diagon Alley in the morning. In the end, it takes both Dad and Dora to tease her out of her rage.
Dora doesn’t mention what she’s overheard to anyone. On the morning of September first, she morphs her hair a cheery mass of golden curls—if she’ll have to keep it that way for a while, just as well it’s something she likes—and on the train, she laughs and jokes and makes a crowd of new mates. She clambers into her boat and only just manages not to tip it over; she whoops with excitement along with everyone else at the first sight of the Castle.
When McGonagall calls for them to enter the hall and allows the Sorting Hat to introduce itself, Dora only half-listens; unlike the Muggleborns hanging on to every word, she’s known about the houses and what they represent as long as she can remember. Instead, she thinks about the choice before her and what it will mean.
The wizarding world still bases most personal and professional ties on the school houses you choose at eleven; almost all the Unspeakables get interviews just because they were in Ravenclaw, and most Healers are Hufflepuffs clutching recommendations from their old prefects, and god knows Dora’s heard enough jokes, young as she is, about how they ought to make the official Auror uniform red-and-gold and be done with it. This decision is not to be made lightly.
By the time McGonagall calls “Tonks, Nymphadora!” she’s made up her mind.
As she puts on the Sorting Hat, it hums with immediate interest: Courage, and not a little wit. And what’s this? Anger, and ambition, and a fearless heart. Well, well. I think perhaps GRY—
Sirius Black was in Gryffindor. So was Albus Dumbledore, who does not trust her simply because of who her mum used to be.
No, she interrupts the Hat. I’m going to Hufflepuff where they treat you all the same.
When the hat comes off her head, her hair is defiantly streaked with black.