Just Tonks!

Nymphadora fell back on her bed and used her wand to pull the curtains shut around her. If she heard ONE MORE person say ANYTHING about her name, she was going to scream and bash them over the head with One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi. She had never before realized just how stupid her name sounded, and how ridiculously girly it was. Maybe she could shorten it. But shortening it to Nymph would not help anything with the taunts she was getting, and Dora was just… boring. She didn’t feel like a Dora. The only part of her name she liked was her last name, and no one got to go by their last name.

‘I don’t feel like History of Magic today. All he ever does is drone on about the book. I’ll just re-read today’s chapter and skive off.’ A Ravenclaw, Tonks usually didn’t want to skip classes, but Binns was already so boring, and she did not feel like enduring yet another class of her name being slaughtered and mocked. She flipped out her book to the chapter entitled “Goblins and Goblin Wars.” Reading about this subject would be exciting if Bathilda Bagshot had not been almost as boring Binns. Tonks wished that she could sneak into the library and check out a book on the goblin wars actually worth reading.

Perhaps she could. She tried to remember what year students started getting free periods. Bill didn’t have them, but talked about them with desire. Well, seventh years certainly had free periods, she could try to be a seventh year. She was just starting to focus and think about how to use her Metamorphagus ability to be older when she heard a clang.

The noise was someone coming up the stairs, as Nymphadora had jury-rigged a tin can to fall and make a noise if someone were attempting to disturb her. ‘Bugger,’ she thought to herself. The last thing she needed was some prefect thinking she was crying. She crouched onto her bed and held her wand at the ready. Bill had taught her and Charlie a few jinxes on the train, claiming that he did not have time to look out for them and did not want a Howler from his mum.

Nymphadora went over the wand movement and words for the Bat Bogey Hex in her head. Whoever it was seemed to be walking towards her bed. She pulled the curtains aside and shouted, “Chiroptera Mucosa!” The Head Girl, who had indeed been coming over in an attempt to play mother hen, quickly turned tail to avoid her own snot beating her about the head, yelling that she was docking points from Nymphadora.

“If you want to dock points, you’ll have to take them away from Tonks! I don’t use that wretched name anymore!” Tonks giggled and let her new identity take hold in her, reveling in the new independence that had come with naming herself. Just Tonks. Who really needed a first name anyway? She squinched her eyes shut and focused on looking like that obnoxious Head Girl, minus the bat-bogeys. Smiling when she felt the change, she set off to the library for a good book on goblins and goblin wars.

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Author's Note: There is no canon incantation for the bat-bogey hex. However, I used the "chiroptera," which means hand-wing and is the scientific name of the bat family. Mucosa should be self-evident. I think the bat-bogey hex is possibly the worst forgivable curse in Potterverse, but I have a snot phobia myself.