Prologue

Tonks was tired.

She was tired of fighting. Tired of death and loss. She felt wrung out and exhausted. How had everything gone to shit so suddenly? Just last summer, she was still making fond memories with her mother and father. They were a happy family, their lives filled with love. Then the Dark Lord had returned.

The year since then had been brutal. She lost her job as an auror when a rumour circulated that she was involved with a werewolf of all things. She didn't hate Remus, but she wasn't interested in shacking up with a  man her father's age.

She wasn't fired immediately, but it did sound the death knell for her career. The bigots that controlled the ministry were looking for any excuse to sack her. Soon enough, Madame Bones received a report that she was a member of Dumbledore's Order. Tonks found herself jobless and without direction.

She had done her best to keep fighting, working with her parents and Sirius to try and fight the darkness spreading throughout their society. It wasn't enough.

Nothing the Order did changed a single damn thing. After a year of pain and sacrifice, all Tonks had as a reward for her efforts was the death of her favourite cousin. Sirius had only been back in her life for what felt like a brief moment before he was torn away yet again.

A week after Sirius' death at the Ministry, the Dark Lord struck out at many families that opposed him. Tonks went to her parents' house one day to find a smoking ruin. The corpses of her parents were hung from the streetlights, their eyes and tongues gouged out. It was a message and a warning that haunted her dreams. 

All of the light in Tonks' world was snuffed out that day. For a long time, life had been chipping away at her fragile psyche, piece by piece. The loss of her parents pushed her over the edge.

Tonks tried to be there for Harry, who was also hurting at the loss of Sirius, but she was stonewalled by Dumbledore. She had no desire to work for the bearded bastard any longer. His followers tended to meet grisly ends, as evidenced by the wreckage of her own family.

She had nobody left. She was all alone. She was just... done. The only reason she hadn't killed herself in despair was due to the burning rage and desire for revenge that had settled in her gut. She constantly fought the impulse to recklessly start hunting Death Eaters in broad daylight, knowing the Ministry would most likely lock her up for vigilantism if she didn't get herself killed first.

Tonks truly believed the legends of the Black Madness these days. Tonks wanted the Dark Lord and his followers to suffer and die. She wanted to hear their screams and bathe in their blood. The only problem was she didn't know where to start. Her own death no longer frightened her. She was only scared of the possibility of dying without taking her enemies with her.

This is how Tonks found herself holed up in the Black family's library in Grimmauld Place. Molly Weasley had done her best to clear out any of the darker tomes that she could get her hands on, but she wasn't able to access the parts of the library that were hidden behind bloodline wards, keyed only to the Blacks. That was where they stored the truly dark magic.

The old townhouse was completely abandoned, as none of the order felt right about living in Sirius' house without him. Tonks didn't have anywhere else to go, so here she was, living in a dusty old abandoned house with no company save for a decrepit house elf.

After she strengthened the wards, the only people in Magical Britain that could find her there were her aunts Narcissa and Bellatrix, along with her cousin, Draco. Tonks actually hoped they managed to track her down at some point. She had plans for her estranged family members.

However much she wanted to enact those plans, she first needed the power to do so. Dumbledore refused to train or teach the Order any advanced magic, so she turned to the Dark Arts. She was currently sat on the floor in the middle of stacks of dusty books.

Her head was buried in an ancient book describing a series of rituals that would grant great power. Obviously, they all came at great cost, but there wasn't much Tonks wasn't willing to give.

There were numerous rituals for enhancing magical ability or power. The ritual she wanted to use was the last one in the book and had the least information. It was pretty much just the steps of the ritual, a diagram, and a brief cryptic explanation, followed by a note from a previous user.

A ritual of sacrifice that will allow one to achieve their greatest desire, even to go against Fate itself.

I prayed to any god that would listen and one must have heard me, for the ritual worked. I am victorious and my house shall prosper for the next thousand years. It cost me everything, but the work is done. - A.P. Black

Tonks knew that no matter how many power enhancing rituals she performed, she would never be Voldemort's equal. She was feeling desperate and latched onto this obscure ritual. Even if it would cost her everything, what more did she have to lose?

Kreacher prepared her one final meal, not saying a single word from start to end. He didn't talk much these days. Not that Tonks cared. She was honestly surprised he hadn't poisoned her by now.

A minute before midnight, Tonks found herself in the Black's ritual room. She took a deep breath before removing all of her clothing, tossing it into a corner. Her hair had been a lanky gray for the past week and her body looked tired and thin. She focused her magic and changed, her body filling out and her hair exploding outwards in curls of pink.

Perks of being a metamorph, not that her abilities ever did her any favours in the wizarding world. Misogynistic scumbags.

Armed with nothing but her tits and her wand, she stepped into the ritual circle she'd copied and silently began to pray. She would sacrifice anything to see the Dark Lord fall. If it could be at the end of her own wand, then all the better.

As the seconds ticked down to midnight, she started chanting lightly under her breath. It was a lengthy incantation, but Tonks had never suffered from bad memory. Just idiots, lots of idiots.

At the stroke of midnight, she was enveloped in a haze of magic. For an instant, she felt connected to a source of unimaginable power. Tonks quaked under the crushing weight of the ritual magic, her legs buckling.

She collapsed to the ground in a boneless heap, taking a shuddering breath before her eyes rolled back in her head.

Time crept along as Tonks lay motionless in the middle of the ritual circle, the only sound the quiet beating of her heart. It slowed as the minutes passed before coming to a stop without fanfare. Just like that. In the silence of the night, Tonks died.

The magic that was deeply ingrained in the ancestral home of the Blacks stilled as one of its last scions stepped off the mortal coil.

The instant the last wisp of her soul dispersed from her body the ritual circle glowed a bloody red. Tonks' body seized and arched off the ground. Her metamorph abilities went wild, cycling through dozens of morphs of different race and gender.

Her form settled on that of a petite blonde woman. After her transformation finished, the magic of the ritual circle surged and pierced into her chest in a torrent.

With a painful lurch, her heart resumed beating and her eyes shot open, a terrified and brilliant blue.

She jumped upwards, gasping in shock. Her mind was a mess and she whirled around, trying to get her bearings. She was in a stone room, empty save for the discarded clothes. She gripped the wand in her hand tightly and looked at it in disbelief. It took her a moment, but her mind settled as she remembered.

She remembered her life on Earth where the Harry Potter series was adored by fans the world over. She also remembered a new life. That of one Miss Nymphadora Tonks. As she processed all of the memories, she felt like they were becoming her own.

She held a strand of her blonde hair up in front of her face. She concentrated and marveled as her hair slowly changed from blonde to pink.

"Wow," she breathed, "I guess I'm Tonks? Or... Maybe not. I still feel like me..."

She shook her head slowly, pondering,"No... No, I don't think I am Tonks. Tonks died, sacrificing herself for a chance to avenge her loved ones." Her heart felt heavy and she sighed ruefully. While sad, she did find one silver lining.

She wouldn't go by Tonks any longer. That girl was well and truly gone. Thankfully, she was always fond of the name Nymphadora.

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