Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, all rights belong to J. K. Rowling, I am merly borrowing them.

AN: Written for Quidditch League : Beater. Round 1 -Family Roles, prompts 8. (phrase) Laughter is the best medicin2.(word) glitter.

Set Ootp & eighteen years in the past.

Nymphadora Tonks P.O.V.

I was five years old when I found out that I was the niece of Bellatrix Lestrange, The little details burn bright inside my mind eighteen years later, as I stare at Bellatrix's wanted picture in the daily prophet.

It was a hot summers day and I had pleaded and begged until my mum agreed to take me to Diagon Alley.

I didn't understand then that her reluctance was to do with the fact Death Eaters freely walked the streets, and not that she didn't want me to have fun.

I remember the sweat dripping down my back as I held on to my mum's hand, changing my hair colour every couple of minutes to show off my Metamorphmagus abilities to passers-by.

I can recall the steps of Gringotts sparkling like glitter where somebody had spilt water, the children giggling and the parents looking nervous in the shops, we went to.

It was leaving the Eeylops Owl Emporium after buying treats for the family owl, Hamlet, that I felt my mum freeze on the spot and me copying her out of an instinct that came from deep within me.

I don't know if Bellatrix saw us first or if we spotted her first, but I do know that she walked over to us, that those around us departed quickly out of fear and self-preservation.

I can remember every word that was exchanged between the three of us.

"Well if it isn't Andy and her half- blood brat," Bellatrix said, her voice full of malice for me and my mother as her wand twitched in her hand.

"Your niece's name is Nymphadora, as well you know." my mum snarled, but a hint of fear could still be heard in her voice.

The disgusted look on Bellatrix's face at the, mention of my name made feel as if I were lower than a slug,

"Well Nymphadora, did your mother ever tell you how she betrayed our entire family so she could shack up with your Mudblood father and have you?" Bellatrix asked me, her pale fingers reaching out and stroking my face, to an outsider it'd look like an affection it gesture, but looking in her eyes I saw it wasn't.

I knew that speaking was stupid, but I couldn't stop myself from asking, "What is a Mudblood?,

"Don't you dare explain that word to her," my mum ordered, looking at the woman she once called sister with pure contempt.

Bellatrix laughed, but her laugh sounded odd and for some reason it reminded me of my father saying, "Laughter is the best medicine," and how it didn't seem that way with the woman in front of me.

"Andy, if explaining the word Mudblood is all I do then you ought to be grateful," Bellatrix said, her voice mocking and gleeful at some unknown prospect to me.

"You hurt my daughter in any way I'll hunt you down and kill you, Bellatrix," mum threatened, and by the tone of her voice I and Bellatrix knew she meant it.

"Andy, I can out duel you, I could kill you with such ease that'd it shock you, but today is your lucky day because the Dark Lord is summoning me, but don't worry I won't forget about my darling niece," Bellatrix cackled, before she Disapparated.

When Bellatrix had gone, my mother scooped me up in her arms even though I was old enough to walk, she didn't put me down until we reached the Leaky Cauldron and that was only so we could Floo home.

When we got home my mum explained that the woman we'd spoken to was Bellatrix Lestrange, the woman my friends and I had dubbed the bogie woman after hearing stories from their parents, and I was her niece.

Now eighteen years later I know that even after years of imprisonment and having Dementors draining away her memories that she hasn't forgotten about me, her darling niece.

I dread the day that'll I met my aunt again, because it'll be in the heat of battle and she won't care that we share blood, that we our niece and aunt.

I am just another half-blood, another Order Member to wipe out, I do not think the thought of being her only niece will pull on her heart-strings, I don't think she has a heart.

I wished that she did, that there was some part of her or aunt Narcissa that wants to get to know me, a part that would allow me to be a niece to them and not something to be destroyed, but there isn't.

She accepts Draco as her nephew, but he is a pureblood.

I am a niece by blood, but rejected by my blood from being a niece.

The ties were cut before I was born, named or had a personality.

I know that it'd seem odd to those who know me, that I'd want to be accepted by someone such as Bellatrix, but rejection from someone who you're connected to by DNA hurts.

I am a daughter, Auror, Metamorphmagus and the rejected niece.

The half-blood 'darling niece' that my aunt wants to take out of existence.

I have no role to play upon the pureblood pedestal that Bellatrix and Narcissa live on.

Given the things that Bellatrix has done, the things Narcissa stood by and let her do their rejection shouldn't hurt, but it does.

R & R