Work Text:
"Wotcher, Harry!" exclaimed a very chipper Dora Tonks. She had purple hair this week, short and shiny.
"Nymphie!" Harry exclaimed, running to the fourteen-year-old in glee. She held her arms out to hug and pick up Harry the second that he ran to her.
"You're the only one who gets to call me that, you know," she said, booping his nose as he laughed. It was then that Sirius walked up beside her and cleared his throat.
"Are you sure that you're up to this?" Sirius asked, crossing his arms and looking very stern. Dora's parents were out for the week, the Weasleys had their hands full, and it was a full moon. Sirius had a husband to take care of and a godson to ensure the safety of.
"I babysat a ton of kids last summer, you know!" Dora said, rolling her eyes.
"This isn't just any kid," said Sirius impatiently, "this is my godson."
"Yeah, yeah." Dora booped Harry's nose again and was rewarded with even more giggles.
"You can't take him to Diagon Alley, or Hogsmeade, or..."
"... anywhere that has wix," Dora finished. "I was just going to keep him at home and play some games with him. I know what I'm doing, Siri."
Sirius sighed. "You'd better, Nymphadora."
"Don't call me that!"
Remus's voice from the distance called for Sirius, who quickly shouted "Coming!" back.
"If I Apparate back tomorrow and the house is destroyed..." he warned, before making a beheading motion with his hands.
Harry giggled.
"Just trust me," said Dora, looking Very Confident. "I'm an expert!"
Dora plopped Harry on the couch. "So!" she said. "Whaddya want to do?"
"Draw!" suggested Harry. Dora clapped her hands together and walked to her dad's office room.
"Don't go anywhere!" she called. "Now, let's see..."
She walked into her dad's office. Good thing he could be as clumsy as her (much to her mum's chagrin). Made things easier to find. Harry's sketchpad and markers were exactly where she thought they'd be — on the floor. Dora grinned and picked them up.
Dora whistled to herself as she got back to where she'd left Harry, and she opened her eyes to see —
Where the bloody hell was that child?!
Running to her room, Dora silently cursed the unconscious magic of young children. She'd babysat Muggles (at her dad's insistence; he claimed that a connection to Muggle culture was important for a young witch) and at least one Squib, though maybe he wasn't a Squib? That Longbottom child certainly didn't show any signs of magic, but — Look, the point was that non-magical children didn't just disappear.
For the most part, at least.
Anyway! Dora rummaged through the pile of books on the floor for her Babysitting Emergencies for the Troubled Wix book (she thought that she knew her mum's cleaning spell, but of course those buggers at the Ministry would send her sorry arse to Azkaban for even thinking of using it while underage), and let out an "Aha!" when she found it at last.
She flipped through the pages. Harry wasn't a toddler (she never got to know him when he was); he was five years old, and some part of this book had to have a section on... "Finally!" Dora exclaimed.
Help! The Young Child I Look After Has Disappeared!
If you are babysitting a young wix (4-7 years old) and you find that they have disappeared, they may be playing hide-and-seek. Try to make sure that they haven't Disillusioned themselves by calling out for them. If you hear giggles nearby, it's likely that they're just Disillusioned!
The less likely, though very possible, option is that they have Apparated somewhere around the house. If you are unable to find them before the parents return, Floo or owl...
The rest of the page went on about how to contact professionals, with a reminder that underage wix should only perform magic if they are truly unable to find the child. Dora rolled her eyes and slammed the book shut. Fat lot of good that did. "Harry!" she called.
Nothing.
"Shit!" she cried. Sirius was going to kill her. Then, Albus Dumbledore would expel her corpse and probably make a rule prohibiting Hufflepuff from winning the House Cup. Then, her body would be sent to Azkaban as everyone writes about that Nymphadora Tonks lady with the stupid name who lost The Boy Who Lived.
"That's a bad word," said a voice from behind. Dora turned around, and Harry came into view, having changed his appearance to match his surroundings... somehow. Dora picked him up and gave him a very stern look.
"I called you, and you didn't respond!" she said. Harry's eyes started flooding with tears. "Oh, bollocks. I mean, uh," she was panicking, "darn?" Harry was crying. "You're not in trouble!"
"I just wanted to play hide-and-seek, then I turned invisible but didn't know how, then you came back and called for me but I wanted to stay hidden, and..."
"You're not in trouble," Dora repeated. Hmmm. Did he still remember those... What were their names again? His aunt, his uncle and his cousin; they had names, right? Did they punish him a lot for accidental magic? This was something that Dora didn't quite know how to deal with. "Do... Do you still want to draw?" she asked timidly.
Harry nodded, and Dora grinned.
"When I draw with Moony, he taps the drawing with his wand like this," Harry grabbed his toy wand and tapped the drawing, "and it starts moving. Can you do that, Nymphie?"
"I can't do magic outside of school," said Dora with a roll of her eyes. Harry slammed his toy wand on his drawing again, causing red sparks to fly out of it.
"Be careful with that," Dora warned. Harry set his toy down and sighed.
"I'm bored. Can we do something else now?"
A lot of what Dora called fun (listening to Muggle punk rock records Sirius gave her and singing loudly to them, writing private journals filled with language unsafe for young children, sending owls to her friends with similarly unsafe language) might not be appropriate for a five-year-old.
Well, she figured, there's always the old reliable.
She changed her nose to that of a pigsnout and was rewarded with giggles. She went down the animal kingdom, and Harry was delighted with every turn. He started making requests — Moony, Padfoot, Dora's mum and dad, Harry's friend Ron — and Dora was very happy to oblige.
"Wait," she said eventually, her face turning back to normal. "It's suppertime, isn't it?"
Harry shrugged.
Dora checked a wall clock and thought for a moment.
She couldn't cook. If she tried to, Harry would complain, Sirius would think that she was a horrible babysitter, and then she'd never get to see Harry again. If she didn't cook, Harry would be cranky and upset, Sirius would think that she was the worst babysitter in the world, and disown both her and her mum like he did the rest of his family.
They had crackers, right? That wasn't proper supper food, but what options did Dora have? Well, maybe if...
"Wait right here?" she asked, not waiting for an answer before she ran to her room in search of... Come on... Aha! Muggle money! Her dad told her about phones and ordering food, and she'd worked enough Muggle jobs over the summer to know how their currency worked. She counted the money and walked to the house phone, cleared her throat, and ordered a pizza.
She had this whole babysitting thing down.
"What," began Sirius, "the hell," he picked up the empty pizza box (which lay amid a pile of pillow feathers), "happened?"
Dora looked down at the floor, ashamed. After she and Harry ate their pizza, they had a pillow fight and fell asleep in the resulting mess. "Sorry," she muttered.
"You know damn well that I'm not going to be upset about a bit of a mess, right?" Sirius asked after a pause. He used a few spells to clean up the place (none as effective as Dora's mum's cleaning spells, but Dora doubted that anyone could be as good as she was), picked up Harry, and seemed to engage in a very interesting conversation about whether Harry had fun.
"I'll tell Andy that you were a perfect angel who should absolutely trusted with a five-year-old," he said as he walked out the door.
"My payment?" Dora asked, her voice darkening.
"Wasn't this adventure payment enough?" Sirius responded, turning to her with that annoying cheeky smile. Dora marched up to him and held her hand out; Sirius sighed and gave her ten Galleons.
"Fuck yes!" she said.
Harry stormed up to her and shouted, "That's a bad word!"