Tonks: the Metamorphmagus Auror of the Order of the Phoenix

She shows up with bubble-gum pink hair and knocks over an umbrella stand on arrival. Tonks is one of those characters who walk in making noise and stay in readers' hearts. She asks for one thing only: don't call her Nymphadora.

Who she is

Nymphadora Tonks is an Auror, the daughter of Andromeda Black and the Muggle-born Ted Tonks. She is a Metamorphmagus: she changes her appearance at will, with no wand or potion, and can shift her hair color, her nose or her whole face. According to Rowling she was in Hufflepuff, though the books never say so.

She is young, clumsy with objects and very skilled at magic. She laughs at herself, jokes about her looks and treats Harry as an equal from day one.

Key moments

• Order of the Phoenix, ch. 3: she is part of the group that collects Harry from the Dursleys'. She introduces herself as Tonks and warns that Nymphadora is a name she doesn't use.
• Order of the Phoenix, ch. 4: at Grimmauld Place she knocks over the troll-leg umbrella stand and wakes the portrait of Mrs. Black.
• Order of the Phoenix, ch. 6: the Black family tree shows where she comes from: her mother was burned off the tree for marrying a Muggle-born.
• Deathly Hallows, ch. 31: Harry sees Tonks's body beside Lupin's in the Great Hall after the battle.
• Deathly Hallows, ch. 37: her son, Teddy Lupin, is on the platform with Victoire.

Relationships

With Lupin she lives a story he tries to stop for months, because of the age gap and his lycanthropy. She insists and wins him over. They marry and have Teddy, whom Harry takes on as his godson.

Tonks is also the niece of Bellatrix and Narcissa, whom she fights. Moody, her old instructor, respects her more than he lets on. With Harry she is warm and direct, and when he looks for advice in the Order, she always answers without dodging.

What almost nobody notices

On the Black family tree, the burned hole where Andromeda used to be explains why Tonks is the only one of that generation who isn't on her aunts' side. It is a pure-blood family that rejects anyone who marries a Muggle-born, and she walks out of it with colored hair and her father's surname.

Tonks and Lupin die in the same battle and leave Teddy an orphan, just like Harry. The book leaves it there with no comment.

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