September Thirtieth: Nymphadora Tonks
The Florida air is warm and thick, even at midnight, and Tonks wants to sway her body like the palm trees. When she closes her eyes, her skin tingles in the breeze.
Her hair is the color of the flamingos, and she wants to wade into the swamp water, stand on one leg, and let the sound of the birds taking flight lift her up into the air.
She's been here for a week, tracking a suspect, but she pretends she is on vacation, where dark wizards and dark wizard catchers alike brush away sand from between their toes and remark on how hard their lives are while turning the pages of their beach reading and crunching on crushed ice from their sparkling drinks.
She sits out in the patio just before dawn, and watches the waves. An owl waits perched on the table beside her, its eyes half-closed, as though it, too, were mesmerized by the sound of the water. Instead of writing a letter in reply, Tonks is sending a postcard with an alligator on the front, its stubby legs advancing up the grassy hill and its head held high in a roar.
She writes, in clear, steady cursive, "If you were here, if I could touch you, my hands would begin to sing."