Work Text:
The morning after the war ends at last, Teddy won’t stop crying.
Andromeda Tonks is missing a daughter and a son-in-law, both dead by (most likely) her own sister’s hand, and it is as if the child knows he has already lost something irreplaceable. Andromeda moves from room to room, not sleeping, trying to console her grandson but nothing seems to work.
Harry Potter shows up at her doorstep sometime after lunch, looking exhausted and war-torn, and Andromeda is immediately thrown back to a time before all this but much the same, when her cousin introduced her to his best friend. They are almost mirror images, tall limbs and rumpled hair and shapely jaw. Except the eyes. He has that lovely girl’s eyes.
Dead. Both of them dead before they had a chance to hit twenty-two, and now her Nymphadora and her Remus have gone the same way. But at least they are all together now, Andromeda thinks. Remus and James and Sirius and lovely Lily and her Ted and Nymphadora. Even Bellatrix has gone, although Andromeda doubts she’s with the rest of them.
Andromeda is alone. Alone except for Teddy, who has his mother’s eyes nine times out of ten, and his father’s nose in the mornings. And Harry Potter is at her door, and there’s a girl with bushy brown hair and haunted eyes, and a freckled girl and gangling boy who definitely have Prewett in them.
Harry Potter looks a bit awkward, and Andromeda knows he, like her, is probably remembering their last meeting. Cautiously, he says, “Mrs Tonks? May we speak with you a moment?”
Andromeda draws herself up to full height; she can see the brown-haired girl flinch a bit, and Andromeda catches sight of the scarring on her bare arms before the girl can yank her sleeve down. For a wild moment Andromeda thinks these people - these children - are here to arrest her. Question her like they did the first time, because of her maiden name and who she looks like and who she grew up with. Throw her in Azkaban without a trial like they did her cousin because of her blood, because toujours pur.
But then Teddy wails in the background and Andromeda’s hand twitches on her wand. Harry’s head jerks up, eyes darting towards the house, past Andromeda.
“Is that - is that Teddy?” he asks, and his voice is sharp like glass cracking underfoot.
“It is,” Andromeda says slowly, cautiously, because she knows Nymphadora and Remus named this child godfather, and really she thinks how lucky her Teddy is, having the saviour of the wizarding world as his guardian, but then again, Teddy is her flesh and blood, and she’ll be damned if she’s letting him go that easily. He is all she has left. She plants herself firmly in front of the door.
“He hasn’t had a good night’s sleep. He keeps - waking up in the night. Fussing.”
“You must be very tired,” the boy says.
Andromeda raises her chin defiantly. “I am perfectly well, thank you. Did you want something?”
Harry swallows, glances at his companions for assistance. The bushy-maned girl steps forward, wringing her hands.
“Please, Mrs Tonks, we don’t wish to intrude. We only meant - well, that is, Remus and To - Nymphadora - they made Harry Teddy’s godfather -”
“I am well aware of who my grandson’s godfather is,” Andromeda says coolly.
The girl blanches and moves closer to the tall ginger man, who captures her small hand in his own larger one with ease and gives it a comforting squeeze. Andromeda sighs inwardly; so now she’s the kind of woman who frightens young girls.
The other girl, the slender, red-haired and freckle-faced girl, says, “Harry just wants to see him. That’s all. Besides anything else, he’s crying, so we can’t just stand on the doorstep all day.”
Andromeda blinks. The other three stare, eyes widened. Teddy’s cries grow louder. Andromeda meets the girl’s impassioned brown gaze, and thinks, This must be the one that helped lead the Hogwarts rebellion.
Andromeda opens her door, and lets the foursome into her home.
::
There are two sides to Andromeda Tonks, neé Black. The first side is the Tonks side: the name she chose, the life she made for herself. The bold, daring, risk-it-all-for-love girl with the laughing husband and epic love story and daughter with hair a hundred shades of the rainbow; the girl she knows gets defamed in parts of Knockturn and indeed Wiltshire, who’s name and face were banned in a house in North London. The girl that has a home full of magic and Muggle appliances; who uses a toaster and a cauldron; who has pictures of herself and her husband taken in ‘78 when the world was going to hell but they’re still smiling; the girl who has photos of a girl with different faces and yet always the same sparkle in her eyes lining the walls.
Then there is the other side, the Black side: the name she can’t shake off, tacked on to the end. It refuses to be forgotten, proud until the last. The cold, aloof, looks-too-much-like-the-other-one girl; the girl with the traitor cousin and idiot cousin and crazy sister and the proud, unyielding sister. The girl with her father’s eyes and mother’s way of holding herself, the Rosier poise. The girl who served Slytherin and loved Slytherin and was Slytherin; who still has letters from a girl called Bells and a girl called Cissa, and a charcoal drawing of a boy called Reggie from a boy named for the brightest star of all; who has, tucked quietly away in the pages of an old book on the bottom shelf of the bookcase, an aged photograph of three girls in identical dresses, raised in the same way but who then who were taken on completely different walks of life. The girls in the photo know none of this; they smile demurely and play with each other’s hair and dip curtsies without a care in the world.
Andromeda can tell her guests - for lack of a better word - are having some kind of internal struggle about where to pigeon-hole her. Which name to tack on to her. She smiles to herself, sipping her tea, enjoying the worried flicker of Ron Weasley’s eyelid. These children see life as so completely black and white, it amuses her. Good or evil. Gryffindor or Slytherin. Red or green. Sides taken at the drop of - or decision of - a Hat.
Harry, on the sofa with Teddy in the crook of his arm, keeps shooting her apprehensive looks. She can practically see the cogs whirring underneath that mop of hair of his.
Nymphadora’s mum but Bellatrix’s sister. Wife of a Muggle-born but a Slytherin prefect. Sacred 28 but blasted off the family tree. Lost so many to the war but stayed out of it - both times.
Good, Andromeda thinks. Let them squirm trying to figure it all out.
She takes another sip of tea.
::
The females, as usual, have much more nerve than the males of the species.
Harry fusses over the baby, cooing and jiggling and pulling silly faces. Ronald stares at the carpet, the walls, the photos, the furniture - Andromeda resists the urge to ask if he’s checking for house-elf heads. Ginevra has already proven she’s not afraid.
Andromeda is in the kitchen, putting the kettle on again, when Hermione Granger appears behind her.
“I am very sorry for your loss,” she says.
Andromeda turns, holding a blue china cup in one hand, and stares appraisingly at this girl.
Hermione’s voice doesn’t waver as she speaks of Remus - Professor Lupin, Andromeda thinks fondly; oh, how he would have loved that - and of what an inspiration he was. Of Nymphadora, too, and how she always kept morale up and made everyone smile even on the darkest days. How their love gave hope to so many. Hermione even speaks of Ted; “our friend Dean said he saved his life”; and Andromeda has to turn away, stare out of the window into the garden to blink back tears.
Ginevra and Ronald are absorbed in their own grief; they haven’t said anything, but Andromeda knows the signs and the looks. She thinks if Harry felt any more than he already does, he will collapse from the pain of it. Hermione, though - she has time for Andromeda, and acknowledges what Andromeda has lost.
“Thank you,” she says, briefly inclining her head, and gets a second cup.
::
It becomes a ritual of sorts. Every week Andromeda will answer the door or the Floo to either Harry or Hermione or, most likely because they come with one of the other two, Ginevra and Ronald. Sometimes it will be just one of them, sometimes two, sometimes all four. They bring news from outside, of how the rebuild of Hogwarts is going, of the Death Eater trials and hearings, of the funerals and the job offers. Sometimes they just bring tea or casseroles or pies from Molly Weasley. Once or twice, they bring a girl with large, wondering eyes and golden hair, and a tall boy with earth under his fingernails who has the Longbottom mouth.
Andromeda takes them in, listens to their news, drinks tea with Hermione and tells the Weasley’s to thank their mother. At first she feels bad imagining Molly going to all the effort, but Ronald just shrugs when she says this, his ears going red, muttering about how it’s good that she has something to do. Andromeda feels worse after that, and decides she must owl Molly to come over one day. They’ve met before, briefly, years ago; Nymphadora was fond of her second oldest, the one that escaped England to go wrangle dragons on the other side of the world. Andromeda tries to remember his name, feels another stab of guilt that she can’t.
Harry mostly keeps to Teddy. They’re never alone together, him and Andromeda, and he can never quite look her in the eye.
“He feels bad,” Hermione tells her one day, over chamomile and honey. “That he couldn’t save everyone, I mean.”
Andromeda looks up, delicate eyebrows arched, but before she can respond, Hermione adds, “Completely ridiculous, of course, but you try telling him that. I think being around Teddy is helping, though.”
“Children do bring out the best in these situations,” Andromeda agrees. “After all, it’s what it’s all for, isn’t it? The hope of the new generation.”
She’s being slightly ironic here; she recalls vividly telling herself something along the same lines when she was twenty-years old, after taking a pregnancy-test potion in the cramped kitchen in her and Ted’s first home. Hermione nods solemnly.
“He will grow up knowing how great they were,” Hermione says, reaching unexpectedly across the table, touching her hand lightly on top of Andromeda’s. She withdraws it just as quickly, looking embarrased.
After a moment, Andromeda says, “Of course he will. How could he not?”
::
The first time Teddy’s hair turns jet black, Harry smiles the first true smile Andromeda thinks she’s ever seen him give.
::
As the months go by, and the air loses the crisp, coolness of spring, and summer starts descending it’s sweltering blanket, Teddy cries less.
Teddy cries less and Harry starts to actually talk to her and Ronald and Ginevra start to lose that hunched, defensive exterior. Hermione and the tea stay the same.
One early morning in late July, Andromeda opens the door to a different flame-haired person. Someone new and yet someone of old.
“Molly,” Andromeda says, the familiar name tripping off her tongue before she can catch it. It seems strange, addressing the other woman so frankly, so openly; they know each other, but don’t. Andromeda has housed her children, eaten her dinners, and yet they’ve never really spoken. How strange, how war and tragedy bring people together. How poetic, almost.
Andromeda recognises the weariness in Molly’s face, the desperation, the loneliness. Andromeda hides in her house and behind her grandson and Molly hides in cooking and looking after other people. They are not so dissimiliar, despite everything.
Andromeda says, “Come in.”
::
They share homemade tea loaf over a freshly brewed pot of tea. Andromeda takes hers black, Molly has hers with a cube of brown sugar, and the cake mostly sits untouched.
Teddy stirs just as the women are taking their first sip. His cries muffle and crackle over the baby monitor, and Molly jumps in her seat, looking wildly around for the source of the nose as if expecting the baby to be under the table cloth.
“Here,” Andromeda says, taking the monitor out of the pocket of her dressing gown, placing it down on the table between them.
Molly stares at it. “Arthur would love that.”
Andromeda excuses herself and returns minutes later with Teddy in her arms. His hair this morning is sandy-brown, his eyes blue and angelic. Molly’s face softens when she sees him, relaxes into a true smile.
“Hello there,” she says, and Andromeda sees her hands twitch a fraction towards him, instinctively.
Andromeda gives him to her to hold, and Molly stutters a bit, but Andromeda speaks across her. “It’s fine. He likes strangers. He’s used to them by now, I suppose.”
To busy herself, and to stop Molly trying to give him back, Andromeda makes up a bottle and sticks it in the warmer.
“I bet that’s a sight to behold, a bunch of seventeen-year-olds and a baby,” Molly says, balancing Teddy on her knee.
Andromeda smiles apologetically. “Well, your Ron looks like a rabbit in the headlights a lot of the time, but Harry - he surprises me.”
“He surprises most people, I think.” Molly tickles Teddy under the chin, and sighs wistfully. “Would you believe I envy you?” A split second later her eyes go wide as she realises what she’s said; she shoots Andromeda a panicked look over Teddy’s head. “Oh, Andromeda, I didn’t mean - obviously it’s horrible how he came into your care - I just meant -”
“I know,” Andromeda says, because she’s tired of people tiptoeing around her, and she wants it least of all from Molly Weasley. “He keeps me busy.”
“I feel like all mine are too busy for me,” Molly says. “Ron and Ginny don’t have much time anymore. Damn reporters and Ministry officials everywhere. Ginny is trying so hard with Harry, the poor mite, and I think Ron might be off to Australia soon enough - don’t ask. Percy is home a lot, but I think it’s motivated by guilt; I don’t think we know how to talk to each other now without apologising. Bill has Fleur, and Charlie didn’t stop long, and George -” Molly breaks off; her grip on Teddy slackens and he gives a squawk which snaps her attention back. “George hasn’t been home in a while,” she says in a low voice. “Ron says he’s been staying at his shop, working all hours of the night -”
“We all cope in our own ways,” Andromeda says softly. She tests the bottle, and hands it to Molly, who really is a natural at this, able to drink her tea, hold a baby and feed him all at once.
It gives her something to do, anyway, and the silence that descends between the two women is comfortable enough
::
On the 31st, Andromeda gets an owl inviting her to The Burrow for Harry’s birthday. She writes an acceptance letter, doesn’t send it, throws it into the fire, and then writes it all out again and sends it before she changes her mind. She hasn’t left the house in weeks, and two hours before the party is set to begin Hermione Granger turns up at her house with a knowing smile and an outfit for Teddy.
There are lots of people there. Molly’s eldest with his scars and beautiful wife; the second oldest with his burns and easy smile; the third in a suit, sitting close to his father; the fourth eldest, a title that shouldn’t technically be his but for nine minutes, looking lost and withdrawn; and the now fifth and sixth children, staying close to Harry, who is looking bemused and apologetic that this gathering is happening in the first place.
There are others too: Frank and Alice’s boy, the dreamy-eyed girl, two boys - one dark-skinned and the other with a broad accent - sitting so close it’s almost impossible to tell they’re holding hands. Minerva McGonagall is sipping sherry by the fire, and she meets Andromeda’s gaze and nods politely. More turn up throughout the night, to shake Harry’s hand and wish him well, and they all have a similar air about them, a downward slope to their shoulders, scars here and there and probably more unseen. The survivors of the war, all come together to celebrate the birth of a hero.
Andromeda thinks of this day eighteen years ago, when her cousin sent her an owl with the news that he was a godfather and how proud he was. With this in mind Andromeda passes Teddy to Harry, and Teddy gurgles happily and makes a grab for his glasses. Harry laughs and looks relieved at the excuse to stop greeting people.
Andromeda is in the garden watching the shadowy figures of gnomes running through the grass when she hears a twig snap behind her. She whirls, wand out, but it’s only a Weasley - the second eldest - Nymphadora’s friend -
“Charlie Weasley,” he says, and Andromeda is so relieved to finally have his name she nearly cries. She shakes his hand, and he looks at her evenly before saying, “I was friends with your daughter in school.”
“I remember.”
“I was very sad to hear about it,” he says, his face so honest and open it almost breaks her heart all over again. “We hadn’t spoken in a few years, but still - she was very brave. I’m truly sorry for your loss, Mrs Tonks.”
“And I, yours,” Andromeda says quietly.
Charlie Weasley nods. “Thank you.” Then, he laughs, abrupt and sudden in the night air. “It feels so strange, saying ‘thank you’ when someone is apologising for the death of a family member - but then, it’s just what’s done, isn’t it?”
“You get used to it,” Andromeda says, because he might as well have the truth.
Charlie shoves his hands in his pockets, stares out into the distance. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
::
The conversations, for the first months, never seem to pass without mentioning the ones that have been lost. Even in the silences the dead are acknowledged, in the rims around Molly’s eyes and the way George Weasley winces ever so slightly when he sees his reflection. Charlie says that the last time he went to visit the shop, all the mirrors had been turned around and George hadn’t shaved in days.
Charlie and Kingsley talk about Nymphadora, stories of Hufflepuff v Gryffindor Quidditch matches and Auror training. Dean Thomas introduces himself and talks about Ted, asks how they met, says he spoke about her every day. Harry talks about Remus, mostly.
Andromeda shows him photographs he’s never seen before, the ones that no one thought to send to him in his photo album because they didn’t have James or Lily in them. Or, if they did, it was only an arm or the back of the head; the main shots are of Remus with Sirius, laughing into the camera, leaning into each other, their smiles wide and the future theirs for the taking. Harry stares for hours and hours, rifling through, until he stumbles across the carefully hidden picture of Andromeda, Narcissa and Bellatrix.
No one talks about Bella. Andromeda doesn’t know if there was a funeral, or if there’s a gravestone or any place at all where her sister is remembered. Harry looks at the picture for so long that Andromeda half thinks he’s going to rip it in two, but then he shoves it back where it was and leaves the room, goes to find Teddy, and then leaves a few hours later with barely a goodbye.
Molly arrives at her house the next day and puts the kettle on (the Muggle way, Andromeda notices). “He’s not angry at you,” she explains. “It’s just - difficult for him. Bellatrix Lestrange was a monster. She killed Sirius, and Nymphadora and Remus - and Merlin knows who else.”
Andromeda does not need to hear this again. “I do not grieve for Bellatrix Lestrange. I grieve for a girl who was lost to me years ago.”
Molly snorts. “There are some who would say Bella Black was just as bad. Tell me you don’t forgive her, Andromeda, for goodness sake.”
“Of course not,” Andromeda snaps. “I am not a fool, Molly. I know what my sister became. However, I will not apologise for a picture I keep in my own home.”
A somewhat strained silence follows, broken occasionally by the clink of metal against china as Molly stirs sugar into her tea. Andromeda blows over the rim of her cup to cool her own drink.
“I never had sisters,” Molly says at last, meeting Andromeda’s gaze again. “Only brothers.”
“I remember,” Andromeda murmurs. “Gideon and Fabian, wasn’t it?”
Molly nods, a small smile appearing at the corners of her mouth, although her eyes are sad.
“Ooh, they used to tease me rotten,” the red-haired woman says. “Younger than me, they were, but they used to wind me up all the same. It was a nightmare trying to keep them in check - I think you would have had some experience in that matter, wouldn’t you? You were a prefect during their time at Hogwarts, if I remember.”
“That’s right,” Andromeda says, chuckling. “Gods, the amount of times Ted and I caught them in the midst of some prank or scheme. Forerunners of James Potter and Sirius Black, the Prewetts were. And your own boys,” she adds softly, inclining her head at Molly.
Molly’s brown eyes have a definite mistiness about them. She takes a long drink of her tea, and then, “We named the twins after them. You may have already guessed. When the Healer told Arthur and I it was twin boys, well, I knew instantly who I wanted to honour. Fabian and Gideon poked fun, said it would be a self-fufilling prophecy and I didn’t know what I was getting myself in for, but I think they were flattered. They’d never admit it, of course.” She sighs, fingers curling around the handle of her mug and holding it close to her, as if to absorb its warmth. “It’s a shame Fred and George never knew them.”
Andromeda remembers the two sparkling-eyed, red-haired twins of her youth, remembers all the times she spent chasing them away from the Slytherin common room or worse. They died not long before the first war ended; she’d read about it in the Daily Prophet one morning over breakfast, had showed it to Ted who’d shook his head and muttered “poor bastards” as he’d prepared cereal for Nymphadora.
Andromeda knows the Prewetts had most likely died doing something incredibly brave and incredibly stupid, as Gryffindors are wont to do. The papers had reported it took numerous Death Eaters to kill them. She wonders, morbidly, which one died first, how many minutes the other one had to endure without his twin. Now, thinking of poor pale-faced, haunted George Weasley, she hopes it wasn’t long.
“I used to want a sister for Ginny,” Molly continues, her voice regaining some strength. “Myself, growing up with Gideon and Fabian and all their antics, knew how having brothers could be. But now, I’m glad she has brothers. She has so many protectors.”
Andromeda says, “I hardly think your girl needs protecting.”
Molly’s eyes darken. “I worried for her the most. I feel awful about it. As a mother, surely you’re not supposed to have one child you worry more about - but I couldn’t help it. Can’t help it, still. After all she’s been through, after that horrid ordeal when she was eleven - I lost myself a bit, at the Battle. When I thought about someone hurting her, so soon after Fred -”
Andromeda knows what’s coming. “Molly,” she says quietly. “Don’t. It’s all right.”
“I killed Bellatrix Lestrange,” Molly says, and there it is, out in the open at long last. The thing both women knew but no one wanted to acknowledge; they’d been tiptoeing around the subject for all the time they’d known each other.
The declaration hangs heavy in the kitchen for a moment, both women staring at each other, until Andromeda nods. “I know.”
“I just - couldn’t stand it,” Molly chokes out. Her hand upon the tea mug is trembling. “I couldn’t lose another child, not my Ginny - and I killed her, and I’m sorry. Not because she’s your sister, Andromeda, but because I couldn’t do it sooner - that I let Fred die, and I saved Ginny, so why couldn’t I save him too?”
“Molly, you’re not to blame and you know it,” Andromeda snaps.
Her heart is thudding in her chest. She doesn’t know what to do with this woman’s confession, with her guilt. Andromeda feels enough of her own.
“We all feel guilt. That we didn’t save enough, or do enough. Look at Harry. Look at myself. I couldn’t save my sister from the madness that consumed her; I couldn’t save my other sister from the Pureblood society that got its claws into her. I couldn’t save Regulus, or Sirius. I lost Remus. I lost my daughter and my husband to this godforsaken war. I lost my Ted because he was from a Muggle family, and I was sitting pretty and safe because of who my parents were. I hated myself, but not enough to come out of hiding, not enough to join him on the run, or to fight in the Battle like my daughter and son-in-law and you and everyone else. I know about guilt, Molly.”
Molly’s shaking hand reaches across to grasp Andromeda’s, and there it stills.
“I shouldn’t even be here,” Andromeda says bitterly. “I don’t deserve it.”
“I’m glad you are,” Molly tells her. “And so is Teddy. You’re needed, Andromeda. You’re needed here.”
::
Harry arrives at her house two days after he stormed out, a sheepish look on his face and a hurried apology for being rude.
“I was hoping I could take Teddy for a walk,” he says, looking at his feet. “If - if that’s all right with you, Mrs Tonks.”
Andromeda opens the door. “He’s missed you,” she says, and Harry practically melts relief over the door mat as he steps inside.
::
Hermione is going back to Hogwarts on September 1st. Andromeda is hardly surprised when Harry tells her, over dinner at her house with Ginny in tow, although she must admit she’s curious as to why Harry isn’t joining her.
“The Chosen One doesn’t need an education,” Ginny says solemnly, her eyes dancing wickedly.
Harry blushes furiously and she laughs, the first laugh Andromeda has heard from her.
“I suppose the Aurors want you, then?” she guesses, and Harry, still red-faced, half-shrugs and mumbles something to the table cloth.
“Of course they do,” Ginny says impatiently. “Who better for the job? Honestly, Harry, stop being so modest. You saved the world; you’re allowed a bit of an ego.”
Andromeda remembers seventeen-year-old Nymphadora, fresh from her Hogwarts career training, home for the Easter holidays and talking excitedly about catching Dark wizards and enrolling herself at the Auror Training Center as soon as she graduated. Andromeda thinks of all the nights she and Ted stayed awake, worried, waiting for an owl or a Floo after she’d been sent on a mission. She used to curse Kingsley Shacklebolt and Alastor Moody for what they did to her girl, although ultimately she can’t imagine Nymphadora doing anything else.
“I think you’ll do a fine job,” Andromeda says to Harry.
Ginny gives him a triumphant ‘I-told-you-so’ sort of look. Harry smiles weakly at her, and eats the rest of his dinner in silence.
::
September is a lonely month.
Harry is busy with Auror training, and Hermione and Ginny have gone back to Hogwarts. Hermione sends owls intermittently, about how the rebuild is coming along; that there are still bits of the castle that they can’t get to, parts that are so fractured and stained by Dark magic that it’s dangerous to even get close. When she’s not in her classes, Hermione is helping with the effort to restore Hogwarts to its former glory.
It doesn’t sound like the Hogwarts Andromeda remembers; Hermione writes that the intake this year was small, and there are hundreds upon hundreds of Muggle-born children who have never received their letters due to being wiped from the system last year. All over Britain and Ireland there are children unknowingly committing accidental magic; the DMLE and Magic-Reversal Squad are working around the clock to put things right, but it’s a hard slog.
Most of the students last year didn’t return, so much so that the Seventh and Eight Year students have been combined, and now she shares a dorm with Ginny and a girl called Parvati. Dean and Seamus returned, but Neville and Ron, along with Harry, have been snatched up by the Aurors, who need all hands on deck to round up the last of the Death Eaters and testify at their trials.
Hermione reports that Slytherin is a broken house. A first year girl was Sorted there at the welcoming ceremony, and promptly burst into tears. Hardly any of the students from the previous year have returned; only Theodore Nott, Millicent Bulstrode and Tracy Davis had managed to keep well enough out of the war to return. They’d done their bit of terror under the reign of the Carrows, true enough, but as Theo had emancipated himself from his father and neither the Davis nor Bulstrode families had Death Eater links, they wanted to continue their education.
Quite brave of them, really, Hermione writes, and it strikes Andromeda again how bright this young girl truly is.
Hermione doesn’t write about Draco, and Andromeda assumes that her nephew is in hiding, or else not in the country at all. Andromeda has seen articles in the paper about her sister’s family, all about how the Malfoy name is in disgrace, but she never reads them. She can’t quite connect this tired, fraught-looking woman from the front page of the Daily Prophet with the image of her sister.
Teddy gets bigger, now eating and experimenting with actual food. He likes spinach, like Nymphadora did, but spits butternut squash and carrot puree all over her robes the first time she tries him with it. Andromeda wipes herself clean while Teddy giggles from his high-chair, and she can’t be mad at him.
He can now sometimes manage to sit himself up without toppling over. He gets enthusiastic at times and tries to reach too far beyond his grasp, and Andromeda gets good at reflexively shooting Cushioning Charms in his general direction to break his fall.
As Harry is working so much lately, it’s mostly just the two of them, and Andromeda knows that Teddy will soon tire of playing with pots and pans and the few tattered books of Nymphadora’s she’d found in storage. Once she lets him play with her old wand, thinking it could do little harm - the thing is mostly useless, shooting sparks at random intervals - but then she returns to the living room to find the curtains on fire, so that puts an end to that.
Mid-September Andromeda puts on her coat, bundles Teddy tightly into his own winter clothes, places a Warming Charm on the buggy, and takes him to Diagon Alley to the toy shop she remembers being there.
It’s the first time she’s been out with Teddy in five months, and Andromeda feels instant guilt at the delight on his pudgy face. He reaches for the falling leaves that swirl in front of his face, laughs when Andromeda pushes the buggy faster over the cobbles. The fresh air is welcome, and as Andromeda nears the side street leading to the shop she’s just thinking this isn’t so bad after all. Teddy has a brightly coloured bobble hat on, his changeable hair covered from view, and she’s wrapped up in a thick shawl and scarf, so no one recognises them. There are no whispers or finger-pointing, and it’s just nice, a grandmother out for a walk with her grandson.
Andromeda is nearly there when she catches sight of the white-blonde hair, and she has to grab the handle of the buggy tightly to stop Teddy from crashing into Ollivander’s wand shop. She looks around, but the people all around her are dull, no one standing out to her.
It’s your imagination, she tells herself. You’ve been inside for so long you’re starting to see things, you mad old woman.
Teddy, annoyed at being still for so long, starts to cry; Andromeda sighs and heads into the toy shop.
::
She’s forgotten all about the incident until an owl swoops down on the breakfast table three days later, dropping a letter into her porridge.
Thinking it must be Hermione with another one of her updates, Andromeda doesn’t hesitate in opening it, doesn’t even really glance at it. In doing so she doesn’t see the wax seal on the front, doesn’t recognise the handwriting until she’s reading the first line and her heart has practically stilled.
She hasn’t seen her sister’s handwriting in twenty years.
Andromeda,
Forgive me for being presumptuous and writing this. I have told myself it’s a bad idea and yet I cannot seem to stop myself. This is the fourth attempt at this letter and still I cannot quite find the words I want to say. So I shall keep it simple.
Was that you in Diagon Alley on Friday?
Sincerely,
Narcissa Malfoy
Andromeda stares at the letter, an odd desire to laugh bubbling up inside her. She remembers a lifetime ago, after the fight with her family when she ran away with Ted, when she tried writing to Narcissa, only to have every letter ignored.
Her eyes bore into the signature, the way her sister still loops the ends of her y’s and g’s the way she did when they were children. She glances up at the handsome eagle owl waiting on the back of her chair, as if waiting for confirmation on what to do. The owl ruffles its feathers importantly and hoots at her to hurry up.
She can’t.
“Shoo,” she mutters, flapping at the bird. It flies back, looking affronted, and rests on the windowsill by the open window, its large amber eyes staring at her indignantly. “I said, shoo! Go, away with you!” she shouts, motioning the owl out of her house, and shutting the window firmly closed behind it.
::
She tries to put it out of her mind, until one day her doorbell sounds and, upon opening the front door, Andromeda has to stop herself from slamming it closed again when she sees who is on the other side.
“Andromeda,” her sister says.
Narcissa is pale, paler than she’s ever been. She’s always been fair and willowy, something neither Andromeda or Bellatrix had ever been - in their youth Narcissa has been complimented endlessly on her porcelin complexion and golden hair, but now she just looks waxy and wan. Her hair is still blonde but some grey has started to show. Her once flawless skin is lined, her mouth drawn tightly together.
“You are not welcome here,” Andromeda says stiffly, her hand on the door, but Narcissa shoves her foot inside, stopping it from being closed.
“Andromeda, I know I’m probably the last person you want to drop in for a social call - but listen to me. Hear me out.”
There is a feirce determination in her sister’s eyes Andromeda has never seen. Narcissa was never the fiery one; that was for powerful Bellatrix, rebellious Andromeda. Narcissa had always been the dutiful daughter; her eyes more likely to shine and sparkle with light than dance with fire.
“You have two minutes,” Andromeda says crisply.
“Must I remain on the doorstep?” Narcissa hisses.
Andromeda folds her arms, raises an eyebrow. “Unless you want to be cursed into next Tuesday, yes. Don’t doubt I wouldn’t do it, Narcissa.”
“I don’t doubt it at all,” Narcissa says quietly.
It feels like a hundred years before slowly, so slowly, Andromeda opens the door and allows Narcissa Malfoy to step into her home. Narcissa looks momentarily surprised at the gesture, but then steps gracefully over the threshold and into the entrance hall. Andromeda nods in the direction of the kitchen, preferring Narcissa to go first, keeping a sharp eye on her all the way.
The thing that strikes Andromeda the most is that Narcissa still takes her tea in the same way she always did, sweet and over-brewed. Like Mother used to.
When they were children scampering around the town house in Knockturn Alley or visiting Grimmauld Place, playing at being grown-ups with hosted tea parties for their stuffed bears and porcelain dolls, Narcissa always made the house-elves brew her tea in Mother’s best china tea set, and often dragged Andromeda along to play as well. She invited Bellatrix once, but Bellatrix turned it into a game of make-believe, saying that one of the cups had poison in them.
“There’s to be a murder!” Bellatrix said, eyes shining. “Will it be Mr Bear, I wonder, or dear Miss Penelope that gets it?”
Narcissa had wailed and cried and said that Bella was ruining everything; Bellatrix had gotten bored and left her to it, saying Narcissa was a baby and she didn’t want to play with her anyway.
“Are you even listening to me?” Narcissa asks, and Andromeda is jolted back to the here and now. She blinks, startled; the woman in front of her is not the girl she knew, the girl who cried on the station platform when Andromeda boarded the Hogwarts Express for the first time.
“No,” she admits.
“Honesty. How refreshing.”
“Is there any point in being anything else?” Andromeda asks.
Narcissa smiles thinly, her little finger sticking out as she curls one delicate looking hand around her cup. “No, I suppose not. Not after everything.”
“Why are you here?”
“To see you, of course,” Narcissa answers at once.
“And does your husband know you are here, I wonder?”
Narcissa’s reply is terse. “I doubt he gets much news of my comings and goings from his cell in Azkaban.”
Narcissa’s stares coolly at Andromeda as if daring her to comment.
Against her better judgement, Andromeda asks, “And your son?”
“Draco is under house-arrest for another four months, but did not get a prison sentence. We have Harry Potter to thank for that.”
Andromeda smiles. “He truly is a surprising child.”
“On friendly terms with yourself, as I understand.” Narcissa’s tone is probing; Andromeda can see curiosity dancing in her eyes. “Godfather to your grandson, correct?”
Andromeda nods. “He’s sat where you are right now many times, as a matter of fact.”
Narcissa raises her eyebrows. “Are you hoping to disgust me into leaving? It may surprise you to know, but I harbour no ill-will towards the Potter boy.”
“He imprisoned your husband. Twice.”
“And he saved my son.” Narcissa waves an impatient hand. “What’s done is done. I am trying to make Draco see the importance of that. Of - moving on. Forgiving.”
Andromeda can’t hold back the derisive laugh that escapes her. The whole situation is too surreal. “Are you the same Narcissa that ignored my letters for years, now preaching about forgiveness and laying differences aside?”
“No,” Narcissa says. “I’m not the same. I don’t think any of us are.”
::
Molly nearly has a fit when Andromeda mentions Narcissa’s visit.
“Are you mad?” she demands. “Narcissa Malfoy, in your home? Andromeda, she could have - she could have killed you!”
“Oh, Molly, don’t be dramatic,” Andromeda says, busying herself with mashing carrots for Teddy’s lunch. “I doubt Narcissa has ever killed anything in her entire dainty life.”
“Dainty?” Molly repeats, eyes wide. She’s staring at Andromeda as if she’s lost her mind.
Andromeda just shrugs. She doesn’t care to discuss it any further, doesn’t feel she owes anyone much of an explanation about it. Still, she doesn’t mention it to Molly the second time Narcissa comes to tea, or the third or indeed the fourth time.
The sixth time, Narcissa opens up about what really happened that night in the Forbidden Forest, how she testified that Harry was dead, how she enabled him to be led back into the castle to fight again.
Andromeda is silent for a long time. At last, she manages, “Harry never told me that.”
“Well, I imagine one’s death is a somewhat private affair,” Narcissa says primly. “You could ask him, I suppose, or read the paper’s - he has mentioned it in one or two interviews; I expect it’s what kept me from Azkaban myself. But then, I assume you decline to read the news about me?”
“I prefer to skip the news entirely. Hermione keeps me up to date, mostly.”
“The Granger girl?”
Andromeda nods.
Narcissa says, idly, “Draco told me she hit him once.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“Oh, I must admit I struggled not to lose my patience with him. Lucius was mortified of course; a son of his being bested by a Muggle-born.”
“Muggle-born? Cissy, how progressive of you.”
Narcissa’s eye-roll is barely disguised. “And calling me Cissy? How progressive of you.”
::
They don’t discuss Bellatrix, and the first time Narcissa comments on a photo of Nymphadora, Andromeda firmly changes the subject. Some things she is still not ready to share with her sister.
Still, Narcissa surprises her with her good memory - she can remember anecdotes from their childhood Andromeda had long forgotten, can do an uncanny impression of Great Aunt Cassiopeia that makes Andromeda laugh with her sister for the first time in decades. Sometimes, it’s not so bad, it’s as if all the awful things in between have never happened, as if politics and blood never divided them. Other times, it’s less good, and when Andromeda tells Narcissa the truth about Regulus’ death, the blonde woman grips her teacup so hard her knuckles turn white. They were always close, Andromeda knows, and it’s not a pleasant tale.
“He was always a soft-hearted fool,” Narcissa whispers, blinking back tears.
Andromeda passes her a handkerchief. “He did the right thing, in the end.”
“Gods, what Aunt Walburga would have said. Can you imagine?”
“The shrieking, the wailing - do you remember Mother’s face whenever she had one of her tantrums while we were visiting?”
Narcissa presses the handkerchief to her mouth, trying to hide her smile. “I remember Christmas, 19 - oh, what was it? 1966, I believe.”
“Oh, with Uncle Alphard drinking too much, and calling Aunt Walburga a sour old crone, and her throwing the candelabra? Mother was disgraced, I’m sure.”
“Remember, ‘a Rosier never loses composure, girls’.”
“It was her eternal shame we were born to be Blacks.”
“Well,” Narcissa says, eyes flicking to the wedding band on Andromeda’s finger. “That changed too, didn’t it?”
Andromeda twirls her ring. She can’t bring herself to take it off; not yet.
“Andromeda, I’m -”
“Don’t,” Andromeda interrupts. She can tell what’s coming. “You never knew him. You never knew her. I don’t need your fake apologies.”
“I understand you’re hurting -”
“You can’t understand. Your husband and child are alive.”
“How you must hate me for that,” Narcissa says quietly.
Andromeda stands up. “There are worse things I hate you for, Narcissa. I think it’s time you left.”
Narcissa wraps her cloak around her shoulders and pauses with one hand in the Floo powder. “Why don’t you come to tea at mine next? How about a week on Sunday?”
Andromeda doesn’t reply, and Narcissa leaves via the Floo in a whoosh of emerald flames. Andromeda stands staring at the empty fireplace for several moments, until the crackle of the baby monitor and Teddy’s babbling moves her into action.
::
She writes to Hermione to ask about Narcissa and the forest and Harry, and Hermione confirms her sister’s story in her reply owl. For a long while Andromeda sits at her kitchen table staring at the letter, at the words on the parchment, her cup of tea growing cold beside her.
So it’s true. Her sister saved Harry Potter’s life.
“I wonder what you would have made of all this,” Andromeda murmurs to Ted’s photograph on the windowsill.
Ted-in-the-photo waves at her, offers her one of his lopsided grins, like he knows everything.
“No need to be so smug about it,” she says, rolling her eyes at him.
She’s not too surprised to find herself up early that Sunday morning, and she stifles a laugh at the thought of what Molly would say as she dips her hand into the Floo powder, one arm holding Teddy close to her.
“Malfoy Manor,” she says clearly, and Teddy shrieks excitedly in her ear the whole journey.
The first thing she sees when she rights herself is an exquisite drawing room with a plush carpet and rich wallpaper lined with portraits all shooting her curious looks. She can hear them muttering to their neighbours as she glances around, her gaze falling on the thin blonde-haired young man sat on a high-backed chair, clutching the arms nervously. Then, she sees Narcissa, striding towards her, smiling.
“Andromeda,” she says. “And this must be Teddy too? Draco, come, come meet your aunt and cousin. Oh, I feel all a muddle, as if we’re doing this completely backwards -”
“- Or maybe twenty years too late?” Andromeda suggests, as her nephew gets to his feet and approaches cautiously.
Narcissa’s smile falters for a moment, and so Andromeda does the first thing she thinks of: she dumps Teddy into Narcissa’s arms. Narcissa’s eyes widen, and then, after a moment, her whole body relaxes and she smiles again. This time, she looks more like the sparkling sister Andromeda remembers from their childhood.
Andromeda takes a deep breath. She feels as though she’s lived a long time, far longer than really it has been. Perhaps this is the effect of living two lives, she thinks. And how strange, that now they are beginning to intertwine, her lives, to reconnect to each other.
“Well,” she says briskly. “We have a lot to talk about in any case. Do you want to put on a pot of tea?”
It won’t be an easy course, Andromeda knows, but it’s a good a place to start as any.