Three Letters
Andromeda Black trembles as she stands on the doorstep of the London flat. It's snowing, but the slushy, painful snow, the snow that no one braves, not even the ones with death wishes. She doesn't understand why she is here, but her hand hovers precariously next to the door, visibly shaking. She's sobbing like an animal in pain and trying to keep it together for a few more minutes, but it's way past time to keep it together (it's gone, baby, gone).
She can't knock. She turns to go, decides she'll run somewhere else, somewhere far away. She laughs once, hard, high, hysterical. Oh my God. Oh my God. She's gone insane at last. (insanity runs in the family - the family - oh God)
She wants to go home. It's really a shame she doesn't know where that is.
She turns back. She raises her shaking hand. And she knocks once (stop), just loud enough to shatter any second thoughts.
They bump into each other and Andromeda drops all her things. She watches, transfixed, as her quills and ink bottles roll across the floor. Curious how she doesn't move to gather them up.
"I'm so sorry!" the boy she has collided with keeps apologizing, his earnest grey eyes searching hers. His disheveled sandy hair covers the grey eyes, and Andy is reminded irresistably of the sun shining through the clouds.
"It's fine," she says once, and that silences him. Was it her tone? Her manner? Was it the snake crest stitched onto her robes? Whatever it was, she never finds out. He nods, helps her pick up her things, and they walk to their class together, careful and gentle, two glass boats on a stormy sea.
XXX
"Stay away from him," Bella warns her. They - Bella, Cissy, and herself - are around the Common Room fire, talking. "He's a mudblood, Andy, didn't you know?" Shock, like ice water, trickles into her brain until it finally registers.
"A mudblood?" she squeaks, disbelieving. Mudbloods weren't supposed to be kind, or helpful. They weren't supposed to have sunshine faces, or anything of that sort. "A mudblood," she repeats, doubtful.
"Rodolphus told me," Bella explains. Andy nods, expecting for this dose of reality to cure her of her strange ability to find him in a crowd or conjure his face up with any expression. But it doesn't. If anything, this odd feeling grows worse.
XXX
He was in Hufflepuff. He was a muggleb - mudblood. He was awful at Potions, but could perform any Charm to perfection. He was funny, had many friends, was single for the moment and a string of admirers. The facts she had gathered and treasured like seashells from the outings to the seaside gave her a curious feeling, like feeling warm all over, but not hot.
He talked to her. Just once, in Charms. But it had been enough and the warm feeling intensified.
XXX
She sits down next to him under a tree on the grounds. They don't talk. Her sisters aren't there. His friends aren't there. It is as though they are equals, though Andy knows that can't be.
She pretends she doesn't know who he is, what he is. The prejudices are still there, still smoldering, like coals from a dying fire, eager to be stoked. It's dangerous. And yet.
XXX
There comes the day when she says hello. He returns the favor. She feels lighter, and happier, until the letter is thrust into her hands by a sobbing Cissy.
Her father's sick. Her father might be dying.
Andromeda is overcome with guilt. Somehow, she doesn't know how, but somehow this is all her fault. She went behind her father's back, and it's killing him. She resolves to be better, stronger. She doesn't want to talk to the mudblood anymore (yes she does). She doesn't want to talk to anyone.
She goes back to the Common Room, sits with Bella for awhile. She wishes her sister would stop staring at her.
XXX
He seems to think that just because she said hello they are friends. Andromeda sets out to correct that notion.
"Go away," she says when he approaches her in the library. There is a sting of hurt in his eyes, but he sits down anyways. "I don't want to talk to you, mudblood," she says, louder. The library has had all the air sucked out of it. People are staring. Two red flags of humiliation are high on Ted Tonks' cheeks. "Go away."
He does.
XXX
It's unexpected. But most things are, with Ted. Andromeda is walking on the grounds, alone, and he appears out of nowhere.
"You think you're better than everyone else, don't you?" he asks, bold. Andromeda fixes an icy stare on him, but he's unaffected. She wants, very badly, to hex him. She's not stuck-up. She just doesn't want to talk to people anymore. Not since Daddy got sick.
"Yes," she replies, and leaves him standing alone.
XXX
The next day when she sees him, he is laughing with his friends. He catches her eye and Andromeda stares him down. Without breaking eye contact, he leans back and says something to one of his friends. They laugh all the harder.
Andromeda struggles to remember that she doesn't care.
XXX
She finds herself writing out a note to him, scratching it out, rewriting it. Every line in ink is as deadly as any curse, but Andromeda cannot help herself. She drops the note in front of him during class, daring him to pick it up with a low-lidded glare.
He doesn't disappoint.
XXX
When he meets her outside the greenhouses, she is determined to set things straight.
"I don't know what your deal is," she says coldly, "but I would appreciate it if you leave me alone."
"Why?" he asks. Andromeda swallows.
"I don't want to talk to you," she says.
"But, why?"
Andromeda can't answer that. Apparently, Ted can.
"I know all about you," he says, and his cloud grey eyes darken to storms. "Your sisters. Your family."
"Don't talk to me about my family," Andromeda cuts him off and leaves.
They don't say a word to each other for weeks.
XXX
But they never did before, so what does she care? XXX
She supposes there is a mutual hatred.
XXX
But she doesn't care.
XXX
She goes up to the Owlery, sits on the roof. She's crying so hard she can't catch her breath.
There's another chilling letter in her hand. In its inky contents there lies a ring.
She's been sold, like a prize, to the highest bidder. And the highest bidder is the cold, unfeeling, horrible Lucius Malfoy. She can't believe her mother - her father - anyone would do this. Her freedom, negotiated away...
In a twist of cruel, laughing fate, somoeone is delivering a letter outside of the Owlery. Andromeda stops crying long enough to peek over the edge - and wishes she hadn't.
"Hey!" Ted yelps, his owl puffing up indignantly and flapping off. "What the bloody hell - "
"Go - away - !" Andromeda yells, trying to keep the tears out of her voice. An annoyed silence floats up from the place where she knows he's standing. She gasps as a hand gropes around at the edge of the roof, then hurriedly turns away as the rest of Ted Tonks heaves himself up with her.
"It's the Owlery," he says after a moment, dryly. "You can't expect any privacy at the Owlery. You want a real hiding place?" He disregards Andromeda's silence deftly. "Go to the Forbidden Forest. No one ever goes in there."
"Go away," she says again, tears welling up. She feels, rather than sees, him gaping.
"Bloody hell. You're crying."
"Go away," she repeats, and she thinks he does, it gets so quiet. But when she turns around at last, frozen and miserable, he's still there, a puzzled frown on his face.
"You're crying," he says again, as though surprised she's human enough to do so.
"I bleed too," Andromeda snaps, wiping away the traces of weakness. And she leaves. And wonders whether she should go to the Forbidden Forest after all.
XXX
They have a screaming match, right in the middle of the corridor. She doesn't know how it started. She thinks it was when Ted put his arm around that Hufflepuff girl. Or maybe it was when she caught him laughing at her because she was staring at the arm around the Hufflepuff girl's waist.
It wasn't that she was jealous. She just didn't like him doing that.
And now they're both in detention.
She hates him. XXX
Sprout scolds Ted while Slughorn scolds Andromeda. She doesn't care about that part. She's gotten in trouble before. She and Sirius used to prank everyone. But now Sirius is too old to play games. And she can't stand the way Ted keeps glancing at her. Like it's all her fault, or something.
They are forced to clean out the Owlery. There are memories roosting with the owls, and Andromeda is getting the nasty feeling that he's remembering the day she cried. She snaps when she sees his eyes flicking away for the tenth time.
"Would you just stop it?"
"Stop what?"
"Staring at me like that. I don't like it."
"I'm not staring."
"Yes you are."
"Am not." He's childish. She loathes him for that. He doesn't have any right to act like a child. She isn't a child. It's not fair that he should be able to play at being young when she was growing older by the second, weighed down by the lifeless diamond ring on her finger. She feels suddenly ill and she sits down, stops scrubbing.
"I hate you," she tells him, trying to convince herself. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you."
"But why?" Ted demands. He's angrier than hell and she can't deal with this right now. "What did I ever do to you?" Andromeda feels her breath coming quicker and quicker.
"I hate you!" she says, again and again, louder and louder, hoping to make it true.
"Well, I hate you!" Ted yells and he's furious, because she won't look at him, she can't look at him. She's hyperventilating - stupid girl, just breathe - and she feels really sick now. Ted scowls. "What's wrong?" he asks accusingly, but when she merely whitens, sways, he pauses. "Are you okay?"
Andromeda claps a hand over her mouth - the one with the diamond ring - runs out of the Owlery, leans over the wall and throws up.
"Oh..." Ted says after a moment, when Andromeda is done. She feels tears gathering in her throat, her eyes. She tastes them on her tongue with the dry aftertaste of regret. Her hair is in her face and she's never been so humiliated in her entire life and she wishes she could hate him. She waits for the mocking to begin. But all he says is, "I guess you need to go to the Hospital Wing, then."
Andromeda buries her face in her hands and allows him to lead her to Madame Pomfrey. The nurse gives her a potion, orders her to stay the night, and leaves her alone.
She can't forget his face, nor the taste of her tears. Humiliation is salty, corrosive, but strangely sweet.
XXX
When her sisters visit her, they bring news of Death Eaters and the Dark Lord. Andromeda feels sick again for those she knew who would undoubtedly join him and die.
XXX
Madame Pomfrey releases her, and for a few weeks, life is as normal as it can be. She and Ted have a mutual agreement not to mention what happened. But word gets around that something went on between the Black and the mudblood.
One night, she overhears Bella talking to Irina Karkaroff.
"Did they use the Cruciatus Curse?" she hears her sister ask.
"Several times," Irina replies. Andy leans in, eager to listen. Curiosity, however, killed the cat.
"Then he won't be coming back?" Bella says urgently. "If he bothers my sister again..." Andromeda stiffens.
"Don't worry your head about it, Trix. Ted Tonks has had it with chasing after things he can't have."
Ice.
XXX
She tries, so hard, to justify what she has heard. Ted Tonks was a mudblood. He was cruel to her
(like she was to him)
and he was annoying -
(but maybe that was just her)
and he -
and he -
Ice.
XXX
Andromeda, shaking, waits every agonizing moment until everyone is asleep but her before sneaking out. She runs into a prefect or two, but they're Slytherins, and Slytherins don't get in trouble with Slytherin prefects. Everybody knows that.
With the excuse of wanting a midnight snack, she searches the castle, a hunch that he's not in his dorm propelling her. He's not at the Forbidden Forest or the Room of Requirement. To her surprise - and yet, she's not so surprised - he is alone, slumped on the roof of the owlery. She climbs up, but he doesn't turn to her. The hurt and anger are sitting on his shoulders like vicious, ugly crows.
"Ted," she says quietly, yet he still remains distant. "I'm sorry."
"Are you?" he asks flatly. She sees the numerous cuts and bruises inflicted on him and wants to scream, or jump off the edge, or anything to stop the icy feeling.
"Do you really think I'd let something like that happen?"
"Yes," he replies, disappointment lacing his voice like exquisite pain. She snaps. With a boldness that would have shocked her had she been able to see herself, she yanks Ted up by the collar and kisses him hard on his split and bleeding lips. He responds immediately. She tastes his blood in her mouth and is sickened by what had been done.
The icy feeling remains.
XXX
Sleep brings no solace. She has nightmares about them finding out and disowning her, shunning her. Hurting Ted again. Killing him even. Dark circles appear under her eyes and she begins to look haunted. She is beautiful and wasting away. The icy feeling will not go away. If anything, it's gotten worse.
It has come down to two options: betray her family, or betray Ted. She is in between a rock and a hard place.
XXX
He kisses her when she meets him on the roof, but she does not kiss him back. She is distracted and the icy feeling has become a physical ailment now. All she can do is shiver uncontrollably as he gives her an inquisitive glance.
"Are they giving you a hard time?" he asks, helping her sit down. She remains numb, but she hears the words that are pouring out of her mouth.
"We can't do this anymore, we can't, they'll kill you, they'll banish me, they'll never forgive us, I can't, you can't, we have to stop right now, right now, Ted, before they find out - "
He interrupts her dull attempt at speech, pressing a thumb to her lips while cupping the rest of her jaw.
"Dromeda," he says quietly, as though he'd break her if he spoke too loudly. The confession tumbles out of her mouth.
"I'm engaged."
Shock. A flash of pain. Regaining control.
"To who?"
"Lucius Malfoy."
He doesn't say anything. Perhaps it's better that way.
XXX
Ted does everything to make her laugh. She can't help but feel happy whenever she's around him, but as soon as it's time to go back to the Slytherin Common Room, she is instantly miserable. Her sisters and friends (if you could call them that) chalked it up to missing Lucius. Perhaps it was better that way; they didn't need to know.
Lucius writes often. His letters are charming, but with no feeling. They are empty. So. He had been forced into the match as well, no doubt by his pureblood fanatic of a father, Abraxas. There is at least one thing they have in common. Their disappointment.
XXX
One afternoon on top of the Owlery, Ted hands her a slip of paper, written in determined ink.
"What's this?" she asks.
"My address."
"Oh."
"It's just a flat in London, nothing much." He's careful, too careful, and always watching to gauge her reaction. "But if you ever need, you know, help - "
"Thank you, Ted."
She doesn't want to think about the kind of situation she'd have to be in to turn to Ted for help. And yet, she does.
XXX
The biggest blow comes when the last letter arrives.
Her father is dying.
She is called from school without warning, with no chance to explain to Ted where she's going. Her sisters are all crying. She can't' do anything to comfort them, she feels so useless. And of course, Lucius will be there, and Rodolphus, Bella's fiance. He scares Andromeda. And she knows the bruises on Bella's arms had to come from somewhere.
And now she's panicking because her father's going to die. Damn it, she hated him, but she didn't hate him enough to want him to die. XXX
Lucius is cheating on her with Cissy. And she's fine with it. Funny how one could simply walk into her own drawing room and see her baby sister and her fiance entwined in a tangle of pulsing limbs on the antique plush couch her uptight, conservative great-aunt had passed on to them upon her death. Not to mention the fact that what they were doing was very, very wrong, because he was and adult, and Cissy - no, no, no, stay young - was but a child.
They were moaning, giving hushed little cries, completely unaware of Dromeda standing there, frozen. Lucius reared over her sister's body, while Cissy twisted underneath him, gasping. Her older sister quietly shut the door, muffling the sounds of betrayal and compulsion.
She walks calmly back to her room, locks the door behind her, and wonders if she should laugh or cry.
XXX
Oh my God. Oh my God.
Dad's gone.
Dead.
XXX
She feels...hysterical. She just saw her father die and she's going to throw her life away and marry some pureblood bigot and the whole world has gone insane. Bella's crying. When has Bellatrix Black ever cried? And Cissy...God, Cissy. She's holding mother together.
She's going, going gone. It's all over. She's getting married in a week. She's only seventeen. They've become killers, even Bella and Cissy. Dark Marks on their arms, branding them, changing them. She has no future. Her mother - she tried to tell her - they all screamed at her - you can't do this.
You can't do this to them. Not now. Not now.
Not -
XXX
It's done.
She left.
Walked out the door.
She doesn't know what she's doing. She hasn't packed, hasn't planned. She just knows she can't stay in that house anymore. Not with Rodolphus and his bruising fingers. Not with Bella, with her new Dark Mark. Not with Cissy, innocence lost in so many ways. Not with Lucius, who would always taste of her little sister's Judas kiss.
Her family cast her out. She had told them about Ted. And they had cast her out.
And now
here she was.
Stop crying, stop crying. God, she's really lost it. She's hysterical. She's shaken, and shocked, and bruised, and beaten. (can words bruise?)
He opens the door, and there are his cloud grey eyes, tired and dazed from lack of sleep. She shivers. It's cold out here. (cold there too) Too cold. And she's sobbing like a - a - (stop it, stop it, stop it!)
"Dromeda?" he asks, and he seems to wake up in an instant. He bundles her in and she nearly collapses in his living room floor but she is a Black (no she's not), she still has some remnant of pride. He's asking her questions she can't answer.
And she can't stop crying. She's been abandoned. She can't be abandoned twice in one night, right? (don't get your hopes up, hope hurts like poison)
He's stopped asking her what's going on. It's not like she knows anyway. Oh God. She's lucky to have made it to the right place - or is she just hallucinating? No, she's not that crazy yet, stop crying, you idiot - she's lucky and she's abandoned. Oh my God, oh my God.
She's safe. He's making up the guest bed. He's telling her what they'll do tomorrow, how they'll fix this, fix her. She's dropped everything: her life, her future, the tomorrow she thought she'd have forever. Curious how she doesn't want them back. Finally, her tears fade to hiccups, then to murmured thanks.
The sky is inky black, and curiously calm next to the paper-white snow.