The High Ground (Spoilers for Deathly Hallows - Be Warned!)
Never judge a Black by it's cover...
A woman, with strong, striking features and strangely unfitting soft tendrils of brown hair approached the graves, booted feet crushing the gravel with her steady purposeful steps. She hadn't been to this place in twenty six years, and she couldn't help but despise the fact that her return had been for all the wrong reasons. She could barely accept what it was she was going to see, for she had never stepped foot near the neat, lovingly tended graves before, she had arranged painstakingly to be left alone, to be left at peace.
"Shh, shh, precious, nearly there now." She cooed over the baby held wrapped tightly in her arms. He was everything to her. Just as she hoped to be everything to him. For they had no one but each other, only grief riddled memories and futile, torturous regret Andromeda thanked God the child was never to know.
The graveyard was a beautiful place, Dumbeldore's tomb stood at the front, a proud, immaculate resting place for the only Hogwart's headmaster to win universal love and respect, that was, Andromeda considered, from everyone with the prominent and extremely vocal exception of her own family. Not that she considered the Blacks family. She was a Tonks, through and through, she had decided that on her wedding day years before. The wedding wherein the pews for the Bride's family had sat totally untouched.
She moved on, gasped aloud like an awestruck child at how beautiful everything was, how touching the final gesture as a monument to all those who had died to make a better world for their children. The tombstones were all highly individual, fashioned to reflect the figure who lay beneath the marker, yet they was a touch of uniformity in the gleaming white marble stones that sprouted from the earth that reminded any person to pass by of how they had all fought for the same side.
She passed the names, squeezed her eyes to shut for the tears for their were too many to bear. Too many, too young. She murmured the names to herself as she passed by. Fred Weasley. A laughing mask cut to look as if it were carved from porcelain jutted out from the top, winking and wolf-whistling over and over – the woman couldn't suppress a reluctant laugh. Colin Creavy. Andromeda paused, nipping her lip to bite back the tears as she joggled the baby in her arms at the sight of a gravestone carved with a camera, the lense magically closing and opening repeatedly as if controlled by an invisible hand, a glare obscured by the sun could be picked out by a quick eye. A child's toy, a teddy bear, lay at the base, a note tied around his neck that Andromeda could not bring herself to read. She spoke to herself. "Just a child' feeling close to tears for a stranger but held them back for she had waited a month to cry and was not to fall at the final hurdle.
She moved on more briskly, before any other names of the dozens who lay there could ensnare her attention. Then she reached the back row, where the largest gravestone of all towered from the earth. It bore two names:
In Loving Memory of
Remus Lupin
March 10th 1960 – March 23rd 1998
Nymphadora Lupin
April 7th 1972 – March 23rd 1998
Let this grave be for all those who died for the good of us all.
Their names were inside a perfectly shaped spherical moon, and the letters glowed, radiating colors that sparkled and shone, fluctuating and shifting with every second. All Andromeda found herself able to say was perfect, spontaneous nonsense, 'our Dora wouldn't of liked that would she, eh Teddy? She'd say 'don't you dare call me that mum!' And sometimes, sometimes I'd feel guilty for giving her such a silly name. But I'll always think it was a lovely name, just like your mummy was lovely."
She reached an immaculately shaped finger to brush against his glowing, rosy cheeks, warmed by the pure, unmitigated love that radiated from him. He almost made her feel young again, he made her feel strong for she had to be brave and untouchable, unaffected by all the insults and cruelty for the name she had shunned decades before to play mother to her daughter's child. He made her feel young in another way. He made her feel like a frightened child terrified to hold a baby she wasn't sure she wanted, only Andromeda was frightened for she felt too young, not ready, to be both grandmother and surrogate mother to the gurgling infant she clung to. That single vanity of the Black's still remained, only what differentiated her from them was that she was strong enough not to be a slave to her own selfish, petty whims, she was prepared to give love she would strive to heap upon him as if he were he own son.
She crouched down, her robes ghosting the flower flecked grass, and peered with fascination at the names holding the baby towards them and feeling herself smile for the first time in a month as he gurgled and stretched his arms out to touch the letters of his mother's name. His blankets slipped back, and Andromeda chuckled as his hair fluctuated and glowed just like the letters, just like his mother's as a baby. She gave a merry, rich laugh to recall the shock on Ted's face when she'd introduced him to the baby she had just given birth to, a child with hair that swung wildly from a sickly acrid green to a pastel toned pink. She could remember his words, 'dear Lord Dromeda! What on earth's mum gonna say?' Her mother in law, a muggle with a warm welcoming smile and warm biscuits fresh from the oven ever at hand had said nothing. She had just fainted.
Sometimes it hurt her to look down on the laughing, merry faced baby for he was achingly reminiscent of her own. The baby who lay buried in the ground beneath her. She staggered back, wiping away floods of tears she had kept held back for all the gushing, sympathetic friends, all the Ministry people who descended upon her lonely, lonely house with messages of thanks and gratitude for people she knew she would never see again.
She felt like she wanted to choke, thought she'd drop the baby as she was overcome with grief and so crumbled to her knees, pressing the child to her breast as it cried for the mother he could only ever hope to know from her alone. Andromeda swore to herself to tell him, to nurture him on his parent's bravery, their overwhelming courage and just how very much they loved him. It was her duty. She murmured uncontrollably, the speech rising into frantic uncontrollable screams of anguish. She didn't give a damn about years of relentless conditioning, being taught of restraint and control to be put on exhibit evidence of the Black family honor. All she cared about was the fact that life was cruel, life was achingly bitter and without mercy and had chosen to punish those who were the least deserving, she wailed and mourned for how life had snatched away the daughter whose life had only just began.
Andromeda Tonks shot up at the sound of footsteps approaching, silently screaming with frustration for the officials who had promised her privacy. She left a swiftly conjured bouquet of white roses, summoned swiftly from necessity, enchanted so as never to fail, never to die, at the graves of her daughter and her son in law, the man she wished by Merlin her daughter had never met.
Molly Weasley caught sight of her imposing, rigid figure as she swept away, clamping a hand to restrain a cry of outrage for the presence of one she herself had killed, eyes accepting the image of a Black clinging to a baby with as much love and affection as she herself had ever given.
She opened her mouth to speak, but the figure moved on unheeding her back turned away to her sisters murderer. She retained her dignity, the control that made her a Tonks as she said nothing, only acting to vanish into nothing.
Molly spoke after her uselessly clinging to the flower's she had painstakingly collected together for her son's grave as they began to droop, her voice wavering from shock for sighting an image she had never thought she;d see. That of a Black fully deserving of pity. "I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry..." She spoke to the wind.
Right, a quick one shot, I felt Andromeda was never properly touched upon so wanted to explore her character a bit more.
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