A/N: This was written for the Interhouse Fest on LJ. I wanted to write Ted and Andromeda for quite some time and the prompt offered was too tempting to ignore. My thanks to S for the beta on this - since she loves canon couples from the Maurauder's Era as well. Writing them has been a challenge and one I enjoyed immensely.

A/N2: This story has been updated to include some outtakes and drabbles I've written of them since the original posting. For those who do read such, I hope you'd give them another go.

A/N3: Standard Disclaimer - No, I'm hardly JK Rowling even if I write about her tertiary characters from time to time. All Rebates expire 12/1/15. Contact Waterstone's or Cole's Books for further details. All rebates applied to final price. - DG

Andromeda unwrapped the parchment letter from Damocles' leg. The owl happily took the piece of rasher rind and flew back for the school Owlery. She dreaded the letter that was inside. She knew what was coming for years now, after watching her older sister Bellatrix deal with the monstrous deal their parents foisted upon each of the girls.

She also wasn't going to deign to read it in front of the remainder of the Slytherin table sitting with her. If the parchment in her hands was what she expected, she had months at most to find a solution to the problem presented to her.

"Hey Black, aren't you going to read it?"

Andromeda turned to look at the other students at her table. "Why should personal business with my family be available for you? You think I would deign to discuss my private affairs and invite trite gossip from you? Hardly."

Andromeda stood up from the dining table and collected her belongings. "For your information, it's a letter from my mother." She stared at the students along the other side of the table, almost daring them to say anything further. "Trifling banalities are of no interest to those outside of the family."

She stepped away from the table and started her walk to her private location of solitude. She appeared to be quite calm and at peace with those sharing the cold hallway spaces yet inside she was churning. This letter was another culmination in what she did not want – negotiation for her hand in marriage.

She understood all too well the expectations and requirements of her station. She was the second daughter of Cygnus and Druella Black – and her place among polite society demanded that, as a good Pureblood of one of the old families, that she be married off soon after she finished her formal education. She was also expected to be nothing more than a decoration for her betrothed, providing heirs to the family line and sitting quietly, performing tasks completely beneath her abilities.

She was nothing more to her parents than a breeding sow, a dowry for a husband who would do nothing more than spend for his own petty dalliances and idiot schemes. Well, at least that's what she saw with that prat Rodolphus Lestrange. Bellatrix' marriage to that ponce was what she was expecting with whomever her mother deemed worthy and suitable.

The demands on her chafed like ill fitted boots and a badly laced corset.

She continued to walk and didn't notice the tall young man striding alongside her. Their relationship was quiet, kept circumspect to keep the rumors floating back home. As much as she loved her younger sister Narcissa, she was quite a magpie with her mother. Druella didn't need to know that this sandy blonde young man walking next to her was the one she fancied – not whichever empty suit that her mother had picked for her.

"Is that a letter from home?"

They continued to walk along the third floor hallway. There was an empty classroom that was a perfect vista for the lake and grounds. It was her room, away from the other students. This one room, stacked with decrepit benches and inches of dust, was her refuge when the world was too much under her stoic features.

She turned to the young man next to her. "I didn't want to open it in front of the other students. I know this is my mother informing me who she has betrothed me to and frankly I didn't want to deal with it in front of everyone."

"But I'm not everyone, am I?"

They stepped into the classroom and she sealed the door. "You're certainly not everyone, Ted."

He opened his arms and she stepped into his embrace. Andromeda sighed in comfort for the first time all day. "Do you want me to read it?"

"I'll deal with my mother sometime today. I just wanted to have time to consider what pitiful options I have available."

"Your birthday is at the end of June, right?"

"It is. If I have any understanding of my mother and how she plots her life and comforts, she will try to have me married off before September first."

"But I don't get that. What is so important that she wants you married off before you can even find a life?"

"That's how it's been in our family for centuries. The girls are married off almost immediately and expected to produce an heir within a year – a boy preferably. I think she's in a rush because my dear sister hasn't fulfilled that part of her marriage vows yet. For some reason, she hasn't become pregnant much less borne a child. So it seems my only value is the grandchildren I can provide. To them, I am nothing more than a breeding mare, to fulfill their expectations and provide future entertainment."

"Well that's bloody rubbish if you ask me."

She looked up at Ted Tonks and smiled. "I didn't, but you never have to be asked."

He leaned over and gently kissed her, finding the warmth that was missing from earlier. "What can you do? It's obvious you aren't interested in their plans for you."

"I've been accepted into the Healer apprentice program at St. Mungo's. I signed the contract last week. My scores and revision grades were good enough to bypass the normal standards." She snorted. "Probably it was my name more than anything else. But I want to do something with my life besides be a trophy for someone who only sees me for the value of my dowry."

"What about your family? How will they react if you tell them you want that before marriage – or to work after you married?"

"Father will consider it in bad taste and Mum would have a fit. The only things they care about are how they look in polite society and what their friends think of them. My choices and opinions matter one wit to them. But that doesn't matter. It's signed."

Ted pulled back the diminutive witch in his arms. "What do you want, Andromeda?"

"I want to work, at least for a little while. I want to have a life outside of being a parent and going to parties and the expectations of what my parents want. Lastly, I don't want to be married at 17 to someone I have zero interest in, just to placate my parents."

Ted plucked the crumpled letter out of her hands. "Well, go on and read it and see who was picked for you."

"You have such a way with words."

"That's why you like me – no games, and what you see is what you get."

Andromeda broke the wax seal on the parchment. She scanned the letter quickly, hearing her mum's irritation hiss coming through the ink. Words like expectations, dowry, and polite society drifted over her like a burble of water – until she got to the name whom they chose as her suitor. She hissed and threw the parchment at the furthest wall. It landed short but didn't quell the anger she had for her mother and grandmother.

"The nerve of that woman, picking that effeminate fool for a betrothal. Could she not find anyone else who was even more useless and pathetic of a suitor in all of London?"

"What did the letter say?" Ted asked over her fuming.

Andromeda paced the room, imitating a caged animal. Her features hardened and she balled her fists into her hands. "My mother has chosen Rabastan Lestrange as my betrothed." Raw venom dripped off of every word from her lips. "That prat of a man is my brother in law and a pathetic excuse of a wizard. They are trying to marry me off to that fool of a man only to make him look honorable in Pureblood society. They don't care that he prefers the company of other men. Their only concern is that he's a well-connected high-society wizard. That's hardly a good enough reason for him to be suitable for me, especially as a hand in marriage."

Andromeda walked to the window to look out on the vista before her. "Now I know that my mother doesn't consider me more than a sow. Bloody rubbish!"

Ted walked up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. He knew she was fighting to keep the mask on and failing. Her failure to control her language was enough to show the cracks in her well-tended mask. "Talk to me. I'm here to listen. You know that."

"Right now, I hate my parents. They are so righteous in their Pureblood ideas and refuse to consider that I want something other than what they have planned out for me. I'm a witch and not a ruddy cow they can lead to do their bidding. They are so bloody stupid."

"What can you do?"

"Right now slitting my wrists sounds like a good idea. But that wouldn't be prudent."

"Please, don't do that. They are most useful if you go into medicine."

She stared at Ted in consternation. "I wasn't being serious about that threat."

"I know," he said while squeezing her shoulders. "But you concern me when you say such things."

"Well then, Mr. Prefect. You're the smart one. What brilliant idea do you have that can help?"

The concern dropped off his face, hardening his features right before her. She could have slapped him and received less reaction out of her friend. Only when he turned on his heel did she realize the error of what she said. "Ted, no, don't go."

He stopped with his hand on the doorknob.

"I was wrong." She walked up behind him. His shoulders were rigid and the wand in his hand was steady. "I shouldn't have said that. That was rude of me, insulting you that way." She threaded her fingers through his other hand and placed her other hand on his arm. "I should be taking my frustrations out on my mother, not you. You're here when no one else would listen."

Andromeda stepped in front of Ted and felt the door right behind her robes. This would be completely improper with anyone else. Yet with Ted she could step inside his personal space. She trusted Ted above everyone else. "Look at me, please."

Hazel eyes looked down at the witch before him. His jaw twitched under her gaze. For anyone else besides Ted Tonks, they would be raging. But she stood there under his intense gaze, not shying away from his stern features, not quite meeting her eyes. Only when his jaw quit twitching and he looked directly at her face did she put her small hand on his cheek.

"I'm listening," Andromeda said quietly.

"I do have an idea, even if it's barmy," he retorted. He leaned down and kissed her. She relished his chapped lips and calloused fingers on her delicate cheeks. She melted under his kiss. While he kissed her, her hands wandered under his jumper and scraped along the thin cotton of his vest.

"What if you told your mother you had someone else in mind?"

"You mean someone other than whom she picked for me as a suitable husband?"

Andromeda felt lips next to her ear with puffs of warm breath on her skin. "Someone who would love you as who you are and not a trophy for display."

Andromeda pulled back and looked up at her paramour. "You mean yourself, right?"

She felt his acknowledgement rather than heard it in her ears. Only the pounding of her blood in her ears, driven to excitement, kept her from hearing his answer.

"Whatever you decide, I'll go with you. They can chase us but I won't let them take you from me once we make the vows binding."

"They would never approve of you, simply because of your heritage."

"Then your parents are fools for overlooking me."

"What would we do if I did marry you?"

"You could attend healer school, like you want. I already have employment lined up at an apothecary mixing potions. It's not glamorous like working at St. Mungo's, but it is honest employment. It would be rather humble for a while, until we had enough saved up for a cottage away from the city."

"You applied at St. Mungo's, for their potions lab?"

"Yeah. Even though I'm top of the class they couldn't hire me but sent me to an apothecary where they gladly hired me on the spot. I reckon they have no qualms hiring a Muggleborn."

Andromeda put her head down on Ted's chest. His heartbeat thumped in her ears. "It's the bleeding 1970s. Muggleborns are just as important and capable as Purebloods are – probably moreso than those inbred fools." She looked up at her paramour. "And in your case, you're top of the class, even past most of the Ravenclaws."

"They don't see me working hard and studying into the night. Everyone assumes I'm brilliant and was sorted into the wrong house. They only see me flying for the Quidditch team or walking rounds or doing other things. They don't see that I'm up half the night studying and revising. My friends know the hours I put in studying – not socializing or partying on Quidditch days. Few see how hard I work to earn those top marks."

"But what you've shown me – "

Ted tipped her chin up to look in his eyes. "That's only because you earned my respect. You're not like everyone else."

Andromeda grinned. "And that's because of your influence. I've seen you with the other students. You don't care what house they are in, or the heritage they are born to. You treat everyone the same until they cross you." Andromeda put her hands on his chest, right over his heart. "And then, you give second chances. You're a good man, Ted Tonks."

She felt his hands working around to her back. His hands were strong, borne of flying on a broom and writing for hours doing revisions. He rubbed them up and down her back through her jumper and robes.

Their silent conversation continued until one sigh from her punctuated the end of the conversation.

"It's the middle of April. I shall strongly consider your offer if she won't relent. Besides," Andromeda tugged his face down to press a less than chaste kiss on his lips. "If we are to be married, I'd like to get to know you better before we run off together."