Author's Note: I haven't written in quite some time, so this is me trying to get back into the prose game. While this story will primarily focus upon the Tedromeda pairing (which I would argue is somewhat undervalued, no?) - the other primary ship at the heart of this story, will be the lovely story of James and Lily.

Do let me know what you think of my representations of them - and review! Reviews power my muse; I'm nothing much without them.

Disclaimer: All intellectual property herein belongs to the incomparable JK Rowling. Please alert me if you believe I've inadvertently lifted any other material - copyright's a funny little thing, really, but more so distressing.

(1969, March)

There are certain moments the heart hoped to hang onto.

Hoped; slavered over; belonged solely to - in this moment, semantics didn't matter much.

What did, however, was the ugly little barrel of the gun, pressed firmly into the hollow of his throat. It was a messy way to die, Ted decided. He wanted very much to quip about the fact his assault had spent a good ten years lusting after the last word between the pair of them - and what better way was there to die than in granting someone's long-held, possibly forgotten wishes? - but just as he wet his lips and opened his mouth, Andromeda spilled into his thoughts. Somewhere back in London, she'd be criss-crossing the worn linoleum of their kitchen with her pacing, if she hadn't already tipped his dinner into the garbage.

That was the trouble with love: it was both as compelling and frustrating as chickenpox.

"Listen." Ted's fingers twitched towards the slender line of his wand, just out of the other man's sight. "Have you ever gotten the chance to bed a beautiful girl?"

This put his assailant off somewhat. "What's it to you?"

"No shame if you haven't, mate."

"What are you on about?"

"I'm asking if you've ever bedded a beautiful girl - I thought it was fairly simple. Not the act, that is, but the question - surely. You'd better put it on your checklist of things you ought to do, though. Underneath, not killing people."

The next words the other man uttered came as a hiss: "Hypocrite."

Another more-brutal reward for this sage piece of advice was that the metal ridge of the gun barrel slides further forward and upwards. Ted gagged. Rather than the usual visceral reaction, however, it was words that comes spilling forth.

"There's a Part B to that question, y'know. Have you ever been in love with a beautiful girl?"

"I'm humouring you."

Another pang shot through Ted's chest, accompanied by a realisation; in the end, there was a strong possibility that it would be this, the throbbing in his chest that killed him, rather than any bullet.

"Listen -" he says hoarsely, "listen, Merlin, just listen for a sec - final word rights, and all, right? I have. I've loved a beautiful girl."

For the first time in his life, Ted Tonks was pleading.

"I still do."

Across from him, the hand of the shooter twitched.

(other details dispersed through time)

Out of your relative jumble of neuroses, at least two or three could be applied to Andromeda Black. She was the smallest and slightest out of her sisters, with lips that turned slightly up at the corners despite her perpetual apathetic expression, and had thick, luxuriant, dark hair that many a boy had hoped to run their hands through. Of course, they'd never brought up the possibility of this to her in person, but rather behind her back and to a mate - for she was also afflicted with a nasty nervous habit of ducking behind bookcases and tables whenever strangers approached. Her eyes - which were a striking black - never fixed upon anyone or anything in particular, and when they did, seemed to wish that the person were in fact, a particularly lifelike mannequin with a penchant for enchanted speech. She spoke six languages, two of which were Muggle-based, and was fonder of origami and Dickens than she was her considerable magical gifts. Rather than trail after Bellatrix or Narcissa, whom it was often claimed she'd learnt her wily ways from, she swayed along her own paths, tapping out her own rhythms against the glass of morning-cold windows, just as entirely unfamiliar with her loveliness as she was the idea of humour.

Edward Tonks - better known as Ted - was uncommonly tall, and uncommonly beautiful. Others had mulled over quite what the definition should have been for him - handsome? No, his lips were too large for that, and his eyes too, and their green had spoken of gentler, sweeter qualities than the brutish brown or grey expected of a handsome man. Pretty, then - no, no, that was not apt either, for while he certainly lacked the muscular padding of the other boys in favour for a kind of graceful lankiness, you could've sliced paper on that bone structure, and besides, he was too crude a fellow to be sweet. Or for that matter, cute. Beautiful, then, seemed the apt description - there had, after all, never been one set expectation for that umbrella term when it came to boys. He was fond - certainly, proud of his looks, which explained his habit of dawdling in front of the mirror, and indeed, his infallible confidence and optimism in inventing new forms of slurs or pick-up lines for the girls he discarded as swiftly as he eyed them. You could count upon him to have a packet of cigarettes tucked away in one of his never-ending pockets, along with a quick hex should you have required his assistance.

Had you put the two in a room together at the start of their sixth year, neither would have gravitated towards the other. It was a similarly odd idea that the pair would ever be coupled, and certainly, the laws of logic would come to plague them over the years with speculation from friends, and themselves alike - for who would have thought it possible that the two would ever find that elusive spark in the other?

Regardless of whatever the argument for the pair not to couple might have been in their sixth year, as it turned out, there were in fact certain views that the vast both Pureblood and otherwise could agree upon when it came to the two. They went as follows:

1) Ted Tonks would be dating Mary Macdonald, by the end of his fifth year.
2) Andromeda Black was sacred property and understandably, it was sacrosanct to, for lack of gentler vernacular, consider tapping that.
3) Ted Tonks would most likely be expelled should he earn one more detention.

4) Andromeda Black had punched either Ted or Fabian Prewett; either way, they would have deserved it.

And possibly, the most important:

5) Ted Tonks would never kill a man.

A/N: Reviews are my bread and butter. Let me know what you think? Scrap? Continue?