This fic was written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition as Chaser 2 for the Falmouth Falcons. My person was Andromeda Black, and my prompts were last but not least, sleepless nights, and tapping on the window. :)
"Marry me."
The truth is in his eyes, shining like stars in a backdrop of mingled love and terror. He is on one knee, his large, calloused hand rubbing circles on her palm in nervousness as she felt him begin to sweat.
He does not add 'Please,' because he is proud, but she can see that in his eyes too.
She covers her mouth and stares at him, and there is a long moment of silence as his hand gets stickier, although she refuses to let go because he is Ted, her Ted, and she loves him, and she believes that love is holding someone's hand even when they are sweating.
"Yes," she says, smiling at last. "But don't expect it will be easy," she adds as Ted jumps up to hug her, nearly knocking the ring out of his own hand. She loves him for it.
"You've never been easy," says Ted, and Andromeda wishes it wasn't the truth.
When Andromeda was young, she would spend sleepless nights wishing someone would come tapping on her window to spirit her away, away to a land where having pure blood didn't matter and Muggles and wizards lived in peace. If she had known of Peter Pan, she would have loved him. She would have made costumes out of pillowcases and pretended to fly with him, desperately longing to be Wendy, to be away from her stifling home filled with stoic silences and overbearing sisters. She would have given anything to be Wendy, if she had known who Peter Pan was.
Then again, if she had known who Peter Pan was she wouldn't have needed him.
She met Ted at Hogwarts. When she met him, she thought he was a total idiot. She was under the impression that most people did. After all, he was a Hufflepuff, and nice to everyone he met. Where she came from, that wasn't as important as your beliefs, and especially not as important as your blood status.
Sometimes she would sit at the Slytherin table and watch him interact with his friends, his casual laughter and easy talking. That was before she knew why she even paid attention to him. That was before she understood why turning back to her own table and seeing nothing but quiet whispers and subtle jeers hurt so much.
He asked her out in fifth year, and she said no.
And he left her alone.
She had not expected it. Andromeda was used to boys who chased her, boys who tagged along at her heels like a puppy, begging for some treat. Andromeda was used to boys who told her to go out with her and then made out with her on their first date. She was used to having to reposition a boy's hands back onto her waist and stop him from going too far.
Ted wasn't like that. When she said no, Ted knew it meant no.
Andromeda liked that.
At first, she tried to rationalize it as being a Muggle-born thing, that his respect and kindness was something born of bad genetics. She tried to tell herself that his amiability was due to an inherent weakness, that when it came down to the wire, Ted Tonks would not have what was needed to survive.
But that was bullshit. She knew he was smart; he had better grades than her in half her classes, and she was an excellent student. If you looked past his smiling face, you could see the grit beneath.
Eventually Andromeda realized that Ted was not the problem. It was the boys with wandering hands who needed to go. She was being taken in by their promises and their blood-statuses, and it needed to stop.
In their sixth year, Andromeda Black asked Ted Tonks if he would go on a date with her, and he said yes.
When Andromeda was young, her father would always introduce her and her sisters the same way, his mouth upturned in a grim smile.
"These are my daughters; my eldest, Bellatrix, Andromeda, and, last but not least, Narcissa."
If Narcissa was 'not least', than what was she? She wasn't above Bella, who was talented and wicked, not wicked in the bad way, wicked in the way that made her parents swoon with delight as Bellatrix showcased her demented smile. Later in life, when Andromeda was grown and could only look back at her life as a Black, she would realize there was only one kind of wicked. Or, if that was not true, wicked was never good.
In the end, it was kindness that prevailed.
Her parents found out about them when they were seventeen, mere months from graduating. Her mother had been intercepting Andromeda's owls, and figured it out during Easter break.
There was hell to pay.
She was shaming the family. She was debasing herself. She was no more than a common whore for going out with him. He was dirt. He was barely better than the Muggles. He didn't deserve to have a wand of his own.
She looked at her mother and saw her for the first time, saliva spraying from her mouth in her rage, her eyes crazed and bulging. She was hideous to look at. She was pathetic to look at.
Andromeda had never wished more she'd stayed at Hogwarts for the easter holidays. When she went back to school, she never returned to that house. Her name was blasted off the tapestry the day she graduated.
"Mum?"
Andromeda, it had to be said, was not the most attentive mother, and it took three more tugs on the sleeve for her to finally look down at her small, red-headed child.
"You must get that hair from me," said Andromeda out loud, a joke to herself. She said that about every one of Nymphadora's morphs.
Nymphadora ignored her mother's ramblings, and gave her sleeve another sharp tug.
"Bed-time story," said the child firmly.
Andromeda flushed. "I don't have any good ones," she admitted. "I was never told any."
"Don't worry," said a third voice. "I can help!"
Ted arrived at the tops of the stairs like their personal savior, although Andromeda thought the effect was ruined by his huffing and puffing.
"Story?" said Nymphadora plaintively, turning her large, watery eyes to her father as her hair turned a bright shade of blue.
"Yes," reassured Ted. "Story!"
He hoisted her into his arms and nestled her in the crook of his arm, kissing Andromeda on the nose as he passed. She couldn't help but smile at him, thinking that it was all worth it.
"A long time ago," she heard him begin. "There was this boy named Peter Pan..."