Lost and Found
"...a moment of silence for Kevin Whitby, Alfred Meyer, Ted Tonks—"
Andromeda felt her heart freeze up. No, it couldn't be. It couldn't be.
"He can't be… d-d-... gone." Even as she knew it had to be the truth, she couldn't just believe it. Andromeda got up from the armchair where she had been sitting, listening to Potterwatch and walked to the kitchen, opening a door to fiddle with the cutlery. "I—He isn't... I just know he isn't. He better not be." She nodded vehemently. "If he's dead I'll kill him. I will." With that, she broke down, turning around and sliding to the kitchen floor, huge sobs racking her body. "He's—he's s-still th-th-there. I kn-know he is."
As usual, she had been sitting near the wireless that her husband had gifted her when she had been pregnant with Nymphadora, listening to Potterwatch in hopes of getting a news about Ted. She'd had no contact against him since the day he had had to take off—and just in time, too, as the raiders had arrived only a few minutes after Kingsley's patronus warning.
It had been difficult to pretend she wanted anything to do with the Mudblood, but she had always thought he would return once the war was over. Now, it would never happen.
oOo
Andromeda pushed the shopping cart, Teddy chattering a mile a minute from where he trailed after her. She had preferred shopping in Muggle supermarts since she had left her family and eloped with Ted, and two wizarding wards—one lost and the second won—hadn't changed it.
Not that she believed they had emerged victorious in the second war either, not with all that it had took from her. And Andromeda had lost more than the most—her husband, her daughter, her daughter-in-law.
Almost her whole family wiped away, the only other survivor being her then-one-month-old grandson.
Andromeda shook her head. She didn't need depressing thoughts around the said boy, considering it was his first visit to a public Muggle place. He had been proud of how he could now control his features, and Andromeda couldn't ruin it for him with letting him pick her morose expressions.
She turned to change aisles to get chocolate powder—her little boy consumed it way too faster than was probably healthy for a normal four-year-old kid. But Teddy was not normal, he was a wizard, and a son of a Metamorphmagus and a Werewolf to boot, and burned his energy way too fast for it to cause harm.
She almost looked past, then turned back to look at the man who was standing across from her in the sweet section, and froze. The resemblance was uncanny. Could it be him?
Andromeda dared not hope.
Her daughter had told her that they had heard Bellatrix Lestrange cackle about how she had offed her brother-in-law while snooping on them, and that was how they knew Ted was alive no more. Since then, a tiny part of her had been hopeful that he was still around.
She could feel that little spark of hope inside of her kindling, but she ruthlessly pushed it down. She wouldn't allow false hope.
She turned to grab Teddy and leave, only to find the boy had run across and was staring at the candy and chocolates displayed, right next to that man.
Andromeda walked over to him with an intent to take him and go to the cashier, only to stop in her tracks when she overheard the conversation that the man was having with another man. She decided to listen in. Maybe she could find a proof this guy was not her husband and get over this incident.
"I've had three wives. One cheated on me, one didn't make it past reception, and one shot me," the other man was saying, grinning at Ted's lookalike, who didn't really laugh at that.
"I had one, then I lost my memory, and I'm still looking for her." The other man gave him a sympathetic look, and Andromeda couldn't help but feel just a little bit more hopeful. "Well, it was nice meeting you, Mr. …"
"Garner. Evan Garner."
"Mr. Garner. I'm Edward." Andromeda felt her insides freeze. "Edward Tonks."
It was probably not too smart, what she did next, but Andromeda walked up to her husband and grabbed his wrist. "Hello, Ted, I'm Andromeda Tonks."
oOo
"Aguamenti!"
Andromeda laughed at the sight of her husband and her grandson playing in the small pool in her backyard, relishing in how he could do magic freely once more.
It hadn't been easy. And she I realised it wouldn't be easy the day she had brought him home and showed her the moving photographs of their family—he had exclaimed over that, asking her if it was some new technology, and she had known he remembered nothing of magic.
It had been kind of funny, watching his face when she had told him he was a wizard, but between all the evidence in their home and a few spells on her part, it hadn't been as hard to convince him as it might take to prove it to a real Muggle.
The progress had been slow, and teaching him everything from start was time-consuming, but Ted had always been too smart for a Hufflepuff and was a fully-grown man with a stable magical core. He had took—re-took—to magic quick, and Andromeda felt proud and delighted each time she saw a proof to how he had re-learnt everything about their world and was still standing strong.
He didn't get his memories back, not after the spell Bellatrix put him under, but he had learnt, and he was making new memories with them every day.
And while she would always be saddened by the fact that he didn't remember his own daughter, his interactions with their grandson showed to her that maybe, just maybe, all was well.
"Not fair, grandpa! You have a wand!"
"Don't worry, grandson. Just three more years, and you'll have yours. Aguamenti!"
Word count: 1000
Prompts: Amnesia, (quote) If he's dead I'll kill him, (pairing) Andromeda Black/ Ted Tonks, 'Yes, I've had three wives. One cheated on me, one didn't make it past reception, and one shot me.' — QLFC, Falcons, Beater 2