a/n: hi.
A higher T for pregnancy themes and character death.
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chaser 1, qlfc forum, puddlemere united
season six, round nine
main prompt: Write about a death at a wedding, birthday party or other similarly happy occasion.
optional prompts:
2. (object) potion vial
8. (pairing) Andromeda Black/Ted Tonks
15. (dialogue) "My baby! They stole my baby!" / "...You don't have a baby."
word count: 1724
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A series of excerpts from the notebooks of Andromeda Tonks
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January 7th, 1981
I'm pregnant. Merlin, oh Merlin, I'm pregnant. Been trying naturally with Ted, no spells, no potions, for six and a half years, and now, I'm bloody pregnant again.
Ted doesn't know.
Merlin.
Oh, bloody Merlin.
January 8th, 1981
Right. I just realized how much pregnancy bloody sucks.
Stupid morning sickness.
February 17th, 1981
Okay.
Pregnancy.
Oh, Merlin…
Ted still doesn't know.
I wonder what he thinks about my morning sickness.
February 21st, 1981
I started this journal, diary, whatever, to write down my day. My feelings.
So, um, I'm going to write down my feelings, you soul possessing this book.
So, I'm pregnant. Here we go again. Morning sickness, carrying around a great big lump, loving the great big lump. Diapers, Muggle school, accidental magic. Nymphadora's going to have a sister.
We've been trying for six and half years to have a baby, I've cried a million times because we'd failed, we'd been trying and trying and trying.
(I mean, do we really need to try, but still.)
And now here I am.
Pregnant.
Unbelievably, sickly, glowingly, amazingly, miraculously, pregnant.
I really can't get over that word.
January 23rd, 1981
I told Ted.
He's very happy.
I suppose that's a good thing.
February 8th, 1981
I hate work, work hates me, it's bloody hectic. I wonder when I get my maternity leave.
One good thing about pregnancies.
I'm settling into my old way of things with Dora: worrying, paranoid that something, anything's going to happen.
Nothing's going to happen. I know that.
But what if the Death Eaters come? What if they…
Stop that, brain.
Dora went back to Muggle school today. It keeps here from going insane with boredom. Besides, Ted wanted her to have the experience. It's nice to have friends.
I'm going to go through it all again. Morning sickness, carrying around a great big lump, loving the great big lump. Diapers, Muggle school, accidental magic.
I'm going to have another child—
Merlin, that just hit me like a truck.
I'm going to be a mother. A mother, who breastfeeds her newborn child, changes diapers, stresses about baby showers, a mother.
Oh, I can't wait for this nine, ten months to go by now.
Things change quickly, don't they?
March 27th, 1981
It's just my imagination, but I can feel the baby inside of me.
I wonder if it's a girl or a boy.
April 19th, 1981
I should write in this diary more often.
Probably.
What should I say? Go on about my monotone work day, go back home to Dora and Ted, who are both home by then, make dinner, eat dinner, go to bed, get up, throw up dinner, bleh.
Oh, bleh.
I hate my life. I'm going to go bake some muffins now. Muffins will make me feel better.
(Stupid hormones.)
May 3rd, 1981
It's a baby girl. The doctor at St. Mungo's was finally able to examine me and say that it was a baby girl.
There. I wrote something about my life.
OH MERLIN, I'm having a baby girl. I'm going to be a mother to two children.
I'm going to have another baby!
Aaaahhhhhh. That just hit me in the face. Okay, stop hyperventilating Andie. Calm. Calm down. I'm…
Not going to write in this thing until I calm down.
May 11th, 1981
Well, I calmed down. What else did I expect? I've always been a very emotional woman.
Aaaahhh.
Great, it's coming back. This notebook doesn't really help me control my emotions well.
You Muggle doctors. You're wrong.
I'm not writing in this stupid thing anymore.
July 17th, 1981
But I come back yet again, because Ted doesn't understand anything (except he does) and no one listens. I go to him for comfort on my fears on Voldemort, even though we are under a Fidelius charm, who knows?
He laughs at me. He thinks I'm silly. Then again, I am silly, but…
I NEED COMFORT AND NO ONE WILL GIVE IT TO ME!
Except for you, notebook.
And the baby. Except the baby doesn't understand me.
I should talk to her more instead of her just hearing me yelling at everyone.
Merlin, I hate being pregnant.
The baby is due…. in what? November? December?
Oh, bloody hell I'm large.
August 13th, 1981
Words cannot convey my dislike for my boss right now. Merlin, I hate her. Why is she just so bloody mean?
So I'm walking in to the office.
"Good morning, miss," I say.
She looks down distastefully at my rounding belly and goes, "Mmm, hello Tonks. I suppose you'll need to go on leave soon. Don't slack off too much. I'd have to fire you."
Well then please do, Miss I'm-So-Much-Better-Than-You-But-I'm-Not.
Ugh.
September 24th, 1981
I dug up the files from when I first went to St. Mungo's for my pregnancy to do a mediscan.
The baby's due on November 17th.
Oh, Merlin.
One month and… how many days?
Later
I counted. It's 54 days, or 7 weeks and 5 days. Tuesday, November 17th, 1981.
Oh my. Oh my, time goes by quickly. I'm going to have a BABY!
Right, Ted's going to think I'm weird so I'm going to go scream in a pillow instead of the air.
Oh Merlin, oh bloody hell, oh bloody baby, oh….
Oh.
What am I going to name her?
October 12th, 1981
Voldemort. There, I wrote his name. It's not real. Albus says so, and it's fine, you know what?
Yeah.
Yeah.
The Potters are under the Fidelius charm. Oh, Merlin. I hope they'll be okay. I think they'll be okay.
I hope I'll be okay.
October 25th, 1981
I'm going to be a good mother. My mother was bloody bad, she arranged marriages, she kicked me out of the family, she was a pureblood racist, she didn't let me be what I wanted to be, she didn't let me row with my sisters, have fun and play with them, she didn't let me do anything that wasn't ladylike, that wasn't proper.
I hated her.
I'm going to be a better mother than her.
I swear that to myself.
November 1st, 1981
Lily's dead. My god, she's dead. Lily… oh, Lily, I love her. She is such a good woman, a good friend, a loving mother. No… not is… was.
She was. And Sirius is on the run, to blame for everything, apparently. His hearing is in a few weeks. I don't believe it was him.
But what if? What if his family heritage, his Black heritage, caught up to him?
What if that happens to me?
No. No, that won't happen. That's impossible.
I hope everyone will be okay. Little Dora, she doesn't know what's going on. I hope that it'll be over by the time she's older.
I hope she'll never have to face death like I do.
November 7th, 1981
I'm naming her Theodosia. Theodosia Andromeda Tonks.
It's a long name, but we'll just call her Sia. We'll have at least one part of our family heritage, and that would be enough, I suppose. I am a Black, still, after all, just a disowned and hated one.
Theodosia Tonks.
It has a nice ring to it.
November 18th, 1981
I….
No.
I….
Oh, damn it.
November 23rd, 1981
You know what? Everything's fine. Everything's bloody goddamn fine—
But it's not.
Oh.
I can't go back.
Later
I could use a Time Turner. Turn back time, the clock, make it so that past me can never go into that bloody hospital, or make my old self change my mediwitch, or not drink that potion, anything.
That's not how time works.
November 30th, 1981
I hate her I hate them I hate them I hate them I hate hate hate hate hate
I can't.
December 4th, 1981.
So… this is what happened.
I was there, and we were going into the medical room. Dora was jumping up and down in excitement, and I was sighing contentedly: both because the bloody thing would finally be out of me, and also that I was going to have another bloody baby.
The mediwitches were kind-faced. One named Kendrya according to the glowing letters suspended over her heart told Ted and Dora that they had to go now.
I said goodbye.
Turned out, I was saying goodbye to old me. Sia.
They said, See you later, and I opened my mouth to reply, and the doors shut. And the thud went through the room with this horrible note of finality to it, and I thought, it's fine, Andie, you are worrying too much. Stop worrying so much.
I stopped worrying. How ironic is that? Why does life hate me?
I can't. I can't do this. Sia's…
gone.
I delivered a dead baby.
I suspected nothing, I stopped worrying. That mediwitch, Kendrya, she gave me a potion vial filled with an ominous dark liquid, and usually potion colors turn out to tell you if it's a good or bad potion.
It was such a tiny vial. Just a single drop of potion, and it killed her.
I woke up. The potion had some kind of sleeping solution in it.
My baby was gone. Gone in just one millisecond.
I screamed, where was she, I needed to see her, what happened to the labor. "Where's my baby? My baby! They stole my baby!" I was crying so hysterically.
But she was gone. And there were the investigators, the Ministry, and I was there crying under the cameras and Ted came and told me. He was the one who told me, because everyone else was trying to ask my damn questions when I didn't even know what had happened.
And he told me, "You don't have a baby."
Kendrya, you probably never existed. But I hate whoever you really are, I hate you, you person who drank some Polyjuice Potion and wormed their way into St. Mungo's and gave me a bloody potion that killed my baby.
Damn it damn it damn it.
I can't.
Later
I'll be okay again. I have to be okay again.
I will be okay again.
Sia, I miss you.
Oh, Sia. After all that kicking, those late nights talking to you, crying to you, walking with you.
I loved you.
But I'll be okay again.
I have to be okay again.