Summary:
Just how did Andromeda Black end up with Ted Tonks? A story about how a Pureblood and Muggle-born got together through the prejudice of their status. Andromeda had always wanted to be free and would give anything to be as carefree as Ted. Ted was always curious how such a pretty girl like Andromeda could be so distant. First year through Seventh and on after Hogwarts. ABTT
1964: First Year
Andromeda Black walked down the Hogwarts Express with her long and curly light-brown hair swishing behind her. She was on her way back from changing into robes. Bellatrix had insisted that her younger sister changed out of those horrible Mudblood clothes as soon as possible. Andromeda, or Andie as her friends and family called her, thought that the Muggle clothes weren't all that bad; they were quite comfortable and pretty, too. But she understood her family's value of Toujours pur and, of course, her family meant everything to her.
As she had almost reached her compartment, she ran into a skinny boy with dirty blond hair. She glared at him as he muttered a sorry. He opened his mouth to say something else but she had already walked into her compartment and the door slid shut. She didn't even see the confused look on his face. Really, a boy like him was far off the radar of Andromeda Black.
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He muttered a sorry as he accidentally ran into the girl with the long, brown hair. He was going to introduce himself and was going to ask for her name when she had already shut the compartment door on him. Confused, Ted Tonks continued on his way to the washroom. He wondered how such a pretty girl could be so cold. Just like an Ice Queen, he named her secretly.
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"Slytherin!" the Sorting Hat yelled.
Andie took off the hat and walked down the hall to join her sister, Bellatrix, at the Slytherin table. It really was no surprise that she was sorted there, seeing as almost her whole family had been there. She waited impatiently, not paying attention at all at the sorting, until a familiar boy walked up to the stool. She briefly remembered the Deputy Headmaster calling him Ted Tonks and that the Sorting Hat had sorted him to Hufflepuff. However, her attention quickly turned to the food as the feast began.
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Relieved, Ted hopped off the stool to join the Hufflepuffs. Several older students clapped and smiled kindly at him as they made space for him on the bench to sit down. When the Headmaster finished his speech, he gasped in surprise as the food suddenly appeared before him. The fifth year beside him chuckled at his surprise. Ted blushed and smiled back ruefully as he started on his meal. Through the crowds of students, he caught a glimpse of chocolate brown in the mass of green. He lowered his fork as he tried to remember her name from the sorting. Ted had been way too nervous before the sorting to remember much of it.
"Who are you looking at?" Lawrence Blue, the fifth year, asked him as he noticed the younger boy's searching look.
"Oh, just that girl with the long chocolatey hair. I accidentally ran into her on the train and I'm trying to remember what her name was. I was going to ask her for her name but she already walked off," Ted explained sheepishly.
"Her? The one beside Bellatrix Black? –The one with the wild messy hair talking to the guy beside her," Lawrence added when he saw Ted looking at him in question. Ted nodded in answer. "That would be Andromeda Black. Really, you should stay away from that crowd. They think they are everything and above everyone else just because they are Pureblood."
"Pureblood? What does that mean?" Ted asked curiously.
"It applies to a witch or wizard that is born from an ancestry of full witches and wizards. They consider everyone else who isn't Purebloods to be lower than them. I am guessing that you are Muggle-born by your lack of understanding," Lawrence stated, not unkindly. "Both your parents are non-magical, right? Just because of whom your parents are, the Blacks and several others will consider you to be worthless." He grimaced at the word.
"But that's not really fair is it?" Ted cried, dropping his fork in the process, "A person should be judged by their intelligence and kindness!"
"I agree," Lawrence said regretfully, "But that is not how things work around here."
Ted looked down at his plate, having suddenly lost his appetite. He thought that coming to Hogwarts was a great thing, but now people are going to judge him because of his parents.
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1965: Second Year
"Ew, Mudblood alert!" her friend whispered venomously as Ted Tonks walked by them in the corridor.
Annoyed, Andie automatically walked away from him with her friend to the other side of the hall as if he contained a disease. Outwardly, she was the perfect pureblood daughter: having only with Pureblood friends, ignoring the Mudbloods, and gossiping with her friends about the most suited Pureblood boy to marry. But on the inside, Andie was already tired of this Pureblood and Mudblood business. Growing up with her sisters, Andie didn't know any better. However, she realized that her classmates weren't all that different. They all attended the same school, had the same teachers, and some of them were even getting better marks.
But as a Black, Andromeda had to act like a Black, even if it did mean being a total arse to others and acting like someone she's not around her friends.
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Ted cringed as he heard the word Mudblood. He had long since got used to the comment wherever he went, but it still ticked him off. He knew his friends were all angered by it but, like him, they couldn't do anything about it.
"Come on Ted," his friends said, for they saw the anger within his eyes, "There's no use arguing with that lot."
"I know, but I'm tired of being looked down by the stupid Purebloods, always thinking they're better than everyone else," Ted spat as he stalked away furiously.
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1966: Third Year
"Diggory scores! Thirty to two hundred and ten for the Hufflepuffs!"
It was a Quidditch match between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. Andie wasn't normally interested in Quidditch but her boyfriend, Hyperion Malfoy, insisted that she came. Hyperion was a distant cousin of Lucius Malfoy. Andie suspected that her family was trying to marry her off to Hyperion seeing as he was one of the only Purebloods available at Hogwarts. If she had been born a year later, her father probably would have insisted her on marrying Lucius. Andie shuddered at the thought. Seriously, she was only in her third year and her parents were already trying to set her up.
Andie didn't even like Hyperion a bit. He was always talking about the Purebloods this and Purebloods that. If not, it was either Slytherin will definitely beat Hufflepuff in Quidditch and Slytherin will definitely win the Cup, or something about Quidditch. Andie swore that that was all Hyperion thought about. Andromeda idly watched the match as she ignored her "boyfriend" who was boasting about how Slytherin could definitely beat both the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs easily. Hyperion was the keeper (or was it chaser?... really, it was so hard to pay attention to him sometimes) of the Slytherin team.
Suddenly, she noticed that the crowd was on its feet and cheering madly. It took a while before Andie realized that the two seekers have caught sight of the stitch. A blur of blue and yellow raced toward the golden snitch and the yellow blur was just a bit ahead and—
"Tonks catches the snitch! But Ravenclaw still wins with two hundred and ten to one hundred and eighty!..."
"What an idiot. He should have known that they would lose since they are behind so much in points," Hyperion sneered as parts of the crowd rushed down to congratulate the Ravenclaw team.
"Who, Tonks?" Andie asked blankly as she returned her attention back to her boyfriend.
"Duh, of course! Who else?" her boyfriend answered, "Have you been paying attention at all? I told you this was important…"
Blah, blah, blah, like anyone cared what he thought. She looked across the pitch and saw that Tonks was still zooming around on his broom, looking so free like a bird. Andromeda thought how nice it would be if she could just jump on a broom and fly away from all this misery…
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Ted flew around the pitch after the game, wanting to clear his thoughts. He knew that even though he had caught the snitch, his team didn't win. But he knew that if he caught it later, Hufflepuff would have lost by even more.
Suddenly, he felt the hair on the back of his neck rose as if someone was watching him. He looked around and saw that most people were either congratulating the Ravenclaw team or had already left the pitch. Then, he saw two green dots walking towards the exit. He looked a bit closer and saw that it was Andromeda Black and her boyfriend. He frowned as he realized that it was Black who was staring at him all along. Why would Black be looking at him? And she wasn't even glaring at him! Ted saw that she looked quite unhappy and as if she had not rested properly. He wondered why Andromeda Black, of all people, was unhappy. She had everything: her crazy sister protected her from any unwanted attention, she was smart, and she was going out with one of the best looking people of their year. When Black realized that Ted had caught her staring at him, he smiled at her. However, she blushed and looked down as she quickly exited the pitch with her boyfriend.
Ted scratched his head as he wondered why he had smiled at her. Andromeda Black was not one of the people who always called him Mudblood but she was not exactly friendly to him. Maybe it was because she was so unhappy that Ted wanted to make her smile. Oh well, whatever. What's done was done. Ted shrugged and continued with his flying.
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Andie was quite embarrassed when Tonks caught her staring at him. He must've thought she was crazy or something. But she couldn't help but envy him. He was always so happy and so free, always making his friends laugh. She wished that he could make her laugh, but she knew that was impossible. She often caught herself staring at him whenever the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs had classes together.
She remembered one potion class when Tonks accidentally tripped as he was heading to Slughorn's desk to hand in his potion. The potion flew, as if in slow motion, across the room and landed right on the professor's head. The contents of the potion dripped quickly down his face. Andie couldn't help it but laugh at the scene: Slughorn's face getting redder by the second and Tonks' horrified expression. However, she quickly turned her laugh into a cough when Tonks turned around and quickly blanked her expression as if bored by the whole ordeal.
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"Shit!" Ted thought as he tripped. He was dimly aware that his potion was no longer in his hands as the floor came rushing to his face. When he looked up, he realized that he had somehow threw the potion all the way across the room and made it land on the professor's head.
Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, he is going to murder me! Here comes one week worth of detention, Ted dreaded, hey wait a minute who is laughing at me?
He whipped his head around and saw Black with her face red and coughing like crazy into her hand. When she stopped, she looked quite bored. He could have sworn that Black, Miss Ice Queen, was laughing at him! However, he didn't have time to think about it as Slughorn started yelling at him.
"MISTER TONKS!" Slughorn bellowed, "DETENTION FOR THE REST OF THE WEEK! ACUTLALY FOR THE REST OF THIS MONTH! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING THROWING THAT THING AT ME?! YOU KNOW HOW DANGEROUS THAT IS?! GOOD THING IT IS ONLY…"
Ted gulped, the Hufflepuffs grimaced with sympathy, the Slytherins laughed out loud, and Andromeda Black chuckled silently, but Ted did not know that she was laughing at the comical scene and not at him.
A/N Just to clarify, Hyperion was Scorpious Malfoy's middle name. I found that off the Harry Potter Lexicon.
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1967Fourth Year
"So, you're my date for the Christmas Ball."
Andie glanced up at Hyperion, not quite registering what he had just said. She was about to ask him what he was talking about when he cut in.
"Great, I will see you later," Hyperion said, way too cheerfully.
She groaned frustratingly as she watched her so called boyfriend walk away from her. Hyperion was treating her like a pet, telling her what to and not to do. She could never have a say in this relationship. Mind you, not that there was much a relationship. If it weren't for her parents, she would definitely not be dating him. She tried to talk to her parents about breaking up with him. What she got was her father looking very red and angry and her mother yelling at her for one hour straight before she told them that she was joking. That made it worse. Her mother somehow still had the voice to continue yell at her about her inappropriate behavior.
"Oh my gosh! You and Hyperion are sooooo cute!" Emma, one of her cough friends, squealed, "You two are like the perfect couple!"
"Yeah I know, like totally right?" Andie replied sarcastically. However, her friend didn't seem to catch on her lack of honesty because she continued on.
"Right! Anyways, I was thinking we can go look for some dresses at our next Hogsmeade trip. We could get matching ones! Or something like a blue…"
Andie growled inwardly. Life just keeps getting better and better…not.
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Ted tapped his fingers nervously as he waited for Emmeline Vance, a girl he had been fancying since the beginning of the year, to leave her classroom. He wanted to ask her to the Christmas Ball before someone else did. She was quite popular and pretty amongst the fourth years.
"Hi Ted, what are you doing here?" Ted jumped as Emmeline spoke to him. It seemed that she had snuck up behind him when he wasn't paying attention.
"Oh er nothing, just passing by, you know," Ted replied nervously. "So the weather is pretty nice eh?" Ted regretted what he said immediately and mentally smacked himself.
"Um, it's raining outside. I guess you like the rain," Emmeline said, chuckling. "Anyways, are you going to the ball?"
"Yes, I think I am," Ted said, keeping his answers short.
"You think?" she asked.
"Well it depends if I can find a date or not," Ted said, and crossed his fingers as he continued, "Would you like to go to the ball with me?"
She smiled and replied, "Sure, I'd love to."
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Andie had to admit that the dress Emma had chosen for her was beautiful. It was a spaghetti-strap, full-length, mid-night blue dress with about a five inch train. The back was bare to about the waist, held elegantly together with crisscrossing lace. She wore a pair of three inch silver heels to go with the outfit. She decided to let her long light-brown locks loose, just reaching her stomach. All together, she thought that she looked gorgeous.
If only her date was half as wonderful as her dress. He was towing her around as if she was a show-dog. Everyone else seemed to be having a good time, with dates that they actually chose. But no, Miss Andie Black had to be stuck with Hyperion bloody Malfoy. If she wasn't busy imagining ways of getting rid of her boyfriend, she would've notice half the girls shooting her envious looks. Not only did she catch every boy's attention but she also happened to be going out with one of the hottest guy of the year.
There was, however, one boy that was not paying attention to the Slytherin couple. Ted Tonks was completely paying attention to his date. When Andie saw Tonks make Emmeline Vance laugh, she, surprisingly, felt a stab of both jealousy and envy. She was jealous of Tonks and Vance for being so happy at the ball and she was envious of Vance for having Tonks being able to make her laugh.
Throughout the whole evening, Tonks never left Vance's side. Andie even saw, with a pang at her heart, them kissing under the mistletoe during the last slow song of the evening. Andie was very confused. She had no reason to be jealous of Vance and she had her own boyfriend! But she still did not understand why the sight of them kissing even bothered her one bit.
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"Andromeda Black is glaring at me," Emmeline whispered fearfully to Ted.
"That's because she's afraid that you've taken her spotlight with your beauty," Ted joked. His date blushed at the compliment.
"No, seriously! Look at her! I swear she's trying to murder me with her eyes," Emmeline insisted.
"If she's glaring at anyone, it would be me, seeing as I'm the Muggle-born here," Ted replied. "More like that's the Ice Queen's normal look."
"The Ice Queen?" Emmeline laughed.
"Yes the Ice Queen. She can freeze the room with her stare!" Ted proclaimed. "Anyways care to join me for a dance?"
"Alright, let's go," Emmeline smiled shyly.
Ted danced with Emmeline the whole ball. He felt as if he was the luckiest man on Earth dancing with the petit burnet. What completed his evening was sharing a kiss with his date under the mistletoe with no care for the world.
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