.: Tededa :.
You say that when a man dies, he sees his life as if he is at the cinema.
And it's true. Now that the Tededa is sinking, I'm seeing my life. And it doesn't matter how hard Frank and Max work to pump water out the hold, it doesn't matter how much I try to stay on course and take everybody at home: the sea has decided that today it is going to take our lives, which it has taken care of for forty-four years.
The waves are as walls crumbling on my boat, and there is no spell able to save it. I could Disapparate and then Apparate in our lounge, soaking with salty water the just cleaned floor. But how could I abandon my friends, my colleagues? How could I face their family, knowing that I get away without them? And how could I face you, Andromeda? And you, my little Nymphadora, what would you think of your father?
I'm not brave; I'm just a shoddy wizard and a fisherman who works hard. And I'm a husband who loves his wife and a father ready for anything for his daughter. I'm just a man who does his duty.
It was because of sense of duty, and the possibility to give me a proper education, that my parents decided to send me at Hogwarts, even if that meant two harms less and a less abundant haul –because, before I got my owl, we didn't know why our lobster-pot were so full every time I helped my father.
I think that was why I was sorted in Hufflepuff: I'm not as brave as a Gryffindor, neither as knowledge-thirsty as a Ravenclaw nor as ambitious as a Slytherin. And I felt like a fish out of water in that world, so different from the one I knew, with all those weird words and rules. It was easy ignore me, because I preferred to be ignored: my mind wasn't on the rat to transfigure in a cup or the feather to levitate, but it was on the sea and the boat, all those things I had left behind and that I craved for.
Just like at the cinema, I see the first time you talked to me.
I knew you yet, Andromeda, I watched with envy your elegant manners and your ability with a wand. But most of all, I watched your hands, so fair and delicate, used to hold silvery cutlery and to be sheltered by warm gloves from winter intense cold. Hands different from my mother's, who had to take care of a house and eight children. Hands different from my father's, which saltiness and ropes had made rough and calloused.
I don't know how the whole table ended up talking about that topic, just like I don't know how I got the guts to say what I thought about that, but I did it.
You turned toward me, almost surprised, and then you smiled. "You know, I never considered it from that point of view," you told me.
And then… and then it was so weird. You began to help me with classes and homework, asking me about the Muggle world and how they lived without magic: I remember your ecstatic face, your eye sparkling, amazed like a child discovering the world.
You were so beautiful for me, plump and short, with your curly brown hair and hazel eyes. How many times I heard you call yourself fat, as you praised your older sister's harmonies, and with a straw rick on your head and anonymous eyes, as you talked about your younger sister's fairness.
Then you smiled proudly. "But I'm the only one to look like Grandmother Davan."
It was late May and O.W.L.s were close: we were studying Charm, below the willows bordering the lake. I pushed away my book.
"What are these big word for? They are no use for me!" I snorted.
"You are wrong: you need them because you are a wizard, and wizards use spells to do things," you replied sweetly.
"Then I'm the first to not need them, Miss Black.
"I mean, I won't come back here next year, my uncle has found me a job on a big ship: I know that fishing in open sea is different than fishing lobsters, but it's a good job and within two or three years I'll have enough money to buy a new boat, MY new boat."
"It is not daydreaming time, Tonks," you said laughing as you handed me the Charms book, "remember, we are studying."
I shrugged and lay on the grass. "I don't see the point. Beside I'm sure I won't get an O.W.L.
"I just don't know how name my boat. You know, Ms Black, an unnamed boat is unlucky, so it must be a very special name."
You didn't replied, you just sighed and kept silent for a bit. "Tededa," you said at last.
"Tededa?"
"Yes, isn't it a lovely name for a boat?" you replied with a smile. "Now let's go back studying."
"Wait a minute!" I exclaimed, "What sort of a name is Tededa! It is not even a word!"
"Yes it is. Actually, they are two words." You whispered softly, leaning on me and tracing letters on my chest with your forefinger, "TED and AndromEDA, Tededa."
Your lips were sweet and soft on mine and that kiss –my first kiss, OUR first kiss- seemed to last forever.
The next year I went back to Hogwarts just for you, and I did the same the next year: we were happy with our secret love, of which everybody in Hufflepuff knew about, even the Fat Friar. Do you remember his warning? Do you remember how many time the ghost told us a lecture about love and marriage's sacredness?
Do you remember that time we had one of our roughest fight, because your parent wanted you to marry your sister's brother-in-law? When I heard of it, I was so angry I accused you of using me, that I was just a toy for you, a play time to show your family you could do whatever you wanted. We are two blockheads, aren't we?
How long did we not talk to each other, not even during a class? How mad our Housemates were, when we forces them to pass our messages to each other! I remember you went to Hogsmeade with Rabastan Lestrange in spite of me. And then… then you came to me in the evening; angry tear reddened your cheeks and eyes.
"I hate him I hate him I hate him!" you repeated sobbing. "Just because I'm a Hufflepuff, he has no right to abuse me! Who does he think he is, that stupid Lestrange?
"How could my parents do that to me? How could they be so blind to not see beyond a name? They… they are my mother and my father, they should care of my happiness!
"I… I love my baby's father, why don't they understand that?"
Those words made me feel as if the Defence teacher himself cast a Petrificus Totalis on me.
We didn't have a lot of time, because your sister would get married in July and your parents decided to announce your engagement that same day: we laughed like mad, thinking at the Blacks and the Lestranges' niggardliness.
I did my best to get my Apparition license, because it was the cheaper way to reach you and I didn't care if they could follow our tracks. On the contrary, it would be the perfect way to put your family before the accomplished fact.
The evening before our Graduation Day, we went to the Evocation and Exorcism teacher, father Merrin, and asked him to marry us: do you remember his face as he listened to us? And you almost burst out laughing when he told us we couldn't do something like that without our families' permission. We exchanged a knowing glance. "We are sorry, father, but the three of us couldn't wait anymore."
At those words he looked as if he has swallowed a live toad.
Once back in the Common Room we celebrated not only the end of the school, but even our wedding since in those last two months our classmates had helped us a lot: Danielle Lovejoy, the Head Girl, let us sleep in her bedroom that night.
"C'mon, you won't expect a married couple to spend their first night in a dorm! They need some privacy," she said with a huge smile.
The following weeks were filled with anxiety: I was able to take my Apparition license only on the second try –if I had failed again, our plans would have been jeopardized- and you were doing your best to hide your pregnancy to your family. And then the day came.
It wasn't easy for me to reach you, I never Apparated for such a long distance, but at the end I arrived at the Lestranges' villa, where you were celebrating your older sister's wedding. It was almost sunset when you arrived: radiant and wonderful, you were still wearing your bridesmaid's dress robe under your travelling cloak. You hugged me, kissing me with passion and whispering how much you missed me.
The pregnancy interfered with your magic and it took us a lot of time to arrive in Great Britain, but it didn't matter, it didn't matter: you were my wife, the mother of my child. You were mine and that was enough.
It was evening when we arrived in my village: you laughed happily, your eyes shone like the stars in the sky, as you tasted the sea smelling air. I put my arm around your shoulders as we walked on the pier, I showed you the Tededa. "Our love nest, at least until I'll have enough money to buy a house," I told you.
You were so impatient to meet my family, to begin your new life, that at the end I gave in despite I longed to be alone with you. We walked the way to my house laughing, not caring about the people's curious glances as they wondered who was that elegant young lady embraced to the lobster fisherman.
"Ted Tonks, where in the hell have you been all day long!" do you remember my mother's face, after that warm welcome of hers, as she saw you?
"Mum, let me introduce you Andromeda, my wife."
That scene was so surreal: a Black in the kitchen of a lobster fishermen's family.
My mother made me a scolding-down that evening, while with you she was so ill at ease: she had never ever met a real witch neither a real lady like you. My brothers and my sisters, instead, looked at you as if you were something exotic.
The following day your parents sent you a Howler, but you merely shrugged your shoulders and ignored it: you were Andromeda Tonks and you wouldn't come back.
It was hard to get used to my lifestyle, to not have House Elves ready to obey; you were embarrassed because what you had learned in the Muggle Studies classes was only a little piece of our daily life. Mum helped you, even if she still felt uneasy around you, but you were stubborn and you didn't lose your heart.
And then our Nimphadora arrived.
I won't forget the first time I held her: she was so small and delicate, I was afraid to hurt her with my rough and callous hands. I felt the happiest man in the world.
We celebrated her third birthday in the house I had bought at cost of enormous sacrifices, but it was our, our albatross nest. We lived the life of every couple: we loved each other and we fought, without speaking for days and days, but at the end we made it up.
And how you got angry, when I made cry our baby girl showing her a live lobster!
"Ted Tonks, you know Nimphadora is afraid of lobsters! Stop to frighten her!" you scolded me as you lulled our crying darling.
That was how we found out that our baby girl was a Metamorphomagus, and that day it was you who cried, just like the day she received her owl. And you cried when Nimphadora got seven O.W.L.s, and when she graduated with high grades, and when she was accepted at the Auror Academy: our Nimphadora was so happy that day, she looked so gorgeous in her uniform, her face brightened by the smile she has inherit from you.
We were always worried for our baby girl, because the Dark Lord was back, because your sister Bellatrix was free and you trembled at the thought of what could happen if they had to face each other on the battlefield. Every time Nimphadora come back home, you cooked her favourite dish.
The Tededa is sinking, my love, my darling; the water is filling my lugs, I can't breathe; a rope ties me to the Tededa. I try to free myself, I can't resist anymore, I can't resist. Forgive me Andromeda, for this pain. Forgive me Nimphadora, if I wo
Ted Tonks's corpse was found three days after, with what was left of the Tededa.