The Eternal Rocks Beneath
Author's Note: Harry Potter and all related characters is to J.K. Rowling.
Yep. Sirius and Remus don't appear in this one at all. At least, not in corporeal, alive bodies.
~o~
He opened the door without knocking. That was what alerted her to the fact that something was wrong. Like his father, he had that quiet way about him, polite and distant until he smiles and makes jokes with everyone else and then she feels a little stupid for worrying too much.
It's been a long time since she'd raised a child. She thought that she had gotten rusty at it.
"Ted. Teddy? Is something wrong?" Andromeda took a chocolate wrapper from the coffee table and placed it carefully between the pages of Wuthering Heights. She had never been one for chocolates, actually, going straight for the nougats and peppermints whenever she visited Honeydukes even back in the days she still went to Hogwarts. But now she constantly craved the sweet and bitter taste of black chocolate, like coffee with too many sugar cubes, something smooth and sinful like that. The same chocolate bar that Teddy's father, Remus Lupin, had given her the day Ted Tonks had to go away in hiding. And that one last time when the Potterwatch announced his death. The taste of chocolate reminding her of him, and how apt it was.
The sound of the springs in the couch creaking brought her attention back to the moment, to this other Teddy, who certainly looked too much like his father to be anyone else. Not her Ted at all, but someone who'd stay awake during stormy nights reading books of Muggle fairy tales with her, who sent her Chocolate Frogs every week during school years even though she always told him that he was doing it wrong. She didn't want to appear needy, never wanted to keep him to herself. Inevitably there were times when she felt like she had no one left, and even though he understood why she was so protective of him, they'd had several arguments that reminded her so much of her own daughter and the arguments they had had.
She only wanted the best for him, her grandson. Which is why she would have given everything she had left to go avoid this moment, erase the doubt on Teddy's face and turn back time to what it had been, before the chocolates and Muggle literature.
"Don't sit there, Teddy," she said, absently. "You know that sofa is almost gone, anyway. I wonder why I haven't thrown it away yet."
"Because this was mum's favourite sofa," Teddy pointed out. Probably she had told him this, dozens of times. How did he feel then, when it seemed like she was living in a past he constantly reminded her of, but took no part in? Lonely? And how would Dora feel if she ever found out that her Teddy was lonely?
"Yes," said Andromeda, vaguely.
"Is it true, then?" said Teddy, with the kind of sharpness not inherited from anyone Andromeda could think of.
"What is?" she said, stalling for time.
"He left us, didn't he, before the Battle at Hogwarts. After I was born." His voice was flat. Now that was something Andromeda could remember hearing before. That same inflection that Remus Lupin had used to tell her of Sirius Black's death. And the expression to go with it. She wondered if it was anger she was feeling, if traces of him in her grandson made her feel uncomfortable, or just hateful.
"Yes. For a short time, he did. And he went back, and we were all too worried, too scared that something had happened to him to be properly angry," Andromeda said, laughing softly. "I doubt Dora even considered being angry. She's always been so understanding. Too understanding, in fact."
"Understanding? Of what?" Teddy echoed her laugh. "The pressure? The wrong choices? Everyone's experience was just as hard. I don't hear about Harry or the rest cracking up—"
"Oh, but they did," Andromeda reminded him, gently. "Nobody can know what really happened back then with Harry and his friends, but you must realize, from what Hermione had said, that there'd been a lot of time when they'd thought about giving up hope."
"But they didn't!" Teddy insisted. "Or we probably won't be here, would we? Not me, who's a halfblood and a halfbreed." He held out his hand, smiling mischievously for a moment. "Don't say it, grandmother. You know I never cared a bit about that. But to go back to what I was saying: Harry stayed where he was, didn't he? Not ran away like some... some coward."
"You know that Hermione had as much a hand to that as much as Harry."
"And?"
"And I'm telling you, Teddy, that Hermione had always been there to help Harry, even after that time when Ron went away. That's how things were different." For Remus, she wanted to add, but didn't, because even now she didn't like saying his name too much.
"He had mother, didn't he?" said Teddy, as if Andromeda had said the name after all.
"Yes. But that might have been another reason why he—ran away. He, well, he's never been too good with his emotions, your father."
Teddy laughed, leaning back on the couch. When he was a child he used to put his feet up on the coffee table as well, until Andromeda gave him Jelly Legs for a week to teach him a lesson, thinking that it worked with Dora fine before, no reason why it wouldn't work with her grandson.
"Harry loved him! You should hear him talk about kind Professor Lupin."
"If he was kind, it was to keep other people away," snapped Andromeda. "It was my last year at Hogwarts when he got in, making friends with my cousin and the rest. You know the story. He was nice and polite because it was the path of least resistance. It had nothing to do with who he really was."
"How do you know that?" said Teddy, interested in spite of himself. Of course, this was Remus Lupin as no one else knew him. Remus before all the tragedy happened and the lines marking his face were only those of half-healed scars.
"I know," said Andromeda, simply. "There was that time, when Narcissa was saying something to Sirius, something about the family, I think. She's very cruel, Cissy, but fiercely loyal. She can't understand how anyone would want to cause so much pain and trouble for Aunt Walburga. And Sirius was only pretending not to care, but you can tell that he's trying hard not to cry. Or curse her. You'd never know with Sirius, actually."
"So I've heard," said Teddy, with a slight twist to his lips. He has of course heard as much from Harry.
"It was a cruel thing to say to a boy out on his own for the first time, knowing he never fit in so well with the rest of his family. I remember."
"What did she say?" said Teddy. He did not ask her what her story had to do with his father. He was patient like that.
"That no one loved him," said Andromeda, with a sound that would have sounded like a snort on someone who wasn't born a Black. "That might as well have been true. Walburga had never been the kind to love anyone."
"She liked Regulus well enough, I've heard."
"She was obsessed over Regulus. That was a reaction against Sirius, I think. But here was Cissy saying that to Sirius, in front of his friends, and I was thinking of telling her off when your father stepped in. He pulled Sirius aside, somewhat, so that he was standing between Sirius and Cissy, and the expression on his face had a set and almost steely quality that you would never have thought can belong to an eleven-year-old boy.
"'What do you know about love?' he'd asked Cissy then, softly. And weren't we both struck speechless when he said that." Andromeda laughed softly, remembering the look on Sirius' face as well, and the way his knuckles turned white when he held onto Remus Lupin's hand. Andromeda reckoned she was the only one who had noticed that the boys were holding hands. Not even James Potter himself, who was standing beside Sirius, quite noticed the reassuring squeeze Remus gave Sirius' hand before addressing himself to Cissy.
"He said that?" Teddy said, probably thinking of Madam Malfoy and her face that always looked like she was smelling something nasty near her feet. He laughed.
"Why yes, he did. And then James Potter was pulling them back down the hallway before Cissy could say anything else and I just have to laugh a bit at the expression on her face. Being told off by an eleven-year-old didn't do a lot to help her humors, but that's Cissy through and through."
"Grandmother?"
And there it was. Andromeda had to steel herself against what was to come, her hand tightening on the edges of her book, which was the only betrayal she allowed of what she truly felt.
"Yes, Teddy?"
"My father... he was a cold man, wasn't he?"
"He was a kind man," she said.
"But?"
"But he was cold, yes."
"And Sirius Black?"
She dared look up from Teddy's feet to his face, pale face that, if not for the dark blue hair and sharpness to the chin (that was definitely Dora all over), could have been the same face looking at Andromeda while Sirius Black hovered somewhere behind. That time more than three decades ago and imprinted on her mind like a brand. It was another quiet memory, more subtle perhaps than the one with Narcissa. But with no less impact.
~o~
"Congratulations, Andromeda."
"For being mother to a pretty baby girl or for pissing the family off?" Andromeda had laughed. "You should have seen what Walburga sent us on her christening!"
"One of those stuffed house elves, I suppose?" Sirius had smiled, pulling Remus Lupin inside with him. "She was saying something the like a couple of years ago."
"Several years ago," Andromeda repeated. "Well, what brings you here now?"
"Do I need a reason to see my cousin? She'll be turning two years old now, wouldn't she?" He handed her a hastily wrapped package, paper slightly haphazard even though the red bow was very carefully tied to one side.
"How thoughtful." Andromeda couldn't keep the sarcasm from her voice, although she was sure Sirius knew whom it was intended for. "You shouldn't really, Sirius. If Walburga finds out..."
"Bugger Walburga. I'm all done with that, you know Andromeda." said Sirius, shortly. He had looked so out of place in the middle of the nursery, slouched against the door with his oversized leather jacket and long hair. To his side, the blue wallpaper with the Mother Goose characters pattern looked too weak, almost ridiculous. In front of Sirius, Remus Lupin tried not to knot his hands together even though he had no idea what he was doing there in the first place.
"You know Remus, of course," said Sirius, as if sensing his friend's discomfort just then. Better talk of something else than the event of Sirius' departure from the ancient and most noble House of Black, certainly.
"Who doesn't? The four of you, terror of Hogwarts even in your first year!" She gave Remus a kindly look, trying to put him at ease. "Where's the rest of you, then?"
Sirius shrugged. "Busy. James is pretty much a Quidditch nutter, you know. Practice comes before everything, even in the summer hols."
"Bones is pretty hard on the team," Remus offered, quietly.
"Bones, eh? Last time I was there he was just a skinny runt of a kid, and you say he's a Quidditch captain?" said Andromeda. "Do come in, Sirius. The child's not going to bite."
"What's her name?" said Remus, when Sirius stuck his tongue out at his older cousin.
"Nymphadora."
Sirius leaned down over the play pen, smiling as Dora raised her small hands to clutch at strands of his hair.
"Vicious little tyke!" he said, in mock horror. "And what's with the pink hair, Andromeda?"
"Metamorphmagus," she said, shortly.
"I've never met one before," said Remus, moving to stand near the pen as well. He had to move closer to Andromeda than Sirius because of the awkward arrangement of the bureau. "Children are really small, aren't they?"
Sirius looked up, still smiling. His face looked softer than Andromeda could remember seeing, eyes barely passing over his cousin before settling on Remus. Suddenly she felt like a stranger in her own home, excluded from that moment when the boys' eyes met.
"I'm sorry," said Sirius, inexplicably.
"Don't be," said Remus, raising one hand before thinking the better of it. He let his hand down again, slipping it inside his pocket as if he didn't trust himself not to reach out again.
~o~
"There are some things..." she chose her words with care, trying to remember the words her daughter had said, the first time Remus Lupin got introduced to Andromeda as an official member of the family. The slight sense of seeing something happening again, like in a scene from a Pensieve, except the faces were different. Even his, with his empty smiles and dead eyes. "...that happen only once to a person. Experiences, people... relationships."
"Grandmother."
"Love like that can only happen once in your lifetime, Teddy."
"And mother?"
"Was there when Remus most needed her, like he was there to support her," Andromeda said. "Dora knew everything. How could she not? The Order... her cousin..." Her voice trailed off. "Perhaps this is not something you'd understand right now."
"Not the 'you're too young' line again!" Teddy threw up both his hands and made an obvious effort not to roll his eyes. Now that was Dora exactly. Andromeda tried not to smile. "You are telling me that we—mother and I, ranked second?"
"There were no ranks, Teddy," Andromeda said, more lightly now. "Not in the way you mean. It was simply different, do you see? You both made Remus happy, when he was probably in the darkest moments of his life. Be satisfied with that."
"Mother told you this," said Teddy. It wasn't a question.
"I figured the rest for myself, but yes, she did say something to that nature."
Teddy said nothing for a while, looking at the dying fire instead, tapping his shoes against the leg of his couch in a rhythm that made sense only to him. Andromeda sighed, opening Wuthering Heights again, reading the lines with Cathy saying that she was Heathcliff, how he was always in her mind. The words made her want to laugh, except they weren't funny at all.
"Mother was very brave, wasn't she?"
Andromeda nodded.
"And father."
She placed the empty chocolate wrapper onto the escritoire beside her chair, considering throwing it into the fire, but letting it lie there instead next to her tea cup.
And Sirius, she added, in her head.
~o~
AN: this was a real hard thing to write, for some reason, and I'm still at that particular point when I'm hating it with a vengeance. The title comes from the same passage from Wuthering Heights that Andromeda was reading in the end, and one of the FEW reasons why this fic is going to see the light from the outside world, actually.
If anyone can tell me how to fix this up, please do so. You can own parts of my soul not sold or bartered off already.