Twenty-Five facts About Andromeda Tonks
1.) Andromeda loves her parents and sisters desperatly, though you won't hear her admit it these days. Bella was mischevious and rude and bossy, but fun and free spirited and wild. Cissa was young, meek and silent, but sweet, and kind, and a good listener. Her parents were uptight, and cruel, and domieering, but they never failed to make sure Andy felt safe, and loved. She insists that she doesn't care for her family any more - they aren't her family any more - but sometimes, she almost wishes she had just conformed.
2.) She was a Hufflepuff. The hat wanted to make her a Gryffindor, but she begged not to be made so different. The hat listened. Her parents were immensley disappointed, but at least they didn't send a howler like Sirius's parents, when he was sorted into Gryffindor a few years later.
3.) She always felt a special bond with Sirius - she was seven older, but that didn't matter. He was her best friend - out of all her male friends anyway. He understood - even as a young boy, he understood. She loved him especially, because he, too, she knew, hated the House of Black. Not his brother, or his parents, but the wretched surname itself. She knew how it felt to want to please your family, but hate everything that they stand for
4.) Ted Tonks always liked to flirt with her. She would respond if it wasn't in a class with her sisters. Her sisters didn't like her house at all - all mudbloods and blood traitor filth, as Bella would say. Narcissa would tell her to shut up if she went on too long - which was a big step for quiet little Cissy.
5.) Andromeda first started standing up to her parents in her second year, when they refused to let her have a birthday party. Apparently it was too common for a Black girl. She snuck out and went to a muggle disco with the rest of the Hufflepuff girls. Her parents never found out.
6.) Ted took her to Hogsmeade in the third year. She had to hide from her sisters all day - but he didn't mind. She has no idea why her parents say muggle borns are beneath her - if anything, she isn't good enough for him. He really does listen when she speaks, not gawp at her like Lucius Malfoy.
7.) She was betrothed to Lucius Malfoy from birth. He used to think that gave him the right to leer at her breasts.
8.) He stopped leering the day she slapped him.
9.) She never really intended on marrying Malfoy - it just kept her Mother happy if she went along with the wedding plans and the akward meetings. Whenever she thought of the future, all she could picture was a hot country and Ted Tonks, whom she was now dating - albeit secretly.
10.) Her family called her Andy. Ted was the only person who didn't use that nickname - he called her Dromeda. She much prefered this. She always thought, if she ever, you know, ended up marrying him - which she wasn't expecting, but was hoping for - she would be Dromeda Tonks, instead of Andy Black. She could be a whole new person.
11.) She never understood why Ted put up with her horrible family, and the beliefs they held. She couldn't believe someone as good as him would date a Black girl - a girl from the most horribly arrogant, snobbish and ignorant family there was. She didn't understand why, whenever Bella spit in his hair, or Cissy made a snarky comment and Andromeda wouldn't retaliate, that he didn't just tell her to push off - that he didn't want to be treated like dirt any more.
12.) Malfoy really started trying to 'get to know her' in the fifth year. Andy knew he just wanted to get her into bed. For a supposed 'nobleman', his intentions were anything but. She would tell him to go away, and he would tell her parents, and it would end in screaming matches until three in the morning, after which Andromeda would go into her room, sobbing, swearing to herself she was going to get out of that house, that family. Then Cissy would knock timidly on her door, and bring her coco, and Andy would calm down for her sister's sake.
13.) Although she really did love Ted, they weren't a perfect couple. She would say something snobbish from reflex, then he would shout and she would shout, then she would cry and he would hold her. These fights were horrible whilst they went on, but the making up - snuggling into the same armchair and swapping 'I love you's - always made them worth it, and Andy knew she'd never want to stop fighting, because that would be the day they'd stopped feeling.
14.) She started really hating Bella when she said that Andy might as well get on with it and just sleep with Lucius. "You're going to have to anyway." Bella told her she was there to bring about the next generation of the Black family - she had to carry on the line. Andy looked at her in disgust every time she said this - especially when she said it to Cissy, who was betrothed to Augustus Rookwood.
15.) Bella herself was betrothed to Rodolphus Lestrange. When Andy finally snapped and told her to shag her own boyfriend and stop talking about hers, Bella laughed and lit up a cigarette. Apparantly, she already had - but just to keep him happy. She insisted she was meant for greater things than childbirth. Andy got a horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach every time Bella talked like that, because she thought she knew what she meant, but part of her refused to believe it.
16.) She was forced to believe that Bella was involved with the recent muggle killings when she found Bella's notebook of spells. They weren't nice spells. They were torture and murder and drowning and wounding and cutting and bleeding and writhing spells. Andy burnt the notebook, but she couldn't get the fact that her sister was a murderer out of her head. This is when she started locking her door before she went to bed.
17.) In Seventh year, she told Ted everything. All about Malfoy, and Bella, and how worried she was about Cissy, and how much she hated, hated, hated, the most noble house of Black. He held her as she sobbed, and said when she'd finished.
"Well it looks like we're going to have to get married then."
18.) On her last day at Hogwarts, she kissed Ted fully in front of everyone. Going home on the train, she sat with her boyfriend and her friends - safe from Bella's wrath, and happy for the first time in a long time.
19.) When she got home, Bella told her exactly what she thought of her. Andromeda tried not to cry, but couldn't quite acheive that, so she settled for a stony expression and a few silent tears as she packed. It was only when Bella tried to curse her that she said anything - and she said Pertrificus Tortalus. She told Bella everything as she packed, explaining to her sister what she wanted, what she needed, why the House of Black was wrong. Sick, and wrong. But when she looked into Bella's eyes, she could no longer see her sister. Just a mad, soulless murderer.
20.) She left without seeing her parents, but Cissy followed her out into the garden. She asked where Andy was going, and why. She tried to explain. She thought maybe Cissy would understand. And maybe she did. She cried, but when Andy reached out to her, Cissy told her to get out of her house. She called her a filthy blood traitor. Andy cried much harder over this than anything Bella said.
21.) She and Ted took a tour of the world to get away from it all. For two years, not one. Ted was reasonably well off, and though she wanted to pay, he insisted. For my fiancee, he would always say. She adored every second of this new freedom - and started owling people. Molly Weasley, and her little cousin Sirius. They both responded enthusiastically. They, and Ted, are her family now.
22.) When she found out she was pregnant, they were touring America for the third time. She told Ted at a muggle diner in Omaha. She had been worried, but he just laughed, and took her back to England to finally get married.
23.) Ted insisted if the baby was a boy, they'd name him something simple. Andromeda agreed, but hoped it was a girl, whom she could name not for a star, but with an equally beautiful name
24.) Nymphadora being born was the happiest moment of her life - well, that and her marriage. She thought about making Sirius god father, but he's only just gone thirteen. She makes Molly Weasly Godmother, and settles at that.
25.) She knows Bella is out to get her, but she has hope for the goodness inside Cissy that she knows there is. She hopes that everyone has the same good side, that's been repressed but is waiting there, just under the surface, to be found. She hopes this war will be over soon, and when it is, she swears she'll try to help her baby sister.