Disclaimer: I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

***

Except for placid Arthur and his second son Charlie, the Weasleys more than live up to the stereotype of the hot-tempered and excitable ginger. Andromeda has learned to avoid the kitchen of the Burrow except when she has to be in there for meal prep, because it seems to be the chosen arena for family battles.

In the last week, there's been a set-to between Molly and Ginny about Ginny's plans. Ginny shouted that Hogwarts isn't going to be opening as a school anytime soon, and she's going to the Harpies tryouts whether her mother likes it or not. She's had quite enough of one bully or another trying to keep her off what she loves, whether it's the twins forbidding her the broom shed or her mother trying to turn her into a hausfrau before her time. She'll get married in her own time and on her own terms—not on her mother's. And her relationship with Harry is none of her mother's bloody business, and she'd appreciate that Molly not listen at keyholes.

Then George and Percy had it out about Percy's wartime record and Fred's death, which was more than she could stand to hear since it had been Bella who killed Fred, not Percy. Andromeda stopped the chopping knives in their task and fled to the yard with Teddy. She could hear their voices through the open kitchen window, until it actually spilled out into the yard, with George yelling at Percy about how it was all his bloody fault, the whole thing, and if he'd had some family feeling he might not have two brothers mutilated and the other dead, and he was going back to the shop to do the accounts and he'd thank Percy to make himself scarce when he returned, because the sight of traitors at the dinner table made him sick. George stormed down the back steps and spun mid-stride to Apparate back to Hogsmeade. Andromeda wondered if he'd splinched himself on arrival, but took a deep breath and remembered that these were Molly's children, not hers, and in any case they were grown men and wouldn't hear her even if she did try to say something. George, she was well aware, ignored her as a mere female.

Percy came out and sat down unsteadily on the back steps, his face dead white. He looked as if he were going to be sick. His usually impeccable hair was tousled and his glasses askew on his nose; Andromeda wondered if George had laid hands on him. Hermione told him that the twins formerly ganged up on Percy, sometimes physically as well as verbally. Andromeda considers it fairly disgraceful for them to be brawling like that in their twenties, but she supposes she doesn't have much room to talk, since sibling brawls actually descended to murder in the case of her and her sisters.

Charlie is the exception to the rule. He was a great friend of Nymphadora's when the two were at Hogwarts together; his was the first name she remembers from her daughter's letters home. They both loved Care of Magical Creatures and flying lessons. How the two of them met, given that Gryffindor and Hufflepuff didn't have classes together, is still obscure to her, but they seem to have found each other by the pure gravitation of affinity. Molly and Andromeda are cousins by marriage, but the beginning of their true affiliation as adults was their children's mutual fascination. Charlie was nearly as easygoing as Nymphadora and Ted; he frequently visited them in the holidays. At the end of each of those visits, Ted would smile indulgently and give Charlie some disused machine parts to take home to Arthur. Ted's tinkering was pure Muggle; he was amused by Arthur's hybrid approach.

After graduation, they went very separate ways. Charlie went off to Rumania to become a dragon-keeper, which Nymphadora explained by way of his desire for peace and quiet. Anyone who hadn't seen the Weasley household would have taken that for a joke. She became an Auror for reasons obscure to her mother. Andromeda suspects, from something that Kingsley once said, that Nymphadora felt very strongly the betrayal by her cousin Sirius, during the twelve years that it was assumed that he'd sold the Potters to Voldemort. Kingsley told her that Nymphadora had lost her temper—so far as she ever did—and announced her Dark connections to the entire tea-room at the Auror Department, saying the lot of them could bloody well quit with the obscure references. Yes, the rumors were true: she was in fact Sirius Black's second cousin, Lucius Malfoy and Rodolphus Lestrange were her uncles by marriage, and she reckoned that knowing the Dark at such close quarters gave her an edge.

***

One night well after the dinner dishes have been cleared and washed, Charlie comes to sit with her in the kitchen. He tells her how sorry he is about Nymphadora, and oddly enough it's in front of her daughter's school friend that she first begins to weep.

He's not fussed by it, and they sit up past midnight talking about Nymphadora's crazy courage and sense of fun. People say that Charlie could have played Quidditch for England, and he says the same of Nymphadora. At Hogwarts, apparently, she resisted the prompting of her Head of House to play Seeker on the House team. Charlie says she was an absolutely brilliant Seeker in pick-up games, but had no desire to play in any kind of formal setting.

They both were free-wheeling anarchists, Nymphadora the more of the two, which to this day makes Charlie wonder why she joined the Aurors. By all accounts, she was good at it, but it's odd, given how much she hated rules.

Then Charlie says, "It's a good thing I went to Rumania, because mum was eyeing us and wanting to match-make. You know how she is."

Andromeda nods. She's already seen Molly Weasley in action, herding the young folk toward matrimony by nagging alternated with a laissez-faire program of unchaperoned evenings. Both of the young couples under her roof have consummated their relationships, she's pretty sure, and now Molly has her eye on Dean and Luna, although Andromeda can see that they're no more a couple than Charlie and Nymphadora were.

Charlie says, with the air of someone broaching a difficult subject, "You know, I'm not sure why Remus and Tonks got together." Andromeda frowns. She's had the same thought, but Charlie is the first person who seems to share her doubts.

"He was so much older," she says.

Charlie says, "No, that's not what I mean. I mean, she wasn't really into blokes." He actually pinks up a bit, and then adds, "She wasn't ready to settle down, but when she'd talk about somebody she might fancy, it always sounded like it was a girl. She wrote me a really funny letter a couple of years ago about how she was finally scoring dividends from the Auror uniform, because a couple of Hogwarts girls looked to have a crush on her." He drops his voice to a whisper. "She didn't say right out, but I think one of them was my sister. And the other was Ron's Hermione."

Andromeda takes a deep breath. She'd suspected as much about Nymphadora's inclinations, and she wonders if Ted had as well. He always seemed quite calm about her not bringing boys home, as if it hadn't even crossed his mind to expect such a thing. They never really discussed it… because the subject never came up, she supposes. And now it's rather too late all around.

Charlie says, "Her letters were really strange the last year or two. She didn't sound like herself at all. She kept talking about having tea with mum, and wanting to get married, and it was clear there was somebody she had in mind. She'd never been on about it before."

Andromeda hugs herself, feeling chilled in spite of the mild early-June evening. "Not herself at all," she repeats.

Charlie says, "Hardly anyone remembers, but mum has ten NEWTs. O's in Defense, Potions, Charms and Transfiguration. Quite good enough marks to have been an Auror herself. And she was scary good with Potions."

He doesn't spell it out, but she can connect the dots.

***

Charlie's stay is coming to an end toward the first week in June, since his business for Gringotts is concluded and he's plainly feeling stir-crazy staying with his parents. He doesn't want to impose on Bill and Fleur; they're trying to have a private life in spite of running a safe house and field hospital for the Order this last year. Mr. Ollivander is still living there, finishing his recovery and keeping out of the public eye. Luna and Dean go up from time to time to visit him, and Andromeda learns that Ollivander has been trying to talk Luna into becoming his apprentice as a wand-maker.

That's five people in a house built for two and the occasional casual guest. Charlie figures that's enough of a crowd. That doesn't even include the young people who visit Bill almost weekly, some of the Dumbledore's Army veterans wounded by Greyback in the Battle of Hogwarts.

Molly is reminding Charlie of why he left home in the first place, and there are multiple altercations brewing between his siblings and, in the case of Ron, their significant others. There's been some kind of meeting up at Shell Cottage to do with Gringotts; Bill's superiors apparently delegated him to deliver some bad news. Harry, Ron, and Hermione went up there and returned late in the evening with grim expressions, and Ron was conspicuously turning a cold shoulder to Hermione.

Hermione is ill and has been for some time. Andromeda notices that she hasn't seen Crookshanks stalking the gnomes in a while, and asks; Hermione tells her that Neville is looking after him at Hogwarts.

Then there's the afternoon that Ron and Hermione have an argument in the garden, and the garden wall dissolves into rubble behind them. Hermione goes dead white and does a quick series of charms to restore it.

Andromeda knows enough to recognize it: wild magic. Now she understands a snippet of argument she overheard weeks ago: the first instance was a spontaneous Killing Curse, which Hermione managed to halt before it took shape. More recently, Ginny has complained about waking up two days in a row with the curtains on fire, saying that it's annoying her enough that she wants to switch rooms, except there's no place else to sleep—yet another reason she can't wait till she and Harry can get a place of their own.

Apparently, Hermione sent Crookshanks away so she wouldn't harm him in her sleep.

***

The morning of the fifth of June, Molly is fuming about Hermione asking her for something from the garden. Andromeda, who's reacquired the knack of being a good listener (a survival trait that stood her in good stead as the middle Black sister), waits for Molly to spell it out, as she knows she will. Molly indignantly declares that she'd thought Hermione was a good girl, not some scarlet hussy… though she's been selfish and self-absorbed lately, so Molly has been having doubts. There's been far too much backing and forthing to St. Mungo's and Hogwarts, and too much arguing with Ron and not enough attention to cooking and laundry. She has no doubt that the girl will go sneaking behind her back to some other connection, since in particular she has Neville Longbottom wrapped around her little finger, but a witch has to make a stand for what is right and proper.

Finally Molly calms down enough to tell her what plant Hermione requested, and on what timeline: before the full moon. Of course. It's the key ingredient in what witches commonly call the Vile Purple Potion, the very same contraceptive potion she took every month after she and Ted decided that Nymphadora was offspring enough. It had been barely within their means to keep chaos in check with her in the house, making the addition of siblings quite out of the question.

She's pleased to see that Hermione's conduct in her private life is every bit as prudent as her war record. She says as much to Molly, that Hermione is a sensible girl, and she's come to rate sensible over 'good,' whatever that means when it comes to having children in wartime.

She doesn't mention that she saw Ginny harvesting that very plant the other day, likely for the same reason. Hermione erred in making a forthright request. The rule of the Weasley children seems to be "Don't ask, don't tell, and in particular don't tell mum."

Molly bristles and reminds her that both of her younger children were born at the height of hostilities during the last war, Ginny mere months before Voldemort's mishap with two-year-old Harry ended the first round of terror. In any case, the war is over and it's high time for the young folk to settle down and get respectable.

Andromeda points out that Hermione doesn't appear to be ready to settle down, any more than Nymphadora was. She still doesn't understand why Nymphadora did what she did, married while the war was gathering force and then had a child, but she's now bearing the consequences of her daughter's actions. Had it been ordinary times, she'd suspect Nymphadora of being on Amortentia, but it wasn't ordinary times at all. War makes people crazy.

Molly answers that with a long silence and an appraising look. For a brief plummeting moment, Andromeda is afraid that she's gone too far. But this is Molly Weasley nee Prewett, not Bellatrix Lestrange nee Black. At worst it's going to be a tongue-lashing and the request that she move out. She need not dread Cruciatus.

But Molly doesn't say anything; she looks around the garden, and then turns to go back into the house.

***

Later that day, an unknown owl comes swooping down as she's feeding the chickens. It lands on her shoulder, and she has to walk into the kitchen to fetch the owl treats. As soon as she unties the message from the owl's leg, it goes winging off again. There are two seals on the letter, one of which is that of the Ministry; the second is the black seal of the Azkaban post. She shudders, remembering the recent headline in the Prophet about the return of the Dementors.

The letter is from Cissy, and it's quite coherent—well, that had been her first worry, hadn't it? She remembers what Sirius looked like when she saw him for the first time after his years in Azkaban. He still looked wild-eyed, and he was dosing himself with firewhiskey.

No, from the look of the hand—copperplate precise, with a steely spring to the flourish of the 'y' in 'Malfoy,'—Cissy is as she ever was: pretty and graceful with an unbendable will. The letter still reads quite a bit like a pattern from an ancient etiquette book; the only time it feels personal is that last little bit inquiring about Teddy's health. Cissy loved babies, she remembers.

Which must have made some of the terms of her marriage contract rather much to bear, but she won't think about that. She does remember the last time she saw Cissy face to face, which was that picnic in the summer of 1982. Unexpectedly, her sister had shown up incognito, wrapped up in the dowdiest Muggle costume she'd ever seen. She was wearing a long loose skirt and a shawl and a kerchief that shaded her face rather like a cowl, like a schoolgirl trying to play someone's Russian peasant grandmother. In a sort of sling over her shoulder she carried a wriggling two-year-old boy. Lucius' precious Heir, apparently: Draco Abraxas Malfoy, which seemed rather a lot of name for a wiggly little pink morsel with an excessively long blond fringe.

Nymphadora immediately annexed him and carried him away for rides on her broom, to his immense delight, at least to judge from the shrieks he emitted and the rather spectacular tantrum he threw when she returned him to his mother. Nonetheless, Nymphadora thought he was cute and wanted to bring him home. Previously she'd begged for a pet dragon and a Blast-Ended Skrewt, and likely she saw a better chance with something that didn't actively set things on fire.

She begged Cissy to let her borrow him, at least, if she couldn't keep him. Cissy managed to turn her down without breaking her heart, which gave Andromeda a brief moment of admiration for the bright side of her sister's particular brand of Slytherin cleverness.

Andromeda smiles at the picture of the impossible world in which her daughter and Cissy's son had grown up together. Well, for one thing, he likely wouldn't have ended as the perfect spoiled terror that Ron and Harry described, because Ted wouldn't have stood that for a minute. As well, Nymphadora would have put him rather firmly in his place, because she didn't so much deflate pretension as completely ignore it, and she might have had leverage that even Ted didn't command.

At two years old, Draco had been no more appalling than any other two-year-old child, and he had immediately formed an attachment to his cousin. The rest of the afternoon, he'd toddled after her, and she'd amused him by trying out different faces, which made him squeal with delight. Andromeda doubts he even remembers it, but Nymphadora did. For months after, she asked when they were bringing back the little boy so that she could play with him.

Never, the answer was. Cissy had come to the picnic because this was the last moment when she could show off her child to her sister. Bella was in Azkaban, Lucius didn't know, and Draco didn't talk yet, so he wasn't able to betray her. Ted and Andromeda were discreet as well, except for the photos Ted snapped, and she's not sure that Nymphadora ever actually realized that the little boy and his mother had been The Clone and The Princess, the figures of fun from Ted's stories.

Andromeda and Cissy had crossed paths thereafter, as was impossible to avoid in the tiny world of Diagon Alley, but Cissy steadfastly ignored her. Lucius would catch her eye, for the express purpose of ensuring that she saw the contempt in which he held her as a blood traitor. It was comic and disturbing at the same time to watch their little boy imitate his father's haughty gait and disdainful expression. When Ted explained to her what a clone was—an exact genetic copy, an artificial twin—she decided that was just the word for her nephew, as he swept majestically along in his father's wake, wearing a miniature version of the same traditional dress robes and looking down his little pointed nose at the lower orders.

Ah yes, and there's a hint in the letter, too. Cissy writes that she's had letters from Draco but she isn't sure that he's telling her everything he might about the situation at Hogwarts. There's a line excised from the letter, where she must have stepped outside the bounds of the acceptable. Andromeda imagines Cissy had written something to the effect that one can't rely on what's printed in the Prophet.

Oh yes, and Cissy adds that Lucius is in good health, though of course he's staying in separate accommodations from her. Separate accommodations, indeed. She's writing this from a slimy cell in Azkaban and she's speaking of it as if they were in a resort in the South of France and Lucius had a separate suite of rooms in their villa facing the Mediterranean.

Cissy writes that she looks forward to her sister's next letter.

Andromeda sighs. It appears that she has a correspondent in Azkaban.