Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling; various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books; and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made (well, lots of money is being made, but none by me) and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

"Why?" Harry asked.

Andromeda felt something rather like happiness at what she knew was a rather impertinent question from a boy whose periodic appearances she had dreaded less than a week before. In truth, his interest was flattering. Her family, excepting Teddy, was dead; it was a change to have someone, anyone, ask her why she had done something.

She was also pleased to see that Tonks Miracle Brew still had the potential to have a miraculous effect. Moments before, Harry's face had crumbled with grief as they watched Teddy at play; now he appeared honestly amused and curious. But now was not the time to reflect on how Harry had suddenly gone from a threat to her relationship with her grandson to someone who triggered her maternal instincts all on his own.

"I understand that you've had the misfortune to live at Grimmauld Place periodically."

"Yeah."

"And between that and talking with Sirius, I assume you know something about what kind of family the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black was."

"Something," Harry agreed.

"If you were a Black and you got married—and you were expected to get married—you were supposed to make a respectable pure-blood marriage."

"Sirius showed me that on the family tree at Grimmauld Place. He said you were his favorite cousin and your name was blasted off the tree for marrying a Muggle-born, but your sisters married bigoted Death Eaters so they got to stay."

The faintest ghost of a smile played around Andromeda's lips. "When you looked at the tree, did you happen to notice a woman named Lycoris Black?"

Harry shook his head.

"There's no reason you should have. She was born at the beginning of this century. She fell in love with a Muggle-born at Hogwarts, and she was fool enough to let it be known around the school that the two of them hoped to be married one day. Her grandfather, Phineas Nigellus, was Headmaster at the time."

Harry cringed in anticipation of the path the story would take. Andromeda smiled at his reaction.

"Phineas Nigellus warned Lycoris' father—another Sirius—that his daughter was in danger of going astray. Within a week, the boy was pressured to leave the school."

"But he hadn't done anything!"

"There was a reason Phineas Nigellus was the least popular headmaster Hogwarts ever had. To his credit, the boy wasn't expelled outright, and Lycoris begged to be allowed to leave in his place. Her father, not wanting the family to be subjected to a scandal, agreed. He found a tutor for Lycoris, and she dutifully went about her studies with the younger children in the attic schoolroom—I don't know if you've ever been in the attic at Grimmauld Place?"

"I have."

"That's where all of us studied until we were old enough to go to Hogwarts. She convinced her family of her contrition. She helped the younger children; she was as demure as you please. Then one day her mother intercepted a letter to the boy. She hadn't given him up at all; she had just intended to wait until he had finished school to run away with him. To make matters worse, that same day a new child was born into the family. It was obvious from birth that he was a squib, and he was rushed from his mother to be raised by Muggles so he wouldn't bring shame upon the family. Lycoris' father panicked. There had been at least a dozen Black women disowned over the centuries for marrying inappropriately, but Sirius was convinced by the birth of his squib nephew that he needed to save Lycoris by isolating her from all negative influences.

"And he did isolate her for the next several years. She was locked in Grimmauld Place around the clock. The tutors left off teaching her charms and potions, and told her only that it was her duty to have a pureblood marriage and give birth to pureblood babies. The whole family had been shaken by the birth of the squib. Phineas Nigellus had been the only wizard in his generation to pass on the Black name to children. He had four sons, but between them there were only three grandsons, not counting the squib."

"Of course the squib wouldn't count," said Harry with no small amount of sarcasm.

"No." Andromeda smiled despite the ghastly nature of the tale. "The lot of them were terrified that purebloods would die out, that Blacks would die out. They needed to keep Lycoris around for breeding purposes."

"They locked her up forever?"

"They didn't need to. A few years of that, to the best of my understanding, and something went out of her. They didn't need to lock her in. She had to be reminded to eat, to bathe, to take care of herself. She was completely indifferent as to whether she lived or died—not suitable marriage material at all."

"Did she go mad?"

"I expect so. She wouldn't have been the first or the last in the family. I saw her several times when I was a child. Around Christmas, she was brought back to Grimmauld Place from wherever her brother stowed her most of the year. My sisters and I ran screaming from her. We slept in one bed to protect one another. She died when I was about eight. I'm sure it was a relief to her as well as to the rest of us. But she'd served her purpose. All of the other Black witches had an example of what not to do.

"By the time I came along, my father and Uncle Orion were more concerned than ever about the Black name dying out. Pureblood mania was running wild with You-Know-Who getting stronger every year. My older sister was married right out of school, and I knew that the plans were the same for me. I needed to make sure that they knew I wasn't worth the kind of intervention they gave Lycoris. Married wasn't enough. I could have been caught in the attempt. My father might have found a way to get a divorce or an annulment. He would have sworn up and down that the marriage was never consummated. I had to prove that I was not Toujours Pur so no one could deny it and no pureblood would have me. I couldn't leave my family any option but to disown me."

"That was brave." Harry was a typical Gryffindor; brave was the first compliment that came to his lips.

"It was necessary," Andromeda corrected. "Self-preservation. I was seventeen and I didn't want to live without Ted. Ted is—Ted was extraordinary. There aren't many teenage boys who can listen to their girlfriends ask to have a baby right then without running screaming in the other direction. But he agreed, and toward the end of our seventh year, when we were sure I was pregnant, we snuck into Hogsmeade to be legally married." She forced another smile over the all-consuming reminder that Ted and Nymphadora were both dead. "It might not have gone off if it hadn't been for your godfather."

X

Andromeda fancied that her robes were too tight across her abdomen. That couldn't be; her figure appeared unchanged when she stared at her naked body in the mirror when she was left alone in her dormitory. The tightness was somewhere inside her skin, a part of her nervousness. She had considered every possible plan, and she had chosen the best one. She had put it in action. It was too late to turn back now; she ought to feel calm, cool, and collected.

Instead, she felt as if she were about to be sick.

That, at least, she could blame on the tiny life inside of her. Morning sickness, she had learned, was not limited to mornings.

"All right, 'Dromeda?" Ted asked as he approached her with his friend Evan Corrin in tow. Evan knew that they meant to marry that day because he was to be their witness; he did not, of course, know that she was pregnant.

She forced a smile even though she knew Ted would know it was forced. "I'll be perfect this evening."

"That's the right answer," said Evan jovially. As they crossed the Hogwarts grounds, Evan and Ted kept up a steady stream of chatter that Andromeda couldn't quite follow over the rolling of her stomach. Her nausea intensified when they reached the edge of the grounds and saw several figures near the small break in the security spell through which they had intended to slip. Among these figures was Headmaster Dumbledore.

"Miss Black, Mr. Tonks, Mr. Corrin," Dumbledore greeted them pleasantly.

Ted and Evan returned his greeting warmly; Andromeda was barely able to muster a pleasant hello.

"It's a lovely day for a walk," said Dumbledore with a casual lightness which Andromeda suspected had never fooled anyone. "That's why I came out to see personally to re-securing the boundaries of the grounds. In times like these, we have to be more careful than ever that students don't leave the grounds without permission. They would be putting themselves in grave danger."

"Students actually do that?" asked Evan, his eyes too dramatically wide. Andromeda winced inwardly. For the first time in a long time, she wondered at her own decision to entrust so much of her future to a pack of Hufflepuffs.

"Indeed they do, Mr. Corrin," Dumbledore twinkled in return. "I know none of you three would consider such a thing, but, alas, not all of those at Hogwarts are so conscientious."

Andromeda rushed Ted and Evan away from Dumbledore as soon as she could. They had no choice but to head back toward the castle.

"We'll have to try it another day," Ted said when they were out of earshot. "Dumbledore will be on the lookout for us now."

Andromeda shook her head firmly. "No." The longer they waited, the riskier their plan became. Evan was Ted's closest friend, but his reaction to Dumbledore terrified her. He could easily be tricked into revealing their intentions, and if word got back to Narcissa or Regulus, the game was over.

"Do you know another way of getting off the grounds?" Ted prompted.

"You know I don't." She cursed herself inwardly for not having found a backup escape route during the months since she and Ted had agreed to marry before leaving school.

"Do you think you can find one today?"

Andromeda gritted her teeth. This wasn't the sort of thing at which she excelled. That was Bellatrix, and—she felt a jolt of hope—Sirius. "I may know someone who can help."

Ted and Evan exchanged an admiring look which Andromeda thought was rather flattering. "Lead on," said Evan, unnecessarily, for she had already maneuvered them back into the castle and up a flight of stairs.

As they drew nearer their destination, they passed more and more scarlet-and-gold-clad students who gave friendly nods to Ted and Evan but glowered at Andromeda and muttered under their breath.

"You!" Andromeda commanded a small boy who had tried to slip past them and into the Gryffindor common room. "Tell Sirius Black that his cousin wants to see him and won't leave until she does." The boy, white as a sheet at having been addressed by an older Slytherin, didn't answer as he tumbled through the door that had swung open before him.

"Do you think there's any chance he'll do it?" asked Evan dubiously.

"Yes. He'll do it for the chance to talk to Sirius, not to do me a favor. But it's all the same in the end."

Not thirty seconds later, she was proven right when Sirius stalked into the corridor with a haughty, guarded expression on his face and his wand in his hand. He softened a bit and relaxed his grip on his wand when he registered Andromeda's presence. "Is everything all right?"

She shook her head. "No. We need to get into Hogsmeade without being seen, and I believe that you have a way of making that happen."

Sirius didn't blink. Unlike Evan, Sirius knew how to pretend that he had never bent a rule, never mind that everyone in the school knew his name because he and his friend James had rather spectacularly set a record for the most detentions accumulated in a single term. "If it's urgent, perhaps you should ask Professor Slughorn for permission to leave. He's pleased with you—he was going on about some potion you invented in class the other day."

She lowered her voice and stared hard into her cousin's gray, Black eyes. "I need to marry Ted before Father and Mother suspect anything. We have an appointment in Hogsmeade today. If we miss it, I don't know when our next chance will be."

Something unspoken passed between them. She could feel the wheels in Sirius' mind turning. Then, quick as a flash, he raised his wand. "Obscuro!" Ted and Evan shouted in protest as blindfolds covered their eyes; Andromeda remained silent in the sudden darkness.

"If all you care about is getting into Hogsmeade, you won't care whether or not you see how," Sirius said quietly. "And you'll let me spin you around."

"Do as he says," Andromeda ordered. Her upset stomach cried out in protest as Sirius took her by the shoulders and turned her in a circle to disorient her. She willed her insides to remain calm. If this was what Sirius needed to do to assure himself that they wouldn't know or tell his secrets, it was a small price to pay for his help.

She stumbled a bit as Sirius led her up and down, left and right. They travelled through a tight doorway and down a steep ramp. The air suddenly smelled damp, and Andromeda suspected that they were in a tunnel—one that stretched on and on, perhaps all the way to the town.

The seemingly interminable walk ended with Sirius removing their blindfolds in the open air of Hogsmeade. "Now what?" Sirius asked as the other three struggled to get their bearings. "Did you want me to wait for you somewhere or am I invited to the wedding?"

"Of course you're invited," said Ted before Andromeda could answer. "Today, and to the party we have when we've officially announced it and things have settled down." He pointed the way to a small house, around the back of which was a small sign announcing the availability of various legal services by appointment only.

As much as she had looked forward to this moment for years, Andromeda was unable to make it last. The "ceremony" was quick and perfunctory and consisted of little more than Ted and Andromeda promising to love each other forever, as if they had never done that before. They exchanged rings and signed a square of parchment that declared them legally married.

The old woman performing the ceremony handed the parchment to Evan, their witness, so he could sign that he had seen them marry. Then she smiled at Sirius. "Are you a witness as well?"

"Yes," said Sirius, just as Ted and Andromeda said "no."

Ted took Sirius by the arm. Sirius ordinarily did not submit to such pseudo-parental gestures, but Ted had a way of making what seemed like most of the younger students in the school view him as a well-intentioned, well-respected older brother with their best interests at heart. Everyone talked to Ted, and everyone listened to him. "You don't need to get in trouble with your family over this," he said quietly.

Sirius' face remained quite still, and Andromeda didn't know whether he was about to acquiesce or make a cutting, sardonic remark about Ted not knowing anything about his family. As it happened, he did neither. Instead, he laughed enthusiastically, and, quicker than quick, wrote his name—bold, clear, and painfully legible—across the bottom of the parchment.

Sometimes Andromeda got so caught up in her plans to make the smoothest possible exit from her family that she forgot that Sirius took great pleasure in provoking his parents. And on this day of all days, she couldn't begrudge anyone a joy of any kind. She laughed, too, and Ted and Evan joined in—no matter that they didn't know quite why.

X

Harry and Andromeda grinned at each other. Harry saw a flicker of Sirius in Andromeda as she smiled, and a pleasant warmth rushed over him. It was nice that Andromeda could remind him of Sirius instead of Bellatrix Lestrange. It was also nice that hearing a story about Sirius he hadn't heard before felt like a gift instead of like a knife in his chest reminding him of how little time he had had with his godfather.

"The first time I saw Tonks—er, Dora—she came to my aunt and uncle's house to take me to stay at Order headquarters for the rest of the summer," Harry began without knowing why. "I think about half the Order came with her, but out of all of them she was the one who knew what she was about. She was the one who got my aunt and uncle out of the way, and then she was the only one who had the sense to light her wand when they all came into the house. When I saw her I couldn't believe how young she was, especially when she told me she was an auror. Mad-Eye Moody was there, going over every horrible scenario he could think of, and Tonks kept asking him who he knew who'd lost a buttock from keeping his wand in his pocket and telling him the way he cleaned his mad eye was disgusting. And she was yelling at Remus because he called her Nymphadora instead of Tonks. She came upstairs with me to help me pack. There isn't anything out of place anywhere in the Dursleys' house, but my room was a wreck because I hadn't picked anything up for a month. She took one look at my room and said 'this is better.' Then, later, when she had to help hide the Dursleys she forced them to be messy. It was brilliant."

Harry stopped in mid-thought. There was no point to his story; it wasn't a story at all, but a stream of thoughts about how much he had liked Tonks. Andromeda's face was set the way it had almost always been before she'd decided she liked Harry.

"I'm sorry," he said, and, unlike the last time he had apologized to Andromeda, he meant it. Tonks had been dead for less than a month. Sirius had been dead for two years. Talking about her wasn't going to help. His own throat threatened to close again as his eyes fell again on Teddy and the rabbit that had reminded him of Remus.

"You don't need to be sorry for thinking my daughter was brilliant," Andromeda replied. "I'm not about to fault you for your good taste."

Harry thought that he would like to tell Andromeda that he had wanted to make her feel better the way she had made him feel better, but he had absolutely no idea how he might go about saying something like that to a woman he barely knew. In fact, he didn't know how to say something like that to someone he knew well. He never had that sort of conversation with Ron, Hermione, or Ginny; he might do something to cheer them, but he never provided commentary with it.

"Thank you, Harry," Andromeda said as if he'd done the thing properly.

"For what?"

"For giving me an audience. I've been thinking about the past constantly—for the first time in my life—so you're the first person who has ever been in a position to listen. And you listen very well."

"Didn't you ever tell Ton— Dora that story?"

Andromeda shrugged gracefully. "She never asked. My life before she was born was the only thing she never asked about, mind you." Harry, who had sometimes thought that Tonks was inquisitive to the point of being annoying, could easily believe this. "From the time she could talk, she was curious about everything. But the Black blood in our veins was the one thing she would just as soon not know much about. And I would have just as soon not talked about it or thought about it. I had Ted, I had a wonderful life, and my life before Ted wasn't something I wanted to dwell on. Now I can't stop myself from dwelling. I suppose people deal with grief in odd ways."

"Some people have to work, constantly, and never stop," Harry mused, thinking of Mrs. Weasley. "Some people get quiet," and he thought of George, "and some people pick fights," and he thought of Ginny.

"What about you?" she asked, and he remembered again that he had sometimes found her daughter's inquiries a bit too much.

"I don't know." Andromeda didn't challenge him, but something in her demeanor let him know that she didn't entirely accept his answer. "Ron and Hermione reckon I refuse to accept what happened, that when people die I find excuses to believe they're alive."

"Like with Remus' body missing?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah. I saw him dead, and I know about a hundred other people did as well. But… but I have to find out what happened. I have to find his body."

"Do I need to tell you to be careful while you're poking around whatever you're poking around?"

"No," Harry assured her. "But I appreciate it."

Next Chapter: Harry finds two ends. Or are they beginnings?

Thank you for the reviews!

Response to reviews:

Is there any way we the readers could talk you into giving each chapter a title? It makes it easier to remember we were at.

I'll think about it. I didn't realize it was a problem.

I have a question, are the answers to your reviews actual questions you got from reviews?

Yes. Sometimes I rephrase them slightly, but if you check my review page you'll see them all. In the earlier chapters I was responding to the reviews privately, but that doesn't work for the unsigned reviews. Then a few reviewers told me that they like reading this section, so I kept it.

I think you should write a sequel for Raised to the Third Power

Thank you. :-) But re-editing that (which I just did) was embarrassing enough. Writing more of it might be lethal.

I find the Andromeda bits... not tedious but tedious to the story, like they should be two separate stories?

I forgot this one from the last chapter. I agree that the back-and-forth device didn't work as well as I'd hoped, but because of what happens in the next few chapters I can't change it.