Author's Note: hi hello! I haven't abandoned this story! I have just had a lot of technological difficulties and real life stuff, but I'm back! And I'm writing Christmas themed angst, because clearly, I have no heart. Thank you for is swearing in this. Happy New Year!
Chapter 11
Bellatrix vetoed Andromeda's suggestion that she spend Christmas with Carrie as soon as it was mentioned.
"Christmas is a time for family," Bellatrix said, "Not friends. And besides, you've proven yourself completely untrustworthy and Mummy would be mad to let you out of the house this holidays."
Andromeda mumbled something about Mummy being mad full stop, but Bellatrix sent her a look that silenced her.
"So we're having another wonderful Christmas at home with the house elves?"
"Yes, that sounds about right," Bellatrix stood, "Except we're not giving the house elves anything."
"I never said we would," Andromeda replied drily, and made a mental note to beg Carrie to send her records. Lots of records. And possibly some sort of sleeping potion so she could doze her way through Christmas instead of listening to Bellatrix's rants about blood supremacy and upholding the family's honour. Or even just a recipe for a sleeping potion, she wasn't fussy. She could sneak down to the kitchen and prepare the potion with the help of the house elves, and no one would ever have to know. She could wake up on December 30th and get straight back on the train to school and see Carrie. Fool proof plan.
"Knut for them?" asked a quiet voice. Andromeda looked round. Narcissa's small, pale face stared up at her.
"My thoughts are worth far more than that, thank you," she laughed, "I was just wondering…what we'll do when we get home."
Narcissa perched on the edge of the sofa Andromeda was lounging on. "Same thing we do every year I suppose. We get presents, we eat, Mummy gets drunk. The house elves clean up. There's a party we're not invited to. Mummy cries. We go back to school for New Year's. Why would this year be any different?"
Andromeda wanted to say because I'm different, but she felt this would be a bit much.
Ted's mother greeted him on the platform with a song.
"Just hear those sleigh bells jingling, ring ting ting-ling too," she half sang half shouted as he hauled his trunk off the train, "Come on, it's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you!"
"We're going home in a sleigh?"
"Oh you wish, my child – I'm sorry, but it's the tube as always," she wrapped her bony arms around him, "I just thought I'd greet you with a song."
"It's a lovely song."
"I was torn between that or Silent Night."
"In German?"
"Ja."
He laughed, and draped an arm over her shoulder. His dear old mum. She made everything better.
"See you in 1972 then, mate!" Tony yelled, and Ted waved without looking round.
"Ninteen seventy two," his mother said, "Amazing. Feels like only yesterday it was the war."
"Were you even alive in the war?"
"Of course I was you sod!" They stepped through the gateway into the Muggle world, into their world. "How old do you think I am?"
He knew exactly how old his mother was. "Ooh, I dunno….seventeen?"
She cackled. "You do realise that would mean that I gave birth to you when I was one, don't you?"
"You developed early," he deadpanned, and she snorted.
"It's nice to have you back, Teddy."
"Nice to be back, Mum."
"Fancy giving the commuters a chorus of Silent Night in the language it was intended to be sung in?"
"Ja."
The house elves had pulled out all the stops this year, thought Andromeda as the carriage their mother had sent to the station pulled up outside the house. The ivy that ran down from the upper windows to the double front doors had been interwoven with holly, and every leaf was edged with white, and icicles that gleamed in a way that suggested they were not natural in the slightest, hung from the ledges of the windows.
"Pretty, isn't it?" remarked Andromeda, glancing behind her at her sisters as they clambered out of the coach. Narcissa wasn't paying attention, and Bellatrix rolled her eyes.
"Yes, yes it's very lovely," she replied in a bored voice, "Now stop staring and get inside – I'm freezing!"
"I'm not stopping you," Andromeda grumbled, but she tore her eyes from the display and shuffled in after her sisters. They were greeted by the house elves, and informed their mother was resting.
"Resting from what?" Andromeda wanted to know, "A long day doing nothing?"
"Don't be rude, Andromeda," Bellatrix snapped, "Bring in our bags, you-" this was directed toward the house elves, who obeyed wordlessly, "I'm going upstairs. I need to write to Rodolophus, and I need a lie down. The train journey gave me a headache."
"I might go for a lie down as well…" Narcissa said dreamily, and followed Bellatrix up the stairs.
Andromeda was left, standing in the hallway with the wind blowing in through the open front door, as the house elves carried in the bags.
"Is Miss Andromeda alright?" came a quiet voice from the doorway. She glanced round. Bimble.
"I'm fine, Bimble. Thank you."
"If Miss Andromeda needs anything, Bimble is here for you."
It was a sorry state of affairs when Andromeda felt that her closest ally in her home was a house elf.
The house was cold, in a way that suggested it had been unoccupied for a few days. Ted didn't want to think too much about what that meant, and instead chose to question his mother on her choice of Christmas tree, which was one of the natty silver fake American ones.
"Bloody hell," he whistled, "Did we get rich whilst I was away?"
"Oh, stop it you," she laughed, and switched the lights on. Ted tried not to think about how they both held their breath until the bulb flickered. "It was going cheap at the market, and Diane said they're brilliant because they don't drop their needle things, and you can put it in a box in the loft all year and get it out next December. It's genius, really."
"It's silver."
"Genius and silver! You've got to move with the times, my son, you've got to get with the movers and the shakers and the silver tree makers."
He laughed, and sank onto the settee. It was draped in a knitted, patchwork blanket that Ted was pretty sure his mother had made herself. It was home. He loved home. "Have you been waiting to say that since September? Is that all you've got to do when I'm away? Make up terrible rhymes and wait for me to come back so you can share them?"
She laughed, a little too hard, and sat beside him, sinking back into the cushions. "Don't flatter yourself my boy, I've only been waiting since November, when I bought it."
Ted shot upright. "You bought a Christmas tree in November!"
"Failure to prepare is to prepare for failure, Teddy."
"Nutter."
"You are so rude to me. I birthed you. I literally pushed you out of my body."
"I'm going to end this conversation before it gets any more bizarre," Ted got to his feet, and clapped his mum's knee with his hand, "Do you want some tea?"
"God, I thought you'd never ask. And whilst you're up, some biscuits and the details about this girl you're in love with, please."
He had been waiting for this. "Mum, it's-"
"Biscuits first, darling, chop chop."
He was half way out the living room door when he turned back to her, sprawled on the sofa and tapping her foot to a beat only she could hear.
"I'm really happy to be home, Mum."
She turned her head to look at him, smile wide and eyes crinkled. "I'm happy you're home too, you soppy git."
Dinner was a tense affair. Druella insisted on silence 'for my head, children', but the scrape of knives and forks against china and the tin of glasses hitting the wooden table as they were set down seemed to be worse. She kept massaging her temples and sniffing. Andromeda was half tempted to offer her a handkerchief, but she thought better of it. New Year's Resolutions: keep your head down, hold your tongue. Survive.
"It's been a funny old year," Narcissa said from the other end of the table. Their mother closed her eyes and sighed dramatically.
"Cissy, darling, I asked for total silence. For my head, you know."
"I just wanted-"
"Be quiet, Cissy." Bellatrix snapped. Andromeda cleared her throat pointedly.
"Leave Cissy alone, Bella," she said in a low voice, "She just wanted to talk about what a funny old year it's been."
"And Mother wanted total silence, and Narcissa-"
"Oh be quiet, all of you." Druella inhaled sharply, "Bimble, clear the plates. Girls, go to bed. You've had a long day travelling, I expect you're all very tired-"
"Mother it's not even ni-"
Druella pushed back her chair, as if to rise, but instead she put her head in her hands. "Go to bed, Bellatrix. I'm exhausted."
"But I wanted to-"
"No one cares what you want Narcissa, go to bed or I'll hex you."
"Mother! Narcissa just wanted to make conversation about the year we've had, don't-"
Bellatrix laughed cruelly. "Well," she said, "if we're going to review the year, why don't we talk about the fact that you fucked a Mudblood within weeks of being back at school?"
"Don't use that sort of language in my house, Bellatrix Walburga Black!" Druella stood, wand in hand. Andromeda felt her stomach drop, and her heart started beating triple time. This was it, this was the end, they'd never let her out of the house again. Her mother would have Ted killed, probably, and she'd never see Carrie again, she'd never play Quidditch again – oh Merlin and Circe, she'd never play Quidditch again.
"She's lying, Mother, I don't know what she's talking about. She's making it-"
"Shut up Andromeda!" her mother was shaking with rage. Narcissa, still seated, began to cry.
"I'm not lying, Mummy," Bella got to her feet, and Andromeda's grip on her knife tightened. "I'm not lying. I saw them together-"
"That's a lie," Andromeda hissed.
"She begged me not to tell you-"
"You beat me up! That was when she attacked me, Mother, please Merlin-"
Druella tapped her fingers on the table, and Bellatrix almost glided towards her, and clutched her elbow.
"Andromeda has tainted her blood with her association with a Mudblood – our blood, she has brought dishonour on the most noble and ancient house of Black, Mother. She has begged me not to tell you, but I cannot keep this from you any longer. What if she is bearing his child? What would that do to our family? To our reputation? Mother, there is a man – a wonderful man, a friend of Rodolphus, named Riddle and he-"
"Bellatrix, that's enough," Druella said sharply, "I don't care about anyone called Riddle, and I don't believe that Andromeda is carrying the bastard of a Mudblood."
"But Mother I saw them-"
"You're lying," Andromeda was on the verge of tears, and she hated it, she hated being this vulnerable in front of the people that could kill her, "You didn't see us together."
"So there is a boy? A Mudblood? Whom you are, to use Bellatrix's turn of phrase, fucking?"
"I never said-"
"Is there or isn't there, Andromeda?" Druella's voice was so sharp she swore she felt it cut into her, and she flinched. Narcissa was still weeping, and no one was paying her any attention.
"I never – we never – I swear, Mother, I swear on my own life that I never did anything-"
"His name is Ted Tonks," Bellatrix said viciously, a sort of manic smile appearing on her features, "He is a Hufflepuff Mudblood."
The tears would not leave her and at the thought of Ted, lovely, kind Hufflepuff Ted, they spilled from her eyes and down her cheeks. This was enough to confirm her mother's suspicions.
"A Mudblood, Andromeda?" she choked, and Bellatrix's grin widened, "A Hufflepuff Mudblood? For shame! My daughter, my firstborn daughter, besmirching the most noble and ancient house of Black, with the blood of a common, Hufflepuff Mudblood? Do you not realise who you are? Sweet Circe, do you not see what you carry within you, the purity and supremacy of the blood in your veins? Do you?"
"It was just a date," Andromeda sobbed, putting her head in her hands, "I just went out with him once, I chucked him, he means nothing – I do see, Mother, I do. Please don't hurt him, please, you can't hurt him, it's not his fault."
Her mother laughed, highly, sharply and cruelly. "Why would I hurt him? The damage has already been done, and if he truly means nothing to you-"
"He doesn't, he doesn't," she lied.
"Then it wouldn't hurt you, would it? For Merlin's sake, girl, stop blubbering. Go to bed. You will not leave your room until you have to return to school, do you understand? And I'm confiscating your owl, so there's no point in writing to Carrie, begging her to come and rescue you. Goodness, you would've thought that after the summer-"
"It was the same boy," she said dully. She felt numb, and very far away. "Ted Tonks. The same boy you saw me with in the summer."
"You'll never see him again, you do know that, don't you?"
"Yes."
"Good. Now get out, the sight of you makes me sick."
Wiping her tears hurriedly with the back of her hand, and with shaking legs, Andromeda attempted to leave the dining room gracefully, without so much as glancing at her wicked, liar of a sister.
His mother had never been a miserable person, but there was something about her cheeriness Ted found a little off as they peeled the potatoes and danced (and by danced, I mean took the piss out of in time to the music) to Frank Sinatra on the radio. He worried about her whilst he was away. She had her gang of friends from the office, girls she went to school with, but they all had lives, tapestries of lives, and all she had was him.
"So this girl, then, Teddy darling…"
"Chucked me."
"Because of the racists?"
He snorted. "They're not racists, they're – well, actually, yeah they're probably racists, but that's not…they hate me, and they'll kill her if she keeps seeing me, so she ended it."
His mother let out a long, low whistle. "Blimey."
"Yeah. Blimey – shall I put these in the saucepan? – indeed."
"But you're alright, aren't you my boy? You're always alright, aren't you, we're always alright. Turn the radio up, boy, let's dance."
"The potatoes, Mum."
She was jittery, and she kept tossing the unpeeled potato from one hand to another.
"Oh do we really need potatoes? I don't think we do, darling, I think we need to dance."
"This potato is half peeled, and I want to talk to you-"
"And I want to dance, Teddy."
"I know, Mum, but-"
"You're so practical," she was rambling slightly, the potato still going from one bony hand to the other, "I don't know where you get it from you know, your father and I were both dreamers, romantics-"
"Please don't talk about him today, Mum," Ted muttered, and rested the heel of his hands against the cool sink's edge.
"Why shouldn't I talk about him? He's your father, he's part of you-"
"Mum."
"It's Christmas, darling, and Christmas is a time for family, and he's our family, we haven't got anyone else-"
"Mum."
"I should ask round, see if anyone knows where he is at the moment, if he's at a loose end he could come for dinner, couldn't he?"
"MUM!"
She dropped the potato.
"I don't want him to come for Christmas dinner," Ted said slowly, carefully, "And even if I did, he wouldn't come."
"You don't know that."
The potato lay abandoned by her feet, forgotten by them both. The warmth that usually filled their house had drained at the mention of Ted's father.
"Mum, he hasn't seen me since I was ten."
She ran a hand over her face, and turned to the stove. "I'm sure he misses you, he'll want to know about your school-"
"He really won't want to know about my school."
"It's interesting," she clattered around, making tea, and he wanted to shake her shoulders. Would she just listen to him? "He likes interesting things. Once he took me to an opera, did you know? It was right before you were born, and I was the size of a house, and we sat right at the back, practically in the rafters, and we ate sherbet lemons, which I'm not sure you're actually allowed to eat when you're pregnant, and then-"
"A week later I was born and he took one look at me and bolted. I know this story, Mum," Ted's voice shook, because he did know this story. His father was inconsistent and immature and his mother had, for the most part, risen above this. She raised Ted, she shielded him from the whispers and the taunts and it bothered him that ever so often, after he had been away, she would wobble and forget and try to find the man who had left her in the dust.
"You weren't there," his mother replied, tone accusing, "You were a baby, you don't know this story at all. We were so young, your father and I, and I know he's changed-"
"How do you know he's changed?"
"Because I've seen him! He's back in London, he's working – he's got a job, darling, he can provide for us-"
His suspicions had been confirmed, and he hated her for it. Just a part of her. The part of her that was still sixteen, and couldn't let the dream go.
"Oh for God's sake, Mum," he rolled his eyes, and it was as if she felt it. She turned sharply, and kicked the abandoned potato with the toe of her high heeled shoe. It rolled to Ted's scuffed boots
"Don't roll your eyes at me, my boy! I know your father, and I know he's changed, and you're never bloody here, are you? So you don't bloody know!"
"Have you been staying with him?" The question, the one he didn't want to ask, slipped out before he could stop it. There was silence.
"Well? Mum? Have you?"
More silence. She averted her gaze, and he wanted to cry. For reasons he didn't particularly want to think about, Andromeda's face, creased with concern, floated into his mind. He remembered telling her how nice it was that it was just the two of them, his mum was his best mate. It didn't feel like that at the moment.
"Mum, please can you just say something…"
"I can't believe we're even having this conversation," she muttered, and switched off the gas, leaving the kettle and the tea unmade. And then she stalked out of the room. Ted stood, waiting for her to come back, to shout at him or something, but she didn't. He heard her bedroom door click shut, and the radio she had in her room burst into life. He wanted to talk to Andromeda so much it hurt. He took a step forward, and heard a soft squish. He had squashed the potato under his foot.
"You and me both, mate," he said grimly.
20th December 1971
Carrie –
Merry Christmas! I hope this gets to you, I'm never quite sure what to do with owl post. Do you write the address on the front? Can owls read? God knows. Anyway – I hope this letter reaches you in good health, and that your Christmas is good. And that your family is well. I can hear you in my head 'stop dilly dallying, Ted, get to the point'. So I will. I was wondering if you could get a message to Andromeda. You said she misses me, and I hope that's true, and I hope that if that is as true as you say it is, then she'll be up for it. I miss her. You were right about that. I need her to know that I miss her, and I also need her to know that everything's a mess with my mum, and she's the only person I can talk to. Can you tell her that? It won't matter too much if you can't, I'll find a way to let her know when we get back to school. You were right, Carrie. You were right about everything. It isn't fair that we've only got to dip our toes in. We should listen to the whole song, now we know what it's about. Thank you for everything, and Merry Christmas.
Ted Tonks
P.S I hope my commentating is up to scratch after the holidays. I trust you to let me know if it's not.
30th December 1971
Ted Tonks!
MERRY CHRISTMAS! And a happy new year! I've got good news and I've got bad news. The good news is that I am always right, all the time. And that I asked my dad, who knows everything, and he says owls can't read. The bad news is that I wrote to Andromeda, and they sent it back. I can't get hold of her, her fireplace is blocked and everything. I am very worried about her, and if I wasn't terrified of her mother, I'd Apparate there and kidnap her. And then have you round for New Year, and lock the pair of you in a cupboard or something until you worked it out. I like seeing Andromeda happy. And she's not happy now. I hope things are alright with your mum.
All my love,
Carrietta Vulpeca Shacklebolt
