HI DEARS! So, first things first: disclaimer. I don't own HP. I don't own Hogwarts. I am not JKR, and if I was, I simply wouldn't have disrespected a whole community of people last year :)
Also, MAJOR TW: suicidal thoughts.
So now an update: a certain user left a few really lovely comments on this abandoned story today (you know who you are, I LOVE YOU), and I've officially decided that I have to see it through. I don't have anything even close to a "following" on this fic, but I do love seeing finished fics… and I love Tedromeda. I'll be posting the next few chapters more-or-less unedited, because I'd finished them earlier, but I'm going to be totally demolishing and redoing chapter 8 and onward.
If you want to see my more recent stuff (and if you want to wait for an upcoming Tedromeda & Wolfstar texting au), go check out my ao3 (@remmieloops)! Love you 3
Now here we go...
-January 11, 1970-
"A perfect English breakfast, just how you like it, Monsieur Teddy," joked Kate Tonks as Ted trudged into the kitchen on Sunday morning.
"You're so lovely to me, Mum," Ted mumbled, still half-asleep, uncommonly sluggish for a back-to-school day.
"What's happened to you, Ted?" Emmeline, who had already been downstairs when Ted had awoken, asked (though she was smirking as if she already knew). "You're incredibly sleepy."
"Nothing's happened to me," Ted said, yawning and stretching like a cat; Emmeline snatched his glass of milk away before his elbow could send it spilling all over the table. "Just... glad I can sleep on the train; I'm tired."
"A perfect English breakfast, just how you like it, Mistress Andromeda," said Poppet, Andy's favorite house elf, as Andromeda strode into the dining room on Sunday morning and sat herself down at her designated place setting.
"You're so lovely to me, Poppet," Andy said, half-bouncing in her seat, uncommonly chipper for a back-to-school day.
"What's happened to you, Andy?" Bella, who was already half-finished with her breakfast, asked. "You're awfully cheerful."
"Nothing's happened to me," Andromeda chirped, reaching for the jam across the table - Poppet snapped his fingers and it was suddenly right in front of her. "I'm just glad I'll get to see Hogwarts again soon; I miss it."
"You're tired?" Emmeline echoed, smirking. "I wonder why... certainly not because you were up until the wee hours of the morning writing and rewriting a letter to Miss Andromeda Black."
"I wasn't-" But his eyes (wide like saucers, where just a minute ago they'd been at half mast) betrayed him.
"Well, if you did away with the deer-in-the-headlights look, I might believe you," Kate Tonks said, and Ted began to shovel food into his mouth so quickly that he choked and had to be clapped on the back many times by a laughing Emmeline Vance.
"You miss Hogwarts?" Narcissa asked as she entered the room, her own house elf, Ebba, trailing behind her with a tray of toast. "Why ever would you do that? The food's terrible."
"You're right," Bella said, pointing her fork at Narcissa. "They should really be making us five-course meals," she added. "We already pay so much money for a shitty education surrounded my mudbloods; it's the least they could do."
Andromeda suddenly felt as if her day was no longer enjoyable - no longer salvageable, even. The air seemed a little stuffier, her breakfast colder, the impending train ride less exciting.
"You know different meals would cost us even more money, don't you?" she asked, trying to sound less annoyed than she was.
"Well, if they did away with the pumpkin juice, they'd at least be able to afford mediocre cheese," Bellatrix said, as if no one liked pumpkin juice and this was the most logical thing in the world.
Andromeda counted to ten inside her head.
"Yes! Yes, we should have a cheese course, definitely, and a steak course, and a dessert course, and-"
"Aren't you trying to lose weight, Cissy?" Andy snapped.
"Well, if the food was actually good, maybe I wouldn't be eating so much because I'd be more satisfied."
"Merlin, Cissa," Andy said (though every metaphorical stop sign had sprung up suddenly - Bella's eyes had hardened at her and the house elves were shuffling about with their ears turned into their heads the way they did when any Black family fight began), "Sometimes you're such a fucking hypocrite."
"Right, you're definitely not the hypocrite, even though you seem to be perfectly happy with Poppet making you that, but you hate it when I want a meal half as good as this from a school that's supposed to fortify us."
"I would be fine with Poppet making me anything, Narcissa," Andromeda said, putting extra emphasis on her sister's full name.
"Fine," Cissy said, eyes blazing. "Poppet! Come here."
Andy's house elf shuffled towards Narcissa, his wide, watery eyes looking up at her almost as a child might.
Narcissa slapped him across the face. As was custom, Poppet said nothing. He barely even moved - the only noticeable change was a slight tremor in his little hands. Bellatrix raised her eyebrows (but, oh, she was enjoying it, Andy thought bitterly). "Why the hell did you give Andromeda a breakfast she obviously doesn't want? Go get her a pumpkin juice. NOW!"
"That's not what I meant!"
Andromeda glared at each of her sisters in turn and the house elves took it in their best interests to clear the table silently, their ears still wrapped around their small bodies like shields.
Andy knew that if she tried to speak, it would come out choked and then she'd cry and completely lose her nerve - so she stayed exactly where she was as both of her sisters pushed their chairs back and left. The house elves bustled around her as if they were afraid of her, and a few minutes later, Poppet returned with a cup of pumpkin juice.
"Oh, you didn't have to-"
"Poppet is sorry, Miss Andromeda," he said, setting the cup at Andy's place setting. "Poppet is in hopes that Miss Andromeda will keep him on, but Poppet understands that one must do what is best in these-"
"No, it's fine," Andy said, finding herself smiling at just how ridiculous it was that she was beginning to cry in front of her house elf. "The breakfast was fine, this is fine. "
Poppet nodded, his large eyes blinking slowly up at her.
"Does Miss Andromeda require anything else at the moment?"
"I'm fine," Andromeda said, taking her napkin and wiping her eyes with it. "I'm going to go upstairs and finish packing."
She did go upstairs, after Poppet had convinced her to take a cup of tea - and a spoonful of sugar - with her. But as she sat down on her bed with its lovely silken sheets and down pillows, she couldn't help but feel enormously out of place.
Andromeda's discomfort had grown into an all-encompassing feeling of dread by the time she said goodbye to her parents at the train station. Her sisters still weren't speaking to her, and her makeup was a hurried mess - she'd cried again just minutes prior when her mother had hugged her farewell - and she felt increasingly as if she might faint from the stress of it all.
With downcast eyes, she followed Cissa and Bella into their usual compartment, greeting those who recognized her with a halfhearted smile.
"Can I have the window seat?" she asked, not because she wanted it but because she knew her sisters' responses would dictate the rest of the trip.
Ignoring her, Bella launched her trunk up into the compartment shelf above the seats, shoving Andy aside in the process.
"Ouch!" Andy said, but Cissy and Bella continued to move around as if they hadn't heard her.
She knew that, given the same cold shoulder, Bella would've screamed til everyone had paid attention to her, and Cissy would've flipped her hair and kept talking to them as if nothing was amiss.
But Andy wasn't like that.
She couldn't simply brush off a fight; at most, she semi-successfully held back tears as her sisters conversed and giggled in front of her.
When, at last, Cissy got out to buy sweets from the food trolley, Andy opened her mouth.
"Bella," she said.
The other girl stared resolutely out the window.
"Bellatrix," she said, putting all her effort into making her voice firm and commanding.
Still nothing.
"I didn't do anything wrong, you know," Andy said, feeling as if she'd rather scream than try to defend herself against her sisters (who weren't going to listen to her unless she bled out in front of them). "I just- I don't-"
The compartment door slid back open and Andromeda clamped her mouth shut.
"Emma Vanity has gotten her tits enlarged," Narcissa gushed, eyes sparkling as she entered the compartment with sweets from the trolley. She tossed a few to Bella and Andy (who, surprised she was being spoken to, dropped the little boxes and had to scramble to retrieve them from the floor).
"Really, though?" Bella raised an eyebrow. "I think she's just put a spell on them to impress someone. They'll shrink by tonight."
"Andy, you should sit next to her and ask her about homework or something - maybe you could stick a pin in her bra and see if it deflates," Cissy said, and Andromeda almost did a double take at the way her sister was speaking to her as if everything was all right.
"That would be hilarious," She said, molding her face into the grin that was displayed on her sisters' features.
"Cissa," Andromeda said as she and her sisters were digging into their dinners that night, "Don't you think it'd be interesting to just...try to live as a Muggle for a day? See what it's like?"
Narcissa stopped mid-chew and stared at Andy as if she'd grown five heads and ruptured her spleen at the same time. "Do I look like my own worst enemy? Why the fuck would I do that to my poor self?"
Andromeda shrugged, looking briefly across the hall at Emmeline Vance, who had snuck over to the Hufflepuff table and was stealing food from Ted Tonks's plate (she felt a twinge in her stomach at this scene - it was probably just the mediocre raspberry pudding, though. Right?).
-12th January 1970, 5th Year-
"Tell your owl to be more discreet when you're sending letters to my house—I swear my mother tried to intercept every single one of them," Andromeda said as she took her seat in Potions for the first lesson of the term.
"That's my mum's owl you're talking about, 'Dromeda," Ted said, glaring (though his lips were turned up in an unmistakable smile).
Andromeda raised an eyebrow, crossing her legs in her black pleated school skirt as she did so, as if interviewing Ted for a job opening at Defensive-People-R-Us.
"And...how long have you had her? I think she might be getting old."
"Well, I've had my mum my entire life, so..."
"You know what I meant," Andromeda said, and shoved him so that he flopped off his seat and dropped his book on the floor in the process.
Also, she realized, other students were looking at her. Like fish, their eyes followed her, and like chameleons, their faces were utterly unreadable.
Andromeda blinked and averted her eyes.
'Shit,' she thought. 'They can see everything, they know everything, he must've shown someone the bloody letters, I shouldn't have written them, and now my sisters will find out, and we were fine yesterday, and now we won't be, and I'll become a fucking pariah in my own house, and-'
"'Dromeda?"
It was Ted - poor, concerned, sweet Ted, his curly head inclined toward her, eyes searching hers.
"You all right?"
"Fine," Andromeda said, though her suddenly-breathy voice said the opposite. "I'm fine," she repeated, forcing her face into the kind of mask her sisters were able to pull off so effortlessly, and training her eyes stonily on the chalkboard.
After class, Andromeda silently gathered all of her things into her bag and turned on her heel (making sure not to face Ted as she did so) to leave.
She'd taken half a step, heart pounding in her chest (it was the anxiety of avoiding a person for over an hour that had done it to her, evidently) when she felt a tap on her shoulder.
She kept walking.
"Mind if I walk with you?" asked Ted Tonks, who could not take a hint.
He began to take larger strides to keep up with Andy.
"Actually I do," she said, hoping her clipped tone would deter him as it had throughout the morning's class.
"'Dromeda, what-"
"Don't call me that."
Ted took a deep breath.
"What's the matter?"
Andromeda rolled her eyes - could the boy get any more stupid?
"Everything."
"Little more description would be nice," Ted said, still as conversational and what-have-you as if he were speaking about the weather.
Andromeda whirled to face him so quickly that he didn't stop walking in time and rammed into her.
"Sorr-"
"You're the matter, Ted Tonks," Andy said, her face stony even as some blazing, awful feeling welled up inside of her. "You're what's the bloody matter; your stupid jokes and... and your finding me alone all the bloody time, and... and it's like... I just can't avoid you!"
Ted shuffled his feet, and sighed.
Andromeda was conscious of a few seventh-year Slytherins who had stopped to watch what they thought would be a fun little strip-down of a stupid Hufflepuff boy.
"'Dromeda," Ted said (and the look in his eyes made Andromeda all the more furious), "I understand that you don't want to be seen with me, but-"
"Good!" she almost shouted. "So, if I were you I'd walk away before I stuff my foot down your throat."
And with that, she turned on her heel and walked off, thankful that the laughter of the observing seventh-years was louder than that of anything else Ted might have tried to say.
"I'm bored," Narcissa Black said, moving green peas around her plate. Her fork made even-more-annoying screeching sounds against the porcelain, and Andromeda thought ragefully about grabbing a handful of peas and shoving them down Cissy's shirt.
"I didn't ask," Bellatrix said.
"I don't say things just for you, Bella - sometimes I just want to express my feelings, is that all right with you?"
"No, actually, it isn't, because your feelings are stupid."
"Well, your face is stupid."
"Well, your face looks like a smashed walnut right now."
"Well, your arsehole will look like a smashed walnut when I shove a fork up-"
"Let's play a game," Andromeda said loudly, hoping that her god-awful day would get better if she just got her sisters to shut up for a moment. "Name me… five people you would accept a date with. Right now."
"Malfoy, Stebbins, Crabbe, Parkinson, Diggory."
"Diggory?" Bellatrix echoed, voice laced with disgust. "Isn't he a Hufflepuff?"
"He comes from a long line of pureblood men," Cissy said huffily, "And I think he's fit."
The eldest Black sister rolled her eyes.
"Right then, Bella," Andy said, ignoring the voice in her head that told her not to be suspicious and just let it go, "You name me some good looking Hufflepuffs."
"Ew?"
"Cissy's done it."
"Do I look like the type of person to hang around with Hufflepuffs willingly?"
"I didn't say 'hang around' I said good looking."
"I'm not around them enough to know."
"We're sitting in the Great Hall, look across the table!! ...You know what, I give up. All the Hufflepuffs are disgusting, anyway."
Anyways, she didn't even dare look towards the offending table herself.
mwah. maybe review?