I do not own Harry Potter

***

The day Bellatrix started at Hogwarts changed the dynamics of the cousins by quite a lot. The entire summer before the eldest cousin went to school, she strutted around the house with a haughty air that let on just how much more mature she felt to everyone. Andromeda quite liked it; it meant she and Sirius could play whatever they wanted without her coming in and bossing them around. Narcissa usually tolerated Regulus and played the old games, but this time Narcissa was in charge. Regulus didn't seem to mind.

Sirius had a lot of good ideas in his own right that had never come out when Bellatrix was leading them. Andromeda, too, found her imagination added lots to the little games of pretend. However, Sirius sometimes made Andromeda uncomfortable in that he was much more mischievous than his oldest cousin; his idea of fun was sometimes to wreak destruction on old family heirlooms or order Kreacher to stand in the fireplace as close to the fire as he could without burning. Luckily, unlike Bellatrix, he let her have her own opinions and decide not to partake if she didn't want to.

Just the week before Bellatrix had started Hogwarts, Andromeda snuck into her room while her mother and Bellatrix had tea with a few callers whose children were also starting at Hogwarts. Andromeda wasn't terribly interested in talking to the Malfoys or the Lestranges, whose sons Lucius and Rodolphus (respectively) would be in Bellatrix's year. Rabastan Lestrange, Rodolophus's brother, was her age, but he was rather rough and Andromeda simply didn't want to play with him. She sat down on Bellatrixs bed, which was covered with green silky sheets, and pored over Beginning Transfiguration and The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1. She couldn't wait until she got to go to Hogwarts in two years.

***

On September 1st, Andromeda and her mother and sisters headed for King's Cross station. They had to walk, since the station was not hooked up to the Floo. Bellatrix wore her robes proudly, confident that by that evening they would be adorned with the Slytherin insignia. Narcissa helped carry her trunk, and Andromeda trailed behind, wishing she had had a chance to finish the chapter in the History of Magic book. She had just been in the middle of a very interesting goblin war.

On the streets of London, they passed a man playing a violin. He was standing on the edge of the sidewalk, his violin case open with a few pound notes tossed in. His clothing was ratty but his music was beautiful. Andromeda watched him in awe. She had heard music before, of course, even violin music, but the type usually played in the halls of the Black manor was magical music conjured out of the air. It was just notes, vibrations of sound. This music was played by an actual person, and it rang with character and emotion.

Andromeda felt a tug on her shirt collar. Her mother was eying the street musician with distaste and didn't want Andromeda to stare. He was a Muggle, and a dirty, poor one at that. Andromeda didn't really care. She loved the music.

They were just about to enter the station when they were accosted by Millicent Bagnold, the Minister of Magic. She tutted about how Andromeda's mother should know better than to allow Bellatrix to just wear her Hogwarts robes around London as if there were no secrecy at all. With a snap of her fingers, Bellatrix's robes changed into an ugly generic school uniform that looked as if it came from the 1930s and would even have been unfashionably undesirable then. She shrieked with disgust, and Millicent Bagnold pinned a little note to her robes. "Have the first teacher you see- and, mind you, teacher . . . not the groundskeeper across the lake- take that and read that when you get to school. They'll change it back. Yet for now, keep with looking like a Muggle!"

She strode off, ignoring Andromeda's mother's nasty mutters about the darn Muggles being too stupid to notice anyway.

***

The two years at home without Bellatrix were quite enjoyable. Andromeda could sit quietly in room and read without distraction, for Narcissa preferred solitude, too. Sirius devoted his energies to more entertaining things, rather than irritating Bellatrix. Bellatrix was having the time of her life, too. She had been made a Slytherin, and Andromeda was quite sure she was using her elitist house as an excuse to torment Muggle-born children. She had even learned a new nasty word from her friend Lucius Malfoy: Mudblood. She used it quite a lot when home for the holidays, as if it were something to be impressed about. The girls' mother warned her that it would make her sound crude and uncouth to speak like that, but Bellatrix didn't seem to mind. Apparently everybody in Slytherin used it.

Finally, the day arrived when Andromeda could join her sister at Hogwarts. She got her own set of robes and books, and a bag with a little monogrammed Black crest on it, around which was the constellation Andromeda. It struck her as clever, having the pictures rather than the initials. The day she boarded the train, she was sure to wear her most Muggle-like clothes. Sirius watched her go sadly; he would be all alone for a year with no one but Regulus, Narcissa, and the occasional future-Slytherin playmate to consort with.

Bellatrix abandoned her on the train immediately, of course, and went to go off and sit with Lucius and Rodolphus, where they immediately began to discuss their plans for Hogsmeade weekends, since they were in third year now. All of Bellatrix's favorite companions were boys, for some reason. Andromeda didn't mind that she was alone. She sat down in an empty compartment and waited. She was joined by a copper-haired girl dressed in green, with a shawl wrapped jauntily around her shoulders. Her green was a minty green that didn't remind Andromeda of Slytherin at all. The girl's name was Emmaline Vance, and soon she and Andromeda were talking and became fast friends. Emmaline loved to read, too, and was just as bored as Andromeda was of the books in her family library. She figured she would be in Ravenclaw. Andromeda's mind was made up, too. They vowed to find the library that very evening, and then they could each check out a book and exchange then with each other when they were finished. Andromeda was comforted when Emmaline let slip she was a pureblood; Andromeda wasn't quite sure how her parents would handle it if she made friends with a halfblood or Muggle-born. Bellatrix would surely throw a fit. Of course, the forbidden nature of these "Mudbloods" she had heard about but never met made Andromeda all the more keen to meet one.

The castle was more beautiful than Andromeda had ever dreamed. She was too busy watching the scenery to bother looking around at her classmates to guess which ones were impure. The giant man who rowed them up to the castle across the lake told them how much they would all love Hogwarts, and they all agreed silently.

Andromeda was about to wet herself with excitement as she was led across the Great Hall with its weather ceiling. She caught sight of Bellatrix at the Slytherin table. Her sister caught her eye, but soon turned back to her friends.

A boy with the surname Avery was called up first, and sorted into Slytherin. Andromeda was next. She was not nervous at all. She sat down squarely on the stool, and, as the hat slipped down over her eyes, its voice was calm and soothing. "Another Black, eh? Most of them are Slytherins, but some of you are Ravenclaw. Your father, I believe . . . and you seem to fit it, too, you lover of books and knowledge. You're dreamy like a Hufflepuff, too, but who says Ravenclaw can't have it's dreamers, too? There's no hatred of Muggles anywhere in you; you're too open-minded to be a Slytherin, but not quite as avid to stand up and shout your views, like a Gryffindor. I suggest you keep to your books and your dreams and see how you turn out in . . . RAVENCLAW!" The hat was slipped off her head and Andromeda slipped off the stool, throwing Emmaline a quick grin as she took her seat at the blue Ravenclaw table. Bellatrix caught her eyes again, and this time she kept them on her long enough to roll them with annoyance.

Andromeda didn't let this phase her. The table was cheering for her-- her! She sat, smiling, waiting for Emmaline to join her, which she soon did.

***

As promised, Emmaline accompanied her to the library that very evening. They didn't actually have time to read; they were so busy simply looking at titles of all the things they COULD read. There were old textbooks and historical accounts, fantasy tales and even recipe books for magical cooking. It was a pity they hadn't the faintest clue how to use their wands yet; Emmaline found cookie-conjuring spell just as their full bellies from the feast were wearing off.

She snuggled under the bright blue bedsheets in her dorm room that night reminded of home but feeling more excited than she ever had back there. There were so many people to talk to that weren't her mother's Slytherin-esque friends and their children or her own cousins.

The next morning, her first class was Charms. The class spent the period waving their wands, shooting out the blue sparks natural to Ravenclaws. Andromeda began to grow familiar with the feel of her maple wand; she thought she was developing a sense for the power of the dragon heartstring that was stretched nine-and-five-eighths inches within its core.

It didn't cross her mind until she walked out that she might have spent an entire classroom with a Muggle-born. She hadn't even noticed! Andromeda wondered how on earth Bellatrix figured out who was what. From the way her sister talked-- referring to Muggle-borns as scum, filth, and vileness-- she was starting to wonder if all Muggle-borns looked along the lines of the street musician she had passed on the way to King's Cross last year.

She was thinking about this as she walked out of the door, not minding where she was going. She ended up stuck in the door frame, pressed shoulder-to-shoulder with a dark-haired boy with grey eyes. Simultaneously, they looked at each other, and then squirmed to break free. After about ten seconds-- holding up the rest of the class in the process-- they managed to break out, but Andromeda's monogrammed bookbag was caught on the door handle and tore open.

"Oh, aghh! Sorry about that!" the boy apologized immediately.

"Ahh . . . it's okay," Andromeda said automatically, stooping to gather her fallen books. The boy ducked down beside her in a kind effort to help, but in his hurry he only knocked his head against Andromeda's.

"Ouch! Sorry, sorry again!"

He was so hapless, Andromeda had to laugh. The rest of the class was walking away around them, but she blocked them out. "You're funny . . . what's your name?"

"Thedore Tonks," said the boy. "Though I much prefer just 'Ted.'"

"Why? Theodore is pretty. I like it."

Ted blushed. "It's so long, and pretentious-sounding." He screwed up his nose. "What's your name?"

"Andromeda."

Ted let out a short grunt of laughter. "Well, I can see why Theodore would sound nice to you."

"I like my name," Andromeda said, feigning injury. "Andromeda, after the constellation . . . see, it's on my bag. With the Black crest." She pointed to her torn bag, expecting him to be impressed, as everyone always was, with her being a Black.

"You have a family crest? Nice," admired Ted.

Andromeda blinked. Then, suddenly, she understood. "What did you say your surname was?"

"Tonks."

"Tonks . . . Not familiar with that name." Her heart was starting to flutter.

"Well, I'm the first wizard in my family," he said boldly.

Andromeda blinked, her suspicions confirmed. "You're a Muggle-born?"
"A what? Oh . . Muggle, right . . . still getting used to all that. Yeah, I'm a Muggle, er, born."

Andromeda pulled her things in and stood up. She was talking to a Muggle-born! A Muggle-born that amused her! "Wow! What's it like?"

He furrowed his eyebrows. "What, being a Muggle-born?"

"Were you confused when you got your letter? Had you ever heard of Hogwarts?"
"No," said Ted, shaking his head in bewilderment. "It's crazy . . . I still think I'm dreaming. So . . . I take it you're NOT Muggle, um, born?"

"No," said Andromeda. Her voice came out more depressed than she had intended. It made her laugh; she sounded resentful of her pureblood family. "I'm a Black . . . well, I suppose you won't have heard of us, but we're a real elite wizarding family, pure as far back as the Middle Ages. We haven't produced a Squibb yet."

"A what?"

"Squibb . . . the opposite of Muggle-born. A Muggle born into a wizard family."

"That's probably considered quite a failure, right?" Ted grinned.

"Well . . . I don't know about some families, but if I had been born a Squibb, I probably would be disowned."

"For no fault of your own? That's harsh. Lucky you're a . . . witch, then," he smiled to himself. "Never thought calling someone a 'witch' could be a compliment."

"You've heard of the Slytherin house, right?"

"Yes, they're the silver and green, right?"
"That's the one. Most of my family's in that house. I would . . . avoid them, if I were you. They don't like Squibbs, they don't really like . . . Muggle-borns, either."

Ted shrugged. Andromeda figured he was probably so jaded by everything new in this wizarding world, from wands to cauldrons to Floo to Dumbledore that nothing new would bother him at all.

"So . . . stay away from the silver and green then, right?"

"Right," nodded Andromeda. "Don't be too loud about your name around them. If they don't recognize it, they assume the worst. Most of the pureblood families have connections: us, the Blacks . . . and the Malfoys and Lestranges and Snapes and Wilkeses and Crabbes and Goyles and Rosiers and Averys and Notts and--"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! I can't keep track of all of that? Just no Tonkses, right?"

Andromeda took a deep breath. "Right."

Ted looked up wistfully and said, as if quoting something, "But, after all, what's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

Andromeda gaped at him. "What was that from? Did you just make that up? It was really pretty!"

It was Ted's turn to gape. "You mean you've never heard it? Romeo and Juliet . . . about the most famous play ever?"

Andromeda shrugged. "If it was written by a Muggle, I haven't heard of it."

Ted looked outraged. "You have to read it! It's about the most famous piece of literature ever! Well . . . Muggle literature. But it's a really nice story, too, about forbidden lovers who die."

"That sounds . . . really sad."

"Well . . . this is going to make me sound really girly," Ted blushed, "but I thought it was kind of sweet."

"Where can I get it? I don't think the school library has it . . . unless the Muggle Studies class reads it."

"You have a MUGGLE STUDIES here?" Ted's eyes widened. "That's insane . . . like we're-- I mean, they're-- some exotic animal or something?" He shook his head. "I'll see if Mum can send me up a copy. You do . . . use post here, don't you?"

Andromeda smiled. "I'll let you use my owl."

"Your . . . ?"

"Come on!" she grabbed his arm and led him towards the owlry.

As the two walked on together, they gradually grew more comfortable with one another. Ted was so bewildered by everything that he was completely open with the young witch who grew up with all of it and didn't hesitate to ask about every random wizard nuance. Andromeda, in turn, asked him what it was like to grow up without magic, from electricity to Muggle school subjects to Muggle literature besides Romeo and Juliet.

Andromeda was still amazed; she liked this hapless Muggle-born better than any pure wizard she had met as of yet.

***

TBC, obviously . . . it's just first year . . . not even the end of first year . . .