A/N: Whew! Last chapter was beautifully original, but there are a lot of things to acknowledge in this. Almost all of them are to smelltastic's "The Other Black Girl." From it I robbed 1) Mr Potter's American accent (actually, in my fic, it may not be American; Andromeda might not be able to tell any ways of speaking besides her own apart), 2) Ted's imitation of Andromeda's aristocratic vowels, 3) the affinity Bellatrix and Sirius originally felt for one another (although in this fic their relationship is quite different – much less close). And I'm afraid my favourite "original" bit, Andromeda unknowingly saying again and again "Sirius, quite seriously – " and Ted laughing his head off without revealing why – well, that's an echo of a canonical joke (McGonagall gives Harry the Firebolt back in PoA: "Seriously?" "Seriously.") It's also kind of trite, maybe. I say "maybe" on grounds that it's not like I have anyone trying to claim credit for such a corny pun; it's just one more private joke in Ted's rainbowy little world, which is full of a spectator's appreciation of all the inadvertent humour that is going.

Chapter V – Family, and a Wotchering Interloper

The Sorting Hat was rather ecstatic that year. It approved of Dumbledore and nattered about bright future days of long-needed change while the plurality of conservatives glowered and pestered the Ravenclaws' newspaper with editorials. Speaking of Ravenclaw – the Hat, in its joy, waxed poetic. It sang of Ravenclaw as "where convocave the lithe and throbbing minds." Gryffindors were "hearts all aflame." Slytheirn was the home of "the long, grasping arm." Hufflepuff looked a little suspicious with their place in the symbolic body as "faithful feet and ever forward/ Hufflepuff moves on, and what must be done is done!"

Zeena Dobbs, at the Hufflepuff table, was one of the most suspicious, indeed the most gloweringly so, and had muttered, "Faithful feet? I know where I'd like to stick my faithful foot."

---

Andromeda cringed when she heard his voice. She was going to have quite a busy year, with NEWT prep and great husband hunt which she was supposed to have a direction in by now, and it was going to be very stressful if all this was punctuated intermittently with those too-cheerful, too-loud hails of "Wotcher, Andry!" You give those uppity Mudbloods the barest bit of courtesy – such as apologising for having called them an uppity Mudblood for over three years – and they suddenly think you're intimate acquaintances.

"Hello, Theodore Tonks. Goodbye, if you please."

He continued bounding down the corridor towards her. Ted had something of a girly skip when he was excited, which was often. He fell in step beside her and starting talking as naturally as if they did this every day and were the best of friends.

"So I saw your little cousin get Sorted the other day. Gryffindor, eh? I imagine that's a pretty little smudge on the family tree."

Andromeda was about to sigh exasperatedly, but then she made the mistake of glancing up at him – his overwide mouth, and the most horrible haircut, as if he had set Self-Styling Shears to "riddle with cowlicks" (which was an actual setting on Self-Styling Shears). It was an insidious face, friendly in an asymmetric way, and she found herself sighing and giving in to his company. She couldn't ditch him, they were both on course for Divination, but the trek up to the North Tower was lonely and likely no one would see them. "I'm scared for him. Some of the family's bound to be upset about it, and Aunt Denebola has a horrible temper. He'll be facing a lot of unpleasantness at home."

"Eh, well, the unpleasantness at home will wait. It'll be a nice change after the unpleasantness in Gryffindor for him." Man-like, Ted sincerely thought this all was a very comforting thing to say.

She turned sharply to him. "In Gryffindor! How can the Gryffindors possibly be giving him trouble? There's not a single Gryffindor with a bloodline better than his!"

Ted looked down at her rather pityingly.

"Well, no, I suppose there ain't," he said. "'Course some of them are the type that wouldn't be impressed by bloodlines. Might even have a few scores to settle against the type that do have the bloodlines."

"Ted Tonks, you tell me right now what's going on in plain English or I'll – !"

He laughed. "Oooh, lawdry, Aahndry, yoo te-elling mee aboot playne Eenglish!" He frequently dragged out his vowels in awful imitation of her posh accent, and usually it got a rise, but today she merely hit him with her satchel. It was mild, for her, and had nothing to do with his mimicry-mockery.

"Tonks! Who's giving him trouble?"

"Oh, I don't know about giving him trouble, although I think pretty much everybody's ignoring and avoiding him and all. A couple of the kids have insulted him, but there hasn't been any incidents."

"Insulted him how? Who have?"

"Andry, it's nothing big," said Ted, who, if he hadn't been so Hufflepuffishly in the habit of never regretting any excuse to talk to her, would have been busy regretting this excuse to talk to her. "Just typical taunting. It's mainly that little Potter kid in his year – "

"Potter!" (All sorts of portraits on the walls awoke with startles.) "Potter lording over Sirius! I've met the Potters before, the Wilkeses were mad enough to invite them to a dinner party once, and the woman yammered on and on about changing the status of merpeople and giving them rights, and the man was so loud, and had the most awful American accent! They're vulgar! They're the most vulgar sort of nouveau riche! They're commercialists!"

"Well, then, I'm sure Sirius will be more than a match for him," Ted said, trying to placate and failing. (Possibly he was distracted by thoughts of "noo-voo reesh? The bloody hell is she talking about?")

"The Black heir being ignored and avoided," she murmured, a bit breathlessly after her rant Potter-wards, and rubbing her wrists distractedly. "Heavens."

"Yes, heavens," Ted agreed in amusement. "Heavens to Betsy."

She hesitated just a moment, and then said, "I'm going to go find him. First-years have Friday afternoons off, do they not?"

Ted first considered laughing at the absurd formalness of "do they not," but then realised what she had been saying under that archaic grammar. "What! Andry, you have class in five minutes! – too late – she's off. I s'pose if she stopped long enough to say another word to me it would be 'I'm a Black.' Well, it'll be cutting class on my first week back – very prefectly of me – ah well! Andry! Wait up! Lordy, girl, how do you even know where to go? Is this intra-Black telepathy?"

Portraits on the walls were shouting at them that their classroom was the other way and that they would get into trouble and that they were making too much of a racket and interrupting their naps and that running in the corridors with wands out was dangerous. Andromeda and Ted saw and heard them in blurs. They hurtled down to the Great Hall, where a bunch of first-years were at the Ravenclaw table.

"You lot!" Andromeda called imperiously to them. "Do you know where my cousin is?"

Ted watched amazed as they actually knew: one of them had seen the first-year Gryffindors go outside at the last bell, so they had just been in Herbology. It was some sort of Black thing.

"Herbology always runs late to clean up – maybe they're still there," muttered Andromeda. "Tonks, get to class."

"No" – panting – "I'm having so much fun."

He was running ahead to open one of the heavy entrance doors for her when a hot spell barely missed his ear and whizzed onward to open the door. Andromeda slowed long enough to give him a withering look as he stood aside to let her through first. But she was red-faced from her run, and Ted had to grin to himself: she wasn't half so proper as she liked to think she was. No proper Black witch would lowered herself to hurry. She seemed to remember it herself now, and walked sedately to the greenhouses tucked away where one of Hogwarts's wings folded in on itself. Ted whistled (very off-key and all the louder when she gave him an irritated sideways glare). It was a beautiful sunny day without a bit of chill, and under that sun he was walking with Andromeda Black. All in all, cutting Divination had been well worth it – just for this.

They were in luck. All the Gryffindors were still cleaning up what seemed to be the carnage of some fairly inept replotting exercises. Professor Sprout was busy explaining a technique to two girls and Andromeda supremely ignored her altogether as she went to a black-haired boy who was – it was the first and simplest description to come into Ted's head – pretty. Sirius looked up, with studied blankness that relaxed into something almost friendly when Andromeda said, warmly, "Sirius, how are you?"

"I have to clean this up," said Sirius, gesturing to the rich dark soil he and his partner had scattered far beyond their plot.

Andromeda took out her wand impatiently, said a few quick Latin words, and the soil was cleared. "Do you mind?" she asked Sirius's partner.

"Andromeda," hissed Sirius, "do you mind?"

"I've heard you've been having trouble in Gryffindor."

"Trouble? I'm not having any trouble," said Sirius, proudly. Ted, who had witnessed evidence to the contrary all week, whistled one low note. "Who's he?"

"Him?" Andromeda was thrown off a moment, hesitating. "He's – "

"You brought a prefect?" Sirius hissed. "Andromeda, let me deal with this myself!"

"I didn't bring him. Sirius, quite seriously" – Ted snickered; Andromeda glared as she continued " – he told me you've been having problems here – "

"I'm not."

" – that they're avoiding you – "

"I told you I'm not having problems. Andromeda, you're just going to make things worse."

"There shouldn't be anything to make worse," she said fiercely. "What about partners for classes? Charms, and Astronomy, and so forth? And Potions?"

Sirius uncomfortably made an abortive gesture to his equally uncomfortable partner. "He's been partnering me."

"Who're you?" she asked the partner again.

"His name's Remus Lupin," Sirius said.

"Do you want me to leave you alone for a moment?" Remus Lupin asked Sirius, mumblingly under Andromeda's flashing eye.

"No. Andromeda, don't you have a class or something?"

"I hear the Potter boy was giving you trouble."

Sirius gave Ted a glare that Ted had to confess pretty devastating, for an eleven-year-old. "What have you been doing, spying on me?"

"Sorry, mate."

Ted took some satisfaction in Sirius looking surprised to be addressed so familiarly.

"Who's he?" he asked Andromeda. Ted began to feel like laughing. Maybe he could stand the Black family. They were pretty amusing when you put them all together.

"I'm Ted Tonks, nice to meet you, sorry if this is too embarrassing."

"Tonks? That's not a Wizarding name. And he's a Hufflepuff," Sirius said to Andromeda, with a nod toward Ted's House colours at his neck. "How do you know him?"

Again, Andromeda was flustered. "I – I – Sirius, quite seriously, do you realise you're surrounded here by Gryffindors? And I think your friend is a half-blood!" she said, accusingly.

"Oooooooo," said Ted, who found all of this, and his own wise and witty contributions, endlessly amusing.

Lupin, who looked even fragiler than first-years in general (if the best Ted could do to describe Sirius was "pretty," with Lupin the chief adjective to come to mind was "little"), seemed to consider making a run for it, with or without Sirius's permission, so Ted grinned at him and adopted a false accent that was not a bad imitation of the Blacks'. He was quite a good mimic of voices when he wasn't actively caricaturing them for the sake of getting a reaction from interestingly uptight girls. "Greetings, fellow sufferer-of-awkwardness. Shall we begin our own conversation and talk about these strange creatures, commonly known as the Blacks, as if they were not present?"

"Tonks, if you don't like it, get back to class!" said Andromeda.

"Look, where's this kid Potter?" asked Ted. "How about I just talk to him? You know, a big scary well-built prefect to scrawny little bratling bully heart-to-heart?"

Andromeda needed a second to digest this, but Sirius didn't. "No!" he said, whisper-shouting.

"I see him," said Andromeda viciously. "He's over there. I can tell, his father had hair just like that, it stuck out everywhere."

Sirius was staring up at them with horrible opinions of both rocketing throughout his bloodstream. Ted, who normally knew no shame, suddenly felt some shame, not because the kid's scorn pierced him, but because it couldn't. It was hard to see someone scarcely over the age of ten looking so defiantly helpless against the conspiring forces of nature and fate.

"Andromeda, if you do I'll – "

"Yes?" asked Andromeda grandly. She had absently picked up the trowel and now jabbed it at thin air to emphasize her points. "You'll do what exactly, Master Sirius? You don't have Bella on your side to back you up anymore, remember."

"I don't need Bellatrix, and I don't need you!" Sirius's teeth were at the clenching stage, his whisper at the hissing. "All you two know is Slytherin, and in case you haven't noticed, this isn't Slytherin!"

"I'll say it's not. Look you to him – "

"His name's Lupin," said Tonks, to annoy her under the guise of being helpful, because nothing pleased him so well as seeing Andromeda annoyed.

" – once upon a time, if I have him pegged right, and small blame to me if I don't, his grandfather was practically a servant to our uncle, and was grateful for the privilege."

Both the younger boys needed a second to recover from this.

Sirius glared at her. "I don't care about our grandfathers and uncles. He's my ally – "

"Ally?" In amusement. "Now that's a strictly Slytherin term, I thought."

" – and if you go talk to Potter you'll make him seem right about me being a spoilt pureblooded brat – "

"He's no right to say that!" Andromeda was loud in her outrage.

" – and you'll only make me seem more, more – vulnerable, and – "

"Vulnerable?" Ted nodded consideringly. "Quite a mouthful for a kid like you. I didn't know that word at your age."

All three of them stared at him. He noticed this, and the abrupt ceasefire, with a mild shrug.

Andromeda spoke first. "Tonks, you're mad. Go back – "

"I'll tell."

She looked down at her cousin. "Excuse?"

Sirius was a miniature maharajah. "If you talk to Potter, then I'll tell the family about him."

"My name's Tonks," said the same, now annoyed himself, but Andromeda was beyond annoyance and into alarm, foreseeing her defeat.

"What!"

"Keep it down," said Ted and Sirius, at roughly the same time.

"What's there to tell?" she said, in an obedient whisper.

Sirius smirked with the superiority of the pre-pubescent immune at the mucksome follies to which the strange disease of sexual love leads his elders. Of course, he probably had no words to explain what "it" was, but that smirk alone was enough.

"I care nothing about him," said Andromeda, but clearly unnerved. "I care about you – "

"Awww," said Ted, with a smirk of his own.

"There's nothing to tell, Sirius, I'm seriously quite – "

Ted burst into laughter just in time for Professor Sprout to make her way over, as dumpy and dirty a plebeian as Andromeda Black could ever have wished for, but the latter had to submit to the former anyway. Although I don't think "submit" accurately describes the haughty acquiescence Andromeda gave to Professor Sprout's reasoned request that they leave, as her next class was pouring in. During their exit little Lupin gave them the slip, which somewhat placated Andromeda, as if she had won at least one of the battles even whilst drawing the less favourable side of the truce.

"All right, Sirius, quite seriously," she said as they began one lap around the entire castle, setting Ted off again, " – Tonks, what are you laughing about?"

"Something very immature," he said in a muffled voice. "Something humourous only to commoners like myself, I'm sure."

"You see?" Andromeda appealed to Sirius. "There's nothing to tell. He's insane. He's a stalker. I can't get rid of him."

"Bella could get rid of him for you."

Ted ceased adjusting his bag over his shoulder to give Sirius the sternest look he could muster (Sirius didn't seem remotely affected). "Now see here, young man. There's no call for that. I thought we was clean with each other."

"But, really, Sirius, I'm sorry if I went about it wrong. I'm just trying to help you. You know that."

"I know that. But you can't." With the excitement over, he was retreating within himself.

"Don't let them push you around."

"I'm not. But I'm not going to treat them like I'm better than they are, either!"

"But in a way you are. No, listen, seriously, it's not just the name, it's the upbringing. No, listen to me. Why would you let that Potter boy intimidate you? You are ten times more intelligent, more educated, more knowledgeable – I'll bet he's a right naïve prat, no?"

Invita minerva, Sirius fought but did not entirely pin a smile.

"But honestly, Andromeda, I – " He was on the verge. With difficulty but without noise, he toppled over the reserve. "I could like him."

"Fine," she said, "like him, hate him, whatever, but act like a human being with a shred of dignity. Don't let the liking take place at his charity. Remember that you understand how this world works, and that he's some of the ignorant machinery."

Clever of her, to appeal to that rather than the name itself. Because after all, reflected Ted, she is not dumb. Not at all. She's cunning as they come. And he can't see for the life of him how the blind Administration overlooked her for prefect, in favour of that Erstwhistle girl.

'That Erstwhistle girl,' a pureblood so impoverished as to be thrown out of Slytherin high society, was the most intelligent and most accomplished student currently within the school, and was much more diligent than Andromeda would ever be. Ted despised her for the slight he perceived towards Andromeda in the prefectorial matter. That tyranny of acute, worldly, practical, supportive girls oppressing the beautiful and self-absorbed disgusted him.

"Don't call him a piece of ignorant machinery," said Sirius in annoyance.

"I thought we agreed he's a naïve prat."

"It's not the same. And earlier, you bringing up that nonsense about Lupin's grandfather or whatever. No one cares about that. I didn't think you were the sort to care. You always said yourself that sort of thing was silly."

Ted smiled at the distant forest. Andromeda did not cringe to have him discover that she was not so much a snob as she liked to pretend, for she was too deeply engrossed with Sirius. He liked that, too, her concern for the brat. He liked her – in case you hadn't noticed.

"Well, it is, and I didn't care, exactly," Andromeda was saying, conceding. "It's good to know about people's backgrounds, though, you know. I'm glad he's partnering you and so forth. If you must be around these types – well, the Lupins are a decent family, even if the boy's father is strictly speaking a blood traitor. But I was in rather a difficult position there, you know. I had to talk to you, and with him and him around – "

"He's still here."

"You see?" yelped Ted. "You see how cruelly I'm used?"

"The trick is to ignore him," said Andromeda, to Sirius.

"Like you did in there."

"I told you, I was in a difficult position. I was worried about you."

"Well. Thanks."

They walked on in silence only for a few moments when Andromeda said, "Have you heard from your parents?"

"Yes." So briefly that anyone's hopes of hearing the content of was dashed.

"Regulus?"

"He wouldn't write this soon."

Another pause. Andromeda seemed to want to sweat Sirius out. Sirius did have the air of someone who wanted to speak very badly, and exorcise a fine rant, and possibly – yes, maybe even a good cry – and Ted was aware that he was definitely in the way, for the kid wouldn't let his storm of emotions loose for anyone but Andromeda alone, but too they were approaching the front doors again, so Andromeda sighed and said, "Look, Sirius. I'm sorry if I almost aggravated your problems there. You're right: I probably don't know how to help you. But if you do need help, and you can tell me how to do it – "

"Mm-hm."

"You promise you'll come to me then?"

"Sure," he said, with so little hesitation that he couldn't possibly be sincere.

"I'm sorry, Sirius."

"I know. It's fine." And he sounded like he meant this, at least.

"I don't care that you wound up in Gryffindor, you know. I was almost," she said, with the air of letting someone in on a weighty secret, "put there too."

"You were?" Sirius was interested, in the contained way that Blacks were allowed to be interested. "How did you get into Slytherin, then?"

"I asked the Hat to put me there."

"But – so did I."

They stared at each other. Having no one to stare at, Ted stared at them. It was odd. He offered, to their rather sad bewilderment, "Well, mate, you must be just impossibly Gryffindorish, then."

Andromeda threw a scowl and a glare over her shoulder at him. Sirius shrugged and said, "I don't care. I'm glad to be at Hogwarts anyway. It's better than being at home. It's not so dark, there's so much in it – " He broke off.

Andromeda considered him. "I can see that. That's something then." She waited for him to speak, and gave it up with, "I do remember how you've been waiting the past few years to come here. So long as – well – all right, I suppose Tonks and I have got to get back to class – "

"You had class now?" asked Sirius, dismayed again at this evidence of her interfering instinct.

"No matter," Ted said jovially, "this was much more educational than anything Professor Madley had to teach us! You take care."

Andromeda and Sirius parted with nary a mark of tactile affection – hug, half-hug, brief touch of shoulder, ruffling of hair – common to the young and slightly older protective cousins. Ted couldn't help thinking them a tad cold. Andromeda was deep in thought and did not seem to mind when Ted got away with holding the door open for her this time. Two floors up and Ted realised that they had not yet run into any teachers – though doubtless had they been totally innocent they would have been interrogated and disbelieved by half the staff already. Although perhaps such concerns were unique to the young students, who saw the stiff hand of Authority in every corner. Nevertheless, as they waited for their staircase to arrive at the second-floor landing –

"Andry, I'm scared," said Ted, adopting a mock-pathetic tone for an appeal only he could have imagined winsome, "hold my hand."

"Scared of what?" With the impatience of those disturbed in thought.

"Big scary professors. Madley's talking-to. Vanishing steps. Producing a weebil on my Transfiguration NEWT. Ooh, Andry, have pity, I'm a very sad case…"

"That's plain enough."

"You know, Andry" – as he put a hand to her back as if to gallantly escort her onto the stairwell, which had arrived with a floosh – "when you think about it, I've been your crutch of support now through two rather large personal family moments. You'll have to start considering me as at least a friend…"

"I consider you most pathetic – crutch of support, indeed! – I consider you as I consider bad weather. To be weathered." She was rather proud of that bit of clever word-play, but promptly dashed when Ted beamed down at her.

"Now that's something! Time was you wouldn't have admitted that you considered me as anything at all…"

She scowled the darkest of Black scowls. But they were rising and slowly revolving on a finite surface, and she could do nothing.

TBC