If one were to research the significance of the year 1970 in the history of the Wizarding world, there would be no shortage. In the summer of 1970, for example, Tom Riddle made his application to the post of Hogwarts Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor, taking a brief but significant tour of his old school beforehand. This was also the year he branded his first Death Eater Rudolphus Lestrange Sr., a loyal accomplice since their days at Hogwarts. Textbooks detail the resources that this alliance put at Riddle's disposal, and the marked acceleration of his agenda that followed.

Unrecorded by the history books, 1970 was also the year that somewhere in England a redheaded girl took a flying leap off a swing set to the mixed delight and horror of her varied audience.

Furthermore, 1970 was the year that the Wizengamot was to vote on the Defense of Bloodlines Act, which was co-authored by Cygnus Black and Abraxas Malfoy, whose alliance was sealed formally with an engagement. It's purpose was to illigalize the marriage of Purebloods to wizards of lesser blood purity and also to restrict the marriage and breeding of wizards to Muggles and Muggle-Borns. The engagement of the Malfoy heir to one of the Black girls was intended to set an example of a good, traditional Pureblood marriage.

Incidentally, 1970 was also the year that Andromeda Black introduced herself to Edward Tonks.

{ - }

Andromeda Black was failing Arithmacy. It was unthinkable.

No, failing a regular class, like Herbology or Charms would be unthinkable. Her parents set very high standards for their daughters at Hogwarts, and excellent grades were among the most basic of their expectations, caught under the umbrella order to uphold the family name.

No, Andromeda's failure to pass Arithmacy would be amusing. Initially, her Father had assumed she was joking when she presented him her third year class selections; Ancient Runes and Arithmacy. When she had persisted he had said no and dismissed her. After a sullen dinner her Mother took her aside and explained that Black girls take Divination. It was tradition, and what does a young witch need with Arithmacy after all? Andromeda could keep Ancient Runes, but she would have to switch to Divination. Neither of her parents had any ear for stories about how useless the class was.

Incised by her parents' insistence that Arithmacy was traditionally a wizard's subject, Andromeda went over their heads. She secretly enrolled in both, squeezing Arithmacy into the space between Divination and her Father's signature. At Diagon Alley she had the Arithmacy book ordered to the Slytherin dormitories where it would be waiting for her on her first day back.

She was quite pleased with her cunning, and this self-congratulatory feeling of having got one over her parents followed her right into her first Arithmacy class of the year.

It did not last long after that.

The policy that Girls Don't Need Arithmacy had apparently been in place when Andromeda was a child being taught to read and write by her family's tutor. She could obviously count and multiply and all that, but after Professor Vector's first lecture all Andromeda had learned was that she didn't even know what she didn't know about Arithmacy.

Andromeda sat, shell-shocked in her seat for several minutes after the class had ended. She stared at her parchment, which she had, in her panic, covered in utter illegible nonsense. Vector had called the lecture A Brief Re-Introduction to Algebraic Principles. It was Greek to Andromeda. Possibly literally, at some points. Andromeda felt her whole world collapsing in over her head. Her duplicity would only be accepted at the end of the year if she could show off an over-full schedule where Arithmacy had at least equaled her marks in all of her other classes.

Shit.

Andromeda followed the instincts instilled in her by her childhood and went to Bella. She found her sister in the 5th year's Common Room. Bella laughed for almost five whole minutes once she grasped Andromeda's predicament.

"Bella! It's not funny! I'm dead!" Andromeda hissed furiously at her breathless sister.

"Oh Andy, you don't get it, do you? They're going to think it's positively adorable that you thought that you could manage an extra class at all – never mind Vector's Arithmacy! They'll make you drop it of course, but it's just going to be another cute story about little Andy Black."

Andromeda could handle getting in trouble. She never went looking for it, but her Mother found an endless stream of faults to correct in her daughters, so Andromeda had learned to handle punishment. Humiliation, on the other hand, was not something that the Black family children were ever adequately taught to handle.

She was the only Slytherin girl in the class, so she couldn't ask a friend for help. She didn't want to try any of the older students. No one would help her just for the sake of it, no matter how much they wanted to be on Bella's good side. She would owe them something, eventually and that didn't sit well with Andromeda. She was a Black, after all, and Blacks don't owe anyone.

She tried reading the textbook she ordered, but it didn't get any more basic than the first day's lecture. After Thursday's class she hung back to ask Vector for help catching herself up. She said she was happy to recommend a little side reading, but would regrettably be unable to provide personal assistance.

Andromeda had met this attitude in half bloods before, but, unable to use her parents to make her do anything, and honestly not looking for Vector's personal assistance, Andromeda headed to the Hogwarts Library before dinner that evening.

It was slow going. For starters she had seven other classes, not that Divination should really count, but it was still three more than she had to deal with last year! Any day that she didn't find time to do her self-assigned pre-reading meant she was utterly lost in the next class period. All the extra reading was putting her behind on her homework, so she spent whole weekends struggling to complete the weekly assignments.

Andromeda almost cried when she got a D on the first exam anyway. She had never before put so much effort into anything really. And then to find herself unable to succeed, when everything else had always come so easily?

To make it worse there were only three more exams until her parents found out. With her grade where it was currently, she already couldn't get an O.

After their first disastrous exam Andromeda lost her focus a bit. She still went to the library before dinner, but she took to staring around at the other students, doodling on her parchment and practicing her spell work. It was then that she noticed them. Two Hufflepuff's from her Arithmacy class. She knew them of course, her year had Herbology and Transfiguration with the Hufflepuffs, but she didn't have their first names.

They were going over the Arithmacy exam. They were on question four.

Andromeda had gotten four wrong too.

She pulled out her exam and followed along as Tonks walked the girl through the steps at the problem, answering all her questions. He was good at connecting the ideas together – something that Andromeda struggled to do based on Vector's lectures. They got through the whole first part of the exam before quitting to go down to dinner, but they came back after classes on Tuesday. Andromeda moved from her customary seat the wall so she was more able to eavesdrop inconspicuously.

Tonks was a fountain of knowledge. Andromeda was frustrated to learn that the concepts that she was struggling to understand was based on lessons that Muggles teach their ten-year-olds. But listening to Tonks and Prewett cut down Andromeda's Arithmacy time considerably. There were days where Prewett understood come concept that was lost on Andromeda so the whole evening was a waste, or when Prewett would consistently misunderstand something that Andromeda had already been able to teach herself from one of the books, but still she had to sit and listen to Tonks explain it.

When Andromeda got a P on the next exam she could not help but notice Prewett excitedly showing off her A to Tonks.

The time had come for drastic action.

{ - }

In the library that later on Andromeda steeled herself, and stood, turning to address the Hufflepuff pair.

"Hello, I'm Andromeda. We have Arithmacy together, but I don't know that I've ever actually introduced myself."
He smiled, not sarcastically, but not exactly genuinely either. "No, I have a feeling you're right about that. I'm Ted"

He held out his hand for her to shake, almost like it was a challenge.

She shook it, but neither was inclined to let the touch linger.

"And this is Alice," He said, gesturing at the girl by his side.

"Alice Prewett," she added, "We've got a few cousins in common through my Aunt."

Andromeda nodded. They both knew that it was Alice's place to prove some relation to Andromeda – if she could- and Andromeda's to know the family tree well enough to catch any truth-stretching. Alice's vagueness was a snub, a deliberate reference to the custom without really fulfilling the social requirement. But she had clearly wanted Andromeda to know who she was. And probably to prove she knew who Andromeda was. But Andromeda wasn't concerned about that – everyone knew who she was.

"Do you really, properly understand this stuff?" She asked Ted, gesturing to the Arithmacy notes scattered across the table.

Ted shrugged modestly, "Yeah. I mean, enough anyway,"

"Would you be willing to explain this week's notes to me?"

Both Ted and Alice looked very, very surprised.

"You want my help?"

Andromeda ignored his stress on 'my,' "I overheard you discussing the lesson, and you sound like you know what you're talking about."

"I suppose I do. But I just don't get why you're asking me not some Slytherin?"

Andromeda thought of her Father's reaction to her desire to take the class in the first place, when every other Black woman had taken Divination. How hard she had fought for her place in the class. Slughorn's raised eyebrow when he passed out her schedule. Of the marks she had received on the last two exams. She was desperate.

"Well you're already here, in the library, with all the notes, working on it, aren't you? If you won't, that's fine. I'll ask someone else." They key was to make sure he didn't think she thought of this request as a sign of weakness.

"Oh, no I'll help you. I don't mind, I was just surprised is all." He smiled at Andromeda and he and Alice began to rearrange the papers so that she would have a place for her own homework.

An hour and a half later Andromeda's homework was done. They walked out of the library together, but Andromeda immediately veered away towards the girl's toilets. She wasn't embarrassed to be seen walking with them, but it would cause ripples that Andromeda didn't feel like dealing with. Ted had been helpful, and Alice's tenuous grasp on the subject had made Andromeda feel more secure about her own understanding, but she didn't have much else to say to them outside of the library. She thanked Ted sincerely, said good bye to them both and pretended to need the loo.

{ - }

"You still should have said no," said Alice, reaching across the Hufflepuff's table in the Great Hall for a bread roll.

Ted shrugged, "Explaining it to people helps me learn anyway,"

"You know there's a reason she didn't say her last name, you know. She's Andromeda Black."

"Yes, I realize that."

"She didn't want to remind you that it's her Father who's practically written that Defense of Bloodlines nonsense. If it were up to her and her family you wouldn't even be here, Ted!"

Ted smiled, shaking his head, "I don't see what's wrong with getting a little ironic satisfaction from helping her with her classwork then."

Alice snorted, turning back to her food. "Still should have said no. Let her fail for Merlin's sake!"

{ - }

A/N - Don't own Harry Potter.

I've had a couple of false starts with this story but I finally feel like I know how I want to go about doing it. Honest feedback it very much appreciated!