A/N: Ok, so Andromeda was really hard for me to write, and I kept putting her off. Here's my attempt. I realize the transition is a bit sudden, because I have so many different conflicting ideas of Andromeda in my head and it was hard for me to reconcile them. Finally I gave up on trying to fix it and decided to post it. Anyway, I hope you like this.
She's always felt guilty about it, but Andromeda loved loved loved the color red. She wasn't supposed to; red was for Gryffindor and blind courage and blood traitors, and she's known that forever. And she doesn't want to like red, because she is a good and true Slytherin, but it's warm and fiery and strong and bold and beautiful and she can't help herself. She dresses herself in green and black and silver, hoping that the color will seep through to her soul and change the redness, and there wasn't really much doubt at her Sorting (she wanted to be Slytherin, she was a Black, she had all the qualities of a Slytherin, even the ones she didn't like – there was no doubt of where she'd go), and she avoided the Gryffindors (Merlin, some of them were annoying), but still. She liked the color red, and she liked Gryffindor Tower (she'd never been inside, but she could picture it, red wall hangings and red sofas and red carpets, all bathed in the warm glow of a flickering red fire – even the Slytherin fire was silver-and-green), and she did (she admitted) like the passion of the Gryffindors. Not that the Slytherins couldn't be passionate – she has been to a Quidditch game. But there was a warmth and fire to Gryffindor passion that she loved.
When she met Ted Tonks, she thought he was a Ravenclaw. She was in the library, studying frantically for an exam the next day. She had such trouble with astronomy; she always laughed at the irony (she always remembered the stories behind the names much better than the stars themselves). But Ted Tonks was smart, and helped her learn the stars, and made her laugh, and shared his name with no constellation. He was a sort of freedom, a bit of lively joking warmth, with a way of saying her name that made it sound less star-like and more real and perhaps even brighter than Black. Andromeda. She remembers her namesake's story well – the chained princess left to the sea-monster. Sometimes, late at night when she's lying in bed wishing for red hangings above her head and perhaps a less Black quality to the darkness around her, she can picture Ted as a sort of Perseus (and she ignores that the sea-monster reminds her of Slytherin's snake-sigil). But she doesn't want him to be her escape – she wants to free herself. If that's even what she wants (and she's no longer entirely sure).
So she makes friends with Ted, and finds out that he's really a Gryffindor, and drives him crazy with her conflicting moods, and knows it. But she can't help it – she really likes him, but she's afraid that she's starting to depend on him too much. She decides that she will color her own life red, and when she no longer wishes for red everywhere, then she will see if it is truly Ted she likes or the fire and warmth and redness in him. So she eats red foods and buys bottles of red ink to doodle with and wears red underwear (because the touch of red against her skin makes her feel alive). And one night, she realizes that her bed curtains are green and the darkness is merely dark and that she still dreams of Ted, but that he's no longer Perseus come to set her free. He is merely Ted, tall and floppy-haired and funny and really truly passionate. And the next day she finds him in the corridors and drags him to the library and kisses him and surprises herself (she'd only wanted to talk to him, see him again). And he kisses back.
And years later, when Andromeda is giving her baby daughter an impossible name in the tradition of the Blacks (but not a star-name, because baby Nymphadora with Ted's snub nose is too bright and lively to be doomed to the night sky) and laying her down in a red-swathed crib, she realizes that Ted was her Perseus. He loosed her chains, but she climbed out of them herself.
And that, my friends, is Andromeda. Next up is Nymphadora, who should be easier, as she has a definite canon love story. I just hope I can get it right!