AN: okay, so I've just finished writing a chaptered fic called Fraternising is an ugly word about how Andromeda and Ted got together, and I figured that I'd got the pairing out of my system. … Oh how wrong I was. This is about the birth of Nymphadora Tonks, inspired in part by Dimcairien, because she wanted to see Ted's reaction to having a Metamorphmagus for a kid, but I figured that as an apprenrtice healer he'd know what it was, and it'd be Andromeda who didn't understand. But this fic is not about that. This fic is about two characters who are can't quite let go yet. Kinda like I went through a spate of Lily and James oneshots. Enjoy.

She Looks Like You

Dec 1973

Child birth hurt. Even St Mungo's still hadn't come up with an effective way of deadening the pain. Andromeda didn't understand how her mother had gone through it three times, especially with all the sweat and effort that was involved. To be perfectly honest, Andromeda wasn't quite sure how she was going to get through it, especially as her husband was currently elsewhere.

One would have thought that having an apprentice healer as a husband would have meant he would be actually able to help. But no, he'd had to go and help deliver someone else's baby and entirely abandon her to a bored healer who'd delivered a dozen babies already that day. She would be annoyed at him, if she could distract herself from her pain for long enough.

The healer was telling her to push, and she felt like telling him that she was trying and maybe he ought to see how he'd like to try and give birth. But instead she gritted her teeth, and as an unearthly cry forced its way out of her, her daughter was born.

Gasping for breath, Andromeda lay back as the squalling child was weighed and had a tiny band wrapped around her wrist that read 'Andromeda Tonks.' They still hadn't managed to agree on a name, which meant at the moment the girl would be known by her mother's name. She was wrapped in a blanket then passed to her exhausted mother.

Andromeda looked down in wonderment at her daughter, and marvelled at the fact that they'd made this tiny person. A smattering of blonde hair like Ted, but the pout in her lips she had definitely inherited from her mother. Andromeda allowed the nurse to take her daughter away, though she missed her the moment she was gone from her arms.

When she awoke, she didn't remember falling asleep, but there was Ted, sitting next to her bed, beaming down at their child. "She's got your hair," he murmured, standing up. "Move over."

She shifted on the bed, giving him enough room to sit next to her, and she stared at their daughter. "But..she had blonde hair," Andromeda told him. "Is that the right girl?"

Ted nodded, the tiny baby stirring slightly in his arms. "Her band says Andromeda Tonks."

Andromeda frowned, and then her mouth dropped open as the girl's hair changed from mousy brown to black. "Did that…did she just…"

Ted nodded, kissing the side of his wife's head. "She's a Metamorphmagus," he told her gently.

Andromeda laughed slightly. "As if our family wasn't messed up enough."

Ted beamed. "Names?" he asked. "We can't keep calling her Andromeda, 'cause that'll get really confusing."

"Nymphadora" Andromeda said quietly, gently touching her child's cheek.
Ted went to protest, but he saw the exhaustion and the love in his wife's eyes and smiled. "Dora," he agreed.

Andromeda rested her head on his shoulder, and slowly closed her eyes. "She'll still be here when I wake up, right?"

Ted nodded, gently wrapping an arm round her shoulders. "Of course." As the two most important women in his life slept on, Ted wondered how he'd ever managed to live without them.