King's Cross had hummed with frenetic energy on the morning of September first. Nymphadora, pink haired and grinning, had gone through the platform barrier and been sent off to Hogwarts by her family. Cousins, aunts and uncles, brothers, and parents all said goodbye to her. Narcissa was generous enough to take Nymphadora under her wing for the train ride, while Sirius found an animated, messy-haired boy to sit with.

Andromeda felt it was almost too perfect, but it could never be. Nymphadora's true father was nowhere near the platform. The man who wished her a productive year gave her an awkward side-hug, at Andromeda's insistence, while his sons mussed her pink hair. If they were another family, perhaps it would have been idyllic. As Andromeda stepped out of the alley from which she'd Apparated from the train station, she knew her reality was far from the charming life she had once dreamt of.

The tea shop she had selected in Yorkshire was among the town's oldest establishments. It had charming, private rooms that served well for Andromeda's purposes. She had arrived early, prepared to have everything set for her brief conversation with Ted. She had a twofold goal: persuade him he was not Nymphadora's father, and get him out of her head.

She was dressed in fine, emerald robes. Her hair was perfectly in place and pearls hung from her earlobes. She took a moment to remind herself that she had the strength, grace, and cunning to meet her goals.

Her hopes were immediately dashed when she opened the door to the tea room she had booked.

Ted Tonks had already arrived and had a steaming cup of tea in front of him. He stood upon her arrival and cleared his throat when their eyes met.

"Hello, Andromeda."

The formality of his greeting, and the cold distance hanging between them, let Andromeda know that the Ted of her dreams was no longer the Ted of reality.

With her mouth feeling as if it were full of cotton, Andromeda allowed herself to gaze at the man he had become. His shoulders were broader than before, and by the way his suit jacket hugged his torso, he'd gained strength in his upper arms. She could only imagine his forearms, stronger than before, based on the hands that were more weathered, but that made them even more appealing. Her fingers twitched in her lap, longing to touch him.

His jawline had become sharper; the rounder remnants of adolescence were long gone, replaced now by angular lines and eyes that shone just as brightly. They were framed by new crinkles, showing years of added laughter and loss. 19 year old Ted had been handsome to Andromeda, but she had been able to walk away.

The warmth already building between her legs was a sign of her imminent surrender.

She cleared her throat.

"How is your tea?"

"Posh." Ted shrugged. "You know I never cared for anything like this."

"But you are enjoying it," she replied, less a question and more a statement.

"I am. Care to join me?"

Ted's manner of speaking had even changed; his east London accent was less pronounced and the casual, carefree nature she had associated with him was nowhere to be found.

Andromeda nodded and sat down with him at the table set for two. She poured the tea into her cup, congratulating herself silently when her movements were perfectly executed, without any sign of weakness.

"Where are you living now?"

"Rainham, near the river. You?"

"Travers Court isn't far from Nottingham."

Ted took a drink and breathed deeply, his chest rising and falling with his inhalation. The tension inside the tea room was physically imposing; Andromeda felt like a baby hippogriff was resting on her chest, crushing her slowly, but she refused to speak first.

"I assume that you're aware of why we're meeting," Ted began.

He paused, looking up expectantly, giving Andromeda a chance to reply, but she took a sip of her tea, pretending nothing was afoot. Noting her reaction, he tsked under his breath.

"Allow me to make myself clear, then," he continued calmly. "I meant every word in my letters. I don't want to discuss anything that happened between us. It's in the past and I'm damned sure I want it to stay that way. I came here with the sole intention of discussing our daughter."

Andromeda dabbed at the corners of her mouth, prepared for his speech.

"As I stated in my reply, Nymphadora is not your daughter. I am here as a courtesy to you, to prove to you that you have nothing to do with my family."

She took another sip of her tea and watched as Ted's face struggled to maintain its composure.

He inhaled sharply. "Now is not the time to lie to me, Andromeda."

"I'm not lying to you, Tonks," she replied coolly. "Surely I would have told you, sometime in the last eleven years, that we had a child together?"

Anger flashed across his eyes and his lips were pressed in a thin line.

"There's no reason for you to make this any more difficult," he said, his voice strained.

"Nor is there a reason for you to be so . . . unreasonable."

Ted blinked slowly at her, letting silence interrupt their conversation.

"This is what I'll do," he said. "I'll indulge your lies for now. I'll tell you what I'm asking for and leave it to you to take the next step, as I know how much you like to be in control."

Andromeda had anticipated a childish reaction. She gave him nothing, not so much as a glance to acknowledge what he had said.

Without preamble, the words came rushing out of his mouth.

"I came here because I know that girl is my daughter. I'm not the type of man to abandon his child, once he knows that she exists. I'm quite sure you don't need a pound of my financial support for her—" At this, Andromeda rolled her eyes, watching his mouth twist into a scowl. " Nevertheless , Mrs. Travers, if you ask for it, I will give you every last penny I have. I'm here to learn about my child and be her father in some capacity. That is all I ask."

"That's all?" Andromeda scoffed and threw her hair behind her shoulder. "You want to barge into my life, my daughter's life, and upend everything she knows? You want to demand a relationship with a little girl who has no relation to you, past, present, or future? Have you gone mad? Or is this some pathetic attempt to lure me away from my family?"

Snarling, Ted placed his hands on the table, lifting himself off the chair abruptly. He was halfway off when he seemed to think better of it and sat down, shaking with fury. His shoulders rose and fell and he closed his eyes, breathing erratically.

"Andromeda," he said, strained, "do not allow our past to dictate the present or the future. What happened between us is long forgotten. I'm not letting you, or anything we shared, be the reason why I continue to be estranged from my daughter. It's not fair to me and it's not fair to her."

"Fair?" Andromeda said scornfully. "You think it's fair to any of us to accept your ludicrous demands? Let me repeat myself: Nymphadora is not your daughter. "

"DON'T LIE TO ME!"

Ted was on his feet, red-faced and trembling. Andromeda's mouth fell slightly open; not once in her memory could she recall him losing control like this. She had seen devastation, pain, and hurt, but never rage.

"Excuse me." Ted's voice cracked as he lowered it. "That was inappropriate. If you wouldn't mind giving me a minute, I need to step out for air."

He slipped through the door of the private room, leaving Andromeda in shock. She hadn't planned for a Ted whose anger couldn't be reined in. She'd given no thought to a Ted who would blow up at her, only a Ted who would leave the tea room with his tail between his legs, never to disturb her unease again.

Andromeda grew worried when five minutes transpired. She was about to break all her preset rules, get up, and find him, but the doorknob turned.

Ted had his back to her as he closed the door quietly, his shoulders tense, his body stiff. When he faced her, his eyes glistened, his nose was slightly pink, and his chin quivered.

"I had hoped," he said, holding onto the back of a chair for support, "that we could discuss this matter calmly, amicably, and privately. I want to give you one more chance to be honest with me. If you refuse, I will not hesitate to take matters into my own hands."

Andromeda felt her walls tumbling down. She gulped, letting an embarrassing squeak slip through her lips, and clasped her hands tightly, placing them on the table.

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

Ted shook his head, his eyes closed and brow scrunched together in pain.

"It means, Mrs. Travers, that I will empty my vault, my Muggle bank account, and spend every spare moment of my time to force your hand. I will not rest until the entirety of the Wizengamot—" He paused to steady his breath and rise to his full stature. "—and the Minister of Magic herself declare publicly, after dragging all our names through the mud, that Nymphadora Travers is my daughter. I will not give up until all of Britain knows you fucked a filthy Mudblood and had his bastard."

Andromeda gasped, hearing the ugly words roll off Ted's tongue. Gone were his gentle, blue eyes. Gone was the easygoing, tender smile she held in her heart. Gone was everything she thought she knew.

"You wouldn't," she whispered.

"Watch me," he hissed, lowering his face to meet hers. "I will stop at nothing. I will work day and night, and when you finally fall off that high horse of yours, there will be nothing to catch you but your own inflated pride."

The glacier of feigned indifference that Andromeda had built suddenly cracked.

A gasping, wheezing sob tore through her and loud, painful crying followed at once. Her eyes were burning, blinded by salty tears. Her lungs felt like they were collapsing; there wasn't enough air in the world to take her from one moment to the next. She'd die, weeping over tea, with no one but her daughter to mourn her. Ted Tonks would look down at her, hungrily waiting for that last rattling breath, when her spirit finally left this world.

"Oh my God, Andromeda—"

The world was spinning. Andromeda was on the floor, feeling the safe, strong arms of Ted around her since that fateful, torrential night. She wanted to shake him off. She wanted to insist she was a happily married witch, but as she shuddered into him, crying, she was reminded of his woody, citrusy scent and nights of passion, wrapped around each other's trembling bodies.

She wanted to hate him for demanding so much of her. She wanted to slap him away, tell him never to talk to her again, and leave her family alone. But as she wept, loudly and hideously into his wool jacket, she could hear his gentle, reassuring voice.

"It's okay, it's okay."

Andromeda felt seventeen again, terrified when she let her walls crumble the first time and kissed Ted atop the Astronomy Tower, showing her what passion really was.

"I've got you."

She was eighteen, about to lose her virginity, and Ted was guiding himself into her, holding her steady before she understood what it meant to make love.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you."

She was still eighteen, offended that Ted had suggested they run away and leave her family behind. He'd called them cruel and callous; he hadn't been wrong, but it terrified her to leave everything she'd known.

"We'll figure this out, 'Dromeda, we will."

She was nineteen now, pregnant and scared, knowing that all her fears could come true. It was raining, cold, and windy, and her heart was going to turn to stone, knowing she would never feel the warmth of Ted's love again.

"We don't have to make any decisions today," she heard him say, as her lungs felt like they could expand properly again. "I promise I won't hurt you like that again."

It took all of Andromeda's resolve not to burst into another round of ugly tears. How could he be so compassionate, when it was obvious he had been hurting?

Still shuddering and whimpering, Andromeda reluctantly extracted herself from Ted's embrace and sat against the back of a chair, wiping the tears from her face with her sleeves.

"Take these," Ted murmured, conjuring a torrent of tissues from his wand. "Take all the time you need." She nodded, blew her nose into the tissues, and let him vanish them.

"I'm so sorry, Ted," she said, her voice cracking. "You w-weren't s-s-supposed to know."

"I know." He sat across from her, his long legs splayed out in front of him, and sighed. "Were you ever going to tell me?"

Andromeda hung her head. She'd thought of telling him every day since Nymphadora was born. Being unable to bear the possible consequences, she'd never had the courage to say anything.

"Why don't I ring for more tea?" Ted stood and reached his hand out to her. "We'll each have a fresh cup and start over. What do you say?"

The man looking down at her, with the warmth in his eyes and the gentle smile tugging at his lips, still held her heart. His voice was familiar now, with his comforting accent back on his tongue. She didn't want to say no, so she took his hand and waited quietly while he arranged for a new pot of tea and sandwiches.

They were halfway into their new cups of tea when Andromeda cleared her throat. She didn't feel ready for what came next, but there was no way out.

Ted observed her for a few seconds before he set his plate down.

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"I couldn't," she replied bitterly. "They would've killed you! They would've made me get rid of her! I couldn't do that, not to our baby, not to you, not to—"

Ted put his hand up. "'Dromeda, I believe you. I just wish I'd known . . . I wouldn't have said anything . . ." He put his face in his hands and rubbed at his eyes. "What is she like?"

"She's . . ." Andromeda struggled to find the words to describe her daughter. She pressed her lips together, put a finger up, and reached into her handbag. Since Nymphadora's birth, she always kept a small album with her, reminding her of why life was still worth living. She slid it across the table and into Ted's trembling hands.

He opened it, gasping softly when he saw the first photograph, taken moments after Nymphadora was born.

"She's beautiful." Ted wiped the wetness away from his eyes. "Looks just like you."

"Not when she's most herself."

Ted continued flipping through pages of the photo album and stopped at a picture of Nymphadora when she was about four years old. She'd eaten her weight in cake icing that day and her little, black hat was lopsided, but underneath the colorful icing crusted to her lips, she looked like a miniature version of him.

"This was her fourth birthday. My husband didn't stay for the night," she explained. "Nymphadora loved that cake, but my mother wouldn't allow her to have more than a small slice. I waited until everyone left and let her eat as much as she liked. Her little face lit up . . . her smile is just like yours, you know." Andromeda felt her lips move up, remembering her daughter's face, and how comforting it was to see Ted's face reflected back in hers. "She fell asleep like this, and I took her picture, wondering if . . . if . . . if I had run away with her and found you, would you have . . ."

"I'd have done anything for you," Ted said instantly. "If you and this adorable baby had come to see me . . . 'Dromeda, I would've given anything to have you both, even if she weren't mine. I never forgot you." He grabbed her hand, squeezing it, until he felt the ring on her finger. He cleared his throat and turned to the album, turning its pages silently while Andromeda ached for him.

"Would you let me see her sometime?"

Ted had reached one of the last pages. One of Nymphadora's most recent pictures was freshly developed and charmed: she held her wand, grinning toothily at the camera, a moment that couldn't have been more than a few minutes before he met her.

"Ted," Andromeda sighed, "she's not ready. I'm not ready. She wouldn't understand why we're coming to see you."

"Then don't come to see me. Let me find you, like that day in Diagon Alley."

Andromeda began shaking her head.

"Please," Ted begged. "Let me see her. I won't say anything—I'll use Polyjuice Potion, I'll do anything—allow me a chance to see my daughter."

"It's a disaster, you finding out about her, you'll get us all killed—"

"I know it's complicated, but it doesn't have to be. We can work something out." He traced a ring around the edge of his teacup with his finger. "Listen. I know you've moved on, and I have too. Let's not make this about us—it's about her, our daughter."

"You're married?" Andromeda asked, her barely-there, newly gained strength faltering.

"Engaged," Ted said softly. "You couldn't expect me to wait forever."

"I see," she managed, pained.

Ted sighed and rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. "It's been a trying afternoon. I don't want to keep you here. Will you promise me you'll think about letting me see her sometime?"

Andromeda wrung her hands under the table. She felt dizzy and sick; she should never have met Ted in the first place.

"'Dromeda . . . if you won't do it for me, do it for Dora . . . Nymphadora . It can't hurt to have another person in her life who wants the best for her, and who will love her unconditionally. I can't make up for lost time, but I will do everything I can to be good to her. When you feel it's a good time, we can tell her the truth. For now, won't you let me get to know her?"

A disquieting thought crossed Andromeda's mind. She couldn't think of anyone but herself that loved Nymphadora unconditionally. Byron's first wife had died young; if something happened to her, Andromeda couldn't leave her vivacious, beautiful child in the hands of those who had never appreciated her worth.

It left Andromeda with only one thing to say in response.

"You may see her from time to time, but only if you follow my directions, very, very closely."