Do Not Go Gentle

It was with some nervousness that Hermione met Regulus the next day. She was dressed in her Ravenclaw best, a blue dress with bronze lining at the sleeves and neck that had been a gift from her friends. She went down to the entrance of the Leaky Cauldron to meet Regulus, who was perhaps a touch overdressed in his green robes. She leaned in and kissed him briefly before they took arms and used the portkey he had. The Tonks house was unable to be apparated to due to the wards and Regulus, whose birthday was in August, was unable to apparate on his own there anyway.

The house was not very large, though it had some lovely greenery in the front. A cottage might describe it better. Hermione and Regulus were greeted warmly by a grinning Ted Tonks at the entrance, though he still had them say a password Regulus had been given beforehand before they could enter. One never could be too careful these days.

Ted was nothing if not warm and gracious, greeting them both as though they were old friends of his. He shook both hands, telling Regulus it was good to meet him before saying he was happy to see Hermione again after meeting her last summer. They were ushered into a small living room, with light yellow walls and a soft blue floor, which was extremely neat. Andromeda shook hands with them as well.

She was a tall lovely looking witch, somewhere in her mid-twenties, her long hair was a light brown but she otherwise closely resembled her elder sister Bellatrix. The tall form and face were eerily similar.

"Welcome Regulus," she said softly as she took his hand in hers. There was a brief moment of silence as the two cousins who had not seen each other in years looked one another in the face. He was the first to break the awkward silence.

"Andromeda," he said softly. "Thank you for inviting me." Hermione and Ted watched as the two clasped hands for a moment. Then the moment was broken and her hand slipped out of his.

"Drinks," Ted said brightly. "Everyone should have one. What'll it be?" He took suggestions before heading into the small dining room. He was back in quick time with a tray. At his heels was a small child with now green hair who made a beeline for Hermione.

"I remember you," she said cheerfully as Hermione accepted her drink with a small thanks. "You are Sirius's friend. The one dating his other friend."

From beside her Hermione felt Regulus stiffen. Hermione smiled at the small girl. "I am now dating your cousin Regulus."

"Then you are practically family."

Andromeda frowned. Ted however laughed heartily. "Not quite Dora," he said cheerfully. "My daughter," he added to Hermione and Regulus, "is often ready to make friends of anyone these days."

Dora frowned. "That's because we never see anyone," she told her father.

"Well now you are seeing people," her father told her. "Be good to our guests, Dora, while I get something to munch on. If you will excuse me." He placed his drink down and headed out of the room then. Dora turned to Hermione and Regulus with a smile.

"My daddy does all of the cooking. He is great at it. Mummy does the cleaning 'cause she says he is a slob." She giggled as though she had said something very funny.

"Why don't you have a seat while we wait for Ted," Andromeda suggested. Regulus and Hermione followed her cue, seating themselves on a sofa while still holding their half-finished drinks.

Andromeda sat down in an armchair across from them, With her ramrod posture, dark eyes and slightly aloof nature, the resemblance to Bellatrix was more pronounced. While Ted and Dora seemed open and friendly, she was reserved and cautious. Her eyes scanned both of theirs before taking in Regulus once more.

"I am glad you have come," her voice was soft yet still slightly restrained. "I was not altogether sure that you would, especially on such short notice." She took a sip of her drink then, her long fingers with a tight grip on the glass.

"I am glad I came too," Regulus told her. "It's been years, Andromeda."

"Seven if memory serves correctly," she told him. "Since I left school."

He nodded. Then he tensed for a moment before speaking. "How have you been all this time? Happy?"

"Yes," she told him quietly. "As happy as can be under the circumstances. How have my parents been?"

"Existing," he told her. "Aunt Druella seems the same as ever, but Uncle Cygnus has been feeling poorly as of late." Was it her imagination or did Hermione hear the tone of an accusation in his voice?'

"I am sorry to hear this," Andromeda replied as Ted reentered, a tray of refreshments floating before him and landing on a table.

Hermione and Dora helped themselves as Regulus and Andromeda continued to regard each other cautiously.

"Perhaps this is not the best time to bring this up," Regulus said. "But I think you should know that Uncle Alphard has been disowned."

Andromeda raised her eyebrows at him. "Has he? Whatever for?"

"He gave Sirius a large amount of money. Said he wasn't long for this world and wanted him to have it." Regulus was starting to look uneasy.

"That was enough to get him disowned of course." Andromeda gave a bitter smile then. "I shall have to reach out to him soon. It has been too long." She finished her drink then.

"These are very good," Hermione told Ted as she tasted his canapes. "Thank you." She finished it with another sip of her drink, as she waited nervously for the tension to die down.

"I am glad," Andromeda continued in the same soft, slightly reserved voice, "That you have made a good friend." She looked slightly friendlier as she nodded towards Hermione. "You are of course always welcome here, Regulus."

Some of the tension left them then with the praising of Hermione. Regulus had given her a fond look before taking her hand. They continued to talk on neutral matters, schoolwork and such being a safer topic before Ted finally announced dinner. A homey meal of a roast with roasted vegetables awaited them, its aroma delectable as they filed into the dining room.

Dora sat beside Hermione and asked her numerous questions. How long had they been dating? What happened to her old boyfriend? Did she love Regulus? Hermione graciously tried to answer her questions as best as she could, though not without some degree of discomfort.

Andromeda Tonks was a calm and gracious hostess but had too reserved a nature to allow for perfect ease. Her manners were impeccable, her personality essentially kind and well-meaning but a degree of reserve remained an essential part of her character. She was the product of a Slytherin upbringing and seven years of Slytherin schooling dampening the vibrance that her daughter and husband possessed.

Ted Tonks was the opposite of this. Open, friendly and artless, it was easy to see from whom his daughter had inherited her plucky, cheerful nature. He talked easily enough during dinner and if he noticed any tension on Hermione's side or any discomfort towards him on Regulus's, he did not let it show nor slow him down. Hermione wondered briefly how the perfect Slytherin pureblood daughter had fallen for the animated Hufflepuff muggleborn but then love had a way of creeping up on you unexpectedly.

"We were head boy and girl together," Ted told her towards the end of the meal. "All those evenings of patrol and delegating tasks together, we went from never speaking to each other to well…" he extended a hand to gesture at the table, where his daughter was chattering animatedly to Regulus while his wife thoughtfully watched them.

Hermione wondered briefly if Regulus would be so understanding if he knew she was not a halfblood witch but a muggleborn? He had barely said anything to Ted but she had caught him looking at him thoughtfully during the meal. Whatever went on in his head about his cousin in law was anyone's guess that meal.

"We eloped," Ted continued. "Right out of Hogwarts. Didn't even take the express home. Wanted to keep it quiet." Andromeda frowned at him. "Now 'Dromeda, you know how it was yourself. We need not keep it back." He offered a grin. "It was touch and go there for awhile with us laying low but we managed it alright in the end."

Regulus, Hermione noticed, was regarding him carefully. He turned a questioning eye toward her for a brief second before his features became expressionless.

"You were very hard to say no to," Andromeda admitted. She looked a little less severe as she looked at her husband. He was so carefree and cheerful that Hermione felt slightly cheered in his presence. She tried to imagine how it must have felt for Andromeda raised amidst cold, purebloods, to have this ray of light and cheer injected into her life at seventeen.

Dora spoke up then asking for dessert and the topic changed but Hermione could feel a question hung in the air. Would her and Regulus be the same? She barely thought of the future with him, so caught up with worries of the horcruxes and the war, and the despair of what the future had become. Would they ever sit at a table like this and reminisce about past Hogwarts days gone by?

Ted was not a foolish man for all his artlessness. Hermione felt that his reminiscences were with a double meaning as he looked at her and Regulus. He too had a question in the air about their future, about the future of a family his wife had once left behind. It may have been that he thought in his own way about giving her back what had been taken from her when she had chosen him as a teenager. Sirius over for dinner and now Regulus. Regulus maybe coming into the fold, no longer death eater potential but another cousin who was contrite, ready to put aside pureblood prejudices, ready to sit and eat with a muggleborn and not think the less of doing so because they were family and she needed some connection to the past.

Hermione could imagine them in their school robes, headboy and headgirl, things stiff between them, finally with the walls torn down and a love that no one expected blossoming between them, her leaving her family for him. Ted now trying to give her back what family she could have in the form of first Sirius and then Regulus.

"I like Cousin Sirius," Dora piped up then. "He has a new bike, and it flies. He promised me a ride."

"Absolutely not," Andromeda replied. "It is out of the question that I would let you near such a thing."

Ted grinned at Hermione and Regulus. "Dromeda is still very nervous around muggle things." He told them.

"Not unusual," Regulus said. "Sirius is going to get himself killed one day."

"He will be laughing when it happens," Hermione said before she realized it. Regulus frowned at her but it was true. Sirius would laugh recklessly in the very face of death, had done so in the future that hopefully never would be.

"It was a very good meal," she told Ted as a means of changing the subject. He gave her the same artless smile he had worn all evening. 'Kill them with kindness,' Hermione thought as she observed him. She wondered if his courtship with Andromeda Black had been like this, ignoring the insults her family, Slytherin and perhaps even Andromeda herself had thrown at him and going straight, artlessly, cheerfully, for the heart of the pretty, pureblood scion sitting across the table from him.

"Thank you kindly," he told her. His smile made his face look almost boyish. "I practice recipes in my free time. Both muggle and wizarding one. Lots of good stuff to attempt, and Dora is my finest critic, aren't you Dora."

"Yes Daddy," Dora said happily. "My Daddy is the best cook in the world," she told Hermione and Regulus, her dark eyes bright in a head of now blue hair.

"The food is very good," Regulus replied. There was still the stiffness between not just him and Andromeda but him and Ted as well. Ted only smiled and thanked him while Dora chattered on, a bright, lively child to the end. Regulus had looked in wonder at her changing her hair at will, only making Dora change the color and length more, clearly pleased with an audience, even such a small and quiet one.

Ted Tonks was a peacemaker and connection builder, Andromeda quiet but with a backbone of strength that caused her to go forward to what she wanted and never look back, Dora with a cheerfulness and confidence that she would carry through to her life and one day bring with her to brighten Order meetings. Hermione realized she wanted to get to know them more, to understand this little family and see how they managed to stay close together and weather the storm that was raging outside those walls.

"May I see that again?" Regulus asked as Dora changed the shape of her nose. She cheerfully repeated the change she had made as he looked at her in curiosity. Ted was grinning as he poured Hermione another drink and Andromeda's eyes were watchful, her expression cool but perhaps hopeful.

"I can do all sorts of shapes," Dora said cheerfully as she changed her nose again.

Regulus offered what was actually a genuinely warm smile. "I bet you can. You are very talented."

It was a happy dinner to treasure forever. Ted, hospitable and open as he poured drinks and chatted with Hermione, Dora changing her appearance and soaking in the praise of Regulus and Andromeda watching and perhaps for the first time in years hoping.

All good things come to an end and Hermione found herself starting her job at the bookstore soon afterwards, her duties light but time-consuming. She found as she looked around there were more books she wished to read, simply soaking in the atmosphere of being around so much potential knowledge.

There was more than just reading up on spell-work or magical history though. She needed to manage to find time to read up on Tom Riddle. She knew where his father had lived before his early death, so she had at least that to go on. What she needed was something more concrete. She did not know his mother's name but she knew his grandfather: Marvolo. It was a start and she would be sure to investigate if she could find out more before long.

July came on hot and strong and Hermione found herself between reading, the shop and the Order very busy. After meetings Sirius and his friends seemed to like going for drinks if they had free time and Hermione found herself going with them, never drinking heavy but taking the time to observe. Lupin laughing and James and Lily cheerfully drinking and flirting and Emmeline remaining calm and collected no matter how much she had and Pettigrew struggling to keep up. Sirius was open and artless then, his laugh loud and bark like, his mood fluctuating between exuberant and sullen, almost angry.

"So he went to Andromeda's with you," he said one day to Hermione. "Good. She shouldn't be a social pariah because the family…" he stopped then and touched the edge of his glass before picking up and downing his drink.

Aurora went out with Hermione one day. She chattered animatedly about her Astronomy apprenticeship and Hermione debated telling her about the Order. Somehow she didn't feel that Aurora would be right for it. Emmeline and her were touched by loss, they understood what was at stake but Aurora, with her eyes so bright and not clouded by death and losses, would not understand and hopefully never understand. It was that innocence that Hermione craved yet would never in her life get again.

Hermione attended those meetings knowing the stakes at hand, for hadn't she already lost so much in the future to them? Harry and Ron were the tough subject, the bitterness of all she had lost potent. She studied and learnt and finally got a name which she thought was right. It was Gaunt, a Marvolo Gaunt, who had been dead for many years with two children named Morfin and Merope. Last living when alive at the outskirts of Little Hangleton, the village where Voldemort's father had lived and died so many years ago. She would visit it and see if she could find out any more soon.

In the meantime she had to juggle multiple things, including Regulus and the Order. He was having trouble with his friends, she finally found out one blistering day when they sat eating ice cream in Diagon Alley. They threatened to tell his parents that he was spending free time with her and he threatened to tell Barty's father of his doings. It was all so very tiresome. Hermione thought of Andromeda and realized he would have to make a choice and soon. Bellatrix had already confronted him and one day his excuses would run dry and where would he be then?

She had ideas in her head that she mulled over. The locket, the cup, the diary, the fire she had cast ready for her to cast again and find more pieces of his soul gone. She found it finally. Voldemort's family had once lived in a still existing shack near Little Hangleton. Could a horcrux be hiding there, waiting for her to take it and destroy it? She thought maybe yes and found herself there one blustery night looking for she knew not what. There was magic there, she could feel it in the air around her as she gripped her wand. The locket maybe, or maybe something else?

"Merlin help me," she said quietly as she searched. She needed all the help she could get as she searched, the magic of the darkest wizard fighting her all the way.

End of chapter

Authors note: Not trying to just plug my story here but for anyone interested, my short fic A Conversation of Love is a continuation of my head canon for Andromeda Tonks departure from home and her family's feelings about it. I always found Andromeda interesting.

Regulus will very soon find out about the horcruxes. The hunt is on and of course he will have his role to play in it.