Fic: "Beauty," Tonks, Andromeda/Ted, PG-13
If the last story made people angry, I don't like to think what this one will do. Oh well.
Title: "Beauty"
Author: scythia
Pairing: Tonks gen, Andromeda/Ted
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Later that night she sits up with her father in her new dress after her mother has gone to bed, curls her toes in the discarded wrapping paper, and asks if she will look like her mother when she is older. Ted rests his hand on his daughter’s light brown hair. You will look like yourself, he says, and kisses the part of her hair, scalp slightly sunburned from too much summer.
The Black women are famous for their beauty. Even Bellatrix, who everyone says euphemistically isn’t it a shame that she has so much of her father in her, with that beautiful mother of hers, even Bellatrix is striking, the way a forest fire is striking. Too much for the eye to take in all at once. It must be, if not beautiful, sublime.
Everyone agreed that Andromeda was the most beautiful of the three sisters, back when they were still allowed to say her name. Narcissa was lovely but too fragile-looking to be real, and, well, Bellatrix…. But Andromeda looked like her mother, the famous Casseiopeia.
Once Andromeda takes Nymphadora shopping on the nicest of the Wizarding streets, where Ted doesn’t like them to go because Andromeda always comes back from the stores white-lipped and silent. But it is Nymphadora’s thirteenth birthday, and Andromeda finds in herself something approaching softness and wants to buy her only daughter the loveliest dress in the world to celebrate. Turning around a corner they come upon a building Andromeda’s grandfather had paid to have built, and a stained glass window that had been designed by the architect, who had developed a (necessarily) chaste fascination with Ophiucus’s daughter.
It was Casseiopeia in the window but to Nymphadora it looks like her mother, ringed with copper and emerald fire, and she clutches her new dress in her left hand and her mother’s hand in her right and thinks that it has been the greatest birthday ever.
Later that night she sits up with her father in her new dress after her mother has gone to bed, curls her toes in the discarded wrapping paper, and asks if she will look like her mother when she is older. Ted rests his hand on his daughter’s light brown hair. You will look like yourself, he says, and kisses the part of her hair, scalp slightly sunburned from too much summer.
Before breakfast the next morning she stands in front of the mirror and squints, and her hair turns darker, darker, black and long and thick, like her mother’s, and she brushes it and ties it neatly with ribbon the way her mother wishes she would, and wears one of the old-fashioned velvet frocks that her mother keeps on buying her even though Nymphadora whines and says she doesn’t want to look like one of those stupid old pictures her mother keeps around to gather dust.
When she comes down to the table her parents both fall still. Her father breaks out into a smile and says look who’s all grown up! But her mother’s fingers are as white as the porcelain and even when Ted gives her one of his Significant Looks she can’t quite make herself smile at her daughter.
The next day Nymphadora comes down with fuschia hair, spiked in a nimbus around her face, and the look on her mother’s face is familiar as tea when she sniffs with fond exasperation it’s a little much, isn’t it, Nymphadora? She says with adolescent pride that she supposes it is.
Right before she becomes an Auror she goes on her mandatory tour of Azkaban. They are told not to talk to the prisoners - there are rules and regulations for that - but she stops when she hears someone laughing. Andromeda’s daughter, says a voice. I would recognize you anywhere. Do I… look like my mother? says Nymphadora, though she knows what the answer is, and it causes her pain.
Bellatrix looks like the old pictures still, three girls together, but her face is lined and grey and whatever fire it was that made her father’s hard features almost lovely on her face once glows like only madness in her prison cell.
Oh, I know, says Bellatrix, as though Nymphadora’s flinching brings her pleasure. But I will tell you a secret, sister’s daughter: it is not so hard to lose something you never had. Your mother was always beautiful, the kind that is painful, and every day it causes her pain as she sits in silence and waits for the day when she is no longer beautiful. I who was never beautiful, nor yet am I mad, I sit in silence and I wait for a different day. For a greater day. I am waiting for my Lord, says Bellatrix, and her voice follows Nymphadora down the halls as she leaves.
What bloody part of don’t talk to the prisoners wasn’t bloody clear, Tonks? Says Moody as she storms past him. I wasn’t bloody talking, she snits as she storms past, her hair turning a particularly unpleasant shade of green.
Back at her desk at the Ministry she waits to be called to the final completion exams like a good trainee, and Kingsley Shacklebolt comes by her desk and ruffles her hair with one massive hand. Heard you talked to Bella the Battle-Axe today, he says, standing too close to her as always. Well? What’d she have to say? Cor, is this her? he says, leaning over her to take a loose picture off her desk. Look at that face, he says, as she continues to ignore him. You can see it in the eyes. A trained auror like us can tell these things, eh? Eh?
Leave me alone, Shacklebolt, Tonks says, and takes the picture of herself on her thirteenth birthday out of Kingsley’s hand and shuts it neatly away in her desk.
Title: "Beauty"
Author: scythia
Pairing: Tonks gen, Andromeda/Ted
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Later that night she sits up with her father in her new dress after her mother has gone to bed, curls her toes in the discarded wrapping paper, and asks if she will look like her mother when she is older. Ted rests his hand on his daughter’s light brown hair. You will look like yourself, he says, and kisses the part of her hair, scalp slightly sunburned from too much summer.
The Black women are famous for their beauty. Even Bellatrix, who everyone says euphemistically isn’t it a shame that she has so much of her father in her, with that beautiful mother of hers, even Bellatrix is striking, the way a forest fire is striking. Too much for the eye to take in all at once. It must be, if not beautiful, sublime.
Everyone agreed that Andromeda was the most beautiful of the three sisters, back when they were still allowed to say her name. Narcissa was lovely but too fragile-looking to be real, and, well, Bellatrix…. But Andromeda looked like her mother, the famous Casseiopeia.
Once Andromeda takes Nymphadora shopping on the nicest of the Wizarding streets, where Ted doesn’t like them to go because Andromeda always comes back from the stores white-lipped and silent. But it is Nymphadora’s thirteenth birthday, and Andromeda finds in herself something approaching softness and wants to buy her only daughter the loveliest dress in the world to celebrate. Turning around a corner they come upon a building Andromeda’s grandfather had paid to have built, and a stained glass window that had been designed by the architect, who had developed a (necessarily) chaste fascination with Ophiucus’s daughter.
It was Casseiopeia in the window but to Nymphadora it looks like her mother, ringed with copper and emerald fire, and she clutches her new dress in her left hand and her mother’s hand in her right and thinks that it has been the greatest birthday ever.
Later that night she sits up with her father in her new dress after her mother has gone to bed, curls her toes in the discarded wrapping paper, and asks if she will look like her mother when she is older. Ted rests his hand on his daughter’s light brown hair. You will look like yourself, he says, and kisses the part of her hair, scalp slightly sunburned from too much summer.
Before breakfast the next morning she stands in front of the mirror and squints, and her hair turns darker, darker, black and long and thick, like her mother’s, and she brushes it and ties it neatly with ribbon the way her mother wishes she would, and wears one of the old-fashioned velvet frocks that her mother keeps on buying her even though Nymphadora whines and says she doesn’t want to look like one of those stupid old pictures her mother keeps around to gather dust.
When she comes down to the table her parents both fall still. Her father breaks out into a smile and says look who’s all grown up! But her mother’s fingers are as white as the porcelain and even when Ted gives her one of his Significant Looks she can’t quite make herself smile at her daughter.
The next day Nymphadora comes down with fuschia hair, spiked in a nimbus around her face, and the look on her mother’s face is familiar as tea when she sniffs with fond exasperation it’s a little much, isn’t it, Nymphadora? She says with adolescent pride that she supposes it is.
Right before she becomes an Auror she goes on her mandatory tour of Azkaban. They are told not to talk to the prisoners - there are rules and regulations for that - but she stops when she hears someone laughing. Andromeda’s daughter, says a voice. I would recognize you anywhere. Do I… look like my mother? says Nymphadora, though she knows what the answer is, and it causes her pain.
Bellatrix looks like the old pictures still, three girls together, but her face is lined and grey and whatever fire it was that made her father’s hard features almost lovely on her face once glows like only madness in her prison cell.
Oh, I know, says Bellatrix, as though Nymphadora’s flinching brings her pleasure. But I will tell you a secret, sister’s daughter: it is not so hard to lose something you never had. Your mother was always beautiful, the kind that is painful, and every day it causes her pain as she sits in silence and waits for the day when she is no longer beautiful. I who was never beautiful, nor yet am I mad, I sit in silence and I wait for a different day. For a greater day. I am waiting for my Lord, says Bellatrix, and her voice follows Nymphadora down the halls as she leaves.
What bloody part of don’t talk to the prisoners wasn’t bloody clear, Tonks? Says Moody as she storms past him. I wasn’t bloody talking, she snits as she storms past, her hair turning a particularly unpleasant shade of green.
Back at her desk at the Ministry she waits to be called to the final completion exams like a good trainee, and Kingsley Shacklebolt comes by her desk and ruffles her hair with one massive hand. Heard you talked to Bella the Battle-Axe today, he says, standing too close to her as always. Well? What’d she have to say? Cor, is this her? he says, leaning over her to take a loose picture off her desk. Look at that face, he says, as she continues to ignore him. You can see it in the eyes. A trained auror like us can tell these things, eh? Eh?
Leave me alone, Shacklebolt, Tonks says, and takes the picture of herself on her thirteenth birthday out of Kingsley’s hand and shuts it neatly away in her desk.