Leigh!fic | Daughter of the Rain and Snow (1/1) | Ted Tonks/Andromeda Black
Title: Daughter of the Rain and Snow (1/1)
Author: Leigh, aka leigh_adams
Characters: Ted Tonks/Andromeda Black
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,182
Summary: There is retribution to be had, and Andromeda will take what is due her and those she loves.
Author's Notes: Written for flyingharmony as part of the 2012-2013 Winter Fic Exchange at rarepair_shorts. The premise of this fic came from the song “Landscape” by Florence and the Machine. fiery_flamingo (the best at T/A fics) once mentioned it was on her Andromeda playlist, and as soon as I received my assignment, I knew I wanted to use it. To my wonderful betas amazonmink and elle_blessing, I love you both. Thank you for holding my hand and being so wonderful to me. I don’t deserve you.
She stands alone in front of the dilapidated manor. The wind is frigid and damp, blowing off the sea. It has been a mild winter in Essex, but her bones have not forgotten the winter winds that blow hard in Newton-by-the-Sea. She may be a southern woman now, a Tonks, but she was born a Black of Black Manor.
Her ancestral home, once proud and distinguished, is a shell of its former self, decaying, leaning, holding on by sheer willpower and age. Its mistress Druella (for even after twenty-five years, Andromeda cannot think of her as ‘mother’) is dead, though that would not have mattered. Since the death of Cygnus Black in 1992, the lady of the house had lived abroad.
The Prophet attributes it to a sudden sickness. Andromeda calls it comeuppance. She has not had a mother, nor a father, nor sisters either, since the day she was banished from her family home.
By law, that same house has passed to the last Black recognized. Her younger sister, Narcissa.
★
“You don’t know my family, Ted,” Andromeda murmured, pushing her hands against his broad chest, fingers curling against the warmth there. They have been ‘together’ -- and she uses that word in the loosest sense -- for over a year now, and she still can’t get over just how big he is. Broad and tall, hale and ruddy in a way no one in her family is. Blacks are pale and delicate, aristocratic and regal. She pressed closer to him. “They would never accept us.”
Her beau doesn’t grasp the gravity of the situation. He never has.
“Your parents won’t approve of me, I’m not pureblood, I get it.” His tone was blasé; they had had this conversation so many times he’d lost count. “What about your sisters? Your cousins?”
Andromeda snorted. “Bellatrix would sooner dance on your grave -- after she put you there, mind -- than see her sister with a Muggleborn.”
“Well, Narcissa then. She seems...” he gave her a sheepish smile and shrugged, “less volatile than Bellatrix.”
“She is.” Andromeda paused in thought. What would her baby sister think of her, carrying on with a Muggleborn? Would she still smile and plait her hair before bed? Come to Andromeda with questions about boys and all the other things she couldn’t ask their mother? Would she still be the same sweet flower that Andromeda knew?
“No,” she finally whispered. She pressed her cheek to his chest, listened to the strong, steady rhythm of his heart. “Neither would Narcissa.”
★
It is surprising that she is here and unchallenged. She had been certain her former family would have turned the wards against her. Something nasty, perhaps boil the blood within her veins? That sounded like something her father would have enjoyed. The breath stripped from her lungs, but death not coming? Her mother, often shrill in her opinions, would have kept intruders with that particular curse for hours. Andromeda had seen it once, when she was just old enough to understand what being a Black meant.
But the wards are silent -- dead along with the House of Black.
Her gaze is pulled from the manor to the string of islands in the distance. When she had been a child, she loved to watch the lighthouse by night from her bedroom window. Its steady rhythm signaled safe passage for ships. It had been a constant in Andromeda’s life, illuminating a path away from the one her parents had laid out for her.
The lighthouse is gone, swept out to sea. And so is Andromeda’s heart.
★
Andromeda had never been one to weep. When they were children Narcissa had teared up at the smallest slight: a scraped knee, a small cut, Regulus pulling at her plaits. She’d run to Andromeda for kisses and bandages, but Andromeda herself had never seen the point in crying.
She cried, though, the day they brought Ted’s body home.
In death, he had looked so... so normal that it had been as if he were asleep. Only the eerie stillness to his body, his skin cold to the touch, proved otherwise. Her Ted, her rock, the love of her life, was gone.
Had it been Bella? Perhaps that inbred wretch she called husband? It could have been anyone -- men and women she had grown up with, who had called her one of their own. Those she had once upon a time called friends.
She curled up next to her husband’s body and cried herself to sleep, holding him for the last time. There was a part of her that wanted nothing more than to follow him into the grave. But she couldn’t do that; she had Nymphadora and Remus, a soon-to-arrive grandchild to think about.
The next morning, she got up and wiped away her tears. She was determined to never weep so hard again.
Fate was determined to prove her wrong.
★
The memory of her late husband makes her heart heavy. She wears her grief like a mantle about her shoulders, heavy and trailing. These past nine months have seen her age ten years, if not more. She is only forty-five years old, but gray already streaks her hair near her temples. There is a haunted look in her dark eyes that never seems to fade.
Teddy helps. The fates have granted her that kindness. They have ripped Ted and Nymphadora from her, but her precious daughter is remembered in her tiny grandson. She should be home with him now and not here, not at this place she once called home.
Andromeda turns her face back to Black Manor. It belongs to Narcissa now, but Andromeda does not care. Her sister escaped the war with all she loved intact. She still has her coward of a husband. Her wretch of a son is still alive. Narcissa’s life continues to be charmed. She does not know sorrow as Andromeda does.
The wind tugs at her hair as her wand slips down into her hand. There is a small part of her that still loves her sister, but it is overshadowed by anger, by sorrow. She is not the same Black that left this house twenty-five years prior.
She is a wife, a mother, a grandmother. She is a widow and a survivor. She has buried her husband, her child, her son-in-law. She has danced on her sister’s grave at midnight and laughed with a manic kind of joy. She has felt the thread of madness and wondered if she is turning into her older sister.
She was cut out of her family tree. Now, she has cut down her family tree, and she is here to make it burn.
A flick of her wand, and the manor’s salt-decayed frame is alight with fire. It takes slowly, old wood succumbing first before spreading to the interior. Flames dance merrily with the ocean breeze, casting light on her face.
And for the first time in a month, Andromeda smiles.
Author: Leigh, aka leigh_adams
Characters: Ted Tonks/Andromeda Black
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,182
Summary: There is retribution to be had, and Andromeda will take what is due her and those she loves.
Author's Notes: Written for flyingharmony as part of the 2012-2013 Winter Fic Exchange at rarepair_shorts. The premise of this fic came from the song “Landscape” by Florence and the Machine. fiery_flamingo (the best at T/A fics) once mentioned it was on her Andromeda playlist, and as soon as I received my assignment, I knew I wanted to use it. To my wonderful betas amazonmink and elle_blessing, I love you both. Thank you for holding my hand and being so wonderful to me. I don’t deserve you.
She stands alone in front of the dilapidated manor. The wind is frigid and damp, blowing off the sea. It has been a mild winter in Essex, but her bones have not forgotten the winter winds that blow hard in Newton-by-the-Sea. She may be a southern woman now, a Tonks, but she was born a Black of Black Manor.
Her ancestral home, once proud and distinguished, is a shell of its former self, decaying, leaning, holding on by sheer willpower and age. Its mistress Druella (for even after twenty-five years, Andromeda cannot think of her as ‘mother’) is dead, though that would not have mattered. Since the death of Cygnus Black in 1992, the lady of the house had lived abroad.
The Prophet attributes it to a sudden sickness. Andromeda calls it comeuppance. She has not had a mother, nor a father, nor sisters either, since the day she was banished from her family home.
By law, that same house has passed to the last Black recognized. Her younger sister, Narcissa.
★
“You don’t know my family, Ted,” Andromeda murmured, pushing her hands against his broad chest, fingers curling against the warmth there. They have been ‘together’ -- and she uses that word in the loosest sense -- for over a year now, and she still can’t get over just how big he is. Broad and tall, hale and ruddy in a way no one in her family is. Blacks are pale and delicate, aristocratic and regal. She pressed closer to him. “They would never accept us.”
Her beau doesn’t grasp the gravity of the situation. He never has.
“Your parents won’t approve of me, I’m not pureblood, I get it.” His tone was blasé; they had had this conversation so many times he’d lost count. “What about your sisters? Your cousins?”
Andromeda snorted. “Bellatrix would sooner dance on your grave -- after she put you there, mind -- than see her sister with a Muggleborn.”
“Well, Narcissa then. She seems...” he gave her a sheepish smile and shrugged, “less volatile than Bellatrix.”
“She is.” Andromeda paused in thought. What would her baby sister think of her, carrying on with a Muggleborn? Would she still smile and plait her hair before bed? Come to Andromeda with questions about boys and all the other things she couldn’t ask their mother? Would she still be the same sweet flower that Andromeda knew?
“No,” she finally whispered. She pressed her cheek to his chest, listened to the strong, steady rhythm of his heart. “Neither would Narcissa.”
★
It is surprising that she is here and unchallenged. She had been certain her former family would have turned the wards against her. Something nasty, perhaps boil the blood within her veins? That sounded like something her father would have enjoyed. The breath stripped from her lungs, but death not coming? Her mother, often shrill in her opinions, would have kept intruders with that particular curse for hours. Andromeda had seen it once, when she was just old enough to understand what being a Black meant.
But the wards are silent -- dead along with the House of Black.
Her gaze is pulled from the manor to the string of islands in the distance. When she had been a child, she loved to watch the lighthouse by night from her bedroom window. Its steady rhythm signaled safe passage for ships. It had been a constant in Andromeda’s life, illuminating a path away from the one her parents had laid out for her.
The lighthouse is gone, swept out to sea. And so is Andromeda’s heart.
★
Andromeda had never been one to weep. When they were children Narcissa had teared up at the smallest slight: a scraped knee, a small cut, Regulus pulling at her plaits. She’d run to Andromeda for kisses and bandages, but Andromeda herself had never seen the point in crying.
She cried, though, the day they brought Ted’s body home.
In death, he had looked so... so normal that it had been as if he were asleep. Only the eerie stillness to his body, his skin cold to the touch, proved otherwise. Her Ted, her rock, the love of her life, was gone.
Had it been Bella? Perhaps that inbred wretch she called husband? It could have been anyone -- men and women she had grown up with, who had called her one of their own. Those she had once upon a time called friends.
She curled up next to her husband’s body and cried herself to sleep, holding him for the last time. There was a part of her that wanted nothing more than to follow him into the grave. But she couldn’t do that; she had Nymphadora and Remus, a soon-to-arrive grandchild to think about.
The next morning, she got up and wiped away her tears. She was determined to never weep so hard again.
Fate was determined to prove her wrong.
★
The memory of her late husband makes her heart heavy. She wears her grief like a mantle about her shoulders, heavy and trailing. These past nine months have seen her age ten years, if not more. She is only forty-five years old, but gray already streaks her hair near her temples. There is a haunted look in her dark eyes that never seems to fade.
Teddy helps. The fates have granted her that kindness. They have ripped Ted and Nymphadora from her, but her precious daughter is remembered in her tiny grandson. She should be home with him now and not here, not at this place she once called home.
Andromeda turns her face back to Black Manor. It belongs to Narcissa now, but Andromeda does not care. Her sister escaped the war with all she loved intact. She still has her coward of a husband. Her wretch of a son is still alive. Narcissa’s life continues to be charmed. She does not know sorrow as Andromeda does.
The wind tugs at her hair as her wand slips down into her hand. There is a small part of her that still loves her sister, but it is overshadowed by anger, by sorrow. She is not the same Black that left this house twenty-five years prior.
She is a wife, a mother, a grandmother. She is a widow and a survivor. She has buried her husband, her child, her son-in-law. She has danced on her sister’s grave at midnight and laughed with a manic kind of joy. She has felt the thread of madness and wondered if she is turning into her older sister.
She was cut out of her family tree. Now, she has cut down her family tree, and she is here to make it burn.
A flick of her wand, and the manor’s salt-decayed frame is alight with fire. It takes slowly, old wood succumbing first before spreading to the interior. Flames dance merrily with the ocean breeze, casting light on her face.
And for the first time in a month, Andromeda smiles.