middle of the deep

Mother to 'Baby Teeth' (1980), Director of Nymphadora (age 8).

[alsodromeda]

timeline —

PRIMARY …………… cambridge ‘73 (graduated) UNIVERSITY …………… hogwarts '77 (transfiguration degree) APPERANCES …………… Baby Teeth ‘80 (director)

biography —

꧁ Chapter 1 - Lonely At The Top

Romy started sneaking out at thirteen. But she smoked too much gillyweed and stank so badly when she came home from Isaac Crabbe’s house after school that Druella had two house elves hang Andromeda by the ankles from the fourth floor balcony “to air out the mudblood stench”. Andromeda hated to agree with her mother, but gillyweed was kind of foul. Cornish Powder was odorless, though. And it was way more expensive, so it had to be better. Because she was a child with unlimited funds, little supervision, and poor impulse control she quickly had a habit on her hands. One she hid pretty well. Her classmates were going to Cambridge vs. London quidditch matches after school, and Andromeda was showing up late to third period in sunglasses pouring Cornish Pick-Me-Up sweat with pain pill bottles prescribed BELLATRIX BLACK rolling around in her purse. She showed up though, lest she risk the letter home and another summer at the trust fund baby reform school.

꧁ Chapter 2 - Baby Baby Baby 

When she ended up pregnant in her final year at Cambridge Academy, no one was really surprised. She stopped picking up when her Friday Friends called on her; she started going to class. It was too late in the year for the effort to make any difference in her failing marks, but it wasn’t too late for a sizable donation from Cygnus Black III to do it for her. Andromeda, who had spent the last few years lying, decided she was going to lie one more time (for the good of herself and her unborn baby), and then she was going to start living a different life. Earlier in the year Andromeda had lost a friend in a tragic drowning accident. a Pureblood heir from Greece she’d partied with often since meeting on Spring Break named Kostas Adamos. He was the perfect scapegoat of a Pureblood father to her Half-blood bun in the oven. The only person with whom she shared the truth was Ted Tonks, because the baby was his. Ted took it in stride, they agreed no one could know for the safety of everyone involved, but Ted could meet up with his baby whenever he wanted, within reason. That didn’t turn out to be very often once Ted and Andromeda both began to pursue different degrees at Hogwarts. As the years passed he came around less and less, and that was fine.

꧁ Chapter 3 - The Lighthouse By The Sea

Andromeda got a job in film. She directed a few shitty things that never made it anywhere, and then one pretty good thing that sort of did. She was a (somewhat) good and mostly honest person for the first four years of Nymphadora’s life, but film was a dangerous industry for a girl in love with the night, and Nymphadora wasn’t enough of a child anymore that she provided the same distraction and constant chaos she had as a baby. Soon she was six. She was going to Cambridge Academy, too. This was the year Andromeda was sent to inpatient care for the first time. The tabloids read she’d been sent to rehab, and the entire family let them. It was less shameful that their daughter might have partied too hard with the wizarding elite than it was to admit the truth: years of physical and emotional abuse, drug use, and all that Pureblood inbreeding drew the madness out of her. The Healers at the center diagnosed her with Schizophrenia. She missed Nymphadora’s seventh birthday, and a lot of dates after while the Healers sorted her potions. When Andromeda came home she decided to take a break from film. She asked to move into the Black’s cottage in Tinworth, the one way out on the rocky cliffs at the end of the beach by the lighthouse. Cygnus admitted he’d forgotten they still owned that piece of shit salt-box. Sure, Andromeda could have it. Assuming it was still standing. She works at Winnie’s Diner to pass the time.

dating history  —

KOSTAS ADAMOS …………… fake baby daddy TED TONKS …………… real baby daddy

[alsodromeda]

tonkstedtalk​:

“Oh, yeah,” said Ted as he waved a hand. “Mum and dad have always been the sort who believed in going after what you want in life. You would think they’d be very practical people given that they’re doctors, but I think since I’m their only kid they didn’t want me to be too messed up, push anything onto me and make me resentful, you know? Hope Dora’s like that. Not resentful of us.”

.

Andromeda’s smile held its shape even as she melted inside. She didn’t know what emotion she was feeling—she rarely did—but it was heavy. Like a cinderblock tied to her ankles that she flailed and fought to be free of and couldn’t shake. It began quickly to pull her under. “I should get going to pick her up from school then.” The primary school didn’t let out for another hour, but she had the excuse of a broken watch at least. Andromeda felt the shape of her soul wither inside her and didn’t understand why. “I don’t need to give her any excuses to start.” If she didn’t already. 

They warned you about the terrible twos, but Andromeda had loved ever moment of those terroristic tantrums. It was this... growing, thinking, independent child of eight that terrified her in earnest. Nymphadora was a real girl now, one that might come to resent Andromeda the same way Andromeda resented Druella. 

She stood suddenly, and left more money than was necessary to cover her half and his. “This was— I’ll.” She stopped, grinned. “Let me know when the watch is done, yeah?” Fuck, she thought. Fuck fuck fuck. All the way out of the diner and to the alley where the panic set in. 

Was she ruining her daughter the same way she ruined everything else?

~ Le Fin ~

[alsodromeda]

narigreenergrass​:

“Meet cutes have to happy at cute places. Why else do you think I spend so much time at Winnie’s, or the grocery store. Or random parks along the way.” She smiled innocently, though in some cases, it wasn’t entirely incorrect. Nari had a dream, and it was a rather romantic notion. That one day she’d turn around, and her soulmate would be there, arms wide open, ready to tell her that the search was over.

The search was most definitely not over when it came to the DMLE. “I can’t have sex with any of my coworkers.” That was a firm rule that Nari had concocted, and would never once turn her back on. “Then they’ll just treat me differently, or try and force me to stay back, and besides, half of them are married anyway.”

.

“No way.” Andromeda argued the point with her whole chest. “There’s nothing more romantic than being in an unbearable situation from which you cannot escape and finding someone that makes you tolerate that.”  She gave Nari a knowing look. “And are you trying to tell me you come to Winnie’s to pick up men and not for my winning company? Well! See if I charge the house for your pancakes next time, missy.” With a long finger she booped the nose of her friend. 

“Can’t or won’t?” It was rhetorical, Andromeda knew the answer and she knew Nari knew that she knew. “Best to leave the married men to me anyway. Oh, totally unrelated, super random question but do you get a plus one to the DMLE Christmas Party?” 

[alsodromeda]

narigreenergrass​:

“You can’t honestly be serious, can you? I mean, I’m not about to find the man of my dreams during an event like this.” Though, to be fair, people found their significant others during all random courses of one’s life. It wouldn’t actively be ridiculous. Just a little in sane, in her professional opinion. Mostly, Nari didn’t want to face the facts that some people were meant to end up alone, only it wasn’t actually alone. She’d always have her friends. Just never her person. 

Andromeda’s question, however, took her completely by surprise, leaving a stunned face in its wake. “Oh. My type? Well, I suppose they’d have to be fit, and intelligent. Also kind. Like, the sort of person you know will always help little old ladies cross the street. Not to mention strong. And good fashion sense. I have none, so I’d need someone to help me pick things out when you’re away and unable to assist.”

.

“I could be.” It depended largely on Nari, whether she was serious or not. “Not with that attitude you aren’t. Besides, it’s called a meet cute, have you never in all your life watched a romantic comedy?” They weren’t Andromeda’s favorites, but she could appreciate any genre of film, really. 

She nodded along down the list, imagining up this dream man and trying to find him in a stranger’s face. The results came up wanting, and with a huff she admitted defeat and slouched back into the velvety pew. “Isn’t that, like, by definition literally every man you work with?”

[alsodromeda]

narigreenergrass​:

Nari frowned, though it looked more like a pout than anything verging on being truly upset. In many ways, she wanted to be more like Andromeda. More reckless and willing to dive head first into everything. Instead, she treated life as though it were a puzzle that needed solving. Tackling every moment with care and consideration, lest one wrong move send everything else tumbling out from underneath her. Where Andromeda was loud, Nari was quiet. Where Andromeda couldn’t help but draw attention, Nari had always been more than happy to live in the shadows. “I could have a pretend husband who treated me poorly. Here, we’ll role play, I’ll pretend and everything.”

Oh. Well, when it was put like that. “I am certainly not pregnant. No one has even so much as looked at me for two full years. Which I suppose means I can’t be that virgin. I’ll have to find a different one.”

.

“Or you’ll have to find a man. Two birds, one stone.” There was no shortage of them in the church seeking asylum from the elements. Besides, better a guinea pig than Andromeda, who wasn’t sure she could pretend to be mean. Not to Nari. She was too good at being mean; Druella had taught her well. Maybe the best of all the Blacks. Trixy was cruel and Narcissa was manipulative, but Andromeda was all teeth when she wanted to be. Usually when she didn’t, too. Like a dog that bit back too hard at tug of war, following its nature and forgetting it was only a game.

Andromeda perked up with an idea that solved both problems. Evoking the majestic meercat, she eyed the pews for any hints of handsome men. No effort was made to conceal the fact that this was what she was doing. She even went to far as to rise to her knees on the pew and peer around a nearby woman’s hat. 

Her reasoning was thus: they were stuck in here for the foreseeable future so the boys had no where to run or hide; frightened men were statistically more likely to fall in love, confusing the rush of adrenaline from the situation for rush of adrenaline towards a person; they’d probably never see these people again, half of them being cracked out Muggles who wanted to worship them for their wands; it would be fun and she was very bored indeed

She pointed to the corner. “What about that one? He looks like he’d fuck in a confessional.” But would Nari? Andromeda had doubts. “No, maybe not him actually. What’s your type, Greengrass?” It seemed silly she didn’t know, but somehow in all their conversations it either hadn’t come up or Andromeda hadn’t been paying attention when it did. 

[alsodromeda]

narigreenergrass​:

She considered the vampire point and decided that, yes, Andromeda was correct, and perhaps she had been too quick to give vampires a bad name. Though, in Nari’s case, she really did do her best to not judge so quickly. Learned prejudices were hard to completely vomit up over night, and every single day was a lesson in patience. Not just with others, but herself, and the road she intended on journeying down.

“So what you’re saying is, we can’t join a book club because we don’t even meet the basic requirements?” She pouted, finally extricated her fingers from her friend’s hair, setting her free from her clutches. “At this point, just call me St. Virgin, or whoever she is. You know the one.”

.

“Well, I have a kid,” she pointed out, “so I could fake it. You on the other hand,” now that Andromeda’s hair was done, she sat up, looked her friend over critically, “sorry, but literally no one would believe your husband treated you badly.” First of all, because Andromeda would literally have them killed if they did, but also Nari just had the kind of personality you had to love. You couldn’t treat her badly; Andromeda knew this because unintentionally or not she treated everyone badly, and it was probably the fact she could not do so with Nari that made their bond so strong. 

“Wait, who? The lady that definitely didn’t cheat on her husband, get knocked up by the neighbor, and lie about being inundated with God seed to avoid the fallout? That virgin?” Andromeda knew about as much of Christianity as she did quantum physics. In fact, perhaps less. “Don’t tell me you’re pregnant.” 

[alsodromeda]

narigreenergrass​:

Nari pulled Andromeda’s hair, quite on purpose. “Don’t even joke about that. I don’t want you in the middle of any of my investigations, especially a cult one. Who knows, it could be a blood cult. It could be vampires. You could die.” Dramatic? Sure. But not far from the truth. Nari would quite literally have to be knocked out to ever put Andromeda in an inkling of danger. “Why don’t we start small. Like, we could infiltrate a book club. That could be just as telling. Who knows what people discuss with books for hours at a time.”

.

“Ouch.” A hand came up to rub gingerly at her head. “Also, I’m pretty sure the whole point of a vampire is that they don’t die. You should be trying to get me to join a vampire cult. What you need to be afraid of are the doomsday cults. Those ones always end in mass suicide.” Inappropriately, she had to laugh. 

“Oh sweet, sweet, Nari. I can imagine exactly what people discuss over their books for hours at a time.” From below she gave her friend a pointed look. “One percent is the book, and ninty-nine percent is how none of their husbands want to fuck them anymore, just veiled in various shades of metaphor.”

[alsodromeda]

narigreenergrass​:

Nari’s fingers found Andromeda’s hair without much effort, braiding the locks idly. “You know, I think I could be religious. Not this type of religion, whatever it’s supposed to be. But sometimes it sounds nice, you know?” Some parts of religion would naturally appeal to Nari’s nature. Though, thanks to her complete lack of general knowledge, she would have no idea the strife that stirred around it as assuredly as the corruption. “Community. Loving each other. No, that’s starting to sound a little too cult-like. I need to reaffirm, I have no cult interests here.”

.

“Oh, I sure do,” Andromeda was quick to say. “So many interests.” From somewhere she’d pulled a thread loose. She wound it around her fingers now. “I’d be so good at being in a cult.” With a degree of sarcasm, this was a brag for her. 

“For a while, anyway.” Then she’d grow bored, start resenting her duties, and dramatically escape with some great stories for therapy. “But in the beginning? Mmf. Star of the freak show, baby. Why don’t we find one that the DMLE can take down? I’ll join for fun, and you can come rescue me in three months. Bust through the tent door zippers like a real hero.” 

[narigreenergrass]

when: march 27th, 1981 where: catholic guilt, aisle 1, holy sorcerer disaster who: @alsodromeda​

“So, this place is uh, pretty freaky.” Nari wasn’t scared. She didn’t get scared. She was simply curious as to why this Church made her feel like she was being watched every turn she made. Or, at the very least, like she was about to be used for some weird sacrifice. Either way, she hadn’t stopped clutching her wand the entirety of the time she had been shoved in here. Waiting for something untoward to happen. Or maybe just waiting for a good excuse to have someone share the feeling with.

Her eyes turned to Andromeda, pleased to have found one of the few people that could have made her nerves calm. Ted had been in a similar situation not long ago, and in many ways, she was sure that it had been worse. “We don’t have to like, pay tithes or anything, right?”

[alsodromeda]

.

Andromeda had dropped into the pew with a world-weary sigh some time ago. She lay there now still, body stretched across the velvet and head in Nari's lap. "I just want to know what kind of church doesn't have any wine or wafers in the back." She'd checked. In response her stomach rumbled loudly beneath where her hands rested on it. "Unless they can't afford them. Maybe you will have to pay a tithe." Andromeda would do it for herself and everyone else here right now if it meant a moment's relief from the painful boredom of being trapped. “I could start playing the organ.” Badly, of course. Andromeda spent years of her youth being classically trained; obviously, none of it had stuck. Musically or socially.

[alsodromeda]

It 8

8. you’re stuck on a deserted island, list the three things you’d take with you

Sunglasses, a bottle of quaaludes, a speaker that plays the 1979 WWN's #1 Worst Song Of The 70s "Newt Squad" on repeat.

[alsodromeda]

tonkstedtalk​:

Ted shook his head with a chuckle. “No. I think people expected it of me sometimes.” His parents being doctors certainly hadn’t helped, either. “But, I don’t know if i could stomach half the shit I would need to actually work at a hospital. Some of the horror stories I’ve heard.” He thought of when A.J. had worked their stint there and shuddered. “No, I think I’ve got the personality for it, but not the constitution required,” he concluded. “I’d end up sick, myself. Being able to tinker and pull apart inanimate objects is much more my speed.”

.

Expectation. It was a word Andromeda knew well, so she nodded. One she’d been running from her whole life on bare feet. She wished to evade expectation at every turn, but she wasn’t really sure why anymore. Maybe once it was a skill that served her, a narrative that made sense. Never let them expect too much of you. She was an artist, she saw the world how it was (or she liked to think so...) and that meant she saw how hungry the world was, and how sharp the teeth of the exploiters. If she could make them all look away from her, stop expecting things of her, maybe she’d be free. A long time ago she’d realized that wasn’t true, but it had been so long of this song and dance she forgot how to move through the world without it. She didn’t have to be that way, but she didn’t know how else to be. 

“Are they happy for you?” She hid the strain in her voice by taking a last sip and clearing her cup of coffee. “Your parents. Are they happy you’re doing what you want?”

[alsodromeda]

tonkstedtalk​:

Ted couldn’t even begin what that all must have been like. It made him feel suddenly guilty. He knew he probably shouldn’t; there had always been an understanding between him and Andromeda and it was that Nymphadora was always put first. However, perhaps if Ted had been more active in recent months and years, he might have seen or noticed something. He knew even with all that, things were complicated if only by the fact of her family being who they were. 

“Course, we’re taught to trust our own minds,” nodded Ted as she admitted she hadn’t really come to that conclusion on her own. “Surprised that wixen haven’t figured out a cure for that,” said Ted. Perhaps it was naive of him to think that wizardkind could have conquered something as enigmatic and mysterious as the brain. “I mean, most other ailments seem to have a quick fix for them, you know?” 

.

Andromeda snorted, the spell that held her thoughts captive to the past finally broken. “Not as many as you’d think.” Maybe a potion could cure a headache, a fever, many common things, but Andromeda had also seen what it couldn’t do when it had failed to heal her elder sister’s hand of the curse it sustained. And now, when it failed her. Two girls reaching for things they should never have touched, both living a life in consequence to it. 

Narcissa at least had evaded that fate. For now.

Suddenly she felt the exhaustion of it all—these last months—catch up to her. Andromeda tried to steer the conversation into shallower waters, lest she drown. “Did you ever think of being a Healer before you got into your work?” She considered him as she saw him: nurturing, caring, calm. Three traits she fought for her life every day to barely scrape the surface of. “I think you’d have a good bedside manner.” Andromeda popped a hot chip into her mouth. “I mean, I would have flirted with you for extra jelly if you were my nurse in the mental ward. Pretty high praise.”

[alsodromeda]

tonkstedtalk​:

Ted took this chance to drink his coffee, both hands holding onto it so he could feel the warmth move from his palms into the rest of his body. He watched her carefully as she spoke, trying to gleam anything from her body language he possibly could. “I’m not worried that you’re going to flip out, just so you know,” he told her, a small smile on his face. He was worried about her, though, that she was alright. 

“Well, must be nice to have answer, though, I reckon.” Of course, Ted would never pretend what it was like to have a brain like that; a brain that was so unique that it altered reality for someone so convincingly it blurred those lines. “I mean, I’m sure it’s still not fun, but least you know that there’s a reason you felt like that, like a prisoner of your own mind and whatever it compelled you to see or hear or think.” Even more importantly, she was also getting help for it.

“How’d you figure it out, though? I mean, how’d you know that you needed help?” 

.

Had he always listened so well? Had he always had such an understanding face? Such insightful takes? Andromeda pondered that, trying to recall, but the morgue of her thoughts was a cold and winding room, and none of the drawers were labeled. It housed things like her memories of meeting Ted, but it also was a minefield of memories which had been locked away very specifically, ones she was afraid of finding accidentally if she started snooping. Andromeda had to let it go, for now. 

Instead she shook her head. “I... really didn’t,” she admitted. “I thought I was making perfect sense.” That was the scariest thing to her. Not what she might hear, or see, or do. She’d seen and heard and done a lot of scary things that weren’t hallucinations. But it terrified her to think that when it happened the next time, would she recognize it for what it was, or would she fool herself again? 

“I went out for a premiere party,” took a few things she shouldn’t have, came home three days later, “and I remember Trixy coming up to me somewhere. I think she got the Medi-Witches. Apparently I ran.” She offered a self-deprecating little laugh. “Pretty standard of me, actually. Maybe I should ask for a re-think of the diagnosis.” Ha, ha. “They sedated me, I came to in the mental ward at Mungo’s. Still have the grippy socks, too. Great for when you’re mopping a floor.”  

[alsodromeda]

tonkstedtalk​:

Ted looked up at the waitress to nod his silent thanks, before grabbing his coffee and putting in a couple of packets of sugar. He simply nodded at Andromeda’s words that they lied. He didn’t disagree and really only read this tabloid in particular because of the name mentioned. Though, he didn’t say as much as he figured it was better to let Andromeda say what she had to say without interruption. 

Ted almost slipped up when she mentioned she was in a hospital and immediately followed it up with being mental, as if to say that just because she was in a hospital, didn’t make her so. However, she was quick to clarify that point. Schizophrenia. 

Despite Ted’s own parents being doctors, aside from the fact they didn’t discuss their work too much (they believed strongly in patient confidentiality), they weren’t those kinds of doctors and he didn’t know much about the disorder. Of course, he had a vague understanding of what schizophrenia was but it was far from really and truly understanding it in any real way. 

“What does that mean?” he asked, forehead wrinkling as his eyebrows knit together. “I mean, for you? Are you… alright?” 

.

Andromeda stalled her answer with an exaggerated shrug, the kind accompanied by a look half between a grimace and something sheepish. “I’ve been better.” Even as she said it she wasn’t sure if that was true. No, Andromeda was not alright per se, but she might have been the best she’d ever been right this second, in terms of how well she was taking care of herself. The facts were that she was living a peaceful life, free of abusing drugs and diligent about taking the prescribed ones. Her daughter went to school, came home, passed her classes. Andromeda had a house she didn’t have to maintain or pay for. So why did she want to tell him she wasn’t alright at all?

“They have me on potions and such, yada yada. So I’m not going to flip out or anything.” They made her feel sluggish sometimes though, trapped behind glass. Andromeda hated to be trapped. When they were all younger the sisters would play their games of hide and seek in the estate. Of course Andromeda despised the game because invariably Bellatrix would find some way to lock Andromeda wherever she had hidden and pretend for hours she could not find her, oh how good Andromeda is at hide and seek. Narcissa, impressionable young thing, never suspected. She was always found right away.  

Before she realized she was saying it, the words were tumbling out of her mouth. “It was really scary though. Like... being stuck in a dream. You feel like the only way to wake yourself out of it is to do something big.” The word she really wanted was, “Crazy. You’re not sure if it’s all real or it’s all fake, but if it’s fake it doesn’t matter what happens, right? So...” 

Two hands wrapped around her coffee mug taking warmth where they could get it. She raised it to her lips and drank not because she wanted it but because she needed something to do. When she lowered it she was smiling, like none of that had hurt to bare at all. “I mean I was dead set that the seal sunning himself outside my window in on the lighthouse rocks was an animagus. Talked myself out of that only to turn on the wireless. Glenda Chittock is a lovely woman but I do begrudge that I thought she was speaking directly to me from the station, imploring me to flee the country.” 

She waved to the waitress. “Can I have the fattest plate of chips you’re contractually allowed to give me?”

[alsodromeda]

tonkstedtalk​:

Ted smiled. He hoped Nymphadora would like it, anyway. Ever since he had decided to go to school and move forward with his own carer aspirations, he knew that his own parenting had fallen by the wayside. It had been much harder than he thought to strike that balance, really. Though, Ted had promised himself that with the new year, h’d make a renewed commitment to be more involved. After all, she was no longer a baby or toddler whose memories of what had or had not happened would soon be forgotten, but a girl quickly approaching those tween years which were really going to make up most of her more formative experiences. 

“Yeah, I do read the papers,” nodded Ted as his eyes now found hers again. Though they focused on her, it was not with judgement, but rather patience as he waited for her to go on. After all, was it really his business? It was hard to say what should and shouldn’t have been something he could inquire about when it came to what might be relevant when it came to co-parenting and what might fall into the realm of their individual and personal lives. It was part of that balance that was hard to find.

,

Andromeda sucked her tongue; she didn’t know if that made this easier, or more difficult to explain. “Well,” —the waitress came back with drinks, Andromeda ripped the corners from several packets of the processed fake sugars at a time and dumped them in, stirring the spoon with magic— “they lie is the thing.” The curve of the teacup’s edge met her lips. She dumped the liquid back, and though it was too hot she didn’t wince. 

“I didn’t want you to think—” Shit. No, she couldn’t say it like that. Breathe, start over. ACTION. “I don’t have a drug problem.” She was a mum! That should have been enough. “Which, right, yeah I know that’s what people who do have drug problems probably say.” In her case though, it was true. Andromeda had... a boredom problem. One she had, occasionally, solved with drugs. But that was beside the point, the point wasn’t the drugs because they weren’t the problem, just... a problem,. A different problem. It didn’t matter, because she wasn’t doing them now. Really, she couldn’t because—

“I was actually...in hospital.” Fucking hell, Black. Spit it out. “So, not a junkie. Just mental.” Even if she said it as a point of pride, the shadow that crossed her face along with the words told of a girl far more afraid than she was willing to let on. “Just a little schizophrenia.” Like the common cold, or chlamydia. She could conquer it in a weekend... “I’m not asking you for support or anything,” she was quick to add, finally meeting his eyes across the table. “I just thought you shouldn’t worry about if I’m... if Nymphadora is safe in my care.” 

If she’d known him a little better, she might have realized those were her own doubts she was using him to voice, because clearly Ted had seen and hadn’t thought that. 

[alsodromeda]

tonkstedtalk​:

“So, you get to know the most intimate part of my soul, but I can’t even get a peek into yours?” Ted asked looking affronted. “That’s just not very fair, is it? Should give me something to go on.” He looked up at the waitress. “Chocolate biscuits, too, if you don’t mind, while you’re at it,” he added and looked back at Andromeda when the waitress took her leave. He held up the napkin he had been folding, which was now a swan. “For Dora,” he said. 

.

“That’s exactly how this works.” She nodded. “Correct. My soul is between me,” she pointed to the heart of her chest, “and that waitress, okay?” Andromeda inclined her head towards the nice woman now putting in their orders at the register. 

Her eyes flicked down to the table to behold the gift, and only because she still had a finger to her heart was she able to physically feel the fracture from it breaking. “Oh,” she breathed. “She’ll love that.” Maybe. Probably? Andromeda had been worrying for quite some time that actually she didn’t know a thing at all about Nymphadora. A worse feeling still, that she didn’t spend enough time being thoughtful about Nymphadora. Why wasn’t she making swan napkins? Why didn’t she think her kid might like a biscuit as much as she did? 

Which brought her to the real point in all of this, the one she’d been skillfully avoiding. “Look, I don’t know if you read the papers, but I just thought I should explain...” Because as thoughtless a mother as she sometimes could be, Andromeda at least knew that if she’d heard Ted went to rehab, she’d want an explanation. And if he didn’t know... well, loathe though she was to stick to her word she had kind of swore off lying and planned to stick by it. 

[alsodromeda]

tonkstedtalk​:

Ted followed Andromeda to the desired booth, taking a seat across from her, looking amused as she decided what it mean that he took his coffee with just some sugar. He made a face, though, as she held up the sugar packet. “Definitely not,” he said. “It doesn’t just taste different, but it throws the texture all off. No, has to be the real stuff. Maybe brown sugar if I’m feeling a little extra wild that day or I’ve run all out of the normal stuff at home.” 

He picked up the napkin and began to fold it up. “Alright, how do you do your coffee, then?” 

.

“No way am I telling you that,” Andromeda balked. “That’s way too intimate.” Her expression said what her mouth couldn’t: not like we have a kid together or anything. She pulled back at the menu’s  plastic where it was coming away at the corners, flicking it back and forth. She was just about to say something else when the waitress made her way to them. 

“Yeah, we’ll have two coffees. Sugar for one, just a bit.” She winked at Ted.