I have a timeline for this couple in my head that has now spilled out onto paper for you. Solely because I adore the idea of a forbidden love and a woman’s strength and an unforgiving family.
For me, Andromeda Black is emerald stones, leather-bound journals, birch lane flowers, an unbreakable will. Ted Tonks is a wooden cottage with a burning fire, honeysuckle and lavender, never-ending kindness.
Enjoy.
“You made flowers grow in my lungs and although they are beautiful, I cannot breathe. “ breaking up
She pulls back
Once they had so comfortably melded together
Fingers intertwined, bodies flush, lips brushing against skin
He had barely even mapped the planes of her ribs and the freckles on her shoulders before she was gone
“I fell in love with you; now we can never die.”
memories of falling in love &realizing it can’t be
And she’s exhausted by it
Because lying there
With a beautiful boy
Trying not to tell him how hopelessly you love him
“I promise I will kiss your wounds when they’re hurting. Even if they’re in your soul.” pureblood marriage and final words
She had been staring at herself in the mirror when he walked in
Sitting at the silver vanity set that her mother, and her mother’s mother had sat at before her
She wondered if they had loved another when they were married
If they had touched another that there family would not approve of
“I had to leave. I was tired of allowing you to make me feel any less than whole.”
a life that never came to be
“Would I see you too? Would I say hello in this future?”
Andromeda’s voice kept calm, her lips turning upwards at the thought
“Never. You would be with a family, your family. Your wife always made me feel like she was the sun.”
She turned her eyes back out to the barren landscape before them
“I promise I will kiss your wounds when they’re hurting. Even if they’re in your soul.”
What if Andromeda had chosen pureblood marriage? What would Ted do?
The third piece in a timeline of four pieces I wrote for Andromeda and Ted.
Inspired. Title.
Enjoy.
“You’re drunk”
The words come off her lips like a slap
Smooth, quick and blinding
Just as she’s always been for him
Just like she was before they left school
But she doesn’t look like that girl
She doesn’t look like Andy
The dark curls aren’t drifting around her cheeks the way willow branches wave in the wind
His fingers don’t have that familiar itch to brush them back, to push them away
To see her eyes, the million shades of amber and chestnut that he always seemed to get lost in
Her eyes can already be seen
They are a walnut colour now, a deep unmoving brown
This must be Andromeda, he thinks
“Three or four drinks will not make me drunk Andy”
Her nickname falls from his lips and he thinks he sees her brace the vanity behind her
Her knuckles are stretched thin
The blueish veins that climb up her wrist, a place he used to place his lips, are visible
Yet, she’s still standing in front of him stoic and otherworldly
Trying not to let him see how the sound of his voice makes her flinch
“You don’t look like you”
The white gown is old and stiff around her small frame
Her arms bound in the thin lace fabric
Her hair pinned by silver clips, ears heavy with emeralds
Her neck choked by the heavy pearls that seem to chain her
She sneers at his comment
Her hands smoothing out the non-existent bunching of fabric at her hips
“What do you want.”
Now its his turn to flinch
Maybe she has disappeared, he thinks
Maybe there’s no point in this
But then she moves to twist the black diamond ring around her finger and for the faintest moment her jaw clenches
But he sees it
“I needed to see you.”
Even though it hadn’t been all that long since he had seen her
But a lot had changed since the last time they spoke in that compartment on the Hogwarts Express
The ring burning a whole inside him for one
The wedding dress, number two
They had gone weeks without talking back then
He had decided he couldn’t be the man who only got to love her when it was dark
It cut him up inside to watch her walk away from him night after night
Nothing but whispers and the soft trailing of her fingers
It cut him up even more to wait with bated breath on a floor no one came to, in a corner no one came to
But then, when the door swung shut behind him that night, he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving it like that
Leaving her in that classroom with that bottle between her knees was one of the hardest things he’d ever done
She however seemed utterly unperturbed at the thought now
“Mission accomplished then, will that be all?”
It was like she was shooting pins and needles into his chest with every spiteful word
But it didn’t feel like all that spite was directed at him
“I needed to see you because I needed to say this before you go out there and slip that damn mask back on”
Maybe that came out a little more snide than he intended
Maybe he was a little drunk after all
But how do you ask the woman you love to run away with you sober?
“Excuse me?”
Her eyes narrowed at him
But he could see the dividing line between the actress on the stage and the one pulling the strings behind her eyes
“You’re in there Andy, and if I don’t try this now, I may never get you out”
She had been staring at herself in the mirror when he walked in
Sitting at the silver vanity set that her mother, and her mother’s mother had sat at before her
She wondered if they had loved another when they were married
If they had touched another that there family would not approve of
If they thought of them when their new husbands branded their hands, their lips, their mark on iron skin
She had been so lost in this thought that she had barely noticed the curtain slip open
But as her eyes fixed on the face in the mirror she felt all the air in her lungs turn to heavy ash
Broad shoulders, broad chest
Teddy
Even in her mind his name came out breathlessly
She would know those eyes anywhere
She had always wondered how a man of such light could have eyes so dark
She wasn’t sure how her legs got her standing upright when they were shaking that hard
She was sure the harsh imprint in her hand from gripping the vanity had something to do with it
She wondered again if this had happened before
How often had this vanity given the Black women an extra spine?
They stood in silence for what felt like ages
Andromeda’s fears of someone walking in, hurting him, swirling like whirlpools in her head
Constant and never-ending
So her eyes pierced him, veiling the semblance of feelings she had buried
And yet he could see everything
He always could
“You need to go”
She didn’t want to plead, she didn’t want to beg
But she hoped he would see the worry in her eyes
“I can’t watch you get married”
“You don’t have to, just go..”
“... I’m still in love with you”
And there it was
The last chip to crumble from the mountain of strength she thought was so unwavering inside her
She could feel the rumbling deep down
The power of a volcanic eruption, more like a rock-slide
“You can’t do this to me right now, not now, not after everything, Ted don’t make me do this again”
Her tongue ran away with the words spilling out of her
Her voice trembling, clinging to any resolve she had that didn’t want to be broken
She felt her hand clutch her stomach trying to calm the twisting and churning
“You left me!”
The words that had been living in her throat since the day she walked away ran wild
Since the day she had pried his hands from her own and braced the wall on her way out to hold something that would hold her back
His eyes go wide at the accusation
But his voice is gone at the way her eyes water
They’re glossy and horrified that she would ever utter a true emotion just as when they were in that compartment on that train all those months ago
“And I let you”
He’s sure someone is bound to come into the dressing tent at the sound of her
But then he reminds himself who he’s with
Andromeda Black, purveyor of all things secret
She surely has wandlessly silenced them already
Keeping him hidden again like she always had
And it makes his blood boil
Until the sound of her breaks him
“I tried to keep you from ever coming back!”
Her eyes flutter closed
“Why did you have to come back?”
He tries to quiet the urge to hold her
But how overwhelming it is to want to feel her pressed into him, to feel wholly himself
So he treads forward, slowly but surely
The back of her still resting against the vanity
And he lays his fingers against the side of her throat, her pulse racing against his palm, his thumbs brushing away the tears that have fallen
His fingers tickled by the few curls that rest there, that have always rested there at the base of her neck
She closes her eyes at the feeling
This is how she should be touched, she thinks
Every day, soft and tender, just like this
“You should know by now I’ll always come for you”
He had told himself over and over again, your voice should be strong and coarse, should never waver
Before he entered the white tent outside the Manor he had wanted her to feel how he felt every time she brushed him aside like some frustration
Especially on a night after she had wrapped her fingers in his hair and bruised his lips with her own
But he can’t
“I had this plan. I wanted to tell you I love you. That I was sorry for ever walking away from you. I wanted to ask you to pick me but I can’t do that anymore. Not to either of us.”
Staring into her eyes makes him feel like he’s in front of a firing squad
Each unspoken word that he sees inside her a bullet
“I just want to apologize now. I won’t ask you to choose me again Andy.”
Her eyes go wide
The thought of this becoming a reality, this marriage, this future, is crashing into her all of the sudden
Its rushing towards her like the wave of a tsunami but her feet are being swallowed by the sand of the beach
She can only stand and watch as she is washed away
Wait
But she doesn’t hear the sound of her voice
Just feels the way her eyes plead
“I just want you to be happy”
I won’t be, she thinks
Not without you
She feels his hands tense, sees his arms flex
“It always was hard to let you go”
The soft air that escapes him, the exasperation, is supposed to be a laugh she thinks
But they are both much too exhausted for that
Then don’t, she thinks
“Goodbye”
The words reverberate in the lining of the skin
And suddenly she can’t breathe
There is a weight on her chest
And the pearls are tightening around her neck
And she’s grasping, scratching, tearing them away from her
“Andy what’s wrong?”
But the words are stuck to the side of her cheek and ground between her teeth
“Andy let me help”
But he can’t
He’s leaving
He’s leaving
“Andy just breathe”
And she’s crying
“I can’t do this Teddy, how did I ever think I could do this?”
She peers up into the golden rays of his eyes
“How did I ever think I could stop?”
She wonders how she didn’t notice she had been starving this whole time
How she didn’t notice she was homesick
“It’s you. It’s always been you. It was always going to be you.”
So she grips his hand tightly
“Let’s go”
His arms feel more like home than any house ever did
