@misselectrablack
Ted froze, hands sunk halfway up to the elbows in dish water. Someone had knocked and it wasn’t Dromeda. He knew her knock and this wasn’t it. He grabbed the tea-towel from its hook beneath the sink, and took easy steps into the hallway.
Had there been a time when a knock at the door hadn’t triggered an underlying feeling of terror? Ted could barely remember. Too many threats had been made in the years since he and Dromeda had married. Too many people had died during the war because they hadn’t taken threats seriously. It was a dangerous thing to open your front door. Ted would not be one of those people. He would not see his family killed because he’d been fool enough to think prejudice ended with the war.
He wiped his hands dry, then slung the towel over his shoulder, drawing his wand from his back pocket. His mind was racing. What if Drom’s hurt? The question danced front and centre in his mind. Upstairs, Dora was singing, unaware that someone had arrived on their doorstep uninvited. Childhood ended the day you realised your parents could no longer protect you.. Dora’s childhood wouldn’t end today. Ted placed one hand against the door, leaning in to peek through the peephole.
“Electra?” His voice broke with surprise. And pain. It was painful to look at her, and if it was painful for Ted, he could only imagine what it was like for Drom. The war had torn the Black family apart. But it was over, and here was Dromeda’s cousin on their doorstep. All Ted’s senses told him to turn her away. Sirius was the last Black to turn up on their doorstep and look where that had lead them? But there had to be hope. A chance to mend, rise from the ashes. Otherwise, what was it all for?
“Just a minute,“ he said, unlatching the chain on the door. But he paused before turning the knob; took a step back, pulling out the drawer of the vanity Drom had found at the car boot sale, with its row of hooks, now laden with hats and scarves and umbrellas. He closed his hand on the secrecy sensor--no lies, no deceit--slipping it into his pocket.
“I’m sorry,” he said, swinging the door open. Sorry for Sirius. For Regulus. For everything. “Andromeda isn’t here.” It was difficult to trust the people who would rather lose Andromeda from their lives than accept she loved a muggleborn. But he wanted to, had to, for Dromeda’s sake and for Dora’s.
