quiet rebellion

CHARACTER INFORMATION

✧ application. ✧ full dossier & biography. ( in progress ) ✧ wanted & established connections. ( updates in progress )

THREADS

✧ ft. bellatrix lestrange ( outgoing ) ✧ ft. ted tonks ( outgoing ) ✧ ft. persephone pembrooke ( starter in progress ) ✧ ft. mary macdonald ( starter in progress ) ✧ ft. arabella figg ( starter in progress ) ✧ ft. brenton avery ( starter in progress )

Andromeda always existed in shades of grey, finding the duality of “right” and “wrong” to be subjective on the best of days and downright meaningless on others. She knew, logically, that she should feel guilty about her even looking into the art of occlumency, and how to educate her ten year old child how to protect her mind with aforementioned form of magic. She went back and forth on if she should be concerned about the borderline illegality of this violation of privacy - of course, occlumency actually protects from breeches of privacy, but occlumency rarely exists without its foil.

She should talk to Ted about this before she so much as considers it; though, she’s certain that furthering her already extensive research on the topic would be enough to scare her off of involving Dora in anything of the sort. She should feel guilty about considering this at all. She should be worried that she doesn’t feel much, if any remorse about crossing moral boundaries to insure the protection of her child. 

Regardless of the emotional reaction that she should have, she marched into the Oxford Magic Library, armed with parchment and pen (so painfully muggle she can hear her mother’s berating comments a decade later). She’s familiar with many of the research assistants, having commissioned them before for her research at the Ministry. Spotting one she’s unfamiliar with, and therefore would ask less questions about the oddity of her inquiries. 

…

Ted was observant. Over-observant, even. Observant to the point of seeing things that weren’t there because his anxiety told him the crease in someone’s brow or the lack of smile on their face meant he’d done something wrong. It was something he managed constantly and had learned to mostly reign in. Not to mention, he knew Andromeda so much better than the average someone. She was his wife. The love of his life. The light in the dark. And he was rather certain the darkening expression on her face as they listened to the nightly news broadcast wasn’t just a trick of his mind.

He couldn’t ask immediately though. If he was right, if there was something on her mind, she’d hold in because Dora had been with them in that moment. With a gentle squeeze of Andromeda’s hand, he’d volunteered to put Dora to bed; there hadn’t been much room for no in his offer. Dora didn’t protest either… Or not much, at least. She complained that she wasn’t tired with a mouthful of toothpaste, but settled easily into her bed and sleepily mumbled when he asked her if she’d completed all her homework. He even asked if she wanted to read with him – a chapter of muggle’s children book one of her cousin’s had let her borrow. He was silently grateful when she said no.

After pressing a soft kiss to Dora’s forehead, pulling the covers up around her chin, and flicking off the light in her bedroom, Ted returned to the living room. Andromeda was sat on the floor, staring off at something he couldn’t determine. A smudge on the wall? Dust particles in the lamp light? Fringe on the rug? Nothing at all?

He hesitated for a single moment in the doorway before padding across the room. Using the wall to brace himself, he slid to the floor next to her. A joint cracked painlessly. He would’ve made a joke about getting old, but it stuck in the back of his throat. Now wasn’t the time. He could see it in her side profile. There was something on Andromeda’s mind, on the tip of tongue.

“No, you haven’t,” he said with a small shake of his head. When she looked at him, he offered her a smile – it was uncertain, but it still reached his eyes, and it didn’t fade when she laughed, honeyed and hollow. “I’ll wait as long you need to figure it out. Or you could tell me about Bitsy.”

...

It took Andromeda years to actually adjust to Ted’s patience, kindness, genuine bloody goodness and even now, it still took her slightly off guard. She never quite understood why he was so good to her, but she’d stopped expecting him to turn on her, to yell at her, to make her cower against a wall. She knew he wouldn’t do that. 

Still, she couldn’t help but feel some level of guilt for her action, for the emotions that she typically kept a tight lid on spilling over the surface. She was being dramatic, she was sure of it. This happened nearly twenty years ago, she shouldn’t be this shaken, she shouldn’t be this scared, she should have told him sooner. Of course, Andromeda was never all that skilled at doing things that she should do.

“I should tell you about her, even if I can’t get to the actual point; she was family. She’s just always been a bit of a sensitive topic, given what happened to her,” the last few words were barely exhaled, the sound of her breath controlled to a fault. She knew that her grip would slip from her carefully curated control during this conversation, she knew that she needed to start strong.

“I was always a..” she paused, her eyebrows knitting together as a slight huff exhaled from her nose, “difficult child, according to my mother. Even as an infant — especially as an infant, actually. Caring for me wasn’t something that Druella or Cygnus were really capable of; Trix was always Cygnus’ golden child and Druella was pregnant with Cissa before she could really form an attachment to me. It was difficult for them, dealing with nightmares, the screaming, and the wailing, and insomnia.”

She turned to face him, pulling her knees to her chest. “I used to have these nightmares — I still have them, but they’re more.. controlled, less horrific,” she blinked, once, twice. It was a lie; they were every bit as terrifying as when she was younger, she was just better at controlling her reaction now. “But even as a baby, I would wake up screaming and thrashing and scared out of my mind. Nothing that Druella attempted would calm me, apparently,” queue another huff, erring on the side of disbelief. “So, they brought in Bitsy.”

“She was a house elf for the family, technically, but she didn’t do anything other than take care of me. She essentially acted as my nanny, caretaker, actual parent until I was about eight or so,” she didn’t expand on what happened when she was eight. She was more than certain she would get to that point soon enough. “She was the only one that was able to keep me from screaming at night, the only one that would actually be able to calm me down, the only one that cared enough to try, the only one to actually recognize the dreams for what they were.” 

Andromeda paused, smiling as tears started to sting at her eyes. She’d wiped them as soon as they’d formed. Andromeda wasn’t one for tears; nothing really rattled her, but Bitsy was an exception. She was always an exception. “I absolutely adored her, truly. I swear to Morgana, her heart was bigger than her entire body. She kept me safe, kept me out of trouble, taught me to how to survive my parents. She protected me with her life,” the final sentence was nearly inaudible. 

who: @amdromedas where: outside the tonks household. when: april 27, 1983.

She didn’t know why she was here.

The house was quaint, really, enough to make her stomach churn. It’s what she’d pictured their home to be like; that warmth that she only read about in fairytales. Bellatrix hadn’t thought when she’d apparated, truthfully. She’d had Andromeda’s address for a long time, acquired by a one of her more loyal house elf’s after presents had arrived from her sister for Christmas one year. Still, she’d never been. It felt silly, really, because what would she do here? Lurk outside and make sure her sister was safe? They couldn’t talk, of course; Bellatrix couldn’t bear that. Not now. Not with what she knew.

Still, here she was, standing outside, a sore thumb wearing a black cape in their bright neighborhood. 

Bellatrix might’ve knocked if the situation were different. Might have found the lion’s courage that lay within her, somewhere, according to the Sorting Hat. Right now, though, she couldn’t find that burst of bravery, or even anger, that had propelled her here. The letters had brought up an unwelcome swarm of emotions, and they still buzzed within her, muddying her brain, causing her to stumble up Andromeda’s steps with that same bloody stupid mindset she’d had as a child. Hatred and love and that thin, thin line between them. It was making her sick to her stomach.

Her father’s notes had merely confirmed her suspicions, but she’d burned them. Burned every last one of them to make sure that Andromeda would never be found out. Not now. Despite it all, despite the fact that her sister was a Seer, confirmed by her father’s horrific tests ( tests that Bellatrix didn’t know about; tests that, now, made her want to beat him into oblivion for conducting ), Bellatrix still protected her. She always would, at the end of the day. And what was she here to do? Tell her that? They didn’t even talk about the weather. With a shake of her head, Bellatrix practically ran from the front door, down the sidewalk, about to head into the alley when she saw her sister. Feet stopped, planted into the Earth, Bellatrix knew that she was trapped. She didn’t know why she’d came, but she was here, and now so was Andromeda. 

It was a duck today, Dora’s current fascination. Their little nose flared out into a little bill and by the time the pair of them walked from the library back home, she’d nearly perfected her quack. It was impressive, if not a bit amusing, and Andy knew, perfectly well, that she shouldn’t encourage public use of Dora’s penchant for turning into animals that waddled into their path, she couldn’t help but chuckle as Dora turned the sudden tuft of hair on their head to a vibrant blue. 

Andy brushed Dora’s hair back, shifting back to its original color. “I like that color on you, Dor; it looks lovely with that jumper. Maybe not with the bill,” she laughed, dropping a kiss to their forehead, “But with the jumper? Absolutely.” Dora nearly laughed, but their face contorted into confusion. 

“Mum, who’s that?”

Andromeda didn’t answer, frankly she wasn’t sure if she could. She didn’t freeze, she didn’t misstep, she didn’t do any of that. She merely kept walking, breezing past her sister to get her child inside. There were a thousand feelings swirling in her chest and she would deal with all of them, and her well and truly terrifying sister after her child was inside and safe. That was the priority, their safety - and if she was able to not completely panic because she could compartmentalize what was important and what wasn’t, that was merely an an unwelcome perk for this particular trauma response. 

“Dora, love, let’s get you inside,” her voice was like ice, not offering any room for arguments. If they did have any complaints, she was in the house before they were able to voice them. 

Muttering a protection spell on the house and a muffling charm on the pair of them, she turned back to her sister, suddenly feeling like Druella’s daughter again. Her spine straightened, her chin jutted out just so, her gaze suddenly colder. Truthfully, she felt a bit more like Bellatrix’s sister than she did Druella’s daughter but, oddly enough, that batty old bitch was less controversial of a connection given the circumstances. 

“Hello, Trixie,” she said, the childhood nickname falling from her lips without much care. It was calculated, of course, it had to be, because she was nothing without careful consideration of all possible outcomes. Bellatrix had always been the most unpredictable out of the three sisters, but Andromeda hoped that the use of the name would be something of a power move, proving their familiarity, that she was still her sister and there would always be string attached to that, no matter how much she tried to slice them off. 

“I’ve been expecting you.” The statement was plain, unafraid, blunt, though it never quite reached unkindness. “I have a pretty good idea of what you’re doing here, but I’ve been wrong before so,” she brushed past her sister, nodding her head towards the gate that led into the backyard. It probably wasn’t the smartest decision to go into a more private area with a woman that was no stranger to murder but she’d far prefer bodily harm on her own person than having her sister inflict it where others might witness it. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re here? I imagine this isn’t a social call.”

trigger warning: allusion of depersonalization/dissociation

Andromeda had always been good at distancing herself, at closing herself off, at hardening her spine into steel instead of allowing herself to crumble in the face of everything cruel and harsh and what some people might call evil. She didn’t really believe in evil or its foil, if she was being truthful; she couldn’t bring herself to. Having a childhood like hers, sharing blood with sisters like hers, having watched the world fall to pieces and be rebuilt a thousand times over in the name of the light and the dark; binary thinking such as good and evil, light and dark, Death Eaters and the Order never seemed productive, or survivable to her. 

And the only thing that Andromeda had been after, for years, was her survival. Naturally that extended to Ted and Dora because they were extension of her own heart, her own soul; truthfully, she’d sacrifice her own survival if it meant saving them. And she would save them from this war, she was certain of that. 

Of course, it would be much easier for her to do all of that if she wasn’t being yanked into the ever aforementioned war. She was yanked into the Order when Ted decided he wanted to be involved, something she couldn’t quite blame him for, but still terrified her. Then, of course, were the werewolf attacks, centering her division and research, and now… Sybill.

She hadn’t known her, really. But she knew enough about those that shared the Sight to know that she would be targeted eventually. People always thought lowly of seers, always believed that they were nothing but a hoax claiming to be divine, until they decided they needed divine intervention, or guidance, or however else people wanted to refer to the Inner Eye. 

It was never a good thing when people took an interest in seers, that much was certain, that much was made abundantly clear to her by Cygnus several times over in her lifetime — and Sybill’s death put a bounty on any seer’s head, she was sure of it. 

She should have seen it coming, really. But war’s a rather tricky thing to follow. The future was ever changing, shifting with each menial decision on either side, and Andromeda had half considered reaching out to Cygnus or Bellatrix or someone that might now how to repress the flashing images. She didn’t, obviously, but she had a much looser grip on her dreams after she left home; it was rather manageable, relatively unseen. 

She had a feeling that wasn’t going to be the case for much longer and that thought alone was enough to make her body freeze up, to make her eyes gloss over with tears that she wouldn’t shed, to make her hands tremble. Cygnus knew, Druella could know, hell, Trixie could fucking know. Someone who didn’t know, though, was Ted, Ted who had put their child to bed after the broadcast and noticed the all too familiar look in her eye, one that came up far more than it should have, one that she didn’t offer much of an explanation for. 

He deserved an explanation; he deserved to know that should anyone found out, their entire family could be targeted; he deserved the chance to get the hell out of this situation if he felt so inclined. 

She didn’t jump when he came back into the room; the only indication that she was remotely startled by the sound was the slightest tensing of her left hand. She bit her lip, keeping her gaze forward as she had since the news was announced over their radio. She didn’t turn to face him, though she leaned ever so slightly to allow him to join her on her place on the floor should he be so inclined. 

“Have I ever told you about Bitsy?” She asked, knowing damn well that she hadn’t, but she wasn’t entirely sure how to tell this story without talking about her. Her eyes slid over to meet his gaze, after a moment, a second, a third. She laughed, the sound light and honey sweet but damn near devoid of humor. “I know the answer to that, but I don’t really know where else to start with this one.”