this time i know im fighting

By the time you read this I will already be gone. I don’t think I ever thought I’d write something so dramatic and cliche as that, but here we are. I will be gone, hopefully somewhere safe, and I know you will be angry and hurt. No apology I could write would ever be enough and nothing could make up for this betrayal, I know this. But I am so sorry.

I don’t know what Bella or Mother and Father will tell you about why I left, I am sure it will not be good. I want you to know the truth and I want you to hear it from me, not warped and distorted by rumors and scorn.

I fell in love.

A cliche, believe me, I know. But it is so much more than that. I fell in love with him, but also with myself and who I am when I am simply allowed to be. He looks at me and sees me - not family name or blood status or anything else. I love the person he gives me the space and encouragement to be and I hope more than anything that you will someday forgive me and get to meet her.

There is so much beauty and goodness and magic in the world - so much more than we’ve ever been shown or allowed to believe in. It wasn’t until I knew genuine joyful love that I realized how much hatred we grew up with. Please don’t misunderstand me - I love you and Bella eternally and nothing will ever change that. But I wonder who we would be if we had not grown up being taught hatred? I hope you can find out.

I know how incredibly selfish you must think I am, and I had planned on waiting until you were back at school. I wanted us to have one last golden summer. But it isn’t just about me anymore - I could not risk my child. I don’t know what Father would do if he found out and I was still around, but I would never want to find out. I hope you can meet them, my baby, I hope they get to know you and love you the way that I do.

I am so sorry for leaving you, and I don’t know if you can ever forgive me. But please, please don’t let them destroy your spark. Don’t let them convince you that your only worth is in your name or your beauty, you are so much more than that. You deserve someone who looks at you like you’re the sun, who builds you up and allows you to unapologeticly be yourself. Promise me you won’t let them hold you down?

I love you forever and nothing could ever change that. I hope you can forgive me, or at the very least find it in your heart to not hate me.

All my love,

Andromeda

Sirius never had a sister, but if he had one he’s pretty sure it would be like how his relationship with Andromeda was. She had always been nicer to him than her sisters, but especially after she got pregnant and left, Sirius latched onto her. He didn’t have much family left and the ones he did he held onto tight. No time was too soon between visits at the Tonks’ household. He’d all but move in if he could.

He looked at her with big eyes, pleading for her to not scold him. While their age difference wasn’t too great, he still felt like Andy was a real adult. Even James and Lily felt more responsible these days. Sirius felt like he was slowly slipping behind. “Great,” he said with a smile. “Can you make me another key? I think the last one may have accidentally found its way underneath the tire of a car. Merlin knows how that happened.”

~

She rolled her eyes, but smiled. Andromeda truly wasn’t annoyed with him in the least bit. It was almost endearing, these bits of easy familiarity and playfulness they’d both missed from their childhood. Dora would not grow up as Andy and Sirius had, her child would know love and happiness.

“Don’t worry, I’ll add you to the wards so you won’t need one.” She smiled and tried to make this seem casual, when really she was kicking herself for not doing this before. Currently the house would only open to her, Ted, and Dora without a key or direct invitation from the tree of them. Sirius should have been added ages ago. The two of them headed off towards the neighborhood muggle primary school Dora currently attended, the spring afternoon breezing around them.

“Mummy!” Dora yelled from the school yard, “Uncle Siri!” The child rushed over, her hair in two dark poofs, then threw their arms around Sirius’s waist. “Wanna see what I drew?”

location: florish and blots status: open

Marls dry fingers scratched across the pages of parchment while thumbing through the last copy of Beetle and the Bard in Flourish and Blots. “I mean, these are pretty cool and all. But you’d think a place like this would have the classics too you know? Ok sure the Grimm brothers were muggles but honestly. There’s so much witchcraft in ‘em. Or hell the Pentamerone. I’d bet you two Galleons that the dude that wrote that book was a wizard.”

Once again, the ‘super quick’ errands she’d needed to run with Dora had ended with a prolonged trip to Flourish and Blots. Andromeda should have been disappointed with herself, but really she’d loved any excuse to visit the book shop and firmly tried to ignore the voice in her head reminding her of all of the unread books she still had at home. Dora had inherited both her parents’ love for books, but the child had a bold sort of curiosity Andy thought might have been what she would have been like as a child if allowed to fully express herself. She tried not to think in might-have-beens.

“Whats Penatamoney?” Andromeda looked up at the sound of her child’s voice, Dora having approached the woman with a bright, eager curiosity. Luckily Andromeda recognized her fellow order member. Marlene was younger than she was but part of Sirius’s group of friends that Andy had nearly almost instantly decided to adopt as her own.

“My favorite is the Wizard of Oz, they don’t have that here either. Have you seen the film?” Dora continued, chattering away with a confidence that made Andromeda’s heart swell. The older witch tucked the book she’d been looking at under her arm and then headed over to the pair, smiling fondly at Marlene and brushing a stray strand of hair from Dora’s face. Today the child favored dark coils that haloed around her head, one of her cousin’s having sported a similar look the day before.

“Hi!” Andromeda chirped, “Looking for anything in particular? There’s a great muggle bookstore we like just a few blocks away. Of course,” she glanced down conspiratorially at her child, “I did promise Dad we wouldn’t bring home another pile of books before reading the ones we already have.” Dora shrugged, then offered - “Marlene can help us read them and then we can get more books!”

Who: @andyinthestars​

Where: The Tonks home

When: March 15, 1983

Sirius had never felt community with his cousins. Druella and Cygnus’s daughters had always had each other. They had always been the sign of a world Sirius was not quite a part of. Especially after he found out he was adopted, Sirius never felt like they were his family. 

Andy was a sign that people could change though, or maybe that people weren’t always what they seemed. When Andy left, Sirius didn’t have the same reaction the rest of his family had. He felt like there was hope for him. That one day he too could be free.

He called on Andy quite frequently these days. He made the excuse that he was only there for Dora, but Sirius knew Andy knew he was there for her too. He smiled when she answered the door. He hadn’t told her he was coming. “Good, you’re home. If you weren’t I would have had to sit here until you came home and who knows how long that would be.”

~

While she loved her sisters and missed them everyday, Andromeda had felt the most guilty about leaving Sirius and Regulus. They were so young when she left, and only later did she realize just how utterly alone Sirius must have felt. He was the one member of her family she still had, though, and the moment she’d heard he’d gotten out Andromeda started making up for lost time.

These days he was a regular fixture at the Tonks house, entertaining Dora with stories from his Hogwarts days and then being talked into staying for dinner. Ted had grown up with a big family, and Andy valued her sisters more than anything. While they couldn’t give Dora the same experience through siblings, they were more than happy to fill the house with any number of found family members.

He knocked on the door just as she was pulling on her shoes, and the blonde opened it with a smile. “Sirius, how many keys have I made for you? Do you keep losing them?” Still Andromeda laughed, always happy to see him. “Perfect timing though, its such a pretty day I was just heading out to get Dora from school, she will be thrilled to see you.”

Andromeda was a vision. She always was. Even in her work robes, with a few flyaway hairs, she was as gorgeous to him as she’d been when they first started dating. It didn’t feel like a decade. It didn’t feel like she was twenty-nine; that he’d been twenty-nine in a handful of months; that Dora would be off to Hogwarts in a few short years. Merlin, was time even real?

Ted let Andromeda drag him. He wrapped one arm around her, reaching up to a card a hand through her silky hair. A wide grin threatened to crack in his face. “Cake, perhaps?” he suggested, before pressing a loud kiss to her forehead. Dora was too used to how love-dovey her parents were to be grossed about the display of affection. That didn’t mean their child wasn’t going to steal the show, however. He was last in their little group as Dora dragged them in the direction of the kitchen, though he wasn’t far behind.

“Almost all by herself. I was just there to carry the shopping bags, right Dora?” And provide the galleons, but it was no pain to part with them when Dora was having fun and when they were for his wife – the love and light of his life.

Dora nodded vigorously. “And I picked the cake!” she said. “It’s really good, I promise! The bakery had a Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Jellybean cake and I didn’t pick that.”

“No cake before dinner though,” he said, turning to look from Dora to Andy. “I got takeout. I can dish it up if you want to take your shoes off. No promises that Dora won’t shove presents at you.” He’d said that last sentence loud enough for Dora to hear and the child beamed cheekily at them.

An almost imperceptible change came over the witch every time she walked through that front door, the tension slipped from her shoulders, her eyes became a bit brighter, more mischievous. In short - Andromeda was home and she felt it in every cell in her body. It wasn’t even the place, home was the two people she loved more than anything. She’d always loved her sisters, but it wasn’t until Ted and then Dora that Andy knew what it really meant to love and be loved.

“Always cake!” She smiled, eyes fluttering closed for a half second at the easy intimacy, the casual affection she had not known really until Ted. Had it been ten years or ten lifetimes, her heart still fluttered the same way it had the first time as she knew his soul as deeply as she did her own. There were others in the department who studied love, who contemplated existence and theories of multiple lifetimes - Andromeda had never really wanted to go too deep on that. Because she already knew what love was, and she’d find him in every lifetime - even if this was the only one they got.

“Right!” Dora nodded, “and he didn’t drop anything.” Andromeda laughed, she was sure Ted had also paid but it amused her greatly how independent and witty their child was.

“Well maybe we can get that kind for your birthday,” she smirked, Droa scrunching up her face the way they did to change appearance but rather in disgust. “Or maybe Daddy’s birthday?” Teasingly she raised her eyebrows at Ted, they both knew they’d be able to talk Dora out of that cake but it was funny to imagine the various horrid flavors one might find in each layer.

“Perfect, thank you my loves.” Andromeda kissed him once more then wandered off to their bedroom to change quickly. She pulled on a pair of jeans and her favorite sweater - a gift from Ted’s mum last Christmas, then hurried back to her family in the kitchen. Dora seemed to be in the middle of an impassioned argument as to why they should all be allowed to have cake with dinner, since it was a special day and technically if they had the cake at the same time it wasn’t breaking the rules, ‘cause the cake wasn’t first.

“Yum, I do love a side of cake with my curry, don’t you?” She laughed again, grabbing glasses for water and napkins. “Dora love, please go wash your hands”

who: @andyinthestars​ where: the black manor. when: early summer, 1972. 

There were days that Bellatrix felt as though she were losing herself.

Piece by piece, inch by inch, all that was good in her soul was being taken from her; ripped out and stomped upon by what she knew was, decidedly, evil, but what would protect herself and her family from ruin. Still, she had her sisters; she had Andromeda and Narcissa to keep her grounded and thank bloody hell for that or else she would’ve let the demons take over much quicker and much sooner if they weren’t around. 

On this particular day, Bellatrix had spotted her sister smiling in the kitchen. As the house elves made her usual pot of coffee, she turned to Andromeda with a sly smile, arms crossing over her chest, as she awaited her to say something. When nothing came out of Andromeda’s mouth, Bellatrix sighed, and pointed her spoon at her sister. “Well, are you going to tell me what has you on cloud nine or am I going to have to start guessing?” she asked. “Because surely a good night’s sleep is not making you smile this wide.” 

~

Andromeda, notorious night owl, always found herself one of the first to rise in her parents home. Perhaps it was how ill at ease she felt in that Ancient and Most Noble House of Black, the secrets she bound to her heart, the magnetic pull of her sisters that was the final tether keeping her from running. So the middle Black sister sat in the kitchen, content in her tea and the early morning prophet while the house elves bustled around her.

The letter came that morning, her official start date with the Department of Mysteries. Professor Slughorn had all but promised her the position and her internship was a resounding success, but Andromeda had always been a pragmatist - it was safer to assume the worst and be pleasantly surprised than to be utterly let down.

“What?” She looked up from her paper with a lazy smile, Bellatrix bright and blazing as always, doctoring her coffee and waiting for an answer. “Can’t I just enjoy a beautiful morning?” Andy shrugged, they both knew she was still hiding something. Taking her time, the middle sister gathered the paper back into this perfect folds such that their father wouldn’t realize someone read it before he did, and only then did she turn her attention to her sister with a full smile.

“I got the job, I got the position in the Department of Mysteries! I start next Monday!”

date: january 30th, 1983 location: the tonks home @andyinthestars​

“When’s mum going to get home?” Dora whinged, looking up at him with big, brown eyes. Today her hair was short, curly, and a bright blue. Ted’s lips twitched with amusement. It wasn’t the first time she’d asked that in the past hour – nor the second, the third, or the fourth. “What time does mum usually get home?” he asked, quickly receiving his child’s answer. “And what time does the clock say it is?” Dora squinted at the analog clock on the wall, carefully reading at the answer and looking to him for confirmation. This time, he smiled. “Right. So, she should be home any minute now.” Hopefully. Andromeda’s work could be demanding. After all, that’s how she’d ended up called in on a Sunday that was her birthday. But Ted knew she wouldn’t let the Ministry keep her late just because it demanded it. He was betting on him being home by dinner.

Dora asked if she wait by the door to greet her mother, so he sent her on her way with a pat on the head. A quiet sight slipped past his lips. It was tired more than anything else. He loved his child more than the world and he’d never change a thing about her, but her energy and excitement were inexplicable. She definitely hadn’t gotten them from him. Unlike older brothers, who delighted in using spare moments to muck around in the yard or set up pranks throughout the house, Ted had spent his glued to his piano. Maybe it came from Andy though. Maybe that’s what Andy would’ve been like had she not grown up in the family she did. When her eyes twinkled with mischief, it was exactly like looking into Dora’s, and he knew when he showed her the cake Dora picked out today, she’d have a similar reaction to her child’s.

Speaking of… The clicks of the locks and Dora’s excited shout snapped him from his thoughts. Andromeda was home. Stepping away from the counter, Ted walked past decorations Dora had insisted on putting up earlier that day. He’d used the unfortunate opportunity of her extra shift to prepare, taking Dora out to buy supplies for dinner, a cake, and decorations. They’d even gotten her an extra present, something Dora saw in a shop window as they were strolling down Diagon Alley.

“Hi, honey,” he said, coming to a stop a few paces from them. Dora had her arms thrown around her mother’s neck in a tight hug. “Happy birthday.”

Andromeda loved her job, adored the work and throwing herself into research. She did not like, however, when certain crisis arose on her Sunday and would spend much of the following Monday getting to the bottom of exactly why the interns were permitted into the Time Room. But thankfully there were no serious injuries or major messes to clean up and she was able to leave the ministry at the time she’d promised her husband and child she would.

She hurried out of the department, waving away polite attempts at conversations from co-workers she liked. No, it was her birthday, and the only people she wanted to be with were waiting for her at home. Twenty-nine still felt somewhat surreal, not that she thought she was old or anything. It was surreal that she could be this content with her life, spent over ten years with the man she loved, and have a beautiful child to come home to. Maybe this would be the year where she would finally kick the nagging fear that it could all be taken away.

She’d reached the house sooner than she realized, and unlocked the door with a smile to find Dora launching herself into Andromeda’s arms. Laughing, the witch stumbled only a bit in returning her child’s eager hug. Ted soon followed into the entry and every single weight and stress from earlier in the day vanished.

“Hello! Thank you, my love,” she reached out a hand to pull him close, keeping one arm wrapped around Dora, who was still laughing at the way she’d nearly knocked over her mother. “There, now I am perfectly happy, my two favorite humans in the entire world, what more could anyone want?”

“Mum!” Dora had loosened her hold around Andromeda’s neck and was now tugging her parents further into the house. “Look!! We got you a surprise! And look, look!! I wanted the purple balloons, but we got blue ‘cause its your favorite. Do you like it?!”

“Its wonderful, darling, did you do all this by yourself?” Andromeda winked at Ted and slipped her hand into his as they followed their eager child into the house.

back in my body

Andromeda has honestly lost count of her tattoos, most of which are small sigils and other symbols or runes she gave herself as a part of whatever magical research or obscure spells she was practicing at the time. Only half of the spells actually worked as they were intended to, which she thinks is decent considering nearly everything she tried hadn’t been read in centuries and her translation wasn’t always perfect. She is proud of them because they show her growth, a physical manifestation of her quest for knowledge.

Notable Tattoos:

When she was fifteen Andromeda found a spell that would allow the one casting to know if those she loved were harmed by binding a drop of the loved one’s blood into a tattoo. Intention and consent and love were crucial to the success of this protection. Andromeda chose to bind her sister’s safety to her through The Star (Estrella) Tarot Card tattooed on the outside of her upper right thigh. She gave herself this tattoo, it wasn’t the first one she’d given herself, but it was the biggest. Perhaps she messed it up, or perhaps she was just 15 and not powerful enough to truly connect them. Or maybe, even back then, her internal magic knew the sisters would end up falling apart.

As an adult, Andromeda attempted again and successfully cast this warning and connection to Ted & Dora. Ted is The Moon - he is her intuition and inner guidance and this is tattooed on the back of her left bicep by a co-worker in the Department of Mysteries. Dora is The Sun - playfulness and vitality, it is located on the back of her right bicep. These two are her favorites, and they almost hum if either Ted or Dora is seriously hurt.

Who: Open

Where: One of the games

When: February 14, Any time during the event

Moody could be called a lot of things: obsessive, observant, cynical, uptight, opinionated. He had been called all of those things and more in his days. One thing a lot of people didn’t know about him was how competitive he was.

“One more,” he urged the worker at the booth. This was about the tenth time he had tried this particular game and the queue behind him was starting to get restless. Moody was pretty sure the employee considered him his sworn enemy now. “It’s rigged,” he said gruffly, turning to the people behind him. The worker tried to get him to move along. “Do you really think anyone is supposed to win this? Look at the hole that you’re supposed to get the snitch into. It’s not nearly the right size!”

~

Andromeda was naturally a bit anxious over gatherings this large and public, but the best intelligence they had promised a peaceful evening. She let herself relax and enjoy Dora’s utter delight at the rides and games and treats. Ted had gone of to get them all ice cream the ice cream their child had been begging for all afternoon and Andy was chatting with a friend from work while Dora wandered up and down the booths deciding on a game.

It wasn’t until she heard the gruff voice belonging to Moody that Andromeda realized her child, sporting long purple braids today, was calmly grabbing the snitch in question and tossing it through the hole the very first time.

“Dora! You are way too old for me to have to remind you about waiting your turn.” She scolded, then turned with an embarrassed smile towards the line that had formed behind Moody. “But Mummy,” the child reasoned with a patience that could have only come from their father, “I wanted to help Mr. Moody, he was throwing it too hard! And now I won him a teddy bear!”

Ted: So. Shapeshifting. I thought that was just a myth.

Narcissa gave her sister an odd look. While Narcissa wasn’t one to slack off, she would be the last to prioritize her studies when she wasn’t on school grounds. “Were you really doing homework on Christmas?” she asked incredulously as she walked towards her sister. Narcissa folded her nightgown beneath her as she sat on the foot of the bed. “Please tell me that you were reading a book for leisure at least.”

Without the ties and pins that kept her hair up during the day, Narcissa’s golden locks fell over her shoulders. She brought a hand up to tuck a stray lock behind her ear as she tried to scooch closer and see what it was that Andromeda was reading. “Yeah,” she shrugged, lithe and carefree. “I just couldn’t sleep. I was thinking how nice it was to be back. You know next year, I’m the only one who’s going to come back. Well, unless you finally find a man who’ll take you home with him,” Narcissa teased.

~

“Well,” Andromeda flushed slightly with either embarrassment or delight, “You have to promise not to tell, Cissa, not even Bella and especially not Mother and Father.” She stared at her sister for a long moment, then smiled. “Professor Slughorn got me an interview in the Department of Mysteries and I am trying to prepare for it. I really want that job but I don’t want father to know because he’d ruin it before I even got a chance.” There, that was a good enough reason for her odd behavior, right? And it certainly wasn’t a lie.

“Remember when we used to try and stay up all night on Christmas Eve? You’d barely make it past 9.” Andromeda laughed, tapping her sister lightly on the nose with a perfectly manicured finger. “Who says I need a man? Well, other than Mother. I am going to have a career, and discover the origins of magic and the universe and everything, screw what any man thinks.” She sighed, only being somewhat serious. “If you could do anything, have anything in the world, what would it be?”

private starter for @andyinthestars​

It was unsurprising that an ancient book on death magic was not an easy text to come by. Despite having put in a request with Borgin & Burke’s to keep an eye out for it, along with a few others antique dealers he know of, the days ticked by without a sign that the book he was looking for would ever become available for purchase. Fortunately or unfortunately – your pick – the exact text he was looking for was available for viewing by appointment at the Oxford Magic Library. A few sweet words and a few sweeter galleons got him an appointment without question as to his intentions.

The Oxford library was not a place he regularly frequented. Usually, any texts he wanted, he could get his hands on for perusal in his private study. Since it was not the case this time, Rodolphus chose to show up early. A floo was connected directly to the library, meaning he didn’t have to see any muggles let alone talk to them. A relief. He arrived early and a witch at the front desk informed him that the director would come to get him when it was time; in the meanwhile, he was welcome to examine the rest of their public collection.

It was unclear even to himself if he was examining the collection or looking for a quiet aisle. It was probably not the former, as magical dinner recipes held about as much interest to him as the latest Celestina Warbeck album. If it was the latter, than he was out of luck. His eyes were narrowed at the spine of a book entitled How to Prepare and Cook a Dragon’s Flesh when he heard footsteps come to a stop near him. Blue eyes darted to the witch, an immediate but unnamed familiarity dawning on him.

“Have we met before?” he asked. Quiet, to respect the atmosphere of the library.

~

Andromeda adored the Oxford Magical Library, as she adored most libraries. There was a deep sense of peace to be found among the books and knowledge - she felt safe here, almost as safe as she did at home. She come out of frustration mostly, having hit a wall with her current thread and in search of inspiration. The director was a friend, likely one of the few outside of the department who had any sort of idea what exact it was that Andromeda was researching. But, as the witch at the information desk had told her, he had an appointment and so Andie wandered.

It was then that she saw the man browsing through some strange looking cookbooks and felt a slight chill. Of course she knew who he was, the man her eldest sister was married too. Rodolphus Lestrange, she could only assume what dark shit he was into given that her father had evidentially been quite please with the match. But Andromeda did not worry for Bella as much as she worried about Narcissa, gods help the man who tried to get Bella to do anything she did not want to do.

“Yes, once I believe.” She matched his soft tone, surprised at her own anger bubbling up at how rude the question seemed. Did Bellatrix hate her so much as to not even mention her? Did the man really not know who she was? “You know my sister, quite well I assume.”

The days leading up to her birthday always rang bittersweet. It was a private sort of ache, one Andromeda did not feel the need to burden her husband and child with. Ted might blame himself, which was the last thing she wanted, and Dora would ask questions that she was not ready to answer. No, Andromeda would suffer alone, relishing in the melancholy with a solitary glass of wine as the memories washed over her.

The year she turned eleven and woke Narcissa hours before dawn to wait for the post and the the letter that promised freedom and power. The year she’d thought they’d forgotten only to be woken up by both her sisters and cake for breakfast. That last year, eighteen and hopeful for the first time in a long time, a day spent with Narcissa that she wouldn’t admit might be one of the last. This was the ache she had to address, the price she paid for the ten beautiful birthdays spent with the man she loved more than anything and their perfect child. And maybe, it felt good to ache for a bit.

“Sorry!” Andromeda looked up with a start, not realizing someone had been trying to get her attention. “Got a little lost for a moment, forgive me. What was it you said?”