#andromedapara

The first morning after his breakup with Andromeda, Ted woke up (not that he had really got any sleep that night) and decided that this could be a good thing. Now, he could focus on helping the Hufflepuff Quidditch team as much as he can between classes, instead of hiding in stuffy broom closets. He could spend all the time after dinner on studying and preparing for his NEWTs. He knew Andromeda wasn't a just a fling, but perhaps he could deal with it as though she was.

This mindset worked quite well for a days. He spent his entire Saturday studying in the common room, except for a couple of hours where he was on the pitch, too busy trying to put together a game strategy to bother with feelings.

It was working. It worked so well until he saw her in class on Monday morning, and all the anger and disappointment came rushing back. He heard nothing during class, not one thing. The back of Andromeda's head was distracting him. Her presence in the room made him want to get up and punch every Slytherin in the room, just for the hell of it. After class, he headed out to the astronomy tower and pulled out a box of cigarettes from his bag. Packing it that morning was a good decision on his behalf. 

A week later, it has become a routine. He would finish classes and come spend the time until dinner huffing his frustration out in the form of smoke halos. And that day was no different. 

Ted tiptoed over to the door of Dora’s bedroom to take a peek at her. He knew how much Andromeda loved Christmas, and he was very excited that it was their very first Christmas as a family. So he decided to bake the one thing he ever managed to learn from his mum. He had already taken a cookie recipe from her earlier in the week just as a precaution since he didn’t want anything to go wrong. By one in the afternoon, there were multiple trays of chocolate-chip cookies in the kitchen. Not that Dora could eat any of them, but Ted didn’t know what else to do. And by the looks of it, she wasn’t planning to wake up any time soon anyway. “Why is she still asleep?” Ted threw himself onto the sofa, slightly bothered.

Ted still had a hard time believing Andromeda decided to do this. He hadn't seen her at all that day; they didn't want to risk any of her friends, or his really, to get suspicious, and he couldn't help but wonder if she'd changed her mind. He grabbed his trunk and took a look around the platform, but he didn’t see her anywhere. He decided that it would be better if he waited on the muggle side of the platform, hoping she wouldn’t have too much trouble finding him. If she still had any intention to anyway.

It’s been a year and a half since Ted has officially been off the Hufflepuff Quidditch team. But he still came to practice to help around and suggest ideas for game plans, and watch out for mistakes that the team might be missing while they were throwing quaffles and bludgers at each other. Although practice was over an hour ago and it was getting dark, Ted was still weaving between goal posts and flying around the pitch, trying to clear his head. Recently, he’s found himself in need of coming out here to remind himself that he couldn’t always do or get what he wanted. That sometimes, no, a lot of the times, there were boundaries he couldn’t trespass.