starfishstar (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
starfishstar) wrote2013-06-12 11:08 am
starfishstar) wrote2013-06-12 11:08 am
Entry tags:
Saying Yes chapter 14
SAYING YES chapter 14
Summary: At 17, Andromeda Black thought being in love was everything. At 57, Andromeda Tonks knew better. Yet the first time Kingsley Shacklebolt asked her out, she surprised herself by saying yes.
Characters: Andromeda Tonks, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Teddy Lupin and ensemble (Harry! Ginny! Molly! Kingsley's kids! All the Potters and Weasleys!)
Warnings: None
Chapters: 15
Story:
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
As happy as the decision – this strange, surprising, yet somehow very right decision – with Kingsley made Andromeda, she found herself hesitating to tell Teddy. What would he think of it? Teddy had only ever known her as a widow, a grandmother.
As so often seemed to be the case with their most important conversations, she finally told him one day in the kitchen over breakfast.
"Finally," Teddy said, pausing for just a moment in cutting a bite of his fried egg. "Congratulations, Gran! I'm happy for you."
"Thank you," Andromeda said automatically. Then, "What do you mean by 'finally'?"
"I mean 'finally' by 'finally'," Teddy clarified unhelpfully, turning his attention back to his breakfast. "It's been years, hasn't it? Stor keeps trying to bet me you guys'd wait until all of us were done at Hogwarts, but I told him I didn't think you were too worried about that." He grinned across the table at her. "Hey, looks like I won!"
"You don't mind?" Andromeda asked him, just to be sure.
"Why would I mind?"
"I wouldn't want you to think this is some kind of replacement. Or it might be strange for you, since you're such good friends with Alastor –"
"With Stor," Teddy corrected reflexively. "Gran, I'm moving out soon anyway. And come on, don't pretend you and Kingsley don't basically live together all year when we're at school, we know you do."
"I just want to be sure you know that this doesn't in any way change the family we've always been."
Teddy looked at her as if she'd just said the most obvious thing in the world. "Of course it doesn't."
And to a boy who'd lost his parents before he'd even known them, but been raised by a whole village's worth of loving friends and relations, perhaps it was indeed the most obvious thing.
_ _ _ _ _
They set the wedding date for late August, before Alastor and Emmeline would be returning to school, which left just two months to plan the event. Andromeda had no particular problem with this – last time, after all, she'd simply eloped – but when she told Molly, Molly just looked at her, said, "Oh, honestly, Andromeda," then whipped out a quill and started making lists.
Harry, when Andromeda told him, offered his enthusiastic congratulations, with that look on his face that said something had gone exactly as he felt it should.
Ginny seconded his congratulations and gave Andromeda fierce hug.
Hermione, when Andromeda told her, squealed with delight and asked what she could do to help, so Andromeda directed her toward Molly, who already had a better grasp on the planning than Andromeda did.
"Where were you thinking of holding the ceremony?" asked Molly, who had taken to inviting Andromeda over for tea, then pouncing on her with more wedding-related questions.
"Oh, I don't know," Andromeda said. "At my place in the garden…or at Kingsley's…it's really all the same to me, as long as our friends are there."
"Have it here," Molly urged. "You know we wouldn't mind, and our garden is larger than both of yours combined."
"I couldn't impose on you that way!" Andromeda answered, surprised.
"Oh, but it wouldn't be an imposition!" Molly rejoined, getting a particular rapturous look in her eyes that Andromeda hadn't seen since the last time Molly had planned a wedding. "Oh, we haven't had a good wedding in ages, not since George and Angelina's…" Molly continued, already far away. From that point on, there was really no stopping her.
Andromeda ran the idea by Kingsley, who liked it. Perhaps even more importantly, Emmeline and Alastor thought it was a great idea, since they both loved the garden at the Burrow and had played there often over the years. The Burrow, Andromeda reflected, was a bit of a second home to almost everyone she knew.
_ _ _ _ _
Teddy's N.E.W.T. results arrived sooner than expected, in mid-July. Andromeda was the only one home when the Hogwarts owl swooped in the window, dropped a very official-looking envelope on the kitchen table and swooped out again before Andromeda could even offer it a treat.
Andromeda stared at the envelope. Then very carefully, as if it were made of glass, perhaps, or Ashwinder eggs, she carried it upstairs and deposited it on Teddy's desk. Then there was nothing to do but wait until he came home from an afternoon of pick-up Quidditch with his school friends.
As she ran one hand along the edge of Teddy's desk, Andromeda reminded herself that there was still time, it wasn't all ending just yet. Teddy had until the end of August to submit his application for the Auror training programme. And surely he would live at home for the first few months in any case, until he could find a place of his own in London. This didn't have to mean everything changing.
When Teddy got home that evening, Andromeda was at her desk in a corner of the sitting room she'd gradually converted into an office. She was working on a column for the newspaper, though not without feeling slightly guilty for the other tasks she was neglecting: She'd promised Molly she would revise the wedding menu – and when, precisely, had this turned into an event that required a menu?
Andromeda looked up as Teddy leapt lightly from the fireplace. "Your N.E.W.T. results have arrived," she said.
Teddy's expression cycled from delight to panic and back again, as his hair shot from neutral brown to bright red. Andromeda hadn't seen an involuntary morph like that from him in years.
"Where's the letter?" he asked, his voice cracking slightly on the last word.
"Upstairs on your desk," Andromeda said. She had promised herself she would give him the space to open his letter alone.
But to her surprise, he was back downstairs in the space of a minute, the letter in his hand. He dropped into the armchair and gazed at it reverentially.
"After this," Teddy murmured, "I won't not know."
Andromeda turned in her seat and gave him her full attention. "You won't not know what, love?"
Teddy looked up at her. "Everything. When I open this, that's it, there's no going back. Either I got the marks I need to be an Auror, or – or not." His voice trembled a little on the word Auror and he shook his head, annoyed with himself.
So much for this not having to mean everything changes, Andromeda thought. But all she said was, "Then I suppose you'd best just open it, hadn't you?"
Teddy nodded, swallowed, then slid one finger under the envelope's wide flap.
He worked the flap open and slid out a single sheet of paper in silence. Stared at the paper in silence. Then, still wordless, he held it out to Andromeda.
She reached across to him to take it and read:
EDWARD REMUS LUPIN HAS ACHIEVED:
Care of Magical Creatures: O
Charms: E
Defence Against the Dark Arts: O
History of Magic: O
Potions: E
Transfiguration: O
Andromeda looked up to find Teddy's gaze on her, intent and anxious to see what she would say.
"Oh, Teddy,” Andromeda said. “I'm so proud of you. Your parents would be so very proud of you too."
She handed the letter back to him and he stared down at it again. "I have – I have an application to write," he said, the realisation just dawning. "I can write my application now." He looked up at Andromeda, wide-eyed.
"Yes, do that," she said. "And then tonight, a celebration here with everyone?"
"Yeah," said Teddy. "Yeah, definitely."
_ _ _ _ _
Over the next weeks, Andromeda found herself doing any number of things she would previously have thought unlikely.
She found herself giggling like a schoolgirl with Molly, as she tried on wedding dresses at Twilfit and Tattings.
She found herself sharing despairing looks with Kingsley across his kitchen table as they studied a guest list that seemed to keep growing. Andromeda had more than once caught herself wondering a bit crazily if perhaps it was growing of its own accord, overnight when they weren't looking, and if so, if there was a counter-charm for that.
"Perhaps we could just elope after all?" she suggested and Kingsley smiled, but shook his head.
Andromeda found herself struggling to convince Molly that this was going to be a fairly large affair and really it was not necessary for Molly to do all the food herself. Ultimately, they compromised on hiring caterers from a nice shop in Diagon Alley, but Molly baking the cake.
At the same time, Andromeda was still juggling Wizengamot sessions, writing her column for the Mirror and looking after Teddy, not that Teddy needed much looking after these days. On top of all that, she was in negotiations with her editor over a possible second book.
At her desk late one night, having just completed her book proposal, Andromeda stopped and stared down at the name she had signed to it, Andromeda Tonks. It was the name she'd borne now for most of her life.
“I don’t think I’ll be taking your name," she told Kingsley the next day, as they shared a quick breakfast at a small café near the Ministry before the Wizengamot went into session for the day.
When Kingsley's deep laugh rumbled out, Andromeda realised she'd said it the way she had specifically to provoke that laugh.
"Do you think I ever expected you to?" he asked.
"Please don't misunderstand me," she said. "This is not about choosing Ted over you, or anything like that. I only took Ted's name in the first place so I wouldn't be a Black anymore, because at the time that seemed the most important thing. But at this point, I've been a Tonks nearly all my life. It's my professional name. And it was Nymphadora's name most of her life as well. I feel too old to change, Kingsley."
His smile at her was like the sun. "Then you ought to know, Andromeda Tonks, that I think you're wonderful just as you are."
– – – – –
Andromeda arrived home that evening feeling unusually calm, despite a mounting list of wedding-related tasks, all of which Molly had flagged as "extremely urgent." How had August come so fast?
An hour or two later, she was at her desk, wrapped up in revising the catering order and thinking of nothing more significant than the relative merits of canapés, when Teddy walked into the sitting room and asked, "Are you really all right with this?"
For a confused moment Andromeda thought he was asking if she was all right with getting married, which seemed like a bit of a silly question given that it had been her decision in the first place.
Then she saw that Teddy had another official-looking letter in his hand. This one was not in an envelope, but rather was a very proper-looking scroll that bore a Ministry seal.
"Are you all right with this, Gran?" Teddy repeated, hovering halfway between the doorway and her desk.
"I can't be all right with it until I know what it is, now can I?" Andromeda asked, as she had done when he'd been a child and come to her guilty over something. "Shall I have a look?"
Teddy took a step closer and handed her the letter.
Andromeda unrolled it carefully and read that the Department of Magical Law Enforcement invited Edward Lupin, on the basis of his strong application to the Auror Trainee Programme, to appear at the Ministry of Magic at 9 a.m. on September the 1st for an interview, to be followed by the first of a three-day series of character and aptitude tests, which, if successfully completed, would qualify him for entrance into the programme. Teddy watched her with anxious eyes as she read.
Andromeda took three slow, deep breaths and allowed her eyes to close for a moment.
She remembered Nymphadora's ecstatic face when she'd received this same letter, and her even greater joy when she'd been accepted into the programme. Andromeda remembered her own worry even then, and Ted's indulgent smile at their daughter.
She opened her eyes and handed the letter back to Teddy.
"Yes," she said. "I'm all right with it."
Teddy reached out and his hand closed carefully around the Ministry scroll. "But is it…I dunno, is it something you can be happy about?"
"I'm not happy about the idea of you being an Auror," Andromeda told him honestly. "But I'm happy for you and that's what matters."
"Oh," Teddy said, then paused and seemed to ponder this more closely. "Oh. Okay."
– – – – –
(continue to chapter 15)
Summary: At 17, Andromeda Black thought being in love was everything. At 57, Andromeda Tonks knew better. Yet the first time Kingsley Shacklebolt asked her out, she surprised herself by saying yes.
Characters: Andromeda Tonks, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Teddy Lupin and ensemble (Harry! Ginny! Molly! Kingsley's kids! All the Potters and Weasleys!)
Warnings: None
Chapters: 15
Story:
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
As happy as the decision – this strange, surprising, yet somehow very right decision – with Kingsley made Andromeda, she found herself hesitating to tell Teddy. What would he think of it? Teddy had only ever known her as a widow, a grandmother.
As so often seemed to be the case with their most important conversations, she finally told him one day in the kitchen over breakfast.
"Finally," Teddy said, pausing for just a moment in cutting a bite of his fried egg. "Congratulations, Gran! I'm happy for you."
"Thank you," Andromeda said automatically. Then, "What do you mean by 'finally'?"
"I mean 'finally' by 'finally'," Teddy clarified unhelpfully, turning his attention back to his breakfast. "It's been years, hasn't it? Stor keeps trying to bet me you guys'd wait until all of us were done at Hogwarts, but I told him I didn't think you were too worried about that." He grinned across the table at her. "Hey, looks like I won!"
"You don't mind?" Andromeda asked him, just to be sure.
"Why would I mind?"
"I wouldn't want you to think this is some kind of replacement. Or it might be strange for you, since you're such good friends with Alastor –"
"With Stor," Teddy corrected reflexively. "Gran, I'm moving out soon anyway. And come on, don't pretend you and Kingsley don't basically live together all year when we're at school, we know you do."
"I just want to be sure you know that this doesn't in any way change the family we've always been."
Teddy looked at her as if she'd just said the most obvious thing in the world. "Of course it doesn't."
And to a boy who'd lost his parents before he'd even known them, but been raised by a whole village's worth of loving friends and relations, perhaps it was indeed the most obvious thing.
_ _ _ _ _
They set the wedding date for late August, before Alastor and Emmeline would be returning to school, which left just two months to plan the event. Andromeda had no particular problem with this – last time, after all, she'd simply eloped – but when she told Molly, Molly just looked at her, said, "Oh, honestly, Andromeda," then whipped out a quill and started making lists.
Harry, when Andromeda told him, offered his enthusiastic congratulations, with that look on his face that said something had gone exactly as he felt it should.
Ginny seconded his congratulations and gave Andromeda fierce hug.
Hermione, when Andromeda told her, squealed with delight and asked what she could do to help, so Andromeda directed her toward Molly, who already had a better grasp on the planning than Andromeda did.
"Where were you thinking of holding the ceremony?" asked Molly, who had taken to inviting Andromeda over for tea, then pouncing on her with more wedding-related questions.
"Oh, I don't know," Andromeda said. "At my place in the garden…or at Kingsley's…it's really all the same to me, as long as our friends are there."
"Have it here," Molly urged. "You know we wouldn't mind, and our garden is larger than both of yours combined."
"I couldn't impose on you that way!" Andromeda answered, surprised.
"Oh, but it wouldn't be an imposition!" Molly rejoined, getting a particular rapturous look in her eyes that Andromeda hadn't seen since the last time Molly had planned a wedding. "Oh, we haven't had a good wedding in ages, not since George and Angelina's…" Molly continued, already far away. From that point on, there was really no stopping her.
Andromeda ran the idea by Kingsley, who liked it. Perhaps even more importantly, Emmeline and Alastor thought it was a great idea, since they both loved the garden at the Burrow and had played there often over the years. The Burrow, Andromeda reflected, was a bit of a second home to almost everyone she knew.
_ _ _ _ _
Teddy's N.E.W.T. results arrived sooner than expected, in mid-July. Andromeda was the only one home when the Hogwarts owl swooped in the window, dropped a very official-looking envelope on the kitchen table and swooped out again before Andromeda could even offer it a treat.
Andromeda stared at the envelope. Then very carefully, as if it were made of glass, perhaps, or Ashwinder eggs, she carried it upstairs and deposited it on Teddy's desk. Then there was nothing to do but wait until he came home from an afternoon of pick-up Quidditch with his school friends.
As she ran one hand along the edge of Teddy's desk, Andromeda reminded herself that there was still time, it wasn't all ending just yet. Teddy had until the end of August to submit his application for the Auror training programme. And surely he would live at home for the first few months in any case, until he could find a place of his own in London. This didn't have to mean everything changing.
When Teddy got home that evening, Andromeda was at her desk in a corner of the sitting room she'd gradually converted into an office. She was working on a column for the newspaper, though not without feeling slightly guilty for the other tasks she was neglecting: She'd promised Molly she would revise the wedding menu – and when, precisely, had this turned into an event that required a menu?
Andromeda looked up as Teddy leapt lightly from the fireplace. "Your N.E.W.T. results have arrived," she said.
Teddy's expression cycled from delight to panic and back again, as his hair shot from neutral brown to bright red. Andromeda hadn't seen an involuntary morph like that from him in years.
"Where's the letter?" he asked, his voice cracking slightly on the last word.
"Upstairs on your desk," Andromeda said. She had promised herself she would give him the space to open his letter alone.
But to her surprise, he was back downstairs in the space of a minute, the letter in his hand. He dropped into the armchair and gazed at it reverentially.
"After this," Teddy murmured, "I won't not know."
Andromeda turned in her seat and gave him her full attention. "You won't not know what, love?"
Teddy looked up at her. "Everything. When I open this, that's it, there's no going back. Either I got the marks I need to be an Auror, or – or not." His voice trembled a little on the word Auror and he shook his head, annoyed with himself.
So much for this not having to mean everything changes, Andromeda thought. But all she said was, "Then I suppose you'd best just open it, hadn't you?"
Teddy nodded, swallowed, then slid one finger under the envelope's wide flap.
He worked the flap open and slid out a single sheet of paper in silence. Stared at the paper in silence. Then, still wordless, he held it out to Andromeda.
She reached across to him to take it and read:
EDWARD REMUS LUPIN HAS ACHIEVED:
Care of Magical Creatures: O
Charms: E
Defence Against the Dark Arts: O
History of Magic: O
Potions: E
Transfiguration: O
Andromeda looked up to find Teddy's gaze on her, intent and anxious to see what she would say.
"Oh, Teddy,” Andromeda said. “I'm so proud of you. Your parents would be so very proud of you too."
She handed the letter back to him and he stared down at it again. "I have – I have an application to write," he said, the realisation just dawning. "I can write my application now." He looked up at Andromeda, wide-eyed.
"Yes, do that," she said. "And then tonight, a celebration here with everyone?"
"Yeah," said Teddy. "Yeah, definitely."
_ _ _ _ _
Over the next weeks, Andromeda found herself doing any number of things she would previously have thought unlikely.
She found herself giggling like a schoolgirl with Molly, as she tried on wedding dresses at Twilfit and Tattings.
She found herself sharing despairing looks with Kingsley across his kitchen table as they studied a guest list that seemed to keep growing. Andromeda had more than once caught herself wondering a bit crazily if perhaps it was growing of its own accord, overnight when they weren't looking, and if so, if there was a counter-charm for that.
"Perhaps we could just elope after all?" she suggested and Kingsley smiled, but shook his head.
Andromeda found herself struggling to convince Molly that this was going to be a fairly large affair and really it was not necessary for Molly to do all the food herself. Ultimately, they compromised on hiring caterers from a nice shop in Diagon Alley, but Molly baking the cake.
At the same time, Andromeda was still juggling Wizengamot sessions, writing her column for the Mirror and looking after Teddy, not that Teddy needed much looking after these days. On top of all that, she was in negotiations with her editor over a possible second book.
At her desk late one night, having just completed her book proposal, Andromeda stopped and stared down at the name she had signed to it, Andromeda Tonks. It was the name she'd borne now for most of her life.
“I don’t think I’ll be taking your name," she told Kingsley the next day, as they shared a quick breakfast at a small café near the Ministry before the Wizengamot went into session for the day.
When Kingsley's deep laugh rumbled out, Andromeda realised she'd said it the way she had specifically to provoke that laugh.
"Do you think I ever expected you to?" he asked.
"Please don't misunderstand me," she said. "This is not about choosing Ted over you, or anything like that. I only took Ted's name in the first place so I wouldn't be a Black anymore, because at the time that seemed the most important thing. But at this point, I've been a Tonks nearly all my life. It's my professional name. And it was Nymphadora's name most of her life as well. I feel too old to change, Kingsley."
His smile at her was like the sun. "Then you ought to know, Andromeda Tonks, that I think you're wonderful just as you are."
– – – – –
Andromeda arrived home that evening feeling unusually calm, despite a mounting list of wedding-related tasks, all of which Molly had flagged as "extremely urgent." How had August come so fast?
An hour or two later, she was at her desk, wrapped up in revising the catering order and thinking of nothing more significant than the relative merits of canapés, when Teddy walked into the sitting room and asked, "Are you really all right with this?"
For a confused moment Andromeda thought he was asking if she was all right with getting married, which seemed like a bit of a silly question given that it had been her decision in the first place.
Then she saw that Teddy had another official-looking letter in his hand. This one was not in an envelope, but rather was a very proper-looking scroll that bore a Ministry seal.
"Are you all right with this, Gran?" Teddy repeated, hovering halfway between the doorway and her desk.
"I can't be all right with it until I know what it is, now can I?" Andromeda asked, as she had done when he'd been a child and come to her guilty over something. "Shall I have a look?"
Teddy took a step closer and handed her the letter.
Andromeda unrolled it carefully and read that the Department of Magical Law Enforcement invited Edward Lupin, on the basis of his strong application to the Auror Trainee Programme, to appear at the Ministry of Magic at 9 a.m. on September the 1st for an interview, to be followed by the first of a three-day series of character and aptitude tests, which, if successfully completed, would qualify him for entrance into the programme. Teddy watched her with anxious eyes as she read.
Andromeda took three slow, deep breaths and allowed her eyes to close for a moment.
She remembered Nymphadora's ecstatic face when she'd received this same letter, and her even greater joy when she'd been accepted into the programme. Andromeda remembered her own worry even then, and Ted's indulgent smile at their daughter.
She opened her eyes and handed the letter back to Teddy.
"Yes," she said. "I'm all right with it."
Teddy reached out and his hand closed carefully around the Ministry scroll. "But is it…I dunno, is it something you can be happy about?"
"I'm not happy about the idea of you being an Auror," Andromeda told him honestly. "But I'm happy for you and that's what matters."
"Oh," Teddy said, then paused and seemed to ponder this more closely. "Oh. Okay."
– – – – –
(continue to chapter 15)