Saying Yes, chapter 7
Jun. 4th, 2013 03:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starfishstarSAYING YES chapter 7
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 SEVEN
"Why don't we go on holiday together?" Kingsley asked, barely a minute after they had finished waving goodbye to the Hogwarts Express pulling out of King's Cross.
"On holiday?" Andromeda repeated.
"Yes, see, it's this tradition where people who enjoy one another's company go away somewhere together…"
Andromeda nearly rolled her eyes, a bad habit she was clearly picking up from Teddy. "Yes, thank you, I do know what a holiday is. And you would like us to go on one?"
"Yes, please," Kingsley grinned.
In Andromeda's mind, holidays were firmly linked with Teddy – weekends they spent at the seaside, or times she'd taken him to the continent when he was younger, so he wouldn't grow up as ignorant of the world as most British wizards. Now, without Teddy at home, it would hardly have occurred to Andromeda to take a holiday of her own. "Well, all right," she said. "When, then?"
"When are you free?"
Andromeda mentally scrolled through the Wizengamot's upcoming sessions, which tended to cluster erratically depending on the case to be heard and whether or not the full court was needed. "I think there's a week at the end of the month where we have no sessions at all. Where were you thinking of going?"
"If I promise you'll love it, will you let me plan everything?" he asked, and his expression was so boyishly delighted that she found herself agreeing.
Three weeks later, Andromeda arrived at Kingsley's house with her luggage magically shrunk inside a handbag. He opened the door with a big grin on his face and a chipped saucer in one hand.
"Portkey to paradise," he announced, waving the saucer.
"I'm having misgivings already," Andromeda said, eyeing the thing.
"You just like saying that," Kingsley said fondly. "Come on in, it's set to go in ten minutes."
Ten minutes and one Portkey later, Andromeda found herself on a white sand beach by a calm sea, with a chill in the air and an unmistakeable scent of pine. She couldn't even begin to guess where she was.
"Lithuania," Kingsley said beside her. "The Baltic Sea. I've always been partial to this place, I can't really explain it. Something magical about it… Well, I meant that in the metaphorical sense, but it's literally true as well. The woods here are a stopover point for fairies migrating south, and we might be just early enough in the year to see them."
"It's lovely," Andromeda said, gazing out to sea, and heard Kingsley give a sigh of relief.
"Oh, good," he said. "Here, we're staying in one of the cabins just behind the dune, I arranged it all ahead of time. This way."
They stowed their things in the small, cosy cabin, then Kingsley said, "Come on, the sun's just about to set" and led Andromeda back out to the west-facing beach. The sun was hazy and low on the horizon and the sky around it a brilliant pink.
They strolled to the end of small wooden pier that bobbed from the beach, held in place only by magic. There was no one else around, although Kingsley had said there was a village nearby and a few other holiday bungalows. Fairy lights were just beginning to twinkle in the woods behind them.
"How romantic," Andromeda said, smiling at Kingsley as they settled down to sit at the end of the pier, their legs dangling toward the water below. He slipped an arm around her and as the pier swayed gently beneath them, Andromeda fancied she could feel the subtle thrum of the magic that held it up.
"Look at us, old folks pretending at a young lovers' getaway," she laughed. The whole place had that feeling to it, a romantic retreat that would surely be beloved of young couples in the high season.
Far from being insulted, Kingsley just laughed right back at her. "I don't know about you, Ms Tonks, but I plan to live to 150 at least, so I'm not sure who you're calling 'old'. Let's compromise and call it 'distinguished,' shall we?"
"Distinguished indeed," Andromeda said, reaching up to touch his cheek.
The sun was a fiery orb just sinking into the clouds, and Andromeda watched the colours it spread across the sky. "Ted and I never got much chance to do these young couple sorts of things," she said.
"Hmm," Kingsley answered, his listening noise.
"As soon as we left school, we were both working as hard as we could, trying to advance at the Ministry. And then all of a sudden we had Nymphadora." She smiled out at the setting sun. "The best mistake I've ever made, though."
"Hard to imagine you making a mistake of any sort, really," Kingsley said, also looking out at the sunset.
"I wasn't even sure I wanted children," Andromeda admitted. "Ted did, and I suppose I figured I'd let him talk me into it sooner or later. But I thought – well, with my family background, I didn't suppose I'd make a very good mother."
"I never knew that," Kingsley said quietly. He slipped his hand into hers, and they both watched the glowing red sun as it slowly sank into the sea.
"Sorry," Andromeda said, as the light faded and an evening chill began to settle in. "I'm not sure what brought all that up."
Kingsley shook his head. "There's no need to be sorry. I'm always glad when you share things with me."
Andromeda nodded, not sure what to say to that.
"And now do you want to see the fairy glen?" he asked.
Andromeda smiled and allowed him to offer her a hand up.
After a quiet stroll through the nearby forest, where fairy lights winked from behind trees and within the brush, they returned to the cabin to find that the proprietor, an elderly wizard, had arrived with an armful of linens. The man spoke a little German, which luckily Kingsley spoke as well. Andromeda, thanks to her family, had only learned French as a child.
Once the proprietor had left, they cooked dinner in an old-fashioned cauldron in the small fireplace, working together to figure out how to simplify their cooking down to a single cauldron over a single flame.
"Maybe I should have found somewhere a little less rustic," Kingsley said.
"Maybe you should stop worrying," Andromeda smiled.
She couldn't remember the last time she'd taken a holiday like this, with time just for strolling along the beach or through the woods, then cooking simple meals together in the evenings.
As they walked along the beach the next day, Andromeda talked about Teddy – talked about him too much, likely, but this talk of careers counselling had his future very much on her mind.
"I'm not worried about him," she told Kingsley as they climbed the nearby sand dunes. "I'm sure whatever he does, he'll be all right. It's only for my own sake that a bit of me can't help wishing he could stay a boy at Hogwarts forever, where he's safe."
Another day, as they were shopping for vegetables in the village market, Andromeda wondered aloud, "What am I going to do with myself when Teddy is grown up?"
Kingsley gave her a highly sceptical look over a bunch of turnips. "Really, Andromeda?"
"I've spent quite literally all of my adult life raising Nymphadora, then Teddy. I'm not sure I know how else to live."
"You'll do the things you already do," Kingsley said. "Spend time with your friends, with your work, your writing. Perhaps you'll even find time for me."
"Why, yes, of course," Andromeda said, baffled by the turn this conversation had taken. "Of course I will."
They paid for their purchases and took the path back to the beach, but even as they reached the cabin and started a fire under the cauldron, Kingsley seemed pensive.
"Kingsley, just tell me what the matter is," Andromeda said finally, at the end of an unusually quiet dinner at the cabin's small wooden table.
He swirled the wine in his glass and didn't answer right away. Andromeda, always impatient, was hard-pressed not to repeat her request. Finally he glanced up, gaze hooded, and said, "I wonder what I am to you."
"What do you mean?"
"Am I just some fool who follows you around? Which, Merlin help me, I'm willing to do to the ends of the Earth, and I'll keep doing it until one day you tell me not to, but do I even figure into the plans you make?"
"Of course you do."
"Do I really? Sometimes I can't tell with you."
"That's rather unfair," Andromeda said.
"I don't think it's unfair to ask…look, I'm not asking you to marry me or any such thing, I realise we've both been through that before. But I suppose I could do with just a bit of assurance that this means something to you, that you plan to stick around."
Andromeda set her own wine glass down on the table. "What exactly would you say I've been doing for the past three years, if not 'sticking around'?"
Kingsley shrugged helplessly. "Just putting up with me?"
Andromeda stared at him. "What would make you say such a thing?"
"It's so hard to tell with you, Andromeda! You hold so much back. How am I supposed to know if you enjoy my company, or are only tolerating it? I have to assume you're happy enough with our arrangement, since you've kept me around this long, but how can I know it if you never say so?"
"I tell you that you matter to me," she said, but even as she said it, she wondered if that was really the case. Did she truly act so unfeeling toward Kingsley?
And indeed he answered, "Do you?"
"I –" Andromeda noticed her hands were clenched tightly together on the tabletop and made herself release them. "I care about you very much. That's – I guess that's all I can say for now, and I don't know if it's enough. But I want you to know that. And I do think about you when I make plans. I suppose I've just grown too accustomed to being responsible for no one but myself and Teddy, after all these years."
"I understand that," Kingsley said.
"I'm sorry I'm not better at saying such things."
"It's all right," Kingsley said, and he smiled a little, so Andromeda figured she should accept he meant what he said.
She considered him, then pushed her glass away and said, "Come. Hear how strong the wind is? It must be wild outside. Let's walk on the beach."
Kingsley laughed in surprise. "Now?" he asked, but he followed Andromeda as she rose and crossed the room to take her cloak down from its peg next to the door.
The weather was indeed wild. They walked along the dark beach, the wind stinging their faces and whipping at Andromeda's hair. First she took his hand, then when they reached the darkest part of the beach, where not a single light was visible but the faint moon behind the clouds, she reached up and bent his face down to hers so she could kiss him, hoping the gesture could say some of the things she found so hard to put into words.
(continue to chapter 8)
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 SEVEN
"Why don't we go on holiday together?" Kingsley asked, barely a minute after they had finished waving goodbye to the Hogwarts Express pulling out of King's Cross.
"On holiday?" Andromeda repeated.
"Yes, see, it's this tradition where people who enjoy one another's company go away somewhere together…"
Andromeda nearly rolled her eyes, a bad habit she was clearly picking up from Teddy. "Yes, thank you, I do know what a holiday is. And you would like us to go on one?"
"Yes, please," Kingsley grinned.
In Andromeda's mind, holidays were firmly linked with Teddy – weekends they spent at the seaside, or times she'd taken him to the continent when he was younger, so he wouldn't grow up as ignorant of the world as most British wizards. Now, without Teddy at home, it would hardly have occurred to Andromeda to take a holiday of her own. "Well, all right," she said. "When, then?"
"When are you free?"
Andromeda mentally scrolled through the Wizengamot's upcoming sessions, which tended to cluster erratically depending on the case to be heard and whether or not the full court was needed. "I think there's a week at the end of the month where we have no sessions at all. Where were you thinking of going?"
"If I promise you'll love it, will you let me plan everything?" he asked, and his expression was so boyishly delighted that she found herself agreeing.
Three weeks later, Andromeda arrived at Kingsley's house with her luggage magically shrunk inside a handbag. He opened the door with a big grin on his face and a chipped saucer in one hand.
"Portkey to paradise," he announced, waving the saucer.
"I'm having misgivings already," Andromeda said, eyeing the thing.
"You just like saying that," Kingsley said fondly. "Come on in, it's set to go in ten minutes."
Ten minutes and one Portkey later, Andromeda found herself on a white sand beach by a calm sea, with a chill in the air and an unmistakeable scent of pine. She couldn't even begin to guess where she was.
"Lithuania," Kingsley said beside her. "The Baltic Sea. I've always been partial to this place, I can't really explain it. Something magical about it… Well, I meant that in the metaphorical sense, but it's literally true as well. The woods here are a stopover point for fairies migrating south, and we might be just early enough in the year to see them."
"It's lovely," Andromeda said, gazing out to sea, and heard Kingsley give a sigh of relief.
"Oh, good," he said. "Here, we're staying in one of the cabins just behind the dune, I arranged it all ahead of time. This way."
They stowed their things in the small, cosy cabin, then Kingsley said, "Come on, the sun's just about to set" and led Andromeda back out to the west-facing beach. The sun was hazy and low on the horizon and the sky around it a brilliant pink.
They strolled to the end of small wooden pier that bobbed from the beach, held in place only by magic. There was no one else around, although Kingsley had said there was a village nearby and a few other holiday bungalows. Fairy lights were just beginning to twinkle in the woods behind them.
"How romantic," Andromeda said, smiling at Kingsley as they settled down to sit at the end of the pier, their legs dangling toward the water below. He slipped an arm around her and as the pier swayed gently beneath them, Andromeda fancied she could feel the subtle thrum of the magic that held it up.
"Look at us, old folks pretending at a young lovers' getaway," she laughed. The whole place had that feeling to it, a romantic retreat that would surely be beloved of young couples in the high season.
Far from being insulted, Kingsley just laughed right back at her. "I don't know about you, Ms Tonks, but I plan to live to 150 at least, so I'm not sure who you're calling 'old'. Let's compromise and call it 'distinguished,' shall we?"
"Distinguished indeed," Andromeda said, reaching up to touch his cheek.
The sun was a fiery orb just sinking into the clouds, and Andromeda watched the colours it spread across the sky. "Ted and I never got much chance to do these young couple sorts of things," she said.
"Hmm," Kingsley answered, his listening noise.
"As soon as we left school, we were both working as hard as we could, trying to advance at the Ministry. And then all of a sudden we had Nymphadora." She smiled out at the setting sun. "The best mistake I've ever made, though."
"Hard to imagine you making a mistake of any sort, really," Kingsley said, also looking out at the sunset.
"I wasn't even sure I wanted children," Andromeda admitted. "Ted did, and I suppose I figured I'd let him talk me into it sooner or later. But I thought – well, with my family background, I didn't suppose I'd make a very good mother."
"I never knew that," Kingsley said quietly. He slipped his hand into hers, and they both watched the glowing red sun as it slowly sank into the sea.
"Sorry," Andromeda said, as the light faded and an evening chill began to settle in. "I'm not sure what brought all that up."
Kingsley shook his head. "There's no need to be sorry. I'm always glad when you share things with me."
Andromeda nodded, not sure what to say to that.
"And now do you want to see the fairy glen?" he asked.
Andromeda smiled and allowed him to offer her a hand up.
After a quiet stroll through the nearby forest, where fairy lights winked from behind trees and within the brush, they returned to the cabin to find that the proprietor, an elderly wizard, had arrived with an armful of linens. The man spoke a little German, which luckily Kingsley spoke as well. Andromeda, thanks to her family, had only learned French as a child.
Once the proprietor had left, they cooked dinner in an old-fashioned cauldron in the small fireplace, working together to figure out how to simplify their cooking down to a single cauldron over a single flame.
"Maybe I should have found somewhere a little less rustic," Kingsley said.
"Maybe you should stop worrying," Andromeda smiled.
She couldn't remember the last time she'd taken a holiday like this, with time just for strolling along the beach or through the woods, then cooking simple meals together in the evenings.
As they walked along the beach the next day, Andromeda talked about Teddy – talked about him too much, likely, but this talk of careers counselling had his future very much on her mind.
"I'm not worried about him," she told Kingsley as they climbed the nearby sand dunes. "I'm sure whatever he does, he'll be all right. It's only for my own sake that a bit of me can't help wishing he could stay a boy at Hogwarts forever, where he's safe."
Another day, as they were shopping for vegetables in the village market, Andromeda wondered aloud, "What am I going to do with myself when Teddy is grown up?"
Kingsley gave her a highly sceptical look over a bunch of turnips. "Really, Andromeda?"
"I've spent quite literally all of my adult life raising Nymphadora, then Teddy. I'm not sure I know how else to live."
"You'll do the things you already do," Kingsley said. "Spend time with your friends, with your work, your writing. Perhaps you'll even find time for me."
"Why, yes, of course," Andromeda said, baffled by the turn this conversation had taken. "Of course I will."
They paid for their purchases and took the path back to the beach, but even as they reached the cabin and started a fire under the cauldron, Kingsley seemed pensive.
"Kingsley, just tell me what the matter is," Andromeda said finally, at the end of an unusually quiet dinner at the cabin's small wooden table.
He swirled the wine in his glass and didn't answer right away. Andromeda, always impatient, was hard-pressed not to repeat her request. Finally he glanced up, gaze hooded, and said, "I wonder what I am to you."
"What do you mean?"
"Am I just some fool who follows you around? Which, Merlin help me, I'm willing to do to the ends of the Earth, and I'll keep doing it until one day you tell me not to, but do I even figure into the plans you make?"
"Of course you do."
"Do I really? Sometimes I can't tell with you."
"That's rather unfair," Andromeda said.
"I don't think it's unfair to ask…look, I'm not asking you to marry me or any such thing, I realise we've both been through that before. But I suppose I could do with just a bit of assurance that this means something to you, that you plan to stick around."
Andromeda set her own wine glass down on the table. "What exactly would you say I've been doing for the past three years, if not 'sticking around'?"
Kingsley shrugged helplessly. "Just putting up with me?"
Andromeda stared at him. "What would make you say such a thing?"
"It's so hard to tell with you, Andromeda! You hold so much back. How am I supposed to know if you enjoy my company, or are only tolerating it? I have to assume you're happy enough with our arrangement, since you've kept me around this long, but how can I know it if you never say so?"
"I tell you that you matter to me," she said, but even as she said it, she wondered if that was really the case. Did she truly act so unfeeling toward Kingsley?
And indeed he answered, "Do you?"
"I –" Andromeda noticed her hands were clenched tightly together on the tabletop and made herself release them. "I care about you very much. That's – I guess that's all I can say for now, and I don't know if it's enough. But I want you to know that. And I do think about you when I make plans. I suppose I've just grown too accustomed to being responsible for no one but myself and Teddy, after all these years."
"I understand that," Kingsley said.
"I'm sorry I'm not better at saying such things."
"It's all right," Kingsley said, and he smiled a little, so Andromeda figured she should accept he meant what he said.
She considered him, then pushed her glass away and said, "Come. Hear how strong the wind is? It must be wild outside. Let's walk on the beach."
Kingsley laughed in surprise. "Now?" he asked, but he followed Andromeda as she rose and crossed the room to take her cloak down from its peg next to the door.
The weather was indeed wild. They walked along the dark beach, the wind stinging their faces and whipping at Andromeda's hair. First she took his hand, then when they reached the darkest part of the beach, where not a single light was visible but the faint moon behind the clouds, she reached up and bent his face down to hers so she could kiss him, hoping the gesture could say some of the things she found so hard to put into words.
(continue to chapter 8)
