...

Her cousins write to her, from what amounts to the front lines. Sirius’ large, carefree letters, looping across a scrap bit of parchment: can’t say much in a letter but we’re not beaten yet! And always, always he adds, we could use someone like you; meaning someone like me; meaning he isn’t the only one to betray their family.

Regulus writes too, short letters that get shorter and shorter and then stop. Mother says it is the right thing to do, and I think I agree. It’s amazing, Dromie, you should come back and help, things are changing everywhere.

It’s best not to doubt him, he’s very powerful, and he certainly knows best. I think the ends justify the means, though perhaps they shouldn’t.

The world is so black and white in war. Us, them. I’m not sure which I am, some days.

I don’t know what to do, Dromie. It’s not what I thought, Dromie. This isn’t what we signed up for.

Andromeda sits in her tiny kitchen and burns the letters one at a time on the Aga and never replies.

I didn’t think it would be like this.

…

The summer after she turned seventeen, between her sixth and seventh years, Andromeda wrote to a Muggleborn Ravenclaw named Ted Tonks. They exchanged owls in the late-early hours and Andromeda sleepwalked through the days, counting the hours until sunset. Her mother thought she was studying and worrying about her N.E.W.Ts. Bella, newly married with her ring flashing in the dark sitting room, narrowed her eyes suspiciously as she drank her tea and Andromeda sank down into the dark green sofa to escape her older sister’s lidded gaze.

The first Hogsmeade weekend when they returned to school fell on the last weekend in September. Andromeda and Ted walked hand in hand down the road, the heavy solid weight of him tethering her body to the ground while her mind floated dizzily and distantly away from herself. The leaves were starting to turn, the edges of them glowing fiercely in the autumn light.

They Apparated one at a time to a small church where Ted grew up. Only Ted’s family were present; it was the first, and only, time she met them. His mother was round and cheerful, pressing a tissue to her eyes and smiling. His father was older than her own, but he laughed easily, his eyes wrinkling around the edges.

Andromeda watched Ted as he said his vows, her eyes fixed on the vivid stained glass colours that fell lightly on his skin. His words washed over her, stripped of meaning, but there was a smile in his eyes and gentleness in his hands where he cradled hers. The ring was warm from being held in his fist and he slid its heavy weight slowly onto her finger. She returned to Hogwarts with a new name and something old shrivelled and withered inside her.

At school she wore the wedding ring around her neck on a thin silver chain. If her name was changed on the school registers, the teachers didn’t mention it. It’s not a secret, she insisted to Ted, when they sat next to each other in the library. It’s just easier this way. He accepted this with the same ease he accepted everything, a warm smile and a hand pressed briefly against hers before he left.

It was Sirius who let the cat out of the bag in the end. He caught up with her as breakfast ended and said, "I know your secret, Andromeda Tonks." His eyes were lit up and he grinned wildly, waving a piece of old parchment in front of her until James Potter snatched it and stuck it furtively down his robes. Sirius didn’t even notice as he declared her his favourite cousin, gleefully and happily, as if it was something she should be proud of, be grateful for, this wild and red-eyed betrayal and support. Andromeda imagined Bella’s eyes turning to thunder, but it was Cissa’s bewildered blue gaze that caught her own.

Andromeda spent the rest of the year hiding in the library or deserted classrooms, only sneaking back to the Slytherin dorms when she was sure her classmates were asleep. Sometimes she snuck in, to find Regulus sitting on a sofa with Severus Snape. Regulus buried face in a book to avoid her eyes, but Severus glared furiously at her, his eyes burning darkly.

…

They leave Hogwarts (it is easier than she expected, like a snake shedding it’s old skin) and buy a two bedroomed cottage with a large garden, no neighbours and a view of a forest. Ted Apparates into the ministry every day and Andromeda grows rare, but essentially benign plants in their garden, selling them by owl post to a number of companies, including St. Mungo’s. She’d once harboured plans of becoming a healer herself, but now she finds she prefers the peace of her own garden, the dark forest like a protective dragon at their back. Everything around her is shades of green.

Ted brings a kitten from his parents’ house one day; a blessedly normal black kitten with white paws that they call Fluffy. He likes to sunbathe on the roof of the shed and always falls head first into the stream trying to catch the slivers of sunlight that dance on the water.

She does not read the papers or the listen to the radio. Ted brings home stories, but Andromeda lets them drift away on the breeze and tangle in the trees. She wears her ring on her finger and it is always warmer than herself.

Narcissa writes to her, just once, a polite, formal letter, informing her that she had married Lucius Malfoy, to the delight of both families. Andromeda remembers Lucius; a charming blonde boy in her year, with whom she shared prefect duties. He could be ruthless, and cruel, but she remembers him from Prefect meetings: he had a wicked sense of humour and defended the younger Slytherins fiercely when the other three houses all took sides against them. He was unwaveringly loyal to his family and friends.

Narcissa could have done worse, Andromeda concedes, feeding Narcissa’s pale blue paper to the flames.

…

The spring sun shines through the trees leaving dappled light on her rich green lawn. The dew catches on her fingers as she sits cross-legged, watching children of indeterminate gender who look like Ted being chased by little girls with Bella’s heavy eyes. Fluffy grows to ten times his size and crushes them between his paws like butterflies. Andromeda rakes her hand through the dew and her fingertips come away red.

And so the dream repeats.

Ted wanted to try for children and Andromeda agreed, but for Andromeda pregnancy was long and hard and when she finally holds her daughter, she can only think ‘never again.’ She spends long hours watching her daughters changing looks, half-looking for Bella’s lidded eyes or Narcissa’s narrow pointed nose. She wonders if she wished this creature into being, a child who would never look like her mother’s family.

…

(When she grows up she will call herself Tonks, and some days Andromeda will forget her daughter is related to her at all.)

…

When the war is over and the ashes have settled, Andromeda visits graves like a dutiful daughter. She stands on wet grass, shoes slipping, sinking, sticking in the mud, surrounded by hard grey tombstones that graze her hands when she tries to touch them, and all the ashes buried beneath her.

Ted tells her when Sirius is sent Azkaban. Bella is there too, with her husband and brother-in-law; all family in together, the branches and leaves of the tree tangling in on themselves, blocking out the sun. Andromeda stands in the shadows and stares up and

up and

up.