THE OCEAN PAINTED BLACK

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As far as Andie could remember, this was the first time she had ever considered her closeness with her husband a curse. It had been almost twenty-four hours since Rabastan Lestrange had dropped back into her life (and another thirty-seven-ish since Lucius Malfoy had,) and ever since then, Andie had been putting on an award-winning lie. It wasn’t easy to fool Ted- in fact, it was like trying to fool her right arm, damn near impossible. Over the twenty-four years they had been together, Ted had seen every side of Andromeda, and he was the only person in the world who could read her with a glance- but this, this sudden reappearance of the old players in her life, was something Andie had to keep to herself.


The problem was, the evidence was there, if Ted cared to look hard enough- or at just the right angle. A broken teacup, its contents staining the otherwise impeccably clean carpet, was resting under what had once been Dora’s chair, just barely visible if one cared to look that direction. Andie knew it was there, but what was worse, couldn’t do a damn thing about it- not without Ted catching on, which was the last thing she wanted. While spilling tea wouldn’t have been abnormal, given Andie’s klutzy tendencies, leaving it to stain her carpet would be- so she had to wait for just the right moment to take care of the mess.



And what a long time that moment was in coming! Ted had apparated into the house within moments of Rabbit leaving the day before, and he had left with her on their “date”- only to run into her nephew. If Andromeda hadn’t felt claustrophobic before, Draco’s sudden appearance into her life, for the first time ever, definitely made her paranoid. There was no way she could write this off as a coincidence now, and even worse, she couldn’t very well tell Ted and therefore involve him in whatever game the death eaters were playing with her. Andie felt horrible- while she wasn’t usually forthcoming with her feelings, exactly, she did not make a habit of outright lying to her husband, either.



When they had returned the following evening, Andie’s black mood at seeing her nephew had only been counterproductive, as Ted had been determined to cheer her up. Needless to say, Andie hadn’t been allowed a moment to herself (not that she didn’t enjoy it, mind you,) until Ted announced, after breakfast, that he was going to go take a shower.



Andie could barely keep herself from springing out of her chair the moment he turned the corner, grabbing a cleaning rag from under the counter and soaking it in magical mess remover. She crawled under the table, not necessarily an easy feat in the sundress she put on that morning (with full intention of working in the garden once she was sure she was in the clear,) and began to pick up the broken pieces, holding them in one hand. Fortunately, Ted didn’t care much for tea- he wouldn’t notice one of the cups gone, nor the bags, and if he did, no doubt he’d chalk it up to Andie’s clumsiness.



Careful not to hurt herself, she took the rag in her other hand and began to scrub, her long hair falling around her face. She blew a piece out of her eyes and continued cleaning, watching as slowly, bit by bit, the tea stain came up. As she scrubbed, her mind wandered- what in the name of Merlin did all of these “sudden appearances” mean? Her family had left her alone for twenty-four years, since she had made her choice to leave them for Ted, so why was she so interesting now? Thinking about it made her nauseous, and Andie stilled for a moment to catch a breath. She knew now what it felt like to be trapped in a cage, knowing the end was coming, and helpless to do anything about it. If they truly wanted her, maybe she could at least spare Ted.



A noise behind her caused her to jump, hitting her head on the table and slicing her finger simultaneously, though she barely noticed either as she stared, wide-eyed, at her husband. For one long moment, neither of them moved, until Andie seemed to recover, her green eyes flicking around as she tried to salvage the situation- the broken glass, bloody fingers, and half cleaned tea spot- and twist it to her own advantage. “You startled me, Teddy,” she sighed. “I just dropped my cup.”

Wordz:761
status:complete
tagz:Ted!
notez: I suck at starters!
inspiration King and Lionheart- Monsters and Men
credit:this template is by monica DON’T BE STEALIN, YA HEAR???!!!!!

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this is a good place to fall as any

It Ted hadn’t have noticed that something was at least a little odd in the Tonks household, he very well may have been a complete dunce. But he had, and even if he hadn’t been able to quite figure out what it was, he knew that something somewhere was out of order. Maybe it was in the way that Andromeda, whom he could normally read like an open book with 24 pt. font , seemed to act as if there was something she wanted to get to, something she was desperately trying to hide. Last night, he’d chalked it up to the fact that Draco’s appearance at their ‘date’ had upset her, which was a perfectly acceptable explanation. But when it had carried over to the next morning, well… Ted was at a slight loss.

He didn’t necessarily want to find out what it was that was bothering his wife, because he knew that (or at least he hoped) she would tell him in her own time. On the way to his shower that morning, he’d noticed what had looked like a heap of something broken, and while confused, it didn’t really bother him at the time. Ted was the sort of man who just tended to remain happily ignorant of concerning things until they became blatantly obvious, unless it concerned his wife. In many ways, while she was rather protective of him, he in turn was also very protective of her.

Ted honestly didn’t enjoy the idea of anyone bothering or worrying his wife, in fact he hated it, especially when he knew that the person doing it was himself, though admittedly those occasions were very few and very far in between. Andromeda was such a central part of his life that the very notion that she was off balance emotionally tended to set him off balance too, and by the end of today, he vowed, before he had to leave for his short night shift, if he hadn’t either figured out what was bothering her or she hadn’t told him… he’d ask. Because, unfortunately for her, Ted had learned how to read when his wife was lying too. Maybe, once when they were in school and still didn’t know each other too well, he might not have been able to discern her lying, but twenty-four years of marriage tended to heighten his sensitivity to what was going on behind those beautiful eyes of hers.

As he came out from his shower, in a fresh pair of loose pants and an old t-shirt, he came out from their bedroom toweling off his short hair, expecting to just find his wife either reading the newspaper or to see that she’d gone outside to tend to her garden. What he did see instead made him pause. ”Dromeda, what’re you doing, love?” he asked curiously.

He also didn’t anticipate her reaction, like he was the Dark Lord apparating into their household, and her startled reaction made him jump in response, his blue eyes going wide as he tried to comprehend what he’d done, or what had put her in such a jumpy state. And when she finally surfaced, his eyes went wider in brief panic at seeing the blood on her hands. For a second, as they both remained frozen, Ted’s gaze flickered from her bloody hands to the broken teacup to the stain back to Andromeda, knowing immediately that there was something more to this than what she was probably going to admit. And the second she’d said something, Ted’s expression immediately darkened as something inside of him felt like it broke. Andromeda had just lied to him.

”You weren’t drinking anything, love,” he replied with little hesitation, coming forward to look at her hands. There was something tense to his movements, mostly because he had now caught on to the fact that this fiasco probably had something to do with whatever was bothering her. ”Nothing that would leave that bad of a stain, anyway.” While Ted might have been hopeless with cleaning, that didn’t mean he was totally ignorant to the way certain things worked, like stains… considering he made many of them over the years.

He examined her fingers with an almost cold demeanor, though Ted could never truly be a cold person. Much of this had been brought on by the fact that he was perfectly aware of the fact that Dromeda was lying to him, and that hurt much, much more than Ted was willing to admit out loud. With gentle hands, he observed hers and let out a sigh. ”You’ll be alright,” he remarked, somewhat in relief. ”We’ll just get something to put some pressure on it.” Despite the fact that he was hurt by her lying, that didn’t mean in any way, shape, or form, that he was just going to stop taking care of his wife.

Looking around, he pulled a drawer open and pulled out a clean dishcloth and gently pressed it over his wife’s hands. Staring down at them as he applied what he felt was the necessary pressure, not even looking up at her, he murmured, ”Are you going to tell me what’s actually bothering you, love, or are you going to dance around it?”

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”Dromeda, what’re you doing, love?”


Seeing the look on Ted’s face, Andie knew there was no way to salvage the situation. If she had been just a few moments faster, or had been faster on her feet yesterday, or had got up in the middle of the night, or better yet, had never knocked the damn cup over at all, she could have avoided all of this- but the truth was, a very small part of herself was relieved that she would no longer have to lie to Ted.



She hated that part of herself, because she had a feeling that a peaceful afternoon she had hoped for was not forthcoming.



”You weren’t drinking anything, love,”



Andie flinched as he took her hands, and resisted her usual instinctive move of pulling away. She complied not because she needed- or liked- Ted taking care of, but because she felt she owed him at least that much. She had lied to him- and she hated every minute of it- but she couldn’t tell him the truth, either.



”Nothing that would leave that bad of a stain, anyway.”



“Coffee,” she answered weakly. “Coffee would.” It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the truth. They both knew it. The last of the coffee in their house had gone into Ted’s own mug at breakfast, because Andie had forgot to buy more on the day she had run into Lucius. Her green eyes trailed the floor, most of her usual fight and sass completely leaked out of her. Though his touch was gentle as he checked the cuts, she didn’t even have to look at him- she could feel the tight anger coming off of him in waves.



”You’ll be alright. We’ll just get something to put some pressure on it.”



“I know,” she answered quietly. “It’s… nothing. Not even deep.” She put her hands to her chest, daring to glance up as Ted moved to get a towel. “It was just a cup, Ted.” A cup, and a stain, and a towel- so many little, unimportant things, that added up to one thing much bigger than her and Ted: the lie she was keeping to herself, that she knew her husband knew about.



She let out a soft exhale as he wrapped her fingers in the towel and applied pressure, focusing on, for just that moment, the feel of her hands in his. Andie so rarely let Ted take care of her, but she had to admit, for once, just for one little moment, it felt nice to let him take charge.



”Are you going to tell me what’s actually bothering you, love, or are you going to dance around it?”



There it was again, that feeling of nausea washing up inside of her. She moved to pull her hands away, trying to keep herself composed. How could she involve Ted in this game that was being played, when she didn’t even know the rules herself? Wasn’t it better to keep him in the dark? She risked a glance at his face, knowing in her heart that it wasn’t. She might be able to keep their visitors a secret, but it would cause a rift between the two of them that Andie couldn’t fix. As far as she could tell, she only had one real option.



Kneeling down, her injured hand fisted around the towel to staunch the blood, she proceeded to pick up the pieces of the glass she had dropped upon Ted’s entry. She didn’t answer his question as she methodically picked up each sliver, and when she was done, she got to her feet and dropped them into the wastebasket before going back to her chair and sitting down wearily, as if she hadn’t slept for days. She began to pull the towel away from her fingers, then sighed, wrapping them back up again. For the first time in twenty-four years, Andie looked defeated.

“I ran into Lucius,” she said quietly, her uninjured hand pulling at a loose string on the towel. “While I was at Diagon Alley the other day.” Her voice had a quietness to it that was very uncharacteristic of Andie, a dull flatness that sounded alien on someone who was usually so passionate. “I didn’t want to tell you, because I didn’t want to worry you. He and I… had words. And then yesterday… Rabbit- Rabastan- showed up here. He made me tea, I… I dropped it on the carpet. And last night, Draco…” She shook her head, rubbing her eyes. “It’s nothing. A coincidence.”

Wordz:759
status:complete
tagz:Ted!
notez: I suck at starters!
inspiration King and Lionheart- Monsters and Men
credit:this template is by monica DON’T BE STEALIN, YA HEAR???!!!!!

[Deleted]

this is a good place to fall as any

Ted’s expression was dark. Far darker than it had been in a very long time, because whatever game Andromeda was playing was up. Now, that wasn’t to say that he thought she was playing some kind of game, and he knew perfectly well that she would never lie to him unless she felt like she had a good reason, but… well, he couldn’t help but be a little miffed, if miffed was even the right word.

He made it a point to be completely honest with his wife. He never held anything back - he was an open book in many senses of the term. Whatever might have been considered ‘secret’ in other situations, most oftentimes it was because Ted had done something in the spur of the moment without telling Dromeda beforehand, the rally (and subsequently getting himself hurt by accident, no less) being the most prime example. That was probably the closest thing to a secret that he’d ever kept from her. But it was one of those things that couldn’t stay secret for long, as in when he’d gotten home and she’d seen the burn on his arm, it was perfectly thinkable to realize where he’d been.

But this? No, this was something different. He noticed Andromeda’s flinch and his frown deepened further. The fact that she wasn’t arguing and for once was just letting him take care of her, on top of everything else, was just all the more troubling. Just how bad was it, whatever she was keeping from him? A deep sigh escaped him. ”Coffee that’s been left there a while, you mean,” he remarked, unable to hide the fact that it was something of an accusation. He wanted to know what was going on, and he wanted Andromeda to be honest. ”You’re not Dora, love. You don’t leave messes.”

He honestly didn’t trust himself to speak much - Ted didn’t want to raise his voice at the woman he loved with all his heart, and he didn’t want this anger. He also didn’t want the lies or the illusions to put some kind of rift between the two of them. Of the two of them, there was no competition as to who had gone through more to be with the other. Andromeda beat him with that hands down. So never did he want to make things more difficult between the two of them, never wanting to put more pressure on her or wound her more than she already had been. She gave up a life to be with him - and he was rather determined that, in the course of their life together, that she wouldn’t have to give up anything more. So this was why he didn’t respond when she tried to assure him that it wasn’t that deep, and that it was just a cup. As if he gave a damn about a cup when there was something more going on here.

Even when she’d pulled away, not speaking or telling him what was wrong, Ted remained silent as he stood there and watched, feeling useless in more ways than one. He shifted uncomfortable, standing there in the middle of the kitchen. He felt like he ought to help Andromeda, but at the same time, he knew she probably wouldn’t let him help. And he was all still a little too shell-shocked about all of this coming to light that he honestly wasn’t sure he could move even if he tried. Ted watched each and every move his wife made, observing her carefully as she sat down as if she might explode, and it was when she finally started speaking that he realized that he really was frozen.

But the explanation certainly didn’t make him feel better. No, if anything, it made him feel ten times worse, as nausea suddenly welled up in his own stomach and his face went pale. ”You ran into Lucius Malfoy,” he repeated blankly. ”And there was… there was a Death Eater… there was a Death Eater in this house.” The tall and relatively burly man ran a hand over his face in horror, and suddenly he found he was able to move, as if his legs weren’t enough to hold him up anymore. He stumbled slightly, right into the counter, where his hands shot out to hold him up, his fists clenching over the smooth surface, his entire body tightened. ”A coincidence, my arse. You were in bloody danger, and I-“ Taking a deep, shaky breath, he refused to look at her. Not one part of this was okay. He had no idea what he was supposed to do with this information, but he certainly knew that he couldn’t afford to just do nothing with it.

”Why wouldn’t you tell me?” he asked in a false tone of quiet. He would have bellowed it out if he could, but he refused to allow himself to be that angry. He couldn’t. With so much bottled up right now, Ted was more likely to explode if he let himself go.

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It was a strange experience, having Ted angry with her. While Ted’s anger had always been a cold fire and never a raging inferno, it still burned Andie, who was used to being the one with anger issues. Ted was usually unflappable- no matter what happened, he faced it with a smile and a joke, and at the very most, a frown. This side of Ted, while she had long suspected it was there, was foreign to her- and what made it worse was that Andie knew she deserved it.

”Coffee that’s been left there a while, you mean,”

As he studied her, Andie kept her gaze downcast, oddly submissive. She wasn’t deaf to his tone of voice, but she didn’t have an answer for him. How could she? Even she, the master of turning words to her own purpose, didn’t have an imagination good enough to provide for what had really happened.

”You’re not Dora, love. You don’t leave messes.”

“Dora had to get it from somewhere,” Andie mumbled, but that was a blatant lie if there ever was one. Andromeda had always been fastidiously neat, even as a child- probably the only thing Druella had ever been truly proud of in her middle child. Even Narcissa, Druella’s perfect baby, wasn’t nearly as neat as Andie was. Mess simply wasn’t something that Andie could compute. Her uniforms had always been neatly pressed, her bed always made (even before the house elves had got to it,) her home always clean. Mess and Andromeda did not exist on the same plane, and to suggest that it had to be her was probably the stupidest thing she had said in a long time.

As she sat and tried to recollect herself, Andie rubbed at her eyes. The events of the last few days made her feel incredibly old and exhausted, and as she found the words leaving her lips, she didn’t have to look at Ted to begin to comprehend how he was feeling. To have death eaters near his wife, let alone in his house, was a violation of sacred ground- something that even Andie could understand. While she liked to pretend she was the defender of her family, Ted was every bit of protective of her as she was of him.

”You ran into Lucius Malfoy… And there was… there was a Death Eater… there was a Death Eater in this house.”

He might as well have yelled it, as loud as the words rang in Andie’s ears. As he stumbled and caught himself on the counter, Andie finally looked up, her green eyes watery with the unshed tears that pricked her eyes. It was funny- she had kept relative cool during the entire ordeal (both of them, to be exact,) but now that it was over, telling Ted was what made her start to tear up. Andie had long been accustomed to shock in the patients she had seen as a healer, but she had only ever gone through it one other time- and this time, it had caught her completely off guard. “Yes,” she answered quietly, licking her suddenly dry lips.

”A coincidence, my arse. You were in bloody danger, and I-“

“You what?” She asked, once again staring at the table. She tugged on an errant ringlet, pulling it straight between her fingernails before it bounced back. Andromeda had always been very particular about her hair, hating the natural ringlets that led so many people to compare her to her elder sister, and spent hours of each day meticulously ironing them flat with her wand, even on the days she put it up afterwards. In the twenty-seven years she had been with her husband, there had been only two occasions that Andromeda hadn’t bothered with it- the day that her cousin, Sirius, had “killed” James and Lily Potter, and that very morning, when she had scrambled so frantically to get away from her husband and hide the evidence of the previous morning’s tea. “You were working? You weren’t home?” Her voice cracked, and she took a deep breath before continuing. “I’m here, Ted. It’s fine. It’s just… just a cup.”

Why wouldn’t you tell me?”

The words hung there between them, threatening despite their quiet. Andie closed her eyes. “They’d kill you.” She didn’t know if her lips even moved, or if the words left them. She felt like she couldn’t breathe, and she folded her arms over her chest. “I wanted… I wanted to protect you.”

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this is a good place to fall as any

Suddenly everything felt like it was a complete struggle. He could hardly stand upright, his muscles felt incredibly tight and rigid, and even breathing seemed like a near impossible feat as he tried to take even, deep breaths. It wasn’t very often that Ted Tonks got angry, and it sure as hell was significantly rarer when he was in an absolute rage. But there was no disputing that there, in that kitchen, with his fists clenched on the counter and his eyes downcast into the sink, that there was a rage building in Ted, and it was more than ready to get out and be unleashed. And each word that escaped his wife’s mouth was certainly making it no better, if not worse.

So he found himself unable to reply to anything else his wife said. No jokes, no mumbled quips. No, Ted was far more focused on the fact that Andromeda had lied to him. And not only had she lied to him, she had kept danger from him. There were very few things that would get the muggleborn up in arms. His family being in danger, especially the wife whom he cherished with every fiber of his being, was one of them. In fact, it was at the top of the list. And this was absolutely inexcusable, as far as he was concerned. The lie his wife had told was a deadly one, and it wasn’t something Ted forgave right on the fly.

”You lied to me, Andromeda,” he spat out through his teeth, feeling his shoulders starting to shake. While many might assume that his shaking shoulders were due to crying of some kind, no. Ted was angry. As he thought about it, more and more, and the fact that there had been a Death Eater here, in their house, where they slept, while he hadn’t been home, while his wife had been defenseless… perhaps even where he was standing right then and there… it was too much to take. ”You bloody lied to me, damn it! Acting like everything’s been fine, when all along this has been… this has been right under my bloody nose! What, did you think I was so bloody stupid that I’d never figure out something was bloody wrong? ‘Ted’s a blooming idiot, he’ll never find out that there was a Death Eater in our fucking house!’” Taking a deep, shaky breath, he turned completely away from her, running a hand over his face and then raising both to vivaciously tug at the short strands of dark hair that sat there.

The very second she said the very words, ‘It’s fine,’ if anything, sealed fate. Everything she said before that, just made him want to bust through a glass window with nothing protective on. The very fact he’d left her defenseless made him want to hurt himself more than he’d ever had the inkling to do so in all the years of his life. The fact that she’d been in that kind of danger because he hadn’t been there to prevent it was close to driving him mad. ”Just a cup. Just a bloody cup? Do you honestly think that I give a damn about a cup when my bloody wife is in danger?! This is not fine! This is the furthest fucking thing from fine since… since… I don’t even know when! You were in danger, and I wasn’t here! And you didn’t even tell me until I had to figure out the whole damn thing for myself!” he shouted. He only spared her a glance here or there, finally having started pacing around the kitchen like a tiger that had been caged.

When she told him, quite simply, that they would have killed him and that she was only trying to protect him, Ted let out, close to literally, an enraged growl as suddenly he lashed out and punched the wall nearest him. His fist collided with the solid surface, and there was a distinct crunch of bone that Ted didn’t even seem to notice as he snarled and went back to his pacing.

”Do you actually… you actually think that I give a damn about that,” he snapped, this being more of an observation than anything else, glaring at his wife in rabid anger. ”You actually think that I’d be scared to die for you if my time actually came? I don’t need bloody protection, Dromeda, I need the truth and I bloody well need to make sure you’re safe, especially in our own damn home. What if I’d come home and found your body just lying there in the damn living room? Still think I should have been kept in the bloody dark?” Taking a deep breath and running his hand over his face again (and wincing when he realized that it actually hurt just to move the blasted appendage, and it looked like it was already bruising), Ted turned away and started pacing again.

Like all men did, Ted wanted something concrete to focus his hatred on. Because he was actually rather surprised at the amount of hatred welling up within him right then - it was dangerous, it felt dark and angry and just bad. He didn’t like it, but it was there all the same. He was quite sure he’d never felt this before. He wanted to take his anger out on something, but it wasn’t Andromeda. Never his wife. He might have been angry beyond comparison with her for keeping the lies going and keeping this from him, but never would Ted raise a hand to her, of that he was beyond positive. But there was still that anger, that rage. His eyes darkened at the mere idea of it.

”I’ll kill him,” he hissed, to nobody in particular. ”If either of them come anywhere near this house again, I’ll rip their blooming heads off and go marching up to Voldemort myself, the bloody bastard. They are not going to play around with my wife for their own damn amusement.”

we will build our altar here

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Explosive anger wasn’t something that Andromeda was a stranger to- in fact, it was an old, dark friend. In her more philosophical moods, Andie had wondered whether or not the rage that she often felt was simply part of her genes, as exampled by her father and her sister, or something that came from being bred into a hopeless situation she couldn’t escape. She knew too well the siren call of losing herself to the red hot anger as it built up inside her, and she knew how cathartic it was to lash out at the ones who had hurt her. No matter how many times she herself had felt such rage, however, it had done nothing to prepare her for Ted’s outburst, and as he snarled at her, Andromeda visibly shrunk on herself.

”You lied to me, Andromeda,”

So she had. Inexplicably, as she watched her husband with wide green eyes, Andie was mentally transported to another place, another time. The smell of ink and blood mingling came, unbidden, to her nose, but she didn’t dare move to stifle it. The memory, long purposefully buried under many other good ones, was not something she wanted to associate with her husband- but as she stared at him, she couldn’t help but be reminded of her sister. “I did.” She didn’t apologize, and she didn’t offer a reason. While it was clear she didn’t enjoy being yelled at, Andie knew in her heart that if the situation was repeated- she would do it again.

”You bloody lied to me, damn it! Acting like everything’s been fine, when all along this has been… this has been right under my bloody nose! What, did you think I was so bloody stupid that I’d never figure out something was bloody wrong? ‘Ted’s a blooming idiot, he’ll never find out that there was a Death Eater in our fucking house!’”

“Please stop yelling at me,” Andie’s voice felt stronger, but she felt the first of several tears begin to slide down her cheek. She knew that right now, the best thing for Ted was to let him go until he wound down. No answer she gave him would be good enough, and no matter how miserable she was right then, she knew she had done the right thing- and that her belief that she had would do nothing but enrage him further. “Of course I don’t think you’re an idiot,” she mumbled, balling her injured hand up so tightly that her knuckles turned white. “What was I supposed to do?”

”Just a cup. Just a bloody cup? Do you honestly think that I give a damn about a cup when my bloody wife is in danger?! This is not fine! This is the furthest fucking thing from fine since… since… I don’t even know when! You were in danger, and I wasn’t here! And you didn’t even tell me until I had to figure out the whole damn thing for myself!”

“What good would telling you have done, Ted? Last time I checked, you can’t time travel. All knowing has done is pissed you off,” she sniffed, rubbing at her eyes, but it did nothing to stop her tears. She could hear him move around the kitchen, but for the first time in their marriage, her eyes didn’t follow his every move. Andie was staring into space as if she could find herself a hole to sink into. “And why are we arguing about this? Nothing happened to me. All that happened was a broken cup. You’re overreacting.” She blinked, glancing up at him once more. “If we fight about every ‘could have,’ we’ll never stop.”

She jumped as his fist connected with the wall, and on instinct, she made a move to get up- but immediately sat back down at his glare. She had never seen Ted look at her like that before, with so much animosity, and she blinked as her tears doubled and she took in a shaky breath. Even when they had been young and she had been incredibly mean to him, Ted had never looked at her like that. Something inside Andie broke.

”Do you actually… you actually think that I give a damn about that? You actually think that I’d be scared to die for you if my time actually came? I don’t need bloody protection, Dromeda, I need the truth and I bloody well need to make sure you’re safe, especially in our own damn home. What if I’d come home and found your body just lying there in the damn living room? Still think I should have been kept in the bloody dark?”

For the first time since he had raised his voice at her, Andie’s eyes sparked, and she sat up straight as if she were drawing herself up for a fight. “Yes,” she hissed at him. “I do.” She let that sink in as she stared him down. Ted was angry? Fine. Andie might hate it, but she understood it. But never, for a single moment, did she question her own motives. What good would it be to argue with him that she was nothing without him? What good would it do her to point out that she didn’t even want to continue on if he wasn’t there? Andie had sacrificed everything in her life for him- and she had no intention of giving him up. No, she didn’t need to give him any explanation- not that he would accept any from her right then anyway. He was too angry, and too worked up. “I’m not going to apologize for what I did, Ted. You can’t make me.”

”I’ll kill him, If either of them come anywhere near this house again, I’ll rip their blooming heads off and go marching up to Voldemort myself, the bloody bastard. They are notgoing to play around with my wife for their own damn amusement.”

Despite her tears, the laugh that Andie gave him was cold and humorless. “You couldn’t perform the killing curse if your life depended on it, Ted- you’re too good for that.” She got to her feet, dropping the bloody towel on the table. As she stared at him through her lashes, the resemblance to Bella was uncanny, and not at all helped by her tone. “Obviously this didn’t occur to you all those years ago, but they are my family, tapestry or not. It’s perfectly reasonable that they see me as a pawn in their games. If you don’t like it, you married the wrong woman.”

[Deleted]

this is a good place to fall as any

Ted had to clench his eyes shut, taking forced, deep, and slow breaths as he tried to slow down his thundering heart rate. He couldn’t look at his wife, so he turned away from her, but this wasn’t due to the fact that he couldn’t bear to look at the tears he could practically sense from where he was standing. No. Ted Tonks couldn’t bear to look at his beloved wife because he would verily be reminded of the very fact that here, in this kitchen, in this house that Ted himself had believed to be a safe haven from the worsening chaos of the world they held so dear, that there had been someone here that easily could have taken away from him the one thing that he fought to protect the most in this world.

And he knew right in that moment that he wasn’t angry with Andromeda. No. He was angry with himself, for being so weak and stupid as to think that they might make it away from this round of war unscathed in their small and warm home, and he was beyond angry with the Death Eaters, who had the damned audacity to invade his home and essentially play a game with his wife. The blood traitor. The woman who had sacrificed everything to be with him, simply because they’d fallen in love. She had already sacrificed so much already. Ted had never wanted her to also sacrifice her safety, or worse her very life.

Her lack of apology might have infuriated him moments before, but now it just hardened his resolve that now, he had to do something. Yes, Ted knew that in a way he needed to make sure that his wife knew exactly how wrong this all was, how much her lack of faith and trust in him (or at least, that’s what this felt like) upset him. But screaming and shouting at her was not going to be the answer. It never really was, but god damn it, why hadn’t she told him? He could have done something, anything, in an effort to keep her safe. Something that would at least put both of their minds slightly more at ease, but she had kept this from him. ”You don’t think I’m an idiot, but you still try and cover all this up like I was never going to notice,” Ted grumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose with his good hand as his now bad one practically dangled there uselessly.

”You were supposed to tell me, Dromeda, because damn it, yes, I’m bloody pissed,” he growled, but it wasn’t nearly as an aggressive of one as it had been. Once again, it was because as the dark red haze of his anger lessened and passed, Ted knew that it wasn’t his wife that he was angry with. Because there was no mistaking the fact that he was about ready to rip someone’s head off, but he and Andromeda had been through so much together and read each other so easily that there was just no way he could ever be truly angry with her. No, he was about ready to storm up to either Malfoy Manor to punch Lucius Malfoy for even opening his bloody mouth in his wife’s presence, or go to the Auror office and have a Hit Wizard help him track down that blasted Rabastan Lestrange and give him what was coming to him. If there was one thing you didn’t touch in Ted Tonks’s world unless you really wanted him riled up, it was his family. Especially Andromeda.

Ted shook his head immediately, running his hands through his hair and hissing when it really upset the feeling in his bad hand and he pulled it away almost immediately as his good hand started tugging at the dark strands atop his head and his blue eyes glared at nothing. ”Over-reacting,” he snorted, shaking his head again. No, no he wasn’t overreacting. ”All those bloody times I got sent to the Hospital Wing after it got out we were dating back at school. Sometimes I was fine, but that sure as hell didn’t stop you. You can’t hold me to a different standard, Dromeda, you just can’t. I’d do the bloody same for you ten times over, and you… you’ve been in danger. I don’t give a damn about the stupid cup. I give a damn about you.”

At the very second that he saw her eyes spark, because of course he saw it, as he’d turned towards her while speaking and had felt his heart break slightly upon seeing the tears on her face, Ted instantly took a step back out of sheer instinct. He didn’t know what he’d done, he honestly didn’t, but something he had, had made her just as angry as he’d been. Yes, her answers made him scowl, but no longer was he glaring at her. Just watching her warily, defiantly… pleadingly. ”I deserve to know,” he replied, his voice honestly dead of the anger but certainly not dead of the sheer raw emotion that came from his desperation to keep her safe. Ted met her gaze evenly, and he hoped that she could see that there was no longer any anger there. And if there was, that it was at himself. Never at her. Never at her.

He couldn’t help but smile, just a tiny bit, at her remark about apologizing. ”I wouldn’t be able to make you do anything even if I wanted to, love, nor will I ever try,” he told her. Ted wasn’t sure if he was trying to be amusing or just plain responding to her tirade.

But then she laughed. That laugh chilled his stomach, and as she stood, he took another step back, his blue eyes widening. Ted, unfortunately, recognized everything about this. Andie had some very dark places within her, simply from the fact that she had been brought up a Black and raised around the infamous Bellatrix Lestrange, through no fault of her own. It was perhaps the laugh, more than anything, and the fact that she stood and threw the bloody rag to the table, that was his real wake-up call from his enraged stupor. Ted’s eyes fell on the bloody towel and he felt his throat tighten. ”I might,” he said cautiously, and truthfully, ”If your life depended on it.”

His eyes searched hers, and he wanted her to see just how much he loved her. Couldn’t Andromeda see just how much it would destroy him if she got taken away from him? She was his everything, the centerstone upon which his world had been built, practically. Ted had been raised in a family of love and affection, brought up by parents who cared for him and alongside siblings that, despite all their squabbling, at the end of the day had the basic understanding that they loved each other. And as Ted had grown older, and fallen in love, asked her to marry him, had watched her walk down the aisle towards him in that glittering white dress… Andromeda was his family. Andromeda and their Dora, the daughter that was such a blend of the pair of them. They were his girls. His family. Family, which, as he had been taught from a very early age, was the only thing truly worth fighting for.

Ted swallowed. He didn’t know where his next statement was going to go, because he knew he’d driven Andie into a dark place, and a bout of self-hatred, dark and ugly, bubbled up inside him. ”I love you more than anything, Dromeda, I know who I asked to marry me all those years ago, and I knew the risks that came with it. But that doesn’t mean I can’t try to protect you, love, and nothing is going to make me stop trying. We’ve been married twenty-five years, Andie, don’t you have any idea what it would do to me if they hurt you? You always say you can’t lose me, love, and now I’m telling you that I can’t lose you. And if… if they’re getting to you, then I need to do something about it.” What he needed to do, exactly, he wasn’t sure, but he bloody well knew he couldn’t let himself just sit idly by. Gulping, he took a few hesitant steps towards her, offering his hands (both of them, even the injured one that had now taken to throbbing) to her for her to either take or reject. A surrender.

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Even as Andie sat in her kitchen, crying, while her husband raged at her, she couldn’t help but love him. And wasn’t that the problem? Ever since Ted had showed up in her life, Andie had been told how wrong her love for him was- that he wasn’t good enough for him, that he was the ruin of her, that it was disgusting, a sign of bad breeding on her part that she had even agreed to leave her family for him- but standing in that kitchen, getting yelled at because she was, as often accused, a liar- Andie had never honestly felt more loved. It wasn’t that Andie didn’t understand his anger- had their roles been reversed, Andie probably would have proceeded to throw things at him by now in her rage- but never, for one single moment, would she take it back. Andie might have been in the wrong according to Ted, she might have lied and withheld information that he had every right to know, but Andie would never regret what she had done. It was her one goal in life, ever since she had been disowned, that she would protect the one thing left to her- and if that made a liar of her, so be it. Ted meant more to her than all of the money, houses, and blood in the world, and to her very last breath, Andie would keep him safe from the ones that wanted to hurt her.

”You don’t think I’m an idiot, but you still try and cover all this up like I was never going to notice,”

“You wouldn’t have,” Andie agreed, raising her pale, tearful face to his briefly before looking away again. “If I had paid a little more attention.” To an outsider, that might have seemed like she was prodding Ted, trying to kindle his anger- but it was more of an admonishment to herself. It was laughable, really, that a teacup was her undoing. Andromeda had always been so good at these games, the lies and manipulation came as naturally to her as any other birthright. She spent so much time trying to be everywhere, seemingly doing everything to make sure that things were always manipulated in her favor, that she couldn’t believe that she had made such a stupid, grave mistake that had led to being caught. “Haven’t you ever heard that ignorance is bliss?” Her tone was bitter, and no doubt this time she really was trying to goad him. The longer she sat there, listening to him rail on her, the more that scary quietness inside her grew, the calm before the storm. 

”You were supposed to tell me, Dromeda, because damn it, yes, I’m bloody pissed,”

“So you could do what?” She demanded. “Go get yourself killed? I handled it.” The way Andie saw it, if something had happened to her, Ted would have had plenty of reasons to go forward alone. Their daddy’s girl of a daughter, his family, his friends all would have supported him and looked after him, and Andie knew that, in time, Ted would heal. If something had happened to him- especially because of her- Andie would not have that option. There was no one for her but her husband, and selfishly, Andie had every intention of keeping him right where he was.

”Over-reacting. All those bloody times I got sent to the Hospital Wing after it got out we were dating back at school. Sometimes I was fine, but that sure as hell didn’t stop you. You can’t hold me to a different standard, Dromeda, you just can’t. I’d do the bloody same for you ten times over, and you… you’ve been in danger. I don’t give a damn about the stupid cup. I give a damn about you.”

“Actually, I can.” Her tears had stopped as his anger became infectious, stoking up the coals inside her that never quite went out. “And I do.” Ted didn’t see it, but he was so much better than Andie ever dreamed of being- his potential loss was a much heavier weight than hers would ever be, and he didn’t even see it. Better yet, he didn’t even care. “In case it has somehow surpassed your notice, but I am fine. I don’t need you to protect me, Ted- I’ve long been doing it for myself.” It was blunt, but it was the truth- Andie would always be the first to do what needed to be done to take care of her own, no matter the consequences. There had been a time when that had meant her family, but now, Ted was the only thing that mattered to her, and she’d be damned if she let him lift a finger over her before she did. 

”I deserve to know,”

As years of anger and sheer rage rolled through her, Andie did nothing but stare at him, her green eyes cold. Her entire life, she had known that she was different- she didn’t care enough about blood purity, she didn’t let people close enough to really know her, she didn’t hold her tongue when she knew better, but standing there in her kitchen, facing off with Ted, of all people, Andie suddenly realized she wasn’t different from her family at all. She was every bit the coldhearted snake that her family so prized- and she was proud of it. Anyone else would have admitted defeat in the eyes of Ted’s anger, but Andie was just getting started. 

”I might. If your life depended on it.”

“I would give my life a thousand times over to keep you safe. And if I have to keep you in the dark to do so, then so be it- I won’t apologize for that.” 

”I love you more than anything, Dromeda, I know who I asked to marry me all those years ago, and I knew the risks that came with it. But that doesn’t mean I can’t try to protect you, love, and nothing is going to make me stop trying. We’ve been married twenty-five years, Andie, don’t you have any idea what it would do to me if they hurt you? You always say you can’t lose me, love, and now I’m telling you that I can’t lose you. And if… if they’re getting to you, then I need to do something about it.”

“No, you don’t.” She snapped. “Because they don’t give a damn about you, or your feelings. In their eyes, you destroyed me, Ted- you took something that was so full of promise, so full of potential, and you debased it and dirtied it. They don’t care that I’m every bit as guilty as you are- or that I made my decision. If you decide to ‘do something,’ as you put it, they’ll see it as an invitation to ‘clean up the mess.’ Think of that the next time you’re railing at me.” 

She stared at his hands as he held them out to her, knowing they were an invitation for them to be at peace again, and yet Andie did not take them right away. It wasn’t that she liked fighting with Ted. It had nothing to really do with him at all, at this point. It was just that standing there, feeling as angry as she did, Andie felt for the first time connected with her elder sister, and she had a choice. Bella had chose the hate and the anger, letting it build up and consume her until it drove her mad. Andie had another option, one that Bella had lacked- she could give into her anger, or she could choose the harder path: hope, and with it, love. Ted had always been the one that grounded her, that pulled her back from the edge she had been careening closer to, but she knew it had all been a stall. The decision, in the end, was always going to be hers, and this was a crossroads, her time to finally decide whether or not she truly was a Black.

She looked down at her hand, the blood nearly dried. It hurt still, but in a way, that was good. It worked to focus her thoughts, and giving a sigh, Andie let go of her anger. It would always be there, but in the end, it was never as important as Ted. She reached out and placed her hands lightly in his, looking up to meet his glance. “I choose you.”

Wordz:1420
status:complete
tagz:Ted!
notez: Poor Ted.
inspiration King and Lionheart- Monsters and Men
credit:this template is by monica DON’T BE STEALIN, YA HEAR???!!!!!

[Deleted]

this is a good place to fall as any

For a split second, as her eyes raised to meet his, Ted felt a flash of what might have been anger, had she not continued. For that very brief moment, he couldn’t tell if she was trying to insult him or not, because to Ted of course he would have. Honestly, he had known something was off ever since Draco Malfoy had shown up at their dinner a few nights ago, but until now, Ted had simply attributed it to the fact that, perhaps, his wife had simply been taken off guard and had been mulling over what had transpired. And, like always, he had tried to give her space. But it had been becoming noticeable (and now, of course, it was crystal clear), that something else was going on. Something else behind the scenes that he didn’t understand, but now he did. Had she honestly thought that he wouldn’t have noticed anything? Did she really think that low of him?

But the modification came and then the bitter question after it, and the muggleborn shook his head and let out a very deep, tired sigh. ”Ignorance isn’t bliss if it’s driving a chasm between us, love,” he replied, his voice a mere grumble. In a way, he almost envied his wife. Andromeda, yes, had lied to him, but she had lied to him and kept this from him, he understood, to keep him safe. And, just as she was considering, they would be in the same exact positions but reversed had this all been the other way around. But at the same time, it never would be. Ted was far too shoddy of a liar to have ever been able to keep something from the woman he loved so much. Andie was far better than he was at it, and in a way he was also angry at himself for not realizing all that sooner.

”I don’t know what I would have done, but I- I would have done something,” Ted snapped in response, but it wasn’t in an aggressively angry manner. Perhaps it was defensive, but he was aggravated. Incredibly so, but it all stemmed from the fact that Death Eaters were messing with his wife and he wasn’t able to do anything about it. ”In fact, I’m still of a mind to. They can’t get away with this kind of bloody…” He didn’t even know what to call it.

The anger was still there, admittedly, and Ted could feel it bubble again, hot and ugly and dark, as he ferociously shook his head. He wasn’t sure what was making him feel sicker - the fact that this was all happening or the fact that he was actually feeling this kind of anger because it was so rare in him. Perhaps the one other time he’d felt it, it had been quick and a mere flash of the hot brutality that had resulted in a young Rowle’s black eye back at Hogwarts. ”You handled it,” he repeated, looking at her with pained blue eyes. ”What do you mean, you handled it? Are they coming back here? Are they going to be coming back for more?” Because, to Ted, if the answer to either one of those was yes, she hadn’t handled it. Not in the way that it needed to, not that he knew what that even was to begin with.

At her very blatant rejection of what Ted, in a way, viewed as hypocrisy, he blinked. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but it certainly hadn’t been that. ”You might,” he told her, once again hesitantly as he had no idea how she was going to take his profession of the truth, ”But I don’t. Of course I bloody know that, but I- I fucking love you, Dromeda, and that’s one of the reasons why, but I bloody well need to do my damnedest to add on to that protection. I might not be the best at hexing and cursing people, but you have to understand, I can’t let them take you away from me.”

Under her cold gaze, Ted honest-to-god flinched. He wasn’t scared, because that wasn’t the exact word for it, but he knew that he had gotten them both into this mess they were in. He’d spurred her into a dark place that he absolutely hated it when she had to go there, but at the same time he loved her just the same. Because even though she was capable of such coldness and darkness, he knew that underneath that, and many times above it, was a passionate and loving and protective woman that was stronger and smarter than he ever could dream of being. He still didn’t understand what it was about him that she actually fell in love with - he was just an average man with an extraordinary life at times, but most of all he had an extraordinary wife. Andromeda was the only thing, in his eyes, that made him not average. And yet she loved him with the same ferocity that he loved her. And it was this that, as he gazed at her, he wanted her to see. If this got too bad, he would do his best to intervene. But he wanted her to come back to him, and sometimes it was just better to let her do that on her own.

”And you know that I would too,” Ted responded, gazing at her pleadingly. ”But I wish you’d told me, love. I’m in no more danger than I was five minutes ago. All this has done had just made things hell of a lot more complicated.”

”In their eyes, you destroyed me, Ted- you took something that was so full of promise, so full of potential, and you debased it and dirtied it.” Ted Tonks clenched his eyes shut and, quite literally, forbade himself from crying, as tears that were a mixed result of the frustration of this entire ordeal and the self-hatred that burst up from his stomach at those simple and yet oh-so-loaded words. He knew that she hadn’t meant them in the way they struck him, but suddenly he was quivering. Because wasn’t that exactly what he’d done? He wasn’t good enough for her, he was lower than low. He’d stolen her, and he’d ruined her, and now she was stuck in this hellhole of a situation right with him. For twenty-five years, they’d lived in happiness and bliss - Voldemort having been destroyed not even five years after their marriage, and they’d raised a beautiful daughter and had lived like any other wizarding family. But now Voldemort was back, and he and his Death Eaters were more determined than ever to wipe filth like him from this earth. And Andromeda was now just as much of a target. Why? Because he was a fucking Mudblood. His breathing now shaky, struggling not to cry himself, he choked out, ”I think about it every god-damn day. Don’t think for a second that I don’t. It’s my bloody fault, I know that, and I’m sorry. I just want to fix it.”

The second she’d put her hands in his, and spoke, Ted sniffled and immediately pulled his hands away from her, but only to wrap his good arm around her shoulders and pull her to him, holding her tightly as he kissed the top of her head and buried his face in her hair. ”M’so sorry, Dromeda,” he said, choking on tears that hadn’t fallen. ”I love you so damn much. M’sorry, I’m so sorry. I don’t want to pull you down with me, but I can’t let go, n’with this war getting worse, I don’t- I need you, love.”

we will build our altar here

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