Who: Ted and Andromeda Tonks What: Order discussions! When: After Ted's talk with Dedalus, before Remus' disappearance which... I think makes it last week some time. Where: Their home Status: Complete!
"Oh, it's you." Andromeda said.
The anxiety bled out of her, mixed with relief that the wards hadn't broken or been attacked nor had Nymphadora or her husband been in enough danger to plow into them unannounced. Ted's comings and goings had become increasingly infrequent, despite her semi-regular posts taunting people and while she could not say in good conscience that she didn't miss her horribly, it was probably dangerous to keep flitting back to one place. They'd been caught once before.
Still, in the moment, she very much desired to scoop her into a hug and not let go at any time soon. "I thought you'd still be torturing ornaments in Italy. When did you get here?"
“Yesterday,” Ted said, pulling her wife in for a hug and a kiss. “I’ve been at Dedalus’, he’s got quite the ward situation set up. I almost feel safe there.”
She slid down into the couch, pulling Andromeda with her. “Molly is going to kill me when she realises I set her boys on freeing inanimate cats from Umbridge’s office,” she admitted. “Well, it was their idea, but I’m supposed to be the adult here, aren’t I? I’ve never been very good at that, though.”
“Should I be insulted that you like his wards better than you like mine?” Andromeda said, or tried to say considering her wife’s hair explosion attempted to grab her as she hit the sofa. At least it made her smile. There were few things left to smile about at the present. “Molly will get over it. You don’t rear that many children and that many handfuls without knowing they will inevitably attempt to mock and cajole those worthy of it. And I don’t imagine you should bother trying to grow up now, it’s late and boring and you’re neither of these things.”
“The Death Eaters also don’t know where he lives,” Ted added, attempting to rein her hair in. “Or if they do, they don’t know that he’s generous enough to let me stay there.” There were other words that fit in there too – stupid, careless, loyal, dependent – but she went with that one. “I’m many things,” she had to agree, “but boring is probably not on the list.”
"No," Andromeda agreed, because she very much wasn't. There was something you could never accuse anyone in her family of and that was being boring. Even the people she no longer considered family had a tendency towards the dramatic. "But I think perhaps it's time we were decidedly even less boring and stepped up. Nymphadora's going to have to take a back seat with the baby and while it's very amusing to watch you wave your waddle at the Ministry, it may be time to do something more. What do you think?"
“Your timing is impeccable, as always,” Ted said. “I talked to Dedalus about that the other day. He’d been struggling to come up with a non-awkward way to tell me he’s in the same secret club as our daughter.” They were unlikely friends, her and Dedalus, but he was still one of her favourite people. Not telling her all these years must’ve been tough for him. At least judging by the anxious mess he’d been. “I told him I’d talk to you, let you Slytherin the decision apart before committing. So I’ll be very disappointed if you don’t have a pro/con list in the works.”
“My timing has always been impeccable. It’s my execution that sometimes requires a little…” Andromeda trailed off, giving the most exaggerated dramatic eye roll she could. “Slytherining, if we must call it that.” There was no pro/con list finished but there had been some occasional doodling about it. A part of her had begun to think she might decide to make some sort of nuisance of herself, if in a quiet way, but vigilantism was rarely quiet. It required more thinking.
“It is a verb,” Ted insisted. “Don’t try to tell me otherwise.”
“I would argue that a pro and con list is far more Ravenclawing, but blue has never suited me.” Andromeda replied, warily. She really hadn’t expected things to move so quickly. “What does Dedalus think?”
“Mostly he’s relieved that I’m not shunning him for keeping a secret from him for twenty years or so. He joined just after Demi died and I told him he should’ve dragged me along then, because I wanted to kill everything too, at the time.” Ted wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about that, but she knew what a mess he’d been. She had been a bit better, but not much. “He said I’ll have more support from more people, and I think it was implied that I’d get into less trouble if I had something useful to do with my time.”
"Is that what you want to do now?" Andromeda asked tentatively. It was more likely a figure of speech, but one couldn't be too careful these days. "To kill everything? Because I'm not sure that's how you should spend your days either."
“That was twenty-two year old me. Grieving too. I’m angry right now, but we’re going to be grandmothers, I can’t go on a murder spree.” As much as Ted would like to incapacitate Lucius Malfoy, she wasn’t going to kill him. Probably. “Still not used to the thought of being a grandparent,” she admitted. “But no, mainly I want to do something. My only accomplishment right now is not dying, and while that’s all and well, it’s…” She sighed, trying to think of the right way to phrase it. “I guess I just want to do more, if I can.”
"The Prophet has enough trash headlines without maniacal murderous matriarchs deciding to take things into their own hands," Andromeda agreed, though she supposed from a certain point of view, debating joining up with a vigilante group could be construed as equally bonkers. "The more people help, the quicker this is over and life resumes?"
“You don’t have to do it,” Ted said. “You can be the sole face of sanity in this family. Someone has to be.” Not that she wouldn’t love to have Andromeda with her – it’d be strange not to, to be honest – but they were very capable of having separate hobbies. Vigilantism may not technically qualify as a hobby, but close enough. “But we have time. I’m not going to go out and join tomorrow or anything.”
"I've been the sole face of sanity before," Andromeda pointed out, with a heavy handed shrug. "It always appears to get me into some trouble." It would be a truly dire state of affairs if Nymphadora became the voice of sanity. She had enough things on her plate. "I suppose I'd rather have it be trouble I get into knowingly rather than trouble that simply finds me."
“Everything gets you in trouble,” Ted had to agree. “Especially me.”
Andromeda smiled bashfully, and gave her wife a shove to the arm. "So perhaps the time has come, once again may I add, for us to get into trouble together?" In for a sickle, in for bank account after all.
“That,” Ted said with a grin, “sounds like an excellent idea.”