"The Pedigree of Honey," Ted/Andromeda, NC-17 Title: The Pedigree of Honey Author:green_amber Pairing: Andromeda/Ted. And for once, there's no Blackcest in it. Rating: NC-17 Warnings: D/s. And fluff. Yes, both. Deal. ;) Disclaimer: I do not own any of this stuff. Except the bad pr0n. Word Count: 3085 Author's Notes I finally finished it! This fic was intended as a submission for hp_clover a year ago, except I got blocked and wrote something else for the fest instead. I've added a sappy ending and I think it's finally done.
"The pedigree of honey Does not concern the bee. A clover, any time, to him Is aristocracy." --Emily Dickinson
The sky over Hogwarts was grey and low the day Professor Slughorn sent them out onto the grounds in search of four-leaf clovers. It was the final ingredient in Felix Felicis, the small but absolutely essential touch that would transform the simmering potion to a whirl of dancing gold.
Andromeda’s eyes dazzled at the sight of the gentle slopes carpeted in brilliant green; the dullness of the sky seemed only to turn the grass to piercing blades of emerald. Here and there, there was amethyst, clover blossoms scattered among the green.
She was acutely aware of Ted walking beside her. She’d never been able to figure out why she was always so conscious of his presence, ever since the first day of second term, when Slughorn informed them that Andromeda’s partner had decided to drop out of NEWT-level Potions and so had Ted’s, and surely they could get over their inter-House rivalry and get along together?
He was an awkward boy, Ted Tonks: as she heaped her tools and ingredients onto the table she’d be sharing with him, he had accidentally knocked over his cauldron, spilling noxious goop everywhere. An Evanesco from her, and the goop disappeared, but he was still an awkward boy who had ink on his right index finger and unruly tufts of mousy brown hair sticking out everywhere. She had wanted to ignore him. Just do your own thing, Andromeda, and get your Outstanding in spite of him, she’d said to herself. “To hell with that Mudblood,” Bella had said, and really, it amounted to the same thing.
Yet somehow she could never ignore him. When their arms brushed as they reached for ginger roots, she felt an odd shock of heat. When he spoke, his voice sounded like the most natural, the most soothing thing in the world. She had lain awake in bed one night, fantasizing about the knight in shining armor who surely would come her way if her parents could just stop pushing her at pedigreed fops like Malfoy and Avery. He had spoken in her dream, and she’d been shocked to realize whose voice he wore.
The same voice that interrupted her mental meanderings there on the grounds, on that grey March morning. “Here’s a likely patch,” he was saying, and she stopped and looked down. He was right—the grass here was thick with clover.
“There’s a trick to finding them,” he said. “My mum told me.”
“Oh?” she said.
“You can’t look at every single one. You’d be here all day. What you’ve got to do is just let your eyes slide a little out of focus, and just look at the whole lot of them. The ones that have four, the angle is different, right? They’ll stick out. Just look for the one that doesn’t fit in.”
She did as he instructed, relaxing her eyes and scanning the patch of grass for the one cross in a world of triskelia. “Are you sure this’ll work?”
He didn’t say anything, and she looked back up at him. As the world coalesced back into focus, she saw that he wasn’t looking at the ground.
He was looking at her.
Ted blinked. “Right. Just look for the one that doesn’t fit in.”
Andromeda felt a surge of irritation. She whirled her head away from Ted’s strange stare. “Or you could just do this,” she said, hearing the cruel edge in her voice, unable to stop it. “Accio four-leafed clover.“
From the verdant sea, one tiny plant tore itself from the ground and flew into her waiting hand. She felt an inexplicable sadness as she closed her palm around the clover.
***
Ted felt like a dunce. We might as well have been making Babbling Beverages in class today, the way I’m acting. Going on about Mum and her secret trick to finding the four-leafed clovers.
He should have known Andromeda would remember to use magic. The purebloods always used magic, even for the tiniest things. He privately doubted that any of the pureblood students had ever so much as tied their own shoes.
Ted gritted his teeth, not sure whether he was angrier with himself for sounding like such a sap in front of Andromeda, or with Andromeda for showing off with the Summoning Charm, or with Andromeda just for being her usual implacable self.
He stole a glance at her; she stood like a statue of ice in the field. She wore sober robes of black over an outfit so demure it belonged on Madam Pince, and her tight French braid turned her classic features to cold severity. He wondered, for the hundredth or thousandth or millionth time, what she would look like lying nude in the grass, her hair unwound from its constraints and tangled around her like briars around a white rose.
She’s got me thinking in poetry again.
Her slender white hand shook; he could tell by the violent trembling of the clover’s stem between her long fingers. Her eyes were closed, and her lips moved soundlessly as though she muttered spells or mouthed her prayers. Against me? he wondered, Or against herself?
He kissed her before he had the chance to think better of it. The softness of her body in his arms surprised him. He had been expecting cool marble, hard and unyielding, but she melted against him, answering his kiss with desperate tongue and lips.
Ted dared to run his hands up between their frantic bodies, to rub at her breasts with his thumbs, and moaned as he found them already rising to meet his touch. Her hands gripped handfuls of his hair to pull him closer. He was afraid she would recoil when she felt his cock hard against her, but she writhed her hips against him and moaned low in her throat, the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.
The sky opened, drops of rain spattering his face and running down hers like tears, and he released her, stepped away.
“But I don’t mind the rain...” she said, her voice shaky and weak.
“They’ll all be going in. People will notice if we don’t come back to class.”
He heard the sigh roll out from her.
Back in the dungeons, she dropped the battered and broken plant into the cauldron. She gave him a smug smile as the potion sizzled and sputtered, then turned a brilliant gold. “See? I told you so.” She shook her head, lips pursed. “You’re hopeless at Potions, you know. Tell you what. I’ll tutor you. Tomorrow night, after dinner, south corridor.”
His jaw dropped and he composed a dozen furious retorts in his head, but instead of disdain he saw a fraction of a smile twitching at her lips. Ted realized this wasn’t about Potions at all.
He was so distracted, he almost didn’t notice when Slughorn awarded him and Andromeda each a tiny vial of the potion as a prize for the best attempt.
***
Andromeda waited in the dark silence of the corridor. She paced, and wondered again why she was here. Idiocy. He’s not coming. Right now he’s having a butterbeer and a good laugh with the boys about how he scored a kiss from the stuck-up pureblood princess.
She stopped mid-stride, hearing footsteps behind her. Now I’m in for it. That’ll be one of the prefects, no doubt.
Hands reached around her body, slipped up over her breasts, and she felt hot breath on her neck. “You came,” said Ted’s voice, as familiar and as shocking as thunder, and ske leaned back against his body. She reached her arms back toward him; her fingertips brushed his hips, but the position was awkward and she couldn’t do much but let them flutter ineffectually like vestigial wings.
Ted's hands were hot on her skin as they plunged beneath her clothes and inside her knickers, tangling in her curls. She wriggled against him, feeling his hardness against her arse, rising to tiptoe in the hopes of getting those fingers closer to her throbbing clit. She heard a series of inarticulate, animalistic noises, and realized with a shock that they were her own.
“We need a room,” he murmured, releasing her. She nodded silently, desire turning to pain in her throat and gut and clit. She followed him mutely to a disused classroom and watched as he warded the door behind them.
He turned to her, his eyes glazed with lust, and she felt shy again suddenly. A moment ago, she had been a wanton in his arms, but the brief respite had allowed her conscious mind to take over again. We’re going to get caught and we’re going to be expelled and Bella is going to kill me and...
and I’m locked in an abandoned classroom with Ted Tonks, and we’re supposed to be shagging.
Oh, God.
She took a ragged breath, and let it out. She could hear her teeth chattering in the drafty classroom.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. Just come over here. Just make me stop thinking.
As if he could read her mind, he crossed the room to meet her, his lips finding hers as if they’d done this a thousand times before. She tore and pulled at his robes, needing skin on skin and now. He fumbled at her laces and buttons, moaning, and she cried out from even the small shock of his hands brushing her breasts as he unbuttoned.
He backed her up against the wall, cold stone on her bare back, and slid his fingers inside her. No, not clumsy now. Long fingers, thrusting in and out now, until she thought she could take no more, and then he drew them out. No, don’t stop, she thought, but he did not back away, only moved his wet fingers to her clit and yes, just a few more strokes and she came, falling limp against the wall.
Ted was inside her then, his cock filling her, so hard and so sweet and his lips at her nipple, sucking and tugging, until with a low groan he spilled himself within her.
She opened her eyes—and when had she closed them? She didn’t remember. Ted was staring at her, his eyes dazed.
***
“Would you please pass the tarragon, Ted?”
“Sure,” he said. “This grows behind the greenhouses, you know.”
Andromeda read the subtle emphasis in his voice, the quickly broken eye contact, and knew what he meant. This was the way they always arranged their rendezvous; a casual comment, buried in inane pleasantries.
It was like a courtship in reverse; they talked more now that they were shagging. Sometimes it was only veiled hints like these; other times, in private, they spoke candidly. She was learning what it was like to live among Muggles, and that they were not so different after all. He was learning about her life, how she felt the need to be perfect and above reproach at all times, and how it wore on her. Surely it wasn’t a fair exchange.
She knew what the other Slytherin girls were saying about her that spring; she heard snatches of it from time to time. That she was returning to the dormitory after midnight some nights, and on the nights she tucked in early, she tossed restlessly in her covers. That she was growing thinner, and that dark circles bloomed under her eyes. They chalked it up to their approaching NEWTs. She’s always been a bit of a grind, Andromeda Black, they whispered, pity in their glances. They didn’t know she was going quietly mad for a completely different reason.
His hand brushed hers as he reached for the artemisia. A shock of heat burned her skin, and she closed her eyes, imagining what those hands would be doing that night behind the greenhouses. She remembered other hands, weak and clammy on her back at Bella’s coming-out party the summer before. Pureblood boys, perfectly proper, all of them. Perfectly proper, and perfectly dull. Ted was too vivid, all spilled ink and fevered touches and not-quite-stifled moans against her shoulder, and fireworks that burst in her mind’s eye as she came for him over and over. As she bit her lip there in Potions class, failing to push away the images, feeling wet heat between her legs and hoping her blush was not as scarlet as it felt.
The thought of giving herself to one of the pale pampered boys who courted her was repugnant. She imagined cold hands in the places Ted’s hands had seared her, limp dutiful lips erasing the memory of his kisses, and felt a lump in her throat.
Let me have this. Let me have the fire, while I still can.
***
Ted’s time was running out.
The end of term loomed like the end of days. He knew, after the Leaving Feast, he would have to let Andromeda go, let her vanish into her world of balls and betrothals and things. He didn’t belong in her world; he wouldn’t want to be part of it anyway. Besides, she’d never given him the slightest hint that this was more than a game to her. A game he was all too willing to play, yes, but a game nonetheless. How could it be anything else? Her mum and dad would marry her off to some poncing pureblood, and that would be the end of it.
He had an vision, suddenly, of Andromeda as straight-backed and tight-laced as she had been the first time he saw her, only this time it was forever. Pursed lips and studied gestures for the rest of her life, until her impeccably bound hair turned from black to white, and never again tangled and damp with sweat against his shoulder in the moonlight.
Damn poetry again.
If only he knew how to keep her. If only he could think of something that would convince her that he wasn't just a toy, someone to slum with in her wild youth before settling into her respectable real life.
Then he remembered that he had a bottle of Felix Felicis tucked away in his bottom drawer.
The vial's contents tasted like triumph. He felt ten feet tall of a sudden, able to do anything. What popped into his mind next made his jaw drop.
Ted's mother had always taught him that ladies deserved respect. That they were not to be treated as objects or as inferiors. That things like what he was currently seeing in his imagination were bad things, degrading things, wrong things.
The blokes in the dormitory tell me that some girls like it a little rough...
Ted thought of Andromeda's breath ragged and raw on his neck as he fucked her on the desk, against the wall, on the floor. He remembered that first time, his baser instincts riding him, when he'd been anything but gentlemanly, and yet she hadn't complained.
It was worth a try, and if she got angry, he'd apologize, but Felix told him she wouldn't be angry at all.
***
The charmed paper airplane soared through the narrow slit window of Andromeda's dungeon dormitory. (She had always hated this place. No light to speak of; the smell of mildew everywhere...Old Salazar may have liked it, but there was no rule saying she had to.)
The airplane landed softly in Andromeda's hand, like a bird in some silly fairy tale landing on the princess's outstretched palm.
"Oh, shut up," said Andromeda, but with more distraction than vitriol. She unfolded the paper, and read in the messiest handwriting imaginable:
Andromeda, Meet me in the abandoned classroom at midnight. Same one as the first time. Wear your naughtiest underthings under your robes. This is not a request. --T
Not a request. A shiver racked Andromeda from head to toe.
"Incendio," she said, burning the note to a cinder. Marguerite watched with eyes saucer-wide, but Andromeda turned her nose up and kept silent until Marguerite gave up.
***
She arrived first. The late spring heat had passed this room over, and she shivered as she waited in the dark. The chill seeped through her lightweight summer robes and her skimpy bra and knickers. She began to wonder, just as she had the first time, whether this was a joke on her.
A bar of light across the dusty floor, and then footsteps. Ted.
The light vanished as he closed the door behind him. He said nothing, but he must have cast a spell, for the room was filled suddenly with soft light.
"Good girl," he said. "Now take off those robes."
Cold, so cold, as she pulled the garment over her head and stood before him, goosebumped in black lace, trembling.
She saw his eyes wander lazily over her half-bare breasts, over her waist and down to her barely-covered cunt, tracing the length of her exposed legs down and then back up. He had never been so deliberate before. It had always been the rush, the whirlwind. She felt arousal rising to drown the cold.
"Crawl to me," he said, and she obeyed. Her heart pounded, beating out a rhythm to match the refrain in her mind: howdidheknow, howdidheknow, howdidheknow.
***
By the time Ted finally had the stones to tell her about the Felix Felicis, they had been married for three years. His hands twitched around his coffee cup, sloshing hot liquid over his fingers, until she laughed. Thank God, she laughed.
"You think I'd hold that against you now? You've made me happier than I thought I could be…and besides, if we hadn’t been assigned to make that potion, we might never have kissed in the first place. I hope you haven't been feeling guilty about that all these years?"
"Er...no, of course not." Ted felt his cheeks burn. "But there's one question that's been nagging at me ever since…"
"Yes?"
"Why did the Felix tell me to do...that?"
Andromeda smiled. "I was sure we were doomed, you see, because you were such a kind and upstanding sort of bloke...I've always had those urges, you see, and I didn't think I could ever tell you about them. But when you took charge like that...I knew you could deal with the way I was, and it gave me hope."
Ted met her eyes, which were sparkling with tears of joy, and reflected that Felix had made him very lucky indeed.