Chapter Text
“Hermione?” A tilt of the head. “What- how did you- Salazar’s snake, don’t just stand there! Get in here.”
From the very first step past the threshold, Hermione felt that everything about the house radiated warmth, life, Andromeda, and what could be assumed Ted. Judging by the lack of Slytherin-esque decorations, mostly Ted. Although, Andromeda didn’t act like most Slytherins Hermione had known so maybe there was a heavy Andromeda influence and Hermione just didn’t know her well enough to see it. Either way, the conclusion was the same: the house was not what she had been expecting.
“Alright let’s start with what’s important,” Andromeda began as she led them through a hall with curious looking pictures hanging on the wall and into a kitchen. “How the hell did you get here?”
“I spoke to God and found myself on your doorstep,” Hermione said, hopping up on a wooden barstool at the worktop while Andromeda took her place, standing opposite her.
“I see you’re not going to cooperate,” Andromeda mumbled, shoving a hand through her curls, her sleep shirt slipping a little lower on the opposite side, exposing lower than her collarbone. That was definitely a tattoo. “Why are you here?”
“I was going to propose until you shoved a wand in my face. Worse than a no, really.”
Now Andromeda groaned and forced away a smile. “This is an invasion of privacy.”
“And you storming into my house daily for over a week wasn't?” Hermione nearly shouted before being shushed quite forcefully by Andromeda. “No! You don’t get to for-” Andromeda leaped across the worktop as the younger witch’s voice started to raise in volume and put a hand over her mouth.
“Hermione, please!” Andromeda looked quite panicked so Hermione just nodded. “Thank you,” She slipped back to where she was standing with a sigh. The tattoo was a yellow daffodil blooming, the stem went far below where the neckline of the sleep shirt was and the petals barely grazed the bottom of her collarbone. It was beautiful. “I just got Teddy to sleep and the boy hasn’t been able to sleep properly for-”
“A week,” Hermione breathed as she realized how stupid she’d been.
“Yeah- yes, how did you know?” Andromeda’s incredulous look would have been funny if Hermione wasn’t busy mentally kicking herself.
Now it was Hermione’s turn to groan, putting her head in her hands. “I’ve been going absolutely mad but you’ve just been watching Teddy. Merlin above, I’m an idiot.”
Andromeda cocked her head to the side with a bit of a cheeky smirk beginning to form but when Hermione glanced up she was quick to put an end to that .
“Don’t get a big head. I was just worried you’d tell the ministry what we’re doing or something along those lines,” Hermione said, avoiding eye contact by following the bright colors on the woman’s walls. “Really didn’t feel like fishing you out of the mental ward in St Mungo’s.”
“You worrying about me aside, I don’t owe you an owl, Hermione,” The older witch said, running her hand through her curls again. “We’re coworkers. Nothing more. Friends get owls. If you wanted to be friends, you should have come to dinner.” Hermione opened her mouth to ask if she could stay for dinner but the witch opposite her put her hand up, stopping her before she began. “ Before you erased the minds of the general wizarding population.”
“I didn’t erase-!” Hermione cut herself off before she started yelling. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she gathered her thoughts and continued significantly calmer. “I didn’t erase their memories. I replaced and altered them. You know this because you read the same book I did. I wouldn’t- I won’t do that again.”
“Again?” Andromeda hissed, slamming her hands down onto the worktop.
The woman looked like she had wanted to say more but a cry from up the stairs interrupted her.
“Salazar’s slimy-” She grumbled along with a string of fairly vulgar things that Hermione would have laughed at if she hadn’t been distracted by Teddy’s cries.
Poor kid sounded like he was dying! The kid had some pipes and he was using them to scream bloody murder. No wonder Andromeda hadn’t shown up, there was no way Harry could handle a kid constantly screaming like that .
Before Hermione could think about Harry watching Teddy grow with Ginny next to him, she realized her coworker was making her way up the stairs. Might as well explain while she had a captive audience.
“Yes, again.”
“You’re still here?” Andromeda snapped as she inadvertently led the other witch to Teddy’s bedroom.
“You haven’t invited me to dinner yet.”
“Gods, you really have no sense of propriety, do you?”
The pair walked into Teddy’s bedroom to find him laying down screaming his head off.
Metamorphmagus. The boy was very clearly a metamorphmagus. That much was obvious after Hermione approached the crib and found the boy wailing with a very cute pig nose resting where a little button nose should be.
“He’s teething,” Hermione blurted without thinking.
“Morgana’s tits, Hermione, he’s not even getting teeth yet,” Andromeda said with a more frustrated tone than Hermione was used to. The woman pushed her shoulder aside and picked up her grandson. “Hush, Teddy, my love. I know, Hermione’s face has that effect on me too.”
Hermione pulled an overly dramatic affronted look. “First off, fuck you,” Andromeda snorted. “Second, he’s teething but magic wise. His body can change into whatever he wants it to and he doesn’t know much at the moment. Teddy’s just breaking in his magic and when he’s worn himself out…”
The younger witch tapped the little wizard’s nose with her finger with a muttered finite incantatem. With a rush of magic to her fingertip, his nose went back to the adorable little button he was born with.
“He can’t fix it on his own. So, we might have to help him out occasionally.” When the younger witch finished, she was expecting Andromeda to be pissed off that she had meddled in her grandson’s life but when she looked up to meet her eyes? Well, Andromeda had raised her eyebrows to an almost comical extent. Her jaw looked like it was only kept on its hinges by pure spite. The woman could almost be mistaken for impressed.
“How did you…?” Her eyes flicked from Teddy’s now sleeping face to Hermione’s mildly smug one.
Hermione just shrugged before saying, “When Tonks said she was having a baby I sorta… Well, she had to know the basics for a metamorphmagus kid! So, I did as much research as possible when on the run.”
“You researched a niche form of baby care… on the run?”
“No I lied to you because I like being asked about things I’ve just explained.”
“Excuse me-!”
Teddy stirred in Andromeda’s arms at the raise in her voice.
Before continuing the shouting match, the pair made to leave the room. Though she was in a vindictive mood, Hermione cast a silent muffliato on the door so the poor boy wouldn’t hear them but they could hear him.
As they made their way down the stairs, a few things became very clear. One being the lack of movement in the pictures. That was why they looked so strange at first. Most of the pictures contained a young Ted and an even younger Tonks. In every photograph the family looked happy. Healthy. Alive. They finally made it to the bottom but came to a halt.
“I need a fag,” Andromeda groaned, rubbing her temples with her fingers.
“I knew you’d come around to me staying for dinner.”
“Hermione Granger, you know that is not what I meant,” Andromeda walked outside to her front porch only to have the source of stress follow her. “Do you ever take hints?”
In that moment, hand in her hair mid-brush back and eyes sharp, the witch looked dangerously beautiful. Beautiful in the way a panther was beautiful. As it stalked up to you and ripped out your jugular. Then the moment shattered when Andromeda huffed and patted the pack of menthol cigarettes against one hand multiple times.
Hermione had never really witnessed the whole process of smoking. Her parents were dentists and were very open about their dislike for tobacco products because of the damage they did to the oral ecosystem. The most she had observed was the occasional person smoking on the street. And the night at Tesco when Andromeda was taking slow, long drags. While Hermione had never indulged in that particular vice- better to rot the kidneys than the lungs- it had always intrigued her.
“Why cigarettes?”
Andromeda laughed a cold and bitter laugh. One that spoke of how tired she was, mentally, physically, all of the above. “Why memories?”
“Touché."
“Oui.”
Another drag from the cigarette. Another moment of relative silence. “Can I have one?”
Andromeda stood very still for a moment before tossing over the pack without looking.
Alright, Hermione was a quick study. She knew to hold it between the pointer and middle finger and dammit it kept moving. Where was the lighter? Should she chance using her wand?
“Helga’s hair, Hermione. Just stop,” The older witch said before taking the cancer stick from surprised fingers and poking the filter side just barely past Hermione’s lips. It hung there limply like a dead thing while she stared wide eyed at the witch in front of her.
Andromeda snubbed the one she had been working on out on the porch before bringing another one out. Putting it in her mouth, lips firmly holding it in place, she got close to Hermione and lit their cigarettes with one lighter. In one brief moment, the lighter’s flame illuminated Andromeda’s face in a way that reminded her of campfires and marshmallows. Vanilla and cigarettes. Their eyes met briefly before the older witch pulled back with a look of disinterest.
“There. Now you can stop looking like a lost puppy,” Andromeda grumbled, smoke coming out of her nose as she exhaled in irritation.
Now what?
Hermione lifted her fingers to her mouth, holding the lit cigarette, and inhaled.
“Bloody hell!” Hermione exclaimed through a coughing fit. “Are you trying to kill me? Have you gone actually mad? Merlin’s beard, Andromeda, why in Morgana’s name would you smoke these?”
A cheeky grin passed over Andromeda’s features. She gave a shrug then made a show of taking a long drag again. “Why do you drink?”
“To forget,” Hermione said without thinking. Then mentally kicked herself for saying anything. Avoiding eye contact, she traced the woodgrain of the porch.
“Self destruction is a dangerous path to go down, Miss Granger,” With her cigarette only half smoked, she snubbed it out and let out one last exhale. “I’ll be back to work tomorrow and I’m bringing Teddy.”
Hermione went to say goodbye but was met with a closed door.