Like, Oh Say, Ted Tonks

Chapter 4: Perfect Bellatrix

I told Josie about the whole Lady Lily encounter. She shook her head in fear of what I had been through. "Swot," she said. "You come across them once in awhile."

"She's not a swotty swot, though. By that I mean that she's not a pure swot. I think she was bred as one. Like the studying and proving herself as a Muggle-born witch kind of affected her brains. I could see her becoming like me, somehow."

"Sure. Keep telling yourself that, Rom," Josie pat me on the back. She looked into the fire, swirling about in the fireplace. Harmonia O'Toole was lying on the hearth bit in front of the fire, staring at the ceiling. Josie was slouched over in an armchair and I was lying on the sofa. The other two Ravenclaw seventh-year girls, Scarlett Monsworth and Hannah Lovegood, were off, snogging their burly Quidditch player boyfriends, most likely. A lazy, hazy day for the study freaks of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

"I'm sure I can get through to Lady Lily."

"Right."

Harmonia looked over at us, a silhouette in the fire. "You can't change someone who doesn't want to change," she said, blinking her dreamy blue eyes.

"Exactly! Which is why you should leave the swot alone!" Josie said to me. I clenched my teeth. Yes, the one time the Dreamer speaks, it's to my disadvantage. A classic Andromeda Black moment. Harmonia, Josie, and I sat and laid there in an awkward silence.

"I have a question, though, Jos."

"What, Andromeda?" Josie said, getting aggravated with me. What? Curious minds want to know.

"If Lady Lily is such a swot, Josephine, why is she in Gryffindor?"

"I don't know, Rom, ask the Sorting Hat or something," Josie yawned. She stretched out her slender figure and looked at her wristwatch. "I'm going to bed."

"Go right ahead. But I will find out the Enigma of Lady Lily of Gryffindor. And you, nor anyone else, can stop me."

"Good Lord, Rom, you need your head checked," Josie said, before she walked up to the dormitory, most likely questioning why she even decided to be my friend in the first place.

~

Ted and I walked to the library together one crisp morning in October. I had slowly begun to learn how to speak English in front of Ted. And every time I said a word in front of Ted, it was like a small victory. A triumph. Score one for Black!

I had learned so much about Ted as well. He was the only child of Tom and Judy Tonks. Tom was a plumber and Judy was a typical housewife, always making sure he was wearing clean underpants and cleaned behind his ears. Lucky. He got housewife-with-a-capital-H for a mum and I got a skeleton. There is no justice in the world.

In the library, we were looking through our textbooks, trying to find out how to transform a pillow into a toad (the closest we got was Ted turning it into a llama). Ted and I were laughing over the library incident. Ted said that we should turn it back into a pillow and I said we should keep it for a Ravenclaw mascot and name it Harry. We voted for my suggestion only if we could get it so Madam Pince didn't realize that there was a llama in her precious library.

An amber-eyed boy at the age of about sixteen entered the library just then and said, "Why is there a llama in the library?"

Simultaneously, Ted and I screamed, "Shh!" at the boy. Madam Pince looked our way, but luckily we had managed Harry under our table. Her hawk eyes looked about and then over towards her card catalogue instead.

"Whew," I said, wiping my brow. I beckoned for the boy to come to us. He came over obediently.

He looked at Ted and I. "Do I know you?" he said, pointing at me.

"Unless you know Andromeda Black, I don't believe so."

"You're Sirius's cousin, aren't you? The one who got attacked by Lily? I'm one of Sirius's friends." Well, that's nice, but who the hell are you?

"Ah. He has many of those. Friends, that is."

"My name's Remus Lupin. I'm one of the Marauders. You may have heard of us," he said with a lupine grin.

"You're a Marauder? But you're, like, what? Sixteen?" I asked him, incredulously.

"It comes with my...condition. I'm only fourteen, but I'm commonly mistaken for sixteen."

Remus was a good-looking boy. My eyes had a little feast until Ted looked at me, protectively. Yes, Remus was a looker (and quite one at that...yum!), but I had my Teddy.

"Why don't you call Lily Lady Lily like all of the Marauders do, apparently?" Ted asked Remus.

"Lils and I are friends."

"You're a swot?" I asked, as I stood up and slammed my chair in.

"Not...exactly. I'm shooting for prefect, but I'm not psycho about it, like Lils can be."

"Oh my God, you're a swot!" I exclaimed. Madam Pince looked at me sternly.

"No, I'm not a swot," Remus said, pointedly. I sat back down, my knees on both sides of Harry's nose. "I've been friends with Lily since before she was a swot. You may not know this, but so was Sirius."

"But Aunt Denebola would kick his arse from here to Proxima Centauri if she knew he knew a Muggle-born girl!"

"He ran away as he made visits to the Malfoy residence, because he met Carina there," Remus said, obviously thinking of better times.

"Carina? Who's Carina? Is Carina anyone that I, as Sirius's favourite cousin, should know about?" I asked Remus. He leaned back, his face deep pale. "Merlin's beard, was Carina his lover? Answer me, Remus!"

"Little bugger bit my crotch," he said, barely able to get the words out of his mouth. Ted had a half-grin on his face, bemused at the fate that befallen our new companion. I cupped my hand and put it over my smirk.

"Oh, well, um, Madam Pomfrey might have a cure for that," I said. I couldn't get the words out. It was just too funny picturing Madam Pomfrey having a cream for Remus's...oh, I'm going to laugh again if I think about it again.

"Right. Well, goodbye, Andromeda," Remus said.

"Bye, Remus."

As Remus walked out of the library, hobbled over, Ted looked at me. "Were you checking him out?"

"No," I grinned. "C'mon, Ted, he's a fourth-year, it'd be like checking out Sirius."

"Except he looks sixteen."

"You are so jealous that I find someone else than you attractive," I covered my mouth. Oh, my big mouth...my big mouth and my hormones. But Ted didn't act like this affected him at all.

"Maybe I am," he said, leaning in close to my face as he got up from his seat. He looked under the table to Harry. "D'you have a lead to put Harry on?"

"It's going to look a bit odd walking a llama around on a lead. He's not exactly a terrier, if you know what I mean."

Ted laughed and I didn't know why. That's what I told myself more and more as Ted and I became closer. I didn't know why his smirk made my stomach do a floor routine. I didn't know why he loved to run his thick fingers through my middley brown hair. I didn't know why I loved him.

I didn't know why he wasted his time with me, anyway.

~

"Fabian Prewett and I are an item!" Josie announced as I walked into the dormitory. Yes, and right in my face.

"That's nice. A bit sudden and unexpected, but nice. I have a llama I named Harry," I said, pulling on the skin on Harry's neck so we walked into the dormitory.

"That's nice too. A bit smelly and hairy, but nice."

"Aw, but Harry has a good heart. Especially since he used to be a pillow," I nodded. Josie grinned.

"I'm beginning to think that you and Ted shouldn't be left alone together if that's all you come up with," Josie said.

~

In the middle of the night before Hallowe'en, there was a large pounding noise on the door to the girls' dormitory. Josie could sleep through Guy Fawkes Day, but I was not as sound a sleeper. I opened my long-lashed eyes and walked to the door, in jimjams and all.

It was my dear sister Cissa.

"Cissa, how the hell did you get up here?"

"The password's 'Ne Atracne', isn't it?" Cissa said to me.

"Well, yeah, but how'd you figure that out?" Cissa had more brains than I gave her credit for. Amazing.

"Don't question my abilities. I got a letter from Bella."

My jaw dropped. Okay, maybe Cissa was as smart as I thought she was. "And that's why you woke me up."

"She sounds pretty upset with Mum."

"Oh, why should she be? Bella's beautiful and purifies the race of wizards! She's a true lady and can kill a bunch of Muggle-borns! What's the matter with Bella?"

Cissa bit her bottom lip. Damn her, she knew Bella better than she knew me, her good sister. "Er...have you known Bella to be the type to spend all day thinking about blokes?"

"That's her problem?" I said, disbelieving. "Mum wants her to marry and she doesn't want to? What shit."

"Andy," Cissa said, "Bella's not perfect."

"Oh, I am so sure," I said, bitingly. "And it's Andromeda."

"Josie calls you Rom."

"What do you do, just follow me?"

"I'm attentive."

I looked away, not bearing to look at Cissa's beautiful face, her blue eyes downcast. "Josie's just...Josie. She's pretty much set in stone."

"You're different around her...and Theodore," Cissa said, her beautiful falsetto at a near drawl. "Who are you, Andy?"

"Not the precious little Bella! And it's Andromeda!" I yelled. It began to get windy in the dormitory, inside. Suddenly, a new thought was born inside me and it slowly turned into assurance. This was not my Cissy at all. This was some supreme being disguised as my sister.

"Bella isn't perfect! I have one chance to make you see that, Andromeda!" This was most definitely was not my sister, because she had finally called me Andromeda.

Suddenly, Cissa was gone. I was left alone with my jimjams and my dressing gown. "Oh, my Lord, I have got to get more sleep, I'm going nutters," I told myself. I slipped into my four-poster and gently fell into slumber...