The 'I' in Family

Chapter 23: Reflections, redux

August 31, 1984

"I'm just asking her to be careful, Ted, there are still blood supremacists out there and their children will be with her."

Ted bit his lip. "But think about it, Dromeda. If, in the chance she's Sorted into Slytherin, we're taking away her education and homeschooling her. She won't make friends with anyone, because barely anyone else homeschools, and she might not have the right chances to get jobs. Not to mention the ministry wants you to take all these tests. If you wanted to homeschool her, it'd be too late."

"Ted," Andromeda said. "Nymphadora is never careful. Look at how she falls or trips over something at least three times every day. Imagine what she'd do in a place that large where some of the kids could hurt her."

"You're being too protective of her," Ted insisted.

"You're not being protective enough," Andromeda countered.

Both of them stared at each other for a long moment, silence the only sound in the air.

Eventually, though, after the moment was over, Andromeda sighed. "Maybe I could be too protective."

Ted nodded. "Good. Admitting it is the first step. Next is trying to be a bit less... protective, I guess."

Andromeda looked down. "Like it's easy," she said. "How am I supposed to know when I'm protective or not?"

"Well--" Ted began, but then sighed. "I don't know, to be honest. But this is an example. You're being so protective that on the chance she is Sorted into Slytherin you're taking her out of school, like I said. That's going overboard."

"But how is it overboard?" Andromeda asked. "I just want to make sure she's safe when she's at Hogwarts."

"And she will be," Ted said. "She can disguise herself, remember? You made sure she was able to do that. And that's not overboard. Well, not as much as this, anyway."

Andromeda raised an eyebrow. Ted raised an eyebrow back.

"Alright," Andromeda said, rolling her eyes. "I won't worry about her as much. Happy?"

Ted smiled. "She'll be just fine, Dromeda."

September 1, 1984

The next morning, the family of three was standing on the platform. Dora had given herself a blend of light and dark blue hair-- light sky blue at the top, darker as it went further down, and her hair was short today. Her eyes were their natural gray color, a trait she'd gotten from Andromeda, and she'd kept her usual nose-- the small one instead of the annoyingly large one she'd gotten from Ted.

Dora was now looking around the platform and trying to find other kids her age. She waved to a large group of redheads--apparently the Weasley family had brought the entire clan today to say goodbye. They were family friends, and Andromeda was pretty sure they were distant cousins--by marriage, of course. There were two kids coming to school this year, the oldest in his third and second oldest was starting this year. But there were seven kids in total, the youngest at three.

"Which kids are going to be in my house?" Dora wondered out loud.

"Well..." Andromeda bit her lip. "I guess that depends on which house you're in."

"What house do you think I'm going to be in?" Dora asked.

Andromeda didn't know how to answer, because she didn't know how Dora would react-- how much did she value her mother's opinion?

"Well, I could see you in any house," Ted said. "You're very brave, and you're loyal, too, and you're definitely clever. And you've got some stubbornness in you that could land you in Slytherin."

Dora was clever for her age, but probably not enough to land her in Ravenclaw. However, she seemed to have a good chance for either Hufflepuff or Gryffindor.

Andromeda told herself Dora didn't have a high chance for Slytherin.

Dora nodded, practically shaking with excitement. "I think I'm gonna go to the train, see if I can meet anyone before the compartments get too full," she said. She turned to Andromeda. "Love you, Mum."

Andromeda wrapped her daughter in a hug, and then Dora turned to her father. "Love you, Dad." She hugged Ted, too, then ran off to the train.

"She seems a bit too excited," Andromeda said as Dora ran onto the train.

"Well," Ted said, "everyone is, aren't they? Dora seems like the type of person to be over excited."

Andromeda frowned at him. "Why do you call her 'Dora'? I understand it's a nickname, but really, she makes a big deal about her name. It's not that bad."

Ted raised an eyebrow at her. "To be honest, I'm starting to wonder why I ever agreed to that name."

Andromeda rolled her eyes. It was a good name, she decided. If nobody else thought that, then who cared?

September 2, 1984

They noticed Dora's barn owl coming towards the window, and Andromeda was the one to open it.

Mum and Dad,

So far school's pretty great. I got Sorted into Hufflepuff and I met these nice girls who share a dorm with me.

Andromeda sighed in relief. "She's in Hufflepuff."

Ted grinned. "Just like her father."

Can't write too much more, I'm starting a game of Exploding Snap with the other kids. Since school won't start 'till the third we're going to get to know each other better tomorrow morning and tonight.

Love from,

Dora

"And she signed her name as Dora, too," Ted said, grinning.

Andromeda sighed, but she was smiling. "Fine then. Maybe 'Dora' isn't so bad." Andromeda frowned. "I do hope she writes often, though, because this was pretty short."

Ted laughed. "I half-expected her not to write for a whole week or something."

Andromeda nodded. "Honestly, I did too." She stood up and the owl followed her to Andromeda and Ted's room, where the owl was able to rest.

"We'll have to reply after work today," Ted said when Andromeda came back out of her room. "It's almost time to go."

Andromeda checked her watch. "You're right, we need to go," she said, rushing to the bathroom to brush her teeth.

Dora wrote twice a week, normally short letters, and some of them-- actually, a lot of them-- had grammar errors. Andromeda would correct them in her replies, and Ted always laughed whenever she did so. But he never told her to stop doing it.

In a way, Andromeda was still over-protective of her daughter, especially if Dora were to tell them about something they learned in some class that day in which if it went wrong, she could easily get hurt. Ted told her that she didn't need to be over-protective, she just needed to make sure Dora was careful.

But Ted still pointed out that being over-protective of Dora meant that she loved her.