Falling Slowly: A Tedromeda Fanfiction

Chapter One

*I don't own these characters or Harry Potter*

Andromeda felt her shaking hand push open the door, the other hand holding tight to
the small ring on her necklace. She had been in love before, that much was true. Although, Andromeda was sure love wasn't supposed to rip you from the ones you loved, even if that love wasn't something they had approved of.

She was young, a newly trained healer, freshly out of Hogwarts. Everyone thought her perfect, but her family thought she was far from it.

Surely a Pureblood Witch like herself would marry into a Pureblood line. Surely she wouldn't "make the wrong decision" as some would say. But Andromeda was not one for fitting into the box, unlike her little sister.

She had thought her family mad, from the day she realized that she did not fit into that box. You weren't supposed to hate people for something they could not control. Ted had told her that much, and she herself had too. No, she had fallen for one that could not control what he had been dealt.

It had been a sunny afternoon in the middle of March. She was in her sixth year and she was "on the right track" as her parents had said. Little did they know their daughter had sailed into their worst nightmare.

She had fallen in love slowly, her attention grabbed by the sheer embarrassment that he had caused himself by tripping down the last three steps going from the fourth floor corridor. She had been the only person to not laugh, instead she had been intrigued. Who would fall down those steps? No one ever had. She had walked over to him, gave him a helping hand to stand up and had nodded when he had thanked her, but said nothing and went on her way. She was sure she would never have to come in contact with him again.

It was two weeks later that he had sat down right beside her at the Slytherin table at lunch one afternoon. Her eyes had gone wide as he had started spooning soup into his mouth.

A few of the Slytherins had scoffed and stood from their spot at the table and had walked away.

"What's their problem?" Ted had asked, not looking up at Andromeda.

"What are you doing?" Andromeda had asked back in concern. "You don't sit here."

She looked back and forth down the table, hoping her younger sister hadn't made it to lunch or even luckier, she had already eaten and waltzed off to her Defense Against The Dark Arts class with Professor Blubber. "You can't sit here, Edward."

"Why not? Other Hufflepuff's sit here all the time." He slurped his soup loudly and she went stiff. This was true, but none of them were muggleborn.

"Just... Edward, please-"

"Ted- it's just Ted."

Andromeda's lip turns into a curl. "But Edward is such a nice name."

He laughs.

Andromeda smiles softly. "I didn't mean harm telling you you couldn't sit here... I-I just-"
"You can't afford for your reputation to be squashed? Because I'm a muggle born. I get it. You come from a long line of Pureblood witches and wizards."

"Ted- that's not-How did you-?" Andromeda sighs and stares suddenly at the entrance to the Great Hall. "You need to go... now... please."
"'Dromeda..." Ted looks up at her.

She looks at him and scribbles something on a piece of parchment. "Meet me here at this time. I'll explain why this-us can't happen, yeah?"

Ted takes the parchment from her and reads it, shaking his head. "Fine- yeah." He stands from his spot at the table, leaving his food and walking past Narcissa who had just arrived at the table.

"What did the muggleborn want? Fell down the stairs again?" Ted overheard the blonde say to her sister, Lucius Malfoy, by her side.

Andromeda was pulled to the present as she opened the gate to the Black Estate. This had been her home for seventeen years now, a place she had called her 'safe place'; but that was all gone now. Her father had yelled at her to get out, to leave the house at once.

She was to not bring anything with her, except for the clothes on her back. She would never see her mother again. She would never see her sisters again and for the first time since she had given her family the sheer hint that she was in love with a muggleborn, she felt a tear fall down her cheek.

Yes, she had gained so much from meeting Ted; but no one asked her how it felt losing all of your biological family due to their terrible morals. 'Maybe it's a blessing,' Andromeda thought, 'If I had stayed there, I may have lived an unhappy life like Narcissa was on the road to.'

This was the day that changed Andromeda Black's life.