Two Sisters Take Tea
TWO SISTERS TAKE TEA
Summary: The letter lay on the mantelpiece for a week, then two, until Andromeda finally had to admit to herself that there were no two ways about it: She was being rude. She should have the decency at least to write and decline Narcissa's invitation. (This story is now also part 5 La Ronde Noire.)
Characters: Andromeda Tonks and Narcissa Malfoy (and baby Teddy)
Warnings: None beyond what you already know from the books.
Words: 2,000
Story:
Author's Notes:
• This story is inspired by lyras' wonderful " Les Jours Tristes," in which Luna visits Narcissa Malfoy in prison after the war, and is just marvellously Luna about it all. In that story, Luna gently suggests that Narcissa pay a visit to her sister. In this story, Narcissa does.
• Also, my concept of Narcissa as the mothering one among the Blacks, looking after Regulus, is from " I Know Where the Summer Goes" by such_heights, about Sirius' last summer with his family.
• And while it's not direct inspiration for this story, I also like " Winter of Discontent" by aliciadances for its portrayal of Narcissa's worry over Regulus when he goes missing.
• And of course: Thanks to JKR for everything, but especially for Andromeda Tonks - one of my very favourite characters, even if her actual appearance in canon is limited to a single page.
Updated notes:
Although originally written as a standalone story - and I still partly think of it that way - this story now also serves as the fifth and final part of a series of interlinked stories I'm calling "La Ronde Noire." A "la ronde" is a format in which each subsequent scene follows one character from the previous scene and introduces one new one, until it eventually circles around to the first pair of characters again. These stories follow characters and themes among the Black family siblings and cousins over the years.
The five stories in chronological order are:
Part 1: " The Landlord's Other Daughter" (Narcissa and Andromeda)
Part 2: " Tea, No Sympathy" (Narcissa and Regulus)
Part 3: " Two Brothers Down a Dark Alley Sometime in 1979" (Regulus and Sirius)
Part 4: " Forget This Tapestry" (Sirius and Andromeda)
Part 5: "Two Sisters Take Tea" (Andromeda and Narcissa)
(Formerly titled "A Visit.")
. . . . .
TWO SISTERS TAKE TEA
Three days after Narcissa Malfoy was released from custody, after six months of pre-trial detainment followed by a full Wizengamot trial in which Mrs Malfoy was cleared of any wrongdoing on the strength of Harry Potter's testimony, Andromeda Tonks received a letter by owl post.
Dear Sister, it began, rather formally and in the impeccable handwriting of their youth.
I hope this letter finds you well. I myself am as well as can be expected. I am again in residence at my home in Wiltshire, putting things to order after my time away.
However, enough of this work has been undertaken already that it would be no hardship to receive guests, and I wish to enquire whether you would care to visit one afternoon for tea. If travelling with a young child is a difficulty, of course I am willing to pay a visit to your home instead.
Hoping to see you in the near future, I remain
your sister,
Narcissa Malfoy
Andromeda stared at the letter in her hand for perhaps a full minute before she thought to set it down on the mantelpiece.
Was it a joke? Narcissa didn't joke. A forgery? No. For better or worse, Andromeda would recognise her sister's handwriting anywhere.
Honestly, though, putting the house in order "after my time away"? No mention of her imprisonment, of the war, of the charges of aiding and abetting Voldemort. Well, the Blacks had always been good with euphemism.
Unwillingly, Andromeda allowed her mind to present the possibility that with both her son and husband still awaiting trial, Narcissa might actually be…lonely.
Even more impossible to imagine, perhaps Narcissa had been able to think beyond herself long enough to realise that Andromeda was too.
Then came anger: Narcissa dared write her? After decades of silence, after years of complicity with Voldemort, with Lucius, with Bellatrix - with Bellatrix who had killed Dora -
Andromeda breathed hard and sat down in the armchair next to the fireplace, gripping its arms. She would not react in anger. She would answer Narcissa or not, as she saw fit, but she would not allow herself to be dragged back into that maelstrom of blame.
She rose from the chair, brushing all thought of the letter aside like the nuisance it was, and went to see if Teddy was awake.
. . . . .
The letter lay on the mantelpiece for a week, then two, until Andromeda finally had to admit to herself that there were no two ways about it: She was being rude. She should have the decency at least to write and decline Narcissa's invitation.
She picked up the letter from the mantelpiece, and took quill and parchment to the kitchen table.
Dear Narcissa, she wrote, and then oddly what came to mind was Luna, young Luna Lovegood, who had been imprisoned in the cellar of Malfoy Manor for months together with the elderly wandmaker Ollivander.
Andromeda had finally dared to ask Luna about that time a few months later, after the initial dust of the war had settled and all their wounds were not quite so raw.
"Well, they didn't know what they were doing, did they?" Luna had said, looking back at Andromeda with those big grey eyes. "They were so frightened all the time. I felt bad for them, really, especially Draco. Your sister too, of course, but especially Draco. He never really had much choice."
Andromeda's quill stilled above the parchment. If Luna, of all people, could forgive Narcissa…
Slowly, doubting herself with every word, Andromeda wrote,
Thank you for your letter of two weeks ago. I hope my response finds you well. You are right when you say that travelling with an infant is a rather involved process, but if it suits, I would be glad to receive you at my home instead. My days are quite flexible at the moment, so perhaps you would like to suggest a date that suits you.
Your sister,
Andromeda
. . . . .
It was awful, of course.
They sat awkwardly in the sitting room, trying to make conversation, but not talking of Nymphadora or Ted or Sirius or Mother or Father or Lucius or Draco, not of Voldemort or Bellatrix or the war or the current Wizengamot trials. Not talking of anything that mattered.
Draco's trial had begun now, and Andromeda knew Narcissa was anxious, but of course she didn't say so. Instead she talked, of all things, about her plans for redecorating the drawing room at Malfoy Manor.
All in all, Andromeda suspected she and her sister would not be putting themselves through this farce a second time.
Well, fine, she thought. It was an experiment; it was attempted; it was deemed unsuccessful. Fine.
Then the auditory projection charm Andromeda always cast on the nursery when she left Teddy alone upstairs alerted her that he had woken from his nap.
"Excuse me a moment," she said to Narcissa, and went upstairs. In the nursery, she lifted Teddy from his cot, pausing just a moment to breathe in his soft scent as she lifted him up against her shoulder. "You're about to meet someone," she murmured into his hair, which at the moment was still a soft, sleepy blue.
Andromeda brought Teddy back down to the sitting room, then watched in amazement as Narcissa, ice queen from the age of five or possibly before, positively melted, softening into someone unrecognisable.
"Oh, aren't you a sweet little thing!" she cooed. Then, to Andromeda, "May I hold him?"
Wordless with surprise, Andromeda settled Teddy into her sister's arms. She watched, agape, as Narcissa bounced and cuddled a still-sleepy Teddy on her lap, murmuring nonsense words to him, and completely forgetting Andromeda and the polite conversation they had been failing to have.
Unbidden, Andromeda flashed on a memory of Narcissa as a teenager, smoothing back Regulus' hair from his anxious face and whispering to him that everything would be all right, it would be all right, while behind the closed study door, Sirius was once again in terrible trouble over something with the boys' father.
Narcissa was always like this, the mother and caretaker, Andromeda realised. Then, unwillingly, She was just born into the wrong world for it.
"Oh, I brought something for him," Narcissa said, looking up. "Here, it's in my handbag." With practised deftness, she shifted Teddy to one arm and reached with the other into the bag beside her chair, emerging again with a little plush eagle, which she placed in Teddy's outstretched hand.
"Guh!" said Teddy.
"Caw!" said the eagle and flapped its wings, rising into the air a few inches above Teddy's head.
Andromeda almost laughed in surprise. Teddy blinked and reached for the eagle, which obligingly settled back onto his hand.
"Draco had one just like it when he was your age," Narcissa informed Teddy, who was squirming with excitement on her lap, waving his arms to set the toy in motion again.
"He's a little sweetheart, isn't he?" Narcissa said, and settled Teddy and his eagle down on the blanket Andromeda had spread out in front of the fireplace for him.
Andromeda just nodded. Yes, Teddy was certainly a sweet child. And her younger sister, it seemed, was still a puzzle.
"Would you like some more tea?" Andromeda asked instead. "I'll heat more water."
When she returned from refilling the teakettle in the kitchen, she found Narcissa at the mantelpiece, studying a photograph that was one of Andromeda's favourites of herself and Ted, the one taken in the sunlight on the lawn at Hogwarts on the day of the leaving ceremony.
Andromeda remembered snubbing Narcissa that day. Narcissa had wanted to take a picture with her too, but Andromeda was impatient with her, after the two of them had had another snippy row the night before. She'd been sick of Narcissa poking around, trying to figure out what Andromeda was up to.
She'd had everything in place already by then, a secret bank account and a lease signed with Ted in London, and that afternoon on the last day at Hogwarts, she knew it was only a matter of hours before she would go home to her parents' house one last time and make the final break.
Looking at Narcissa looking at the picture, Andromeda felt a strange urge to offer some sort of explanation, whether one of anger or regret she wasn't sure. But the words caught behind the lump that filled her throat so often these days.
To her surprise, it was Narcissa who looked up guiltily, as if she'd been caught prying somewhere she shouldn't.
That's my husband, Andromeda thought. He's not exactly a secret. You're allowed to look.
Narcissa graciously accepted the proffered tea as she settled back down onto the settee. It wasn't until several minutes later that she said, "I'm sorry I didn't have a chance to know Ted better."
Andromeda looked up in surprise.
"I would say the same about you and Lucius, but then, I suppose you already knew him," Narcissa continued.
Yes, Andromeda had known Lucius, or at least known enough about him to know she despised him. As it had become horrifyingly clear that her parents planned to marry her off to the bratty scion of the Malfoy line, it had been just another reason for Andromeda to hasten her exit.
"He's been a good husband to me," Narcissa said, gazing down at her teacup, fingers curled daintily around it. "I'm well aware what you think of him, but he has always been good to me."
"And that's all that matters, is it?" Andromeda bit out before she could stop herself.
Narcissa's head snapped up, the old icy fire back in her eyes.
They stared at each other, the silence taut.
"Forgive me," Andromeda said at length. "I won't question your choices if you won't question mine."
Narcissa settled fractionally back into her chair. There was a good half minute of silence before she asked, "How was your garden this year? I assume you keep a garden?"
Andromeda thought of telling her that the garden had always been Ted's pet project, and she hadn't been able to bear planting it this year without him. Or that half the point anyway had been to have an excuse to slip fresh vegetables to Nymphadora, who never seemed to find the time to make herself proper meals.
But she didn't. "It was fine," she said.
It would always be like this, Andromeda thought. Even if Narcissa did visit again - and now, having seen her with Teddy, Andromeda thought she might actually do so - and even if they did find their way to being the sort of not-quite-estranged relatives who exchanged cards at Christmas or occasional birthdays, even so they would never again be the sisters who had giggled together after their parents' strictly enforced lights-out.
Narcissa would always be the one who had chosen to tie her life to Lucius Malfoy's, and who would accept any amount of evil for the sake of that love. And Andromeda would always be the one who left for love, and could and would never go back.
That knowledge made it both easier and harder, somehow, to nod politely as Narcissa prattled on about inconsequential things, sipping tea in Andromeda's sitting room like a strange corporeal ghost from another life.
There would be no teary reconciliations - not that Andromeda had expected there to be - nor would anything suddenly change, just because everything had changed.
Sensing Andromeda's distraction, Narcissa made a show of glancing at her watch then saying, with just the right note of regret in her voice, "I really must be going." She bent gracefully to ruffle Teddy's hair, which turned a happy yellow as he grinned up at her.
"I'll show you to the door," Andromeda said.
Once at the front door, Narcissa turned back and said, "It was a lovely visit." She seemed even to mean it. "I realise it's not easy to Floo around the country with a small child, but if you would ever like to pay a visit to the manor, you are welcome."
"All right," Andromeda said. "Perhaps I will."
And who could say what the next months might bring? Perhaps she would.
. . . . .
The End
(Note: All my Andromeda stories easily accessible in one place: here.)
Summary: The letter lay on the mantelpiece for a week, then two, until Andromeda finally had to admit to herself that there were no two ways about it: She was being rude. She should have the decency at least to write and decline Narcissa's invitation. (This story is now also part 5 La Ronde Noire.)
Characters: Andromeda Tonks and Narcissa Malfoy (and baby Teddy)
Warnings: None beyond what you already know from the books.
Words: 2,000
Story:
Author's Notes:
• This story is inspired by lyras' wonderful " Les Jours Tristes," in which Luna visits Narcissa Malfoy in prison after the war, and is just marvellously Luna about it all. In that story, Luna gently suggests that Narcissa pay a visit to her sister. In this story, Narcissa does.
• Also, my concept of Narcissa as the mothering one among the Blacks, looking after Regulus, is from " I Know Where the Summer Goes" by such_heights, about Sirius' last summer with his family.
• And while it's not direct inspiration for this story, I also like " Winter of Discontent" by aliciadances for its portrayal of Narcissa's worry over Regulus when he goes missing.
• And of course: Thanks to JKR for everything, but especially for Andromeda Tonks - one of my very favourite characters, even if her actual appearance in canon is limited to a single page.
Updated notes:
Although originally written as a standalone story - and I still partly think of it that way - this story now also serves as the fifth and final part of a series of interlinked stories I'm calling "La Ronde Noire." A "la ronde" is a format in which each subsequent scene follows one character from the previous scene and introduces one new one, until it eventually circles around to the first pair of characters again. These stories follow characters and themes among the Black family siblings and cousins over the years.
The five stories in chronological order are:
Part 1: " The Landlord's Other Daughter" (Narcissa and Andromeda)
Part 2: " Tea, No Sympathy" (Narcissa and Regulus)
Part 3: " Two Brothers Down a Dark Alley Sometime in 1979" (Regulus and Sirius)
Part 4: " Forget This Tapestry" (Sirius and Andromeda)
Part 5: "Two Sisters Take Tea" (Andromeda and Narcissa)
(Formerly titled "A Visit.")
. . . . .
TWO SISTERS TAKE TEA
Three days after Narcissa Malfoy was released from custody, after six months of pre-trial detainment followed by a full Wizengamot trial in which Mrs Malfoy was cleared of any wrongdoing on the strength of Harry Potter's testimony, Andromeda Tonks received a letter by owl post.
Dear Sister, it began, rather formally and in the impeccable handwriting of their youth.
I hope this letter finds you well. I myself am as well as can be expected. I am again in residence at my home in Wiltshire, putting things to order after my time away.
However, enough of this work has been undertaken already that it would be no hardship to receive guests, and I wish to enquire whether you would care to visit one afternoon for tea. If travelling with a young child is a difficulty, of course I am willing to pay a visit to your home instead.
Hoping to see you in the near future, I remain
your sister,
Narcissa Malfoy
Andromeda stared at the letter in her hand for perhaps a full minute before she thought to set it down on the mantelpiece.
Was it a joke? Narcissa didn't joke. A forgery? No. For better or worse, Andromeda would recognise her sister's handwriting anywhere.
Honestly, though, putting the house in order "after my time away"? No mention of her imprisonment, of the war, of the charges of aiding and abetting Voldemort. Well, the Blacks had always been good with euphemism.
Unwillingly, Andromeda allowed her mind to present the possibility that with both her son and husband still awaiting trial, Narcissa might actually be…lonely.
Even more impossible to imagine, perhaps Narcissa had been able to think beyond herself long enough to realise that Andromeda was too.
Then came anger: Narcissa dared write her? After decades of silence, after years of complicity with Voldemort, with Lucius, with Bellatrix - with Bellatrix who had killed Dora -
Andromeda breathed hard and sat down in the armchair next to the fireplace, gripping its arms. She would not react in anger. She would answer Narcissa or not, as she saw fit, but she would not allow herself to be dragged back into that maelstrom of blame.
She rose from the chair, brushing all thought of the letter aside like the nuisance it was, and went to see if Teddy was awake.
. . . . .
The letter lay on the mantelpiece for a week, then two, until Andromeda finally had to admit to herself that there were no two ways about it: She was being rude. She should have the decency at least to write and decline Narcissa's invitation.
She picked up the letter from the mantelpiece, and took quill and parchment to the kitchen table.
Dear Narcissa, she wrote, and then oddly what came to mind was Luna, young Luna Lovegood, who had been imprisoned in the cellar of Malfoy Manor for months together with the elderly wandmaker Ollivander.
Andromeda had finally dared to ask Luna about that time a few months later, after the initial dust of the war had settled and all their wounds were not quite so raw.
"Well, they didn't know what they were doing, did they?" Luna had said, looking back at Andromeda with those big grey eyes. "They were so frightened all the time. I felt bad for them, really, especially Draco. Your sister too, of course, but especially Draco. He never really had much choice."
Andromeda's quill stilled above the parchment. If Luna, of all people, could forgive Narcissa…
Slowly, doubting herself with every word, Andromeda wrote,
Thank you for your letter of two weeks ago. I hope my response finds you well. You are right when you say that travelling with an infant is a rather involved process, but if it suits, I would be glad to receive you at my home instead. My days are quite flexible at the moment, so perhaps you would like to suggest a date that suits you.
Your sister,
Andromeda
. . . . .
It was awful, of course.
They sat awkwardly in the sitting room, trying to make conversation, but not talking of Nymphadora or Ted or Sirius or Mother or Father or Lucius or Draco, not of Voldemort or Bellatrix or the war or the current Wizengamot trials. Not talking of anything that mattered.
Draco's trial had begun now, and Andromeda knew Narcissa was anxious, but of course she didn't say so. Instead she talked, of all things, about her plans for redecorating the drawing room at Malfoy Manor.
All in all, Andromeda suspected she and her sister would not be putting themselves through this farce a second time.
Well, fine, she thought. It was an experiment; it was attempted; it was deemed unsuccessful. Fine.
Then the auditory projection charm Andromeda always cast on the nursery when she left Teddy alone upstairs alerted her that he had woken from his nap.
"Excuse me a moment," she said to Narcissa, and went upstairs. In the nursery, she lifted Teddy from his cot, pausing just a moment to breathe in his soft scent as she lifted him up against her shoulder. "You're about to meet someone," she murmured into his hair, which at the moment was still a soft, sleepy blue.
Andromeda brought Teddy back down to the sitting room, then watched in amazement as Narcissa, ice queen from the age of five or possibly before, positively melted, softening into someone unrecognisable.
"Oh, aren't you a sweet little thing!" she cooed. Then, to Andromeda, "May I hold him?"
Wordless with surprise, Andromeda settled Teddy into her sister's arms. She watched, agape, as Narcissa bounced and cuddled a still-sleepy Teddy on her lap, murmuring nonsense words to him, and completely forgetting Andromeda and the polite conversation they had been failing to have.
Unbidden, Andromeda flashed on a memory of Narcissa as a teenager, smoothing back Regulus' hair from his anxious face and whispering to him that everything would be all right, it would be all right, while behind the closed study door, Sirius was once again in terrible trouble over something with the boys' father.
Narcissa was always like this, the mother and caretaker, Andromeda realised. Then, unwillingly, She was just born into the wrong world for it.
"Oh, I brought something for him," Narcissa said, looking up. "Here, it's in my handbag." With practised deftness, she shifted Teddy to one arm and reached with the other into the bag beside her chair, emerging again with a little plush eagle, which she placed in Teddy's outstretched hand.
"Guh!" said Teddy.
"Caw!" said the eagle and flapped its wings, rising into the air a few inches above Teddy's head.
Andromeda almost laughed in surprise. Teddy blinked and reached for the eagle, which obligingly settled back onto his hand.
"Draco had one just like it when he was your age," Narcissa informed Teddy, who was squirming with excitement on her lap, waving his arms to set the toy in motion again.
"He's a little sweetheart, isn't he?" Narcissa said, and settled Teddy and his eagle down on the blanket Andromeda had spread out in front of the fireplace for him.
Andromeda just nodded. Yes, Teddy was certainly a sweet child. And her younger sister, it seemed, was still a puzzle.
"Would you like some more tea?" Andromeda asked instead. "I'll heat more water."
When she returned from refilling the teakettle in the kitchen, she found Narcissa at the mantelpiece, studying a photograph that was one of Andromeda's favourites of herself and Ted, the one taken in the sunlight on the lawn at Hogwarts on the day of the leaving ceremony.
Andromeda remembered snubbing Narcissa that day. Narcissa had wanted to take a picture with her too, but Andromeda was impatient with her, after the two of them had had another snippy row the night before. She'd been sick of Narcissa poking around, trying to figure out what Andromeda was up to.
She'd had everything in place already by then, a secret bank account and a lease signed with Ted in London, and that afternoon on the last day at Hogwarts, she knew it was only a matter of hours before she would go home to her parents' house one last time and make the final break.
Looking at Narcissa looking at the picture, Andromeda felt a strange urge to offer some sort of explanation, whether one of anger or regret she wasn't sure. But the words caught behind the lump that filled her throat so often these days.
To her surprise, it was Narcissa who looked up guiltily, as if she'd been caught prying somewhere she shouldn't.
That's my husband, Andromeda thought. He's not exactly a secret. You're allowed to look.
Narcissa graciously accepted the proffered tea as she settled back down onto the settee. It wasn't until several minutes later that she said, "I'm sorry I didn't have a chance to know Ted better."
Andromeda looked up in surprise.
"I would say the same about you and Lucius, but then, I suppose you already knew him," Narcissa continued.
Yes, Andromeda had known Lucius, or at least known enough about him to know she despised him. As it had become horrifyingly clear that her parents planned to marry her off to the bratty scion of the Malfoy line, it had been just another reason for Andromeda to hasten her exit.
"He's been a good husband to me," Narcissa said, gazing down at her teacup, fingers curled daintily around it. "I'm well aware what you think of him, but he has always been good to me."
"And that's all that matters, is it?" Andromeda bit out before she could stop herself.
Narcissa's head snapped up, the old icy fire back in her eyes.
They stared at each other, the silence taut.
"Forgive me," Andromeda said at length. "I won't question your choices if you won't question mine."
Narcissa settled fractionally back into her chair. There was a good half minute of silence before she asked, "How was your garden this year? I assume you keep a garden?"
Andromeda thought of telling her that the garden had always been Ted's pet project, and she hadn't been able to bear planting it this year without him. Or that half the point anyway had been to have an excuse to slip fresh vegetables to Nymphadora, who never seemed to find the time to make herself proper meals.
But she didn't. "It was fine," she said.
It would always be like this, Andromeda thought. Even if Narcissa did visit again - and now, having seen her with Teddy, Andromeda thought she might actually do so - and even if they did find their way to being the sort of not-quite-estranged relatives who exchanged cards at Christmas or occasional birthdays, even so they would never again be the sisters who had giggled together after their parents' strictly enforced lights-out.
Narcissa would always be the one who had chosen to tie her life to Lucius Malfoy's, and who would accept any amount of evil for the sake of that love. And Andromeda would always be the one who left for love, and could and would never go back.
That knowledge made it both easier and harder, somehow, to nod politely as Narcissa prattled on about inconsequential things, sipping tea in Andromeda's sitting room like a strange corporeal ghost from another life.
There would be no teary reconciliations - not that Andromeda had expected there to be - nor would anything suddenly change, just because everything had changed.
Sensing Andromeda's distraction, Narcissa made a show of glancing at her watch then saying, with just the right note of regret in her voice, "I really must be going." She bent gracefully to ruffle Teddy's hair, which turned a happy yellow as he grinned up at her.
"I'll show you to the door," Andromeda said.
Once at the front door, Narcissa turned back and said, "It was a lovely visit." She seemed even to mean it. "I realise it's not easy to Floo around the country with a small child, but if you would ever like to pay a visit to the manor, you are welcome."
"All right," Andromeda said. "Perhaps I will."
And who could say what the next months might bring? Perhaps she would.
. . . . .
The End
(Note: All my Andromeda stories easily accessible in one place: here.)