HP: Pandora's Box [053 - Earth]
Aug. 14th, 2006 11:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
runespoorTitle: Pandora's Box
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
runespoor7
Prompt: 053 - Earth
Characters/Pairings: Andromeda, Ted (Andromeda/Ted)
Rating: PG-13
Words: 2000
Summary: The Muggles obviously have a Secret. Andromeda's mission is to retrieve it.
Notes: mild crack.
When Andromeda Black rang on Edward M. Tonks' doorstep, on the coldest night of the year, it was not out of pure, untainted love.It was not, actually, out of any kind of love at all. It was entirely her family's fault, of course, but it generally was the case, so that piece of information was of pretty little use.
All the purebloods of the kingdom were enjoying a grand 2nd January home, and she had to go gallivanting because the Blacks had got it into their crazy minds to Know Their Enemies, i.e. Muggle-borns. And of course, Regulus had to tell them Tonks had it bad for her, the snotty little brat. Thus she was being sent as a spy, with only one piece of instructions – get the Muggles' Secret.
Ignorant in the ways of such inferior beings as she was, she nevertheless doubted that their continued existence had anything to do with any secret, capitalised or otherwise.
If there was any secret, it resided into their unbelievable propensity to breed. Just like vermin.
She was at that phase of her inner rant when the door opened, revealing the Ravenclaw goody-two-shoe extraordinaire in all his crowning glory of unkempt hair.
"Hello, what can I – B-Black?"
Bewildered was a good look on him, but then again she'd known it for years.
Now, according to her instructions, she was supposed to act heartbroken and timid, because her family had supposedly turned her out in the streets. Not that far from the truth, except that in the factual version she was furious that she hadn't got to have her say. She'd argued that she was hardly the only one on whom impertinent Mudbloods had crushes, but to no avail. Apparently her poor NEWTs justified this horrid punishment.
She grabbed all of her haughtiness and forged it into a sharp sneer, hurling it at Tonks as a sort of lethal weapon.
"Hi, Tonks. Care to let me in?"
Mudbloods and their ridiculous carelessness, she thought, disgusted, as he mutely stepped aside, jaw still dropped, eyes widened. If all Death Eaters had to do was to show up and greet their victims to be allowed entrance to the house, it was of little wonder that this many people were found dead. Had he never heard of protective shields, and disabling frontiers, and non-aggression vows, or what?
"B-Black, b-b-but w-what are you doing here?"
If he was going to stammer out every sentence, this would get really old, really fast.
She gracefully dropped on the oldest sofa she'd ever laid eyes upon. (This was likely a misconstruing, as the Blacks' furniture was generations old. But it didn't look the part, while this sofa had, according to all probabilities, been an active member of the Goblin Rebellions. It was the only way it could have taken that much damage.) It emitted a loud spring noise. She didn't allow it to spoil her effect.
"I was turned out on the streets and have nowhere to go," she recited with a bored tone that would have made Abraxas Malfoy, the King of Blasé, rethink his appreciation of her. "Can I please stay here for the night before I can contact Evan?"
Evan Rosier was one of her best friends. It would make sense that she'd call him for help – and, as the Blacks would have doubtlessly written him about their cunning plan, he'd cover up for her.
And hopefully it wouldn't take more than a night for her to come up with a decent lie to satisfy her family.
"Yes, of course – stay as long as you want – b-but why?"
"I turned Aunt Elladora into an inkpot."
Tonks blinked.
"My parents weren't happy with me," Andromeda explicated. She had to make things very clear, if they had to be grasped by his simple brain.
"Didn't they know you didn't mean to?"
Andromeda stared. Where did that come from?... How could even Tonks' basic understanding misinterpret things that way?
"You're pants at Transfiguration."
She scowled. Tonks stared.
"Can I have a drink?" she snarled. Far from timid, her tone was bordering on the demanding.
He shook off his trance. "Wha – oh, right." He walked the few feet that separated him from what Andromeda now realised with growing horror must be the kitchen. It didn't look like a proper kitchen should. For one, there was no wall between it and the place where Andromeda was sitting – she hoped she was wrong in thinking it played the part of a living room.
Opening a tiny cupboard, he peered inside. From were she was, not only did it look to be empty, it also looked as if it wasn't any bigger than the strict outside. Once more, she cursed Muggles and Muggle-borns on their stupidity and regretted she couldn't go literal.
"Er. I have coffee, or-" he peered deeper into the sadly finite darkness of the sinister cupboard, "-coffee, actually." He hopefully turned toward her. "You like coffee?"
Andromeda was seized by the urge to kick helpless puppies in the gut before bathing in their blood. She couldn't be too obnoxious with him, as even Tonks must have a spine. Well-hidden. Somewhere. Probably.
"Yes," she frostily replied. A few metaphorical icicles broke and melt in front of the beam that illuminated Tonks' face.
He hurriedly put – something that looked like a cauldron with a handle – on – something else that he lit – she saw the small flames licking the metal of the container. Yet she hadn't seen him take out his wand. Muggle device or Ravenclaw-designed gadget, she deduced. In any case, it was of little importance; why didn't he just use magic? Then he noisily retrieved a beige mug from another, equally tiny cupboard, and set it on the bar that divided the two parts of the room.
Then he stared at her.
The black-haired girl shifted uneasily in her seat. Damn, that had been embarrassing enough when she'd thought she was the only one who realised he had it for her. Now she knew her entire family was well-aware of the fact, it was even worse. …Why couldn't he have been a nice Muggle-born and fallen in love with one of his peers? This situation was painful for everyone involved.
The silence and the staring were making her strangely tense. It was annoying, as Andromeda Black was as a rule never nervous. Of course, all tasks she faced at Hogwarts or at home, she'd been prepared for. She knew how to deflate an oversized ego, how to infuriate a teacher without fear of retribution, how to behave in front of the Minister. Nothing in her upbringing could help her in her dealing with a lovesick Muggle-born in a shabby Muggle flat.
Flat.
"Oh, so, how come you live here?" she cast around for straws. "You're – on your own?"
He nodded.
"Yeah – my parents are in India, and my sister's living in France."
Andromeda frowned. "In India? They didn't bring you for the holidays?" It must be some long vacation, she mused, if he had his own apartment for as long as it lasted. The logic eluded her; maybe it was some Muggle thing. Of course, the Black family prided itself on never having left the English soil since Hogwarts' foundation.
Tonks burst into laughter.
She raised her eyebrows.
"No! No, it's not for the holidays. They're working there. They're diplomats," he explained.
"Oh."
She accepted his answer without further interrogation. It wasn't that she didn't know what he was talking about, but she didn't care one bit about Tonks' family.
Once more, she found herself at a loss of what to say as he gazed at her with stars in his eyes. It was more than a little disturbing. Being used to other purebloods' admiration was one thing; this – grotesque show of devotion was quite another.
Her eyes moved from side to side. She was not looking for an escape, of course. She was looking for a safe topic. Something that would allow him to prattle on, as a Ravenclaw was wont to do, while she devoted herself to the invention of a plausible lie to tell her blood kin.
A big black cube attracted her attention. Its front surface was glassy and dark. She'd never seen the like of it, and couldn't imagine what purpose it may possibly serve.
"Here – what's it?" she wildly gestured at it.
Tonks' eyes followed the direction she was pointing at.
"A T.V. set."
If Andromeda hadn't been desperately searching for a way to make him talk, she'd have left the subject alone. She didn't care about how Muggle things worked. She didn't even care about how wizarding things worked, as long as they did
"It's Muggle?... What does it do?"
Tonks half-smiled – screwing up his eyes in a way she'd come to recognise with the years.
"Here – let me show you."
He walked up to the thing – a teevee set, Andromeda repeated in her mind to make sure she'd got it right, what a curiously meaningless name – crouched in front on it, and, almost instantly, the thing sprung to life.
The witch jumped from her seat with a high-pitched squeak.
Tonks was laughing.
The glassy surface was now animated, full of small people jibbering and chattering – like a portrait or a photograph, but more so.
"Oh Merlin – it's a portrait! I didn't know Muggles had real portraits! But who are those people? And, and why didn't it do anything before? How can you stop it – where has the black curtain gone?"
Distressed and annoyed, she eyed the Muggle-born, wordlessly commanding him to answer her questions at once. He was sprawled on the floor, his chestnut hair more anarchic than ever, gasping for breath, occasionally slamming his fist on the floor. He was laughing so hard he wasn't making any sound. His face had flushed to a most unbecoming hue of pink.
"Answer me! Who are these people? This woman, with the green dress and-" Andromeda's jaw dropped. The figures on the Muggle portrait thingie had changed. Not only that – the scenery itself had changed. Instead of a Muggle apartment, the picture was now that of a dimly lit street. "How – what – there are more than one portrait in that thing?"
Tonks' hilarity began anew.
But now, it mattered little to Andromeda, who was too busy staring at the teevee as if it held the formula to the Philosopher's Stone to pay any sort of attention to any of her surroundings.
Now, it was showing a landscape of high, rocky, snowy mountains. Her breath caught in her chest.
*
Andromeda never made it back to the family's secluded house. She wrote regular letters, giving fallacious accounts of her imaginary investigation, explaining that she hadn't yet found the Muggles' Secret and that she was forced to prolong her stay at Tonks'.
One night, when they laid side by side, after Andromeda had torn herself from her beloved TV to engage in reciprocal activities with an impatient Tonks, he asked her why her family believed Muggles had a secret.
"I mean," Tonks, who was a wide-eyed journalist whose cynicism could see through things Andromeda herself would never have suspected in the first place, mused "Muggles governments have the nuclear bombs, the tendency to see communist and/or capitalist plots where there are just really stupid people, and more credibility than is decent, but I fail to see how any of this could be construed as a Secret that would somehow elucidate the persistence of Muggleness."
"You don't have to be that wordy now that you've seduced me, you know that?" Andromeda enquired.
Tonks smiled a smile that would have been called a smirk on anyone else.
"You like it when I'm wordy," he said as if it explained everything, with a smugness that it had taken her months to detect.
"Besides, Muggles do have a secret," Andromeda made a point of pretending she hadn't heard his previous comment.
"They do?"
Now he sounded intrigued.
"Yes." Andromeda smiled. "A window on the world."
Author:
runespoor7Prompt: 053 - Earth
Characters/Pairings: Andromeda, Ted (Andromeda/Ted)
Rating: PG-13
Words: 2000
Summary: The Muggles obviously have a Secret. Andromeda's mission is to retrieve it.
Notes: mild crack.
When Andromeda Black rang on Edward M. Tonks' doorstep, on the coldest night of the year, it was not out of pure, untainted love.It was not, actually, out of any kind of love at all. It was entirely her family's fault, of course, but it generally was the case, so that piece of information was of pretty little use.
All the purebloods of the kingdom were enjoying a grand 2nd January home, and she had to go gallivanting because the Blacks had got it into their crazy minds to Know Their Enemies, i.e. Muggle-borns. And of course, Regulus had to tell them Tonks had it bad for her, the snotty little brat. Thus she was being sent as a spy, with only one piece of instructions – get the Muggles' Secret.
Ignorant in the ways of such inferior beings as she was, she nevertheless doubted that their continued existence had anything to do with any secret, capitalised or otherwise.
If there was any secret, it resided into their unbelievable propensity to breed. Just like vermin.
She was at that phase of her inner rant when the door opened, revealing the Ravenclaw goody-two-shoe extraordinaire in all his crowning glory of unkempt hair.
"Hello, what can I – B-Black?"
Bewildered was a good look on him, but then again she'd known it for years.
Now, according to her instructions, she was supposed to act heartbroken and timid, because her family had supposedly turned her out in the streets. Not that far from the truth, except that in the factual version she was furious that she hadn't got to have her say. She'd argued that she was hardly the only one on whom impertinent Mudbloods had crushes, but to no avail. Apparently her poor NEWTs justified this horrid punishment.
She grabbed all of her haughtiness and forged it into a sharp sneer, hurling it at Tonks as a sort of lethal weapon.
"Hi, Tonks. Care to let me in?"
Mudbloods and their ridiculous carelessness, she thought, disgusted, as he mutely stepped aside, jaw still dropped, eyes widened. If all Death Eaters had to do was to show up and greet their victims to be allowed entrance to the house, it was of little wonder that this many people were found dead. Had he never heard of protective shields, and disabling frontiers, and non-aggression vows, or what?
"B-Black, b-b-but w-what are you doing here?"
If he was going to stammer out every sentence, this would get really old, really fast.
She gracefully dropped on the oldest sofa she'd ever laid eyes upon. (This was likely a misconstruing, as the Blacks' furniture was generations old. But it didn't look the part, while this sofa had, according to all probabilities, been an active member of the Goblin Rebellions. It was the only way it could have taken that much damage.) It emitted a loud spring noise. She didn't allow it to spoil her effect.
"I was turned out on the streets and have nowhere to go," she recited with a bored tone that would have made Abraxas Malfoy, the King of Blasé, rethink his appreciation of her. "Can I please stay here for the night before I can contact Evan?"
Evan Rosier was one of her best friends. It would make sense that she'd call him for help – and, as the Blacks would have doubtlessly written him about their cunning plan, he'd cover up for her.
And hopefully it wouldn't take more than a night for her to come up with a decent lie to satisfy her family.
"Yes, of course – stay as long as you want – b-but why?"
"I turned Aunt Elladora into an inkpot."
Tonks blinked.
"My parents weren't happy with me," Andromeda explicated. She had to make things very clear, if they had to be grasped by his simple brain.
"Didn't they know you didn't mean to?"
Andromeda stared. Where did that come from?... How could even Tonks' basic understanding misinterpret things that way?
"You're pants at Transfiguration."
She scowled. Tonks stared.
"Can I have a drink?" she snarled. Far from timid, her tone was bordering on the demanding.
He shook off his trance. "Wha – oh, right." He walked the few feet that separated him from what Andromeda now realised with growing horror must be the kitchen. It didn't look like a proper kitchen should. For one, there was no wall between it and the place where Andromeda was sitting – she hoped she was wrong in thinking it played the part of a living room.
Opening a tiny cupboard, he peered inside. From were she was, not only did it look to be empty, it also looked as if it wasn't any bigger than the strict outside. Once more, she cursed Muggles and Muggle-borns on their stupidity and regretted she couldn't go literal.
"Er. I have coffee, or-" he peered deeper into the sadly finite darkness of the sinister cupboard, "-coffee, actually." He hopefully turned toward her. "You like coffee?"
Andromeda was seized by the urge to kick helpless puppies in the gut before bathing in their blood. She couldn't be too obnoxious with him, as even Tonks must have a spine. Well-hidden. Somewhere. Probably.
"Yes," she frostily replied. A few metaphorical icicles broke and melt in front of the beam that illuminated Tonks' face.
He hurriedly put – something that looked like a cauldron with a handle – on – something else that he lit – she saw the small flames licking the metal of the container. Yet she hadn't seen him take out his wand. Muggle device or Ravenclaw-designed gadget, she deduced. In any case, it was of little importance; why didn't he just use magic? Then he noisily retrieved a beige mug from another, equally tiny cupboard, and set it on the bar that divided the two parts of the room.
Then he stared at her.
The black-haired girl shifted uneasily in her seat. Damn, that had been embarrassing enough when she'd thought she was the only one who realised he had it for her. Now she knew her entire family was well-aware of the fact, it was even worse. …Why couldn't he have been a nice Muggle-born and fallen in love with one of his peers? This situation was painful for everyone involved.
The silence and the staring were making her strangely tense. It was annoying, as Andromeda Black was as a rule never nervous. Of course, all tasks she faced at Hogwarts or at home, she'd been prepared for. She knew how to deflate an oversized ego, how to infuriate a teacher without fear of retribution, how to behave in front of the Minister. Nothing in her upbringing could help her in her dealing with a lovesick Muggle-born in a shabby Muggle flat.
Flat.
"Oh, so, how come you live here?" she cast around for straws. "You're – on your own?"
He nodded.
"Yeah – my parents are in India, and my sister's living in France."
Andromeda frowned. "In India? They didn't bring you for the holidays?" It must be some long vacation, she mused, if he had his own apartment for as long as it lasted. The logic eluded her; maybe it was some Muggle thing. Of course, the Black family prided itself on never having left the English soil since Hogwarts' foundation.
Tonks burst into laughter.
She raised her eyebrows.
"No! No, it's not for the holidays. They're working there. They're diplomats," he explained.
"Oh."
She accepted his answer without further interrogation. It wasn't that she didn't know what he was talking about, but she didn't care one bit about Tonks' family.
Once more, she found herself at a loss of what to say as he gazed at her with stars in his eyes. It was more than a little disturbing. Being used to other purebloods' admiration was one thing; this – grotesque show of devotion was quite another.
Her eyes moved from side to side. She was not looking for an escape, of course. She was looking for a safe topic. Something that would allow him to prattle on, as a Ravenclaw was wont to do, while she devoted herself to the invention of a plausible lie to tell her blood kin.
A big black cube attracted her attention. Its front surface was glassy and dark. She'd never seen the like of it, and couldn't imagine what purpose it may possibly serve.
"Here – what's it?" she wildly gestured at it.
Tonks' eyes followed the direction she was pointing at.
"A T.V. set."
If Andromeda hadn't been desperately searching for a way to make him talk, she'd have left the subject alone. She didn't care about how Muggle things worked. She didn't even care about how wizarding things worked, as long as they did
"It's Muggle?... What does it do?"
Tonks half-smiled – screwing up his eyes in a way she'd come to recognise with the years.
"Here – let me show you."
He walked up to the thing – a teevee set, Andromeda repeated in her mind to make sure she'd got it right, what a curiously meaningless name – crouched in front on it, and, almost instantly, the thing sprung to life.
The witch jumped from her seat with a high-pitched squeak.
Tonks was laughing.
The glassy surface was now animated, full of small people jibbering and chattering – like a portrait or a photograph, but more so.
"Oh Merlin – it's a portrait! I didn't know Muggles had real portraits! But who are those people? And, and why didn't it do anything before? How can you stop it – where has the black curtain gone?"
Distressed and annoyed, she eyed the Muggle-born, wordlessly commanding him to answer her questions at once. He was sprawled on the floor, his chestnut hair more anarchic than ever, gasping for breath, occasionally slamming his fist on the floor. He was laughing so hard he wasn't making any sound. His face had flushed to a most unbecoming hue of pink.
"Answer me! Who are these people? This woman, with the green dress and-" Andromeda's jaw dropped. The figures on the Muggle portrait thingie had changed. Not only that – the scenery itself had changed. Instead of a Muggle apartment, the picture was now that of a dimly lit street. "How – what – there are more than one portrait in that thing?"
Tonks' hilarity began anew.
But now, it mattered little to Andromeda, who was too busy staring at the teevee as if it held the formula to the Philosopher's Stone to pay any sort of attention to any of her surroundings.
Now, it was showing a landscape of high, rocky, snowy mountains. Her breath caught in her chest.
*
Andromeda never made it back to the family's secluded house. She wrote regular letters, giving fallacious accounts of her imaginary investigation, explaining that she hadn't yet found the Muggles' Secret and that she was forced to prolong her stay at Tonks'.
One night, when they laid side by side, after Andromeda had torn herself from her beloved TV to engage in reciprocal activities with an impatient Tonks, he asked her why her family believed Muggles had a secret.
"I mean," Tonks, who was a wide-eyed journalist whose cynicism could see through things Andromeda herself would never have suspected in the first place, mused "Muggles governments have the nuclear bombs, the tendency to see communist and/or capitalist plots where there are just really stupid people, and more credibility than is decent, but I fail to see how any of this could be construed as a Secret that would somehow elucidate the persistence of Muggleness."
"You don't have to be that wordy now that you've seduced me, you know that?" Andromeda enquired.
Tonks smiled a smile that would have been called a smirk on anyone else.
"You like it when I'm wordy," he said as if it explained everything, with a smugness that it had taken her months to detect.
"Besides, Muggles do have a secret," Andromeda made a point of pretending she hadn't heard his previous comment.
"They do?"
Now he sounded intrigued.
"Yes." Andromeda smiled. "A window on the world."
