The inside of her trunk smells musty. She hasn’t opened it in eight months—there’s been no need. They have a real apartment now, just the two of them, with a closet and hangers and everything. Andromeda keeps her clothes lined up neatly, by color—she’s discovered a real knack for organization, one of the only household things she’s good at—next to Ted’s. So there’s absolutely no reason to open that trunk, the one that only contains obsolete Hogwarts books, a handful of pictures, and forgotten mementos.
She’s not really sure why she does open it. Maybe it’s because she’s looking for something valuable, something she can pawn to pay for the new robes Ted desperately needs. Or maybe it’s because Ted’s mother made some well-meaning comment about the cheerful yellow paint they chose for their bedroom walls, and she felt suddenly adrift, as though Andromeda Black was being erased, piece by piece.
There are cobwebs in the trunk now, one of them partially covering the watch she was gifted on her 17th birthday. It’s still brand new, all black and sleek, a reminder of forbidding mansions and formal dinners and family pedigree. She swipes some of the cobwebs away, her fingers all grimy, and something about the dust on the watch makes her throat tighten.
Andromeda doesn’t think of the past very often. Perhaps because her new life is so full, with Ted’s jolly family and the new friends she made at work, with cooking nights in their cozy kitchen that end in failure and laughter, with Ted’s arms around her in their bed and his grin when he comes home. She’s desperately happy, in a warm and cheerful way she’s never been before, so there’s just not much time to think about them. Her family.
She does now, though. It must be something about the bloody watch, because she can’t stop remembering the way she’d lay in bed with Bella and Cissy when they were little, giggling about the hairstyles and dress robes and husbands they’d have when they grew up. Sneaking down to the kitchens at night, where Trudy the house elf would have biscuits waiting. How her father always picked out one Christmas gift for Andromeda himself, and the way he’d watch her intently to see if she liked it.
But there are other memories, too. Her mother screaming that mudblood’s whore, spitting all over the long dining room table and ruining her red lipstick. How she slapped her across the face, and how her father just sat there, at the head of the table, staring at the wall. The way her mother’s shoulders were all hunched over when Andromeda dragged the trunk outside and left, turning to shut the door.
How even after all that, she wishes she got one more look at them before she left.
Andromeda tucks the watch back into the corner of the trunk, careful not to look at the collection of photographs right next to it, and closes the lid. She’s not a Black anymore—she’s a Tonks. There’s a war coming and despite the long hours they work, they’re desperately in need of money. There’s no room for sentimentality.
All the same, she thinks maybe she’ll ask Ted if they can paint the living room something dark and striking.