Andromeda's entry into the world was horrendously difficult for Druella Black. She was born two weeks after her due date setting the standard that she would do things on her own schedule.

As a child she was forever being told to sit still, behave, listen, but there was a wild passion in her heart that wasn't easily tamed. Over the years the punishment for her behavior became more severe up to and including weeks without her wand, a stinging hex, Tongue-Tying curses, and so on.

Andromeda didn't mean to act out. She honestly wanted to please her parents, but she was far too curious and rebellious for her own good.

She eventually learned to control herself by her third year at Hogwarts. She wasn't so much controlling herself as emulating her sisters - Bellatrix, whom Andromeda respected more than anyone in the world, and Narcissa, who while two years younger seemed to possess an innate grace and composure.

If it weren't for the fact that she was born in the Black Manor, she would have assumed a switch at birth. They were all so perfect, and Andromeda was so very human.

In her fifth year at Hogwarts all traces of the girl she had been in her youth was gone; her spirit had finally been broken.

Like a proper Black, she now held her head high, and looked down her nose at those beneath her - which was anyone not within their small elite circle. The worst of her vitriol however was saved for the mudbloods.

It didn't matter that Andromeda didn't understand nor agree with the ideas constantly pounded into her head by her family or society, she was merely echoing the statements to earn favor with her parents, but in turn became quite well known for her hatred of muggles.

She had tried so hard to please her parents and finally she was succeeding, her father had even praised her behavior stating that he was finally able to enter negotiations for her hand in marriage that she had stopped being an embarrassment to him. It was the highest praise she ever received from the man, but it was more than enough to encourage her behavior.

In her sixth year at Hogwarts her father was able to secure a proposal. Everything was perfect, she was fulfilling the role she was always meant to fill, but a haunting emptiness tore at her soul that she couldn't explain.

She was suffocating under the enormous weight of the lie she had been living. She didn't know who she was, but she hated the person she had become. She had lost herself so completely, consumed by the voices that told her how to act, what to think, who to be.

One night the voices became too much for her to bear and mindlessly she slipped from her dorm in the dungeons and travelled up. She didn't have a destination in mind; her feet were merely pushing her forward. It wasn’t until a voice called out that she slipped from the ledge she was standing on - one with hundreds of feet of black nothingness below her.

Reality returned all too swiftly, it wasn’t a dream, she may have felt empty inside, but she didn’t want to die, and now her feet were dangling over certain death. Suddenly two arms reached out and took hold of hers and as though she weighed no more than a rag doll she was pulled back into what appeared to be the Astronomy tower.

She landed on her rescuer who was now holding her in a fierce grip as she was him. They stayed that way for several moments until she realized the enormity of her actions and began to panic.

She had everything, why wasn't it enough? What was she doing?

She had a few moments of a panic attack, her body trembling with fear and frustration, she hadn't even looked up to see who her rescuer was but was startled still when he spoke.

"It's alright." he offered.

She didn't know Ted Tonks all that well. She may have seen him in the hallways now and again, had no clue about his life, or who he was. He was a handsome bloke, but even that had been stripped away from her notice because he was one of "them" - a mudblood.

She jumped nearly a foot in the air scrambling off the vile creature, the horrible mudblood, the man who had saved her life.

The infamous Black anger came to her defense as she sneered at him from her position and threatened his life if he spoke of that night to anyone, her voice was so low and dangerous it was certainly believable.

She spent the rest of that year making Ted her personal target for ridicule and criticism.

Things settled down in her seventh year. There were no more late-night trips to the Astronomy tower, and even her anger at being so vulnerable in front of the mudblood had lessened. She had a fiance and a life lined up for her after Hogwarts - everything had returned to normal.

She had avoided Ted for the most part, only reducing herself to sneer or insult him on the rare occasion they crossed one another's paths.

Then, three months before they were set to graduate, the unthinkable happened.

Her comment hadn’t even been that nasty on the scale of things she had said to him in the past, but their professor thought otherwise and decided that pairing them together for their final project would be a lesson in civility for the arrogant Black.

It was a lesson in fate. You could only pour so many emotions into a person before the lines between hate and love were blurred.

The day they met to do their assignment together, turned into the night Andromeda gave her virginity to Edward “Ted” Tonks – the mudblood. As soon as the deed were done however, she once again threatened his life and fled the scene.

Of course, she attempted to return to the high and mighty princess she had been, sending him dirty looks and never missed an opportunity to give him a scathing set down. But things were different this time, Ted was no longer her whipping post. The unthinkable happened again and again turning into an addiction but kept as the dirtiest of secrets. She claimed to hate him, but she loved what he did to her.

It wasn’t until a week before graduation she knew she was in love with him – maybe she had been ever since he rescued her from the tower. She didn’t know, and it didn’t matter, she was getting married in three weeks and their affair had to end.

She was so upset over everything she became sick, and then she realized the sickness wasn’t merely upset, she was truly sick – no not sick, she was pregnant.

Terrified and unsure what to do she confided in the one person she trusted and admired above anyone else. If anyone could help her figure out what to do it would be Bellatrix – or so she thought. Bella was always so strong, and she gave that strength to Andromeda whenever Andi needed it, but it was blatantly apparent that Bellatrix’s loyalties to the ancient and most noble house of Black as well as the strictest rule of blood purity meant far more than her own sister, as the eldest Black attacked Andromeda.

They wrestled a bit and fought – Bella’s hands tightening around Andi’s neck – Andromeda suddenly felt a fierce wave of protection come over her for her child and was able to gain the upper ground switching their positions and slamming Bellatrix on the ground. There must have been a rock or something as Bellatrix fell unconscious and Andi – horrified at her actions – called for help.

She paced the hallway in her ancestral home waiting and praying for Bella to be alright, but her prayers should have been reserved for her own wellbeing. Bella’s wrath had been insignificant to that of her father’s who descended upon her in a murderous rage upon learning the truth about his middle child.

That night she was blasted from the tapestry and forced out of her home and the life she had always known, but not before her father inflicted a pain so severe it rattled through Andromeda’s bones causing her to collapse and convulse on the floor until she was unconscious.

When she awoke she was in St. Mungos, the baby was gone, but Ted was there. He held her hand and promised her a better future.

Two months later they were married. Four years later and more ups and downs than the couple could imagine, Andromeda gave birth to Nymphadora Tonks. In the end love had truly conquered all – but their story isn’t finished yet.