RoseoftheWest - Meteoroid Beater

Andromeda Black Tonks looked at the letter again. He would be here soon. He was previously known for being annoyingly punctual, except when required to do something for his dark master, her daughter and husband had often said. Of course, things were different since the war was over. Heaven knew she was different. There was a crack of Apparition. It startled her even though she was expecting it. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them. She then smiled as she opened the door.

'Severus! How lovely to see you!'

'Andromeda. Thank you for letting me come.'

She led him to the dining room. 'I must admit I was intrigued by the note Harry sent me. You'll have to tell me how you got dear Auntie Walburga to leave that wall. I only went there once for an Order of the Phoenix meeting and got an earful. Your poor mother must be rolling in her grave, you blood traitor! As though Druella Rosier Black would ever do anything so uncouth as roll.'

She directed him to his seat and opened a tureen. 'I hope you don't mind some stew and fresh bread? It seemed the best option for this time of the evening.'

He nodded. 'It looks delicious. I would have arranged to come earlier, but I'm still making some potions for the Hogwarts infirmary before I leave the school for good. I was in my laboratory until just before I came here.'

'It's quite all right. I have all the time in the world.' She sighed. 'Of course, Teddy doesn't.'

'Harry said you're having a problem and I might be able to help?'

'It's the morphing. Now he copies the looks of anyone he sees. I can't take him to the park any more. I'm afraid I'll bring home the wrong little boy.'

'And you want me to do what?'

'I don't know; Harry said you were interested in helping people.'

'Given his age, a potion is undesirable, I'm sure. It's a sort of transfiguration... I'll have to give it some thought. I did allow for the entire week.'

As they ate their late dinner, they spoke of people they both knew. Andromeda knew a surprising number of witches and wizards that Severus knew from his Death Eater days and just as many he knew from working with the Order. He realized that she had straddled the same worlds that he had, although in an entirely different way. He had her laughing hysterically at the way he had maneuvered both Walburga and Phineas Nigellus Black out of their portraits at number twelve, Grimmauld Place.

'Oh dear!' she sighed. 'Poor Kingsley and Minerva will have their hands full. I wonder just how that will work at St. Mungo's, too.'

She led him up the stairs to the room he would use. He had a thought as she turned to go back down. 'Andromeda?' She stopped and looked at him expectantly. 'You raised a Metamorphmagus before. Nymphadora must have been just the same. How did you handle her?'

She was surprised she hadn't remembered before. 'Oh! Wait, just a minute.' She went downstairs and returned with several journals. 'Ted had a charm. I don't remember it, but it's probably in one of these books. I've never read them, but I can't let them go, either.'

'Then you're probably right and it's here. Would you rather look yourself?'

She shook her head. 'No, I don't think I could stand it. You'll probably be better at figuring out how to use the charm, if you find it. Please go easy on whatever you read about me, though. I was so young, back then.' She smiled and left him, then.

The kitchen must have been under his room. He heard her doing the dishes and settling things to rights. He remembered that Tonks and Ted had both said she was the good housekeeper of the family. He wondered how the sister of Bellatrix and Narcissa could be so different from either of them.

When he came down the stairs the next morning, he found breakfast in the kitchen. In the light of day, he realized Andromeda had aged quite a bit in the last five years. He supposed losing her husband and then her daughter and son-in-law in quick succession had taken its toll on her. He felt the weight of additional guilt fall upon him. From where she stood by the sink, she pointed to his place and watched in satisfaction as he filled his plate.

'Teddy, this is Professor Snape. He taught your mum, and he went to school with your dad.'

'Wotcher,' said the boy, whose hair was shifting between incarnadine shades of salmon, pink, and red.

'Good morning, Mr. Lupin.'

'So you knew my parents?'

'I did indeed.'

The five-year-old nodded but was now bored of the subject. He inspected the professor's plate. 'You should have some of Grandma's pancakes. She puts a secret ingredient in them.'

'Oh, really?' Snape was interested in spite of himself. 'I have an interest in secret ingredients, myself.'

The boy looked at his grandmother and leaned toward the wizard and said, conspiratorially but in a stage whisper, 'There are really two of them: cinnamon and vanilla.'

The two adults tried not to laugh. Snape said, in an equally loud whisper, 'I'll have to try some, then.' He reached for the pancakes and took two. Then he looked up at the boy.

'Teddy!' said Andromeda, aghast. 'You need to change back.'

The boy now had longish black hair, piercing black eyes, and an overlarge nose. What sold the look, however, was that when the guest scowled, so did the young host.

'I see why you need to do something, Andromeda,' said Snape, who spoke sternly but was more amused than he would admit. 'I found the charm. It's fairly simple. We can cast it after breakfast, and then a simple Revilio will do the trick whenever you need him to go to his normal looks.'

After clearing up the debris of breakfast, they went into the den and stood with the boy between them and said the incantation that activated the charm. Later, the boy played while Andromeda did laundry. Severus scanned through more of the other wizard's journals. He had hundreds of spells written down in them. Most were ones Snape already knew, but there were a few he did not, and they were surprising in their simplicity. Several would be quite useful.

They ate a quick lunch and then took young Ted to a nearby park. He played with young witches and wizards, his hair changing color every ten minutes, until Snape wasn't sure which child was the one he had come with. Andromeda thought she knew, but wasn't sure. They cast the Revealing Spell and found him on the swings.

'So why are you doing this?' she asked him as they sat on a bench and watched Teddy's hair turn from a sandy brown to ginger-red.

'I have just had this feeling, as though I owed it to everyone to do something good.'

'I suppose we all owe whatever good we can do for each other. Our duty to our fellow man and all that.'

'No, it's just that I've done so many bad things...' Here he was cut off by quiet laughter.

'What bad things have you done that were of your own volition?'

He had to think. There were so many things, but they were all at the behest of one master or the other, and occasionally both. He nodded, having finally found one. 'I called someone I loved a "Mudblood". That was the event that set me on my path.'

'Did you regret it, though?'

'Every day since it happened.'

She nodded with a grim smile. 'I think you will find that most people will forgive you. The trick is that you will have to let them forgive you.'

'What about you?'

'Were you with the Snatchers who killed Ted? Did you hold the wand of my sister when she killed my daughter? Have you done anything that actually hurt me or any of my family?'

'No, but...'

Her voice sounded tired. 'Could you have stopped any of it?'

'No, but...'

'I've tried to let it go, Severus. You should, too.'

He watched the children play and thought about it. So many people had their lives broken and ruined by the war. Perhaps he wasn't trying to apologize so much as trying to put something good into a world that had seen too much trouble.

'I can see why such a charm is useful,' said Severus as they walked back to the cottage.

'Thank you for finding it and helping me with it.'

'You're welcome.'

They sat on a couch in the family room. 'Do you really think it's as simple as letting it all go?'

She let out a half laugh. He was reminded of her cousin Sirius. He realized that Black was another person who had aged too much too soon because of the war. 'I think that those who realize what you were really doing have long since forgiven you any perceived wrongs. I'm not sure that those who haven't yet are going to remove the blinders from their eyes until you're dead or at least out of sight. That's what my experience has taught me.

'There's a lot to recover from, for all of us. When you've finished figuring out why you're doing what you're doing, you need to move on. Perhaps you should go someplace where you're out of the eye of Wizarding England. You should find a girl, maybe get married and have kids of your own. You've spent twenty years living for the sake of the rest of us. It's time for you to look to your own future.'

'I know I was going to stay for the week, but we seem to have solved the problem.'

'Yes, we have.'

'Do you mind, then, if I leave now? I have some things I could attend to and potions to brew. I could always come back if it turns out this didn't work.'

'That would be fine, Severus. Don't let us keep you.'

He stood by the door a bit awkwardly. She smiled as she had when he'd arrived the previous evening. 'Thank you again, and farewell, Severus Snape.'

He shook her hand solemnly. 'Thank you, Andromeda Tonks. Somehow I feel like you've helped me more than I've helped you.'

She reached over and pulled him into a hug. 'Just my duty to my fellow man and all that,' she said with a twinkle in her eye. He was surprised to find himself returning the hug.

Severus stopped at a coffee house he knew to think for a bit. Andromeda's comments had been unsettling. After he made his purchase, he looked for a spot to sit down and was surprised to see a familiar face.

'So it didn't upset you that Teddy copied your look?' Hermione asked after he had described his day to her.

'No, it was actually amusing to see my forty-three-year-old face on a five-year-old.'

'You should see him do Harry or Kingsley,' she laughed.

He fingered his cup. 'Andromeda had some interesting insights. She made me think that I'm looking at this all wrong, that perhaps I don't need forgiveness so much as a chance to just get out there and help people.'

'Why don't you tell me about it?' she asked.

'Do you have the time?'

'Certainly.'

Prompt words used: incarnadine, mother, Hogwarts, laboratory

A/N: Thanks to WriterMerrin for the beta reading and to my team mates for their thoughts and ideas.

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