Disclaimer: All characters, settings, etc belong to JK Rowling. I'm not making any money out of this story. The song lyrics mentioned to at the end (in italics, roughly translated) belong to Edith Piaf; I don't own them either.

Author's note: This turned out much longer than I'd expected and was rather difficult to write. I don't know why, since it's a response to my own challenge. I included the following French words:adieu, blasé, faux pas, femme fatale, and fiancée, and the quote at the end. This is also a response to the Wedding challenge; both challenges can be found on the Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges forums (link on my profile).

As I love cumulating challenges, this one, for the Reviews Lounge Fandom challenge, turns upside down the fanon belief that Andromeda wasn't in Slytherin.

La Vie en Rose

“Andy?”

Andromeda Black – no, Tonks - jumped slightly as she recognized the voice and turned to smile at her cousin and uncle. She had sent an owl to Sirius a few days ago to tell him about her wedding and he was the only one of her family who knew when and where it would take place, but she’d never expected Sirius could actually make it.

“Sirius! Uncle Alphard! But –”

“I covered up for him; don’t worry, they don’t know we’re here,” said Uncle Alphard. “Told Walburga I was bringing Sirius to Diagon Alley to buy him books on the Dark Arts.”

“And she actually believed you?” Andromeda asked, sceptical.

“Sirius here was as nice as he can be today, and anyway Walburga is busy enough these days because Regulus has a terrible flu and they’re already preparing Cissy’s marriage with Lucius, so that she was only too happy not to have Sirius around. And she probably didn’t really believe me for the Dark Arts books, but apparently she couldn’t bring herself to care.”

Andromeda gritted her teeth. “Make sure to congratulate dear Narcissa for me.”

Alphard chose to ignore her sarcasm and smiled instead. “You look wonderful, Andromeda.”

“Thank you.”

Andromeda looked down at her simple but pretty wedding dress as though she just couldn’t believe that she was getting married, and even more that she was actually happy about it, even if she had never been the kind of girl to wait for her Prince Charming.

“Welcome to my wedding, mon enfant terrible,” Andromeda said.

She smiled at Sirius, whose grey eyes were twinkling. He looked so much like Regulus, Andromeda thought, and yet so different. She wondered how everyone was coping with the fact that he’d been sorted in Gryffindor the year before.

“It’s been a while since you called me your enfant terrible,” Sirius said, grinning quite wistfully.

“How are things at home? How are they dealing with my faux pas?” Andromeda asked, trying to sound as detached as possible.

“As was expected,” Uncle Alphard said softly, and Andromeda got the distinct impression that she’d better let it drop.

“Is that horrible Madame Sophie still giving you French lessons?” Andromeda changed the subject as their uncle drifted off towards the long table to get some food.

“Gave up on it,” Sirius said lightly, and then his face grew grave. “I miss you, Andy.”

“It’s Dromeda now,” Andromeda said automatically, her face showing no emotion whatsoever, although she had been moved by Sirius’s words.

She wondered how she could still wear the Blacks’ Mask when she was a Tonks now.

"I'm happy for you, though," Sirius said earnestly. "You're my favourite cousin, you know... Not that there's much competition."

Andromeda laughed. "Thanks. But I must agree with you, little one. There's not much competition."

Sirius sighed in annoyance. "Don't call me little one! I'm twelve, for Merlin's sake."

Andromeda ruffled Sirius’s hair, which was a little too long for the Blacks’ standards, knowing he disliked the gesture.

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Sirius,” Andromeda smirked. “I know you’re a big boy now. But I can call you mon petit, if you prefer.”

“Well, didn’t mind that one until Madame Sophie told me it meant the exact same thing as ‘little one’. Stop making fun of me,” Sirius said, but the corners of his mouth were twitching.

Suddenly Ted arrived from behind her and encircled her waist with his arms, kissing her cheek. They had been officially married for ten minutes.

“Do you think it’s possible that you’re even more beautiful as my wife than you were as my fiancée?” Ted whispered in her ear.

Sirius made a face but they both ignored him.

“Dance with me, Dromeda?” Ted asked.

“Well it is tradition,” Andromeda replied, as if she was forced to dance with him, while she loved it, even if she was a graceful dancer and Ted always stepped on her toes. She never told him so as not to hurt his feelings.

Almost an hour of dancing later, Andromeda felt a bit weary and wanted a few moments on her own. She had mostly danced with Ted, obviously, but also with his father and with Caradoc Dearborn and the Prewett twins. As she made her way towards the lavatory she passed by where Sirius was sitting; he was listening eagerly to Fabian and Gideon Prewett’s jokes. She was smiling as she pushed the door open; no one was there. Her grin vanished as she looked at herself in the mirror. Even though she had changed her name, she still looked like Bella too much to her taste.

Andromeda did her best to erase all the traces of her upbringing: her posh accent, her cynism and her prejudices, but there was one thing she could not change: her Black looks. Beautiful, certainly, but haughty and dark and uncompromising. She looked like a kind of femme fatale, and yet she was going to marry the man she'd loved since she was sixteen.

As she put some water on her face to relieve herself from the heat, she grimly wondered if when she was older, people would still mistake her for Bellatrix. As she went back to the ballroom she caught sight of Sirius again; he was now sitting on his own, watching Fabian and Gideon dance with Ted’s sisters, looking haughty and blasé. Andromeda smiled sadly. We’re Blacks, Sirius, like it or not, she thought.

“Are you having fun?” Andromeda asked as she sat down next to him.

“I don’t like weddings,” Sirius declared. “They’re useless when you’re twelve years old.”

“I guess you’re right,” Andromeda said thoughtfully. “I’ve never liked wedding myself. In fact, I would have done this with just Ted’s parents and sisters present, but Ted insisted. And I don’t regret it now.”

Ted’s youngest sister, Isabel, had stopped dancing and was now staring shyly but not-so-discreetly at Sirius from the other side of the room. Sirius did not seem to have noticed.

“Isabel is staring at you. She’s only one year older than you… You’re a little heartbreaker, you know that?” Andromeda said, smirking. “Well, it runs in the family, after all.”

“I’m not interested in girls,” Sirius said. “James says they’re a pain in the neck, especially when they’ve got red hair.”

Before Andromeda could ask who this charming James fellow was, their Uncle Alphard was making his way towards them.

“Sirius, boy, we’re going to have to leave now,” Uncle Alphard said. “I’m afraid we can’t be gone for too long. Goodbye, Andromeda. It was good to see you.”

“Thanks for coming. Keep in touch,” Andromeda said, though she knew they probably wouldn’t.

Sirius nodded and smiled a little sadly as his uncle took his hand to Disapparate. “Adieu, Andy.”

“Dromeda,” Andromeda corrected, but they were already gone.

Feeling a strange foreboding as she wondered when she would see Sirius again, Andromeda made her way towards where Ted was talking with Fabian and Gideon Prewett, who had been in Gryffindor in their year, and who were good friends with Ted. Andromeda had to admit she was quite fond of them, too. Gideon was saying that he wanted to do something with his life, to surpass himself.

“What do you mean, Gideon? You want to be a hero?” Andromeda asked, and the three young men easily sensed the mockery in her tone.

Gideon shrugged. “I just think that life isn’t worth living if you don’t defend your ideas and do something heroic if needed.”

“And if this requires fighting foolishly, it’s all for the better, isn’t it?” Andromeda said. “Well, I’ve heard that heroism is little and that happiness is more difficult to achieve.”

Andromeda smirked and left them to ponder her words as she headed towards Caradoc Dearborn. She heard Ted complain that the conversation had got too philosophical to his taste, and promptly engaged the twins in a Quidditch-related argument. Caradoc was talking to Ted’s eldest sister, Caroline. The seventeen-year-old girl was obviously enjoying the attention.

“So, tell me, Caroline, what House are you in?”

Andromeda smiled slightly. Caradoc, who had been Head Boy and Captain of the Quidditch team in his days, had been the pride of the Slytherin house, and he had always defended his house’s colours while being tolerant and open-minded, which had earned him the respect of most students, even Gryffindors. It was him who had convinced Andromeda that there was nothing wrong with being a Slytherin, when she’d had doubts.

“I don’t go to Hogwarts,” Caroline said, shaking her blonde head sadly.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Caradoc said quickly. “I didn’t know –”

“Dance with me, Caradoc?” Andromeda asked.

Caradoc smiled at her thankfully and they began dancing.

“I’m glad your friend Aphrodite could come, or we’d have been the only Slytherins and I might’ve felt uncomfortable,” Caradoc said.

Andromeda shrugged. “You know how lots of them have contact with my family so I couldn’t tell them. But I’m glad you’re both here.”

“I wouldn’t have missed your wedding for anything in the world,” Caradoc said earnestly. “Besides, I’ve seen Dorcas Meadowes is here. She was in Ravenclaw, wasn’t she?”

“Yes; the only close friend I made outside of our House.”

“I like Ravenclaw girls,” Caradoc said, his dark eyes wandering towards Dorcas. “And she looks nice.”

Caradoc ran a hand through his curly brown hair; he looked a bit younger than his twenty-one years. She could remember how soft his hair was, and how much she liked running her hands through it when they were dating, back in her fifth year. He’d been her first boyfriend, the only one before Ted.

“Do you think it’s surprising I still feel like I’m a perfect Slytherin, considering everything my family did to me?”

Truly, she wasn’t brave enough for Gryffindor, or loyal enough for Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaws were too much attached to ethics to her taste. Yes, she was a Black, ready to dissimulate or lie if it was needed, and her ambitions had been best served in Slytherin. Even though they’d been out of Hogwarts for one year she still felt that the Houses they’d been in mattered.

Caradoc shook his head. “Nothing’s ever black or white, Andy.”

She didn’t even correct him on the nickname.

A few hours later as the party was coming to an end, Andromeda felt light-headed as she danced with Ted, resting her head on his shoulder. A French Muggle song was playing, La vie en rose, Ted’s mother’s favourite. As they twirled more or less gracefully (she tried to ignore her sore feet), Andromeda could catch most of the words. It’s him for me, me for him, forever… Madame Sophie might have been a stiff, disagreeable spinster, but Andromeda had to admit she’d been a very good teacher. When he takes me in his arms and speaks softly to me, I see life in rosy hues…

"Is this the part where I get to say a cheesy line?" Andromeda said.

Ted chuckled but she saw that his eyes were sparkling with tears of joy. She thought he looked dashing as the groom and the “I do,” he had proudly said earlier still rang pleasantly in her ears. He tells me words of love, words of every day, and it does something to me…

"Mrs Tonks, be quiet and enjoy the moment."

Mrs Tonks... Andromeda closed her eyes and did as she was told.

One night, after she’d made sure that Teddy was sleeping, Andromeda took a trip down memory lane with her old photo album of her wedding. She supposed she could consider herself lucky to have lived twenty-eight happy years, twenty-eight years of la vie en rose after sixteen years of life in black, before her husband died and her daughter decided to be a hero.

Caradoc, Fabian, Gideon, Dorcas, Sirius, Remus, Dora… sometimes Andromeda felt like her heart was a cemetery for war heroes.

Perhaps she was no hero herself, but she had made the choice of being happy instead, and it hadn’t been easy; her family had paid the price.

How ironic it was that Andromeda found she could no longer be happy without her heroes.

“Heroism is not much; happiness is more difficult to achieve.” (Albert Camus)

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