A/N: Rated M for language, just to be safe.

a certain disregard for the rules

Andromeda Tonks, a few months after she stopped being Andromeda Black.

She does not regret marrying Ted. She has never regretted marrying Ted. She was sick to her Pureblood bones of her Pureblood world, with its arrogance and silks and politics and gossip and standards and blood and hypocrisy (let's forget about that grandmother who didn't have a drop of magical blood in her veins) and quaint little afternoon teas.

And Ted - Ted is bubbling belly laughter, a quirked eyebrow and - to her eternal bafflement - an inexplicable love for Muggle 'films'. He routinely sneaked downstairs to have Sugar Quills at midnight and on those days, she would invariably find one lying on her bedside table in the morning. Ted feels like honesty and comfort and freedom and love.

Every summer, there would be parties. Full-blown affairs where everyone would come dressed to kill – backless dress robes, glittering bodices, full-length silks, whatever the latest styles were – and end up in bushes by the end of it, doing something or another. Most of them anyway. Andromeda threw up once and after that, never drank more than a single glass of wine in a single evening.

The host would always put up the most beautiful decorations. Tiny, flickering globes of light hovering over the heads of people too drunk to appreciate them. Dishes of food floating through the throngs of people, filled with delicately flavoured food that always dissolved on the tongue and came back up in a blur of colours soon afterwards. Tablecloths so white they were painful to look at after a bottle of Firewhisky. Drapes in Slytherin colours, embroidered with every detail of the crest, used as towels for soiled bodies by the end of the night. The finest bowls, made of the thinnest porcelain and sparkling crystal and heirloom silver, strategically placed around the house, enchanted to catch as much vomit as they could.

But as much as she hated it, she still belonged. She could still walk into a room and make people's eyes focus on her in that instant. She still knew how to be one of the daughters of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, and she still knew how to put that knife of ice and steel and fire in her eyes so that people would not forget it.

Nobody can prepare themselves against something they're not expecting to face. Bellatrix wasn't the only one with tightly controlled rage, and Narcissa wasn't the only one blessed with that infernal, infuriating grace. People forget that far too easily - to their cost. Andromeda, ever a Slytherin, can turn it to her advantage every time.

At every party, Andromeda would walk outside, dressed in expensive new dress robes and expensive new heels and force herself to breathe. She would close her eyes and stop seeing the passed out bodies at the end of the garden. She would tip her head back and feel alive. She'd think that nobody could possibly be as lucky as she is.

But she was wrong.

Ted makes her feel more alive than any of those parties.

Occasionally, she'll force herself to be cold and clinical about her decision. She'll be a Slytherin and weigh it up in her head.

She's the whore who fucked a Mudblood and liked it.

She's a Blood Traitor. She doesn't belong anywhere - not with her blood kin, and she's still Andromeda Black to everyone else. Never again can she sweep carelessly into a room and hold it in the palm of her hand just because she is one of the Black sisters. She might be able to do it if she tried - with the right look, the right walk, immaculately draped dress robes - but never again would it be quite so effortless.

Never again will she feel the cold metal of her mother's wedding band under her chin, lifting it. Never again will she feel a father's hand on her shoulder and know that he is proud to have her for a daughter.

The man she loves is an object of utmost hatred by the most powerful people in the wizarding world through no fault of his own. Because of her, they know who he is. He could be killed at the passing fancy of any one of a hundred people.

She's free. She's loves and is loved in return. She's got Ted.

Although she would rather die than admit it - she misses her sisters.

She'll be in Honeyduke's, picking up some Sugar Quills for Ted and Chocolate Frogs for herself when she'll pick up a box of Pepper Imps for Bella and Sugared Butterfly Wings for Cissy.

She'll see something absurd in The Quibbler ('Nargles Eat Rita Skeeter') and she'll laugh, expecting to hear Cissy's giggling and expecting to see Bella's head thrown back and her eyes closed with the force of her laughter.

"Don't think this is easy, Ted! Don't you dare think that I never wonder whether I've made the right choice or not. Don't you dare think, for one fucking second that there aren't nights when I lie awake next to you and remember exactly what I've lost. "

Andromeda Black, just before she becomes a burn of the deepest black on a wall.

There's always been a small grain of defiance in her chest when she thinks of them - except that this time, she's going to act on it. She knows that she's Right and they're Wrong. She's going to walk out of this house alive, but dead to everyone inside it. She ought to regret it. She ought to go crawling back to them on her hands and knees, begging to be taken back.

She should know that Right and Wrong don't count for anything when the only thing that matters is winning with as few losses as possible. She should be interested in where the greatest gain lies, where she can have the greatest advantage and where her influence will be at its most powerful. She should be concerned with being on the winning side, and she should disregard everything else.

She does know this. She is a Slytherin, after all, and always will be, even after she stops being a Black.

But being a Slytherin doesn't make her a bad person. It only means that she knows what the easy choice is, and what really matters is that she is choosing not to take it. That is what makes her a good person – and it is this that makes her proud to be reduced to a stain on a wall.

Besides – she's already won. She and Ted are happy together; they love each other and they always will. That's the real victory. That is where her advantage lies. She has weighed her happiness and Ted's happiness and their love against everything she will lose – her reputation, her power, her sisters – and even though it is painful, and even though she knows she will cry tonight, she has found that it is worth it.

She Shrinks her bags to fit into her pocket, and walks downstairs.