Rivaling Affections

Chapter 1

The smell of bacon wafted through Harry's cottage as he prepared a breakfast for three. The sound of the back door drew his attention away from the pan. "Andromeda?" he called.

The woman came around the corner a moment later, her sleek black hair falling in curls around her face and he pale ivory gown blending in with her skin. "Harry dear, this bacon is much too underdone. You know I prefer mine nearly burnt," she said with a frown.

"That would be Teddy's plate," Harry said. "Yours is still in the pan," he added before she could ask.

"And where is Teddy? It's almost nine," she asked.

"I let him sleep a bit longer than usual. I caught him up late last night playing video games," Harry muttered in amusement and braced himself for Andromeda's lecture.

"Harry, you shouldn't reward the boy with extra sleep, you should make him wake up and realize why he shouldn't have stayed up in the first place," she said.

"I took the games away, I thought that would be better than having a cranky zombie child wandering the house today," he said with a smile.

"Zombie?" she asked, her eyebrow rose slightly in confusion.

"Er... inferi," he amended.

"Ah, yes. He is quite like the walking dead when he does that isn't he?" she asked. "And quite the terror for that matter," she muttered.

Harry laughed. "He'll be a teenager soon, he's bound to press on both of our nerves."

Andromeda shuddered slightly at the thought. She and Teddy had come to live with Harry only four years before. Andromeda had a small separate cottage behind his own, and Teddy slept in the room across the hall from Harry.

He had been happy since they arrived, and hadn't even realized how lonely he was before that. His relationship fizzled quite abruptly with Ginny when she left him at the altar and married Neville instead. Hermione and Ron were married the year after and had two children of their own, so they were far too busy to spend lots of time with Harry.

He had lived in London for a couple years, and then eventually found a nice quiet cottage in Hogsmeade when he took on the Defense Professorship at Hogwarts. His only stipulation was that he not have to live on school grounds, and Minerva had agreed, placing the same protection wards over his house that were on the school and creating a direct connection with the fireplace in his study to the one in his office at the school.

No one aside from the Headmistress, and his roommates of course, even knew Harry didn't live in the castle with the rest of the professors.

Harry served up the nearly black bacon and handed the plate, which also contained eggs and toast, to Andromeda. "He'll be going to Hogwarts this year, so you'll have more time to yourself," Harry responded to her shudder.

"You know I don't mind Teddy. I just vividly recall Nymphadora in her teens. She was a nightmare, very stubborn and very resistant to anything I said," she laughed.

Harry listened intently. Andromeda didn't speak of her late daughter often, and when she did Harry was like a small boy being read a bedtime story. He loved hearing stories about any of his friends and family from before he knew them.

"I recall the first time she refused to answer to Nymphadora," she mused. "She was thirteen and a boy at school had made fun of the name, so from then on she would only answer me if I called her Tonks. She was such a bratty little thing," she said with a wistful smile.

Harry had first been offended by the way Andromeda spoke of her daughter, but eventually learned that it was just her way. She loved the girl without a doubt, and you could tell by the way she treated Teddy that she missed her dearly.