"My mum's got this knack of getting stuff to fit itself in neatly - she even gets the socks to fold themselves - but I've never mastered how she does it - it's a kind of flick - ...Oh well."
-- Nymphadora Tonks (OP3)
Andromeda Tonks was the mother of Nymphadora Tonks and the sister of Bellatrix Lestrange and Narcissa Malfoy. She was disowned by the Black family for marrying Ted Tonks, a Muggle-born wizard.
Sirius told Harry that Andromeda had been "blasted" off the Black family tapestry (OP6). Disowned because she 'married Muggle Ted Tonks' and represented by a burn hole in the Black Family Tree (BFT). Nymphadora was born in 1973, so Andromeda probably started Hogwarts in the early to mid-1960s making her older than her cousin Sirius. Andromeda was Sirius' favorite cousin.
Harry and Hagrid went to her and Ted's house in the Battle of the Seven Potters. After Voldemort's defeat, with her husband, daughter and son-in-law dead, Andromeda raised her grandson Teddy Lupin (BLC).
Skills
House-witch skills, according to her daughter Nymphadora. For instance she can pack a suitcase neatly with a flick of her wand (OP3).
Commentary
Etymology
Andromeda is a constellation named for a character in the Greek myth of Perseus.
Notes
Andromeda is a fascinating character who broke the "bad Slytherin" stereotype, and like her cousins Sirius and Regulus Black, defied Voldemort. Just like Severus Snape, she fell in love with a Muggleborn. She resembles her sister Bellatrix, the horrible yet attractive Death Eater, but internally seems to share the fierce mothering instinct of her sister Narcissa Black Malfoy. Readers were hoping to learn more about this house-witch who was banished and burned from the House of Black tapestry, and who was Sirius's favorite relative. What was her story? How did she break away from her pureblood family? How did she cope with a fiery Metamorphmagus daughter like Tonks? How was she accepted by others in the Order of the Phoenix?
The canon we have only makes us wish for more. We saw a distracted and worried Andromeda after the Battle of the Seven Potters, and because Harry found her as "haughty" as her sister Bellatrix, he couldn't wait to get away from her. He was at her house for five minutes with hardly any description beyond a generic couch and lamp, then he was whisked away with Hagrid through a hairbrush portkey. Andromeda was mentioned a few times later as Teddy Lupin's grandmother, the woman who raised him, and we assume that Harry got to know her much better over the years as Teddy's godfather. Unfortunately, as readers we never got to know her well enough.
Pensieve (Comments)
Tags: family family tree grandparents grief loss motherly love mothers Narcissa Remembrall siblings sisters traitor worry