good and bad Slytherins

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 174980

Hickengruendler wrote:
> 
> What about Mrs Tonks? Granted, she is a very minor character, but
she married a Muggleborn, much to her family's displeasure. This 
definitely shows some positive character traits.
> 
> Snape's mother, too, was a Slytherin, who in spite of any pureblood
 biases in the house married a Muggleborn. Granted, it's hard to call
 her admirable, since she seemed to have been a very phlegmatic woman,
 who let herself bullied by her husband, in spite of the fact, that 
she was the witch. (On the other hand, it does show, that she was 
unwilling to use her powers against someone, who doesn't have them,
which is a virtue Hagrid or the Weasley twins did not share).
>
Carol responds:
Bullied? Can you show me the canon for that, please? I remember Ted
Tonks standing up for his wife when Harry briefly mistakes her for
Bellatrix, and when he's on the run with Dean, Dirk Cresswell, and the
goblins, he sounds like a gentle, kind man who under ordinary
circumstances might be jovial. He expresses concern for the kids who
got detention from Snape for trying to steal the Sword of Gryffindor,
and when Dirk suggests that Harry may already have been killed, he
says, "Ah, don't say that, Dirk" (DH Am. ed. 300).

I don't understand the reference to not using her powers against her
husband, who is a Muggleborn, not a Muggle, and has just, among other
things, regrown Harry's knocked-out tooth and healed his broken ribs.

As for Andromeda, Sirius Black's favorite cousin who hasn't spoken to
her sisters (and vice versa) since her marriage to Tonks, she suffers
as greatly as anyone in the books, losing her husband, her daughter,
and her daughter's new husband (who seems to have had a falling-out
with the Tonks family and become reconciled off-page) and having to
raise an infant grandson alone, shades of Gran Longbottom though
apparently doing a better job to judge from the epilogue.

We see only a glimpse of Andromeda, but I don't see her as bullied or
tempted to use her powers against her husband. 

Ted Tonks introduces himself with his first name and then his full
name, reassures Harry that Hagrid is okay and that his wife is tending
him and that he himself has mended Harry's injuries. He expresses
alarm regarding the Death Eaters and explains why Voldemort vanished
(because of the protective charms).

Harry, having just gone through a rather traumatic experience, is
apparently not listening to the part about Ted's wife tending Hagrid.
As she enters the room, he sees her resemblance to her DE sister and
shouts at her, "You!" 

Ted responds mildly by telling him where his wand is and saying,
"That's my wife you're shouting at" (65). Harry sees that her eyes are
wider and kinder than Bellatrix's hooded ones, but she naturally looks
a bit haughty (she's a Black, and all of them, including Sirius and
Regulus have an arrogant look) considering Harry's less-than-friendly
and grateful greeting. But instead of reprimanding him, her first
concern is for her daughter: "What happened to our daughter? Hagrid
said you were ambushed; where is Nymphadora?"

Ted, though his exchanged look with his wife indicates that he shares
her fear, reassures "'Dromeda" that "Dora" will be all right. Harry,
feeling remorse for endangering her daughter but having no words to
comfort her promises that he'll have "Dora" send word that she's okay. 

Ted shows Harry and Hagrid the portkey, and so ends our little glimpse
into the life of what seems to be a happy and loving family, the
Slytherin wife, her big-bellied husband who is surely a Hufflepuff
like Tonks, and their absent but much-loved daughter.

If we want a good Slytherin, the grieving widow who tends the newborn
child of her daughter and her daughter's werewolf husband while the
younger people battle against Death Eaters and raises him lovingly
when they die, there she stands. 

Carol, raising a goblet of blood-red wine to Andromeda Black Tonks,
whose daughter was murdered by Andromeda's own sister