andromeda black

As a first year, Ted had been shown the secret of getting into the kitchens by an older Hufflepuff, and he made good use of that knowledge over his years at Hogwarts. The house elves had been new to him, growing up in a Muggle family, and they never failed to amuse him. The bonus of getting a bit to eat between meals was nice to. After a quick trip there, he was on his way to start on the homework that he had put off so long when he heard footsteps approaching quickly. He looked up just in time to register who it was coming towards him. “Meda -” His hands flew out to steady her, the smile on his face fading away as he took in her expression. 

“Of course I have a minute. As many as you need. Come here, there’s an empty room around the corner.” It seemed an instinctive move to take her hand in his, giving in to the urge he’d always felt. Andromeda Black pulled out a protective side of Ted; he could probably blame the crush he’d nursed for so many years for that particular feeling. But it was clear she needed that, at least a little. He wasn’t entirely sure where they stood - they’d chatted a little since the party but always on light, insignificant subjects. But that didn’t matter at the moment, and Meda had always been his friend. “Here, there’s a bench if you need to sit. What’s wrong?”

As soon as his hands steadied her, the first thought that flew to her harried mind was that she’d been heading to him all this time - since she’d walked away from Narcissa, at the very least. Part of her wondered if it had been something longer than that. If the little bits and pieces that made her feel so different from her sister, if they were so she would head towards him... but no. That was silly. But the comfort she took from just that gentle touch was more than she could describe.

She nodded, feeling him take her hand in hers to lead her round to one of the many unused rooms that filled in the inbetweens at Hogwarts. As he offered her the bench, she shook her head. No, feeling their hands linked was more comforting, she decided, than sitting down would. And part of her was afraid that if she sat down, she might dissolve. “My sister--” She drew in a deep breath. “Narcissa and I just had the most awful fight. And I don’t think that it’s the kind that either of us will be able to forgive or forget... we both said the most awful things,” she admitted. The words rang out in her head: no one loves you, Andromeda, don’t speak to me again until you’ve remembered how to be a part of this family. 

Good news or bad? That was certainly a loaded question if he’d ever heard one. Good for me bad for you. Was how he wanted to respond, but this wasn’t something he wanted everyone to know just yet. Certainly the Blacks knew how this looked for them. Knew how it reeked of bad publicity and the politics were called into question. Rodolphus let out a heavy sigh and turned to her.  “I lost a bet, is all. Sports things. Ludo just wrote to tell me.”

As she waited for Rodolphus to respond, she worried. Gentle tugs of anxiety nipped at her mind - perhaps there was a reason he hadn’t been speaking to her as of late. Especially with all that had been happening since New Years - he was probably trying to distance himself. She wouldn’t blame him for that. Especially if Narcissa had already told him - or everyone - about their argument the other day. 

But then he spoke, and his words were simple, and she could find no trace of judgement in them. “Hopefully you didn’t lose too much,” she said. Though part of her wondered why Ludo wouldn’t just tell him in person - but that wasn’t her business, probably. 

Her demeanor was so offputting and he wasn’t sure how he hadn’t noticed it before, or if she’d been different before their world had begun to crumble about them. Completely lost in his own thoughts he missed a fraction of what she’d said and hurried to catch up, his eyes on hers as she spoke with an honesty he was not accustomed to. The idea that neither of their parents were going to let them out of this, this being the betrothal, was a bit false but he couldn’t deny what else she said. Every mention of Narcissa had him flinching. “I politely disagree.” He breathed in a soft whisper, trying to be as gentle as possible. “But I can promise that I’d treat you well, though your belief in that promise is up to you. As for want you want to do with your life, if you believed everything you were saying you’d have no hope of that at all.”

She was so tired of the masquerade, and she just couldn’t stand it anymore. She was tired of being afraid of the people she was supposed to feel closest to, and she was tired of feeling so alone in every spare thought she had. But, again, she didn’t expect Rabastan to understand. She had given up hope of that months ago, when she realized that they couldn’t even hold a decent conversation. “You’re entitled to your opinion. But if they were going to let any of us out of this mess, it would have happened already... at the very least for Rodolphus and Bella, if not for us, and I’ve been assured that he’ll be out of Azkaban soon enough... and the way our families operate, I’m not all that uncertain that it isn’t the truth.” She watched him for a moment, watched the gentleness that he was trying at. She wondered at it, whether it was his first nature or something he felt pressured into. She could believe that he would try. But lots of people try. “Some days I don’t,” she answered honestly. “At least it doesn’t feel like it.” She studied him again. “Tell me. What is it that you want out of this? Out of me, or this arrangement, whichever.”

   “We could go talk at the lake. Or the Quidditch pitch, or on a really nice rock near the Forbidden Forest. It’s pretty comfortable, me and my brother usually go there to you know, smoke.“

Drom nodded. “The rock sounds good - after all, I think I’ve been to the pitch and the lake a combined million times over the last six years.” She smiled. Just the idea of that little bit of freedom, away from these walls and everyone else, and all the expectations. “Lead the way, good sir!”

And so she’d gone through the dungeons towards the kitchens, feet carrying her desperately towards the portrait that Sirius had taught her hid the glory of the kitchens. Her journey was stopped, just before she arrived, when she nearly careened into a warm, solid body. “Ted,” she said, her relief at seeing him flooding through her. He was better than the kitchens. They hadn’t really - truly talked (though they had spoken) since New Years, but all she wanted was to fling herself at him right now. She felt shaken, and part of her wondered if she’d really been heading towards him this whole time. 

“Do you-- do you have a minute?”

“They aren’t humans, Andromeda, they’re filthy animals who deserve what they got. The world’s better off without those things walking around alive and I have no pity for them or their families.” She didn’t regret saying what she’d said. She meant it, she believe that. There were too many people on this Earth and none of them deserved to walk it like she did. Like her people did. “Maybe the people who killed those people deserve some sort of punishment but Daddy didn’t do it and he’s not goign to go to jail for something he didn’t do why can’t you get that why don’t you grasp who we are?! Things like this don’t happen to our family. We’re immune to this. What will it take for you to wrap your mind around the fact that we’re untouchable?”

Then Narcissa scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Why are you saying that like it’s all such a bad thing? Maybe I want a child already. Maybe I don’t care about this school at all because I don’t have to be smarter than I already am. This is a waste of my time I can’t wait to get out of her and away from Mother and Daddy and…” She almost said you but that wasn’t true. “And this school offers me nothing. I don’t need to learn Ancient Runes when I could be dining with the Minister. Why aren’t you happy for me? Everyone knows Luc and I are perfect together, I’ve finally got the future I’ve hoped for. He’s going to take good care of me, Andy. Are you that jealous that you can’t even find it in your heart to congratulate me? Because I’m sorry your betrothal isn’t really working out for you considering he slapped me over a harmless comment, but that doesn’t mean you have to drag mine down too.”

Stupid. The word reverberated in her skull over and over. Stupid stupid stupid. Andromeda sounded like every idiotic person who had underestimated her time and time again. When would they learn, when would everyone learn she wasn’t some little girl? “I’m stupid? You think I’m stupid?! Don’t make me fucking laugh,” she said, laughing dramatically anyway. “You’re stupid, Andromeda. Because look at you. Look at where you are. You’re 17, no one loves you except for Bella and I and you’re shoving us away. Everyone loves me, Andy. You can’t call me stupid because I’ve played this game perfectly. I’m a goddamn Queen on this chessboard, everyone protects me and that’s because I’m playing the game exactly how I need to. Tell me how that’s stupid. Tell me, how is it stupid that I’m going to marry the only person I could even remotely see myself falling for? How am I stupid for making sure that if this all blows up in our faces and Daddy is arrested, I’ll have everyone eating fake stories out of my hand. Don’t call me stupid because I follow the rules because you clearly don’t and… well… I guess we see how that’s worked out for you,” she said, sucking air between her teeth as she grimaced.

Sometimes, she forgot. She simply didn’t think about the fact that her sisters had bought in to every little thing their parents had fed them over the years. She would forget how close-minded and venomous her sisters could be towards these other human beings. All because their mother and father had spewed their nasty words. Sometimes, she just didn’t remember that while she had grown to be more open-minded, more accepting… they had not. It always shocked her to be brought face to face with it, especially when it came to Narcissa. Bellatrix showed it more often… but Cissa… with her it was covered by the surface more often. Her sisters could be so sweet to her, it seemed impossible that they would be so cruel to the rest of the world.

“They are still people, Narcissa,” Andromeda said, unable to keep the admonishment from her tone. “And you don’t know that he didn’t do it. None of us know, except for him. And if he gets out of Azkaban, it won’t be because it is what is fair or right, it will be because of our family and its disgusting manipulation of the world we live in.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe you let such ugly ideas into your heart.”

She waved her hand. “Fine, sure. Say whatever it is you think Mother would want you to say, even though she can’t hear you and it’s idiotic to say you want a child when you’re still a child yourself. You don’t know anything, Cissa. Just keep regurgitating what they feed to you, keep playing puppet.”

She looked at her sister sadly, incensed but more filled with sadness than the anger her sister’s words inspired, the pain they caused. “Narcissa, I’m not happy for you because this isn’t real, it’s all fake. I’ll be happy for you when there’s an actual reason to be happy. You don’t know Lucius, he doesn’t know you. And apparently you no longer know me, either.”

“Enjoy the fucking chess game, Narcissa,” Andromeda spat back at her sister, fighting back the tears at her sister’s words – no one loves you but us, not even your parents, not even the people you think are friends, they all love her more, they all would rather be anywhere but with you. You have nothing and no one. Those are the thoughts her sister’s words brought to mind, and they made her feel desperate and hopeless and helpless, just as she knew Cissa wanted her to feel. “Don’t come crawling to me when you realize it’s made you cold and alone.” She whirled on her heel, and walked quickly away – not knowing where she would go. Just away – away from the monster her sister had become in front of her very eyes.

He knew people were uneasy around him now, and for reasons he was quite ashamed of. But being met with such cool indifference shook him more than he’d like to admit. He couldn’t even say she was acting oddly, perhaps she was the type to shut down emotionally when met with repeated hardship, he didn’t know her well enough to say. Still, he should understand how defeated he was sure she felt and yet somehow he was upset at her words. Reality, unfortunately, was hitting hard for all of them but the passive acceptance she was displaying made him want to shout. Why should they let this happen? And why did she think that who they were and what they did to one another didn’t matter? He’d learned quite the opposing lesson with Narcissa. “If it didn’t matter it wouldn’t hurt so much.” He replied softly. “and you’re only stuck if you accept that as your truth.” 

He didn’t know her, and she had the feeling at this rate - he never would. He didn’t know why she was acting like this, it was clear as day on his face. He didn’t understand any part of her, and Andromeda was fairly certain that he didn’t care to. It wasn’t like he had made an effort to get to know her before the crap with Cissa had happened... she had a feeling this was just his guilty conscience trying to fix what had been broken. It wasn’t about her - it was about Narcissa. It seemed that lately everything was about Narcissa. “Rabastan,” Andromeda sighed, “face it. Neither of our parents are going to let us out of this. My father is awaiting trial in Azkaban, charged with mass murder. You struck my sister in the face.” She paused. It was fact. “We are stuck with one another, whether we accept it as truth or if we ignore it, it is happening, and there is nothing we can do to change it. All I can do is hope that you will treat me well, and that I’ll still be able to do the things that I want to do with my life.”

Elle wished she didn’t know what Drom meant, about the way their parents mark them. “You know… I heard it said once that… that kids, us, we’re like glass. And… parents can do their best… or they can not… but, they’re always going to mark us somehow… leave a negative impact somehow. Whether it’s just them smudging the glass or cracks or full on breaks… Parents leave their mark.” She mused, her brow furrowed and her voice soft. “Sorry, was that too much?”

Andromeda nodded slowly as Elle spoke, recognizing her words - so sad, she thought, that they were all like that. “Not all parents leave negative impacts,” she said. “I know some people who have positive things from their parents.” She smiled. “But no, it’s not too much. It’s exactly what I mean - sometimes I feel they’ve written their thoughts and plans all over us and we aren’t allowed to have any of our own.” She thought of the people she knew who hadn’t been raised like her or Elle had. Many of them had nothing but love for their parents. And most of those who Drom had grown up with had nothing but resentment - and that weighty feeling of duty. “I don’t want to be anything like them.”

Reading the letter from Romulus seemed far too surreal for Rodolphus to believe. If Cygnus is found guilty we’ll be forced to find other arrangements– the letter then began to drone on and on about the Lestrange legacy and what it meant. It was the same hypocritical shit he’s heard his entire life but– but this meant something else entirely. He could potentially get out of this betrothal. It felt almost like fate might have been smiling upon him– as soon as the thought entered he felt a stabbing of guilt. His freedom would mean a reputation being shattered the reputation of someone he loved more than anyone. Narcissa. Possibly Lucius, if he proceeded. “Fuck.”

She had barely seen Rodolphus since the shit had hit the fan over a month ago - just here and there. They hadn’t actually spoken. She wasn’t sure if it was purposeful: if he was avoiding her. It had been a really long time since they’d had an opportunity to talk. She hated that; Rodolphus had this way of making her feel like the things in her head weren’t as bad as she thought they might be. That the traitorous thoughts of leaving and turning her back on all of this wasn’t so crazy. And he had made her feel like she could maybe find her center, find a way to be who she wanted to be, even in the midst of all of this. So when she saw him with a letter, reading it as though the words on the page were life and death - she stopped. 

“Good news or bad?” 

    » “Maybe. What will we do?“

“Literally anything, so long as it isn’t being confined in this castle,” she replied with a smile. 

He was shocked by her nonchalance and lack of desire to clear the air. Rabastan had a black cloud hanging over him and it only lightened to a deep gray when he tried to fix what he’d broken. It felt entirely disconnected, like she was unbothered by all the crap that had gone done for weeks. How could anyone not care? And in the end it should be Andromeda coming to him, because now her father had been arrested Rabastan’s father would be questioning if they should remain betrothed. Her final words were like a blow however, they couldn’t be avoided. Words escaped him for a moment, he had to think about his words so much more now. “Are you alright Andromeda?” Deflection, new question, put the focus on her instead, good Rabastan.

She looked at Rabastan with tired eyes. What did he expect from her? What did anyone expect from her? Nothing but shit kept happening, to her, to her family, to her friends. Everyone kept watching for her to make some sort of move, but what move was there for her to make? She had no choices. Not anymore. Or, well... maybe she never had. Everything had always been coming to this: a betrothal to a man she was marginally scared of, and a curtain pulled back to reveal just how horrible her own father had always been. “I’m--” Why should she lie and say she was fine? “I’m as fine as anyone can expect me to be.” She shook her head. “None of it really matters, in the long run. What happens between you and me - good or bad - it won’t matter. And even my father being arrested won’t stop any of it. Narcissa will distract from the scandal, and he will pay off whoever he needs to to get out of it.” She shrugged. “We are all stuck.”

Eleanor sensed Andromeda’s more somber mood pretty quickly. After all, it was decently hard to miss, considering her aura was as dark as her hair. “I don’t know…” Elle lead a bit of her own saddened mood over the events of the holidays shine through. “I suppose I’m glad to be back here with all of you instead of…” With our parents went unspoken.

She gave Elle a small smile. She hadn’t meant to make things sad for her, too. But after the last few weeks, it was hard not to. “There is that. The people who make the crappy things better are here. But...” She shook her head. “Every time we come back from holiday, it always seems like pieces of our parents travel back with us.”

Severus frowns as he considers her statement, he has often wished he could go back, to start over, but wishing never seemed to bring anything to fruition. Instead, he shrugs, “Unfortunately, things are exponentially complicating. I hate to break it to you.”

“Logically, I know that,” she replied, despite her desperate wishing that there was a way to go back to the time when things had been easier, and clear-cut. Things had made more sense before Hogwarts, when she’d only had to listen to the people around her and they all said the same things. “Sometimes, I wish I could split myself in half. So that one of me could do that things I want and the other can do the things I should.”

“Probably not a good one for someone like you. Though, as I understand, most people would say avoidance doesn’t solve problems. However, they neglect that some problems simply can’t be solved.”

She didn’t want to tell Severus how angry everything was making her. She didn’t want to feel that stirred up. But neither did she want to tell him how freeing it had felt to make a new connection, a meaningful one, outside of the world she had grown up in, outside the Slytherins she had always sided with. “I wish things were less complicated again.” She missed when they had all been younger, and things had been easier.

“Well, I’m normally avoiding people, not responsibility, but I expect the principle is much the same.”

“Fair enough,” she said with a shrug. “People are part of the responsibilities I seek to avoid, anyway. Certain ones. As usual.” She sighed. “This is becoming quite the hobby.”

“Because he didn’t do it,” she said automatically. “And it’s not fair. Why should he be in jail when he didn’t do anything?” Narcissa didn’t know, anymore, if she was lying or if she’d really come to believe that her father was innocent. perhaps the latter option was better, then she wouldn’t feel like such an idiot every time she spoke. “Those families have never done anything for us. Why should they affect our family just because they died?” She was genuinely wondering, and she crossed her arms before continuing. “I’m sixteen now, and getting the media’s attention has been my job since I was a baby. Why do you think I try so hard to be everything I need to be? Because if I hadn’t, I guarantee you would be the one with a ring. So you’re welcome, not that you ever thank me. Besides, Daddy’s not going to go to jail if I can stop it. It makes me feel important.”

Andromeda fought not to roll her eyes at her sister’s immediate response. He didn’t do it. Sure. The aurors would arrest him sheerly out of spite for their family name, with absolutely no grounds, no proof. With the political power their family wielded? Doubtful. Oh, he’d go free. No doubt about that. But Andromeda would never be convinced of his innocence. And Narcissa, too, should know better. Cissa wasn’t stupid. 

“Just because they didn’t do anything for us doesn’t mean they deserve to be dead, Cissy. That doesn’t make them any less human. And so whoever killed them should be in Azkaban, regardless of what their last name is.” She shook her head. “Sixteen. Sorry. Such a big difference! Everything is okay now. You’re sixteen, instead of fifteen, yes, perfect timing to begin planning your wedding! Don’t you worry about OWL scores, dear, or NEWTs for that matter, because you won’t need them. With any luck, you’ll be dropping out pregnant before your seventh year!” 

“You try this hard to be what mother wants you to be because you like to feel important, you like it that being the perfect daughter gets you baubles and attention. And why should I thank you? I wouldn’t be stupid enough to let them force a ring on my finger.”

“I’m a seasoned professional at that, Andromeda. I’d be more than happy to take you under my wing.”

“You?” Drom had to laugh. “I find you in the library more often than in our own common room,” she stated. “How seasoned can you be at avoiding responsibilities?”