This is my first Andromeda story and I hope to add more chapters on soon, though I'm not sure what will happen yet. Anyway, enjoy!
Disclaimer: The only way I could be JK Rowling is in my dreams :)
'Will they hurry up?' Narcissa whined, drumming her lavender painted nails on the glossy table. Andromeda glanced towards the heavy wooden doors of the Great Hall that stood firmly shut. Around the two Black sisters the Hall was a noiseless buzz of start of term gossip, this would be Andromeda's last sorting at Hogwarts before she graduated and stepped out into wizarding world on her own. A thought she held onto like the light at the end of her dark tunnel. Until then, she would smile and nod like the perfect puppet that everyone expected her to be; a witch proud of her pureblood heritage, ready to be married off to someone of commendable blood status and wealth.
In any moment, her cousin, Sirius Black would walk through those doors and be sorted into Slytherin, like herself and her sisters, the only house worthy of true Blacks. He would proudly write to his parents, announcing the predicted news and continue his life at Hogwarts, oblivious to the world obscured from their eyes, hidden behind their family's vanity and pride.
'Any moment now,' she mumbled to her impatient sister. Across the room she catches the eye of her boyfriend, he winks at her before turning back to his friends, loosening his yellow and black tie. Andromeda smiles at him, knowing he can't see her, but she can't help it.
Ted Tonks, her muggle born boyfriend and ticket away from her family, Ted had already bought them an apartment in London to move into after graduation. No one in her family knew about their relationship and she wasn't planning on telling them until she was safely out from under the Black's roof and on her way to freedom. She savoured the image of her mother's face when she would tell them, 'Oh, sorry mother. I'm leaving to be with a mudblood and I won't come back. I've never known anything blacker than this home.'
'Who are you smiling at?' Narcissa cuts into her daydream, craning her neck over the heads of everyone else to try and see.
'No one, just remembering something,' Andromeda says, but Narcissa has already turned away and was smiling lovingly up at her boyfriend, Lucius Malfoy.
Andromeda watched her younger sister bask in the envious gazes of her fellow Slytherins as Malfoy pulled his arm around her. The Malfoys were, in her mother's opinion, a fine pureblood family a worthy match for any of her daughters. She knew that one day, her sister and Lucius, would make a respectable marriage, a match her parents would be proud of. Her older sister, Bellatrix, had already graduated and was engaged to marry Rodopholus Lestrange in the fall, her mother had made such a fuss when Bella had first had Lestrange over for dinner, she'd had the house elves stay up overnight to prepare everything. Andromeda could imagine the horror on her mother's face if she ever invited Ted for dinner.
The familiar buzz of the Great Hall died as the doors swang inwards and a parade of scared looking first years march across the room. Several had their mouths open in wonder as they swang their heads back and forth, trying to see everything at once.
Andromeda spotted Sirius, a confident smile on his handsome face as he laughed with another boy.
'Would anyone like to make any bets on who will be the future Slytherins?' Lucius asked taking out a few coins from his pocket. Narcissa giggled and gazed up at him adoringly. A few of the other boys in Andromeda's year emptied their pockets.
'My cousin, Sirius, will be joining us this year,' she told him proudly. Lucius looked over at the first years.
'Five galleons that Sirius Black will become a Slytherin,' he put the money on the table. It was a safe bet and everyone knew it. 'Is anyone going to argue that?' he raised his eyebrows.
'Might as well, don't have anything to loose,' Claude Greengrass said, added his money. 'I bet five galleons that he won't become a Slytherin.' Narcissa frowned as Lucius counted the coins.
Professor McGonagall opened her scroll and everyone fell silent.
'Andrews, Amelia,' became the first Ravenclaw.
'Barnibus, Kelvin,' was the first Hufflepuff. Andromeda watched as Ted thumped the small boy on the back with a large grin.
'Black, Sirius,' she called. Stretching my neck, I watched as Sirius sauntered up to the hat and let it fall over his eyes.
To be honest I was briefly surprised when the hat didn't call out Slytherin straight away, as it had for Bella and Narcissa. For one very long minute the hat stayed perched on his head. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Narcissa's bored look turn sour, a creased formed in her brow and a frown tugged on her lips.
The brim on the hat ripped open. 'Gryffindor!'
For one second the whole Great Hall seemed to have been shocked into silence. Narcissa's mouth dropped ungracefully open, Lucius, at her side, seemed to be turning a colour similar to beetroot.
A polite applause broke out as Sirius took the hat off his head and gave it to a very stunned McGonagall. A smile stretched across his face as he high-fived another first year before taking a seat. Andromeda caught a glimpse at the boy her cousin seemed to be becoming fast friends with, and she nearly choked out a laugh herself, as she recognised it to be a blood-traitor Potter.
Claude Greengrass swiped the money off the table and shoved it into his pocket, Lucius glowered at him and Narcissa, embarrassed, stared down at the table.
Andromeda let out a rebellious smile. Feeling strangely proud of her younger cousin, proud that he had the courage to do what she couldn't, be a Gryffindor. She stole a look at Sirius and, on the inside, was silently thrilled that she wasn't the only white sheep on the Black family tree.
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