the forest of stars by patchworkteddy
She stands by the nondescript and unkempt grave, an angel with broken wings. Wild roses spill from her trembling and bloodied hands, and they tumble through the air with her tears. A salty tang assaults her taste buds, and she lifts her hands to her face and weeps, blood mingling with her tears.
She never wanted it to end this way. Never.
(We were supposed to be together forever)
Bleeding the salt of her soul, she slides to the ground, only six metres between her and her, and watches the stars, the stars that burn bright and fierce and strong.
Each star sings a different song.
…
When Andromeda turns three, her mother loops a satin noose around her neck, eloquently tying it in a neat butterfly knot with the ends dangling in front of her chest. It is so black that everything else looks white.
Mother laces up Andromeda's ribcage, tight like a corset, suffocating. She takes a needle and a thread and sews the small girl's lips up. She plaits her daughter's hair, slipping the strands over and under each other, weaving in propaganda with the neat braids. Poison burrows into Andromeda's mind, beginning their infestation.
Andromeda is chained to a pedestal.
…
Andromeda is born on a night when the stars in the sky are the brightest. But there is something wrong with her (is what they say), because baby 'Dromeda just cries and screams and cries some more. Cygnus looks at Druella with contempt, because it's her fault their child turned out abnormal, but Druella knows the truth.
She clutches her girl, her baby to her chest like a lifeline, rocking her, and whispering, hush, Andromeda, I understand. She does understand (maybe this bundle in her arms understands better?), that the name 'Black' is synonymous to 'prison'.
Outside, an uncaged nightingale sings, and the melody lulls Andromeda to sleep.
…
This is a picture of innocence—rose petals, soft and pink, prominently scattered across the curtain of her thick black hair, as the lithe form dances in the breeze, a nymph with laughing eyes. Bella laughs, an exhilarated sound bursting with excitement as she prances across the large garden. Laughter bubbles from four-year-old Andy too, as unrestrained as her sister's.
Bella waltzes over, feet tapping a staccato rhythm on the lush grass, and sprinkles a shower of pink and red petals on the younger girl's hair, causing Andy to shriek and then giggle happily.
Andromeda climbs into her older sister's lap—her not so secret sanctuary. Nothing can hurt her.
…
Cissy is as fragile as a bird in Andy's hands—a lovely little cherub with tufts of blonde hair catching the light, with matchstick fingers wrapped around Andy's wrist, pretty as the flower she is named after.
Her fingers climb up Cissy's body, to the baby girl's chest. She feels the gentle and steady thud of a heart under her small palm, the rhythmic beating of a drum, the soft cry of life.
A breath escapes Andromeda, and softly, she whispers, like a dream, "Sister. Sister."
A flower with three-petals unfurls in three-year-old Andy's pixie hands. Three sisters, she thinks, three petals of a beautiful lily flower.
…
Andromeda may be a young child at seven, but she observes, and the things she sees bubbling underneath the surface terrify her.
She has seen her older sister's beautiful face twisted in an ugly sneer, the hard line of her jaw lined with fury and malice, hatred warping her features. (Bella's the one who throws her head back when she laughs and makes a chain of flowers for Andromeda.)
She has seen her baby sister's sweet and innocent and angelic face freeze into ice with superiority, and hear her say ugly words of insults using that lovely voice of hers. (Cissy's the one who sings nursery rhymes and grows innocent blossoms with her magic.)
She has heard her parents speaking of the disownment of family members in a matter-of-fact tone, as though they were discussing the weather, always making scathing remarks about those 'blood traitors'. (Respectable, be respectable, they put things into her ears, one by one.)
And sometimes she finds herself wavering between loving her family (she does, she does) and not even knowing them.
…
Once, when Andromeda is four and does not know anything, she stumbles across her mother crying, her face scrunched up, tears that look like a memory sliding down her face.
Andromeda slips into the room, and sits beside her surprised mother, who starts. Little Andy, who does not know any better, wraps short arms around her mother in an attempt to hug her. Resting her head on her mother's chest, she can hear it, steadily hammering away, the sound of a heart pulsing.
Mother pushes her away after a while, gives her a short lecture how it is not appropriate for Blacks to behave in such a childish manner, but Andy sees the smile gracing Mother's thin lips, behind the tears.
She decides she wants Mother to smile more often.
…
One day, Bella takes her hand, and, with that mischievous glint in her eyes that Andy loves so much, announces proudly, her plan for sneaking into Diagon Alley.
(And even as she looks back now, she just can't think of Bella, that laughing sister o' hers who pulled her by her hand to buy sundaes from Flortescue's, and Bellatrix Lestrange, the insane Death Eater who killed and tortured thoughtlessly, as the same person.)
(And Andromeda remembers Bella's favourite type of ice cream—strawberry, topped with chocolate sauce and Colour-Changing Candies.)
Andy goes along, because she loves her sister, and she is seven and all-grown-up. They get the House-Elf to Apparate them to the alley, and firmly instructs him to keep it a secret. They tell Kreacher to collect them at the phone booth outside Diagon Alley, since no one needs to know how they got to Diagon Alley… right?
So, after roaming around for a bit, Andy and Bella stroll down Muggle London (Bella rolling her eyes at passing Muggles), licking their ice cream cones ravenously, relishing the taste. While waiting for Kreacher, Andy—always the curious one—scans the crowd of Muggles milling about in London.
She picks out a pair of sisters. The older one—a blue-eyed girl with curls coloured a darkened honey—hoists up her giggling little sister to her shoulders, carrying the younger girl piggy-back style. Their mother rolls her eyes but strokes her daughters' hair fondly, as a little baby drools a trail of saliva on her shoulder. A man—Andy assumes he is the woman's husband—appears from behind them, quite suddenly, with packets of candy he drops into the middle sister's eager hands. She shrieks with happiness. He plants a kiss on his wife, who bats him playfully but laughs.
Something inside Andy stirs.
"Andy? Kreacher's here."
"Yeah, okay…"
She cannot help but think how that Muggle family is so much like hers… only better.
…
Andromeda first understands the twisted history of the Black family (this is how she starts calling 'her' family as she ages, because it's so much easier like this) at age seven. (And she is ohsoyoung.) Before that, she has caught glimpses of the tapestry, but has never really taken the time to study it.
But now she knows. (And they say ignorance is bliss.)
She sees the black holes swallowing up faces on the tapestry. She sees the elaborate lines linking daughter after daughter to men of families with high social standings. She sees her fate in them.
Marry someone she doesn't love, or leave all that she loves. Draw hate from discrimination, or draw hate towards herself.
At seven, some part of Andy is broken as spokes of barbed wire pierce through her skin and burrow to her heart, right where it hurts the most.
…
Promises, sweet as nectar and coated with the cloying scent of an alluring future, drift in the summer air. The youngest sister is lying on the soft, dewy grass, head resting on six-year-old Andy's lap, golden hair haloed by the soft morning glow.
Andy plucks daffodils and twines the stems around the short blonde tendrils that frame her sister's face, reminiscing Bella scattering petals in her hair. Cissy giggles (really they are so alike—why did things have to turn out this way?) and Bella rolls her sparkling eyes.
A forest of white and yellow stretch up, against the backdrop of the gold of Cissy's soft hair. Andromeda can't help but think of the sunset.
Cissy giggles happily again, and takes another of those sweet white flowers, clumsily putting it into Andy's dark hair, then Bella's. Satisfied, little Cissy nestles herself in Andy's lap, and rests her head on Andy's shoulder.
"We'll be together forever, right?"
Her voice is muffled, but the unintentional weight of her words is there. The words hang in the air, laden with a significance the children do not notice.
"Forever and ever and ever."
…
Andromeda burns, hot flames encasing each star. They're star gazing in the garden, Bella and Andy. The stars look like bluish diamonds embedded into the night sky.
A slender finger traces constellations etched into the heavens, as Bella says, "Look, Andy. That's me. Bellatrix." Her finger lands on a fiercely glowing star. Andy's gaze lands on it, and she tells her sister, "It's really bright and pretty, Bella." The older girl smiles softly (if she had a chance to turn the clock back, Andromeda would freeze this moment forever), and, in an awed kind of voice, murmurs, "Bellatrix. The warrior star."
Andy rolls over, her eyes roaming her sister's face, and the intensity of the girl's gaze on the heavens. After a while, she opens her mouth, and the word falls from her tongue.
"Beautiful."
(If only, she had known.)
Bella breaks her eye contact, and tilts her head slightly, before stating, "And that's the Andromeda constellation, Andy."
It's quite beautiful really, stars in the sky penciling out constellations. Andy gazes at it, enthralled, before asking her sister, "Bella? What else is it called?"
The conversation lapses into silence for a wall, before Bella answers in a strange tone.
"The Chained Lady."
…
Fractures mar the picture-perfect view. Andromeda sees them now—the noose they loop around her neck in the guise of a pretty satin ribbon, the chains wrapped around her straw-doll body, the future mapped out for her.
But what she fears most is the shattering of her family. Because she loves them all.
(Ironic, she realises much later. Ironic.)
…
"Hello. My name's Ted Tonks. What about you?"
"…Andromeda."
…
After Andromeda has left her childhood home, and after Bella has become Bellatrix the Death Eater, and after Cissy becomes Narcissa Malfoy, Andy sits in Florean Flortescue's Ice Cream Parlour and eats strawberry ice cream topped with chocolate sauce and Colour-Changing Candies for nine days straight.
…
A photograph, torn into five pieces with ragged edges. Two are buried into the dirt, seeds ready to grow into thorns that assault her with grief. Each of the remaining three is taped back with other pictures, and they sail on the winds into a different future. A whole splintered into pieces, separated forever.
…
Tears from the grief gather in her heart and rise up to her eyes, bleeding onto the cold marble. The memories flood her now, and she wonders if it was a good choice to come here.
But it is, she knows. Even if she does hate her now, Andromeda needs this—to say goodbye, because… somewhere, inside herself, she has been screaming for them to love her again, but now…
It's just too late.
Righting herself, Andromeda picks up the white roses in her hands. Taking a breath, and starts to adorn the grave with roses. Tears blur her vision, and faces swim in front of her—Bella, laughing as she dumps petals into Andy's hair, Cissy giggling as Andy weaves daffodils into her golden tresses, a bouquet of roses bought for Father, the roses she tried planting with Mother…
She swallows, once, and she casts her gaze towards the night sky. Towards the stars that twinkle as a part of it. Words climb up her throat. Words that, years ago, she swallowed.
Now is the time for truths, for the dead do not speak but listen.
"Bella… I'm sorry. I'm sorry I never got to say goodbye. And… I just… Just wanted to let you know, that I… that some part of me still… loves you. And I will, forever and ever and ever. Because we're sisters. So… Goodbye."
The last word is snatched up by the winds, and carried towards the heavens with some fallen rose petals. Watching them, Andromeda thinks of that, of childhood days—a fairy tale where Bella is still sane, where Cissy is an angel with a lovely smile, where Bella is still alive and they are all together.
And she lets go. She may never have a future where Bella will hold her hand again and sit with her to feast on ice cream, but she has memories burned into her, where there is a BellaandCissyandAndromeda and they are happy.
And maybe, it's enough.
She finally understands. She never was chained to her past. She chained herself to it. Fingers trailing around her collar bone, she briefly hesitates before untying the ribbon (yes, a ribbon) around her neck. Holding it between shaking fingers, she ties it around the grave, finishing in a butterfly knot that has none of her mother's eloquence or grace, but has all the love she could give and more.
Andromeda wipes her eyes, and finally moves forwards.
At home, she snuggles close to her sleeping grandson, and reminds herself to call Cissy tomorrow, falling asleep to the sound of little Teddy's heartbeat.
A/N: A-N-D-R-O-M-E-D-A! Whooo! Isn't she the best? Anyway, this is written for WeasleySeeker's (nice name) Early Childhood Competition. I'm not exactly sure what happened to this... It kinda blew up in my face. I'm nervous, anyway, my first time writing Andromeda. Harry Potter and all affiliated material do not belong to me.
Uh, review, please!