I don't own Harry Potter. That'd be J.K. Rowling. Maybe someday I will own something and people will write about it and have to disclaim it, but I doubt it.

***

Andromeda was the only one who ever noticed them.

They were great silver birds, with flowery plume of feathers that tailed behind them across the blue sky on a clear day, creating silvery wisps of clouds that remained for hours afterward. The birds sometimes flew very high, so that Andromeda couldn't even see what color they were, but sometimes they flew low, but never low enough for Andromeda to touch them. They were huge, and sometimes very loud, emitting low grumble and growls from the very core of their being. At first she wondered if they were some sort of kin to the phoenix, or possibly even dragons, to be so loud and powerful in flight.

Her sisters never seemed to care. Narcissa found them annoying; as they flew low over the house, rumbling in acceleration, she screwed up her face and clapped her hands over her ears. Bellatrix simply ignored them. Though Andromeda had always been the first to pay attention to them, Bellatrix gained an interest briefly when Andromeda suggested that they might be special Slytherin phoenixes, since they were silver. She even came along to ask their father and break the curiosity.

Alphard Black was immensely confused when his two oldest daughters, ages six and eight, came stampeding into his den demanding to know what the great silver birds were. Bellatrix then asked him if there was such a thing as a Slytherin phoenix, which at least he could answer.

"No, not that I'm aware of," he responded, furrowing his eyebrows. He wasn't nearly as excited about the idea as his daughter. He had been a Ravenclaw, and, as his wife (who had been chosen for him by his parents) was in Slytherin, it was to be assumed the children would be in one or the other. Bellatrix was already showing a decided preference. "I haven't even seen these birds . . . you say they're flying over our house?"

"Yes!" Andromeda pulled on her father's hand. "The noisy birds! Maybe you can't hear them in here; maybe you have to be upstairs in the nursery, right below the roof!"

Alphard gave the girls his old Care of Magical Creatures textbook and went back to his business, vowing to put a noiseless charm on the roof later so his daughters wouldn't be distracted by whatever these figments were as they slept.

"Help me look," Andromeda asked Bellatrix as they left the room, holding out the book.

Bellatrix screwed up her face. "I don't want to read that. Daddy said they weren't phoenixes, anyway."

"But don't you want to find out what they were?"

Bellatrix shrugged cooly, her shoulders shifting her thick, glossy, black curls.

Andromeda sighed and went back to her room, where she sat on the bed deciphering the textbook. She had taught herself to read, and, though she was only six, she had read more in the house than her older sister, who preferred action and physical games to quiet reading and drawing. Andromeda curled up on her fluffy blue quilt (her father had insisted on blue, in hopes that perhaps his most precociously book-smart daughter might lean towards his house) and opened the textbook. It was the 1948 edition, so it was a little outdated, but surely it will still contain what she was looking for. She continually tucked her hair behind her ear as she read, a fidget she had developed. Her hair was straight and chestnut brown, and, though Andromeda was beautiful, in contrast to her stunning sisters she seemed rather plain. Everyone in the Black family was known for their good looks. Andromeda's father, aunt, uncle, two cousins, and sister Bellatrix were all very dark, with olive skin and thick black hair, Bellatrix's of which was deeply wavy. Andromeda's mother and little sister Narcissa were lighter, though in the sense of winter as opposed to spring. They both had pale blond curls and a delicate white complexion, colorless and almost unhealthy in a sort of dying fairy way. Andromeda was the odd one out, with dead straight brown hair. She still retained the dark Black eyes- even blond Narcissa had those- but hers were not hooded or emotionless; they carried more warmth. Only her cousin Sirius shared this trait with her.

After several hours of sifting through the book, her finger now entwined in her hair, Andromeda dropped off to sleep, her face pressed against the pages. She had learned about phoenixes, werewolves, kappas, and hinkypunks, but there had been nothing about the great silver birds.

***

She had been awoken rather nastily in time for dinner. Sirius, Regulus, and their parents had come over for dinner, as they did nearly twice a week (or vise-versa), and Bellatrix had been interrupted from a game she had been winning against Sirius in order to call Andromeda down. It was a well-known fact that Bellatrix, though almost four years older than Sirius, was perpetually in combat with him. Ironically, Sirius almost always held the upper hand. For a five-year-old, he was remarkably clever.

"Come on!" Bellatrix dragged Andromeda off her bed by the arms, pulling the blue quilt to the floor. "We have to eat. And if you want to play with us after dinner, you have to be on my side, because I got stuck with Regulus and he's worthless."

"What are you playing?" Andromeda asking, trying to rub the red marks off her face where the book had pressed into her.

"Goblin rebellion," she said shortly, her nails digging into Andromeda as she dragged her down to the kitchen, refusing the let go. "I made Sirius be a goblin and he's doing it okay, but Narcissa's being stupid and keeps saying she's Medea. I told her she could be princess of the goblins but she won't."

"And who are you?"

"The dark witch Dulcinea," she said, as if it were obvious. Whenever Bellatrix played a game, she was always a powerful female, be it a queen, a warrior, or simply a sorceress. No matter how the real story went, she always had to win, too. It was her prerogative as the oldest cousin.

Andromeda never minded acting out who she was forced to be, though she preferred characters with brains and strategy, like goblins, than the giants and trolls of other wars. Quiet Narcissa was satisfied as long as she was something pretty- if not, her screams could completely halt the game. Regulus was excited as long as he was on a team, and usually he sided with Bellatrix, since he liked to win. Sirius was also easygoing, but then again, he usually tried to sabotage the game and ended up with all sorts of battle wounds inflicted on him- not from fighting, but from attempting to do something Bellatrix didn't like, which, of course, would cease the game until Bellatrix dealt with him.

The rest of the children were not nearly as lethargic as Andromeda as they sat down at the table to eat. Sirius was very red in the face and gulped down a goblet of milk before the food was even served. His mother poked him beneath the table. "Wait for the food!" she scolded. Regulus was so energetic that he actually attempted to play the repeating game with Bellatrix, with tragic results.

"Narcissa, you can be the goblin princess. She has long blond hair, and blue eyes, and a tiara!" Bellatrix was still trying to console Narcissa into her appropriate plotline with lies she knew would appeal to her.

"Narcissa, you can be the goblin princess. She has long blond hair, and blue eyes, and a tiara," Regulus repeated.

"Regulus, stop that."

"Regulus, stop that."

"Regulus!"

"Regulus!"

"I'm warning you!"

"I'm warn- AGGGHHH!" The plate of hot spaghetti Kreacher was placing before Regulus magically tipped over and landed in the boy's lap, causing him to scream in pain. Bellatrix leaned back in her chair, smirking. She always made sure to get revenge; no one escaped her wrath. Andromeda knew this very well.

As Regulus's mother dashed over to Evanesco the mess and heal the burns, Andromeda's mother lowered her wand under the table. Andromeda saw Bellatrix jump slightly as if stung, and then burn a furious red.

"Stinging Hex," Andromeda's mother whispered, smirking, to Sirius's and Regulus's father. "Very useful in training them not to lose their tempers."

However, it looked as if that had only made it worse. Bellatrix's dark eyelids had squinted noticeably downwards, narrowing her eyes. She glared at her mother with such passion that Andromeda was surprised nothing in the room burst into flame- it was not beyond possibilty; it had happened before. It was only Bellatrix's fear of further punishment that stopped her from delving her own mother into screams of pain.

Suddenly, there was a roar from outside the window. Andromeda recognized it at once. She leapt down from the thick, padded wooden chair and dashed to the window. "The birds, Daddy, the birds!" she shouted, pointing to the huge window adorned with stain glass Black crests.

Andromeda's mother and aunt exchanged looks. Andromeda's father paled slightly. "Dear, what birds?"

"I read that book and I couldn't find them in there!" she cried. "What are they? Come to the window and tell me!"

Bellatrix had begun to snicker and Sirius was peering curiously at her over his fourth goblet of milk. Alphard, however, humored her. Andromeda desperately tried to show him the silver birds- but she couldn't see them at the angle the house was at. The garden wall was too high, and the curtains that hung over the window obscured her view even more. "Maybe you can't see them out this window," she explained. "Maybe it's only in the nursery. Come on, let's go!" She seized her father's hand but he pulled it away.

"Andromeda, it's alright. We don't need to go see the birds right now."

"You don't believe me! You don't believe they're there!" she accused.

"Well . . . when you show me, I'll believe it, but we don't need to do it right now. Wait until after dinner. Why don't you sit and have some more noodles?"

Andromeda sulkily returned to her seat. Bellatrix shook her head in disdain and Andromeda wished she was temperamental enough to set her hair afire. She wasn't as good as making things happen with her mind like Sirius and Bellatrix were. Her mom had been afraid she was a Squibb for a while. Her power lay in books.

Everyone at the table seemed mildly concerned about Andromeda's outburst, as if she were insane- or, in the case of her aunt, just a foolish child who was craving attention. This diagnosis annoyed Andromeda, particularly since Regulus spent the rest of the dinner session whimpering to himself as if traumatized over the spaghetti incident. Finally, the meal ended, too late for Sirius and Regulus to stay any longer and play. Andromeda and her sisters were advised by their father to head upstairs to bed. Narcissa went willingly, but while Bellatrix shrieked in protest as she did every night, Andromeda bought some time to talk to Sirius while his parents dealt with the equally-disruptive-as-Bellatrix Regulus who did not want to Floo back home because the power made him sneeze.

"Have you ever seen the birds?" she asked him.

Sirius shrugged. "No. If you show me, I'll believe you. I hear them, though. I always thought they were dragons. They growl so loudly . . . I told Reg they were dragons once and now he cries when he hears them."

"So do you think they're birds or dragons?" Andromeda continued.

"Maybe they're neither. Maybe they're not even alive. Maybe they're ghosts, or . . . or some kind of crazy Muggle thing."

"Muggles don't fly. They don't have magic to make things fly."

Sirius shrugged again, but Andromeda had to say goodbye to him because her aunt and uncle had finally managed to get Regulus in the fireplace and Bellatrix, thanks to yet another Stinging Hex, was now on her way upstairs.

***

TBC . . . skipping ahead to when Andromeda enters Hogwarts . . .