Hey.
Well, I have another one-shot for you all. In The Summer. Written for Arithmancy class in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I had to write about one of the four seasons (no prizes for guessing which I chose).
Please review!
In The Summer
"I've been in a daze." Andromeda said, sitting down on the grassy bank and sighing heavily. "Ted, do you know what I mean?"
The boy sitting beside her – 'Ted' – nodded, his sandy hair blowing somewhat in the breeze. "I know exactly what you mean." He insisted, nodding again, turning to the girl next to him. She represented everything he loved. Cared about. "I take it this means your holiday hasn't been the greatest?"
Andromeda scoffed, holding her billowing skirts closer to her legs and meeting her friends (although no one could ever, ever know) gaze. "Summer is supposed to be… I don't know…"
She gestured, looking around at the cars passing by on the Muggle roads far below them both, to the rooftops of London in the near distance. To the trees that were waving in the breeze, to the blistering sun. And lastly, to them both. The good, pureblood daughter, and the Muggle-born boy. So prettily juxtaposed in the sunlight.
"Relaxing?" Ted suggested, shrugging when Andromeda rolled her eyes. "Pretty? Dromeda, it's pretty. Summer always is. Especially when you're here."
It took a little while for his words to sink in, but when Andromeda looked up, Ted had looked down again. And his cheeks were burning pink in the midday sunshine.
"No." She said quickly. "No, Ted, I am to marry Rodolphus Lestrange once we both finish school. You will marry a nice girl, like Alice, or one of your friends' sisters."
Ted nodded, although he inwardly groaned. The chemistry between them – friendly no longer – was unquestionable, but Andromeda knew that even being friends with a Muggle-born was bad, and a relationship would be dumb. And Andromeda Cedrella Black just didn't do 'dumb'.
Andromeda was a girl of long skirts, straight O grades, and no detentions. Way out of Ted's league, out of his Universe in fact. She was to marry Rodolphus Lestrange, a man with the money enough to buy the entirety of London, not him. He always had the bad habit of falling for people he couldn't have.
But as the breeze blew his hair, Ted sighed, this time audibly, and let his eyes close, and his mind blast back to last Christmas, and the drunken confession they had admitted, out in the black night to one another, and the night of euphoria that had followed.
Lipstick-stained sheets, and a sense of belonging, of a feeling Ted wasn't sure of, and then a note on the pillow the next morning, saying that it shouldn't have happened, and that they should forget it altogether.
Ted was used to rebelling, doing what he wanted and not what he had asked to do, but in this instance he did try and forget. Andromeda acted like nothing had happened, and so did he.
But… sometimes…
Sometimes, when he was laid awake at night, he would think what it would be like to have Andromeda next to him, in his arms, lying underneath a tree in the bright August sunshine. He imagined more nights of love and lust, and the family he so dearly wanted to have. Andromeda would have beautiful children.
It was just a shame those children would be most likely born to Rodolphus fucking Lestrange, and not him.
"Ted, are you okay?" Andromeda asked him concernedly, and Ted took a few moments to realise that he had stood up. He was right in the path of the sunshine, and it felt like he was walking in the air. "Ted?"
"I've had enough." Ted said, his voice shaking, although not with anger. The surprise registered in Andromeda's face, no one ever spoke like that to her, let alone her softly spoken, laugh of a friend, Edward Tonks. "Andromeda, I'm sorry. But I just… can't deal with this."
"What do you mean?" Andromeda asked, standing up herself, taking extra care not to get grass stains on her dress. "Ted, what's the matter?"
Ted pinched the bridge of his nose. Seeing Andromeda Black standing there, right in the path of the sunlight, was something that threw him. It made her look… Not fragile, not the fragile beauty of her youngest sister Narcissa, nor the curly-haired, rebel, untouchable Bellatrix.
"I've had enough." He repeated, and his lips crashed down on hers, with a brutal passion. She tasted like the melon they had eaten, the fruit taste sticking to her lips in a seductive way. Then he pulled away, before Andromeda had a time to react by pulling away or letting herself lose themselves.
Her beautiful brown eyes were wide, and one of her delicately shaped hands went to her lips. Ted sighed again, a little louder than the other two times, and shook his head. "Sorry." He said, in a low voice. "I shouldn't have done this."
"Yes." Andromeda whispered, and Ted swung around quickly. Then she was kissing him, and they weren't drunk, they weren't caught up in the heat of the moment. Her hands were tangling in his hair, and he was gripping her waist with a gentle but unbreakable touch.
And it tasted and felt and looked and was everything that he remembered. The summer sun poured onto them both, as Andromeda pulled away, pressing her fingers to his swollen lips. "I love you." She murmured.
And Ted smiled, pulling her fingers away from him and letting himself feel what he had needed for so long.
Andromeda. The summer. Her love.