"Oh will you shut up about Malfoy, Cissy. All he did was wink at you. And he probably didn't even do that."
The blonde-haired fourth year's love-dazed expression vanished as she stopped put her hands on her hips and menacingly raised an eyebrow at her raven sister. "And what is that supposed to mean?"
"He probably had something in his eye." Bellatrix snapped back, and with a huff and a swish of her cloak, Narcissa Black had turned down the next corridor.
"You need to stop it Bella… One day she'll hex you."
"Not if I hex her first…" said Bellatrix, a wicked grin spreading across her face.
Always the peacekeeper, the middle Black sister just bit her tongue, shook her head and started walking to class once again.
"What? Oh come on Andromeda, you know I'm right!" shouted Bella, breaking into a jog to catch up with her sister. "Why would a seventh year, hunk of a man, Quidditch star," her volume dropped "favourite of the Dark Lord," her voice returned to her normal, loud volume "be interested in a fourth year?"
"All I'm saying that I've heard a lot of stuff that he's taken Severus under his wing just to get to her. Being that they're always hanging out when he's not with that ginger mudblood girl. Therefore, I think it's highly likely Lucius has a thing for our Narcissa."
"Pah! Bollocks! I spend all my classes with him and he doesn't mention her at all..." Bellatrix pouted and cocked an eyebrow as she folded her arms.
"Probably because he knows you'd run straight to her and breathe every syllable he utters not only to her, but to me… and probably the whole of Hogwarts."
The two laughed together, Andromeda's sweet laugh mixed with Bellatrix's cackle. Other than their noses and the matching Slytherin ties around their neck, the two Black sisters where as different as they could get. Despite being a year apart, Bellatrix a seventh and Andromeda a sixth year, both, having a free period and homework of some kind, headed towards the library.
The sisters sat down in silence and started working. Lucius Malfoy, Chalmers Crabbe and Elizabeth McNaire all swaggered in with grins on their faces, Lucius tossing around some galleons. Bellatrix looked up and waved, grinning too. Andi chuckled and leant across the table to her sister.
"If I didn't know you were so desperate on trying to get into the Dark Lord's robes, I would say you have a crush on Mr. Malfoy…"
"ANDI! YOU CAN'T SAY THAT!"
"About what? You fancying the Dark Lord, or fancying Malfoy?"
Bella slapped Andi's upper arm and chuckled. "Either really. But I don't fancy Malfoy. At all. Okay?" But the way Bellatrix had pulled her crooked wand out of her hair and was pointing it at her sister was saying a different story.
"Okay. Okay. I believe you." The brunette stood up and began to walk over to the nearest bookshelf. She suddenly spun on her heels, playfully ran back to the table and smiled cheekily. "So you're not denying you fancy the Dark Lord?"
Knowing what her sister's reaction would be, she darted behind the nearest bookshelf as Bellatrix threw a curse where she had just been sat. Andi heard Bellatrix swear under her breath and the chair scraping on the floor as she got up to pursue her teaser. Andi ran to the one place none of her sisters knew about. The Care of Magical Creatures section. She adored the leather, fur and scale covered books, about Dragons, Hippogriffs, Gryndilows, Harpies and every mystical creature she could think of. Whilst she was taking the subject as one of her N.E.W.T's her sisters didn't know of her passion for the subject.
Looking over her shoulder as she ran, she rammed into someone and they ended in a sprawled pile of limbs on the floor.
When she went to look up her soft, long, brown hair, that never seemed to end, had flown over her head and now was covering her face entirely, blocking her view of the poor soul she had crushed.
"I am so sorry!" she panted between giggles.
"No harm done..." a male voice winced from beneath her.
She went up on all fours and looked down herself and saw that her knee was precariously placed between his legs, pressed right up against his crotch.
"Oh Merlin, did I-?"
"Yep." The male's voice was so high pitched in pain that she has to bite her lip to stop herself from laughing. It was a good thing her hair was covering her face for the beaming smile she was sporting was not disappearing. She stood up and at last flicked her hair away from her face to see a face she knew once. Or underneath the adult features, a face she knew once. A boy she had forgotten but that had danced in and out of her dreams, both when she was at her lowest and at her best.
And that boy had been her friend. That boy was Ted Tonks.
Four Summers previous.
"Dromeda!"
"Ted, you know I hate people calling me that!" She giggled and fell to the green ground, her soft brown curls surrounding her face.
"Yes, but I'm special!" He winked then pouted and put his hands on his hips.
"You don't half look silly, Ted."
He laughed and flopped to the ground beside her smiling a toothy grin.
"You're missing another tooth!"
"I know! Only one more baby tooth to go now!"
"Then you'll be all grown up like me!" Andi giggled and swished her hair, the light of the setting sun catching her highlights and reflecting them back in a soft glow. Following then by her own toothy grin.
"That one is still growing through though!" Ted laughed, he pointed his finger at her left canine and raised an eyebrow. "We aren't adults yet." He went to withdraw his finger, but they both moved at the same time in laughter and his finger brushed over her lower lip. They both stopped for a moment, their eyes catching each other's. His, the deep blue like the ocean depths against hers, grey of a sky before a snow storm. He almost stroked it, mesmerised for the first time by the colour of her lips, pale pink like the candied rose petals on the cheesecake they had had for dinner…
Andi felt something shift in her too. She blushed redder than she ever had before; she felt the heat burn her cheeks as if the noon-day sun was directly above them. Ted coughed, breaking her from her reverie and he retracted his finger wiping it on his shirt before laughing and lying back against the grass. Andi did the same, shaking her head and with it the weird grown-up feelings she had just felt away.
"I hate being a second year." Ted grumbled.
"Why? We can play Quidditch now!"
"Yeah, but you're good at it Andi. I'm just another…"
"Just another what?" She frowned.
"Just another no-good muggle-born."
"Teddy! Don't say that, you're amazing with magic."
"Nah. But it's cool. I have my own charms."
She laughed, although she didn't quite know why. It wasn't funny… because he did.
Andi looked over at him and studied his face.
"Your nose is all wrinkly again." Ted suddenly stated.
"What?" She blushed again and turned away.
"Your nose goes wrinkly when you think." He turned and smiled. "I think it's cute."
"You think Mandrakes are cute." She rolled her eyes.
"The one I had was really fat okay! It was adorable!"
Andi giggled again.
She closed her eyes and settled into the grass.
Then, her world changed.
She felt lips against hers. Soft lips that, like hers, didn't quite know what to do. She thought at first to open her eyes, but then she remembered how in all the fairytales they always had their eyes closed when the lovers kissed. She puckered her lips slightly to kiss back, her hand moving from the grass and somehow, instinctively finding the kisser's cheek.
The lips pulled away, and as her eyelids fluttered open, the blue sea and the grey sky met once more.
Her nanny, (her mother not developing a fondness for her middle child compared to her other two sisters) had told her about kisses; and how a kiss upon a young girl's lips marked her becoming a woman. Andi didn't want to be a woman yet.
Tears stung her eyes as she sat up and shuffled away from the kneeling boy in-front of her, the one with the crooked smile, behind which he had 26 normal teeth, one baby tooth and one gap.
"Ted… why?"
"Because… I think, I mean, out of all the girls I know. And, I dunno. I feel… I think we're meant to kiss."
Andi shook her head and Ted's smile disappeared.
"Bellatrix…"
"What about her?"
"You're a mudblood-" Andi cut off and covered her mouth with her hands. "I'm sorry Ted! I'm sorry! I didn't mean that!"
"It's cool." He tried to smile, but she could see the hurt behind it.
"No I mean, I don't want you to get hurt by her or my family… because of…"
There was a silence. Andi felt all too grown up to fast. She agreed with Ted now. She didn't like being a second year.
"I'm just confused, Ted." She murmured.
"Me too." He murmured back.
"You're my friend."
"Mine too."
Those were the last words she had said to him, and him to her. The days of longing stares, turned into awkward catching's of the eye, to passing glances. The next term, Hufflepuff and Slytherin had no lessons together. As did the last term of second year. Third, fourth and fifth year came and went, and the pounding heart within Andi's chest honestly couldn't remember if they had had a class together since.
She stood there for a minute, re-arranging her hair, not sure where to look as he sat up grabbed his crotch and moaned in agony, collapsing to the floor again. He obviously hadn't seen who she was… or had he? Had he forgotten too? Forgotten the childish laughs and imaginings of rolling in mud and one day riding hippogriffs together… Forgotten the childish dreams that had left her the second he had taken her kiss…
"What on earth where you running from? A banshee? A troll?" He laughed as he groaned, his eyes still shut.
"Bellatrix-"
"Definitely a banshee then!" he laughed to himself "What on earth did you provoke the baddest Black for-" His sentence trailed off as his eyes opened and he looked at her. Was that last memory hitting him like it had just hit her? His eyes narrowed, as if he was trying to work out how he knew her face, or like she had, the feature's hidden behind the years. Those blue eyes the widened and he shuffled back startled.
"Hi."
"Hi."
After, what, 4 years? Was that all they had to say to one another?
She looked down at the floor, more confused than she had ever felt. For them to be literally thrown back together like this… Had she ever really missed him? He had become that haunting angel in her dreams, forgotten as soon as she woke. Friends come and go all the time in school. He was just another. But he is more than that… He has your kiss.
Andi started picking off her nail polish, a nervous habit she had had since before she could remember.
"Your nose is wrinkling."
She looked up to see him stood now. He wasn't quite smiling, but there was that slight glint in his eyes. "Whatcha thinking about this time?"
"You've… You've grown." She murmured.
"I know. How's the view down there." He chuckled. "I guess you're not the tall one anymore."
"I'm still tall."
"That's true."
She shook her head. Merlin, the conversation they were having, it was as if they were still 12. From the 12 year old boy at the beginning of second year to the 17 year old man stood before her, ending their winter term of sixth year. All that time; oh how it had changed him. He must be at least 5 foot 11 now. His face had elongated and he actually had defined muscles. But he was still skinny, and his hair was still the scruffy mousy brown, straw blonde combination it had always been. But he had grown up. Just like her.
"Dromeda…"
"Don't call me that Ted. You know I hate it."
"I know you hated it, but a lot of things change in four years."
"I… I have to go…"
"Really?"
"I… I'm sorry Ted. But… this is wrong."
"Wrong? What's wrong?" He laughed and shook his head. "Blimey, if you're family's gonna kill you for just talking to a mudblood now then I'm glad I got out when I did." He ran a hand through his hair and sat back down, against the bookcase.
"Don't say that."
"Don't say what Andi?"
"Don't call yourself a mudblood."
He frowned with a half-smile up at her.
"You never had a problem with calling me one before. Nor Lily Evans. Nor Jermiah, or Smithy or Eric Clawsden-"
"Stop it."
"Or Emily Brunswick or Billy, Dotty or Mark-"
"Stop it okay?"
He raised an eyebrow at her outburst.
"I'm no different to them."
She bit her lip hard to stop herself. But you are. You're Ted.
He stood. He walked over to her and thumbed her green tie between his forefinger and thumb.
"Like I always said, Andi. It's cool."
"Ted…" His name trickled over her lips like a brook did over pebbles. She closed her eyes and breathed in his smell. He smelt like a man too. Her dreams flooded her senses. Was it this man before her that had been the shadow she had chased after too many times? A man who had grown from the boy she used to know.
She opened her eyes, and he was gone. Leaving nothing but his scent in the air, and a burning on the corner of her lips, where his kiss from so long ago had left its permanent mark.
"There's something different about you Andi…"
"W-What?" The twelve year old shook with nerves as her older sister circled her like a vulture waiting for its prey.
"Hanging around with that mudblood is no good for you Andromeda. Will I have to tell dear old Papa? He will be most displeased…"
"Bella… please don't tell Father!"
"Why would I tell him if there is nothing going on?"
"There isn't! I promise."
"Good." Bellatrix released her tight grip on her wand and sister's shoulder. "But there is something different about you…"
"I wouldn't know why." Don't think of the kiss, don't think of the kiss, don't think of the kiss.
"Hmmm. Well. Go and give this to Lucius will you? Father sent it, says it's a message from the Dark Lord."
Andi hesitated. "The Dark Lord?"
"No Andi, Merlin. For God's sake of course the Dark Lord."
She moved nowhere. "Go on!" And off Andi ran, already forgetting the boy with the blue eyes as he was replaced by the man with the red.