kiss me, try to fix it (could you just try to listen?)
[-]
It is eighteen minutes to eleven when Andromeda walks through the barrier. Platform 9 ¾ has mostly emptied of the schoolchildren, and they crowd the train compartment windows of the Hogwarts Express, instead. Teary-eyed mothers and proud fathers stand waiting and waving on the platform as they say goodbye to their loved ones.
At seventeen years of age, Andromeda is no longer accompanied by her parents. She stands completely alone in the crowd. Her hand reaches up to tug anxiously at the silver locket hanging around her neck. Dressed in Muggle attire and barely thirteen days a legal adult, Andromeda feels like she is pretending to be someone she is not. She looks around the train station and though she has been through this situation every September since she was eleven, Andromeda fancies herself a stage actress who has forgotten what she is supposed to do next.
The Hogwarts Express lets out a shrill whistle and puffs out scarlet smoke in warning of its nearing departure. Andromeda holds onto her necklace tighter and makes a split-second decision. Taking advantage of the hazy atmosphere, she walks back through the barrier and into the Muggle world before she can change her mind.
x
When I set off the motion detectors in the Musée d'Orsay and you helped me craft a convincing story to the museum security by making a scapegoat out of the little old cat lady nearby, I never imagined that falling over a velvet rope would lead us down this rabbit hole. That is what these past two years have been, though, haven't they? A wild, intriguing, beautiful mess where we hardly knew up from down and where we were headed.
I fell hard that day, and it was chance that you happened to be there to catch me. And wasn't it just crazy stupid luck that you happened to be there at all the society balls over the years when I'd be clumsy and fall again and again and again? So it makes sense why our parents believed us to be a perfect match, and why you were forced to be the hero once more when society dictated for me to be another damsel in a dress.
We don't have to dance this dance anymore. You are my best friend and everything I have ever wanted, but not like this. We promised each other that we would marry for love... so this is our chance. You don't have to save me anymore from the consequences of my decisions. Let me go, Perseus. Let me take this risk.
I love you. Please don't be mad.
- A
x
In a flat on the other side of London, a young man rolls out of bed. It's not a long fall to the ground, for his bed is a glorified tangled pile of sheets on the thin mattress on the floor. He stands up with a groan as he stretches out the kinks and cramps from another poor night's sleep. Not for the first time, he thinks about investing in one of those fancy ergonomic mattresses. He dismisses the idea, though, because she would never go for something so –
He sighs and stops that thought right in its tracks. But it's a futile attempt; she haunts his mind and there are reminders of her all over his loft. She's there in the freckled shoulders splashed on the canvas in the far corner, and that is her smile pencilled in his sketchbook. The chipped yellow smiley face mug in the cupboard is hers, and she has a toothbrush stored inside of his canister in the bathroom that he uses to hold some of his paintbrushes and the occasional pen. She is a scarlet letter branding every surface in his flat with the memory of her.
The artist rubs the back of his neck. It's been something like a month since they separated – he's not really sure; after she walked out, the days blended together like a watercolour sunset – but time is taking its sweet time erasing her from his life. Deciding that he desperately needs to get out of this flat, he dresses in running clothes, laces up his shoes, and is out the door.
A few minutes after his front door shuts, the phone in his kitchen rings. The person on the other end keeps ringing even when it becomes painfully obvious that no one is going to answer. On the fourth try, a voice echoes through the empty flat as the faulty answering machine finally kicks in.
"Ted? Are you there? It's me, Andy. I, er, well, I'm not on the train. I mean, what I'm trying to say is that I'm not going back to school.
"I've been thinking about us and that morning. And I'm sorry, Ted. I'm sorry for the words I said and for running away. I know you think I don't listen but hear me out, all right? I am selfish and impossible and I don't know what I want, and it hurts to hear the words you said in the heat of the fight, but they were all true. They are true.
"But what I do know is that I love you. Ted, I love you so much and please, can we just try again? I swear I'll be better. My family is out of the picture and I broke off my engagement so we don't have to sneak around anymore and –
"Please, Ted. Come to King's Cross. I'll be waiting at Platform 10."
She stays waiting on the other end in case there is someone on this side listening to the phone but not picking up. But then she gives up, and the line goes dead.
x
"Have you seen Andromeda?" a tall, aristocratic boy worriedly asks his compartment companions on the Hogwarts Express.
"No, mate," shrugs one of his friends.
A brunette from his House places a hand on his arm comfortingly. "Don't worry, Perseus. I'm sure she's on the train somewhere."
Perseus Dolohov swallows. He reaches into his coat and runs his fingers over the long handwritten note deep in his pocket. It's so her from the Muggle references to the way she tries to right the wrongs in their lives. But he fears that towards the end, Andromeda strays from the metaphorical and means the literal. Let me go, she wrote. Surely she does not mean to end their relationship? Perhaps what they have isn't love like they always dreamt of but they are fond of one other and there are many other arranged marriages that start off with much less.
"I'm going to go look for her," Perseus says, abruptly cutting off Yaxley who was telling a story.
Rookwood narrows his eyes. "You better keep that girl of yours on a shorter leash once you're married," he sneers.
Perseus says stiffly, "I am not in want of your criticism, Rookwood, of the way I shall run my household or discipline my fiancée."
"Of course not," Rookwood replies with an insincere smile.
Perseus clenches his jaw and leaves the compartment before he fails to resist the temptation to duel Rookwood. He stalks up and down the corridors as he looks for Andromeda's chestnut hair or her laughing grey-blue eyes. Every person he stops to question cannot tell him where his fiancée is, however.
Did she forget that today is September first? He remembers that she seemed quite distracted this past summer but to forget that today is the day they all return to Hogwarts for their last school year? Perseus stops a few compartments away from the caboose and pulls out her note. He re-reads it and searches for clues as to where she might be. His eyes catch on the phrase "We promised each other that we would marry for love... so this is our chance." It triggers a niggling doubt in his brain.
Perseus stares out of the compartment window into the crowd of tearful parents. Perhaps he interpreted her cryptic wording wrong during his first read-through. Instead of setting him free, Perseus does not doubt that Andromeda was crafting an opportunity for herself. He recalls Andromeda mentioning a Muggle she met at a pottery workshop a year ago. What was his name? Ronks? Strong? Tonks! Ted Tonks. Now why is this insignificant Muggle so important...?
His gaze falls upon the barrier leading to the Muggle train station. A shiver of foreboding crawls down his back. Andromeda couldn't have. But one last glance around the Hogwarts Express that is void of her, and Perseus knows.
The Express calls out its five minute warning just as Perseus jumps off the train and runs for the barrier.
x
She sits on a bench by the train tracks, eyes on the clock and one hand clutching the locket around her neck. Inside the silver heart is a picture of Perseus. It pains Andromeda that all she seems to be doing lately is hurting the ones she loves. She unclasps the locket, and as the noose of Pureblood expectations is released, so is she.
She's hopeful that Ted will come and free her from the nightmare she's living. He is her escape away from the stifling Pureblood society and her overbearing parents. She closes her eyes and remembers what seems like another girl's life of paint-splattered nights, the daily scavenger hunt for food, and dancing barefoot on the rooftop underneath the stars.
If she were lucky, she would have an endless supply of hours with him to recreate the magic of that summer. But since she is Andromeda and always destined to end in tragedy no matter the story, it is not the boy in paint-covered armour she would rather have but the man always fated to be her hero who comes running to save her.
"Andromeda!" Perseus yells. He dashes over to where she sits in Platform 10 and he wraps his arms around her in pure relief. "You had me so very worried, love."
"That was not my intention," she replies as she watches the life she could have had fade away with every second that Ted does not come. "I wrote you a note."
Perseus rolls his eyes at the thought of that blasted note. "Here, let me help you put your locket back on." He sweeps her hair to one side and gently refastens the chain around her neck. He presses small kisses to her skin.
A sad, beautiful smile dances upon Andromeda's lips. She knows he must wonder what he did wrong and which thus pushed her away from him. She would like to reassure Perseus that it is not his fault, but she is a selfish creature and she greedily absorbs his love and apologies since the one she truly loves will never bestow the same upon her again.
"We missed the train," she says, and her eyes still search the platform for Ted's dimples and his green eyes.
"Then we Apparate into Hogsmeade and walk to the castle," Perseus replies as he nuzzles her neck. "I don't care how or when or where I go, just as long as I am with you."
Andromeda wishes she could say the same.
[-]
3 June 2015. Word Count: 1.864
3rd place in The Things I Would Do For You Competition: 18. Miss the Hogwarts Express while waiting for you to arrive.
For Lizziebee (TheNextFolchart).