To Not See and Dare, To Look Away and Lose

Busy days were harder on Andromeda. The house was bursting with live today, as pure-blood society had come together to celebrate her sister Narcissa's fifth birthday. Some of the furniture had been moved, and people walked about, sometimes oblivious to the small seven-year-old trying to make her way between them without being trampled. The house-elves rushed about their chores, disturbing her with their cracks, though sometimes they had the time to take her hand and guide her somewhere else. She didn't like being taken by apparition with them, because between being dizzy and not knowing exactly where she had landed, it always took her a while to get her bearings back.

The house was never very quiet with the three of them running about, except when their tutor, a nice wizard that sounded older than Grandpapa, came to teach them, or when Daddy held meetings downstairs and the girls were told to behave. During those days, there was even a different weight to the air in the house, something solemn, which Andromeda could now clearly connect to the wizard Bella liked eavesdropping to whenever they had the chance.

Usually Andromeda got to travel the corridors at ease, having such a precise map of the house in her mind that she needn't touch her fingers to the wall to keep her sense of direction. She had to touch the walls at the Black's city house, where Uncle Orion lived, especially now that Aunt Walburga had a baby and one of her tumbles could wake little Sirius. Not on busy days though. There were too many things happening, too many sounds from all around her, too many voices.

On busy days, Andromeda had Bellatrix to guide her. Bella would always find her and take her by the hand, typically towards their mother. Druella was always very careful with the most fragile of her daughters, and her tone would change when her older girls stepped into a room together, hand in hand. Andy had asked Bella what it was that changed her mother's voice, and she had learned that it was the smile on her lips. She knew smiling, she liked smiling, but she did not know what a smile looked like. She knew things by the way they felt against her hands, or on her skin. She knew things by the sound they made, and people by their voices, but she did not know what things looked like.

Bella described things to her. Landscapes, and colours, and the clothes they wore, and what her family looked like but she knew nothing of the appearance of the world. She knew that the Sun was yellow and that so were lemons, but the Sun was something she felt upon her skin, warming her and the places she was in, while lemons were a bitter tang in her mouth, and a nice smell in her nostrils, and a thick peal on her fingers with thousands of little holes on one side and a sort of wet fur on the other. The world was very different to her, but Bella would always listen to her version of it while she explained hers.

X

Bella adored Andy. Bella liked that when she looked after her, Mother never got angry at her, even if they misbehaved. Andy was given considerably more lenience, and Bella could use that. Mother used to say that her older girls had very different personalities, but that they were very much alike in looks. Bella was daring where Andy was weary. Bella walked in rooms like a storm, while Andy was light as summer's breeze. They were little over a year apart, and they liked to confuse people, dressing in similar clothes. Their running prank was starting to fail them more often than not, though, and she knew Andy could feel the stares on her, and Bella hated that people stared. They knew to look for their dark eyes, despite them being the same wide ponds with heavy lids and long lashes, for Andy's were never quite on target, always looking in the general direction of a sound but never to people's faces.

There was an emptiness to her sister's eyes, she always looked a little lost, but Bella made sure that there was a park to those eyes. She had told Andy what trees were and what they looked like, but she knew that Andy got to learn about things differently, so she took her to a different tree every day, placed her hands on the bark, hugged the trunks with her, gathered leaves dry and fresh to give her, picked fruits and flowers when they had them, and showed her ways to climb the ones with branches close enough to the ground.

She never went outside without Andy, because she was so much more at ease inside and wouldn't venture outside unless someone took her. Inside, Bella was the only one that got even close enough to try and scare her, though Andy never failed to call her out before she could. Sometimes, Cissy would join them, but she was too little still to understand truly what was different about their sister. She knew that she had to speak or touch her to get Andy's attention, instead of turning her big summer-sky-blue eyes to her, but she didn't know that she couldn't throw a ball at her or challenge her to a race on broomsticks. Bella made sure Cissy learned, and that Andy was never sad afterwards.

On busy days like this, Bella was usually even more careful with Andy, walking with her around the furniture that had been moved before the guests arrived, making sure she wasn't left out by the other children. Andy was wicked good at hide and seek because Bella had told her of all the places in the house where she wouldn't be seen, and because she could be quieter than anyone else and hear them coming from afar, so hide and seek was Bella and Andy's favourite game. Even if sometimes all she wanted to do was take off with Cissy and run about, not caring if the chairs had been moved for once.

But today, she hadn't had the chance to introduce Andy to the changes, and she could hear Mother fretting over all the things that had been shifted and the vastness of the gardens, while Father reassured her that the girls would be fine. She ran towards them, and she smiled when she saw Andy approach them from the other end of the room.

X

Andy could hear her father's deep voice and walked towards the sound. She liked it when Father referred to them as "the girls", as if they were twins. She moved carefully, with her hands slightly outstretched so that she wouldn't hit anything too hard. Sometimes, she walked into people's legs, but usually they moved aside and placed gentle hands at her back to turn her towards her goal. Andy couldn't wait to grow up and be allowed to use her magic. There were many sensing spells to help her, but her magic had to be a little more stable than it was now before her parents could place a few on her. Later, she would cast them herself, and maybe then her world would resemble that of her family, maybe then she wouldn't have to focus so much on the voices to know what people really meant. Bella had a way to read faces that she wished to have as well, instead of being whispered to about it.

"Here she is, Druella," she heard her Father, closer now, "I told you she would find us. Come to me, Andy, Bella is over here." She liked the ways Father found to challenge her, talking so that she could track him in a room, instead of going to her and taking her by the hand like Mother did. She only liked it when Bella took her hand in a crowd.

Her sister took her by the hand and together they navigated the sea of grow-ups, drifting away from their parents. She knew they were walking to the gardens, for the smells of summer were getting stronger, and she could feel the breeze sometimes. She heard Cissy's giggle not far to her right, and Grandpapa's hoarse voice congratulating her on her fifth birthday yet again, but Bella pulled her through the doors with many square glasses wedged in wood and into the softer ground of fresh mowed grass.

There were giggles and squeals and screams out here, overpowering warnings from parents and nannies alike. Andy turned her head at the sound of Rodolphus' voice, somewhere ahead and to her left.

"Let's go to the pond and catch plimpies!"

There was a loud cheer all around her, but no joy in Andy's heart. Catching was one of the things she couldn't find a way around. You had to see the plimpies at the bottom and be fast with your net to catch them. Bella turned to her, making her dress rustle, and asked her if she wanted to go with them or go back inside.

"If you get to go, I get to go too! No excuses," Andy replied, angrily, "just show me where the pond actually starts to go deep so that I don't fall into it."

She didn't want to, but she was mad at Bella for a moment. She had this way of departing from her at times, to do things that only she could do with the other children. It was bad enough during Bella and Cissy's flight lessons; she didn't need to be left behind with the little ones at the party.

Still, Bella told her that she would help, that she would hold the net with her and help her dip it at the right moment, so Andy took her hand and followed her across the grass. She tripped a couple of times, on shoes the other children left behind in their hurry to get their feet in the water. Bella tried to warn her, but she also fell, laughing loudly when she pulled Andy down and they ended up with tangled limbs on the lawn. They took the chance to get rid of their own shoes, and chuckled when the cold water got in between their toes, and then a little higher, to their ankles and their calves.

Bella tried, she really did, but Andy felt hopelessly bad at catching plimpies, so she told her sister to catch some for her and retreated from the pond shore to the shadow of a tree she didn't know yet. She knew shadow because the sun got suddenly colder and then warm again when she walked past it, and she found the trunk at one of the shadow's edges. She sat down, enjoying the tickling of the grass on her skin, pricking even through her soft dress. It was white, Mother had said, like the clouds when it doesn't rain, though that didn't make much sense to her. She could feel her dress, and she could feel the rain, but she could not feel clouds.

Andy sat there, musing about all the things she couldn't see. She couldn't see anything no matter how much she blinked in the morning, no matter how many spells and potions the Healers had tried when she was smaller than Cissy. Everyone else knew what colours were, and they could see shapes instead of having to turn objects in their hands, and she just wanted to have what they had. She wanted to see, instead of making do with her hands. She wanted to pour her own drinks and cut her own food, because even Cissy could do that now. It wasn't fair that everyone else could do things just because they could see. It wasn't fair that, sometimes, Bella could have all the fun while she had to sit in the side-lines.

She could hear the shouts of victory when yet another plimpy was caught and dropped into a bucket, with a plop and a slosh. She could hear the joy in the laughter when all she wanted was to know what a plimpy looked like. Bothered by this new feeling she didn't use to know, Andy got up and walked around the tree, her hand on the bark. When no one called after her, she knew they hadn't seen her, and she felt daring for the first time. This wasn't inside, this wasn't even the side of the gardens that she knew best, and she felt like trying to walk about on her own. She had no map in her mind to guide her, but maybe she could build one.

She spared a thought for her bare feet, but figured she wouldn't be able to find her shoes anyway, and set to walking away from the sounds of the pond and all the things she couldn't see.

She pricked her fingers on bushes, and stepped on little stones amidst the grass and then on the warm cobblestone of what she knew was the main path around the garden. Walking on the cobblestones was typically loud, with the click and clack of shoes, sometimes with the click of nails from the Crups and their happy panting. Today, walking on the cobblestone felt warm, and it burned her feet if she stood on the same spot for too long. The sun felt warm on her cheeks, and she knew they would hurt and be very hot at night, and earn her a scolding from Mother. She walked down the path for a long time it seemed, but there were smells here that she didn't know, from flowers that didn't blossom closer to the house, and many more bugs buzzing in the air, sometimes landing on her and getting tangled on her curls. She felt grass under her feet once more, so she thought she must be walking in some sort of wide circle, before she smelled something new once more.

It was pine trees, she knew, Bella had handed her the needles and she had broken them in her palms to learn their smell. There were half a dozen pine trees close to the house, so she was fairly sure that she was on the right way. But then the sun wasn't so warm anymore, and she wasn't stepping on grass but on twigs and dried leaves that were painful under her feet. She couldn't tell which way she had come from, or which way she should walk, because she kept finding more and more pine trees' trunks all around her. She kept touching, and listening, and feeling for changes in the breeze and vibrations on the ground, but she couldn't find her way anymore.

The air around her soon felt crisp and she felt cold now, in only her light summer dress. She couldn't even hear voices, or laughter, or barking. She had strayed too far off the path, she had strayed too far from Bella and her guiding hand, and now she cried with tiny sobs, because surely it was night time now and no one could see anything in the dark. No one would see her.

"Bella! Bella!" She screamed into the darkness that was her world. There was no answer other than the rustle of the leaves on the floor as she moved very slowly.

X

"Andy! Andy! Andy, can you hear me?"

Bella had sent Rodolphus and Rabastan running up to the house after she had searched their surroundings to no avail. At first, she thought that Andy had got bored and decided to hide away some place close, but then she remembered that Andy wasn't familiar with this side of the gardens, that she wouldn't know where to hide.

She had been so stupid to leave Andy alone like that while she had fun catching plimpies, and now Andy was nowhere in sight, not even within shouting distance. The others had helped at first, but then the sun had started to set and they had been afraid of the shadows, so she yelled at them to go back and bring as many adults as they could because Andy was gone.

"Andy! Andy! Say something if you hear me!"

Mother was going to be so angry at her. Mother was never angry when they were together, but Bella had lost Andy, and not even Father would stop her from being really mad at her. She was crying now, and she was furious because she couldn't see properly through the tears, and she had to see because Andy couldn't.

"Bella! What happened? Did Andy fall into the water?"

"No, Daddy," she sobbed, "I lost her. I was catching plimpies in the pond, and I wasn't looking, and Andy is gone now." She kept rubbing the tears off of her eyes, but they wouldn't stop coming.

Father told her to put on her shoes and then took her by the hand, his wand firing spells, trying to locate her sister. There were others with them, all calling out for Andromeda while spreading out from the pond. When they reached the path, Bella told Father that Andy would follow it, because she could feel the cobblestones and she would feel safe. He nodded, but she saw the way his throat bobbed as he gulped. The Black estate was immense and the cobblestone path winded through it, looping on itself several times.

When night fell, everyone lighted the tip of their wands, some even shot sparks to the air, that was quickly cooling, yelling for Andy to follow them.

"She can't see!" Bella shouted, cursing them all in her mind, making twigs and branches nearby snap with outbursts of furious magic that had nowhere else to go. Her cheeks were cold now, the caress of the sun completely gone, and Father's hand around hers felt cold, too.

"Cygnus! Cygnus, tell me you've found her," Mother was running towards them, wand held up in the air, "we have to find her, Cygnus. It's so cold already and she's only in that dress."

Bella shivered as the crisp permeated her own dress, pointy little blades that pierced her skin in the breeze. Andy would be so cold, and she was barefoot because Bella hadn't bothered to get her shoes for her, too busy with the stupid plimpies.

"Mummy, I'm sorry, I wasn't looking. I left Andy on her own."

"It's alright, Bellatrix," Mother told her, wrapping her arms around her shoulders, "we'll find her, you'll see. It's not your fault, Bella, I should have been more careful; I should have stopped her from going to the pond."

They walked the cobblestone path up and down all through the night. When it was obvious that Andy had walked off it, they searched around it, then beyond and further away.

Bella ended up nodding off on Father's shoulder, her arms wrapped around his neck, while he kept searching. She woke up with the smell of pine trees in her nose, remembering how much Andy had liked it. She jumped off her father's arms and resumed her search; the pinkish hue of sunrise on the sky above them.

But Andy was gone.

Author's Notes: Prompts and Challenges

Assignment #9: Transfiguration Task 3 - Write about someone or something disappearing.

Writing Club November – Disney Songs 4. We Know The Way - Write about someone exploring; Lizzy's Loft 5. Disability!AU (10pt bonus); Showtime 2. (relationship) Sisters; Amber's Attic 11. Labyrinth: Write about someone trying to save or protect a sibling; Angel's Arcade 2. Coco Bandicoot: (relationship) sisters, (emotion) jealousy, (dialogue) "If you get to go, I get to go too! No excuses."; Lo's Lowdown Characters 1. Blind!AU; Ami's Audios Admirations 5. Barry Bluejeans - Write about looking for someone; Emy's Emporium 10. The chill of the air on your cheeks - (word) crisp (bonus);

WC - 3205

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