Hello there! This is a side piece to Birds become Dragons, my ongoing fic. This may be utterly senseless if you're not reading it, but it's an AU where Delphini is raised by the Malfoys.
If you are reading BbD, this follows Ch45 right off the end, and may help with understanding Andromeda's reasoning.
I hope you'll like it, please remember to leave me your thoughts at the end.
PS: Sorry about the mishap with the uploading, I'm restricted to writing and publishing on my phone, so I messed up. Anyway, this is the final, properly edited version.
Not Fair
It is not fair. But then again, fate was never fair to her, why would it start now? Andromeda would probably find it strange if life suddenly started going her way. The awkward feeling would creep up her back, cold fingers walking up her spine, raise the hair on the back of her neck, and leave her with a perpetual unease. She would be forever waiting for the other shoe to drop.
It's simply better this way. Fate is not fair. There, final, a simple truth, a rule to abide by. A sure way to never let herself dream. One needs dreams to be disappointed, and life is easier without them.
Dreams are dangerous for dreams shatter and cut deeply as they crumble all around you. Keeping your head in the clouds while wondering about what-ifs and maybes is just setting yourself up for the long, hurtful, way down.
She knows fate will never be fair to her, and yet her mind runs, enumerating all the things she does not have. Pinpointing everything she envies her sister for. Listing all the dreams she gave up on, only to see them come true for her little sister.
Narcissa is happy. Narcissa is beautiful. Narcissa is wealthy, and powerful, and perfect, and at the top of the pack once more. Narcissa has it all. The home, the family, and none of the ghosts, none of the chains. None of the unfairness.
Narcissa is still a mother. Narcissa became a grandmother without having to give up her child. Narcissa was even granted her deepest wish.
A girl of her own. Not of her flesh but still of her blood.
She used to have a girl of her own, of her flesh and of her blood, and of the blood of the man she loved. Still loves. Andromeda had seen her girl grow and bloom and now she has nothing. Andromeda had a baby girl, once, to care for, and raise, and dress up prettily, even if Dora always hated bows and girly dresses and could not, for the life of her, keep an hairdo on for more than two minutes. And now there's nothing of that girl of pink hair that tumbled trough her days with a constant smile at her own clumsiness.
Narcissa has all that now. A pretty girl, not a baby anymore, but ever loving of the pretty things she is surrounded by. A young pretty witch on the cusp of womanhood, standing tall and proud, striding confidently in her femininity, perfectly balanced on sensible little heels Nymphadora would never spare a second look for. Ever perfect in her dark wide locks of hair that tumble so precisely down her back, dancing as she moves, bouncing with her oh-so-very-clear laugh, consuming the light of the sun as it touches them, and instead emitting a darker light all of theirs.
Andromeda only remembers a sound that clear when all the crystal tear-like pendants of the chandelier in Aunt Walburga's sitting room had come down, all at once and all over her, in a faraway summer afternoon. Underage magic let loose for only a second bringing with it a rain of sparkle and shards, and a pure, cheerful sound. She had been bedridden for weeks, cuts healing and bones growing anew, but the sound was so beautiful that she would dream of it.
She learned her lesson, though. Shiny, beautiful things could be just as deadly, even if they sounded like joy. Dreams make for sharp pretty shards when they shatter. Andromeda has never truly trusted a joyful moment in her life since that day, when she thought to be dancing among crystal and her skin ended up cut open in a hundred different places. She no longer dreams. Shiny, beautiful things make her skin crawl in all the places where there once were wounds.
She gave up dreaming long ago, as her girl died and her grandson was trusted to her, for her to raise. A compensation of sorts. And as much as Teddy has been the light of her life, the only light in the great night sky, it is not fair. Teddy should have been another light, not a trade-off.
It's not fair and Andromeda is done with the unfairness of the world.
She is done with it the very moment she realizes just who, exactly, the girl Narcissa calls niece is. She is pretty and shiny in all her glory under the summer sun that descends through the skylights at the platform and that means she does not trust her. She never could before, but now, now there's a blazing rage within her, a hunger for retaliation.
Oh, she does not dream anymore, and she never lets her head drift up towards the clouds, but she will bring Narcissa down from cloud nine.
And then, when she thought that Harry Potter, of all people, could stand with her, would stand by her side, she is disappointed in spite of her non-existing dreams. Potter, righteous Potter, is as devoted to the girl's protection as Narcissa is. She will bring him down, too, if she must.
Potter. Silly, brave, little Harry, the Boy-Who-Lived turned the Boy-Who-Saved-Them more by chance than by means, thinks he knows better. Thinks there is a side where he can stand with both Teddy and that girl, all together, simply because the war is over.
Andromeda knows better. Teddy and the girl will never stand together, not while she draws breath. She will keep Teddy safe, she will keep him away from her. She will keep Teddy hers by burning Delphini off his life, scorching the memory of her bit by bit, just-another-inch-further-away at a time.
She has never had a way before, but fate has seen it fit to give her one. After all this time, she has the possibility to get even with life. A way to lash out against her self-made prison where dreams do not dwell, where happiness has very little place. Those green, green eyes have ignited a spark in her and she will not let it die. Oh no, she will let it grow, she will turn it into a cleansing fire and watch it burn the unfairness off of her life.
It won't make it right, but that's not the point. Right and fair are very seldom the same. There will be no irking feelings creeping up her spine because fate might just have been fair to her for once. She will take both fate and its unfairness with her hands, hold them steady between her fingers, mould them to her ends, and unleash them on her target. For once, she will be even. For once, Narcissa will have to choose. For once, she will have and Narcissa will not.
Narcissa was never forced to choose like Andromeda was. Narcissa got to keep all of the people she loved in her life, while Andromeda had to choose someone at every step of the way. It's high time Narcissa made her choice.
Mother to her or grandmother to Scorpius, Cissy? Choose wisely, little sister.
Deep down, there's a little voice about to be smothered by her boiling anger that reminds her that Narcissa did have to choose once, that Narcissa has lost people along the way, as well.
And deep down, she cannot forgive her. Not anymore.
Andromeda was never chosen by anyone of her own blood. Sirius tried, but he was too young when she left to truly choose her. Sirius sided with her more out of his rebellious nature than out of true understanding of her motives. Regulus was even younger, back then. Walburga and Orion couldn't wait to see her burnt off their precious tapestry. That her parents didn't think twice about it, that her own mother rushed to scorch the threads that constructed her name under that of Black… none of that surprised her. That there was a gaping black hole under the names of Druella and Cygnus in a tapestry over a wall in Grimmauld Place came as no surprise at all.
Bellatrix had already made her choice by then, she was completely enveloped in darkness by then, and she was wondrous in it, revelling in her element. Bellatrix had renewed her vows to her in the most painful way possible.
But Narcissa… sweet little Cissy, who always called her Andy, had denied her as well. Andromeda may have ripped the name of Black off her; she may have discarded it like a shed skin that no longer fitted her, but Narcissa…
Sweet little Cissy, turned beautiful blonde, blue-eyed, pristine and proper princess of the House of Black, ripped the will to dream from Andromeda for the first time. Andromeda had dreamed, once, that there would be a way to keep her little sister close despite their differences. But her little sister had pulled her wand out, pointing it squarely at her, forcing her to choose.
She may have shed her family name because it no longer fitted her, or the world she had once dreamt of, but her essence has not changed. She is a Black, down at heart.
A Black weed under the shadow of the great family tree, and an uprooted weed at that, but a Black none the less. Teddy is hers to keep safe and she is not a Tonks. For Tonks fight only when they must, when it's right.
Blacks know warfare like they know their own blood and name. It's in them, along with the madness and the greatness. The bloodlust, the love of the hunt, the thrill of a victory just within grasp. It's in all of them. Some drift away, some smother it, some keep it at bay, but they can never get rid of it. Not any more than they can rid themselves of the blood in their veins.
Glorious in their wrath, the women of the House of Black may not have much nobility to their actions in war. What they do have, however, is an ancient knowledge, old curses that lost their names in the runes, dark abilities and a terrible will to wield them.
Only Ted saw her amongst the dark, only Ted could bring out the light within her, only Ted knew how to reach the chained princess of the purest blood in her wind-swept rock amidst the sea, only Ted was capable of slaying the monster of the cursed blood of Black that haunted her.
Ted is no more. But the monster lives still.
There's a green-eyed monstrous creature that lives in a comfortable den, under the protection of a pale lioness she used to know.
And she will see it slayed. She will see Teddy safely delivered from the murky waters and its treacherous swells, if it's the last thing she does.
There's a forgotten princess tied to a rock in the sea done with her fate, at last. Done waiting for saviours that won't come. The Boy-Who-Saved-Them may not choose correctly should it come to the girl or Teddy. She needs not a saviour this time. She needs only take fate in her hands and act.
Not fair, barely right. Just even.