Fluffy fluff! This is the beginning of the beginning of their relationship...it's taken a while but Andromeda does have a lot on her plate! Reviews welcome! x
"Andy!" A voice hissed beside her, she felt her shoulder being shaken by a small hand.
"What?" She groaned, almost unintelligibly.
"I-I-Uh, Lucius is asking for you." Charlotte whispered, though Andromeda knew in that moment that every other girl in the sixth years girls dormitory was listening. She could hear their rustlings, in fact she was sure she heard one girl move from their own bed to jump into another, most likely Evelyn leaping into Theresa's bed.
"Right well…what do you want me to do about it?" She asked, still keeping her eyes closed, more so to keep her temper in check.
"He told me to come get you." She said sitting down on Andromeda's bed causing it to dip.
"When have you seen him? It's early." Andromeda asked sceptically, opening her eyes to find Charlotte, her frizzy blonde hair even more ruffled than usual, her make up was smeared somewhat across her face and she was still in her dress, though it obviously wasn't zipped up at the back. "Did you…?" She asked feeling a small smile lift the corners of her mouth at the thought of Charlotte, quiet, mouse like Charlotte going after what she wanted, finally.
"Yeah…" Charlotte mumbled, her cheeks reddening against her pale complexion.
"Rosier I'm guessing?" Andromeda whispered, her confirmation from Charlotte was a quick nod of her head, lip between her teeth. Andromeda sat up in her bed and knocked her fist against Charlotte's shoulder gently, but Charlotte just let her smile drop and continued on her mission.
"Malfoy is waiting though Andy." Charlotte insisted after a moments silence, in which the hushed whisperings of the other girls in the dormitory could be heard.
"Charlotte I don't care." Andromeda stated.
Charlotte was shaking her head, all earlier bashfulness gone, a serious look on her face. "He's furious. Woke me up this morning, kicked me out and told me to get you."
"Ugh, why?" Andromeda asked falling back onto the luxurious pillows of her four-poster bed.
"Everyone heard you two last night you know?" Charlotte told Andromeda and she finally felt her face fall.
"What?" Andromeda said defensively as Charlotte looked down at her.
"You embarrassed him." She told her.
"Are you joking?"
"What? No." Charlotte was shaking her head again. "You were being so self righteous. He's just doing his duty."
Andromeda sat still in her bed. She couldn't believe the words coming from her friends mouth. A friend who had listened to her complain about the societal world, who had heard the horror stories that ran true for decades within the arranged marriages of the Sacred Twenty Eight. Yet here she sat looking at her like the other girls in the dormitory would look at her, how her mother would look at her. Disappointed.
"You know this isn't what I want." Andromeda told her as she got out of her bed and began pulling on the first skirt she came across and pulling on a black jumper and slipping into a pair of shoes.
"Andy…it's just- I mean it's your destiny." She spoke with a reverence that Andromeda couldn't grasp, because it was about something she so despised, had despised for years now. How had Andromeda not noticed Charlotte falling in love with the idea of it?
"Whatever Char." Andromeda said flippantly walking into the bathroom and scrubbing her face with cold water before looking at her reflection.
Pale as ever, her dark hair was a mess around her, and so Andromeda quickly charmed it up and away from her face. Her light blue eyes shone brightly in the morning light coming in through the high windows of the bathroom.
After brushing her teeth Andromeda came out into the dormitory to find all the girls sat huddled together on one bed, whispering with one another, Charlotte included. She stood from her seat as Andromeda entered and attempted to speak, her mouth opening and closing in quick succession before she dropped her face to look at her toes.
Andromeda scoffed loudly and with a roll of her eyes left the room, grabbing her wand from her bed.
The common room was scattered with unconscious students, still dressed in their smart attire from the previous night, the room was littered with dirty glasses and empty bottles. All in all, it was the worst that the Slytherin common room had ever looked.
"Ah, Andromeda." Came Lucius Malfoy's voice from behind her. Andromeda whipped around to find him seated in an armchair by the dwindling flames in the fireplace.
" What Malfoy? What could you possibly have to say to me right now?" She demanded of him feeling her temper breaking free of her reigns.
"Calm down and listen…" He told her calmly rolling his eyes at her. "This might not be what you want but it is what's happening. You have to accept it. I'm trying to be nice about it all. But you're not exactly making it easy for me. I want this marriage to be easy…it could be you know."
"I don't want it. At all." Andromeda told him, watching carefully as he stood from his armchair. He was looking about the room, his well trained sneer stopping on the unconscious bodies on the floor before his gaze landed on Andromeda. He moved to stand right in front of her, Andromeda had to tilt her head back to see his disdain.
"Well then go and tell your father that you want to end the betrothal, because I certainly won't be the one to do it. I'd rather not be murdered before I'm of age." He told her in a hushed tone that had a sharp edge to it.
"You really want to marry me?" She asked, she just couldn't see herself and Malfoy together in any way, shape or form. It was just wrong on so many levels. They had nothing in common for Merlin's sake.
"I never said that. I'd rather someone else but I wasn't exactly given a choice either was I?" His voice had dropped and Andromeda thought that perhaps he look slightly bashful in the early morning sunlight.
"Who?" Andromeda was in shock; Malfoy didn't want to marry her. Neither of them wanted this. She felt a fluttering of hope in her chest that perhaps they could worm their way out of it together.
"What?" He asked confused.
"Who would you rather be marrying?" She asked and Malfoy took a step back, looking shocked at her question.
"None of your business." He told her, crossing his arms and reminding Andromeda of a petulant child.
"I'm guessing she's a Slytherin because you're terribly predictable." Andromeda considered, thinking through the pureblood girls of Slytherin house.
"Drop it Andromeda. Just because you don't hide your own affections doesn't mean that the rest of us want everything as public."
Andromeda rolled her eyes but decided to ignore the jibe at herself and Ted. "So if you don't want to marry me? Why don't we ask for the whole thing to be called off? Neither of us are happy in this arrangement. Surely our parents would understand, would want us to at least be a little happy in marriage and understand that this…" She pointed between the two of them. "Would never work."
Malfoy had stayed silent through her chatter, a frown creasing his forehead gradually until he just shook his head and headed toward the boy's dormitories.
"Just let me know if you ever pluck up the courage to break off this marriage. I'd like to be the first to know, seeing as how it is my marriage too." He told her over his shoulder before he disappeared down the steps.
Andromeda found herself pondering the idea of telling her parents, no her father, that she didn't want the arranged marriage they had planned for her as she wandered the castles hallways. No matter how much money she'd receive, or the family would receive, how much more privilege she would gain in becoming a Malfoy. But she couldn't help but dream that perhaps they would understand, that they would agree to her conditions on wanting to choose her own partner, have a career in something she was passionate about…maybe work in the Muggle Liaison Office.
Andromeda scoffed aloud at the thought and gained curious glances from passing students who were leaving the great hall from breakfast.
Andromeda thought about going into the hall that was filled with early morning chatter, she was hungry. But then the argument she'd had with Malfoy, so public and loud ran through her mind, Charlotte's warning words that everyone had heard quickly stopped her footsteps and she stood in the empty entrance hall looking in at her peers happily eating their breakfast on a chilled November morning. The gossip would be spreading around quickly, Andromeda wouldn't be surprised if by the end of the day, the whole school knew about their tiff.
"Andy!" Came a high squeal from behind her, Andromeda turned in time to be caught up in a strong hug from Rose. Over her shoulder Andromeda saw Ted and Charlie making their way through a door, Ted's face lit up with a grin at the sight of her.
"You coming to breakfast?" Ted asked, as Andromeda pulled away from Rose, noting how flushed and happy she looked.
"Er, no. I was actually just going to take a walk." She told them watching Rose move to stand beside Charlie, his arm winding around her waist.
"Have you eaten?" Rose asked a concerned look crossing her features. They had yet to discuss in detail why Andromeda had ended up abandoning the Slytherin party, yet to discuss Charlotte, Andromeda realised that she had a lot on her mind that she really wanted to tell her friend. But Rose was distracted, her eyes darting up to Charlie's, a blush colouring her tanned cheeks as his hand squeezed her side.
"No." She replied noting Ted's gaze on her.
"You should eat." He told her, a frown appearing in the middle of his forehead.
"Not hungry." Andromeda shrugged taking a step away from the trio and toward the oak doors behind her, she was about to say she'd see them later when Ted took a step too.
"I'll come with you." He told her quickly, smiling gently, his frown disappearing.
"No! Go eat, you don't have to!" Though Andromeda quite liked the idea of going for a walk with Ted in the early November sunshine.
"Nah, not that hungry." Ted told her raising his hand to the back of his neck and rubbing as he moved closer, leaving Charlie and Rose behind.
"Ted you were just complaining the whole way up here about how hungry you are!" Rose announced loudly, a wicked grin on her features as Charlie guffawed loudly, pulling Rose closer and away into the great hall.
Andromeda stood before Ted who almost looked guilty.
"I can eat later." He told her in a petulant voice.
"Honestly Ted I'll be fine on my own. Just want to clear my head." Andromeda told him and then actually thought about walking the grounds alone, it wasn't what she wanted. "If-if you are hungry that is?"
"Not that hungry." He told he with that grin that made her stomach flutter.
With that, the pair walked out of the front doors of Hogwarts and out into the sunlit grounds, a chilled breeze whipping through them and causing their hair to blow about them wildly.
"God it's freezing." Andromeda groaned as they continued down the steps, wrapping her arms across her chest.
"Bloody is. And neither of us are exactly dressed to be outside." Ted replied looking over her bare legs that were pebbled with goosbumps.
Andromeda noted that he was wearing a pair of ripped jeans and thin looking jumper.
They continued on down the well-worn path, ignoring the cold, or trying to anyway.
"So are you going to tell anyone about what happened last night?" Ted asked his breath showing slightly in the shivering air as they continued down the sloping trail.
Andromeda sighed knowing that she couldn't keep dismissing people's worries.
"I wasn't meaning you had to tell me." Ted said quickly obviously registering her sigh as annoyance.
"No-no, I just…it's complicated." She told him, not looking at him but out at the lake which they were heading toward.
Ted shrugged his shoulders. "I don't have to understand…just get it off your chest." He told her with a soft smile, the corners of his brown eyes crinkling.
Rubbing her hand up and down her arm Andromeda was attempting to sort it all out in her mind. "Wait, you don't even know that there's anything on my mind." How had he known? No one else was acting too concerned. Maybe Gideon had noted a change in her, but he had an inkling about her predicament with Malfoy. Had Gideon told Ted? Did he know? For some reason the idea that Ted knew about Malfoy was both horrific and satisfying. Horrific because she didn't want him to think of her as 'with' someone else, though she would not admit to herself the reason behind that line of thinking. Satisfying because, maybe if someone knew she'd feel more at ease about it, maybe they'd help her work through it…get out of it…
"You've been going on a lot of these walks lately, there's just obviously something going on." Ted told her, capturing her attention once more.
"Well…" Andromeda felt the words stick in her throat, she hadn't said them aloud, apart from to her sisters on the morning they had received the letters, but that felt so long ago now. "I'm getting married." She whispered.
"What?" Ted spun, his head whipping to face her shock on his face, the adorable frown back on his forehead as he looked at her.
"I don't need to repeat myself Ted." She told him, tightening her grip on her arms and continuing to walk as Ted fell a little behind. They were beside the lake, walking along its banking, a strong wind was whipping across its surface causing Andromeda to shiver more, the cold seeping into her body as Ted fell further behind her, silence following her as he didn't respond. She didn't want to look back, he could have gone for all she knew.
"Who is it?" Ted asked quietly, catching Andromeda by surprise, his voice was close by, he'd caught up with her quickly.
There was a beat of silence that Andromeda couldn't break, she didn't want to say it, especially not to Ted. It would make it real if she told someone. "Malfoy." She sighed turning her head to watch his reaction from the corner of her eye. His face contorted, his nose wrinkling and he took a step away from her, she felt her heart constrict at that.
"Malfoy?!" He exclaimed, disgust marring his usually soft tone.
Andromeda nodded looking away from the look on his face, it hurt that he was looking at her like that. She'd had no choice in the matter, surely he understood that. She didn't want to marry Malfoy, but had to.
"I thought you hated him?
"What? I do…do you think…I want to marry Malfoy?" She asked in abject horror, stopping still, wind whipping her hair up about her, shrouding her view of Ted's confused face.
"Eh? I'm so confused." He told her, his hand scratching the back of his neck.
"It's an arranged marriage Ted. I'm being forced to marry that…pompous prat. I have no choice in the matter."
Andromeda watched Ted as closely as she could through the curtain of hair whipping around her, his face became more confused until it suddenly fell and he looked almost sad.
"Andy…I had no idea. I didn't know that-that they even still did that? I mean I knew it happened once upon a time or whatever but…still?" There was an edge to his voice, subtle and deep.
"Yep…" Andromeda couldn't think of anything else to say, she was so against the ritual, but she was trapped within the confines of it.
They were stood still beside the lake, Ted opposite Andromeda staring at her, his gaze soft once more.
"But you don't want it." It wasn't a question, he wasn't asking, he could see it written all over her face.
"No. I don't." She told him, gulping down the fear she felt saying the words aloud.
"Well…can't you like…stop it?" He asked, stumbling over his words as he stepped forward, closing the distance between them until he was stood right in front of her, his hand reaching out to be placed on her shoulder, his thumb moving soothingly up and down against her soft jumper.
"Unfortunately it's not that easy." She told him feeling the lump grow bigger in her throat, felt the threatening sting of tears, she bit her lip in an attempt to hold it all back, biting hard to distract herself.
"Hey-hey come on." He said gruffly noting the watery appearance of her eyes, he reached out with his other hand to her other shoulder, rubbing his hand up and down her arm gently. "Don't worry…It'll all work out." He told her, and even though Andromeda could hear the uncertainty in his voice, the way it wavered slightly, she smiled at him, laughing abruptly and wiping her tears on the sleeve of her jumper as they slipped over and fell down her cheeks.
She'd told someone, other than her sisters, and it actually felt good. Her heart felt a little lighter than it had in weeks and before she could think on it, before she could stop herself she wrapped her arms around Ted's waist, his hands still on her shoulders, she clung to the back of his top and could feel the warmth of his body through it despite the chill outside. Andromeda pressed her face into his shoulder, inhaling his warm scent as she felt his hands press against her back, holding her close, pressing them together. She felt his breath on the top of her head making her shiver and pull herself closer. They held their position on the edge of the lake for a moment, relishing in the warmth they created together, until Andromeda's hair flew up about her with a strong gust of wind and she heard Ted coughing and pulling away, pushing her hair down from his own face.
Andromeda laughed attempting to flatten her hair to her head.
"Come on, I am hungry." Ted told her and held his hand out to her, a flush filling his tanned cheeks.
"You told me you weren't." Andromeda replied with a sly smile on her lips as she accepted his hand, wrapping her fingers around his.
"I lied."
Andromeda sighed and looked over at him, noting the blush colouring his cheeks and felt a heat work its way up her neck. "Well…don't."
"Yes Miss Black." He muttered squeezing her hand in his own.
Just as they were taking the steps up to the entrance hall Andromeda slipped her hand out of Ted's not because she had wanted to, or felt the need, but because she had to. If Malfoy, or her sister's, or anyone in Slytherin house saw them doing anything more than walking, there would be hell to pay.
Ted looked at her a sad smile on his lips as he made his way inside and across to the great hall that was a little less busy now. Andromeda was just about to move past Ted toward the Slytherin table when he asked gently, "Come sit with us?"
He was gesturing to the Hufflepuff table, however there weren't only Hufflepuff students there, as well as Rose there were a few students from other houses mingling together at the table.
Andromeda didn't think it would be a good idea, she would only cause further suspicion about herself and Ted, but Rose was there and waving her over to where she, Charlie, Gideon and Fabian were sitting and laughing loudly.
"Ok." She said and followed behind Ted down the aisle to the Hufflepuff table, she could feel eyes on her and as Ted sat down she made a point of moving around to the other side of the table to sit with Rose beside her, although Ted was opposite and so she wasn't sure she had made the best move.
"You ok?" Rose whispered into her ear. Andromeda nodded and felt Rose's small hand holding her own beneath the table. "Tell me later yeah?" Andromeda nodded once more and squeezed Rose's hand before letting it go and grabbing a few slices of toast from the rack on the table.
Looking up Andromeda found Ted watching her carefully, and even though they weren't the only eyes on her in the hall, Andromeda pretended that they were as she smiled back at him.
"I thought you were hungry." She said noting his still empty plate.
Ted snapped out of his trance and grabbed toast and eggs, every so often stopping to glance up at her, a smile playing on his lips.
"What? Do I have jam on my face?" She asked, knowing full well that she didn't.
"No." Ted replied with a shake of his head.
"Now you do." Came Gideon's voice form beside Ted and a blob of jam flew at Andromeda and hitting her on her cheek, right beside her nose.
"Gideon you knob!" Andromeda scolded grabbing a napkin and wiping the jam from her face.
"What was that for?" Ted asked of Gideon.
"Well…it seemed like you two had forgotten we were even on the table with you." He told them, grinning madly. "Just thought I'd remind you."
"Dick." Ted mumbled, elbowing Gideon in the side hard.