Hello again, everyone!
First of all, let me thank last chapter's 7 reviewers: Louey06, dancergirl7, Blonde Pickle Mule, mandya 1313, Bri P., T. XD and prizbokc. I don't know what I'd do without you.
Secondly, I received 6 votes on this chapter. It was a tie: 3-3, so in the end, I flipped a coin. Andromeda will feature in this chapter and Ginny will come next. I believe that's actually the revertse of the order I wrote them in, but that doesn't matter.
This chapter was inspired by the 1964 Lesley Gore Song "You Don't Own Me". Listen to it; can't you picture Andromeda singing it? (As well as a number of other young ladies in the Potterverse, for various reasons...)
You Don't Own Me
The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, toujours pur, was in a state of frenzy. Cygnus and Druella Black, master and mistress of the house, were expecting dinner guests, and there was still much to do…or at least, oversee.
Druella Black, née Rosier, was a proud, haughty woman. She swept around the house with an unsettled, arrogant air and swept imperiously up the stair to the drawing room. Three young girls were seated inside, conversing in low voices.
The girls looked enough alike to be recognizable as sisters, but their faces were each markedly different. The eldest of the three, eleven-year-old Bellatrix, was tall and slender, with thick, shining black hair and arresting dark eyes. Narcissa, the youngest, was small and delicate. With her long, blonde hair and pale eyes, the seven-year-old was her darker sister's milk-and-honey opposite. Both girls, however, had the same face: haughty, like their mother's.
Seated on the carpet across from the divan where Bellatrix and Narcissa were sitting was Druella's remaining child. Younger than Bella yet older than Cissy, Andromeda greatly resembled her elder sister. From a distance, one would have difficulty telling the two apart, though upon closer inspection, Andromeda was a two-years-younger, watered-down version of Bellatrix's dark, dramatic good looks. Her hair, worn in twin braids, was a soft, light brown; her eyes, hazel.
The three girls looked up as their mother stood in the doorway. She did not even need to clear her throat to command their attention; such a thing was base, common.
"Your father and I are expecting company for dinner," said Druella, each word intoned imperiously to her daughters. "You are to change into something more presentable and make yourselves ready to greet our guests in the parlour at precisely seven o'clock. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, Mother."
Druella stepped back from the doorway into the hall, allowing the girls to pass on the way to their bedrooms. First Bellatrix, wearing a rather arrogant smirk; then Narcissa, flouncing unnecessarily as she undoubtedly pondered which of her seventeen sets of dress robes would suffice.
Andromeda was the last out of the room. She brushed past her mother with a look that plainly expressed reluctance to go and dress up for someone else's dinner guests. Druella watched her daughter's back disappear up a flight of stairs and around a corner, eyes narrowed in mistrust. There was something different about this middle daughter, something she wasn't comfortable with. If only she could put her finger on it…
Andromeda shut her bedroom door with a satisfying snap, swatting a silken pillow off her bed in annoyance. I hate getting dressed up for Mother and Father's dinner parties, she thought. All we get to do is say 'hello' to the guests; then we're sent off to eat by ourselves in the kitchen and head up to bed. What's the point?
Lost in this train of thought, she flopped gracelessly on the bed, reached under the mattress, and pulled out a notebook. Its pages were filled with drawings, drawings of places Andromeda's imagination promised to take her every day during her etiquette lessons and every night in her dreams. Drawings of the fascinating people Andromeda dreamed up, to populate the landscapes of her imagination. Each one, a great escape.
The tip of her quill trailed absentmindedly across the creamy new parchment, creating sharp outlines and vague silhouettes. Turrets and towers took shape under Andromeda's patient hand, and as she added the finishing touches quite some time later, only then did she realize what her hands had created without aid of her brain.
"Hogwarts," she breathed, taking in the castle in all its splendour. Andromeda had never been there, but she knew what it looked like after seeing old pictures and reading about it in books. To Andromeda, the castle represented freedom…the freedom to chart her own course, to finally step out of the immense shadow of the noble and Most Ancient House of Black. She just wasn't sure how this might come to be.
"Andromeda? Are you ready yet?"
The voice seemed to be coming from close by. Andromeda leapt to her feet, not realizing how long she had been lying idle on her bed. Securing the sketchbook safely under her mattress once more, Andromeda took quick inventory of her appearance.
Not dressed yet…Father will throw a fit. My hair's a mess, needs to be brushed…and there's a big ink stain all along the side of my left hand. Brilliant.
Moving wondrous fast, Andromeda threw open the doors of her wardrobe, pulled out the first set of dress robes she could extract from the mass, stripped off her everyday robes and slipped into the new ones. They were fresh and new, the cool satin gliding like water over her skin.
Andromeda scrubbed furiously at the silver basin under her window—first her face, then her inky left hand—all the while furiously praying not to slash a drop on her neatly pressed robes. She grabbed the silver-backed brush from her vanity and brushed out all the tangles in her long, brown hair, briefly wondering if other nine-year-old girls had mothers who would perhaps perform this small service for them.
Deeming herself smart enough for company, Andromeda marched out her bedroom door and down the stairs.
Bellatrix and Narcissa were already waiting in the parlour, standing in front of the gleaming grand piano situated just inside the door, side-by-side. Narcissa was, in Andromeda's opinion, very over-dressed in a frilly, lacy set of robes that made her look like a powder puff. Her face bore a foul, simpering smile that she had perfected over the past six months of dinner parties. Beside her, Bellatrix looked older than her eleven years in an elegant set of dark silk robes. The effect, however, was somewhat ruined by her customary arrogant expression, eyebrows raised challengingly, eyes narrowed.
Druella swept in to inspect her daughters as the sounds of voices issued in from the hall, where Cygnus was greeting his guests. She passed Bellatrix with a nod of approval and admonished Narcissa in a whisper not to fuss with her clothes just as their illustrious guests issued into the room. She frowned slightly as she noted that Andromeda eyed the guests with supreme indifference.
"…My lovely wife, Druella. And of course, our daughters—Bellatrix, Andromeda and Narcissa."
"Charming," supplied one of the guests, a stern-looking man called Avery. He leaned in towards Cygnus, not bothering to lower his voice. "Now, Cygnus, old boy, you could make out very handsomely with these three…"
"Do you think so?" inquired Cygnus, his face keen with interest.
Avery let out a well-mannered chuckle, settling himself on the divan beside his wife, who in any event was conversing with Druella in hushed tones. "Certainly! And you certainly wouldn't have to look far; how old would Abraxas Malfoy's boy be now?"
"Eight, I believe."
"He could make a very handsome match with one of your girls…"
Cygnus raised his eyebrows, apparently pleased with this sudden possibility, and eyed his three daughters (still standing in front of the piano) with a connoisseur's eye. "Not Bellatrix," he muttered to himself, still loudly enough for all to hear. "She's too old for the Malfoy boy…either Andromeda or Narcissa would be best." Her fathers' guests leaned in to better inspect the two girls, Mrs. Avery supplying "I think perhaps the blonde would be simply lovely with Abraxas
Andromeda felt her face flaming. So this is why she had been invited down, so her parents could discuss marrying her off to some snooty pure-blood! At nine years old, marriage was the last thing on Andromeda's mind and she fervently hoped it would stay that way for a while to come. Beside her, Narcissa was positively glowing at the possibility.
"…Lestrange has two boys as well, doesn't he?"
"Yes, yes, of course…Rodolphus and…Rabastan, was it?"
"I would consider them as possibilities for Bellatrix and Andromeda as well…" Now it was Bellatrix's turn to look smug, finally having landed in the spotlight. Andromeda, however, had had enough.
"I don't want to," she said in a low voice, surprising even herself. All eyes in the room fell on her. It was an uncomfortable feeling.
"Don't want to…what?" asked Cygnus, a hint of warning in his tone.
Andromeda swallowed, hard. "Don't want to marry some pure-blood boy I don't even know. I'm only nine," she insisted.
Her father was unmoved. "You'll do what you're told," he said forcefully, as Dorea stood to chivvy the girls out of the room and off to the kitchen for supper before bed. Bellatrix and Narcissa issued out, throwing curious looks at their clearly-in-over-her-head sister.
Andromeda shook off the hand her mother had placed on her arm and looked her father directly in the eye, trembling slightly under the intensity of his gaze. "I won't do it. You can't make me do it. You don't own me," she added defiantly.
Avery and his wife looked politely away, feigning conversation with each other while Cygnus leaned in and said, in a voice of deadly calm, "What did you say?"
"Y-you don't own me…"
Cygnus nodded to his wife, who pulled Andromeda from the room, all the way up the stairs and down the hall. She halted before reaching the door to Andromeda's room and turned to face her willful daughter. Her face was an emotionless mask.
"That is where you are mistaken, young lady," she said coldly. "You are an asset of this family. As long as you live under this roof, we do own you. And never again forget it," she added, roughly pushing Andromeda into the room and shutting the door behind her.
What did you think? Please review and share your thoughts on this chapter!
As I said before, Ginny will star in chapter 27, but I am giving you all the heads-up for chapter 28. I'm going to try something a little different and offer multiple choices. I'm setting up a poll on my profile page. There, you will be able to vote for the character you most want to see from...more than two choices. Enjoy!
Last reminder: please don't forget to review! The most reviews I've ever got for a chapter is seven, which is great, but I know there's more than seven of you ut there, reading this story. Please, just take the time to pick one thing you either loved or hated about the chapter and let me know what it is! Even anonymously counts. If you can spare the time to read a chapter, check the story updates or add this story to your favorites (which, if I haven't mentioned it in a while, makes me extremely happy!), you can write a short little review. Or, you know, a longer one...just an idea.
On va se 'oir,
Delilah