disclaimer ...Not mine. No.
a/n ...Another strange fic about Andromeda and how her family treated her. Like my previous Bellatrix fic Depth, it's sort of really heavily structured. This structured style isn't to show Andromeda's character so much as for showing the "structured-ness" (I am so great at English)of the people around her. Again, this is a really odd fic that was started by me thinking about Christmas during English lesson. (Christmas isn't really significant in the fic, and it's not really in chronological order if you count the Christmas bits. For those who don't celebrate Christmas: I'm not saying everybody has a family dinner on Christmas or whatever, I'm just trying to make a point.) I spent quite a while on this, considering its length.
Erm, anyway. Enough rambling. Sorry!
(it's christmas and people are having Family Dinners)
one household, however, know that they are not People. they are Blacks. they are so much more than People, they say. the Blacks have everything against People and the People have nothing against them.
or so they think.
x
bellatrix is a silver blade. sharp, cold, refined, and unaware that someday she will become Rusty.
narcissa, she is tinted glass. Beautiful, artificial, translucent, and never knowing that in the end she will Shatter.
andromeda is a weed: perceived as unruly, weak, trapped. bellatrix and narcissa cut into her with sharp unforgiving edges. but one day andromeda will Bloom.
bellatrix will be Soulless, narcissa will be Broken, and what will Andromeda become?
x
"Andromeda, you're going to Hogwarts tomorrow. You're growing up ...starting to go into the world ...going to Hogwarts already."
"Really, Bella?"
"Don't try to be smart with me."
"Are you my mother or something?"
"No, thank Salazar."
"The feeling's mutual."
"Andromeda, stop trying to put this off."
"I'm not trying to put anything off. Put what off? I'm not trying to put anything off. Of course not."
"Don't be stupid. I know you are, Andromeda."
"Get on with it already, Miss Omniscient."
"That tongue of yours, it'll get you into trouble someday."
"That brain of yours - "
"Shut up or I'll hex you. You're as cheeky as darling cousin Sirius, that bastard. Oh, you hang out with him too much ...he's a bad influence on you, Andromeda. He'll grow up to be a blood traitor, I think."
"Fine."
"Narcissa's much more open-minded than you. She isn't a potential blood traitor like Sirius."
"So?"
"So she'll actually listen to me."
"Is that a good thing?"
"Look. My point is, tomorrow at Hogwarts ...look, Andromeda, seriously. Listen. I don't want you to associate with any Mudbloods. Do you understand? Mudbloods are untrustworthy."
"Mother already said this. I don't need another lecture."
"I am not letting you off on this. It is important. I do not trust that you will listen to Mother's words."
"Yes, Bellatrix, always trying to be so formal, so regal."
"Don't pretend you're older than me."
"I didn't say I was."
"Some things, Andromeda, don't have to be said."
"I know that."
"But this does. Have to be said, I mean. Don't talk to Mudbloods. Only purebloods. Only Slytherins."
"What if I don't become a Slytherin?"
" ...oh, you won't. Ravenclaw is fine, but Gryffindor and Hufflepuff - "
" - are unspeakable?"
"Don't address me with that sarcastic tone."
"Ooh, Big Bellatrix I'm so scared! What if I become friends with a Mudblood, then?"
"Don't even think about it. Don't you dare."
"I won't, of course."
"I will be watching your every move, Andromeda."
"Do so, then."
"Oh, I will."
x
(it's christmas and people are having Family Dinners)
the Blacks, however, have no family.
x
The teacher in the green robes surveyed the new first-years through square spectacles.
"In your seven years at Hogwarts," she said rather sternly, "to you your house will be like your family." She said this last part almost gently.
Andromeda sighed. Another family? She felt nervous as Bellatrix's cold eyes fixed on her from the Slytherin table, but she risked a glance at the house tables; the Hogwarts students looked nothing like her family. Not as stony as Mother, not as daintily graceful as younger Cissa, and never as severe as Father.
In your seven years at Hogwarts, to you your house will be like your family. If so, Andromeda thought grimly, then her house would bind her, control her, watch her every single move with tainted, glinting eyes that found a twisted, vindictive joy in all her flaws as they saw them. Her house, she was sure, would never let her be free.
x
Sirius, thinks Andromeda Black, is her solace.
To her parents she is perfect: dainty, sweet and well-mannered, and never speaking unless spoken to. A docile young lady who she really isn't.
And to her peers she is a true Ravenclaw: dryly witty, tiredly clever, fiercely independent, and not so emotional, with a love for good literature and fine art. An eloquent, defiant cynic who she really isn't.
But with Sirius, she doesn't pretend. She doesn't have to; he understands, he always understands. Sirius might not be able to find the way for her, but he can make her feel like she isn't lost, for a little while.
With Sirius she can be herself.
This fact isso relieving- but with a flaw: Who is she?
x
Andromeda Tonks is a wife now.
She is happy, on the most part. Ted is good to her, so loving; he's never tired of her, never. Nymphadora is such an angel and surely she will grow up to be as beautiful as she is now.
Andromeda leans back on the squashy plaid bean bag seat that Ted bought at a boot sale. The Blacks, Andromeda recalls, would hate her for this; they had indulged in the costliest pleasures of life. Only the most elaborate, expensive items were worthy of them. Nothing was casual there, and everything is here.
And Andromeda lives in a Muggle neighbourhood now, the area that Ted had come from. She is away from the wonder, the mystery, the magic - and the nightmare of her childhood that never was.
It is really quite strange how fascinating Muggle things seem now. Their cooking equipment, their electronics - how they have managed without magic to assist them. And yet how ignorant they are still, believing that magic doesn't exist.
Here in the Muggle world, it seems, people are not judged by their magical power, because they have none. Instead they are judged by their abilities in their studies, by their wealth. Here in the Muggle world, there is no Bellatrix lecturing her on the untrustworthiness of Mudbloods. No Cissa moaning about Mudblood clumsiness. None of it.
And yet sometimes Andromeda feels like they are still watching her critically, coldly. She knows they are still ashamed of her, that she is no longer considered as the Black she was, still is, maybe. They still haunt her and yet this makes her miss them more, even more.
She tries to hide her bittersweet longing for home by complimenting this half of Ted's world. "It seems like there is barely any blood-discrimination among Muggles," she says to him brightly, as though she is happy to be away from Them.
"Oh, there is. But in the Muggle world there are horrible people," he replies grimly, "who hurt others for their beliefs more than for their blood. The victims' pain lasts for so long; their very lives are taken away or they are scarred for life, just because they did not believe what someone else did. Such intolerant people, imagine!" he says, half-indignantly, half-sympathetically.
Andromeda looks at him sadly. "Yes, I can imagine," she answers obligingly, and her eyes are faraway, lost in memories of what once was.
x
Some things change. Others don't.
People come, people go. And yet some marks they leave never do.