HPFC: 5 Drabbles Comp [Andromeda/Rabastan, knight in shining armour],Rubiks' Cube Challenge [yellow-food:pancakes]
Family meetings may be important, but they take a long time, seven-year-old Andromeda thinks as she stares up the ceiling. Her sisters are enjoying themselves with cousins. She's tried talking to them, but all they talk about is something she doesn't like the sound of. Her sisters call it blood purity. She doesn't understand all that they say. What is so special about her blood?
She slips out of the window. An hour is far too long to wait. She knows Bellatrix will scold her when she finds out, but she'd rather be outside exploring than sitting with her sisters, discussing the etiquette that a lady of a noble house should have.
The window opens into the tiny back garden. With a glance at the house, she lets herself out of the gate that separates the garden from the surrounding trees.
Soon enough, she's in trouble. She's climbed too high, and she can't get down again.
"Help!" she yells, not caring for the scolding she knows she will get. She just wants to get down. She yells and yells till her throat is hoarse, but no one comes. Serves you right, her sisters would say. The sun is going down when a noise from the base of the tree catches her attention.
A boy is scrambling up, small but determined. As the fading light catches on his hair, she can't help thinking that it's the most beautiful thing she's ever seen. He helps her down, and she's too transfixed by him to worry.
"I think we've met," he says, when they're safe on the ground. "Rabastan Lestrange."
She smiles at him. "Andromeda Black."
"So, Miss Black, is there a reason why you missed tea?" he says, fake-bowing. "The meeting ended a long time ago."
"Call me Andromeda, that's what everyone else calls me," she says. "I was just exploring. I didn't mean to be away for so long. Am I in trouble? Why aren't you scolding me?"
"Yes, you'll probably be sent to bed without dinner tonight, but I know how boring it can be, which is why I think it was clever of you to escape," he says.
As they walk into the back garden, he pushes a tinfoil-wrapped package into her pocket.
His prediction turns out to be correct, and her parents don't allow her any dinner, but the pancakes he so carefully wrapped for her are more than enough.