Lots of snapshots. Short. I promise next chapter will be meaty.
It's been a while. I just … I dunno. I'm a busy gal.
Thanks to Prawn Flamingo (guest) for spurring me on. You've left a lot of lovely reviews on several of my stories, so thank you so much.
I wasn't sure what to do for this chapter. Follow Archer nut's advice and turn Rabastan into a rubber duck or a public toilet? Thanks for that review - it really made me laugh!
WRONG WAY
The moment Andromeda reached the castle, she lunged for the nearest toilets and vomited in the sink. The last bout dripped down her chin and hit her hanging locks of hair.
Breathing. In, out, in, out. Choking on her foul-tasting breath, retching up her rolling stomach. Hands on the cold taps and splashing her face with water. Then just leaning over, shoulders slumped and hair dangling down. A small head movement and her eyes caught the mirror. Her face was so pale it was nearly translucent, her eyes wide.
To escape the view of her own phantom-like figure, she sat against the base of the sink, put her head between her hands, and wept.
She didn't go to supper that evening.
She knew it was selfish. If not for her, shouldn't she have gone to keep Judy company? Wasn't her friend going through something worse than she was right then?
She couldn't bring herself to face Narcissa when there are tears down her cheeks. She couldn't bring herself to smile for Judy's sake. She couldn't bring herself to ignore the questioning glances Ted would surely throw at her.
She wanted to cry. She had, in fact, cried herself hoarse but she wanted to do it over and over again, if only to make herself feel a little better. Not that it did. Not that it would've.
She wasn't making sense.
Face buried in her pillow, she ignored her roommates when they filtered in from supper, pretending to be asleep when she heard Judy's tentative, "Andromeda?".
Andromeda prayed she looked realistically asleep (though she doubted it - if anyone slept in that position, they'd surely suffocate).
Twenty minutes later, when Dolores and her gaggle had gone to sleep, Judy parted Andromeda's bed hangings and climbed in.
"Shove over," she whispered, taking her wand out to perform a few silencing charms, before awkwardly shuffling until she was under the duvet. "What's going on?"
"Nothing," Andromeda said quietly. "It's nothing."
"It's not nothing. If it was nothing, you'd sit up and smile and we'd talk about the ugliness of my new shoes."
She choked on tears. "What else? What else, if it was nothing?"
Judy shifted by her side until she had turned to face her. "Well, you'd make a stupid joke and we'd giggle about boys and complain about homework and I'd ask what you were doing for Easter and you'd ask what I was doing for Easter, and we'd stay up all night nattering away about nothing at all."
"And?"
"And in the end, we'd realise we had transfig homework, and we'd panic and do it quickly, but it would be okay, because we'd have organised meeting up at Easter, and we'd complained until all our complaint had flown away, and the next day we'd have to nap in history."
Andy imagined it. Last term, it would've been believable. Many a time had they stayed up all night and spent the next day traversing the school like zombies. Many a time had they talked and talked and talked the worries away.
Now?
Not so.
Patrolling, again, the shadows from the corners in every corridor creeping closer to her, stroking the fine hairs at the back of her neck.
"Ted, do you believe in good and evil?"
He looked at her, brow furrowed. "I think so. But I would label only the vilest of men as evil. And only the most angelic as good."
She frowned. "Alright."
"I think you're good, Andy. Your heart is so, so good."
"Is it, though?" She sped up a little down the corridor, the shadows cooling at her back. He had to jog a few steps to catch up. "In … in only three years I will be the same as the rest of them. Do you think my mother was like me, at this age? Do you think she wanted to marry my father? I wonder, sometimes, if I will turn out like her." She stopped all of a sudden, looking straight at him. "If I turn out like that, you must tell me. And tell me to stop before I become truly evil."
He gaped. "You could never be evil, Andy. Not to me."
She sat on a stone bench to their left and put her head in her hands. "But my family is-"
"No. You can't blame your family. They are who they are. You are you. And you are beautiful and brilliant. Come to Hogsmeade with me at the weekend?"
She looked up at him and smiled. "Aright."
My dearest Andromeda,
I enjoyed our outing tremendously on Saturday and I hope it's not too much to inquire when your next Hogsmeade weekend is? Only I can barely stand to be parted from you again as we have been recently. After all, we are to be married, so we must get to know each other, no?
All my love,
your Rabastan.
She folded it carefully and put it in her pocket, breathing in and then out.
We are to be married.
Not even an 'if'.
She stared at Edward's broad back all through Charms. And at the way he chewed on the end of his quill. And at the way the sunlight made his hair look like spun gold. And-
Shut up.
She had to stop this.
"We have to stop this."
"Ted, we have to stop this."
"This has gone too far."
"Ted, you know I'm engaged."
"Edward, I'm afraid we can't see each other anymore."
"Let me go!"
"Just … stop making me love you, alright?"
"We have to stop this."
"We're over."
"This is the end. This is it."
"It can't go on like this."
She stared into the mirror. At her stone-cold features and clenched jaw. At her eyes that grew duller with every word.
She had to stop this.
"We have to stop this."
Rabastan,
I'm afraid that I have made prior engagements with a dear friend of mine for the next Hogsmeade weekend. I will, however, be delighted to meet you when I am next available, which is in two months time exactly. I too have missed you.
Andromeda.
She was treading a thin line. As she stepped forwards, she wobbled and the rope beneath her feet creaked a little. Heavy breathing. Heart beating. Body shuddering with an ethereal liquid drifting through her soul.
To her left was the sun, shining through clear sky. To her right was a swarming darkness ridden with beasts.
She sighed, then plummeted as the rope dropped into the void below.
When she woke, she couldn't remember which way she fell.
Antonin Dolohov eyed her as she walked through the common room, head held high. His cold gaze seemed to pierce her facade. She looked away and clutched her books tighter to her chest. It felt like her thoughts were shouting through her shut lips, shining through her eyes, bursting from a million tears in her skin. Her secrets were laid bare for the whole world. Could he see her relationship with Ted, her hatred towards Rabastan? Could he see how terrified and resentful she was of this Dark Lord? Could he see her fear of him, of every other Slytherin with that cursed mark twisting under the skin on their forearm?
Lessons were spent with a python wrapped around her neck, squeezing tighter with every scratch of quill on parchment, every glance towards Ted Tonks.
(Ted Tonks, Ted Tonks, Ted Tonks, Ted Tonks.)
I'm sorry, she said to herself and to him, in her mind. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
She had to stop this. All of it. It had to end or the marriage would become sour, would condemn her to a life of being silently hated by a foul man, paying for her sins every day. Worse, she would spend every hour longing for Ted rather than for her husband. That is why this had to stop. She couldn't tempt herself like this any longer.
She had to the end would bring pain but she falling, falling, falling into a pit of despair choose, the voice said, choose and the rope fell the walls pressing in she couldn't breathe couldn't speak tight around her mouth, muffling her voice buried in grave dirt drowning drowning drowning choose help me help me help me just bloody CHOOSE already!
And again (again) she cried herself to sleep.
Drowning in tears.
Because how could she make this choice between an angel and a monster?
Dunno what happened there. Do you like it? Hate it? Let me know!