The bookshop is quiet, and empty; Andromeda doesn't see a shopkeeper anywhere. The air is heavy, musty, rich; the room is dark with swirls of dust motes in the scattered golden beams of sunlight. It reminds her of countless hours spent in the upstairs library in her childhood home.

(but childhood is long gone)

Enraptured as she is by the leather volume in her hands, she turns immediately, tensed, hand discreetly on her wand, when a bell tinkles quietly over the door. Instinct. War is not a faded memory; it remains in the front of her mind, like a boggart you can never overcome.

"I didn't come here searching." The voice is soft, elegant, refined, but it still holds the girlish quality she remembers so well. "I only followed when I saw you."

There is no answer, no clarification. The silence stretches for an age.

At last, Narcissa sighs softly.

"I thought… you were Bella, for just a moment."

Her use of the second-nature pet name forces images into Andromeda's head, ones that she's intentionally forgotten, ones that carry a thousand meanings.

It is like being doused in ice water.

"Andy…"

This time, the bookshop swirls away.

---

'Andy!'

A smiling child with a shining halo of blonde hair and tiny, perfect teeth runs unsteadily after her sister.

'Andromeda,' corrects Druella Black.

'Andy,' whispers one of two nearly identical figures, dark haired, taller than their sister, when their mother leaves earshot. 'I'm always Andy, Cissy.'

---

'We're going, Andy! To Hogwarts, together!'

Black hair brushes against dark brown, pale, slender hands clasp together, and girlish faces lose their regality for a moment of excitement.

---

There is laughter, a playful challenge; 'So do you have a name?'

She tosses her hair and holds her chin high. 'Andromeda.'

His eyes sparkle. 'That's not a proper name. Something shorter. Do you have a nickname?'

---

'Come on, Andy, let's get away from this Mudblood.'

He ignores the insult as easily as his own unforgivable breach of propriety.

'Andy, hm? So you do have a nickname.'

---

'Cissy, you don't understand, I have to go, I can't stay here.'

There is unfamiliar stiffness. 'Andromeda, you've changed.'

Her words are an unspoken dismissal; there is a chasm, a blaze, a departure.

Then a silence that stretches decades.

---

'Oh, Andy–'

There is frustration and pain. 'Don't call me that.'

Confused eyes gain understanding slowly.; There is an agreement, a nod, sympathy.

'Alright. How's 'Dromeda?'

---

"Andy?" Narcissa asks again, watching her sister warily.

Andromeda sharply returns to the present, shaking her head slightly at the rush of memories. Childhood names have the ability that not many other things possess; they break past her walls and dredge up everything she's buried away and forgotten.

For a moment, she accepts the nostalgia, let it wash over her—

(but childhood is long gone)

—then, as she looks across the empty room at Narcissa, she thinks better of it.

Andromeda's chin juts into air, and her eyes assume nobility. A scorched tapestry means nothing; the pride instilled by her blood remains, and somewhere deep inside, she is still a Black.

She brushes past Narcissa for the second time in as many years. Narcissa watches her walk away, but this is not a second time; it is a third. She lets her go, wordlessly. Just as the times before.

Once, there was a time when they never walked away from each other; in a time when blood was thicker than water, and sisters were worth more than the world.

(but childhood is long gone)