For the first eighteen years of her life Andromeda had been somebody's daughter, and had never needed to lift a finger to keep her richly appointed home in immaculate condition.
For the next twenty-six years she was somebody's wife, and then somebody's mother, and had learned with years and sweat, tears, and exhaustion the work that went into keeping an immaculate home, but she did not let her standards slip. Not with her slovenly husband, nor when her daughter was a rambunctious child whose appetite for destruction left no house plant or good china standing upright and in one piece, nor even now, with Teddy, whose high spirits often made Dora look docile in comparison.
As it was, by the time Andromeda's sister came back into her life a few years ago, she had developed sufficient confidence in her housekeeping abilities to open her home to the Minister for Magic, and more than enough self-possession not to give the slightest damn what her spoiled little sister thought about any of it.
It was a comfortable cottage, not spacious but not cramped. Tastefully appointed but not luxuriously so, it took barely twenty minutes for Andromeda to achieve a showroom sparkle that awed her muggle neighbors into reverent silence when she invited them over for tea.
It was a leisurely Sunday morning spent lingering over the paper, but while Teddy quietly read his comic books next to her in the dining room, Andromeda continually checked the clock, waiting. Narcissa's announcement via owl that she would be joining Andromeda for tea at two o'clock finally arrived just after noon, so Andromeda ushered Teddy to the shower and into his good robes before she set about tidying.
She had just settled back down when there was a crisp knock at the door. At his grandmother's pointed glance, Teddy hurried over to answer it, and Andromeda began preparing the tea.
From the hall his voice piped, "Good afternoon, Cousin Narcissa," with the singsong quality of speech that had been carefully rehearsed. "You're looking very well. May I take your cloak?"
"Thank you, Edward."
Teddy came into the living room proudly bearing her sister's fine sable cloak, and Andromeda gently directed him to the cupboard in the hall.
As she leaned in to buss her sister on the cheek, she waited for an underhanded comment about the furnishings, the muggle neighbors' gaudy front garden, or the carpet in the hall that needed replacing, but none came. Drawing back, she saw with some surprise that Narcissa had taken no notice of any of it.
The announcement in the Prophet this morning had clearly rattled her badly. This gave Andromeda the advantage, but she chose not to play it this early.
She poured tea for both of them, noticing that Narcissa was absently toying with the clasp of the thin silver bracelet on her wrist - a nervous habit she had been given to since she was a girl.
"Is that a gift from Lucius?" Andromeda asked. "How lovely."
Narcissa held out her wrist as if noticing the bracelet for the first time. "For our anniversary in June."
"How wonderfully understated," Andromeda said, smiling. "Such a relief he came to his senses about the chandelier earrings. I fear they would have been rather a showy choice for you, my dear, but I'm sure they will suit the right young woman beautifully."
"Undoubtedly," Narcissa says distantly. "I am really very fortunate. Lucius has always shown such exquisite taste in choosing gifts for me. It is a pleasure to have a husband with such refined sensibilities."
Andromeda gave a little laugh. "How true - so few of us are privileged to find a husband with such unerring judgment as Lucius!"
They passed tea time trading velvet covered barbs, but Andromeda could tell that her sister's spirit wasn't in it. Where ordinarily Narcissa relished getting in digs about Andromeda's past transgressions, the caliber of her social circle, and most often the mortifyingly middle class circumstances into which she had landed, she seemed distracted today, leaving herself open and letting perfectly good opportunities slip past her.
It was as though Narcissa knew this skirmish had already been fought and won.
Her cool blue eyes impassive, Narcissa finally said, "I suppose you knew."
Andromeda said nothing, stirring her tea.
"Obviously you knew, or you would have Flooed to us straight away when you saw the announcement this morning," she added, gazing off just to the left of Andromeda to give the impression that this was merely a passing observation, that her thoughts were already wandering because it all meant very little to her. The bitter edge to her voice told Andromeda otherwise, though.
Andromeda had been waiting weeks for Narcissa to find out about the engagement, ever since Draco had shown her the ring. She had known instinctively that he would not tell his parents, because they would not approve, and he would prefer to avoid an unpleasant row.
Draco would mean to tell them. He would have every intention of doing so at the earliest opportunity, but somehow, it would simply never come up, until it was forced into the open.
Andromeda had known this. And so she bided her time, and waited, a cat playing with the canary she had caught, reveling in its last moments of life.
"Of course I assumed he had told you," Andromeda said smoothly. "How too shocking that you had to find out that way. I'm certain Draco must have had his reasons."
The reasons being that her nephew was a selfish, spoiled boy who would always take the path of least resistance. But that did not need to be said.
"I thought the announcement was very tastefully done," Andromeda added.
Narcissa sniffed. "Indeed, as you are the last word on taste."
Andromeda smiled, helping herself to another cake.
"I suppose it's no wonder he came to you first," Narcissa went on. "Who better to offer guidance in such a circumstance?"
"I'm sure dear Draco didn't mean any sort of slight. He only came to the person he felt most comfortable with."
"How could I feel slighted? Of course he came to you, he knew you would be the only person who would reinforce his juvenile behavior!"
"Entirely natural for him to wish to share his good fortune with a family member he knew would respect his decision, not treat him like an errant child."
"Well, I don't respect his decision," Narcissa snapped. "It's not as if he's thought this through. He barely knows this girl. He's throwing his entire future away on a reckless infatuation. What on earth am I to respect about that?"
For the first time Andromeda felt a hot lick of anger inside her chest, but her voice was cool and even as she said, "You can respect the person that you love, and respect that he has made a decision for himself that has nothing to do with you. Surely you've learned that by now."
Narcissa rolled her eyes. "Oh, really. It has everything to do with us. It did when you turned against us, and it does now. A decision that changes the course of one's life isn't made in a vacuum."
"But it's not your life that's changing course. It's his."
"Oh, why should I talk to you about this?" Narcissa asked with a sigh. "How could you possibly understand? You tore all of our lives apart to gratify your own selfish desires. You had to be your own person. But we were more than that. We were a family, Andromeda. Things could have been - it all could have been different. It didn't have to be the way it was, if you would have only stopped to think about what you were doing."
"I thought about it a great deal, and I made my choice," Andromeda replied. "I'd make it again today. I hope for your sake Draco feels he has other options."
Abruptly Andromeda felt rather tired of the game, and suspected her sister felt the same, judging from the way she leaned her head back against the divan and closed her eyes. These were deep and dangerous waters they waded across now. One false move could send them plunging into an argument that could unlock all the years of bitter, brutal grievances between them that had been so carefully sealed away. The hard work of building, piece by piece, the uneasy and fragile trust that existed between them now could be destroyed in an instant.
Narcissa gazed into the fire for some time in silence. When she spoke again, she sounded unmistakably and terribly sad.
"I hadn't let myself believe it was true until I came to see you," she said finally. "When I saw you, I knew."
Her sister's sudden vulnerability and the realization of how close they had come to the precipice stilled Andromeda's anger.
"You really must chin up," Andromeda told her. "The engagement might fall apart still. Think of everything Draco could do in the next year to drive the poor child away."
Narcissa gave her a cold look.
Andromeda peered at her younger sister curiously, calling forth a decanter of brandy and two snifters with lazy wave of her wand. "What's the matter with this girl, really? I've met her - she's from a good family, and she's charming enough. She seems a bit frivolous, but after all, she's young. Did you want him to marry that other girl? I never thought - "
"The Parkinson girl? Oh heavens, no." Narcissa shuddered.
"Astoria is certainly preferable to some of the other choices Draco could have made," Andromeda pointed out.
"If you're referring to him running off with a nightclub dancer or some sort of actress, I can assure you, I woke up several nights in a cold sweat dreaming of it."
"In contrast, Astoria looks positively genteel."
"Let's not go that far," Narcissa sniffed. "Her mother is an American, after all."
"A very rich American."
"The very worst kind."
"What does Lucius think?"
"He's convinced it's merely a phase," Narcissa sighed. "It's true Draco has been an utter fool in the past about girls. But what if it's not a phase?"
"Then he'll marry the girl," Andromeda said with a shrug, dampening the fire with a wave of her wand. It was getting far too warm. "There are really far worse choices he could make. Even as melodramatic as you're being now, you must be able to see that."
Narcissa waved her hand irritably.
"Oh, I don't care about the girl," she said, sounding tired. "It's just I can't quite bear to take it seriously. I have to think of it as some passing fancy. He never asked me for the ring, you know."
Andromeda took a long sip of brandy to give her a moment to steady her voice before speaking. "Do you mean Mamma's ring?"
Her sister's fingers found her silver bracelet again, turning it over and over. "Years ago he promised me would ask me for it when the right girl came along. He was only a boy, but it was a promise. I thought he understood."
Someone had made a promise about that ring to Andromeda, once. On a bitterly cold winter night when Andromeda was a small girl, she had played in her mother's rooms while her mother dressed for the opera. The floor was strewn with pearl bracelets, lavalier necklaces, diamond tiaras while Andromeda sorted through them and tried them on, but her mother called her away, putting the black diamond ring on her finger.
"Don't you want it anymore, Mummy?"
Her mother laughed. More than anything, Andromeda remembered the sound of her mother's laugh - throaty and rich, like an indulgent dessert.
"I'm going to hang onto it for a little while longer," her mother said, accepting the ring back from her. "But when you're much older and you want to get married, I want you to have it. I know you'll love it the most."
The joy she had felt then was unprecedented in her life, better than any toy or new kitten or trip to the beach. It was all Andromeda had ever dreamed of, to know that her mother singled her out for special favor above her sisters, that she knew Andromeda loved her the best.
But it was just one moment of joy, one memory, with thousands of others piled on top of it. Through the years Andromeda's mother only became more exacting and harder and harder to please. Fragments of memories came back to her now - an icy moment alone in the sitting room, her mother's cool tone of displeasure, the way she had averted her eyes when Andromeda erred in some manner front of her - as piercing and clear as if they had happened yesterday.
Even now as she gazed around her house, it was her mother's voice she heard coolly critiquing the furnishings, the state of the linens, the tiny hairline crack one of the china saucers. Her mother had always looked out at the world determined to find fault, and after so many years examining herself through her mother's eyes, that was all Andromeda could see.
But once a long time ago, her mother had loved her. She had combed her hair and kissed the top of her head and promised her a ring. After all these years, after all Andromeda had seen and the full, surprising, joyful life she had led, it galled her how much it still meant.
The brandy was finished and the two sisters sat in silence, absorbed in their thoughts.
"Have you seen the ring he chose?"
The question took Andromeda by surprise. In her long silver robes, her sister gave the impression of a lake frozen over - impenetrable and unknowable beneath.
"I did."
"I imagine it's awful."
"Oh, rather."
"I suppose it's a bit silly," Narcissa said, looking down at her own hands, where the platinum band set with sapphires and diamonds glittered in the dim light. "It's just a ring, after all. But I wanted to think it mattered to him. After everything we've seen together - after all he's been through - I hoped family tradition still meant something. It would have - not made it all right, but it would have felt all right, somehow. Things won't ever be quite the same again. Nothing will. I know that. But it would have felt as if - as if some things can carry on."
Perhaps they shouldn't, Andromeda thought. They had all inherited a toxic past, and in some ways they would be bound to it forever. But it didn't mean they had to accept it.
"It's not the same," Andromeda replied, helping her sister into her cloak. Narcissa turned to look at her, her blue eyes calm and frank. "But things will carry on."
"I suppose they must," Narcissa said, adjusting her hat. Her long fingers clasped briefly over Andromeda's, and then she was gone.
A/N: Thank you to everyone who has read so far, and to everyone who has reviewed, it is so encouraging. If you have a moment, please let me know what you think!