600 words.
)O(
Cygnus did not have the privilege of attending his second daughter's wedding.
He was in his study, accompanied by a low fire and a bottle of wine when he heard the distinctive click of the front door closing. The sound startled him out of a half-doze, and he was up and out in the foyer immediately, staring around, looking for an intruder, his wand clutched in his hand. Was that the sound of someone entering the house or leaving?
He was completely silent, listening as carefully as he could, waiting to hear if there was any noise – the sound of footsteps, creaking floorboards, another door opening – that could signal an intruder.
No. All was silent.
Someone going out, then.
He crept to Druella's bedroom, cracking the door and peering inside. Druella was fast asleep, with her white cat curled at her feet. The cat raised its head and hissed disapprovingly at Cygnus, who shut the door silently and proceeded to Narcissa's room. Of the women Cygnus shared a home with, Narcissa, he supposed, was the most likely to be sneaking out now that Bellatrix was gone.
He opened the door with great trepidation, fully expecting to see an empty bed. But no, Narcissa was curled there too, and he felt relief wash over him.
Cygnus was now quite prepared to admit that he had imagined the noise, a product of lack of sleep and the red wine. He had no doubt that Andromeda would be in bed too, she was, after all, his good girl, his sweet daughter, his favourite. Why would she sneak off?
Reassured, he opened the door.
Her bed was empty.
Cygnus was sure that he felt the floor give way beneath him. He clutched the door frame for support. Andromeda was outside, somewhere, who knew where or why. Parental instinct won over the anger he should have felt at her, and he was out the door in a minute, scanning the horizon for his daughter. He saw a figure disappearing over a swell in the moors, and was off after her, running to catch up. He got over the crest in the hill, and froze, staring at the scene below him.
His daughter, sweet Andromeda, wrapped in a man's arms.
"Are you sure this is what you want?" the man asked, and Cygnus listened, hidden from their view by the heavy mists, silent and still so as not to draw attention to himself.
"I'm sure," Andromeda said. "I love you so much, Ted…"
Ted. Ted was not a Pureblood name. Ted was a Muggle name, not one that eligible men would use.
"Your family…" Ted began tentatively.
"Can rot in Hell, every last one of them. If they can't accept that I want to marry you, then I don't give a damn what they think. I never want to see them again."
The words hurt Cygnus to the core, and he watched without acting as Andromeda and this Ted – was he a Mudblood? Half-blood? Muggle, even? Cygnus would never know which – disapparated.
That was the last Cygnus ever saw of his favourite daughter.
Years later, long after the name "Andromeda" ceased to be mentioned in the Black household, Cygnus would still ask himself why he hadn't done anything to stop her, why he had stood by and watched her go. It would have been so easy to stop her – a few flicks of his wand would have kept his daughter with him forever. But he hadn't acted. Why not?
He didn't know.
But with the crack of their disapparition, Cygnus lost his second daughter to marriage.
)O(
Fin