La Vie en Rose

Summary: The best thing about being seen as nothing more than pitiful, traumatized children is that no one would believe it possible for any of them to conspire with the Fae to kidnap the Girl-Who-Lived. FemHarry.

Just a warning: FemHarry, AU, Language, Clichés, Non-Cannon Character Death, More in the Future…

Just so you know (Name): FemHarry's name is Andromeda Rhoswen Potter. The name Andromeda means "Ruler/Protector of Men" and was the name of an Ethiopian princess whose mother angered the gods. To placate the gods, Andromeda was fastened to a rock to be used as a sacrifice to a sea monster, from which she was rescued by Perseus. In astronomy, Andromeda is a large northern constellation between Perseus and Pegasus as well a galaxy located two million light years away. Rhoswen is a Welsh name meaning "White Rose" as well as "Fair/Blessed Rose".

I don't own anything related to Twisted Wonderland or Harry Potter!

Chapter 2. Lilac for You Shall be Happy Yet

RON

Hiding away from the crowd, Ron leaned against a large piece of debris as he observed the staff try to keep the everlasting celebrations at bay before scanning the Great Hall with half-lidded eyes.

He frowned.

At some point, McGonagall had repaired the once destroyed House tables and, ignoring their integrated prejudice for once, everyone was jumbled together; from teachers to ghosts.

The staff was trying to keep some kind of control over the fairly large group that had yet to stop their everlasting celebrations. The house-elves and the centaurs were staying in a far corner, watching as several children threw food into Grawp the Giant's laughing mouth as he peered into the room through a smashed window. The three Malfoys were sitting as far from everyone as possible while looking like they were a little unsure if they should or shouldn't be there, but Ron quickly moved on from them (He didn't want to think about those people for longer than necessary).

Tilting his head, he noticed that the members of the D.A were sitting near his hiding spot, glaring at those who were still dancing around and screaming with joy while trying to force them to join in. Most of his friends tried to hide it, but he could recognize the look on their faces; they were moments away from pulling out their wands and cursing someone. And he won't have blamed them if they did; the never-ending celebrations were starting to look more like a way to mock their friends and family – all of the children – who had died for a war that was never meant to be theirs to begin with.

Ron shook his head, raising his head to stare at the Great Hall's enchanted ceiling. Honestly, there was nothing wrong with what he was seeing. He had expected it in a way. But Ron still felt like there was something missing.

With a sigh, he ran a hand through his dirt hair, the color looking more like brown rather than his signature burning orange. Ron tried to think about what could possibly be missing – Maybe it was one of the members of the D.A?

It didn't take long for him to get an answer though. Dennis, who had finally made up his mind after watching Ron for what seemed to be hours, ran up to him and whispered four words in his ear that almost made him collapse right there and then:

"I can't find Andy."

A cold feeling settled over Ron as he turned his head to stare down at the small, blonde-haired boy. Blood rushed to his ears as he tightened his grip on his cane in a attempt to hide the way his hand started shaking.

"What?" he asked, hoping – praying – that he heard wrong.

Nipping his bottom lip nervously, Dennis reached out to tug a loose eyelash – a nervous habit of his – and looked around to check if anyone was paying attention to them before he repeated himself carefully.

"I can't find Andy." Dennis made a pause and added with a hint of desperation in his voice, "I looked everywhere but I can't find her."

Wide eyed, he continued to stare at the younger wizard. Ron couldn't breath, much less think. It was like his mind refused to process what was happening – refused to accept that this wasn't some kind of nightmare that his sick imagination had come up with.

He shook his head, biting his tongue as he spun around. His cane made things a little more difficult and his leg burned as though someone injected liquid fire in his veins but while he didn't have Andy's pain tolerance, Ron managed to ignore it easily.

He scanned the Great Hall once more, paying more attention to every single detail that he could see but just as Dennis said, Andy wasn't there.

And I never noticed! Ron thought with a hint of hysteria, wanting to scream in fear and anger at his own stupidity and carelessness.

Before he could start panicking or worse, one of the centaurs caught his eyes. He stared at Firenze as the centaur tilted his head towards the crowd that surrounded McGonagall. The centaur smiled tiredly; an expression Ron had seen a lot of times before during lessons.

Ron took a deep breath, forcing himself to stay calm and think about what the Divination Professor was trying to tell him. It wasn't until Dennis called his name hesitantly that he noticed how relaxed he was, lost in his thoughts as though there was nothing to worry abo — The ginger-haired wizard stopped, shoulders dropping a little as something clicked in his mind.

Andy is hiding from the crowd, he thought, tapping his cane.

That, of course, didn't mean she wasn't in some kind of trouble (Honestly, his best friend could find trouble in anything, anytime and anywhere – And the less he thought about the traumatic events of their Second Year, the better) but at least now Ron knew that she wasn't in immediate danger and the teen could focus on find out which hidden spot she had chosen to get away from her unwanted fans.

"Are you sure you looked everywhere?" Ron asked Dennis, sounding far calmer than before. "Did you try the Astronomy Tower? The Greenhouses? The kitchens? The headmaster's study?"

Dennis made a face at the mention of the headmaster's study. Pitching the bridge of his nose, the ginger-haired wizard took this as a sign that the younger boy hadn't, in fact, checked there. Not that he could blame Dennis for overlooking it — Ever since the Death Eaters took over the castle, the members of their little resistance avoided the headmaster's study like the plague; not wanting to be near the place they started to think of as Snape's instead of Dumbledore's.

"Why would she be in the study?" Dennis mumbled, confused.

Ron pursued his lips.

He could think of a lot of reasons for her to be in the headmaster's study and none of them were good. Especially when one knew exactly what kind of power Dumbledore still seemed to have over her even a year after his death.

"Get everyone together and tell them to go to the Headquarters," Ron said instead of giving the boy an answer. He was sure that a lot of his friends needed medical attention and it would be better for them to leave the room before one of them snapped in anger and grief. "I will go after Andy."

"You know where she is?" Dennis asked with relief.

"Yes," Ron said, already walking towards the Great Hall entrance.

A few people tried to speak with him as he walked up the marble staircase and towards the second floor. Ron ignored every single one of them, walking as fast he could and cursing his cane under his breath. Ever since the events in the Malfoy Manor during the war, his right leg had never been the same and now, what once would have taken him nothing more than four minutes felt more like half an hour.

An eternity later, he stood in front of a partially destroyed stone gargoyle standing halfway along on a equally partially destroyed corridor.

The gargoyle tilted its head when it noticed him and grumbled, "Ah, Weasley. Here for Potter?"

Ron panted a little, taking a moment to rest while cursing his cane once more. How had Mad-Eye managed to make this look so easy? The guy had been missing a leg for Merlin's sake!

"Yes," he replied, straightening his back.

The statue nodded with something akin to a grimace on its stone face as it sighed, "Go on."

The gargoyle winced as it hopped to the side and the wall behind it split in two. A little clumsy, Ron walked up the moving staircase and practically hurled towards the door, pushing it open.

" See, woman?! I told you someone would show up!" was the first thing the young wizard heard upon stepping inside the study.

His head snapped in direction of the wall filled with portraits of previous headmasters and headmistresses.

"No, you didn't!" Headmistress Clarisse Potter née Longbottom huffed, glaring down at who he recognized as Phineas Nigellus. "You were merely proving to all of us that you lack even if a little drop of empathy!"

The clever-looking Headmaster rolled his eyes with annoyance, "I was merely saying that maybe her little friends could dead! It was a possibility!"

Ron's hold on his cane tightened, fingers going white. He closed his eyes, banishing the images and screams that those words invoked in his mind.

"Do not roll your eyes at a Lady!"

"How do you even know what I'm doing? And I don't hear any Lady!"

"Why you –"

"Ron," Dumbledore's voice cut their little argument short before it could get worse.

Blue-eyes snapped open, focusing on his old headmaster's portrait, dipping his head. He didn't say a word, knowing that if he as much as opened his mouth, nothing good would come out of it.

Dumbledore smiled sadly, probably knowing what he was thinking and said, "She is under the table."

That was all Ron needed to start limping towards the table, letting go of his cane to kneel on the floor with a little bit of difficulty. He almost fell over, having to hold onto the table to keep some semblance to equilibrium.

There Andromeda was; curled under the table in one of the most uncomfortable positions he had ever seen. He slowly inhaled a lungful of air, finally relaxing for complete now that he knew without any doubt that she was safe.

Ron hesitated before pressing his hand above her heart gently, finding that he needed one more assurance that she was truly there. He stared at her for a long moment, taking into the battered and bloody image Andromeda made. She looked worse than all D.A members combined but that didn't stop Ron from thinking that he had never seen anyone more beautiful.

"Andy," Ron called gently. Her fingers twitched so he tried again a little louder, " Andy."

Bright green-eyes snapped open.

The small witch's muscles tensed, fingers moving as though she was ready to summon her wand only to stop when she noticed that it was him hovering over her. Ron gave her a smile which she tried to return with one of her own.

Tried being the key word, he thought bitterly.

Ron could barely remember the last time she did anything other than move the corner of her lips up in a mockery of a smile. By the beginning of their Fifth Year, Andromeda was so tired and sad all the time that she seemed to forget how to smile or laugh little by little.

"Hey," the ginger-haired teen whispered. "You disappeared on me again."

Andromeda sat up, moving aside so he could take the space beside her and whispered back almost inaudible, "I'm sorry… I hope I didn't worry you."

Ron swallowed, feeling the press of tears in the back of his throat. He refused to cry though, pushing all his unwanted emotions behind the mental dam he created at the beginning of the war.

"I'll always worry about you. Especially now that –" his teeth sank into his tongue, effectively cutting himself off. Just as he refused to cry, Ron also refused to think about the last member of their once trio as well the events before Riddle died for good.

Knowing what he was doing, Andromeda looked at him with sad, understanding eyes but didn't say a word. She tried arguing with him about it a few times, going so far as ranting about the dangers of suppressing your emotions all the time and nothing had come out of it.

Ron wasn't ashamed to say that he preferred to avoid his problems until it was impossible to continue doing so.

"Why did you come here?" he asked, ignoring the way his voice shook and clenching his hands.

The green-eyed witch hesitated, staring at the unlit fireplace across the room before she said, "You don't know why?"

"I think I do," Ron replied. "But I wanted to hear it from you."

There was a moment of silence as she seemed to think about what to say. Then, warping her arms around herself, she whispered:

"I didn't even notice what I was doing…" Andromeda nipped her already bruised bottom lip. "I – I think I just wanted to – I just wanted to know what to do now that Riddle is gone."

She didn't say it, but Ron could still hear the gut-wrenching Now that my purpose is gone echoing in his mind. The ginger-haired wizard kept his eyes on her, having almost to battle with himself to not send a harsh and almost hateful glare towards the meddling old man who contributed with her harmful line of thinking.

"And what did you learn?" Ron asked slowly, dreading to hear what she was going to say next.

There was another moment of silence and then –

"Ron?" Andromeda whispered, leaning closer as she did whenever she wanted to tell him a very important secret.

"Yes, Andy?"

"I'm free," she said with a hint of awe, red rimmed eyes wide. His head snapped to the side and his heart speed up as she continued. "I… I don't know what to do now – But I'm free."

He blinked his eyes at those words, a surprised bark of laugher escaping from his lips as he smiled widely.

For years, Ron had been trying to help her understand that she did have a choice and she deserved to be free to write her own story. A part of him had feared that, after the war, she would end up going along with whatever the Wizarding World wanted in some kind of displaced sense of duty. But now? Even if she was confused by the concept of freedom and had no idea of what to do with it, the fact that she managed to acknowledge it allowed Ron to hope that one day, he would be able to see what his best friend looked like when she was happy. Not content — Happy.

Dumbledore did something right for once, Ron thought, subtly glancing at the old man's portrait that, like the other headmasters' and headmistresses' in the room, was feigning sleep to give him and Andromeda some semblance of privacy.

"You are free," Ron agreed with a soft smile. "And I'm sure we can find something for you to do with your freedom. Maybe we could go on a trip…"

Her eyes still reflected just how tired and sad she was but they were lighter with hope. Ron had never seen Andromeda allowing herself to feel or express hope; she tried not to. And he knew that with the end of the war, people would start pushing Andromeda around and forcing their expectations and needs on her but he would find a way to keep them all away from her.

At this point in his life, the blue-eyed wizard didn't even care about what he needed to do to make it happen. He didn't care what kind of changes he would need to force into this sheep filled society of his. He didn't care about what the Wizarding World would think or do. Nothing of that mattered; all he wanted was to protect that hope and, above all else, help his best friend be happy.

"A trip…?" Andromeda mumbled, snapping Ron out of his thoughts.

His smile trembled a little at the tentative wonder on her face. Andromeda's horrible relatives had never taken her on a trip, always leaving the small witch behind with one of their neighbors.

"Yes," he nodded. "We could go anywhere in the world!"

The raven-haired teen thought about it for a moment before she hesitated and said, "We could go to Australia? Or… Or we could visit one of the Magical Universities…"

Ron turned his head discretely so Andromeda won't notice the resigned expression he made at those words. He knew exactly who had made plans to one day visit Australia as well some of the Universities around the world and it certainly hadn't been Andromeda. Of course, the green-eyed girl would want to plan a trip based on other people's dreams and plans for the future instead of her own.

Did Andromeda even have her own dreams and plans for the future?

"I don't see why not." Ron said casually, clenching and unclenching his hands out of her sight. "But try thinking about other places. Our world is pretty big."

Andromeda turned to stare at him with a lost look and said hesitantly, "But – But where would we go?"

"You don't need to come up with a plan right at this moment," Ron reassured her.

Ron, on the other hand, would be coming up with several plans. Especially when he wanted, and needed, to help Andromeda with the lessons and behavior that were forced on her from a young age as well show her that her own needs and desires were just as important as others'.

It would take time, patience and a lot of effort. But then again, no one ever said the path to happiness was a easy one.

"Ok," Andromeda mumbled, nodding her head slowly.

He smiled softly, reaching out for his cane. Andromeda practically jumped to her feet when she noticed the way he struggled to stand up. She winced a little in discomfort but quickly ignored it and offered her hand to the ginger-haired wizard.

"Come on," he said as he grabbed her hand. "We should go to the Headquarters." Ron looked at her bloodstained bandages, "I think both of us need a check up."

At Andromeda's horrified expression, Ron threw his head back and laughed.

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– Cissnei.