TheLeeLee — Roleplayer Guild

Faint flakes of snow pattered against the window; a lucky few stuck to the glass, others floated away on the wind, others ran streaks down the window pane as they melted -crushed between the outer, luckier snowflakes and the warmth radiating through from the interior. Andromeda Black’s gaze was locked on the scene, a small smile tugging at her lips. The snow rarely reached this far into the city, and she rarely ever got to see it from her flat –the enormously tall buildings surrounding generally guarded her beautiful little home from the weather. But the shift in the wind brought the snow to her, and she rather enjoyed watching the little play of the delicate crystals, from the comfort of her warm sitting room. Unlike her sister Bellatrix, Dromeda had never been over fond of the cold.

The flat was lovely, warmer than any place she had ever been, and felt more like home than Black Manor or Grimmauld Place or Hogwarts ever had. She loved her family, and her home, but the Manor always had a chill to it that she could never fully embrace. This little flat, though it was far from little –it might as well have been a mansion, when compared to the places some of her old Hogwarts friends were living in—and resembled her childhood home far too closely thanks to Druella’s persistence and unquestionable decorating skills, was warm and comfortable in a way she could not explain. Maybe just for the sheer fact that it was hers. Andromeda had a place of all of her own, and was finally living by herself. Cooking and cleaning for herself, although her mother had provided her with two of her own house elves, spending her days shadowing Madame Bissett, her nights enjoying the little taste of freedom. Her ‘apprenticeship’ with Madame Bissett at Twilfit and Tattlings wasn’t a job, or even a real apprenticeship. It was a hobby, that she was being allowed to indulge in; of all of her ‘hobbies,’ dressmaking was the one her mother allowed her. For a while Andromeda had hoped she could pursue her love of potions, she’d even found work at an apothecary. The job only lasted a week. A daughter of the House of Black could not be seen measuring out bat spleens in public.
She may have been living on her own, but her life was still not entirely her own.

A knock jolted her from her musings, and Andromeda glanced about the room, puzzled. A second, more urgent sounding knock forced her attention from packing. She followed the sound, the urgent knock slowly turning to a bored rhythm (that she thought she might have recognized from somewhere) as she made her way across the room. She opened the door a smidge, still apprehensive of dangers she’d been warned about, and a large boot wedged itself between it and the frame. It fidgeted, wedging the door open little by little, and she laughed, opening the door further to smile back at the sandy-haired man beaming at her. In one hand he held a basket, in the other her offered her some rather sad looking flowers— but his eager grin made up for the poor state of his offering. Her slender hand reached out, to accept the poor plants (hopefully she could revive them) when she gasped, and a concerned look furrowed across the gent’s face. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Andromeda handed him back his sad flowers, “I can’t! I’m running late as it is!”

She gave him an apologetic smile, turning back into the room. Jink, one of the house elves her mother had placed in her service, stared at her in bewilderment as the dark-haired witch fluttered back into the room, picking up scarves and jumpers and bits of fabric lying about to pack, not at all to clean up because he was there. Andromeda checked the clock and sighed, now frantically stuffing clothing into yet another suitcase. The soft thud of something being set down on her wood floors made her smile weakly, and the rougher hand passing her a rather dainty bit of lace made her cheeks burn, “I was hoping to meet Cissa and Mummy at the train…” she explained.

“Mummy?” He chuckled lightly at her, and she barely had the courage to lift her head to look at him, but, honestly, she was a bit offended by his tone.

Andromeda pursed her lips, narrowing her eyes at him with a look her mother might have been proud of, “What?”

“Nothing.” He smiled at her, and she believed him. But the tall man laughed again, awkwardly this time, twisting a bit of cloth around his hand, “Actually, I sort of expected something a little more… refined? Mummy seems a little too common of a title for a woman of, what is it… ‘the Oldest and Most Notable…’”

She laughed, then felt guilty for it, “The Noble and Most Ancient House Of Black.” She corrected, and the grin he gave her looked almost proud.

“Yeah, that. You describe her as someone who’ll only accept ‘Mother’ or ‘Your Grace’ or some pompous title of the like.”

“No, that’s my Aunt Walburga. And Bella. Or, it will be soon enough.” She sighed, sorting through scarves again. Bellatrix hadn’t been married long, but their mother had been very clear of her expectations. Her own parents and Bella's new husband's had given her sister a deadline, and Andromeda knew both families were waiting with baited breath for news. She truly felt horribly for her older sister, and feared when that fate would be thrust on her. The brunette straightened her shoulders, forcing the thoughts away before her companion could question her, “I really only call her Mother when one or both of us is cross.” Then she looked up from her packing, throwing him a playful grin, “Why, do muggles call their mothers something different? We’re told to believe you all just grunt at each other in acknowledgement.”

“That sounds about right. Although, most conversations I’ve heard between you and Bellatrix have been nothing but screeches and curses and groans…”

Andromeda groaned, lightly nudging him away with her shoulder and a smile, “Again; that’s my sister, not my mother.” His laughter was soft and warm, and foreign to her in a way. There had always been laughter around her when she was growing up, but never like his, “And what do you call your mother, Ted?” She stopped with her packing, and Ted Tonks grinned at her sheepishly, struggling to force one of her suitcases closed with his bare hands. The laugh that left Andromeda seemed to startle him, and she toned the half-mad cackle so distinct of her family down to more of a giggle, “You call yours Mummy too, now don’t you?!”

“Don’t judge me,” Ted beamed, finally giving up on muggling his way through her packing, drawing his wand and magicking it closed like a sensible person, “I love my mummy!”

It was half past two by the time she convinced Ted to leave. He insisted on helping, and on making her tea; the man even deeply offended her elf by offering to make her a cup! Getting him to leave her flat was like trying to fight off a niffler invasion; he was in everything, and worried that she’d freeze to death out in the snow. After reminding him seven times that her parents really would kill her if they say her wearing his leather jacket, just to keep warm, he finally caved and let her shove him out of her door. Before she could slam it on his annoyingly amused face, he slipped another bunch of flowers into her hand. No, not another –the same ones as before, but these were bright and blooming and beautiful. He beamed, and leaned in to place a chaste kiss on her cheek, “One of those is for Narcissa. And I guess you can share them will Bellatrix and your mother too, if they’ll accept them."
As she closed the door behind him, picking up one of her suitcases, she began to wonder if they would.

“Dear, what are you wearing?” Druella Black’s voiced gasped as Andromeda landed in the center of the kitchen. After the most uncomfortable experience that was apparting, the first thing any woman wants to hear is her mother nagging about her clothes. The middle Black daughter dusted off the front of her dress, although she knew there wasn’t any dust or snow to remove. It had become habit. Her mother rushed towards her, dressed in attire far too elegant for hanging about a kitchen at this time of day, “It is most inappropriate for you to be out in such rags.”

“Mummy,” The brunette sighed, investigating her own clothes. Her dark grey dress wasn’t jewel encrusted or finely embroidered, but it wasn’t a rag! “I hardly think it’s necessary for me to dress in my finest robes to apparate from my kitchen to yours.” She rolled her eyes, handing her suitcase to a most eager elf, “I’ll change into something far more ‘lazing about the house’ appropriate now that I’ve popped in.”

“I am not enjoying that tone of yours, Andromeda,” Her mother snapped, and Andromeda sighed again, “What if the Lestranges had been here with Bellatrix--”

“At two thirty-seven in the afternoon, Mother?”

“Andromeda!” Druella Rosier Black’s voice had always been piercingly stern, even when she was speaking lightly, but it was painfully cold when scolding, “What would have happened if it had been Rodolphus and Bellatrix, with the younger brother here when you ‘popped in’? Or his parents? Or the Carrows, or Antonin –he’s in England now, on some business.” The older woman lightly took her arm, both to move Andromeda from the business at the center of the kitchen and to keep her from walking away, “What would have happened then?”

“Rabastan would have found me completely revolting, dropping his tea onto the polished floor as he disapparated away with his entire family and fortune in disgust, forever shaming us and completely destroying the House of Black?” Andromeda returned her mother’s stern look, then guiltily pulled back, lowering her gaze to the floor. The tension in her shoulders relaxed and her expression softened as her mother pulled her into a dainty embrace.

“Andromeda, we have discussed this already,” she sighed, but the matriarch of the Black family’s words were cut short by a gleeful squeal. Andromeda looked up just in time to see the blonde bolting across the kitchen, throwing her arms around her as their mother tutted her disapproval. A painfully wide smile stretched across her face as she returned her sister’s embrace with just as much warmth.

“Finally!” Narcissa pulled away with a laugh Andromeda could not refrain from joining, “how long does it take to apparate? I've been here a full hour already and bored out of my mind without you.”

“I’m sorry, Cissa, dear,” She apologised, smiling at her little sister’s complaints. Only Narcissa could make something like whining and pouting look elegant and refined. Andromeda didn’t mind it, tried not be envious of how her sisters managed to make everything look so perfect. It was difficult though, sometimes, to be the dull one between the striking darkness of Bellatrix and the beaming light that was Narcissa. Ted admonished her for saying so, on many occasions. Suddenly, she felt her cheeks flush, “I just –sort of lost track of time.” She laughed, maybe a bit to awkwardly, and scrunched her nose at Cissa, “You know all too well how that happens, Miss ‘the party started fourty-five minutes ago but I’m not coming downstairs until the wings of my eyeliner are exactly even!’” Andromeda smirked, giving her sister’s hand a loving squeeze before releasing her.

Their mother cleared her throat in that noble way that made you forget the woman was trying to dislodge phlegm from her throat as every average person does, and Andromeda finally stepped away from her sister, careful not to let her mother see the mildly annoyed look she’d shot the younger’s way, “We are expecting Rodolphus and Bellatrix to arrive later for supper.” Andromeda felt her mother’s eyes study her sadly, and she felt oddly guilty again, “Please, be dressed by then.”

She smiled softly at her mother, somehow fighting off the urge to inform her that she was already dressed, before linking her arm in Narcissa’s. She really should not have even considered saying such a thing to her mother but her time away, she was beginning to realize, was making her bolder. Dromeda didn’t know how she should have felt about that. The elves were moving her things out of the kitchen, most of them apparating, but a younger one make for the foyer with one of her smaller bags, certainly to take it upstairs, so the middle daughter decided to follow, “Did she tell you?” Andromeda whispered, once out of their mother’s hearing range, to her little sister with a grin, “Apparently, they’re considering the other Lestrange for me.”

Only minutes in her mother’s presence and Andromeda was falling back into the proper habits of being a Black. She walked from the kitchen in long, slow strides, she held her chin higher and her shoulders lower, and took the short, unnoticeable breaths she’d been taught so long to do. But once she was sure they were completely out Druella’s sight, Dromeda beamed at Cissa, grabbing her sister’s hand and striding up the stairs. “I think she’s trying to start a collection,” she giggled to her sister, still trying to keep her voice low,“Not unlike Auntie Walburga’s elves…" Andromeda let go of her sister not but a few yards further up the stairs. Hands lifting up her skirts so as to not trip on the hems, the brunette threw her blonde sister a quick grin and sprinted the rest of the way up the stairs, "the Lestrange brothers are a little taller, though, I hear!” Andromeda called back to Narcissa, probably a bit too loudly, eager in her need to win the little race. She’d always been older and therefore quicker, less afraid of falling down or hurting herself, but she wondered if six months away from these stairs, and two full years dependent on apparating, had hindered her ability to out run her sisters. She was certainly winded by the time she reached the landing. The darker-haired witch fell to the floor outside of her bedroom door most indelicately, a wide smile on her face, breathless from exhaustion and laughter, “I am sure Mother does not want them stuffed and mounted on our walls,however, not just yet.”

TheLeeLee Member

I, as a general rule, have no idea what I'm doing.

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