there is no other troy

andromeda. 21. slytherin '79, transfiguration. tinker, mother, nowhere girl.

[andromedaatnight]

TED TONKS:

Ted nodded his head slowly. “Yeah, really,” he said. “I don’t want to work in a book shop forever, and I don’t know that I can do what I was really wanting to do with Ancient Runes, not when I– when we have a family,” he said as he gestured towards Dora. “So, I’m going to do something else. I’ve ben studying up, too.” 

Andromeda nodded, even as she felt the familiar twinge of guilt. “What are you thinking of?”

[andromedaatnight]

TED TONKS:

when: 23 december 1980 where: the commons, cardiff who: @andromedaatnight​

“Happy Christmas Eve Eve,” said Ted, cradling Dora in his arms. “And Happy almost birthday to you,” he added to the nearly one-year-old, placing her down by the tree. Dora by now could move and move fast, but Ted had mastered the art of keeping one eye on her and the other focused elsewhere. He suddenly understood that superpower parents had. It was a necessity to have if only to prevent babies from accidentally killing themselves. 

“I’m switching careers,” he announced, bluntly. He had his wand out, lazily flicking it, an invisible force gently pushing Dora away from the tree as she had been on the verge of grasping an ornament. 

Andromeda was half-slumped on the sofa — a position that, two years ago, she would never have assumed in anyone else’s presence. At Ted’s words, she opened her eyes, squinting at him. “Really?” she said with interest, patting the space on the sofa beside her.

[andromedaatnight]

NARCISSA BLACK:

It struck Narcissa as such a strange thing for her sister to say. Narcissa had hardly ever wanted for anything in her life; she’d needed for even less. Wasn’t Andromeda the one now on her own? The one without family and funds and…

Those were the words Narcissa should have been offering. She couldn’t though! Could she? Whatever it was that she felt as she thought about this, it was unpleasant. And it would stick to her for a very long time to follow. 

Hastily, as if she’d better get it out and say it before she thought better of it, Narcissa whispered: “You too, Andromeda.” And then she was gone, though mentally she’d remain in that alley for days to come. 

~ Le Fin ~

[andromedaatnight]

NARCISSA BLACK:

Later, Narcissa would remember feeling something shift inside her in that moment. It was the same feeling that—a lifetime later by all accounts—she would feel standing over a teenage boy’s slack body in the woods. She would keep the secret then like she would keep it for Andromeda now. Because doing so would save the only thing that really mattered to her. Her family. 

She remembered thinking she should have felt powerful in that moment, knowing she was now the only thing that could decide the fate of the Black family legacy. With one name, she had the power to change so many fates. 

She didn’t feel powerful though, she felt mature. Narcissa had always thought they were the same thing; today she learned that they weren’t. Her stare didn’t waver. “I won’t.” 

And like that the spell was broken. “I should go. This stupid curfew—” The one she didn’t observe, like any smart Pureblood. 

Andromeda nodded quickly. Now, after the act — the revelation — her heart felt lighter and weaker both. But she didn’t have time to dwell on whether or not she’d made a mistake. She had to trust Narcissa, and she had to get home.

“Be safe,” she told her sister. “And, if you need anything...” She trailed off, knowing there was nothing more to be said.

[andromedaatnight]

NARCISSA BLACK:

Nymphadora. The name sent a thrill through her. All of a sudden Narcissa began to laugh. With quick precision she hid it behind her fingertips. “That’s such a relief,” she gushed, giddy with something. The surprise of it all, maybe. “I don’t know what’s so funny about that. I suppose I…” Another fit of laughter. “I was worried you’d have given her a common name. I worried you’d call her Barbara.” She was worried her sister had changed.

Andromeda’s instinctive frown smoothed away; she rolled her eyes, though not entirely in displeasure. “Barbara,” she repeated disparagingly, laughing a quick, short laugh. 

Now the good part of this conversation, she thought, must come to a temporary pause. Looking Narcissa in the eye, she said, “You can’t tell anyone.”

[andromedaatnight]

ALICE SHAFIQ:

They sat that way, hand in hand, eye to eye, for an inconceivable amount of time. Maybe it was seconds. Maybe minutes. All Alice knew was that she would remember this moment, not for the pain of retelling a tale, but of the look in Andie’s expression that told Alice everything she could ever need to know about the people in her life.

Andie, shoved out of her own life, was not an integral part of hers. They were sisters in a way that she supposed the other Black sisters could never understand. This, a family built from trust, and love. Without the tinge of distrust or hate running rampant in their minds. Today was hard. Tomorrow could be worse. But they had one another, and what wasn’t possible when they were together?

“I love you.” Words so often associated with the romantic notion, and usually forgotten in times like these, where in reality, love could never be diluted into so small a box. Alice loved Andie, and all of her hard edges.

the end

[andromedaatnight]

NARCISSA BLACK:

She’s a monster, Narcissa thought sharply. Only, it wasn’t her sweet voice that rang between her ears, but something meaner, more shrill. Her mother’s voice, maybe. Or Trixy’s. Narcissa listened to it carefully, and kept quiet until it was done shouting as she’d been taught to do. And only then did she have the privacy to think for herself a moment, about what she thought. Narcissa Sterling Black.

Well, she reasoned, Andromeda wasn’t a monster. So at the very least, her offspring would only be half grotesque. Narcissa shivered, not from the cold though the air did draw color to her cheeks.

Her niece! How disappointed was Narcissa each Christmas when she poked and prodded at Rod and Trixy wondering when when when, and here Andromeda was… now!

“What did you name her?” Narcissa’s voice sounded far away from her. A bird’s song echoing off a tree deep in the forest.

You don’t get to know, Andromeda wanted to shout — but really, it wasn’t Narcissa she wanted to say it to. And the irony was, the people she would direct those words at wouldn’t want to know in the first place.

So: this was where they stood, in a Banchory alleyway, tiptoeing around half-love. How could Andromeda possibly deny a question like that, coming from her sister? How could she not say, with the sweetness that accompanied any thought of her boisterous, energetic daughter, “She’s named Nymphadora.”

And she found herself waiting — not just to see Narcissa’s reaction, but to hear her form the name, to test out its shape.

[andromedaatnight]

ALICE SHAFIQ:

“That’s the thing, isn’t it.” Alice was laughing now, uproarious laughter that felt so strange and foreign and horrible. Yet there she was, as if possessed by grief or terror or anger. “I don’t need to worry about classes anymore, now do I?”

Because it was all gone now. All of the time and effort spent at the Auror Academy, and they had pushed everyone out into the field, without a second thought. No questions asked. In some ways, it had been a blessing. Never having to see that horrible man’s face again, nor witness his disgusting hands. On some days, she might spot him around the Ministry. A quick glance. Enough to straighten out her spine and brush away her hair. Most days, he was a ghost, trailing after her, a reminder of her own failings. Of the horrible distrust she felt to anyone who dare tell her what to do.

“I’m not weak.” She knew Andie would have loved her, even if she was, but saying the words out loud were just another admittance that she had been weak. That maybe, sometimes, she couldn’t be the statue that most people in her life took her to be. “I’m just so angry.”

Alice looked towards Andie, a fire in her eyes, one that hadn’t been snuffed out by some insignificant man on a power trip. She wouldn’t go away. She wouldn’t quietly creep out of this life, tiptoeing around the truth. Alice had been assaulted. Alice had survived. Now it was up to Alice to piece herself together with the help of the softest hands she knew.

Andromeda sucked in a breath, having thoroughly forgotten about the uncertainty of this world. It was impossible to think beyond this moment, beyond her friend and this conversation. Just as it was impossible to conceive of an Alice who was weak.

A cascade of thoughts came to mind, each one more furious than the last: Of course you’re not weak. Of course it shouldn’t matter. Of course you can be angry. But she held her tongue, squeezing Alice’s fingers hard enough, perhaps, to hurt — hard enough that those thoughts were conveyed anyway.

“Whatever you want, I’m here.” In another person’s mouth it might have sounded warm, loving, kind; in Andromeda’s it was brittle, hard, raw. And then — the hard shell cracked. “I’m here,” she said again, softer, biting her lip so she could hold the even mask of composure that had yet to slip.

[andromedaatnight]

NARCISSA BLACK:

“Couldn’t they be, Dromeda?” Narcissa had imagined it a thousand times in a thousand ways, how things could go back to the way they’d once been, before any poison had leaked into her life. It wasn’t just a fruitless hope to Narcissa, not a child’s wish, but it was prophesy that her sister would come back and all would be well. That was how much she believed it possible, despite all the very obvious ways in which it was not. Like Ted, and Nymphadora… names Narcissa didn’t even know in the first place to think of now. 

For a moment Andromeda thought about the possibility. She didn’t consider it, in earnest; she simply allowed herself to imagine what it would be like. 

She would leave behind Cardiff and go to back the house she’d grown up in. There would be no Ted, no Dora; her hands would once again turn soft, the hands of someone not destined for labour. Like a bird back in a cage, she would be grateful for the odd piece of absentminded, accidental love thrown her way. And there would always be something new, and ugly, and honest in the space between her and Druella, or her and Trixy: knowledge, eyes unveiled. 

And of course she wouldn’t put it past her sister to find a way to get names and people out of her, somehow. If she gave up Ted, and Dora, and Alice, and everyone who’d sheltered her since last June, she would not consign them to a life without her; she might consign them to something worse. My daughter, she thought, almost against her will.

“They can’t be,” Andromeda said, a conviction that had been absent from her voice now returning to it. She sounded more like herself, she was relieved to hear — or more like how she sounded in her mind. She met her sister’s gaze, beseeching even though she didn’t know how or why or what Narcissa could even do... 

“She’s your niece,” she whispered. And even though she hated to beg, had been raised never to beg, she wanted to tack on please, can’t you see? Can’t you understand? Had she the presence of mind, she might have noticed how they were each asking for something the other could not give.

[andromedaatnight]

ALICE SHAFIQ:

“I couldn’t even scream, Andie. I couldn’t even yell. I’m a trained fucking Auror, and I had never felt more helpless in my entire life.” Alice didn’t swear. Not by some principle or code. The words just rarely suited her needs, the ones that were usually bent towards kindness and willingly to believe the bet in others. Today, and the days previous none of that felt like a part of her anymore.

She looked up at her best friend with fear in her eyes. “He’s a Professor at the Auror Academy. I doubt anyone would be willing to part with him now.” Alice desperately didn’t want to turn bitter. The world was more than just Kirwin’s roaming around for their next target. She wanted to believe it. She did believe it. But for right now, with only Andie to see, a little of her shine would be washed away.

Andromeda drew in a long breath. The reality of what she heard was rattling each platitude out of head. Of course you couldn’t scream, you must’ve been shocked, you must’ve been... Professor. A professor at the Academy. 

Suddenly she was angry, and the anger was a hard, ugly thing, but she bit down on it like she would her tongue. Her emotions couldn’t overwhelm Alice’s, not now. But she thought, quite seriously, about what it might take to end someone’s life, and if she possessed it. She thought she might.

“Do you...have to see him in class?” she asked, even as she wanted to shout you shouldn’t have to, fuck him, no one should have him in class ever.

[andromedaatnight]

NARCISSA BLACK:

“It’s not the same,” she confessed against her sister’s neck. 

Narcissa knew that the neck was an animal’s greatest weakness against death. When she aimed her arrows in the early mornings, fog rising up from the forest floor to hide her, it was usually for the neck and it was always effective. 

But the tremble in her voice gave away how much she wished it were the same. How much she wished everything had stayed the same as it’d been in her enchanted childhood. 

“I don’t even know where you are, Dromeda.” Narcissa’s sniffles were genuine as she pulled away from her sister’s embrace, dabbing at her eyes gently to avoid pulling the skin, lest she tempt the marks of age. “For my whole life you were just down the hall, and now—” Not even Andromeda’s photos existed. She wasn’t even a ghost, just a figment. One, it sometimes seemed, only of Narcissa’s imagination. 

Andromeda thought of Regulus, how injured and betrayed and just like this he’d been. Surely her two most harmless relatives couldn’t— But— She squeezed her eyes shut, tight. 

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. Had she said it once already? It was both harder and easier to steel herself with Narcissa not in her embrace; she reminded herself that she ought to be worried less about her own confused homesickness and more about Ted, about Dora. Not once had her sister asked about the baby, she realised, and held onto this thought as if it were a thorn.

“I wish everything was different.” But even this was toneless, someone else’s phrase. “I wish things were easier.”

[andromedaatnight]

ALICE SHAFIQ:

Had that been the answer she wanted? Alice didn’t know. Except, she did know. She was happy that Andie’s experience, while it shouldn’t have happened, might have not left quite the same mark that it had on Alice. There was relief in knowing that the monstrosity hadn’t spread further than she expected. That, perhaps, on some level, this was an isolated incident that few could relate to. Wasn’t that a thing to be celebrated?

“At the Masquerade. I had left Frank to go use the loo and after I came out—” Even she, now an Auror, had so easily been taken advantage of. What did that mean for someone who might’ve been less trained? Less strong? What happened to those who didn’t have a Fabian conveniently step in before things got worse? 

She didn’t want to cry, but she did anyway. The tears ran slowly down her cheeks. Nothing loud about the emotion, only the quiet devastation that came with knowing something horrible happened, and there was no turning back the clock. “Fabian got there before it was, well, worse.”

Andromeda bit her tongue as she listened. Though she’d known what was coming, that didn’t compare to hearing Alice say it — well, imply it. But the unsaid was more than enough.

She reached, haltingly, for Alice’s hand and covered it with her own. She knew she wasn’t the most comforting person, and she’d never hated it more than in that moment. But she didn’t matter here — Alice did. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, only it sounded too angry to be an apology. Andromeda cleared her throat, settled her voice. “Do you... I don’t want to press you for any details, Alice, if you’d rather not say any more.”

[andromedaatnight]

NARCISSA BLACK:

Narcissa waited for the other words to follow, but they didn’t. One beat she waited. Two. Three. Before it could turn ridiculous she stopped waiting; Narcissa was not stupid. Her ignorance was carefully selected, the padding with which she sheltered herself from the ugliness of the world. Maybe to some this looked like stupidity, but that only added to the effectiveness of its armor. At any rate, she recognized the hesitation on Andromeda’s part.

Of course, Narcissa was prone to daydream and fantasy, so she had imagined this scene before. Her reunion with her wayward sister… It hadn’t gone quite like this. 

“I’m so embarrassed,” she admitted with a humility that was rare in their blood. Narcissa took a few more gasping breaths and tried to sit straighter. She turned doe-eyes at her elder. 

By no mistake of evolutionary design, Narcissa had the uniquely well suited quality of making herself—predator by nature as she was—appear as the most helpless of prey. “I must look so silly to you.” This was effective mostly because she believed the lie.

Andromeda’s arm tightened around her at that. Suddenly all tension seemed to leave her — she felt as though she were floating, or as if something else moved her like a puppet. It didn’t matter if she lied to Narcissa. Narcissa was lying to her. It was the way of things, this simple sisterly pretence, as familiar to her as breathing.

And so, not knowing if it was true, but not minding either, Andromeda gave her a proper hug, and said, “You don’t. You’re not silly. You’re allowed to be afraid.” 

After all, hadn’t she spent years at home trying so hard to never show fear nor weakness? To never bend, lest it imply breaking? Maybe that was Narcissa’s gift and her curse: she could appear timid and trembling, and no one found it out of the ordinary. In fact it was right, and natural. It was normal for people to underestimate her.

“You’re allowed to come to me,” she added, quietly, “when you’re afraid.” 

After all, if she knew the trap she’d landed into, that did not make her a thoughtless prey animal. Right?

[andromedaatnight]

ALICE SHAFIQ:

Alice hesitated in launching straight into the story. Something else derailed her. Another thought that she latched onto like a life raft. “Have you ever—I mean, has someone ever touched you without you wanting them to?” She was aware of how much this gave away. That Andie was smart enough to put the pieces together, given they were sitting there, practically shouting at the secret Alice had kept.

But this was a call for solidarity. To find someone who had gone through a similar experience, and find common suffering in all of it. Alice didn’t want to be alone. She just didn’t want anyone else to feel this way either.

Andromeda’s breath caught. Everything seemed so still, so tentative, like the room had been dipped into amber. She wanted to answer, so they could come out of this conversation all the quicker. She didn’t want to say a word, for fear of why Alice was asking.

“Yes,” she said slowly, “but not...” Not something violent or dangerous, she wanted to say, without knowing why the qualifier felt necessary. In every grey area there was a shadowy corner, and how many sexual encounters lived there, uncertain or reluctant or stumbled through for the sake of it?

She blinked, hard, and looked back at Alice. Lovely, warm Alice, who had such a firm grasp on the intersection of directness and kindness. There was a reason her friend had taken this route to whatever she was about to say, but Andromeda didn’t know if she should force the revelation — in whatever form — now that they stood on the cusp of it. She opened her mouth, and it took a moment for the words to come. 

“Did something happen?” she asked, and her voice sounded like someone else’s.

[andromedaatnight]

NARCISSA BLACK:

Was she alright? Narcissa wasn’t dead, nor hurt. Already that placed her wellbeing leaps and bounds above many others since the Statute had fallen. She was neither imprisoned nor homeless, wanting for money or comfort. In many regards, Narcissa Black was doing just fine. Better than just fine. Narcissa Black was privileged, safe, and frankly better off than the ex-sister she had called to look after her. 

Was she alright though?

Narcissa began to cry. Not the sniffles and crocodile tears that usually accompanied her flirtations with distress, but real heaving tears. So thick and urgent in their release that she could scarcely get any words out to answer Andromeda. She thought: I shouldn’t have to speak. Andromeda is my sister. She will understand.

The truth was that she didn’t know what to say though, and so let the tears give her space to think. What had happened today was so small. A shop owner unwilling to sell her something, a stern talking to with some Aurors who warned her against the impending curfew. They were but minor things, but they added just enough weight on her shoulders that Narcissa could no longer ignore all the other things she had failed to cry about in the last year. 

“I really—” sniff sniff “—miss you.” Was this manipulative? Maybe. If it was, it wasn’t intentionally. Did that make it better, or worse? In a year Narcissa—a girl who believed nothing bad could ever happen to her—lost her cousin, her favorite uncle, her sister. And now her entire world. Did the manipulation outweigh the truth of the statement?

Andromeda startled at the abrupt, real tears that followed her question. I should comfort her, she thought, but found herself paralysed. The right thing to do is to take her in my arms and hold her. Really, she wanted to do it. But her body was stuck in place, like a morsel of food caught in the throat. 

Her sister missed her. Did she miss her sister? How certain the everyday had become in the months since she’d left home — certain because of its simplicity, its drudgery. It was nothing to the halting, tremulous life she’d known before. She felt a distant, traitorous pang for that old existence. 

She thought, I must have come because some part of me misses her too. And though she couldn’t have said what she really felt, that was the thought that prompted Andromeda to close the gap between them and draw one arm around Narcissa’s shoulders. She could trust the practical evidence if not her heart. 

“I,” Andromeda began, and then stopped. Where white lies had fallen without remorse, without hesitation, from her lips before, she seemed to have lost the ability. Was that a byproduct of this new life, or simply because of the here and now of this narrow alleyway, her sister birdlike in her grasp, and so familiar?

[andromedaatnight]

ALICE SHAFIQ:

“Andie.” She said the name, and faltered, losing some of her courage. The kind she had been building for some days now, carefully collecting in her back pocket. Today was going to be it. When her cards were finally on the table, and the secret that had been guarded in her chest was out. Free. No longer haunting her waking steps. 

“I need to tell you something.” Not because Andie was entitled to the information. Not because this was anyone’s business except for her own. But because Alice refused to feel shame. Refused to live her life carrying this sort of pain alone.

Andromeda sat up a little straighter. “Go on,” she prompted; the better to cut off any panicked guesswork on her part.

[andromedaatnight]

ALICE SHAFIQ:

when: november 9th, 1980 where: alice’s flat who: @andromedaatnight·

Frank and Alice seemed to have mostly opposing shifts these days, rarely able to see one another in a flat that felt ghostly. Especially since the incident. She knew she was acting strange and stand-offish. Her demeanor less open, more guarded. As though assuming, at any moment, someone she knew might morph into a monster.

She pushed a cup of tea towards her best friend, pretending at a smile. Something that would be easily seen through by anyone who knew her well enough. “I didn’t think I’d become an Auror like this. It feels so—empty, almost.”

Andromeda pressed her lips together in lieu of empty sympathy. She took a sip of the tea first, then said, “I know. Well — I imagine, rather. Your dream ought to be realised with a little more fanfare.” 

She turned a small frown upon Alice. Andromeda was used to being the one wrung-out and dimmed; she had been when the girls had lived together, immediately after she’d left home. It was odd to see the roles reversed, now, to consider that even the drudgery of the Academy was nothing compared to the sudden promotion and the impact it was having on people she cared about.