cis female / she + her. ┊ if you’re looking for ANDROMEDA BLACK, you’ll probably find HER in the SLYTHERIN dorm with the rest of the SIXTH years. they’re the TWENTY year old PUREBLOOD who looks kind of like KATIE DOUGLAS. they seem INQUISITIVE, SELF-RELIANT & ANALYTICAL to me, but apparently they’re also CYNICAL, INTROSPECTIVE & TACTLESS. maybe that’s why they remind me of rain on dark windowpanes, the heavy sweetness of red wine, ink-stained fingers. dark curls escaping from pins, burnt out matches from a guilty cigarette, and looking your mother in the eyes when you lie.
CHARACTER INSPO INCLUDES: fitzwilliam darcy ( pride and prejudice ), huntress ( birds of prey ), mei ( a:tla )
PRE-HOGWARTS !!
andromeda & her mother have what u can call a strained relationship. from her moment of birth, druella saw everything andromeda did as an act of rebellion, whether it was a childish question asked in the wrong place at the wrong time, or getting so absorbed in a book she forgot to come down for dinner, or a bit of accidental wandless magic born out of a moment of frustration. every day was a trial against andromeda, with her parents acting as the judge, jury and executioner, & over and over again she was found guilty.
andromeda never meant to defy her mother, at first, but no matter how hard she tried to please druella, nothing she ever did was quite good enough. there was always some fault, whether it was a lock of hair tumbling free from its pin, a corset come unlaced, posture ruined from hunching over a book. her wrists were too bony, her lips were too thin, her skin too easily flushed.
[ ABUSE TW ] it didn’t escape andromeda’s notice that every flaw her mother criticized was one druella shared as well, and when she grew older she realized her mother’s dissatisfaction with andromeda was merely a product of her own dissatisfaction with herself. but that didn’t feed her the nights she was denied dinner for her ‘ misbehaviour ’. it didn’t take back the days andromeda went unable to speak thanks to a punitive silencio, and it didn’t grant andromeda’s wish to have a real mother who loved her. [ END TW ]
did druella love her children ?who knows. maybe she did, in her own twisted way. but druella was first and foremost a business woman, and her main trade was her daughters. andromeda grew up listening to endless warnings that her mother would “ never be able to find andromeda a husband if … ” and then came whichever grievance she’d chosen to focus on that day.
it cannot come as a surprise that andromeda learned to live in the shadows, away from her mother’s disapproving glare; that she learned to rely on herself and herself only, that she learned to watch & observe & test the waters, to think before acting. ( of course, druella did not approve of this either, and informed andromeda that no man would want a girl who was so serious all the time. )
her parents often dragged her and her sisters to various pureblood functions, where andromeda stood off to the side in uncomfortably starched dresses, disappearing like smoke any time someone looked like they were heading over to strike up conversation. she would explore the pureblood manors, all silent footsteps & watchful eyes, making observations on how the wizarding world’s elite lived their lives, noting separate beds in the master bedrooms & half-empty whiskey bottles in the washrooms. it seemed like everyone was only looking out for themselves in this world, trying to further their own social status and wealth.
at home, she would escape to the roof with a book, whether it was a history of warlocks or the kind of torrid romance novel druella pretended she didn’t read, dark eyes hardly looking up as the sun sank lower in the sky, fingers blackened with ink by the time she closed her book and descended into the house to face her mother’s wrath that she missed her piano lessons.
is it strange that such a cynical girl could have such a yearning for beautiful things ? or would that merely be a side effect of cynicism, to long for something to thaw a hardened heart ? andromeda loved beautiful things, perhaps a bit too much, but she did not trust them. nothing beautiful was made to last, and if it was, it wasn’t truly beautiful. sunsets faded to darkness, books ended, lovers grew apart. the inherent transience of beauty made andromeda crave it all the more.
HOGWARTS !!
hogwarts was a breath of fresh air for andromeda, the chance to experience life outside her parents’ regime. to her inquisitive, probing nature, an ancient, magical castle full of history & secrets was paradise, let alone all the classes it housed. and the people — andromeda had never seen so many people in her lifetime. hundreds & hundreds of students filled the castle, all with their own thoughts and lives and desires.
an introvert by nature, she didn’t interact, merely observed. she made best friends with the library & the constellations, sneaking out of the dorm to sit with her legs dangling over the fifty-foot drop of the astronomy tower, eyes finding her constellation, andromeda, and wondering if her fate was written in the stars too; drunk on the beauty of an untamed scottish night.
the unidentifiable yearning she’d always kept tucked inside a corner of her heart ballooned until she could hardly stand it. it was a yearning to be something more than the perfect pureblood wife her mother was trying to groom her to be, a thirst to prove herself in some way she didn’t even understand yet, and it was this ambition & drive that got her sorted into slytherin.
if druella & cygnus had thought andromeda was unmanageable before hogwarts , when she wasn’t even trying to be, she was downright wild when she returned for winter break in first year. now that she knew life could be better than what she was currently living at home, she buzzed with a restless energy that alarmed her parents. andromeda may have been troublesome before, but this was bordering on dangerous. druella made the decision that andromeda would not be returning to hogwarts. [ ABUSE TW ] this sparked one of the worst fights they’d ever had, and culminated in a rare but unforgiving physical beating. [ END TW ]
eventually druella conceded, and andromeda was allowed to return, but she was much more cautious now. she only made friends who her parents would approve of, she kept her nose clean, and at home, she played the part of the dutiful daughter. there were still small rebellions, though — long curls cut short with a silver flash of the kitchen scissors; a nicked pack of her father’s cigarettes smoked cross-legged on the roof, coughing into her fist so nobody would hear. as she got older, she paired the cigarettes & book with red wine , the finest she dared steal without risk of being caught. this was her escape, her small patch of beauty in an ugly world.
andromeda keeps to herself at hogwarts as much as she can. the only people she spent time with were those her parents approved of, and she didn’t like most of them. she threw herself into her schoolwork instead, easily landing herself a spot among the top students.
but she loves hogwarts, loves it with all her heart, as so many abused children do – it’s a safe haven, a place where she can at least pretend she’s free. she loves learning everything that she can ( in fact, she was very nearly sorted into ravenclaw ). her favourite place to be is the astronomy tower, and she still escapes there whenever she’s feeling a bit too claustrophobic.
she was chosen to be a slytherin prefect for her year and although she thought she wouldn’t like it, she’s grown to enjoy the position. not for the power it gives her over her fellow students, but for the escape it brings. she can associate with people she would normally never talk to, and roam the castle freely past curfew. and andromeda isn’t a naturally nurturing person, but she’s found that she enjoys talking to and helping the younger years. she sees their wonder at hogwarts in their eyes, the same wonder that she felt, and has grown quite protective over quite a few of them.
she’s technically in slug club, due to her prowess in potions and her illustrious family name, although she hardly ever goes – she does not like slughorn at all, nor most of the people he’s selected to be in his little club. other than that, however, andromeda doesn’t make a habit of joining clubs or teams or anything that would involve her being forced to interact with people.
PERSONALITY !!
those who don’t know andromeda might say she’s aloof, proud, detached, all flint eyes & sharp edges. and they wouldn’t be wrong. andromeda’s habit of keeping to the shadows has carried on into her hogwarts years, and as an introvert, her solitary nature can sometimes come off as downright anti-social. she’s naturally pensive, and her pensive face just so happens to look pissed off.
she finds it hard to trust people. she’s so used to a world shaped by selfishness that she rarely meets someone she doesn’t suspect of having ulterior motives. after all , beautiful people, like beautiful things, are temporary. everyone turns ugly sooner or later; everyone’s claws are eventually revealed.
andromeda carries an unmistakable air of wealth that, although entirely unintentional, can rub people the wrong way. she has a taste for the finer things in life — an aged wine, a silken scarf — and sees no reason why she shouldn’t enjoy them. she’s well read & well bred, and has a vocabulary and accent that can seem pretentious to some.
do not confuse eloquence with smoothness, though — just because she knows more four-syllable words than most doesn’t mean she knows how to use them. awkwardness comes off as aloofness and snobbery. think mr fitzwilliam darcy. this girl is the opposite of charming. honestly, most people probably think she’s pretty weird cause she’s quiet and like v awkward when spoken to. just kinda does stuff on her own











