Two letters, both received at Andromeda’s first Hogwarts breakfast, contained reactions to the results of her Sorting.
Andromeda,
Your father, I, and the rest of the family are very disappointed that the Sorting Hat did not place you in Slytherin. Though Ravenclaw house signifies intelligence, we would have preferred that you had been placed in Slytherin, and continued to uphold the Black family name.
The house elf made you some cakes, which are in the package. Work hard and you may still make us proud.
Mother.
Dearest Andromeda,
Your father has just informed me that you’ve been Sorted into Ravenclaw! That’s absolutely spiffing! I always knew you were an intelligent one!
Try not to get into too much trouble! Enjoy the new pot of ink I bought you. I happen to know that old Dumbledore is fond of purple, so try writing your Transfiguration essays in it!
Love,
Uncle Alphard
A note, balled up and thrown at Andromeda’s head during lunch on the same day.
Meet me in the Owlery at six.
Bellatrix
Andromeda rubbed her gloved hands against her numb cheeks. Where was her sister? She had gotten lost twice on the way up, but she was still standing alone in the Owlery. She shot a wary glace at the large barn owl perched next to her; it clicked its beak menacingly.
“Bellatrix, where are you?” she muttered, shifting her weight from foot to foot.
“Stop complaining, Andromeda. It’s not that cold.” Bellatrix appeared in the doorway.
“You’re the one who said six,” she grumbled, but waited patiently for Bellatrix to pick her way around the dead mice and owl droppings.
Bellatrix shooed some owls away and found a place to lean against. Then, she quietly surveyed Andromeda. It was very unsettling. Finally, she spoke. “What did you say to the Sorting Hat?”
“I didn’t say anything!” Andromeda said indignantly.
“Well, then how did you end up in Ravenclaw?” Bellatrix asked cooly.
“I-I don’t know! It didn’t really tell me why. I suppose it thinks I’m more- more smart then cunning...”
“So, you didn’t say or think anything about not wanting to be in Slytherin?” Bellatrix snarled.
“No, no. Of course not,” Andromeda mumbled weakly.
“Good. The last thing we need is another blood-traitor on our hands,” Bellatrix grinned her rather frightening, crooked grin. “C’mon, pork chops in the Great Hall.”
Andromeda gave the barn owl one last wary glace before following Bellatrix down the stone steps.
Andromeda looked down at the worktable before her. She had made absolutely no progress since Herbology class had begun.
“Andromeda, don’t move!” William Hatch, who was one of the people that she was sharing the table with, said suddenly.
She froze. What was it? Had one of those sinister looking spider plants crawled onto her?
“What is it?”
She felt William’s hand on her head. “My seed just jumped into your hair. Didn’t want to loose it again!”
Andromeda shot William an annoyed look. The Ravenclaws shared Herbology class with the Gryffindors. She was sharing a table with William, Anna, Letty and Michael Hooper (a Gryffindor student). Out of them all, Letty was the only one making any progress.
While Letty was watering her already planted seeds, William was trying to keep a hold of his, Michael Hooper was chasing after his, one of Anna’s seeds had jumped into the watering can and Andromeda was busy pretending that she hadn’t lost all of hers in the first five minutes of class.
Once Letty was finished tending to her seeds, she turned to Andromeda. “Andromeda,” she laughed, “did you loose all your seeds?”
Andromeda, who had been searching around the table for one of her escaped jumping beans, straightened up. She snapped her gum guiltily.
“They’re hard to catch hold of,” she said defensively.
Letty carefully reached under a pot, where she had trapped her beans. She pulled one out and stuck it into the spoil in front of Andromeda. “Here,” she said, “I’ve got an extra one.”
“Thanks,” Andromeda said gratefully
She watered it, labeled her pot and went off to help in the search for Michael Hooper’s lost seeds.
The bell sounded and everybody rushed to lunch, complaining of the difficulty of keeping hold of their projects.
It was Friday, and the end of Andromeda’s first week at Hogwarts. Ravenclaw House was excellent, and the large circular common room was nice and cosy. She shared a dorm with Letty and two other girls: Suzanne Twonk and Mary Fawcett. Suzanne turned out to be the blonde girl who had gotten sick going across the Lake and Mary was a hot-tempered red-head, who had gotten very angry when Suzanne’s socks wound up underneath her bed. Along with Suzanne and Mary, there was also Lewis Chambers, a boy with large front teeth, Conroy Capper, who looked remarkably like a bird, and Damon Alderton, who had a great tuft of curly blonde hair.
All of her classes were going well, besides Potions. She had never had to cook or stir anything before, and she certainly never had to patiently wait for her potion to simmer, and she found that she was not very good at it. She particularly liked Astronomy. Professor Green, the Astronomy teacher, praised her on being able to locate Andromeda without any help at all. She also enjoyed Transfiguration; Professor Dumbledore was even stranger then he looked, and though Transfiguration was not easy, she tried very hard to meet his standards.
After she had scrubbed the dirt from her hands and gulped down a helping of turkey soup, Andromeda rushed from the Great Hall. She needed to get a book about glamour charms, to prove to Letty that a girl could grow a full beard if she wanted to. Although there was still a half hour until her last class, it would be a miracle if she managed to get directly to the library without getting lost.
“Right,” she said to herself, upon encountering a fork in the corridor, “I should go left, because there’s that tapestry Letty’s brother was talking about...”
Three staircases and a door pretending to be a wall later, she was convinced she was lost. This corridor was completely new to her, and there were no windows in sight.
“Andromeda?”
Andromeda spun around to find Theodore and Anna Sparrows on the top step of the staircase she had just climbed.
“Oh-hullo! I’m a bit lost...” she said, scratching the back of her head. “Do you know how to get to the library?”
Theodore laughed. “You passed it two floors ago.”
“Do you want us to take you?” Anna asked.
“Well, if it’s no trouble... Where were you two headed, anyway?” Andromeda said, peering further up the corridor.
“I was going to my common room and Theo was taking a shortcut to the Hufflepuff Wing. He knows this castle inside and out already,” Anna said.
Theodore grinned. “C’mon. Let’s go.”
“Hey, Andromeda! What’s the name of the book again?”
“Um, Madam Pretty’s Encyclopedia of Beautifying Incantations!” Andromeda shouted over the shelves.
She turned around to put a book back and then dropped it in surprise. Bellatrix was standing in front of her, looking particularly menacing. She quickly picked up her book and shoved it onto a shelf.
“Merlin, Bella. You scared me!” When Bellatrix didn’t say anything, she continued, “What are you doing over here?”
She thought she had seen the group of tough-looking Slytherins Bellatrix kept in her company on the way in, but they were over at the other end of the library.
“Who are they?” Bellatrix demanded, nodding her head towards the section Anna and Theodore were in.
“Oh. They’re Anna and Theodore Sparrows. I got lost, so they brought me to the library, and now they’re helping me look for some books,” Andromeda explained.
“And do you know what they are?” Bellatrix hissed.
“Uh,” Andromeda faltered. “Tall?”
“No, you idiot! You’re hanging around with a bunch of Mudbloods!”
She stared at Bellatrix. Anna and Theodore were Muggle-born? She couldn’t remember ever being told about this.
“A-are you sure? How do you know?”
“Pritchard told me. He said their father was a dentist!”
“What? Well, um....”
“Well? You’re not going to keep around them, are you?” Bellatrix spat.
The face of Druella Black floated into her mind. Her mother would probably go into shock, maybe even faint, at learning that her daughter was hanging around with Muggle-borns.
Andromeda had already disappointed her once already...
“N-no. Of course not,” she replied weakly.
“Good. Now I don’t have to deny the fact that we’re related.” The scowl vanished from Bellatrix’s face and she sauntered off to join her friends. Andromeda slowly went to find Anna and Theodore.
“Did you find the book?” Anna asked upon seeing her.
“Sorry, I can’t stay. I have a... History of Magic essay,” Andromeda lied quickly, feeling her face turn scarlet.
“History of Magic? But Binns didn’t give us-!”
“Bye!” With that, Andromeda fled the library, feeling absolutely horrible.
Over the next two days, Andromeda avoided Anna and Theodore at all costs. She did not want to hurt them, for they were very nice and friendly, nor did she want to upset her family - they had raised her, after all.
Andromeda furiously wondered how her family could possibly hate such nice people. She had known them for a week and had not even realized that they were Muggle-born! She was practically torn in two about it, and she had no idea what to do.
On consulting Letty about the problem, all she could get her to say was, “I don’t know what to tell you, Andromeda. I can’t tell you to rebel, I don’t think you’d be very good at it, and I don’t think you’d just want to abandon Anna and Theodore.” But, on further persuasion from Andromeda, during which she insisted that she could be good at rebelling if that was what she wanted to do, and that she indeed did not want to abandon the Sparrow twins, Letty gave her this answer, “I’m not a pureblood. My great-grandfather on my mother’s side was a half-blood.”
Of course she didn’t care that the Branstones weren’t pureblood, but that didn’t help her problem in the slightest.
Sunday afternoon she was leaving the Great Hall so she could go to the common room when somebody called her name.
“Andromeda!” It was Theodore’s voice.
She could not possibly slip away or pretend that she had not heard him. Turning slowly around, she found Anna and Theodore jogging towards her.
“Hi!” said Theodore breathlessly.
“Finally,” Anna said, sounding annoyed. “We haven’t seen you all weekend!”
Andromeda felt herself turning red. Upon coming to Hogwarts, she found that she was not a good liar. “Oh, well... I’ve been... around.” She fidgeted nervously.
“Yeah, well. We’ve got something for you,” Theodore thrust a package into her hands. “I wrote to dad a while back and told him all about Hogwarts. He was really interested in Letty, Thomas O'Connor and you, because your parents are magical. I probably mentioned how you’re always chewing Drooble’s. And-well, my dad’s a dentist, and he asked Mrs Hatch, William’s mum (she’s a witch), to pick you up some sugar-free Drooble’s. They’re good for your teeth!”
“Oh -wow,” Andromeda said, astonished.
“It doesn’t taste different or anything,” Anna explained. “He just doesn’t want us about with people who have rotted teeth.”
“Ah. She chewed on the inside of her cheek for a moment. “Thanks, um - tell your dad I really appreciate it.” She offered them a tight smile. She was sure that if she opened her mouth any more it would all come spilling out.
“No problem. Hey-we’ve gotta go meet William. See you tomorrow?” Theodore said.
She nodded.
They walked away and Andromeda wished that the floor would open up and swallow her right then and there.
Andromeda’s sense of direction was rubbish. She was mildly sure that she was in some turret of either the East Tower or the West Tower. But, what she was not sure of, was how to get out. She tried to open an old wooden door at the foot of a rickety staircase; it was locked.
“Ah, Miss Black. I assume your attempt at breaking and entering my office is unintentional.”
Andromeda gave a yelp of surprise and spun around. Professor Dumbledore was standing there, looking at her in his usual twinkling way.
“P-professor Dumbledore! I didn’t see you there,” she stuttered.
“Yes, I am happy to say that I have quite improved my skills of stealth,” he mused. “Lost, I presume? Please, step into my office! I am sure we could both use a cup of tea for our frazzled nerves.”
Step into my office, said the spider to the fly, was all she could think as she was lead into her Transfiguration professor’s office. How did Dumbledore know that her nerves were frazzled?
Professor Dumbledore’s office was packed with interesting things, which she could not look at for long. Dumbledore sat in a high-backed chair behind his desk and he gestured to a very squishy looking chair for her to do the same.
She settled into the chair and looked around with interest. Dumbledore tapped a kettle sitting on his desk and steam whistled from the spout.
“How do you take your tea?” he asked.
She answered him and was handed her tea. Quickly, though the tea was still hot, she began sipping it. Since she was not chewing any gum at the moment, she didn’t want to just wait for Dumbledore to say something.
“I once knew a woman by the name of Cedrella Weasley,” Dumbledore said eventually. “Are you familiar with the name?”
She was sure that she had heard the name before, but she could not remember where. “No,” she said.
“She met a man named Septimus Weasley, and they fell in love. But Cedrella’s family did not approve of Septimus. Cedrella felt that she was so deeply in love with Mr Weasley that she went against her family’s wishes and married him. Though the first few years of her married life were tough, I have scarcely met a happier woman,” Dumbledore said.
Was Dumbledore trying to give her advice?
“Her brother, Linus, was a splendid chap as well, very talented on the bagpipes.”
Linus? Hadn’t Uncle Alphard mentioned a Great Uncle Linus last summer?
Andromeda gave him an unsure smile. She believed she knew what he was getting at.
“Well, Miss Black, I would love to continue our chat, but it is almost past your curfew! If I am not most mistaken, there is a shortcut that will lead you right to Ravenclaw Tower just outside my office. Just tell the willow tree in the round picture frame that you’re a Ravenclaw, and he’ll let you right in!”
She got up. “Thank you for the tea, Professor,” she said. “And for the tip.”
Then she left to go talk to the picture of the willow tree, wondering if it was possible for one person to know just about everything.
“And in the Ministry of 1847...” Professor Binns, the very old and extremely boring, History of Magic teacher droned on.
Andromeda blew a bubble with her new, sugar-free Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum. It broke free from the rest of the gum and began to float around the classroom.
She had been staring at the back of Anna’s head, since she was sitting in front of her, for fifteen minutes now. Finally, pushing the furious face of Druella Black out of her head, she leaned forward.
Just as she was about to tap Anna’s shoulder, the bell rang. Andromeda hurried to catch her in the corridor.
“Anna?”
“Oh, hi, Andromeda,” Anna said.
“Letty and I are going to do our homework out by the Lake. Do you, Theodore and William want to come?” Andromeda asked hurriedly.
“Well, if you’re sure you’re done ignoring us,” Anna said lightly.
Andromeda grimaced.
“No, it’s okay. As long as you're coming around,” Anna grinned. “Let’s go find the others.”
Suddenly, Andromeda spotted Bellatrix at the end of the corridor. She bit her lip and walked quickly.
“Andromeda?” Bellatrix’s eyes were fixed on Anna.
Andromeda drew together all the courage she could possibly muster. “Hullo, Bella. We were just -uh -we’re going to go and do some homework by the Lake,” she paused. “Well, bye!”
Well, she was no Gryffindor.
Andromeda exhaled loudly and hurried away, while Bellatrix stood there, glaring furiously after her.
Breaking the Mold by Thoth
Chapter Notes: I know that there isn't any Linus on the Black family tree, but he was created before the newer one was put out, so bear with me!