Andy’s First Movie Premiere
Bellatrix hears shuffling feet across the room. It can’t be Narcissa. She always falls asleep minutes after lights out; she has always been soft like that. Andromeda is more rebellious, just like her, always scuffling about after dark.
“Belly?” Andromeda says, hissing by her bed.
Bellatrix rolls her eyes as she draws back the duvet. Andromeda crawls in. Bella is secretly happy, knowing that Andromeda would come tonight after the premiere. It’s always scary – the first one where you are the central attraction. Maybe some older sisterly advice is due.
“I’m tired,” she lies, pretending to yawn.
“D’you ever get used to it?” Andromeda asks quietly, “You know… people staring at you?”
“I thought you loved attention?”
It’s something they have in common. It’s one of the things that has always torn them apart. Bellatrix loves Andy, she really does, and loves how similar they are – like twin flames. But a smaller part of her hates how there is never any space for the both of them. They’re both always screaming at the top of their lungs. And another part of her respects Andromeda for it.
“Usually. But it’s weird. Different.”
Bellatrix sighs, mindlessly braiding Andy’s hair. It reminds her of her own. Less unruly and dark, but almost the same.
“I know what you mean,” she says, “It’s just part of the business.”
“I don’t like it,” Andy says petulantly, like a child. Bellatrix can see her pouting through the darkness.
“Now you don’t. But you’ll adapt. Learn to ignore it.”
“Promise?”
She stares at her through the darkness. It’s like looking at her own reflection. It scares her sometimes. It helps that Andromeda is her own person. When Narcissa was a baby, she would follow the girls around everywhere, until Bellatrix would burst. Andromeda was never like that. Always went off to do her own thing. She was almost her twin, but there were distinct differences running through them, splitting them diametrically apart.
“Yeah,” she says, nodding. Andromeda raises a brow.
“Don’t believe you.”
“‘Course you don’t. You never do,” she says.
Andromeda punches her shoulder, before switching her bedside lamp on.
“RAH!” she yells, making some sort of shadow monster with her hands, making it look like it’s eating Bella’s head.
Bellatrix wraps an arm round her neck, pressing a palm to her mouth.
“Shut up!” she hisses. Andy laughs against her side.
“Goody too-shoes,” her younger sister accuses, poking her tongue out.
“Am not,” she blanches, disgusted.
Then, with her hands, she crafts a shadow snake which hisses Andromeda, sliding against her neck. Andy makes a bunny to protect herself – a useless defence. Bella widens her hands and the snake’s jaws engulf it.
Her sister laughs, pushing her away.
The night passes under the glow of Bella’s lamplight, an endless war between shadow puppets.