i heard about you before (i wanted to know some more)
What Lily missed…
“Mum, why did Pandora never come back here?” Dora asked.
Andy was grateful she had her back turned to her daughter, so had a second to control the look on her face. She had to think consciously about not dropping the dish she was washing at those words, “Oh, her and Lily had a bit of an argument,” a massive blow-up that destroyed Lily, “we mostly kept you out of it at the time, you were so young. Why do you ask?” She didn’t really want to know, in all honesty, but hoped that she had feigned neutrality enough that her tenacious daughter would drop the line of inquiry there.
“Uh… no real reason.” Unlikely. “But when you say ‘blow-up’, how bad are we talking exactly?”
Now Andy was definitely getting suspicious. “Well I clearly remember Lily shouting that she never wanted to see her again, if that puts things in perspective.”
Dora immediately looked guilty and slightly restless.
“You want to tell me what this is all about?” Andy had abandoned her washing up for now and had turned to face her daughter, bracing herself for whatever was to come.
“I may have made a mistake.”
“Mistake how?” Andy responded, trying to keep the dread out of her voice.
“You know how I was helping with the invites, right? Well I may have just– noticed her name in that massive address book you have. And I might have thought ‘oh wow, it’s been ages since we’ve seen Pandora, wouldn’t it be great if she had an excuse to come see the island again.’” Dora explained, having clearly realised her mistake.
Shit.
“–but we don’t even know if she’ll come anyways, so it doesn’t matter right?”
Andy let out a sigh and gave her daughter an exasperated look. God, she loved Dora but she could certainly be too proactive and had a tendency for rushing into situations with none of the details. She had conviction, sure, but a little forethought wouldn’t go amiss. “No, no I’m sure it will be fine. It would’ve been great if you’d asked sooner, but we can’t change the past now, can we.” Andy reached for her daughter, enveloping in a tight hug, “That’s the last time I’m ever letting you do invitations for something.” She joked.
“And also, do not tell Lily about this, understand? She’s struggling enough under the weight of this wedding, and she doesn’t need another thing to think about.”
Andy was crossing her fingers that Pandora wouldn’t show up, that she would discard the invitation and dismiss it as a mistake. She didn’t know how she could keep the situation under wraps if the woman actually showed up.
-
That was just the first incident in a slew of unusual events that were almost enough to make Andy think that fate itself wanted a hand in messing with this wedding; the next three followed in succession on just one day, mounting up her pile of evidence that something in the cosmos was having sit-com style, summer-long entertainment.
First, in the early morning, there came a knock at her door. Her and Ted’s house was near the villa but closer to the central village of the island, and it was the address she had given on the invitations weeks ago. There could’ve been many people on the other side of that door, but who it actually was wouldn’t be in her top hundred guesses.
A man around her height, dark curls that fell in such a familiar way and sharp greyish-blue eyes that made her feel as if she was looking in a mirror. “Re-“
“Regulus.” He cut her off politely but in a manner that didn’t leave any room for further discussion.
“I can’t believe you actually came, I mean I was hoping you would but— come in, come in.” Andy was beside herself. Part of her wanted to reach out and hug her baby cousin that she hadn’t seen in so many years, one of the few small scraps of her past that didn’t cause her immense pain. But she resisted. Their family had never exactly been one for physical affection, and neither had she before Ted (and to some extent Lily), and regardless she hadn’t seen Regulus for so long. He was an awkward teenager when she last saw him, nothing like the man that stood now in her small dining room. But he was still so recognisable to her, even if he wasn’t what she remembered nor expected. “So Regulus, huh? Keeping with the star theme obviously,” she smiled, gesturing to him to sit down.
“I suppose.” He shrugged. “It’s lovely to see you again too, and congrats on the wedding, but I’m afraid I need to cut straight to the point – does Lily still live here, on the island?”
Andy stuterred over her words in surprise, “Ye– how do you know Lily?” She paused as the pieces fell into place. Lily and Andy had shared much about their previous lives with each other, from the small anecdotes to the painful old scars like those received from their dearest sisters. She had heard all that many times before, and Regulus wasn’t exactly a common name. “No way, what? You’ve been here before, haven’t you?”
“Okay I’ve got to say you working out is a lot easier than me trying to explain. Yes, that was me, how many Reguluses do you know? I just don’t know how Lily will react to seeing me again – I know we ended things quickly and amicably, but she was never exactly the most predictable of people.”
“I’m sure she’ll be fine, but yeah she does still live here. She’s hosting the whole wedding party, in fact, at the villa–”
“Wow, she actually did it. I remember when that idea first came to her, but I never expected her to be able to drop everything and go like that. Pretty impressive.”
“Well, you can tell her yourself when you see her later.” Andy remarked, “It’s not like you can avoid her for several days, and I don’t think she’d want you to either. The main issue is where on earth you’re going to sleep.”
“I can stay with Sirius, I’m sure, wherever he is.”
“Sirius? You guys are… better?”
“We’re working on it,” Regulus replied, his voice sad but tinged with hope. Andy’s heart twisted knowing that it would never be even that good with her own sisters, but she could let herself be happy for her cousins.
“I guess you can sleep in the old goat-house then, but I’m not sure if Sirius will be there too. He has a tendency to end up staying in the house of his annually recurring summer fling, who’s a friend of mine and Lily’s that lives in the village. I’ll take you up to the goat-house this evening, but first I want to hear everything I’ve missed about your life over these years.” Andy said kindly. “Also, before I forget, I think it’s best to leave the ‘you and Lily reunion’ until tomorrow. Her friends are arriving then so she’ll be in a good mood. Like I said before I think she’ll be fine with it all, but she’s definitely really stressed out at the moment, so we might need to ease her into it gently. Now, for every story, I don’t care how small. Where did you…”
If someone had asked Andy in that moment what the best part of getting married was, she would hands down say it was having her little cousin back in her life.
-
By the early afternoon, the pair had talked their voices raw. They were only interrupted when another knock came at the door, this time announcing the presence of none other than Sirius and James. Andy watched with a careful gaze as the brothers hugged each other – she was unsure how long it had been since they last saw each other, and despite the earlier hope in Regulus’s voice, she knew how Black sibling reunions had a tendency to turn out looking like.
“Before you say anything Andy, I know James wasn’t technically supposed to come. But he’s got a boat and I needed a ride – that ferry just really didn’t cut it last time – and he wanted to see Harry.” Sirius explained.
“Well hello James and Sirius, if you’d let me get a word in,” Andy started exasperatedly but with a fondness to her tone, “I’m sure we can do something. Sirius, are you planning on staying with Remus this summer? If so we can give James your spot in the goat house. It’ll be you and Regulus in there, if that’s alright with you,” she glanced between the two of them, an unreadable but not necessarily negative expression fluttering over James’s face before he nodded. Hm. Interesting. She would find out what on earth that was about. “That was nice and easy, wasn’t it?”
“Now there’s two of you though, explaining yourselves to Lily is your problem. I’m not sure how both of you trying to do it at the same time will fare, but you saw her last year, didn’t you James?” Andy continued, “She’s also nowhere near as scary as you guys think she is, so I’m sure it will be fine. I’ll show you up to the goat house tonight, but stay here for dinner first, I’m sure Dora is dying to interrogate you two,” She gestured to her two cousins. The life she and her family lead here could be quite isolated, so she was always happy when her daughter had someone to talk to who existed outside of their little bubble.
-
The small dining room was bathed in light that spilled in from the windows, flooding the off-white walls and driftwood table and turning them glowing gold – the sun would set soon, the last ferry would dock and the birds would retreat to roost. The Tonks table for four had mismatched spare chairs squeezed in to accommodate their extra guests, and the group laughed over the tomato pasta dish Ted had made. Another knock interrupted them.
At this point, Andy had no idea what to expect when she swung open the front door. Part of her thought she couldn’t get more surprised than everything else she had been met with today, but it turned out she couldn’t be more wrong.
“Oh– hi Andy.” Pandora fucking Rosier.
So she had seen the invite. So she had followed up on it. So she was here, right now, and Andromeda couldn’t believe she’d been so idealistic as to think this would all be swept past with ease.
With the other two, there was a chance they could smooth things over with Lily, especially with Andy’s intervention if necessary. But Pandora posed a very difficult challenge. Andy remembered the wreck Lily had been when the woman left, and even though it had been years, she herself still carried the remnants of bitter resentment towards the woman who had caused her best friend so much pain.
“Pandora. I’m so sorry, Nymphadora sent your invite without me knowing, and I–”
“So Lily doesn’t know?” Pandora looked alarmed.
“No, she doesn’t and I’d prefer if we could keep it that way, at least for the next few days.” Andy couldn’t help but be blunt with her, the barbs on her words forged in her instinctive, older-sister protectiveness. But she couldn’t exactly send her off into the growing darkness on an isolated island – Lily’s villa was the only thing that even resembled a hotel nearby, anyways. “We’ll put you in the old goat house. There’s some other more last minute guests there as well. Just try to lay low please, for everyone’s sake. And your work stays completely off this island after what happened last time. If I hear so much as a–”
“You won’t, I promise. I’ll see myself up to the house, and I promise I’ll slip in quietly. No-one will see me.” Pandora responded. Just as Andy was closing the front door to battle her own conflicting feelings, the other woman added, “And Andy, I really am sorry you know. For everything, with you and with Lily. I really do want to try and make things right.”
“Good luck then."
The door slammed shut.