A Letter
2nd of September, 1962
To my family,
I am excited to tell you all that I have been sorted into Slytherin. I’ve started to make friends with some other purebloods my age, a Bulstrode girl and a Yaxley girl most of all. Unfortunately there’s a halfblood in my dorm. I already talked to the Slytherin perfect and it doesn’t seem like there’s any way to rearrange the dorms, so she’s stuck as my roommate. I’ll have to make do. Dromeda and Cissy, I can’t wait until you can see Hogwarts for yourselves. The Slytherin common room is everything mother and father described it to be. The castle is exquisite, and I’ve yet to hardly see it. It’s so big! But don’t worry, by the time the both of you get here I’ll be able to show you around. It’s going to be so much fun when all three of us are here together. Don’t forget me in the meantime!
Bellatrix
“Can you believe it?!” Andromeda could hear her mother shouting from the other room as she finished reading the letter. It had arrived only moments ago, dropped onto their doorstep by the owl that had been sent to Hogwarts with Bellatrix. Druella collected it quickly, her and Cygnus reading it over privately before she wordlessly handed it to Andromeda for her and her sister to read as well. Andromeda had read it aloud so her and Narcissa could hear it at the same time. “Rooming her with a half-blood!”
Cygnus was shaking his head when Andromeda entered the room to return the letter. She silently slid it onto the side table that her father was standing next to as he said, “I’ll be contacting Dumbledore. To do such a thing is to suggest that we are equivalent to some half-blood. I won’t allow the Black name to be smeared like this.”
“What happened?” Andromeda asked, although she probably shouldn’t have, considering how angry her parents seemed to be. She wasn’t necessarily good at knowing what she shouldn’t do. Both of them turned to look at her in surprise. They must’ve not heard her come in. Her mother started toward her, likely to drag her out of the room and to tell her not to eavesdrop on their conversations, but her father stopped her movement with a small motion of his hand. He then looked at something behind her, and Andromeda turned to see that Narcissa was standing there as well. She didn’t realize her sister had followed her. She moved to stand next to Andromeda after their father had motioned for her to do so.
“Bellatrix has been assigned to a room with a half-blood while at Hogwarts,” Cygnus stated, simply. “Do you know what this means?”
“That her roommate's not a pure-blood?” Andromeda suggested, although she could immediately tell that was not the answer that her father was looking for by the way he sighed in disappointment.
“Clearly a half-blood is not a pure-blood. That is not what I’m asking.” Cygnus paused for a moment as if to let her figure out the actual answer on her own. She thought as hard as she could, but Andromeda couldn’t seem to come up with another answer. Bellatrix had always been better at catching onto this sort of stuff than her, and Narcissa was only seven, so she doubted she would understand either. “It means,” Cygnus continued, filling in the answer when it was clear that neither of them were going to, “that Dumbledore, the headmaster at Hogwarts, thinks we pure-bloods are no better than a half-blood. And why is that wrong?”
“Because we come from a pure magical bloodline,” Andromeda recited the words she’d been told countless times before. “And they don’t.”
“Correct.”
Andromeda smiled slightly at her father’s approval, although she didn’t feel quite satisfied with her own answer. What difference did it make what bloodline someone came from? She’d never met a muggle born before, and she wouldn’t dare to ask her parents about it since they seemed so opposed to them, but she couldn’t seem to understand why they were so bad. Her thoughts were cut short when Cygnus ushered the two girls out of the room to go off and entertain themselves. Interactions with her father were often that way: fleeting and lesson oriented. He was always busy, even when he was home, and Andromeda didn’t miss the way he offered more attention to Bellatrix than her and her younger sister.
Part of her had been hoping that Cygnus would shift his focus onto her now that Bella was away at school, which would result in her finally gaining the closeness the two of them seemed to have. She’d sort of received her wish, just not at all in the way that she wanted.
When the family had arrived home from seeing Bellatrix off at the train station yesterday, Andromeda had been stopped by her father on the way to her room. He’d mentioned wanting to be sure that their governess was staying on track and suddenly began testing her on all sorts of things, such as various spell incantations (they’d been made to memorize many of them so they would be ahead of the game before starting school at Hogwarts) and each of the Sacred Twenty-Eight’s house words—at least the ones that could still be considered “sacred.” She couldn’t remember the Crouch family motto, so Cygnus had made her write the line over and over and over again until she couldn’t hold the quill any longer. Her hand still ached.
She felt her father’s eyes watching her for the rest of the day, more so than usual. He had to scold her multiple times during dinner for slouching in her seat, in which she ended up silently berating herself for not being able to remember something so simple. Perhaps that was why he favoured Bellatrix; she didn’t have to be told to sit up straight every five minutes.
“Should we write back?” Andromeda suggested with a mischievous smile growing on her face as she and her little sister collected in another room.
Narcissa seemed to ponder the question for a moment before replying with, “Aren’t Mum and Dad going to write back? We can say hello in their letter.”
That was Narcissa. Always doing exactly what she was told, never daring to even blink without their parents’ permission—until Andromeda could sometimes manage to convince her to partake in some fun. Even at her young age, Narcissa showed more restraint than Andy had ever been able to, and she expressed much more trust in their parents than she’d ever felt. Andromeda often wondered how Cissy could simply run back to their mother or father with open arms after a harsh punishment when she, on the other hand, could hold a grudge against them for days.
“Well, yes,” Andromeda began, speaking as though Narcissa had just suggested the most boring idea in the world, “or we could send a separate letter ourselves. Don’t you want to be able to respond to Bella’s letter with whatever you want? I’m sure she’d appreciate it more than Mum and Dad just saying hello on our behalf.”
She watched as her sister considered the idea for a moment, and she knew she’d convinced her when a small smile began to form on the girl’s face. “All right,” she said with a short nod.
So, together, the girls wrote a letter with the parchment and quill Andromeda had fetched—well, Andromeda did all of the actual writing, but they constructed it together. They told Bella that they were happy she’d gotten into the house that their family had been expecting her to, and then quickly moved on to much more interesting topics. They asked loads of questions, such as: How big is the castle? What does your room look like? Have you done much magic yet? And so on. Andromeda had the urge to ask if she’d met a muggle born and if they were really any different from them, but she suspected Bella’s answer might be a bit harsh, so she left it out. At the end of the letter, she wrote how much the two of them missed her, and then signed each of their names.
“I’ll send it off later tonight,” she told Narcissa, not wanting her parents to catch her doing so. It wasn’t as if there was anything particularly wrong with them sending their own letter to Bellatrix, but she knew that if either of their parents got their hands on it, they’d be inclined to read it. Something about them knowing every word that was passed between her and her sister made her skin crawl, even if there wasn’t actually anything to hide.
Andromeda kept the letter tucked in a drawer in her room until nightfall came around. She waited long after she’d been sent off to bed to retrieve it and slip out of her room, hoping that her parents would no longer be wandering around at this hour. Thankfully, Kreacher wasn’t around at this time of night. He alternated between their home and her aunt and uncle’s home, but usually spent a bit more time at the latter. Her Aunt Walburga could be pretty demanding, and she suspected that two little boys caused more work for the elf than her close family did.
She walked with soft footsteps down the hall, careful to avoid the specific places on the wooden floor that she’d learned creaked especially loud, and then did the same down the stairs. Although their home was grand, it was quite old, and Andromeda had been caught sneaking about on more than one occasion due to the groans that came from the house.
When she approached the hall that her father’s office was in, she stopped abruptly. Usually her father worked with his door closed, not wanting to be interrupted by anyone or anything, but she’d been unlucky tonight. The door was open, and there was a soft glow from the light inside leaking out into the hall, meaning her father was still up and at work. As far as Andromeda could see it, she had two options: go back up to her room, shove the letter back into one of her drawers, and simply go to bed like a coward. Or, she could pray to Merlin that her father would be too caught up with his paperwork to notice anyone walking by.
She considered her two options for only a short moment before the image of Cissy’s disappointed expression if she found out she hadn’t been able to send the letter flashed in her mind, and the decision was made.
Andromeda creeped forward, practically holding her breath as she walked to avoid making any noise at all. She didn’t even dare take a glance into the office, somehow feeling that doing so would guarantee that her father would see her. Though her efforts were in vain because as soon as she walked in front of the opening, a gruff voice filled the silence.
“Andromeda.”
She froze in place for a split second, eyes wide like a deer caught in headlights. Turning to face her father, she took in the way he was seated at his desk, a cigarette in hand. He didn’t look at all surprised to see her, and part of her wondered if he’d somehow known she was there the entire time.
“Mum doesn’t like when you smoke in the house,” was the first thing that slipped out of her mouth, without much thought. She knew immediately that she shouldn’t have said it, knowing how much her father didn’t like to be told what to do—your mother doesn’t decide what I do in my own office in my home, she expected him to say. But instead, she was caught by surprise when the corner of his mouth twitched ever so slightly as if he was resisting a smile.
“Come here,” he said to her, and Andromeda did just that, walking inside the room and stopping on the other side of his desk. The smell of smoke that filled the area made her eyes begin to water, but she quickly blinked it away. He simply stared at her, and she stared back. The two of them stayed that way for a moment, painful silence taking over the space, and Andromeda began to worry that he was going to just enter her mind rather than asking her to explain herself. She hated the feeling of her father using legilimency on her. Even if she wasn’t trying to hide anything, her father’s presence inside her head felt intrusive and always seemed to leave a stain that wouldn’t go away. But then, he finally spoke, “What are you doing up?”
She sighed, partly in relief and partly because she knew her plan had fully gone down the drain by now. “I was trying to send a letter to Bella,” she admitted, her eyes now fixated on the surface of the desk as if the papers strewn over it suddenly interested her.
Her father eyed her for a short moment, raising a single eyebrow as he said, “Your mother and I have already sent a letter to your sister.”
“I know,” she started, “but, well—me and Cissy thought that maybe she'd like to hear from us too.” She paused, and then quickly added, “it was my idea, though,” as if remembering that she didn’t want to put any of the blame onto her little sister just in case her father did find something wrong with the entire debacle.
“Let me see.”
Andromeda knew that he meant the letter, which she was still clutching in her hand. She slowly slid the parchment onto his desk and watched him take it into his own hands as he opened it up to read it. As he did so, she shifted from foot to foot, nervously chewing her bottom lip. She was glad that her mother wasn’t here to scold her for it. When he was finished, he folded the parchment back up and slid it back to her, but she did not reach for it.
“Hurry up and send it. It’s already past time you should be asleep,” he told her. A smile crept onto her face as she grabbed the letter, heading for the door before a sharp, “and Andromeda,” from her father stopped her. She turned back to face him, holding the letter to her chest as if afraid to lose it now. “You needn’t be so secretive about simple things. I don’t like being made to think you’re hiding something.”
She nodded once. “Yes, father. Goodnight.” And then she turned and swiftly left the office, heading once more for the owlery.