The acceptance letter
A gentle ticking sound woke up the little girl wrapped in the dark green blankets. The room she was sleeping in had high ceilings, in the middle of which emerged a snake, carved out of the mahogany wood with art. The mirror on the dressing table was shining by the early daylight, creeping out of the heavy emerald drapes.
“Just five more minutes” moaned the girl in a sleepy voice. But the ticking sound continued, and the person or the thing making it didn’t seem to have any intention to stop. So the girl got up and started scanning the room slowly, in search of the source of the noice. Then she saw it: an owl, ticking on the glass of the window. Her scream seemed to shake the whole manor.
“Are you mental? It’s 8 in the morning, Andy. Shut your mouth”. A curly black haired girl had just entered the room. She was just a few inches taller than Andromeda, and few years older too, but the two sisters could be twins, if it wasn’t for the straight brown-reddish hair of the younger one. “Bella, this is it. It’s the letter” she whispered.
“Oh… Oh! Cissy! Cissy! Come here!” Bellatrix called out for their little sister.
“Do you think she’s already up?”, Andromeda grinned.
“I don’t know. Alright, look: I’ll go bring her, you take the letter. That ticking noise is driving me crazy”.
Andromeda reached out for the handle with a shaky hand, full of excitement. This was really it. She would leave her house and all the rules and the boring lessons, and finally go to Hogwarts. When she got the window open, the owl entered. It made a full loop of the room and dropped the letter beside Andromeda’s feet. She felt dizzy and her fingers were shaking. For a brief second she wondered if it was all a prank. Maybe Bella was behind it. And maybe she did’t got to go to Hogwarts. Perhaps Mother wouldn’t let her go. She always rambled about how poorly Andromeda behaved, how she should look up to her older sister. She was always reminded that Narcissa was a better Black than her, even though she was a year younger. But she had to go. Wasn’t Mother who also said: “Blacks need to get the best education, the preparation a pureblood and royalty deserve. A Black lady has to be elegant and educated”?
Putting an end to her thoughts, a small, thin girl came into the room almost tripping in the attempt to reach for her older sister. “Andy, Andy!”, Narcissa yelled, while jumping on the bed, her blonde hair flying.“Oh look, Andy, your hair is blue!”.
“Change it back, Andromeda. You know Mum doesn’t approve at the slightest” Bellatrix said, in a definitive tone, stalking towards the two little girls.
“I know, I know. But sometimes I can’t control it”. She put on a very focused expression, eyes shut and the blue hair turned into its regular brown-reddish colour. “When I’m nervous, for example” she added in a small voice.
“Well, Mum doesn’t approve anyway. You’re a Black, always show the Black features” Bellatrix said, in a very good imitation of her Mother when she lectured her girls about extremely relevant matters to always keep in mind. “Anyway, what do you have to be nervous about? It’s just a letter, doesn’t bite.”
“Yeah, I know it doesn’t. But it’s the Hogwarts letter. It’s big”.
“I can assure you, wait until third year and you’ll see Hogwarts is not that amazing”.
“Seems unlikely”. Saying this, Andromeda felt a shiver, running through her back: she felt the urge to turn her hair pink, or another cheerful colour. She had to repress this need: she didn’t want Bella to tell Mother she was changing her appearance. This was meant to be a happy day: scoldings and behavioral punishments were not in Andromeda’s program. She just had to wait for her sisters to go away, sneak into her bathroom and then free her power and change into any look she wanted.
“SO? Open it!”, Narcissa grinned.
“Calm yourself, Cissy… but yeah, open it Any!”, Bella encouraged.
With a thrill of excitement Andromeda lifted the wax seal with the Hogwarts emblem on, and freed the letter from the purple envelope. She unfolded it and started reading in silence.
“Out loud!”, Bellatrix intervened.
Andromeda hated that she had to share everything with her sisters. She would have liked to keep certain things to herself, and her acceptance to Hogwarts was one of them. She wished Narcissa and Bellatrix weren’t there, but, after all, where should they have been, if not with her in such an important moment? As Mother always said: “You three belong together. You’re tied up by your blood. You’ll only have each other one day”.
Noticing the impatient looks on her sisters’ faces, Andromeda cleared her voice and started reading.
“Dear Ms. Black,
We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”
When she finished reading, Narcissa, that had being on all fours on Andromeda’s bed the all time, laid down, buried her face in a pillow and moaned, with the tragic voice she always used when she was sad, her voice muffled: “I want to go too! Why do I have to wait two more years? Why?!”.