𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔹𝕝𝕒𝕔𝕜 𝕊𝕙𝕖𝕖𝕡

27- The Rocket Thorns

"Here's a toast to my real friends
They don't care about the he said, she said"

In a perfect world, no one would ever make mistakes—that's what would make it a perfect world. However ideal a perfect world might be, it doesn't exist and people make mistakes all the time.

Regrets are formed because of mistakes people make along the journey that is their life. There were so many things Andromeda could've done differently, but looking back on the summer of 1969, she couldn't decide if she would change a single thing.

Some choices were questionable at best—she should've given more support to her sister, should've been more open to love, shouldn't have abandoned things when it got hard. (The last thing didn't really count in her mind though because they had abandoned her a long time before she had ever gotten the chance.) The list goes on.

...

So preoccupied with Cygnus's health, Druella didn't notice the girls' day to day activities. At first, Andromeda spent the days with Narcissa jumping from St. Mungo's back to their house and then back again. It got boring quickly.

Andromeda found she couldn't keep pretending to care about the man she was supposed to call her father. She wanted to support Narcissa, she really did, but every second she spent in the hospital was a second spent loathing the entire situation. So, as Cygnus inevitably barked orders at Druella from a hospital bed, Andromeda prepared to leave the house.

The only bad thing about leaving the house behind was that in order to leave, Narcissa would also have to be left behind.

Even with this thought stuck to her brain like there was a permanent sticking charm, Andromeda still changed into the muggle clothes that usually stayed in the back of her closet. She chose a pair of denim frayed overalls with a band t-shirt underneath, leaving her hair down but completing the look with a blue headband. Quickly throwing a beat up pair of black converse on and a tote bag over her shoulder, she left her room and ran down the stairs towards the door.

The only thing quite literally standing in her way was Narcissa.

Her sister narrowed her eyes and raised an eyebrow, putting on her best authoritative stance. Andromeda crossed her arms over her chest.

"Where are you going?" Narcissa asked, not unkindly.

Andromeda decided that it was probably best not to lie to her. She wanted to be able to be truthful with her sister, and if it backfired on her later, then she'd just have to deal with the consequences.

"I'm going to hang out with a friend," Meda said finally after a beat of silence. "I'll be back later."

Narcissa pursed her lips but still stepped out of the way.

"Okay, be safe," Narcissa said, crossing her own arms over her chest.

"You know I always am," Meda winked, hearing her sister laugh as she walked out the door.

She knew that Narcissa would not be happy in any way about Meda leaving her alone, but Andromeda reminded herself that she was doing it partly for her sister anyway. The more time she took away from her family, the longer she could stay in the house for Narcissa.

During the last days of Hogwarts, Andromeda and Henri had mapped out a route from Meda's house to Henri's. It was around a ten minute walk, which had stunned Andromeda since she hadn't known her best friend had lived so close to her all this time.