Symphony | Andromeda Black

The Eye In The Fence

Andromeda wrote to Bellatrix when she was away at school, great long letters, and Narcissa too, full of childish mistakes and blotted ink. Miss Travers always read them over and made them write them over and over again until they were perfect. She edited them copiously, poring over them with her long nose almost touching the parchment.

"Tsk, tsk, Miss Narcissa," she would say. "I'm sure you don't mean to write about your lovely aunt like that! Calling somebody a whale is terribly insulting."

She caned them too, but not as hard as their father, though she tried her best. Their letters always ended up short bland little things, talking about subjects Miss Travers thought were suitable for young girls, and made them use strange words like "scrumptious", so Narcissa's long letter about Walburga's visit ended up very short and stark. Her line of kisses were removed completely, and Miss Travers scolded her for using Bellatrix's childish nickname of Bella.

Dear Bellatrix,

I hope you are well. We are having good weather and I hope it is good in Scotland too. Last night Aunt Walburga came for dinner with Sirius and baby Regulus. We had spotted dick and custard for desert. It was scrumptious. Aunt looks very well as usual and she asked how you were doing at school and Mother said very well thank you.

Regards, your sister, Narcissa.

Andromeda was miserable without her older sister, because even though in a way she was closer to Narcissa, it had always been the three of them together. Without Yula and without Bellatrix, the house seemed cold and empty. The endless rooms were full of nothing, and to make it worse, Cygnus suggested that Narcissa was now well old enough to have her old room, and she was moved into another. She often crept back to her old bed at night, but a caning stopped that completely.

She knew Narcissa missed Bellatrix too, and they both couldn't wait until Christmas, when she'd come home for the holidays. Until then, however, it was just the two of them to play in the empty rooms, just the two of them who sat to dinner in the parlour every day.

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The fence around the house was high, and so were the gates. The girls rarely left anyway, but Andromeda knew the house was far from remote. There was a children's playground across the road. Sometimes she sat at the window in one of the spare bedrooms, the only one with a view of it, and watched them play. She didn't know any children apart from her sisters and cousins. She didn't know that many people in general, actually, excluding family, and though she would never admit it, sometimes when she read in the library she wished she had friends like the children in the books. They were magical books, of course, old forgotten children's ones about little girls and boys who played together, climbing trees, making friends with fairies and pixies, eating ice cream and going to the beach, all things she had never done. Well, she had once found a nest of pixies in the garden, but making friends with them wasn't an option. They had bit her and scratched her dress instead, so she'd ended up in disgrace.

Andromeda didn't particularly mind being in disgrace, because she got to sit in her room and read or do homework in peace without anyone telling her to hide her teeth or stand up straight. Today, however, she was in disgrace in the garden after breaking a vase. Druella said she might learn a lesson from being outside in the rain, and locked the doors. Andromeda huddled under the trees, wet and cold, but thankfully the rain began to clear off. Her dark brown hair hung in rat's tails over her shoulders, and she explored down at the end of the garden, experimentally poking the dark waters of the pond with a stick and laughing when a frog jumped out.

When she got bored of that, she walked along the length of the face, and then paused when she noticed a loose board. Furthermore, a blue eye was peering through the crack. Andromeda wasn't afraid. Nearly nine years of living in the circumstances she did had made her pretty fearless. Besides, she was used to ghosts and ghouls. One of her Rosier aunts had a ghoul in the attic, a moaning creature she complained about at length but which the children were fascinated by, and she'd seen pictures of ghosts.

"Hello," she said to the eye with interest. "Are you a ghost?"

"No," said the eye. "I'm Lucy. Do you live in this massive house all by yourself?"

"No, I have sisters. And Mother, and Father, and all the elves. Are you a ghoul?"

The eye seemed to be thinking this over. "Dunno," it said at last, then added hopefully, "Are they evil?"

"Oh no, ghouls are pretty harmless. My aunt has one in her attic. He just moans a lot and rattles his chains and spurts goo everywhere."

"Oh wow," said the eye.

"Are you sure you're not a ghoul?"

"Nope. I'm a girl."

"A girl?" She echoed in surprise, tensing. "A muggle?"

The eye considered this word, then, "Don't know what that means."

"How can you see the fence?"

"It's there," it said, like this should have been obvious.

"Oh, you're magic then, like me," she said, and relaxed. "What age are you?"

"Nine. What age are you?"

"Very nearly nine. Well. In October. Would you like to be my friend?" She asked hopefully.

There was a pause. "If you show me the ghoul."

"That might be hard, since he lives in Yorkshire, but yes. Maybe since we're friends you can come and visit sometime and –"

"Andromeda!" Her mother called from the house. "Andromeda, where are you?"

When Andromeda went back to her mother, she told her about her new friend Lucy, but when they got back to the fence, there was nothing there. Andromeda got a slap on the back of her legs for telling lies.