Symphony | Andromeda Black

Birthday Cake

They visited Orion and Walburga towards the end of the summer. The cat had got even fatter, and dozed in her owner's lap. Andromeda was brought in to sit with the adults, but grew bored of their conversation easily. Bellatrix hadn't come, and there was a lot of whispering on the subject, though Druella mostly sipped her tea and said nothing. Feigning feeling ill, Andromeda was allowed to go and sit with the children.

"You're lucky," Narcissa said. "I wish I could go in. I hate being the youngest, everyone just treats me like a baby all the time."

Sirius was more concerned with what they were eating. "Did they have cake?"

"Yes."

"What kind?"

"Chocolate marble."

He punched the air. "Yes! Milly always gives me the leftovers. She says I'm her special little pal."

"I know for a fact, Sirius, that you act especially cute and innocent around her just so she'll give you extra food," Narcissa grinned.

Sirius shrugged. "It works, doesn't it? It pays to be cute."

"Nobody says I'm cute," Regulus said mournfully, sitting on Andromeda's lap.

"I think you're cute," Andromeda said, and she pulled a strand of his black hair. There wasn't much to pull. Orion cut their hair so tight they looked like soldiers, because he wanted them to look like "real boys."

"You'd look even cuter with some ribbons in your hair, and in a pretty pink dress."

Regulus wriggled as she tickled him, laughing. "No, no ribbons, I'm not wearing no dress! I'm not a girl!"

"And we'll put some lipstick on you," Sirius said in delight. "Bright red, like Aunt Druella's."

"No lipstick! No –"

The doors to the drawing room opened, and Druella came out first, freezing silence settling over the room. "Really, Andromeda," she said coldly. "Can't you ever act your age?"

Regulus quickly slid off her lap, but not quick enough, because Orion saw him. He said nothing while they were saying goodbye, but when the door had closed behind them Andromeda heard a sharp slap and a muffled cry.

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When they went back to school, there was a lot of talk around the Slytherin table.

"My father says we might be facing war soon," Evan sounded eager. He was pale these days, dark circles around his eyes. Andromeda hadn't seen him since school had broken up – neither sister visited each other, not since Aurelia.

"Well my father says it'll be by next year!" Travis Yaxley, a gangling spotty sixth year, was the triumphant bearer of this news.

Andromeda's eyes scanned the table as she bit into her toast, looking for Bellatrix. She was sitting alone, poking a spoon around a bowl of porridge. Her giggling friends, Annabella Avery and the others, seemed to have deserted her.

Andromeda took her toast with her and sat beside her sister.

"Good morning," she said awkwardly, and Bellatrix made a noise. She searched desperately for something to say, but the words dangled out of reach. Bellatrix's timetable was on the polished wood of the table in front of her. Most of the sixth years were already highlighting theirs, but hers was blank and brand new.

"Oh, worse luck, you've got Binns for a double first," Andromeda said, trying to make conversation.

Bellatrix shrugged. "He's all right."

She was wearing her Hogwarts robes, covering her forearm, but Andromeda imagined the snake curling out of the mouth of the skull beneath.

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Andromeda's fourteenth birthday came on a wet day in late October. Bellatrix didn't seem to remember, but Narcissa gave her a knitted scarf, Glenda a book and Lacrimosa some chocolates. There came a surprise in the morning post. Two owls supporting a large package between them flew towards them, and she assumed it was for Glenda, but they dropped it right in front of her.

"Well?" Glenda asked, licking her yoghurt spoon. "Open it."

Andromeda had never received a package like this before, and she was sure it wasn't from her parents. She pulled the ribbon rather gingerly, and opened the box to find....a birthday cake. It was chocolate, with white frosting, and sparkling letters spelt out Happy Birthday Andromeda. Andromeda's hands began to shake.

"Do you like it?" Glenda asked her, as though from far away. "I remembered what you said about how you never had a proper birthday cake."

Her eyes stung, and she was worried she was going to cry, so blinked hurriedly.

"Thank you," she whispered. "You didn't need to."

"I asked Mum specially. Everyone deserves a birthday cake!"

She cut slices for basically the whole table, as it was such a large cake, and saved an extra big one with icing for Narcissa, because she knew she'd never had a cake either. When they had been very little, Yula had given them iced buns with a burning candle, but none of them had ever had a real actual cake like in storybooks.

"Oh wow," Narcissa whispered. "Glenda got you a birthday cake!"

"It was her mother. But Glenda asked her."

She wanted to give the biggest slice to Glenda, but she pushed it towards her instead. "It's your cake! You've got to wish for something."

Andromeda hesitated. She knew about wishing. She'd read books where children's wishes came true, and always longed for their ponies and dolls and fairy wings.

But she was older now, and she knew what she really wanted. Just before she took a bite, Andromeda closed her eyes and whispered, "I wish everything could be like it used to be."