THE FURIES ▸ Draco Malfoy

Chapter Twenty: PERSES

◤ ❝If Andromeda and Theodore are two sides of the same coin, she and Draco are two halves of a single heart. It seems impossible, doesn't it, to imagine one surviving without the other?❞ ― Daphne Greengrass ◢

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CHAPTER TWENTY: PERSES

December 25, 1996

                   Theodore Nott had spent much of his life watching over Andromeda Erebus. The responsibility fell on him when he was only two months old and the small, dark-haired baby was brought into the world. From that moment on, Theo wrapped himself tightly around her like protective vines. It was Theodore who used to spring to action when his younger cousin accidentally fell on the hard floors, Theodore who would clutch her hand tightly during Christmas dinners, and Theodore who would hide her in the jacket of his suit when the Lestranges scared her during those kinds of parties. He supposed he was a big brother more than a cousin, a protector and a best friend more than just simply family. For as long as he could remember, it was him who protected her, and him who assumed the responsibility of making sure that no harm would ever come to her after her father died.

So to discover that his younger cousin, the shy little girl whose cheeks flushed any time she spoke, was a Death Eater had been the brutal awakening of a lifetime―and the guilt had been eating him alive from the moment she told him. He had known that something changed within her. No longer was she the bustling, mildly irritating younger cousin that he always rolled his eyes at. Instead, she was the girl he kept a close eye on every second of the day in fear that she would topple over. Andromeda had become less of the little girl he would laugh until he cried with, and more of the woman that he would hold until she stopped crying...and that was an adjustment that he was still struggling to accept.

To watch her sleeping on the sofa in his aunt's library, he could feel that weight hardening in his chest. She had been in an odd state since taking Eleanor to bed last night, and had fallen asleep the moment their grandparents left the manor. The dark circles that he hoped would disappear over break still shadowed her eyes, although they were less prominent now that they had been. Her face had gained some color and life, if only from the cold weather and the food that they had forced her to eat. The very core of her still carried a lifelessness, though, that he feared nothing could fix. Her bones were withering away into her skin, her left arm stuck deep under her as if she were attempting to hide its darkness from them. Theodore's heart was broken into a million splinters just watching her.

"There is no one she trusts more than you, you know," a gentle voice murmured through the quiet library, and Theodore turned his head away from Andromeda to his aunt. Celicia was already looking at Mia, her eyes turned away from Slughorn's book. "Athella and I always hoped that the two of you would become two halves of a whole, separate sides of the same coin, like she and I...and to see that not all hope is lost is a reminder that perhaps the light is not gone in us, after all."

Theodore looked back at Mia, a lump growing in his throat. "It should have been me the Dark Lord called upon. Not her. Father was just as unreliable as Uncle Alastiare, he just didn't get himself murdered. If I had known that this would be the consequence of our family's mistakes, I would have―"

"Would have what, Theodore?" she asked, softly, as not to wake her up daughter. "The Dark Lord did not choose blindly from those in our family. He targeted her because he wanted us all to reap the consequences of what Alastiare did―all of us have felt the burden carried through her. If you had taken the position instead of her, she would still be where she is now. He would have found her one way or the other...she would have gone mad if it had been you taking this responsibility, Theodore."