Blackbird

Chapter 16

"Andromeda," someone said. "Andromeda, hello, I'm talking to you."

Andromeda started out of her stupor and glanced up, eyes wide. Rita Skeeter, one of her sister's friends, was leaning across the table, head cupped in her hand, a soft smirk on her lips and her eyes wide with expectation. Gabriella Parkinson and the other fifth year Slytherin girls were leaning in eagerly as well.

"I, what, sorry, I'm..." she cleared her throat, "I apologize. My thoughts were elsewhere. What did you say?"

"I asked you," she said, while her friends giggled behind her, "if the rumors are true. Are you dating Rabastan?"

"Oh... I... well," her eyes flicked toward Narcissa. After her engagement had been announced to her sister, Andromeda had pulled her aside and asked her to keep it quiet. The thing was, she'd never actually thought her sister could do it. But if they were asking if she was dating Rabastan...

"No... it's complicated." Rita said something else, but Andromeda wasn't listening. She would've thought Narcissa would've been all over this Meda/Rabastan gossip, considering how thrilled she was over the whole engagement, but she wasn't even paying attention. She seemed strangely focused on the ceiling of the great hall, which was the pretty misty blue right before a rainstorm.

Her insides lurched painfully. There'd been a time when she'd told her sister everything, and now look at them. Her life been turned upside down and she couldn't tell her sister a damned thing about it. Not a damn thing...

"I'm in love Andromeda!" Narcissa's voice sang in her head as she recalled an old conversation.

"With who?" Andromeda said, lying on the bed across from her. It was just hers and Narcissa's now that Bella had decided she was too grown up and demanded her own room.

"Torin. Torin Flint? You know him, he's in my year." Andromeda nodded. She had a vague image of a tall, dark-haired boy who looked like he was permanently leering. She was pretty sure that was Torin.

"How do you know?" she asked, partly because she was curious, but also because she knew better than to let her thirteen-old sister who had just hit the pre-woman years get going.

"I can just tell," she said with a sigh, collapsing on her bed like it were heaven itself enfolding her.

"You get this feeling. It's magical... it's... you know what it is? Oh wait, you don't. You've never been in love."

Andromeda rolled her eyes. "Thanks, Cissa."

"Oh come on, I didn't mean it like that. You'll find someone someday." She placed her hand dramatically over her heart. "I can feel it."

"Sure."

"I mean it, Andromeda." Narcissa said, her smile softening into something more pleasant. "You may not be the biggest boy-magnet, but that's not really your style. You're a romantic, just like all those books you read."

"You've read my books?"

"I skimmed through the interesting looking ones." She said, lifting her hand-held mirror to face and beginning to twirl her hair. "And I must say that Scarlet Letter was a bore. I thought there'd be sex in it." She gave Meda a pointed look, lowering the mirror. "There was no sex." She pouted out her lips, and against her better judgment, Meda laughed.

"I'm serious though. One day you're going to meet this totally amazing guy and he's going to completely sweep you off your feet. And then that's it. You'll be a goner." She sighed dramatically, as though she were the one getting swept off her feet. Andromeda shook her head, smirking slightly as she buried herself in her novel.