Like, Oh Say, Ted Tonks

Chapter 1: Cissa, Bella, and The Last Day of Hols

Demurely, I looked through the wooden stair railings. God, look at all those people. It was my younger sister Cissa's coming-out party and Mum and Dad had taken care to invite all of the purebloods in all of England. I was very reticent and people scared me. It wasn't fair that they were doing this to me on the last day of hols. And before my seventh-year too. Blech. "Andy!" Cissa called me from the bottom of the flight of stairs. She laughed gaily. "Oh, Andy, you have to come down here! The appetizers are simply to die for!"

Cissa was so carefree. Sometimes I wish I was like her, in the facts that she could meet anyone and not sweat a drop and that she was drop-dead gorgeous. Like tonight. One of Mum's closest slaves had come to curl Cissa's soft blonde hair. It flared out from each side of her face and framed it perfectly. She had huge blue eyes that took up most of her small, round face. Tonight she was wearing a carnation choker with a rhinestone buckle and a similarly coloured fitted strapless dress. She looked so regal, it made me wish that I looked good in pink.

But that was not going to make me ignore the fact she had just called me Andy.

"It's Andromeda," I said, tiredly.

"Oh, whatever! Come down!" Cissa said, laughing.

I felt my throat beginning to constrict, my eyes beginning to water. There was no way in heaven or hell I was going down there where all those people were. Cajole me all you want, Cissa.

"...No."

"Mum's going to have your head on a stick prepared with some pretty parsley garnishes if you don't come down here," Cissa said.

I honestly didn't understand what the big fuss was. So Cissa was fourteen and "officially" a woman. Whoop-dee-do. I should just be able to stay in my room if I felt like it. I mean, I was a Black.

"If you're not going to come down, then I'm just going to have to get Mum to ready you for decapitation."

"Fine," I grumbled. I got up to my feet and headed down the staircase. "I'm coming, just don't take my head."

I decided to walk by Cissa to go find some interesting people to talk to. They all seemed like a bunch of old boring sods. Ugh, and I'm going to have to marry one of those old sods' sons. Mum was borderline obsessive about marrying all of us Black sisters to good pureblood boys. God forbid I should fall in love with a Muggle-born, like, oh say, Ted Tonks.

We saw Mum, in all her thin, bony glory in the middle of the room. "Mum! I got Andy down here!"

"Andromeda."

Mum ignored this minor quarrel. She always ignored quarrels like that. We were the gems of the Black family. Even if the middle daughter happened to have been sorted into Ravenclaw instead of the traditional Slytherin. Even if the middle daughter happened to be in love with a Muggle-born.

Like, oh say, Ted Tonks.

"Andromeda, nice of you to join us," she said, smiling. Her cheekbones throbbed out giving her a skeletal look. No matter. She could just cover it up with tons of cosmetics. Like everyone in this household did. "I'm sure you've met Bacchus Casanova before seeing as he's in your year," she said, shoving a stocky, black-haired boy at me. "He's a good boy." Yeah, good meaning pureblood.

Here was the part of the whole coming-out party I hated: the part where Mum shoved a bunch of bighead prats at us. And they were almost always older.

"Oh, go socialize," Mum said, pointing to an open piece of marble around ten metres away from Mum and Cissa. I walked by Bacchus, feeling like a trophy escort. That was what I was doomed to. Being a trophy and never in love. I was a Black. Bacchus gave me his arm, but I declined to hold onto it. You're a fast one.

"How do you think the party's going so far?" I squeezed a question out of me. I really didn't know him since he was in Slytherin and I was in Ravenclaw. Mum tended to ignore things like that.

"Fine."

We stood there a couple more minutes. I looked at the cherubim and seraphim painted upon our ballroom ceiling. When I had looked at that long enough, I turned to look at a man choking on some punch. Quite interesting. Oh, how stimulating is this conversation. "Um...do you like being around crowds like this?" What kind of a prat question was that? You're a hopeless socializer, Andromeda Black.

"They're okay."

"Yeah, same here."

Time for an escape plan. My mind ran through all of the possible excuses...restroom...no, I had just used that one on Orpheus Singleton two weeks ago. Makeup check...no, I was only wearing some dusty rose lip gloss and not much else. I thought and thought. Appetizers! That was it. I'd go get some appetizers and make a run for it there.

"Um, would you excuse me? I'd like to go check out the appetizers," I said, curtsying, then running.

Cissa sighted me and began to follow me. "Is he your boyfriend?" she inquired.

"Cissa," I said, not looking back at my little sister. "He said all of five words to me. If we're together, then it's going nowhere fast." Ted and I talked to each other all the time. Stop obsessing about him.

"Oh. Mum wants you to marry him."

"Yeah, well, Mum wants me to marry every bloke that comes along, now doesn't she?" I asked Cissa. She shrugged.

I heard an all-too familiar voice by the appetizer table. "Is that my sister Andromeda?" my older sister Bellatrix said, lowering her eyebrows at me. I hadn't seen Bella since she moved out of our house nearly two years ago. We weren't exactly each other's favourite people in the world. She looked evilly happy. I just knew she was with the Death Eaters. No one's that happy in the Black family if you're not getting married or not a Death Eater. It just isn't possible.

"No, it's your second cousin removed Jill," I said, sneering. Bella gave me the same look back. "Of course I'm Andromeda. Don't look any different than the last time you saw me."

Bella sniffed. "Oh, I suppose you're right. But isn't that what you say when you haven't seen someone in a long while? Doesn't matter. I'd like for you two to follow me." Cissa and I looked at each other curiously. This sounded fishy. Of course, Bella would try and brainwash us.

She led us to a back closet I never even knew we had. Sitting in a circle were almost five of Bella's friends. They looked at us curiously, as if to ask, "Is this all Bella has?" Well, excuse us for not being Bellatrix Black. We're just her less significant sisters, Andromeda and Narcissa.

"This is Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange, Walter Macnair, Antonin Dolohov, Augustus Rookwood, and Avery. We also have Lucius Malfoy as an apprentice. And as you might have guessed, we're all here for a reason."

I was trying my best to listen intently, but really, it was quite amusing seeing Cissa stare at Lucius. Lucius looked a lot like Cissa--except when it came to Cissa's...womanly features. But the resemblance was there.

"What's your sister's name?" Lucius asked Bella. Bella had a hideous flat look upon her face that made her look just like Mum.

"You're not going to ask the reason why we're all here or anything like that?"

"First I want to know--"

"The blonde one's Narcissa and the brunette's Andromeda, now can we please go on with our plans?" Bella asked the crowd. The crowd nodded obediently. "Good," Bella said. "The reason we are all here is to introduce some possible Death Eaters to the whole organization. Of course, they have to finish Hogwarts first, but...time to prepare their minds for possible post-Hogwarts career choices."

Ugh. This all sounded so gross. Bella was disgusting me with the whole "post-Hogwarts career choices" spiel and Cissa was disgusting me with the whole drooling over Lucius thing. Yep. It was official: my sisters were certified insane after that incident. One was an evil genius and the other was a boy-crazy blonde.

"Sit down with us, Andromeda," Bella said. Cissa was practically sitting in Lucius' lap, and Lucius didn't look like he was having such a bad time. I sat down, not knowing what else to do. "Good. First order of business is to call our leader and ask him what he wishes for us to do."

"Call?" I said. I began to gulp. All of Bella's Death Eater friends were stuffed into one of our back closets, Cissa was in love with one of them, Bella was going to call her leader, and I was in love with a man I could never marry. I'd give anything to be standing with Bacchus in that pregnant pause. At least we weren't calling an evil overlord. "You mean, like on a Muggle telephone?"

Bella gave me a dirty look and the Death Eaters began to whisper. Just my luck I turned stupid whenever things started to look bad. "You know what I mean by call."

"Right. So it is on the telephone."

A soft chorus of laughter was heard in the far corners of the closet and Bella gave them the death stare. "Silence!" she said. "You insolent, little...let's just call our Most High Lord."

Lucius began to draw his attention away from Cissa, and she, looking dejected, sat there by herself. The Death Eaters began to move in together until a taut, rigid circle of evil minions was formed. I fell on my back and began to crab walk backwards. Bella started a chant that sounded Latin, and everyone else joined in. In the middle of the circle appeared a small, hooded figure. They just called Lord Voldemort!

"Hello, Dark Lord," Bella said, cheerfully like Lord Voldemort was her best friend in the world. Probably was.

"Hello, Bella. Who do you have with you?" he said, hissing just like a snake. It gave me goosebumps up and down my spine. I inched over towards Cissa, who looked even paler than usual. I put my arm around her to help keep her steady.

Bella looked around for one last roll call. "The Lestrange brothers, Malfoy, Macnair, Dolohov, Rookwood, and Avery. And myself, of course."

"Of course," he repeated. The small figure looked towards Cissa and I. My eyes grew wide and my knees began to knock. I could barely talk to a seventh-year Slytherin, and now I found myself square against the Dark Lord. "Who are those two?"

Bella bit her painted black bottom lip. "Well...I was going to get to that next. They're my little sisters. The blonde one's Narcissa and she's fourteen and the brunette's Andromeda. She's in her seventh-year at Hogwarts."

"Are they planning on joining us after they finish Hogwarts?"

"Oh no, I'm going to marry well and be a housewife for the rest of my life," Cissa smiled. "That's the best job for me."

"Her mind is able to be molded still. I like her. Get her in the circle," Voldemort said to Bella. Bella beckoned Cissa, who squeezed in next to her and Lucius.

"And you, Andromeda?" he pointed at me.

A surge of confidence was born inside of me at that moment. I knew what I had to say in order to feel good about myself. And it was most definitely not saying I was going to be a housewife like Cissa. "No. Quite honestly, I might be working against you lot."

Everyone gasped. Voldemort looked absolutely infuriated with me for not being a gullible wench and Bella for having a righteous sister like me in the first place. Excellent. "Someone take her down." They all drew their wands. This was one part I didn't have a plan for.

I ran towards the door to try and escape. I did a flop on the floor and felt around on the wall. It was so damn dark in the closet, where the hell was the doorknob? Suddenly, my fingers came upon a bulbous mass of metal. Yes.

"Don't let her get away!" Voldemort screamed.

"Someone get that girl!" Bella shrieked.

"Come, Cissa!" I shouted at Cissa. She shook her head, but I grabbed her wrist anyway. We both ran out of the back closet which--wouldn't you know?--was right by the back door. Carefully I tread the tile in my orange pumps, trying to make as little noise as possible.

Slowly and surely, I turned the last doorknob to freedom and ran into the glorious meadow by our house. The wind blew and messed up my light brown hair, which I had let run free in the wind. The beautiful and intricate curls in Cissa's hair came undone and she rubbed off the crimson lipstick that she had been wearing. We both lay down, laughing, in the grass. But not because anything particularly funny had happened.

"Oh, why are we laughing?" Cissa said after five minutes.

"I don't know!"

And we laughed again. This time, we laughed until our abdomens hurt. I placed a hand on my stomach and said, "I am going to vomit if I laugh anymore."

We stood up and threw our high heels by the large stone walls. "Let's go, Cissy!" I called her. As we ran down the street we lived on, I thought of Cissa as my sister instead of just some dumb girl who happened to live with me and maybe share some genes with me.

Before Mum called the Ministry to go searching for the young Black heiresses, we ran home. As we came to our heels, Cissa went to go grab them. "Leave them," I laughed. "We're royalty, remember?"

That got us laughing again. When we came in the house, most of the crowd had left. I began to breathe as normal. Mum looked at us angrily. She could look like an angry skeleton from hell about to unleash her wrath if she was in that mood. It turns out that was the way she was when we came home.

"Andromeda and Narcissa Black!" she said, putting emphasis on our last names. "Where in all of England were you?"

"Outside," I said nonchalantly.

"You don't dare take that tone with me, Andromeda!"

"Yeah, I do."

"Go to your room!" she yelled at me.

"Too late!" I shrieked back. "I was already on my way!"

"Then, don't let silly old me get in your way!"

I sat in my room for most of the night thinking about the events that night. I had met a "good" boy named Bacchus who was about as interesting as the colour beige, I had witnessed the Dark Lord on the rise being called in one of our back closets, I had bonded with my little sister, and had finally duked it out with my mum. Not an average day in the life of Andromeda Black.

It was Cissa. "I don't know if Mum knows but I'm camping out in your room tonight."

"Cool with me."

"That was so awesome in the ballroom. You totally told Mum off."

"I've had that urge for quite some time."

"No doubt."

I took my wand out of its case on my nightstand and calmly whispered, "Nox!" Soon the whole room was dim. With Cissa and I both in our pyjamas and dressing gowns, it felt almost like a slumber party. "Guess what, Andy?"

"Andromeda."

"You never guessed what!"

"Fine. What?" I asked Cissa.

"I've met the man I'm going to marry," Cissa nodded solemnly. I chuckled.

"I'd hardly call Lucius a man. I don't know if I'd even call him male," I said, sending me into hysterics. Cissa just laid there looking mad.

"Honestly, Lucius is perfect for me. And the Malfoys are--of course--an honourable pureblood family. Mum won't think twice of it!" Cissa was barely able to contain her excitement.

Lucky her. She had someone Mum would love. Stupid and pureblood. A classic "good" boy. I wonder, I thought to myself, what Mum would say if I were to ever marry a Muggle-born.

Like, oh say, Ted Tonks.