Beginnings: Duplicity in Children's Books

Beginnings:
Duplicity in Children's Books

"Bella, what are you doing?"

Bellatrix only grunts under her younger sister's scrutiny. Andromeda waits - for only a few seconds, granted - and, when it becomes clear Bella isn't going to answer, asks again.

"Whatcha doing, Bella?"

Her voice has taken the curious, expectant, determined drawl every member of the family knows only too well. Usually, when she uses it, the person she's speaking to stops at once what he or she is doing to pay full attention to the five-year-old girl with the eager tone and demanding eyes.

But Bella is completely engrossed. In a book, Andromeda sees it now.

"You're reading?"

There's no answer, but it would take more than that to send Andromeda away.

"What are you reading, Bella?"

Andromeda is sure Bella is aware she's here, now, but she has a look of utter concentration on her face and is frowning with a fixed stare at her book. From where Andromeda is standing, she can see there's no picture in the book, but that only strengthens her resolution to know what it's about.

Her parents read books there aren't any pictures in, either. Andromeda knows Bella is older, of course. It's Bella's favourite argument whenever she disagrees with Andromeda or with her parents. Not just that she's a big girl, Andromeda is a big girl too, not like baby Narcissa who still needs the elves to bring her her feed before she goes to sleep, and who takes a nap in the afternoon. Andromeda stopped drinking from a baby's bottle ages ago, at the same time Bellatrix did, though she still needs to take naps, her parents thought even when she threw the most impressive temper tantrum of the Black family since Phineas Nigellus, a portrait informed her, so instead, when she was sent to her room to rest for a few hours, she just nodded and instead of going to bed, she quietly played with her toys.

At first her dolls weren't happy with her, but after she locked Evelyn in her cupboard, they were nice again. It was three months before Andromeda went searching for Evelyn, and when she did, the porcelain doll looked as pretty and docile as she always had, but now Andromeda knew her, and she thought Evelyn looked duplicitous, so she took her and smashed her head against the floor.

Pieces of white porcelain went flying everywhere, and Andromeda was left sitting with the body of her formerly favourite doll in her hand, still dressed in her blue velvet dress robe. Andromeda gave the dress robe to Vivian, who already wore the shiny crown Andromeda had stripped from Evelyn before throwing her in the cupboard.

Vivian wasn't duplicitous, Andromeda had decided. Not like Evelyn, and perhaps not even like Bellatrix, who pretends she cannot see Andromeda and cannot hear Andromeda when Andromeda is just dying to tell her...

Suddenly Andromeda is reminded why she's run to see her sister.

Father has told her she doesn't need to take naps anymore.

He'd called her to his office, and he'd been very serious and he hadn't even answered when she'd asked him if she could borrow his wand and if he could tell her a story and Narcissa had broken her, that is, Andromeda's, toy wand, and when would she have a real wand like a grown-up, she was almost six. Because toy wands don't really do magic at all, the tip just changes colour and it's a bit boring when you're a big girl. She hadn't really believed he'd say yes, because Christmas had been just a month gone, and Andromeda's birthday was in November, but you never knew.

Father had made her sit in the red armchair that made Andromeda feel both very important and very small, and told her she needn't take naps anymore. Even though she was a very duplicitous little girl, he'd said. And he'd added, "fraudulent", making Andromeda ask all at once what that meant, was it like duplicitous?

She was too busy being intensely curious about "fraudulent" (she'd repeated it twice, carefully, to make sure she had it right) to be upset that Father thought she was duplicitous.

Besides, he never looked angry when he called her deceitful and disingenuous and, yes, even duplicitous, which was Andromeda's favourite word, one that Bellatrix couldn't say properly; he was always smiling with his eyes. He never smiled when he called other people duplicitous; he'd been very angry when he'd said Aunt Vega was duplicitous and hypocritical, which Andromeda knew to be a terrible, terrible thing.

It made Andromeda realise how special she was. Bella never is duplicitous and Narcissa is too much of a baby to be.

Andromeda sometimes thinks it's a shame her sister isn't the slightest bit duplicitous, because they could have had fun, the two of them, but she has to admit it was very nice, being something Bellatrix isn't.

Bella has never had fun when her parents tell her to go and have a nap. Bella never mimicks her parents' guests and family after there's been a party. In fact, Bella never hides on top of the stairs and then waits for The Opportune Moment Father talks about to get down and join the adults when there is a party. Mother and Father scold Andromeda but their eyes smile and they let her stay until the guests leave. Andromeda never goes to sleep when she knows she's missing out.

So she let Bellatrix get away with the older-sister business, because what did Bella do that she didn't, especially now?

Until right now.

Bella is reading.

It is the first time she sees Bella read.

Andromeda doesn't know how to read.

So that is what Bella does when Andromeda is supposed to be napping. Andromeda has known that Bella is seeing a tutor since September, but it never seemed worth her interest. Bella never talks about it, and she never knows things Andromeda doesn't, either. Andromeda knows how to add and to subtract, how to write her name and Mother's and Father's and she's the one to remark when Bellatrix only puts one 'l' in her name, and she almost always can tell when a word is an English word she hasn't been told about, or just a Latin spell she didn't know existed. And she knows when something passes between Father and Mother and Bellatrix doesn't realise it.

So really, how was she to know she was missing out?

But there is the proof that she was.

Bella is reading, and she's not answering Andromeda, and nobody saw fit to tell her anything, or to ask her whether she wanted to learn how to read, too.

Andromeda wants to read. Sometimes, when Mother is reading a bedtime story out of one of the sisters' illustrated books, she misses a word and Andromeda is always the one who points it out, who demands to see the book, and who holds it under her mother's face, unwaveringly, until Mother agrees that she did make a mistake. Bellatrix says Andromeda enjoys being difficult, and she takes her grown-up tone, but Andromeda would rather give Vivian to Narcissa than keeping quiet. Well, at least, she'd rather break Vivian.

She wants to grab the book and tear it out, but Bellatrix is big and strong and seven and there's not telling what she'd do to Andromeda.

When she was a baby, Bellatrix once got angry at Andromeda and broke her toy broom under her, and Andromeda only stopped falling after Mother and Father undid the spell. It had taken them a long, a very long time, and even as Father held her hand and Mother muttered Latin words under her breath, she knew she was falling, falling, falling! After that, Bellatrix had looked rather contrite, and she'd even lent Andromeda her own toy broom that could fly up to the door handles, but Andromeda never used it.

There was a party that night, because it was the first time Bella had done magic, and Bella got a real wand that made showers of sparkles could lit the way when it was dark and you said clearly, "Lumina", which Andromeda of course knew wasn't the real spell but somehow sounded even better, and Mother and Father even let Bella taste champagne in her own tall glass, an adult glass, and when Andromeda asked she could only wet her little finger in Mother's cup. Bella then said champagne tasted bitter, and even if Andromeda was relieved, she'd still have preferred to have her own glass and to drink champagne herself and to decide, like an adult, that she didn't like it and would rather have mint syrup.

Andromeda cut her own meat and never spilled her syrup and when baby Narcissa was sent to bed, she stayed up until even after Bella said she was tired. Father told her the story of Nymphadora Nigellus, and everything was well and Andromeda was just thinking that Bella's magic was alright when they sent her to bed. Rather than obeying, she hid behind the door. She heard them agreeing about what a big girl Bellatrix was and how proud they were of her and how powerful her first instinctive spell had been and how good she'd been to her little sister afterwards.

The day after, Andromeda refused to go take a nap.

So today, she doesn't dare infuriating Bella. But she's so sad and feels so abandoned that she goes back to her room, take Vivian in her arms, and burst into silent tears, that fall from her wide open eyes and roll on her cheeks to her chin. Andromeda rocks back and forth on the floor, next to her bed. Her tongue laps every tear and it tastes like despair.

She has no idea how long she stays like that but she's alone, alone, all, all alone and nobody comes, not Bella, not Mother, not even a house elf.

Andromeda just wants to die.

When she opens her eyes, she's tucked in her bed and she's vaguely aware of people whispering above her head. She recognise her father's lilt and she can make out, so very high in the sky she mistakes it for the sunset on her canopy, her mother's golden locks.

"Oh, oh, she's awake," Bella's voice whispers loudly. "You're awake Andromeda?"

With an effort, Andromeda looks down next to her, and there are Bella's attentive eyes. Andromeda wonders what she's doing in bed now she's allowed not to be, but she's so tired she doesn't think of protesting.

Mother and Father's faces are suddenly very close to her face.

They're asking her is the bed is comfortable and say lots of things Andromeda is too tired to understand, and Andromeda wants to ask if they've had dinner already, but her mouth is too dry.

"Water..."

Her voice is so strained and soft that she doesn't recognise it until they give her, all at once, a glass of fresh water that is the best thing she's ever drunk. Her eyes are very hot under her eyelids and she can barely keep them open, and even Bellatrix is too far now, she can't see her mouth move when she speaks.

"I'm c-cold," Andromeda stutters. She feels the weight of the fluffy blankets on her, pinning her to the mattress, but she's shaking with cold. There's a sound in the room, and it takes time for Andromeda to realise it's her teeth clinking.

Bella's big, dark eyes don't leave her face, and Andromeda feels her sister's hand on her cheek. "She's boiling," says Bellatrix in an awed voice.

"I'm ill?..." Andromeda's voice breaks.

"I'm cold," she repeats.

"I want a h-hot-water b-bottle," she adds.

Then Bella is gone.

Mother and Father stay with her a long time, she hears their voices, from far away again, when she's so exhausted she can't tell her mother's voice from her father's, except when she's cold, when she only hears her body shuddering and huddling up and she pulls her head under her covers. Once, the blankets are torn away from her and she screams, but her mother's soothing whisper says that there, it's alright, it's alright now. Andromeda feels her being tucked again, and the hot-water bottle against her legs, and the heavy blankets superposed on her, so many that she cannot see the canopy anymore, but it's a long time before she doesn't feel the ice biting to her bones and she's only shivering occasionally.

Her somnolence is full of visions of icy brooms that shatter in complete silence, and Bella's liquid gaze, and walls of books so high they threaten to fall on her and drown her, and so thin she can hear the voices from the other side, Mother and Father and Bella. She hears her name on the other side as she thinks she's finding a door, because they're calling, they're calling her! But it's Cissa's bird-like voice that answers, she was there the whole time, just resting. And Father's voice booms through the labyrinth of books, he laughs and says that Andromeda is a very duplicitous little girl, and Narcissa laughs with him, but in the dream she's not Narcissa, she's Andromeda, and she's on the other side of the wall.

It's daylight when Andromeda awakes, with absolutely no memory of her nightmares, and the sun is - really! - shining. Andromeda giggles and hops down the bed, without a glance to the huge mountain of blankets that have fallen, like an avalanche, next to her bed. Energy is flowing through her veins like bubbles of laughter.

Before she has the time to saunter to the window in order to open it and claim her love of the world to the ancient, indulgent beech that lost all its leaves as soon as September began, she's stopped by a house elf squeaking.

"Miss Andromeda should not leave her bed! Master told Rezy Miss Andromeda is to stay in her bed, until the mediwizard has come! Miss Andromeda is ill!"

Andromeda has never liked house elves, but now she'd love nothing better than for this one to catch fire and burn to a painful death. But because she feels so very happy, she's willing to be benevolent.

"I'm not ill." Andromeda flips her hair behind her shoulder. "I feel perfectly fine," she informs him in her best Daughter of the Blood of Black voice. She doesn't even take the time to stare down at it with the Haughty Look her mother manages so well; she's already out of her room, paying no attention to the elf's whines behind her, and she's hopping down the stairs, running until she flaps open the door to the dining room, where her family is taking breakfast.

Her mind embraces the whole picture in front of her. Cissa is babbling to Mother who tries to drink her coffee before being confronted to the reality of the babbling, Bella is staring at her food as if she's forgotten how to eat it, eyes barely open, Father is reading the Daily Prophet.

There's a loud noise when Mother sees her standing there.

"Andromeda! What are you doing up?"

Andromeda grins at her stunned mother, who has a splash of coffee running down her robe.

"I'm hungry. I'm not ill," she remembers.

Father details her as she makes her way to the table, then exchanges a glance with Mother.

"Really?" he asks, mildly.

"Yeah," Andromeda answers with enthusiasm. "Can I have hot chocolate? And eggs and bacon and toasts with butter and lemon curd and apricot, not orange," she says in a convinced tone before the house elf scurries away on Mother's look.

There's a pause, during which Cissa screws up her little round three-years-old forehead. Andromeda cheekily grins at everyone again, feeling very pleased with herself. Then Father unfolds his paper and continues reading.

"Why is the Minister resigning, Father?" Andromeda asks, not taking her eyes off Father's Daily Prophet.

"Well, Andromeda, it's --"

Father stops, and he slowly lowers his newspaper until he's looking straight in Andromeda's eyes.

"How do you know," he asks very deliberately, "that the Minister is resigning?"

"It's written on the front page of your paper, Father."

Andromeda is rather perplexed at Father's reaction. Has she done anything wrong? She was as young as Cissa last time she annoyed her parents without meaning to. She wonders if she should say that she didn't do it on purpose anyway.

Rather suddenly, Father stands up and strides to Andromeda. He pulls the chair next to Andromeda's, sits on it, and, pushing her plate out of the way, spreads the newspaper in front of the two of them. It's so big, Andromeda thinks, she could use it as a blanket.

"Can you tell me what is written, Andromeda?"

"Yeah, sure," she says in a surprised tone. "'Minister for Magic Resigns Today. This morning, a turbulent crowd was waiting for the Ministry's official word on the debate that is raging all throughout the country. Would Desdemona Dempley, current Minister for Magic, who has been in place since the time of Grindelwald's rise, stand down and thus acknowledge the accusations that have been made against her? Would--'"

"Yes, thank you Andromeda," Father interrupts in a soft voice.

Andromeda looks up. Bella is openly gaping at her. Mother's eyes are glittering.

"It seems," Father articulates carefully, "that our princesslite can read. I'd say that this very duplicitous girl has performed her first magic."

He looks at Andromeda, who is only coming to realise what has happened and what this means.

"We will have a little celebration tonight. Would you like that?"

And Andromeda can only think that he didn't call her little anymore.

~finis