This feeling was shared at home. When they came home for the holidays, Druella had guests, who were all drinking, laughing, celebrating the war, in the relief that something had now actually happened. She told Andromeda and Narcissa to change, and they did as they were told. When they came back, she told Andromeda to go to her grandfather, who wanted to talk to her. Rupert was there already, with a young girl. Rupert was twenty one now, but the girl didn't look anything over sixteen. She was tall and stick thin, her wrists looking like they would snap if anyone so much as blew on them. Her hair was long and russet coloured, her eyes big and blue in the sharp bones of her face. She wore a long black dress and seemed as fragile and pointed as a little bird.

"Getting married at last, Rupert old chap?" their grandfather asked jovially, sucking on one of his long cigars. The smoke was foul and made Andromeda's nostrils burn.

"Cordelia's not mine, unfortunately," Rupert said ruefully.

Sebastian laughed, and his smoke blew into Andromeda's face, who coughed. "Oh, Andromeda, just the ticket! Come -"

Andromeda followed her grandfather, weaving through the crowd. There was a man waiting by the stairs. He had blockish features and brown hair.

"This is Alfred Travers, Andromeda," her grandfather told her. "He's in Gringotts, very high up."

Alfred took this as an invitation to talk about the bank. He explained the ins and out of setting up an account and of getting a loan until Andromeda thought she might collapse from boredom. Even Sebastian had a glazed look on his face. Andromeda excused herself to go to the bathroom, but once she was finished she didn't go back into the hall, and headed upstairs. On the landing, she froze. The door to Bellatrix's bedroom was open. It was kept closed ever since she had left, and only the house elves entered now. But as Andromeda peeked inside, she saw Bellatrix sitting on her old bed. She was staring up at the wall, which was just as she had left it, decorated with newspaper clippings and pictures. She gave a quiet sigh, the dark shoulders of her gown drooping slightly.

"You can still come back," Andromeda said, and they were poker straight again, Bellatrix turning around. "Excuse me?"

"I said, you can still come back," she said, entering the bedroom. "We didn't touch any of your things. And you could go back to school."

"Don't be ridiculous, Andromeda," she said, and she looked back up at the wall. "Why would I come back when I have everything I ever wanted?"

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Andromeda's O.W.L results came that summer too, and they were disappointing. Her grades weren't as good as they had been, but Cygnus wasn't there to check them anymore, and Druella never asked her daughters anything about school, or looked at their reports. Andromeda's results, a crisp white sheet filled with Acceptables and one Exceeds Expectations, burned in the fireplace. Narcissa was at a friend's house, and, fed up and annoyed, Andromeda snuck through the gap in the fence and went to the playground. She sat on a swing and tried not to think of her friends, but she did anyway. She wondered what results they had got. Glenda would certainly have received an Outstanding in Ancient Runes, and good marks in everything else too. And Lacrimosa would have certainly done very well in Care of Magical Creatures....

Guilt squeezed in her stomach every time she thought of their fight. It was too late to apologise, not that apologising would have ever have done anything. Time passed so quickly, even when it seemed like she had nothing to do. It was almost a year since Lacrimosa had left her family, almost a year since she had gone to the cinema with Glenda, and that, too, seemed so strange. It was almost two years since Bellatrix had left, almost three since her father had died......it scared her how quickly things changed, and what damage these events left behind them.

Andromeda stopped swinging, dragging her heels in the gravel. She was restless here in the playground, but she'd had enough of the empty house. She didn't want to go back. A sudden burst of anger towards everything, towards life, towards her friends, her family, herself, made her want to shout. She didn't want to be here anymore, stuck like this, having to choose like this. She wanted to be back in the secure silence of her childhood, when all she had known was her family and her governess, the cold empty house and her books. She wanted to feel again that unshakable belief that her parents were always right, and she wanted to play imaginary games with Cissy and Bella, pretend to be pirates, or shopkeepers, or muggles......she wanted Glenda back, and Lacrimosa, wanted to laugh with them in Hogwarts again like always. Andromeda got off the swing and stared at the empty patch of grass were the Black manor was, and decided, for now, she was going to pretend. She turned around, and she walked up the road, away from home.

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It wasn't long before she became hopelessly lost. The bravery that had filled her in the playground was trickling away. Andromeda didn't know where she was. The streets were busy and there was a lot of traffic, loud people and barking animals. She sat on a bench and closed her eyes, feeling tears coming, angry at herself because she was sixteen years old, and she was about to cry, and for what? Because she had gotten lost? Druella probably wouldn't even notice she was gone. Perhaps Narcissa wouldn't either. Perhaps the two of them would just carry on as usual, like perfect dolls in a little dollhouse, rotating like clockwork.

Andromeda had never had a proper dollhouse, though Aurelia had, a big, tall thing, more like a castle than a house. It had three floors and real little pieces of furniture, everything down to tiny toothbrushes in a little glass in the bathroom. There were dolls to go with it, a mother doll, a father doll, two little children and a baby, but they had always scared Andromeda with their manic painted smiles and stiff bodies. She made little plasticine people instead, but Aurelia had told her that was a stupid game and she was ruining her house, and squashed them into pieces. Andromeda wondered where Aurelia's dollhouse was now. Probably still in her bedroom, where it never would be played with again.