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The blood drains from her face. She can feel it. Andromeda puts her knuckles against her cheek, rubs it, and sucks in a breath.
"I'm sorry," the healer says, and Andromeda laughs. A hollow laugh she knows will turn into tears if she isn't careful, so she gathers herself, digging her fingers into her thigh. It doesn't pinch as much as she would like, her jeans taking the sting out of her nails. She should've known it. No one with such pure Black blood in their veins would live to see one hundred. The air in her lungs feels cold as if it doesn't belong there anymore, and she breathes it out in quivering waves.
"Is there anything I can do?"
For the split-second during which the healer thinks, she clings to the spark of hope in her chest that perhaps she would see her grandson graduate.
"I'm afraid not," the healer answers with a solemn expression on her face. The wand dangles in her fingers, probably still warm from the countless diagnostic spells she's fired into Andromeda's magical core. All for nought.
Andromeda nods. That's it, then. The healer bids her goodbye and leaves. Without the rustle of clothes and the crackle of magic, the silence grows loud around her, echoes in her ears and presses her to the linoleum floor. Her body feels heavy as if her bones are made of steel. She tries to stand up, but her muscles don't support her weight, so she continues to sit in the sterile fifth-floor examination room - spell damage ward - staring at the bland white wall until a flustered and rude medi-witch shoos her outside so she can prepare the room for the next patient.
Somehow Andromeda finds her footing, feeling wobblier in her knees than ever before in her life, but manages to walk out of St. Mungo's.
The city passes her by as she moves through the busy streets toward Covent Garden. People bump into her left and right, giving her disgruntled looks, but she couldn't care less. A fine spray falls on her head and coats her cheeks with a veil of water. It's freezing cold, and her delicate cardigan doesn't keep the rain out, but she's too tired to do magic and too upset to go home. She can't face her daughter yet, not in this state. First, she will drink a hot cup of coffee and eat something covered in chocolate, and then perhaps she will admit to herself that in a few weeks, all that will be left of her will be a cup of ashes and a headstone beside Ted's empty grave.
-
The coffee has warmed her stomach but not her fingers, and Ted's old wool jumper she'd slipped over her still damp vest also doesn't do the trick. While rubbing her hands along her arms, she briefly wonders if she'll ever feel warm again or if being cold is her destiny. It would be a befitting end, she thinks. Born into a cold world and taken from one. Like any true Black.
Careful not to slip, she climbs the tattered ladder to the attic. An exasperated look crosses her face at the mess. She hasn't been up here in a decade, and Nymphadora clearly didn't follow her command to clean it.
She looks around. It is up here somewhere, but she knows it can't be summoned. Andromeda lifts and opens various cardboard boxes and trunks with her wand and shifts through them with her hands until she touches something warm. The grimoire is as heavy as she remembers it, and her back aches at the strain of lifting it out of the adorned trunk.
With a groan, she manoeuvres it onto Nymphadora's old desk - which they put up here to make room for Teddy's crib years ago - not caring about the dust that will nestle into the crevices of the worn leather. Laying open in front of her, the pages of the parchment still as crisp as new and the ink not even slightly faded, she begins to feel the thrall of its magic. It lures her in, soothes her, and so she sets her mind on what she wants to find. The thrum of magic increases, echoes deep within her, pulses in her core, and seconds later, the pages begin to turn so rapidly that she cannot keep up with her eyes. Pages turn and turn in a blurry buzz of motion and finally the book settles, displaying to her what she had feared for a long time. Cursed blood.
A cold shiver runs down her spine as an odd set of determination settles into her bones. She doesn't want to succumb to her family's wretched magic. She has escaped its clutches once, and she will do so again. With a flick of her wand, she summons the wonky-looking stool from the corner of the attic, smiles because it's adorned with Nymphadora's childhood attempts at art. She sits down, takes her glasses out of her hair, sets them onto her nose and begins to read. Her fingers slip along the page to help her decipher the complicated runes. They make her head swim as they slowly but steadily translate to English. As the picture becomes more evident, her determination begins to crumble. When she reaches the bottom of the page, her hand falls to her side, and she closes her eyes.
"Of course," she whispers to the shadows that linger beneath the heavy beams that hold up her roof.
There won't be any pain but there will also be no cure.
-
She keeps caressing the grimoire, taking solace in its warmth. The heavy book is the one heirloom from House Black she'd kept. The rest she’d sold decades ago to build the life she's still leading.
Its familiar magic is the last taste of what it had been like growing up. Despite the pain that House Black had caused her, she enjoys basking in its magic, the thrall of the old magicks powerful and alluring. Ted had often urged her to put it in a secure vault in Gringotts, afraid that it might taint their child, but Andromeda had argued that she needed the faint hum of its magic in the house. Without it, and despite her love for Ted and Nymphadora, the house would never have felt like home.
Lazily, she flips the pages, and lands in chapter five. Protective spells. She reads the one that has protected Nymphadora from Bellatrix's destructive magic and drums her finger on the words while her throat constricts. Without it, her daughter would’ve died. Tears burn hot behind her lids and she swallows twice. She isn't ready to leave Nymphadora, but Black curses are powerful. Her heart thuds hard and she slams the book shut, gets up and banishes it back into the trunk. It rattles for a moment, its magic begging her to keep it close, but she turns her back on it. She knows that in two days' time, the storming pulse of its magic will have calmed down to a soothing backdrop.
On her way to the kitchen, she contemplates who had cursed her and why it was only taking effect now. It must have been a woman, for the ritual to cast it requires blood from the womb, and she trusts neither her father nor her uncle to have gone to such lengths.
She excludes Bellatrix and Walburga immediately. The ritual is too long and too precise. Both witches would have given up by the third step, their patience useless. Both preferred brute force, to which the numerous scars on her skin bear witness. She also rules out the great aunts. They were only after male heirs anyway. She thinks briefly of Alphard and how Irma had cursed and banished him without mercy.
It crosses her mind that she could ask Narcissa, but she dismisses it before it can fester; she would never speak to her again. While Andromeda knows about Narcissa's calculation and how selfish she can be, she doesn't think she's cursed her. Her sister had been a child when she'd packed her things. Which leaves her mother. The blood freezes in her veins and she almost trips on the stairs, catches herself on the bannister.
A foolish part of her, perhaps the one that still longs to have a loving mother or the one that loves her daughter fiercely, doesn't want to believe that her mother could have done this to her. After a moment of dwelling on it, she pushes those thoughts far away, summoning the ugly memories of Druella to remind herself just who exactly her mother had been. Instinctively, she wraps her arms around her waist, holding on tightly, as she had done as a child when her mother had stood over her, her wand drawn to make her compliant before she'd used her.
The sight of a pair of steely blue eyes boring into her still troubles her decades after the pain. She knows that her mother died a bitter old woman, and she wonders if jealousy had driven her mother to put such a curse on her. Druella had always hated to see her daughters laugh. Andromeda could well imagine that she was making sure that no daughter of hers would die after a happy life. The thought twists her stomach. One daughter is already dead, devoured by the darkness into which she had been thrust. The other is always one step behind saving those she loves. Her husband is dead, and her son has been missing for years, the blonde a mere shadow of her former self. And she, Andromeda, had naively believed that she had gotten away relatively unscathed.
Andromeda sighs heavily, pulls the chair out from under the table and sits down. She laughs bitterly before the tears start to fall. Of course, House Black would drive its claws deeply into her flesh once more.
-
Nymphadora joins her in the kitchen well past midnight, her face tired and worn from an exhausting shift. Andromeda groans when she gets up to greet her. Her limbs feel rusty since she hadn't moved a muscle after coming down from the attic. Her mind had been too occupied by the hurtful past and the lost future to let her function.
Her daughter meets her halfway, almost stumbling into her embrace because one of her work boots has caught on the threshold. Andromeda melts into her arms and breathes in the smell of fresh air and dry sweat surrounding her.
"My love," she says quietly against the dirty skin of Nymphadora's neck and kisses her behind her ear a moment later. She lets her lips linger on the warmth.
"Are you okay?" Nymphadora asks, shooting her a worried look while shrugging out of her heavy coat, which she lets drop to the floor. Andromeda ignores it. She has no energy to levitate it to the hooks in the corridor.
The news burns in the front of her mind, almost tumbling out of her mouth to find some solace in shared pain, but she doesn't want to shatter Nymphadora. After the hardship of war and rebuilding, their lives are good again. Finally, the ground beneath their feet is sturdy. She's afraid of losing it all, so she nods and gives her a smile she knows won't placate Nymphadora for long.
Nymphadora raises an eyebrow but lowers it again. Her face relaxes, and her hair turns from a rich pink to a dusky purple. The colour reminds Andromeda of dawn on a beautiful summer day, its sight soothing.
"I need a bath," she says, running her hand through her sticky hair and scrunching her nose. "Join me?"
Andromeda follows Nymphadora upstairs, twisting the words in her mind to figure out how to speak them. She owes her the truth. After years and years of living together, she has to tell her so she can be prepared.
Nymphadora steps out of her clothes, helps Andromeda do the same, and presses a gentle kiss to her clavicle.
Afterwards, she turns, adds a few drops of lavender oil to the steaming water and lowers herself into the tub with a sigh. Andromeda ties her hair into a bun and climbs in behind her. The water immediately soothes the strain from sitting in the kitchen for hours. Slowly, she washes the grime of Nymphadora's job from her skin. Dirt and blood stick to her fingers and she cleans them with a mumbled spell, kisses the knuckles once they're clean.
Her daughter leans back, resting her head on her collarbone and looks up at her. "Tell me. Please."
There's a knot in Andromeda's tongue she can't get past. Nymphadora's warm gaze lingers on her face. It's probing and comforting, and yet she doesn't find her words, afraid of having to watch her fall apart.
"Your magic is off, and you look sad. So please, be honest." Her voice is filled with worry, which makes Andromeda's heart heavy.
She wraps her arm around Nymphadora's waist, her hand resting below soft breasts. Warm fingers begin to stroke her thighs in a motion that excites her. Before losing herself to the touch, she gathers her thoughts and courage.
"It's a blood curse," Andromeda says eventually, the reality trying to take hold in her chest but she doesn’t let it. Not yet. "I'm going to die."
Nymphadora stops her ministrations and tries to sit up, but Andromeda holds her down, presses her against herself.
"Mum," she mutters and when Andromeda dares to look, she sees the tears in those warm, brown eyes. It opens up old scars on her heart. Breathing becomes hard, and she clings to her daughter. There are many Boggarts, but seeing her daughter hurt and distraught is one of the worst ones.
Despite her iron grip, Nymphadora manages to turn. The loss of contact bathes Andromeda’s wet skin in goosebumps. The desperation in her beautiful face tugs at Andromeda’s heart. Nymphadora claws at her shoulders and tries to find a hold but slips, so Andromeda holds her steady by cupping her face with both hands.
"I can't lose you. Not you."
Nymphadora doesn't look her in the eye, glances behind her at the wall, her face twisted in pain.
Andromeda presses a soothing kiss to her lips. Nymphadora deepens it in a familiar motion. She can taste the salty tears on her lips when she licks them and when her daughter whimpers, she meets her eyes.
"There must be a cure." Her voice is urgent, devastated and to Andromeda's chagrin, filled with hope. It hurts her to crush it.
"I don’t think so, my love," she starts and has to take a deep breath before she can say the rest. "I've already looked through the Black grimoire."
Anger bubbles inside her daughter, she can see it in the twitch of her lips and the fluttering pulse on her neck. She soothes her with another kiss and then another one.
"It's going to be okay," she mumbles, aware that they both know it's a lie. She's not even sixty. She doesn't want to die, hasn't seen nearly enough of life.
Her hands find Nymphadora's hips, and she pulls her towards her body until their chests are pressed together. Having her this close simultaneously soothes her and breaks her in two. They have only just confessed to loving each other. This can't be the end.
A comforting kiss later everything falls into place in Andromeda's mind. Two months ago, she had admitted to herself that she loved Nymphadora more than any mother should. That's when the nausea had started and never went away. Tears spring to her eyes, and she can't stop them from dripping into the water.
"I love you so much," she whispers against soft lips, unable to let go. The thought of leaving her behind in this cruel world is unbearable.
Nymphadora clings to her, kisses the tears from her cheeks, caresses her ribs, her thumbs brushing along the side of her breasts.
"We'll find a cure," Nymphadora says before capturing her mouth in a kiss so demanding it sends heat between Andromeda's legs.
Andromeda lowers her hand between them, brushes her knuckles through her daughter's wetness, finding the spot that always makes her moan. She needs to feel her everywhere to remind herself that she still has a pulse, that perhaps, she will live.
"I won't let you go." Nymphadora's voice is soaked with tears, but there's an amount of determination in it that fuels the spark of hope inside Andromeda's chest.
"We start looking tomorrow," Andromeda replies, finding strength in her daughter's touch.
Nymphadora spreads Andromeda’s legs and reverently circles her sex, which makes her breath hitch.
"Tomorrow," her daughter echoes and buries her fingers deep inside her.