Serendipity (S. Black)

FORTY-ONE

"remember when i was young and so were you, and time stood still and love was all we knew?"

*

The faint morning light spread across the Hogwarts grounds on a Tuesday morning. A warm September breeze rippled the long grasses. The leaves of the trees had begun their transformation into the brief sunset that was autumn, gold to brown to nothing at all.

Under a beech tree near the lake, Eva bent over her sketchbook, scribbling feverishly. Every once in a while she'd glance up, tilt her head in thought, then bury her nose back into her drawings.

Sirius knew better than to interrupt his girlfriend while she was in the 'inspiration zone'. Instead, he leaned his back against the tree and sipped the coffee he'd lightly spiked with firewhiskey. There wasn't much that would drag him out of bed early enough to go outside before breakfast, but he was learning that a certain blonde's smile was a little too irresistible for her own good.

Yawning loudly, he read over a letter he'd recently received from his cousin, Andromeda. Over the summer she'd finally cut ties with the Blacks, admitting that her young daughter was the daughter of a Muggle-born man she fell in love with. For years, she'd refused to admit who the father was. They eloped soon after, an event Sirius had been the sole witness to. He grinned at the three of them waving up at him from the little photo she sent: Andromeda laughing at something, Ted grinning over his lopsided glasses, and little Nymphaora's curls changing from light brown to bubblegum pink.

From exchanging correspondence with his cousin, he understood that the four-year-old Metamorphmagus was the light of Andromeda's life. Sirius didn't have much love for the majority of his family, but he loved Andromeda. In the summer of her seventh year at Hogwarts, she met a boy in London. At Christmas, she told him she was in love, and at graduation, she told him she was pregnant. Out of everyone in their family, only thirteen-year-old Sirius knew the real father. The Blacks just assumed the baby girl was a result of a one-night stand at Hogwarts. She kept her relationship with Ted hidden for years until one day, she just grew tired of silencing something that should be shouted: love. She fell love and she wanted the world to know it.

So she told them.

It was quiet, well-behaved, perfect Andromeda's defining moment when she told her parents that she wanted to marry a Muggle-Born. They screamed at her, called her a traitor, a disappointment, a disgrace. Bellatrix led these insults, while Narcissa just stared at her with a deadly glare. Andromeda patiently listened to all of their hurtful words, nodded, stood, and walked out, never to return. After her hasty departure, she and Nymphadora stayed with Sirius for a few days until she married Ted, and then she moved in with him.

Silently he thanked God that another Black escaped their wretched name. Andromeda Tonks. That's how she signed the letter, probably because she just liked signing her new last name. He knew if he had a chance to ditch it, he would.