Work Text:
Andromeda Black had been betrothed to the Malfoy heir since she was in diapers. It was completely and utterly ludicrous that she would have to marry someone she didn’t know just to please her family. She railed against this insane and frankly insulting engagement for years and years and years.
Andromeda made herself plain every chance she got. She was never going to marry Lucius Malfoy.
Then she met him. And he was… actually kind of sweet.
Both she and Lucius were sorted into Slytherin, shared the same common room, ate at the same table. And with every opportunity in his presence, she tried to keep her words biting, tried to keep her tone loathing, tried and tried and tired.
But he’d laugh it off. And her convictions would soften just that little bit more, until she almost couldn’t remember why she’d protested to this arrangement to begin with.
It wasn’t as if they spent every waking moment at Hogwarts together. Andromeda wouldn’t allow herself to actually become friends with Lucius, Merlin forbid.
But sometimes, Lucius Malfoy was simply unavoidable. He almost seemed in tune to her every movement, holding doors open for her after class, picking up her books when she tripped on the stairs, catching her eye when Professor Flitwick did something particularly funny in Charms just so they could laugh together.
It was infuriating how close she came to giving in.
But thankfully, Ted Tonks came out of nowhere.
Andromeda fell for the Hufflepuff almost instantly. He was kind and funny and humble and smart. But the closer Andromeda got to Ted, the more she felt like she was being flayed alive.
This affair she was having was something she’d wanted since the moment she’d heard of her betrothal. She’d wanted to fall in love with someone else and shove that love in her family’s collective faces. She wanted to make them realize that they couldn’t force her into an arranged marriage, that she was her own person. She wanted and wanted and wanted to be free of their strings.
But now, there was Lucius to consider, and no matter how much she loathed her family, Andromeda couldn’t help but like Lucius. She didn’t want to hurt him. She didn’t want to shove her love for Ted in his face.
So she did something stupid.
She kept Ted a secret.
For him.
***
Lucius paced outside the infirmary doors trying his best to temper the rage eating away at his psyche before entering.
That imbecile! That moron! That— that— LOCKHART!
There was no other way to describe the Ravenclaw that nearly decapitated Andromeda Black during DADA today. He was simply Gilderoy Lockhart, a scorn on this godforsaken earth. The man shouldn’t be allowed a wand, and if Lucius had anything to say about it, he wouldn’t.
He’d kill him if he could.
For her.
If she asked him to, he’d do it. No questions asked.
His blood still boiled just beneath the skin, but he felt stable enough to check on her. So he entered the hospital wing and nodded at Madam Pomfrey in greeting.
“Ah, Mister Malfoy. She’s right over there.”
Lucius gave his thanks and stepped around the curtain to find Andromeda curled up on the cot with her eyes closed. A bandage was wrapped around her neck, but it didn’t seem to be turning red or anything, so he assumed the matron had been able to heal the wound just fine.
The relief he felt in that moment was unparalleled so far in his sixteen years of life.
Lucius took a seat in the empty chair by her cot and debated whether to grab her hand or not. He worried he might wake her with his touch. It was possible she needed more sleep. And then, if she awoke and found her hand in his… without her permission…
Lucius rolled his eyes, a small smile on his lips when he pictured the hour-long lecture he would have received for his non-consensual hand-holding. It would have been fun, but it was probably best if he kept his hands in his lap.
He watched her sleep for a moment— feeling like a bit of a creep— when something caught his eye.
There were a few well-wishes from some of Andromeda’s friends and classmates, but one stuck out a bit, in that, it didn’t stick out much at all. The corner of this card was hidden under her pillow, just peaking out enough for Lucius to read the words “Love” and “Ted.”
Something died in Lucius that day, the day he found out about Ted Tonks, about the love of his love’s life.
It would have worked between them, he knew. They would have been great together, a power couple to top all power couples.
And Lucius knew that Andomeda would have gone through with it, if he’d let her. She’d have married him, had his children, lived in his Manor, been his wife. He knew it, without a shadow of a doubt.
Which was why he wrote that anonymous letter to Cygnus and Druella, detailing their daughter’s affair with a muggleborn Hufflepuff.
Lucius loved Andromeda Black with every fiber of his being and she deserved to be free of this life that had been planned out for her since the day she was born.
Thirty years and a hundred failures later, Lucius still considered that letter to be his worst decision of all time.
Andromeda lost her husband and her daughter during the war. The stinging pain of a minor neck wound didn’t come close to the agony of losing your family.
If he’d just let her marry him, she never would have known that kind of suffering.
He wished and wished and wished he could take it back. All of it.
Lucius wish he could turn back the hands of time.
For her.