Andromeda Edwards
Great Hall, Hogwarts Castle, Scottish Fields
Andromeda sat, nibbling nimbly as the mistress monologued her mind. At the end o0f the speech, the youngest Edward's daughter was thoroughly unimpressed, much like everyone else in the room. She had expected nothing less from the headmistress, who she saw as a near-mindless people pleaser. Andromeda had always stuck her nose up at the fact that Olivaander had never joined the Order of the Pheonix, as Edwards universally believed that the only ones suitable for power at this time were OoTP members. She was honored to be taught by Misks, who she saw as a moral paradigm.As Martina finished her speech, Andromeda 'Ann' Edwards formulated her opinion. It was terrible. She, being a half-blood, saw no comfort in her cookie-cutter mottos, realistically knowing that violence could only be stopped proactively, even if it took restricting pure-blood education. As a supporter of the alliance, she was equally outraged. Even though the point was clear, she was not pleasantly surprised that Professor Olivaander did not mention any new rules for the group, and was outraged even more she hadn't even bothered with the empty statement of 'don't do violence.' Andromeda ate her meal quickly before shuffling with the rest of her house to the dungeons. Andromeda sat in a comfy chair, one of the few in her gray, stony dormitory, and read her Alchemy textbook. Although she loved the subject and admired the teacher, she was having trouble with the paper she was ascribed over the Spring break. She had finished the paper, a brisk 3-foot assignment, she was not particularly confident about the contents, so she had taken to examining the relevant chapters each night until it was due to revise her essay,Andromeda had taken a nap on the Express, so while she was not particularly exhausted, she recognized the importance of the following day, and, while she droned not the girl's dorm, she took a swig of a generic sleeping potion, and quickly dozed off to sleep. When Andromeda woke, she was not in her bed. Instead, she was in St. Mungos, in her grandfather's room. The space was eerily sterile, white, and empty. The only splash of color was a magically hung blue curtain and faded maroon tiles in a checkered pattern with their white counterparts. On the bed, old and frail, as Elphias Doge in his old age. He was bald, sunspots sprinkled on his wrinkled head. Instead of the bitter image the populace would assume from an old and dying man, Doge was smiling and laughing spryly.But suddenly, the man turned decrepit and mournful. He had realized. Quickly and in a hoarse voice, he asked for the family to leave him. He singled out, however, the young, brown-haired girl, no more than five, to stay. Although she was scared of her beloved grandpop's change in demeanor, her loyalty to him resigned her to stay. She went closer to him, and he wrapped his battered and beaten hand around Andromeda's smooth neck. "Annie, come closer. Please," he croaked, before remembering his clock was ticking. "Please, please, continue my- Dumbledore's, legacy. Defend freedom, and democracy and all else we won when we defeated He-Who-Mu," he sighed," Voldemort. Do what is right. Please. Protect all wizards, all muggles, all people. Please. Defend our victory. I love you, Beth, I do."Before Andromeda could respond, her beloved grandfather breathed his last.Andromeda's dream shifted. Here, she was in her room. It was spacious, with only the bare essentials of life cluttering it. She was sitting at her desk, now she was 15, no doubt. A gray barn owl swooped to a convenient perch outside her window, the window opening for a moment, revealing a star-bespeckled sky. The elderly owl dropped off a parcel, whom the brown-haired girl quickly opened with the grace of a polar bear on skates. The first thing to fall out in the wild rush was a gold pin, just what the ambitious Slytherin has been dreaming and hoping of for the last fifteen years. By then, the other papers had blissfully floated to the born, aged desk, but she pushed them aside to admire the badge, a traditional shape and indented with the figure of a snake coiled around a P.When her amazement wilted the tiniest margin, she rushed down at the speed of light, to others it almost seemed as if she apparated to the dining room her parents were respectfully finishing tea and discussing politics. But as their only child rushed in, they were disrupted by the clank of the gold badge against the respectable wooden table. In a second, before the young man and his wife could process the noise, their ecstatic daughter piped up."OLIVAANDERMADEMEASLYTHERINPREFECTIGOTTHELETTERTODAYIMSOEXCITED!!!!" she said in one breath. Her parents were excited but tried to calm her down. Even in her sleep, the large pool of residual happiness pulsed through her, warming her up in one fluid motion. She remembered that day vividly, the moment her first of many glorious tasks she set out to do, the very thing that got her into Slytherin, her ambition, had been realized.And then she woke for real.
