Both Arms Cradle You Now

I.

"One could only wonder what were the plans of the Dark Lord with his young cousin. She was often kept away or perhaps she kept herself away as much as she could, if her diaries are to be trusted. What did he need such a young girl for? She wasn't excessively pretty, particularly thanks to her haunted eyes; she was neither a powerful witch nor socially influential, thanks to her late family's previous blunders in the pureblood wizarding circles. The only thing that she had was blood, a claim higher than her cousin's if she only advocated for it. But she didn't. Most in her situation would try to get out of that environment or overpower the one keeping her there. But no, she was a pretty, caged bird. The Dark Lord's purpose for her might have just been that he kept her as a bargaining chip, which he used for her union with the heir of the House of Black. However, I beg to differ. According to her diaries and letters left behind, by the time of her disappearance, her mind was already far too hazy for it to be for natural reasons like grief or despair. Perhaps her cousin kept her in her place by playing with her mind, controlling it, perhaps he was preparing her for something bigger, something she didn't even know herself. Some of the theories among wizarding historians are that he was slowly overtaking her mind or perhaps preparing her slowly to be his Horcrux or some sort of vessel for himself if anything went wrong. We never got the answer for what was actually happening with so many from that time dead now. Her behaviour worried many around her at the end of her life, but she is gone now. Her body was never found, just like her young husband's, her wand was left at Grimmauld Place the fateful night she disappeared. One can only wonder what happened at the end. What we know of what was going on inside the Death Eater circles is very limited. And Andromeda Gaunt, she was somewhere at the centre of something. Something dark."

- By Gavin Clearwater,

from his book "The Fall of House of Gaunt"

First the sound of something dripping.

Then followed by loud banging that could be heard throughout the worn house, loud enough to reach Andromeda's on the second floor of the house that her cousin had been gratuitous enough to buy as he climbed the ranks. But she knew it would be foolish of her to think it was for her benefit that they lived in this mansion, no matter how old, it was only for his own. He wants to show himself as the best without letting a flaw show. She was a big flaw of his on its own as he failed to finish the goal he had had for years. To kill all Gaunts. At times, when they dined together in the main dining hall, she could swear she saw bitterness or perhaps regret flash across his face. At other times, he seemed to almost revel in the fact that she was alive, that she saw another of his twisted actions, that she retreated into herself so as to distance herself from the terrible sights he often brought back home. At the rarest of times, there was something akin to twisted pride in his eyes.

A woman's scream rang out from deep in the house, leaving Andromeda's throat to constrict with pure dread. The sounds in this house were something she both got used to and something she wished she couldn't hear. The squeaky stairs in the west part of the house would ensure that if she went down to the first floor of the house she would surely be heard. Another one of the common sounds was the hissing that came with her cousin's snake, Nagini, it's not like she couldn't understand what the snake was saying all the time, but a part of her wished for no relation to her ancestors. If she had been born into a different family, an impossible wish, maybe she wouldn't have been subjected to what she was. And of course, one of the most important sounds occupying this house: the sound of a spell swishing by and killing someone. Most of the time, when the school holidays came, Andromeda stayed holed up in her room. Which was nothing but a false sense of safety, for any chance and any idea her cousin had, he always seemed to send someone to bring her out of her hidden nook where he could see her and hear every intake of breath that he had been so kind as to let her keep.