Delphinium || Harry Potter [SPORADIC]

xii. lathyrus

"No story ever ends, does it?
It just leads into others."
• Rick Riordan •

LATHYRUS / SWEET PEA
gratitude, departure, blissful pleasure, goodbyes

"You'll be okay, Andy... It's over. It's all over."

Harry's voice had permeated through the hazy blackness blanketing Andromache's mind just before she fell unconscious—so, when she wakes up, the first thing on her mind is, 'I don't think it's really over.'

It's the afternoon, the day after their expedition into the Underground Chambers when the blue eyes of Andromache Granger flutter open.

"Harry, do you know why Professor Quirrell couldn't bear to have you touch him?"

The familiar voice of Professor Dumbledore—Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry—is the first thing a conscious-Andromache hears as she blinks at the bright light assaulting her eyes.

She presumes Harry shakes his head as a response when Dumbledore explains, "It was because of your mother. She sacrificed herself for you, and that kind of act leaves a mark. No, no, this kind of mark cannot be seen."—Andromache guesses Harry had touched his scar—"It lives in your very skin."

"What is it?" Harry asks, and Andromache pulls herself to a seated position, finally making the two wizards in the room aware that she is awake.

"It's love, Harry," Andromache states, her voice slightly rasped and scratchy, "The sacrifice of giving her life willingly, out of deep and pure love, so that you could live—to have been loved that deeply, even though the person who loved is gone, will give some protection forever."

"I couldn't have said it better myself, Miss Granger," Dumbledore remarks with twinkling eyes and a small smile, "Good afternoon. I do hope you are feeling quite well."

Andromache massages her bruised neck as she nods, "Quite alright, Professor Dumbledore. Stop looking at me like that, Harry—I'm fine, really. How are you?"

"How am I?" Harry repeats incredulously, "Andy, you took the brunt of it for me—your neck is bruised, you were knocked unconscious, you watched– Are you actually alright? Professor Dumbledore told us about Quirrell threatening to hurt us so that you would cooperate with him, and how Sn– Professor Snape helped and—"

"Alright, Harry," Dumbledore intervenes, cutting off the boy's rant, "Perhaps it would be best to wait until Andromache is feeling a bit better. Until then, why don't you two indulge in the tokens from your admirers."

The girl scrunches her nose in confusion before noticing the plethora of cards and candy sitting beside both of their beds, "Ooh—Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. And Chocolate Frogs! There's even Sugar Quills in here! Whoever got me those knows me well."