Of course they had been good. Given the amount of time and effort Andromeda had put into studying for the exams, she must have done well. Her friends had called her crazy. Who cared what your NEWTS were as long as you married a rich husband. None of her friends had seen their lives as more than social teas and children. Brilliant beautiful girls turned into nothing more than brood mares.
Bloodlines pure. Andromeda knew that comment was directed at her and the little indiscretions that had occurred throughout her seventh year. Oh well, it was pointless. Even if Ted were alive today, she had no idea one way or another, Andromeda was in no position to conduct herself in the way she had fantasized. So instead she focuesed her attentions on Bella's next thought.
"It would nice to see the Manor again." Lestrange Manor sounded much better than the pub she had stayed in the night before. It was not bad per say, just something she was not used to. Andromeda had been jumping at every noise. The fact that it was not her bed did not help matters. Every year she had gone to Hogwarts she had always slept poorly the first couple of nights.
"I know next to nothing." A thought rather disconcerting for someone who could have done very well in Ravenclaw if it hadn't been for the fact that Blacks had been in Slytherin for generations up until cousin Sirius had been sorted into Gryffindor.
"I found myself in Hogwarts' Library, the Potions section. I recognized it, though there were unfamiliar titles which aroused my curiousity, but I forced myself to leave them as I continued out of the stacks and Library into the halls." Andromeda began to toy with the letter in her hand, running her fingertips along the creases.
"It was chaos. So many people around, shouting and going this way and that. It wasn't hard to slip away and out through the gates. I tried going home but I couldn't get into the house. I tried elsewhere too, with similar results. I ended up at the Leaky Cauldron."
Andromeda looked up at her sister, trying to remember as many details about the night before as possible. "The owner, I assume it was the owner as she was the only one there and she acted like she owned the place, said she knew Mother and Father, that she went to school with them. Eileen Prince. I think she might have been like... us. For she didn't look that much older than you."
The young woman reached out to trace her sister's jawline. "You said earlier you must seem old to me, but frankly, you're still lovely." Indeed, Bella and Cissa had all the beauty, while Andromeda had her nose in the book.