Author's Note: Enjoy!

Disclaimer: The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.

Warnings: Grief; family estrangement

Stacked with: MC4A; Shipping War; Ornate Oscillating Obelisks

Individual Challenge(s): Cracked Facade; Rainbow Focus; Slytherin MC (x2); Bow Before the Blacks (Y); Tissue Warning; Golden Times; Old Shoes; Themes and Things A (Family); Themes and Things B (Loss); Advice From the Mug; Tiny Terror; Rian-Russo Inversion; True Colours; In a Flash

Representation(s): NA

Bonus challenge(s): NA

Tertiary bonus challenge: Olivine

Word Count: 686

Shipping Wars

Ship (Team): Andromeda Black Tonks/Ted Tonks (Pure Traitors)

List (Prompt): Summer Medium 1 (Death/dying)

Different Lullabies

It was many, many years until Narcissa saw her sister again—and she heard her first. When she looked up from the ground and looked around Diagon Alley, there was Andromeda sitting outside of one of many coffee shops, singing a lullaby she hadn't heard in a really long time.

Narcissa approached. They'd both aged, of course, but Andromeda looked worse for wear. Her hair was still long and beautiful, just gray, and there were lines around her eyes and lips that were new. She had a pram with her, which she rocked gently. She looked tired and her eyes looked faraway, and not in the composed way that they'd been raised to hold themselves. Narcissa watched her for some time before she approached.

Once the song was over, Narcissa called her name.

Andromeda bounced to her feet and drew her wand. Narcissa stumbled back.

"Don't come any closer. Please, if you can, leave."

"I don't want trouble," Narcissa said softly. Her hands had flown up, reactionarily.

"I hope you understand why that is difficult for me to believe," Andromeda said evenly.

"I know that it was Bella who killed your daughter," Narcissa said quietly.

To be more precise; Bella had told her. As soon as they'd touched bases in the Forbidden Forest, during the truce. She even had gloated about it. The Death Eaters had welcomed her as a hero for striking down not just an Auror but a mixed-blood. When Dolohov had brought back news that her husband had been killed too, the celebration had even spiked.

"I'm so sorry, Andromeda," Narcissa said quietly. "I… I nearly lost my son that night, and I can't imagine."

"No, you cannot," Andromeda said. "Narcissa, I am very tired and we are both grown-ups now. We have both made our choices. I don't have… the energy…"

Andromeda closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The baby in the pram started to become agitated again. Andromeda gave Narcissa one last suspicious look before she tucked her wand into a pocket and scooped up the child who, bizarrely enough, had violet hair.

"He's beautiful," Narcissa said. "You still sing that same song."

"I do," Andromeda said. "It's a good song."

"I sang it to Draco, sometimes," Narcissa said.

"Mmm," Andromeda said quietly, focusing for a second on readjusting the baby's clothes. Narcissa saw that she was still wearing her wedding ring—a simple golden ring with a pearl on it. She knew that the brother-in-law she'd never met had been killed late in Winter, had seen him when she was helping process paperwork.

"It was the song you sang to me the night before you left. I didn't know that it was also a goodbye," Narcissa said quietly.

Andromeda sat down again, cradling the baby who seemed to calm down.

"I was leaving for a better life," Andromeda said. "I was leaving for love, I was leaving for family, I was leaving to try and live a life far away from the evil and hate that… that caught up to me in the end."

Narcissa chewed her lip.

"It's over now," Narcissa said quietly. "I honestly believe it this time."

"Not for me," Andromeda said. "Narcissa, why are you here?"

"I hadn't seen you in years," she said quietly.

"And there's a very good reason for that," Andromeda said. Her voice had hardened now. "When we were children and when I was your big sister, our hands were tied and we had to do what we could to stay alive. I had hoped that you would escape our world as well, but you simmered in it. We aren't children anymore, Narcissa. You made your grown-up choices and they made the world we're in now. The world where I am a widow, a mother without children, and grandmother to an orphan.I don't know how much you can ask from me as a big sister anymore."

"I didn't grow that much," Narcissa said.

"No," Andromeda said. "No, I suppose you didn't."

The baby started crying.

"You should go back to your husband and child," Andromeda said pointedly.

Narcissa turned and walked.