If I Had Only Known | Delilah

She had spent much of yesterday cleaning the attic, and Andromeda knew that everything that she had found up there was something to be cherished. She knew that it was special. Because she thought that there was something special about all of that. She didn’t know if she was ever really going to understand her elder sister. If she was ever going to really understand everything that Blair had left her. But Andromeda could understand her mother-in-law. She could understand a woman that had lived entirely for someone else. She had been so young, and so innocent.

When she had purchased this hospital, she had renamed it. In true Black family tradition, it had been named after two of the stars in Ursa Major. If you aligned Merak and Dubhe in the sky they pointed the way to Polaris, the North Star. You could use Dubhe and Merak to guide yourself home, and that was exactly what she had intended for this place. She wanted it to continue to be a guiding light for research, and development, and as the first Lestrange Foundation hospital, she wanted it to be powerful, and strong. Andromeda wanted the world for this place, and she wanted this place for the world.

It had been the Calisto Building that she had renamed after her mother-in-law. She wanted to know her, and she wanted to include her. She had honored Blair with the naming of the Blair Award, and she had felt that this was fitting. Dubhe and Merak might have lain in the constellation Ursa Major, but those that knew the stories knew that Ursa Major had another name as well… Callisto. She had honored her mother-in-law, and she had kept with tradition.

It was Calisto that had drawn her here today. Andromeda had left the boys with Faye to watch over them, and she had come here to Dublin. It was something else entirely to own the hospital. She had run St. Mungo’s for years, and yet, she thought that being the one that had created the Foundation, the one that had pursued the idea, and funded it, and now they owned this hospital, and they had the offices in Dorset, and they were going to research, and study, and change the face of medicine in the magical world… That was what she wanted. That was the legacy that she wanted. And it wasn’t that simple.

Breaking it down like that made it seem simple, but it wasn’t. There was nothing simple about any of this. And still, Andromeda was sure that it was what she wanted. She was sure that she was going to do this, that they were going to do this. The Lestrange Foundation was going to be built upon their family. Her sons had their place there, when they were old enough. She had offered Rodolphus a place there, and he had turned her down. But Rabastan hadn’t. He had joined her, and they were going to make this something that could continue on. Something that the children could be proud of, instead of the legacy that the Lestrange name carried now.

She was trying to change things. And in more ways than just politically. She was trying to change the future that she saw for them. A future of being associated with a name that had long only meant one thing. There could be so much more…

Running a hand through her curls, Andromeda stopped outside of the office marked, Foundation. Pulling the key out of her pocket she fit it in the lock on the door just as someone opened the one across the hall. “Oh!" Honestly, she hadn’t expected there to be anyone else in this building at all on a Sunday morning. “Good morning.” Her smile was warm and genuine, “I’m sorry if I disturbed you, I thought the building would be empty.”