The Story | Mr. Cole

When she had bought the team, she had done it with every intention of giving it to him for Father’s Day. She thought that he would like it, and he had seemed to. He had seemed to think that it was going to be something for them all to do together. And so far, it had been. The boys were with their father this weekend, which always bothered her a little bit, but having Zoë home helped. Andromeda hadn’t realized just how much they had needed a child in the house until the girl had arrived yesterday.

Andromeda had been on the patio when she had seen them both go racing in the house to find her mother, and she didn’t think that she could have been happier. At least until this morning. When she had gotten to her office in London, and she had seen the folder sitting on her desk. He had signed them. She was officially divorced. Which meant that she was no longer The Lady Lestrange. But that didn’t particularly matter. She hadn’t been The Lady Lestrange for weeks now.

She knew when that feeling had stopped. Andromeda was well aware of exactly when she had decided that she had to tell him. That she couldn’t lie to him, that she couldn’t be in love with his brother, and try and sleep in his bed. It would never have worked. It hadn’t worked. She knew that it hadn’t. Sleeping in the nursery had been okay. But the night that she had gone back to his bed, she had known. Andromeda thought that he had to have too. She couldn’t help it.

There was just something about being there that hadn’t felt right. Something about being there that had been wrong, and she hadn’t said no. She hadn’t said anything, but she should have. And she knew that she should have. Getting advice from her sister was not something that the witch did all that often, but she had heeded Narcissa’s words that next night. She had listened to what she had said, and she had gone to find Rabastan. And she had cried. And she had apologized. And they had both had too much to drink. Which had been a mistake.

That much was for certain now. That it had been a mistake. But she thought that they were still okay. They were all going to be okay. Keeping secrets though… It was not something that she wanted to do in this family. Their new family. Salazar she was proud of this family, and she laughed as Zoë linked her slim arm through her own and they headed into the pitch a little way ahead of where Emmaline and Rabastan were talking quietly behind them. Apparation had its drawbacks, and she certainly felt them as they headed into the pitch, but Zoë was tugging her forward.

She didn’t know enough about quidditch to really follow everything that Zoë was chatting about, but she was trying to keep up as best as she could. If she was going to have her name on the owners’ line of this team, the oldest team in Quidditch, then she was going to have to step it up. Between Rabastan and Zoë she was sure that she would learn soon enough. And if she were being honest, she was glad that they had one another to talk to about it. Mallory too, if what Emmaline had said the other day rang true.

Still, she was happy. And Andromeda knew that she would have been a whole lot happier with Arcturus on her hip, and Roarke on Rab’s, but they would manage. And she knew that they were going to get better at all of this. They were going to get better at being a family. Zoë ran off to the edge of the railing, and leaned over as far as she could, nearly giving Andromeda a heart attack, and causing her to glance back the way that they had come, looking for Emmaline. “Zoë Kingston. Get down.”

There was no mistaking that tone of voice, no matter who it came from, and the girl hopped down nearly as fast as she had climbed up there. Her long hair blowing about her as a breeze whipped through the empty stadium. The team hadn’t played last week, their first match of the regular season was tomorrow. And she was pleased to see that the they were all here, and ready to go. Working with Oliver Wood was going to be an interesting challenge. But it wasn’t Wood that she was most curious about. She had already met him many times over the years. It was their Captain that she wanted to see.

Nodding when Zoë said that she was going to find her mum, Andromeda let one hand settle on her abdomen, and the other fall to the railing she had just admonished Zoë for climbing. She watched the faces come out of the locker room, nodding to them in response to their hellos. When she spotted Jaxon Cole, she stepped forward again and cleared her throat lightly, “Mr. Cole?”