A/N: This is for et-tu-lj, who welcomed me to the world of fanfic writing with open arms. I sincerely hope you enjoy my Andromeda!
(Also, please, let me know if you spot any errors; this is unbeta'd!)
You had two sisters once, and you were all shades of difference. You were the brunette with the friendly smile. Bella had black hair and blacker eyes. Cissy was as blonde and pure as the birds are free. You were all so different, and yet even as the middle child you'd watch your sisters, prim and proper in pale periwinkle robes, sit together and play with their toy wands. You'd ask them why they wouldn't tumble with you, run through the fields and laugh with you, and they'd give you that look that made your cheeks burn and tell you it was dirty.
You fell in love, didn't you? His name was Ted, and he was sweet and kind and funny and he had the strangest quirks, like how he insisted on rubbing both his elbows if you touched off one when you reached for his arm, or how he sometimes faltered when walking down stairs because he concentrated so hard on keeping his feet in a rhythm that he forgot how to move them. Yes, he was a strange boy, an adorable boy, and you felt your heart squeeze whenever he was near. You met him in hidden classrooms because his blood was fresher, newer than yours.
There, you whispered burning confessions as if he were a priest. There was nothing holy or sacred about the way he kissed you though, or the words that tripped from his tongue when he asked you to escape with him, or the way his fingers knew the map of your body better than your own eyes.
When they found out about him, they screamed and raged and Cissy begged, "Why?" with her eyes. Bella stung you with her words and with her wand and told you to choose. So you chose him, because there was nothing in your life that felt as right as Ted.
You had no sisters then, and sometimes you found yourself staring at old pictures and watching your hair whip around in so many shades of grey as you laughed together, and you couldn't help but whisper your regrets to yourself. But then your daughter came along, and she brought all the colour back into your life, didn't she? She was beautiful and perfect and "Nymphadora," you called her, because even though your family had disowned you, you never really stopped being a Black.
She grew and she grew and she was so bright, so pretty, so prefect. You looked into her eyes and you knew, you knew, that the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black was never your home. You were meant to be free.
(And still something in your chest mourned the sisters you once had, the best friends you once told secrets to and shared stories with, the girls with the dark eyes and the high standards that made you feel like a faulty model of a perfect Pureblood.)
When they tell you that she's gone, your beautiful Nymphadora with her fuchsia hair and clumsy feet, you sink to your knees with her son in your arms. And they tell you more, don't they, but the words are far away and your own sobs are painful and dark. You hear "...next to Remus..." and "...Creevey was so young." and "Fenrir got her." butyour head snaps up when you hear "Bellatrix."
Your throat is dry when you croak out your question, and when Kingsley nods yes, she did, your sister killed your daughter, you stand quietly, hand him Teddy and begin to scream and cry and rage and break things. You don't use your wand because Ted once told you that emotions were more easily worked out "the Muggle way". You collapse with a broken china plate in your hands and barely feel the shattered glass and wooden splinters as they dig into your thighs. Kingsley puts Teddy in his crib and drops to the floor beside you. He holds you until the sun comes up. Teddy sleeps through the night and you cry and wonder if you've ever even known what it is to have had a sister.
Harry tells you that she saved him. Cissy. She saved him from Voldemort and so, really, by proxy, she ended the war. You feel the thrum of your heart singing hopefully and you send her an owl with three words and no lies.
"Thank you, sister."
She doesn't owl back. She turns up in your fireplace with tearstains on her cheeks and an apology on her lips. You hold her and she reminds you so much of before that you're crying again and she's telling you she's sorry, so sorry. Suddenly you feel a lot less alone.
From that moment on she is yours again and you drink tea together in the mornings and chat idly about the news, or your friends, or her son, and you never bring up Bella or the war or the past. It takes you months to bring up Nymphadora and Ted, but when you do, she beams and nods and listens to your stories and wipes the tears from your chin.
You have one sister, and you've never ever had two.
(Your earliest memories of Bella are fading more and more each day, almost completely replaced by the feral grin that you know was the last thing your daughter ever saw.)
You have one sister. Just one.
(And it hurts when you see old photographs and the black haired girl with the blackened heart builds a wall between the two sisters that could have saved her.)
You have a sister.
(And her hair is as golden as the hope your grandson brings you when he smiles his mother's smile and laughs his father's laugh.)