Disclaimer: These characters aren't mine, the world isn't mine. If it was then I'd just be writing these for fun and laughing at them. So don't sue me. Nyah.

Title: Breathe

Author: Spellcastre

Pairing: Bellatrix/Andromeda

Warnings: Femmeslash, blackcest, semi-bittersweet-ness. Don't like, don't read.

Summary: Andromeda writes a letter to Bellatrix about how she's never forgotten her.

Dear Bellatrix,

To start things out, I thought it would be an adventure. Going off, marrying a muggle. I thought, 'why not?' I know, pretty foolish of me, since I had you, anyway. But, Bellatrix, understand that I knew you were so respected, and that you still WANTED to be. I couldn't stay. If we kept going, we would have both burst, and both been practically erased from existance by our parents.

I didn't want to do that to you. I couldn't have been the one to do that to you. It would have torn me apart, seeing you fall, though I know you'd still try to stay strong for me. I know you, or, rather, I knew you. I don't know how much you've changed in only four years. (Yes, I've kept count.)

I eventually convinced myself I loved Ted, though. Amazing, isn't it? For a while I actually convinced myself I was absolutely in love with him, that there was no one else in the past and could never be anyone in the future better than him.

Then I got news that you were to be married. Mother didn't send it, no. Why would she? But I have my resources, and I found out. I still wanted to know how you were. I didn't attend your wedding, I'm sure you realised that. Why? I don't even know if you're wondering why, but if you are, it was, again, that I couldn't do that to you. I know that you were most likely forced into it anyway, but if I showed up, what would both of us have done?

It was after I knew you were someone else's that I began to think of you so much more often. Everything I looked at would remind me of a memory of you. Going into the room I was preparing for my first child would remind me of you. Of anything about you. Anything at all.

Until eventually I couldn't even breathe without thinking of a memory. You remember that, right? The vacation for summer had just begun. Everything at school had been hectic, and everything had also become hectic at home. Everyone was arguing, one way or another. Even Narcissa was yelling…remember how odd that seemed? It wasn't like the arguing was a huge deal, but so much had already built up inside, I just had to walk out and sit by the small river in our backyard.

I remember it wasn't long before you followed me and elegantly sat down beside me. I felt you looking at me with those amazing eyes of yours, and I hadn't even turned to look at you yet. When I finally turned my head to see you, it was like you knew what I was feeling. You didn't feel it yourself, that wasn't really possible. But you knew what I was feeling. We had a bond as sisters and as lovers…you always knew how I was feeling.

You suddenly smiled with such a devilish charm I had been so surprised that although you only shoved my shoulders gently, I fell to the grass easily. I remember then you leaned over me, with the devil-look still apparent in your smile, only it was a little more reassuring now. At least it was to me.

"Take a breath," you had said. I was confused, and apparently it shone on my face. You said it again, and so I did. Then you gently pressed your lips to mine, and everything seemed to float away. I was nowhere, yet I was everywhere at the same time. The green would never end, and it would just be us together, with you calming me with your amazing kiss. When you finally pulled away and our eyes connected, the feeling surprisingly stayed. Then you bent down, with your lips now against my ear, and you had whispered these words,

"In times like these, Andromeda, you just have to breathe. Just breathe, and this feeling will be there for you."

I had smiled then, too. My first genuine smile in a while. That was when I knew you'd always be there, no matter what.

Yes, Bellatrix, I remember that. I remember it so vividly every time I need to stop and look out a window and breathe deeply. I breathe, and it's like you're there, caressing my lips gently with yours, giving me a feeling of bliss that I could never feel with anyone else.

This letter has switched topic, hasn't it? Yes…I believe it has. But that does not matter. It's all I can do for now.

I miss you, Bella.

I love you. Still. And forever I will.

Sincerely yours, Andromeda.

Andromeda stared at the letter she had just written. She stared for about two or three minutes, listening to Nymphadora's sleeping breaths as she did so. It seemed like she stared at it for an eternity. Then eventually a sigh escaped her lips, and she folded up the letter before opening a drawer and putting it under everything in there, hidden.

She then whispered to the air of the room that it was now an unfulfilled letter. It shall be forgotten by the writer, and never received by the one it was written for.

Another sigh before she got up from her desk and took her young child in her arms without waking her, walked out of her study and into Nymphadora's room, laying the girl down to sleep in her own bed.

Then she went outside, out of the all-too-quiet-when-Ted-is-at-work house, into the small green backyard. Lying down in the grass, she he stared up at the sky for a short period of time, maybe a minute, before closing her eyes.

And she started to breathe.