They come and find her the next morning. Not Aurors—Order members. She knows, of course, knows as soon as she sees the weary look in their eyes—how many hearts have they had to break today?—but still she invites them in for a cup of tea, asks them pleasantly what their business is today, pretends not to notice as their eyes linger on the sleeping baby in her arms with sorrow.
She knows, but it still hurts when they say it. Mrs. Tonks, your daughter and son-in-law were killed last night.
She merely inclines her head, accepts the news, and thanks them for coming in person. It is not until they leave that she sits down and stares at the wall. The house seems very large, suddenly, and Andromeda is conscious of the silence, compressing her ears and filling her brain. She realizes, suddenly, that she will never hear Dora's bright, clumping footsteps, or Remus's soft treads, that she will never come home to Ted's bright face. She sits there for a long time, an old woman surrounded by the ghosts of those who have died too young, until Teddy's wail breaks though the silence.
She stares at his face as she rocks him to sleep, the heart-shaped face and high cheekbones so like Dora's, and wonders how he can sleep so calmly, so unaware he has lost his parents. Wonders how she will tell him, one day, she watched as his mother stepped into the Floo, casting one last glance at her sleeping child, and died fighting. She wonders if he will hate them, for leaving him with nothing but stories of faceless heroes, and pushes down the thought, this is what we fought for? And hunched over a sleeping child, with the first rays of dawn trickling through the window, Andromeda cries.
She goes to Hogwarts a few hours later, Teddy pressed against her chest. The halls are crumbled, sun weakly filtering through the broken windows. The Great Hall is empty save for the rows of bodies, wrapped in white cloth. Nameless, faceless casualties. The cost of war. Someone—she does not know who—guides her to two bundles, gently unmasking the faces, pale and cold and still. She kneels on the cold stone and stares at them, brain unwillingly memorizing their faces, the way they looked with all the expression and life ripped out of them. She is unaware of the time passing until she feels a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"Narcissa." Her sister is pale, as always, silver hair falling long past her shoulders, and her grey eyes are unreadable as she kneels beside Andromeda, staring at the bodies that she surely has no regret for. Andromeda should scream, should push her away, because this is her child, and this is her son, and what right does Narcissa have to stand here, to look mournful when it is Andromeda who has lost everything, everything?
"I am sorry for your loss. I—I wish I would have gotten to know her." Narcissa is staring at Dora, her grey eyes—Black eyes—shadowed with sorrow, though Andromeda cannot tell what it is for.
She doesn't say anything, still, just stares at the faces, Teddy clutched in her arms, unaware he is seeing his parents for the last time.
"May I hold him?" Narcissa asks, and Andromeda lets her, her hands feeling very empty without the weight she has been holding all day. She lets them drop to her side, watching as Narcissa smiles softly, strokes Teddy's hair. Narcissa has always loved babies. A gasp, then, as Teddy's hair shifts to pale silver, eyes to Black grey. "He's—"
"A Metamorphagus, yes. Dora was as well."
"Oh, that's—"
"Why are you here, Narcissa?" Andromeda asks coldly, watches as her sister's smile drops, shoulders stiffen.
"Bella is dead," Narcissa whispers. For a moment, Andromeda truly feels nothing, nothing except a sort of pain deep in her stomach, stabbing with a ferocity she didn't know was possible. She closes her eyes, suddenly feeling very fragile.
"Do you hate her?" Narcissa asks. She sounds like a small child, then—"Andy, are you mad at Bella?"
"No," Andromeda says, and hates herself for it. She should hate Bella, wild dark Bella, but she can't, can't bring herself to ignore the sharp pain in her heart and the voice in her head that whispered she is your sister, can't escape her blood, no matter how much she tries. "No," she whispers, "I wish I could."
They sit together in silence, two middle-aged women amidst a hall of bodies, until the sun shines high in the windows and Narcissa starts, rising to her feet. "Lucius will be expecting me," she says calmly.
"Of course." Andromeda says, and turns, but not before Narcissa turns and clasps Andromeda's hand in hers, pressing something small and cool into it. A ring, jet and diamond. Dimly, she remembers seeing it glinting on her aunt's finger. For the eldest Black sister.
"Bella's ring." she explains quickly. "I—She loved you, Andromeda, I think. If she ever loved, it was you."
Andromeda merely nods, watches as Narcissa glides away, back to her husband and son, feeling the weight of the ring in her hand, foreign and uncomfortable. She almost throws it out a window, but instead she tucks it into her robes. Perhaps, one day, she will show it to Teddy, but for now, she keeps it there, watching as her only sister fades into a blur on the horizon.
She is your sister, the voice in her head speaks again.
Andromeda Black turns and walks away, head high. It is a new day, after all, and life goes on.
A/N: Yay, Andromeda. Not sure about the ending, though—I might change it later.
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