Author's note: So I'm really interested in Sirius and Andromeda's relationships. I wrote this mainly to answer a few questions I had in my head about how alienated they felt, their relationships with their family (especially Bellatrix. The way she behaved around Narcissa suggested familiarity, and I mean aside from the fact that they were sisters, I was really interested in where that came from, and whether it had been there with Andromeda. I was also really curious about what kind of affect Andromeda leaving their home had on Bellatrix, and whether it was this that tipped her utterly and completely past the point of no return. I'd really like to know, if anyone has any suggestions!) and Andromeda/Ted. Whilst I by no means answered all the questions I had in my head about them, I thoroughly enjoyed writing it. I intend to develop it a little more in a second story, I think, but for the moment this is just a one shot. So, as ever, thanks for reading!

I don't own Harry Potter.

Would you noticed if someone you loved more than anything else in the world began to sink further and further into encroaching darkness with every passing second? If every time they smiled at you, they slipped a little further away? If they told you always, whilst plotting ways to make you stay?

Would you ask questions? Questions you didn't want the answers to?

Would you notice, or would you be too absorbed in trying not to see?

Sirius Black was laid on his back, staring languidly at the ceiling. Absently, he wondered whether his parents were asleep yet, and whether he could go and demand some food out of Kreacher. Then he wondered if he even had the energy to pick the lock without a wand.

If it weren't so unbelievably hot...

There was a sudden knock on his window. Jolting out of bed, he pushed his sticky hair out of his eyes, heart pounding. Maybe it was James, or Peter, or even Remus? Maybe this was his escape?

Throwing open the curtains, he was met with the one person he wasn't prepared to see.

"Andy!" He breathed, throwing open the window. She scrambled into his room in a rather unladylike fashion, falling ungracefully on her bum. Letting out a small laugh, she dropped backwards onto her back, so she lay sprawled on his carpet. He frowned.

"Not that I'm not pleased to see you, Andromeda, my darling, but... What are you doing here? In my bedroom? In the middle of the night?"

"It's not the middle of the night, Sirius, you prat! It's barely 10!"

Sirius swore colourfully. His cousin smiled in the dim half light of the bedroom. "I figured you might want some food though. If I haven't squashed it during my rather refined entrance. In the backpack."

Sirius hugged her- or rather, squeezed the air out of her lungs. "You are a goddess among mortals and I- Hang on... Andy, are you wearing muggle clothes?"

She bit her lip. "Uh... Maybe just a little?"

Sirius looked at her. In the moonlight, her expression was unfathomable, dark eyes shining, so pale she was almost luminous, her usually sleek hair tousled. "How did you get here?"

"I climbed. Up the drainpipe. Bella's holding my wand hostage until I tell her what's going on."

"Why don't you start by telling me what's going on? And that wasn't what I asked. How did you get away from the manor?"

Wrapping her arms around herself, shivering in spite of the warmth, her eyes glazed over as she stared out of Sirius's bedroom window and onto the street below. "Maybe this was a bad idea."

He took her by the shoulders, noting as he did so that he was almost as tall as her now, and that the bones in her shoulders were more pronounced than they should be.

"Andy, I can't help me if you don't tell me what's going on."

Her bottom lip trembled. It suddenly struck Sirius that he hadn't seen her cry since she was 6 years old, and Bella and Cissy started fighting over a doll. Bella had never really been a 'dolly' child, and when she had disembodied one that her negligent parents had given her for Christmas, Cissy had been angry that Bella had hurt the doll's feelings. Yet it had been Andy who had cried.

Andy who had cried, because she couldn't stand their fighting.

"I could tell something was up with you, you know. I knew there was something going on with you." Her voice was soft, as if she were reciting from the 'tourjus pur' bible (a real thing, incidentally, written by their Great Aunt Elladora.) and she didn't want any attention drawn to herself for fear that her tutor would notice her utter lack of conviction when it came to the purity of blood and the righteousness of the black family tree.

In the end, it didn't matter. From the way they walked to the friends they made, Sirius and Andy were inherently other. Much as Bellatrix Black might want to pretend otherwise.

"There's nothing going on with me." Sirius hissed, his tone defensive. As if waking from a trance, Andy snorted.

Her hands were gentle, but Sirius flinched nonetheless, as she pealed back his shirt colour to reveal discoloured, badly bruised skin. She laughed softly again. "Nothing."

She looked at him in the darkness, their Black stubbornness flaring and cumulating, for the first time in Sirius's memory, into a confrontation. He'd fought with Bellatrix- so badly the curses had shown in both their blood for weeks. He'd fought with Narcissa- so badly she barely spoke to him anymore. He'd fought with his mother- so badly he was locked in his bedroom for the duration of the holidays. He'd fought with his father- so badly that the bruises now flowering on his skin pained him every time he moved. He'd even fought with Great Uncle Abner.

He'd never fought with Andy.

"I went to a Quidditch match." He conceded, flinging himself backwards onto the bed. "With James and Peter and Remus. That my mother had banned me from attending, on account of the fact that my friend's are 'bloodtraitors'. Apparently, I'm less adapt at sneaking back in than I am at sneaking out. Happy?"

"Not particularly." She said. But she sat delicately onto the end of the bed anyway, looking at him as he sat with his hands behind his head. And he knew she was about to tell him, because she was a Black. She was a Black, and Black's always paid their debts.

So he waited.

Finally, when he thought he could bear it no longer, she whispered in a voice so soft he barely heard it at all. "I kissed him."

"Kissed- who?" Sirius sat bolt upright, all pretence at lazy indifference gone, shock in his eyes.

"You know very well who." Andy said, something steely and disconcertingly fierce in her eyes, in her set of her chin as she tilted it upwards in defiance.

"Tonks?"

"Shh!" Andy hissed urgently, throwing a frantic glance at the door. "No, his owl. Who in the name of Merlin's saggiest Y-fronts else, you git?"

In any other circumstance, Sirius would have been amused. Gone was the quiet, reclusive Andromeda- his perfect cousin, who was a perfect model of a perfect pureblooded young lady, with her pretty airs and mannerisms and sweet smiles. Here was Andy, wringing her hands in panic and cursing like she'd been born to do it, and much more- so much more- real than Miss Andromeda Black ever could be.

"Well, it might as well have been his owl! Merlin knows, Andy, you'd probably get in less trouble for snogging an owl!"

"You think I don't know that?" She hissed, and there was a slight edge of hysteria to her voice. "You think I don't know what could happen? What will happen? I didn't mean for this- any of it! I didn't plan to defy my family, it just sort of... Happened."

"And did you ever think what could happen anyways, Andy? If you go on acting the impeccable pureblood lady, the model daughter, the flawless fiancé?" Andy flinched, but Sirius carried on, his voice only a whisper, but a whisper so powerful he could have been shouting. "I'll tell you what would happen. You'd marry Rabastan, your slightly camp fiancé. You'd be nothing but an ornament in his drawing room- something beautiful and shallow and respectable that he could show off at dinner parties, someone who would turn to her embroidery whenever it came to discussions of politics, and watched as muggleborns were murdered right under your nose. You'd pretend not to care, not to notice, because to have an opinion- much less an opinion opposing your husband- is wrong. You'd bear him a son and heir, and play at happy pureblood family, and fade into the background. You'd live your life by Toujurs bloody pur, and never see Tonks again, and you'd pray- you'd hope against hope, that he was alright, but in your heart you'd know that his obituary could appear in the prophet tmorrow, and all you'd be allowed to do is smile, because he was just another mudblood, not worth the mud on your boots."

Sirius seemed to have exhausted himself. Andy stared at him in the darkness. Aside from knowing looks passed between them at the dinner table, and snippets of shouting matches with his parents, Andy had never seen this side to Sirius. It had always been there- Sirius was volatile in his convictions, blatant in his friend choices, defiant in his differences to the rest of the family. If she was honest with herself, this was why Andy got on with him so much better, whereas Regulas was the only one of two brothers Bella or Cissy would so much look at.

Andy had rebelled in quieter ways. She loved her sisters, and despite the cold indifference of her parents, she'd never outright disobeyed them. Yet between Andy and Sirius, there was a comradary- a mutual understanding that they were wrong. That the morals of purebloods were wrong. That this family was wrong.

Never had it been said out loud. And never with such passion, or conviction.

Sirius deadpanned the ceiling. "You're not cut out for this, Andy. I know you're not."

And because it was true, Andromeda Black did not protest. She simply stretched out beside her cousin, her head on his gangly shoulder, her feet hanging off the end of the bed. "And neither are you."

"No."

"Merlin, Sirius, what happened to us?"

Sirius twisted his head to look at her. Despite the two year age gap between them, for the first time in their relationship, Sirius seemed mature. And Andy seemed like a small child.

She'd been crying, whilst he spoke, and hadn't bothered to wipe away her tears. They glistened on her cheeks, human and real like nothing else. Perhaps it was that, more than anything else, that convinced Andromeda Black that she wasn't a Black. Black's didn't show emotion. Blacks were cold, they were calculating, they were fierce, they were aloof. They did not cry. Tears showed weakness. Weakness was down to bad blood.

"We've grown up." He told her, throwing a glance to the end of the room. "Do you want to tell me the story, Ands? The real story?"

She laughed. "You're a sucker for romance, Black. Besides, there's not much to tell. Ted took me to a club- don't laugh! There's this mad muggle band that his brother's in, and they were playing at a club. Ted goes every summer, and he told me about it, and I was saying how I didn't know what a cover was, much less who the band his brother was covering were. The idea of a club, it sounded really exciting."

"And you're a real rebel." Sirius interjected. Andy laughed.

"And that. I must admit, the idea of doing something so forbidden, so outrageous, appealed to me. Sneaking out and crossing boundary lines, all with my perfectly platatonic muggle friend... So I went with him, and we were dancing, and I was thinking oh Merlin do I like him and I can't have fallen for him and then I thought, why can't I have fallen for him? And it was madness, pure madness, but I kissed him. And that's all there is to it."

"And how was it?"

Andy laughed. "Merlin, Sirius, like any other kiss, I'd imagine. And don't say you've never kissed anyone, because I've caught you a thousand and one times in the third, fourth and fifth floor broom cupboard respectively when on prefect duties."

Sirius laughed. "I meant kissing someone you loved."

The words hung in the air a moment, and Andy tasted them on her tongue. Frowning, she realised she hadn't told Sirius she'd already put a name to this feeling, that it wasn't some mad childhood crush, some hopeless infatuation. She'd experienced those aplenty, all with perfectly respectable boys from her own house, most of whom Bella or her parents had set her up with.

How funny that a muggleborn would be the first one to really seem right.

Merlin.

"It was- Nice." She said lamely, struggling with words. Sirius snorted.

"Right, I forgot. Andromeda Black, rebel, romantic and word smith. Give me strength."

Andy punched him, though there was a half smile on her face. "There wasn't the sound of swelling violins or anything. No lights before my eyes or overwhelming dizziness or great sweeping passion. Just... I felt like everything was right, you know? That, just for one moment, I could be me, and there was no pureblooded rules or frowning society ladies to stop me."

Sirius sighed, and if Andy hadn't known any better, she'd have said he sounded wistful. "No, I don't suppose I would."

"Of all the reasons to get disowned." Andy sighed. "A boy."

"Hmm." Sirius replied. "And I thought Narcissa was the hopeless romantic."

"Oh, sod off. I'll laugh when your turn comes, Sirius Orion Black, you mark my words."

Sirius scoffed. "That's likely."

"Bella's going to kill me." And though there was no trace of fear in her voice, Sirius knew the statement could be perfectly true. Bellatrix Black wasn't one to let her sister go and marry a muggleborn. Even when the sister in question was one of only three people she- if not loved- then could truly treat as an equal.

"Bella." Sirius said, fighting to hide the repulsion in his voice, for Andromeda was defensive of her sisters. "Merlin, Andy. She's not a child anymore."

"If there is one thing I know about Bellatrix Black." Said Andy ominously. "It is that she was never a child. And yet-"

"And yet?" Sirius prompted, nudging her with his shoulder.

"And yet I love her." Andy took a deep breath. "And it's a weird kind of love, Sirius, when she'd rather kill me than let me go, but whatever you say she loves me too. And it terrifies me." Andy was talking as no one but Ted had ever heard her talk, words flowing in a steady stream of consciousness, and as her cousin stared at her, fascinated, he knew that he didn't want to stop her. "It terrifies me that she sees me as hers, that somewhere along the line she acquired me, that's she's so possessive that she'd rather kill me than let me go somewhere she can't follow. It terrifies me that she likes to fiddle with my hair, and put her arm around my waist, and her head on my shoulder, and press her wand into the hollow of my throat. It terrifies me to think of how she flies into a temper, and I don't recognise her anymore, to know that she's not the little girl she once was. There was always darkness inside of her, Sirius, but now... Now it's out in the open, for all to see. Madness claimed her, and infatuation with a slimy git claimed Cissy, and I don't even know my own sisters anymore. I should hate them. But I don't. And it terrifies the living daylights out of me."

"I know, Andy." Sirius told her, for it was all there was to say.

"Did you?" Andy whispered. "I didn't. Until now. I was blind because I wanted to be, and I didn't ask questions, because I didn't want to know the answers. I just wanted them to be happy. Both of them. And now- Now I realise I just want to be happy . And Bella's right about one thing. Part of me will always belong to them, Sirius. And they'll hate me for this. Hate me for the decisions I've made. As well they should, because I hate them for theirs."

"Andy-" Sirius started, then stopped himself. "That's so incredibly cringe worthy, you know? But you're annoying me. Why do you always have to be so right?"

She laughed, and it sounded like Sirius's childhood, but with all of the good and none of the bad. She smelled like it, too- like she'd been lying in sunlight all day long, which was completely ridiculous, since her mother insisted 'sunlight wasn't good for the complexion'.

"Do you remember, when you were about 8, and our parents took us to that countryside manor for the summer? Near the beach?"

Andy laughed. "That was the summer you and Bella had that spat about why the Slytherin emblym was a snake, and you said it should be a lion, since ambition made people likely to eat you alive. Yes, I remember. You had that bruise for months."

Sirius winced, remembering. "Anyways, the best part of the summer was when the five of us went for that hike up to the river. You got really excited when we reached this clearing, because you'd heard somewhere that if you blew on dandelions, and all the seeds came off, you could make a wish. And Cissy, being the utterly refined young lady she was at age 6, told you it was all rubbish. But Bella became really happy for some reason, and picked you both a dandelion each and told you to make a wish. And then she asked you what you wished for. And you said-"

"That I could always be loved." Andromeda laughed. "I remember."

Sirius smiled in the darkness. "Bella told you it was utter rubbish, that there was no such thing as love, and it was a childish dream. That you sounded like Cissy. And you asked her what she wished for. And she said-"

"To have power, and know how to use it." Andromeda intoned, and inspite herself, she shivered. "Which had to be the creepiest thing any 10 year old had ever said, ever. In, like, the history of the world." It was suddenly colder. "Why are you reminding me of this?"

"Oh, hell if I know. It just came to me. Maybe... Maybe all I'm saying is that your wish came true. And so did hers."

Andy laughed. "It was just a kiss, Sirius. Hardly a proclamation of undying love."

Sirius laughed. "I suppose that's about right. You got a kiss, which is half a proclaimation of undying love when you consider how long you've known Tonks. And- Bella has a great deal of power, and absolutely no idea how to use it."

Andromeda hesitated. "You know, I never thought defying my family would be like this. When it came down to it, I never thought it would. And I know everything you've said is right. I know they've got completely screwed up moral compasses, but... I'm torn. I'm torn, because my heart's Ted's for the taking, but my soul belongs to my sisters, and it always will."

"Merlin, Andy." Sirius breathed, trying to stifle his laughter so as not to wake his mother. "That has to be the cheesiest thing you've ever said."

And even as she laughed, part of his cousin made sense to Sirius now, in a way it never had. Because Andy might have the right morals, she might not believe in purity of blood, and she may disagree with the Dark Lord on every count. But in her own way, it wasn't her own ethics that made her strong, or that made her angry. It was love. It was a boy. And it made her beautiful.

She loved like Narcissa, and she was passionate like Bella. But there was something else about her, too. Something that made her entirely her own. Something that made her different.

And different wasn't a bad thing.

Andy didn't tell her family straight away. It would be another year before she would finally leave Black Manor for good, off to marry 'the mudblood', leaving two broken sisters in her wake. And taking with her a broken heart.

But the night she crawled back out of his window was the night Sirius Black understood his family, and understood himself. It was the night he packed his bags for the Potters.

And he never looked back.