Pure
She has never told anyone, but she believes her family right about some things.
Not the killing. That has always been wrong. And all their talk of Half-bloods and Mudbloods and blood traitors—foolishness. A wizard is a wizard.
But compared to actual Muggles? She fully believes that wizards are better.
No matter how many times she tries to tell herself she's wrong, that all humans are equal, she can't. She can't help but think that wizards are superior to Muggles. Even now, so many years after she abandoned her family and their ways, she still cannot let go.
She sighs and looks out the kitchen window. There is a small, fair-skinned child on her front lawn, chasing a ball that is lazily rolling away. Bright blue hair falls in front of his eyes as he runs, and he brushes it back impatiently. He catches up to the ball and grabs it, laughing.
They had the right idea, she thinks, still watching the child. But they went about it in all the wrong ways. She always dreamed of a world where everyone thought like her, where wizards were accepted as being the superior race but still lived peacefully among Muggles, treating them kindly and fairly.
Now she is too old, too mature, too experienced to entertain such fantasies. She knows that there are few people who see things the way she does. In fact, she doesn't know if any exist at all. Maybe she's the only one. But she's right, she has to be right. There are many great people in the world, people revered and respected, and they do not kill those beneath them. Why can't her family have been like that?
She remembers the first time she realized that she disapproved of something her parents believed. She was on the sofa in the sitting room, massaging her mother's back. Narcissa was outside, playing in the snow; every so often, a faint shriek of delight floated into the house. Her father, a tall, weedy sort of man, was reclining on an armchair across from her, his long feet resting upon a small, slightly frayed ottoman. He had a newspaper in one hand and a glass of mead in the other, the latter emitting a faint, unusual odor which Andromeda couldn't quite figure out if she liked. His eyes scanned the newspaper from beneath his thin spectacles, and she saw approval in them as he read.
"The Dark Lord has done it again," he commented, looking up at his wife. "Got rid of some Muggle scum not far from here. Bellatrix would have been pleased if she were here. So close to home!"
Druella smiled, her even white teeth glittering beautifully in the dimly lit room. "Oh, yes, Bella would have loved it indeed. It's a shame that it happened now, when she's at Hogwarts. Did you know that she wants to join him already?"
Her father laughed and swirled his drink with a thin finger. "Oh, what shall we do with Bellatrix? She has such dreams, and she's barely started school!" He took a long swig of his drink and closed his eyes, savoring it.
Andromeda felt uneasy. Her hands, which had until now been ferociously rubbing her mother's back, slowed and then stilled. "Mother," she said tentatively, "Mother, what do you think of the—the Dark Lord?"
Her mother still had her back to her daughter, but Andromeda could hear the frown in her voice. "You know what we think, Andromeda. He's got the right idea, he has. Do you disagree?"
It was a dangerous question, and Andromeda tried her best to answer it confidently. "Of course not, Mother! I know he's got the right idea. But . . . well, why does he kill people? How can killing be right?"
Now Druella turned around on the couch to face her daughter, her brilliant blue eyes glinting—but whether in anger or excitement, Andromeda couldn't tell. The rest of her expression, too, was inscrutable.
"Andromeda, my child, wizards are superior to Muggles. It is not right to kill one's equals. But killing one's inferiors is the way of the world. The Dark Lord, however, is doing more than just following the nature of things. He is doing his best to rid the world of impurities. And that is a noble cause indeed."
Andromeda disagreed with her, but even though she had not yet seen eleven years, she knew better than to openly contradict her mother. Still, she could not be completely quiet. "But, Mother," she ventured, "are Muggles really impure?"
Her mother sighed. "Yes, dear, they are. Magic is purity. Magic is virtue. Magic is power. Wizards must prevail, or the world will only decline. And so the Dark Lord is absolutely just in his actions."
Cygnus, who had been watching silently from his armchair, grunted in approval. "Your mother is absolutely right, Andromeda. You just need to grow up a little and you'll see it for yourself." He tried to take another drink; realizing that he had already finished it, he swore under his breath and promptly went back to his newspaper.
Andromeda was not pleased. But she nodded and smiled as if she was satisfied, and when Druella turned around once more, her hands resumed their kneading. Still, in the back of her head, she had a nagging feeling that her parents were very, very wrong.
It was the first time that she felt anything towards them that was remotely akin to hatred.
Now, she has more than enough hatred for them, much more than any woman should ever have to feel for her parents. She hates them for getting involved in dark magic. She hates them for encouraging Bellatrix when she should have been discouraged. She hates them for turning Narcissa, sweet little Narcissa, into the heartless, conceited person she is now. She hates them for trying to make her like that, too.
Sometimes, she hates them for just bringing her into this world.
Outside, Teddy Lupin flings his ball as far as he can, and it lands in the garden. He trambles across the flowerbeds and retrieves the ball from among the andromedas. Andromedas, for her. She remembers when Ted planted the shrubs; it seems like a lifetime ago. She had been so happy then, so pleased and touched. The Dark Lord had come back to power, and people were dying, but she felt like it could never affect her and Ted.
Now he's gone, and all she has left are memories, photographs, and the small child outside who bears his name. Even now, years later, her heart aches at the thought of her deceased husband. She wishes she could hold him again, one last time just to let him know how much she loves him. She would tell him whatever came to her mind, and it wouldn't matter whether it was important or not.
There was only one thing she would never tell him, and that was what she thought of Muggles—what she thought of his parents.
"Magic is purity. Magic is virtue. Magic is power." Her mother's words echo in her head, words that she knows she can never contradict truthfully.
Oh, her family thought she had rebelled wholeheartedly, like her cousin Sirius, completely dismissing all of their principles. She remembers how they blasted her off the Black family tree for marrying "Muggle" Ted Tonks. Did they have any idea that she could never have married a real Muggle? Andromeda knows that she would be too ashamed of herself to marry someone she thought beneath her.
She doubts that anyone on the other side has guessed this about her, either. Even though she was a Slytherin and still is a Slytherin at heart, they all still believe that she switched over completely.
Andromeda hears a door open, and her grandson enters the room. She turns and smiles at him. She loves him. She loves them all. And she knows that she can never, ever tell them her secret, because she loves them too much, and it would hurt them. As difficult as it will be to keep it to herself, she must carry it with her to the grave.
Because she knows that the world she wants is something that can never be.