Disclaimer: I do not own anything of Harry Potter. The intellectual property belongs solely to J.K. Rowling and I am merely borrowing her universe for amusement.
A/N: Angst is easy, humor is difficult.
For her.
Two words was all that was on the note and Andromeda Tonks crumpled it in her hand, curled it tight in her fist in outrage. No signature was needed to tell her by whose hand, that elegant script was written. There were only three people she knew of that had handwriting like that, and one of them was dead.
How dare she, Andromeda thought. After all these years of silence, and when the wounds were still fresh, Narcissa still came to her elder sister, to ask of the impossible.
Andromeda crumpled the paper and threw it into the banked fire of the hearth. She watched it burn to ashes. The owl was still awaiting her reply, blinking large luminous eyes in the semi-darkness of the smoky firelight. Andromeda summoned her quill and a piece of parchment. Her hand paused over the blank paper.
No, because she doesn't deserve it. She took away my all- she wanted to write, but her hand refused to listen to the commands of her mind. In the end, she tied a piece of blank parchment to the owl's leg and sent it on its way. Afterwards, when she watched the owl disappear into the darkness, she felt the bone weary weight of the years.
Rocking Teddy Lupin softly, methodically, she stared out the window into the blackness of the night and let her mind wander to nothing, enclosing herself in the gauzy feeling of loneliness and sorrow.
OooOooO
Weeks earlier:
Andromeda sat in the Great Hall of Hogwarts, like everyone else, next to her dead. At some point she found herself holding her daughter's cooling hand. Tears didn't come easily to her- a daughter of the House of Black never cries when there are people watching.
Distantly, she felt annoyance as her glance fell on the Weasley family. They tore their hair and clothes and wept over a still body.
At least they still had theirs- Andromeda thought, as she counted the number of remaining red heads, too numbed to feel bitterness. I have none.
A heavy weight squirmed in the sling on her back. Well one, she silently amended. There was still one who might weep over Andromeda Tonks, and make sure her body was tended to, with dignity as she would tend to her own bodies, her dead.
The Aurors went around collecting names and numbers- the body count squad.
"Two?" they asked her. Parchment ready and waiting for her answer.
Oh how they reduced her tragedy to numbers, too small for their significance. A million times of desolation, Andromeda wanted to say. An infinity, all. Instead, she nodded.
"These are my own," she answered and was proud of the steadiness of her voice.
She waited for them to move on, to leave her with her grief, but they paused and looked to the side, uncomfortably.
"What about her," one of the younger Aurors spat, nodding to Bellatrix's prone body, several feet away, unnatural to Andromeda's eyes in its complete stillness. Bellatrix, alive, even when still, radiated vitality, movement.
Andromeda shrugged. The foggy numbness held her in its cottony grip. She supposed the anger might come later.
"She's not mine," she answered. The eyes of the Aurors flickered to Bellatrix, and then to her. Back and forth, noting, Andromeda was sure, the similarity of features. Andromeda was ever always in the stamp and likeness of Bella, only softer, blurred around the edges.
"Is there next of kin, that would claim her?" asked another Auror. Unclaimed bodies go in unmarked graves, an undignified ending of their lineage, as if they never existed. Andromeda wondered whether they would rather pile the bodies of Death Eaters together and burn them all and be done with it. By the looks of some of them, they might, and salt the earth afterwards. She might even join them.
Andromeda sighed, softly, looking across the hall, where her sister and her family huddled. Narcissa still had all her's too.
"Narcissa Black, Malfoy. Ask her, she might." Now, leave me be, she wanted to add, but they had already marked their names and numbers and moved on to the next.
OooOooO
Andromeda tousled Teddy's hair gently. He had just had his bath and it was nap time after such an ordeal. His soft downy hair was slowly changing colors from a magenta to soft blue hue, and she knew from experience that it meant he was getting tired. About time, too. He looked so much like Nymphadora at that age it made her heart ache painfully with the emptiness of loss.
Just as he fell asleep, an owl landed outside the windowsill of her heavily warded house and tapped on the glass. Teddy didn't even rouse, as she got up and let the thing in.
For me.
Her hands shook as she held the note and she pulled in a ragged breath. She summoned her quill and parchment, so hastily; she nearly knocked over the inkwell.
Her hand paused over the paper. No, not for you either- she wrote, but dripped a spot of ink at the end when she pressed too hard. The Blacks (with the sole exception of Sirius) prided themselves on their excellent penmanship. Pride and habit dictated that the ruined note be crumpled and re-written anew. This time, perfectly.
By the time Andromeda summoned a new piece of paper, she was so tired, too deflated really, to do anything but tie the blank parchment on the owl's outstretched leg and send it on.
OooOooO
Teddy Lupin had a set of lungs that he was now putting to good use. He was hungry and he wanted to be fed, posthaste.
"Whisht, whisht, in a minute, my dear," Andromeda soothed, using nonsense words her mother used for her and she in turn used to comfort her own daughter.
It had been a long time since she had used a spell to heat a bottle and forgot to dial down the intensity. She had barely saved herself from combusting the bottle all together and now she was waiting for the formula to cool down. Andromeda considered using a freezing charm, but thought better of it. Best to wait it out.
She knew the owl was there before it even landed outside her windowsill. In fact, she had expected it. If Narcissa was anything like she remembered, she was surprisingly tenacious. And stubborn, of course, but then again, that was a family trait they all had in spades.
Andromeda balanced Teddy on her knee and struggled to get the message untied from the owl's leg.
For us. Please.
The message dropped from Andromeda's nerveless fingers as she let out a small cry and clutched Teddy close. Startled he dropped his bottle and began wailing. Part of Andromeda wanted to wail right along with him.
Instead, she composed herself, reaching deep into that Black reserve and bent to retrieve the bottle. After Teddy was settled, and sleepy, she summoned her ink, quill, and parchment once more.
Her hand hovered over the parchment, its blankness mocked her. Yes or no? Andromeda wavered and she picked up her quill only to set it down again. She did this several times.
For us then- she finally penned, and sent it off with the owl.
I might come to regret this, Andromeda thought. Maybe.
OooOooO
Andromeda left the care of Teddy in the capable hands of the Weasley matriarch, and swung her traveling cloak around her shoulders before Apparating out to the family cemetery.
No matter that she was blasted off the family tree, this place recognized her as a daughter of the blood. It would have recognized Nymphadora too, if she had ever been brought here, and the irony of that made her smile.
Dora, if she had been pureblood would have been hailed as a perfect exemplum of the House of Black, with her innate shapeshifting talent. And so, with that in mind, Andromeda buried her here, along with Ted, and Remus.
There was a beautiful symmetry to them all resting now, side by side, with those who would have denied them a place among them. The living would have been scandalized at even the thought of the errant Blood Traitor burying her Muggle husband, half-blood daughter, and werewolf son-in-law here with the rest of them.
But among the dead, there was no judgment. The ancestors and family that would have denied Nymphadora a spot in the family plot could no longer voice their opinion. There was no one left, at least no one older than Andromeda.
Andromeda walked among the graves, weaving back and forth between the narrow lanes. The grass was yellowed and dead by neglect, crunching underfoot. It had been ages since anyone tended to it. It was still early morning and the lingering mist trailed an inch thick over the ground. Her long black travelling cloak made swirls and eddies in it as she passed by.
Here and there, she recognized the names of those who were once near and dear to her. She took her time, strolling leisurely. The dead can wait, after all. Andromeda made a note to herself to make a headstone for Sirius some day. His body could not be recovered, as he had fallen through the veil, and if he were given a voice, she knew he would not have wanted any remembrance anyway, preferring the life and death of a rogue. He was more thoroughly divorced from the family than she was.
Despite knowing what he would have said about his headstone in the family cemetery, Andromeda made up her mind. It would not be for him as much as it would for her. He was, after all, her favorite cousin.
Finally, Andromeda reached the newest tombs and stopped at Ted- husband, Nymphadora- daughter, and Remus- son. She carved the headstones herself but could not find the words to fill them; they were so much, they were her all, her everything.
The gate creaked open to announce a new arrival and Andromeda turned to meet Narcissa, the other remaining Black who was born with that surname.
Narcissa swept back the hood on her head, and suddenly, her luminous hair, and fair skin acted as a beacon for Andromeda's eyes in gloom of the cemetery, where there was too little color. "The light among the Blacks", their father Cygnus once called Narcissa, and it was a fitting title, for the rest of them were dark.
Andromeda realized she was rambling in her head as soon as she noticed the five Aurors flanking Narcissa, two of which were holding a long white linen wrapped bundle. She felt shaky all over and grit her teeth hard so that they wouldn't chatter.
The two Aurors dropped the bundle at her feet unceremoniously and stare at her with undisguised contempt. Andromeda realized that she looked too much like Bellatrix for comfort, and so she stared right back with as much mildness that exists in a daughter of the House of Black.
I lost too, I lost them all, and here is the murderer, my own sister, she wanted to explain. You have no idea how and what I feel. Clearly, the Aurors were all contempt for anyone who wouldn't just toss Bellatrix's body in a hole and be done with it. Instead she looked over to Narcissa who was waiting expectantly for her cue.
"Sister," Andromeda said, as she scrutinized her carefully.
"Sister," Narcissa echoed, with all primness, just like the old days.
And suddenly they were embracing, holding each other tight as if there were no years of silence between them, as if they were family. Which they hadn't been, not in a long time. They don't cry, but Andromeda felt as though she wants to, for the first time in years, and if the brightness in Narcissa's eyes were anything to go by, she felt the same.
They managed to hold themselves together long enough to levitate and lower Bellatrix's body into the grave. They picked a spot far away from Andromeda's own. With a flick of her wand, the dirt turned itself over and covered up the body, nice and neat. With another flick of her wand, Andromeda summoned forth a headstone. Narcissa did the carving and under Bellatrix's name and date, she carves one simple word- sister.
Andromeda was instantly peeved. "I wish you hadn't done that. I'm disowned and she's no sister of mine. You should have just left it."
For a moment, Narcissa looked so contrite, that Andromeda almost fell for it until she remembered her as a master at defusing tense situations. It was a useful skill to have for the youngest in a family of strong-minded, stubborn, and short-tempered people. She had only refined her abilities over time.
"When I asked you to come, 'for us' what did you think I meant?" Narcissa asked. Her innocent probing didn't fool Andromeda for one minute. Narcissa never asked a question that she didn't think the answer was something she could exploit. In this case, it was Andromeda's sentimentality.
"For the three of us, for the memories we had, for all the good times… before," Andromeda replied sullenly. And this was the sticking point for carving the word 'sister' into Bella's headstone. She can't reconcile the sister she loved (yes loved) to the monster she became.
They were quietly contemplative, each lost in their own thoughts. Narcissa took Andromeda's cold hand in hers, like she used to when they were little.
"I meant it for us, the living, the last ones," Narcissa finally said. "Remembering is for the living, not the dead," she added. Andromeda thinks it was a diplomatic answer and that she could live with that. She can't abide the thought of doing something (anything) for Bella.
They traded stories about Bellatrix, about the times before. It seemed right to divest themselves the heavy burden of their memories. They reminisced about the tea parties that Bellatrix used to make for them in her room. The fluffy pastel tulle dresses that looked horrid with Bella's olive skin tone, but that their mother insisted on making them wear anyway for their pictures. Bellatrix was so mad she systematically destroyed every single picture that she could get her hands on. Supposedly, Sirius had kept one somewhere...and no amount of threatening or cajoling on Bella's part could make him give it up.
They laughed so they wouldn't have to cry.
"Let's remember her for who she used be, and not for who she became," Narcissa said softly.
She and Narcissa used to play a game- "What would Bella say?" The answer was always, invariably- "for the family." And then later on "for the cause". If Andromeda could have asked Bella why she went after Nymphadora, she knew exactly what Bella would have said in her lucid insanity.
"I will always remember and never forgive. I still hate her, even now. And I think I always will." Andromeda thought that maybe she didn't regret that Narcissa carved 'sister' on Bellatrix's headstone, but she was sad, because 'sister' was not the full measure of what Bellatrix was. It left out all the horrible things, all the dark deeds. And in the end, that was what defined her.
"You have every right. What she did was unforgivable," Narcissa answered, and somehow, Andromeda feels some solidarity. Narcissa hates/loves Bella in her own way too, for her own set of reasons, and somehow knowing this made it less difficult.
They parted, this time with promises to meet again, perhaps to see the grandchild for the first time. Narcissa was unfailingly gracious to her Aurors, treating them as escorts instead of wardens. Andromeda supposed that graciousness is all she had to get by on right now. The Malfoys were awaiting trial, prisoners in their own manor.
That they were able to see the other side of this war, Andromeda thought for once, things were kind of alright. Suddenly, she's anxious to see her grandson, but before she left, she silently said one last goodbye.
A/N: Thank you for reading.