The Black Sisters
In Which the Story Begins
"I love him, Andromeda! You don't understand! He may seem cold and cruel to you, but he is not like that at all! I'm going to marry him! You can't stop me!" a distressed Narcissa cried.
"Narcissa, you don't understand! He's vicious! You can't love him! He will only hurt you!"
"I'm going to marry him! I'm sorry, but I doubt we'll ever see each other again. Goodbye Andromeda. Goodbye forever." With that, Narcissa left the room with a sweep of her cloak to join her waiting fiancé in the hall.
"No!" Andromeda cried. "You don't know what you're doing! Please come back!" she sobbed. She knew nothing good could possibly come from this man. Narcissa had ignored her warning, as had Bellatrix only a few months ago. Both of her sisters had turned away from her, and away from the good that she knew was in them. "Please!" she wailed once more, tears streaming from her usually cheerful eyes. She would never again see the sisters she had known her whole life.
Three teenage girls, the oldest seventeen and the youngest fifteen, were standing surrounded by luggage by the large fireplace in the living room of their house in London. They were going back to school, or to be more exact, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Bellatrix, the oldest, was tall, and she held herself like a queen with her dark, straight hair flowing down to her waist and her murky grey eyes half hidden beneath heavy lids. Bellatrix, a Slytherin, was graduating this year. She was proud, especially of her pure blood, and rather vain, but her younger sister Andromeda knew she could still be a kind person, and she loved her very much. Andromeda was very different from her oldest sister. At sixteen, she was very small and slender, with thick red ringlets surrounding her pale face. Her intelligence could be seen from her bright grey eyes, which may explain why she was in Ravenclaw. Andromeda was very clever, but rather shy. She loved her sisters and her family, even though they were all a bit obsessed with pure blood. Andromeda did not care whether or not someone was muggle-born or not, but she respected her sisters' views. The youngest girl there, Narcissa, was small and slim like Andromeda, but she had thick, straight blonde hair and pale grey eyes to match. Narcissa was in Slytherin with Bellatrix, but Narcissa was still a very gentle person despite her rather negative opinions of muggle-borns and half-bloods that had been passed on by her parents.
As Andromeda watched her oldest sister reach for the elegant hand-painted pot of floo powder on the mantle, she discovered that she was rather uneasy around Bellatrix. She realized that Bellatrix was a very powerful witch, even though she was still in school. Narcissa was a rather different story. She was not very powerful, or very clever. However, she was really sweet, and she and Andromeda were very close friends. They spent hours chatting, or playing together or with their two kittens. Narcissa had a small white kitten named Lillian, and Andromeda's kitten was a little ginger fur-ball called Rosie. No matter what they did, Narcissa and Andromeda almost always got along. But Bellatrix was definitely a bit frightening to Andromeda. She could never tell what she was thinking or what she was going to do.
"Go on, Andromeda. Take a pinch of the floo powder," said her mother's voice, and Andromeda snapped back to reality.
"Alright, goodbye Mother! See you at Christmas!" And with that, she was off, followed closely by Narcissa.
"Hey, Andromeda! How are you?" hollered a tall, handsome boy as he came striding through the bustling crowds at Platform 9 ¾. Andromeda was Sirius Black's favorite cousin.
"Sirius! I haven't seen you in ages!" Andromeda had not seen him since the end of her fifth year, his sixth year, even though she had been to visit his family. He had run away the summer before to stay with his best friend, James Potter, because he was fed up with his family's obsession with pure blood as well as his parents constantly reminding him how much better his younger brother, Regulus, was than him. Andromeda really did not blame him because she knew how dreadful her aunt could be. She was a nasty woman who loved the dark arts and thought that to be a pureblooded wizard was as good as being royal. "Come sit with us! I have so much to tell you!"
"I would, but, well, you know how Bellatrix can be. She, er…" stuttered Sirius.
"She scares you. You're just too proud to admit it! I know you. I'll come talk to you in a little while. See you later!" said Andromeda, laughing. She was just teasing him. She knew Sirius hated Bellatrix with a passion, as well as being a bit scared of her. With that, she ran off, red-gold curls flying, to join her rather impatiently waiting sisters.
"Hurry up or we'll never get a compartment! I hope Rodolphus thought to save us seats. If he didn't I think I shall dump him." said Bellatrix. Rodolphus Lestrange was her boyfriend, a rather mean sort of person who often reminded Andromeda of a fox. She would not feel remotely sorry for him if Bellatrix dumped him.
"Andromeda, what's fifth year like? Do you get a ton of homework, or is it pretty much the same as fourth year? And are O. W. L.'s really hard and scary? I bet they are!" chattered a more than slightly worried Narcissa as they were walking towards the front of the train where Rodolphus was (thankfully) waiting for Bellatrix. Typical Narcissa. She was always anxious.
"You worry too much, Narcissa! O. W. L.'s are fine! Just pay attention in class. And sure, they give you more homework in preparation for the O. W. L.'s, but it's not that hard. Any time you need help you can come to the library during lunch. I'll most likely be there." Andromeda's favorite place in the whole school was the library. She spent quite a bit of her free time in there reading whatever she could get her hands on. Or, if it was a nice day, she would pick a book and go outside to read.
As the three sisters hauled their trunks onto the train, where Rodolphus had saved a seat for Bellatrix, a sprightly sixteen year old boy with a mop of curly brown hair snuck up behind Andromeda and tickled her.
"Ah! Oh, hi Ted!" cried a startled Andromeda. Ted Tonks was her boyfriend, and rather unfortunately, a muggle-born, so Bellatrix loathed him and Narcissa was rather cold towards him. Poor, poor Ted. Andromeda certainly did not envy anyone who Bellatrix detested.
"Will you come sit with me, please?" pleaded Ted with his best sad puppy dog face.
"Oh, all right, but you'll have to come with me when I go talk to Sirius. I have to give him news on his family. Bye, Narcissa! Bye, Bellatrix! See you at the feast!" And with that, she was off, running behind Ted with a wicker cat carrier in one hand and a rather heavy trunk (full of books) dragging along behind her.
A/N: Please review! Thanks and I hope you liked it!