Chapter Twenty-One: My Husband

We both agreed that it was best and easiest to get the wedding over with quickly and quietly. We did not wait for the baby to come, and we did not tell anybody.

It happened late one unspectacular autumn day and just like that, we were married.

I did not feel like a married woman. I had once imagined that, if I ever did get married, it would be a beautiful and tender and joyous occasion… And I would be beautiful and tender and joyous. But that was a dream which I had long since let go of, and it certainly wasn't coming back to me now.

I of course had to move in with him. It was a hard thing to do. Even if I didn't feel any real connection with my own home, it was all that I had that was my own. It was the place where I could hide myself away and where nobody else could reach. It was my solitude, me loneliness, my self-security. And I was pulled out of it just like that.

We did not move into his apartment, which I was thankful for. That would have been far too much of a nightmare; I'm sure for both of us. All of the memories that I had of that first night and the following mourning resided there, and I wanted to do all that I could to push them as far from my mind as possible. Surely he wanted to forget that night as well. I secretly wondered if he also wanted to forget his Jackie.

Instead, we moved into his parent's old house. Thankfully they were long gone, and we had the space to ourselves. It was a little out of he way, which I assumed was why he had never moved in there in the first place, but it seemed better for us both to have some distance from the city. It was not a large home, but there was enough space for me to find time and space to be alone.

I had grown so used to my solitude after living in such self-pity for so many years that it was difficult to adjust to living with another person. I had always been alone – I was alone when I lived in my apartment, I was alone at Hogwarts where nobody cared for me, and I was even alone at the home of my childhood, my huge empty home where I had never truly belonged.

I found much structure in our married life. He would leave home to work and do what he must, but I stayed home, always alone. Sometimes he seemed to worry about me, but I didn't care much. We spent little time together, although he sometimes insisted on sharing meals. We slept together rarely, but I sometimes gave in for his sake. It was never loving or passionate, it just… was.

I never understood why he made so much effort. He seemed always to be trying to make things seem better, make things seem right. It was almost as if he was still trying to create the perfect marriage that I knew was not meant for us.

It didn't take long, however, for things to go from bad to much worse. It started as all of the worst things in my life always seemed to have: with Bella.

She came to my house during the day while he was away. I didn't know how she had found us, but the fact that she was there was enough to frighten me for my life. Upon seeing her standing, in such dark contrast with the natural world that surrounded her, I instantly wanted to slam the door shut in her face, blocking her out of my life for good.

She was prepared, however, and caught the door, shoving it open again, "Now dear Andromeda, what kind of way was is that to greet your sister?" she crooned.

"I don't know," I groaned as I tried to shove the door shut against her weight, "Just about what a sister who abandoned me deserves!"

"Oh come now my dear," she said, thrusting the door open once and for all and strutting inside, "You aren't still holding that against me, aren't you?"

""Of course I am," I cried, "You ruined my life. You know you did."

"Why, little sister," she said in a disconcerting cross between menace and affection, "A girl like you has had her life ruined so many times, I figured that it wouldn't make much of a difference one way or the other."

I clenched my teeth, not wanting to think of the truth in her statement, "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, you know me… Always the sentimental big sis," she said, "I just figured I'd drop in for old time's sake."

My arms folded tightly over my chest and my accusing eyes glaring, I said coldly, "We both know that is a pack of lies, so why don't you just – "

"Actually," she said, her tone changing and her eyes narrowing in challenge towards my own, "I thought I'd drop in and see if I couldn't meet this dear husband of yours."

My face flushed, "He isn't dear and he isn't mine," I muttered, avoiding eye contact.

"Oh, is that so?" she probed, "And yet he is a husband. That's for sure, is it not?"

I did not answer, refusing to let her taunt me.

"Well I certainly hope you two are quite happy together after all that you have gone through."

"And why would I be?" I snapped, finally unable to restrain myself.

My sudden retort seemed to trigger something in her, and she flared up all at once, and I saw something in her eyes, something which made me fear for myself.

"You undeserving little scrap of filth!" she cried out, "I see now that you have never been worthy of the noble blood which runs through your veins – the blood which embellishes you, sets you apart, makes you part of the noble family to which you scarcely belong! You are weak, you have always been! You are a coward! You are a waste of dignity!"

"Please, Bella… stop!" I begged, trying to shout over her, almost reduce to tears. I had never been able to stand it when my sister got like this, and now was no different, "Please – what did I do? It is not my fault, I wish that it never…"

"You wish – you wish? Of course you wish, we all wish! We wish you had not been such a fool, not been so weak, not betrayed us all! We wish that this had never happened, our father wishes you had never been born – if mother was alive, she'd kill you both!"

She stood there fuming, her chest heaving up and down in aggravated madness. I did not dare make a noise, and I feared what she would say next.

Finally, appearing to have gathered herself, she said in a measured tone, 'This is it Andromeda. This is the end."

I stared up at her in fear, and for a wild moment I imagined that she was going to pull out her wand and kill me right then and there. But instead she turned and began to walk towards the door again, just like that.

"No, wait – Bella!" I called after her, "I don't understand, please…"

She turned partially back to me and said flatly, "You're not welcome anymore. Not with our family, not with me, probably not with the more decent portion of the wizarding world. You would be better just to disappear – you're nothing to us now."

I was shocked by the sudden coldness of her worlds after the passion with which she had shouted, but I still could not understand.

She seemed to see this in my eyes, and in response she repeated with more force, "You're nothing to us now. And you won't ever be again. You did this yourself – you cut yourself off the moment that you had the audacity to marry that Mudblood. Good-bye sister."

And with that she was gone, and I was left quite alone, accompanied only by my shock and slowly dawning comprehension.

A Mudblood… That was what this was all about.

I felt so stupid that I had not realized it sooner – how utterly naïve of me.

Sure, I had known next to nothing of my husband-to-be when we were first married, and I had not made an effort to learn much more since then, but surely I should have at least asked this one question. It seemed so obvious now. Of course he was a Mudblood, it accounted for so much.

I fell numbly into the nearby chair, and drifted into a strange meditative state, so uncannily calm at such sudden and shocking news.

I stayed there the whole day long, hardly shifting a muscle from my position until finally the door clicked open, and in walked the unsuspecting scoundrel for whom I had waited all afternoon.

He seemed relatively surprised to see me sitting there, as I was not normally one to wait for him in the evenings, "Why, hello Andromeda," he said with mild cheer as he shut the door behind himself.

I did not respond. He took a few steps forwards and looked at me carefully. He was such a fool that, despite how much he got used to my mood swings and sullenness, he still pretended that he could help me, that I would accept it. "Are you alright?"

Again, I did not respond. It was going to come out one way or another. Would it be in screams like the ones that my sister had treated me with that afternoon, or the tears with which I had reacted, or something quite different altogether?

My unfortunate husband, however, did not abandon me. He stood there patiently, waiting for some explanation – the kind he should have learned never to expect from me.

Finally, in what seemed more like a grumble than actual speech, I said, "Why didn't you ever tell me?"

I wondered if he had actually heard, let alone understood me, and yet he responded soon enough with an infuriatingly innocent, "Tell you what?"

Low grumble abandoned, I snapped my head directly towards him, "That you were a bloody… A Mudblood, that's what!

He stared at me for a moment, apparently lost for words, until he finally turned away, as if to leave the room.

"Don't you walk away from me!" I shouted after him, still firmly rooted in my seat.

He stopped and turned back to me "What do you want me to say?" He asked without much force.

After the heated battle between my sister and I this afternoon I felt let down by his lack of fighting spirit, but plunged on, demanding, "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I figured you knew."

"You know well enough that I would never have married you if I had known!"

"I didn't think it would change anything."

"It changes everything – It changes me, my family – hell, it even gives me a genuine reason not to have to marry you!"

"It has nothing to do with who I am."

"It has everything to do with who you are – and who you are not!"

"I thought you were different from the rest of your family."

"Yeah, well… even if I am, that doesn't change anything."

"It should change everything."

"Yeah, well… It doesn't!"

It was the most aggravating thing in the world that, no matter how much I shouted, he remained as calm as ever. I wanted him to shout back, to scream, to tell me that I was wrong, to give me some feeling of injustice. This way he was just making me feel like I was fighting a one-sided battle and losing.

He stood there, still staring at me through calm eyes that somehow seemed filled with the same pain which I was shouting out through every syllable, until he finally said in that same hollow voice, "Is that all?"

"No, that is not all!" I continued yelling madly as I finally jumped up from my chair, not even knowing what else I had left to say. "You come waltzing in here thinking that you can just take advantage of me like this?" I demanded, hardly even knowing what words were coming out of my mouth or what they meant, "Well, you can't! I won't be shoved around as it pleases you, and I won't be –"

"I have absolutely no intention of doing any such thing, Andromeda. You should know that." He said, finally raising his voice for the first time so that he could be heard over my mad tirade.

"Yeah? Well – Well… I don't even know what your intentions are. As a matter of fact, I don't even know why I'm here! It would probably be better for us all if I just walked right out that door here and now. Then we wouldn't have to –"

Seeing the direction my words were leading me, he seemed to take things more seriously and moved several steps towards me, holding his arms out to me and saying sternly, "Now Andromeda, calm down – you're not thinking straightly. Here, come sit down again."

"No!" I objected, more loudly than I had intended. Catching myself, I lowered my voice to a more rational level and repeated, "No. I am thinking perfectly straightly – I'm thinking that the best place to be right now is away from here."

I took a few steps towards the door but he stopped me, putting one of his large, round hands on each of my shoulders, "Andromeda, please reconsider. You're upset, I know that – but please don't make a choice that you will regret later."

"Why would I regret it?" I asked, still defiant in tone, and yet allowing him to lead me back across from the door.

"Because," he said, "As uncomfortable and awkward as this whole thing might be, we both know that it is what is best for us all… and please don't forget about the baby."

I looked scrupulously up at him, "Do you say that because you really want the best for the baby, or just because you want to see your son grow up?"

He paused, and then said solemnly, "Both."