A/N: I am not sure what I did in this chapter. I think I set up for a possible ending, with different scenarios that can spring from it. I have been wanting another confrontation for a while but it wasn't until I started writing this that I realised what it was I actually wanted between them exactly. I am hoping to differentiate between Hermione's bond to Andromeda and the bond she has with Bellatrix and Narcissa. The underlying message really is "you can only have the one if you lose the other." I can't make my mind up about what happens in the end, which we are now approaching, I think, and I feel like I am going to disappoint some of you, regardless of the choice I make. I can't even make the choice myself because I can't seem to decide what I want it to be.
Do I want Andromeda to join them, as a sacrifice, or do I want Hermione to break away at the last moment? Do I want neither of those or both of those, or do I want something that comes from Bellatrix and Narcissa in some way or another? Do I want something totally different?
I think everything is out in the open after this chapter, for everyone. There needed to be a moment where people listened, and almost truly saw each other for what they are. But now I am stuck in the middle of this crossroad and I don't know where to go. Thoughts and ideas are welcome. I'm not saying they can persuade me to do one thing or another, but maybe it can help me see things I haven't yet seen.
The title of the chapter is both a reflection on the actual events taking place but also on my personal feelings about this chapter. I really did feel like it even divided me, as a writer.
Anyway, for those of you interested, there was another instrumental piece involved in writing this and it is called "Remember Me" by Thomas Bergersen.
Chapter 38
"United We Stand, Divided We Fall"
Hermione had stood on the bottom step long after Andromeda had gone. For a while she studied the raindrops glistening on the grass but eventually she turned away and went back inside. The door closed softly behind her and the sound of her footsteps echoed off the wooden floor as she walked. She found Bellatrix and Narcissa in the large dining room. The raven haired woman leant against the table, clutching a crystal goblet in her hand. Narcissa was sitting down and had finished what looked like her breakfast. Both sisters looked up when Hermione appeared.
"We have to find the Weasleys."
Bellatrix arched an eyebrow. "I was under the impression that we had agreed we'd wait for them to come to us. They will, eventually."
Hermione resolutely shook her head. "I won't wait."
Narcissa pushed her chair away from the table and stood up. There was a hint of curiosity in her eyes. "What happened?"
"I am not one for leaving lose ends." Hermione willed her mind to be empty when she felt Narcissa attempt to invade her thoughts. All that awaited the blonde witch was a pool of emptiness and Hermione could see the suspicion across her face. "We find them today. You can come with me and if you don't want to, I'll go alone." She turned on her heel and was halfway out of the dining room when someone grabbed hold of her. Her head snapped back around and her eyes pierced into Bellatrix's.
"What got into you?" she demanded.
Hermione felt the internal battle start inside of her. The anger and the hatred mixed with the pain and the revulsion. Her hazel eyes darkened as she looked at Bellatrix. "I want it finished. I do not owe you an explanation." She arched an eyebrow. "I have done what you asked of me, Bella. It is time you do what I ask of you. Either you come with me or you stay here. The choice is yours."
She turned on her heel and left the dining room. The impact of her words echoed around the room for a few moments until the sound of boots against the hard wooden floor destroyed it. A strong hand closed around her upper arm and Hermione was forced to turn around. Her gaze locked with Bellatrix's and blazing hazel eyes met intense charcoal ones.
"What?" she snapped.
Bellatrix frowned but didn't speak. She merely let go of Hermione's arm and continued to study the younger witch as if she saw something she had never seen before. After a few minutes she stepped away from her, still without speaking, and Hermione watched how the raven haired witch climbed the stairs to the second floor. Her heart beat slowly in her chest and she released the breath she didn't realise she'd been holding. Heaving a sigh, she crossed the corridor towards the library and locked the door behind her.
~()~
The sound of glass breaking roused her from a dark slumber and her eyes snapped open, adapting immediately to her surroundings. She was in the library, curled up in one of the arm chairs standing by the fireplace. A book lay in her lap. She sat up with a jolt and looked around. The three large floor to ceiling windows that overlooked the gardens were all intact. Hermione slipped out of the chair, drew her wand and strained her hearing to pick up another sound. In the distance she could hear a muffled scream.
It wasn't panic that seeped into her blood. It was adrenaline. By the time she had reached the library door her heart was hammering against her ribcage in such ferocity she believed it would out of her chest. She stood in the corridor for a few moments as she listened for another sound. She could hear it better now. The distinct sound of raised voices. The house seemed to be alive all of a sudden, as if it was filled by something unexplainable that could not be see, only felt. Magic.
She let her instincts guide her and she ran across the corridor, past the dining room and eventually reached the large double doors that provided entrance to the living room. They were half open and she hesitated, perhaps for a moment too long, before entering. She felt the cold wind rush across her skin and one look at the broken window told her this was where the sound of breaking glass had originated from. Her eyes snapped to the other side of the room and her breath died in the back of her throat.
Narcissa lay on the ground, on her back, with her eyes closed. Golden ropes had wrapped themselves around her body, pinning her down. Strands of blond hair had fallen across her face. Her eyes were then drawn to Bellatrix, who had her back turned towards her and yielded her wand. Her dark curls danced around her head as she dodged a spell that was aimed at her. The bright blue jet shot past her and it flew straight towards Hermione, who raised her own wand and deflected it with ease. It crashed into the wall, leaving it shaking. A cloud of dust filled the room.
"You are a fool for coming here," Bellatrix cackled. "You will never leave here alive."
"Who said I intended to leave alive?"
Andromeda.
Hermione looked up at the sound of the other woman's voice and her eyes darted around the room. As the dust began to settle she recognised the second figure, standing close to the shattered window. Her brown curls fell freely down her shoulders and her back and she brandished her wand in the way a warrior would handle a sword. The weak morning sunlight filtering into the room gave a strange, soft gloom to her appearance. She looked past her sister to find Hermione standing in the open door and her eyes lit up.
"You shouldn't have done this," Hermione said softly as she crossed the length of the room until she reached Bellatrix. Her eyes lingered on Narcissa for a moment and she noticed that she wasn't gravely injured but then she looked back at Andromeda. To see her here, in this room, brought a sense of anger to her heart. "I told you to leave. To let me go."
"And I told you that I can't," Andromeda said, a little smile playing around her lips. Her eyes fixed on Bellatrix and she studied her older sister's face. "She doesn't know, does she?" The observed the hatred igniting in Bellatrix's dark eyes and she gasped softly. "Or does she?" Her smile spread as she watched the anger flicker in her sister's eyes. "She knows."
"Of course I know!" Bellatrix snapped and she glanced at Hermione. The realisation that Bellatrix had known all along that her longing still led her to Andromeda like it led her back to her brought fear to Hermione's heart. For the first time since coming together she could see the true hurt in Bellatrix's eyes. "What do you think I am, an idiot?" The high pitched shriek bounced off the living room walls. "But she chose me, Andromeda. She chose to be here, at my side, instead of yours."
"And all those times that she abandoned you?" Andromeda said softly. "The times when you believed that in her heart she longed for you and didn't?" She cocked her head. "I am not here to kill you, Bellatrix. I am here to force a choice, once and for all. But I want an honest one. With all the cards out on the table." She paused. "You no longer hate me for abandoning you when we were young, Bella. You no longer despise the mention of my name because of what I did. You loathe me for what I am, for what I became." She briefly glanced at Hermione before looking back at her sister. "Or for what I never was."
"You abandoned us!" Bellatrix exclaimed. "You turned your back on us. You walked away from our blood!"
Andromeda weakly smiled. Bellatrix had changed very little since the time they were children. Even now she could still see it, somewhere deep beyond her eyes. "You knew all along there was something between you and Narcissa that was different, didn't you?" Bellatrix's eyes widened at the mention of their childhood. "All those nights you two spend in the same bed." She shook her head. "Didn't you ever wonder why Mother never found you? What she would have said if she had known what was happening?"
"Andy…" Hermione began but Andromeda silenced her just by raising her hand.
"I knew, Bella. I knew there was something and I chose to protect you. Not because I was jealous but because I loved you. You were my sister. You are my sister. " The words, even now, reflected an element of truth. "But you never loved me the way you loved Narcissa. And why? Because you knew that whatever brought you two together didn't bring me to you as well. When was it you knew there was another fragment of the heart, Bellatrix? When was it you realised that what you and Narcissa had went well beyond the love of normal sisters but yet it was incomplete?"
"I wanted it to be you!" Bellatrix cried and the anger and hatred echoed through every word. The words cut through the tension in the room and shattered everything that still lingered between them, unsaid. "I wanted the missing part of me, of us, to be you! When Cissy's wand connected with mine, I prayed that yours had just yet to finds its way."
"It never did because it wasn't part of the same heart," Andromeda answered sadly. "I was never a part of you."
"Stop!" Hermione said and stepped forward with her wand drawn. Bellatrix's head snapped around and she stared at the brunette in bewilderment. Andromeda had lowered her own wand, aware that her sister wasn't going to hex her right at this moment but her arm shot back up when Hermione approached, unsure about what the younger witch was going to do. Tears glistened in Hermione's eyes and she looked from Andromeda to Bellatrix. "This ends here."
"It ended a long time ago, Hermione," Andromeda answered. "Bellatrix hates me not because I left her. She hates me because I was never a part of her like Narcissa was. Our hearts were never one." A lonely tear appeared in the corner of her eye. "Never a soul mate, never a part of her heart. That's what she can't forgive me for. That her own sister couldn't love her. That we couldn't be as one." She made a hand gesture. "All of this, all of what we are today, comes back to that, doesn't it, Bella?"
Hermione recognised Bellatrix's anger before Andromeda did and her wand shot up at the same time as the spell fell from the raven haired witch's lips.
"CRUCIO!"
"PROTEGO!"
The bright red flash of light bounced off the silver Shield Charm and crashed into the wooden floorboards, causing them to splinter. For a few moments, the whole mansion shook. Outside the wind picked up and whatever little bit of sunlight had fallen into the room was quickly swallowed up by the black clouds gathering in the sky.
Bellatrix turned around to look at Hermione, eyes blazing with anger. "What the hell…"
"I can't let you hurt her, Bella," Hermione said firmly. "You asked for me to make her love me. She did. She loves me like you love me." She swallowed hard. "And I love her like I love you. You know this. You have always known." Bellatrix's hand trembled and Hermione's eyes fixed on the wand in her hand. "You know you can only hurt me, Bella. The heart we share will never be able to kill me." She looked up and away from the dark haired witch and her eyes found Andromeda. "You should leave, Andy. You know that I will never leave here with you. The only reason you yet live is because my love for you mirrors Bellatrix's love for me. For all the hatred in her eyes, she cannot bring herself to cause me hurt." She walked past Bellatrix and reached Andromeda. "Leave and never come back."
Andromeda let her fingers dance across Hermione's cheek. "Sometimes you can't let go, no matter how hopeless."
"Then we are forever doomed." Hermione turned herself away. "My heart belongs here. It guides me home. This is a part of me."
"Someone told me a story once, when I was a little girl," Andromeda said and there was a hint of hope in her voice. "They said that the ancient Greeks believed that all humans originally had four legs, four arms and one head with two faces. Zeus, the King of the Gods, feared their power and cut them into two by throwing a lightning bolt. They were condemned to spend the rest of their lives looking for the other half of their soul to complete them."
"CRUCIO!"
They had been distracted for just a moment too long and Bellatrix's spell hit Andromeda in the chest. With an outcry of pain the brunette fell down to her knees and clutched her stomach before collapsing. Her body began seizing and jerked involuntarily. Her mouth opened but no more sounds came out. Sheer terror reflected in her eyes. It was as if someone had poured acid into her veins and from the back of her mind the most painful memories began to well up. They flooded her, overwhelmed her like the waves crashing onto an unsuspecting beach.
"I told you that story," Bellatrix whispered as she hovered over her sister's shaking form. The sadness that had lingered in her eyes was long gone and had been replaced with that haunting emptiness. "I told you that story the night I learnt of Narcissa's wand. It was the night I learnt that you were not a part of me, of us." She flicked her wand again, inflicting yet more pain on her sister. "You were nothing."
"Bella, NO!" Hermione shouted and without thinking she took aim. "Impedimenta!"
The spell hit Bellatrix in her lower back and knocked her away from her sister's convulsing body. It wasn't as powerful as any other spell Hermione had used in the past and she staggered back to her feet without a scratch. Raven curls danced around her head as she spun around on the tip of her toes, like a crazed ballerina, and aimed her own wand.
"CRUCIO!"
"PROTEGO!"
The Shield Charm didn't form. It didn't create the silver ball it always created. Instead the jet shot straight across the room where it met Bellatrix's Cruciatus Curse and the two spells collided. It felt like the apocalypse was upon them. The remainder of the windows shattered and shards of glass rained down upon their heads. Walls began to crumble and thick clouds of dust filled the air. The wands had recognised their twin, had sensed the same heart, and reacted against the magic used. They could not fatally wound or harm each other. They could not kill or even badly hurt one another. All they could do was come together in the only way they knew how; by becoming one.
She couldn't do it. Not again. She couldn't raise her arm and cast another spell. In her chest her heart ached, like someone had stabbed a knife into it and twisted it slowly. It bled, invisibly, and she felt it in every cell of her body.
The golden ropes that had bound Narcissa to the floor dissolved and the blonde witch sat up. When she saw Hermione kneeling down to the ground, covered in dust and with blood seeping from her nose, she crawled towards her. But just as she reached her she noticed Bellatrix in a similar position, wiping the blood that gushed from the cut on her lip. Her eye then fell on the unconscious Andromeda lying a few feet away from her.
"I would die for you," Hermione whispered as she looked up to meet Bellatrix's eyes. "My heart only beats for you. My heart is you." She looked at Narcissa. "My heart belongs to both of you. It cannot be any other way. The part of me that was missing I found in you." Her voice was weak and it hurt to breathe as more dust found its way into her lungs. "I will always be you."
"Her life matters more to you than your own?" Bellatrix whispered as she staggered to her feet. She closed the distance between herself and Hermione and grabbed a fistful of the brown hair before yanking the younger witch to her feet.
Hermione's eyes pierced into Bellatrix's. "My life is you."
Bellatrix searched Hermione's face and let her hand slip out of her hair and down to her chin. She leant in and Hermione felt the warm breath against her skin. A shiver crept down her spine as Narcissa moved towards them and wrapped her arms protectively around Hermione's waist. Bellatrix rested her head against Hermione's shoulder.
"Your heart belongs to her," Andromeda whispered softly and Hermione looked up from the embrace she shared with Narcissa and Bellatrix. "Your soul does not."
"The wand connects to a soul, Andy," she said softly. "Therefore my soul belongs to them too. I can never love you like I love them." She looked at Narcissa when she felt the blonde's fingers in the back of her neck. "The heart is complete."
"They share a fragment of your heart, Hermione. Like you share a fragment of theirs." Andromeda managed to get back to her feet and wiped some of the blood from her face. "It is not the same as sharing a soul." She sighed and the hope that she had harboured in her heart when she came here slowly began to slip away from her. "The core of the wand recognised a part of you. That same part brought you to them. The wands are the missing shards of the heart, Hermione. They were once taken away from each other only to be re-joined much later, after many years had passed. But those who owned the separate shards of the heart held a darkness inside themselves the hearts needed to survive. Your heart may belong to them, but your soul does not."
"It does," Hermione countered. "Because I cannot let it belong to anyone else."
Andromeda swallowed as the true meaning of those words sank in. "You cannot let it belong to me."
Hermione shook her head. "No."
"It ends here," Andromeda said softly. "We stand surrounded by dust and shards of broken glass, whatever is left of the lives we once had, and we say our goodbyes." She brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. "You look at me one last time and tell me you do not love me."
"I will always love you," Hermione whispered and reached down to link Bellatrix's hand with own before taking Narcissa's too. "But love is never enough. I do not belong with you."
Andromeda slowly walked across the room until she reached Hermione and her two sisters. The room around them lay in ruins. The explosive magic had torn the pictures off the walls. It had started to rain outside and it poured in through the broken windows. She leant in far enough for her lips to brush against Hermione's but just as the brunette was about to respond, she moved away and sank down to her knees.
"You know it will never end this way," she said as she looked back up to meet Hermione's gaze. "I would rather die myself than knowing one day you have to die at my hands."
It had come to this. This final, everlasting moment, where everything they had ever been and everything they would ever become lay before them. The world outside had changed so much because they had listened to the desires of their heart. Failures and victories lived right alongside each other and grief would be forever engraved into the broken pieces. There was a whisper in their souls, almost like a simmering flame, that kept alive the hope. How could a person be destined to be not one but two things at once? How could the heart and soul be so divided, to feel so alike and yet be so far apart? How was it possible to hate and yet to love, to suffer and yet to heal, to grace and yet to destroy? How could one feel a heart united, stronger than anything else felt before, and yet a soul torn apart because a piece of it was still missing? How could a heart and a soul not belong to the same person? How could you love one and still see the other in their eyes? To have one was to lose the other. Forever.
"Leave," Hermione whispered softly and her arms snaked around Bellatrix's neck. "Never come back."
"You know that we can never be parted," Andromeda said as she slowly stood up. "When your eyes close, your soul still searches for mine. It wasn't meant to happen but it did. When your heart searched for its companion, your soul did too. They found them in different people. Now the conflict will be yours to solve for to have one is not to have the other." She smiled weakly. "I understand more than you know, Hermione."
She turned her head away. "Go!" It sounded muffled, constricted with tears. "Don't make me hurt you."
Bellatrix and Narcissa looked at Andromeda and three sisters became aware, in that very moment that now they were joined together in a way they had never dared to imagine. Bellatrix had longed for their souls to be one, but they were not destined to be. But here they stood, their hearts beating in a similar rhythm, on opposite sides of light and dark, with the one thing that tied them together between them. They had become one and only one thing, on person, could break them apart.
The world grew darker still as the minutes began to pass. It was as if it sensed the change that was upon them. Andromeda could feel the wind pull at her hair and she turned away from Hermione wrapped up in Narcissa and Bellatrix's arms. She turned away from the tears she had seen glistening in her hazel eyes. Around her lay the shards of broken glass, the remnants of a broken heart, and she walked away without speaking, feeling those teary eyes burning into her back. As she walked she left footprints on the dust covered floor, a silent reminder of her presence here. When she stepped outside into the rain she could not bear the thought of looking back and kept on walking and therefore did not see how one figure tore herself away from the embrace and rushed to the broken window to watch a part of her soul disappear in the rain.
It wasn't over. It would never be over.