Andromeda kept the figurine hidden from Ted, even though there was no good reason to. At this point, she figured Ted had seen enough of this part of her that he could've and would've left a long time ago if he wanted to. The doxy sat in the pocket of her coat, where she slipped her hand to roll it around in her fingers absentmindedly at rare moments of solitude and in too many moments where she should have been focused on other things. It told her more than she could believe. It said that she hadn't made up Bellatrix on the Knight Bus – not entirely, anyway. It said that Bellatrix had been gentle to her, that Bellatrix had come looking for her, that Bellatrix had been thinking of her, that her family was not entirely done with her. It said that she had let her guard down and that Bellatrix had not taken advantage of it. It said her old life was not gone, not irretrievable, not fabricated (as it sometime seemed these days). It said so many intimidating, sweet things.

One night, she was in the kitchen spinning the doxy like a top on the stove, deep in thoughts she wasn't aware of – so deep that she missed the first knock and the second, the third finally wresting her attention. Neither Ted nor Dora were at home, so she approached the front door cautiously, mentally running through all plausible visitors. She had made more than a few enemies after the Moody incident at St. Mungo's, and she was on high alert for potential retribution these days. She deployed her wand, though she kept it pointed at the ground, and cracked the door just enough to recognize the outline of a very dark witch in the very dark night.

She let the door swing open. "You shouldn't be here."

"But may I come in?" Bellatrix asked in a low voice – intentional but without pretense.

Andromeda paused before saying, "Of course," and moving herself out of the way so that the other woman could enter.

She escorted her sister through the house, watching Bellatrix inspect the furniture, pictures on the walls, and each room they passed with interest. Her black curls were swept up onto the top of her head in a messy bun with her wand stuck through it to hold it all together, just like it always had been when they were younger. Bellatrix' corsets had been gone for several years, and Andromeda hardly remembered them with the mugglish trousers and collared shirt in their place, still all black. Hadn't she herself been punished viciously by their mother for wearing something similar during her fourth (or was it fifth?) year at Hogwarts? Perhaps she should ask her sister if that had actually happened.

At the kitchen, the dark witch – she was undoubtedly the dark witch now, the Good Side's new favorite symbol of Evil – slid ahead of Andromeda to take up most of the kitchen space. "Kind of small, isn't it? Even by muggle standards." She ran her fingers along the edge of an unadorned cabinet.

Andromeda couldn't argue with her. It was indeed small. There was just enough room in the kitchen for them to stand side by side between the u-shaped counters without touching. This normally seemed like more than enough room, but now it felt so full, so thick, with her sister turning slowly in a circle and surveying Andromeda's new life.

"Want some water?" she asked, and that felt silly.

"Do you have anything stronger?"

She shook her head while she filled a squat cup with water. "I'm trying to stop."

The dark-haired woman narrowed her eyes but also nodded tacit approval. "Water is fine then."

Andromeda marveled at her own hand not quivering when she handed her sister the cup. Bellatrix took it and settled her lower back against the edge of the counter behind her. She alternated a poignant gaze between the cup in her hands and her middle sister's uncharacteristically undisturbed eyes while she sipped the drink. Andromeda mirrored her on the opposite counter, and their lower legs rested lightly against each other. Merlin, the kitchen was small.

"Where's Ted?"

"Working late at the shop. He's trying to rush a massive custom order for a new client. Several days into this."

"His brooms are pretty popular I hear."

"Not like you to read the Witch's Weekly."

Bellatrix laughed, and it was genuine, which gratified Andromeda immensely. The dark witch took another sip. "And your daughter?"

"I think she will be pretty popular too." This earned Andromeda another candid reaction – an eye roll perfected with the faintest amusement.

"Where is she?"

"At Ted's sister's house for the weekend."

When Bellatrix set down her glass, so did Andromeda. When she rested her hands on the edge of the counter at her sides, so did Andromeda.

"Nymphadora, right? How very pureblooded of you." Bellatrix teased. "How do you explain that to Ted's family?"

"They love it, actually." Andromeda felt warmth rush her when her sister said her daughter's name. The heat remained. It was so warm in the kitchen.

The dark witch snorted. "Lucky for you. What's she like?"

Andromeda was momentarily touched by Bellatrix' interest in her niece. "She's… strong-willed. She laughs really loud. She steals and hides Ted's wand on a regular basis. She reminds me a lot of you actually."

"Good. If she were like you, I'd strangle her within an hour of meeting her."

The auburn-haired woman scowled. "Do you ever stop being cruel?"

"About as often as you relax your iron will." Bellatrix' voice fell softly open-ended, leaving a peaceful suspense teetering on the brink of some unknown thing that could be wonderful.

The silence pulsed between the two women, identical in so many ways, their similarities intensified by their mirrored posturing. It felt like an eternity that they watched each other, an eternity that Bellatrix clearly wasn't planning on ending. Eventually, the auburn-haired witch carefully pushed herself forward from the counter, placed her hands on her sister's forearms, and pressed her lips against hers. Bellatrix didn't move forward or away, but her lips parted slightly to receive her the first time and the next until Andromeda pulled back to search her sister's face.

"That wasn't so hard, was it?" Bellatrix' voice was something like husky.

When Andromeda leaned in again, her sister straightened up to allow her to press closer so she kissed her and kissed her and kissed her. Without thinking much about it, the auburn-haired witch dragged her lips down her sister's jaw, below it, and flicked her tongue lightly against her neck between kisses.

Bellatrix chuckled lowly after sucking in her breath. She let her head rock back and forth with Andromeda's kisses, brushed her lips against her sister's ear, and began to whisper something from way back in their childhood. "There once was a girl, who had a little curl, right in the – " A motivating gasp interrupted her singsong. "- middle of her forehead, and when she was good, she was very, very good, but she when was – "

"Do you know you're least attractive when you're mean?" Andromeda raised her head to speak with an almost threatening impatience. This wasn't exactly true, but it felt good to say. When the dark witch grasped her shirt with both fists to pull her back in, she apparated them upstairs to the bedroom, and they continued unabated.

Sex with her sister was everything barbaric Andromeda had fantasized about and everything tender she had not dared imagine. They moved as if they had practiced together even as every next move was a delicious surprise. Their give and take both excited and settled her, and in a moment she believed she would remember forever, kneeling with her head thrown back and Bellatrix' mouth at her chest, she absurdly reveled in the memory of the sound Moody's eyeball had made when it burst under her foot.

Bellatrix saw it first - the small stain of dull red that appeared in the closest corner of the ceiling. It crept larger and began to shimmer as she stared for a few minutes, feeling her sister's warm skin pressed up against her back and relishing the soft hair splashed across her shoulder. Damn it, Andy. That spot was going to ruin so much. She hadn't exactly planned on this happening this way, so she wasn't ready with an exit strategy - something that gave her no small anxiety. A small trickle broke free from the silvery-red spot to escape down the wall; she sighed.

The other woman apparently had not yet noticed it, because she snaked her arm around Bellatrix' waist and let her lips brush against the back of her neck while she spoke. "What's up?"

The dark witch shut her eyes to steel herself against the pain that was about to unfold. She slid herself out from under the edge of the duvet despite her sister's lingering, protesting arm. Her clothes were piled on the floor next to a mirror, and she slowly started to arrange them for wear.

"Bella?" Looking in the mirror, she could see Andromeda sit up to look at her. That woman, that woman. Those auburn eyes flicked unconsciously up to the silvery-red spot spreading on the wallpaper, and in them the first seeds of panic sprouted.

Fucking damn it. "I have to go." The dark witch focused on flattening her pockets and straightening her belt so that she didn't have to watch her sister swallowing harshly and shrinking against the headboard away from the magic now rolling in great globs to the floor.

Unfortunately for all of them, a loud sigh drew their attention to the open bedroom door. Ted stood with tired shoulders slumped, wand in hand, the other rubbing the back of his neck. His heavy eyes darted between his wife, her infamous sister, and that very specific, dreaded, damned magic.

"Ted!" Andromeda's panic took over. Her gasps began to come shrill, fast, and loud.

Her eyes, her magic, gods damn it, gods damn her.

"Ted, I" She was hoping to say something, but nothing made sense to say. "I didn't mean – I'm so – this is not – not what it looks – I'm sorry - " The room began to shake. The mirror clattered against the wall, and the lamp from the bedside table shattered on the ground in a pile of paint chips stripping from the ceiling. The woman's eyes were wild as she scrambled from the bed on the far side from her sister, clutching the duvet to hide her nakedness as she retreated from both of them. "I'm sorry!"

Ted looked miserable. Bellatrix braced herself with a protego shield as he raised his wand, but he didn't point it at her. "Stupefy." His wife slumped unconscious against the wall.

Bellatrix made The Decision while watching her middle sister go limp – the one she wouldn't unmake until the last time they ever saw each other. She turned nonchalantly away, shrugged at the man in his own bedroom doorway, and made no effort to dress faster.

"Don't shrug," the man spat wearily. "What are you doing here?"

"Isn't that obvious?" Her voice became lazy and taunting. "Are you jealous, Ted?"

"No."

"No? Your wife just made love to her sister like she'd never been fucked before. I'd be in a jealous rage if I were you." She started to button her shirt.

"No, Bellatrix, I'm not jealous of anything about your life – especially not the part where sleeping with your sister is the happiest experience you can come up with these days. I bet you'll be begging Merlin, Morgana, and every muggle god you've ever heard of that this will help you cast a patronus again."

Everything about the man's words grated on her; she gritted her teeth to keep from revealing it and forced her fingers to slow down to regain control of the situation. "Knocking her out was a little heavy-handed, don't you think?" She finished buttoning her shirt, cocked her head at herself in the mirror, and unbuttoned the top two buttons again.

"You're so goddamn selfish."

Bellatrix huffed and turned back to him. "You said you could handle her."

Ted's approach across the room toward her was menacing, though not malicious. She found this a strange juxtaposition, and though she expected it to make him seem weak, it didn't. "I do handle her. Every single day. But you don't. You flit in and out of her life to play your fucking games, and you never take responsibility for what you do to her."

"Her mistakes are not my responsibility."

"You always take the easy way out! You never suck it up and face her – or yourself. You're not going to do anything. You're not going to repair the house after she brings half of it down with this magic." He gestured at the silver-red streaks dissolving the paper and sheetrock. "You're not going to spend every night for the next two weeks searching every wizarding and muggle pub in London, begging the Fates that you find her gambling away an ungodly sum of money in a rigged card game instead of passed out in a bus stop. You're not going to have to sort through your mother's vases, testing them to see which ones are actually transfigured liquor bottles hidden throughout the house – maybe even in your daughter's room. You're not going to have to wake up early to help heal the bruises she got from falling down the stairs so that the people at St. Mungo's don't think her husband beats her."

Something painful shot across the dark witch's face and shattered her lackadaisical façade. Ted saw it and didn't pause to give her any chance to process his words. "You think you're so self-aware, but you're too selfish to recognize how much you hurt her, how much you hurt my family, all the damn time."

"Your family?!" Bellatrix latched onto something that would let her turn her mounting despair into anger. "I am the only fucking reason that woman" – she jabbed her finger at Andromeda crumpled below the window – "and you and your daughter are alive. I hold the Dark Lord in an unbreakable vow for it, and I serve him faithfully every day to keep it that way. Your family depends on me!"

"My family is your family, Bellatrix! And you'll be a wretched fool until you acknowledge that – no matter how much power you hold."

Ted's words hung heavy in the expanse between them. The dark witch was, for once, speechless, and she managed her turbulence by busying herself with her boots. When she stood up, her face was impassive again.

"Fine. Have it your way." Her voice was quiet and too still. She flicked her wand at his wife, her sister. "Obliviate." Then she rushed past him and out of the house without another word or glance.

a/n

Happy Wednesday to all, and to all a good night.

**never have i ever owned or made money from anything as wonderful as the harry potter world. i'm just lucky to get to play in it.**