June 13, 1980
"What are you doing here?"
"Can't two women come and warn their sister?"
"Warn me about what?" Andromeda asked warily. She didn't know why Bellatrix and Narcissa were standing in her living room. "I thought you disowned me anyways."
"Oh, we did," Bellatrix said laughing. Andromeda cringed. She had never been quite right in the head since she had joined Voldemort. "But Cissy convinced me this was important enough to risk our lives for."
"What is 'This'?" Andromeda asked.
"You're-" Bellatrix started, but Narcissa interrupted.
"Well," she said, "Voldemort wants you to be the mother of his heir."
"What?" Andromeda said. She couldn't believe her ears. "Well I won't be."
"You kind of… don't have a choice," Narcissa stammered. "You see, he has the Rope of Avalon."
Andromeda gasped. "Oh," she said quietly. "I see. So why have you come?"
"We wanted-"
"Narcissa," Bellatrix interrupted quickly, "wanted. I agreed."
"Fine," Narcissa sighed. "I wanted to give you a chance to protect yourself, even if it meant defying the Dark Lord's orders."
"Well I'm hopeless at dueling, and so is Ted. So really, we can't do anything," Andromeda said.
Her sisters were quiet for a moment. Bellatrix started tugging at her hair.
"I have an idea," Bellatrix said finally. Andromeda prepared herself for the worst- Bellatrix's ideas usually involved a lot of pain and suffering. "What is the only way to protect against pregnancy?" she asked, smiling craftily.
"Be over fifty?" Andromeda guessed. She didn't know where Bella was going with this.
"Be pregnant already."
Andromeda gawked at the curly black haired witch standing in her living room.
"Wow," said Andromeda, sitting down on the couch. "Wow, um, okay. Well, it would work.. But.. just wow."
"Cissy," asked Bellatrix, turning to Narcissa. "What do you think about my amazing plan?"
"It's not completely stupid," replied Narcissa. "So it's up to Andi."
Both women looked expectantly at Andromeda. Andromeda sighed.
"I'll have to talk it over with Ted," she said, rising to her feet. "And I should tell Dumbledore, so somebody else knows."
"That's fine," said Bellatrix, waving her hand for emphasis. "Just don't let them know I had any part in it. Cissy, maybe, but not me. Can't have them thinking I've gone soft, can I?"
"Oh, Bella!" cried Andromeda, embracing her sister. "You are the most wonderful sister in the world."
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," said Narcissa, smiling at her two older sisters finally getting along for the first time since their childhood. "Now, Bella, we should really get going, Voldemort will be looking for us soon."
Andromeda watched her older sister and younger sister close the door behind them before calling out to her husband.
"Ted- I want another baby!"
"Oh my goodness," exclaimed Hermione, rising from the pensieve. "Andromeda wasn't the mother. She escaped."
"We're assuming she escaped," said Harry.
"Harry, she did. Why are you making this so difficult?"
"You wanna know why, Hermione?" said Harry angrily. "Because we were so close to figuring out whatever Dumbledore wanted us to find. And now it's all ruined, and we're no closer than when we started."
"Well," said Ron quickly. He didn't want his two best friends to argue, because the results wouldn't be pretty, "we could keep going. I mean, we've only seen three memories, so maybe there's more to find?"
Harry and Hermione were looking at him with odd expressions on each of their faces.
"Okay," said Harry after a few moments. "Okay… Yeah. Let's do it."
"So which one next?" asked Ron, scanning the labels of the vials on the nearest shelf.
"We need one from not too long after," said Hermione. "Like this one." Ron turned to see what she was looking at. "'Tom Riddle, 1981'," she read.
"That's the year my parents died," Harry pointed out. "Do you think it'll have anything to do with that?"
"I don't think so," said Ron. "I think it's earlier in the year."
"Alright then," said Harry. Hermione uncorked the vial and poured the shimmering memory into the pensieve. "1… 2… 3."
Disclaimer: I do not own any Harry Potter.