Chapter Twenty-Three: Madness in Great Ones
She was Bellatrix, and yet not, the image of their oldest sister filtered through a mirror. Lily was struck by a powerful sense of déjà vu as she started forward. She half-expected the woman to twist her lips into a smirk and drawl out a greeting.
But this was Andromeda. She gave a gasping cry and flung herself forward, wrapping her slender arms around Lily. Lily found herself blinking back tears as they embraced for the first time in an eternity. The bump of her stomach was an unfamiliar protrusion against Lily's own flat belly.
Abruptly she remembered James and drew back slightly. He was watching with his hands in his pockets, a faint grin on his face. It faded when he realised she was looking at him.
"Sorry," he said. "I'll just... go off over there."
"Potter?" Andromeda interrupted. "James Potter?"
Something passed between the two of them, a stretched-out band of feeling that made Lily's breath catch when it snapped.
"Yes," he said. "James Potter."
"He brought me here," Lily interjected quickly, forcing Andromeda to sit down. She tipped him a glance. He caught the hint and wandered off, going to the bar to order a Firewhiskey.
"What was he doing here?" Andromeda asked, looking more curious than horrified.
"He brought me here," Lily explained. "We have an understanding. Of sorts."
"Hmm," she said thoughtfully, but changed the subject. "So. What has been happening to you?"
Lily poured everything out: Sirius, James, Fleamont Potter, Lupin's condition, the McKinnons. Her words became faster and increasingly garbled as she spoke of murder and loyalty, madness and mercy. But Andromeda only listened, breaking in occasionally to clarify something.
When she was finished Lily felt as though the proverbial weight had been taken off her shoulders. "You've renounced the Black heritage," she said. "You're the only person I know who's gone through anything remotely like this. So what advice do you have?"
Andromeda was silent for a long time. She simply stared down at the scarred wood of the tabletop, giving Lily the opportunity to turn her head and look for James. He was sitting alone at a table some distance away and nursing his drink.
Finally, her second-oldest sister spoke. "You know, of course, how all of the Sacred Twenty-Eight families are related to each other."
"Yes," Lily said warily. What did that have to do with anything?
"And so we all suffer from our shared madness. The Blacks, the Potters, the Lestranges, the Malfoys – there is something in the purest of bloods which ruins the mind, rots the senses. With great power comes great instability," she added, with a faint smile.
She had named only the Darkest families. "So those who deal too deeply in the blackest magics are driven insane," Lily said, but Andromeda shook her head.
"We all shall be. You and I included. But it manifests itself in different ways, and at different times."
"Sirius has always been wild as sea foam," Lily said. Her fingernails dug painfully into the skin of her own palms. "You can't tell me my end will be like his."
The thought that insanity might be an inevitable fate was not one that sat well with her. Control was an integral part of her, just as the lack of it was an integral part of her cousin's. To be told that she had no choice in eventually becoming like him –
"Lily, Lily, calm down," her sister said hastily. "This isn't always a bad thing. Look at me – I went wild and married a Muggleborn, and it was the best thing I ever did."
"Fine," she said grudgingly. "So what was your point, exactly?"
"To let the cards fall where they may, because the players are far too unpredictable for you to read them. There is never black and white. There are only shades of grey."
Something about the edge in her words made Lily suspect that she intended some deeper meaning, but Andromeda abruptly stood up.
"It's time you were getting back, Lily. And I too. Ted gets worried when I'm not there."
"Ted," Lily repeated. She was mostly successful at concealing the faint tinge of derision in her words. "Tell him I said hello. Boy or girl?"
"Girl," Andromeda said, with a sudden stunning smile. "We're going to call her Nymphadora."
Lily wondered vaguely how Nymphadora's insanity would assert itself, but hugged her sister once more and promised to write regularly. Then she watched her hurry out into the night.
James was making his way over to her. "Had a good talk?" he asked.
She hesitated. "It wasn't as... inspiring as it could have been," she admitted reluctantly, because that was the truth. Let the cards fall where they may? What kind of advice was that?
He cocked an eyebrow at her. "I hope you weren't expecting her to make your choice for you, Lily. Only you can do that. I would know."
She should ask him what he meant. She should ask him why he was trying to leave the Dark Lord's service. She should ask him why once, two years ago, he and Sirius had delighted in one girl's pain and another girl's nightmare.
She should ask him a great many things, especially why he was looking at her with something indefinable in his eyes.
But Lily was tired. And so she only said, "Lead the way."
AN: Hello! Sorry I didn't update this morning. I've just decided to update only once a day for the weekend, to give me some time to recover from feeling sick yesterday. I hope nobody is too upset. Things should be back to normal on Monday. Thanks to everyone who wished me well!
Another good reason not to update when I'm feeling ill is that I made some pretty egregious errors in yesterday's chapter. A huge thank you to the oblivious nerd for spotting them! The biggest is Lily not specifically telling James she was going to see Andromeda. I'll edit that chapter at some point soon, but for now please just assume that she tells him in that chapter. There are also a few typos stemming from me improperly cutting some dialogue that was in the first version of this story. Please ignore it - I'll edit that too.