A/N: Yes, it's me again. Time for me to resole that cliffie, and maybe put up a new one... if I fancy going through loads of threatening reviews in the morning... Actually, I don't fancy any death threats any time soon, so I'm gonna try and make this chapter kinda... ::cringes:: fluffy for a bit part way through. Plus it's quite a long chapter, so... think of that as a kind of thanks for me having received nearly 400 reviews! In fact, I should too 400 with this chapter.
Disclaimer: Have you considered the fact that I'm disclaiming something in a fanfiction may indicate that I don't own the majority of things in the fanfic? With the exception of Ehno, Tanhisial and basically the entire Elven Realm in this fic.
Chapter 27
Wormtail glanced around the latest area he had floated to, London. Wonderful, he thought sarcastically. Now he could risk being, well, he wasn't quite sure what he could risk having done to him if he saw someone who he knew had was the one responsible for betraying Lily and James, and basically responsible for thousands of death. But he did know it wouldn't be good.
Floating along a little way further down the road he was on, Wormtail kept glancing around. He was sure he had been here before. But where was it? And when had he been there? He couldn't quite remember...
Shrugging, he dismissed the thought. There had probably been a raid on this street at some point or something. No point in worrying about it, really.
"What's going on?" asked Sirius as he walked into the kitchen and spotted a full out fight going on between Bellatrix and Andromeda. Harry and Tonks were just talking quietly in a corner.
"We don't known," replied Harry. "They just started fighting."
"Why didn't you stop them then?" Sirius asked, and grinned at the expressions on both Harry and Tonks' faces.
"Now why didn't we think of that!" exclaimed Tonks, then walked towards her mother and her aunt with the intent of breaking it up before either of them got seriously injured. But, Tonks, being Tonks, tripped over the table leg and hit her head on the floor. "Ow!" she moaned, sending Sirius into hysterical laughter.
Bella and Andromeda looked up at the sound of their cousin's laughter, having not noticed his entrance.
"Sirius, you-" Andromeda started, but cut herself off when she spotter her daughter on the floor. "Nymphadora! Get up this instant!"
Tonks blushed bright red, though whether it was from the use of her first name or from her mother yelling, it was not possible to determine. Bella's eyes lit up.
"Nymphadora?" the blond asked, a devilish look coming to her face. Tonks growled.
"Yes," the metamorphmagus looked as if she were about to say something else, but when she glanced at her mother's disapproving expression she must have thought better of it as she didn't say a word more.
"Now, as I was saying," Andromeda started up again, turning everyone's attention back towards herself and Sirius. "WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU TELL ME THAT SHE WOULD BE HERE?!"
"Um," Sirius winced. "Well, I thought it could be a surprise?"
Bella listened as her sister gave out a growl, before ignoring Sirius' and Andromeda's conversation in favour of annoying her only niece with her new found knowledge of her name.
"So, Nymphadora," she said, taking great care to stress the name.
"Call me that again," Tonks growled in a low voice. "And I will make sure there isn't a body for them not to find."
Bella blinked at Tonks' threat. She hadn't expected that from an Auror, but then again, not all Aurors had a total respect for the law.
"Nymphadora!" Andromeda snapped, and Bella smirked at Tonks' blushed again.
"Mu-um!" Tonks tried to appeal to her mother, but it was too late. Andromeda had already gone back to talking to (as in yelling at) Sirius.
Bella glanced around the room. Something was wrong. She was annoying Nymphadora, Andromeda was yelling at Sirius but... There was something - or rather someone - missing. Then it struck her.
Where was Harry?
Harry, having had enough of the yelling that was taking place in the kitchen, had taken advantage of being ignored for the moment to get the hell out of there, knowing it could have turned very ugly. Plus it gave him a chance to properly use his teleportation powers for the first time, and was currently relaxing on the bank of Lake Mar Chiquita in Argentina, having taken a moment in the Elven Realm to talk to Tanhisial.
Vaguely he wondered how long it would be until anyone noticed he was gone. He knew it wouldn't be long, but he could always hope, right? Okay, so maybe it would be better just to go back before... What was he thinking?! Of course he wouldn't go back yet! He had only just begun to relax! And the shores were quiet because it was Christmas Day.
Harry glanced over the lake. He had never been there before, but there was a sign proclaiming what the place was. Lake Mar Chiquita. Cool name. Harry had no idea what it meant, but it was still a cool name. And a big lake. A very big lake. In fact, he couldn't see the other side, though that wasn't saying much due to his terrible eyesight.
He sighed. He worked it out that he had been gone for half an hour and he had no doubt that they were really likely to be going out of their minds by then. Of course, if it had been someone else, then they wouldn't have worried but no, Harry Potter couldn't vanish inexplicably for a length of time. Such a thing was unheard of! Shock, horror! Now he was on a whole other continent, and there was nothing they could do about it... unless they found him.
He guesstimated that he had about five more minutes for they would really start to worry and break out the tracking charms. Pity, it was fun for him to be by himself for once. Shame it didn't happen to often.
If any muggle had of looked down at the lake shore at that exact moment in time they would have seen a boy no older than sixteen vanish into thin air, though they probably would have dismissed it as a hallucination.
Harry reappeared back in his room in Grimmauld Place, knowing that no one would be in there. He was right, and everything was exactly as he had left it the last time he had been in there. The bed was unmade, his clothes all over the floor, Bella standing beside the door, parchment scattered throughou-
Harry's eyes nearly popped out of their socket when he saw her was staring at him, with a look torn somewhere between amusement and shock on her face. Slowly Bella turned towards the door.
"It's alright!" she called as she slowly shut it. "I've found him! There's no need to worry." Bella turned to him, "you on the other hand..."
Harry gulped, having seen what Black women were capable of when angered, and his immediate future did not bode well. Unless, Harry thought as he realised there was a slim glimmer of hope, Bella wasn't angry. Yes, he would go with that thought. That thought was best, that thought wasn't scary.
"You, my boy, have a lot of explaining to do," Bella said quietly. Harry looked tongue-tied for a moment before he slowly began to tell Bella the whole story of what he had been experiencing in his dreams with Tanhisial, editing it of a few details he would rather keep to himself.
Late that night, when most inhabitants of Grimmauld Place were safely tucked up in their beds, only two people were still awake, and they were Harry Potter and Bellatrix Black. If anyone had of looked in on them they would have seen to people in a perfectly content silence, Bella curled up reading a book on curses and her head resting on Harry's chest as he read through Quidditch Through the Ages, his arm around her.
However, Bella was not reading her book. She was thinking about how the world would react should the two of them ever have their names cleared and find out about their relationship which had greatly progressed that day.
It was with grim satisfaction that she realised she knew what the headlines would be in the Prophet. 'Boy-Who-Lived dates Death Eater!' would probably be a popular title for a story, 'Potter Finds Love in Dark Lord's Girl' may be popular too, but, contrary to that title, she was not, nor had she ever been, the Dark Lord's girl. It was just a stupid rumour started up by Narcissa to annoy her which had gotten out of control. Hrmph! Like she would ever share a bed with that monster, even when he had been good looking. He was far too much of an ego-maniac for her tastes.
That was another thing that had been bothering her of late. Up until under six months ago she had been fully loyal to Voldemort, but all that had changed in a space of little more than four weeks, staring out with her pleading with the Voldemort for Harry's life, then helping the boy escape, practically sealing her own fate, her own death. But she was not dead. She was very much alive, and that was down to the person who she was laying against at that point in time.
Bella shivered involuntarily, making Harry wrap his arm around her tighter. She leaned into his touch, glad to finally have someone whom she loved. Well, she had liked Rodulphus, but that had been an arranged marriage, and they were little more than friends. Harry, on the other hand, Harry was totally different. Harry was the love of her life, something which she had known for a while, but had never gotten around to doing anything about. Until she was drunk.
Funny, really, she thought. She hadn't managed to admit to Harry that she had liked him like that when they had been stone cold sober, but after a little - okay, a lot - of alcohol, they had somehow ended up in bed together, and, over the course of the day, had gotten together. And people said alcohol was a bad thing!
Bella yawned, and pulled Harry up, noticing that the clock on the wall said it was two thirty.
"Come on, time for bed," she said, pulling Harry upstairs. She watched with some reluctance as the person she loved walked through the door to his room, leaving her alone in the corridor, wishing that he had gone with her.
Only a matter of two hours later Bella was woken by a searing pain in her arm. She could have screamed it was so bad. It was the first time the dark mark had put her in so much agony, she thought, gulping. Voldemort must be really angry.
Getting up out of bed, she made her way downstairs hurriedly, calling Kreacher as she went.
"Get me some ice, now," she hissed threateningly through the pain at the elf.
"Yes mistress, Kreacher will get mistress her ice," the elf bowed, positively gleeful at the thought of serving those he view to be his worthy owners (meaning the one's the her aunt hadn't declared blood-traitors and vermin) in the middle of the night. She never would understand house elves.
Bella got down to the kitchen by the time Kreacher got the ice ready, which he was carrying in his hands like the moron she took him to be.
"Kreacher has mistress's ice," the pitiful elf said, trying to bow low and keep hold of the ice. It was needless to say he failed miserably, as the ice kept slipping out of his grip and onto the floor.
"Put the ice in a bag," she growled and the elf hurried to obey. Finally when he got the ice into a bag Bella grabbed it and placed it on her arm, praying that it would help ease the pain from the summons. Fortunately, it did, though not by much.
"Does mistress require anything else from Kreacher?"
"No," she spat at the elf. "Now get out of my sight."
The elf was gone in an instant, and Bella sat down, the bag of ice still on her arm, effectively numbing it.
"You shouldn't treat that elf so badly," growled a voice from the corner, Andromeda.
"And why not?"
"Because it has served the family faithfully for years," Andromeda said, walking out from the shadows. "Haven't you ever heard of house elf rights?"
"House elf rights?" Bella asked incredulously. "House elves don't have rights!"
"Maybe they would," snarled Andromeda. "If people weren't as close minded as Death Eaters like you!"
"Are you calling me a Death Eater?!"
"Well if the shoe fits!"
"Huh? What shoe?"
Andromeda groaned at her sister's cluelessness.
"It's a muggle expression," she explained quickly. "And I am calling you a Death Eater!"
"I am not a Death Eater!"
"You have the Dark Mark! You served You-Know-Who for years, even went to Azkaban for him! Twice!"
"So?! Just because I took the Dark Mark and went to Azkaban for Voldemort - and for goodness sake, stop flinching! It's just a name!- doesn't make me a Death Eater!"
"Yeah, it just makes you his whore."
Bellatrix glowered at her sister, and put the ice down on the table as she got up.
"Never call me a Death Eater again, and never, ever call me his whore. I would never have slept within, even when I was crazily fanatical about him."
"Are you going to tell me why you aren't a Death Eater when there's so obviously a snake and skull tattoo on your arm?"
Bella growl and turned away. Why should she have to explain herself to this blood trai- No! She wouldn't think that! If she ever wanted to stop being a Death Eater first she'd need to stop thinking of people as Blood Traitors. It just wasn't right. She was related to Andromeda after all, being sisters and all. Still... when Andromeda has left home (or ran away, depending on how you looked at it) it had hurt. Andromeda had always been the baby of the family, yet she decided to leave first. But that hadn't been what hurt. What had hurt was the way they parted.
"You're going then?" Bella asked as she came downstairs and watched her little sister heave her bag to the door.
"Of course, I am not staying around to listen to Mother and Father sprout that pureblood nonsense about superiority to Aunt and Uncle."
Bella's face fell as she heard Andromeda's answer, not that it had been held very high before. So it was true... her mother had told her and Narcissa the truth. Their little sister was a blood traitor.
"Well don't come back," she had sneered. "Muggle-loving Gryffindors are not welcome here."
Bella had watched the look of pain and betrayal flicker across Andromeda's face, before it was masked with anger.
"I don't intend to," she muttered as she left the house, closing the door, but not before muttering 'Death Eater' at Bella then disappearing off to her boyfriend, Ted Tonks' house.
That had hurt, she had to admit. She had lost her littlest sister that day, and she had never been able to forgive her. Never.
"I stopped being a Death Eater the moment I started to care about Harry and I went against Voldemort's orders to save his life," she ground out at her sister, whose face was suddenly filled with shock.
"Y-you saved Harry Potter's life?" Andromeda stammered, shocked to say the least. "And went against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's orders?"
Bella nodded steely, and walked towards the door, but was stopped by a hand on her arm.
"I'm sorry, I had no idea," Andromeda muttered, looking away. "Nymphadora never told me."
Bellatrix's eyes widened at idea of her niece neglecting that piece of information, though it was hardly surprising. The girl did seem rather forgetful at odd moments. Wanting to get off of the topic, she fished around for another, only to find it right in front of her nose.
"What in the world possessed you to call her Nymphadora?"
"Ted's idea," Andromeda rolled her eyes, and Bella felt that this might be the renewal of where their friendship as sisters had left off years ago, when Andromeda had first started Hogwarts.
A/N: OMG! Over 2600 words to the actual chapter part alone! OMG! This is the longest chapter I've ever written! Amazing! But I just had to get the slight fluff in (I still hate fluff) and the last part with Andromeda in.
Oh yeah, and don't forget to check out the rewritten chapters at some point. I've done four of them now.
NateP: Yay! Ehno's still a mystery! Yes! Woohoo! And I don't know why I'm so happy about that fact.
Laughinggurl: Okay, I'll tell everyone. I'm really a fifth of the way done with rewriting them now. I could also tell that KOW's kinda of obsessed. It's kind of obvious. And funny. I think there's several HarryDumbledor pairings. It's about the only pairing that freaks me out anymore, and even that barely affects me. Go figure.
Thanos Farek Seid: Well this chapter's certainly longer.
Amscray: Thanks for explaining who desert fox was. Yes, Dorito. So I'm crazy enough to name a God after snack food. I think it's a good name. Very yummy.
NatalieJ: Meh, the work load's evened out now and I'm not bowed under it all. But I may use workload as an excuse to get out of updating.
Kittyofwonder: Yeah, it was kinda sucky, which is why I replaced it. And oh well, I'm sure you can survive without the action-packededness for a while, while I worked on getting Harry and Bella together.
E: I will.
Shadowface: ::sighs:: So much flattery.
jeangab057: yes, oh.
ChrismKing208: Yeah, Andomeda is pretty easy to forget about. I mean, she is only mentioned in the books, and that's only once or twice.
Rei: Thanks! What subjects did you take? Coz then you may be able to help me with my coursework.
Sappjody: I plan to do a sequelly thing after this, but that won't be a while. After all, this has to be finished first.
Kateydidnt: Yeah, I know that now. I was just generalising.
Mr. Mysterious: ::rolls eyes:: Fine, when I get to chapters with notes in the middle of them I'll remove them and put them at the end. And it's not necessarily easier to write a capital I than a lower case one. I, for example, have always written it as not just a simple downward stroke, but with a crossbar line thing at the top and bottom because that's how I was taught to write.
Amora: yeah... I was kind of eating Doritos at the time... and then a muse came to me who also happens to be an Elvin God and told me that Dorito is the best name for Gods, though that could be because he's called Dorito too.
A. Person: Lol, that's not quite what I meant, be Ehno isn't a direct translation, but an actual Italian name that means, well, I'm not telling. Find out for yourself. And of course I've done worse cliffies. Though in my opinion, they were better!
Topsta: Fine, I'll try and put in more descriptions of what they do, but I'm not promising anything as I've never written a sex scene.
jpthug12: Thank ye very muchly!
Ryua Malfoy: Good!
Oh, and one last thing before I finish. I'm thinking of making Bella becoming pregnant a little way further on in this fic. Anyone like this idea?
