Chapter 6- Love, Loathing, and Something in Between

Narcissa was by far the most self-possessed first year on the platform the next day. While most of them clung to their parents, or looked around and tried to be invisible, Narcissa was like she always was in the company of others- calm, collected, and polite. Mother was pleased to show off the prettiest and best-behaved of her girls, and so we were trotted around to greet our housemates whose parents she most admired.

Naturally, the Malfoys were at the top of that list. Lucius was nowhere to be seen, probably already on the train. Long emotional goodbyes were certainly not the way of our family or of a sixteen year old boy so that was hardly surprising. We knew Mrs. Malfoy well enough as she often came around for tea, but as with all the adult men in our lives we stood a bit in awe of Mr. Malfoy. He was in a seemingly good mood that day, beaming at the three of us.

"Mrs. Black, you really must tell me what kind of magic you used to have three such beautiful daughters."

It was a veiled insult as well as a compliment, that she had three daughters and no sons in a world where heirs were all-important, but Mother naturally didn't respond to the comment, only went on with the script of all their inane conversations, sticking to social niceties while they thought something completely different. Meanwhile I looked around the platform for the male heir of the Black family, who had escaped from Mother's clutches as soon as we arrived, and saw him in animated conversation with James Potter and some other Gryffindor boy with light brown hair. I continued around the platform, looking for friends. There was Adrienne, who appeared to be arguing with her mother. Rabastan was showing Theo something surreptitiously that I couldn't quite see from where I stood. And then my eyes fell on Ted Tonks. He was standing toward the edge of the platform with his trunk, looking frustrated by the problem of getting it from where it stood onto the train. He was alone, which seemed strange until I realized that his parents couldn't get onto the platform, being muggles. As if he could feel my eyes, he glanced up and spotted me, and smiled a little, and a wave of terror washed over me- he wouldn't dare come over and try to talk to me, would he? He couldn't possibly be that stupid. Luckily, at that moment Frank Longbottom caught his attention and apparently offered to help with the trunk, as they both began to drag it toward the train.

Unfortunately, Mother had noted my distraction and was now following the direction of my gaze. "The Longbottom boy?" she asked of Bella, who nodded, and Mother made a slight "tsk" sound. "It used to be a good family, but now…Well, I do hope you're not associating with him Andromeda."

"No Mother, I've barely ever spoken to him," I answered truthfully, glad of her selective blindness when it came to anyone she thought beneath her, since she didn't even seem to see Ted.

"Good. Come along."

The Great Hall glittered as I walked in with Bella, displaying all the smugness of a second year. I knew all the secrets, I was already sorted, and I felt a sort of warm glow that I wouldn't have to go through that ordeal again. In keeping with tradition we had not told Narcissa exactly what the sorting entailed, but it didn't really matter, she would approach as she did everything else, with comfortable confidence.

I took a seat next to Adrienne, and Bella ordered Theo Nott out of the seat next to me. After the holidays, when we lived so inseparably, it was always a bit of an adjustment to go back to Hogwarts, with our own rooms and our own classes and our own friends. Of course he obeyed without question.

Professor McGonagall entered with the straggling line of first years, some of them trying to hang back, most of them looking terrified. Narcissa was whispering to another little girl with glossy black hair, and I thought it typical, she had already made friends.

Since Black was near the beginning of the alphabet, we didn't have to wait too long for her name to be called, and it seemed everyone in the school turned and paid attention, perhaps hoping for a repeat of the surprise of Sirius's sorting the year before. If that was the case, they were sorely disappointed, since the hat had barely touched her golden head before declaring "Slytherin!" Bella gave a satisfied nod as Narcissa hopped down from the stool.

"No surprises there," said Rudolphus, from across the table. "That was almost as fast as it sorted you Bella. Didn't take forever like it did for-"

"Shut up," she said, with such ferocity that he looked taken aback. She put a smile back on quickly for Narcissa. I knew what he had been about to say, he had been about to comment on how long the hat had taken to sort me. Over the years, I saw her react with irrational, inexplicable anger to anyone who made even the most veiled suggestion that I didn't quite belong. I think she saw that it was true.

Narcissa didn't come around the table to sit near us, but instead sat across from us, where surprisingly (or perhaps not) Lucius Malfoy had moved over to make space for her.

"Congratulations, Miss Black," he said, with a smile and the kind of bemused formality one directs at very small children, which must have been what she seemed to him then. I had the satisfaction of seeing her, for once, with nothing pretty or polite to say, as she stared back at him with stars in her eyes. For me, love grew slowly. For Narcissa, and I believe in a way for Bella, it crashed down on them in an instant. That was the moment my little sister fell for the man she would marry. I have never thought of Lucius as particularly insightful, but I think he may have known too. At the very least, he saw something in Narcissa that he wanted, even young as she was.

From the vantage point of many years later, I can see it with such clarity, but then of course I had no idea. I only saw Narcissa's dazzled eyes, and a look of resignation under Bella's smile. She knew, I imagine, and knew too that it would never truly be the kind of fairy-tale love our little sister dreamed of, but nonetheless, a part of Narcissa was lost to us.

We had heard, through the gossip network over the summer, that our Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher had decided that ancient Egyptian curses were less hazardous than a room full of wand-wielding first years, and returned to his previous job, giving way to speculation about who our new teacher might be. We had seen no new faces at the teachers' table the night before, so we entered the room with some interest, but found no one there yet. I quickly took a seat between Annabelle and Shannon, because I was expected to. I didn't even realize that I was looking for him, but a few seconds later when Ted stepped in, I could have sworn he paused and scanned the room until he found me. He gave me slight smile, and then shrugged and took a seat next to Frank Longbottom on the other side of the room. To my own surprise, I didn't breathe a sigh of relief, I felt disappointed.

I didn't have a chance to dwell on it, because the teacher entered, and every male jaw in the room dropped. She was possibly the most gorgeous witch any of us had seen in person. Probably in her thirties – blond hair halfway down her back, cornflower blue eyes, and the kind of slim yet curvy figure that would only serve to make a room full of twelve year old girls jealous and a room full of twelve year old boys stare.

"She can't possibly be our teacher…" Shannon muttered next to me.

"I sure hope so," answered Rabastan from behind us.

"No way…" Annabelle whispered is disbelief.

"Good morning class," she began in a sultry voice that was not, I thought, even remotely appropriate for a classroom. "I am Professor Archer. I'm going to read the roll, and if you're here, you will answer present."

Several boys nodded enthusiastically, as though this was the most profound statement a teacher had ever made. A Ravenclaw girl I had never even bothered to notice before rolled her eyes and muttered "Oh Merlin." I couldn't help but agree, and she saw me glance in her direction and gave me a conspiratorial smile of commiseration. Surprised, I turned back to the front of the room. Now that Ted was out of the picture, it wouldn't do to get too friendly with Ravenclaws in general.

"Black, Andromeda?"

I raised my hand, and answered "present" as instructed, but to my surprise she fixed me with a look of distaste. Usually people were at least outwardly polite when they heard my name.

"Another Black," she muttered, going back to the list. I wondered which of my family members had gotten on her bad side already. The odds were pretty even between Sirius and Bella. Sirius, with some seemingly lighthearted prank that resulted in devastation, or Bella with intentional devastation because the woman had gotten on her bad side. Given the effect she has having on the girls in my class, that was hardly unlikely.

Finished taking attendance she closed the book and set it on the desk, laying a perfectly manicured hand on it. It was unnatural, I decided, for anyone to be that perfect.

"Now, as this is a second year class, I would like someone to give me a brief outline of what you covered last year."

Eager hands shot into the air, and Annabelle sighed heavily next to me. It was going to be a long year.

Never before had students' opinions on a teacher been so widely varied. As far as the male population of Hogwarts was concerned, she was the best teacher they'd ever had, and they had never learned so much. As for the girls…

"I don't even know what qualifies her to teach," Bella spat one afternoon as we sat in the Great Hall doing homework. She had been the one who had brought down Professor Archer's dislike on all of us before the poor woman had even encountered Sirius. She wouldn't comment on what she had done, but it had gotten her two Saturday detentions. She claimed it was worth it, as in her words the new teacher had "totally deserved it." The two of them were shaping up for an epic battle, which was odd because Bellatrix generally did not care for the attention of Hogwarts teachers. She was a good enough student to avoid being singled out, but also not quite good enough to be a favorite. The things she really wanted to learn were not taught at Hogwarts.

"She's taught at lots of other good schools," Theo pointed out earnestly.

"So she says," Bella retorted, making it clear what she thought of that claim.

"I think someone's jealous," Rudolphus smirked from across the table.

She fixed him with a glare. "Big words from a man who blushes and stammers like a schoolgirl whenever she walks by."

He rolled his eyes and smirked again, but didn't say anything else. Score one to Bella. She had a strange way with him. She was one of the few people at Hogwarts who was not the least bit afraid of him, and I didn't really understand their odd…well, it was almost like friendship despite a considerable age difference. Maybe knowing how things turned out has skewed my memory of it, but while Rudolphus viewed his fellow students, and most of the wizarding world with the withering contempt of a privileged pureblood young man, he listened when she spoke.

In reality, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts classes were not terribly interesting, but nor were they as incompetent as Bella would like to claim. They were instead regular and predictable, plodding through each chapter of the textbook with appropriate notes and papers and tests assigned regularly. It was a lot less fun than the possibility that something might accidentally get set on fire, but we still got the necessary information for a second-year student.

For me, Defense had gone from my favorite class to a wasted hour every day, and it never occurred to me to wonder why.

It was a surprisingly warm autumn, and it was nearly November on a Sunday afternoon, when I was sitting outside watching a group of Slytherins who had started a pick-up quidditch game. Most of the players were not actually on the school team, and as I watched I reflected that might be fore the best, since most of them weren't actually very good. I had been sitting with Shannon and Annabelle, but Annabelle had lost interest and wandered inside when she realized the boys weren't going to notice her and Shannon, who was something of a tomboy, had gone to join the game to "show them how it was done."

I was left alone in the stands to watch, but I didn't mind. I had never been terribly athletic and had no inclination to play quidditch, but I didn't mind watching, especially when Will, still the object of my affections, was playing. Although he wasn't on the school quidditch team, he was a fairly decent player. Our relationship had progressed to the point where he might occasionally say hello to me if he noticed me in the hall, and in the mind of a twelve-year-old girl, hope springs eternal.

"So, which one is it you fancy?" a voice said to me left, and I turned to find Ted, leaning on his elbows against the railing few feet away.

"What…I…I don't…what are you talking about?" I sputtered, disconcerted by the way he had read my expression. Was it that obvious?

"I know what girls look like when they fancy someone. I've got a sister, I've seen it before. They get all googly eyes."

I wasn't sure which thread of the conversation to take. On the one hand, I hadn't known he had a sister, she must be a full muggle, and that idea seemed shocking to me. How was it having a muggle sister? Did she resent him? Were they close? Did he miss her? On the other hand, I felt like I ought to defend myself.

"I am not "googly!" And I don't fancy anyone!" I protested.

"Sure you don't." He turned again to look at the quidditch players. "Reckon it's not Malfoy. I'd like to think you're more original than that."

"Narcissa thinks she's going to marry him," I remarked. I suppose in a way I was bragging, making him aware that even at eleven my sister was able to command the attention of a very powerful wizarding family. He didn't see the significance of that and merely fixed me with a skeptical look.

"Are you kidding?"

"Why not?" I demanded, as if he had implied there was something wrong with Narcissa that would make a man not want to marry her.

He shrugged. "Well she's a little young to be figuring that out. The whole arranged marriage thing is more than a little creepy, not to mention archaic. And Malfoy? I mean, he's awfully pretty for a bloke. You don't think he might be...?" he trailed off significantly.

"Be what?"

"You know..."

"What?"

"You know. You don't think he might be...er...chasing for the other team?"

I rolled my eyes and indicted the game. "What are you talking about? Lucius isn't even playing Chaser."

He turned and looked at me closely, judging if I was being sincere, and then he laughed. Laughed so hard I was worried he might pass out from lack of oxygen, and so long that I finally got impatient waiting to find out what was so funny, and started prodding him.

"What are you laughing at?"

He continued to laugh too hard to answer me, doubled over and wiping tears away now, and so I started to leave, but he grabbed my wrist.

"No, wait Andy," he gasped out. "I'm sorry...really...you're just so cute...Lucius isn't playing Chaser..." he collapsed into howls of laughter again, and then recovered himself, eyes watering. "It's a euphemism Andy...it means...like...he doesn't like girls?"

"What? Oh. Oh!" I suddenly realized what he meant. "No, no, Lucius definitely isn't...that. He's a pureblood!"

"Don't tell me you think...oh no way! Andy, I can name at least two "pureblood" boys at this school who probably are."

"Who?"

He shook his head. "Not my business, or yours. But seriously, Malfoy is so pretty, a bloke has to wonder."

"Well, Lucius isn't…chasing…um…like that."

"If you say so," he shrugged. "I'm going to find out who you fancy though…"

Because we were close with Sirius, we couldn't help but get to know James Potter, since the two were inseparable. Despite what our parents would call his liberal, muggle loving upbringing, I found nothing objectionable about him. He was very much like Sirius, just another high-spirited young boy. In time, James got used to being friendly with me, and even to a degree Narcissa, but he and Bellatrix never viewed each other with anything other than outright contempt and loathing. It put Sirius very much in the middle, and he admitted it made him uncomfortable, but he simply refused to discuss either of them with the other.

One morning Bella and I were coming out of breakfast and saw a small knot of students forming. In schools around the world, a crowd of students gathering meant only one thing- a fight. Bella pushed through the crowd imperiously, and we found the combatants were Sirius and Rabastan. Neither of them noticed us, they were too busy trading insults,

Sirius shook his hair, always too long, out of his eyes and gave Rabastan a smirk that seemed cold well beyond his years. "What's the matter? Scared?"

I had actually seen Sirius duel, with Bella and with Reggie when the younger boy could nick someone's wand, and he was both quick and creative. He loved things like this. But then Rabastan threw out an insult that was guaranteed to escalate any fight.

"Blood-traitor."

Bella sucked in her breath next to me, but she didn't have time to do anything before curses started flying. Rabastan got one off first, and though it didn't hit Sirius directly, it did graze past his cheek, making a long gash that started bleeding freely.

I moved, I wasn't sure what exactly I planned to do, but it was Sirius, he was family, and I felt like we had to help him. But I had barely moved a step before Bella's hand closed around my arm in a vice-grip.

"No," she said, sharply, a dark expression I hated on her face and the two boys tried ineffectively to curse each other. It lasted no more than a few seconds, really, a Ravenclaw prefect broke through the clustered students, followed by the Head Boy, and they separated the two of them, and began taking away points, telling everyone else to get off to classes.

I was stunned, and so as soon as we had walked on, I grabbed the sleeve of Bella's sweater and pulled her into an empty classroom. The dark expression had cleared from her face, she looked merely annoyed.

"What Andy? We're going to be late."

"Why didn't you do anything? Sirius could have gotten hurt."

She sighed, glanced over my shoulder for a second, and then ran her hands through her hair in frustration.

"Rabastan would have stopped if you said something. Bella, Sirius is family."

"Andy, he wasn't wrong…" she said quietly, as though resigned. She was looking over my shoulder at the front of the empty classroom, not at me.

"What?"

"Rabastan. He wasn't wrong."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Yes, he had been sorted into Gryffindor, and yes, he was crazy and reckless and annoyed her sometimes, but it was Sirius, and I knew she loved him. Blood should be thicker than house loyalties.

"You think Sirius is a blood-traitor? You take that back, Bellatrix Black!"

"I won't!" She snapped back, bringing her gaze back to me, eyes blazing. "You know it's true too, you just don't want to admit it! If Sirius is going to turn his back on what this family believes then he'll fight those battles alone."

She turned on her heel and walked out, and I was left feeling completely lost. It was the first time I felt like I hardly knew Bella, and it was the first time we fought.

I was sitting at the end of one of the long tables in the Great Hall, working on homework, and I was alone. The Great Hall was nearly deserted aside from a few older students having a sort of informal study group at the far table. It was almost curfew time, but I wasn't ready to go back to the common room until the last possible minute. I had not seen Bella since that morning when we had argued, and since we'd never had a fight before I didn't know what to expect. I felt hollow, I felt like crying, I didn't know if I was disappointed in her, or disappointed in myself. I wasn't sure who I ought to be disappointed in. If Sirius was a blood-traitor, and I wanted to defend him, did that make me one too? As far as Bella was concerned there was no worse insult.

"So I've narrowed it down," said a cheerful voice, and I looked up from my books to see Ted plop down across from me with a cheeky smile. "Who you fan….hey, what's the matter?"

His smile faded into a look of concern, and I quickly looked down at my book again to hide tears pooling in my eyes. Black girls did not cry. I didn't look up again until Ted pushed something across the table hesitantly. A handkerchief.

"Thanks," I mumbled, rubbing at my eyes. He was watching me silently, like any boy unsure of what to say to a crying girl.

"Er…d'you want to talk about it?"

I shook my head, but at the same time burst out. "I had a fight with Bella."

"Oh…right. You guys are pretty close huh? But hey, sisters fight all the time, right?"

I shook my head. "We never had a fight before."

"No kidding? Geez Andy, my sister and I have fights all the time. She's older than me, and she used to beat me up all the time. One fight, heck, that's nothing."

I knew he didn't understand, what my family was like and what Bella was like, how she could be, but he sounded so cheerful and unconcerned that I couldn't help but feel a little better. Part of me wanted to pour out what I was really so worried about, the way our secure little unit of "the Black children" seemed to be falling apart, and that I was afraid of what I was seeing happened to both Bella and Sirius, but I knew he wouldn't understand. The part of my personality that made me a Black and a Slytherin stopped me from going on, and resolutely I handed his handkerchief back and nodded.

"Yeah, you're right, it's just one fight."

"Right," he smiled encouragingly, though he didn't look very convinced by my false bravado, he was trying to be helpful.

One of the prefects came and shooed us back to our common rooms, and so I never did find out what he had narrowed down, but I was suddenly, and surprisingly, glad he had been the one who had showed up there. He had an easy way of being helpful without making me feel stupid. And despite not sitting next to me in defense anymore, he still seemed to be showing up a good deal.

Bella and I never spoke again of that fight, and although she was quiet for a few days, during which I was unaccountably depressed and Narcissa watched us both in terrified confusion. She eventually became her old self again, as if the whole incident had never happened, and I have to admit I was glad. The fact was I didn't think I could live without her; it would be like losing some essential part of myself.

But as the end of term neared, Narcissa ended up with a problem that overshadowed ours. A problem named Severus Snape. He was a Slytherin, in my year, but it was generally known he was not a pureblood. He got off easily, in Slytherin terms, partly because he had, for some reason, made allies of both Lucius and Rudolphus. While I doubted either of them would have actually put themselves on the line for him, the threat was enough to keep him from too much harassment. That, and he was a bit of a good hand with potions, and there was always the danger you'd end up with something in your pumpkin juice that would cause considerable embarrassment. In the complicated cliques of our common room he was not among the "popular" students in Slytherin, and I'd had little reason to take any notice of him.

As November drew to a close, he decided himself in love with Narcissa. This was hardly an unusual occurrence, most of the first year boys and a handful of older boys fancied themselves in love with Narcissa, but Snape made himself enough of an annoyance that she mentioned it to us. Bella absolutely howled with laughter and told Cissy not to waste another thought on it, she'd take care of it.

Bella had no qualms about taking care of problems on her own, but I had started to notice that term what I thought then was showing restraint. I would later realize it was not restraint, but rather that she was learning something that would be even more effective on the path she would eventually take. She was learning to manipulate.

I came down into the common room late at night, because despite everything going on that term I had kept my grades as perfect as ever, giving Ted as well as Lily Evans and James Potter a run for their money, and I was inclined to study long after my roommates went to bed. Since Adrienne complained the smallest light kept her up, I usually studied in bed with the curtains drawn around me, but sometimes when that became suffocating I studied in the common room. The teachers and prefects never checked it after they did a final sweep before bed. That night, I heard voices and paused on the stairs. Despite the fact that they were speaking quietly, I knew Bella's voice as well as my own.

"…why not?" she was saying.

"I don't know what it is you want me to do, kiddo." The other voice was Rudolphus, I realized with a shock. I might have been surprisingly naïve for twelve, but I wasn't an idiot and I didn't like Bella in a darkened common room with him.

"Don't call me that. Just make him leave Narcissa alone. He'll listen to you."

He chuckled. "Does it matter? Snape will lose interest eventually. I feel bad for the lad, he has no idea how far he's out of his league."

"Please? I don't want Cissy to worry about things like this. I have to take care of her, of her and Andy. Just do it for me? Please?"

It was a voice I'd never heard from her before. I stood frozen, not sure if I ought to go into the common room, or go back upstairs.

"All right Bella, I'll take care of it for you."

A/N- I do apologize for the long delay, work went crazy for a bit. Also, I am not actually saying that Lucius is gay or that I'm going to take the storyline that way, Ted was just trying to get a rise out of her.

In response to a question I got, I am planning this story to go up untilTed and Andromedaget married (which I am assuming is pretty quickly after they finish school), and possibly until Sirius and Bella go to Azkaban. Depends on life, and how motivated I feel.