I do writing workshops sometimes, and one of the criticisms I get is that I don't "trust my readers"…that I over-explain because I think they might not get it. I'm working on it, but in the meantime, that's what I'm going to do right now: Give Andy a break in this chapter. She's young and she's confused, and she's going to do something stupid. She needs to so that she reconsiders the kind of allowances she makes for Bellatrix.

Chapter 10 – Clarification

I was in a perpetual bad mood as we prepared to go back to school. The end of the holidays had come suddenly for us, and it was a rude awakening to return to the Manor and have to consider books and robes and negotiate packing.

It was not only the jolt of reality that was bothering me, but also that fact that I sensed a subtle change that had occurred while we had been suspended in the beauty and timelessness of the summer. Something was changing in the wizarding world, and though I sensed it with the perception of a child, I understood that it would affect me as an adult. When my father and his "associates" met in his study their angry voices shook the house. There was talk of new laws restricting mudbloods and how much their muggle families knew about our world, those who favored them and those who opposed them were daily fighting it out in the Ministry and in the Wizengamot, which was said to be evenly divided. It was the end of that summer that muggle killings began, and we returned home to screaming Daily Prophet headlines that it had been so easy to ignore in our own sunny world.

When I was in Madam Malkin's for new robes, I could feel the eyes of two strange women on me, and as I tried to ignore it I heard whispers of "Black." It was the first time I heard my family name spoken as an epithet rather than a compliment. On the platform at Kings Cross, Mother and Augusta Longbottom, dignified ladies that they were, nearly got in a schoolboy duel over some imagined insult. We knew it was really because Mr. Longbottom was one of the Ministry's leading advocates for the fair treatment of half-bloods and muggleborns, and Father was decidedly on the opposing side of the issue.

It was with a vague and uneasy feeling, and a dark cloud hanging over us that I began my third year at Hogwarts.

At Hogwarts opening feast that year, there was one topic of intense interest among all the students...which house would Regulus Black be sorted into? Sirius had made history by being the first Black not sorted into Slytherin, and had not been a particularly quiet member of the student body since. He was known to everyone and given their striking physical resemblance, even the students who didn't know our family guessed who Reggie was at once.

He looked a little taken aback by all the eyes focused on him, because while he might look like Sirius, he didn't have the same need to be the center of attention, and in fact would generally prefer not to. Luckily with the name Black he didn't have to endure it for long before he climbed up on the platform and put on the hat. The hall seemed frozen, and I could feel Bella holding her breath next to me. Like me, the hat seemed to take ages with him, and then finally spoke.

"Slytherin!"

Bella let out her held breath in a whoop, and while Reggie looked supremely relieved, I glanced over at the Gryffindor table where Sirius sat. James Potter was whispering to him, but he was watching Reg being congratulated by Slytherins, his face unusually blank. Bella scooted me over to make a space for him on her other side, beaming at him. She had always, despite herself, and despite their rocky and combative relationship, loved Sirius far more than she would ever admit, but I think that was the moment she gave up on him. To Bella, that was the moment that Regulus became the heir to the Black legacy, if not the Black fortune.

Professor Dumbledore stood and welcomed everyone, and then drew attention to something I had not noticed in the excitement surrounding Reg- the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.

"What happened to her?" Bella asked the table in general, not even deigning to say Professor Archer's name.

"Don't you read Witch Weekly?" Annabelle asked.

"No," said Bella simply, with a look of disgust that she would waste her time with a magazine that focused on recipes and gossip. Annabelle flushed and looked down, she had always been a bit afraid of Bella.

"Oh, well, it was a great scandal," Shannon took up the story for those who did not read Witch Weekly. "She's run off with some American wizard," She finished, giving "American" much the same inflection one might use for "troll."

Bella smiled complacently at this news. "I knew she was trash, and good riddance. Perhaps we'll have a decent teacher this year."

"He doesn't look very nice," Annabelle said in a small voice.

He didn't. The new man who was seated at the head table had dark hair and aquiline features, and yet somehow managed to avoid being handsome, and he regarded the entire hall and all the students in it with a kind of cool distaste.

"Where is he from?"

"Durmstrang," replied Lucius unexpectedly. He had been regally silent for most of the meal. Since Rodolphus had graduated, he was the undisputed master of Slytherin. "His name is Malenkov."

"Do you know him?" asked Narcissa.

He shook his head. "No, but my father is on the school's Board of Governors, and he heard of it. Apparently he had a falling out with Durmstrang's headmaster and was looking for a new position, and Dumbledore offered him the post. Bella's right, he might just be decent."

The next day I had my first Arithmancy class. At my decision that I was going to take it, my father had merely raised his eyebrows and said I should mind that my grades reflected properly on the family. I shared Bella's opinion that divination was rubbish, true Seers were very rare, and they were born, not taught. Bella took it because it was an easy grade and a chance to make the Professor pale with the kind of tragedy her imagination was capable of coming up with. I found myself the only Slytherin girl in my year taking it, and it was a small class, being known as one of the harder disciplines that Hogwarts offered. I took a seat near the front, took out my copy of Numerology and Grammatica, and waited for the teacher, Professor Radix.

"Well, fancy meeting you here."

I sighed heavily and rolled my eyes as Ted took the seat next to me.

"Tonks, I see an entire room of empty seats. Why are you sitting next to me?"

"So I can explain things when you get confused. You see, it's a really hard class." I rolled my eyes again, and he went on. "Did you have a nice summer?"

"Yes," I admitted, giving in. "We went to the seaside for the whole summer."

"You did?" he sounded surprised, even disbelieving.

"Yes, look…" I pulled up my sleeve, displaying how tan I was, to prove it.

"Huh," he said finally. "I didn't think your family did anything so normal as going to the seaside."

"What did you think we'd do for holidays?"

"I don't know, sit around your manor houses and count your galleons."

"That's one of the stupider things I've heard you say."

"Yeah, I know. You just get a certain image in your mind, and it sticks." He shrugged, dragged a copy of the textbook from his bag, and then cleared his throat. "So…so, you're going out with Will Avery then?"

"I…who said that?"

"Pretty much everyone," he shrugged again.

At the age of thirteen, "going out" is an amorphous term. You don't actually have to go anywhere to be going out, in fact in some cases you don't even have to speak to a person directly to be going out. In fact, aside from the train, I had not even spoken to Will since we had been back at Hogwarts. It had never been established that we were going out, but enough classmates knew about our summer romance that apparently we were going out by Hogwarts default definition.

"Well, yes," I finally said, for lack of anything better to say. I still liked Will, so I wasn't going to deny it.

"Ah, right," he said, without any particular inflection, as though he had just wanted to confirm it. We sat in a suddenly uncomfortable silence as other students came in.

"What did you do for the holidays?" I asked finally, unable to stand it anymore. He looked relieved that I'd spoken.

"Oh, we went to France. My family, I mean."

"Really?" I sounded almost as incredulous as he had. I wouldn't have imagined his family had enough money to travel. And in fact, it was slightly embarrassing because I had never been to France. He seemed amused by my surprise.

"We're not destitute, Andy."

"I didn't think that!" I replied, although that was exactly what I had thought.

"Yeah, right."

Our first Defense Against the Dark Arts class fell on Wednesday, and I was curious about the new teacher. He seemed to have met with the approval of most of the Slytherins who'd had the class. Narcissa said he taught the second years basic dueling spells, which sounded ambitious compared with that I had done in second year the year before.

Rabastan sat next to me, having decided over the summer that I was worth being friends with. Annabelle, having noticed this, was perpetually green with jealousy, and had started sulking every time he so much as spoke to me. Neither of us had any romantic interest in each other, but Annabelle, as she got older, became the kind of woman who saw everyone as a rival.

"My father says we should pay attention to Malenkov," he said, looking more attentive than I had ever seen him in a class. "He knows what's what…"

He fell silent as Malenkov came in, glowering at everyone. He looked over the class, apparently noting the house emblems on our robes. "You do like to segregate yourselves at this school, don't you?" he murmured in a faint Slavic accent, with an unfriendly smirk. Then fell into a more normal teaching voice. "I am Professor Malenkov."

He picked up the class list, reading off the names. When he got to Black, dark eyes snapped up and he seemed to study me with great interest, and then went back to the list. He said nothing, but I could tell he recognized my name, and looked carefully also at Rabastan and Theo and Shannon when he got to them.

"Third year," he said as he finished and laid the list aside. "You have been taught a great deal about avoiding the Dark Arts, but I imagine you have no idea what it is you are supposed to be avoiding. You boy," he snapped around and pointed at Ted, who was sitting on the opposite side of the room from me, and had rather foolishly been whispering something to Frank Longbottom. "Your name, again?"

"Edward Tonks, Sir."

"Right, well since you seem to know far too much to bother paying attention in class, why don't you give us a definition of Dark Arts."

"Dark Arts include spells and curses intended to harm or kill another person, to take away their free will, or to interfere with natural order."

"I'm sure we're all very impressed with your ability to read and quote the textbook, Mr. Tonks," he sneered, and then turned to the rest of the class. "Does anyone else have thoughts on the matter?"

"That's bollocks, Sir," said Rabastan boldly, to appreciative giggles from the rest of the class.

"And why is that, Mr. Lestrange?"

"The Ministry will slap the label Dark Arts on anything they see fit to ban, even spells that real witches and wizards have been using for centuries. I suppose they reckon they have to protect mud- I mean muggle-borns- from magic that's too powerful."

"Thank you for the political commentary, Mr. Lestrange, but you correct in that the Ministry has no particular success in labeling what ought to be considered Dark Arts. That is because dark magic depends on the intent of the person casting the spell. Wingardum leviosa, the levitating spell, is not considered dark at all, you learned it in your first year. But were I to use it on you, Mr. Lestrange, and then suddenly let it go, you could be seriously injured." He eyed Rabastan as though he was considering a demonstration of this. "And that is what you need to remember. The Dark Arts are everywhere…even in places you might never expect."

"What do you think of the new teacher?" Ted asked me as we were leaving Arithmancy on Friday. I shrugged, because I still wasn't sure. Bella thought he was better than our previous teachers. Sirius had called him "smarmy" and Narcissa like him because Lucius liked him.

"I don't know. Why?"

He shrugged. "He seems a little...crazy to me. Apparently he took twenty points from Lily Evans for nothing, so everyone says he doesn't like muggle-borns."

"Didn't really seem like that to me, seemed like he was equally nasty to everyone."

It did not even occur to me that we were walking, and talking quite companionably, along one of the main corridors.

"Andy, wait!"

I turned, and Bella was coming out of the potions classroom with Elizabeth and Will. I felt a blush spreading up my neck at seeing Will, so pleased that I didn't immediately realize the situation I found myself in.

I smiled at him, but Bella was scowling. "Andy, who's this?"

"I…uh…" I was used to Ted being around, but I realized how strange it must have looked to my friends, who were all Slytherins and not at all fond of mixing with other houses. Called upon to explain it, I couldn't. Bella wasn't waiting for my explanation; she put her arm around me in a possessive gesture, and turned to Ted with a deceptively sweet smile.

"Please leave us alone, mudblood. Oh, and you'd better stay away from my sister, too."

He glanced at me, and I struggled for something to say but nothing came out. He turned his gaze back to Bella and raised an eyebrow coolly. "I think Andy can decide for herself who she associates with."

There was a tense silence. Bella was only a fourth year, but it was known that people did not challenge her. She wasn't much taller than Ted, but she still managed to look down on him haughtily. "She can, and she doesn't associate with filth like you."

People were watching. Not only Will and Elizabeth, because Bella had uttered the word "mudblood" and anyone who heard that word in the halls of Hogwarts hoped to see a fight. It occurred to me that I had never seen Ted fight, but he didn't seem the kind of boy to walk away from one either.

Two things warred within me…the light, teasing friendship I had developed with Ted, for he made me laugh, and the comforting and perfectly natural way Bella's arm was draped around me, declaring me hers. Although I would hate myself for it, I chose the familiar and comfortable.

"Of course I don't associate with mudbloods," I spat, with a disgust I hadn't imagined I could muster. "Just a pity they allow them in our classes."

"There, you see, mudblood?" Bella said, in a low, dangerous voice.

He wasn't looking at her, but me, as he responded with perfect calm. "Yes, I suppose I do see. Thanks for clearing that up."

We had potions with Gryffindor, which could often be entertaining, as anything is entertaining when you combine Slytherin, Gryffindor, and volatile chemicals. Sirius and James Potter came in directly behind me, and Sirius grabbed me by the arm a little too roughly. He and Bella tended to handle each other physically, but he rarely laid a hand on me. Had I not already felt acutely miserable, it wouldn't have mattered, but I was angry already, at myself more than anything, and I whipped around.

"Let go of me," I snapped, and he was surprised into releasing me.

"Next time you decide to be so nasty Andy, maybe you could choose somewhere other than a main corridor, because I don't much like being associated with it."

James Potter blanched, and got out of the way. The Black temper was famous, and just because I was less likely to explode than Bella didn't mean I didn't have it.

"If I feel like I want your opinion, Sirius, I'll ask. Until then, assume I don't really give a damn what you think."

That wasn't true, but I hardly cared then, I just wanted to be left alone.

"I wouldn't have guessed you could be just as much a bitch as Bella."

I moved and I truly didn't know at that moment if I was going to hex him or slap him, but I never did anything, because Slughorn's voice rang out.

"Mr. Black, Miss Black! That is enough. Detention, both of you, and in the future you'll both mind your language in my class."

I'll always remember that term as my worst at Hogwarts, and yet ironically it was the term that I was perhaps the most "popular" in my own house. Always quieter than Bella, I was remarkable simply for being a Black but I didn't draw attention to myself otherwise. I had never realized how quickly gossip spread at Hogwarts, mostly because I had never been worth gossiping about before. I was nearly a hero in Slytherin…Lucius stopped me to congratulate me on putting mudbloods "in their place." Theo Nott remarked that he never would have thought I was that tough. He made it sound admirable, while I was hating myself.

I arrived for detention with Slughorn at seven the following Tuesday, and endured a few minutes of his lecture, without really listening. Sirius was sitting with his arms crossed sulkily. I hadn't made it up with him either.

"Really Miss Black, I'm disappointed in you. Your behavior in my class has always been exemplary, and I would hate to see that change."

He had never been particularly vindictive, and so he simply set us to scrubbing cauldrons in the back of the potions classroom. Sirius was stonily silent, and finally I couldn't stand it anymore.

"Sirius, I'm sorry."

He scrubbed for a moment, then sighed. "Yeah, me too."

"I just…I didn't expect to be attacked by you."

"Andy, what happened? It's not like you to be like that. I thought you were friends with him, and I don't think you're the kind of person who treats their friends that way."

"I didn't know what to do."

"You could have stood up for yourself. And your friends. Andy, it's not like I don't get how close you and Bella are, but she's not always right, Slytherin isn't the ultimate law at this school however much it might seem like it."

"I was doing him a favor anyway."

He snorted. "How do you reckon that?"

"Having everyone in Slytherin think we're friends would have about the same effect as wearing a big "hex me" sign. He doesn't need that kind of trouble."

He considered that in silence for a moment. "Well, I can't say you're entirely wrong, but then again I don't think that's your decision to make. I don't know Tonks well, but he strikes me as the kind of bloke who can take care of himself if he needs to."

"Sirius, what do I do?"

"You apologize, and hope he's willing to listen. I wouldn't be surprised if he's not."

Sirius was right, but over the weeks that followed I had no opportunity to apologize, simply because I never saw him aside from classes, and he was no longer sitting near me in Arithmancy. If I saw him in the halls he was with Frank or other Ravenclaws, and I would imagine to everyone else in Hogwarts, nothing had changed. I felt like he was making a point of avoiding me, but it probably wasn't that hard. I felt his absence perhaps more acutely than I should have, because I knew it was entirely my fault, and I hated myself for conforming to the worst image everyone had of Slytherins. I told myself that I had been doing him a favor by keeping Will and Rabastan and Lucius off of him, for they were the kind of boys who would consider it a point of honor to mess with any muggle-born who imposed on a pureblood girl. In reality, I knew I had been cruel, and I couldn't even say why.

Sirius wasn't the only one angry with me. Wrapped up as I was in being disgusted with myself, it took me awhile to notice that I had seen very little of Marlene as well. I considered her a friend after we had worked together on the project the previous term, and she had even written to me from her summer holiday in Ireland.

I was a third year, and was allowed to go to Hogsmeade on the week-ends, and excitement was running high as the first one approached. Bella disappeared mysteriously, but I hardly noticed caught in the whirlwind that was Sirius and James Potter let loose on Hogsmeade. Honeydukes and Zonkos and the Quidditch supply store never knew what hit them, and between the two of them and their high spirits, I almost managed to forget my own problems.

We went to the Three Broomsticks, where Sirius and James immediately began trying to charm the lady who worked there. She seemed to find them sweet, and they kept her laughing. I was feeling better than I had in months from the combined effect of their antics and the warming quality of butterbeer when Marlene came in with another Ravenclaw girl who I knew vaguely was called Alice. She caught my eye, but then quickly looked away as though making eye contact with me was something she shouldn't have been caught doing.

"I'll be right back," I said to Sirius and James, but they were hardly listening. I approached Marlene hesitantly, ready to defend myself, which was starting to feel like a permanent condition, but she said something quietly to Alice and then met me halfway.

"Want to go for a walk?"

I nodded dumbly, and so we stepped out into the brisk October afternoon of a chill wind and rustling leaves and the smell of wood fires in the distance.

"So you had to go and make yourself famous, huh?" she said dryly as we walked down the main street of Hogsmeade, walking quickly because it was cold.

"Famous?"

"Well, by Hogwarts standards anyway," she admitted, and then shrugged. "Look, I'm pureblood Andy, I know the Blacks and I know where your family stands in all…well, everything that's going on. I didn't think you were like that. So what? Is it Avery?"

"Will? No, that's…he's nice Marlene, but he doesn't tell me what to do."

"I want to be friends with you Andy, because I like you. I liked working with you. But if that's your opinion on muggle-borns then I just can't swallow that."

"It's not though."

"Then why did you say that?"

"I had a twisted sort of logic, I won't waste your time with it," I sighed. "He hates me, doesn't he?"

She shoved her hands in her pockets, and was silent for awhile. "I don't know. He's made it pretty clear it's not up for discussion, he won't say a thing about you." She looked away over the mountains that bordered Hogsmeade, and the roof of the Shrieking Shack (a rumor had recently started that it was haunted) etched against the sky. "Don't give up, that's all I'm saying. Don't be too proud, I know that's hard for a Black."

Because I was normally quiet, only Bella and Narcissa noticed that anything was wrong. Bella asked me once if I was all right, and when I said I was, she nodded and said nothing else. Narcissa said nothing but I would periodically catch her giving me worried looks. Still, she hadn't lived twelve years with Bella to not know how to navigate another person's moodiness, and so she simply stayed close but didn't push me.

I was still in the empty common room at nearly midnight, knowing I wouldn't sleep, and preferring the fire to the darkened dormitory. I didn't cry, for I had never been one to cry, but I felt as though I had done something I could never put right. I hadn't really thought that a split second decision could lose a friendship that apparently meant more to me than I had ever realized.

"Andy, what's wrong?"

It was Narcissa, standing at the foot of the staircase in dark green pajamas that Bella had gotten her. I shook my head.

"Nothing. Go back to bed."

"No," she crossed the room and joined me on the couch. "No. If you don't want to tell me that's okay, but you shouldn't sit down here and be miserable alone. Surely I can think of something to be miserable about to keep you company." She leaned against me, the silk of her hair draping over my shoulder. "Now let's see, what shall I be miserable about? My hair has been doing this strange flippy thing lately. I have a potions test tomorrow. Today in charms I accidentally shrank my own hands and everyone laughed. I broke a nail in transfiguration, can you imagine, how devastating that was?"

She was trying to make me laugh, and I couldn't help a smile.

"Now honestly Andy, what is it?"

"Nothing, just something I did that I feel bad about."

"Well," she seemed relieved. "Is that all? It can't have been that bad."

"You seem very sure."

"I am, because you're almost too nice. Too nice for Slytherin anyway." She drew her knees up and regarded me thoughtfully. "You don't like to hurt people. You don't even like to bother them. Oh, you have claws, and a Black temper, but we don't see them much." She sighed. "Andy, you let Bella get away with a lot. Maybe more than you should. You make excuses for her."

I realized then that Narcissa knew exactly what I was talking about, and understood the dynamics of Hogwarts and Slytherin better than I would have ever guessed. Most people at school would call Narcissa aloof, and she was, but I wonder how many realized that was all an act.

"It's not like I don't know what it is between the two of you. You and Bella I mean," she went on. "You get her like probably no one else ever will. But you let her get away with murder. Why? She's not going to stop loving you Andy. As close as you two are, I can't understand why you think you have to act with her." I didn't know what to say to that, but she didn't seem to expect an answer. She stretched and leaned back against me. "Now really, let's talk about me. After all, I have real problems. My hair, you know."

I studied more than ever that term, because that was what came easiest to me. Arithmancy and Ancient Runes were not easy classes, and our other teachers claimed that they were starting to look toward O.W.Ls, still two years away, so we had more homework than ever. It was because of an Ancient Runes translation that I was in the library until nearly eleven one night, and as I was leaving I came across Ted, alone. I glanced around, and Madam Pince was nowhere to be found, so I summoned what courage I could and walked over to the table he was sitting at, under a window that looked out over the Forbidden Forest.

He looked up when I approached, but said nothing.

"I…I wanted to talk to you," I began, but he cut me off.

"I don't think we have anything to talk about."

"Look, you have every reason to be angry at me…"

He closed the book in front of him with a little snap. "I'm not angry," he said mildly, and he didn't sound angry, he spoke quietly and without much expression. "Disappointed perhaps. I thought I was a good judge of character."

"I'm sorry. What I said was wrong. Really wrong, I-"

"No, apparently some things needed to be clarified, and you certainly did an admirable job of making everything very clear."

"You don't understand."

"I've tried to understand, but apparently your pureblood world is way beyond my comprehension. I'll leave you alone Andromeda, that makes everything much easier for you."

Oddly, the thing that stung the most in that was his use of my full name. I realized that since I had first told him my name, he had never called me anything but Andy.

"I don't want you to leave me alone, I just want…don't you understand what was happening there? Do you really think that Will, or the Rosiers, or my sisters, or Malfoy, or Lestrange were going to just accept that we were friends? What you don't understand is how much you don't want the whole "Noble and Most Ancient House of Black" after you."

He shoved the book into his bag, closed it, and rose, apparently finished with the conversation.

"Look, I know you think I can't possibly understand your world, but as you may have noticed, I'm not doing too badly with this magic thing. If I want to take on the whole Noble and Most Ancient clan that's my call. This really isn't about me, or even about Bellatrix or Slytherin, this is about you, Andromeda," he paused and ran a hand through his hair, looking for a moment older than thirteen. "I get that family is important to you. It is to me, too. I would never ask you to give up your sisters, but your problem is that you can't stand up to them. You're old enough to stand up for what you believe in, but I don't think you know what that is, and it's time you figured it out."

He turned and walked out of the library.