Wo-ow that was a quick update (that's what you're thinking). I had some plans cancelled this week so I had some free time. I also took the time to look up the mythology surrounding the constellation Andromeda and was once again amazed by how well JKR knows her mythology. It was too perfect not to include. I feel like Andy is a little more retrospective in this chapter, speaking a little more as an adult looking back, though that's always where I'm writing from...not sure why. As always, tell me what you think!

Chapter 15- Chains

The first night we were home from school we were immediately thrown into the whirl of the holiday season in the wizarding world. There was to be a grand party at Grimmauld Place, and we arrived in mid-afternoon to find Reggie and even Sirius in unusually high spirits at the prospect of the usually gloomy house filled with people in cheerful holiday moods. Their house elves had outdone themselves so that everything gleamed richly and crystal everywhere made it feel like you were surrounded by ice. The house was full of the rich scents of pine and holiday treats and even Sirius, who hated the place with a passion, couldn't be sullen and sulky.

We arrived too early to start getting ready, and so Sirius offered Bella a game of chess, a game she had taken a strong and renewed interest in after our meeting Lord Voldemort the year before over a chess board in our own home. They set it up on the lower landing, from where you could see all that went on in Grimmauld Place, for it was the holidays and people were forever coming and going. I lay on my stomach next to Bella, chin on my hands, and occasionally pointed out moves to her in a whisper. She was good at the game when she put her mind to it, but strategy was never her strong point, and Sirius usually beat her. Cissy was prattling on about her dress robes, which were, it must be said, spectacular on her. Reggie was flipping through a broomstick magazine and prattling on about what sort were good and what kind he would buy if he had all the money in the world.

A draft swirled up to us and then we heard the door slam below, and we all leaned over the banister to see who had arrived. It was a man we didn't know, dressed in a sober dark suit, who we promptly dismissed as quite boring.

"Just one of Father's friends," Sirius said, immediately bored and returning to the game. A few moments later the man appeared on the landing, looking down at us. He spoke to Bella, perhaps because she was the oldest.

"I'm here to see your Father, is he in?"

Bella didn't bother to explain that it wasn't our house. We looked enough alike that we might have been siblings, it hardly mattered. I could tell immediately that she didn't like this man, and I wasn't sure I did either. He wasn't the least bit threatening, but he seemed just a little too tightly wound.

"He's in the study," she said, indicating the closed door. He reached behind him, and dragged a little boy out, a boy who had been hiding behind him, looking at us with wide blue eyes. He was young, certainly too little for school, maybe no more than eight or so, and delicate. With sandy hair, tiny and fine-boned and slight, he was almost too pretty for a boy. He immediately looked down shyly.

"You wait here while I talk to Mr. Black," the man commanded him. "I won't be long."

He swept past us, rapped on the door of the study, and disappeared inside. The boy looked around at us warily.

"D'you want to sit down?" Sirius said finally, and he promptly did.

"What's your name?" Bella asked, more gently that she normally would since he seemed so shy. He looked up at her, his eyes bright as he stared at her like he had never seen a girl before.

"I'm Barty Crouch," he finally said.

She gave a satisfied nod. They were an old pureblood family, though his father still worked for the Ministry, an advocate of doing everything by the book.

"Do you know how to play chess Barty?" she asked, smiling at him. He looked terrified and yet fascinated by her. He shook his head faintly. "Then watch. You might learn something."

It was only a few minutes later that the door flew open and Mr. Crouch came out, his face white and set with barely controlled anger. Uncle Orion stood behind him, framed by the study door. "So be it then, Crouch. Do what you must."

"I will, Black," he said tightly, motioning to the boy. He hopped up, and there was silence until the door closed behind them. Uncle Orion looked at us for a long moment, and then shook his head and disappeared.

Narcissa broke the ringing silence. "I guess that meeting didn't go so well."

The ball at Grimmauld Place appeared to be a great success. There was an air of forced cheerfulness, as though they were determined to ignore the war and have the parties go on as they always had. Even as the war escalated it would not interfere with their social schedule. If they didn't acknowledge it, didn't let it into their gilded world, it might not exist. I have realized they were not the passionate ones, the men like our Father and our Uncle. They believed in what Lord Voldemort was saying, but they didn't want a war. They wanted their privileged place in the status quo, and felt it was slipping away into the hands of those they thought to be lesser. It was the younger men, the men like Rodolphus and Lucius and even Will, who wanted a war, a revolution of sorts. Lord Voldemort had been gathering followers for years, but it was among those young people that he found those most devoted.

I didn't know that as Will drew me away from the hot and crowded ballroom with its stiff formality to the dusty attic of Grimmauld Place, where some of the teenagers had snuck away to. A few were drinking, but mostly it was just to be away from their parents, as young people always want to be. I relaxed, as I had wondered exactly what Will expected when he had led me away from the party into the quiet hallways of Grimmauld Place. I expected the light and sometimes vulgar talk of unsupervised and half-drunk teenagers, but instead it was nothing but talk of the war that we all knew was now inevitable.

"-and Crouch stormed out," Bella was saying as I came in. Sirius saluted me with a glass of what looked like whiskey, but Bella appeared to be mostly sober, far more interested in pureblood politics than common teenage pursuits like sneaking alcohol under the noses of our parents.

"It's happened then," said Rodolphus, in a low voice, his eyes intent on Bella.

"What's happened?" asked Elizabeth, unfocused and giggly and very definitely drunk, she would barely be sitting up if Lucas Flint hadn't been holding her up.

Lucius glanced at her, seeming unsure if he was disgusted or interested. "Crouch is with the Ministry. The old families have decided the Ministry isn't going to take care of the problem. They're taking back power. The break has come."

We were all sitting on the floor, Will was leaning against a dusty old cabinet, and I was leaning back against his chest, and I felt him tense as he heard Lucius say that.

"You sure on that Malfoy?" he said, trying to sound careless but failing entirely.

"It's about bloody time," said Rodolphus, with a restless movement. "How long have we waited, tried to work with the Ministry, paying their damn bills while they passed laws to protect mudbloods. Mudblood protection is just another way of taking power that ought to belong to us."

It occurred to me that he was probably drunk, for it was the longest speech I had ever heard him make. He was generally silent and cold and superior, but now he spoke with a conviction I hadn't assumed he was capable of, he always seemed so casual and quietly amused. Then I realized that had been a foolish assumption, for Bella would have no use for someone who couldn't summon the same passion she threw into every day. Sirius handed me a bottle, and feeling quite grown-up and rebellious, I gamely took a sip, only to choke on what seemed to be pure grain alcohol. Sirius laughed, and Will patted me on the back. I gave it another try and managed to choke some down, just to look cool. It immediately burned all the way to my fingertips, but while I was considering that new sensation, the talk of war went on around me. When I think back on these moments that made up my own coming of age, there always seems to be talk of war in the background.

"What will happen now then?" asked Rabastan quietly. He was sitting under a window with moonlight streaming in, illuminating his face. He looked, like all of them, excited, but also a little frightened, I thought. That he could be afraid, despite the boldness and bravado he showed at school, unsettled me a little. I slid closer to Will, and Bella noticed and gave me a wicked grin, but then turned serious again as the older ones there considered Rabastan's question. Rodolphus, who usually spoke to his younger brother with brisk irritation, seemed pleased that he had been the one who asked the question, for he answered him in a hearty man-to-man sort of voice.

"This is it then. We take it upon ourselves to purify our world, to save our race. We have a leader, we know who our allies are. There will be a war, but we are on the right side."

I didn't miss that he looked at my sister as he spoke. I hated him then, because I felt like he was taking her away from me, taking her deeper into something dark. It was easier to blame it on him than consider it might be what she wanted.

"I don't want a war," I said suddenly, impulsively, surprised at my own daring to speak up in their presence. Rodolphus turned and looked at me, and I could see he was remembering our conversation the year before, when he had promised not to underestimate me. I had to admit that night he looked handsome, dressed in black that suited him, every movement infused with a kind of restless anticipation, but I still couldn't like him.

"Nobody wants war, Andromeda. But sometimes it is a necessary evil," he said softly.

Much later that night, the others had drifted back downstairs, to home or in the case of my cousins and sisters to bed, and Will and I remained in the attic. With only a few sips from the bottle Sirius had, I was probably more tipsy than I realized.

"Why do you say things like that?" he said suddenly, interrupting a moment definitely not meant for conversation.

"Like what?" I murmured drowsily.

"You said you don't want a war," he said, like an accusation, and I sat up. We had been going out for a year and a half, and I knew him well enough to speak somewhat honestly.

"I don't! People die in a war."

"I know Andy. But sometimes it must happen. Like Lestrange said, a necessary evil."

"Is it necessary now?" I snapped, pushing his hands away. "When have you ever been prevented doing anything? How are you oppressed?"

He looked surprised, a hand still lingering on my neck, as though wondering where this romantic night had gone wrong.

"You deserve to not have to go to school with them, to not have to be around them," he said. "You're a pureblood Andromeda, you shouldn't be forced to mix with those beneath you."

Unexpectedly, I thought of Ted and his wild laughter when he commented on the little muggle-born boy who had a crush on me. I knew somehow that Will wouldn't find it funny, the little boy would be subjected to the anger of the most dangerous boys at Hogwarts (and could I really call them boys, knowing what they were capable of?)

"Do you really want this?" I asked Will, who I thought I knew. "Can you really kill someone?"

He looked down at his wand, which he carried even though we were still not allowed to use it on holidays. "I could, if it was for the right reason," he said finally.

I wanted to draw away from him as a shiver ran through me. "I couldn't," I whispered.

He slid hi fingers into my hair at my forehead, combing his hand through my hair until it rested at the back of my neck. "Yes, you could. If they hurt someone you love. You're too much your family for anything else."

"I'm not my family…" I murmured. "I'm only myself."

Diagon Alley was decorated in fine style for the holidays, but the glitter and sparkle had taken on a dispirited look due to the weather. It was bitterly cold, and the dark clouds hanging overhead seemed to be undecided on whether they wanted to rain or snow, and so were pelting down an unpleasant, slushy combination of the two.

Mother didn't like coming to Diagon Alley and mixing with the masses, but she simply had to take Narcissa to Madam Malkin's. Cissy had grown a good three inches over the past term, and her school skirts were on the verge of becoming indecent. Bella had attempted to rectify the situation but her attempts at magical tailoring left something to be desired. Mother had allowed all of us to come against her better judgment, probably because Father complained that we wouldn't "stop making such a bloody racket." Her agreement had naturally come with a lecture on behaving ourselves and a look that promised dire results if we didn't.

Bella and I had been allowed to go off on our own for a bit, probably not so much an indication of Mother's trust but more a suggestion that dealing with all three of us at once was more than she could take. Especially given the trials of shopping with Narcissa, who was very particular about her clothes. Bella and I ran into Elizabeth, and since I wasn't inclined to put up with her cloying presence, I wandered off to shops more to my liking. Of course, wandering became running when the sky rumbled ominously and then the deluge of sleet began.

I was beginning to wish I'd stayed home curled up in bed with a book and a lovely warm fire when I dropped one of my bags, splashing myself with mud, and cursed violently.

"Wow Andy, I wouldn't have thought you even knew that word," said a voice I knew only too well, as he picked up the bag to hand back to me. He was dressed in muggle jeans and a jumper, and some sort of waterproof jacket that looked much more appropriate for the weather than my clothing.

"What are you doing here? And why is it every time I'm in Diagon Alley you show up?" I snapped. I was irritated, and though not necessarily at him, he was there.

"There's a really super muggle invention called an umbrella, you should really look into one," he replied, drawing me into a doorway and out of the rain. It was Fortescue's, and so warm inside that condensation was forming on the windows. "And as to your question, perhaps I'm stalking you. Or perhaps it's two days before Christmas and most people- that is to say, normal people- are trying to finish their Christmas shopping."

"Oh, right…Christmas," I set down my bags gratefully and unwound my scarf.

"Geez, you're soaked."

"Your mastery of the obvious is astounding."

He smiled at my sarcasm, refusing to be offended. "Sit down, I'll get some coffee. Not to sound like your Mum or anything, but you're going to catch your death."

I didn't bother to point out that my Mother was not the sort to offer hot beverages. Her immediate reaction to seeing me drenched would be that it was unladylike to look like a drowned rat. I protested, but without much conviction, because really coffee sounded lovely, and I was shivering.

'How's your holiday?" he asked when he came back, and I wrapped my hands around the hot cup and felt some of the feeling come back into my fingertips. I wasn't sure how to answer…nothing bad had happened so far in the winter holidays- but our house was tense and gloomy, more so than usual. Father was in a particularly foul temper, snapping even when we were quiet, and his friends and associates would come to the house and leave, stone-faced and silent. Bella was given to listening at doors and said there was dissension among the old families- those who wanted to go on trying to change the laws through the Ministry, and those who wanted all-out war. I knew which side our family was on, I had heard Uncle Orion make an agreement with Lord Voldemort. I told Bella about it and it was exactly what she expected, but there was a certain look on her face when she said it that bothered me, and I couldn't say exactly why. I couldn't explain that to him, not in any way that made sense, so I merely shrugged.

"All right. Yours?"

He looked as though he didn't believe me, but then allowed it to pass. "Mine's all right. We've had a lot of people over- my grandparents and Aunts and Uncles and like…and it's always a bit odd, because we can't really tell them where I go to school." He frowned, and went on. "Let's just say that when we tell them I go to a special boarding school, Hogwarts isn't exactly what they imagine."

I cracked a small smile. "They think you go to a school for crazy people?"

"Well, we try not to call them that, but something like that. And they've always thought I was a bit off anyway."

"Why?"

"I was different. Strange things happened when I was around. My parents tried to act like it was normal, but…" he shrugged again. "Besides, my Mum won't leave off talking about you. She calls you 'that nice girl with the funny name.'"

"There is nothing wrong with my name!" I exclaimed. I actually liked our family's celestial naming tradition. Given what some of the pureblood families came up with, we were getting off rather easily with constellations.

"No, it's just a bit of a mouthful, especially when you say it all flouncy-like."

"I do not-"

"You do so." He grinned at my outrage. "What's the story behind 'Andromeda' then?"

"It's a constellation."

"No way! Not like Astronomy is a required course at Hogwarts or anything. I meant that most of the constellations have a story about them, and they don't teach us that in Astronomy."

"You really want to know?"

"I asked, didn't I?"

I couldn't believe he'd care, but he seemed genuinely curious, and there's nothing so nice as telling a story to an interested audience. Long nights of telling stories with Bella and Narcissa came back to me, and I rested my chin on my hand.

"All right then. Andromeda was the daughter of the King and Queen of Ethiopia, and she was very, very beautiful. Very beautiful."

He rolled his eyes. "Of course." I gave him a look and he folded his hands and nodded, "Go on then."

"Anyway, she was engaged to a nobleman called Phineus, but then her Mother, who was also beautiful but arrogant and proud about it, angered Poseidon by claiming that she was more beautiful than the Nereids. So he sent a flood and a sea monster to destroy them. A Seer told them that the only way they could stop the devastation was to offer Andromeda as a sacrifice to the sea monster."

"Why her? Why not hand over the Mum who was thick enough to start running off her mouth, eh?"

I shrugged. "That's not what the Seer said."

"What if he was a rubbish Seer?"

"Ted-"

"Okay, sorry, go on."

"So they chained her up as a sacrifice to a rock over the sea so that the monster would come and devour her. But then as the sea monster was about to take her, she looked up and saw Perseus, wearing the winged sandals of Hermes. He saw her and swept down from the sky, and he fell in love with her in a single moment. He freed her, and said "those are not the chains you deserve to wear, but rather those that link fond lovers together," and so he killed the sea monster and rescued her. He turned down all the things her parents offered him as a prize, because he only wanted to marry her. While they were celebrating their marriage though, Phineus showed up, claiming Perseus had stolen her."

"Men can be possessive like that."

"Mhm. They had a great battle, and finally Perseus turned Phineus and all his men to stone by showing them the head of Medusa."

"And so? Did they live happily ever after?"

"Of course, it wouldn't be a good story otherwise. They went to Hellas and reigned together and had eight children. The gods were so impressed by their story that they memorialized them by putting them among the stars."

"Not a bad story," he said thoughtfully, but then shook his head. "But now I'm not so sure the name suits you."

"Why not?"

"Well, I reckon if it were you, you'd break the chains and kill the monster all on your own."

I smiled. "Of course I would."

He laughed. "I think…" he cut off uncertainly, looking beyond me. Before I could ask what was wrong, I was pulled bodily out of my chair and slapped so hard that I staggered backwards and would have fallen if Mother hadn't had a bruising grip on my arm. I was more shocked than hurt. Although Ted came away from that day thinking we were all beaten mercilessly at home, the truth was our parents rarely struck us, and never in public. It was the shock of that that made me speechless for a moment.

"Well, apparently Regulus was right, I never!" she said, and that was the first time I noticed Reggie lurking behind her. He wouldn't meet my eyes, and I knew he had told on me. I felt betrayal more than anything.

Ted rose, and I hoped desperately that he didn't think he was going to lay a hand on Mother…that would only end badly for both of us. I tried to make him understand that with a look, and luckily he didn't try to touch her, though he did try to speak.

"Ma'am," he began, in a polite though strained voice, his face horrified, but Mother cut him off.

"You, mudblood" she hissed, her voice suggesting violence, "will stay away from my daughter. If you speak to her again, I will make you regret it."

"Andromeda wasn't, which is, I made her…" he tried again, I'm sure in an attempt to help me. I wanted to tell him not to bother, he would only make it worse.

She looked at him with disgust that was almost palpable. "Don't speak to me like an equal, mudblood. You don't belong in this world. It would be best you realize that before someone is forced to teach you."

Narcissa took the ice pack off my cheek and frowned, and I took her expression to mean it didn't look good. Mother had hit me with an open hand, but hard enough that a bruise was coming out around my eye. Cissy had been remarkably circumspect, not saying a word, but surprisingly kind as well.

Not a word had come down from Mother and Father yet, but I knew that I was in trouble- not only for having a coffee and a pleasant conversation with a mudblood, but for making Mother lose her temper in public. Any public display of emotion, even anger, was unfitting.

Narcissa shifted so my head was resting in her lap, stroking my hair, and finally said quietly, "that was a silly thing to do Andy."

"I didn't actually do anything," I protested through the cloth, though not with much conviction.

"I've seen you talk to that boy before. You're sometimes rather too familiar with mudbloods."

"But…"

We heard a door slam, and then footsteps thudding up the stairs that could only be Bella, and I saw Narcissa wince on my behalf. Mother's anger was one thing, but rage from Bella was entirely another. Mother had icy control, whereas Bella was entirely fire, and just an unpredictable.

She flung the door open, eyes blazing. "Honestly, Andy, what were you thinking?"

I sighed, putting aside the ice pack. She looked annoyed, but not violently angry.

"I really fail to see the big deal here," I said tiredly. "I was talking to a boy in my classes. I'm not going to be his best mate, I'm not going to marry him, I was just talking."

"It's bad enough that we have to go to school with mudbloods, you shouldn't be associating with them over the holidays."

"What does it matter? I'm perfectly fine, he didn't do anything to me. I'm not permanently scarred."

"Someone might have seen you. Do you want to get a reputation of being a muggle-lover? A blood-traitor?" she was getting worked up, and I knew her well enough that I knew it was time to back down, but for the first time, I didn't. The day, my own anger at Mother and at Reggie, and the tension in the air didn't allow it anymore. I sighed and pushed away from Narcissa, getting up.

"I'm not a blood-traitor, but was I to have acted like I didn't even see him?"

She seemed shocked that I even had to ask that. "You do not associate with mudbloods Andromeda. Remember what you are! You're a Black."

I spun back to her, and surprised even myself when I yelled. "Damn it, Bella, I know! Don't you think I know? I've had it pounded into my head for the last fourteen years. I know, but I don't…"

I stopped myself just in time. I had been about to say that I didn't know what it meant, why it mattered, except I knew that to Bella it meant everything. Being a Black and a pureblood was how she defined herself. Although I stopped myself from voicing my question, perhaps in some way she understood it, for it was as though she answered it when she spoke again. Her voice was raised slightly, not yelling but even more sinister, telling of a barely controlled anger, tinged with disbelief that I would ever question her, ever question the rules.

"If you knew you wouldn't associate with them. What are they? What do they have, when compared to us?" She moved toward me and for a moment I actually thought she would strike me, but instead grabbed my hand, as though to force me into awareness of my own flesh. I jerked my hand away from her, for the first time I didn't want Bella to touch me. "Compared to us! Andromeda, we have a thousand years of magic, of wealth, of power, running through our blood!"

I turned away from her, looking out the French doors through the rivulets of rain running down, at the vast manor that was our home, and knew how fortunate we were, in so many ways. We indeed had everything she said, but what she didn't say, didn't feel, was what came with the magic and wealth and power. Running through our blood was also a thousand years of dark magic, of cruelty and incest and bigotry. Of a darker side of the family behind the façade of elegance and opulence. We were admired, yes. We were also feared and hated.

And what did they have, the muggle-borns she so hated? None of our long history, none of the magic and power and wealth in their blood, but a chance to do something no one had ever done before. To start in a new world and to be whatever they wanted to be. There was no mold to break, no protocol, because they were the first. They were without a legacy in our world, and so had a kind of freedom I couldn't imagine. They weren't chained to what was proper, what the family approved of, what had been done for a thousand years. No matter what I did, I would always be a Black, that was what people would see about me, as surely as if the glittering family tree on the wall showed in my skin.

Someday, I would say all of this to Bella, but then I wasn't ready, I couldn't even find the words, I had never allowed such thoughts to form before, and they terrified me.

I didn't realize I was crying until Narcissa reached up and smoothed her hands over my cheeks, brushing away the tears. She looked terrified, poor Narcissa, caught between us.

"I expect…" she laid her hand against my cheek, her voice hopeful and encouraging and deliberately practical. "I expect you just weren't thinking."

I turned back to Bella, afraid of what I would see in her face. I never saw her face, she moved so quickly, taking Cissy's excuse for my own, dragging me into her arms as though by physical contact we could ignore that suddenly, for the first time, we didn't understand each other at all. I fell into the familiarity of my sister, hating myself for weakness, but afraid to tell her what I really thought. I knew deep down that if I gave voice to what I thought someday Bella would hate me, I couldn't stand it yet.