Chapter 30 - Whispers

"Ow! Merlin Sirius, did you have apparate right on top of me?"

"Well then move," he said logically, starting to levitate his trunk toward the train. Platform 9 ¾ was crowded with people milling around, and it seemed in the crowd, no one had seen us arrive. I felt conspicuous, but naturally people were occupied with the chaos of getting themselves and their belongings on the train, and nobody noticed me. I reminded myself that often anticipation of a thing is worse than the experience itself, and nudged my trunk forward. Sirius had somehow managed to get hold of it, and when I asked him how, he had said he shouldn't reveal his secrets, and muttered something about "plausible deniability."

"Were you just planning to stand here?" came Ted's voice from behind me.

"You know, a good boyfriend would help with my trunk."

"One thinks a witch who's only months away from taking seven N.E.W.T.s could levitate it to the train herself."

"Yes, but why does one have a boyfriend if not to lift heavy things?"

"Do you really want me to answer that? Out loud? With all these people around?"

"Behave," I said mildly, finally taking care of the trunk myself, and then tripped as an over-excited owl tipped over its cage and knocked over a bag, sending a cascade of books across the platform.

"Ah bugger! Sorry Andy…"

"Having trouble Cailean?"

"Yeah, stupid owl, he's totally insane, I-"

"Cailean!" a woman's voice cut through his chatter. "I do not want you talking to that girl!"

He rolled his eyes at me, and then turned to the woman who had spoken. "Seriously Mum, Andy's in my house. It's not-"

"Yes, Slytherin used to have standards," she sniffed at me. "And you, missy, are a wicked, ungrateful girl who…"

"Mum, you don't know…"

"You stay away from her Cailean," she said dangerously, before sweeping away. He mouthed "sorry" and started gathering up his dropped books. Ted pushed me gently toward the train, and I tried to tell myself that was nothing I hadn't expected. "Wicked" and "ungrateful" were probably among some of the more generous adjectives I was going to hear, and there was no point in picking a fight with someone like Cailean's mother.

I felt it, an almost physical chill, a kind of flutter of apprehension, and turned and saw the familiar and noticeable gold of Narcissa's hair. Reggie was lagging behind her until she snapped at him. I waited, tensed, but it seemed they had come to the station alone, there was no sign of Bella or my parents. That made sense, my Mother wouldn't want to face her friends and their barbs, my father certainly wasn't the type to see his children off to school, and Bella was probably getting ready to leave again.

"You okay?" Ted asked quietly.

"I'm fine."

When Sirius had run away, Bella had reacted with rage, and Narcissa with stinging, frosty silence, she simply ignored him, he stopped existing, except for a vague look of disgust when she was forced to acknowledge him, because, after all, he often made himself the center of attention in any given situation. I suppose I had expected the same. I didn't expect her to try to talk to me, but I think despite everything, Narcissa really believe I was merely caught up in a crush and if she just made me see reason I'd change my mind.

As the train started to move, there was no way to avoid passing her in the corridor. I wasn't sure if I should ignore her or say something, but then what? As it happened, she took the decision out of my hands by speaking first, as though I were some casual acquaintance, and it was nothing of any importance.

"Father will forgive you Andy. If you just stop being so stubborn, he'll let this go."

"What an offer…" muttered Ted.

For just a second her icy reserve seemed to crack and there was a flash of anger that seemed more like Bella. "I wasn't speaking to you mudblood. This is between me and my sister."

"Really? And here I thought the problem was me and you sister."

She glared at him, for a moment a lifetime of good manners fighting with anger and hatred in her face, and then she turned and swept away without another word. Ted rubbed a hand over his face.

"I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't engage her…it's your fight."

I shrugged. "No…I think it's yours too now."

"Welcome back to school, hm?" he sighed. "Marlene grabbed a compartment down there, let's just get out of the line of fire here."

I skipped dinner that night, feeling tired and unsettled although really the train ride and return to school were not that bad. When imagining how terrible it could all be, I had underestimated my friends. After running into Narcissa the train ride was uneventful, and Marlene and Sirius didn't let me spend too much time thinking about that, and instead entertained everyone in the compartment by reading stories from The Quibbler in dramatic, faux serious voices with full commentary. Cailean popped into the compartment to assure me that he thought his Mum was being stupid, and that he was still my friend whether I liked it or not, and that he was still available, should I get tired of Ted.

I suppose I was trying to put off the inevitable, but by the time my roommates got back from dinner I was closed behind the curtains in my bed, by all appearances asleep, though I was in fact awake and trying to distract myself with a smutty romance novel I had borrowed from Marlene. I heard their quiet voices as they talked softly about the holidays and weather and absolutely everything except the elephant in the room. Adrienne was the first to bring it up, indirectly, when Annabelle mentioned some or another party.

"Did you see Andy, after…you know?" she whispered.

There was a pause, and I could picture them all looking at my bed and hoping I was really asleep, then Annabelle said, "No. I couldn't believe it. What can she have been thinking?"

"I think it's romantic," said Shannon boldly. "To love someone so much you'd give up everything?"

"Oh, romance is all very well," said Annabelle. "But he's a mudblood. She's Andromeda Black. She could have any pureblood boy. She won't have any money or pretty clothes or anything! I hope she realizes how silly it is. I hardly think a mudblood boy can be worth all that."

"You don't get it, it's not about money and clothes and status! It's love!"

I smiled a little to myself, for Shannon liked to present herself as jaded and detached- the ultimate cynic. It amused me to hear her so passionately defending love, which she would scoff at in the presence of anyone other than the girls she had lived with for seven years.

"I'm sure love is very nice," Adrienne said darkly. "But there is a war going on, it's no time for such recklessness."

I was always the last to wake up, but the next morning I was surprised to find Shannon waiting for me.

"I waiting for you to walk to breakfast," she said simply, with no explanation for why, and she never did mention it, instead talking about everything else, but I appreciated the gesture. It was interesting, to find out who your friends really were.

There were whispers, certainly. I heard them around me at breakfast and in the halls between classes.

"Andromeda Black, did you hear…"

"…a mudblood boy…"

"…ran away, right from a party at her parents' house…"

"…stayed with Sirius Black, and everyone knows about him…"

"…such a scandal…"

It was something I had expected, and yet it was nowhere near as bad as I had expected. The Black family had always inspired gossip, whether about political affiliations, the unruly young heir, or the questionable nocturnal activities of their oldest daughter, and it seemed little different. In truth, I fielded more questions about my stay with Sirius ("Does he ever, like, walk around naked?") than any direct comments on my personal life.

And in a school with hundreds of students, there were more than enough rumors to keep people from focusing too much on my love life- people suspected the head boy and girl were going out, a sixth year Ravenclaw girl was caught sneaking out to meet her paramour in Hogsmeade, who turned out to be a forty-year-old member of the Wizengamot, and two Hufflepuff boys found themselves in a compromising position in an empty classroom until Peeves caught them. Luckily for me, Hogwarts had a short attention span.

In Slytherin, people were a little less easily distracted, but still very few people said anything to my face. The younger students, while they might have opinions, weren't stupid enough to pick a fight with a seventh year, and most of my classmates either ignored me or were too wrapped up in the stress of upcoming N.E.W.T.s to really care.

Still, I spent as little time as possible in the Slytherin common room, keeping instead to the library with Ted. We were hardly alone, as most of the seventh years were in various states of nervous breakdown over the prospect of exams and the future.

One night as we were leaving the library, he caught me back around a darkened corner and kissed me.

"Not that I'm objecting, but what is that for?"

He blew out a breath in frustration. "I never see you."

"You see me every day, in nearly every class."

"I never see you alone," he clarified, kissing a sensitive spot just below my ear. That was true, the lack or privacy at Hogwarts was as irritating as ever, it was simply impossible to be alone with someone. Even if you managed to escape other students you took your chances with the ghosts or Filch or that damned cat. It was never enough, but then there was something to be said for such late nights and darkened empty hallways, and taking advantage of stolen moments.

"You have me alone now. What will you do about that?"

"Hm, don't be a tease Andy…" he said, cutting off any answer I might have to that rather effectively.

"Oh for Merlin's sake would the two of you please get a room?"

Any interruption would have been unwelcome at that moment, but it was Rabastan's voice, and Ted's response was as much born out of frustration as anything.

"Fuck off, Lestrange."

"Watch how you speak to me mudblood," he shot back.

I saw the flash of Ted's wand and grabbed his wrist. "Then I'm telling you Rabastan. Leave us alone."

He seemed to consider his odds, and the truth was they would be pretty evenly matched in a fight. Rabastan took a stop back, eyes glittering nastily. "Enjoy it while you can Andromeda."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

He shrugged, and walked away.

"Talk about mood killing," I muttered finally, leaning against Ted.

He chuckled at that, but sounded worried when he spoke again. "What do you think he meant?"

"Probably nothing. Rabastan likes to talk big even when he doesn't know what he's talking about."

A Hogsmeade week-end seemed a perfect respite from the stress of school work, but they cancelled the first two of them due to "dangerous activity" in Hogsmeade, and so it wasn't until the end of April we actually got to go. We spent a very pleasant lunch in the Three Broomsticks with Sirius and Marlene and James and Lily, while Sirius and James flirted outrageously with Madam Rosmerta, who had stolen the hearts of many generations of Hogwarts boys.

We talked about shopping, but never got up too much motivation, because it was raining outside, and the atmosphere in the pub was warm and congenial, and it would have been just as easy to linger there all afternoon, had a drenched little boy not marched up to me importantly.

"I'm supposed to give you this," he said, holding out a note importantly. I was sure he was a Hogwarts student, though out of uniform I couldn't say which house.

Meet me in the Hog's Head at 2pm.

It was unsigned, and so I grabbed his arm as he started to walk away. "Who gave you this?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. A woman wearing a cloak. Her face was covered with a hood."

"What did she say?"

"She asked if I knew who Andromeda Black was, and then said she'd give me a galleon to find you in the Three Broomsticks and give you that note."

"Thanks." I glanced at my watch, and it was one-thirty. I reached for my cloak. "I have to go do a thing."

Ted followed me away from the others.

"You can't be serious Andy. You're just going to go off in response to a mysterious summons from a stranger? You don't think that's a little dangerous?"

"It's not a stranger, it's Bella. I'm sure it is."

He grabbed my arm. "All the more reason to stay here. With witnesses."

"Ted, I have to."

"Why? Why do you always have to go when it's her? How long are you going to be at her beck and call? You know what she thinks and where she stands and you still let her order you around."

"If she wanted to hurt me, she would have that night at Grimmauld Place. If she wants to talk, I have to try. Please, try to understand…"

"I don't understand, after everything she's done to you, and done to other people, that you can still trust her."

"I don't trust her, but I can't give up on her completely."

Face set in anger, he didn't look at me directly, instead focusing on a point beyond the bar. "Well, you do what you have to do."

After speaking to me on the train, Narcissa had made a point of ignoring me, and I assumed she had given up. It occurred to me now that she was leaving it to Bella to see that I came to my senses and came home. Narcissa had always assumed that Bella would solve all our problems.

I had never been in the Hog's Head before, though I had heard about it, it wasn't favored by students. As soon as I stepped in I knew my guess had been correct, for despite the dark cloak concealing her face, I knew Bella well enough to recognize her pose, the way she sat, concealed by the shadows in a corner. The barman didn't even glance at me when I came in. I suspect he kept his clientele by minding his own business.

Although I was fluttering with nervousness at seeing Bella again after our last meeting, I didn't let it show.

"Is all this cloak and dagger really necessary?"

She let the hood fall back slightly, so that I could at least see how face, still shadowed. "It's best if no one knows I was near Hogsmeade today," she replied obscurely.

"So why are you?"

"Sit down," it was unmistakably a command, and I didn't.

"There's nothing to say Bella. Nothing has changed. I'm going to be with him."

"I won't let you throw your life away," she said, voice low.

"I'm not, I'm taking the life I want."

"What can he give you Andromeda? Do you really think he loves you? You can't possibly be that naïve. He sees you as money and status. He'll use you to be accepted in a world where he doesn't belong."

"Don't pretend you know anything about him."

Her chair skidded back into the wall as she stood abruptly, grabbed me urgently, fingers digging into my shoulders. "End this Andy, before it's too late. Don't let him ruin your life. Don't let him ruin everything."

Her hands were on my shoulders, the wide sleeves of her robes slipping up, and that's the first time I saw the tattoo, the snake coiling around a skull, standing out in sharp contrast to her fair skin. I stared at it, hypnotized, but then as suddenly as she had grabbed me, she gasped and pulled away, clutching the tattoo with her other hand. For a second I thought it was because she realized I'd seen it, but she gave a hiss of pain and cursed violently, then looked back at me.

"This isn't over. I meant what I said. I'll kill him if I have to, to protect you."

The crack of her apparating echoed through the silence of the bar.

It was not until that night that I found Ted, sitting at the Ravenclaw table with Marlene and Sirius. It was well past dinner time, and they appeared to be studying, though Sirius didn't study so he was probably planning some sort of devastation. In any case, the Great Hall was nearly empty, and so it was as good a time as any to talk to him. Marlene glanced up when I approached.

"Oh, um, hey look at the time…Sirius, we have to do that thing…"

"What?"

"You know, we have to go do that thing…somewhere else?"

"What are you-Ow! Oh yeah, the thing…"

I watched them go, and then sat down. "Well, that was subtle."

He allowed a slight smile. "Subtlety is a Slytherin quality. Gryffindors aren't known for it."

"Look, I know you're mad at me."

"No, I just…well, yes, but not like you think. I hate what she does to you, Andy, and I hate that you let her. If it were anyone else in the world you would never let them treat you like she does."

I sighed. "It's never going to go away completely. I figured when I left it would, somehow. I'd just forget about them, and…"

"I wouldn't ask you to forget about them. But you know…"

"I know, she's not going to change."

He shrugged, in a kind of "you said it" fashion. "What did she want?"

"More of the same. We should get used to it."

The next morning I was yawning through breakfast when Shannon's owl dropped The Daily Prophet in her cereal, and a second later she made a soft "tsk" as she looked at the front page, and murmured "Well that's close to home."

Attacks and skirmishes had become so common that they hardly seemed worth commenting on, so the fact that she did comment made several people look up.

"Attacks in Hogsmeade. Four families. Eighteen people in all," she said dispassionately, turning to an inside page and giving me a look at the front page, with a full size picture of the glittering Dark Mark. "No real connection between the families as far as the Ministry can tell, but there has been increased Death Eater activity around Hogsmeade and they expect it's part of some bigger move. They're questioning people, but no suspects."

It's best if no one knows I was near Hogsmeade today.

It had been Bella.

I looked up, and at the other en of the table involuntarily met Narcissa's eyes, looking stricken, in a moment of perfect understanding. She knew what it meant as well.

"Andy, are you all right? You've gone quite pale," Shannon said, sounding rather far off.

"I'm fine."

Perhaps that was what it took for me to realize that there would never be a reconciliation with Bella. One of the things I had always taken for granted was that when we fought, we would eventually make up. While I had known intellectually what she was doing, what she was becoming and how drawn she was to the man who called himself Lord Voldemort, apparently it took violence for me to really accept how far she had gone. Even without Ted I couldn't have accepted what she was doing.

It was well after midnight when I got back to the common room that night, and it was dark and silent, so that when I heard voices, they sounded unnaturally loud. I drew back in the shadows, out of sight, because I knew their voices as well as my own.

"Reggie, you shouldn't talk about things you don't understand," Narcissa said impatiently.

"Don't talk to me like a baby. I know what's going on, and I know Bella was in Hogsmeade."

"Shut up, you little idiot! Merlin Reg, use your brain, do you really think it's a good idea to talk about this?"

"I can help! I want to, and I have to Narcissa. To make up for…well, I'm sixteen! I'm ready. So people can see that I care about the traditions and purity. People can see some Blacks still understand what pride is, that we're not all like Sirius and Andy."

"Andy is…that's different. She's just influenced by that boy. Anyway, Bella said Father isn't going to stand for it. Father says once she's finished school she won't see him again, he'll make sure of that. He's always thought Uncle Orion let Sirius go too easily. He's going to make her come home, not go to stay with Sirius again. She'll realize eventually it's for the best."

"Andy, are you sure you're all right?"

I resisted the urge to snap, reminding myself that Ted was only asking because he was concerned, but people had been asking that question so much it was getting tiresome. I wasn't sleeping well at all, and when I did fall asleep I was plagued by strange nightmares. Asking if I was all right seemed to be the most polite way of saying I looked awful.

"I'm fine, I'm just…tired, I guess."

We were heading toward the Great Hall for dinner, but Ted suddenly turned around, taking me with him. "Change of plans. We're skipping dinner, you need a break, and it's a particularly gorgeous night."

It was, the rain had broken and spring had come almost overnight and it was suddenly warm and clear and staying light long into the evening. It was impossible to feel quite as bad on such a perfect night, and we started around the lake and finally sat in a little clearing among the tress that surrounded the lake. It was quite idyllic as the sun went down.

"Isn't this a romantic setting you've arranged."

"No ulterior motive except getting you to take a break. Your future isn't going to be decided by taking a few minutes off studying tonight. Just relax."

I curled up against him. "Speaking of my future, Slughorn told me he heard from someone he knows at St. Mungo's, you know how he knows someone everywhere, that I've surely been accepted into their training programme, they just haven't sent out the owls yet."

"Andy, that's brilliant! Why didn't you tell me?"

"I'd actually forgotten, with everything else. It's not really final anyway, it depends on my getting the right N.E.W.T.s."

"You will," he said comfortably, then, "D'you remember, over the holidays, when I asked what you wanted when you finished school?"

"Yes, I remember."

"And you said you wanted a job, and a house…"

"A small house," I reminded.

"Of course. And a garden. And I thought…I mean, I know it might be a bit soon, and I don't want you to feel like it is, or…or like I'm pushing you. I know it's complicated. I mean things are…complicated around us and I don't want to rush…

He wasn't making a bit of sense, and I turned to look at him more closely. "Ted…what?"

He ran a hand through his hair, and then took one of my hands, looking down at it was if the answer to whatever he wanted to say was there. "Okay…er…" he took a deep breath. "Look, Andy, I…those things you want…I want them too, but even more Andy, I want those things with you. I mean, no matter what I think about the future, you're always in it. And I know it's especially hard with everything about your family, and I'm not trying to put more pressure on you. I just thought…I mean, I want…I wondered…not right away, but someday, I hoped-" he cut off abruptly, and took a deep breath again. "Andy, will you marry me?"

I stared at him, hardly daring to believe that he had really just asked, that he wanted to marry me. Just then all of the uncertainties hardly seemed to matter. Then I realized I hadn't said anything yet, and it was rather cruel to leave a question like that hanging in the air.

"I love you Ted, I want to marry you."

He looked surprised, as though he really had expected me to say no. And then an insane plan came out of my mouth before it had even fully formed in my head.

"I want to marry you now."

It was his turn to gape at me. "Andy, that's-"

"Crazy, I know. It's crazy, but I want to marry you Ted, and I'll want to in six months or in two years, so why do we have to wait?"

"Well, we have to finish school…"

"I don't care about school!"

"Yes you do, Andy."

He was right, but I waved off that very logical point. "Well yes, it's important, but…I'm afraid that if we wait…Narcissa said, I heard her talking to Reg and she said that my Father isn't going to let this go, he's going to make me come home, and…I don't know…lock me in the dungeon or something."

He blinked at me. "You have a dungeon?"

"It was an example. The point is, I don't want to go back to that. I don't want that life again, I want our life, and they'll just do everything to make it harder. They'll do everything to stop us if we give them the chance."

He put his hands on my shoulders, kissed me lightly. "Slow down, Andy. We can do this, no one is going to stop us. Not right this moment," he added quickly, when I started to speak. "But soon, if that's what you want. I'll marry you any way you want."