For what had to be the hundredth time, Andromeda found herself at the mercy of Peeves.
"Please," she begged. What had she come too? "Just this once, let me go."
But Peeves only cackled. "Wee little snake has somewhere to be, does she? Someone to meet in the late hours of the night. Peeves remembers all her sneakings with the badger boy. Peeves wonders what they're up to, in these dark hours. Can't be anything good. Maybe she wants to share?" He grinned maliciously.
Andromeda's mouth opened in shock, and then she spat. "I most certainly will not!" Her pleadings were forgotten, replaced by outrage, and disgust. "And if you value you corporal hide you will never mention such things again, or I will make sure the Blood Barron knows what you say about him behind his back. Now get out of here!"
You would think an already deathly pale ghost would be able to go any paler, but Peeves managed it. Giving her a glare that told she would pay for her threat someday, when he was no longer deathly terrified of the Bloody Barron, Peeves sulked off.
Sighing, Andromeda made her way to the empty classroom he had specified. So much of this felt so familiar, right down to her partner in the rendezvous already being present when she arrived.
He whirled around when she arrived, his hopeful eyes practically shining as he took her in.
"I wasn't sure you were coming," Rabastan said.
"I was detained by Peeves," Andromeda said. He raised an eyebrow. Hopefully he believed her. She was telling the truth, but she was lying about so many other things she must have a shift look about her.
Shey thought it was funny that Ted assumed Rabastan had such an advantage, when she could no longer spend time with him publicly either. It was too uncomfortable. She still received too much harassment for being a blood traitor, and him for being engaged to one. It was so much easier to meet in secret.
"It's so strange, having to see you like this," Rabastan whispered, while one hand gently pressed against her cheek.
It was not so strange for her, but she decided not to share that fact.
"Are you all right?" Rabastan asked, concerned.
"Yes, of course," she replied, too quickly.
"You mustn't let what they say get to you," he said, misinterpreting her distress.
"Yes, of course," she said again, and she wanted to curse herself for sounding so mechanical. But Rabastan didn't seem to notice. He was too excited to have her near.
"I know your heart is in the right place." He took her hand and placed it over his own heart. "Just like it is now."
She didn't even have time to think about the irony of that statement before he pressed his lips to hers.
The kiss was wonderful, and lingering. Their kisses were usually rushed moments of brief privacy between classes or in the common room, as they were almost always surrounded by people. But this time they could take their time. And it felt good. It felt really good. Too soon, he was pulling away.
"Thank you," he whispered against her cheek. "I needed that."
And now it was her turn to frown in concern. She pulled herself far enough away that she could still look into his eyes. She'd been so concerned about her own worries, she hadn't noticed his, but it was clear in the tightness of his mouth and weariness of his eyes that something was troubling him, and she could guess what.
"I'm sorry," she said, placing her hands on his chest. "I can only imagine what you are suffering through because of my actions."
He shook his head. "It's not that."
Her frown of concerned deepened, "Then what is it?"
He hesitated, his eyes moving away from hers. She felt her hands slide off of his chest. She'd been so caught up in her own secrets, it hadn't occurred to her that he might have some of his own.
Her hands slipping off his chest pulled him back to her as he grabbed her wrists. For a minute he just held her there, in suspension, then he said, "You know that dark times are coming, don't you, Andromeda?" He phrased it like a question, but it wasn't one. They'd been to the same parties. They'd heard the same talk, whispered through the corridors, about the dark forces that were rising around them. No one said it so openly, but they all knew it was true.
"Things are changing," Rabastan continued, "for all of us, and Rodolphus feels it's time I took my place in that change."
"What does that mean?" Andromeda asked, though she wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer. "What does he want you to do?"
He didn't answer right away, she wasn't even sure he was going to, and then, "You know that they've been meeting in secret, our siblings, and friends?"
She nodded, not missing the sarcastic way he said the word, friends.
"Do you know what they talk about there?"
"A little." She'd overheard one meeting once, during Christmas break. It was the same night she'd discovered Rabastan alone in the library, and had her first real conversation with him. "I heard something about a sacred mandate to keep our bloodlines pure, and doubling their strikes against muggleborns, but that's all they can do."
Rabastan fell silent again, and when he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper. "Recently, they've been talking about him."
She felt a shudder run down her spine. She didn't have to ask who "him" was, she knew, and it filled her with terror.
"What are they saying?" she whispered, hardly daring to breathe.
"There have been… disappearances inside the ministry, attacks against muggleborns and muggles, and people think he is behind it."
She shook her head. "Those are just rumors." At least, that was the rumor, one they were all desperate to believe.
"People are dead, Andromeda!" Rabastan said, exasperated, "it's become so much more than that."
She closed her eyes. She wanted to run and pretend this conversation wasn't happening, but she couldn't. Rabastan needed her. "What do they want with him?" Though she feared, this time, she knew the answer already.
"They want to join him. They're trying to figure out who he is, how they can get his attention, join his cause."
"They want to join a murderer?" Andromeda breathed, though as she thought back to that moment, with Piper and her sister, she couldn't be shocked.
Rabastan shook his head. "I shouldn't be telling you this, Rodolphus would kill me if he knew."
Andromeda's gaze snapped up to him. "Rabastan, does Rodolphus want you to become a part of this as well?"
He didn't answer, but this time his silence was answer enough.
"You can't!" Without realizing what she was doing she rushed forward and grabbed his shirt. "You're not like them."
"He's my brother." Rabastan said. "We've always been together." It wasn't her he was trying to convince, it was himself, but she couldn't let it happen.
"But not this time." She held him close, forcing him to look at her, hear her. "Rabastan, if they go down this path they're going to end up in Azkaban, or worse."
She held deep sadness in his eyes, knowing what she said was true. Their siblings were more lost than they'd dared to believe.
"I've told him no," Rabastan said, "but with everything that's happened with you they're starting to think my refusal is because of you. That I'm becoming a blood traitor just like you."
He didn't say it like an accusation, but she flinched anyway. If she'd been thinking she would have known her actions would reach far beyond that moment. That was something Ted never seemed to understand. "I'm so sorry."
"I don't know how much longer I can refuse," his voice nearly broke, and she nearly broke along with it.
But she couldn't, not if she cared about him at all. "You can't live your life in fear of them." Slowly, she reached up and stroked his cheek. "If you do you will lose your life completely."
He closed his eyes under his touch and his hand gently moved up to hers, but when he grabbed it he froze.
"I'm not like you, Andromeda. I can't severe ties with my heritage so easily."
She felt her heart beat. It had never occurred to her that's what she'd done. But her sister had more or less disowned her, and the howler she'd gotten from her parents had threatened the same, but she still felt just as trapped by her blood as she had before. But Rabastan spoke like she was free already.
Ted had gotten his wish after all.
"Do you want too?" she said finally.
"What?" he gasped.
"Do you want too?" She repeated, her voice calm and sure even though her body was trembling. "All your fear aside, is that what you would do, given the choice?"
He looked completely floored. Like her, some months ago, he'd had never thought that was option, but now…
"I don't know," he said finally. That was more than she could have hoped for.
"Then you need to decide," she said, placing her hands firmly on either side of his arms, "before you get swept up in the tide. Believe me, I know."
He stared at her, mouth open in shock, before he smiled, and his arms slid around her waist.
"You never cease to surprise me, Andromeda Black."
She didn't respond as she leaned down to kiss her again.
It was so strange the roles they played. Some months ago Ted had said these same things to her, and then Sirius. And now here she was, saying them to Rabastan Lestrange.
She realized something else too, even as she stood her wrapped in Rabastan Lestrange's embrace, her thoughts turned to Ted. The same thing had happened when she was with Ted, with thoughts of Rabastan. What she had said earlier was true. A part of her heart belonged to each of them, and she had no idea what would happen when she was forced to choose, one way or another.