Chapter 3: Choices
Selected Listening: everything i wanted- Billie Eilish
August 1973
Bellatrix Lestrange
Bellatrix Lestrange descended the marble staircase of the Lestrange manor. It was much bigger than the Black estate or even Malfoy Manor, but she hated that everything was so white. The staircase, the walls, the tile floors. It reminded her of a surgery observation room.
Rodolphus's parents had not come accustomed to her. They made that quite clear when they reacted at the wedding with "I thought Bella was the brunette one. What happened to her? She was so quiet and nice."
Although Rodolphus tried to explain that Andromeda was a blood traitor and permanently singed from the family tree, Bella could tell they were continually disappointed with their new daughter-in-law. Then…when they finally realized they weren't getting the Lady Lestrange they wanted, they started asking when she would have children.
If she couldn't look pretty, she might as well fulfill her wifely duties.
If that wasn't enough, her mother-in-law ordered the house elves to watch her every move, to make sure she didn't pilfer odds and ends from different rooms, or maybe just to judge her. She would sit in the drawing-room and stare out the window, fiddling with a bowl of trinkets, thinking about how she could best participate at the upcoming Death Eater meeting.
When she looked up, a large ear would disappear around the door frame.
Rodolphus had only been slightly helpful in thwarting his parents' efforts. He put off their inquiries with off-hand comments and excuses. He eventually agreed to the unbreakable vow she asked for at the engagement party. Lucius helped preform the ritual in the dead of night, the evening before the wedding. There wouldn't be any accidents.
Bellatrix reached the entryway where guests were arriving. She took her place next to Rodolphus, welcoming them into the dining room. Many of them were her former classmates, but there were several she didn't recognize. There were at least forty. All male.
"You look very nice, Bella," Rodolphus commented quietly as the stream of people continued. She wore a new dress, with sleeves of black lace, and a skirt that drifted to an asymmetric point behind her.
"If I survived off pithy compliments, I would have already died in this house."
"Fair enough." His smile knotted up on one side.
She wandered into the dining room. As she entered, the men didn't say anything but gave her side-eyed glances, and she caught a few snickering. She noticed Mr. Lestrange's side-long glance from the head of the table and found her seat one down from him.
"Do you have a problem, Pershore, Harper?" She asked pointedly to the men who were chuckling. "Because as it would seem, you are in my home, and if you did have a problem, I would ask you to leave." They shook their heads, but their smirks didn't leave their faces. Under the table, she cursed their shoelaces to tie together.
"A bit in over our heads, are we, Bella?" Lucius asked. He sat across from her. She rolled her eyes.
"Funny you should say that as a man whose wife ran away, days after the wedding." His face turned sour.
"Cissa's at the university, you know that—"
A darkness fell over the room. Lord Voldemort entered, followed by Rodolphus. The others at the table bowed their heads immediately. They raised their hoods to shadow their faces. Bella lowered her head, but she didn't wear a robe, so she could not cover her face. Rodolphus settled beside her and followed suit.
"Good evening, my fellow magics. Thank you for the warm welcome, Lestrange, as always you are a wonderful host."
"Thank you, my lord." He responded but didn't make eye contact.
"Now, I know you are all concerned of the state of affairs in our country. It seems the minister will need more convincing then I originally expected. Many magics in our nation are brainwashed into believing muggles pose no threat. They are fooling themselves into submission. It is time we take matters into our own hands."
Those seated at the table gave him affirming grunts.
Voldemort went about explaining points of attack. The muggle-born registry, the hospital records, any place that kept tabs on muggle-born magics. In the meantime, they would need more followers. Lots of them. People in powerful positions. People who believed in their cause.
Bella clung to his every word. At the same time, she remembered the words she called to her ex-sister as she pulled away from their house and out of their lives.
"You'll pay for this, Andromeda Black! You'll rue this day, I swear it!"
She realized she had disassociated and called herself back to the table.
"…and if all goes well, in due time, the muggles will be forced to bow to us." Again, an agreeable chuckle was shared about the table. A spindly man in the back raised his hand.
"My Lord, what if the other magics never agree to it? There are many wizarding families, even pureblood families, that believe muggles should be part of our lives. They may continue to stand in our way, no matter how many records we burn."
"Then they deserve to die with the rest of the mudbloods." Bellatrix spat.
"Who said that?" Voldemort asked the room. Bellatrix shrunk down in her chair and tried to look innocent, but everyone stared at her. She really needed to work on keeping her comments to herself. No use backing down now.
"I did, my Lord."
"What a refreshing perspective. You are not one of my regular attendees, I would have remembered."
"This is my wife, m'lord." Rodolphus gestured. Bellatrix kicked his ankle. He grit his teeth in response but didn't move. She hated the way he talked about her as if she was an object.
"Ah, Rodolphus. Yes, I remember her. So sad your party was interrupted, we may have had the chance to talk earlier." Bellatrix piped up.
"My sincerest apologies, my lord. My ex-sister's fault—knocked up with a mudblood's baby and ran off with him. Such disgrace."
"Yes, I've heard of this matter. She and her mudblood will meet their punishment soon enough. They will all suffer for their betrayal." A twisted smile formed on Bellatrix's face. "Please, come forward." She rose from her space in the crowd and faced the man.
"What is your name, young one?"
"Bellatrix Lestrange"
"Do you wish to become part of my inner circle, Bellatrix?"
"Yes, Dark Lord."
Voldemort drew his wand and showed it to the crowd.
"I have devised a new method for recognizing those who have chosen to follow me. It will also allow for me to call upon you for important matters. Madame Lestrange, would you please lend me your arm. He gestured for her wrist. She pulled her black, lace sleeve back and smiled. Rodolphus stared on in jealousy, as did many of the other men who sat at his table for years.
"Mordsmorde."
He cast the spell. A skull appeared on her forearm, and a black snake emerged from its mouth, coiling down her wrist to her veins.
Bellatrix took a deep breath in.
A wicked smile spread across her face.
"Do you like it?" He asked with a gleam.
"It's all I ever wanted."
Narcissa Malfoy
Narcissa returned to her bare flat in the middle of Dublin. She wasn't sure what she expected when first meeting Dr. Horowitz, but it certainly wasn't that…
She collapsed in the chair near her gray wooden desk, which was also her dining room table and her vanity and her nightstand. The other features of her luxurious suite included a matching gray, wooden-frame bed with a rather thin mattress and plain sheets. There was a small stove that could not be used for floo travel but could be used for short calls with family and keeping the apartment the least bit warm. Her suitcase sat on the floor, not quite unpacked. Now, she wasn't sure she wished to unpack at all.
She turned back to her desk. Andromeda's goodbye note stared back at her, from the sister that didn't exist anymore. She reached to pick it up, although she already knew it by heart.
Dear Cissa,
By now you know what's happened. I'm gone, and I'm never coming back. I would say I'm sorry for leaving and I'm sorry for jinxing you, but I'm not. I couldn't live with myself for not choosing Ted. I couldn't live with giving up my child to someone else or letting it live in a dangerous world with dangerous people who hated its existence. Being a mother caring for more than yourself. Sometimes, you must make sacrifices.
I do wish the world for you, baby sister. I'm sorry that I could not be there to spend the rest of our lives together as we have for so many years. Don't be a stranger if you don't want to be…I won't tell.
All My Love,
Andromeda
But there was some space, and then another note, written at a slightly later time in a slightly different ink color.
p.s. Given what you said, I encourage you to do the same as I have. Leave. You don't have to abandon the family, but before you give your life to someone else, you should live it. You don't have to marry Lucius. You deserve happiness.
It didn't matter how many kind words her sister wrote. After Andromeda ran, Dotty rushed away the guests, and Cygnus spent the night picking apart their brains with legilimency until he found Narcissa's real memories of the day before.
Cygnus used the cruciatus curse against her. Not long. Just enough for her to remember her place. Bellatrix stared on blankly, savagely.
Narcissa owled her application for the research position the next day. When she returned to Hogwarts for her final semester, she discovered two other Slytherin boys also applied. It surprised her that the professor accepted her and not them.
Cygnus eventually agreed to let her attend the university, but not until she married Lucius. There had been no time to ask Lucius to look for a solution to the archaic Malfoy vows. He wasn't happy about her leaving. She signed the papers, and they planned to hold the formal ceremony when she returned from her year abroad.
It was Andromeda's fault that she couldn't fix things as she wanted. If Andromeda hadn't acted so rashly, Narcissa could have asked Lucius to change the wards. She could have at least negotiated. She was furious with her sister, but she never threw away the note or the postcard, and she wished…Tears spawned in her eyes. She covered her face in her hands, but there was no one to hide from in her tiny room.
Sparks flew out of the stove as someone's face swam into view.
"Cissa? Cissa can you hear me?" It was Bellatrix. Narcissa sighed, rose, and levitated her chair over to the stove. She settled down next to the green flames.
"Hi Bella, how's it going?" She asked gently.
"Oh, I have so much to tell you!" Narcissa vaguely listened as Bellatrix told the story of the meeting with The Dark Lord. She wasn't sure how she felt about this new influencer yet, but she patiently nodded and provided input where necessary. She wasn't really paying attention. Her thoughts were lost in what happened to her that afternoon.
She took the morning to wander the campus and adjust to the surroundings. She had lunch in a local café, but she was hungrier than usual. She supposed she would miss meals in the Great Hall, even after all her complaining. She arrived at the professor's office at 2 pm, the agreed-upon time, and found that the stout man was muttering and bumbling under his desk.
"Professor?" She asked. He hadn't seen her come in, and he bumped his head on the desk as he rose from underneath it.
"Oh-oh Miss Black, please do come in."
"It's Malfoy." She corrected.
"Yes, yes congratulations! The new Lady Malfoy, what an honor." He came forward to shake her hand. "I'm Professor Horowitz, but you can call me Nigel."
"Oh-um"
"Or, professor, whatever you like, but I'm a very casual person." He waved it off. She wasn't sure about casual, but certainly odd. He wore a tweed suit, but no shoes or socks. A cage of sugar gliders sat in the corner, and the beings hopped from bar to bar.
"Okay, Professor. When can I start with research? I'm really interested to see how you plan on preserving pureblood lineage." She said. He looked startled.
"Oh, well. I do need to explain a few things."
"…what kind of things?"
"Why don't you sit down?" She took the seat across from him, and he settled in his armchair. A charmed kettle poured them two cups of tea. Earl gray.
"Narcissa, you don't mind if I call you that, do you?"
"Um—" Again, she did, but she wasn't about to correct him. He kept talking anyway.
"You've caught me at a very interesting point in my research. I know you heard about the project through the Chronos article, but really that was a surface-level look at what I'm doing…and possibly even counterintuitive to what I'll be pursuing in my projects."
"What do you mean? You received a grant from The Sacred 28. You have to study pureblood lineage—"
"I do…you are correct…that doesn't mean my results line up with what the foundation would like to see. Science is science. I don't choose the outcome."
"What do you mean? You lied in the article? My family has stock in this project—"
"No—no I didn't lie…I only bent the truth. You see I very much began my project wishing to preserve pureblood lineage, but I realized quickly in my research that there's no way pureblood society can continue on as it has."
"What in Merlin's name do you mean?"
"I'm saying I've looked at all the pureblood lines. If you lot keep on as you do, there will likely be mutations in the gene pool that will negatively impact how magic itself is passed down…"
"I don't—"
"When the same genes are used repeatedly in the same mixtures and combinations, bad things happen. Your aunt and uncle are first cousins. Doesn't that disturb you in the least bit?"
"Their children are fine—well, at least the younger one is…"
"Fine fine, but what if it hadn't? Based on my research, that combination doubled the chances of their child turning out to be a squib."
"Why would that be? They're both pureblood—"
"Where do you think magic started, Narcissa? Do you think wizards have existed since the beginning of time?"
"Well…I don't really think about it all that much."
"Magic came from mutations, positive mutations, in the muggle gene pool. A combination of particular genes creates magic people, and those genes can also come from muggles. You see, without variation, stagnation will occur, and eventually magic as we know it will die."
"I think you're bonkers." She said and rose from her chair. "Daft, off your rocker, one phial short of a potion set." She declared. He raised his hands in defeat as if he could say nothing more about it. "What did you think? That because I'm a woman I won't be loud enough to rat you out? That you could cover up your little scheme?"
"I didn't—"
"You didn't accept any male applicants." She stated furiously. "Zabini and Greengrass are quite competent, and I'm not sure why they're not here and I am." He stood too, also quite furious.
"Malfoy, you discredit yourself. I chose you because you are a woman, yes, but you've also practiced alchemy. The other applicants have not." He pulled out a pale blue text with gold embossing from the shelf behind him and set it on his desk. The book was in Runic…it would take her a while to decipher. "This is a book of healing alchemy written by Perenelle Flamel. She discovered this chapter of the science, but it has mostly been abandoned. It was practiced mainly by women, but it was choked out by the search for the Philosopher's Stone. Now it's seen as, forgive me, witchcraft. Who needs healing if you can live forever? At least that is what the male alchemists thought."
Narcissa listened now. She stared at the book and wondered the sorts of rituals that could be held within it.
"I think there's potential for this book to help us advance witch's health, especially prenatal and OB-GYN sectors. You expressed interest in wanting to be a midwife, is that correct?"
She nodded slowly.
"I couldn't trust those male applicants, no matter how accomplished, to genuinely care about this task. Truth is, magics are decades behind compared to muggle advances in women's health. Muggles have so much more at their disposal to help women and children. There are whole studies of genetics that could help magic families if we allow it into our science. Infertile magics could have children. Homosexual magics could have children. We could find better ways than marrying in pureblood families to repopulate the magic community. The decisions made in this project will affect witches and magic families for generations, and it's not right for wizards to have the last word on something that weighs so heavily on witches."
Narcissa looked around the room. She wasn't sure what to do. Her head was spinning. She had no clue what this man had just said to her or why he had said it.
"Professor I…I need to think about this." He nodded to himself as if he hadn't considered her potential reaction. He took a deep breath.
"Alright. Take the evening to mull it over. Take as long as you like. I'm sorry. I know I come off strong. I'm not able to discuss my research in full with many people, and I become very impassioned…I forget that most don't even know what I'm saying. It requires much more of a cultural shift."
Narcissa's eyes wandered over the cover of the book he presented. She had the same feeling when she found pretty things in the common room and found her fingers crawling to pick them up. There was something about the book that called to her…she was meant to have it.
"Can I take this with me?" She asked. "You don't happen to have a translation?"
His frown softened and he tapped his odd, black, stick-shaped quill on the desk.
"Yes, you may. Sadly, this was never translated into English. That's your first assignment, should you choose to accept it." She couldn't help staring at the quill.
"Ah, pens, another handy muggle technology. And paper!" He held up a very thin sheet of parchment with pink lines. "It's quite extraordinary actually when you start looking into it, but…sorry, my tangents."
She nodded politely and picked up the leather-bound book. It was so large, she had to wrap both her arms around it and hold it tightly to her chest to carry. She turned to the door and began to walk away. But he spoke again.
"The fate of this work rests with you. If you wish, report me to the foundation and never come back. Otherwise, the door is open for as long as it takes you to decide. It is your choice, but please choose wisely."
"So have you met your advisor yet?" Bellatrix asked when she was done talking about herself. Cissa shook herself to attention.
"Um, yes, just today. He's a bit odd, but nice enough, I suppose." She said, her eyes drifting to the large book laying on her bed.
"Suppose you have to be, to be a professor." Bella commented, brushing a piece of hair back and flashing her new snake tattoo. "What about the research, how is it going?"
Narcissa thought about everything that happened since December. She thought about her sister having to leave home to keep her child safe, and she thought about her other sister who had to marry because of silly traditions, and she thought about herself and what was taken away from her because of a society that couldn't care less about what she wanted for her well-being, as long as she gave birth to pureblood heirs.
Then, she decided no witch should have to do it again…
She smiled a wicked smile and delivered her lie sweetly.
"It's all I've ever wanted."
Andromeda Tonks
"No no no no no…." Andromeda ran frantically about the Tonks family kitchen. The baby cried in her highchair, the room filled with smoke, and some godforsaken muggle instrument kept beeping above her head.
The instant she climbed on a chair to find out what was wrong with the blinking, beeping disk, the noodles in the pan caught fire. The baby shrieked louder. Andromeda dropped back down from the chair, drew her wand, and shouted at the flames.
"Aguamenti!" A spurt of water flew out of her wand and onto the remains of the food. Slowly, the flames faded, and black fumes spiraled from the burnt spaghetti. The machine stopped beeping. The baby girl settled down.
Andromeda turned off all the burners, dragged the chair back to the table, and collapsed with her face in her hands. She was only trying to make dinner. It shouldn't have been that difficult. She pulled the cookbook closer to her to try and see where she went wrong. Ted's mom gave it to her as a housewarming present, but she hadn't had the chance to learn much until after the child was born. Her eyes glazed over the words, but she realized she was tearing up, and wiped them away one by one.
Across from her, the pink-haired child giggled. She looked to the girl's honey colored eyes and grimaced.
"Of course, you think it's funny." She replied. The baby's ears changed from human ears to elephant ears and back again. The girl was a natural metamorphagus, a characteristic unseen in the Black or Tonks pedigree. Andromeda now spent her days making sure her infant didn't sprout wings and fly away, or gills and stop breathing. Sometimes the baby mimicked people, but the only four people the child knew were her parents and Ted's parents. It was quite alarming to walk in on a baby with her mother-in-law's face. At least she didn't have to worry about the baby being a squib.
"Dromeda, I'm home." Ted called from the door. Andromeda looked pitifully up from the table as he walked in and put down his briefcase. He didn't look much different than he had when they met at school, slightly taller and slightly more rounded in the middle. His wheat blonde hair was slightly ruffled from his floo home. He smiled brightly. "How are my two favorite girls?" He asked, kissing his wife and then the baby.
Andromeda gave a long look to the kitchen and then back to him.
"Oh dear." He said, glancing briefly at the damaged pan and back to his wife. And then he laughed. She glared for two more minutes before she let out a chuckle and shook her head. As long as he laughed, she couldn't maintain her foul moods.
"I tried very hard to make dinner." She explained. "It didn't work."
"Darling, I told you before, in no way do I expect you to do anything you aren't comfortable doing. You produced a human being. I think that's plenty."
"I-I know. I'm just not very good at this. Ted, I really think it would be best if we got a house elf." She asked for third time. He knelt down in front of her and rested one hand on hers.
"You know how I feel about house elves. And the truth is, we don't need one. The house isn't very big to clean, and I know how to cook if you can wait for me to get home." He said as gently as he could.
She sighed.
"I'm restless. I barely go outside because the muggles frighten me, and I can't go back to the Ministry because I don't want to run into Bella, and even if I did get a new job, I would be afraid the whole time that our child sprouted bunny feet and hopped away while your mum wasn't looking."
He smiled sadly and kissed her forehead and her nose and her lips.
"I know this is a lot of change all at once, but we will forge through together as we always have. Now, since the muggle cooking experiment failed, might I suggest a different muggle tradition?"
"What now?" She asked and slumped back in her chair.
"Ordering pizza!" He announced and removed the phone from the dock.
She leaned on her hand.
"A what?"
"Trust me. You'll like it. I order the food, and they bring it to us."
"Do you walk everything to each other? Food, letters, this seems like a very inconvenient practice." She remembered when she first saw the postman coming up their lane and nearly attacked him. Ted excused her behavior as lightheadedness, but if it had gotten any worse than Andromeda pointing her wand and threatening, they would have had to obliviate the poor bloke.
"And training flying predators isn't?" He asked in return. She shrugged and rose to pick up the baby as Ted spoke to the person on the phone. She bounced the child on her hip for a moment and then held her close, rocking her gently as she filed through the mail. Advertisements for clothing stores, preapproved credit statements, electricity bills. Why anyone would pay such ridiculous amounts for their lamps to work was beyond her. She turned to the one thing she did recognize, delivered by owl and signed by Assistant Deputy Headmistress Minerva McGonagall. She held it between her fingertips, reading it over for the tenth time that day.
"And yes, extra cookies on the side please." Ted finished and hung up. "See? Easy." He walked back to them and looked over her shoulder.
"What's that?" Ted asked.
"It's—it's her letter for preferential enrollment at Hogwarts." She said with a smile. "That's what we want, right?"
"Of course! Wouldn't have it any other way." He grinned. "I'll bet she's a Hufflepuff."
Andromeda swatted him with the letter and glared playfully.
"She is not." She argued. Although, she prayed for anything but Slytherin. "We have eleven years to not worry about that. We shouldn't start bickering about it now."
"You're right, you're right." Ted grinned. "Why don't you go relax on the porch, and I'll clean up here. Let her sleep." He gestured to the infant who yawned a big yawn and snuggled her head into the crook of Andromeda's collar bone. The young mother smiled.
"I think I'll take her with me."
Andromeda strayed out on to the porch and sat on the wooden-planked swing. Their house was nested in a normal muggle suburb with normal muggle children running out to play normal muggle games. Light reflected off their bubble wands, and metallic scooters, and jump ropes. Color and light danced everywhere. Their own house was blue with white trim and had a white picket fence running around the yard. There were flower beds where Ted planted all sorts of herbs and flowers. He recently added Narcissus to remind Andromeda of her favorite sister.
Andromeda, although anxious about learning so many things, felt calm in this moment. Calm and safe were two things she never felt in the Black Estate. She leaned back and swung gently, looking up at the pink evening sky. The same color it was when she left home. The same color as her daughter's fluff-like hair. Stars appeared. Cassiopeia, and Sirius, and Cygnus, and Bellatrix. She remembered Bella shouting something as they pulled away from the house, but she couldn't hear her sister over the roar of Sirius's motor. For the first few weeks, Andromeda had nightmares about what Bella could have possibly said, and what it could mean, but then she realized she may worry for years and never know.
The young mother wondered if it had been worth it, giving up her birth family for her new family, being expunged from the Black family tree, giving away her name and status. She wondered if it was worth not making up with Bellatrix and not seeing Narcissa ever again.
But then, Andromeda Tonks gazed down at the face of her child sleeping peacefully in her arms. The girl stretched, and cooed, and then snuggled back against her breast. Her beautiful, loving Nymphadora.
She had all she ever needed.