Nine For A Kiss

"Hello, Andy,"

Andromeda freezes in the library doorway. Her eldest sister is kneeling beside a bookshelf, frowning as she searches through it.

"What are you doing here?" Andy blurts. Bellatrix can't be here, nobody is supposed to be here. Mother and Father are out at the theatre tonight, so Andy's had it in her plan for weeks that this evening would be her time to pack and make her final arrangements. This is the night, and her sister can't be here.

"Nice to see you too," responds Bella coolly, "I've come to fetch my Potions books. Didn't you hear me Floo in downstairs? I called upstairs for you,"

"I had the radio on," Andy shrugs.

"That disgusting Mudblood racket?" Bellatrix spits. Andromeda doesn't rise to the bait. "It must in my old bedroom," Bella continues, getting to her feet.

"No, don't go upstairs," Andromeda says hurriedly. Bella eyes her with suspicion and Andy lies, "Cissy took it when she went back to school,"

"Why would Narcissa need my Potions book?"

"She couldn't find hers, she reckons she might have lost it. You know what she's like,"

Bellatrix rolls her eyes and explains, "Rodolphus' horse cut its foot this morning. He's asked me to make an equine healing draught but I couldn't find the instructions at home,"

Bella has been married for a little over a year and it's clear to everybody except their parents that she has no patience with her husband. Andromeda sometimes wonders why Bellatrix, who has always had such an independent spirit, agreed to her arranged marriage. Andromeda wonders a lot of things about her sister.

"Can I borrow yours?" Bella asks.

"Yes. I'll fetch it for you," Andy says hastily, "Wait here,"

She dashes upstairs and into her bedroom. She'd left her bedroom door open and Bellatrix's old room is opposite, so if Bellatrix had come upstairs she'd have seen what Andy's up to. She'd see the trunk laid open on Andy's bedroom floor, with clothes and keepsakes piled neatly inside it. Andromeda leaps over the trunk to her bedroom bookshelf, runs her finger along her textbook shelf to find Advanced Potion Making, grabs it, jumps back over the trunk, clatters back downstairs to the library and thrusts the book into Bellatrix's hands.

"There you go. You can keep it, actually," she says breathlessly. Andromeda doesn't need her Potions book anymore, because tomorrow morning she will place a sealed envelope on the kitchen table, walk out of her parents' house and leave for good. She's been planning her departure for weeks- years, perhaps. She's lived two lives for too long and now the time has come to make her choice. Andy cannot pretend she will settle for a pureblood marriage like Bellatrix- she's heard her parents discussing Timothy Goyle recently- what a nice young man he is with such a good career ahead of him. Andy can't marry Timothy Goyle, or any man her parents suggest for her, because she cannot pretend that she isn't in love with Ted Tonks. It isn't schoolgirl infatuation, it isn't rebelling against her family, it isn't stringing along a smitten boy far beneath her rank. Perhaps it started out as any or all of those things at first; they had been schoolchildren when they met, she fourteen and he a year younger. Both had landed detentions from Professor Geraldi and spent a grumpy afternoon polishing the desks in the Potions classroom. There was nothing else to do, so they'd started talking and, Andromeda thinks fondly, five and a half years later they haven't stopped. Teenage rebellion- well, yes, Andy can admit that that was part of the attraction of Ted at first. He was dark-skinned, a year younger, a Hufflepuff. A Mudblood. When he'd kissed her for the first time two years after that detention, and asked her to be his girlfriend, Andromeda had half wanted to keep it a secret. And the other half of her wanted to go everywhere holding Ted's hand, kiss him in the corridor, and tell everybody that this brown-skinned Muggle-born Manc was hers. See how you like that, intentionally outrageous older sister. Ted's presence in her life would shock their parents more than anything Bella had ever done. See how you like that, beautiful baby sister who makes the boys gape. Perhaps that envy of Narcissa led was the reason Andromeda had toyed with Ted's affection the way she had back in those days. She'd had boyfriends before of course, but none that looked at her like Ted did; none who she felt this intoxicating power over. Was this what it was like to be Narcissa, Andy had wondered? Sometimes she'd see how far she could push Ted by flirting with another boy in front of him, pretending she didn't know Ted was watching, but secretly sneaking glances to see how he'd react. Andromeda and Ted both laugh at that now. It had been a thrill for Andy at the time, but it was all pretty stupid and Ted never rose to the bait as much as she'd hoped. Andromeda's deeply, truly in love with him now and being together is enough of a thrill. She's grown out of treating Ted coldly; she doesn't need to be cold with Ted. Ted is warmth. He hasn't asked her to marry him but Andy knows that it's an inevitability. There's no point pretending that her future lies anywhere else but in the arms of this sweet, scruffy boy with corkscrew curls.

But there's something else Andromeda can't pretend to ignore any longer. Something that's nothing to do with Ted, because he's not the only reason that Andy is leaving. Andromeda has to walk out of the front door tomorrow morning because she can no longer pretend that she's a part of this family. She can't spend any longer listening to her narrow-minded parents scorn anything Muggle. She can't keep her temper in check any more when any of them say "Mudblood". (How easily the word had tripped off her own childish tongue. Andy hadn't known until she arrived at Hogwarts that it was offensive- she'd thought it was just a word; the correct noun for people like Ted. Now it appals her that she ever spoke- or worse- thought that way). Andromeda cannot make excuses for her sisters any longer. She can't ignore that they're becoming increasingly enveloped in the Dark Lord's circle. Narcissa is still at school but Andy knows the people she is friends with and where they will go. And Bella; Bella standing in front of her holding Andromeda's old textbook. Bella her big sister, her first friend and, Andy grimaces to admit, her hero for longer than she'd like to admit. Bellatrix is heading further down this path towards the Dark Lord, dragging the Lestrange boys with her into the dark. If Andromeda were to stay, she would be allowing it to happen. She cannot be a bystander any more. She's meeting Ted at Euston at nine o'clock tomorrow morning; he's apparating down to fetch her and then they're heading North to his parents' house in Salford. Andy's nervous about that; she's only spoken to Ted's Muggle parents and his Muggle little brother a couple of times at King's Cross, and then it's only been a quick hello before her sisters and parents noticed (the smug excitement of flaunting Ted in front of Bella and Cissy hadn't lasted long). Andromeda can't help but worry that she'll blurt something silly or unintentionally rude to Ted's family. She's barely spoken to a Muggle before, so running away to live with them is throwing herself in at the deep end. Andy supposes that she'll meet Ted's big sister too. She's four years older than Ted and left her Muggle high school at fifteen to work in a hairdresser's. Perhaps, Andy's sometimes pondered, siblings was what she and Ted had first talked about, back in that first detention. They were both middle children, and everybody knew Andromeda's sisters of course. Now, in the Black library, Andromeda notes with a sinking feeling that they won't be her sisters after tomorrow. She's going to get burnt off the family tree, lose her inheritance and never be allowed back in the fold. Andy's bringing it on herself but it still hurts, and the thought of being without her sisters hurts more. Bellatrix and Cissy may be growing more different and more dangerous, but they are still Andromeda's sisters. Her playmates and rivals, her advisers and enemies, her first and best friends. When they'd waved Cissy off from King's Cross at the start of term, Andy had half-known that it was the last time she was going to see her. She's could tell then that time was running out to make a decision, to pick a side. She'd squeezed her baby sister tight and told her that she loved her.

With Bellatrix it's always been more complicated. They're closer in age than Andromeda is to Cissy, and closer as sisters too. Despite what plenty of people suspect, they get along, which makes it all so much harder. Andy often wishes she could hate her big sister, but all she can do is love her, and want her to change and to understand. Which is exactly what Bella wants of her.

Bellatrix herself is now looking at Andy with her arms folded, and suspicion in her lidded eyes. Andy knows that now is the time to say goodbye.

"Bella-" Andromeda begins, "I miss you." I will miss you.

"Yes, I expect it must be boring here with Cissy at school," Bella answers. Andy nods, unsure what to say next. "You should visit Rodolphus and I more. Merlin knows I get bored of him," Bellatrix continues, sighing theatrically. She's always been one for theatrics.

"Yes, I will," Andy lies. She's torn between wanting to get rid of her sister as soon as possible, and wanting to keep her talking so that she has to stay longer.

Bellatrix smirks. "I miss you too, Andy". After all Andromeda's clarity and focus on what she must do, she feels her conviction crumble. It's the 'Andy' that does it. Bellatrix always calls her that, and Narcissa and their parents and their Slytherin friends often do too- everybody Andromeda's leaving behind. Ted doesn't like calling her Andy, so he's nicknamed her Dromeda instead. That makes her smile, but it's not her real name, not like Andy is.

Andy Black won't exist after tomorrow.

For the first time, Andromeda realises quite how frightened she is. Despite her love for and familiarity with Ted, leaving her family to be with him is a leap into the unknown. She'll be adopting a whole new life and identity, and killing off the person she's been for nineteen years. It'd be so much easier to stay. For a split-second Andromeda imagines herself dropping to her knees, seizing her sister's dress and begging Bellatrix to renounce it all. To say she's seen the light about how ridiculous and close-minded their family's views are. To promise to stop calling Ted and people like him a "Mublood". To admit that her fascination with the Dark Lord has been one of her over-the-top jokes all along.

"You know they're planning to marry you to Goyle," Bellatrix says lazily.

Andromeda startles and the image of herself begging at her sister's feet disappears abruptly. She swallows to steady her voice, composes herself, and asks, "Where did you hear that?"

"Rabastan told me. Don't ask me who told him, I don't know," Bella shrugs, "They could do worse for you,"

"He's an imbecile," says Andy, relieved at the change of subject. Something else to focus on.

"He's a man, it's the same thing". For a moment they're girls again, bickering over boys and trying to make each other laugh with their cuttingness.

"He's built like a gorilla," Andy mocks.

"Like that Mudblood boy you were silly over for a while at school," Bella says, giggling, "D'you remember?"

Years of practice ensure that Andromeda does not wince. "Hmm," she says, eyes flicking away and insides feeling suddenly cold.

"Come on, Andy, you must do," Bellatrix nags.

"Yes, fine. No need to go on about it," Andromeda snaps. Bella smirks again. She thinks that she's irked Andy by reminding her of an embarrassing crush, although really Andromeda can't bear to hear her talk about Ted, especially when she calls him Mudblood. It's too disorientating, too intense, and makes her feel too much guilt toward Ted and Bellatrix.

"Well," says Bella, sighing her dramatic sigh again, "If you're going to throw a strop I should get back to my husband. Thank you for the book,"

That "if" has always been a favourite Bellatrix tactic; make it sound as if the other person is being touchy, rather than Bella being cruel.

"Yes, alright," Andy repeats in a softer tone.

"I'll see you at the Parkinson's tea dance next week,"

"Okay,"

"Don't use that dirty Muggle slang," Bellatrix reprimands, then takes Andy's hand and squeezes it, "Do come over soon, Andy,"

She'll never come over. She'll never see her again. "Goodbye, Bella," Andy says, forcing herself to look up into her sister's eyes (the last time...).This is a mistake because Bellatrix can tell in Andromeda's expression that something isn't right.

"Andromeda?" she asks.

Andy must go now, quickly, before she says anything and before her resolve collapses. She shuts her eyes, leans up and kisses Bella on the cheek. Her sister's skin is cold.

"Goodbye," Andromeda whispers. Then she flees. She dashes back through the landing, back up the stairs and into her bedroom, slamming the door shut behind her. Andy leans against the wood, breathless.

"Andy? Andromeda?" Bellatrix calls. After a few moments she huffs, "Fine,"

Andy hears Bella tramp back downstairs to the drawing room, and then the whirr of the fire as Bellatrix Floos away. And then silence. A stretching silence, with nobody to break it. Bellatrix is gone forever. Andromeda gasps, screwing her eyes shut as first tear spills out and begins to track its way down her cheek.