CHAPTER FIVE:
Goodbye
After their falling out, Andromeda missed her sisters.
She had never quite bought into the notion of blood purity as intensely their Mother, Father, Stepfather, and other relatives had, the way Bellatrix and Narcissa had, but as a child she supposed she believed in the importance of it.
Narcissa seemed generally unconcerned by matters of Muggle mixing. She was too self-absorbed to give much thought to why they looked down on Mudbloods and never considered the possibility of challenging the status quo, primarily because it might sully her image.
Bellatrix, meanwhile, was completely caught up in being a member of one of the Sacred 28, a group of Wizarding families who, as of the 1930s, still had pure bloodlines. It made her feel special, like she was better than others, as if belonging to one of the remaining pure families made her Wizarding royalty.
As they got older, being included in the Sacred 28 made Andromeda feel stupid. How could these witches and wizards not see the dangers of cousins marrying cousins for generation after generation? If you went back far enough, all old Wizarding families were related. The Blacks were related to the Prewitts. Molly Weasley's maiden name was Prewitt, which meant that she and husband Arthur Weasley were probably distant cousins. The Malfoys were also related to the Blacks somewhere too, through the Rosiers, and they were all related to the Crabbes too. And on and on and on as illustrated via the tapestry permanently stuck in Aunt Walburga's home. Aunt Walburga was, of course, the older sister of Cygnus Black, father of the three sisters.
Quite frankly, it disgusted Andromeda, all of that intermarriage, so when she fell for Ted Tonks and discovered he was a Muggle-born wizard she was almost relieved.
They technically met in her first year, when he was a third year, but only she remembered it. He bumped into her in the hall, apologized, asked if she was okay, then, when she didn't answer, he apologized again and kept going as if the world hadn't come crashing down around their feet. She stared after him, mouth open, gobsmacked by her first love-at-first-sight crush. They were in different years and different houses (her: Slytherin, him: Hufflepuff) so they had no real reason to interact again for several years, until a chance meeting at Hogsmeade. She was a fifth year; he was in seventh. Again, they walked into each other. This time he didn't hurry away. He helped her up, smiled, and asked her name.
This time, she managed to remember how to form words with her mouth and therefore make conversation.
They spent that entire afternoon together. First they hit up Honeydukes, where he bought her a chocolate frog ("Merlin's beard!" exclaimed Andromeda when she saw her chocolate frog card. It was Merlin. Beard and all. "I haven't got any of him!"). Afterward they went to the Three Broomsticks to warm up over butterbeer. They looked like a rather unlikely pair, which earned them stares from many of their fellow students, especially when Ted, noticing the way they were watching, took her hand in his and kissed the back of it. That was it – she swooned. Her love-at-first-sight crush quickly grew into actual love, though she spent most of the next three years hiding it from her family and the other members of Slytherin house. She was only fifteen the year she fell for the man she knew she would eventually marry, and though it hadn't been easy – especially now, with him on the run and her drinking for two, times two, just about every night – she never regretted marrying him, not for a second. That was in 1968, nearly thirty years ago, and she would marry him all over again if she could.
1968 was also the year Bellatrix began seeing Him. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
On their first night back at Hogwarts, Bella made her way into Andromeda's room after lights out. She slipped into her bed, shook her awake, and asked if she could keep a secret.
"I've been dying to tell somebody since it happened last week but it wasn't safe to talk at home. Not with Mother and that man around."
That's what Bella had started calling Stepfather. "That man." Their mother hated it.
"What happened?" Andromeda was excited. Her older sister rarely shared secrets, preferring to keep her feelings to herself, presumably in an attempt to appear that she didn't have any.
"I met a man. Not a boy, Meda. A man. A grown man. He's handsome. Brilliant. I met him down that pub Mother can't stand down in Knockturn Alley, the night I was supposed to be with Zillah."
Bella slept over at cousin Zillah's place every year since second year, always a few days before the new school term started, during which time she'd pick up all of the Black sisters' books, robes, and other Hogwarts necessities. It was a privilege of being the eldest.
"We were drinking and talking. He thinks I have potential, Meda. He thinks I can really be someone. He says he knows I'm special. Different. Not like other girls. Or other women. Better."
Andromeda nodded, trying to ignore the feeling of foreboding creeping into the pit of her gut.
"He was explaining about blood purity, about how it's simple fact that some witches and wizards are better than others. Magic belongs to us, Meda. The only reason Mudbloods exist at all is because witches and wizards were stupid enough to breed with them in the past. When a random Muggle-born is named a wizard or witch, it's because that Muggle-born has stolen it from us. The only decent way to have magic is to be born with it, to be deserving, to be pure. To be dirty, mixed, like the Mudbloods, it happens, but in a way really they've stolen it too. Their non-magic parents mated with one of us to steal what we have, what makes us special. We've spent centuries denying what we have and what we are because of Muggle persecution and now, look at them, happy and eager to take what's ours. He says it doesn't need to be that way, Meda. He says we can take back what's rightfully ours, take back our rightful place, to stop hiding. Wouldn't that be beautiful?"
"I… I guess?"
"You guess! Andromeda, you had to hear Him, you had to be there. He was everything. I was captivated by His brilliance and He was captivated by me."
"Why?"
"Why?" Bella looked hurt. "Why? Because I'm brilliant too. I think the way He does. I understand him. We had a connection. I felt it. So when He asked me to spend the night…"
"He asked you to spend the night?!"
"Shhh!" Bellatrix pinched Andromeda hard on the upper arm. "Yes, He, well, I mean, He didn't put it quite like that, and I didn't spend the whole night…"
"What did you do?"
"Everything."
Andromeda tried to raise one eyebrow the way her sister always did. "Everything?"
"Everything, and so much more than everything. He wants to see me again. I'm going to meet Him during our first Hogsmeade trip, He promised to come find me. The way He made me feel… someday, you'll meet someone who gives you that same feeling, that feeling like an entire potions lab is exploding in your lower abdomen and burning its way up into your chest and causing tingling through your limbs and you won't be able to breathe or think straight and that man will kiss you and touch you and you'll never want him to stop."
Despite the couple of crushes she'd had on boys she'd never spoken to, including Ted Tonks, Andromeda could never imagine a situation in which a man would touch her and she wouldn't want him to stop. She was surprised Bellatrix could.
"You didn't tell him to stop?" she whispered. She was torn between the feeling she should be happy for her sister, since her sister was clearly so happy, and feeling afraid, because the way Bellatrix's manic eyes sparkled in the moonlight made her look a hungry wolf about to devour a bunny… and Andromeda didn't want to be the bunny. She tried to shift over so they weren't so close. Bellatrix reacted by slipping her arm around Andromeda's waist. Andromeda felt trapped. Bellatrix didn't seem to notice.
"I told Him I wanted it. I wanted Him. It hurt; I won't lie and pretend it didn't hurt. I even have bruises, I'd show you but if I light my wand your idiot roommates will wake up. I have bruises on my ribcage and along my thighs. He even bit me, I have bite marks. He drew blood! He pulled my hair, I never thought I'd want someone to pull my hair, I don't think I'll ever pull Cissy's again no matter how obnoxious she gets because I can't feel the same way about hair-pulling now that I know what I do. He pinned me down, once by my throat. I actually got scared, I saw stars because I couldn't breathe, but then He released me and kissed my neck and fucked me harder. It was thrilling. Look!"
Bellatrix pulled down the neck of her nightgown to reveal a scabbed-over cut surrounded by purple and green swollen flesh on her left breast. "This is a bite mark."
Andromeda shook her head. Bellatrix had always had an interest in pain, though she clearly preferred giving it to getting, but this was bizarre. He fucked her harder? He left bruises and bite marks? And she let him? She liked it? That didn't sound like her sister, the girl who considered herself too good for boys, who wouldn't even let them kiss her goodnight, never mind touch her, the girl who considered the occasional physical contact with members of the opposite sex a bargaining chip, not a source of pleasure.
"There are more but this is the best one. Isn't it beautiful?"
It wasn't beautiful to Andromeda, not at all. Bellatrix's laugh cut through the silence of the night. Beyond the curtains in another of the four-poster beds, one of Andromeda's roommates squirmed and coughed. Bellatrix lowered her voice.
"Don't look so worried, little sister. I wanted Him to! You'll understand when you're older. He's older. I'm not sure how old, thirty-five, maybe forty? He wants to see me again, that's what's important. I know it's only been a few days since we met and I know I've only seen Him once but Andromeda, I think He loves me. I know I love Him. I never knew I could feel this way."
Andromeda didn't think she could ever feel that way either.
It would be months before Ted Tonks kissed her. Though when he did, he gave her butterflies. When he kissed her, she didn't want him to stop… but he did. She made sure that he did. And even after they were married (they waited until they were married) he never bit her hard enough to draw blood. Never left bruises on her skin or pulled her hair or held her down.
No thanks.
On the couch, Bellatrix stirred. She was coming around. When she opened her eyes and saw Andromeda, she gasped. She sat up and went for her wand, which was no longer in her sleeve.
"What did you do with it?" she asked accusingly.
"It's there, on the table," said Andromeda off-handedly, as if her sister slept on her couch all the time. "Between the water and the hangover tonic. Feel free to drink either, neither, or both. Apparently, you are not as adept at the over-consumption of alcohol as I am."
"Did you do anything to me when I was asleep?" Bellatrix asked accusingly.
"Yes."
"You dared to…" She tried to stand but the room wasn't staying as still as it should have been. She wobbled on weak knees. Andromeda stifled a snicker.
"What do you think I did? Clearly you're not dead."
"Clearly. But you could have…"
Andromeda cut her off. "Merlin's beard, Bella. I moved you out here from my bathroom floor, cleaned the vomit off your chin and the front of your dress, found your wand, which had rolled under my couch, mixed up the hangover tonic, poured the water, then watched you sleep to be sure you didn't roll over and suffocate yourself. You're welcome."
For several seconds, Bellatrix glared at her. Then she exhaled slowly. "Thank you," she said, yet another phrase that sounded foreign on her tongue. "I have gotten all I came for. I will be going now. I would appreciate if no one were to find out about… this."
"When you say 'this,' do you mean our visit, our conversation, your pregnancy, or the identity of the father of your unborn baby?"
Bellatrix blanched. "I… who… what did I tell you?"
"You told me," said Andromeda simply. "I won't tell anyone. It's your secret. We all have them. You've never revealed any of mine so I see no need to reveal any of yours."
"I didn't tell Mother when I first learned about you and the Muggle-born."
"I didn't tell Narcissa you fucked her husband."
"I didn't tell Stepfather you put that poison in his bourbon."
"I didn't tell the Aurors it was your lover who eventually killed him."
Bellatrix avoided eye contact. "I don't call him my lover." This time she was successful in her attempt to stand. Andromeda rose from her chair as well. They faced off, neither confident they could trust the other.
"You're having his baby. What do you call him?"
"I… I don't know. It doesn't matter. Stepfather deserved to die."
"I concur. That's why I didn't tell."
Bellatrix picked up her wand, downed the tonic, and chased it with half the glass of water. She walked toward the door. It wouldn't be polite (or prudent) to apparate to Malfoy Manor from inside Andromeda's house.
"You knew?" she asked, turning back, her fingers barely touching the door handle. "You were the only witness, I know, but I had no idea you suspected it was Him. The Daily Prophet said it was a robbery. They called it Muggle-on-Wizard violence."
"I made that up," said Andromeda simply, shrugging. "He introduced himself as your savior, sent to avenge you for all you'd suffered at his hands. He made Stepfather beg for his life, kneeling in an alley, disarmed of his wand. Stepfather turned to me for help, but…" she paused and for a moment Bellatrix thought she wouldn't continue. "But I said there wasn't anything I could do. You and Narcissa were still at Hogwarts, but I'd been home for two weeks, remember?"
She remembered. That was the winter Andromeda had gotten sick and nearly died. She'd been sent home early to recover, Mother's orders, even though Dumbledore was adamant that he thought she'd be better off admitted to St. Mungos or staying in the hospital wing at school.
"I was tired, Bellatrix. I couldn't… I couldn't do it anymore. I knew what he was going to do. Your… your Dark Lord was going to use the Killing Curse, but I'd just bought the knife. I handed it to him. I said, 'Perhaps Stepfather was robbed by a Muggle.' I figured there would be less investigation that way."
"Andromeda…" a slow smile spread across Bellatrix's face. "You are a Slytherin."
"He deserved to die, like you said. Hey, Bella…?"
Bellatrix pulled her fingers back from the door to place her hand on her hip, still grinning. She wasn't sure she'd ever felt more connected to her sister. The Dark Lord had never described what he'd done to Stepfather. All he'd told her at the time was, "Now, you're truly mine." She was too happy at the time to question the story as it appeared in the Daily Prophet. "Yes, Meda?"
"Do you intend to kill my daughter?"
Bellatrix's smile disappeared, replaced by a look of uncertainty. She closed her heavy-lidded eyes and breathed slowly. Andromeda wondered if she was mentally counting to ten, the way they used to as kids.
"Bella?" Andromeda stepped closer, demanding an answer. Bellatrix nodded, seeing no reason to lie, not now, not considering she'd already gotten what she came for.
"If it comes down to her dying or me, it won't be me."
Now it was the younger Black sister's turn to close her eyes, which brimmed with tears. Her voice cracked as she asked, "You'd take pleasure in it though, wouldn't you? Killing my only daughter? The mother of my grandchild? My miracle baby?"
"Andromeda, let's not do this. You know I…"
"This is goodbye, then," Andromeda cut her off. "We'll never do this again."
"If ever you decide to join our cause, Meda, there's room for you."
"I won't."
Bellatrix sighed. "Then yes, this is goodbye."
"Hope you don't die in childbirth," said Andromeda.
"I've been through worse. Besides, if you and Narcissa can do it, I can do it. I'll do it better." Wand at the ready, Bellatrix stepped closer to her sister, so close they were almost touching. "I'm going to hug you. Only for a moment. Only because this damn baby has me so emotional."
"I'm going to let you," said Andromeda, also holding her wand out just in case. "Only because it's forever this time."
Bellatrix wrapped her arms around Andromeda, who paused only briefly before hugging her back. They stood that way for longer than either of them would have expected, neither one fully wanting to let go, despite all that had transpired between them.
"You need better charms and wards around your house, Mrs. Tonks. I got in far too easily. If I can do it, the Dark Lord can do it. Or worse, our brother-in-law."
"I'll work on it. Next time you know for sure he's screwing around on Narcissa, remind her she deserves better."
"I'll do that."
The two women who had, as children, looked so much alike they could pass for twins, stood and stared at each other, nothing left to say.
"You always were a bit of a cunt anyway." Smiling, Bellatrix swept dramatically out the front door. Andromeda watched through the window as she apparated.
"Goodbye," she whispered. She headed toward the kitchen. There was a second bottle of wine hidden up in the cupboard and she needed a drink.
Back at Malfoy Manor, Bellatrix was feeling better than she had in weeks. She knew what to expect, at least for the next few months. Mood swings. Food cravings. Possible nightmares. The need for a bigger bra. And a name. What kind of name could she give this baby, a baby whose parentage no one could ever know?
She wished she'd asked her sister that, not that Andromeda would've been able to give any acceptable answer.
"Where the hell have you been?" Rodolphus asked as she passed by him in the main hall.
"If it were any your business, you'd know!" she snapped, pushing past him, heading back up to her bedroom. Despite the fuzziness still resonating in her head as a result of the wine, her head was clear. She knew what to do.
She would summon the Dark Lord after dinner.
She had something to tell Him.
A/N Hi! Sorry if you got alerts about replaced chapters. I realized the formatting appeared wonky when being looked at on a phone instead of a computer and tried to fix it.
This is the CONCLUSION of the first Augury Origin Tale (there are three, plus an epilogue that takes place after the Battle at Hogwarts). Chapter One of Part Two (LOYAL TO THE DARK LORD) is posted now.
I want to thank you for reading not only because I like getting Follow/Favorite Alerts, Reviews, and PMs, but because I am so rusty when it comes to writing fanfics and this one is dark in different ways than I've previously explored - I'm just appreciative of anyone giving this a chance. Thank you! *AL
