November 1, 1968

The atmosphere within the walls of Hogwarts was nothing short of funereal. Classes were cancelled until further notice, and a strict evening curfew was imposed until a complete investigation into the attack on four of the school's pupils could be completed. Some muggle-borns had even packed their trunks and purchased train tickets to depart from Hogsmeade Station. This pleased Bellatrix, as she was of the mindset that they should never have been admitted to Hogwarts in the first place.

Their flight from the school came on the heels of Dumbledore's declaration that Hogwarts was safe. His words were not backed by decisive actions, and so they did very little besides instill bitterness among even his most ardent supporters, including the Prewett brothers and the Gryffindor blood traitor Arthur Weasley, who was always rattling off annoying facts about how muggles found ingenious ways to solve their problems, and had invented something called the microwave. They urged the Headmaster to denounce the pureblood supremacists whose incendiary rhetoric had been allowed to spread unchecked. Much to their chagrin, Dumbledore insisted that he could not align the attacks with any motive until he had more information. He vowed that if evidence tilted in that direction, that a taskforce from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement would be swiftly notified, but until then, his hands were tied.

News of the victims' identities had circulated almost immediately. The three fourth-year Gryffindors who were targeted: Imogen Phipps, Marcia Lewin, and Ian Ferguson, generally kept to themselves, although the girls served as mentors to first-year muggle-born students, helping acclimate them to the wizarding world, while Ian played backup keeper on the Gryffindor Qudditch squad. By comparison, almost everyone knew Ted Tonks as the charming prefect who would go on to do great things after graduation.

Bellatrix tried to rationalize her actions by repeating to herself what her Lord had told her—the sooner abominations like Ted Tonks were gone from the earth, the sooner wizards would be able to emerge from underground, and establish themselves in their rightful position. Hadn't she always heard that mudbloods had stolen their magic from Squibs, and didn't they often have Squib ancestors in their family trees? Surely, this meant that the watering down of the great magical bloodlines had vastly reduced the numbers of the magical population, which had all but guaranteed the continued subordination of wizardkind to muggles.

While there was no shortage of speculation, no one could seem to agree on who was responsible. Some felt that the attack could only have been carried out by a fellow student, rather than a more sinister actor operating from outside, while others were too distressed to think about much at all. Among those whose families quietly supported Voldemort (representing roughly one quarter of Slytherin and a smaller contingent scattered among the purebloods in other Houses), the consensus was that this attack was the work of their ascendant Lord, who presumably had an operative within the walls of Hogwarts. But they understood the importance of discretion, and knew that now was not the time to display anything but sadness and solemnity in the common areas and corridors.


Reclining in an armchair in his private quarters, Tom Riddle drank a glass of a vintage oak-barrel aged wine, a gift from Abraxas' cellar. Savouring the full-bodied red, he admitted to himself that Dumbledore's measured and careful tone was rather curious. Not once had the Headmaster publicly or privately raised the matter of the victims' shared blood status.

An emergency meeting had been held at two o'clock in the morning in the aftermath of the Ball. Tom had only just returned from Malfoy Manor when Horace Slughorn had loudly rapped his knuckles upon the hidden door to his quarters, forcing him out of bed. The jittery Potions professor had insisted upon picking his brain about uncommon poisons on the way to the staffroom. Slughorn evidently had not considered the possibility of a blood curse, although to be fair, several Dark poisons also caused exsanguination.

In Tom's estimation, Dumbledore must have at some point considered that the attack was the work of someone associated with the diffuse network of individuals who comprised the shadowy pureblood supremacist movement, of which Lord Voldemort was their anonymous leader. After all, the elder wizard's mental acuity remained infuriatingly sharp. His opinion pieces still regularly appeared in the Prophet, where he took to the defence of everyone from the werewolves to the Squibs. The damned fool had never met a muggle-born that he didn't try to nurture and champion. Dumbledore collected model mudbloods in the way that Slughorn liked to collect anyone with a connection to the famous or wealthy.

He tucked the thought of Dumbledore's odd behaviour away, and turned his thoughts towards Bella—his wicked little witch had been extraordinary, to be sure, and had made him proud in front of his Death Eaters. She had more than demonstrated her worthiness to take his Mark. But her show of skill didn't mean that she was invulnerable. No one was truly invulnerable besides him. Despite how well-executed and planned the attack had been, the risk of Bella's and his own exposure still hung over their heads like a sword of Damocles. At least drinking wine seemed to help.

In an effort to further distract himself, he walked over to the enormous bookcases that lined the walls of his suite and randomly pulled out a few tomes on necromancy, acquired from a Hungarian Dark witch on his Continental travels. She had been his teacher, and he was an eager pupil trying to impress her. In those days, Tom Riddle was not above trading sex for knowledge. Since he made it a rule to never spend more than a couple weeks in the same village or town, he parted from her amicably with several new books, some even printed upon vellum made from muggle-skin. The one currently in his hands was printed on vellum made from the hide of a chimaera, written down in the late middle ages, a Latin translation from the original produced by Ancient Greek wizards. It was one of the crowning jewels of his book collection. Tom could feel his overcharged magic amplified tenfold in his prickling fingertips after last night's ritual as he flipped the pages of his book.

A sudden thought flashed through his mind—would the existence of his Horcruxes have altered their ritual in any way? It was not something that could easily be researched. At this reminder of his mastery of one of the darkest of the Dark Arts, he summoned a small vial from a hidden drawer within a side table. Carefully, he squeezed two silver drops of unicorn blood into his wine. The stuff was expensive, but his very unstable soul needed all the help it could get to keep from rejecting his body and trying to reunite with its broken pieces.

After an hour or so, he set the book aside and drifted off to sleep. He dreamed he was staying with Bellatrix at Abraxas' chateau in the South of France. They were doing the mundane things that couples did, touring vineyards and buying fresh produce in the outdoor markets by the seaside. It felt peaceful being there; it was restorative, even. Only then the dream shifted, and he was standing in a grimy abandoned building in the north of England. Bella looked like she was older, possibly around thirty, and wore his Dark Mark on her forearm. She berated him for ruining her life when she was too young to understand what it meant to live as a fugitive and be torn from her family. They were losing the war. Several of his own Death Eaters had deserted, which ought to have been impossible—somehow, they had found a way to de-active the Mark, and were in hiding. Bella was going to turn herself in and enter a plea deal that she had been Imperiused. She called him a callous and cruel monster; he told her that he had never loved her.

Tom woke up in a cold sweat, and pulled the duvet higher to cover himself. Perhaps it was just a simple nightmare, with no explanation behind it. He was at Hogwarts, and Bella had cursed mudbloods for him. He'd encouraged her to damage her soul. Could this dream be some kind of warning or portent not to let Bellatrix go further down the path he'd travelled when he first maimed his soul by committing murder at fifteen? Should he just make her his wife, and shield her from the rest of his activities?

No. She wanted the Mark, and he wanted to give it to her. The dream could not have been generated by his non-existent conscience. Just to be safe that he would have no further disturbances, he summoned a bottle of Dreamless Sleep and dosed himself before shutting his eyes once more.


St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries

Andromeda stepped into the main atrium on the ground floor of one of the largest and most impressive institutions in wizarding Britain. Dumbledore had granted permission for Andie to travel by Floo to the hospital, and even offered to accompany her; however, she declined his offer out of fear that Bella would somehow find out and renege upon her promise to restore her memories. There were magical signs everywhere that depicted the St Mungo's wand and bone crest, and directories listing the different floor levels and departments. Healers pushed past the bustling crowds wheeling gurneys that carried patients who had been attacked by werewolves, burned by dragons, or hexed with dark curses, and concerned family members sat in rickety wooden chairs lining the halls, awaiting news.

She only knew that Ted Tonks was in critical condition, transferred here overnight because none of the blood restoration potions that Madam Pomfrey had administered had helped. The other three patients were suspended in magically-induced comas and were relatively stable. Since she didn't know which floor Ted was on, she nervously approached the information desk. An unfriendly welcome-witch with a short, choppy haircut wearing red cat-eye spectacles glowered at her.

"Hello, could you tell me where Ted- er, Edward Tonks is? He was brought here from Hogwarts and admitted early this morning." Andromeda bit her lip and picked at her nails while waiting for the witch to set down her quill.

"May I ask how you are related to Edward Tonks?" the welcome-witch asked brusquely while shuffling a stack of parchments.

"I'm his... sister. Please, he was attacked and seriously wounded. I need to see him!" Andromeda hoped that this miniscule lie would be sufficient for the witch to reveal his room number. She pursed her lips, as if she knew that she'd been fed a lie.

"Room 120. Artefact Accidents Ward," she drawled with great malaise, turning back to whatever had occupied her attention at her desk.

"Thank you!"

As she reached the end of the corridor, Andie came upon a tall gentleman standing outside Room 120 who possessed a striking similarity to Ted. His sandy brown hair had a touch of grey, and he wore a twill blazer and corduroys; he appeared to be what Andie understood was a middle-class muggle. Beside him was a woman in her forties with dyed blonde hair and a small pointed nose who would have ordinarily been quite pretty, but it was clear that hours spent waiting for news of her son in the hospital had left her slightly haggard.

"Excuse me— Mr. and Mrs. Tonks? —um, I'm a friend of Ted's from school. My name is Andromeda. I can't imagine how worried you must be. I've come to see how he's doing."

"Oh! They say that Ted was cursed! Of all things that could've happened to our Ted when we found out he could do magic, we never suspected something like this," the woman who was Ted's mother trembled like a leaf as she spoke.

"Andromeda, you say? Your names are so different from ours, it takes some getting used to—Dumbledore, that's another odd one," added Mr. Tonks.

"You can call me Andie if it's easier. Ted and I had a bit of a misunderstanding before the Ball—he asked me to be his date, you see, but I've not been well recently. My head hasn't been right after someone cast a memory modification spell on me. Dumbledore can confirm all of this later. He spoke to Ted yesterday to tell him that I would have never called your son a mudblood if my mind hadn't been tampered with-" Andromeda met his parents' blank stares, then amended, "it's... an impolite word for someone whose parents aren't magical, like yourselves. Anyway, I meant to agree to be his date, not turn him down. Ted has always been there for me. He's a truly kind, wonderful person."

Andromeda barely stopped to breathe while she relayed the details of a friendship that had never had the chance to blossom into anything more. She had been friends with Ted for roughly two years now, but had never envisioned things progressing, partly due to her own fear about how her parents would respond. Would they ever get the chance to see if they could be something more?

"Sorry, I don't follow. Did you say you were also cursed at the same time as our Ted?" Mr. Tonks had a slightly glazed look in his eyes. It was a confusing story, and he probably hadn't slept much either, Andie realised.

"Not at the same time. But whoever used Dark magic to target Ted might also have been trying to wreak havoc on my mind," she considered.

"Who on earth would target our boy?" sobbed an inconsolable Mrs. Tonks. Her husband was now rubbing her shoulder, trying to offer her comfort.

"Some wizards hold prejudiced views and think that purebloods—people like me who only have witches and wizards in our family trees—are superior to others. They think people like Ted are less deserving of their magic, or that they stole it. It's all nonsense." Andromeda sighed. Ted had likely concealed from his parents the level of bigotry that existed in wizarding society. He must have been trying to spare them from worrying over his safety.

A tall, stoic witch wearing lime green healer's robes stepped out from the hospital room then, and walked over to them. Andromeda intuited from the somber look on her face that the news was not good.

"My name is Healer Tierney. I oversee the Artefact Accidents Ward. Unfortunately, Ted continues to lose blood, and potions cannot make up the loss quickly enough—this is very rare Dark magic. I'm afraid that a counter-curse has yet to be located. I advise that you prepare for the worst. I'm sorry."

Andromeda never forgot the sound that Mrs. Tonks made— the wails of a mother completely shattered by grief. Ted's father supported his wife's heaving body and helped her sit down in a chair, so that she wouldn't fall to the floor. She detected something that was equally as broken in his eyes. Should she go to the tearoom and leave Ted's parents to have a moment of privacy? Maybe that was the appropriate action, but she needed to see Ted for herself and try to explain, even if he was comatose and didn't understand her. This would be her last chance to make things right.

Mr. Tonks turned to her, as if sensing her confusion. "It's clear that Ted is someone special to you. You're welcome to stay here with us, Andie."

He reached out and held her hand in a display of empathy that the pureblood witch, raised in the cold, emotionally-stunted walls of Black Manor, hadn't often experienced. She tensed and withdrew, but then nodded at him. "I'd like to stay, and have a moment with Ted, after you and your wife, of course. I want to respect your wishes," she said.

"That's fine by me."

The room had one window overlooking a drab grey alleyway, and the dark November sky was threatening rain. A beige curtain divider separated Ted from the other patient in the room, who could be heard groaning in his sleep. Ted did not appear to be in any pain, although hardened, caked blood was visible upon his chin and below his nose. She winced when she saw that he had bled through layers of bandages. Even though he was in a magically-induced coma, Andie knew she had to at least try and explain herself.

"Ted? It's me, Andie. I'm not sure if you can hear me, but I don't blame you for thinking badly of me, especially with my family being the way they are. You had so much planned for your life, Ted. I won't forget you, and I promise I will never rest until the cruel, hateful swine who did this are made to suffer for it. You wouldn't want me to stay angry at whoever did this, I know. But that's why you're you." Andromeda reached out to brush her fingers against the knuckles of Ted's right hand, which felt warm to her touch. Maybe she imagined it, but she could have sworn that for an instant, his hand twitched.

Healer Tierney re-emerged from behind the curtain divider and extended her arm to Andromeda. In her hand was an innocuous folded piece of paper. "Another healer found this in Ted's robes when he was admitted. It's addressed to 'Andie.' I couldn't help but overhear."

The young witch nearly fainted when she turned the note over in her hands.

Andie,

Dumbledore told me everything, but I heard that you had already accepted Maximilian as your date. I don't know him well, as he's so quiet, but I hope that he recognizes how great you are, and how lucky he is.

Sorry that I jumped to conclusions. You're outrageously funny, kind, and have just enough snakelike ambition that I should probably still check that you haven't secretly cursed me to lose to you in Gobstones club.

Let's try things again. Will you be my date to the Yule Ball?

-Ted

Andromeda cast a preservation charm on the note so that the ink would never fade, and slid it inside her cloak. Ted would at least have known that she had never meant to hurt him. He still wanted to be her friend, and likely more. It was a small comfort, at the same time as it reminded her of the cruelty of fate to pluck away their chance of happiness and a life together.

The next several hours were spent in quiet contemplation, as Ted's spirit crawled further and further away from the world of the living, until slipping behind the Veil. There were many tears, but the Tonkses also shared stories of Ted's childhood, including a memory of him causing their muggle television to overheat and his accidental magic bursting the fusebox in their home; Andromeda didn't quite understand what these technologies were, but the image of a young Ted being completely surprised by his own magic before he knew what it was made her smile. Once, he had made a schoolyard bully's head inflate to twice its size, and the Ministry had needed to send obliviators to the local school. This boy hadn't even been picking on Ted, but a younger student whose parents didn't have money to buy him new trainers. He'd always protected others who were defenceless, never thinking that someday his own life could be snuffed out by someone far crueller and more powerful.


Slytherin Common Room

Bellatrix sat beside Evan, and debriefed him of the events of the previous night that did not specifically involve her mission. While her cousin had performed a blood oath to hold him to secrecy, Rodolphus and Augustine Avery, who also happened to be sitting nearby, had no such restraint placed upon them. Every time Avery came close to overstepping and hinting something about the Dark Lord, or speculating about the identity of his servant inside the school, Rodolphus cautioned him that the time would come when they would all would know the truth, and that it was by His will that they were left in the dark.

Bellatrix yawned, and was about to turn in for the night when Andromeda angrily stormed into the Common Room. Her chestnut curls shook like long tendrils of Devil's Snare while her steely grey eyes bore into Bellatrix with a concentrated rage that she could not remember ever seeing there before, not even when she had cut off the heads of her dolls, or taken scissors to her dresses as a child.

"Ted Tonks is dead! I know it was one of you lot! Death Eater scum!" shrieked Andromeda, who lunged toward Bellatrix like a bull seeing red.

Rodolphus and Evan attempted to hold her back, but even the two large, muscular wizards were no match for the Andie's knock-back jinx which had catapulted them into the air. It was close to a minute before either could stand up; Bellatrix meanwhile had cast a powerful shield charm that her sister was attempting to break through with increasingly more dangerous spells.

Alaric Crouch sprinted into the Common Room upon overhearing the shouting, or perhaps, another student had fetched the prefect upon realizing there was a duel taking place between the Black sisters.

"Andromeda! Stop! This is not the way that Ted would want you to honour his memory. I'm upset, too. I had prefect rounds with Ted, and he was a truly decent person. I'm outraged by this as well, but we need to seek justice the proper way." Crouch's words seemed to temporarily soothe the incensed witch, but after staring down Bellatrix for a moment, she suddenly felt overcome by a renewed sense of righteousness.

"Where the fuck did you go last night, Bella? You might've confounded Crouch, but he isn't the only one who has eyes."

"What? I came back here with everyone else," said Bellatrix, regarding her sister shiftily.

"Bullshit. You cast the Imperius Curse and told me not to tell anyone. Merlin knows what else you were doing. My memory has been hazy for weeks. Now that I think about it, that must have been around the time that you started your little research assistantship. Dumbledore told me all about that."

Rodolphus, his body still sore from being slammed to the ground, took a step forward and turned his own wand on Andie. "That's a very dangerous path to go down. I would recant that now if I were you, Andromeda."

"I don't care! You can't stop me from speaking the truth. Not you, not Bella, and not your precious Lord," she shot back at him.

Immediately, a barrage of spells flew around the room. Crouch retreated into the safety of the crowd that had formed at a distance of a few feet away. A duel was always treated as a spectator event among the Slytherins, and as classes were cancelled, the sisters had a much larger audience than usual.

"Diffindo!" Bellatrix incanted the severing spell, just missing Andie's ear by less than a centimetre. Bellatrix always landed her spells in duelling practices, and perhaps a small part of her had not truly wanted to seriously hurt her sister.

"Locomotor Wibbly!"

"Tarantellegra!"

"Protego Totalus!" Bellatrix threw up the powerful shield that could not be shattered by any spells besides Unforgivables; she could not trust herself to refrain from casting anything substantially Darker if their duel continued. She would not add maiming or killing Andie to her list of sins.

Andromeda sank to her knees, panting heavily. There was no use trying to lob spells at the shield, and so she screamed out in frustration.

"What are you lot staring at? Move! Go back to bed!" Rodolphus Lestrange barked while sending harmless red sparks out of his wand into the crowd to make them disperse. He followed behind them back to their dormitories.

Andromeda rose to her feet and trained her gaze back on her sister, whose brown eyes transmitted a similar degree of loathing as her own.

"I want my memories back now, Bella," she hissed.

"You think I could trust you to have your memories back after you pulled something like this? I should write home and let mum and dad know you're crying over your dead mudblood. I'm sure that would earn you a round of the Cruciatus from father," spat Bellatrix indignantly.

"I will never, ever, forgive you if you had something to do with this. I will hate you for as long as I live. That's a promise. Do you want to try to explain why you were missing last night?"

"I have nothing to say except that I wish to thank whoever killed your mudblood! They've done us a service by preventing you from turning full blood traitor like Uncle Alph. Maybe you should ask the Weasleys to adopt you, since you seem intent upon disgracing yourself and the name Black. I'm sure they'd take in a fellow muggle-lover."

Rodolphus returned with Avery, Nott, and Mulciber in tow, having made up with the former after his offensive remark to Bella, and reaching a sort of stalemate with Nott after the incident at the Hog's Head. Evan had hung back to watch the duel, and hadn't left the spot where he stood in case fighting broke out again.

"Do you have this under control, Bella?" Rodolphus asked, before adding in a whisper, "Maybe we should go find, um...You-Know-Who, to make sure this won't turn into a bigger problem."

"Yeah, go get Lord Voldemort and have him obliviate me for the hundredth time. That's great thinking," sneered Andromeda.

"Don't you dare speak his name, blood traitor!" Rodolphus jabbed his wand into Andromeda's throat before turning to his companions, "Did you hear that Tonks is dead, gentlemen? She's upset over her Hufflepuff mudblood!" Immediately, their gang started laughing and whooping, and began to clap each other on the back while sending rounds of red and blue sparks from their wands into the air. Bella shot them a scowl that they understood as an order to keep their voices down. They'd only just managed to get rid of the rest of their Housemates, and most would not yet be asleep. As it began to dawn on them who was responsible for the attack, they immediately complied and stopped talking. Bellatrix liked the feeling of power that came from having the boys wrapped around her little finger. She knew she could get used to feeling this way.

"Let's just petrify her and wait until the morning. I don't want to bother him over this. You won't be going anywhere, will you Andie?"

Even if Andromeda had wanted to make a run for it, she had five powerful wizards and her sister surrounding her. She was out cold within a second. Bella went into the girls' dormitory and confounded her sister's two roommates, then levitated her sister's body into bed. Although she never presumed that her sister would be indifferent to Ted's death, she didn't think that there was anything more than a surface-level attraction between them, and had not anticipated Andromeda being this much of a thorn in her side. Bellatrix didn't want the boys to be out of bed looking for her Lord, not only because they weren't supposed to be breaking curfew, but also because she wanted to demonstrate to him that she had things under control. This was her own sister, and it would be her own mess to clean up.