"Read the letter I just got," was all she said before shoving a piece of parchment in front of us.
I was the first to snatch the letter from Bella's delirious state. The stationary was all too familiar- the Black Family crest with our mother's name under it in violet. I could smell the hint of rosemary she added with all of her letters.
"It's from mother," I said aloud, simultaneously glancing at the people surrounding me.
"What does it say, Cissa?" Wilhelmina prompted eagerly in anticipation. I could feel all of their stares on me, similar to the stares from the previous Death Eater meeting, only increasing my nerves.
To my Dearest Daughters, Bellatrix and Narcissa,
I know it has been dreadfully long since I have last written, but I feel that there is something you should know before you return home for the summer. Last night, I received news that Andromeda has been courting a mudblood. Usually, I would not have believed such a ludicrous statement, but I owled Andromeda herself and she confirmed that she, in fact, was courting scum and planned on marrying it! I have also heard that she is carrying his mudblood child, as well. This summer, she is going to be legally disowned, but until then, she is strictly ostracized from the Pureblood Society. I trust that you two will not speak a word of this to anyone until we can think of a story for her disownment. It is expected that you are not to make any unnecessary contact with Andromeda considering the circumstances. You r father sends his best.
With all of my love,
Your mother, Druella Black neེ Rosier
As soon as I finished the letter, my body went numb and the voices around me became slurred. There was a light buzzing in the back of my head, but I hardly noticed any of this because I was too consumed in my thoughts to notice anything around or concerning me.
Just who tipped off my mother that Andy was courting Ted Tonks and how would they know? Why would they care? How would it affect them, but most of all, how could Andy not have told me she was expecting?
"How cheerful," Evan mumbled sarcastically.
"How could this have happened?" Rodolphus asked as he set the letter back in its envelope. He didn't look as near as elated as Bella was, but then again, when it came to Andy, Bella was always sadistic and cruel in judgement.
"I haven't a clue," I whispered hoarsely. I felt my eyes start tearing up and the burn behind them that came right before tears.
"You okay, Cissa?" Lucius asked in a concerned voice. Rodolphus, Bella, Evan, and Wilhelmina quickly turned to see what was wrong just as a tear splashed down my cheek.
"Cissy, why aren't you euphoric? This is a cause for celebration!" Bella said excitedly. She was still lighthearted about Andy's disownment, which only made the second tear trickle down faster than the first.
"This isn't a good thing, Bella," I mumbled once I finally regained my senses. I turned around to look and see if I could find Andy and sort this mess out, but soon decided against it. What could she do, really? She was technically no longer family and would only talk of how old family traditions are hardly ever overlooked, how this was not in any way unexpected, but how she had anticipated their actions and had already told me.
I saw Andy, laughing as always, with her friends and not at all as distraught as I was. She turned to look at me and her brow immediately furrowed and her mouth twisted into a deep frown of concern. I felt another tear drip down my face but didn't bother to wipe it away.
"It's tradition!" Bella exclaimed from across the table, "it has happened many times across Pureblood family trees. If a branch gets infected with scum and bacteria, you simply snip it from- "
"Enough, Bella!" I yelled from across the table, "Yes, it has happened many times across our family tree, but it is nothing to celebrate! Andy might as well be dead because we'll never get to see her again; we should be in mourning. Once again, this is not a good thing!"
"I understand that, Cissy," Bella said softly, almost sympathetically, "but I need to know that you understand why this happened, though. That it's the right thing to do."
"It's not the right thing to do, but it is the most humane thing to do. I suppose if she wasn't disowned, someone might've killed her instead," I mulled over in thought.If her disownment didn't happen, Andromeda might have a fatal 'accident' that would justify her removal from the Black family tree for a reason that her mother would describe to the Prophet as 'over-emotional actions'. The more I thought about her disownment, the less worse it sounded, but I was still hurt.
"Will you go see the child?" Wilhelmina asked me in a whisper to my ear. Her tone wasn't judgmental, but one of understanding of the situation, and it reminded me of the second surprise of the letter.
"I don't see how I can, but if I can, I will," I whispered back, "I'm promising myself, right now, to not lose the connection between Andy and me."
She nodded her head discreetly as Rodolphus offhandedlychanged the subject, as he usually did when he sensed an uncomfortable silence approaching.
The rest of the week was stuporous and the end of the year exams were no longer occupying my mind, but instead of the thought of never seeing Andy and her unborn child without being expatriated like Andy and Ted would soon be.
"You ready to go?" Wilhelmina asked me from the opposite side of the door of the first year girls' dormitory.
We were planning to go down to the lake and try to resuscitate the playfulness of the end of the year. With only three weeks of Hogwarts left until the next year, everyone, excluding most of all Slytherins for no other reason than they just aren't cheerful enthusiasts, everyone was in a jubilant mood, even teachers; we hadn't had homework all week, despite the upcoming exams that flabbergasted most everyone with its intensity.
"Of course," I said, slipping quietly out of the door, careful not to spark the interest of any attention-seeking, first year peers of mine.
We stealthily slipped down the stairs and out of the Common Room, which was surprisingly empty for a Saturday morning. Walking the corridors slowly at a comfortable pace, we made light conversation, mostly of the latest weather and quidditch scores with the burning torches' glow of warmth in the coldest part of the castle.
Once we made it down to the lake, we sat down under the shield of willow trees that shadowed the lake, illuminating the trunks with a greenish luminance.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath; this was the most peace I'd had all week, considering the recent events. I could hear the leaves rustle from the neighboring trees in the forest, could smell the scent of smoke from the gamekeeper's cottage just a mile to our right, could feel the soft blades of grass gently bend beneath the pads of my fingers and palms. At this, I laid on my back, hands behind my head, not bothering to reopen my eyes.
"You know," Wilhelmina started, "I understand your situation."
I popped my head up and put my weight on my elbows as I took in the sight of Wilhelmina. We hadn't really talked since Sunday night at dinner, but looking at her now, she was different. She was sitting with her legs crossed and elbows on her knees, hands rested on her outer face, looking out over the lake, not even looking back at me as she talked.
"What do you mean?" I asked in response.
"I know what it's like," she replied, "to have someone you're close to be cut from your life."
I didn't know how to react to this. At dinner on Sunday when she'd said that she understood, I never thought in depth of how she did, I just accepted it, enjoying that someone knew and wasn't judging.
"Who?" was all I could manage, but inside I was screaming to know the answer. Who was the person that could've possibly made Wilhelmina the way she was now: so quiet, so solemn, so unnoticeable that even her fellow Slytherins had overlooked her?
"My sister," she said, "she was disowned for something so feebleminded: giving charity to a muggle couple off of the street. Apparently, my parents thought that it was an act of social treason."
"Do you still keep in contact?" I probed even further.
"No," she replied meekly, "At the time I was only four, but I was raised to believe that she was no better than a mudblood for what she had done. And every day I regret it."
I couldn't help but feel a tinge of sympathy for her. It also made me worry how distant Andy and I would become after she moved to Ireland.
"What about your brother," I asked, "does he still keep in contact with her, or does he agree with your parents?"
"No," she said, "we could never find her, but we know that she is somewhere in the heart of Ukraine. We'll sometimes receive Christmas cards, but for the most part, we're completely in the dark."
"That's terrible," I told her solemnly.
The more I discovered about Wilhelmina, the more I understood her attitude and need for solitude. She thought that if she never got close to anyone, she could never get hurt again, even if that meant that she was to be invisible and endure day to day torture by the Gryffindors' feeble endeavors to keep her miserable.
"That, Cissa, is life," she replied softly, promoting her intention with a long, drawn-out sigh of contempt.
"If that's life," I said, "then why does everybody fight to keep their's if its full of unbearable hardships?"
"Don't be so pessimistic. I do remember some memories of her, though," Wilhelmina said, "I remember that every Christmas up until her disownment, us three children were granted responsibility of decorations. We would spend hours decorating all of the trees until there wasn't a speck of green left and hanging mistle toe on every vertices in the manor."
"That's nice," I said, imagining the smell of wintergreen and cinnamon, "we've never done anything like that. The elves usually decorate everything. We only make minor tweaks to give it our own personality, but I guess we'll be one personality short this year."
"Yes, well now our manor is scarcely ever decorated apart from the ten foot Christmas tree that is covered in expensive ornaments that the elves put on themselves. When we decorated, everything was personal, but now everything is just used to impress significant figures of society. I'd rather die than go back home this December and find that damned lofty tree assembled in the dining room surrounded by too many people I don't know by either name or face."
"Now who's being pessimistic?' I laughed. Wilhelmina lips' upturned into an almost smile, spreading relief through my body. If I could still make her laugh, everything would be fine.
"Would you mind if I stayed with you all this Christmas?" she queried desperately. I looked at her dead in the eyes, seeing nothing but desperation commingled with sorrow.
"Of course you can," I replied, "with Bella moving to Lestrange Manor this summer, it will be nice to have some company besides the house elves."
"It's a plan, then," she stated cheerfully.
We both smiled as we stood and made for the castle. The morning was already turning to midday, and it made me wonder how long we had talked. I could feel the sudden shift in temperature from cool to uncomfortably warm. The quiet morning buzz of the forest was gone but replaced with no motion at all, due to the symphony of cacophony straying from inside the castle's walls signaling that lunch was already prepared.
"We better get going if we're going to eat lunch," Wilhelmina said, taking the first step into the castle's protective interior.
"That's okay," I told her indisputably, "I'm not that hungry. I'm going to go study for exams in the library." I took my steps into the opposite direction as if to prove my point.
"If you're sure," she said uncertainly, "I'll meet you there later."
I answered with a scant nod of my head and continued walking on my way to the library. The corridors were empty and the only noise was the lonesome steps of my progress. This was the only sound ricocheting off of the walls up until the last minute of my venture.
I heard the clang of metal and a crash deafening through the corridor up ahead, followed by a few cackles. Hastening, I quickened my pace to see what all of the tumult was.
When I turned the corner, I saw Potter and his gang of friends charming the suits of armor into doing all sorts of tricks. He was currently trying to make this suit of armor dance some sort of ridiculous jig. They had just finished laughing when they saw me watching them.
"Look who it is, boys," Potter said, "Ice Princess."
"Potter," I said curtly. I tried to walk pass him, but he grabbed my wrist, stopping me from the path of my intended destination.
"We didn't say you could go yet," he stated almost menacingly... almost.
"I didn't ask you permission," I replied coolly, looking down at my wrist he still grasped in his challenging hand, "now would you let my wrist go, so I can continue on my way to the library?"
"No," he said, "I don't think that's a good idea."
"I do," a new voice answered.
A green spell whirled right next to Potter's head, nearly hitting him. We both looked at the origin of the spell and saw Bella standing there looking tempestuous; however much she'd seen, she hadn't liked.
Potter smiled and gave her his full attention, "Hello, Black."
Bella smirked, "Potter."
There was a lapse of silence, and during that staidness, I could hear both of their hearts beating wildly in anticipation of the inevitable. I could hear my own heart beating so fast, I'm surprised that it didn't erupt from my chest. I could feel sweat starting to bead up from where his hand was still clutching my wrist.
In one quick motion, he flung me against a wall and drew his wand, as did she. Fusillades of hexes were thrown between the two. All Potter's friends and I could do was watch. Not one of us dared to step in between the two, in case they didn't stop for bystanders.
I knew Bella would win over Potter, no matter how much faith Potter's friends had in him. Bella was a 7th year and Potter was only a 2nd year, Potter specialized in defense while Bella plunged into the Dark Arts, Bella moved with ease and experience while Potter struggled to just keep up. The winner was obvious from the beginning.
With one last hex from Bella, the fight was over shortly after it started. It's not to say that Potter didn't put up a good fight, which he did, but Bella was just too much, and he was thrown back against the stone wall, shattering a torch holder and catching the back of his cloak aflame.
While Potter's friends worked to put out his cloak, I inspected Bella: a gash across her right cheek from a potshot spell, but otherwise unharmed.
Hurried footsteps could be heard from somewhere above us, followed by frantic voices of students and teachers who had just finished lunch and had probably heard the conflict.
"He's not waking up," Pettigrew said from his position next to Potter.
I looked over and saw Pettigrew and Lupin hunched and kneeled over Potter. Potter looked like he'd been through a hurricane: his face was cut under his lip, on the bridge of his nose, and the longest one was across the entirety of his forehead, somewhere near his stomach he was bleeding freely, and his whole back, now exposed, was blackened from soot and what wasn't covered in smokey ebony, an angry crimson color was spreading from where the fire had licked his body.
"Bella," I said exasperatedly, "what have you done to him?"
Bella threw a glance at Potter's disheveled body and shrugged her shoulders without any words of consolation for Potter and his friends.
The footsteps grew closer as professors and students congested the corridors, swarming around the scene before them: an unconscious Potter, surrounded by his distressed friends and both Black sisters unharmed, for the most part.
I put my hand over my face and began rubbing my temples, "I just wanted to go to the library, for Godric's sake! Was that too much to ask?"
I looked back up at the crowd of gobsmacked first years and saw Rodolphus towering over them, trying to get to where Bella and I were standing.
Professor Dippet approached us, scouring through the flock of students, with the teachers trailing behind him. Once he finally broke free of the ocean of students, he checked over Potter with the school healer.
"He's got a broken nose, three cracked ribs, and his full back is covered in patches of third-degree burns that need immediate treatment. If he doesn't get treated in the next three hours, he might permanently lose all the feeling in his back and upper neck," the healer announced.
"Thank you, Rosemary. If you would bring him to St. Mungo's immediately," Dippet replied, taking one last woeful look at Potter before he was carried off through the crowd.
"Now," Dippet said, casting his eyes once more over the expectant crowd, "which one of you would like to attempt to explain what has happened here this evening?" His eyes washed over Bella, Pettigrew, Lupin, and me.
When no one stepped forward to recount what had happened, he said, "Alright then, another time. I will give you four three hours to come forward. After then, if one of you have not come forward, I will send a note to each of your parents and let them decide what to do with you, and you will all be suspended." Without another word, he walked back to the waiting teachers, signaling for them to send the students back to their houses.
Once everyone was gone, Pettigrew exclaimed, "Why didn't you two say anything?" Truthfully, I'm not sure why I hadn't said anything in front of the Headmaster. The roof of my mouth was dry and the back of my throat was throbbing immensely.
"Why didn't you two say anything?" Bella challenged, "he's your pathetic best friend and probably expected you two to be his saviors, or at least explain the situation, and you couldn't even do that."
"If you hadn't attacked him," Lupin countered, "none of that would have been necessary!"
"Odds are it would've happened eventually," Bella smiled fiercely.
"You're a bloody loon, you know that?" Lupin said, still in a state of shock from watching his best friend being hauled off to St. Mungo's, "You're the one who should be going to St. Mungo's; maybe then you wouldn't be such a threat!"
"Yes, well that may be true," Bella simpered, "but we still have to sort out who will be going to the Headmaster. Our parents will take no offense whatsoever as to what we've done, but yours', on the other hand, might be upset with the situation."
"We'll go," Lupin said proudly, "and tell-
"No, no, no," Bella interrupted, "who knows what kind of falsehoods you'll tell him."
"We can't very well let you go, Bellatrix," Pettigrew growled, "you'll make it out to be James' fault!"
"How about," I suggested, "Bella and Lupin both go and tell their sides of the story since Potter isn't capable?"
Lupin was just about to start rambling that James wasn't capable because of Bellatrix when Bella said, "Fine with me."
"Fine," Lupin grunted unsatisfiedly.
"Fine," Pettigrew and I recited after.
"When will we go?" Lupin asked as an afterthought.
"Why not right now?" Bella proposed.
"Right now?" Lupin asked uncertainly, surprised at her keenness.
"Yes, that's what I just said, Lupin," Bella snapped, "while it's still fresh in our minds."
"I don't think any of us will forget about that anytime soon," Pettigrew grumbled, "it's not everyday that your best friend gets hospitalized."
"Would everyone just stop griping?" I exclaimed, "If anyone should be irate, it should be me!" When no one responded, I said, "All I wanted to do was go study for my exams at the bloody library. If you two," I said, pointing at Lupin and Pettigrew, "would've controlled Potter, we wouldn't be in this situation right now."
"You can't just blame all of this on us," Lupin bellowed, "if your brainsick sister over there hadn't blasted James unconscious, you would've gone to the library, and we would've continued charming suits of armor until we got bored."
"Or caught," I corrected, "as rapidly as the rate of the noise was rising, I'd have given you another hour until someone, probably a professor or prefect, noticed."
"Right now," Bella intervened, "it doesn't matter anymore."
"I suppose you're right," Pettigrew bolstered.
"What now?" Lupin asked exasperatedly, throwing his hands above his head without effort.
"Now," Bella said, grabbing him by the scruff of his neck, "we're going to the Headmaster to explain the 'situation'."
"I can walk myself, thank-you," Lupin said with finality in his tone, tearing her hands off of his clavicle bone. Without another word, the two of them charged off in the direction of the Headmaster's office, bickering back and forth all the while, leaving Pettigrew and me in a match of silence
"They make a sick kind of couple," Pettigrew laughed once the pair disappeared around the farthest corner.
I had to laugh because it was true- in a demented sort of way. "You are just lucky that they didn't hear you say that, Pettigrew," I said still laughing. I stopped when something ran through my mind- What would happen to Bella once the Headmaster discovered the truth?
A/N:
WOW! Another update! I thought I would never get this chapter written. I've been extremely busy lately with my end-of-the-year exams, and I just finished them.
One thing I've noticed that separates my fanfiction from similar fanfictions is the way the Purebloods talk. Try to keep in mind that most of my main characters are 11 and 12, but their language will become more civilized as they mature through the story, don't worry.
Another thing is I should probably mention is that my character's age is not really canon. Narcissa and Lucius' ages are right on, but Andromeda and Bellatrix's are my own deciding. Sorry if this chapter seems a little rushed, but I was under pressure to update sooner!
That's all for now! Hopefully I'll get my next chapter up before I leave for vacation, but if not, I'll do my best once I get back.
~xxallisonxx~