AN: You dear readers seemed confused by the last chapter so I thought I might clear some things up. The sequence in which Hermione imagined her wedding was when she fell asleep; she began dreaming about halfway through it. She did not faint, she is not sick, she was just tired. Also, she is without a doubt engaged to Draco, not Bellatrix. Don't worry; this is still a Bellamione story and there will be femslash. Thank you for all your reviews, they are great. Lyrics are from Sensorium by Epica.

-Ophelia

Our future has already been written by us alone

But we don't grasp the meaning

Of our programmed course of life.

Our future has already been wasted by us alone

And we just let it happen and do not worry at all.

The door was open just a crack, barely enough for Madam Pomfrey to peer through. "I'm sorry, Miss Granger, but I simply cannot allow you in. Nobody is allowed in."

"Please, Madam Pomfrey. I have to see her. It's extremely important. Please?" She shook her head firmly and withdrew again, closing the door tightly behind her. Hermione could hear the clicks of the locks as she magically sealed it. She slouched down to the floor with a groan, resigning herself to wait some more.

It was two days after Hermione had dragged Bellatrix back to the castle and the wretched woman still refused to let the Gryffindor see her. She had asked nicely, she begged, she got angry and yelled, she waited outside the door for hours; nothing would sway her. Hermione knew that there was little that she could do once she was let in, for there was still the small matter of the death sentence that the Ministry had given her. She ground her teeth, angered that her love-potion driven journey to save the Dark witch had been all for naught. If nothing else, saving Bellatrix gave her a purpose, and kept her from dwelling on what Harry and Ron told her in the Common Room the night that her impending wedding had been announced.

Harry sat with his head in his hands, exhausted. Ron sat in his favorite chair, stony-faced and staring into the dying fire. The flickering light cast unsettling shadows over his face that Hermione found herself unable to look at for too long. How very different they seemed from the laughing pair at the lake not too long ago. They both glanced up at their friend's approach. "Hermione..." Their voices were pitying.

She slouched down into the couch beside Harry. Ron quickly moved to sit next to her, slinging an arm around her shoulders. Hermione barely repressed the urge to shrug him off. "They can't do this. They think they can force you to get married? To Malfoy, no less. They can't do that. It's... it's..." Words failed him, as they often did.

Harry sighed and spoke wearily. "It's a stupid plan, but since when has the Ministry had any good ideas? I'm just surprised Kingsley would allow it, but he probably wasn't given much of a choice." He turned to her. "What're you going to do, 'Mione?" he mumbled. His eyelids drooped.

Hermione shook her head. "I don't see a way out of this. I'm just glad they stuck me with Malfoy and not someone who would hurt me." Draco was a nasty person, but he had shaped up during the war. He had suffered a great deal but soon learned that his ridiculous Pureblood ideals were not worth dying for, or worth killing others. Rumor had it that he seemed more mellow now, even pleasant from time to time. But could she ever be happy as his wife?

Harry nodded sleepily but Ron clenched his fist. "How can you say that? They're giving you away without any choice. They want you to be married first as an example. You're, and-I-don't-mean-this-personally-but-this-is-really-how-they-see-you-and-there's-no-getting-around-it, but you're just scum to them. Not only that, you're one of Harry's best friends. You marrying a Death Eater would be a huge insult in their eyes, but d'you reckon it would really work? Wouldn't they just fight harder?"

He turned to look at Hermione, his blue eyes bright but serious. "I don't want to lose you to him, Hermione. I want you to know that I'm not giving you up without a fight." His words were clearly meant to endear him to her, or at the very least cheer her up, but she felt even more despair now than before. She didn't want to spend the rest of her life with Draco Malfoy, but being the wife of Ron Weasley seemed just as repugnant. He had told his friends many times before what he hoped for when he got older, any time they found themselves wondering about their future after the war: A beautiful wife to love him who he could care for, a warm and loud home full of noisy kids to play Quidditch with, a delicious hot meal on the table three times a day. In short, he wanted his own childhood, but with Hermione as the loving wife, Hermione as the mother of countless redheaded children, and Hermione as the personal chef. Being a housewife seemed a nauseating existence, and while Ron never specifically mentioned any names in his fantasies, it was clear from the dreamy looks he sent her way who he had in mind.

As he had not yet formally asked the witch out, or even told her outright that he planned for them to be married someday, Hermione had not yet had a chance to turn him down. She decided that right now was as good a chance as she was going to get. "Ronald," she said sharply. "What on earth are you talking about? How can you lose me when you've never had me?" He opened his mouth to speak but Hermione cut him off, leaving him gaping like a fish out of water. "It's bad enough to have the Ministry treat me as an object to be traded, I don't need to hear it from you too."

She had stormed off to the girl's dormitory afterwards and had not seen Harry or Ron since. Her feet wandered on their own after she rose the next morning until she found herself here, begging to go talk to the recovering Death Eater. Hermione had a vague and somewhat desperate sense that if she told Bellatrix what was going on, she would make it better. She never took no for an answer and Hermione was irrationally sure that she could and would help her, perhaps because she owed the Gryffindor her life and potentially her safety.

It was a ridiculous notion, as Bellatrix had no power to interfere with the Ministry of Magic in any way, nor would she probably want to considering the control they held over the rest of her life. If she displeased them they would send her to rot in Azkaban before she could finish her sentence, or simply kill her. Despite her despair and previous conviction that she wanted to die, the Gryffindor felt that deep down there was nothing the Death Eater wanted more than to live and be free. A warrior such as herself would never fight so hard for a life that they considered worthless.

Soft footsteps interrupted Hermione's musing and she whipped around, drawing her wand and aiming it at the approaching figure. "Going to curse me, Hermione?" The voice sounded vaguely amused, and lowering her arm she saw that it was Andromeda. "That's all right, I know it was just a reflex. At least you did lower your wand when you saw it was me, that's more than most others do." She seemed to have cheered up over the past few days since her daughter's death, but Hermione suspected that she had simply learned to hide her pain. It was the same thing that her entire family did; cover up any negative emotions as if they were weaknesses. It had been easy enough to see through Sirius' fake smile, but Andromeda and her sisters were utterly inscrutable.

"What are you doing here?" Hermione asked curiously. She smirked knowingly.

"I think I'm doing the same thing as you, Miss Granger. I'm here to see my sister. It is long past time we spoke." She tilted her head, surveying the witch before her carefully. "You seem to have gotten over whatever it was that affected you last time I saw you, but there must be some reason why you are here. I have asked you before and I say it again, why do you care so much? Why can't you let Bella die?"

Hermione blushed and turned away as if the question had been extremely personal. "She was the one who wanted to talk to me. I want to know what she had to say. Kingsley asked me to…"

"Don't hide behind his orders, we both know it's more important than that. He never asked you to look for her. He never asked you to bring her back to the castle. He never asked you to save her, both from the poison and herself." Her eyes narrowed. "Don't think I don't know about that. Minerva told me how you were dragging her back unconscious, as if she didn't want to go on her own. I know my sister. She wanted to die, didn't she?"

"Yes." Her voice was small and ashamed, like a child caught in a lie. "She said she had nothing to live for without her master."

To her surprise and horror, Andromeda's eyes swam with tears. "She said that? She doesn't have nothing. She has me. She has Cissy. We still love her." She slid down the wall as if her legs could not support her, sitting beside Hermione. "My sister has become a horrible person who has done horrible things, but she is still the person who took care of me and Cissy when we were little. She protected us from our mother when we disappointed her. She taught us to hide our emotions and not let anyone see them. She got us out of trouble at school. She showed us that there was nothing to fear under our beds, or in our closets, or from thunderstorms. Mother told us we were weak and foolish girls but she cared for us and she loved us. Father loved us too, but he was always busy. We only had her and now she thinks we don't care anymore?"

Hermione stared at her, frozen. She was never any good in these kinds of situations, so she knelt down and awkwardly patted a shaking shoulder. "She loves you, I'm sure she does. She's just distraught." She ignored the fact that this was most likely no longer true after Andromeda married a Muggle-born, as that seemed to be the last thing she needed to hear right now. "She doesn't think that you two still care about her. She thinks you hate her for what she's done."

She raised her head, eyes burning with sudden rage but still streaming with tears. The rest of her expression remained oddly blank. "How could she think that? Family is forever. She has a lot of explaining to do, but until I talk to her I cannot hate her. Not yet." She spoke with such conviction that Hermione half expected her to jump up and blast the door open, but that was not necessary. Madam Pomfrey opened the door and stuck her head out, looking at them with mild surprise, as if she forgot that there was anyone out there.

"Perfect. Miss Black is awake and asking for both of you."