When Bella woke up, her leg didn't hurt so much anymore, all she felt was stiffness and the mild ache she had gotten used to over time. She looked around her in surprise, wondering where she was. She didn't see her wand in the vicinity, so that immediately made her feel apprehensive.
"Good morning."
"Fuck Merlin…"
"I'd rather not, thank you."
Lucius sat on a nearby chair, looking as usual. He had her wand, for some reason that was a comfort. At least now she knew where it was.
"Where are we?"
"I emergency-apparated us, and landed here."
Bella frowned.
"Where is here?"
"Don't freak out."
"It's not Azkaban, it's not St Mungo's, and it's not the Ministry… Get it over with, it can't be that bad."
Lucius visibly swallowed.
"We're at your sister's house. Your… other sister, the one you never…"
The shock hit Bellatrix at the word "sister".
"The one I NEVER WANTED TO SEE AGAIN!"
Bella's relatively calm mood was gone, just completely gone. How dare he bring her in a weakened state to that wretched blood traitor of a sister! How dare he!
"Give me my wand, Malfoy."
"Could you hear me out first?"
"MALFOY!"
Bellatrix tried to get out of bed, but found she couldn't. It only served to make her angrier.
"HOW DARE YOU BIND ME TO THE BED! YOU… YOU TRAITOR!"
"SHUT UP!"
Bella looked at him with raised eyebrows, eerily calm all of a sudden, the opposite of how Lucius felt.
"What is it, Lucy?"
"Listen to me you wretched woman! I didn't know this was your sister's house, I didn't even know you still had a sister! It was an emergency apparition; I had no idea where we would end up! Your sister healed you and let us sleep here, so I'd think she's not half as bad as you make her out to be! She could have killed us, have us arrested, and she didn't! And I may not know her but from what she told me I think she had reason enough to do that. AND SHE DIDN'T! You killed her daughter, and she still helped you! The least you can do is showing a tiny little bit of gratitude!"
In all the time she had lived with Malfoy, Bellatrix had never really once seen him angry. Agitated, irritated, annoyed, vexed… but righteous anger? Never before. It was quite the sight to behold; apparently the Malfoys could even pull off anger with a certain grace. He dropped her wand on the bed.
"There. You have your wand. Have your way with it for all I care."
With that he left the room. He was seething angry for some reason. The things that Andromeda had told him… Rationally, he knew there were always two sides to any history, but Bella had never even bothered to tell him her side of it. It was the fact that in all the time they had spent together she had not once done the effort of properly telling him about the war, what had been at stake, the actual cause, the fighting… It was all a bit much to take. He crossed Andromeda in the hallway, threw her a despaired expression and retreated to the living room.
(Pagebreak)
Bellatrix played with her wand and pondered. She didn't know what had made Lucius so angry, but for once she doubted she was the culprit... unless of course, she had managed to piss him off while unconscious. She doubted it.
Bella didn't feel comfortable, knowing she was in her sister's house. Her sister, Andromeda Black. Tonks now, after that filthy mudblood she had married. Bellatrix still scowled at the thought. At the same time though, she started thinking. In any other situation, she would have called her sister's reluctance to kill her a display of weak sentiment… which it probably was. But now? The war was over, the cause was lost, her old master was dead for good, and of her mark remained nothing but ugly scar tissue. She had believed in the cause, believed in it so much that she had been willing to die for it. That didn't take away that she wasn't as crazy as many people said. Bellatrix had always known that her loathing of muggleborns and muggles was largely unfounded… it was just that life was easier when you had something to hate, something to wage war against. In the end it never mattered on which side you were; it wasn't the ideology that gave purpose to life, it was the war itself. War and the power of dark curses, the power of fear and death. It had kept her mind off other things. It had kept her from counting. Yet now the war was long done, and Bella realized that holding on to a failing ideology wouldn't help her survive. She had to choose her battles, and that particular battle had already been lost about a year ago.
She didn't know how much time passed before there was a knock on the door, and she got the first good look at her sister in almost 20 years. Andromeda had lost weight. She looked tired, Bella observed. Her eyes weren't so soft and kind anymore, and her brown curls were greying a little.
"Almost thought you were afraid to come see me."
"Afraid of you? Not at all. Afraid of what I might do to you, that perhaps."
"So, what's the verdict? To kill or not to kill? Or do you prefer me in Azkaban, to stretch the suffering a bit?"
"If I wanted you dead and gone I had plenty of chances to make it so."
"Plenty of chances that you didn't take. Let me guess… sentiment, Andy?"
"Maybe."
Bellatrix scowled at her sister.
"What is it with you, Andy? Or should I call you Tonks now, after that husband of yours?"
"Tonks was my daughter, you know that well enough. Don't test my patience, Bella."
"Who would I be if I didn't?"
"A more agreeable person, perhaps."
"Merlin knows. I don't believe you answered my question, Andy. What is it? What do you want with me? What's up with the lingering in the fucking doorway with your wand clenched behind your back?
Andromeda sighed.
"I hate you, Bella. I really do. But I suck at killing things, even things I hate. I wanted to propose a truce."
"A… truce?"
"You know, the kind of agreement in which two parties decide not to attack or harm each other for a set period of time?"
"I know what a truce is, bitch. But why? Why not torture the life out of me? Take revenge? Get your own back?"
"Because I'm a better person than you are, Bella."
"High flies the moral. And then they call me conceited."
Bella knew she was in a disadvantageous position, she knew Andromeda could easily kill her if she wanted to, but she trusted the woman not to have changed too much over the years for that to happen. Besides, goading her was far too amusing.
"Nothing I can do to you will bring back what you took from me."
"Sure."
They looked at each other, Bellatrix with a provocative, I-dare-you face, her sister with a blank façade. Finally Andromeda asked,
"What's it gonna be?"
She didn't have a lot of hope for her proposal, especially not with the way Bellatrix had been acting. However, Bella threw her a crooked smile and nodded.
"Fine… sister. Truce then. How long?"
"Indefinite period of time. Two weeks notice."
"One week."
"Done."
Andromeda had entered the room now and stuck her hand out, and Bellatrix shook it hesitatingly. Then they looked at each other.
"Now what?"
(Pagebreak)
Lucius was downstairs, sitting in the living room. He was staring at the ceiling, but got pulled from his thoughts by a small hand pulling the edge of his robe.
"Hello Siw. Who's you?"
Teddy Lupin, Andromeda's grandchild, was staring up at him, big blue eyes peeking from under messy turquoise hair.
"I am Lucius. Who are you?"
"Me's Teddy. I like your haiw."
"Oh?"
"Look!"
Teddy closed his eyes, and the turquoise hair disappeared, changed into long platinum blonde hair like Lucius had. It made the man raise his eyebrows.
"Granny says long haiw is bad cuz it gets tangles. But I like it."
"So do I."
Teddy frowned a little suspiciously.
"Why did granny say me has to hide in the kitchen? I can nevew go to the kitchen alone!"
"Your granny thought I was dangerous."
Teddy snorted as if it was very hard to believe.
"You? The kitchen is much more dangewous! It has knives and hot plates and shawp thingies evewywhere!"
Lucius didn't know if that counted as an insult or a compliment. The kid looked curiously at him.
"Can I bwaid your haiw?"
"No."
"Oh. Okay. Do you want to see pictuwes of my family?"
"I would like that."
Lucius got up, and Teddy led him to a drawer he could only just reach out to. He pulled out a pack of photos.
"Granny don't like the photos cuz mommy and daddy are dead, but I do. They look alive here."
Teddy proudly showed the pictures to Lucius. "Mommy" was a beautiful, pink-haired woman with a wide grin. "Daddy" was a scarred, slightly dishevelled looking man with kind eyes. Then there were some early baby pics of Teddy himself; alone, in the company of his parents, or with other people that he didn't specify. And at last the child handed him a photo of three adolescent women. Bella, Andromeda, and a pretty blonde one. They were hugging and laughing freely in the photograph…
"That's mom and her dead sistews."
Lucius wanted to say something, but found that he couldn't. He kept staring at the photograph, his eyes fixed on the laughing blonde. Somewhere in the back of his mind he got a bad feeling.
"Mr Lucius, are you okay?"
Lucius handed the picture back, absentmindedly.
"I'm fine, thank you. Just a little tired."
"You should take a nap. I take naps too, and I'm nevew tired!"
"Perhaps I will do that."
"Okay! I go play now, kay?"
Without waiting for an answer, the child hobbled out the door. Lucius sat down, trying to get the image of the woman out of his mind. He had… recognized her. Could his memory be coming back? He gasped for breath as a sudden flash of something else came before his eyes, just a fraction of a second. He hadn't seen what it was, but it was nothing good… Lucius suddenly found himself wishing he were still at the cabin with Bella, playing cards, re-reading books, holding shouting matches without ill intent… He had fussed so much over his missing memories, but confronted with the possibility they might be returning… he wondered if perhaps he had forgotten them for a reason.
(Pagebreak)
"So, you and Lucius?"
"Me and Lucius what, Andy?"
Andromeda rolled her eyes.
"It's not like you to shack up with a person you hate for no good reason."
"He was there."
"Where?"
"Malfoy Manor, when they killed Cissy and Draco. He has seen it, but he doesn't remember."
Andromeda was starting to understand, or so she thought.
"I see. You're leading him on so you can extract memories?"
"Leading him on to what? We're just too people who both happen to be on the run for the law, and he happens to have something I need. So what? I have a lot of things he needs too. It's not "leading on", it's called calculated opportunism."
Andromeda shook her head, but didn't say anything. When she spoke, it was about something else.
"Cissy…"
"She hung apart when I found her. All cuts and broken bones. Couldn't even tell what had killed her with all the injuries."
Andromeda was pale, and Bella grinned.
"Already can't handle the thought? Then I certainly shouldn't share the memory… And here I thought Healer training made you resistant to blood and gore…"
"She was our SISTER, Bellatrix!"
A hard, detached look appeared in the black haired woman's eyes.
"I know that, Andy. But she's dead, and crying over the dead is no use. I rather go after the living ones responsible."
Andromeda swallowed and shook her head.
"I will never understand you, Bella."
"You don't have to. I'm not a NEWT subject. No one's gonna question you about me… Oh wait, they probably did question you about me, didn't they? Bummer…"
"I'm going to check on Lucius. You shouldn't leave your bed yet; your leg is still healing. If you overexert it now you may never walk properly again."
With that Andromeda ended the conversation.
(Author's Notes)
Yay! Lots of evolution, I think. Lucius gets angry and starts to remember things, Teddy admires his hair (Admit it he's adorable! ... Teddy, not Lucius. Although opinions may vary, of course.) and Andromeda and Bellatrix have their first conversation in a long, long time.
And yeah, duh, of course Lucius' memories are extremely unpleasant and traumatic. Because I love Lucius Angst.
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