CHAPTER 5

Tonks and I are standing outside a modest wooden home, my heart hammering in my chest. My cousin smiles at me before throwing the front door open and stampeding in. "We're back!" she announces to the seemingly empty place. Around the corner of an opening to the left, Andromeda emerges, and I am struck silent by how much she looks like my mother, the only real differences being her hair, which is lighter, and her eyes, which are kinder. She and Bellatrix could almost be twins. What I wouldn't give to be Andromeda's daughter rather than Bellatrix's.

I'm able to take in the sight of her for a short minute while she greets her daughter with a warm embrace, an act that ignites the sort of envy I haven't felt since seeing Mrs. Weasley and Ginny. How did I get stuck with Bellatrix when Andromeda is incomprehensibly better?

Andromeda releases Tonks, her eyes coming to a rest on me. A heartbeat of silence follows before she says quietly, "You look just like her. But so different at the same time." My heart lifts with the idea that I might not look like Bellatrix. Since I've learned of my parentage, that's all I can see. And try as I might to stop, I always find myself comparing my looks to those of my mother. Andromeda puts her hand on my arm and gives it a gentle squeeze as if trying to see if I'm real, and the kindness in her face almost makes me cry. This is so unfair. "I remember mourning your death. And now here you are."

"I thought you and Bellatrix didn't speak when I died?"

She shakes her head. "We didn't—we don't—but I was aware that she'd had a daughter. And then you died—or so we thought." Her hand drops from my arm, but our eyes remain locked as if neither of us can believe the person in front of us is real. She looks so much like Bellatrix that, combined with my own similarities to Bellatrix, strangers could easily mistake her for my mother. My life would have been so different. "As a mother I mourned for another mother's loss. You didn't deserve death. You were innocent. And so young."

And oh my, how I've lost that innocence over the years.

Her eyes still on me, she says, "Come, come sit down." Then she glances at Tonks and adds, "Your father should be here shortly."

The three of us sit down in their living room. Their home is nice, not spotless, but cluttered in a lived-in type of way. It's inviting and large enough to be comfortable without being overbearing like Malfoy Manor. I feel at ease here almost immediately. Andromeda continues watching me, as I am watching her. It's astonishing, really, how similar in appearance she is to her sister. If I were to just glance at her for a brief moment or out of the corner of my eye, I would believe her to be Bellatrix.

After a few moments of us staring at each other in silence, Andromeda says softly, "I'm sorry, it's just that I haven't seen Bellatrix in so long. And you . . ." She exhales. "We were all close once, if you can believe it. All three of us: Bellatrix, Narcissa, and I. Almost inseparable. Then I met Ted, and, well, everything changed. I miss them sometimes, my sisters. I miss what we used to have."

We smile sadly at one another. "Andromeda—should I call you 'Aunt Andromeda'?—how am I the same as Bellatrix but different?" If anyone can tell me that I'm different from my mother, it'll be the woman sitting in front of me.

"You can call me whatever you're comfortable with. And as for how you're different from Bellatrix. Well, you're here, for one, with your blood traitor family," she says, a slight bit of humor in her voice. "I take it they don't know you planned on meeting us?"

"There's a lot they don't know about me, actually."

"I guess they like to see you as another Bellatrix?"

"That's what I've been thinking lately. They expect me to be just like her."

Andromeda smiles again. "You don't have to be. Look at Sirius and me. We grew up under the constant influence of pureblood superiority, and we turned out nothing like our parents." The thought makes me happier than I've been in a while. "That's how you're different from Bellatrix. I can see the defiance in your eyes. That was never in Bellatrix's. Your eyes are full of the same early stages of rebellion I saw in Sirius when he was growing up." She looks at me intently. "It was Aurelia, wasn't it?"

"It was, but now it's Charlotte."

"How many people know?" Tonks asks.

I look over at her for the first time since entering the house. "The whole truth?" I ask her, knowing instinctively that wording it this way will allow a path for telling Andromeda what's supposed to happen to me. Perhaps because she is Bellatrix's sister or because she looks so much like Bellatrix, a piece of me wants to confide in her, as if having her support will negate not having Bellatrix's. "You, Mrs. Weasley, McGonagall, and Dumbledore." I can't tell them that Snape knows. "Oh, and the Malfoys and Bellatrix."

"The whole truth?" Andromeda asks. "Is there more than you being just the daughter of Bellatrix?"

Tonks has kept her word—she hasn't told even her mother about my duty to Voldemort. Something about that makes my heart swell. "There's . . . a bit more."

At that moment, the front door opens and in walks a man whom I can only assume is Ted Tonks. If not, then we're about to have some serious problems.

"Ted!" Andromeda greets him. "You startled me. I didn't think you'd be home until later." She gets up and gives her husband a kiss and helps him out of his traveling cloak.

"Who's this?" he asks, looking at me.

"Aurelia Lestrange—Charlotte Rodgers," Tonks says. "The one I told you about." She, too, now stands to greet him.

His eyes don't leave my face. "Bellatrix's daughter?"

He's not asking me, but I answer anyways. "Yes." I stand and offer my hand.

"Ted Tonks," he says, accepting my gesture. After the quick introduction, we all sit. "It's nice to meet another of member of Dromeda's family who fights against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."

"I feel the same way. It's nice to know that not my whole family is devout to Voldemort—sorry, You-Know-Who," I correct at Andromeda's sharp intake of breath. I wring my hands together. "But . . . I believe I was about to tell you the whole truth."

"You don't have to," Tonks says quietly.

I give her a firm nod. "I know. But you're family. And I want you all to know, I need you all to know, because what if . . ." Because what if they take pity on me and decide that they can help me get away? "I just feel like my family should know." Just in case I need them later. It's selfish of me, I know, to be thinking about how I can use my family to benefit myself, but I don't care.

So, with Tonks's help, I begin telling them about my duty to Voldemort, and they seem to take it the same way McGonagall and Mrs. Weasley had. First shock, then fear, then sympathy. And honestly, it's easier to accept their sympathetic looks, but whether that is because they're family or because we don't know each other very well, I'm not sure. It's just easier to look into their sympathetic eyes without wanting to hide away.

For nearly a minute after Tonks and I finish, Ted and Andromeda watch me silently, Andromeda looking rather horrified, Ted looking a bit angry. "I don't want to," I reiterate for the seventh time, "but I don't have a choice."

They both nod kindly at me, as they have done each time I try to reaffirm this fact. I don't know why I feel the need to keep saying it, because it's surely obvious how opposed I am to this.

Andromeda then places her hand on my knee, which oddly reminds me of Narcissa, and again sadness pricks at my heart that I don't have Bellatrix in my life as my mother. Why are her sisters so much nicer to me than she is? "He will be stopped before that happens," she says confidently, and her confidence actually makes it sound believable, though I know that it's a long shot. I usually never let myself get carried away with the thought of getting out of my duty, but with Andromeda's words, I can't help but think about what life might be like if Voldemort is killed before I have to bear his child. Everything will be better.

I quickly move forward and wrap my arms around her neck. "Thank you."

She returns the gesture.

"Where have you been all of these years?" Ted asks when Andromeda and I separate.

"An orphanage for a while, and then . . . you know, just here and there."

"You didn't have a home?" Andromeda asks.

I shrug noncommittally and clear my throat. "Not really, no, not a permanent one anyway."

"Had we known . . ." She shakes her head. "Had we known, we would have brought you here. I would have raised you as my own. I wish . . . There was no reason for you to have to live that way."

"There's no changing it now." I give her a half-hearted smile, trying not to cry because having the chance to live with them would've made my life unfathomably better, and she pats my knee again. "And I don't mean to sound ungrateful when I say this—because it means the world to me that you would have taken me in even though I'm the daughter of your sister who . . . well, who and what she is—but I would prefer not to talk about it."

"Of course, of course!"

"Have you eaten, Charlotte?" Ted asks. "We'd love to have you stay for lunch."

"You don't mind?"

"Would I have invited you if we did?"

"I don't know, would you have?"

Tonks laughs. "Of course not."

Andromeda stands. "Would you care to help me, Charlotte?"

"I don't really know how to cook anything, but yeah, I'd like to help."

"Dora, Ted, clean this room, will you?" Andromeda leads me into the kitchen, which has hardwood floors, light wooden cabinets, and brown marble countertops. "Bellatrix wasn't always the way she is now. I think it's important for you to know that. For you to know that you don't come from someone who was always—well, I'm sure you know how she is. Could you open the fridge there and get out the container with the red lid for me?"

Only one container immediately visible has a red lid, and I grab it, hoping for the best.

"Bellatrix, though she always believed in pureblood supremacy, wasn't always—"

"Evil?"

"I guess that words fits." Andromeda opens the container to reveal raw chicken breasts. "She was once a great deal of fun to be around." I can't picture it. "Don't make that face!" She laughs good-naturedly. "You didn't know her when we were children."

"I don't know much about her at all, really, other than the fact that she hates me."

Andromeda glances at me, sadness etched in her features. Then she sets two cutting boards and two knives next to the container of chicken. "Help me trim the chicken."

I don't know what that means, but I walk over and take one of the knives anyway. "You don't use magic?"

"Not for cooking. It's just something I prefer to do by hand. To an extent, at least. We—my sisters and I—learnt to cook when we were young. I still like to do it myself." She places one of the chicken breasts on the cutting board. "Cut the fat off—like that, yes, but don't cut yourself."

"The Black family tradition is to name your child for a star, right? Why did Bellatrix choose 'Aurelia'?" The chicken is chilly, oily, disgusting mess that, frankly, repulses me, but I keep my disgust and complaints to myself.

"That's quite the story," my aunt says fondly. "But I do believe your middle name might be the name of a star. I wasn't close enough to—"

"I have—had—a middle name?" I ask, ceasing my work on the chicken.

Andromeda looks over at me. "I believe so. Bellatrix might have broken the Black family tradition by naming you 'Aurelia,' but she wouldn't have completely turned her back on it. At least one of your names would have been a star, I'm sure. But we were never told what it was—I'm sure she didn't really want us to know you existed at all."

I have a middle name. I'm not just Charlotte Rodgers.

"But back to the name 'Aurelia.'" I start on the chicken again while Andromeda continues, "Growing up, Bellatrix was obsessed—and I do mean obsessed—with Marcus Aurelius. He was a Roman emperor and a philosopher and, most importantly to her, a great ancestor of Salazar Slytherin himself. She and your father talked about him all the time, and yes, I do mean all the time. Until they became Death Eaters, that is, and began to fixate on the You-Know-Who." She takes the chicken breast from me and hands me another.

"It might not seem like it now, but Bellatrix and your father Rodolphus loved each other for a time. In fact, I remember when he proposed to her. At the time we were still on speaking terms because I hadn't yet turned my back on my family's pureblood ideologies—well, I had, but they didn't know about it yet." She motions to the chicken. "Start cutting that in thin strips for me, will you? Your father proposed to your mother the summer after they graduated from Hogwarts. She burst into my room where Narcissa and I were, and she rushed over to the bed where we were sitting, grinning from ear to ear. You can't picture that, can you?"

"No. I don't picture her ever being happy or—anything other than cruel."

She smiles at me. "She definitely changed. Anyways, apparently Rodolphus had used a Marcus Aurelius quote in his proposal, can you believe it?"

"Do you remember the quote?" I whisper, unsure why this even matters at all to me. It really shouldn't, because I shouldn't care about my parents, but hearing about their lives from before gives me an idea of where I came from, which is something that was always impossible until now.

"No, I'm sorry," Andromeda says quietly. She looks at me with a pained expression. "I know what you're thinking, Charlotte. Bellatrix and Rodolphus are not the same people they were then. Less than four years later, they had taken their Dark Marks, and I don't believe they were ever truly happy after that. They were obsessed with You-Know-Who."

I nod, unable to look at her. What else had you really expected, Charlotte?

Andromeda takes the chicken and makes some sort of pasta with it, which she then serves for lunch. Our conversations for the rest of my visit do not stray towards my past life or how my parents were once in love.

The three Tonkses are strictly against the supremacist beliefs of Andromeda's family, and that only makes me like them that much more.

I have mixed emotions leaving them late that afternoon. Having discovered too much about my parents to be satisfied without getting the chance to know them for myself, I find myself wanting them to be a part of my life again despite the fact that they're Death Eaters, and it kills me that such dreams can never be. My parents chose to be Death Eaters and serve Voldemort over me, and that's something I simply must find a way to accept. Bellatrix and Rodolphus aren't really my family—they just created me. And that's all they'll ever be to me.

Unfortunately, by the time I start saying my goodbyes, it's obvious that the Tonks family is now just as worried about me as the Weasley family is. They believe I am staying with the Malfoys as well, which causes some issues. So fearful for me they are that they have Tonks go with my back to Diagon Alley (I said I had to get some things), and they plan on her Apparating as close to Malfoy Manor as possible without endangering herself.

Of course, when we get to Diagon Alley, I don't let her go with me to Malfoy Manor. "There's no need to put yourself anywhere near them. It's dangerous. If they see you . . ."

"You shouldn't have to go there alone."

"But really, there's nothing you could do for me even if something went terribly wrong. You wouldn't be able to get close to the manor without Death Eaters descending upon you."

"But if something does happen, I'll be able to alert someone at least."

I look at her sadly. "You know I can't let you go with me, Tonks. They need me alive—they don't feel quite the same about you."

She huffs at me. "If I find out that you were hurt because you wouldn't let me Apparate with you, I'm going to hunt you down myself. Understood?"

"Understood."

When we get that out of the way, I ask quietly, "Are you going to tell me what's wrong?"

She flushes. "It . . . it's really not that big of a deal."

"Of course it is! You're not . . . you. I haven't even known you that long, and I can see that." I meet her eyes, but she looks away. "All right, all right. I won't push you. Sorry."

"I'll be fine."

I clear my throat and take out my pocket watch. "I should go."

We say goodbye before I Apparate back to Spinner's End.

When I appear in the living room, Snape picks up a letter from the coffee table and holds it up so that I can see it. "You've got mail from Malfoy Manor," he says. I walk slowly over to the armchair where Snape seems to always be sitting but don't move to grab the letter. I just kind of stare at it, afraid of who might have sent it and what it might say.

Tentatively, I take the letter from him. "From the manor?" I whisper, doing my best to keep my fear at bay but not quite able to keep it from my voice. I turn it over in my hands, debating whether I actually want to open it.

"Don't panic," Snape says dryly. "It isn't a letter from anyone beckoning you back. Neither Hogwarts nor the Ministry knows that you are here. It is believed that you are with the Malfoys. Those are your O.W.L.s."

I look down at the letter, having really no desire to open it and find out what I got.

"Go on, then," Snape says, watching me with a cruel smile. "Open it."

"I'm not really feeling up to it, sir."

He smirks. "Then perhaps you should hand it to me, and I shall open it for you."

"I would rather dip my own eyes out with spoons."

Snape continues watching me, and I sigh, knowing that if I don't open this voluntarily, he will probably just take it from me and open it himself because "you're invading my privacy by being in my home so I will invade yours by seeing your O.W.L. marks" or something along that line.

ORDINARY WIZARDING LEVEL RESULTS

Pass Grades Fail Grades

OUTSTANDING (O) POOR (P)
EXCEEDS EXPECTATIONS (E) DREADFUL (D)
ACCEPTABLE (A) TROLL (T)

Arithmancy_ E
Astronomy_T
Care of Magical Creatures_D
Charms_O
Defense Against the Dark Arts_E
Herbology_P
History of Magic_P
Potions_ A
Study of Ancient Runes_ A
Transfiguration_O

These are—on the whole—better than I thought they'd be.

I knew I was going to get a "Troll" in Astronomy when I walked out like I did. I hadn't really done any of it, and the parts that I had done were quite horrible. I also knew I would fail Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology. Deep down, I knew I would get an "Outstanding" in Charms and Transfiguration but hadn't wanted to think too much about just in case. The rest I pretty much expected.

What disappoints me though is the "Acceptable" in Potions. My time on the run surely destroyed any chance of getting an "Outstanding" in Potions, yet I had halfway expected to at least get an "Exceeds Expectations." Either way, I wouldn't be able to move onto the N.E.W.T. level since Snape requires an O or better, but that doesn't stop my stomach from sinking.

"Not the marks you had hoped for?" he asks, a hint of mockery in his voice.

"Overall, they're what I hoped. Just . . ." I shrug and hand the paper over to him, not really caring anymore if sees them because he'll find out anyway considering he's a professor at the school.

His eyes scan down the paper. "Which one surprises you?"

My face warms up. "I had hoped to do better in Potions," I confess, unable to look him in the eye. "It seems that not having a cauldron to brew potions the last five years really ruined that chance."

He nods, his face impassive. "Your written assignments were always good," he says, surprisingly kindly, "though your practical applications always fell a little short. Still, I believed you would have gotten an E." I shrug again and look away from him entirely, my face still hot. "You're interested in potions?"

"Don't mock me."

"I am not mocking you. Your written assignments showed promise. You clearly understood potion ingredients and how they interact. That you were able to scrape an 'Acceptable' in a subject with which you've had very little practice and in which you were desperately far behind compared to your peers who had five years of training demonstrates your abilities. Had you been taught properly alongside your classmates, I believe you would be advancing to the N.E.W.T. level."

More heat rises to my cheeks, but that does not remove disappointment in my chest. "Well, thank you, Professor." With a slight smile, trying to ignore the sting of my failures, I add, "At least you won't have to deal with me in class this upcoming year."

"I will not be teaching Potions this year. I've been appointed to the Defense Against the Dark Arts post."

"What? How'd you make Dumbledore change his mind? I thought you've been trying to get that post since you first became a professor there?"

"With Umbridge gone, there was a vacant position at Hogwarts. Dumbledore hired an old colleague to fill the position of Potions Professor, allowing me to take the Defense Against the Dark Arts post," he says, keeping his voice casual though the pleased look in his eyes betrays his indifferent face and makes his happiness about this news rather obvious.

"Congratulations," I say as genuinely as I can manage, more disappointment weighing in my chest now. I had hoped to continue into N.E.W.T. level Defense Against the Dark Arts, but Snape only accepts those "Outstanding" students.

"Disappointed to be under my tutelage again?" he asks, almost a smirk on his lips.

My brow furrows. "Wait, I thought you only accept 'Outstanding' for N.E.W.T. level classes. I didn't get that on Defense Against the Dark Arts."

"Due to the disjointed teaching structure—no Defense Against the Dark Arts professor has lasted more than a year—students who receive an E or above are permitted to move to the N.E.W.T. level in that subject."

This brings a smile to my face. "Excellent." Then: "Hang on. What do you mean no DADA professor has lasted more than a year?"

"Is that not clear? No DADA professor has remained at Hogwarts after—"

"Is this your way of telling me you're retiring after next year? Aren't you a little young for that?"

Darkness flashes in his eyes. "Perhaps I will break the mold."

"Because if you leave Hogwarts, I fear where the Dark Lord will stash me."

He watches me silently, then looks back down at my O.W.L. marks and says, "How does one get a 'Troll' in Astronomy."

"That's a story better left untold."

His brows raise slightly, a look of curiosity on his face that shocks me.

He places my paper on the rickety table in front of the sofa and looks at me for a short moment. "You're back now from your day off, and I think it's time we start your lessons again, wouldn't you agree?" He starts toward the door that leads to his potion room. I know what he's going to try to do: he'll try using Legilimency to see what caused my terrible Astronomy mark. So my one goal in these coming lessons is to make sure that he does not get to that particular memory. No matter what the cost, I will keep him out.