#thread;andromeda

Putting Nymphadora on a literal leash would've been a step too far, but frankly Ted was inclined to do it. As it happened, he'd charmed her with a boundary spell, so she'd be physically unable to wander more than ten feet from either of her parents at any given time. It'd taken a while, but he was finally letting go of his high-wired anxiety to actually laugh at the way the little girl kept trying to escape only to come gently bouncing back into the charm's protective boarder. Maybe it was mean of him. He didn't care. He was taking no risks after what happened at the last outdoor gathering, and god help Bellatrix and Rodolphus Fucking Lestrange if he caught sight of them anywhere near.

Currently stuffing a large helping of novelty Bertie Botts produced candyfloss into his mouth, he handed Andromeda a bag of marshmallows, then offloaded a jug of pumpkin juice to their thirsty daughter. Arching an eyebrow, he let the sugar melt on his tongue then swallowed thoughtfully.

"Tastes like grass."

Ted and Andromeda had their work cut out for them. Nymphadora was a rambunctious young witch. At the mere age of six, she knew her own mind and was not afraid of speaking it. Rather clumsy, too. Limbs like spider legs and a spirit like a whirlwind. But he wouldn't have changed a single thing. Ted adored his daughter, just as much as he loved his wife.

It had taken some persuading to get him out of the house, tonight. This kind of crowded and noisy environment would be exactly where he'd expect Death Eaters to strike. It would be just their kind of evil to attack the innocent while they celebrated the arrival of the new year. But he'd given in. Dora's pleading had been the final straw, her big doe eyes staring up at him with a desperation that he knew she'd perfected just for his benefit. It was a complete ruse. But he fell for it willingly anyway, and here they all were.

So far, he'd won too many stuffed toys by aiming curses at targets from further away than the rest of the crowd. It was hardly fair. He was an Auror, after all. So after the third one, he dragged Dora away and charmed the toys to walk alongside her like some kind of fantastical entourage. A few other children pointed and laughed, and he turned to Andromeda with a laugh of his own.

Just returning from a particularly tedious excursion with the Auror Department, Bellatrix did not expect to find disturbance in her team. She ran a tight ship with an iron fist. Everyone knew their place and their responsibility. They all knew her rules and the consequences for breaking them. She was efficient and meticulous, ambition and determination having fuelled her path within the Ministry. But like everything else in her life, her hard work was equalled by an unhealthy helping of fear. She didn't mistreat her team, but neither did she suffer fools and her demand for excellence was often unreasonable and always unrelenting. So everything ran like clockwork, yet all were poised upon a knife's edge while trying resolutely to meet her expectations.

The tension was palpable when she entered the room. Slender fingers reached to grip the hem of her jacket, straightening it with a harsh tug as she looked around at the sea of uncertainty. It was like appraising infants, the mere sight of them pissing her off beyond comprehension. Quills scratched as she moved between desks, the sound of her deliberated steps cutting from beneath her thick skirts. Just outside her office, her secretary told her about her guest.

She entered the room like a storm cloud, all silent glowering rage, lingering in the doorway as though not quite believing what she would find within. But then her sight fell upon a face so very like her own. Her lips twitched, revulsion and fury boiling beneath porcelain flesh and sadistic impulse.

"Get out."

Too many children.

Burnished eyes scoured the surroundings, several feet above the offending, excitable youngsters. Bellatrix didn't dislike them as such, but intent upon following the narrow path towards Knockturn Alley, she found herself irked by their presence. Crowding the cobbles like a swarm of ants with stuffed toys and candyfloss, she swatted a few of them aside before her stare fell fatefully upon the little girl with unnaturally orange hair. Well, she certainly wasn't a Prewett or a Weasley. The eldest Black knew precisely who she was. Turning swiftly, her conclusion was verified by the sight of Andromeda and her beast of a husband, his hands upon her, defiling her purity with his loathsome filth. Years had passed. Oh-so many years. Yet this vision sent her rage into overdrive, her skin suddenly feeling like she wanted to rip it off. It crawled, itching, scratching as though knifes etched from the inside out, a yearning to set the world ablaze cutting deep into her bones and causing dour irises to snap wide.

For another moment, she stood, taking steadying breaths while her fists clenched and unclenched beside her hips. Her emotions enraged her. It was not correct that she should still experience upset, and so she cast that feeling aside, tossing it asunder with the determination of a witch who would stop at nothing. A different certainty filled her ravaging thoughts, her focus beelining quickly and expertly towards a far better outlet for her frustration. She turned on her heels, her rich crimson dress swishing the pavement like the world's finest dust cloth as she stalked back towards the little ones and knelt down to address the group.

Her foul temper had disappeared. There was nothing but jovial pleasantry, a bright smile and dancing eyes as she joined them in admiring the shop's contents through the window. She had flipped a switch and it was all thanks to her very own cruel intentions. As the children reacted positively, encouraging her plan, she began to spiral towards a more genuine pleasure. Perhaps she might enjoy this, after all.

"Do I?" she asked with false surprise, as Nymphadora told her she looked 'just like her mum'. Laughing widely, she stood and cast a charm into the alley to make it glow brighter. "I'm getting ice cream. Would you like some?" The girl hesitated. But a swift Confundus had her following in no time at all, Bellatrix gripping her hand as though she were a precious thing that could not possibly slip from her grasp. Right now: she couldn't. A few others joined them in the alley, redundantly summoned by the residual effect of her charm. Caring nothing for them, they wandered away while she paced towards where she'd left her husband sitting with Alecto. He was now alone, and he looked up and laughed, wondering what the fuck his wife was doing now.

After sitting the girl down, she then did indeed obtain ice cream and several other excellent treats, getting her to chat about all things Ted and Andromeda. Discovering that her parents were worried about the war and always busy and tired was mildly satisfying. To her surprise, Bellatrix discovered the girl was a little spitfire, filled with a rebellious spirit that reminded her of herself at that age. It was repulsive. If she hadn't been that mudblood's offspring, she might actually have liked her. That metamorphmagus gene sure as hell didn't come from Tonks's muggle family, and it was with that which she truly wanted to play, getting the child to replicate both her and Rodolphus's appearances until she was satisfied that she'd be able to mirror them from memory. If would be more than enough to push her darling sister's nerves over a cliff, and perhaps she'd do them all a favour and drag that bastard Auror husband with her.

It was a good thirty minutes before she returned to the main bustle in Diagon Alley, and another fifteen before she located Andromeda rushing around frantically. Sending Nymphadora on her way, she strode a retreat, congratulating herself as she joined Rodolphus once more.

Sly eyes raised through heavy lashes, meeting his and finding them equally entertained. It was hardly the brutal thrill that usually got them hot and bothered. But it would do for now. She placed a hand to his chest, lips parting as a sour chuckle trailed her teasing tongue.

"Bets on how long it'll take Andromeda to come for us?"

With any luck, not long at all. She wouldn't mind sending her sister to an early grave.

It wasn't every day that Ted and Andromeda's shifts aligned. Their hours were often long and unpredictable, leaving Ted very grateful for their ever patient friends and family who were always willing to take Nymphadora at the drop of a hat. God only knew how they'd be able to function without other people around to help out. But fortunately, though they had a long list of problems thanks to this never-ending war, childcare was not one of them.

Ted had finished early today, clocking off as soon as he was finished with the latest developments of his most recent investigation. Having put everything into order, he'd look at it more closely in the morning. A good night's sleep did wonders - though it seemed to be a rarity, of late. Between the two them, he was not sure who was sleeping less. He'd noticed the deepening shadows under his wife's eyes and in his own reflection. So since he was done around the time her shift ended, he decided that was it - he'd go straight to St Mungo's and would not take 'no' for answer if she told him she had to work double.

So here he was, pacing through the wards that had been destroyed not so long ago, in an attack that had made him want to forbid Andromeda from returning. Not that it would have done any good, so he didn't even try. Stopping to charm the receptionist, he abandoned her promptly upon spotting his wife along the corridor, and stepped towards her instead, pulling her into - what turned out to be a broom closet.

Weeks had passed since Rabastan had met Andromeda and given her the coins that would allow them to communicate. He had been glad not to use them, so far. Their relationship was strained and he loathed her choices, but he did not want her to be harmed. It was a desire that he stifled savagely, unwilling to acknowledge or understand it. Their previous meeting had given him food for thought, yet he refused do precisely that - he did not want to think about her apology, so he didn't.

In any case, he had been severely preoccupied by other matters. The war still raged and he still fought. He was busier than ever at Gringotts, balancing his numerous tasks while attempting to navigate a marriage. Avenging Frank Longbottom was not going very far, either. He could hardly ambush the man while he was protected at home. It was a personal vengeance which should not have taken so much of his attention away from the cause. But he could not stop thinking about it, constantly devising ways in which he could make him suffer, each method growing in sadistic creativity.

But at last, he could no longer disregard Andromeda Tonks. There was a plot against St Mungo's. Death Eaters would attack while it was busy, aiming for the Healers. Each chip at the government's armour was a stab worthwhile, and removing the Wizarding World's medical assets was a strong move - if they succeeded. Most would assume St Mungo's to be exempt from the war, as though it were neutral ground, concerned only with saving lives, irrespective of the side on which they fought. But that was a foolish belief. St Mungo's was Ministry aligned - or at the least, it was Ministry infiltrated. The government was corrupt. St Mungo's was not exempt from its polluting touch.

So he used the coin some twenty minutes before the attack, hoping she would see it and not stubbornly ignore the warning.

"Leave St Mungo's."

Lestrange Manor was home. When facing impending death, it had been Rabastan's instinct to return here, to the place where he would be shrouded by the impenetrable bonds of blood loyalty and the protection of the thickest, darkest magic. He knew the house inside out, years spent roaming its rooms, discovering its secrets and respectfully keeping them. It would never be his. But it would always contain a part of him.

So far, he'd been there for only a few days. But he'd seen more of his parents than in total over the last month. He lingered unwell in his childhood rooms, too exhausted to do very much. Finding comfort in the familiar surroundings, he was even grateful for his parents' daily visits, when usually he would prefer to be left alone. Each day they would study him, patiently waiting until he was fit enough to hold a conversation for longer than a few minutes. At that point, he summoned them along with Rodolphus and Bellatrix, and shared everything pertinent that had happened, for it affected all of them. A family should not keep secrets that could damage its components; a family's strength was only as good as its unity.

The fact that Andromeda had discovered his secret was dismissed as non-essential; they decided that Rabastan would speak with her himself.

The rest of the conversation, which centred on Apolline and the resulting error in his work, was one of the most uncomfortable discussions they'd ever had. It was a curious thing to watch both parents pale and darken at the same time. But somehow they managed this impossible feat, and it rendered them silent and glowering.

"Are you certain," his father eventually bluntly began, "that she will not come to us in a few months, claiming she carries an heir?"

It was the final straw for his naturally mild mother, who rose to her feet and strode behind her son's seat, placing her hands flat against his chest in a fierce act of maternal protection. Her passivity had gone to the wind, thrown aside in the face of a threat against her family. She was repulsed. Rabastan could feel her nails gritting into his shirt, her quiet fury as heated as the fire that blazed behind his father's ordinarily stoic eyes.

"Do something, Corvus," she demanded. "Do something, or I will kill that unnatural half-breed and her Veela mother myself. For too long, they have been a stain in our lives."

The Lestrange patriarch looked between his wife, who he valued but had never loved, and his youngest son, who he had never wanted but who was proving his worth. There was no warmth within this family. But there was savage, unyielding loyalty.

The Beauséjours would pay.

Andromeda,

I think it would be prudent to speak. I am at Lestrange Manor, still in relatively poor health. Would you visit? I will raise the wards for you only. Please come alone; should anyone join you unexpectedly, it would not end well for them.

Thank you for your work. I know I owe you my life.

Sincerely,