Fanfiction: The Black Princess (Chapter Twelve)

[gamma_x_orionis]

Title: The Black PrincessAuthor: Gamma Orionis, gamma_x_orionis
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Bellatrix/Andromeda/Narcissa
Word Count: 19 912 thus far
Summary: Andromeda Black was named for a princess, but she is no such thing. She is a sister, a daughter, a lover, a friend, an outcast and a sinner.
Author's Notes: In progress, for a challenge on fanfiction.net. In the first few chapters, incest is not present, but it becomes clearer as the story goes on.
Warnings: Incest, femmeslash, child abuse
Disclaimer: I own nothing.


As the two girls clambered onto the train, Andromeda could feel her heart beating at what must have been twice its normal speed. She didn't even have words for how nervous she was - nervous about starting school and having to make new friends, yes, but far more nervous about Bellatrix. Her older sister had stood next to her and smiled as they waved goodbye to their parents, but now that they were on the train, would Bellatrix go off and leave Andromeda alone?

"Well, come on, Andi," Bellatrix said, taking her sister's hand and dragging her down the train car.

"What?" Andromeda was surprised. She had most certainly not been expecting this - why, it was almost as though Bellatrix was excited that she was going to school with her.

"Well, I'm not about to let you sit on your own on your way to Hogwarts," Bellatrix told her. "This compartment's free… come on." She yanked the door open and stepped inside, dragging along her trunk and Andromeda's, and pushing both onto the racks above the seats. "Now we just have to hope that no one decides they want this seat for themselves," she added, pushing the door shut and turning to Andromeda with an unusually bright smile.

Andromeda swallowed. She had never seen her sister behave like this - so giddy, so… so happy - even when Bellatrix really had opened up to her and allowed herself to show emotions to Andromeda, this degree of sheer happiness had never been one of them.

"Well," Bellatrix said, sitting down and looking at Andromeda expectantly, "what do you think so far?"

"Of… what?"

"This!" Bellatrix gestured around herself, at the train car, the Hogwarts express, the station outside. "What do you think of it? It's going to be fun, isn't it?"

"What is? Hogwarts?"

"Yes!"

"I… suppose…"

"You suppose? Honestly, Andi, you've been talking half your life about going off to Hogwarts, and now you only 'suppose' it's going to be fun?"

"Mm hmm…"

Bellatrix's forehead creased into a slight frown. "Are you feeling all right, Andi? Do you feel sick?"

"No…"

"Well, then, why are you acting like this? You ought to be excited!"

Andromeda chewed on her lip. "I… don't know," she mumbled. And she didn't. She understood that she ought to be excited. She had been excited for this for as long as she could remember, she'd been telling herself that all summer long. But…

"What about you?" she asked tentatively of her sister. "Why are you acting like this?"

"Like what?"

"All… happy…" Andromeda said, rather lamely.

Bellatrix raised an eyebrow questioningly.

"I mean," Andromeda quickly amended, "all summer… and Christmas… and last summer… and most of last Christmas… you were all… you…" She didn't know quite how to put it. "You didn't seem to want to be around us."

"I didn't," Bellatrix said simply, shrugging.

"What?"

"I didn't want to be around them," Bellatrix corrected herself. "Mother and Father and all the other Purebloods and Cissy, I mean. Of course I didn't want to be around them - I mean, I know you don't… but I don't have to be." She smiled widely. "Now it's just me and you… isn't that right, Andi?"

She nodded slowly. It was true that it was just her and Bellatrix now… but…

"But I was around whenever you came home… and you never seemed to want to be with me then," Andromeda pointed out quietly.

Bellatrix sighed.

"You don't really understand, do you, Andi?" she asked, and her voice had gone from bright and cheerful to quiet and bitter in a heartbeat.

"No," Andromeda said, feeling her stomach sink. "Understand what?"

"Understand why I… why…" Bellatrix paused and took a deep breath, then hung her head and spoke, addressing her knees. Her voice trembled, though Andromeda could tell she was trying her very hardest to keep it flat and emotionless.

"Remember… two years ago at Christmas… when Father got angry at me?" she asked.

"Of course I remember." That had been the start of everything going wrong - Andromeda could not possibly have forgotten, no matter how hard she tried.

"Well… you remember seeing him curse me, isn't that right? You remember him using…"

"The Cruciatus curse?" The sound of the incantation - Crucio - still echoed in Andromeda's mind.

"Yes…" Bellatrix clenched her hands into fists, twisting the fabric of her school skirt in them. "Well…" She gnawed on her lip, tearing off shreds of skin. "I… I don't know if I should tell you…" she mumbled.

"Why not?" Andromeda was starting to worry now. Her heart was pounding a little faster than it should have. "What is it, Bella, what happened?"

"Father says I ought not to tell anybody," Bellatrix said quietly, almost to herself. "He says… he says…"

"He says what?"

"Says it's a family matter… and no one else should know…"

"I am family, though!" protested Andromeda.

Bellatrix looked up, and Andromeda thought she had never seen such a frightening expression in someone's eyes, ever. They all but blazed - not with anger as they might have with Cygnus, but with something else. Something deeper, something… something that made Andromeda want o cringe back, though she didn't, because Bellatrix was her sister and she surely wouldn't ever hurt her…

"You want to know what Father did to me?" Bellatrix asked. Her voice had lifted by a few notes, almost to the point where it was shrill.

"Y- yes," stammered Andromeda.

"You can't even imagine…" Bellatrix snarled. "I don't see why I should tell you- you won't understand-"

"I will, though!" Andromeda told her. "I can understand… I promise!"

"That's what you think!"

Bellatrix paused, then took several long, deep breaths. "All right. All right. Do you want to know what he did to me? I went outside… into the gardens… to calm down. And he followed me. And he… he… oh, just see for yourself!"

Bellatrix yanked back the sleeve of her blouse, sticking her arm out, and Andromeda looked at it with horror.

The word "BLACK" had been carved into the flesh.

The letters were just scars now, but there were markings around them where they looked as though they had been scratched - angry red markings, as though Bellatrix had been tearing at her own flesh.

"He said," Bellatrix told Andromeda, her voice full of bitterness, "that I ought to remember that I'm a Black first and anything else second, and that if I really had any sort of Black pride I wouldn't mind wearing a mark of it."

Andromeda shuddered. "That's… it's not right… it isn't…"

"You're telling me that it isn't right?" Bellatrix snorted derisively. "I know that! I hate him!"

Andromeda swallowed. "No… he's our father, you shouldn't hate him…you can't…"

"I can so! And I do! I don't care if he's our father, all that means is that he bedded mother and got her pregnant! It doesn't mean he cares about us!"

Andromeda winced and shrank back, twisting her hands together. She hated when Bellatrix was angry almost as much as she hated when Bellatrix was aloof and absent. "I- I'm sorry…"

"You just don't understand," Bellatrix muttered. She was rubbing her arm, gnawing on her own lip, apparently out of sheer anger. "You don't know what it's like… you don't even know half of it…"

Andromeda said nothing, and at last, Bellatrix took a deep breath, then sighed. "Never mind, though…" She forced a smile onto her face. "Because we aren't going to have to see him again until Christmas. We're going off to Hogwarts, Andi!" She grabbed her sister's hand and squeezed it. "Come on, be excited! You've been waiting for this for years and years!"

"I know," Andromeda said, and she found herself smiling a little more. "I am excited…"

"You'd better be in Slytherin," Bellatrix told her. "This is going to be fun… it'll be just like before I left for Hogwarts, only better, because Mother and Father won't be around to keep us from doing whatever we please."

Almost in spite of herself, Andromeda let her face break into a wide grin. Bellatrix's excitement was infectious, and as the train snaked its way, slowly at first, then gathering speed, out of the station and out of London, she found herself regaining the excitement she had felt when she had first heard about Hogwarts. This was exciting. And she had been worried about Bellatrix acting all standoffish when they were at school…

They sat together in companionable silence, Bellatrix humming quietly and Andromeda just looking out the window, taking in the scenery, for some time. They had been on the train for perhaps half an hour when they were interrupted by the compartment door sliding open.

"Can I sit here?"

Andromeda whipped around. A boy was standing in the doorway, looking nervous. He must have been a first year - he looked even smaller than Andromeda, and rather soft looking, like an overgrown baby.

"I wouldn't ask," he added apologetically. "Only, everywhere else is full… and…" He trailed off, shrugging his shoulders nervously.

"What's your name?" Bellatrix asked him, looking him up and down with a little sneer around her nose.

"Ted," he told her. "Ted Tonks."

"Tonks?" Bellatrix's eyebrows shot up. "Well, what's your mother's last name?"

"Um…" He looked a bit confused. "It's… Greene…"

"Oh… they're Muggles, aren't they?"

"Y- yes…" Ted looked terrified, and Andromeda found herself feeling sorry for the poor boy.

"Well, then, get away from us, Mudblood," Bellatrix snorted, spitting out the epithet with obvious disgust. "We don't want filth like you sitting with us. Aren't there other Mudbloods you could sit with?"

Ted's soft face crumpled. He looked as though he was about to cry, and the effect was so comical that Andromeda had to force herself not to burst out into giggles.

Bellatrix had no such restraint, and she laughed shamelessly. "Go away, Mudblood!" she ordered him, standing up and slamming the door in his face before collapsing back into her seat, still giggling. "Did you see the look on his face?" she asked Andromeda. "Baby…" She pulled a dramatic impression of his pout, sticking her lower lip out and scrunching up her eyes.

Andromeda let go of herself and doubled over, laughing. "He looked- just like- Cissy used to- when she cried!" she laughed, snorting in a most unladylike way.

"He did!" Bellatrix agreed, nodding enthusiastically. "He must not have known who we were, or a Mudblood like him wouldn't have even dared ask us if he could sit with us!"

The door swung in again, and Andromeda hurriedly forced herself to stop laughing, looking up at the door where Rodolphus Lestrange was lounging.

"Who was that?" he asked, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. "A boy just came down the hall crying… and, if I know you," he added, stepping inside and flopping down next to Bellatrix, "it was probably because of you."

"It was a Mudblood," Bellatrix told him, her face twisting into a smirk. "He wanted to sit with us - can you believe it?"

"Wanted to, I can believe. Expected to, I have more trouble with… He must be out of his mind." Rodolphus stretched out, leaning back in the seat. "Hi Andi… how are you?"

"Good," Andromeda said, nodding a little. "Excited," she added.

"Bet you're glad to have Bella to help you," Rodolphus said.

Andromeda nodded, smiling shyly and shooting Bellatrix an adoring look.

Rodolphus draped his arm around Bellatrix's shoulders and she grinned, resting her head on his shoulder. "You're both lucky to have me…"

"That I am…" Rodolphus said, smiling down at her.

Andromeda's smile slipped from her face. She didn't like the way that Rodolphus was looking at Bellatrix at all. It was… not right. The expression on his face was almost predatory, as though he wanted to eat Bellatrix. And it was far too close to an expression that had flitted across Abraxas's face when he had looked at Druella the last time Andromeda had seen him. It made Andromeda nervous, and as much as she knew Bellatrix could take care of herself and was at no risk of being eaten by Rodolphus, she still had an almost unreasonable urge to shove him away.

But she didn't, of course. She hitched the smile back onto her face, and sat up straight, and spent the rest of the journey to Hogwarts with a false smile, trying to ignore the expression on Rodolphus's face, and the way that Bellatrix was cuddling up against him.

Chapter Twelve at Fanfiction.net