Chapter 9
May 1995
Harry and his classmates were taking their History of Magic O.W.L. when Andromeda burst in. She said, “Snuffles [Sirius’ new nickname] just contacted me, Harry. We need to talk in private about the situation.” Harry urgently got up and followed Andromeda into the Gryffindor common room, after which Andromeda proceeded to explain to Harry that Sirius was being tortured by Voldemort in the Ministry of Magic’s Department of Mysteries. She said, “We’ll get out of Hogwarts, and then I’ll Side-Along-Apparate you to the visitors’ entrance at the Ministry—for security reasons, it’s not possible to Apparate directly in there.” Harry said, “Yeah, it’s urgent that we save Sirius. If Voldemort’s using the Cruciatus Curse on him—which undoubtedly he is—Sirius will suffer the same fate as the Longbottoms if Voldemort uses the curse on him for long enough.”
Andromeda then asked Harry who the most talented people in the D.A. were besides Ron and Hermione—Harry’s best friends, who of course would want to go with him to the Ministry. Ginny asked if she, Luna, and Neville could help Harry; Andromeda talked Harry into agreeing to this, and then helped Harry and Ginny gather Ron, Hermione, Neville, and Luna. (I completely fictionalised the whole fight with Umbridge; Andromeda told Umbridge that she had scheduled a group therapy session with Harry, Ginny, Neville, Luna, Hermione, and Ron, all but one of whom were actual patients of hers, not knowing that all except Ginny and Luna had an O.W.L. on that day—an excuse that Umbridge believed.) Andromeda said that after she took Harry to the Ministry, she’d go to Grimmauld Place and get some Order members to take everyone but Harry to the Ministry. She then left with Harry by Side-Along-Apparition.
I went out of sight of Harry’s friends (particularly wanting to avoid Hermione), transformed into a human, and Apparated to 12 Grimmauld Place. (Of course I know where it is; I was there when Harry told Andromeda how the place was being used, with Andromeda of course noting that her aunt Walburga and uncle Orion would definitely not have liked to see their house used to fight against a pure-blood supremacist regime.) This is when I noticed something suspicious about Andromeda (behind whom I walked in the door as a beetle); she searched the house for Sirius before talking to anyone else in the Order who could actually help (which of course Sirius could not do because he was a wanted criminal). Once Andromeda found Sirius, Sirius started to ask, “Where did you—”, but Andromeda pulled out her wand and shouted, “ Confundo !” Sirius then stopped talking and did not do anything but continue standing where he was, at which point Andromeda went downstairs. Andromeda then went downstairs to the members of the Order who did not know her as well as Sirius did; she said to them, “Harry’s gone to the Ministry. He thinks that Sirius is in danger, and I couldn’t convince him otherwise. I need you guys to Apparate to just outside the Hogwarts main gate and take Harry’s friends to the Ministry.” “What makes him think that, Mum?” asked Nymphadora, who was now a member of the Order. “I thought you’d successfully taught him Occlumency—I used one of Fred and George’s Extendable Ears to listen into a conversation you were having with Sirius about Harry’s Occlumency lessons! Is Harry seeing a vision that I know is false, even though Harry doesn’t know?” Andromeda then pointed her wand at her daughter, just as she had done with Sirius, and shouted, “ Confundo! ” To the other Order members, she said, “Forget what you just saw. Just go and Side-Along-Apparate Harry’s friends to the visitors’ entrance at the Ministry.” “If Harry’s already gone, then he needs help no matter what,” said Remus. “Come on, Dora. Let’s go.” Still Confunded—although she would recover from the effects of the Confundus Charm after she was no longer within sight of her mother—Nymphadora and three other Order members followed Remus out of the house. I kept hanging around the house until Sirius also left it, and then I flew as a beetle to the Ministry behind him as he walked (landing on the ground when I would need to be close to him and follow him silently).
In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix , you saw the battle in the Department of Mysteries (which I spied on as a beetle)—and the conversation that Harry had with Dumbledore afterward. But you know what I had to leave out? The fact that Andromeda was present during the conversation between Harry and Dumbledore. Harry demanded, “Why did you tell me that Sirius was in danger when he wasn’t really? Did you know you’d be causing his death? Have you finally decided to be like your sisters? And why did Sirius come to the Ministry for real?” Andromeda said, “I don’t know. I never saw you today. It could only be that someone was using Polyjuice Potion to impersonate me. I combed my hair in my office today, and it did appear that a strand of my hair was being blown out of my office window by the wind—but the wind was strangely silent.” Andromeda paused and said, “Let’s agree on a security question for you to ask me every time we see each other. How about you ask me when I got my old dog Padfoot?” “Yes,” said Harry. “You got him in August 1993. If you give that answer, I’ll know it’s really you.”
Later that night…
Andromeda came back to 12 Grimmauld Place; Nymphadora was there with Lupin. Lupin said, “Andromeda, why did you Confund your own daughter, Nymphadora, if you wanted us to help Harry?” “I just found out that Harry thought I told him that Sirius was being tortured by Voldemort at the Ministry,” Andromeda said, “but I hadn’t seen Harry before Dumbledore called Harry to his office after the battle in the Department of Mysteries” “You told us that Harry had seen a false vision that Sirius was in danger,” Lupin said. “And when Nymphadora asked you a question about Harry’s Occlumency skill that you would surely have been willing to answer, you responded instead by Confunding her.” “What question was that?” asked Andromeda. “I asked if Harry’s Occlumency lessons had really been as much of a success as you had told Sirius that they were,” said Nymphadora. “I told you, it wasn’t really me to whom you asked that question,” replied Andromeda. “I’ll have to find out who it was…”
July 1998
A couple months after the Battle of Hogwarts, when Andromeda found out from Harry (in one of many conversations they had about the Battle of Hogwarts in its immediate aftermath) that her sister Narcissa and brother-in-law Lucius had renounced their loyalty to Voldemort (shortly before Voldemort was killed by Harry) in order to protect Draco, Andromeda felt that it was safe to ask them if they knew something she didn’t about who impersonated her and convinced Harry and his friends that Sirius was in danger. Narcissa, who as stated before had renounced her loyalty to Voldemort before his death, said that Bellatrix had told her that she, Bellatrix, would Summon a strand of Andromeda’s hair from Andromeda’s office floor, and use it to impersonate her using Polyjuice Potion.
“I don’t know if you’ll be happy to hear this or not—but Bellatrix is dead,” Narcissa told Andromeda. “She was killed in the Battle of Hogwarts. But before she was killed, she proudly told me that she killed Nymphadora.” “Then I’m glad she’s dead,” said Andromeda. “Especially if she impersonated me using Polyjuice Potion and caused Sirius’ death,” she thought. She realised the irony of Harry talking to Bellatrix (posing as Andromeda) about the worst possible effects of the Cruciatus Curse, when Bellatrix was skilled enough with the Cruciatus Curse in her own right that she, along with her husband Rodolphus Lestrange and brother-in-law Rabastan (and possibly along with Barty Crouch Jnr, another Death Eater), had tortured into insanity the parents of Harry’s classmate Neville Longbottom, when they could not tell her what she wanted to know about Voldemort after his first downfall. (Due to the mental health problems that Neville had as a result of his parents’ fate, he too was seeing Andromeda. His grandmother had decided that Andromeda, the only Wizarding therapist with an office in Hogsmeade, was the most convenient therapist for Neville to see. But, in order to keep Neville going to Andromeda, Mrs Longbottom had asked Andromeda not to reveal her maiden name or that Bellatrix was her sister.)