"Greatness" and "Goodness"
When the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black began to fall, it fell hard and fast. In retrospect, everyone thought they should have seen it coming, and months went by where the majority of the conversation on Leaky Cauldron barstools was gossip about the family. Conspiracy theories proliferated, which amused the masses for a while, but most people turned melancholy – even if they wouldn’t admit it – when they had to face the fact that almost everything they thought they knew about the Black family was rumor or lie. Very rarely could they tell the difference. Wizarding Britain had long loved the Black family for its grandeur, its scandal, and the way every witch or wizard could live vicariously through them. They drank in every word about their downfall the same way they had consumed the rise of the new Black empire and the family’s involvement with Voldemort before that. The House of Black was to them what it had always been: terrible and titillating. They delighted in its fall no less and no more than they had in its vibrancy.
Harry and Ginny were found dead in Grimmauld Place on a Monday when Fred Weasley decided to play them a prank visit in the middle of the night. He slid in through the floo, and there they were in front of the fire, reclining angelically in their armchairs, absolutely pulseless. Autopsies revealed high blood levels of ashwinder extract and deadlyius, which were both rare if not extant in wizarding Britain. An obscure apothecary in northern Scotland was found that kept them both in stock. The business was technically owned by Malfoy Apothecaries so naturally there was an aggressive investigation into Draco. Draco, who had become close with Harry in the last year, suffered doubly from the loss of his friend and the relentless news articles dredging up his days as a Death Eater and his schoolboy feud with the three war heroes. Hoards of fickle protesters gathered outside Malfoy Manor for days, hollering rants about his guilt, then his wealth, then his pureblood privilege. Draco bore his second Wizengamot trial in less than five years without support. No family or friends were allowed in the courtroom, and Andromeda was barred from participating. Still, he was acquitted quickly. The next day, however, angry crowds who needed someone to suffer for the death of the wizarding world’s savior captured him on his way home from work and beat him to death in the street.
Narcissa retreated from public eye. Hermione wondered more than once if the hate the blonde woman once expressed toward muggleborns was now directed at the general wizarding population: ungrateful sheep who squandered their magic on rumors and kitsch. Bellatrix implied Narcissa was still carrying on various business negotiations, but they only ever met with Andromeda after that. The middle sister, too, was subdued and let tears slip when she thought no one was watching. Hermione was usually watching, and she could feel it even when she wasn’t. The woman brought her grandson with her to the Black Manor frequently and would catch him up on a whim in long hugs until he squirmed away laughing. It would have been cute if sadness weren’t suffocating them.
Hermione read night and day about the toxicity of the substances in her friends’ bodies, trying to work backwards from them through complex alterations and equations to known potions. She was plagued by the thought that her work, or at least her research, could somehow have contributed to their deaths. An ignored stockpile of guilt swelled in her subconscious.
The Black sisters taught her to be delicate during that time. She had a sense now that, for all her dazzling anguish, Andromeda could not break. The woman had an endless, steel capacity for pain and suffering. Though she could and did sometimes erupt with molten danger, it was due to the seismic shifting of the magic deep inside her and not because she was filled to her limit. Bellatrix, on the other hand, turbulent and flagrant woman that she was, was the earth that rolled and cracked when Andromeda’s tectonic magic rumbled and on which her lava settled. Hermione did not so much as tiptoe around them as she did drink them in quietly to not disturb their unending process. Now that she could see it, she thought it was a wonder that she had thus far remained a stable structure amidst them. She supposed she now had truly committed herself to them, perhaps all the way to the end.
**
“I think we should take a break,” Bellatrix said one day. She leaned far back in her chair and rubbed her eyes.
Andromeda sighed at the clock on the wall. “Sure. Maybe we come back in an hour?”
“No, I mean a long one. Get away from the Manor. Out of Britain.”
Hermione looked up from her books. It felt callous to want a break right now, but she didn’t feel like any good was coming of her studious scrupulosity.
“Maybe. Later. The Wizengamot is convening for a long session tomorrow. It’ll last a week or more. Maybe you should go, though, without me.”
“Yeah, maybe.” The sisters avoided eye contact with one another. Andromeda thumbed through papers while Bellatrix inspected her hands as she rubbed them together.
“Should take Cissy.”
“She won’t go.”
“Try at least.”
Bellatrix relented and went to look for Narcissa in another wing of the house. Hermione summoned up courage to address the brooding woman still flicking through papers aimlessly.
“Maybe you could join us. After the session is over.”
“I wouldn’t want to impose, Hermione. You’re both doing so well.”
“I would like it if you came. You know she would too.”
The woman sighed through a rigid jaw. “I think she – and you – would be less haunted if I weren’t there.”
“That’s not true. We’re all haunted, Andy, but it’s by ourselves – not by you. Please come.”
They were quiet for a while, each simply lingering in the other’s presence. Bellatrix returned, cutting their homeostasis short. She confirmed that Cissy had refused to go. Unaware of their conversation, she asked her middle sister point blank to come after the Wizengamot session ended. The woman agreed after much more protest.
“Teddy is staying with my sister-in-law this week since the session hours are so long. I guess he can stay there a few days longer.” Andromeda ran a heavy hand through her long auburn waves.
“He can come too, Andy.” Bellatrix’ voice was quiet. “Not everything must be always separated.”
**
As they exited the Manor, Hermione could feel more than see Andromeda following far enough to wave at them as they left but not so close that they would speak again. Just outside the wards, Bellatrix stopped. She looked confused with her brow furrowed, lips in a thin line, and charcoal eyes darting along the ground.
“What’s wrong?” Hermione asked.
“Something doesn’t feel right.” Indeed, the dark witch’s shoulders hunched as though laden with an invisible burden. Several seconds slipped by before she unfroze to hurry back toward the Manor. “I’ll be right back.”
Hermione too felt something amiss, like she had forgotten something important, so she fumbled in her bag, checking for everything she thought would be essential. The process reminded her she had yet to confront Bellatrix about the little goblin knife since she couldn’t find it in the bag even after trying to summon it with her wand. She kicked herself for the three unfinished potions for a forgotten client that landed in her hand instead. At some point she realized she was looking too hard, busying herself with concerns about the bag’s contents for far longer than she knew she needed. She was avoiding something, and as soon as she realized it, it became increasingly difficult to keep her head buried in the bag. When she finally looked up, it was just in time to see the two sisters’ faces pull apart. They were standing stock still between the gates, Bellatrix’ hands tenderly holding her sister’s face with Andromeda’s under her sister’s elbows, wind weaving their wild, wicked curls together. Bellatrix turned away abruptly with her head down and pulled her hood up as she neared Hermione. The wards clung to her as she passed through them, trailing behind her like blood swirling through water.
“Are you ok?” The younger woman asked, her eyes not on the dark witch but on the other sister.
Andromeda staggered heavily against the Black family crest on the gate, bracing herself as against a storm. Her lips were open in a mixture of shock and a new kind of longing, and she raised one hand to cover them. She said nothing, but the wind became more tempestuous with every heave of her chest.
“Let’s go,” was the low, curt reply.
Bellatrix would not meet her eyes, so instead of seeking answers, Hermione did what had become habitual ever since becoming involved with the Blacks: she decided to stuff down her conflicted feelings about the problematic thing that had just occurred, tore her eyes away from the wild beauty of the most tormented woman she’d ever met – infinitely more tormented than the witch who spent 14 years in Azkaban plus many more in the service of the Dark Lord and whose hand now clasped her arm – and disapparated.