Love Will Tear Us Apart

FORBIDDEN FOREST

Andromeda let out a startled scream, her arm raised to cover her face. Something hard pushed her backwards and she smacked the back of her head on a fallen tree branch.

So the prophesy had been wrong, the middle sister would not live to experience the future laid out for her. And the forbidden one, the one she loved, he would be left behind. Would he ever know what had happened to her? Would Bellatrix let Sirius live long enough to tell him? Would she let Ted live long enough to find out? To grieve for her? Or would she make her way through Andromeda's new family, her wand raised, ready to kill? After all, she had started with her younger sister. Andromeda realised now that Bellatrix's hatred saw no bounds.

But the curse had not hit her, she was still breathing, her heart was still beating.

Andromeda Black was alive.

She opened her eyes to flashes of green and red flying across the clearing. Sirius, in his human form, was standing between Andromeda, who was still crumpled on the ground from when he had pushed her back, and her older sister. 

On either side of him stood the Marauders and Lily Evans, her coppery hair escaping from the plait that bound it at the base of her skull as she lifted her wand to defend a spell Bellatrix had sent her way. 

James stood beside her, one hand grasping his wand and sending curses at Andromeda's sisters, the other stretched out to Lily, hovering inches away from her torso so that, if the need arose, he could push her to the ground in the same way Sirius had shoved Andromeda. 

Remus and Peter stood on the other side of Sirius, the smaller of the two boys taking a hesitant step back as he eyed the way Bellatrix was hurling spells at his friends.

Andromeda registered all of this information within a few seconds of opening her eyes, her face still pressed into the bracken on the forest floor. A moment later she came to realise there was someone beside her, his breath racing as quickly as hers. 

It was Ted Tonks, his body twisted around hers like a question mark, half of his weight still pinning her to the ground. His face was close to hers, and he was repositioning himself so that he could make a secondary barrier between her body and her sisters' attacks. So it hadn't been her cousin, like Andromeda had thought, that had pushed her out of danger.

It was Ted.

He clearly hadn't realised that she was conscious, though he presumably knew that she was still alive, for when she said, "You came back." He jumped but threw his arms around her immediately, pressing his lips to hers feverishly.

"Oh god Dromeda, of course I came back. I shouldn't have let you talk me into leaving at all, it was stupid idea. We're in this together, we are a team. I'm not going to let us be separated again. If we fight, we fight together. That way, we always know if the other person's in danger and we can always come to the other's rescue. So far I'd say we're even."

Andromeda's eyes searched his face as she nodded her head ever so slightly. She pressed another chaste kiss to his lips and curled her fingers around his hand. "Ted Tonks... We have to fight."

Ted returned her nod and helped her stand up, their hands still clasped together as they took their place on the battle line, on Sirius' left side, next to James and Lily, their wands raised and pointing at the remaining Black sisters.

Andromeda heard Bellatrix shriek with fury at the sight of her sister's hand in that of a muggle-born, but she ignored her. The others would deal with Bellatrix. Instead, her gaze flickered to her younger sister, wary of Narcissa's wand and the fact that her joining in would make it a much fairer fight. 

Narcissa had been trying to help Bellatrix, sending the odd spell across the field at the figures on Andromeda's side thus far, but was yet to do any damage. Andromeda was not too frightened. Narcissa was a powerful witch, with the potential to cause unknown damage should she choose to exercise the magic within her. But advanced magic, particularly dark magic, made the youngest Black sister extremely nervous, and she didn't trust herself with it yet.

The little blonde witch took one look at her sister across the clearing and, muttering an apology to Bellatrix, disapparated. The link between Bellatrix and Sirius' wands broke as Bellatrix screeched after her sister into the darkness.

"COWARD!"

She stood panting, staring at her cousin and sister, refusing to give the others any attention at all.

"Stop this Bella. It's over." Andromeda said cooly. "I'd hoped we'd part as friends, but I see now that you don't have the capacity for that." She felt Ted's hand squeeze hers reassuringly. He probably assumed that saying goodbye to her sister was the hardest thing she'd ever had to do, but he was wrong.

In the last few hours alone, Andromeda had already said goodbye to him. What could possibly cause her more anguish than the thought of never seeing him again?

"Plus there's the small matter of her trying to kill you." Added Sirius, though he wasn't smiling.

Andromeda felt Ted stiffen beside her, and could only imagine the expression on his face as he looked across the clearing at Bellatrix.

Bellatrix ignored her cousin, her eyes landing on Andromeda and Ted. 

"It's a disgrace." She spat, as though the words were venom settling in the base of her mouth.

"It's love." Exclaimed Andromeda, her tone hardening as she looked at the sister she once thought she had loved. "And I won't apologise for it. Not to you. You could never understand it."

From the corner of her eye, Andromeda saw Lily's stance soften as the fear of attack lessened. The fighting was over, for now, and they all recognised it, even Bellatrix, though her position remained defensive. Lily's hand dropped into James', and instinctively he pulled her close to his side, his wand still raised, just in case. He allowed himself to tear his cautious eyes away from Bellatrix, who, now that she stood alone, looked a lot less threatening, to look into Lily's startling green eyes. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, before looking down the line at Andromeda and Ted, and his three best friends.

It was love. It never needed excuses or apologies. It simply was, and would always be, love.

"You're throwing away your entire life. Your whole future." Bellatrix said after a moment of seething. Her voice had an edge that implied she had reached her final warning for her sister. One more chance to run back to the security of the Black household and be welcomed back with wary, but fairly open arms and they would never speak about any of this again.

But what's not what Andromeda wanted.

"If I could, I'd gift wrap them for you. Those things, my 'perfect' life and my 'bright' future are what you want Bellatrix. I have a good life, and my future is still bright, but it's not the future that was envisioned for me. I never wanted any part in the hatred you harbour, and I can't live blindly to it now that I've seen the truth. I'm sorry, but I won't come home."

Bellatrix's eyes flicked dismissively over Sirius, and the battlefront he and Andromeda had brought together. "I never thought I'd see the day when I fought on a different side to one of my own. I never thought you'd pick the wrong side to fight for. Him, maybe. But a sister of mine? Never."

"It won't be the last time we meet this way Bella." Andromeda promised. "I wish I could say it was. As distanced as I am from you now, I still wish we could part peacefully and live out our days separately, but without conflict."

"This way, I don't doubt we will meet again. But any other way, I will never again set eyes on you Andromeda Black. You. Are. Dust."

And with an angry pop, Bellatrix too, disapparated.