Bridges to Burn || Someone’s Always Listening || Walden & Andromeda & Narcissa || August 15th, 1979
Burning. Everything was burning. She wasn’t supposed to be here; she didn’t even think that she was supposed to know that this attack was happening. But, against her better judgement, she’d come. Despite everything, she couldn’t not be there. Curses flew through the air around her, burning wildly, and the sour, acrid smell of Dark magic filled the air. Narcissa had to find her, had to make sure that she was alright.
Even after everything she had done, Narcissa couldn’t bear to leave her. Not to them. She remembered - the way Andromeda read to her during storms, her voice tilting off as she grew more and more tired, the way Andromeda chased her about the grounds. Not all of her memories had been marred by the final one, the most important one, the one that had hurt the most. And even though she tried to deny it to herself more and more, Andromeda was still her sister. Her sister who had betrayed her and abandoned her, but a sister all the same.
The flames burned hot and bright around her, smoke blocking her vision. Her disguise wouldn’t last for long, even amidst the chaos that the Death Eaters lived on and left in their wake. She’d no doubt that while the mask might hide her face, the hood she wore would only stay up for so long.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see a figure running towards the back of the house, avoiding the curses that were flying her way. Though Narcissa hadn’t yet had the privilege to know exactly how it felt, she had no doubt that it was Andromeda, flying with only the sureness of foot that someone who lived there would possess with a deep disregard for her own well being that only a mother searching frantically for her child would experience. Her heart sank as she realized that Andromeda was being followed, the dark Death Eater’s cape sweeping out behind him with each step he took in pursuit.
She quickened her steps, running through the battle, throwing curses in every direction without a care for who they hit. She’d turned the corner just in time to see Andromeda lose her wand and go flying off. She almost froze when she saw her, the way she resembled both their mother and Bellatrix at the same time, and Merlin, the way she even sounded like Druella. She took comfort in the fact that Andromeda might not have known it was her. Silently, she approached behind the figure, her wand at the ready before digging it into the small space between the beginning of his spine and end of his neck. “Move and you’re dead.” She’d mustered up most of her courage to say that, her voice cold and unaffected. Her nose wrinkled as she realized who it was, the smell of death hanging heavy on him. She’d have recognized it anywhere, even if she hadn’t felt compelled to take four showers after he had tried to force himself on her. Macnair. Macnair had gone after Andromeda. He’d been looking for her, targeting her. That fact alone angered her more than it should have. “Looks like we get that duel after all,” she hissed savagely in his ear.She looked to her sister, nodding towards the floor where her wand fell. “Pick up your wand. Go.”
His second spell hit its mark and Andromeda was left wandless. Despite her vulnerability she still tried to give him commands, and he let out a bark of laughter as he continued to advance, ready to inform her that he hadn’t come to prove a point.
Before he could, however there was a wand at his own back and a cool voice in his ear. He paused, taking in the threat as a grin stretched across his features beneath the mask. Though it had been a while since he had heard it, he recognized the voice. It was one that had been burned into his memory like the scars that had been burned into his wrists. Narcissa Malfoy.
This couldn’t have turned out more perfect if he had planned it himself. Here he was with his wand trained on a blood traitor, with the sister he loathed standing at his back. The perfect opportunity to get back at Narcissa for what she had done to him.
She was telling his sister to run, and it was a brief enough distraction for Walden to utter a barely audible, “Bombarda.” It was aimed towards a wall, slightly to the left of Andromeda, and the blast was enough to send them all tumbling to the ground. Having been prepared for it, Walden quickly regained his foot and lunged at Andromeda, grabbing her arm and twisting it behind her back as he pulled her to her feet. With his wand against her throat he turned back to face Narcissa with a cold laugh.
“No chairs or ropes to help you this time, unfortunately. Not even sure why you’re here,” he hissed at her twisting Andromeda’s arm further to make it hurt. “Is it for her? Hoping to warn her? I’m sure the Dark Lord would be glad to hear your loyalties have strayed to blood traitors.” With a muttered curse he sent a shock of electricity through the woman in his hands. “I have to admit, I see the appeal. She’s definitely pretty, wouldn’t you say. Seems to have gotten all the good looks in the family.” Again he let out a laugh, letting the chaos around him feed his cruelty.
There was even more reason for him to take the life of the woman he was holding. He wanted so badly to see despair in Narcissa’s eyes, to watch her crumble. She had taken control from him so many months before, but now it was his turn and he planned to milk it for everything it was worth.
Andromeda knew the masked man’s laughter. Louder than the drumming of her heartbeat, louder than anything she could ignore. It was the same that left their throats when a muggle mother lost her child for their amusement, the one echoing in her head even before the war, the very day she realized her last sight would be a pair of hateful eyes. The wand – she had to get the wand. She had no time to think of the goodbyes she should have written, of the things she had yet to salvage, not while her little girl wandered alone through a burning house.
There had been no hope for a saviour, not while any of those who could have helped her were already fighting for their own lives. It took her a moment to register the wand that connected with the man’s neck, and even a moment longer to realize it wasn’t held by an order member. Recognizing the figure took much less. She tried to fool herself into seeing Bellatrix’s limbs under the black fabric, but there was something wrong about the way the woman moved. Her feral sister had never been quite as graceful, and Andromeda wasn’t prepared to see an inkling of her sweeter one. She glanced towards her wand, prepared to grab it while they were entertained with each other, only to have the familiar voice turn her blood cold.
In her burning house, trapped along with her husband and child, stood her little sister. Beautiful Narcissa, whose eyelids fluttered as she struggled not to sleep until the story was finished, whose movements had mimicked those of a music box ballerina, who had always carried a frailty Andromeda knew that she lacked. Narcissa, who had never escaped, who she had abandoned to live the same miserable life as their mother had, to whom she had never stop writing. Sweet Narcissa, who was now ready to kill a man for her sake.
“Careful!” It was the only word she could utter, one that left her mouth far too late. The wall came crashing down behind her, and Andromeda thought of a million things at once as she struggled to get back on her feet. It was the masked man who provided his help, twisting her arm into a painful angle as he pulled her up.
He spoke of things she knew nothing of. Past slights that fed Andromeda’s hope that she wasn’t facing her younger sister, only to destroy it with insinuations that confirmed her fear. Family, she was family. “Go. You have to go. Please.” It was hard to keep her voice steady with a wand to her throat and a murderer’s fingers digging into her arm, to find a way to insinuate what she truly meant. “Please. There’s more than a blood traitor at stake.” Even after all of those years, she would have trusted Narcissa to save her child in a heartbeat. And she would have put Nymphadora’s life above her own in even less.
