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Chapter 87- Black Souls.
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"Hey, mom! I'm home!" Nymphadora Tonks shouts as she closes the front door of her home behind her, a big, energetic smile on her face. A smile disappears from her face as she looks down and notices her mother's black high heels thrown on the ground near the door, meaning her mother is here but is ignoring her. "Still angry, huh." Nym frowns to herself before shaking it off, pulling her smile back on and going off to find her mother.
Nymphadora found it hard to keep a smile on her face right now, but she did it nonetheless. Her abilities as a Metamorphamagus are making it easier for her to conceal how she really felt, something she had gotten very skilled at over the past year. She had gotten her place at the Auror Academy, except, not in a way she expected in the least. In fact, it was beyond her wildest dreams, so much more than what she was striving for. It was harder as well, but she wouldn't have it any other way.
Alastor Moody. That was the name of the man who was paving the way for her, granting her the path to success and yet being the bane of her existence at the same time. Truly, she had mixed feelings about the scarred man; he was there at the Auror Academy, part of the interviewing team, except he never really said a word, only showing interest when the matter of her morphing abilities was brought up. He questioned her on the limits of it and how skilled she was, for the first time showing an interest.
He then questioned her more, overtaking the interview and eventually getting to the topic of the mind arts. He learned that she was a skilled Oclumens, having been taught by her mother. Moody seemed intrigued and was taking a special interest in her, something Nym was happy about until he declined her from the academy, no matter what anyone else on the interviewing team said. He had the final say, and she was rejected.
She was walking home dejected when she was approached by Moody with an offer, an offer she took. An offer that encompassed immense training and dedication but also required her to be away from home for a long time. All wins, in her opinion, especially because it allowed her to get away from home and, more importantly, from her mother. Things between them had been weird and awkward, and neither of them knew how to handle it. However, it had been long enough, and it was time to face the music and try to sort out the various issues at home.
Entering the living room, she found her mother sitting on the sofa, her legs stretched out and resting on the table. Her blazer was off to the side, and she had loosened the buttons on her blouse as she watched TV, sipping red wine straight from the bottle. Nymphadora saw that she was watching one of the soaps on TV, one about a royal street or something. It always seemed boring to her, but her mum always seemed to enjoy it.
"Hi mum, so, what's happening on Coronation Street? Did they find out who was making the gossip up bout that girl?" Nym says, trying to act normal and casual as she takes a seat next to Andromeda. Her mother merely looked at her, not even bothering to move her head and giving her a side eye, before focusing her attention back on the TV and taking another sip of her wine. Well, not really sipping, more like breathing down the red wine. It was quite worrying, actually, and it caused Nym to forgo all foreplay and get straight to the centre of the problem.
"So you are still angry, huh? Why? It doesn't make any sense?" Nym says, grabbing the bottle of wine from her hand and ripping it from her grasp, the wine sloshing around inside, some spilling out and staining the white cushions, but neither pays attention to it. "It doesn't make any sense? You slept with my boss!" Andromeda breaks her silence, looking at her daughter as if she can't believe her and shouting at her. Anger in her eyes, as well as something else much deeper but hidden deep within.
"So! I am an adult, and who I sleep with is my business. I did nothing wrong!" Even as the words leave the daughter's mouth, she knows she is wrong, and the words spoken are definitely wrong, but she can't stop them from coming out, and once they are out, all she can do is look blankly at her mother, already aware of what the counter-argument is going to be. "Nothing wrong!? You literally turned yourself into me and sucked him off beneath the desk with my face! And with me in the room, clueless! Still think you did nothing wrong!?" Andromeda shouts, spittle flying from her mouth and spraying onto her daughter.
At this point, Nymphadora Tonks should have backed down and apologised, but women are strange creatures. Women hardly ever back down, even when they are in the wrong, purely because they are beings of confrontation. They can be set off by the littlest things, and feeling the bits of saliva touch her skin is all the daughter needs to continue her argument. "You had no right to see that! It was private! It was between me and him, but you barged in and included yourself! You shouldn't know about it!" Tonks screams back, standing up from the sofa and stomping her feet.
Andromeda shoots to her feet in response and grabs her daughter by the shoulders, and screams back into her face. "I was using Legilimency! I was teaching you Occlumency, and this was the memory that you guarded the hardest, so of course, I was trying to see it! I was trying to make your Occlumency perfect; I didn't expect to find my daughter becoming a whore on the same day she lost her virginity!!" Silence ensues, and both of them are shocked at the words said and do not know where to go from there. A mother calling her daughter a whore, something neither of them ever thought would occur between them.
Finally, Nymphadora finds her voice, but it is no longer so confrontational. It is quite meek and quiet, but it is booming in the silence of the room. "You usually only break through my barriers and view the memory for a second... but that time, you watched it all. From the beginning, where I disguised myself and approached him at the bar as I was shy, to the end, where you entered and left his office. You watched it all, and there was nothing I could do to stop it, forced to watch you witness the thing I tried to keep from you the most." Again, the silence is deafening as they both take a second to soak everything in, trying to process it all.
Andromeda sighs. "I'm sorry. You are not a whore. It's just... he's my boss, and- and- I..." She trails off, not knowing how to continue, but her daughter continues it for her. "You love him, right?" Nym says, giving her mother a comforting look that is actually very far from comforting for the mother. Andromeda's head snaps to her daughter, and her face gets red, even more than it was from the wine, and she begins to stutter and deny it.
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"No! No, that isn't- No, I'm not in love with him. He is a piece of shit that will fuck anything on two legs." Andromeda says, her words firm and filled with certainty. And they would certainly be believable if not for her behaviour, which was very open because of her drunken state. Her expression was angry with a bit of sadness, and she was doing her very best to not look at her daughter, her eyes down and her face red as she wrung her hands together.
"Okay, okay. So, not love. But you definitely like him." Tonks says, and before Andromeda can try to refute it and deny it in its entirety, she quickly continues. "You were teaching my Legilimecny as well, remember. I saw some of your memories. I saw the kiss in his office. I know you like him." Nym grabs her mother's hands and leads them both to sit back on the sofa, their legs crossed as they no longer decide to be angry with one another.
"Doesn't it piss you off, though? He has gone after the both of us, mother and daughter, the asshole." Andromeda sighed, feeling the need to drink again, and she did so, taking the bottle of red wine from Nym and taking a swig. "Well, he tried for the older model, but then he found the newer one and left you in the dust. He upgraded, really." Tonks says, smiling mischievously at her mother, who could only laugh at the absurdity of what was just said.
"Please, he didn't even know who you were when he picked you up in that bar. And he was drunk as shit. If I didn't turn him down when I did, then he wouldn't have been out there looking, and you wouldn't have gotten your shot, you little opportunist." Her daughter laughs at that, snatching the wine off of her mother and taking a swig as well before looking back at her, a soft smile on her face. "Then why didn't you?" Andromeda can't quite compute what she meant, and Nym continues. "Why didn't you take him up on his offer?" Nym waits patiently as Andromeda takes in the question and wars with herself on what she should actually reveal before deciding to be one hundred per cent honest.
"I was tempted, honestly. Maybe if he didn't sleep around so much and wasn't so much of a manwhore I would have done it. But the main reason, and the only reason I said no, is because I am married." Nymphadora nods in understanding. "Because you love dad?" She asks but is surprised when Andromeda doesn't immediately affirm. "You don't love dad?" She asks her mother, trying to be patient and unbiased. She wasn't unaware of the current divide between her parents.
Andromeda takes a second, but in the end, she has decided to be one hundred percent honest with her daughter, and so that is what she does. "No, I don't. To be truthful, I don't think I ever loved your father. I thought I did, back when we were in Hogwarts, but I have to admit that that was a very stressful time for me, and I was desperate. By that point, my older sister, Bellatrix, had been married off to the Lestranges, and seeing what had happened to her, I was scared." She reminisces about her past, looking back with both fondness and disgust in equal measure.
"You have to understand that Bellatrix was always a little unhinged and crazy; she liked to hurt people, but she was still my sister. She had never hurt me, but after she got married, she became twisted. It was as if the worst parts of her had become all that she was, and she was horrifying. My parents were trying to get me married as well, and I didn't want to become like my older sister. I was desperate and looking for a way out, and there was Ted, the boy that was always trying to talk to me, and so I talked back for the first time." Andromeda looks down into the wine bottle, twisting it around and watching the red liquid swirling around inside.
"I eloped with him as soon as Hogwarts finished, managing to escape my family as they couldn't even bare to look at me anymore. I convinced myself it was love, but it was a marriage of necessity for me more than anything." She pauses here, looking at her daughter, who is the product of her marriage. "And I don't regret it in the least because it led to you, the most precious thing to me in the world. If I had to do it all over again, then I would, solely just to see you in my arms again... But no, I don't love your father." She sighs, deciding to be more honest with herself as well.
"I turned down Gilderoy because I am married, not because I am in love with Ted. To be frank, I don't want this marriage to fail. I just know that if it does, they will use it as proof that they are correct in their stupid views. My sisters would cackle before torturing me, and my family would all happily feel vindicated from the grave. I used Ted to protect myself, and he went along with it, probably knowing exactly what was happening. The man I married is not an idiot. That is why I am sticking with Ted till the end of the road." Nymphadora looks sad at the admission, finding something secret hidden within the wording, but doesn't get angry or frustrated with her mother. She just accepts it.
"Speaking of dad, where is he?" Tonks asks, finally noticing that her dad isn't around. Admittedly, he usually isn't around as he is always working, but it is quite late at night, and the man is nowhere to be found. "Oh, your father actually went to visit his parents... a month or so ago. He has been staying with them." Andromeda says, not looking at her daughter, that knowing the contention between her parents is definitely not good for her daughter. Even with her now being a grown woman, something she had witnessed herself, she was still her child.
"I don't get it. What is his problem? Why doesn't he want you to get a job?" Nymphadoras asks, genuinely confused. "It's just how he was raised. In the magical world, we only fight over magic and blood, but in the muggle world, they fight over everything. Birthplace, nationality, skin, race, gender, it is just the world he grew up in. He doesn't think his wife should work and he should provide, which just doesn't fit into the magical world where all that matters is magical ability." Andromeda sighs again, knowing the exact problem but not having a way to fix it.
"Well... I'm home now, so let's go get him and drag him back. Things can't get better if he's not here." With some more convincing on top of those words, mother and daughter set off to bring back the wayward husband. They apparate towards the in-law's house, and when Nym goes to the front door, Andromeda stops her, not wanting to see them. Instead, they go around the side of the house to the window of Ted's room, the one he grew up in. With some neat transfiguration, they have a staircase to walk up, and with an unlocking charm, they are through the window and into the room.
"Surprise!" Nymphadora shouts, jumping forward and pulling the covers off of the bed. "W-Who- What!" Shock pulses through everyone as the blond woman laying in bed next to Ted wakes up looking confused. She looks at her mother, seeing the scariest look she has ever seen on her face.
She can only thank her good graces that her special training taught her obliviation, which she will probably have to use on the muggle woman.
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"What the hell do you mean?!" Narcissa Malfoy, nee Black, screams at her husband, feeling infuriated. "I just thought the book was cursed. I gave it to the Weasley girl as retribution for the raid he did on our home, thinking the girl would just die. I didn't think that—that everybody would start being attacked!" Lucius Malfoy shouts back, defending himself to the best of his ability.
"We need to pull Draco out immediately. Purebloods are being attacked as well; he is not safe." Narcissa says, turning to walk away to write a letter with the utmost haste, but Lucius grabs her by the arm and stops her. "You can't; doing so would show weakness. Everybody thinks it is just some juvenile prankster at the moment. If we take Draco out, people will ask questions, those shrewd bastards will click on, and I will have to admit to the real danger, which will beg more questions." Lucius says his tone is deadly serious, and the grip on his wife's arm is getting tighter.
"Don't touch me, you bastard!" Narcissa snarls, throwing her husband's arm off and stalking away through the cold, lonely halls of Malfoy Manor. She retreated to her room, where she wallowed in pity, unable to do anything to help her son.
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"The Dark Lord will return, and we will be free!" an insane voice rang out through the dreary halls of Azkaban. We will surge out and purge the world of the mudbloods and the filthy muggles! Soon! The time is nearing!" Bellatrix Lestrange screamed, rattling on the bars of her cage, her mind unfathomable.
"Shut up, you stupid bitch! The Dark Dickhead is dead! You demented cow!" Sirius Black shouts back from his own cell, tired of the unhinged woman's unrelenting calls. "Ickle wickle Sirius! I'll get you! I'll cut off your balls and hang them from my ears like earrings! Ahahahah!" She shouts back, cackling in glee just at the thought of it. Sirius just sighs back, no longer having the strength to argue and having had similar conversations continuously in the past decade or so.
He transforms back into a dog form and huddles into the corner of his cell, hoping that death will come just a little faster and that his suffering will end soon. So that he could finally pay for his mistakes and move on. So he could be with James and Lily again... His friends that he had gotten killed.
A dementor closes in, and Sirius is disappointed when it passes his cell, ignoring him. It is a close second, however, when he sees it heading towards Bellatrix's, hearing her screams as it grows closer and then the silence as it feeds.
Hopefully, it will come to him next... Soon...