The Tribulations of the Maiden

Disclaimer: The characters here and the world they inhabit are the creation and property of JK Rowling and her assigns.

A note on the Black Family Tree: Walburga is the older sister of Cygnus. She married her second cousin, Orion, and they are Sirius and Regulus's parents. Cygnus and the former Druella Rosier are the parents of Bellatrix, Andromeda, and Narcissa.

Perseus, continuing his flight, arrived at the country of the Æthiopians, of which Cephus was king. Cassiopeia his queen, proud of her beauty, had dared to compare herself to the Sea-Nymphs, which roused their indignation to such a degree that they sent a prodigious sea-monster to ravage the coast. To appease the deities, Cepheus was directed by the oracle to expose his daughter Andromeda to be devoured by the monster. Bulfinch's Mythology, Book XV.

Many who knew of the Black family thought that the three daughters of Cygnus and Druella had a charmed life. There was no question of their pure-blood status. They were supported by a series of trust funds, of which only the goblins at Gringott's knew the full extent. Their family was sought after in Wizarding social gatherings both in England and on the Continent.

Such a family with three such fortunate daughters had only one problem. They were required, by a tradition that exceeded the force of any law, to make good pure-blood marriages. It was an unfortunate fact of the girls' lives that their greatest value lay in the pure-blood children they were expected to produce.

Andromeda Black's best consolation came from being the second daughter. Most of the pressure was on Bellatrix to marry well and produce heirs for her family and that of her husband. Once Trixie took care of that business, Andie would be given some leeway in choosing her own husband... from the proper social group, of course.

The initial plan went off without a hitch. Cygnus and Druella negotiated a brilliant contract with the Lestrange family. Bellatrix was a bit put off by the coarse manners of her fiancé and his family. A weekend spent in their home convinced the young witch that her best option lay in proceeding with the marriage. A girl should have had recourse through her mother in such a situation, but the former Druella Rosier had been convinced to marry Cygnus through similar means. She didn't see any reason for her daughter to be afforded comforts she herself had to do without.

The wedding was performed quietly with simply the principals and their parents. The sisters of the bride stayed at their school when it took place. The brother of the groom was away on other business. It was written up in the Daily Prophet as though it were the social event of the year. The photograph showed a happy groom and beautiful bride. If the bride's face looked a bit stunned, and the groom appeared overly possessive, most readers wouldn't notice it on the first glance, and they wouldn't bother to look at it a second time.

After the brilliant marriage was accomplished, the next task was to produce an equally brilliant wizard or witch of the next generation. For Druella Black, the task had been blessedly easy. She was never sure when, exactly, Bellatrix had been conceived, but it happened essentially at the same time as her wedding. The two further attempts for a son went quickly as well. Neither ended as they had hoped, but three beautiful and magically talented girls was not a bad product for a marriage. They were well positioned to be of use to the Black family due to their potential use in other families.

With the oldest daughter married well, the family could look at its options for the second. There were a few families whose blood was not quite up to the same standard, but the young man in question had financial resources or political power. The addition of a Black to their family trees would be worth quite a bit to such families. Then there were a few distant cousins with sons who were Squibs or near to it. A witch such as Andromeda might be just the stimulation those parts of the family needed.

Therefore, once Bellatrix was married to Rudolphus Lestrange, the entire family held its collective breath, waiting for news of the first child. It didn't come. Spring passed into Summer and was followed all too quickly by the rest of the year. Both families started hissing whispers of perfidy at each other, and a stray comment made its way into the newspapers. The last straw was an expose in the Quibbler that stated certain pure-blood families were doomed to become Muggles because of a scientific discovery indicating that magic only stayed in a family for twenty-five generations. Xeno Lovegood didn't mention the Blacks specifically, but he didn't need to. The situation was well known by anyone who traveled in certain circles.

Cygnus had his sister and brother-in-law over to discuss the matter. Walburga clucked and crowed. "The girl should be made to do her duty to this family. If our forefathers could see her..."

Cygnus glowered. "It's not as though she's actively preventing pregnancy. Meanwhile, what do you suppose our forefathers would say about your son's sorting, dear sister?"

Orion pounded the table. "It wasn't his fault! Dumbledore did something to that hat. Regulus sorted properly, after all."

As the parents argued in the dining room, the children listened from the drawing room. "What will you do, Trixie?" asked Andie.

"They brought a healer from St. Mungo's. He said I can't have children. He told us that I was cursed."

"Cursed? Who would curse you?" Andie's eyes were wide.

Walburga's voice broke in on the girls' whispers. "Alphard? That good for nothing blood traitor did this?"

Her brother's voice answered quietly. "It's not just the girls. When they said it was a curse, I went to him myself and he smiled. During an argument with Father about blood politics, Alphard cursed both of us, Walburga. He said neither of us would live to see our grandchildren."

"I'll kill him!" she shrieked in response.

"No children?" asked Cissy. "How can he do that?"

"Not exactly," said Andie. "If Father is quoting Uncle Alphard exactly, he said that Father and Aunt Walburga wouldn't live to see their grandchildren. That's a bit different."

"So we're supposed to wait until they're dead?" asked Cissy.

"Cissy, it's not as though you're planning to have children right now, are you?" laughed Andie. "You're barely sixteen."

"Well, no," she said quietly. She did, however, know whom she hoped to marry. She was fairly certain his family wouldn't allow him to marry her once the curse was known. She sighed. "What do we do?"

"Killing Father is definitely an option," said Trixie with an evil grin. "We might have to kill our dear Auntie, too. That wouldn't be such a terrible thing, would it?"

Seeing that Cissy was all too interested in something Trixie couldn't possibly mean, Andie spoke up. "Of course you won't actually do that, Trixie. You might get children, but you'd also get Azkaban."

"I suppose," she answered, "but you've no idea how closely the two situations compare right now."

A week or two after the curse was discovered and discussed within the family, Trixie came to visit Andie. "It's all sorted out," she announced.

She bounced across the couch to sit by her sister. "Did they remove the curse?"

"No, I still can't have any kids, but the Lestranges think it's possible that you can."

"That doesn't make any sense, if the curse worked so well on you. It doesn't make any real difference for you, though, does it?" Andie sounded more confident than she felt. Trixie's smile was anything but comforting.

"They have a younger son, you know. Rabastan has said he finds you very...well, he meant he wouldn't mind taking you to bed."

Andie's face went completely white. "I'm supposed to provide an heir?"

Trixie smiled smugly. "Oh, you'd be married to him, of course. Mother and Father are due some consideration. However, the Lestranges consider that we owe them grandchildren, so if I can't provide them, you must."

"I...I can't."

"Of course you will, just like I tried to do. It's for the good of the family."

Andie decided not to think about it until their parents broached the subject, knowing she would think about it, anyway. She looked for a different subject."What about you Trixie? What will you do, now?"

She watched her older sister's face. First it became dreamy, then happy, and something else was there that was beyond definition. Trixie sighed with pleasure and said, "I've met someone who says I can help the cause of pure-blood wizards and witches even if I can't have children."

"There's a cause about us? Why do we need a cause?"

Trixie's expression became matter of fact. "Of course, Andie. We're being overrun by the Mudbloods and the Half-bloods. But this man I met..."

"You're not doing anything...wrong...are you?"

"In answer to the question you're so delicately not asking, Rudolphus has been with me whenever we met this wonderful man. We were over at Uncle Orion and Aunt Walburga's the other night, and he had dinner with all of us. Aunt told him how very pretty, eligible, and talented you were, and he said that he couldn't wait to meet you. He thinks you'll be a wonderful addition to his organization."

What Trixie didn't say, because she didn't notice, was that the man had listened as Walburga had bragged about her family. He had looked at the house and admired the luxuries there, including the many items of dark magic. He had smiled and determined that he would see this family brought low, to the point where it almost worshiped him. Using their own conceits and prejudices, he would bring all the pure-blood families under his own control. Bellatrix Lestrange had only seen a very appealing and attractive man. This is the only thing she would see, until it no longer mattered what she saw in him.

Andie, not having seen the man nor felt the spell of his attention, didn't understand what her sister found so appealing. When her sister said that he wanted her for his organization, she only felt a shudder caused by an oppressive premonition. It was as though chains were slowly snaking around her body, chains that would hold her fast to a danger just outside of her senses.

Mother had come into the room, then, all smiles and happiness. She was especially fond of Andie just then, telling her what a grand thing she was to the family. She didn't mention Rabastan, or marriage, but when she went out of the room, Andie recalled that she was holding a parchment with the Lestrange family crest on it the whole time.

Andromeda spent much of the next several days pondering the situation. It wasn't as though she had many choices. Her education had fitted her for something, but she hadn't bothered to look into an actual career, and she didn't know the first thing about how to start. She didn't understand why the women of her set were stuck with finding an "appropriate" man, nor why the men of that set were such brutes.

A year before she had spent a quarter hour with one young man, a young man who wanted to listen to her worries, who wished to find a way to comfort her, and who offered her his handkerchief. He had called her pretty, something that never happened when either of her sisters was around, and he meant it. He had smiled at her, and she had known, with an absolute clarity that hit her in that moment, that had she indicated the slightest interest, he would have asked her out. Maybe he would have held her hand, or kissed her. There was something so manly about the kind and considerate way he behaved too. He wasn't obsequious like the fop that her little sister favored, yet even Lucius would be a major improvement over Rabastan Lestrange. Why couldn't any of the pure-blood wizards she knew be like Theodore Tonks?

She avoided her parents, hoping the issue wouldn't come up, but it wouldn't last forever. Trixie, when she stopped by, looked uplifted but a little strange. Cissy kept coming to her, clearly hoping she would do as their parents wanted because she had a brilliant future of her own lined up and wanted a chance to actually have that future.

Finally, the shoe dropped. Mother and Father summoned her into the study. One stormy half hour later, Andromeda walked out of the room, vowing that somehow she would find a way out of it. She stomped up to her bedroom, holding the tears in by sheer force of will. She looked around her room, trying to decide the best way out of her predicament. There wasn't one readily available. Deciding that at least she would get away from the house of her forebears for an hour or two, she grabbed a small purse and went down to the kitchen. From there she tossed Floo powder into the fireplace and left the house.

A/N: This story has been beta read by Trickie Woo. Thank you for reading! Let me know what you think!