A/N: 500-word drabble for Writing Challenge #7, "Alternate Universe." This was probably subconsciously inspired by "A Day That Never Comes" by Mesteria and "Love leads far" by Inkfire.

Hold It True

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all
-Alfred Lord Tennyson, "In Memoriam"

It is to be a double wedding. A pair of sisters and a pair of brothers, neat and clean and fairy-tale perfect.

(Incestuous, Ted would say).

Andromeda lets Bellatrix choose her dress and her hairstyle, watches as she is formed into Bellatrix's lighter shadow, brown hair and eyes instead of black but everything else the same.

(Andromeda loses herself.)

She is doing the right thing, Andromeda tells herself firmly as one of Madame Twillfoot's pins sticks in her side hard enough to make her bleed. She watches herself in the mirror, calm, unflinching. She can do this. She will do this.

(Please don't make me do this.)

It's not as if she has another choice. Not a real choice, anyway. Not a practical one. Andromeda is a Slytherin, not some foolhardy Gryffindor or idealistic Hufflepuff. She knows what the other choice means: The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black would have hunted them, found them, and maybe they would have left Andromeda alive but they would have killed Ted and any half-blood children they had. Even if they'd been able to hide for a while – for two years, five, twenty – they would have found them.

(She'd had a name picked out, just in case. A beautiful name – Nymphadora.)

And even if she knew that they'd be safe – if Bellatrix had never gotten mixed up with the Death Eaters or if there were a foolproof way to hide (for even the Fidelius Charm and Unforgiveable Vows can be broken) – even if Andromeda knew that Ted and their possible future children would never be harmed, she still couldn't do it. Her sisters need her – Narcissa is thirteen and Bellatrix is Bellatrix, and they need Andromeda.

(Andromeda needs them.)

And as for Rabastan - nobody else will have her at this point. She is stained, too close to a blood traitor for anyone respectable to want her. Nobody has told her exactly, but Andromeda is sure that Rabastan only proposed under pressure from Bella and Rodolphus.

(Ted never proposed, not properly – "Run away with me, 'Dromeda," he'd said. There had been no ring.)

This marriage will mend her reputation, do a little to cover up the scandal of her and Ted. Make things better for Cissy at Hogwarts and Bella with the Death Eaters. Rabastan is pureblood and good-looking and rich, and they get along well enough.

(Andromeda never thought she'd settle for "well enough.")

This is the best decision, Andromeda is sure. (She isn't sure.) She will not wonder what could have been. (She will always wonder.)

She does not regret.

(Really, she can't bring herself to regret. When she'd told him, Ted had quoted some Muggle poet. Something about loving and losing and which is best, Andromeda can't remember. But she remembers Ted's voice as he quoted those lines, and she remembers the taste and feel of his mouth when he kissed her after, and for this – for Ted, to save his life, and for never-to-be Nymphadora – she will endure.)