Narcissa took a deep, calming breath as she stepped effortlessly through the protective wards. Two weeks had passed already, and she did not want to put this off any longer. She had spent the past fourteen days watching and waiting, looking for the perfect opportunity. Today seemed as good a day as any, and she readied herself for what she would say.

However, when she knocked on the door and it opened a moment later, the pretty speech she had planned vanished from her mind. She had thought she had prepared herself, but her efforts seemed juvenile now. Narcissa could only stare, look hungrily into the face of the sister she had not laid eyes on in almost 30 years.

Andromeda looked wary, her resemblance to Bellatrix less pronounced. Narcissa assumed it was due to the grief, that was an emotion well beyond Bella's limited scope of feelings.

Narcissa took a deep, shaky breath, and said the first thing that came to her mind.

"The last words you spoke to me were, ""when you are ready to come back to the side of light, I will be here. I can still see the good in you, Cissy."" Andromeda's eyes widened for a moment, and then narrowed again as she scoffed.

"Your timing is a little too convenient, Narcissa." Narcissa closed her eyes. She deserved that, she knew. That and much worse. "Why have you come here? What can you possibly want from me?" Andromeda went on.

"I…I have something to tell you. About Teddy…" She got no further than the boy's name. Andromeda hissed, and then recoiled as though Narcissa had slapped her. She opened the door wider, and Narcissa knew that it was to allow her to glimpse the wand she was holding in a shaking hand.

"I have nothing left. My family…gone. But yours…oh, the Malfoys are fine. Always seem to come out on top somehow. Take heed, Narcissa. The only reason I stand in front of you now, the only reason I have not taken my own wand and driven it through my heart, is because of that little boy. He is my reason to get up each morning, to find a smile, to breath." Her face hardened, and Narcissa took a step back. Andromeda looked like Bellatrix now, and the effect was frightening. She held out her wand and slowly pointed it at Narcissa's head. "I have nothing to lose anymore, Narcissa. Nothing but him. And I will fight with everything I have left in me to protect him. I will, without remorse or second thought, destroy anyone who means him harm."

Narcissa held up both hands to show her sister that she was unarmed, even though she wasn't sure that mattered to Andromeda anymore. This wasn't going the way she had planned or hoped. Quickly, she got to the point.

"I have this…I have brought it back to you…" She held up the stick of wood, and Andromeda cried out, a sound of primal grief as she recognized her daughter's wand.

"How did you…where did you…why do you have that…" Tears had formed in her eyes and red sparks shot out of the end of her wand. Narcissa wanted to take another step back, but held her ground.

"Please Andromeda…please take it…I know I have no right to ask anything of you, but look at the last two spells this wand performed…watch them in detail…please…" Andromeda seemed to be fighting an inner battle. Suddenly, without warning, she reached out and snatched the wand from Narcissa's hand and slammed the door.

Narcissa stared at the closed door for a moment, and then allowed the tears to fall freely. She decided to wait for about ten more minutes, and then she would leave and not bother Andromeda again. She would find another way to fulfill the vow she had made to her niece.

She was just turning to leave when the door opened, quietly this time. Andromeda stood there, her eyes shining with fresh tears.

"You avenged her death. You could have run away and no one would have been the wiser, but you made sure he would never hurt another person, never take another mother away from her child, never take another daughter away from her mother. And the vow…you made the vow before you knew how the war would end. My beautiful Nyphadora…she was at peace when she passed." Andromeda paused for a moment. Narcissa merely waited, not knowing what to say. She knew that so very much was at stake with Andromeda's next words, and the least of it being Narcissa's own life. "They say…" Andromeda continued slowly, "They say that a child can never have too many people in his life who love him."

"Yes." Narcissa spoke carefully. "I, too, have heard that." The next thing she knew, she was in her sister's arms, both women holding each other tightly and crying. Their tears spanned the grief for all that had been lost in the war, all of the wasted years behind them until Narcissa felt the gap between them narrow, and then finally close.

"Please come in." Andromeda said, stepping back slightly so that Narcissa could enter without loosening her embrace. "There's someone in here that I would like you to meet…"

THE END