FIC: Nothing but the Rain (Cygnus/Druella)
Title: Nothing but the Rain
Author/Artist: bluemermaid
Prompt: Own Prompt
Pairing(s): Cygnus/Druella
Word Count/Art Medium: 6,550
Rating: R
Warning(s): Multiple character deaths, miscarriage, blood, angst, depression
Disclaimer:Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: To A, for all the inspiration and support. <3
Summary: The rains came and went, and Druella feared them still.
It was dark, and Druella was frightened, weak and alone, cast back to the nights of her youth, when her father would slip into her bedroom after midnight. The door was shut, but she could feel the presence of his ghost just on the other side, waiting to strike, waiting to once again claim what would be forever his.
Hadn't these nightmares left her soul, hadn't she finally clawed her way back up from the depths of her torment? Cygnus had brought her so much, her beloved husband; he had saved her life, and on more than one occasion. But Cygnus was gone now, had been gone for what felt like ages, and Druella did not fare well when left to her own devices. She had always been weak.
Placing her hand on her stomach, Druella shook her head. "No, I shall not be weak," she promised herself, promised the child that grew steadily within her. She would be strong for her baby, and for her Cygnus, when he returned. Because he would return.
She still felt so young, the little girl frightened of rainstorms, huddled under the covers as the thunder roared overhead and the lightning lit up the windows with flashes of light. The steady drumming of raindrops, the thick black night that surrounded her; Druella closed her eyes and tried to lie back in bed, tried to sleep, but it was of no use. She pictured Cygnus wandering home in the storm, his robes plastered to his skin, soaked through with cold water. Would he be able to find his way back in such conditions? Would he have the strength to Apparate if need be, or would he be battered from war, weak from the toll of dark magic, weak as his wife was weak, trembling alone in her bedroom? She couldn't think about it.
"Once upon a time, there lived a beautiful princess in a far away castle," Ella whispered to the night, to her unborn child, praying it could hear its mother's voice, praying that they would both find comfort in the words. "This princess was very sad, and it took a very brave and a very wise prince to save her. But save her he did." She couldn't seem to bring herself to add and they lived happily ever after; she did not wish to curse herself. Still, she thought it, and the words ran through her mind over and over again, until she fell asleep with the raindrops still pattering overhead.
**
The raindrops sounded like pebbles on the roof, and Ella wanted to look at them, collect them, practice her spellwork on them. It was not considered proper for young Pureblooded girls to practice magic before entering school, for magic was something best left to the men in their family, those with the strength to handle what was rightfully theirs. But Ella had seen her cousins spelling rocks to float in the gardens one afternoon, and she wanted to try that, too.
Slipping down the corridor, bare feet placed carefully on the non-creaking floorboards, little Ella made her way, filled with the excitement of breaking the rules. If she were caught she would be punished, no doubt, but she did not intend on getting caught.
There came a low moaning sound at the end of the hall, and Ella hesitated, biting her lip, looking back towards her parents' chambers. Her mother was ill again; it seemed her mother was always ill. Perhaps Ella would peek into that dark room for just a moment before continuing on her mission; perhaps she would just check to make sure Mother was all right.
She was not allowed to check on Mother in the daylight; the door remained shut tight, and Father scolded his Ella for asking about her. "Your mother needs her rest," he said sternly, and his tone brooked no argument. Ella was frightened of Father most of the time. She didn't like the way he looked at her.
But Father would be sleeping now, most likely, or hidden down in his secret room in the basement, the one he didn't think Ella knew about. Mother would be needing someone else to check on her. Ella had only vague memories of her mother, but they were all lovely, filled with warmth and bright colors and happiness. If Ella could just touch her again, snuggle into that grand old bed beside her mother, maybe that would help her recover, and then there would be bright colors again.
The door creaked as it opened, but Mother did not seem to hear, didn't notice her daughter creeping up to her bedside, only moaned and kept her eyes closed as little Ella stared with her eyes wide and her heart beating as rapidly as the raindrops on the roof.
Mother was alone in the room, sprawled across the bedsheets with her body drenched in sweat, with her hair wild and plastered to the pillows. "Mother?" Ella asked, her voice a whisper, filled with dread. Something was Not Right. Mother looked worse than ill; Mother looked like death. Ella whimpered, and slowly reached a hand out, terrified to touch her own parent but drawn to do so just the same.
Mother's eyes snapped open then, though she seemed to look straight through Druella as though she were not there, as though her daughter did not exist. Mother stared blankly, her eyes roving about in their sockets, taking in nothing as they swept the room again and again. She moaned, louder, and her face contorted in pain, such abominable pain, so terror-filled that Ella shrank back, not knowing what to do and overwhelmed by the darkness of the room.
Mother moaned, and her head lolled back, and a thin trickle of dark liquid spilled from her mouth, and little Ella screamed, screamed louder than the rain thundering overhead, screamed until her father burst into the room and dragged his daughter by the arm out into the corridor.
"What did you do?" he bellowed, shaking Ella in his grasp, staring into her eyes and seeing her, seeing everything inside of her, the fear and the pain. "What did you do to her?"
She couldn't answer, did not know what she had done, could not understand what was happening. Druella was thrust into her bedroom and locked inside, left alone in the darkness to listen to her father's sobs, loud and racking in the other room, as the raindrops sounded like pebbles overhead. But Ella could not think about pebbles anymore; she couldn't think about anything.
She pulled the covers over her head and trembled, but she could not fall asleep.
**
Little Ella never saw her mother again after that night, but Druella still feared rainstorms all these years later, when the pain of that encounter had long left her mind, being crowded out by all the terrible nights of misery that came after. It rarely rained when her father came to her, slipping into her bed in the late hours, to both punish her for what she had done to her mother and reward her for looking so much like his departed spouse. Little Ella grew into Druella, a weak young woman who flinched whenever anyone so much as looked upon her. She feared the world, feared the father who kept her from it, and yet would never dare leave him, for he was all she knew. Druella had no mother, and she had no future dreams. She only needed to survive each endless night.
And when it rained, she whimpered, curling up in her bed with the sheets pulled high, praying that those pattering pebbles would never lead to more death. She didn't know what she would do without her father, no matter how much she hated him.
He mocked her for her fear, growing drunker with each passing night, the years aging him into some sort of monster, one who laughed down on his prey as she trembled. "You think a little rain is frightening, my love? What would you do if faced with something that were actually menacing? Should I protect you, when life slaps that pretty little face of yours? Or ought I to throw you to the wolves, show you what true fear looks like? Rain water cannot hurt you, child."
He didn't realize, he did not remember, the rain had been nothing to him on the evening of his wife's death. As Father Rosier fell deeper and deeper into a bottle, he lost more and more of himself, and his shadows grew across Druella's bedroom floor, until he was nothing but a specter, a nightmare, a symbol of everything dark in the world.
It did not rain when he died. True, the sun had not shown its face, and grey clouds covered the sky for the duration of his passing, but not a single drop of water fell upon Druella's forehead, as she sank to her knees in the courtyard, letting out a cry of despair. She hated her father, feared and loathed the very scent of him, and yet she had no one else; she was alone and lost in the world.
But it did not rain. Because Druella did not love him.
**
She awoke with a deep, twisting pain in her abdomen, in the precious chamber where her baby lay. Druella sat up in bed with her hands splayed on her skin, rubbing circles into the pain and praying that it was not an omen. She was tired, and she had not eaten for the despair of missing her Cygnus; that was all it was. If she ate something, and got a better night's rest, then she and her unborn son would be all right.
She did not know yet that she was having a son, but she felt it in her heart, in the invisible lines that connected her to her child. She could reach down inside of his soul and see him inside of her mind, the little boy that would be. He called out to her, he asked for her love, and she gave it to him. She could not understand this magic, older and more mysterious than anything that could be learned with a wand. But it was too powerful to be denied; she was having a son, and she loved him.
She was exhausted, and felt weak as she walked slowly towards her kitchen, where the elf would have to be roused to make her something to eat. Druella felt no hunger, only a strange emptiness, and the strange ache in her womb. It was almost as though she were about to have her monthly trouble, but that was impossible, for she had not bled for months now, not since she had realized that she was with child. It was impossible and it would not happen now. She would eat and go to bed, and then she would wake up in the morning and Cygnus would be home, and they would be happy.
The elf was asleep, as she had assumed, and suddenly she could not bear to wake him, couldn't bear to have to speak, even to a servant, when she was so tired and worried. Druella hated being alone, but she could not be with anyone else, either. Only Cygnus would do, and he was gone still, would be gone until the sun once again shone its light upon their home. For now, the thunder roared above her, and Druella could not bear it.
She found a packet of biscuits in the cupboard and began to eat, sitting at the table alone and stuffing them quickly into her mouth. Suddenly she was ravenous, and had chewed them down entirely before she knew it. Cygnus would frown upon that sort of eating; he wanted her to be strong, and eat from the garden instead of relying on biscuits and sweets. But Druella's son craved sweetness, and she had to feed him.
As she rose from the table, she felt another twitch of pain, and a spike of fear shot through her. This wasn't right; she had not felt such a thing as this before. But no; if she thought about it then it would become real, and she could not bear it. She had to go back to bed, and try to sleep, despite the pounding rain and flashes of light all around her. She had to sleep.
Crumbs tumbled off of her sleeping gown, but she ignored them. The world tilted slightly before her, the corridor ahead growing fuzzy at the sides, and there was nothing but a long, dark, and endless tunnel before her. Druella held her stomach, mumbling something vaguely comforting as she took those first steps back to her bedroom. "You're all right," she told him as she moved. "You are all right, my son."
The bed had never looked more inviting, and Druella collapsed into it, curling herself up with her arms wrapped around her knees, shivering in the darkness as she prayed for sleep to claim her. It was so late, and she was so alone. If only she'd had a mother to call to, someone who would touch Druella's forehead and let her know that she was all right, that she was loved. Or if her precious Cygnus would walk through her door at that moment, kiss her lips and cheeks and put his hands on her, that would also soothe her into peaceful slumber. But there was currently nothing but the rain, and the rumbling thunder that frightened her so. It had rained when Mother left her, disappearing into a void. It had rained when Druella had stood beside a hole in the dirt, staring off into nothing. She had not understood death then; she had not known where Mother had gone. And no one had explained it to her; her father had simply opened a bottle of wine and abandoned her.
Druella was older now, and she understood death very well. She knew that it could claim her Cyngus at any moment, with his dark exploits in the night. Especially when it was raining so terribly; dark things happened to Druella when it rained. She touched her stomach again, humming a lullaby to her baby, who would bring her so much happiness someday.
She knew nothing of being a mother, and she still felt so young. But it had been her duty to provide an heir as soon as possible, and they had already waited so long, Cygnus with his patience and his careful handling of her, as though Druella were a precious piece of glass and he had not wanted to shatter her. He had known, or at least he had guessed, at how cracked she had already been, fractured lines running through her soul at the hands of her father. He had waited for her to be ready for her husband, for her to convey to Cygnus that he had properly gained her trust and adoration. It had taken so long.
She knew nothing of child rearing, but she would learn. It frightened her terribly, but she had survived so much so far in her life. Surely this would be the one easy thing; surely this would be her moment of true peace, becoming a parent to a sweet little boy. They had not agreed upon a name yet, but Druella had lately taken to calling him Ophiuchus, the serpent bearer, if only inside her mind. She was not sure what Cygnus would say about it. Perhaps he would never know; perhaps her son would grow up without a father, as she had grown up without her mother.
"No," she whispered harshly into the night, into the rain, her mouth twisting into a grimace. "Do not think such weak thoughts. I am not weak, and my husband shall not be weak, either." She spoke to herself, and to her son also. He had become her conscience, her best friend and confidante. He would become her everything, once he had entered into this world and stood beside her, once he'd smiled up into his mother's face. Druella was sure of this, if nothing else. He would be all she had, he and Cygnus both, and they would treasure one another, their little family.
Druella closed her eyes and felt the first tendrils of sleep begin to seep in, the sound of the rain fading as her conscious mind slipped off into dreams. She was nearly there, nearly safe in sleeping, when a twinge of something hot and painful spilled from between her thighs.
Shooting up, blind panic filled her, like a blast to the heart, a stunner aimed directly at her chest. Something very Not Right was happening to her, and Druella was terrified. She couldn't bear to look, couldn't bear to make whatever this was real by acknowledging it. But what would Cygnus say, if he came home to find that she had ignored this? He would look down on her; he would think her weak. Tears pricked at her eyes, and a painful burning stung her throat. She felt shame already, and she had not even given up yet.
Druella slipped out of bed and tried her best to send thoughts of peace and good health to her baby, even as the painful cramping continued to plague her. She reached the master bathroom quickly, and slowly peeled her clothing back to see what had happened to her.
Bright red blood stained her. Druella collapsed and put her head in her hands, struggling not to cry. Perhaps this was normal; her Healer had just told her not but six days previous that everything was progressing wonderfully. Her son was growing inside of her; his heart raced and his limbs twitched. He was beautifully alive inside of her. This had to be just some other little quirk of carrying a child, like the cravings and the sore muscles and the fatigue. Nobody had taught Druella how to carry a child, so how was she to know? This had to be normal; she closed her eyes and willed it to be normal.
She would make a Floo call and be healed; the sudden idea soothed her with a great rush of relief and happiness, that the answer could be so simple. She would not be weak; she would do what needed to be done, and it would work itself out in the end, as things always did. Druella had emerged from the darkness once before, when Cygnus came to claim her, and so she would do so again, and survive. Despite all, they survived.
She rose from her seat, with plans to dress herself and then go to the fireplace. But she never made it that far.
**
He found her hours later, as the first rays of morning fought to shine through the rain, which still pattered lightly upon the windows and roof. He found her, the door swinging open before him to reveal her lying on the floor, with the blood streaked along the floor and down her arms and legs.
Her fingers were soaked with it, soaked and red and trembling, and when he rushed to her side he stained his robes with it, kneeling over her, lifting her carefully into his arms. "What's happened?" he demanded, his voice loud and frightened, booming around her in the little room, echoing off the walls and inside her skull. "What's happened; where are you hurt? What's happened?"
"He's dead," Druella said, was all she could manage to say through her tears. "He's dead." She could not look at her husband, could not tear her eyes away from her fingers, red with blood. It was all she had left of her baby, her heir, her son. He was lost and gone away, swept off down the pipes, and all she had of him was the blood. "He's dead."
Cygnus put a hand on Druella's stomach and looked down upon her in silence, taking in the length of her body, sprawled upon the white tile floor with her body covered in blood. Druella sobbed in his arms, twisting away from him, staring at her hands, unable to think or process, her mind reeling, her ears hearing nothing but the rain pouring down upon her roof, upon her life.
"You must be seen," he told her, his voice soft and gentle, so as not to distress her further. "I must call the Healer."
"No," Druella cried, grasping at his robes, finally seeing his eyes and his hands upon her. "No, please, my love. Don't." If he called the Healer then it was real, it had happened, she had lost. She could not accept that.
"You'll die," Cygnus snapped, anger filling his features. "Is that what you want? I've just lost my child and you want to take my wife from me as well? I am calling for the Healer. I will not lose you." He dropped her to the floor, gently but dismissively, leaving her there to cry as he went to make the call.
The rain did not stop completely until after the Healer had come, forcing potions down Druella's throat and cleansing her wounds, stopping the flow of blood and siphoning the red out of her skin. Druella cried throughout, with grief and regret, with frustration that they would not allow her to keep this last piece of her baby, the blood which signified life, even as it left her. The rain did not stop until she was lying in her own bed at last, head against the pillows as Cygnus sat beside her. Turning her head towards the open window, Druella watched the sun finally emerge from the clouds, to bring the light back to the sky. It did not cheer her; she would not welcome this light, not this time. The rain had brought her tragedy again, and stolen love from her, and every time the light came back it comforted her less and less.
"I love you," Cygnus told her, words seldom spoken aloud, for her husband had always far preferred to show his emotions through action rather than words, through gifts of flowers and jewels, through gentle touch and fierce embrace. "I love you," he said, but Druella still could not look at him, the man who had let her suffer so on her own, taking some distant ideal over the flesh and blood he had at home. The blood which he had no more.
"Do not leave me again," she whispered, still looking away, and she felt him squeeze her fingers, pale again and clean, as though they had never been red at all. "I cannot bear to be alone."
Cygnus remained silent; he held her hand until she fell asleep.
**
The rains came and went, and Druella feared them still, but death faded from her life, lingering in the corners, hiding in the attic, whilst her family grew around her. She gave birth to three beautiful daughters, and if she thought of her lost son it was with a distance. Bellatrix, Andromeda, and Narcissa were her world, she adored them so, and when it rained she forbade them from leaving her, telling stories and teaching the girls magic, so that they would not resent their mother her obsessive need to avoid the falling water and flashes of lightning in the sky.
And as the years passed, she grew bolder, having gained so much, the love of her husband and children, the acceptance of her family, the first true family she had ever had. They lived in their grand home together, and Cygnus always returned home from his travels, even when it rained and Druella gathered her daughters close. He had never promised not to leave her, but he always came back.
The rains came and went, and Druella feared them still, but it became nothing but a memory, foggy around its edges and with so much less meaning. What was to be feared by water? If there were any gods, surely they did not send the rains just to harm her, just to bring her death and abandonment. It was nothing but a turn of the weather, a mix of science and magic, just like everything else in her world. It was nothing.
"Mother, I want to go play out in the rain." Bellatrix, the eldest, her most daring little Bella, who never cared for rules and did as she wished, no matter how her mother hounded her. "It seems like it would be brilliant fun to splash in the puddles. Couldn't I please, just this once?"
Druella frowned upon her, as she cradled young Narcissa to her bosom. "I have forbidden such exploits," she said sternly, shaking her head. "It is unsafe out there."
Bellatrix pressed her hands to the window, tracing the dripping lines of raindrops on the glass. "It's just water," she said. "I won't torment my sisters anymore, I promise."
Andy's fingers slammed in a door, Cissy missing a lock of her shining blonde hair; Druella had cast these aside as accidents. She stared at her eldest, as Bella looked out the window longingly. It was only a little rain, after all. Perhaps it would be good for the girl to spend more time out of doors, to expend her ferocious energy in a way that did not leave her sisters crying. "Stay where I can see you," she said, and Bellatrix danced with delight, kissed her mother's cheek and ran wildly about in the storm, arms flung wide to the sky as though she could fly away. And Druella worried that she would.
But Bella came home safe and sound, tracking muddy water through the house and driving the elf mad with the mess to clean. Andromeda clapped her hands and pled to be let outdoors, too, and Druella gave in, feeling strong with the realization that the world seemed to be no longer against her. Her daughters could go out in a rainstorm and they would not leave her. The world was normal and happy, finally, and Druella could fear no more.
She let her guard down, just when she would need it the most.
**
The day dawned with the heaviness of water, though the clouds were far away still. Druella rose and had the elf draw her a bath, as she did every morning. She could hear her daughters were awake already, chattering amongst themselves in the voices they imagined were too quiet to be overheard, though they carried down the corridors of their home. "Bella, that's horrific," Andromeda shrieked, and the peals of girlish laughter ricocheted along the walls.
Cygnus was not at home, but Druella had grown used to his long absences, and now that she had her children, she was no longer lonely when he left her. No more wandering the halls in nothing but a nightdress, moaning in misery as she hid her tears in her sleeves. No more imagining brutal war scenes, a Cygnus torn and bleeding, her name the last thing on his lips. No more.
Druella broke her fast as she always did, with buttered toast and a cup of tea, with her three little girls giggling around her. She smiled at them, her pride and joy. It did not matter that she had never had the male heir that was expected of her; she did not care what the Black family whispered behind her back. Druella was no longer a child, no longer little Ella listening at doors and crying. She cared not for anything but herself, and her husband, and her children.
She stood in the doorway and breathed in the scent of summer rain, the smell of hot dirt and clouds, the moisture heavy on her skin. She stood and watched her daughters playing, running about in their little frocks, mock tea parties and practice spells that did nothing but stir their hair about and rattle the leaves of the trees.
"Did you see, did you see? I moved the saucers," Andy cried, triumphant, pointing.
"No, you did not," Bella insisted. "Cissy moved it for you, I saw her."
"Not me," said Narcissa, sitting up straight in her chair, already so poised, so graceful. It made Druella's heart ache. Her little Cissy, so perfect, so unlike the awkward, fearful Ella, who was dark and limp and sullen. They were all so different. Bellatrix with her wild eyes and constant glee at the world around her, Andromeda so full of love and curiosity, Narcissa with her sweet beauty, her desire to please. So different, and yet all hers, all Druella's.
The hours stretched on til evening, when the girls went reluctantly to bed and whispered to one another in the dark, while Druella took to her bedroom with her books. She had taken up sketching of late, enhanced by magic of course, though she still found her drawings to be rough and misshapen. They barely moved when they were finished, the poor imitation of Cygnus merely blinking at her, the shadowy Bella only vibrating slightly, the tips of her hair moving about her face.
Druella drew listlessly, tired but unable to go to sleep, filled with some heavy feeling that she could not name. The rain had come at last, pattering again against the windowpane, but it was so distant to her, she could not remember how she had once feared it. She suddenly felt very old. Soon her firstborn would begin to show magic in earnest, and would go away from her mother, off to Hogwarts to follow in the footsteps of those who had come before her. Would Druella miss her then; would she lose her child to the rains of Hogwarts? No, that was not to be; Hogwarts was the safest place in the world. Everyone spoke of that.
Water sprayed her face when she opened the window; Druella leaned out into the gathering storm, inhaling the sharp scent of it, the coming lightning, the dark clouds. The rain felt good upon her skin, cool and refreshing. How had she ever feared this? The rain was lovely.
A door burst open with a bang far below, and Druella's heart leaped, startled, jolting into a frenzied beat. Something was happening.
She froze at first, motionlessly straining to hear, to catch some blind glimpse of what had happened. It was not any of her children, for the sounds would have come closer, and this was a distant rumble, down at the bottom of the house. Druella heard nothing more, no clues drifting through the floorboards, and she began to tremble. She did not want to go down there, did not want to see.
The light disappeared from her room, as the clouds passed over the dying sun, as the storm began in earnest. Druella's breath caught in her chest; it was truly raining now, the water spilling onto the sill and seeping into her skin. She lifted her hands to see; they were wet, and it frightened her, brought stark white memories to the surface once again, memories of wet fingers.
Rushing from the room, her robes swirling about her ankles, she darted down the stairs, her heart racing, her lungs unable to draw breath. Bursting into the front hall, where a shadowy figure lay upon the floor, she screamed.
It was Cygnus, of course, he who she had worried least for, he who she had forgotten in her dreams of little girls and raindrops. An explosion of thunder sounded above her, and she looked upon the open door, the portal to that outside world, where the gods threw death and destruction at her from the sky. But she could not close the door, for her husband lay before it, sprawled out still with one foot out in the rain, his boot stained with mud.
"No," Druella cried, stumbling, falling to her knees beside her beloved, cradling his head in her hands as she prayed to every deity she had ever heard of, Merlin and a crowd of others besides, gods of old that existed solely in the books of Black family libraries, forgotten over the centuries by those of lesser breeding.
"No," Druella cried, and smoothed her hands over his face, his pale face, so still and yet so handsome, so quiet. "Darling, please, wake up. Come back to me, come back."
His eyes opened and she gasped, she sobbed, she pressed her wet fingers to his skin ever tighter, and kissed his forehead. "Ella," he said quietly, as reserved and stony as ever, even in his final moments. "You must be strong now. For our children."
"No," Druella cried, as she felt the blood seep from his clothing, seep into her nightdress, staining it forever, as another nightdress had been stained, so many years before, when their positions had been reversed upon another cold floor, in another rainstorm. "I won't lose you," she told him. "I won't!"
"Stop your tears, my love. They are useless." Cygnus winced in her arms, and turned his head. "It is untreatable. I was lucky enough to make it home." He said no more, but she heard his intentions, heard the love which had always so lurked behind his stoicism, his silence. He loved her, and he had come to say goodbye.
"No," Druella cried, but it was too late for him, and she lost him to the rains, the rains which had been tormenting her for her entire life, and would always do so, no matter how she struggled to overcome, no matter how many times she forgot the terror of pattering drops of water on her roof. The rains would take them from her still.
**
It did not rain when Druella died; she had been ill for weeks, since her Cygnus had gone, her fragile heart shattered with the final beat of his heart. She'd lain in bed ever since, unable to move, unable to survive for her daughters, who crept around her as though they were frightened of her.
Little Ella, the curious child, had been so eager to see her dying mother, but now that Druella had become the fading star there was no one to look in on her. The elf sponged her unwilling body and her girls were nowhere to be seen, leaning on one another and growing stronger, instead of wilting beneath the anger and grief of a domineering father.
They had no father, and Druella could not bear it, could not face a world without Cygnus Black living in it. He had been her stone, her tether, which had held her to the earth, to reality and dreams. With him, she could have imagined every happiness for herself and their children. With him, she could feel truly alive and inspired. Without him, there was nothing.
She heard her daughters speaking from just outside her bedroom door, dear, wild Bellatrix taking charge over her sisters, her fierceness well suited to giving demands and support. Without a father, she had taken on that loss and absorbed it, would later seek out that stony strength in the image of a Dark Lord, to find the father that had never been there for her. But Druella would never know this. She lay in bed in her misery and took a small comfort in the apparent strength and courage of her daughter.
Druella would never look upon her beautiful little girls again; she grew weaker as they flourished, as they became themselves. She had ventured out in the days just after Cygnus Black's death and she had tried to live, but it had proved useless and demanding, and Druella had proved weak. She had always been weak. It was due solely to the strength of her daughters that they even existed at all; they had forced themselves from the womb and overcome the weakness of their mother.
Hadn't her son been killed by that weakness? Hadn't he been unable to overcome that fear to properly grow within it? Hadn't Druella failed all of her children, with how thoroughly she had fallen apart? She could not overcome the loss of her husband, and it proved her weak. Cygnus had been the only thing keeping her upright.
And so she deteriorated, shrinking down to nothing, a frail and trembling form, sweating in her sheets as her body entered the throes of death. Deprived of food and happiness, deprived of love and comfort, Druella succumbed finally to her weakness, to her end. She had turned away from the world and shriveled over time, until she eventually left it all behind forever.
And as she looked out upon the world for the last time, she took comfort in the sunlight, which streamed through her windows and kissed her pale, fragile skin. She would have this final blessing at least, in her final moments. Though she was alone with no family around her, though she cried tears of pain and weakness, it would not rain upon her this time. She would have an easy path to follow into the dark.
**
The first rain drop landed on Narcissa's head just after the ceremony. The final bits of dirt had been lowered onto the mound, and the many black-clad mourners had begun to Apparate to the home for the dinner service. Bellatrix stood tall, with her head held high, already taking the place of their mother, already looking so much older than her ten years of age. "Come along, Andy," she said: blunt, emotionless, calm. "Come along, Cissy."
Narcissa instead looked up to the sky. It was not dark, the clouds a very light shade of grey. But she felt again a solitary drop of water, and blinked as it landed just below her eye, so that perhaps the onlookers would think she had been crying.
She had not been. Bellatrix had looked stony and silent, Andromeda had wept into her mother's handkerchief, and Narcissa had simply peered curiously at the ground where Mother now slept. She didn't understand, exactly, what had happened; she only knew that she had no home now, and no parents to guide her way.
She had never really thought she'd had parents, anyway. Father had so rarely looked in on her, and Mother had been distant and nervous for most of Narcissa's life. Oh, she smiled upon her daughters, and sometimes read them stories, but there was always something like fear in her eyes. And then, of course, The Illness.
Narcissa looked away again as the water came down upon her, staring at the dirt and the flowers. She vowed then and there not to die from being scared, as Mother had done. Narcissa would be forever brave, and she would stand beside her family no matter what happened, instead of slipping away from them. She would be a good little girl, and someday she would be a Mother, too, and she would be a great one.
It rained only lightly as the three sisters wandered away from the burial site, the place where Druella Black lay. It would be a very long time before any of them visited that place again. They would not linger on the concept of death; they would not fear the rain as their mother had done.
Author/Artist: bluemermaid
Prompt: Own Prompt
Pairing(s): Cygnus/Druella
Word Count/Art Medium: 6,550
Rating: R
Warning(s): Multiple character deaths, miscarriage, blood, angst, depression
Disclaimer:Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: To A, for all the inspiration and support. <3
Summary: The rains came and went, and Druella feared them still.
It was dark, and Druella was frightened, weak and alone, cast back to the nights of her youth, when her father would slip into her bedroom after midnight. The door was shut, but she could feel the presence of his ghost just on the other side, waiting to strike, waiting to once again claim what would be forever his.
Hadn't these nightmares left her soul, hadn't she finally clawed her way back up from the depths of her torment? Cygnus had brought her so much, her beloved husband; he had saved her life, and on more than one occasion. But Cygnus was gone now, had been gone for what felt like ages, and Druella did not fare well when left to her own devices. She had always been weak.
Placing her hand on her stomach, Druella shook her head. "No, I shall not be weak," she promised herself, promised the child that grew steadily within her. She would be strong for her baby, and for her Cygnus, when he returned. Because he would return.
She still felt so young, the little girl frightened of rainstorms, huddled under the covers as the thunder roared overhead and the lightning lit up the windows with flashes of light. The steady drumming of raindrops, the thick black night that surrounded her; Druella closed her eyes and tried to lie back in bed, tried to sleep, but it was of no use. She pictured Cygnus wandering home in the storm, his robes plastered to his skin, soaked through with cold water. Would he be able to find his way back in such conditions? Would he have the strength to Apparate if need be, or would he be battered from war, weak from the toll of dark magic, weak as his wife was weak, trembling alone in her bedroom? She couldn't think about it.
"Once upon a time, there lived a beautiful princess in a far away castle," Ella whispered to the night, to her unborn child, praying it could hear its mother's voice, praying that they would both find comfort in the words. "This princess was very sad, and it took a very brave and a very wise prince to save her. But save her he did." She couldn't seem to bring herself to add and they lived happily ever after; she did not wish to curse herself. Still, she thought it, and the words ran through her mind over and over again, until she fell asleep with the raindrops still pattering overhead.
**
The raindrops sounded like pebbles on the roof, and Ella wanted to look at them, collect them, practice her spellwork on them. It was not considered proper for young Pureblooded girls to practice magic before entering school, for magic was something best left to the men in their family, those with the strength to handle what was rightfully theirs. But Ella had seen her cousins spelling rocks to float in the gardens one afternoon, and she wanted to try that, too.
Slipping down the corridor, bare feet placed carefully on the non-creaking floorboards, little Ella made her way, filled with the excitement of breaking the rules. If she were caught she would be punished, no doubt, but she did not intend on getting caught.
There came a low moaning sound at the end of the hall, and Ella hesitated, biting her lip, looking back towards her parents' chambers. Her mother was ill again; it seemed her mother was always ill. Perhaps Ella would peek into that dark room for just a moment before continuing on her mission; perhaps she would just check to make sure Mother was all right.
She was not allowed to check on Mother in the daylight; the door remained shut tight, and Father scolded his Ella for asking about her. "Your mother needs her rest," he said sternly, and his tone brooked no argument. Ella was frightened of Father most of the time. She didn't like the way he looked at her.
But Father would be sleeping now, most likely, or hidden down in his secret room in the basement, the one he didn't think Ella knew about. Mother would be needing someone else to check on her. Ella had only vague memories of her mother, but they were all lovely, filled with warmth and bright colors and happiness. If Ella could just touch her again, snuggle into that grand old bed beside her mother, maybe that would help her recover, and then there would be bright colors again.
The door creaked as it opened, but Mother did not seem to hear, didn't notice her daughter creeping up to her bedside, only moaned and kept her eyes closed as little Ella stared with her eyes wide and her heart beating as rapidly as the raindrops on the roof.
Mother was alone in the room, sprawled across the bedsheets with her body drenched in sweat, with her hair wild and plastered to the pillows. "Mother?" Ella asked, her voice a whisper, filled with dread. Something was Not Right. Mother looked worse than ill; Mother looked like death. Ella whimpered, and slowly reached a hand out, terrified to touch her own parent but drawn to do so just the same.
Mother's eyes snapped open then, though she seemed to look straight through Druella as though she were not there, as though her daughter did not exist. Mother stared blankly, her eyes roving about in their sockets, taking in nothing as they swept the room again and again. She moaned, louder, and her face contorted in pain, such abominable pain, so terror-filled that Ella shrank back, not knowing what to do and overwhelmed by the darkness of the room.
Mother moaned, and her head lolled back, and a thin trickle of dark liquid spilled from her mouth, and little Ella screamed, screamed louder than the rain thundering overhead, screamed until her father burst into the room and dragged his daughter by the arm out into the corridor.
"What did you do?" he bellowed, shaking Ella in his grasp, staring into her eyes and seeing her, seeing everything inside of her, the fear and the pain. "What did you do to her?"
She couldn't answer, did not know what she had done, could not understand what was happening. Druella was thrust into her bedroom and locked inside, left alone in the darkness to listen to her father's sobs, loud and racking in the other room, as the raindrops sounded like pebbles overhead. But Ella could not think about pebbles anymore; she couldn't think about anything.
She pulled the covers over her head and trembled, but she could not fall asleep.
**
Little Ella never saw her mother again after that night, but Druella still feared rainstorms all these years later, when the pain of that encounter had long left her mind, being crowded out by all the terrible nights of misery that came after. It rarely rained when her father came to her, slipping into her bed in the late hours, to both punish her for what she had done to her mother and reward her for looking so much like his departed spouse. Little Ella grew into Druella, a weak young woman who flinched whenever anyone so much as looked upon her. She feared the world, feared the father who kept her from it, and yet would never dare leave him, for he was all she knew. Druella had no mother, and she had no future dreams. She only needed to survive each endless night.
And when it rained, she whimpered, curling up in her bed with the sheets pulled high, praying that those pattering pebbles would never lead to more death. She didn't know what she would do without her father, no matter how much she hated him.
He mocked her for her fear, growing drunker with each passing night, the years aging him into some sort of monster, one who laughed down on his prey as she trembled. "You think a little rain is frightening, my love? What would you do if faced with something that were actually menacing? Should I protect you, when life slaps that pretty little face of yours? Or ought I to throw you to the wolves, show you what true fear looks like? Rain water cannot hurt you, child."
He didn't realize, he did not remember, the rain had been nothing to him on the evening of his wife's death. As Father Rosier fell deeper and deeper into a bottle, he lost more and more of himself, and his shadows grew across Druella's bedroom floor, until he was nothing but a specter, a nightmare, a symbol of everything dark in the world.
It did not rain when he died. True, the sun had not shown its face, and grey clouds covered the sky for the duration of his passing, but not a single drop of water fell upon Druella's forehead, as she sank to her knees in the courtyard, letting out a cry of despair. She hated her father, feared and loathed the very scent of him, and yet she had no one else; she was alone and lost in the world.
But it did not rain. Because Druella did not love him.
**
She awoke with a deep, twisting pain in her abdomen, in the precious chamber where her baby lay. Druella sat up in bed with her hands splayed on her skin, rubbing circles into the pain and praying that it was not an omen. She was tired, and she had not eaten for the despair of missing her Cygnus; that was all it was. If she ate something, and got a better night's rest, then she and her unborn son would be all right.
She did not know yet that she was having a son, but she felt it in her heart, in the invisible lines that connected her to her child. She could reach down inside of his soul and see him inside of her mind, the little boy that would be. He called out to her, he asked for her love, and she gave it to him. She could not understand this magic, older and more mysterious than anything that could be learned with a wand. But it was too powerful to be denied; she was having a son, and she loved him.
She was exhausted, and felt weak as she walked slowly towards her kitchen, where the elf would have to be roused to make her something to eat. Druella felt no hunger, only a strange emptiness, and the strange ache in her womb. It was almost as though she were about to have her monthly trouble, but that was impossible, for she had not bled for months now, not since she had realized that she was with child. It was impossible and it would not happen now. She would eat and go to bed, and then she would wake up in the morning and Cygnus would be home, and they would be happy.
The elf was asleep, as she had assumed, and suddenly she could not bear to wake him, couldn't bear to have to speak, even to a servant, when she was so tired and worried. Druella hated being alone, but she could not be with anyone else, either. Only Cygnus would do, and he was gone still, would be gone until the sun once again shone its light upon their home. For now, the thunder roared above her, and Druella could not bear it.
She found a packet of biscuits in the cupboard and began to eat, sitting at the table alone and stuffing them quickly into her mouth. Suddenly she was ravenous, and had chewed them down entirely before she knew it. Cygnus would frown upon that sort of eating; he wanted her to be strong, and eat from the garden instead of relying on biscuits and sweets. But Druella's son craved sweetness, and she had to feed him.
As she rose from the table, she felt another twitch of pain, and a spike of fear shot through her. This wasn't right; she had not felt such a thing as this before. But no; if she thought about it then it would become real, and she could not bear it. She had to go back to bed, and try to sleep, despite the pounding rain and flashes of light all around her. She had to sleep.
Crumbs tumbled off of her sleeping gown, but she ignored them. The world tilted slightly before her, the corridor ahead growing fuzzy at the sides, and there was nothing but a long, dark, and endless tunnel before her. Druella held her stomach, mumbling something vaguely comforting as she took those first steps back to her bedroom. "You're all right," she told him as she moved. "You are all right, my son."
The bed had never looked more inviting, and Druella collapsed into it, curling herself up with her arms wrapped around her knees, shivering in the darkness as she prayed for sleep to claim her. It was so late, and she was so alone. If only she'd had a mother to call to, someone who would touch Druella's forehead and let her know that she was all right, that she was loved. Or if her precious Cygnus would walk through her door at that moment, kiss her lips and cheeks and put his hands on her, that would also soothe her into peaceful slumber. But there was currently nothing but the rain, and the rumbling thunder that frightened her so. It had rained when Mother left her, disappearing into a void. It had rained when Druella had stood beside a hole in the dirt, staring off into nothing. She had not understood death then; she had not known where Mother had gone. And no one had explained it to her; her father had simply opened a bottle of wine and abandoned her.
Druella was older now, and she understood death very well. She knew that it could claim her Cyngus at any moment, with his dark exploits in the night. Especially when it was raining so terribly; dark things happened to Druella when it rained. She touched her stomach again, humming a lullaby to her baby, who would bring her so much happiness someday.
She knew nothing of being a mother, and she still felt so young. But it had been her duty to provide an heir as soon as possible, and they had already waited so long, Cygnus with his patience and his careful handling of her, as though Druella were a precious piece of glass and he had not wanted to shatter her. He had known, or at least he had guessed, at how cracked she had already been, fractured lines running through her soul at the hands of her father. He had waited for her to be ready for her husband, for her to convey to Cygnus that he had properly gained her trust and adoration. It had taken so long.
She knew nothing of child rearing, but she would learn. It frightened her terribly, but she had survived so much so far in her life. Surely this would be the one easy thing; surely this would be her moment of true peace, becoming a parent to a sweet little boy. They had not agreed upon a name yet, but Druella had lately taken to calling him Ophiuchus, the serpent bearer, if only inside her mind. She was not sure what Cygnus would say about it. Perhaps he would never know; perhaps her son would grow up without a father, as she had grown up without her mother.
"No," she whispered harshly into the night, into the rain, her mouth twisting into a grimace. "Do not think such weak thoughts. I am not weak, and my husband shall not be weak, either." She spoke to herself, and to her son also. He had become her conscience, her best friend and confidante. He would become her everything, once he had entered into this world and stood beside her, once he'd smiled up into his mother's face. Druella was sure of this, if nothing else. He would be all she had, he and Cygnus both, and they would treasure one another, their little family.
Druella closed her eyes and felt the first tendrils of sleep begin to seep in, the sound of the rain fading as her conscious mind slipped off into dreams. She was nearly there, nearly safe in sleeping, when a twinge of something hot and painful spilled from between her thighs.
Shooting up, blind panic filled her, like a blast to the heart, a stunner aimed directly at her chest. Something very Not Right was happening to her, and Druella was terrified. She couldn't bear to look, couldn't bear to make whatever this was real by acknowledging it. But what would Cygnus say, if he came home to find that she had ignored this? He would look down on her; he would think her weak. Tears pricked at her eyes, and a painful burning stung her throat. She felt shame already, and she had not even given up yet.
Druella slipped out of bed and tried her best to send thoughts of peace and good health to her baby, even as the painful cramping continued to plague her. She reached the master bathroom quickly, and slowly peeled her clothing back to see what had happened to her.
Bright red blood stained her. Druella collapsed and put her head in her hands, struggling not to cry. Perhaps this was normal; her Healer had just told her not but six days previous that everything was progressing wonderfully. Her son was growing inside of her; his heart raced and his limbs twitched. He was beautifully alive inside of her. This had to be just some other little quirk of carrying a child, like the cravings and the sore muscles and the fatigue. Nobody had taught Druella how to carry a child, so how was she to know? This had to be normal; she closed her eyes and willed it to be normal.
She would make a Floo call and be healed; the sudden idea soothed her with a great rush of relief and happiness, that the answer could be so simple. She would not be weak; she would do what needed to be done, and it would work itself out in the end, as things always did. Druella had emerged from the darkness once before, when Cygnus came to claim her, and so she would do so again, and survive. Despite all, they survived.
She rose from her seat, with plans to dress herself and then go to the fireplace. But she never made it that far.
**
He found her hours later, as the first rays of morning fought to shine through the rain, which still pattered lightly upon the windows and roof. He found her, the door swinging open before him to reveal her lying on the floor, with the blood streaked along the floor and down her arms and legs.
Her fingers were soaked with it, soaked and red and trembling, and when he rushed to her side he stained his robes with it, kneeling over her, lifting her carefully into his arms. "What's happened?" he demanded, his voice loud and frightened, booming around her in the little room, echoing off the walls and inside her skull. "What's happened; where are you hurt? What's happened?"
"He's dead," Druella said, was all she could manage to say through her tears. "He's dead." She could not look at her husband, could not tear her eyes away from her fingers, red with blood. It was all she had left of her baby, her heir, her son. He was lost and gone away, swept off down the pipes, and all she had of him was the blood. "He's dead."
Cygnus put a hand on Druella's stomach and looked down upon her in silence, taking in the length of her body, sprawled upon the white tile floor with her body covered in blood. Druella sobbed in his arms, twisting away from him, staring at her hands, unable to think or process, her mind reeling, her ears hearing nothing but the rain pouring down upon her roof, upon her life.
"You must be seen," he told her, his voice soft and gentle, so as not to distress her further. "I must call the Healer."
"No," Druella cried, grasping at his robes, finally seeing his eyes and his hands upon her. "No, please, my love. Don't." If he called the Healer then it was real, it had happened, she had lost. She could not accept that.
"You'll die," Cygnus snapped, anger filling his features. "Is that what you want? I've just lost my child and you want to take my wife from me as well? I am calling for the Healer. I will not lose you." He dropped her to the floor, gently but dismissively, leaving her there to cry as he went to make the call.
The rain did not stop completely until after the Healer had come, forcing potions down Druella's throat and cleansing her wounds, stopping the flow of blood and siphoning the red out of her skin. Druella cried throughout, with grief and regret, with frustration that they would not allow her to keep this last piece of her baby, the blood which signified life, even as it left her. The rain did not stop until she was lying in her own bed at last, head against the pillows as Cygnus sat beside her. Turning her head towards the open window, Druella watched the sun finally emerge from the clouds, to bring the light back to the sky. It did not cheer her; she would not welcome this light, not this time. The rain had brought her tragedy again, and stolen love from her, and every time the light came back it comforted her less and less.
"I love you," Cygnus told her, words seldom spoken aloud, for her husband had always far preferred to show his emotions through action rather than words, through gifts of flowers and jewels, through gentle touch and fierce embrace. "I love you," he said, but Druella still could not look at him, the man who had let her suffer so on her own, taking some distant ideal over the flesh and blood he had at home. The blood which he had no more.
"Do not leave me again," she whispered, still looking away, and she felt him squeeze her fingers, pale again and clean, as though they had never been red at all. "I cannot bear to be alone."
Cygnus remained silent; he held her hand until she fell asleep.
**
The rains came and went, and Druella feared them still, but death faded from her life, lingering in the corners, hiding in the attic, whilst her family grew around her. She gave birth to three beautiful daughters, and if she thought of her lost son it was with a distance. Bellatrix, Andromeda, and Narcissa were her world, she adored them so, and when it rained she forbade them from leaving her, telling stories and teaching the girls magic, so that they would not resent their mother her obsessive need to avoid the falling water and flashes of lightning in the sky.
And as the years passed, she grew bolder, having gained so much, the love of her husband and children, the acceptance of her family, the first true family she had ever had. They lived in their grand home together, and Cygnus always returned home from his travels, even when it rained and Druella gathered her daughters close. He had never promised not to leave her, but he always came back.
The rains came and went, and Druella feared them still, but it became nothing but a memory, foggy around its edges and with so much less meaning. What was to be feared by water? If there were any gods, surely they did not send the rains just to harm her, just to bring her death and abandonment. It was nothing but a turn of the weather, a mix of science and magic, just like everything else in her world. It was nothing.
"Mother, I want to go play out in the rain." Bellatrix, the eldest, her most daring little Bella, who never cared for rules and did as she wished, no matter how her mother hounded her. "It seems like it would be brilliant fun to splash in the puddles. Couldn't I please, just this once?"
Druella frowned upon her, as she cradled young Narcissa to her bosom. "I have forbidden such exploits," she said sternly, shaking her head. "It is unsafe out there."
Bellatrix pressed her hands to the window, tracing the dripping lines of raindrops on the glass. "It's just water," she said. "I won't torment my sisters anymore, I promise."
Andy's fingers slammed in a door, Cissy missing a lock of her shining blonde hair; Druella had cast these aside as accidents. She stared at her eldest, as Bella looked out the window longingly. It was only a little rain, after all. Perhaps it would be good for the girl to spend more time out of doors, to expend her ferocious energy in a way that did not leave her sisters crying. "Stay where I can see you," she said, and Bellatrix danced with delight, kissed her mother's cheek and ran wildly about in the storm, arms flung wide to the sky as though she could fly away. And Druella worried that she would.
But Bella came home safe and sound, tracking muddy water through the house and driving the elf mad with the mess to clean. Andromeda clapped her hands and pled to be let outdoors, too, and Druella gave in, feeling strong with the realization that the world seemed to be no longer against her. Her daughters could go out in a rainstorm and they would not leave her. The world was normal and happy, finally, and Druella could fear no more.
She let her guard down, just when she would need it the most.
**
The day dawned with the heaviness of water, though the clouds were far away still. Druella rose and had the elf draw her a bath, as she did every morning. She could hear her daughters were awake already, chattering amongst themselves in the voices they imagined were too quiet to be overheard, though they carried down the corridors of their home. "Bella, that's horrific," Andromeda shrieked, and the peals of girlish laughter ricocheted along the walls.
Cygnus was not at home, but Druella had grown used to his long absences, and now that she had her children, she was no longer lonely when he left her. No more wandering the halls in nothing but a nightdress, moaning in misery as she hid her tears in her sleeves. No more imagining brutal war scenes, a Cygnus torn and bleeding, her name the last thing on his lips. No more.
Druella broke her fast as she always did, with buttered toast and a cup of tea, with her three little girls giggling around her. She smiled at them, her pride and joy. It did not matter that she had never had the male heir that was expected of her; she did not care what the Black family whispered behind her back. Druella was no longer a child, no longer little Ella listening at doors and crying. She cared not for anything but herself, and her husband, and her children.
She stood in the doorway and breathed in the scent of summer rain, the smell of hot dirt and clouds, the moisture heavy on her skin. She stood and watched her daughters playing, running about in their little frocks, mock tea parties and practice spells that did nothing but stir their hair about and rattle the leaves of the trees.
"Did you see, did you see? I moved the saucers," Andy cried, triumphant, pointing.
"No, you did not," Bella insisted. "Cissy moved it for you, I saw her."
"Not me," said Narcissa, sitting up straight in her chair, already so poised, so graceful. It made Druella's heart ache. Her little Cissy, so perfect, so unlike the awkward, fearful Ella, who was dark and limp and sullen. They were all so different. Bellatrix with her wild eyes and constant glee at the world around her, Andromeda so full of love and curiosity, Narcissa with her sweet beauty, her desire to please. So different, and yet all hers, all Druella's.
The hours stretched on til evening, when the girls went reluctantly to bed and whispered to one another in the dark, while Druella took to her bedroom with her books. She had taken up sketching of late, enhanced by magic of course, though she still found her drawings to be rough and misshapen. They barely moved when they were finished, the poor imitation of Cygnus merely blinking at her, the shadowy Bella only vibrating slightly, the tips of her hair moving about her face.
Druella drew listlessly, tired but unable to go to sleep, filled with some heavy feeling that she could not name. The rain had come at last, pattering again against the windowpane, but it was so distant to her, she could not remember how she had once feared it. She suddenly felt very old. Soon her firstborn would begin to show magic in earnest, and would go away from her mother, off to Hogwarts to follow in the footsteps of those who had come before her. Would Druella miss her then; would she lose her child to the rains of Hogwarts? No, that was not to be; Hogwarts was the safest place in the world. Everyone spoke of that.
Water sprayed her face when she opened the window; Druella leaned out into the gathering storm, inhaling the sharp scent of it, the coming lightning, the dark clouds. The rain felt good upon her skin, cool and refreshing. How had she ever feared this? The rain was lovely.
A door burst open with a bang far below, and Druella's heart leaped, startled, jolting into a frenzied beat. Something was happening.
She froze at first, motionlessly straining to hear, to catch some blind glimpse of what had happened. It was not any of her children, for the sounds would have come closer, and this was a distant rumble, down at the bottom of the house. Druella heard nothing more, no clues drifting through the floorboards, and she began to tremble. She did not want to go down there, did not want to see.
The light disappeared from her room, as the clouds passed over the dying sun, as the storm began in earnest. Druella's breath caught in her chest; it was truly raining now, the water spilling onto the sill and seeping into her skin. She lifted her hands to see; they were wet, and it frightened her, brought stark white memories to the surface once again, memories of wet fingers.
Rushing from the room, her robes swirling about her ankles, she darted down the stairs, her heart racing, her lungs unable to draw breath. Bursting into the front hall, where a shadowy figure lay upon the floor, she screamed.
It was Cygnus, of course, he who she had worried least for, he who she had forgotten in her dreams of little girls and raindrops. An explosion of thunder sounded above her, and she looked upon the open door, the portal to that outside world, where the gods threw death and destruction at her from the sky. But she could not close the door, for her husband lay before it, sprawled out still with one foot out in the rain, his boot stained with mud.
"No," Druella cried, stumbling, falling to her knees beside her beloved, cradling his head in her hands as she prayed to every deity she had ever heard of, Merlin and a crowd of others besides, gods of old that existed solely in the books of Black family libraries, forgotten over the centuries by those of lesser breeding.
"No," Druella cried, and smoothed her hands over his face, his pale face, so still and yet so handsome, so quiet. "Darling, please, wake up. Come back to me, come back."
His eyes opened and she gasped, she sobbed, she pressed her wet fingers to his skin ever tighter, and kissed his forehead. "Ella," he said quietly, as reserved and stony as ever, even in his final moments. "You must be strong now. For our children."
"No," Druella cried, as she felt the blood seep from his clothing, seep into her nightdress, staining it forever, as another nightdress had been stained, so many years before, when their positions had been reversed upon another cold floor, in another rainstorm. "I won't lose you," she told him. "I won't!"
"Stop your tears, my love. They are useless." Cygnus winced in her arms, and turned his head. "It is untreatable. I was lucky enough to make it home." He said no more, but she heard his intentions, heard the love which had always so lurked behind his stoicism, his silence. He loved her, and he had come to say goodbye.
"No," Druella cried, but it was too late for him, and she lost him to the rains, the rains which had been tormenting her for her entire life, and would always do so, no matter how she struggled to overcome, no matter how many times she forgot the terror of pattering drops of water on her roof. The rains would take them from her still.
**
It did not rain when Druella died; she had been ill for weeks, since her Cygnus had gone, her fragile heart shattered with the final beat of his heart. She'd lain in bed ever since, unable to move, unable to survive for her daughters, who crept around her as though they were frightened of her.
Little Ella, the curious child, had been so eager to see her dying mother, but now that Druella had become the fading star there was no one to look in on her. The elf sponged her unwilling body and her girls were nowhere to be seen, leaning on one another and growing stronger, instead of wilting beneath the anger and grief of a domineering father.
They had no father, and Druella could not bear it, could not face a world without Cygnus Black living in it. He had been her stone, her tether, which had held her to the earth, to reality and dreams. With him, she could have imagined every happiness for herself and their children. With him, she could feel truly alive and inspired. Without him, there was nothing.
She heard her daughters speaking from just outside her bedroom door, dear, wild Bellatrix taking charge over her sisters, her fierceness well suited to giving demands and support. Without a father, she had taken on that loss and absorbed it, would later seek out that stony strength in the image of a Dark Lord, to find the father that had never been there for her. But Druella would never know this. She lay in bed in her misery and took a small comfort in the apparent strength and courage of her daughter.
Druella would never look upon her beautiful little girls again; she grew weaker as they flourished, as they became themselves. She had ventured out in the days just after Cygnus Black's death and she had tried to live, but it had proved useless and demanding, and Druella had proved weak. She had always been weak. It was due solely to the strength of her daughters that they even existed at all; they had forced themselves from the womb and overcome the weakness of their mother.
Hadn't her son been killed by that weakness? Hadn't he been unable to overcome that fear to properly grow within it? Hadn't Druella failed all of her children, with how thoroughly she had fallen apart? She could not overcome the loss of her husband, and it proved her weak. Cygnus had been the only thing keeping her upright.
And so she deteriorated, shrinking down to nothing, a frail and trembling form, sweating in her sheets as her body entered the throes of death. Deprived of food and happiness, deprived of love and comfort, Druella succumbed finally to her weakness, to her end. She had turned away from the world and shriveled over time, until she eventually left it all behind forever.
And as she looked out upon the world for the last time, she took comfort in the sunlight, which streamed through her windows and kissed her pale, fragile skin. She would have this final blessing at least, in her final moments. Though she was alone with no family around her, though she cried tears of pain and weakness, it would not rain upon her this time. She would have an easy path to follow into the dark.
**
The first rain drop landed on Narcissa's head just after the ceremony. The final bits of dirt had been lowered onto the mound, and the many black-clad mourners had begun to Apparate to the home for the dinner service. Bellatrix stood tall, with her head held high, already taking the place of their mother, already looking so much older than her ten years of age. "Come along, Andy," she said: blunt, emotionless, calm. "Come along, Cissy."
Narcissa instead looked up to the sky. It was not dark, the clouds a very light shade of grey. But she felt again a solitary drop of water, and blinked as it landed just below her eye, so that perhaps the onlookers would think she had been crying.
She had not been. Bellatrix had looked stony and silent, Andromeda had wept into her mother's handkerchief, and Narcissa had simply peered curiously at the ground where Mother now slept. She didn't understand, exactly, what had happened; she only knew that she had no home now, and no parents to guide her way.
She had never really thought she'd had parents, anyway. Father had so rarely looked in on her, and Mother had been distant and nervous for most of Narcissa's life. Oh, she smiled upon her daughters, and sometimes read them stories, but there was always something like fear in her eyes. And then, of course, The Illness.
Narcissa looked away again as the water came down upon her, staring at the dirt and the flowers. She vowed then and there not to die from being scared, as Mother had done. Narcissa would be forever brave, and she would stand beside her family no matter what happened, instead of slipping away from them. She would be a good little girl, and someday she would be a Mother, too, and she would be a great one.
It rained only lightly as the three sisters wandered away from the burial site, the place where Druella Black lay. It would be a very long time before any of them visited that place again. They would not linger on the concept of death; they would not fear the rain as their mother had done.