Fic: August 11
Title: The Result is Never Arbitrary
Author: mistressmoony
Type: Fiction
Length: one-shot
Main character or Pairing: Narcissa, Narcissa/Lucius, Bella and Andromeda are around
Card: Nine of Spears, 10 of Cups, 4 of Swords. All reversed.
Card Interpretation:
This gives away the whole fic, so just a warning. Nine of Spears-Reversed is the worst possible reaction to a change, like Andromeda suddenly leaving. 10 if Cups-reversed are family problems, disappointment and loss of social standing, pettiness, and antisocial behavior. Instead of just losing Andromeda, Narcissa really doesn't have Bella anymore either. And the talk is going out of control Gossip-Girl style. 4 of Swords is "recuperation, healing, and retreating to a calm, safe environment. Respite. Leaving a stressful, chaotic situation in order to clear the mind and re-evaluate plans. Gentle soul searching. Regaining strength and direction. Being given protection and warm hospitality. " This is after Narcissa and Lucius decide that they're both in the same boat, more or less. So everything's going great until Lucius has to leave a party to go death-eating.
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Don't own it, don't pretend to. Nobody paid me for this.
Warnings: I think Bella says 'hell' once and knocks Lucius out.
Summary: A seventies-era fan fiction exploring Narcissa’s position as the last of three sisters to remain undeclared in the face of a looming war.
Author Notes: Beta-ing thanks to Tiffany. I know reading this took away seriously from your watching-tv-online time. This was an attempt to figure out how different people in almost the exact same circumstances (the same family) turn out so differently. And how so much of what people do is tinted by layers of what other people do.
The Result is Never Arbitrary
Though no light source was visible on the walls, the ballroom was illuminated by sheer, even light. Heirloom gold and silver sparkled at the throats of wizarding society’s foremost ladies while they twirled on the arms of proud looking wizards in impeccably well-cut dress robes. Druella Black’s Twelfth Night ball was impressive, even to these people, and an invitation was surely an achievement. The older crowd liked the company and the assurance of their places at the top, but for young guests it was a time for planning as much as pleasure. A dance with a beautiful partner was always nice, but social politics weren’t left out of the frame. Increasingly, other kinds of politics were making their way into the mix as well.
At least two young heirs were neglecting the social ramifications of their actions that night. A faux pas in the eyes of their parents had certainly never stopped them from venting their tempers.
“Liar,” Bellatrix dismissed him. “My sister would never. She‘s got a good name to protect, unlike you, Malfoy.”
“Names can be changed. To Tonks?” suggested Lucius, un-phased by the reminder that his fathers fortune was indeed acquired ‘in trade‘.
Andromeda grabbed Bella’s arm, lightly grazing the pocket where her wand blessedly remained. “Bella, let it go, he’s just mad about the seven galleons. Maybe his father hasn’t got the money anymore.”
“So you’re alright with that scum running his mouth?”
“Lucius, shut the hell up,” Andromeda appeased her.
“Are you afraid your big sister will find out? Afraid of what you’re twelfth century pedigreed family will say about your boyfriend?” He flipped a poker chip with an arrogant smirk.
“Are you afraid of what her big sister will do to your overlarge nose?” Bellatrix cut in. She threw Narcissa’s hand away and grabbed for her wand.
“Not especially.”
Andromeda flipped a hand through her hair. “You should be. Bella, you’re crazy, and Lucius, if you think she’ll hesitate to put you in Mungos for a month, you’re crazy too.”
Bellatrix was too mad to notice the pleading way Andromeda looked at Lucius, as though they understood something, but Narcissa saw it.
“Andromeda shut up. If he’d doesn’t take my word for it, I’ll be more than happy to show him.” A slim hawthorn wand was now centred directly, over the third mother of pearl button on Lucius’s shirt.
Catastrophic damage to life and property was very possible. Narcissa spoke up, pushing away Lucius and Andromeda’s silent exchange.
“Bella, stop it. Lucius, will you please just be the gentleman and walk away?”
“That would imply that she,” he jerked his wand towards Bellatrix, “is a lady.”
Before he’d finished his gesturing, his arm was knocked back at a sickening angle and he spun around once, straight into a stone column. Bellatrix still held him at wand point, gripping the scratched handle hard enough to turn her knuckles as translucently white as his face, but in her fury she had only attacked him with her hands.
People noticed the commotion one at a time, so Lucius was up and ready by the time all the guests gathered around gawk at the spectacle. Their school peers had seen the rivalry between mercurial Bellatrix Black and Lucius Malfoy, the young man two years her junior whose pastime it was to provoke her reactions.
The fight commenced, and the two traded insults with twice the frequency of their spells, which were also quite rapid. Andromeda appeared to watch the fight, but her frenzied thoughts, so far from that room, were obvious in her eyes.
No one stepped in to separate the combatants until Bellatrix fell over Lucius‘s already unconscious form, half her body immobile, with a stream of scarlet down the left leg of her robes. Andromeda pulled the wand from her. Narcissa helped Bellatrix to a seat while the crowd dispersed, listening to her rant, which was exceptionally incoherent ,even considering that she did not have the use of half her face.
Cygnus Black approached Bellatrix ominously. He was slightly shorter that her uncle Orion, but just as stern. Narcissa was used to him as a Quidditch teacher and doting father, but as he fixed his oldest daughter with that stony look, she recognized everything anyone might be frightened of about him.
“Finite. Bellatrix?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Tell me, why do you feel it necessary to attack Lucius Malfoy at every function where you‘re brought within a twenty yard radius of him?” Cygnus eyed Lucius, who the house elves were hauling back to his friends, his head smacking the stone as they pulled him by the feet.
Their voices were so low that Narcissa didn’t hear Bellatrix’s rationale. Bellatrix went on in a forced low voice, waving her hands as she made her point. When Cygnus beckoned Andromeda over, Narcissa actually closed her eyes for a second and pleaded with fate that her split-second conjecture was wrong. No suck luck.
The quiet conversation escalated from low hisses to “raised voices”. Cygnus never shouted--he was intimidating enough without it, and Bellatrix was still composed enough to refrain from doing so in her father’s presence.
“You’re what?” rang through the hall. Bellatrix took Andromeda by the robes and shook her.
Andromeda held her hands up. “Just like I said. With Ted Tonks. I’m sorry.” She really looked sorry. Tears streaked her face, and she spoke with the most peculiar tone for one declaring her love. She said everything like she was giving a eulogy, like she yearned for her words not to be true.
“Come to your senses, Andromeda. End whatever it is you had with him and this problem will cease to exist.”
“Wouldn’t you like Blaisdon?” Bellatrix changed her approach, trying to entice her with the estate Rabastan Lestrange swore he would buy.
“It’s a gorgeous house, but no, I wouldn’t like it that much,” Andromeda choked in a desperate attempt to compose herself.
“Think of your name,” Cygnus enunciated.
“You don’t think I’ve thought about it? I have. Still no.”
“I know you, you’re not like that. You don’t do this, you don’t mean it,” pleaded Bellatrix.
Andromeda shook her head sorrowfully.
Without warning, Bellatrix seized Andromeda again and threw her into the base of the stairwell, the anger on her face not yet camouflaging her shock. In time, the turnover from pain to wrath would become instantaneous.
“Blood traitor! You’ve betrayed us all! You’ve betrayed yourself!” The words leapt from her like warriors released into battle, losing all regard for the heads she turned.
Narcissa watched incredulously as Andromeda threw away everything they were taught since the time when they spent afternoons together in their sunny nursery, amongst dolls and prettily-lettered storybooks. To leave now was to reject their family, everything they were born to carry on. That was personal. Andromeda was leaving Narcissa.
Andy pinned Bella with one last, regretful look before she fled from the hall. No one bothered pursuing her--Narcissa may have, had she acknowledged her before she left, but she was already gone. Right then, she assumed that it was because Andromeda loved her less than she loved Bella. It took her years to realize that she was thinking only of running away as quick as she could, that it was hardly personal, and after that Narcissa couldn’t stop wondering what would have happened if someone had followed her. This plagued her until she saw Andromeda again, twenty years later, and decided that everything may have been for the best.
**
“Why do you think she did it?” Narcissa was shivering in the snow in the long shadow of an elm tree, watching Bellatrix as she propelled herself higher and higher on the rotting rope swing. Even in silhouette, the edge in her body language was apparent, her kicks more violent than necessary.
“Its obvious, isn’t it? She fancied herself in love with that mudblood and refused to hear reason. Damn stupid.” Here voice was bathed in acid.
“But how could she leave like that? No warning, just gone.”
“No warning? What kind of warning could she give us? ‘Oh, by the way, next week I’m turning my back on the family and running off with a mudblood, please pass the cream!’”
“You don’t even care, do you?”
“Not for a blood traitor, no, not particularly.”
“She was our best friend until last night.”
“When she threw it all to hell.” Bellatrix swung her legs hard, soaring past Narcissa’s head by inches.
So no more was spoken of it all afternoon. They actually enjoyed themselves in the library with hot chocolate, once Narcissa had persuaded her to come in from the snow. They sat in the window seat hour after hour, with the breathtakingly white grounds as a backdrop for books hundreds of years old. Narcissa was fond of the classics, and thought she had her sister sufficiently occupied with Le Mort D’ Arthur, but she didn‘t see Bella slip into the alcove by the window to find Most Powerful Magic of the Ancients: A Compendium, her father‘s most treasured volume.
Andromeda was never long forgotten, though. Any reminder of her, be it a photo not yet destroyed or a song on the wireless, ignited a firestorm from at least one person. Cygnus and Druella were the calmest about it. It was a loss, but there had to have been something off about her from the start, and Walaburga was flooed to strike her from the tapestry immediately. Much as Bella tried to deny any emotion but hatred, or perhaps anger, Narcissa caught her back in the library the next day, searching for ways to mend magical needlework.
To leave the family for any reason was still inconceivable to her, so she questioned her relationships and Andromeda’s sanity in turn. The way it seemed to Narcissa, it was her or him, and she chose him. It took her decades to see that the ultimatum was entirely one-sided.
Dear Andromeda,
I do not understand what you did, but I though we understood each other. Perhaps not--please explain. I’m sure Mother and Father will listen as well.
Toujours,
Narcissa
Unwilling to say how much the family was willing to compromise on Ted himself, Narcissa didn’t mention him. Andromeda must have sensed the slight, for her single-line response, scrawled on the back of the original letter, was hardly one to build bridges.
I doubt it.
--Andromeda
**
An invitation to Andromeda's wedding, dispatched months later, came nowhere close to reconciling her with her sisters. Bellatrix would have marched down the aisle and killed the groom, statute of secrecy be damned, but Narcissa was the first to find the invitation and in a moment of softness settled for a properly-worded decline on behalf of her family. As she wrote out the phrase “regret that we are unable to attend” in looping blue script, Narcissa was the only one of the four who meant it.
If the Black family’s correspondence was strained, or even vicious, it was nothing compared to the rumours that flew about. One day, Alexandra Montague told Lucinda Prescott that Druella’s daughter ran away for a Muggle, a real Muggle. By the next week, when Rachel Brendan communicated the news to her friend in Scotland, the Muggle had morphed into Rabastan Lestrange, who could never love her back due to an incestuous relationship with his brother. Heartbroken for Rabastan, Andromeda eloped with a Squib courier boy from the Muggle Liaisons Office.
‘Forbearance’ was a word thrown around frequently by Cygnus, while Bellatrix threatened all manner of illegal spells on the perpetrators of such rumours. When an unpleasant upstart of a journalist named Rita Skeeter actually had a story called “Black Secrets” printed in the Prophet, it was too much. The tamest details she put forth set Andromeda in the middle of a complicated love pentagon between a vampire, a Muggle, Lucius Malfoy, and both of the Lestrange brothers. Narcissa snatched the rest of the article while Druella was working on the front, so her mother was spared from the second, considerably raunchier page that elaborated colourfully on said love pentagon and questioned unseemly details of the lives of all those involved.
It was finally decided that Narcissa would go down to the Prophet office to see what could be done about its obvious journalistic flaws. Everyone was afraid of the fodder Bellatrix might provide even the most scrupulous reporter.
“Make a good impression,” reprimanded Cygnus, quite out of character.
Narcissa spent a long time in the Prophet’s lobby, wondering which office she ought to go to. The society page sent her to public relations, who advised her to just go deal with the assistant editor, who sent her to the editor himself. She got the feeling that most of the employees who were so anxious to see her leave actually believed that Andromeda left in protest of Narcissa’s relationship with their fourteen year old cousin Sirius.
It seemed that, the closer you got to the top, the longer a lunch break you were entitled to. The editor’s office was empty at half past two, the time Narcissa got there, and the sign said ‘gone since: eleven-forty-three’. She was about to go send a Howler from the comfort of her own home when the door opened. Witch Weekly hit the table immediately when she stood up, eager to give the editor a piece of her mind. She was certainly shocked, and quite frustrated, to see Lucius .
“I’m waiting for Mr. Whitby. Someone really must put an end to these horrible articles.” She stared pointedly at him, the culprit.
It galled her to hear him sounding so unapologetic. He hated Bellatrix, obviously, but he had no right to a grudge against her entire family. Surely he was congratulating himself for dragging the scandal into the public eye, drawing attention away from Abraxas’s recent indictment. What appalling selfishness.
“They really must, its disgusting. The things they print about my father, that‘s why I‘ve come down here,” said Lucius.
“Those things are true.”
Lucius glared at her, and she glared right back. After a few minutes of unbearable strain, she threw down her second magazine and marched out, slamming the door behind her. The sound of the ‘Gone Since: Eleven Forty-three’ sign falling to the ground made her irrationally satisfied.
At home, her parents were quite sympathetic to her efforts, resuming their high talk of grace under pressure until Druella’s voice was drowned out by Bellatrix declaring yet another reason for Lucius’s brutal murder.
Narcissa resigned herself to waiting out the gossip. She would have been very put out by the lack of good company at parties, but Cygnus announced that they would depart early for their holiday in France, mercifully removing his daughters from the warm weather social circuit that was so heavy on floral dresses and chatter over lemonade.
France seemed like a great opportunity for Narcissa and Bellatrix to move on, but it didn’t work out that way. Not with the proximity of their house to the Lestrange’s summer destination that made it far too easy for Bellatrix to go jaunting off to pick up God-Knows-What from Rodolphus Lestrange, her current love interest. The man spoke like he was trying to ration every word, and had an unsettling way of listening that made Narcissa assume he was scoring everything anyone said, to assess their innate worth as human beings sometime later on. She was not about to try to police Bella’s relationships--look how it turned out with Andy--but she didn’t want anyone close to her tied into the Dark Lord’s agenda. It was accepted that Bellatrix and Rodolphus were tied as tightly as anyone could be, but she was still afraid that Rodolphus gave Bella one more reason to stay.
With Bellatrix removed from her daily company, and months separating Andromeda from her reach, Narcissa grew lonely. She started out so ready to embrace Andromeda’s apology, but she finally had to acknowledge that it wouldn’t come. Whatever Andromeda had with Ted Tonks was lost on her, and Bellatrix’s relationships with Rodolphus and Dark magic in general were increasingly foreign. So she was almost pleased when she encountered Lucius Malfoy at the English Wizarding Consulate. Like him or not, at least she understood where he was coming from one moment to the next.
“Malfoy,” Narcissa said curtly.
“Black, why are you here?” Lucius leant his head on his hand while his filled out a neat stack of papers in the black folder on his lap.
“International Apparition. I’m through with France.” It was early June, but Narcissa had had more of their lonely French chateau than she ever wanted in her life. Much better to go back to England where she had friends and pray that Estelle Warrington would eventually find out about her own husband’s affair and lose interest in the Blacks.
“Really? I’m here to see Mr. Somebody-or-other Rosier, he’s something like Evan’s great, great uncle. My father needs…something from him.”
“Its called a postal service. You might try it.”
“Humph. It’s rather pressing, best through with it by tonight.” He carried on writing while he spoke.
“Oh. I’ll see you at Charlotte and Brandon’s wedding, I suppose.”
“Yes, certainly. Goodbye, Lucius.”
It was obvious that he was distressed, and after a few days of the Daily Prophet, she realised why. The press had moved away from Andromeda’s scandal as chronicled in in the society column to focus on Abraxas Malfoy‘s long awaited front-page embezzlement trial.
“Can you believe Fudge?” said the maid of honour, Amelia. “The half-blood, how dare he?” Her tone made it sound as though a bubtuber was the high court examiner.
“I don’t know. I certainly don’t like Fudge, but at least this will stop Malfoy and those ridiculous shoes. I don’t care how much he spent on them, they are green snake and they are horrible.” Cathy’s dark eyes cast a disparaging look at Lucius’s shoes, which were indeed refracting emerald rays of light.
“I always wondered where they got that much money.”
“Oh, be fair, the trial’s only just started.”
“Right.” Lucia snorted disparagingly.
Narcissa didn’t gossip with much energy, unable to distract herself from the fact that this conversation centred around her family in March at the Avery’s wedding.
She wished she had Bellatrix, even with all the complaining that came with making her presentable, but instead she wrote her parents letters mentioning what Bella said about Greece. In reality, she received weekly reports in a very superior tone, offering assurances of older-sisterly guidance and alluding to all the brilliance she and Rodolphus were uncovering in ancient Egyptian and Celtic dark magic. Bella told her that she understood if Narcissa was frightened of the power at first, that it was understandable, but that she would help her see how great it was, used correctly. Only Narcissa’s newfound fear of Bellatrix prevented her from ending their often disturbing correspondence. Narcissa didn’t want to hear about blood curses from her--she wanted her to do up the hooks on the back of her dress and make a competition out of who could get the most dance partners.
“Narcissa?”
“What?” She felt a tap on her shoulder.
“Dance?” Lucius asked with uncharacteristic hesitance, staring down at his own outstretched hand.
“Oh, I--yes, alright.” Very businesslike.
“Why me, Lucius?” she asked once the music started.
“What?”
“Why are you dancing with me?”
“Why are you letting me?” He stepped so quickly that their hands almost pulled down a gold curtain.
“Because I wanted to ask you that.”
“You surprised me with the way you handled things.”
“You though I would crawl into a corner and cry about what happened?”
“Well, yes.”
“Why am I dancing with you?”
“I was pleasantly surprised,” he amended.
“That, and no one else will stand up with you now that you’re not only new money but illegally acquired new money.”
They went on, carefully box-stepping around the worst of what they wanted to say.
"Sorry," said Narcissa when she realized that he was about to sit down. It wasn't his fault, not really. The secret was never going to last.
But he dropped her hand first.
"What?" he asked once he heard her.
"Please stay," she took his hand back. He was an exceptionally good dancer, at least when compared to the other dolts with at least three or four left feet. It wouldn't hurt now to talk to him, maybe push a few of his buttons in the process. It may even make this damn night move faster than the interminable dirge of graceless dancers and surface level conversation.
**
Winter found Narcissa in far more different circumstances than she had ever seen. Unfamiliar as it was, she was not unhappy. The initial shock of separation had abated, and it was too early to feel the lingering deficit of her sisters. Caught up in the Christmas festivities away from home, moving on seemed easy. Wasn’t it true that life passed in stages? It would go nowhere without a catalyst, so why hate something so natural, so inevitable?
If nothing else, that mantra let her taste the Malfoys’ elves’ perfect sugar cookies without lingering on comforting, irregularly shaped ones that she and Andromeda made faithfully year after year. After they were deemed unsuitable to serve at Druella’s Twelfth Night Ball, the girls sent them out to their friends by the box, awed at their own accomplishment.
The Malfoy’s New Years ball was teeming with people, as always, so many guests that a few absences were barely noticed. Narcissa, lovely as always, sat by Lucius, his gift of a string of pearls wound around her neck, simple and perfect.
The conversation drifted around her, letting her pick up what she fancied, and leave the rest to float out into the dusky night. Abraxas had, by some miracle, been acquitted. Mungos now listed him as a Supporter on their wall of plaques for especially generous donors, but of course no one would mention that. Surprisingly, Narcissa felt no need to point out the relationship. Business corruption was nothing. From the way the men talked, the political climate was quickly escalating, poised for all out war at the slightest provocation.
“And where will you be, Malfoy?” Asked Walden MacNair, clearly in jest.
“I think you already know that.”
“What about you, Narcissa? Or are you answering to Malfoy too nowadays?” He shook the table with his laughter.
Narcissa blushed. “I don’t think I’ll go out and attack tomorrow, if that’s what you mean.”
The answer made MacNair secure enough to describe at length the way he’d like to kill a Muggle-lover like Arthur Weasley. Wary of him, Narcissa occupied herself by making a study of Lucius’s nose on the napkin in her lap until the elves cleared the table and shoved the napkin into her wine glass.
Much later in the evening, Lucius pointed over the second story balcony to the courtyard, where a clearly inebriated figure struggled to hoist himself out of the fountain. Behind him, Malfoy Manor was beautiful, with towers and masonry, and probably worth a few fortunes.
“He’s having fun,” Narcissa giggled.
“You think?”
“Sure.”
“You want to try.” Lucius seized her suddenly by the waist and moved toward the railing, as if he’d jump off.
Narcissa noted the distance to the rough stone of the driveway and held in a shriek as she twisted away from him.
“Come on, have your fun now.”
“I’ll take my fun later, thanks.”
“What if there is none?”
“What?” Why all the seriousness at eleven thirty at night, after the champagne?
“Well, as we discussed at dinner…” he trailed off.
“That?” I’m sorry to say, but isn’t it a little…premature?”
“Its high time.”
“For what? What are we lacking?”
“Its strange, Narcissa, but its wrong. Our world is in a seriously wrong direction.”
“You sound like Bella,” she dismissed.
“No, I don’t. She scares me. But this is what I’m doing, so if you don’t--”
She held up a hand. “Whatever you want.” Nothing would come of it, anyway, she was sure.
Lucius was contented. He took her by the shoulders and gave her a kiss that had a curiously foggy effect on her mind. The conversation would have been totally forgotten if Nott hadn’t come up behind him, interrupting with a commanding “Lucius!”
“Yeah.” He turned around.
Nott snorted. “You need to come, now.”
“Oh. Narcissa, I’m going now, so I’ll see you on Wednesday?” His eyes were wide. Any colour he gained in his face since his father’s acquittal was lost.
“Sure, bye.”
He rushed off, and she could dark cloaked shadow striding through the courtyard below, hauling dripping-wet Avery with him as he went.
After living with Bella, for whom week-long unexplained absences were a way of life, she had a general idea of why he left. It was infuriating to have people disappearing on her constantly, as though they thought her too stupid to realise why, but what could be done? Their lives were their own, to make allegiances as they saw fit, but she hoped that they would never leave her forever, like Andromeda did. Just as the second stage in her life was becoming comfortable, maybe this was the third, swooping down to bombard her with more. She could last, but not all alone. Why was everyone drifting off now, to leave her stranded somewhere just a bit off centre? If she couldn’t anchor them, she would have to put her faith in them and pursue.
Author: mistressmoony
Type: Fiction
Length: one-shot
Main character or Pairing: Narcissa, Narcissa/Lucius, Bella and Andromeda are around
Card: Nine of Spears, 10 of Cups, 4 of Swords. All reversed.
Card Interpretation:
This gives away the whole fic, so just a warning. Nine of Spears-Reversed is the worst possible reaction to a change, like Andromeda suddenly leaving. 10 if Cups-reversed are family problems, disappointment and loss of social standing, pettiness, and antisocial behavior. Instead of just losing Andromeda, Narcissa really doesn't have Bella anymore either. And the talk is going out of control Gossip-Girl style. 4 of Swords is "recuperation, healing, and retreating to a calm, safe environment. Respite. Leaving a stressful, chaotic situation in order to clear the mind and re-evaluate plans. Gentle soul searching. Regaining strength and direction. Being given protection and warm hospitality. " This is after Narcissa and Lucius decide that they're both in the same boat, more or less. So everything's going great until Lucius has to leave a party to go death-eating.
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Don't own it, don't pretend to. Nobody paid me for this.
Warnings: I think Bella says 'hell' once and knocks Lucius out.
Summary: A seventies-era fan fiction exploring Narcissa’s position as the last of three sisters to remain undeclared in the face of a looming war.
Author Notes: Beta-ing thanks to Tiffany. I know reading this took away seriously from your watching-tv-online time. This was an attempt to figure out how different people in almost the exact same circumstances (the same family) turn out so differently. And how so much of what people do is tinted by layers of what other people do.
The Result is Never Arbitrary
Though no light source was visible on the walls, the ballroom was illuminated by sheer, even light. Heirloom gold and silver sparkled at the throats of wizarding society’s foremost ladies while they twirled on the arms of proud looking wizards in impeccably well-cut dress robes. Druella Black’s Twelfth Night ball was impressive, even to these people, and an invitation was surely an achievement. The older crowd liked the company and the assurance of their places at the top, but for young guests it was a time for planning as much as pleasure. A dance with a beautiful partner was always nice, but social politics weren’t left out of the frame. Increasingly, other kinds of politics were making their way into the mix as well.
At least two young heirs were neglecting the social ramifications of their actions that night. A faux pas in the eyes of their parents had certainly never stopped them from venting their tempers.
“Liar,” Bellatrix dismissed him. “My sister would never. She‘s got a good name to protect, unlike you, Malfoy.”
“Names can be changed. To Tonks?” suggested Lucius, un-phased by the reminder that his fathers fortune was indeed acquired ‘in trade‘.
Andromeda grabbed Bella’s arm, lightly grazing the pocket where her wand blessedly remained. “Bella, let it go, he’s just mad about the seven galleons. Maybe his father hasn’t got the money anymore.”
“So you’re alright with that scum running his mouth?”
“Lucius, shut the hell up,” Andromeda appeased her.
“Are you afraid your big sister will find out? Afraid of what you’re twelfth century pedigreed family will say about your boyfriend?” He flipped a poker chip with an arrogant smirk.
“Are you afraid of what her big sister will do to your overlarge nose?” Bellatrix cut in. She threw Narcissa’s hand away and grabbed for her wand.
“Not especially.”
Andromeda flipped a hand through her hair. “You should be. Bella, you’re crazy, and Lucius, if you think she’ll hesitate to put you in Mungos for a month, you’re crazy too.”
Bellatrix was too mad to notice the pleading way Andromeda looked at Lucius, as though they understood something, but Narcissa saw it.
“Andromeda shut up. If he’d doesn’t take my word for it, I’ll be more than happy to show him.” A slim hawthorn wand was now centred directly, over the third mother of pearl button on Lucius’s shirt.
Catastrophic damage to life and property was very possible. Narcissa spoke up, pushing away Lucius and Andromeda’s silent exchange.
“Bella, stop it. Lucius, will you please just be the gentleman and walk away?”
“That would imply that she,” he jerked his wand towards Bellatrix, “is a lady.”
Before he’d finished his gesturing, his arm was knocked back at a sickening angle and he spun around once, straight into a stone column. Bellatrix still held him at wand point, gripping the scratched handle hard enough to turn her knuckles as translucently white as his face, but in her fury she had only attacked him with her hands.
People noticed the commotion one at a time, so Lucius was up and ready by the time all the guests gathered around gawk at the spectacle. Their school peers had seen the rivalry between mercurial Bellatrix Black and Lucius Malfoy, the young man two years her junior whose pastime it was to provoke her reactions.
The fight commenced, and the two traded insults with twice the frequency of their spells, which were also quite rapid. Andromeda appeared to watch the fight, but her frenzied thoughts, so far from that room, were obvious in her eyes.
No one stepped in to separate the combatants until Bellatrix fell over Lucius‘s already unconscious form, half her body immobile, with a stream of scarlet down the left leg of her robes. Andromeda pulled the wand from her. Narcissa helped Bellatrix to a seat while the crowd dispersed, listening to her rant, which was exceptionally incoherent ,even considering that she did not have the use of half her face.
Cygnus Black approached Bellatrix ominously. He was slightly shorter that her uncle Orion, but just as stern. Narcissa was used to him as a Quidditch teacher and doting father, but as he fixed his oldest daughter with that stony look, she recognized everything anyone might be frightened of about him.
“Finite. Bellatrix?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Tell me, why do you feel it necessary to attack Lucius Malfoy at every function where you‘re brought within a twenty yard radius of him?” Cygnus eyed Lucius, who the house elves were hauling back to his friends, his head smacking the stone as they pulled him by the feet.
Their voices were so low that Narcissa didn’t hear Bellatrix’s rationale. Bellatrix went on in a forced low voice, waving her hands as she made her point. When Cygnus beckoned Andromeda over, Narcissa actually closed her eyes for a second and pleaded with fate that her split-second conjecture was wrong. No suck luck.
The quiet conversation escalated from low hisses to “raised voices”. Cygnus never shouted--he was intimidating enough without it, and Bellatrix was still composed enough to refrain from doing so in her father’s presence.
“You’re what?” rang through the hall. Bellatrix took Andromeda by the robes and shook her.
Andromeda held her hands up. “Just like I said. With Ted Tonks. I’m sorry.” She really looked sorry. Tears streaked her face, and she spoke with the most peculiar tone for one declaring her love. She said everything like she was giving a eulogy, like she yearned for her words not to be true.
“Come to your senses, Andromeda. End whatever it is you had with him and this problem will cease to exist.”
“Wouldn’t you like Blaisdon?” Bellatrix changed her approach, trying to entice her with the estate Rabastan Lestrange swore he would buy.
“It’s a gorgeous house, but no, I wouldn’t like it that much,” Andromeda choked in a desperate attempt to compose herself.
“Think of your name,” Cygnus enunciated.
“You don’t think I’ve thought about it? I have. Still no.”
“I know you, you’re not like that. You don’t do this, you don’t mean it,” pleaded Bellatrix.
Andromeda shook her head sorrowfully.
Without warning, Bellatrix seized Andromeda again and threw her into the base of the stairwell, the anger on her face not yet camouflaging her shock. In time, the turnover from pain to wrath would become instantaneous.
“Blood traitor! You’ve betrayed us all! You’ve betrayed yourself!” The words leapt from her like warriors released into battle, losing all regard for the heads she turned.
Narcissa watched incredulously as Andromeda threw away everything they were taught since the time when they spent afternoons together in their sunny nursery, amongst dolls and prettily-lettered storybooks. To leave now was to reject their family, everything they were born to carry on. That was personal. Andromeda was leaving Narcissa.
Andy pinned Bella with one last, regretful look before she fled from the hall. No one bothered pursuing her--Narcissa may have, had she acknowledged her before she left, but she was already gone. Right then, she assumed that it was because Andromeda loved her less than she loved Bella. It took her years to realize that she was thinking only of running away as quick as she could, that it was hardly personal, and after that Narcissa couldn’t stop wondering what would have happened if someone had followed her. This plagued her until she saw Andromeda again, twenty years later, and decided that everything may have been for the best.
**
“Why do you think she did it?” Narcissa was shivering in the snow in the long shadow of an elm tree, watching Bellatrix as she propelled herself higher and higher on the rotting rope swing. Even in silhouette, the edge in her body language was apparent, her kicks more violent than necessary.
“Its obvious, isn’t it? She fancied herself in love with that mudblood and refused to hear reason. Damn stupid.” Here voice was bathed in acid.
“But how could she leave like that? No warning, just gone.”
“No warning? What kind of warning could she give us? ‘Oh, by the way, next week I’m turning my back on the family and running off with a mudblood, please pass the cream!’”
“You don’t even care, do you?”
“Not for a blood traitor, no, not particularly.”
“She was our best friend until last night.”
“When she threw it all to hell.” Bellatrix swung her legs hard, soaring past Narcissa’s head by inches.
So no more was spoken of it all afternoon. They actually enjoyed themselves in the library with hot chocolate, once Narcissa had persuaded her to come in from the snow. They sat in the window seat hour after hour, with the breathtakingly white grounds as a backdrop for books hundreds of years old. Narcissa was fond of the classics, and thought she had her sister sufficiently occupied with Le Mort D’ Arthur, but she didn‘t see Bella slip into the alcove by the window to find Most Powerful Magic of the Ancients: A Compendium, her father‘s most treasured volume.
Andromeda was never long forgotten, though. Any reminder of her, be it a photo not yet destroyed or a song on the wireless, ignited a firestorm from at least one person. Cygnus and Druella were the calmest about it. It was a loss, but there had to have been something off about her from the start, and Walaburga was flooed to strike her from the tapestry immediately. Much as Bella tried to deny any emotion but hatred, or perhaps anger, Narcissa caught her back in the library the next day, searching for ways to mend magical needlework.
To leave the family for any reason was still inconceivable to her, so she questioned her relationships and Andromeda’s sanity in turn. The way it seemed to Narcissa, it was her or him, and she chose him. It took her decades to see that the ultimatum was entirely one-sided.
Dear Andromeda,
I do not understand what you did, but I though we understood each other. Perhaps not--please explain. I’m sure Mother and Father will listen as well.
Toujours,
Narcissa
Unwilling to say how much the family was willing to compromise on Ted himself, Narcissa didn’t mention him. Andromeda must have sensed the slight, for her single-line response, scrawled on the back of the original letter, was hardly one to build bridges.
I doubt it.
--Andromeda
**
An invitation to Andromeda's wedding, dispatched months later, came nowhere close to reconciling her with her sisters. Bellatrix would have marched down the aisle and killed the groom, statute of secrecy be damned, but Narcissa was the first to find the invitation and in a moment of softness settled for a properly-worded decline on behalf of her family. As she wrote out the phrase “regret that we are unable to attend” in looping blue script, Narcissa was the only one of the four who meant it.
If the Black family’s correspondence was strained, or even vicious, it was nothing compared to the rumours that flew about. One day, Alexandra Montague told Lucinda Prescott that Druella’s daughter ran away for a Muggle, a real Muggle. By the next week, when Rachel Brendan communicated the news to her friend in Scotland, the Muggle had morphed into Rabastan Lestrange, who could never love her back due to an incestuous relationship with his brother. Heartbroken for Rabastan, Andromeda eloped with a Squib courier boy from the Muggle Liaisons Office.
‘Forbearance’ was a word thrown around frequently by Cygnus, while Bellatrix threatened all manner of illegal spells on the perpetrators of such rumours. When an unpleasant upstart of a journalist named Rita Skeeter actually had a story called “Black Secrets” printed in the Prophet, it was too much. The tamest details she put forth set Andromeda in the middle of a complicated love pentagon between a vampire, a Muggle, Lucius Malfoy, and both of the Lestrange brothers. Narcissa snatched the rest of the article while Druella was working on the front, so her mother was spared from the second, considerably raunchier page that elaborated colourfully on said love pentagon and questioned unseemly details of the lives of all those involved.
It was finally decided that Narcissa would go down to the Prophet office to see what could be done about its obvious journalistic flaws. Everyone was afraid of the fodder Bellatrix might provide even the most scrupulous reporter.
“Make a good impression,” reprimanded Cygnus, quite out of character.
Narcissa spent a long time in the Prophet’s lobby, wondering which office she ought to go to. The society page sent her to public relations, who advised her to just go deal with the assistant editor, who sent her to the editor himself. She got the feeling that most of the employees who were so anxious to see her leave actually believed that Andromeda left in protest of Narcissa’s relationship with their fourteen year old cousin Sirius.
It seemed that, the closer you got to the top, the longer a lunch break you were entitled to. The editor’s office was empty at half past two, the time Narcissa got there, and the sign said ‘gone since: eleven-forty-three’. She was about to go send a Howler from the comfort of her own home when the door opened. Witch Weekly hit the table immediately when she stood up, eager to give the editor a piece of her mind. She was certainly shocked, and quite frustrated, to see Lucius .
“I’m waiting for Mr. Whitby. Someone really must put an end to these horrible articles.” She stared pointedly at him, the culprit.
It galled her to hear him sounding so unapologetic. He hated Bellatrix, obviously, but he had no right to a grudge against her entire family. Surely he was congratulating himself for dragging the scandal into the public eye, drawing attention away from Abraxas’s recent indictment. What appalling selfishness.
“They really must, its disgusting. The things they print about my father, that‘s why I‘ve come down here,” said Lucius.
“Those things are true.”
Lucius glared at her, and she glared right back. After a few minutes of unbearable strain, she threw down her second magazine and marched out, slamming the door behind her. The sound of the ‘Gone Since: Eleven Forty-three’ sign falling to the ground made her irrationally satisfied.
At home, her parents were quite sympathetic to her efforts, resuming their high talk of grace under pressure until Druella’s voice was drowned out by Bellatrix declaring yet another reason for Lucius’s brutal murder.
Narcissa resigned herself to waiting out the gossip. She would have been very put out by the lack of good company at parties, but Cygnus announced that they would depart early for their holiday in France, mercifully removing his daughters from the warm weather social circuit that was so heavy on floral dresses and chatter over lemonade.
France seemed like a great opportunity for Narcissa and Bellatrix to move on, but it didn’t work out that way. Not with the proximity of their house to the Lestrange’s summer destination that made it far too easy for Bellatrix to go jaunting off to pick up God-Knows-What from Rodolphus Lestrange, her current love interest. The man spoke like he was trying to ration every word, and had an unsettling way of listening that made Narcissa assume he was scoring everything anyone said, to assess their innate worth as human beings sometime later on. She was not about to try to police Bella’s relationships--look how it turned out with Andy--but she didn’t want anyone close to her tied into the Dark Lord’s agenda. It was accepted that Bellatrix and Rodolphus were tied as tightly as anyone could be, but she was still afraid that Rodolphus gave Bella one more reason to stay.
With Bellatrix removed from her daily company, and months separating Andromeda from her reach, Narcissa grew lonely. She started out so ready to embrace Andromeda’s apology, but she finally had to acknowledge that it wouldn’t come. Whatever Andromeda had with Ted Tonks was lost on her, and Bellatrix’s relationships with Rodolphus and Dark magic in general were increasingly foreign. So she was almost pleased when she encountered Lucius Malfoy at the English Wizarding Consulate. Like him or not, at least she understood where he was coming from one moment to the next.
“Malfoy,” Narcissa said curtly.
“Black, why are you here?” Lucius leant his head on his hand while his filled out a neat stack of papers in the black folder on his lap.
“International Apparition. I’m through with France.” It was early June, but Narcissa had had more of their lonely French chateau than she ever wanted in her life. Much better to go back to England where she had friends and pray that Estelle Warrington would eventually find out about her own husband’s affair and lose interest in the Blacks.
“Really? I’m here to see Mr. Somebody-or-other Rosier, he’s something like Evan’s great, great uncle. My father needs…something from him.”
“Its called a postal service. You might try it.”
“Humph. It’s rather pressing, best through with it by tonight.” He carried on writing while he spoke.
“Oh. I’ll see you at Charlotte and Brandon’s wedding, I suppose.”
“Yes, certainly. Goodbye, Lucius.”
It was obvious that he was distressed, and after a few days of the Daily Prophet, she realised why. The press had moved away from Andromeda’s scandal as chronicled in in the society column to focus on Abraxas Malfoy‘s long awaited front-page embezzlement trial.
“Can you believe Fudge?” said the maid of honour, Amelia. “The half-blood, how dare he?” Her tone made it sound as though a bubtuber was the high court examiner.
“I don’t know. I certainly don’t like Fudge, but at least this will stop Malfoy and those ridiculous shoes. I don’t care how much he spent on them, they are green snake and they are horrible.” Cathy’s dark eyes cast a disparaging look at Lucius’s shoes, which were indeed refracting emerald rays of light.
“I always wondered where they got that much money.”
“Oh, be fair, the trial’s only just started.”
“Right.” Lucia snorted disparagingly.
Narcissa didn’t gossip with much energy, unable to distract herself from the fact that this conversation centred around her family in March at the Avery’s wedding.
She wished she had Bellatrix, even with all the complaining that came with making her presentable, but instead she wrote her parents letters mentioning what Bella said about Greece. In reality, she received weekly reports in a very superior tone, offering assurances of older-sisterly guidance and alluding to all the brilliance she and Rodolphus were uncovering in ancient Egyptian and Celtic dark magic. Bella told her that she understood if Narcissa was frightened of the power at first, that it was understandable, but that she would help her see how great it was, used correctly. Only Narcissa’s newfound fear of Bellatrix prevented her from ending their often disturbing correspondence. Narcissa didn’t want to hear about blood curses from her--she wanted her to do up the hooks on the back of her dress and make a competition out of who could get the most dance partners.
“Narcissa?”
“What?” She felt a tap on her shoulder.
“Dance?” Lucius asked with uncharacteristic hesitance, staring down at his own outstretched hand.
“Oh, I--yes, alright.” Very businesslike.
“Why me, Lucius?” she asked once the music started.
“What?”
“Why are you dancing with me?”
“Why are you letting me?” He stepped so quickly that their hands almost pulled down a gold curtain.
“Because I wanted to ask you that.”
“You surprised me with the way you handled things.”
“You though I would crawl into a corner and cry about what happened?”
“Well, yes.”
“Why am I dancing with you?”
“I was pleasantly surprised,” he amended.
“That, and no one else will stand up with you now that you’re not only new money but illegally acquired new money.”
They went on, carefully box-stepping around the worst of what they wanted to say.
"Sorry," said Narcissa when she realized that he was about to sit down. It wasn't his fault, not really. The secret was never going to last.
But he dropped her hand first.
"What?" he asked once he heard her.
"Please stay," she took his hand back. He was an exceptionally good dancer, at least when compared to the other dolts with at least three or four left feet. It wouldn't hurt now to talk to him, maybe push a few of his buttons in the process. It may even make this damn night move faster than the interminable dirge of graceless dancers and surface level conversation.
**
Winter found Narcissa in far more different circumstances than she had ever seen. Unfamiliar as it was, she was not unhappy. The initial shock of separation had abated, and it was too early to feel the lingering deficit of her sisters. Caught up in the Christmas festivities away from home, moving on seemed easy. Wasn’t it true that life passed in stages? It would go nowhere without a catalyst, so why hate something so natural, so inevitable?
If nothing else, that mantra let her taste the Malfoys’ elves’ perfect sugar cookies without lingering on comforting, irregularly shaped ones that she and Andromeda made faithfully year after year. After they were deemed unsuitable to serve at Druella’s Twelfth Night Ball, the girls sent them out to their friends by the box, awed at their own accomplishment.
The Malfoy’s New Years ball was teeming with people, as always, so many guests that a few absences were barely noticed. Narcissa, lovely as always, sat by Lucius, his gift of a string of pearls wound around her neck, simple and perfect.
The conversation drifted around her, letting her pick up what she fancied, and leave the rest to float out into the dusky night. Abraxas had, by some miracle, been acquitted. Mungos now listed him as a Supporter on their wall of plaques for especially generous donors, but of course no one would mention that. Surprisingly, Narcissa felt no need to point out the relationship. Business corruption was nothing. From the way the men talked, the political climate was quickly escalating, poised for all out war at the slightest provocation.
“And where will you be, Malfoy?” Asked Walden MacNair, clearly in jest.
“I think you already know that.”
“What about you, Narcissa? Or are you answering to Malfoy too nowadays?” He shook the table with his laughter.
Narcissa blushed. “I don’t think I’ll go out and attack tomorrow, if that’s what you mean.”
The answer made MacNair secure enough to describe at length the way he’d like to kill a Muggle-lover like Arthur Weasley. Wary of him, Narcissa occupied herself by making a study of Lucius’s nose on the napkin in her lap until the elves cleared the table and shoved the napkin into her wine glass.
Much later in the evening, Lucius pointed over the second story balcony to the courtyard, where a clearly inebriated figure struggled to hoist himself out of the fountain. Behind him, Malfoy Manor was beautiful, with towers and masonry, and probably worth a few fortunes.
“He’s having fun,” Narcissa giggled.
“You think?”
“Sure.”
“You want to try.” Lucius seized her suddenly by the waist and moved toward the railing, as if he’d jump off.
Narcissa noted the distance to the rough stone of the driveway and held in a shriek as she twisted away from him.
“Come on, have your fun now.”
“I’ll take my fun later, thanks.”
“What if there is none?”
“What?” Why all the seriousness at eleven thirty at night, after the champagne?
“Well, as we discussed at dinner…” he trailed off.
“That?” I’m sorry to say, but isn’t it a little…premature?”
“Its high time.”
“For what? What are we lacking?”
“Its strange, Narcissa, but its wrong. Our world is in a seriously wrong direction.”
“You sound like Bella,” she dismissed.
“No, I don’t. She scares me. But this is what I’m doing, so if you don’t--”
She held up a hand. “Whatever you want.” Nothing would come of it, anyway, she was sure.
Lucius was contented. He took her by the shoulders and gave her a kiss that had a curiously foggy effect on her mind. The conversation would have been totally forgotten if Nott hadn’t come up behind him, interrupting with a commanding “Lucius!”
“Yeah.” He turned around.
Nott snorted. “You need to come, now.”
“Oh. Narcissa, I’m going now, so I’ll see you on Wednesday?” His eyes were wide. Any colour he gained in his face since his father’s acquittal was lost.
“Sure, bye.”
He rushed off, and she could dark cloaked shadow striding through the courtyard below, hauling dripping-wet Avery with him as he went.
After living with Bella, for whom week-long unexplained absences were a way of life, she had a general idea of why he left. It was infuriating to have people disappearing on her constantly, as though they thought her too stupid to realise why, but what could be done? Their lives were their own, to make allegiances as they saw fit, but she hoped that they would never leave her forever, like Andromeda did. Just as the second stage in her life was becoming comfortable, maybe this was the third, swooping down to bombard her with more. She could last, but not all alone. Why was everyone drifting off now, to leave her stranded somewhere just a bit off centre? If she couldn’t anchor them, she would have to put her faith in them and pursue.