"We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken." - Fyodor Dostoyevski
Narcissa Black looked at the old woven tapestry bearing the famous quote from an old Russian pureblood. She had grown up with it. Right now though, only one word stuck out. Sometimes. Sometimes we encounter these people.
Most times though, we are forced with each other. Her only positive thought was that at least she had seen and spoken to him. How could her parents do this to her? She was thirteen! She left the tapestry room and went to see Andromeda.
"Hey...you there?" she called through her older sister's door.
"Yes. I am just finishing my summer homework for potions. What do you need?"
"I need to talk."
"Very well, come in. Take a seat. What is bothering you?"
"I'm engaged."
"In your studies I hope," Narcissa looked at her sister her eyes communicating what she cannot say. That at thirteen years old Narcissa Black had a fiancé.
"Please tell me you aren't serious! After the fight Mother, Father, and I about a potential engagement for myself at fourteen, they expect you to accept this of you at thirteen? Merlin's beard! Who is the lucky bloke though, Cissy?"
"Malfoy. Who else put the perfect pureblood prince. I would bear a perfect heir you know. Because I am so obviously thinking of heirs before I start thinking about my OWLs." Narcissa had tears forming in her eyes as she realized her fate. "I've never had the chance to date. To have a crush on a cute Hufflepuff that I will never be able to consider dating but do it anyway. I don't get to be a teenager talking about boys in the dorm."
Andromeda took her sister in her arms, " I know sweetheart. If you really don't want to I can go discuss this with Mother and Father on your behalf."
"I'm always the good one though. Mother and Father rely on me to continue the Black line in a matter worthy of my heritage. You know it is both my destiny and my demon to marry and be a perfect pureblood wife. They have lost all hope on you marrying, I am surprised they have restrained themselves from blasting your name off the family tree and disinheriting you. They obviously know nothing about Ted.
"And Bella, well she is the perfect pureblood, the chances of her having children though are non-existent. The weight of the family tree is heavy on my shoulders. I want a romance like the one the tapestry talks about. I want to look across the room and fall in love. But that is not what is expected of me."
Narcissa spoke with wisdom beyond her years. She had managed to both comfort herself and leave herself more distressed then before. The tears still clung to the edge of her eye but she refused to let them fall. If she was to be engaged she would have to start acting like a woman of good society instead of a girl with high society parents. Her childhood may be robbed from, as was love, but they had no meaning unless she chose to give it.
Andromeda looked at her sister with pity. Knowing she could do nothing to change her sister's mind she gave her a hug. Sometimes you have to let the people you love in life go and meet their demons, even if said demon is an arranged marriage. All she could hope now was that her baby sister found happiness.
Many years later Andromeda went back to Grimmauld Place with Harry Potter. She went into the tapestry room. There she saw a scorch mark where her name had been right beside her baby sister's. She saw the line stretching from Narcissa's name to Lucius' and then to Draco's.
She traced the thread with her fingers she thought about what her parents had done to her sisters. As she went to leave the room her eye caught a very old and dusty tapestry, bearing the quote Narcissa had read all those years ago.
Andromeda stood in front of this tapestry longer then the one bearing the Black Family Tree. She thought about the irony of this being in a pureblood home, where everything this quote said was taken away. A home where love was a fairy tale and marriage was forced.
She had let her sister confront her demon and now she was left with her own. Andromeda would never forget the fact that she didn't fight Narcissa more on the marriage, she had let her baby sister's demon consume her and become her. And that would never leave Andromeda alone.
Written For the Big Brother Competition which is run by a very lovely person who is totally awesome and super mega foxy awesome hot :)