The Warrior, the Star and the Little Flower
Summary: Druella's opinion of her three daughters, their futures and how she wishes their lives could be spared the pain that was sure to be given to them. Set in the early 1960s.
Disclaimer: All characters belong to JK Rowling.
A/N: In a one-shot mood and I'm not sure why. I'm really stuck on all my other stories and hopefully these will help to give me inspiration and will also act as a stopgap until my writer's block goes. Thank you to my ever brilliant beta, Bellatrix Nellie Le-Lovett.
Shattered. It was the only word that rang through Druella Black-Rosier's mind as she crept through the door to the room shared by her fifteen-year-old daughter, Bellatrix and her thirteen-year-old daughter, Andromeda. The first thing she noticed was that Andromeda's bed had not one person in it, but two. She immediately recognised with a sigh from the curtain of blonde hair that the small lump in Andromeda's bed was none other than her youngest daughter, seven-year-old, Narcissa, who must have crept from her own bed in the nursery into her sister's, which she often did when she had nightmares, an occurance that happened more often than not.
She slowly pushed open the door and stepped inside, her quilted heeled slippers making a soft click upon contact with the wooden floorboards. She eventually reached the pair of beds and sat down gently on the side of Bellatrix's bed, stroking her eldest daughter's wild midnight curls.
Suddenly, a thought struck the woman: What would become of her little girls?
She thought first of Bellatrix, the beautiful warrior. The name that she and her dear husband, Cygnus, had chosen for their first-born child seemed to suit her more and more by the day. She was so fiercely protective of her sisters, especially little Cissy, that most boys of her own age feared the day that she would learn the Dark Arts, as she undoubtedly would. Worryingly so, while Andromeda spent hours poring over the latest celebrity boys in Witch Weekly, Narcissa on her lap, Bellatrix was sat down, her covers pulled right up over her head, with three lit candles and a pile of books taken from her father's study, gazing lovingly at a picture of young Tom Riddle, a Dark wizard who was slowly but surely rising to power.
Her future was painfully clear to Druella. Her only interest was now and probably always would be the Dark Arts, particularly Riddle's movement, the group that was now growing a reputation as fearsome as their name. The Death Eaters. Bellatrix was obsessed with them, as was Rodolphus Lestrange. She may have had appalling grades, but Bellatrix wasn't stupid. She knew that she would be marrying Rodolphus Lestrange soon after her graduation from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where she was, naturally, in Slytherin house with him and his brother, as well as many other children from the Pureblood inner circle. She showed no affection to the boy, but Bellatrix rarely showed affection to anyone, let alone non-family members. In fact, Druella was certain that their marriage would be about nothing but duty.
Her mind drifted to her second daughter, Andromeda. She too had been named after a star and for many parents she would be a star, but not for Druella and Cygnus. Andromeda's grades were average. She passed every class, but only by scraping Acceptable grades, which was still miles better than her elder sister, who was still achieving Poor at best. But to be absolutely honest, Druella was scared for her. She was a brilliantly sociable person, Andromeda, but Druella couldn't shake the feeling that she was socialising with the wrong sort of people. She had been associating with many of the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, even a few of the Gryffindors and some of the people Druella knew for a fact weren't of Pureblood. Quite a few of them, Druella had heard from Bellatrix, were actually Mudbloods! A daughter of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black cavorting with Blood Traitors and Mudbloods! It was simply unacceptable and Andromeda was building herself a reputation that could be honestly destructive.
Her future was relatively unclear to Druella. Well, actually, it just might have been clear but not wanted to be seen by her worrying mother. Andromeda already knew that she was engaged to Waldon MacNair, but she didn't really seem to care about it. She had continued with her actions and Druella could feel her daughter slipping away. Another thought entered her worrying Rosier mind. The boy. Bellatrix had taken great pleasure in informing her parents about the young Hufflepuff boy that Andromeda had been spending the majority of her free time with. Even at the tender age of thirteen, Andromeda knew what she wanted and she seemed to have planned out her life, a plan which certainly included the Tonks boy, which had introduced another problem. Based on information from her eldest daughter, the Tonks boy was not only a Hufflepuff, but a Mudblood! Andromeda knew this, however, so if she did decide to elope with the boy instead of staying and marrying Waldon, she would be disowned by Walburga as so as she whispered 'I do'. Druella knew that she would eventually lose her little girl.
Thoughts of her little girl brought her to the tiny girl clinging to Andromeda as she slept. Her little Narcissa. She had given her youngest daughter the nickname of ma petite fleur, because while Bellatrix and Andromeda echoed the Black family resemblance, Narcissa was the perfect Rosier jewel. As opposed to her sisters' wild dark curls and charcoal eyes, Narcissa's beautiful blonde curls and sapphire eyes marked her as truly Druella's daughter. She was also marked as a Rosier by the tradition of the youngest daughter being given the name of the first flower seen after her birth. The first time Druella strolled into the garden a few days after Narcissa's birth, the first flower she saw was a daffodil. Hence the name Narcissa. Narcissa was so different to her sisters. While they were loud, she was quiet. While they were boisterous, she was demure. While they were outgoing, she was shy. One thing she couldn't be faulted on was her intelligence. Even though she had not yet attended Hogwarts, she could perform most third year charms and potions with relative success and had even learnt to produce a Patronus Charm, a feat not even her eldest sister could accomplish.
It was her future that was clearest to her mother and Druella truly didn't know whether to be happy or scared for her. Narcissa had found a very good companion in young Lucius Malfoy, a twelve-year-old Slytherin second year. She seemed to truly love him and he her, and Druella could see that they would make a truly good match. Also, even though she was the youngest, Druella was already certain that her youngest daughter would make an excellant mother. She loved younger children and she regularly played with her four-year-old cousin, Regulus and truly enjoyed mothering him. The only problem with her dream future was that Malfoy had also shown a great interest in Riddle's 'Death Eaters', meaning Narcissa's dream could potentially come crashing down about her ears at any moment. But she could make it work, if she used her intelligence. And that was the other thing. Pureblood housewives were famed for being seen and not heard, something that Narcissa was more than competant at, but Druella had a warming feeling that her little flower would not let any man outspeak her if it concerned her family.
As Druella stroked her youngest daughter's waves, gazing at her three children, her three little girls and wondering what would become of the warrior, the star and the little flower.