One Third
It's as if the final tastebuds of your tongue have been seared away, the last bit of color drained from your life. They carry your husband from the Manor and slowly everything is slipping from it's well-placed composure. The house is haunting, echoing, but not frightening because you aged in a house far more nightmarish. You slide through the corridors like a ghost, half feeling the cool wood as your hand glides over the banister.
You were born the middle daughter, trapped between Andromeda's loyalty and Bellatrix's severity. You were the pretty one, the blond in between two brunettes. Never as smart as Andromeda, never as witty as Bellatrix - but no one could trump you when it came to the beauty, the charisma.
Some even claimed you were the innocence of the unholy trinity you and your sisters formed. You were tarnished to begin with, restrained by everything. Your darkness was deeper than Meda's, for she lived purely in her life and understood her role as model for the following children. You were considerably lighter than Bella, however, but where she wore her evil within her eyes and foreboding prescense, you kept it hidden within yourself.
You learned to play the piano at a young age and always kept your hair primly proper. You spent your childhood splayed out in the back lawn, always outside amongst the flowers and grass, the sun shining onto your games. You had imaginary fairies that you belived would come banish the darker halls of the house you lived in. There were daises in your hair and dreams clouding your head.
But you grew, and aged, and tried to forget those days of naive innocence. You were a Hogwarts student and the Slytherin common room was as if the children's table at the balls had just multiplied, and without supervision. You fell in love, hard, with a boy. They all loved you, and Andromeda as well, but you chose Marius McNair and considered never looking back.
Then Bella came to Hogwarts, casting the omnicient demeanor of true Slytherin as simply as she could. An eleven year old with such a foreboding prescense, cursed a Ravenclaw within her first week and a Gryffindor within her first train ride. The night Slytherin pride and order was restored by way of your baby sister, your cousin ripped a whole through your brilliant family tapestry. Sirius had been sorted into Slytherin.
Marius was a thing of the past during Bella's fresh reign. The unholy trio created by your beloved sisters and yourself was something feared and envied, loathed and meticulously observed. And it just felt so natural, your 15-year-old arms linked between Meda's, at 16, and Bella's, at 14. You three were gorgeous, powerful, and linked so tightly by the blood bond.
You'd always loved Regulus, your cousin, but not in the way Bella and Sirius loved one another. It was a lighter bond, you felt more prone to protect the younger boy. Rather Sirius and Bella loved to revel in the defeat over one another and the tainted, impassioned kisses they tried too hard to hide. Regulus came to Hogwarts a year past Bella, re-establishing the Black cousins inside the rightful Slytherin house. At those times, Sirius was beginning to slip further from the family and Bella was starting to get darker within herself.
A year after the height of the unholy trio's power, the Black pentagon began it's descent. Sirius left far close to Christmas, leaving Regulus to pick up the scattered pieces of his mother's sanity and guilt - and the final straw to push Bellatrix straight into the arms of Tom Riddle. Andromeda shook with fear one night, and while she threw herself into her books and studying and Prefect duties, Bella dipped into the darkness. You were sixteen, and you took a day or two off, suprisingly finding Meda's boyfriend in Hogsmeade.
He was much senior to you, twenty-one and oh so gorgeous. You didn't really know what was happening, other than your life being twirled into dizzy circles. But Lucius, despite whatever his prior reasoning and even his loyalty to Andromeda, listened to you. Cleaned you up, reassured you of what in your life was right and how wrong Sirius was. And then, you fell in love.
Some chaste kisses were shared before he finally severed his romantic ties with Meda, and then you had found the Prince Charming of your dreams. Few years later your life would reach it's untimely pinnacle of defeat, and fear. You used to drink coffee, a new habit of which Meda had addicted to you, with your sisters every Tuesday. Pushing aside whatever wedding plans and brunches to wield your way through the crowds to sit and drink the bitter liquid with your beloved.
You remember the time, the booth, the taste in your mouth when Bella, who'd been darkening excessively infront your eyes, appeared with her face more gaunt than you'd remember. She came to inform you of Meda's betrayl. The coffee seared your tongue and suddenly the world stopped spinning, because if someone as smart as Meda was gone, were you making the wrong decision?
Regulus's death had been so earth-shattering only months before, you felt so hurt and alone with a cold Bella attempting to comfort you. Your tastebuds never regrew from that one morning, only further to discentegrate upon hearing of Sirius's conviction. Then of Bella, too much, but the tears hadn't fallen in their acidic manner in so long. You birthed a son, the air to the Malfoy fortune, someone to pour your love to.
But within his fine golden-white tresses, you wonder if his thoughts will regulate on the world outside that isn't black and white, Slytherin and Gryffindor, pure and unpure. Within his silver-steel eyes, you wonder if he knows how much his Mummy suffered to give them to him, how many pairs she's seen that she'll never be allowed to see again.
No matter how many extravagant meals you try, no matter how many luxurious drinks you sip - you doubt your taste will ever return.
Author's note: whee, 'Cissa! Hope it wasn't redundant of Legacy, I tried hard to make it not. Some of the things discussed here are further discussed in my other Blackfics, so check then out please. Semi-companion like to 'Breathing,' so I might do a you-Bella and make it "feel" or something. Wouldn't that be odd? Anyway, sleep I need. Bye.
Review, please?