She stalked her way across the long hallways of Black Manor, searching for a glimpse of platinum hair that would show her sister's whereabouts. A pale hand raised itself in front of charcoal eyes – her own limb taking action while her mind danced around possibilities – and pushed against the last door that she considered looking through. Narcissa wasn't there.
That only left one room in this house and Bellatrix didn't feel ready enough to enter those grounds. Not after everything that happened last week. The screams still rang against her ears, their intensity overpowering even the ones she had heard since she was a small girl.
But she needed to see Cissy and sighing with resolution, she ploughed on. Counting the stairs as she climbed, her knees wanted to buckle in the face of agony but Bellatrix made herself reach the third floor and softly lean on the nearest wall. Perhaps she could send a Patronus to her sister, calling Narcissa to her and so she wouldn't have to witness whatever had become of that room. Was she still capable of casting it? Even as she raked her mind, procuring that one perfect memory that she could always count on, Bellatrix realized it was useless.
That so precious memory was tarnished and so were all the others that contained her first sister. Andromeda.
Growling as her chest seemed to try and squeeze itself; the dark haired witch finally came face to face with the half opened door. Narcissa's soft sobs could be heard despite how thick the wood that separated them was and Bellatrix felt that tell-tale sign of sadness tinge her own eyes. Putting her chin up, she strode into the room with all the strength she could muster but the sight before her shattered every single pretense she had in store.
Narcissa sat on the floor, her ivory hands tight around one of Andromeda's favourite scarves. The fabric fit snugly against the blonde's neck and its ends hid themselves between long fingers. Bellatrix clearly remembered this scarf after all, she had given it – with Cissy's approval of color – to her sister years ago.
The sixteen year-old was oblivious to Bellatrix's presence, tears running down her cheeks like rivulets run through valleys. Her crystal blue eyes held so much sorrow that looking in the mirror seemed impossible since Andy had left. She couldn't eat, she couldn't sleep. Narcissa kept being haunted by their parents' words and Andromeda's face as she left to never return again. Her mind replayed what Bellatrix said, the scorn in which she called their sister a blood traitor even as Narcissa could see the heartbreak behind black eyes.
She could read her Bella like no one else and she knew that her sister missed Andromeda as much as she did, even when she refused to give time to time and grief over their loss. Andy was as good as dead to them and they would probably never see her again.
"Why would you want to be here?" Bellatrix finally said, breaking the trance her sister had started with no conscious thought.
"Bella? Why are you here?" the blonde looked up, eyes still watery and lower lip quivering.
The older witch ignored Narcissa's enquiry, eyes scanning the room that once belonged to her middle sister. Everything was the way it used to be. Except for the dirt and the blasted bookshelf. When their father found out about Andromeda's ideas of love for a muggleborn, he destroyed her beloved books in a fit of rage while Andy faced him with tears but a resolute heart. She would stay with Ted no matter what, her parents' approval withstanding or not. And so she had left with nothing but a suitcase full of her clothes – something Narcissa had to beg for Druella to permit.
Now, weeks later – and no house elf attention to this room, it looked like abandonment. It was a physical representation of what Andromeda had done to them. Of what she had destroyed when she decided that love was more important than blood. Family blood.
"What do you ever see here, Cissy? Doesn't it make you feel worse than you already do?" she asked in a quiet voice instead, watching as her little sister got up on shaky legs and moved silently to the bed. It looked clean despite the state of the rest of Andromeda's possessions and Bellatrix knew that Narcissa had been here before. How many hours had she spent crying over their lost sibling? How much suffering would she have to endure?
With no answer coming from Narcissa, Bellatrix finally looked her way and watched as the blonde spread her body against cool maroon sheets and kept her firm hold on the scarf around her neck.
Perhaps it had been a lapse of judgment to come here today. If she only knew better and had agreed with Rodolphus' pleas to only disclosure their wedding to her family in their weekly formal dinner; Bellatrix wouldn't have to know about Narcissa's despair. That only made her head throb with a dull ache but still, her sister had a right to know that at least one of them was following through their family's wishes. That one of them would be loyal until the end to the Black blood.
"I come bearing good news" she continued, in a false cheery voice that made Cissy look up and analyze the woman before her. Bellatrix had changed in the two years that separated her from Hogwarts. She was an adult now and her clothes showed everyone in a room that she was not to be messed with. Her hair fell long against her back, the ends curling around themselves like a rose bush. Narcissa supposed that her involvement with that Dark Lord had something to do with the fire that danced inside those black pits of her eyes.
"What is it, Bella? Is it Andy? Has she changed her mind?" Narcissa asked in a small, but clear voice. Her hopes insist on trying to get the upper hand against the despair that rules her existence now but a voice inside her head – that sounded too much like Bellatrix for her comfort – smashes them before the real Bella can continue. She knows that Andy will never come back to them. She knows but still, she hopes.
Snarling, Bellatrix advanced on her sister, stopping just before she could pounce on the bed "Forget about that no-good traitorous bitch, Narcissa. She left us for good, do you understand?" her voice rings too loudly in the quiet room and the blond girl flinched in the face of her sister's rage.
Seeing the blonde's distress is what broke the barrier holding everything Bellatrix had kept bottled up. Hands clench tightly against themselves and her eyes fill with some unknown emotion "How can you stand to be here with it all? How can you stand to suffer for tha-" she tries to continue but Narcissa is looking at her too intently and she fails. It had to be her remaining sister to witness her downfall.
With a broken sob escaping past her lips, Bellatrix falls down onto the bed, a tear stubbornly making its way down an alabaster cheek. "How can you drown yourself in all this regret?" she asks in a murmur, knowing the blonde will hear her anyway. Her hands come up to hide her face and finally, as if she was never allowed, the dark witch begins to cry.
Narcissa is quick to pull Bella against her smaller form and they end up in the middle of the bed, holding each other like a lifeline. Their tears fall and mingle, wetting the covers while their sorrow permeates the air.
"I-I miss her too, Cissy. I'm always thinking on whether she's well or hungry. Or-" Bellatrix sobs again, her nails clinging to her sister's robes. "Or?" the blonde asks, her hands softly running through Bellatrix's hair.
"Or if she misses us as much as we do her" the brunette finishes, her eyes closing in the finality of revealing one of her secret turmoils. "Oh, Belle" she hears her sister whisper and feels the blonde's arms tighten around her.
They were always a united front. At Hogwarts, in front of their parents, when facing society's judgment – and now it was all broken. A third of them was missing and no one could ever fill that role ever again. Bellatrix's mind knows she ought to be stronger. Ought to do something other than cry while intertwining her body against her younger sister's. But some things can't be helped as quickly as we wish them to be. Not everything was solvable with fire and blood and the slashes of a wand.
The two sisters hold each other for what seems an eternity, their hearts beating in tandem as breaths slow down and even out – sleep, at last, coming to soothe over the wounds left behind by their sister.
A/N: This site completely kills all my formatting. Please excuse this first attempt on the HP world and be kind. I missed writing and this has been on the works for months now.