"Mother."
Narcissa turned so slowly and deliberately she was sure she could hear her bones grinding against one another. She felt as though she had aged a century in the five years since the war ended.
"Yes, Draco?" she asked, looking at her son, standing in the doorway. Silently she pleaded for him to bring her good news. She prayed every night for her son to be okay. She had lost everything in the war, except for Draco. He was all she had, and she needed him to be alright.
"Mother, Astoria's going to have a baby."
Draco did not smile. But he wasn't frowning either. Narcissa, looking at her son, seeing him in the way only a mother can see her child, sensed that Draco did not know how to feel.
Narcissa smiled. It was an awkward smile, the first in a long time that she did not have to plaster onto her face. It was a smile of new beginnings. She held out her hand gracefully, and her son walked dutifully towards her.
"You are going to be a father, Draco," she told him, and the love she felt for her son in that moment was nearly overwhelming. Draco's expression was still blank, and she motioned for him to sit down. "Tell me what is troubling you," she commanded, not unkindly.
"I can't do it, mother," he said simply. "I've made so many mistakes. I can't do it."
Narcissa sighed. "Do you know what it means to be a parent, Draco?" she asked rhetorically. Her son shook his head. "To be a parent means to take care of another. Your baby will be an extension of you that hasn't made mistakes yet. It is something in your life that you did right. Because when you have a baby, that baby doesn't care who you've hurt in the past, it only wants you to love it and take care of it."
Draco stared at his mother in awe. "Is that…is that how you felt when you had me, mother?" he asked hopefully.
Narcissa stared at her son, truly seeing him for the first time in a long time. "Draco, that is how I feel each and every day."
There is no noise. Her grave is silent, alone. It is prominent in it's horrible glory.
Many of the death eaters were not granted the honor of a tombstone, and she was supposed to be no different. Neville would never say why he payed for a personal grave be made, only that it was something he had to do.
No one has ever visited this particular grave, and it is doubtful that anyone ever will. Her husband is dead, and she never had any children. Not that anyone would have come to mourn her anyway.
She was evil, it's true. One of those rare, truly corrupt people, comparable even to the Dark Lord himself. She was half-mad with evil, drunk with it. She lived for it.
She died for it.
It was rare for there to be a moment of silence, and when the silence came, so did the sadness.
Andromeda Tonks knew the war was over, knew that it had been years since she'd been asked to take sides, forced to chose between her family and her friends. She had made that decision, and she had honored it until it cost her everything. Everything, that is, except her grandson.
She never regretted siding with the Order. Her family kicked her out long before she joined, and she knew it was for the greater good. But there were bad days. And on the bad days, she wondered, if she had sided with her family, would her daughter and husband have died?
The answer, of course, was simple. She wouldn't have married Ted, or had a daughter. So even though she would have been spared the grief of losing them, she also would have been denied the joy of having had them in the first place.
Feeling a thousand years older, Andromeda pulled a shawl across her shoulders and locked the door on her way out. It wasn't something she wanted to do, but she had to anyway.
"Cissy."
Narcissa was as surprised to see Andromeda as Andromeda was to see her.
"Andy," she replied, using a long-lost childhood nickname their mother had never approved of. Andromeda smiled, the small ghost of a long-lost friend.
"Why are you here?" Narcissa asked, and still neither of them looked at each other, preferring to keep their eyes glued to the sister that couldn't answer them. There were two flowers on her grave. One black rose from each of them.
"Why are there Black roses, Cissy?" Andromeda asked her older sister. "I thought roses were supposed to be happy."
"There are all kinds of roses," Bellatrix replied, laughing. "There is no reason."
"There is too!" Andromeda cried indignantly. "There are red roses because they're in love, and yellow roses because they're happy, and pink roses because-"
"That's so stupid!" Bella scoffed. "Who told you that?"
"I did, Bella," Narcissa interjected, giving her sister a look that clearly said 'she's young, give her a break'. She turned her attention towards Andromeda. "Andy, do you want to know what makes black roses special?"
Andromeda nodded, her eyes widened in anticipation. Narcissa bit her lip, thinking for a moment. Then…
"Well, not too long ago, we had an ancestor named Cedrella Black. And Cedrella was young and carefree. She didn't have to worry about bloodlines or family names, because her family was rich and pureblooded, and her fiancé's family was rich and pureblooded. Little did she know that her grandson would become a blood traitor. But that's a different story.
"So anyway," she continued. "On the night before Cedrella's wedding, she was terribly worried, because she was afraid that when she left to live with her fiancé, she would forget all about them, and they her. But her mother told her that wouldn't happen.
"and to prove her point, she created a rose. It was a special rose, because it was the first Black rose. And Cedrella charmed it to last forever, so that she would forever carry on the Black family legacy."
Bellatrix, for all her big talk, was listening to the story just as intently as Andromeda.
"She's gone," Narcissa said after a long silence.
"No she isn't," Andromeda replied. "She hurt people, killed people. That will never be forgotten. But she was a good sister. And that will also never, ever be forgotten."
"She's so tiny," Bellatrix said, her eyes melting into happiness for the first time in forever as she watched her baby niece giggle.
"I still can't believe that you're here," Andromeda said disbelievingly. She wasn't at all sure how to handle the fact that her sister was sitting in her living room.
"I can't stay long," Bellatrix said, and Andromeda wondered if she was imagining the pain in her voice. "They'll notice that I'm gone." Andromeda didn't miss the fact that Bella's eyes never left Nymphadora.
"I want a baby," she said suddenly, without warning. She looked at her sister, and Andromeda saw years of pent-up horror in her eyes. "I had to come and see my niece."
"But…you're getting married," Andromeda supplied helpfully. "You could…"
But Bellatrix was already shaking her head, strained from the effort of holding back tears. "I have devoted my life to the Dark Lord," she said coldly. "I have given myself to him, and if I were to ever have a child…no, I could not devote my child to him as well."
Andromeda didn't know what to say. Apparently, she didn't need to, because at that moment, Bellatrix looked around suspiciously, pulled her cloak tighter so that it hooded her eyes, and left.
"She was," Narcissa replied, a ghost of a smile crossing her face as well. And so they sat there, three sisters again. They didn't speak, as they used to. But it was okay. Because they were there.
That was the last time Andromeda, Narcissa, and Bellatrix ever saw each other. But it was okay. Because they were sisters. Because while one of them had been a traitor, one a murderer, and one a liar, they were all sisters.
Written for the What You'd Never Write Challenge. Hope you enjoyed! Please review!
Disclaimer:remialcsiD