"Thirteen."

How cliché it was. A child, belonging to the aristocracy, practicing the harp. Rays of light shone through crystal, reflecting rainbows on to her ivory skin. Raven curls, untamed, masked her face and caught her tears. It was beauty. She was beauty.

"Fifteen, sixteen."

She wore mother's favourite evening gloves – the white satin ones that ran the length of her lower arm. She did so because I asked her to. Oh, the fuss that will be made tonight when mother finds them with the fingers fused together with dried blood.

"Nineteen."

The music had been drowned out by the other one ever since I locked her out. Yet, not once did the harpist falter. She was a good girl. She never protested when I wanted to watch. I just sat behind her, counting the droplets out aloud.

"Twenty".

It wasn't quite the record. One more song should do it. I kissed her shoulder, and her fingers fell silent. Once more I ran my hands through that black thicket of hers, massaging sore skin, and twirling ringlets around knuckles. She had worked so hard. Just one more push.

Promising to return soon, I gathered a bunch of manuscripts and walked over to the locked door. My darling sister was insistent, but unlike the others in the house, I never let her get her way. I leaned my back against the door feeling the violent vibrations. As her voice reached another octave, I pressed on my tragus and held it there. Her magic was no match for mine but her lungs certainly were.

" – Bella!"

"Who is it?"

The thumping stopped. Manuscripts fell from my hand, and were slid under the door with my shoe.

"What do you think we should play next?"

"Stop it! Just stop! You're hurting her!" She swore as she kicked the papers back under the door, crumpling them all.

"Boieldieu? Excellent choice. Thank you, Andromeda."

Within seconds I was seated behind her again. I could feel her reading the notes as if they were letters. She always held her breath when she concentrated hard.

"When you're ready, Cissy."

Her entire frame shook as she inhaled. We were going under again. Deep under the waves.

"Twenty-one."

O~O~O

"You seem…different today. Wouldn't you say so too, Dromeda?"

Andromeda took one look over the morning paper and sighed.

"Why yes, Bella. She does."

How sweet. She was humouring me this morning.

"What could it possibly be? Let me think." I scraped my chair across the floor and walked over to my youngest sister who stood there with her arms folded across her chest. She hated this routine. But I wasn't going to stop until I had my way. I would have my way.

"Hmm, it isn't your spine. You lost that last year – " indeed she did. Ever since she accepted that rock that sits upon her finger like some kind of malevolent tumour of courtship. Can you imagine the look of horror on the other's face when she found out that Narcissa had been wed before her?

"Bella, give it a rest."

"No, no, it'll come to me." I dragged my fingers through her silky, straight hair. It made me sick. I just wanted to uncage it. Set it free. If I could change her mind once I could do it again.

I pulled those blonde strands until her scalp stung and the vertebrae in her neck strained. Animalism wasn't a sin.

"You used to be so pretty." I purred.

Each word triggered tiny bumps that cascaded over her skin. I had done it many times over – but they had been consequences for another reason.

There wasn't a word in the dictionary that described how I felt. How I could hate someone I loved so much. She had changed her dress, her name, her perfume, her future…but she didn't have to change her hair. What was she now but a façade of her former self. It was rejection's final blow.

O~O~O

"One."

Away from the eyes of the tortured and the bitter, we sat together by the harp. She played for me. Like she had done in another life. It had been so long. A decade or even more. I had forgotten her in that time and was left with night terrors.

"Two."

Malfoy had taken her away. He kept her from me. But I searched; non-stop until I found her. Just in time. She had ran towards me and held me until she could no longer cry. Her blonde hair draped over me the entire time, it was a sickness. She told me what would happen. What he was forcing her to do. I promised her I'd keep her safe. I took her place. My arm branded instead of hers.

Then I lost her again.

Amongst it all, I forgot what I was fighting for. A kiss left me for dead in an unforgiving cell. But the Dark Lord had come through, like he promised. And I was free. Free and alone.

Hardly recognisable I was. Frail bones clothed in rags. Teeth decayed and nails broken. But she found me and took me home.

You seem…different today. I said to her.

"Five"

We counted together. Music flooded my ears as I rested against her back. My head nuzzled in her hair. Chocolate brown dominated what was left of the blonde. We were going under again. Deep under the waves. And it didn't matter this time if we ever resurfaced.

She had come back to me.

A small project written within a couple of hours. Something to distract me from my unfinished chapters. I love the concept of Narcissa's hair. Especially how blatantly different it is compared to Bella's.