Author's Notes: Prompts and Challenges at the end, as usual
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Word count – 1,324
Gone
Narcissa had been bathing in sunlight sieved through the canopy for what seemed like hours. She had ran outside in a manner sure to earn her a cutting glare from her Mother, but she was not home, and her Father was locked away in his study, so Narcissa had the run of the house. And her sister Andromeda, of course, but she hadn't seen her that day yet.
She had burst through the French doors, hopped down the half a dozen steps that separated the terrace from the gardens, clinging parchment and quill to her chest, and ran to the shadow of her favourite tree. Summers in Britain weren't the best, but the sun was out and warm, the sky was as blue as her eyes, and the grass was soft under her feet once she had kicked her shoes haphazardly. So she was sitting against the tree, toes wiggling in the breeze, her fingers toying with her off-the-shoulder braid, while she mused about the words she would put to the parchment currently spread on her thighs.
She reached for the quill with her right hand, only to find that she had forgotten to bring ink. She huffed at first, thinking about having to go all the way back to her room to get it, before she remembered that she was of age now. She was free to use her magic. She removed her wand from her robes and pointed it at her bedroom window, summoning the inkpot. She watched it break the window, and soar through the air in her direction. She shrugged her shoulders, thinking that a simple Reparo would make everything right. She did take a second to notice that there seemed to be movement in her bedroom. Andromeda probably. Discarding the matter, and thinking that it was good that her sister was finally out of her own bedroom, she started writing to Lucius.
Once the letter was ready, she rolled it carefully and set it on the ground, rising from the grass to stretch every bone and muscle. The heath was making her drowsy, and she wondered if she would dare be caught asleep under the sun by her Mother. She decided she wasn't quite brave enough to do it, like Andy surely would; nor quite provoking enough to drive her Mother into a rage, like Bella would most certainly do.
Instead, she picked up her things and walked to her left shoe first, sliding her foot inside, and then to her right shoe, a couple of yards away, and took to the house. Once inside, she sat at the piano and caressed the ivory keys, before deciding that she was too sleepy to play. She needed to do something to stay awake.
Narcissa hummed her way up to the second floor, all the way to Andromeda's door, and smiled at finding it open. She wouldn't mind talking perhaps, and Narcissa missed talking to her like they used to.
She knocked, calling her sister as she twisted her neck to peek behind the door.
No one answered.
She called her sister down the hallway, but still there was no answer.
"Andy?" She called once more, as she entered her own bedroom, "Andromeda, this isn't funny, where are you?"
There was only silence, interrupted by the breeze ruffling the letters left open on her desk. She saw it as a small envelope drifted from its wooden surface to the plush fur on the floor.
Narcissa used sharp movements to fix the broken window and bolted from her room, a sinking feeling on her heaving chest. Something wasn't right. Andromeda wasn't just not there. Andromeda felt gone.
Narcissa checked Andromeda's bedroom once more, opening every door, looking into every drawer, the evidence pilling up, and her brain denying it all. All things Slytherin, all things Hogwarts had been left behind, all but the little things Narcissa knew meant something for her sister. All things Black were still there too. She made sure she wasn't in Bella's now vacant bedroom, and then allowed her brain to panic.
She tossed all notions of propriety that had been ingrained into her since before she could remember and started running.
She ran all over the house, pushing doors wide open, hearing them hit the walls sometimes and not caring one bit. She couldn't find her, and she simply had to. She couldn't let Andromeda go, not to him, she would never see her sister again if she went to him.
At some point, she lied straight to her Father's face, telling him that nothing was wrong, that she was just looking for Andy, and that she apologised for all the noise. She forgot about it the next second and went about looking, slamming doors and turning over objects as she ran into furniture. She ran past the French doors once more, every worry in the world on her mind. Maybe Andy had decided that the sun was nice, too. Maybe she was sitting under a tree, tempting a squirrel with a nut like she was wont to do. Maybe she wasn't gone yet, maybe she had a chance of holding her back.
Looking out over the lawn, her sister's dark curls were nowhere to be seen. No summer dress dancing a waltz with a braid in the breeze.
Still, her mind refused to accept the truth. Andromeda could not be gone. So Narcissa ran into the maze made of high bushes that the Black sisters knew so well they could run to its centre with their eyes closed. She ran faster than she ever had, running into every dead-end, eyes wide open, her heart wishing, with every beat, for her sister to be somewhere in there, lost. She made it to the centre, and her sister was not there.
Narcissa ran back, her vision blurred by tears already, her voice becoming hoarse from screaming for her sister again, and again, and again. Screams that were not answered. She ran until the air burned in her lungs, searching everywhere in the gardens, going back inside, determined to turn the house inside out if she had to.
Her Father stopped her. He was furious at her behaviour, but she could not hear him. All she wanted was to keep looking, to keep running so that the truth couldn't catch up with her. He was still berating her when her Mother arrived. She still wasn't listening.
"Why won't you help me look for her?"
She screamed the question at her parents. For the first time in her life, she had screamed at her parents.
"Because you know what she has done," Druella's voice was danger made whisper, an alluring threat designed to beckon her closer so to better inflict punishment, "and you where she has gone."
"No! No, no, no!"
She was screaming again, not caring that her Mother was seething where she stood, that her Father was clutching his wand. She took another look at her parents, and decided that she could be brave and provoking after all. She would be punished for it, but she had to keep looking. Her mind insisted on the notion that Andromeda was just missing, that she simply had to look harder. But the truth was dawning on her and she had to stop it.
She left the room screaming for her sister, desperate to find her. She never made it past the following door. A jolt of hurtful magic breaking her resolve to run, making her crumble to the hardwood floor. The pain that followed, from both spell and reality, unstoppable the two of them, pinned her to the ground.
The truth was loud and clear, despite her inability to accept it.
She had seen the room emptied of her belongings.
A simple Reparo could not fix it.
She had seen the little envelope on the floor of her own room. Cissy it said.
And she would never write Andy again.
Author's Notes: Prompts and Challenges
Assignment #6 Media Studies Task 10 Labyrinth Write about searching for someone who is missing
Jewel Challenge: Amber Necklace - Write about being out in the sun
365 Prompts Challenge: 9. Action - Running
Caffeine Awareness Challenge: Iced Coffee - Write a story set in the summer