A/N This was written for Ikrona's Nightmare Competition. My character is Narcissa Malfoy.
I always forget to write it, as I assume it's a given, but no, I don't own anything that you'd recognize, unfortunately.
"'Night Andromeda!" Narcissa called down the hallway. She heard a muffled response from her sister, Andromeda's room, and pulled her covers up to her ears. Sufficiently warm, Narcissa drifted off into sleep.
3 hours later...
Her eyes opened quickly, and Narcissa tried to regulate her breathing. Her body was covered with cold sweat, and her heart was beating at 100 kilometers an hour. She'd just had another nightmare. For the fourth night in a row.
Just like the last times, she had dreamt in abstract, the feelings of loneliness and abandonment being the most dominant. There were also voices, sounds that appeared in the dream, and although she couldn't recall any specific phrases now, she couldn't get the sound of nails on a chalkboard out of her head. This nightmare was worse than all of the other ones she had ever had, and Narcissa decided that she needed to talk about it with someone. Not her mother, though, and certainly not Bella.
Andromeda.
Her older sister was definitely the best choice, as Narcissa knew Andromeda's soothing voice and calming words would help her put the nightmares out of her mind.
She shivered, and decided to risk getting out of bed and getting caught. After swinging her legs over the edge of the bed and walked to the room next to hers. Narcissa knocked on the door softly, and opened it slowly. Once she closed the door behind her once again, she made her way around the pitch-black room following the wall with her fingertips.
"Hello?" she whispered, trying not to awaken any other member of the house. There was a heavy silence, and try as she might, Narcissa couldn't hear her sister's breathing. That was strange, as one would imagine that a sleeping person's breathing would be fairly audible in a completely silent room. "Andy? Are you okay? Are you there?" She wanted to kick herself for not being bright enough to remember her wand, something elementary. She settled on continuing to use her fingertips to navigate her way to where she expected Andromeda to be.
The large, extravagant, lavishly decorated bed where Andromeda had slept since she was young was empty.
Many thoughts flew through Narcissa's head as she wondered where her sister was. The confusion of it all made her vulnerable. In fact, she didn't hear the footsteps at all, and only turned around - wand-less, defenseless - because someone tapped her on the shoulder.
Thankfully, it wasn't some dark wizard set on killing her and her whole family, but Andromeda holding a wand whose tip had been lit up with a "lumos". Narcissa launched herself into her sister's arms, but almost immediately recoiled. Something wasn't right with Andy, she wasn't returning the hug.
"What's wrong?" she inquired, the cold, empty feeling from the dream - nightmare - coming back. It filled her with a sense of dread; her mouth went dry, her breathing grew shallower.
This was a normal feeling for Narcissa - she was Bellatrix's sister, after all -, but never, in all of her years of existence, had she ever felt this way around Andromeda. The fact that it was happening meant that something horrible was about to happen, and Narcissa didn't like it one bit.
"'Cissa, I-I" Andromeda let out a long sigh, and Narcissa's heart sank - it was the same sigh her mother had used when informing the three Black sisters that their father had been murdered. "Do you remember me telling you about Ted?"
Narcissa nodded hoping that Andromeda was about to say something along the lines of "I'm over him".
"Mum want's me to join the Death Eaters - the group that supports that idiotic man... what do they call him? Voldemort or, er, aha! The Dark Lord. You know, our father was a part of the group. Well, I absolutely refuse to offer myself up for slaughter, and I think that the ways of the Death Eaters are absolutely barbaric, so I'm running away with him."
Narcissa's breath caught in her throat. She fervently hoped she had misunderstood her sister's words. "Who?"
"Ted, of course! Keep up."
"B-But you can't leave! Mother will be ups-"
"Does it seem like I care about our mother - the one that apparently wants us all to be murdered, or become murderers?" Andromeda was obviously struggling to keep her voice low.
Narcissa shook her head and let out a very quiet "No."
"That's right, I don't" Andromeda tried to regulate her breathing again, trying to control her temper. "So I am leaving, tonight."
Narcissa's eyes widened, and filled with tears. She grabbed onto her older sister's robes, and held on tightly. Andromeda was the only remotely sane person in her family, and she was just going to leave.
"Were you even going to say goodbye?" Narcissa croaked out.
Andromeda just whispered "Nox", kissed Narcissa on the forehead, and dissaperated with a pop.
Narcissa grabbed at the air that had replaced her beloved sister, and sank down to her knees.
"I-You have to hear about my dream. Please, don't go. Is this why I dreamt that? Is this why I dreamt of loneliness, because you were going to leave? Don't leave me!" Her shouts turned into sobs.
But no one appeared by her side to comfort her, like Andromeda would have done, had she still lived here, and it brought on a fresh wave of tears.
After she calmed down, Narcissa climbed into Andromeda's bed, and fell asleep, breathing in the floral smell of her sister's perfume.
She didn't really believe in premonitions, and found divination a complete waste of time, but she couldn't help but wonder if her dream - dreams, actually, as she'd been having nearly the same nightmare for days - had been a sort of sign.
In the morning, Narcissa didn't answer her mother or Bellatrix's questions as to where the other Black sister was, or why she was in her old bed. What could she say that wouldn't make her sound stupid. Certainly not "I had a nightmare and needed a hug" or "She ran off with her not pureblooded boyfriend".
For weeks - months - she moped and walked around with an air of despair. She felt the way her dreams - which she never dared to forget - had, and she almost never spoke. That is, until her mother married her off to some man that she'd never met before, and was forced to be the perfect pureblood wife.
She hoped that Andy was okay, even though she had broken a promise they had made as little girls; that they would always be there for each other. Andromeda had broken the promise, but Narcissa didn't blame her - there were times when Narcissa wanted to run away as well. She never did, as she didn't want to desert her beautiful baby boy - the one that had all the same features as Andy.
She had never been able to live up to the standards of her sisters; she had never gotten a better mark than Bella, or learned a spell as fast as Andromeda. She had never been as ambitious as Bella - to go seek out the Dark Lord; or as independent as Andy - to leave behind family traditions to be happy. She had followed the traditions, been average with everything, but she was happy - in her own way. Content, that was a better word. She was content.
Until nightfall, when nightmares haunted her and she cried for her sister.
Lucius, her husband, did more than was asked of him by never mentioning her nightly fits to anyone else.
A/N Wow, that was such a horrible ending, I can't believe it :) I couldn't think of anything better so, forgive me.
LOL. I hope this fits in with the nightmare challenge, as it doesn't really focus around the nightmare... whatever, it was fun to write :)
Review?