I Always Wondered Why
Blonde not Black. Blue not Black. Cream not Olive. I always wondered why.
Now, going through Mama's things, I find a box. A box that has been magically sealed, yet, unlike the rest of the things I have spent the morning trawling through, that has no markings whatsoever on it.
I cannot help myself. Curiosity killed the cat, as my governess used to say, but I still cannot help myself. This cat will just have to die. With a swish of my wand, I open the box and step back hastily. Nothing jumps out to bite me, but I still proceed with caution. Where Mama is concerned, it is always best to be on your guard.
Blonde not Black. Blue not Black. Cream not Olive. I always wondered why.
Rummaging around in the box, I take out the first couple of things and hold them up to the light. They are baby clothes, like the ones I used to wear. Yet they are not the ones I used to wear, for they are monogrammed C.C.B instead of N.C.B.
C.C.B. What does it stand for? My sisters are B.Z.B and A.H.B respectively, or were, before Andromeda went and got herself disinherited. I am puzzled, but not for long, for, digging further down in the box, I find a little locket, engraved with the words Capella Charity Black.
Blonde not Black. Blue not Black. Cream not Olive. I always wondered why.
Capella Charity Black. Who could she be? These baby clothes, traditional though they are, are too new, too pristine, to have been made for any but the newest generation of Blacks; my generation of Blacks. These must have been made for some child in my generation. But then why don't I know of her? What happened to her?
A sheath of lilac leather – and the papers it contains – answers my questions.
Blonde not Black. Blue not Black. Cream not Olive. I always wondered why.
There are five pieces of parchment inside, but it is the letter that catches my eye and so I pick it up to read it.
"Dearest Druella,
I cannot even find the words to tell you how grateful I am to you for agreeing to this. If word got out that I had committed such a terrible sin, then I would be ruined. Ruined forever. Titus would divorce me and I would never see our children, Augustus and Agrippina, again. I would never again be a part of the inner Pureblood circle.
And that I could not suffer, for it would take me away from him. From Elbereth.
You know what he has been to me, sister, since the days of our childhood. You know what he was and what he is. You know, as no one else does, that he is not just my brother, but also the father of my child. Of little Irial Narcissa."
Despite myself, I shriek at these words and almost try to throw the damning scroll away from me, but I cannot. As though by some terrible force of nature, I am compelled to keep reading, to find out more.
"Once again, please accept my condolences for the loss of little Capella and thank you. Thank you a thousand times over.
Your ever loving sister,
Siofra Beauty Rosier."
Without really knowing what I am doing, I let go of the paper and watch it flutter to the floor, head spinning. My aunt Siofra, my beloved Aunt Siofra, is not the woman I thought she was. She is not the perfect Pureblood wife and mother she seems. Rather, she is a woman controlled by dangerous passions; dangerous illicit passions for her own brother. I am disgusted!
And yet, at the same time, I am still morbidly curious. I want to know what my mother agreed to. What little Capella, a child I have never heard of until this moment, has to do with all of this.
The remaining papers; two birth certificates, one adoption certificate and a death certificate, answer my questions.
Blonde not Black. Blue not Black. Cream not Olive. I always wondered why.
One birth certificate states that Capella Charity Black was born to Cygnus and Druella Black on June 19th, 1955. The other states that Irial Narcissa Mercy Rosier was born to Elbereth and Siofra Rosier on June 21st, 1955. The death certificate merely says "Capella Charity Black, daughter of Cygnus and Druella Black, died June 20th 1955. Cause unknown."
The adoption certificate, however, is much more helpful. Dated June 22nd, 1955, it explains that Irial Narcissa Mercy Rosier has been adopted by Cygnus and Druella Black and "will henceforth be known as Narcissa Chastity Black."
Signed and sealed in the presence of witnesses, my mother and aunt chief among them, it explains everything it is meant to. And more. As I read it over and over, other things, little things that have always nagged at the back of my mind, fall into place and begin to make sense.
Blonde not Black. Blue not Black. Cream not Olive. I always wondered why.
Like why my mother never spoke about my birth the way she did of my sisters'; why my Aunt clearly preferred me to Bella and Meda. I thought she only doted on me because my mother did – she always followed Mama's lead – but now I know better. I was her daughter, not her niece. I was the daughter she could never acknowledge; the daughter society forbade her to have.
It also explains why I look so like a Rosier and not a Black. I am no Black. I am a Rosier through and through.
Blonde not Black. Blue not Black. Cream not Olive. I always wondered why.
And perhaps that is for the best. It makes little difference to the purity of my blood, after all – the Rosiers are almost, though not quite, as pure as the Blacks, and we are far less tempestuous. We are often referred as the family of crystals. The family who shows no emotion, who is made of ice. We, not the Blacks, are the family who can best keep a secret. And this secret must be kept. No one can ever know. Ever.
An icy determination, as fierce as any of Bella's fiery passions suddenly sweeps me and I burn every last scrap of the papers, reducing my mother's last, most damning secret, to ashes.
Then I rise from where I have been kneeling, and brush off my skirts. It is only later, as I cross the hall to the front door of my childhood home, 7 Duske Knight Square that I realise I am still holding the little silver locket.
Sweeping my hair, my golden Rosier hair, aside, I reach up and clasp it around my neck, a last memento of little Capella Charity Black and her cousin, the girl I ought to have been, Irial Narcissa Mercy Rosier and then sweep from the house for the last time, ready to face the world as the woman I have become.
Ready to face the world, once more, as Narcissa Chastity Malfoy nee Black.
Blonde not Black. Blue not Black. Cream not Olive. I always wondered why.