Gravestones
"It's wicked to throw away so many good gifts because you can't have the one you want." - Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
i.
Her hair is wild and untamed and free, just like her. It tumbles down her back and curls outward like it's trying to escape; to run as fast as it can, as far away as it can.
It fascinates her, the curls that have a mind and a life of her own, springing out nowhere and everywhere. They are leading her in the right direction; away from here, away from the blonde Malfoy woman with a manor as a prison. Her manor is large, rich, and lavishly decorated, and yet she feels the bars on her own prison are only released when she sees the curls.
Sometimes when she wakes up and they are right next to her, it's only a moment do they look black instead of brown. They still crackle with electricity either way, but she is brought back to a time when she was youthful and beautiful and even though the world was never really hers, some days it sure felt like it.
Narcissa can see the fire in the girl and saw the ice in her sister, and she wonders which one, inside of her head, will destroy the other.
ii.
There is depravity, and there is insanity, and the girl with the curls knows one can lead to the other. It is her own depravity that lead her to her insanity.
The same wind still chills her skin and her head is still slowly poisoning itself with thoughts, too many of them, but things are different. She is not innocent or naive – she knows, and the thoughts and feelings, they're killing her.
But she would rather be living and dying in a spectrum of colours than living forever in a world of grey. She sees the spectrum in the blonde hair and the blue eyes and the curve of her lips, and thinks that insanity is both brilliant and daunting.
But Hermione was a Gryffindor, wasn't she? And daunting never scared her away from anything.
Iii.
They move and they turn with the intensity of nothing she has ever felt before – the grey of the manor walls has been ingrained into her skin, and she feels nothing.
Except when she's with her. There is fire burning in her veins, and suddenly she's sixteen again, and she's in her sister's bedroom, and Bella is grinning so wide her face must hurt, stalking her like a predator to prey.
"Be quiet," she says, but there's a manic grin on her face as Bella tries her best to make her loud. And oh, does she ever succeed.
But she is not Bella; she is a creature of her own. She is flames that burn bright and big, crackling sparks that sing of warmth and comfort and love. Bella is something entirely different; she is a glacier.
Narcissa cannot decided whether she prefers the cold to the warm; the cold is her past, the warmth her future, but neither can live without the other.
iv.
If the girl with the curls digs too deep, she can feel the guilt. She's abandoned her family, her friends, for what? This thing, this comfort that stemmed from after-effects of the war after a visit to the manor one rainy June day.
There is blonde hair and pale, unblemished skin, though, and she forgets; her guilt and her grief is buried in a shallow grave. If she runs too fast, she'll trip over it, but right now they're going at the perfect pace.
She walks all over the shallows grave she has dug herself with her brilliant spectrum and her insanity and the thoughts that are killing her slowly.
She is overwhelmed – she always had been. That big, brilliant brain of yours, her mother had always said. She had thought it was her downfall – maybe if she wasn't so smart, such a know-it-all, she might have actually been able to make some friends.
Hermione knows that friends wouldn't have gotten her here, though, in a pretend castle with a pretend princess who's a little to old to fit the role.
v.
One time she says Bella, almost screams it, and the words feel foreign on her tongue but does it ever feel good.
The girl with the wild curls like chocolate looks at her, and looks at her, but she does not ask, and for that, she is grateful. But the girl knows; she can see it in her eyes, that knowing glint that is unnerving on a woman so young. She knows about Bella. How does she not hate her? She should be old, so much older, because it isn't fair that she saw the world for what it was in so little time.
But maybe it is fair. Not too much, but just a little bit. She saw the colours not all at once, like her, but one at a time - everything was grey, first, and then it was green, and after that, it was black and brown and blonde. A spectrum.
They continue on, and the syllables don't come tumbling out of her mouth – instead, they wait on the tip of her tongue, never to be said.
The two of them continue on, and there's still fire in her veins. Something's missing, though, and she can feel it, the hollowness that starts in her chest and spreads and spreads until it'severywhere.
Narcissa knows now she can't replace her sister with her lover. You cannot replace a weed with a flower, or a flower for a weed; it's unfortunate for her that she can't tell which one is which.
a/n - I have updated this fic - I was feeling a little self-conscious about it, and I thought I'd make it a bit clearer. For Uni, through GGE. I really hope it's okay - I wasn't sure on this one, if it was too metaphor-y or poetic-y, if I'm making any sense. /sigh