The 'Easily Bruised' Competition

Pairing: Remus/Narcissa

Prompt: I've heard everything that I wanted


He'd seen her everywhere since his second year, so much so that he couldn't be certain when it was he had fallen in love with her.

He had ignored it at first, the way sometimes she'd draw his eye, how he liked to watch her sometimes as she giggled at something a friend said. He'd shrugged off the funny way she had of appearing in his dreams, how he admired the curve of her lips and the small fault in her smile, the way the left side of her mouth smiled wider than the right.

It was only when, in his sixth year, Remus would close his eyes and see her there, a smiling imprint like a negative of a photograph taped to the back of his eyelids, that he realised he had fallen.

Certainly they had met, sometimes they had even talked. She and Regulus had spent some time with Sirius and the rest of the group back in the sunnier days of the second year, when the lines were blurred and divisions were less decided. Remus remembered blissfully sunny summer evenings when the two had sat and watched the boys on their silly broomsticks, competing for this or that, he remembered with a disquieted remorse how she had laughed at his words. How her laugh had sounded like bells.

He wished he had known then how she would make him feel, the torment she would put him through.

Sometimes he would sit in sad silence, staring wistfully out of the window of the common room and seeing nothing except her, saw her in the wind which swept up the leaves and whipped them into a gay dance, saw her in the peaceful waters of the black lake, saw her in the brilliance of the setting sun. Often his behaviour was noticed by his companions, and Sirius or James would come up and ask him what was wrong. Often he pretended it was all part of his furry little problem, however mostly he avoided James. Sometimes he worried that James recognised in him what he knew James felt for Lily.

So it was, when for five years he had watched her without a word, that the attraction became too great and Remus could no longer watch from afar. It was in the library that he first found her sitting alone at a table, surrounded by heavy tomes on Ancient Runes, eyebrows knotted, where Remus took a place on the other end of the table and pulled out a History of Magic essay he had no intention of writing.

She smiled cordially as he sat, recognising him despite separation of their houses as the death tolls rose.

It took almost an hour for Narcissa to slam down her quill and groan so loudly Madam Pince made a sharp shushing noise the disturbed every piece of paper within a five-metre radius.

"Trouble?" Remus asked eagerly, looking up from the paragraph and a half he had managed to write in-between stolen glances. Narcissa nodded pathetically. "Mind if I take a look?"

"Be my guest," she sighed, and then muttered something under her breath which sounded vaguely like should have taken Divination.

Remus translated the runes in a few seconds and pointed out her mistake, then sat back down, momentarily satisfied.

It only took another few minuted before Narcissa groaned again.

"Need more help?" Remus offered with a sympathetic smile. Again she nodded, though this time she simply pulled out the seat beside her own and offered it to Remus.

The two spent the next hour puzzling over the runes, falling into thoughtful silence at harder passages before building up to excitable climaxes as the translations fell into place, laughing and clapping when finally they solved their problems. When they had finished, Narcissa flashed Remus the most dazzling of her smiles.

"This bit, it's about the dragon, the most majestic and terrifying of creatures. That's it." He determined, satisfied, "Not wrong either, dragons are the most protective of creatures. They'll die before letting anything harm their young, before letting anything bite them," before letting anyone turn them into a werewolf because they were stupid enough to insult one, he thought bitterly. He trailed off, shutting the book and handing it back to Cissy, who hadn't noticed his expression darken.

"Thanks, Remus, you are the absolute best," she assured him, placing her hand lightly on his in what was supposed to be an emphatic gesture. However, where their skin met a shock was sent right to their respective hearts and Remus felt his breath catch in his throat and his heart momentarily forget what it was doing.

The atmosphere, a moment ago light and pleasant and meaningless, thickened and tensed and all at once the smile was gone as Narcissa retracted her hand and frowned ever so slightly. With unnerving and unbroken focus she stared at her fingertips and then at Remus, as if trying to make a connection.

Finally, confused and a little scared, she met Remus' eyes for what felt like the first time

Clarity.

Suddenly, Remus could see it in her eyes. She understood the undeniable and inconceivable truth Remus had spent these last years trying to fathom and order into something which made some sort of sense. He watched her eyes prick with tears and her breathing shorten as she realised the cruel and beautiful web fate weaves. Slowly, she placed her hand back on Remus'.

Her eyes fell closed as she felt again what Remus had been trying to rationalise ever since it had happened a few moments earlier, the shock of something chemical which made his heart leap when he felt her skin brush against his own.

"I don't understand," she said quietly, even though it wasn't true.

"I'm sorry," Remus replied. And then Narcissa shook her head stubbornly, collected her papers into a messy pile and left without daring to look back, lest she be reminded of what she was so determined to deny.