This chapter has been entered in The Ultimate Pairing Drabble Competition.
Pairing: Ted/Narcissa
Word Count: 330
Prompt: caged
They were trapped in cages; the both of them, bound by what society expected them to be.
She was the beautiful daughter of wealthy pure blood supremacists, betrothed to the heir to one of the richest families of the wizarding world. He was the muggleborn husband of her disowned elder sister. By all rights, they should have been the bitterest of enemies, and yet, they weren't.
They'd first truly laid eyes on each other when he'd come to collect Andromeda from her house the night she left. Of course, they'd bumped into each other at Hogwarts, but that was different. Two students from different houses, one Slytherin and the other Hufflepuff, both in different years coupled with widely contrasting political beliefs and blood status...they hadn't really paid much attention to each other.
But on that fateful night, when Andromeda abandoned her family for the man she was so desperately in love with, they had finally caught a good look of each other.
They both knew that there could never be anything between them. Narcissa enjoyed the life of the pampered wealthy pure blood wife, and Ted would not leave Andromeda after everything she had forsaken for him.
But in that one moment that they caught each other's eye, they fell in love. It was a love that would never be more than those few seconds, but it was deep enough to last a lifetime.
In that moment, Narcissa Black and Theodore Tonks loved enough for the rest of their lives.
The two of them were caged by the world they had been born into, and the roles they had been forced to play. In another life, another world, another time, they might have been happy together, like they were meant to be. But in this life, that was impossible.
They were caged, but they still loved. And though that love would never see the light of day, the satisfaction of knowing that their love was returned was enough for them.
For:
The If You Dare Challenge, Prompt 587. Caged