Infamously, Bellatrix was the beauty. It was neither flattery nor conceit that had made anyone draw these conclusions, in hindsight and reflection; it had simply been truth. Bellatrix, of course, was three years older than her sister Narcissa, and between them, Andromeda had herself not made a very bad impression with a combination of the volatility of her two step-stairs sisters' looks; Narcissa with her platinum blonde, and Bellatrix with her midnight black; Andromeda had a very rich maple colored hair and grayish blue eyes. Narcissa had an empty gray, which would later be romanticized among the giddy pureblooded girls as a sign of fate, while Bellatrix had swirling dark blue orbs that would entice many.
Bellatrix was the beauty. And it was Bellatrix, not Narcissa, who'd been intended for the pretty Lucius Malfoy. Andromeda was to have Lucius's best friend, Rodulphus, and Narcissa his younger brother Rastaban. It would have been perfect. The three of them would forever be the darlings of the pureblood society, and their very best friends often giggled in groups as to who would be the heir of the noble house's bride—Sirius, who, in spite of his friends, was still quite handsome and quite a catch.
Sirius was a lot younger than Bellatrix, but they looked very similar. Girls Andromeda's age clucked, "Oh, there's no doubting the family resemblance in those two—definitely no Squib house servants in that family."
Of course, referring to the unfortunate situation in the DuGrey home.
But indeed, without a doubt, anyone you asked about this particular generation of the Black family would say, "It's such a shame about the boy—he's still got promise. Oh, and that Bellatrix, she will be a heartbreaker if that Malfoy boy doesn't try to settle her down."
Narcissa remembered one day to her tea party of her son's female classmates—an unfortunate looking Millicent Bullstrode, a rather emaciated and not quite unattractive Pansy Parkinson who reminded her of herself, and a rather broody but gorgeous Blaise Zabini, a dead ringer for the spirit of Bellatrix, that Lucius and Bellatrix had many arguments. Bellatrix was a fifth year prefect when Lucius had been a seventh year prefect, and the two battled constantly—and Narcissa didn't tell her guests so, but that usually ended in quite a lot of inappropriate behavior for a pre-marital couple in pureblood society.
But that really was the only time they ever really talked. Narcissa didn't run with that crowd back when Bellatrix still attended school. Bellatrix had cackled one night as she snuck out of the Common Room with Lucius (amazingly they weren't fighting or sticking their tongues down one another's throats) and their friends, "Your legs aren't long enough, Sisi!"
Narcissa had smiled, and knew Bellatrix was right. Bellatrix was always right. Narcissa was only thirteen. Bellatrix was sixteen. There was a reason why she was getting the rich, handsome, clever Lucius and Narcissa would be getting the intelligent and rather nervous Rastaban. Wasn't there?
It hadn't been until two years later, Narcissa's hair longer, Bellatrix's tumultuous love/hate relationship with Lucius infamous, and Andromeda all the much more restless, that there was a real official visit to the Malfoy Mansion.
It was nothing like home. One February three years before, Lucius was spitting mad when Bellatrix ran off to Hogsmeade with some Hufflepuff and showed up at one of Lucius's Quidditch games with the marks to prove it. Lucius wrote the girls' mother, detailing all of Bellatrix's escapades, and quite conveniently leaving out the part where he had come up with most of her crazy ideas, and the girls had been forced to share the master suite ever since, so that their mother could check on them all at once. Granted, they each got their own bathrooms and boudoirs and they well knew their ways around these plans, but nonetheless, Bellatrix and Lucius had hot, angry fight sex and then hot, sensual make up sex later, and the girls hadn't had their own rooms in three years.
The morning they were supposed to leave for their spring long weekend stay, with both of her younger sisters still in Hogwarts, Bellatrix had become quite accustomed to being the spoiled princess of the Black house and wouldn't be having anybody invading that territory. When Narcissa had finally looked up from her precious dolls, she didn't know quite how to deal with Bellatrix getting closer and closer to the aisle with a man she could hardly stand. So she sulked for a while, and then, upon returning home, had begun teasing Bellatrix. "Her Royal Highness Mrs. Bellatrix Malfoy!" Narcissa had sung until Bellatrix swooped down upon her and slapped her.
It had been one of the last times they'd ever touched. Lucius had come, licking his wounds from a feisty bout with his fiancée, and since she hadn't put out, he snuck into Narcissa's room, determined to school her. In her bed he found a willing partner who wouldn't defy him or challenge his manhood.
And in her bed he found his wife.
Lucius bullied his mother into changing the arrangements. Now the contract read, "The youngest Black daughter—" rather than the oldest. Andromeda had clearly refused to keep her deal in the switch, since contracts seemed no more legally binding than the strongest whim, and Bellatrix ended up with thick Rodulphus.
Narcissa could never remember seeing her sister so falsely gay and spirited. Her deep blue eyes swimming with mirth, a mirth that seemed vindictive in rare moments and sitting in what used to be Bellatrix's seat of honor, Narcissa's stomach had churned.
"To the child bride!" Bellatrix had exclaimed heartily, raising her goblet, and much to Narcissa's surprise, Lucius actually smiled, placing his large hand over Narcissa's clammy small one, and raised his goblet too.
"To the child bride." Everyone repeated, and before they could get a sip, Bellatrix had leaned over a little unsteadily and everyone let the tiny movement pass.
"A correction." She declared with a smirk. "To the princess bride."
"The princess bride." The mothers approved—it was all part of the fairy tale they gripped so tightly to.
Narcissa stared at the figure of her husband, dead on the floor, and had later been questioned as to why Bellatrix Lestrange would kill her own brother-in-law.
Draco had rattled off many answers beside her, making himself seem as innocent as could be while confiding in the Aurors what Narcissa wish she had known about Bellatrix herself.
"Well, Bellatrix was one of those followers of the Dark Lord, quite gone mad during Azkaban, as one would expect—she was fanatical. Bellatrix had to pay her due and despised everyone who didn't, especially those so tight within the Dark Lord's circles that hadn't proven their loyalty. Crazy, isn't it? Dad was bamboozled into it all, you think she could see that—"
Somehow that explanation, although very probable, left a gaping hole. Bellatrix had tears flooding down her face as over and over again, her harsh wrist movements had slammed Lucius's body to the floor, making sure he felt pain before death. She couldn't even manage the incantations to any of the Unforgivable Curses. Narcissa had watched, in patience, as Bellatrix let out over twenty years of frustration, that had all been rooted in Narcissa's union with her victim.
Her place behind the princess bride had placed her next to the Dark Lord's side, Narcissa's spiteful fifteen-year-old voice sang out. Narcissa remembered singing that of her sister when Bellatrix had been carted off to Azkaban, teasing Draco with it.
Lucius had heard and, in a movement too familiar to be true, Narcissa later reflected, had swooped down upon her and slapped her.
It had been one of the last times they'd ever touched.
Sitting there silently, ("I'm afraid my mother's still in shock over it all. Bellatrix was her favorite sister.") Narcissa figured it out. While Narcissa had waited out the storms of Lucius's temper, and tended Lucius's heir, Bellatrix had been the one to cause those storms, to inspire the lust that it had taken to painstakingly fertilize Narcissa. For the longest time, Narcissa told herself that Lucius and Bellatrix only had love as a product and a obligatory maintenance to their prides. She'd been wrong about them both, and had known them her whole life.
Bitterly, Narcissa thought, that Lucius deserved everything Bellatrix had given him. Bella had wounded Lucius into Narcissa's arms and while she was the bandage, Bella would always be the tonic of salt onto and creating Lucius's wounds. He'd led them both on, and unfortunately, if either Bella or Lucius had ever been capable out of love, it had been with each other, and the thing that separated them were their pride, not the thing that bonded them.
Narcissa turned to look at her son, a spitting image of his father. Narcissa had told herself many times over the years that his silver eyes were only lighter than her grays, that his platinum hair only lighter than her blonde, that his trim figure was from her high metabolism. But she could see now that he was his father's son.
Lucius had taken everything from her. Her sister, her happiness—and with her money going to a son she could barely recognize, he'd taken that too. And by allowing himself to be killed by Bellatrix (oh and that he had—"How quite morbid and suitable, Trix." Only he had called her that. He smirked as her lip quivered, holding back the tears of anger. "How appropriate. You always wanted to kill me." He'd tried to kiss her but that had been the last straw. Had he raped her? Had that been how she'd lost her virginity? Narcissa would never know.)—By allowing himself to be killed by Bellatrix, he had taken away her shallow mask of manners, her lies: the things she had told herself to keep everything else from adding up properly.
Oh how appropriate. How quite morbid and suitable.
Narcissa stood up and looked towards the heavens, although she knew he lurked not there, should there actually be a place and not some hopeful figment of a girlish imagination, and she grew up. Late forties and there she was—she grew up. From princess bride to princess mother to empress dowager—it'd been quite a leap, but she'd finally done it. "Are you happy now, Bella?"
"She's quite distraught, I assure you." Draco tried to calm his mother down, and didn't let it noticeably startle him that he didn't know how.
"No more dress-up. No more pretend!" Narcissa kicked the floor, memories of Bellatrix's heels thrusting aside Narcissa's precious dolls. Narcissa stomped her foot and twisted the ball of it, grinding the porcelain faces of the French dolls into the ground and only seeing Bellatrix's shoes do the work. The swirling blue toe nail polish Narcissa had dared never confess was ugly and made Bellatrix's skin look sallow—not that anything could make it worse now. "No more princess bride, Bella! No more!"
"I think my mother is in no condition to be questioned, honorably." Draco put his arm around his mother and only then realized they were the same height.
Narcissa had grown to be taller than her husband.
They stared at each other for a minute, Narcissa's eyes crazed and wild, her hair mussed, and Draco reached out and hugged her for the first time since he'd been eight. There'd been well over ten years and Narcissa finally let go.
"Very good performance." Alastor Moody muttered to Ginny Weasley, who had watched it all, intrigued.
"I don't think so. Did you ever wonder why Bellatrix had joined the ranks and not Narcissa?" Ginny turned back to her mentor, whose cynicism still shone through.
"Didn't waste my time. Did you write a whole fairy tale thesis on it? Such a pureblooded princess you are, Weasley." Alastor joked as they cleared the interrogation room. "We didn't even use bloody Veritaserum. You're letting me get soft, old girl."
"Nah, Malfoy's a pansy. Trust me, I've fought him. He's only clever enough when someone's instructing him, quite like his father, and look how he turned up. Malfoy, if he's stupid enough to run with that crowd, will meet his end in that crowd. Besides," Ginny let a smile stretch across her face. "I've a date with him tomorrow."
"Bloody 'ell, Gins, do your brothers know?" Alastor grinned at the thought.
"No, because it's strictly business on my part. Got to use the girls for something…they quite got in my way during my Stealth test…stuck out like sore thumbs." Ginny shrugged, pausing for retrospect, "Which might have been due to the weather."
"You are letting me get soft with your girly gossip. Go write up this silly report, Weasley!" Alastor barked, and Ginny grinned, disappearing over to her cubicle and finding Harry Potter supposedly quite asleep in it.
"Out with you, Potter, unless you happen to have take-out." Ginny ordered as Harry climbed off of her desk, peeling some paperwork from his frame.
"What, on the Ministry's pay?" He drawled, pushing his body up so that he sat on the edge of Ginny's desk.
"Enough with the sarcasm. I've spent more than enough hours with the Malfoys to suddenly find dry humor a little lacking. Besides, the hero of the century and the previous should at least be getting a bonus." Ginny reached behind her stack of books on pureblood pedigree and found a three-day-old open box of Chinese take-out.
"You aren't seriously going to eat that, are you?" Harry asked, grimacing.
"Why not? I'm getting soft with all this paperwork." The light in the next cubicle went out as Ginny unstuck her cheap wooden chopsticks from the food.
"See, now that is a bad sign. Take it from me, even when I was starving as a kid, I wouldn't eat that." Harry dipped his head to meet her in the eye. "I never thought I'd say this, but I'm glad we're getting all this paperwork instead of a whole lot of action."
"G'night, Ginny. G'night, Harry." Elisabeth Tucker, the one-eyed witch about twenty years their senior, said weakly.
They smiled back at her and simultaneously said, "Goodnight." They gave each other a funny look and she left, and they suddenly realized that Alastor's cubicle and Ginny's own were the only still lit.
"We still have years of Wizengamot left." Harry groaned as he pried the take-out box from Ginny's clutches, and she turned to her report with a smile.
"And I still have one final date with young Mister Malfoy before we can write him off." Ginny finished off the report with a flourish; she'd taken a Verbatim quill with her during the course of the interview.
"I don't like that idea." Harry said darkly. "Don't like it one bit."
"You wouldn't—you're a clone of my brothers." Ginny retorted plainly and Harry shrugged, thrusting himself back off of Ginny's desk and his robes took papers down with him.
Stooping to pick them up, he replied, "Yes, and I'm quite proud. Except, I am very lucky to not have three things the Weasleys are cursed with."
"Oh really? What's that?" Ginny hummed as she stooped to help him.
"Red hair…("Hey!") Freckles…("My freckles are cute!") And no significant amount of Weasley blood in my veins…that would get a little tricky when it came to us having healthy, ripe little babies with all twenty toes and fingers, only two eyes and limbs all in place…" Harry looked up at Ginny, who looked a little surprised at the rant. "Of course, if you want to wait for the Wizengamots to be over—"
"Yes, please." Ginny said, releasing on the exhale and sounding too breathy for both of their well-beings. Their heads moved rather closer together and they kissed, briefly. Ginny pulled away, barely breathing because she hadn't taken in a strong enough breath. "Mrs. Malfoy acted a bit funny in the interview."
"Way to kill the mood, Weasley." Harry muttered as he stood, thrusting her papers back onto her desk. His hands smacked inadvertently too hard against the table's surface, and his neck arched as his head hung. "Messy as per usual."
Ginny put the papers down and slipped underneath him, looking up at the great green eyes that had been so earnest in casually mentioning what Ginny had been expecting for about five years, since she'd entered training. He'd of course been a natural, and sped right through, finishing in a record two and when she'd finally entered the field, he had two years of experience on her and of course a lifetime.
He'd never let that show in his eyes, at least not genuinely, since her fourth year.
"I'm serious." Tentatively, as this was all still new, she slipped her arms around his waist, tucking herself into him. "With all these appropriately limbed babies, don't start calling me Ginevra or fall in love with one of my siblings—("Fuck, Gin, that's nasty!")—just don't, alright?"
"I get it, I get it…no princess stuff." Funny how on and off-key he was.
"I think that's the problem with purebloods." Ginny murmured, her cheek warm against his robes. They were knit. "I've been reading on and on about this pedigree—it's all so medieval…and in that, I think they've all quite lost a sense of reality in this arranged marriage shit."
"That won't be us." Harry whispered against the top of her head, wrapping her into his embrace and sighing.
"Of course it won't be." Ginny reassured herself in a shaky voice, adding in the same unsure tone, melodically chirping, "You're a filthy Halfblood."
"Fuck you, Weasley." Harry growled with a smile, positioning his chin atop the crown of her head.
"Yes, please."
"Naughty."
"Christ, go home, you two! The Ministry may pay you to fuck around, but I'd rather not watch this department go to the dogs." Alastor growled as his light too went out. "Seriously kids, it's about time we all went home and saw our families."
The gravity of their romance struck Harry and Ginny so harshly it hurt them—and Ginny was glad. At least they saw it. At least they weren't blind. At least she would never be throwing a crazed fit in her late fifties, with a son no mother would be proud of, and a husband and sister that had abusively stripped her bare.
"Family." Harry whispered against her, still locked in each other's embrace, and Ginny was glad she'd finally picked up a guy who was on the same page as she was. Maybe that would be her excuse to the family when they all exploded while Harry was a safe distance away from them.
Suddenly, the memory of Harry flirting with her faintly at St. Mungo's when she'd jokingly chastised him about how he'd handled Voldemort came to her. "This is far less than the pain I'll be in when I tell your family I've impregnated you. Voldemort's one scary tosser, but he's never faced the wrath of the Weasleys in respect to their only daughter—fuck…"
Excuses, babies with limbs in the right places; she'd have to think about that later. And judging by the work that Harry and Alastor were practically forcing her to neglect—Ginny wasn't the only one who thought the change was good.
The last thing Ginny thought before she pulled the chord on the lamp to turn it off was something that Moody had said when one girl had complained about his pessimism. "I'd prefer to be called a realist than a pessimist—when you know the world as I do, realism sounds rather like pessimism to the bright, to the naïve—to the supposed optimists out there…"
Maybe Narcissa had been an optimist.
Ginny would like to be a realist, then. "Yes," She whispered as her hand found its way to Harry's and their fingers intertwined uncomfortably and settled as their heart rates returned to normal, "Realism."
Harry, for the time being, would ignore the little whispers. It was late. They were tired, and they'd have to be prepared for the ramifications in the morning. But that was the slight difference. They were facing the ramifications.
Disclaimer: Oh, it is a terrible piece of crap, ripping quite well apart beloved J.K.'s work—so there; I've said it—it belongs to her.