A/N: This summer Zoe and I decided to write this story and have only now gotten around to publishing and continuing to write it. It is a story in letters between Narcissa and Bellatrix from Cissy's 6th year in Hogwarts and continuing throughout their adulthood. I am writing from Cissy's perspective and Zoe from Bella's. We hope you enjoy our story! (And if you do, or if you hate it, we would love your feedback!) -Anna

Disclaimer: We do not own any of the characters or the world of Harry Potter. We would love to but if we did it would not be nearly as amazing.

[Trigger warning- Rape] (this applies to the whole story)

I've been staring at the reflection of the half moon on the eerily smooth and black surface of the lake for so long that my eyes are starting to blur, but somehow I can't bring myself to look away. The grounds are cool and quiet, and I feel perfectly alone, a rare feeling growing up as I have. But even as I think this, I feel cold hardened fingers wrap around my waist and I tense as an all too familiar voice breathes raggedly in my ear, "In two years you'll be mine, Narcissa," a single, pale finger brushes my cheek, sending unpleasant chills down my spine. "But why wait for that," he chuckles, the hand around my waist digging in a little deeper, "When I can have you right now?" I turn to him, and nod wordlessly because I have been taught to accept what is given to me. Because I have been taught that fighting is futile. And maybe because I think that if I submit to him, my future husband will stop acting so patronizingly towards me. For a brief moment I wonder what brought this on. He's never shown interest in me before. But then I notice the scent on his breath, which I hadn't even bothered to identify because it was so familiar to me: firewhisky. He was drunk. By now his hands were penetrating my robes, and the nightclothes underneath them, his fingers dug like claws into my flesh, and I cried out. He laughed, grabbing for more, lips crashing against mine painfully, tongue jabbing at my lips, demanding entry, and I could do nothing but allow it. And he laughed. He laughed as my clothes fell in heaps around me. He laughed as tears streaked down my cheeks.

I woke up with beads of sweat on my forehead, shaking, and crying. My hair was tangled around my face. Strands of it stuck in the corners of my mouth, and I pushed it away angrily, hating it for being so similar to his. My stomach twisted, and I curled in a ball around it, silently begging my shoulders to stop shaking with sobs, and my eyes to stop producing tears. If Bella had taught me one thing, it was that I wasn't allowed to be weak. Blacks, she had said, were not supposed to cry. But I wasn't Bella and I couldn't help myself.

I didn't understand how she had managed to go through with her wedding so calmly, as though she was pleased to marry this man who she hated. Before the marriage her temper had worsened, she had screamed at everyone, and she had tortured me, as was her custom. There was a time when she took her anger out on everyone who crossed her path, but by then that time was past, and I was the only family member who fell victim to her physical abuse, and yet I was also the only one who she trusted. And she had told me that she hated him. Told me he was weak, and foolish, and didn't have the pride that she deemed necessary for someone of his blood status. But despite all this, at her wedding she had held her head high, and played her part seamlessly. It was strange. I had always considered myself the master of acting in the family. Andromeda didn't bother, she was proud to be an outcast, and proud to leave when she came of age. Bella was generally too unstable; though she pretended she chose to be the way she was, I knew that there were many times when she simply lost control. You could see it in her eyes. But despite this, she always played the part of a perfect pureblood aristocrat, and I just couldn't picture myself making it through my wedding without breaking down. Just the idea of standing before that man, staring into his cold eyes, and promising to spend my life with him was enough to make me curl further around myself, wishing I could just hide from it all, wishing that I didn't see that pointed, blonde-framed face smiling cruelly and aloofly at me whenever I closed my eyes.

Desperately trying to avoid thinking of Lucius, my thoughts turned to Bella's husband, Rodolphus, instead. He was a thickly built man, mostly muscle, with dark hair, and a small beard. He was shorter than Bellatrix, and about half as smart, but twice as stable. It wasn't that he didn't anger easily, but he could control himself. It almost seemed that he and Bella would make a good match, but they didn't. It is very rare for purebloods in families who arrange marriages to end up with someone they are actually well matched to, and it seemed I was to be no exception. There had been times when I had fantasized about growing up and falling in love with Lucius, and living happily ever after surrounded by blonde, pureblooded children, but those days were long over. I had been awoken from that dream with a slap in the face, just as Bella had always told me I would be.

Quite suddenly, I missed my sister. She and I certainly didn't have the most functional relationship, but despite her abusive behavior, she was a constant in my life. Someone who had always been there, and always would be there. She had shaped me into who I was, for better or for worse, and, inexplicably perhaps, I loved her for it. It occurred to me that I could write to her. While at first I dismissed the idea, because I knew it would annoy her, it took hold in my brain, and eventually I gave in and got up to find parchment and a quill, before quietly making my way into the common room where there would be light from the fire.

I settled myself into a black leather armchair, facing the glowing embers left from the fire, tucked my feet up underneath me, and dipped my eagle feather quill into the ink pot. Then I paused. What exactly could I say to Bella? After a moment of thought, I hesitantly began writing.

Dear Bella,

I know you are busy, and probably don't want to hear from me, but I can't help but write to you. I'm sure you won't have the time to write back, but if you do, how are you? I do hope you are taking care of yourself, despite all the work. When I last saw you, you looked positively dreadful. No offence meant, of course, but you must eat and sleep if you wish to survive and continue to serve your master.

But this is ridiculous. I'm not writing to you just to reprimand you. I suppose you can't tell me much about the goings-on where you are, but perhaps you could tell me about Rodolphus. Are you getting along with him better now? I hope he isn't trying to control you the way some husbands will. I would pity the ignorant man! I can't imagine you have much time together anyway, being so busy and all, do you? To be entirely honest, I hope that is true of Lucius and I when we get married. You were right, as you always are. He is a simply dreadful man. I shudder to think of spending my whole life after leaving Hogwarts bound to him. But of course, it is my duty, and so I will somehow stomach it.

On another note, will you be home for Christmas? I know it is still a couple months away, but I do hope you can make it. I missed you so much last year. There's only so much of Aunt Walburga's yelling that one can take on their own. Anyway, I hope you are a well, Bella.

Love,

Cissy

I looked over the letter, satisfied. It was short, true, but Bella wouldn't want to read a letter that was long and rambling. Some part of me wished I could tell Bella about what had happened by the lake, about how I had been having nightmares ever since, about how the prospect of marrying Lucius wasn't just unpleasant, but terrifying, and that Bella would comfort me. But I knew better. If I went to Bella for comfort, she would likely lash out at me. She would tell me to stop being so weak, and that it was my fault that Lucius had done what he did, and that I had to stop crying and being vulnerable, and start having the pride required of a Black.

Perhaps that was what I needed; pride. For a brief moment I considered not sending the letter, and going back to bed to face whatever my dreams threw at me with my head held high, but I decided against it. Maybe it was an act of cowardice, but I couldn't face that nightmare for the second time that night, and I really did miss my sister. Surely there was no harm in sending her a letter.

I rose quietly from the chair, cast a perfect disillusionment charm over myself, and slipped out of the common room, letting the dead silence of Hogwarts at night swallow me, as I had so many times before.