Disclaimer: Anything you recognise belongs to the incomparable J. K. Rowling. Anything you don't belongs to me.
Narcissa Malfoy sighed, staring out of the front sitting room window at the vast expanse of land at Malfoy Manor. The frozen dew drops on the grass were melting, and giving the look of diamonds on the grass, and she saw some ducks sitting on the front lake, floating without a care in the world. The wind was rustling the bare rose bushes in the garden, and an albino peacock was wandering around the court yard.
She smiled lovingly when she saw her young son sitting under the arch with his father, both hunched over and writing on some parchment, laughing despite the cold. She loved seeing both of her boys having fun. Her husband, Lucius, was a fantastic father, and her heart swelled whenever he and their son, Draco, would have their own private jokes.
"Morning paper for you, mistress Cissy," one of the Malfoy house-elves, Scatty, squeaked, placing the paper and a tray of tea and toast on the coffee table.
"Thank you," Narcissa said in her cool voice, reaching forward to the paper. She gasped when she saw the date.
15th of February 1986.
Scatty looked up at Narcissa with her overly large eyes wide. "Does mistress need anything else?"
"No. Leave, please," Narcissa answered breathlessly. The elf bowed obediently from the room.
Wringing her small hands in her lap, a tear fell down her pale cheek, leaving a glistening trail reflected in the morning sun. She sighed, and her posture slumped as she brought her knees up under her chin. She bit down on her lilac dressing gown as her eyes dripped diamonds, the droplets spreading as they landed on her silken robe...
"Come on, Bella, you can't stay here," Andromeda laughed, throwing a pillow at her older sisters head.
"I am and I will," Bellatrix replied as Narcissa, the youngest sister, started jumping on the bed. "Cissy, stop it," Bellatrix snapped, burying her head under her pillow, her long black hair fanning around her small shoulders.
"Don't be such a kill joy," Narcissa chided, still jumping. Her long blonde hair was wild as she did so, and her grin grew as Andromeda attempted to pull the duvet off Bellatrix's double four-poster bed.
"Fine," Bellatrix pouted, "but I don't want my birthday celebrated at all, no matter what mama and papa say. Understand?" Her pale was looked determined as she surveyed her two sisters through her striking ebony eyes.
"Oh, fine," Andromeda sighed dramatically as she brushed her long brown hair in Bellatrix's mirror.
"Happy Birthday, Bella," Narcissa squeaked, latching herself onto Bella in a tight hug.
"You know, Cissy," Bella said awkwardly, "for a seven year old, you are ridiculously strong when it comes to hugs."
"Love you too, Bella," Narcissa teased, before running from the room, yelling something unintelligible about presents and breakfast.
A sob escaped form Narcissa. She laughed at the memory, but the ever present sadness still weighed down on her.
"Oh, for the sake of Merlin, Narcissa," she scolded herself, leaning the back of her blonde head against the window. She cracked a small smile as she remembered how her parents had let her and her sisters eat some of Bellatrix's chocolate birthday cake for breakfast that morning. She still said to this day that it was the best cake she had ever eaten. Probably because she, Andromeda and their mother had made it together. It was, for many years, the best memory that had had together...
"Well, the cake is in the oven," Druella Black said to her two younger daughters as the clock struck 6:30 in the morning. She turned her back for a moment to wash her hands, and in that time, Narcissa had managed to climb onto the top shelf of the pantry where she knew the French eclairs were kept.
"Cissy, get down from there!" Druella shrieked, lifting her easily from the shelf. Narcissa smiled guiltily and continued eating the eclair. She saw Andromeda roll her green eyes and start helping herself to the last of the cake batter in the mixing bowl.
Druella smiled at her youngest daughter, and bent down to her level. "If you give me a bite of that eclair, we wont tell daddy that you managed to climb to the top shelf. Again," she bargained, looking into Narcissa's big ice blue eyes, identical to her own.
Narcissa shoved the rest of the eclair into her little mouth, smirking proudly as she tried to swallow it.
Druella laughed, the tinkling sound echoing around the kitchen, and picked Narcissa up, resting her on her hip. Mother and daughter were so similar, what with their white blonde hair, blue eyes and same smile. Narcissa was the perfect copy of her mother in miniature.
"Didn't you leave any for me, Andy?" Druella teased, as Andromeda finished licking the wooden spoon.
"No," Andy answered simply, dusting her flour covered hands on her pale pink blouse. Druella pulled her into a hug as they left the kitchen, debating whether to wake Bellatrix or not. The decided the latter, as there was a good chance that Bellatrix may have set up a booby trap designed to go off if someone entered her room before she was awake.
Narcissa snorted, remembering that her sister had designed a trap, but for another year instead. Smiling sadly at her memories, she walked over to one of the large oak cabinets and took out a scrapbook she had made when she was a young teenager.
The letters 'B', 'A' and 'N' were written in elegant calligraphy across the cover, under a picture of the sisters. Narcissa smiled fondly at the waving teenagers. She guessed she was roughly 13, as Andy was still happy to be seen with them, and Bellatrix's hair looked considerably tamer than it was once she was 20.
Wiping a tear from her pale cheek, Narcissa flicked through the book, stopping every now and then to look at some amusing quote or picture.
She stopped when she reached the one from Bellatrix's 17th, where the entire Rosier/Black family were smiling goofily at the camera. That was the first birthday that Bellatrix hadn't over slept...
"Narcissa! Wake up!" Bellatrix hissed, swanning into Narcissa's light filled room at dawn. She was already dressed in a corset inspired red blouse and tailored black jeans, along with a black choker around her pale neck and was grinning broadly
"What on earth do you want, Bella?" Narcissa mumbled sleepily from under her cream duvet, not taking off her eye-mask.
Bellatrix rolled her eyes. "As it's winter, I thought you might need a fire started-"
Narcissa ripped off the eye-mask, revealing very messy eye-brows raised above excited blue eyes as she sat up. "You can do magic," she stated in awe, watching as Bellatrix pointed her wand at the fire place and performed a perfect non-verbal spell to create a fire that looked like it had been blazing for hours.
"Happy Birthday, Bellsey!" Narcissa screamed happily, holding her oldest sister in a tight embrace. "Now, if you could just go back to bed and wake me up at a more reasonable hour, then we can start celebrating-"
Bellatrix scoffed. "This is payback, Cissy," she stated bluntly, "payback for the past 12 years that you and Andy insisted on waking me at some ridiculous hour like this. Do we understand each other, sister, dear?"
Narcissa started laughing at Bellatrix's petty grudges, and soon both sisters were running around the manor like they had when they were kids and made as much noise as they deemed appropriate.
"Such a fun day," Narcissa murmured, smiling at the past sadly. Birthday's were always a large occasion at the Black Manor, and were all remembered fondly for many years after.
However, that changed once Andromeda left. It was as though a part of Bellatrix had died when they all realised that the middle sister had chosen a different path in life. Birthday's were never the same after that. It was Andromeda who always planned them, and no one was quite up to her level.
Andy...Narcissa hadn't thought about her in years-
She quickly snapped out of her feeling of sadness for the middle sister. This was a day for Bellatrix, not the blood traitor, family defying Andromeda.
Narcissa smirked when she came across the picture taken at Bellatrix's 25th. It was a huge affair, with all notable families present. Things took a turn for the worst when over twenty Aurors gate-crashed. And Narcissa had always believed it wasn't for the vast helpings of Beluga Caviar on offer...
"This is a raid!" Barty Crouch, a tall, straight wizard barked to the party guests, helping himself to some food as he walked into the middle of the room. "If you could all state your names-"
"Oh, go crash another party, Crouch, no one invited you here!" Rodolphus yelled angrily, pointing his wand threateningly at Barty from across the room. His green eyes were glaring daggers at the Ministry wizard, and Crouch seemed quite unnerved.
"If you will all just-!" Crouch began, but Rabastan Lestrange, Rodolphus' brother, placed a quick silencing spell on him. It was then that the Aurors descended into madness. The didn't know what to do now that their leader couldn't talk.
Bellatrix and the rest of the Death Eaters were roaring with laughter at the confused Ministry wizards as most of the guests told them, in no uncertain terms, where the door was.
"Best birthday ever," Bellatrix declared later that evening after disposing of a few of the more unfortunate Ministry members.
Narcissa shuddered, as she always did when she was reminded of what her sister was capable of. She sighed, wanting her family to be complete again, wanting her sisters back, wanting her fun-filled life back. A tear fell onto the picture of the three of them, landing on Bellatrix's snake necklace.
Narcissa gasped, and quickly wiped it off, before placing the album back in the cabinet and hastily locking the door as her husband, Lucius, and their young blonde son Draco came into the room, looking as though they had spontaneously had a mud fight.
Narcissa scoffed at them as mud dripped onto the Persian rug, but gave her boys a hug anyway.
"You ok, Ciss?" Lucius asked, concerned.
Narcissa toyed with his muddy shoulder length blonde hair, and smiled sadly. "I'm fine," she said unconvincingly. Before he had a chance to press the point, she smiled and changed the topic, sounding far too cheerful. "How about you go and give Draco a bath before he gets mud on the marble, eh?"
Lucius smiled at her, still looking concerned, but quickly decided to get Draco into the bath before he ruined the white wall paper.
I wonder what your birthday's are like now, Bella, Narcissa thought to herself, trying not to imagine her sister locked up in a dingy cell in Azkaban as she went back over to her spot by the window.
She would have been 35 today. Who knows what she would have been like if she was free. More than likely plotting another foolish wizards demise, while eating an obscene amount of chocolate birthday cake.
And yet, Bellatrix Lestrange didn't even realise it was her birthday. She was sitting in the far corner of her cell, her once shining black hair matted and dirty and her almost skeletal body was dressed in a thin, ragged black robe. Humming a children's nursery rhyme in a chillingly sugar coated voice, she picked the legs off a lone spider that had been, as she believed, plotting against her. She never remembered her birthdays any more. The days and years all blurred into one mass of nothingness, and she had long ago forgotten about age.
"Pretty little spider," she cooed in a sickly sweet voice.