Toujours Noir
"My blood beats Black, tonight."
Narcissa can not remember a time when Bella did not interrupt her sleep. Her husband had commented on her fitful sleep after being kicked awake for the seventh night in a row. Narcissa did not tell him of her dreams. Her dreams belonged to Bella.
Bella. Thief of the night. Thief of dreams, of sanity, of lives. Bellatrix Black Lestrange. Narcissa whispers the name when she is alone, like a dirty secret. She likes the way it rolls from her tongue, even if she regrets the loss of such a simple alliteration. Bellatrix Black. Rodolphus never possessed her heart, but his name was written on her older sister like the thin veins which protruded slightly from her arms, and even more so on her return from Azkaban.
The Malfoy residence was cold and forbidding. Even as a witch, with a Death Eater's name and the respect that money grants you in certain communities, Narcissa still feared that which lurked in the shadows. She would not turn her back to an open doorway or window, yet she could not look into the darkness outside without a feeling of panic. On the night of Bella's return, it was raining. This was unsurprising, of course. It was always raining now. The dementors had sucked the very sun out of the sky, and spat out a dark cloud. This night, however, seemed especially dark and ominous.
Bella must have liked that, she thinks to herself years later. She was always one for a touch of melodrama and pathetic fallacy.
Narcissa remembers it all so vividly, even though she saw only black and white and red, and the later purple blossoms of bruising.
A flash of something lurking penetrated her dreams. Clawed hands reached deep within her brain and dragged her from sleep to a wide-eyed consciousness. She had collapsed, fully dressed, onto one of the luxurious couches in front of the fire, but now it was no use. Determinedly, she had faced the window, regarding the flow of the land which surrounded her home with a feeling of consternation. Where was Lucious now? Where was Draco? She set herself against thinking of anyone else with a firm jaw and hard eyes. She would not allow herself to think of Andromeda and that pretty daughter of hers. Blood traitors, yes, but moreover, Andromeda's countenance reminded her of places she would not go willingly. To hidden corners and ancient magic. To the taste of blood, smoke, and death.
Narcissa was attempting to be resolute. She faced the window, even when she felt a chill run up her spine as icy cold air was blown on the back of her neck.
"Hello Bellatrix."
A laugh. Short. Harsh. The full, rich voice of Bellatrix Black Lestrange had been ravished by her years in Azkaban. And as the Death Eater walked around her fair haired sister to face her, head cocked on the side, something between a smirk and a sneer resting on her thin lips. Ripped robes black. Skin white. Strikingly beautiful, despite the gaunt appearance of her face and the iron hard black eyes. It was these eyes that had enchanted Narcissa as a child, and haunted her now.
"Narcissa."
Bellatrix did not move to touch Narcissa. Narcissa did not move to touch Bellatrix. Yet Bellatrix moved forwards, closing the gap between them to just a few inches. Narcissa could taste her breath, and was reluctant to exhale, to give anything of her away. Yet Bellatrix had always demanded her breath, along with her unswerving devotion, and the fair-haired Black sister could not deny these things. Bellatrix held a thrall akin to that of a Veela.
Thief of your breath. Ravishing your lungs, eating you alive.
Narcissa trembled as she unwillingly brought a hand up to her sister's face. The dark pupils melted into the night of her eyes, and hid the look of triumph. Narcissa reasoned it was not so bad to grant her victory in this battle of wills, and then allowed all reason to fly away as she pressed her hand around her face and brush her lips against the other's.
Smirks under kisses, and Bellatrix growled as she brushed her fingers softly along Narcissa's jawline, and suddenly drove her fingernails into her sister's neck, causing her to cry out in pain and surprise. Blood flowed over her skin once more; a baptism, a rebirth.
Had it always been like this?
Narcissa could not remember a time when Bella did not interrupt her sleep. From being a baby, she had been prodded awake by the curious, insistant fingers of her sibling. As a young child, she was awoken by a tangle of ice-cold limbs stealing her warmth as Bella slid into her bed. And as teenagers, Bellatrix still came into her bed on a night with insistant claims of cold, even in summer, even when they kicked the duvet off the bed, they lay wrapped together. Bella pressed a finger over her mouth, whispering for her to hush, don't let Andie hear. Don't let her know. Don't let anyone know.
She had wondered and worried, in those days, if it was even possible to keep it a secret. Surely they would know at the dinner table, as she sat across from Bella. Her eyes betrayed her. Adoration was plain, and she wondered if they would ever guess that it went much further than sisterly love. Or even idolation. Bella was, of course, the perfect Black.
Nobody guessed. Nobody guessed that Bella had learned silencing charms, though they never doubted her talent as a witch, and so that nobody knew when her younger sister writhed and cried out beneath her. And nobody saw the bruises.
Bella was more intriguing than Andromeda, and Narcissa had always known that. She was drawn to her out of curiosity, and later, because she couldn't help herself from falling deeper. She always came back for more, and she never hit the bottom of intrigue where curiosity and fear meet. She was never satisfied. Bellatrix drew her to the edge of understanding, and then pushed her back – laughing.
Don't let anyone know, she thought, as she sobbed and trembled in the night. Bella had carved her ownership with a blade and dark, serious eyes. You're mine, Cissi. The blood shone black as her family name in the moonlight, and Bella had followed those lines with her tongue, tasting the very essence of her. It was metallic, salty, addictive. Most of all, it was pure,and Bella had delighted in that, rubbing it into her skin, over her breasts. As though she could enhance the concentration of purity and become something akin to divine. Even by Black standards.
She wasn't Bella anymore, Narcissa thought as she looked in those eyes now, felt the fingernails (probably dirty, she thought with the slight shudder of a mother) dig into her neck. She can feel the colour creep onto her pale skin, blooming flushes of purple, blue, and red which is mirrored beneath her eyelids as Bellatrix kisses her. Hard. Sucking her bottom lip to a bruise, nails biting into raw flesh. Narcissa remains still so as not to move them deeper, but at the same time shivering with the thought of what was to come.
Bellatrix, in a strangely tender movement, drew down the zip on the back of her fair-haired sister's dress, and pushed the material over her hips to the floor. Narcissa felt painfully aware of the open, rolling landscape outside the window. Anybody could see! But of course, she thought to herself, nobody would dare. Still, she would feel more comfortable in another room, and, hardly daring to breathe, she turned her back on Bellatrix and walked from the room, stepping away from her discarded dress. She could feel the hot gaze follow her into the next room, up the elegant curving staircase, and along the dimly lit corridors to her bedroom. It set a fire up her spine, and when her sister had caught up with her, the arms clenched around her made it freeze. Clawing across her stomach and breasts, Bellatrix sank her teeth into the already marked neck, sucking the dwindling blood of the previous injury and the fresh warmth of the new into her mouth. Narcissa almost fell to the floor right then, but she managed to put her arm backwards and bury her fingers in the other's hair, holding her to her flesh.
Blood thief. Bellatrix Black Lestrange. Narcissa wondered, as her flesh was marked by a furiously flushed crimson, that if Bellatrix took enough of her into her own, would she lose her marriage name? Would she be able to make her a Black again, and retrieve that beautiful alliteration? Bellatrix Black. Determinedly, Narcissa broke free from her sister's embrace and turned, fiercely pressing her lips against hers. She could taste her own blood, but she was beyond caring. If she tried hard enough, she might get her Bella back.
In a flurry of movement and bravery, Narcissa tore Bella's dress from her now-wraithlike body, kissing every inch of her body that she could reach and still failing to cover that expanse of sheer-white skin. As she covered a nipple with her mouth, rolling her tongue around it and sucking quickly, Bellatrix gave a quiet moan that was almost an animal growl. Busy at her task, Narcissa still smiled as she remembered. The map of Bella's body fell into place from that space in her mind that Lucious could never uncover, and she ran her hands along the pale flesh. Downwards, over her stomach and hips and thighs, and following with her mouth. She remembered, as Bellatrix ran her fingernails up along her spine and neck while her own body contorted from the sensations, how much she used to bleed and then beg for more, and how Bella would gladly accommodate her in that.
She was drugged by fear. Even after all these years, it still held a ridiculous potency over her. She knew that Bellatrix could bend her to her will, snap her like a twig, if she wanted to. She knew that her sister had done far worse before, and wouldn't have any qualms about it. Narcissa was, and she knew this beyond any doubt, expendible. Moreover; it excited her. Bellatrix displayed knowledge of this on the curved lips of her smirk. Narcissa tried to kiss her knowledge away, like sucking the poison from a wound, but there was no use denying it. She only felt alive when she laid with her sister. When she felt that skin which was a peculiar amalgamation of hard and soft, hot and cold. When Bellatrix was carvings rivets into her skin and the harsh happy laughter seemed so far away. When she plunged her fingers inside you roughly and drew you out – out! When she held you down, one hand around your throat, and stared into your eyes intensely as you came with jagged breath. Bella once told her that she liked to look into the eyes of her victims as she tortured and eventually killed them. She liked to drag it out, and watch as their body went limp and the light went out of their eyes. She said it was like tasting their death, and consuming their energy. Narcissa thinks she should be unnerved by the fact that Bella makes her come with the same intent stare as when she casts the final Avada Kedavra, but then the French don't call it la petite mort for nothing.
Narcissa died many little deaths by her sister's hand, but it was never enough. That was the curse of loving Bellatrix Black Lestrange.