Chapter 2
Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to their respective owners.
"I wish," Narcissa Black said one evening in the end of August, just days away from her first year at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, "that I wasn't so bland. Andromeda has her studies, Bellatrix – her politics, and I am just bland. I wish that I was not bland, but interesting, colorful! That would be wonderful!"
She never noticed another person, (partially obscured by the evening fog), listen carefully to her, and say: "Wish granted."
...The rest of the summer goes without any incident (not that one could call Narcissa's private wish an 'incident'), but when Narcissa rode off to Hogwarts, her situation began to change.
During her first year of school, Narcissa became interested in venom. Her parents blamed Andromeda, who at that time became involved with Animagery and discovered her animal form – that of a stingray. Andromeda blamed Bellatrix, whose latest crash, the Dark Lord (also known as You-Know-Who, Tom Marvollo Riddle and Voldemort, depending on who was telling his biography) was really fond of venomous snakes and had one for a pet, even. Bellatrix just kept mum, because as the middle child, she tended to ignore her elders. Either way, throughout her first year, Narcissa was very interesting in snakes, spiders and similar creatures, perhaps appropriate animals for a Slytherin, but rather eccentric and unusual ones for a first year.
...Bellatrix eventually ended up blaming the Lovegood family – the Blacks were related to them, after all, and it was possible that Lovegood genes had suddenly surfaced in Narcissa – but no one was interested in Bellatrix's opinion, she was just the middle child, after all. Plus, Narcissa's interest in venomous creatures also appeared to abate, when she returned from Hogwarts this summer – true, her once pristine clothing was now less pristine, and her hair had not yet grown back, due to a certain incident with a wasp nest, but that was tolerable. Once back at the Black manor, Narcissa's clothing returned to its old self, as seemingly did Narcissa: only her hair remained shorter than it was the year before, and she took to curling it as well – but she made it work.
The second year of school was marked by a small flare of accidental magic from her sisters: they got into a fight, Andromeda got under Bellatrix's skin as always, and the middle sister released a small burst of accidental magic that turned Narcissa's toy unicorn into a rhinoceros. Narcissa, who had never seen a rhinoceros before that in her life, loved it and was determined to learn more about it. And so, whereas last year Narcissa spent mostly on the outskirts of school ground, trying to catch various creepy crawlies, and getting stung and bit for her trouble, this year she spent in a library, reading about various exotic animals (and plants). Her teachers, who were happy to see that Narcissa's interest in dangerous animals that bit and stung got toned down to a salamander familiar, breathed a sigh of relief. Her parents did that too, until Narcissa returned home for the holidays: her clothing was still relatively pristine (or at least it was dirtied by ink and library dust rather than mud and outdoor dirt), and her hair was still curly, but she appeared to have slightly gained weight and an accidental spell gave Narcissa's hair a slight greyish tinge – so for the rest of the summer Narcissa spent with her parents, visiting various cosmetician magicians, both in Britain and abroad, even as Narcissa warbled about how she was going to become a ranger or a druid when she grew up, and go to India to take care of the rhinos there. Her parents were not amused, and if they had not spent most of their summer getting Narcissa's hair back to normal, they would have had words with their elder daughters as well.
As it was, Bellatrix was busy with politics and the Dark Lord to be bothered by the fact that her parents ignored her again. Really. Andromeda, who was busy with post-graduate work, mostly ignored everyone, except for Bellatrix, who just hang around her elder sister because she couldn't hang around the Dark Lord – it wouldn't be proper – and around their parents, because they weren't there, but what could you do?
Comment on her younger sister's hair at the end of summer, that is what. Since Narcissa's hair never got back to normal, but remained relatively short, and curly, and greyish, and due to a mishap at a hair stylist's – rather limper than it was before. The Blacks being the Blacks, of course, got their money back – but the damage was done and never fully fixed either.
When Narcissa had to go for her third year, the entire family came to see her off – and to prevent any accidental magic from their other daughters. Narcissa's toy rhinoceros, it should be noted, never got turned back into a unicorn...but the Blacks' new parental strategy appeared to have worked as there was no accidental magic this time, and Narcissa appeared to have left her rhinoceros interest behind.
What she did acquire was a taste for new and exotic, resulting in her learning several interesting new spells, such as "heatstroke". When four of the children that Narcissa quarreled with, end up in the medical wing with various damages and curses, the teachers wrote once more to the Blacks.
Sadly, this didn't have much of an effect: the parents were recovering after their strenuous – and slightly expensive – last summer, and Narcissa's sisters didn't see anything particularly untoward in Narcissa's new hobby; in fact, they took a leaf from Narcissa's spellbook, and Bellatrix, for example, used this knowledge to impress that Dark Lord and others with such as spells as "blood sirocco", spells that were much more dangerous than anything that Narcissa could learn.
That said, a certain closeness has also appeared between Bellatrix and her elder sister – their parents continued to largely ignore them, and so the older Black sisters learned to tolerate each other at least, as they kept each other company, in order to prevent from going slightly mad from silence – the Blacks' social standing took a small dive lately with Narcissa's continuing hi-jinks and now duelling skills as well: Blacks were invited to fewer parties – not that the older Black sisters minded this. Really.
But all things come to an end, including Narcissa's third year at Hogwarts. She returned from it largely as she was before, albeit at first she was more self-confident and demanding of her parents than before. But then again, a self-confident and demanding nature was a trademark of Blacks, so no one really thought about it – except for Bellatrix, who was rather upset that Narcissa was stealing 'her' thing and complained long enough for Andromeda to take her out on the town (i.e. London) several times this summer, including the muggle parts of it – Andromeda wasn't a blood purist or a Slytherin after all...and their parents, happy to see that things were relatively quiet and back to normal, just ignored them and sought to restore their reputation and the reputation of their family, mostly by showing Narcissa around the wizarding community of Britain.
That did not really work – even though Narcissa had quieted down for another summer, by now the wizarding community was aware of her as something of a hoyden; plus, the youngest Black daughter no longer looked like some sort of a delicate doll, but rather as a robust young lady with a not very pleasant disposition – and so the Blacks strategy had backfired slightly, as Narcissa was less popular than before.
As were her sisters, actually – their trips to the more muggle parts of London were not very popular among the wizards, including the Dark Lord's new Death Eaters, a fact that did not endear Narcissa to Bellatrix, even as the former drove away to her fourth year of Hogwarts.
Unlike the second year, when it was clearly evident that Bellatrix's accidental magic transformed Narcissa's toy unicorn into a rhinoceros, this time there was no evidence that Bellatrix's accidental magic had flared up. Instead, as Narcissa this time was able to go to Hogsmead and the rest of the village, the youngest Black daughter developed something of a sweet tooth – and swelled up, mostly in girth. Her classmates, already rather upset with her after the last year, when "heatstroke" and similar spells caused them to land in the care of madam Pomfrey, mercilessly teased her, causing Narcissa to further develop the infamous Black temper and to hit them with more spells, not just the ones that she learned last year, but also the ones that she learned this summer, from her sisters – and especially Bellatrix.
Once again, owls were sent to the Black estate. Once again, they remained largely unanswered: by now the parents were desperately trying to give away their eldest daughters, having practically written-off their youngest daughter as unsuitable bride material. Plus, weight gain was never a particularly big issue in a wizarding world – when Narcissa would return home for the summer, they would slim her down, with or without specialist help – or so they thought.
When Narcissa returned home, Bellatrix did something new – got involved in a scandal that involved the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters: Bellatrix repertoire of little known spells, such as "blood sirocco" has caused a lot of enmity among the Death Eaters, and once hers and Andromeda's sojourns among the muggles became known, Bellatrix became even less popular among them; and when they told the Dark Lord about those adventures, the Dark Lord was even less amused, and told some of them to "discipline" Bellatrix.
Bellatrix was even less amused and set forth to defend herself. She used some of the Black family spells (taught mostly by Andromeda, rather than her parents by this point), to fight-off her new opponents and to flee, causing something of a scandal both in the Black household and in wizarding Britain, stirring at least some of the pureblood wizarding families into action against the Dark Lord.
Needless to say, Narcissa's problems proved to be secondary to the Blacks this time, and the youngest daughter was given the summer to herself, which she did spend, as always, quietly, generally genuflecting to her parents and sisters.
Of course, any weight loss plans were never implemented either, as Narcissa was left to care for herself, mostly, this summer – but as Andromeda said, beneath that fat was plenty of muscle, so no one was worried over much.
And furthermore, this summer Andromeda met and befriended (to a certain extent) one Mrs. Zabini. Her husband and his family were pureblood wizards, albeit not British ones, but Mrs. Petunia Zabini was a British witch, but a weak one, and a muggle-born. Considering that after Bellatrix's misadventure Andromeda was feeling even more muggle-friendly than the usual, a friendship sprung up, maybe not quickly, but it was based on mutual self-respect and some definite keeping of boundaries.
The Black parents would not let this friendship go, not easily, but by now their elder daughters were at least partially independent from them, were grown up, and could get with more things than in the years past. The friendship between the two witches – and to a lesser extent, between the two families, continued on as the summer slipped into fall, and Narcissa went to her fifth year in Hogwarts – once again with a new fad.
This time it was languages. The Zabini family were a European (well, Middle Eastern) wizarding family rather than a British one, and the Blacks were good in various humanitarian sciences and magics, including the learning of new languages, so it wasn't too surprising that in her fifth year at Hogwarts Narcissa's new hobby was to learn those languages on the sly. She started with Spanish and Arabic, switched to the various French dialects (but then again, her mother and maternal relatives were French) and finally to Chinese of all things.
It was when she was noticed by Lucius Malfoy, the only scion of the Malfoy family. The Blacks and the Malfoys were never particularly best of friends and after Bellatrix's misadventure with the Death Eaters this summer, with which the Malfoys were also affiliated, the relationship was strained further. In part this was because the new anti-Death Eater attitude had negatively affected the Malfoys' financial and social aspects, and Lucius Malfoy sought to perhaps marry one of the Black daughters in order to swing the popular opinion in favor of his family once more.
Among the Black daughters Andromeda was too old for Lucius' tastes (and too muggle-loving); Bellatrix had some bad blood between her and him, so that left Narcissa. Admittedly, by now the tales surrounding the youngest Black daughter were really unflattering...but Lucius Malfoy decided to try his luck at least once, even though his expectations were rather low.
To his surprise, he found that the youngest Miss Malfoy, while not a classical beauty by any means, was a rather lively and intelligent young witch, perhaps with more than a trace of the well-known Black temper, but no harridan either.
Nevertheless, given their difference in ages, the romance between them was slow to say the least, and was more like friendship than anything else. On the other hand, the Black family had their own, greater, maters to attend to. The immediate Zabini family was small – Mr. Zabini himself, his father, his wife, and twin daughters – but as a pureblood family they had many distant relatives, some of whom could easily be a match (a wedding match) even to a Black heiress – and Andromeda, together with Bellatrix, managed to find one, it seemed.
Yusuf al-Malik, a cousin (six times removed) to the patriarch of the family, Antioch Zabini, was not exactly a first choice husband of a British witch, pureblood or not, but curiously Bellatrix found him a rather decent person, especially after the backstabbing and venom of the Death Eaters' club, and they got engaged practically before her parents realized what was going on.
That caused a reaction among the Black family and their own numerous relatives. Yes, the al-Malik family was very prominent in the northwest, several members of their family were the Moroccan ministers of Magic in a row, practically a dynasty, but still, a pureblood marriage was more than just a glorified eloping by the standards of both families, and so the courting of Narcissa by Lucius remained practically unnoticed at this moment, especially since Narcissa faded into her typical, quiet ways once the school ended for another year and she returned home for the summer.
That particular summer went in a flurry of pre-wedding activity with Narcissa being mostly overlooked and free to write letters, most of which were written to Lucius, but few went sent to her cousin Sirius (the scion of the other branch of the Black family), just for the Hell of it. As a consequence, when Narcissa's sixth year came around, she had not only been the maid of honor at her eldest sister's wedding (to Ted Tonks), not only she was going to be a maid of honor at her other sister's wedding, but she was also a guest at the wedding of James Potter to Lily Evans.
And Lucius Malfoy, it seems, somehow ended up dragged along for the ride. Well, admittedly, he did not complain much – the Potters may have been pro-muggle-born, but they were still conservative enough to make a proper wedding for their only son, and Lucius had to admit that their slightly minimalist and conservative approach was more to his liking than the much more fancy wedding to be of Bellatrix and Yusuf. And, since he was beginning to privately plan his own wedding, he sort of took notes.
Admittedly, Lucius did not do 'subtle' very well, nor was he as sly and clever as he fancied himself to be, so it was anyone's guess how his manoeuvrings would've turned out, if it wasn't one other thing – the Dark Lord went against the Potters roughly nine months later...and he was gone.
Somehow, after this disappearance, the marriage of Lucius to a rather anti-Dark Lord pureblood family daughter appeared more attractive than it did before, so the next and final year of her Hogwarts education Narcissa met as a blushing bride to the general surprise of many people, who generally assumed that she would rather end up as a blue stocking old maid – but that didn`t happen, and about nine months later, her and Lucius' son, Draco Malfoy was born, one of several children to be born to the couple.
...And no one ever described Narcissa Malfoy, nee Black, nor any of her relatives or friends as blank or boring.