Chapter Eleven – January 10th, 1997
It was after two in the morning on January 10th when Narcissa finally made it back to Malfoy Manor. She entered as silently as she was able, took off her shoes, and tiptoed up one set of stairs and down the hall to her bedroom. She used her wand to unlock the door, stepped inside, relocked the door, set her wand down on the dresser, and lit a candle, even though the centuries old home had more modern light fixtures. She regarded herself in the mirror. Despite the semi-darkness she could tell that Severus Snape had indeed left marks on the center of her throat and the left side of her neck. Mother used to call them Love Bites.
"Who were you fucking?" asked a voice, coming from behind her. Narcissa jumped, grabbed her wand, and whirled around. Bellatrix was seated cross-legged in the center of the bed, with a quilt pulled around her, wearing what looked like Muggle pajamas – an oversized turquoise tee-shirt and soft maroon pants. Her hair was a mess and mascara was smeared across her eyelids and upper cheeks.
"What are you doing in my room?" Narcissa lowered her wand but did not return it to the dresser.
"I was sleeping," said Bellatrix, as if it should be obvious. "But you woke me up when you lit the candle. Where were you?"
"Out."
"With whom?"
"That's none of your concern."
"You were having sex." Bellatrix said this matter-of-factly. Immediately Narcissa averted her eyes and forced herself to think about anything other than Severus, afraid her sister was seeing into her mind. Bella snickered. "I don't need Legillimency, Cissy. You smell like sex."
"I do not," said Narcissa, removing her traveling cloak and reaching into the dresser for a nightgown. "That's vulgar."
"I don't care if it's vulgar, it's true. I can tell. I can always tell."
"Stop it, Bella. Why are you here? There are ten bedrooms in this house with a total of twelve beds. The Dark Lord is using three. Draco has one. Wormtail has one. Before he was arrested, Rabastan had one. You and Rodolphus were sharing one; it's yours now. I have one. And there are three completely not in use, all perfectly good. So of all the bedrooms you could be in, of all the beds, why have you chosen mine?"
"I was lonely."
"I wasn't here!"
"No shit." Bella climbed out of the bed, grabbing her own wand off the bedside table as she did so. "Where were you? If you don't want to answer, I can see for myself." She grabbed Narcissa face between her hands, forcing eye contact. Narcissa closed her eyes. "I don't need you to look at me to do it, but it does make the job easier. Oh, Hogsmeade. That's nice. You bought me something… a chocolate frog. Thank you, Cissy, that was very thoughtful. Then what did you do… or shall I ask, whom did you do…?"
"Leave me alone!" Narcissa shoved Bella, who landed back on the bed, laughing.
"So sensitive, little sister. Come on, let me see."
"This is my house, Bella! This is my room, in my house. You have no right to stay here, I only allow you because…"
"No right?" Bellatrix interjected, her eyes shining madly. She laughed. "No right to stay here? In the Headquarters of the Dark Lord? When I am His most faithful, His most loyal…"
"It's not His house, it's mine!"
"It's not yours, it's Malfoy's!"
"I am a Malfoy!" snapped Narcissa. "It is our home."
"Hardly!" Bellatrix sneered. "It's his and his alone, and you know it. If he divorced you you'd be forced out with nowhere to go and nothing to show for your decades of service to him because not a damn thing here is yours."
"It's not called 'decades of service' when one is speaking of marriage," said Narcissa, talking over Bella's last sentence. She added, "And at least one thing is mine: Draco."
"Draco, who is happy to do the Dark Lord's bidding! It's you who has a problem, Cissy, not Draco."
"Why are we even talking about Draco?" Narcissa's voice rose, trembling slightly. "I want to know why you're in my room! I've had a long night and I want to go to bed!"
"With whom did you have a long night, Narcissa Malfoy?"
"It's none of your fucking business, Bellatrix Druella!"
Bella gasped, slinking back as if struck. Bellatrix never used her middle name, no one ever used it, because it was Mother's name.
"You're going to tell me where you were and with whom," said Bella, her harsh voice colder than the snow swirling outside. She grabbed Narcissa's face again, more roughly this time, and forced her way back into her sister's memories of the evening.
She saw her in the Potions shop. She saw her in the bookstore. Purposely, Narcissa forced to the front of her mind the memory she'd seen resurface that evening, the one in which Bella met 'Tom.' This intrigued Bellatrix enough to make her cease her search.
"You know who that is?" she asked, trying to appear as if she didn't. "Who is he?"
"You know as well as I that it's the Dark Lord, though I just realized it today," said Narcissa. "You've known Him since we were students?"
"Yes." Now it was Bellatrix who avoided eye contact. "Have you told anyone about this little revelation?"
"I don't have anyone to tell," said Narcissa. "Mother is dead, Andromeda might as well be dead, Lucius is in Azkaban, Draco is at Hogwarts, you've been here all night, apparently, and we both know I don't have any friends."
"The Dark Lord is currently unhappy with me," said Bellatrix, momentarily defeated. She lifted up the oversized sleep shirt to show Narcissa a crooked diagonal welt on her stomach. "We had a rather heated discussion during which He gifted me this. It's going to leave a scar. It was a modified stinging hex, I believe, but since He performs mostly wordless magic I can't be sure. I came to you because I was upset, in pain, and didn't wish to be alone. You know how much I hate to have displeased Him."
"Why is He angry?" whispered Narcissa. The crooked diagonal welt was thick, raised, red, clearly deep, and looked as though it might have been bleeding. It cut across Bella's flesh from the underside of her ribs on the left to her lower hip on the right, essentially giving the appearance of severing her midsection in two.
"I've been trying to help your son," answered Bellatrix. She let go of the shirt, letting it fall back down. "He thinks I should let the boy manage alone, but, like you, I don't wish to see him end up dead." She emphasized the last three words through gritted teeth, glaring at Narcissa with pure malice in her eyes as she spoke. "I don't think I ought to have to tell you again –as I've told you a thousand times – that you should be honored to have the Dark Lord staying in your home…"
Though she felt for her sister's pain and was glad to know Draco was receiving help, Narcissa could not resist interrupting to say, "I can't feel honored because I'm too consumed with feeling scared! You cannot possibly understand, Bella, because – as I've told you a thousand times – you are not a mother!"
"Well." Bella widened her heavy-lidded eyes with a look of faux innocence. "Funny you should say that, because from what I've heard, for the first few years of Draco's life, neither were you."
Narcissa's wand hand moved before her brain processed what she was doing. She pointed it directly at her sister and cried, "Crucio!"
Caught off-guard, Bella collapsed onto the bed, twitching, as excruciating pain enveloped her from the inside out. Though it hurt like hell, the sensation only lasted a few seconds. When Bella sat up again, she shook her wild hair and cackled.
"Is that all you can manage, Cissy?" she asked in a taunting tone. "Come on, darling, surely you can do better. No wonder the Dark Lord thinks you're utterly useless. Was that your first Unforgivable? Didn't anyone ever tell you you've got to mean it? Even that Potter boy was better at it than you and he was a third of your age…"
"Crucio!" Narcissa shouted, pointing her wand at her sister again, expressing all of the anger and frustration and fear she felt over the Dark Lord's presence and Draco's task. Again Bellatrix was knocked back, convulsing slightly, experiencing only a smidgen less pain than the last time. Again it lasted for only a couple of seconds before she was able to shake it off, laughing.
"Oh, Cissy, sweet Cissy," she said condescendingly, using her baby voice. "As I told ickle bitty Potter when he tried to avenge our dear cousin Sirius, you have to truly want to cause pain. You have to enjoy it. You have feel it from deep down in the depths of your soul. He kept trying, but he didn't have it in him. I didn't even both to try to block. If you haven't got what it takes, it's naught but a moment's unpleasantness… So what of you, Narcissa?" She leaned closer, a hungry look in her eyes, like a wolf poised to devour a bunny. Dropping the baby voice in place of a dulcet whisper, she asked, "Do you truly want to hurt me? Will you enjoy it? Can you feel it, deep down inside your soul? The desire to bring me pain? Your own sister?"
"Crucio!" called Narcissa a third time, but with less conviction than the first two, which meant Bella barely flinched upon receiving it. This time, though, she didn't laugh.
"You've caused more hurt to my feelings than my body," said Bella, pouting, but with her eyes still sparkling, as if this were an amusing game. "I thought you loved me."
"I do!" insisted Narcissa. "But… but you… but I… I…" She burst into tears.
Bellatrix rolled her eyes, not bothering to continue appearing affected as she was already bored. "Stop it. Stop it now." She sighed, returning to her crossed-legged position, pulling the quilt back around her shoulders. "I'm sorry I said that about your mothering. I'm sure you weren't really going to smother him to death with that pillow. Now quit blubbering and come to bed." She added in a childish whine, "I'm exhausted."
"The pillow… the crying… I… I couldn't help it! I… I…" Narcissa hiccupped between sobs, determined to defend herself. "I was… there was… I think there was… some… something… wrong… with… with… with… me!"
"Oh, for fuck's sake," said Bellatrix, staring upward as if searching the ceiling for patience. "I can't stand it when you cry. Please. Stop."
"I… I can't… stop!" sobbed Narcissa. She climbed onto the bed still in her dress and tights. Bellatrix pulled her into her arms, adjusting the quilt so it was around both of them. "You. Made. Me. Sad!"
"Fuck-fuck-fuckity-fuck," bemoaned Bella, wishing she hadn't goaded her sister in the first place. "I came to you for comfort after a rough night and instead of giving it, you used an Unforgivable on me, and now you're crying and I have to console you! That doesn't seem fair, does it?"
When Narcissa continued to shake with sobs, Bella gave up her quest for attention. She rose from the bed, found her sister something to wear, and dragged her by the hand to the bathroom.
"Clean yourself up, calm yourself down, get dressed, and come back to bed. You drive me crazy."
"Okay," murmured Narcissa, sniffling.
But as soon as the bathroom door was closed and she was safely alone with the faucet running to cover any sound, Narcissa wiped her eyes and smiled. Bellatrix had completely forgotten that the whole thing had started because Narcissa wouldn't tell her with whom she was having an affair, and now, hopefully, she would know better than to ask again. Diversion: successful.
After a quick shower, she dressed and returned to the bedroom, as Bella requested. The elder Black sister was fast asleep, so Narcissa hastily scribbled, "I miss you already," in the secret notebook in her side table drawer, waved her wand to snuff out the candle on the dresser, and closed her eyes. She smiled in the darkness, thinking herself quite clever.
Clever.
And cunning.
Because deep down, she she wasn't meant to be a Hufflepuff.
She was a Slytherin.
A/N: So this was also technically supposed to be part of the last chapter, but both parts of Jan 9th plus Jan 10th together equaled like 11,000 words, which seemed excessive so I broke it down. Sorry no Snape/Narcissa in this one, but hope you Bella fans enjoyed their little tiff.