XIII. Belonged
Narcissa had always been the odd one out. Her sisters and her cousins all had dark hair, dark grey eyes and were rather tall, but Narcissa was none of those things. She was blonde enough to have been mistaken for a half-Veela in the past, her eyes were blue rather than grey, and she had always been very petite.
"Like a china doll," Bellatrix had taunted her. "A lovely, breakable china doll."
If anyone knew how to make her cry, it was her eldest sister, Bellatrix, who was sharp and severe and whose smile never reached her eyes: Bellatrix, who was intimidating and loud and typically Black in every single way, Narcissa's opposite.
But if Bellatrix made her cry, Andromeda made her laugh. Andromeda was almost as dark as Bellatrix, but somehow she never seemed quite so harsh. That was probably because Andromeda's smile was actually real and her eyes always sparkled with barely-concealed mirth. Bellatrix only laughed when people were hurting; Andromeda laughed when people were happy.
Narcissa was always the odd one out of her sisters, being blonde and breakable rather than beautiful and Black, and sometimes she wondered whether she would ever find a place where people would give her the respect she deserved.
When Narcissa was sorted into Slytherin, all these worries melted away. She was beautiful and powerful and everyone who knew what was good for them deferred to her immediately. She was no longer baby Cissy, the oddity of her family: she was Narcissa Black, and she was finally where she belonged.