Chapter Fourteen

A/N: No reviewers.

September 1st rolled around in the blink of an eye, and before long, Narcissa was off to Beauxbatons Academy, along with the majority of her cousins. She was a little scared, in all honesty, as the only time she had been away from her mother for a long time was when she had returned to Black Manor. The memory of that time still haunted her, and it had increased her fear of loneliness tenfold.

On paper, she was utterly prepared, her supplies all bought and stowed away in a large trunk. She had received her letter of acceptance and her pass to use the Floo fireplace to make her way to the school. She was ready to leave in a heartbeat. The only trouble was... she didn't want to go.

'I fought for so long to get my mama back.' she thought, remembering the pain and heartache she had gone through to return to her mother. 'Will it feel the same when I go away to school?'

Her mind told her that she was worrying unnecessarily, that it had been her father who had been responsible for her lack of happiness. He would not be at her school, and so she should be absolutely fine, shouldn't she?

That was the problem. She had no idea whether or not she could cope without her mother. She had been apart for the woman for very short periods of time before, but she had always had her sisters with her then. Sadly, that was no longer an option for the child. This time, it was her and her alone that would face the struggle to come.

'I think I'm just overreacting a little.' she tried to convince herself. 'After all, I'll have my cousins; most of them. Max and Zee will be at Hogwarts, after the incident with the exploding potions under the Headmistress' seat, but all the others will be there. I won't be on my own.'

Still, there did not seem to be much of a difference between complete isolation and a life without her mother in her mind. Narcissa hoped that this would change over the weeks and months to come. If it did not, then she would live out her days at Beauxbatons in misery.

"Narcissa." called a voice, her mother's voice, from the bottom of the staircase. There was a subtle waver in her tone that the blonde could only just detect. She guessed that her mother was trying to hide it, but she could hear a note of sadness in the woman's voice. 'It looks like she feels exactly the same as I do.' she noted, not knowing whether or not she should be happy about this.

The girl made her way quickly to the bottom of the staircase, leaving the house elves to take her bags down for her. She saw her aunt and cousins assembled near the door, alongside her mother, the majority of them dressed in the celeste blue of Beauxbatons, with Maxwell and Zelina standing out a little, in the black and green of their Hogwarts robes and their Slytherin House ties.

Seeing that the two needed a little time alone, Marguerite ushered the rest of the children out onto the steps outside the mansion. Once it was only them remaining, in the large echoing entrance hall, silence reigned again.

"I can hardly believe it." Druella commented, quiet and yet still loud, as her quiet voice echoed a hundred times across the space of the room. Still, there was a note of excitement in her voice, alongside the nervousness. "My little girl, leaving for school, and Beauxbatons at that. It's the best school you could possibly have gone to, my darling."

"And what about Bella, and Andy?" she asked, regretting the question as soon as she saw her mother's face begin to fall, her eyes glassing with tears. Though she hid it well, Narcissa could see that the woman had not yet become accustomed to being the mother of just one child, when she had spent eleven years as a mother of three. 'I wonder if she'll ever be used to not having them.' she wondered.

"They are where they belong, as are you." Druella told her, but the excitement was gone from her voice now, leaving only emptiness in its place.

"I'll miss you." she told her mother, trying to take the woman's mind off of her other children, as she could see that it was only causing her pain to remember what she had lost. Sighing happily, they wrapped their arms tightly around each other.

"And I'll miss you as well, my little Cissa." she breathed, planting a gentle kiss in her daughter's golden blonde hair. "Still, it won't be long, I suppose. Before you know it, you will be back here with me for Christmas tide, and you won't be able to wait to go back to school."

"I'll never wish away my time with you, Mama. Never." Narcissa promised, meaning each word truly. She could not picture herself ever wanting to get away from her mother, even when she was grown and had her own children to look after, though of course she would need to live with her husband when that time came. Still, she would make an effort to come and visit at least once each week, and invite Druella to do the same; she had mapped it all out in her mind, even though the situation was a decade away, at the very least. She could not live without her mother, that she knew, and this was a reasonable amount of visits for them to make, she had decided.

"Come now, darling, you have to go. You don't want to be late for your very first day, it will give a bad impression." A quick glance at her watch told Narcissa her mother was right, and so she reached up, pecking her mother on the cheek a final time before she untangled herself from the woman's arms and went to join her cousins, who were waiting with a young wizard from the school to escort them up to Beauxbatons, bar the twins, who were to make their way to the Floo fireplace as soon as the others were gone.

Before she laid her hand on the Portkey, a small leather workbag that appeared to have once belonged to a Muggle doctor, Narcissa looked back at her mother a final time, to see the woman had tears in her eyes. But the smile on her face told her it was alright to go, and so the girl placed her hand on the worn leather of the bag, and disappeared from sight.

Only a moment later, she arrived on a cobbled pavement that wound its way up a hill. But the view was clear, for there were no clouds in the sky, and even at such a distance, the child could see her destination, rising up from the hill in all its glory, its tower seeming to touch the sky itself and a thousand tiles glowing with the autumn sunlight. 'I'm here.' she thought. 'I'm finally here.'

Narcissa let out a sigh as she observed her new home. Beauxbatons Academy of Magic.

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