A/N: Clearly, Narcissa and Andromeda are my favourites. Also, fun fact: water bottles were actually largely popularised in 1973, so I considered that three years isn't too much of a gap... Hope you enjoy and please leave a review. The next couple of chapters should be out soon today.

WC: 1,138

Wednesday 23rd December 1970, 9AM

Narcissa slips into Meda's bed, that morning. She woke up in a very strange mood, like nostalgia of a time gone by, which is just preposterous, because she's only fifteen, how can she feel nostalgic? Still, the feeling nags her and that's why she slips into Meda's bed, on Wednesday morning.

It reminds her of when she was 7, and Meda 9, and Bella was off at Hogwarts. In the morning, if she was feeling lonely, or if she particularly missed Bella, she's just slip into her sister's warm bed, and Meda would stroke her head while she read a book. She hasn't done it in a long time.

This morning, she doesn't really know if it's because she's missing Bella, as her sister of whom she already sees so little is slipping out of her grasp. Because she's never there, and because she's getting married. Or maybe it's because she's lonely. Lonely at fifteen. Once again, it's absurd. But it seems like everyone around her is with someone. Bella and Rodolphus. Meda and whoever it is she's hiding. Clarisse and Antiochus (because obviously, they will get back together eventually). And so many of her other friends are in couples.

It's quite ridiculous, she tries to reason herself. At fifteen, one isn't lonely because they aren't dating. Besides, the purer the bride, the better, as mother has reminded her. Toujours pur, of course. Her parents are not against dating, of course, but who says her future husband and his family won't be? Better not to take any risks.

Besides, there's only one wizard she'd maybe, just maybe, like to date. But she's not going to say his name, she's not even going to think his name. She blushes just at the thought of it. But this strange loneliness grips her still.

She slips under the warm covers of her sister's bed. The cold winter light filters through the curtains, basking the room in sunlight. And, of course, Andromeda is propped up on her bed, reading a book. Cissy lays her head against her lap, and Meda starts wordlessly stroking her head.

Meda turns the page, a soft sigh of words under Meda's hand. Cissy tries to read the title, but upside down, it isn't east. Before she can make out whatever it is, Meda closes the book softly and puts it on her bedside table.

"You okay, Cissy?" Meda asks eventually, still stroking her hair. Blond spills over her sister's lap, another difference between the two of them. The colour of her hair is as much as a blessing as it is a curse. It's so long, she hasn't cut it since she was five, just a snip or two to make the ends neat, but apart from that, it's been growing steadily for 10 years.

"I don't know," she mumbles. There's a strange urge to cry, which she suppresses, of course. There is no reason to cry. "It feels like the family is breaking apart."

"Oh, really?" Meda says, soothingly, "Why?"

"I don't know," she tells her – it seems like it's the only thing she can say – and then explains, "Bella leaving, getting married. It's like we're… unbalanced, fractured." Shattered, something says in her.

Meda nods. "But you know you'll still be able to see her, and talk to her, just as we do now?"

"I do, but it won't be the same," Cissy says.

"No, I don't suppose it will be," Meda echoes, but there's something else in her voice, something a little bitter perhaps for some reason. It's funny what isn't said. If Narcissa has learnt one thing from rubbing shoulders with the Pureblood society for 15 years, is that what is said is only a scratch on the actual meaning.

"What are you going to do next year?" Narcissa asks her. "When you graduate?"

"I don't know, I've always fancied working in Potions or something."

"Slughorn got to you then?"

Meda laughed. "I suppose he did."

"What about your mysterious beau?" Narcissa asks, teasing her a little.

"What mysterious beau?" she asks, feigning ignorance.

"You know," she says, "The one you keep running off to meet, and you keep owling."

"Oh." Meda blushes, and fidgets a little. "That's no one."

"Doesn't sound like no one."

"Cissy! I'll hit you with this pillow if you continue!" Meda warns, a laugh in her voice and Narcissa giggles.

There's a pause. But it isn't awkward, and the silence is almost comforting. Narcissa is happy to know that her sister is still as close to her as she once was. As Bella and Meda start to slip out of her grasp, she desperately tries to claw them back to her, close to her. Bella is almost out of reach – Narcissa desperately clings to her – and Meda seems close, but then again, shed's not entirely sure.

"But if you do leave, will you keep in touch, and write to me every day, and visit me as often as possible?" Narcissa asks. Her voice sounds a little pleading.

"Will you?" Meda asks.

Narcissa frowns. Why does she asks her that? Of course she will. "Yes."

"Then I suppose I will to," Meda assures her.

Narcissa brushes off her doubts, and slips out of her bed. It's time for breakfast now. But as she puts her feet on the floor, she knocks something over. She picks it up, and looks at what it is. It looks like some gourd of some sort, transparent, strangely enough, and there's a liquid – probably water – swishing around in it.

"What this?" she asks Meda.

Several emotions filter through Meda's eyes, but well hidden, so much that Narcissa can't tell them apart. Finally she settles one neutral. "It's a water bottle. It's like a vial, but to carry water around."

"But what is it made out of?"

"Plastic, I guess."

"Plastic?" Narcissa echoes. The word is unfamiliar.

"It's very useful," Meda tells her, which doesn't really give her more information.

"If you say so," Narcissa says doubtfully, "Where did you get this? Diagon Alley? I didn't see any when we went."

"No, no," Meda dismisses then adds in a hurry something Narcissa doesn't understand. Apart perhaps from 'Muggle', but that would be absurd.

"What was that?" Narcissa asks again.

But Meda pretends not to hear her. "Come on, let's go down for breakfast."

Narcissa frowns. She knows she won't get a word more out of her sister, but nonetheless, this is extremely curious. Why would Meda have a water bottle? Something from the Muggle world? It's very, very strange, and the fact that Meda wants to dismiss it so badly makes it even more suspicious.

Suddenly, she's gripped with a fear that maybe it's not Bella she should be desperately trying to cling onto, but rather Meda, because she doesn't know what this water bottle means.