"A Wedding"
I have never seen a pair of newlyweds less in love than the day Ursula and Fairmont Black arrived on my front step. Still in their ceremonial robes, the young couple entered without speaking and immediately went their separate ways. Fairmont, whose parents had bequeathed me to him in their will, went at once to the drawing room and pulled the door closed without a sound. His young bride, scowling and eyeing her new surroundings with immense distaste, set to exploring what was to be her home. Ursula was familiar to me as well; her and her husband's fathers had been brothers, but as I belonged foremost to the elder, her family rarely crossed my threshold in years past.
The bride went first to her chambers on the topmost floor, not stopping to look in on her husband, still in the drawing room on the first floor. She walked with all the dignity her name commanded, but upon closing the door once in her room, her shoulders slumped forward and shook slightly. Her trunks had been waiting for her arrival since early that morning, and she at once removed her wedding robes, before even having a replacement set ready to wear. She padded barefoot across the lush carpet, kneeling beside a trunk and removed set after set of expensive-looking and fashionably-cut robes from it. The last robes she pulled out were black, silk perhaps, and it was on these she decided, and she slipped them over her tediously-styled hair. Looking satisfied, she turned to the mirror to examine her appearance.
"Black on your wedding day, my dear?" the glass inquired.
"I've always been Black," she replied curtly, then left the room, slamming the door behind her.
Her husband started at the sound of the door slamming but did not remove his eyes from the Daily Prophet spread before him. Fairmont Black had always had a head for business. His family had lived at Grimmauld Place until his parents were killed in his sixth year of attendance at Hogwarts. After their deaths, he had gone to live with Ursula's family until he came of age to accept his inheritance, including me. And here he sat in the drawing room as an unusually cool June breeze wafted through an open window, this young man reading the paper, barely graduated and already with a respectable, pure-blood wife to his name. He smiled, despite himself. He had done well.
"Mistress wants tea?" The house elf shuffled around the kitchen busily as the woman entered. Her lipped curled and she appeared to be trying very hard to avoid touching anything.
"Milk, no sugar," she said, walking to the table. She sighed in disgust. "Kreacher, come clean this chair, it's filthy."
"Yes, mistress," he muttered, wiping the dust from the seat. "Mistress's new home is not nearly as well-kept as she deserves," he said slowly, "Kreacher will be very busy making it worthy of her."
She pursed her lips and did not reply as the elf went back to preparing her tea.
"Mistress would like biscuits as well?" he asked, setting the cup in front of her.
"No," she said quietly, sipping her drink. "I have no appetite this evening."
"But I do," came a new voice from the doorway. Fairmont strode into the kitchen, sending the elf scurrying to a corner to prepare a new cup.
"What would Master like, sir?" The elf set the steaming cup before the chair opposite the woman.
"Surprise me," said the man in an amused voice, leaning to his wife's ear to whisper loudly, "and we'll see if this one keeps his head."
She glared at him as he went to his seat across from her. "Kreacher is my business, and so is his head," she replied shortly.
At this, the elf floated a plate of food directly to his new master's place with expert precision. Fairmont raised his eyebrows. "He lives to see another morning," he commented in the same joking manner, ignoring the daggers being shot at him from across the table.
The meal proceeded in relative silence until at last Fairmont pushed his plate away and leaned back in his chair. Kreacher the house-elf cleaned the table at once, not daring to leave the mess a moment too long.
"Would Master like a coffee, sir?" he asked, mopping at a spill with his dishtowel.
The man shook his head as he rose from his seat. "I'm sleeping in my old room on the second floor," he said to his wife. "I expect you there in —" he checked the clock on the wall, "twenty minutes." She stared at him blankly, then nodded her head. She did not lower her eyes until he had left the room, standing as she stared at the wooden table.
"Kreacher," she said hoarsely, "if he comes looking for me, tell him I fell ill and will see him in the morning."
"Is Mistress not well?" asked the elf, sounding terrified.
"As well as ever. You will tell him, however, that I am ill and regret that I will be unable to see him until the morning."
"Yes, Mistress," nodded the elf.
The bride sneaked up the stairs quickly as possible, holding her breath on the second floor landing, continuing to the fourth floor and locking her door behind her once she'd returned to her own chambers. She tiptoed to her bed, which had somehow been turned-down since she'd last been in the room, and crawled beneath the covers with a tired determination, extinguishing the candles and pulling the blanket to her chin.
Ten minutes later, she heard him thundering up the stairs, the elf squeaking "But she is ill!" behind his heavy footsteps. He pounded on her door. She made no sound, closing her eyes and hoping he would desist.
"Alohomora," came his muffled voice, and the door clicked open. His shadow stood silhouetted against the darkness of the hall.
"Ill or not," he said quietly, "it is our wedding night."
Aside from a shouted disagreement and whispered defeat, the night was otherwise heavily quiet. Glad though I was to be among the Blacks once more, I couldn't help but feel perhaps that my new companions were less than satisfied with their new home. Their arrival marked a turning point in my existence, for all previous Blacks I'd known were essentially content to be with me. This was not a happy union.