A/N Thanks for all the reviews. Hope you like the next chapter!! ^_^
Chapter three ~ Betrothed
##### Flashback ######
Andromeda sat in the spacious kitchen, she was busy writing a letter when her sister appeared in the doorway.
"Who you writing to?" asked the ten year old.
Andromeda shrugged. "No one in particular."
"But you must be writing to someone." Narcissa went closer to the table. She peered over her sisters shoulder and grabbed the letter, almost ripping it in two. She skimmed through the letter with horror.
"What?!" Narcissa exclaimed. "Leaving?! You can't be leaving!" she said, looking up from the paper.
Mrs Black entered the room. The disgust on her face was hard to miss as she spat the question. "Who
is leaving, child?" She demanded.
"Andromeda is!" Narcissa shouted.
##### end of flashback ######
"Well, well Cissa. Won't mother be pleased?"
Narcissa felt the tears well up inside her. This was it, it was over, over in a matter of seconds.
"Deary me, Cissa. You're as bad as Andromeda, at least mama will be pleased to know she has one decent daughter left, when I tell her."
"You can't tell her!" Narcissa said, jumping up.
"Oh can't I? you know what maybe you're right, I shouldn't tell her. It should come from you!"
"Bella, you can't do this, please!"
Bellatrix shook her head. "We leave for the Christmas Holidays in two days, you can tell her then. And if you don't, I will!" and with that she threw the test down on the table and turned from the room.
Narcissa flicked her wand and it disappeared. Then she burst into a fit of uncontrollable sobs, and there she sat until lessons had finished and the Slytherins began to enter the common room.
Christmas Holidays
"Mama, you better sit down, Narcissa has something to tell you." Bellatrix said as they walked through the door.
Their mother stared at Narcissa with piercing eyes. "What is it, child?"
"You better sit down, mama." Bellatrix persisted.
Sirius was watching from across the room, with interest.
Narcissa sat down at the table, she fought the tears that threatened and instead pictured Andromeda as she left the house. maybe when she was kicked out, she could go and live with her sister, maybe things
wouldn't be so bad.
Mrs Black sat down. Bellatrix smiled happily, Narcissa had always been the favourite of the family, she was quiet, hardly noticeable with beautiful looks. She was at the age of sixteen already betrothed, well it was not a spoken agreement, but she was intended for a certain gentleman.
"Well, mama, it's like this…"
"She's pregnant!" Bellatrix said, with glee.
"What?"
Sirius jumped up and walked over to the table.
"You stay out of it!" Mrs Black yelled at her nephew. He ignored her and put his hand on Narcissa's shoulder in a protective way. For once she did not shrug him off, for once she was truly grateful that her cousin was there.
"Who is the father?"
"The father does not matter, he was a mistake, I have no feelings for him." she said, quietly.
"So, you have wasted everything, thrown it out of the window, for a quick fling with a man that means nothing!" Mrs Black yelled.
The tears rolled down Narcissa's cheek, she barely noticed them through her abject misery. And standing behind her mother was the gleeful figure of her sister, who had caused so much trouble.
"Don't shout at her like that!" Sirius said.
Narcissa warmed towards her cousin at once. "I am sorry, mama."
"Sorry! you're sorry! you don't know the havoc you have caused. You are betrothed to Lucius Malfoy, a very important and influential man. We were relying on this union as one of great importance, both families look on the matches a most desirable one, and you have thrown it away."
Mrs Black reached forward and slapped her daughter hard across the face. Sirius pulled his wand out of his pocket.
"Oh you want a duel do you foolish boy?" she whipped her wand out. "I shall wipe the floor with your insolence."
"Sirius stop it, you are not helping." Narcissa said. He put his wand away.
"Clever boy! Now I shall go and see Lucius at once, see if we cannot come to an arrangement."
That night Mrs Black returned, she looked tired but triumphant.
"The marriage is still on, he has agreed to take you and bring the child up as his own. But you must be
wed within a few months, no one will care that you have forestalled your vows."
"I am to marry him?" Narcissa exclaimed.
"Yes, and only us four in this room and Lucius himself will know that he is not the father."
Narcissa nodded, absently. She didn't know what was happening, she felt a cage pulling in tight around
her. She was trapped.
A/N REVIEW!!
