Disclaimer: I don't own any of these people. They are not evil because of me. In fact, they aren't really evil at all. Really. I swear.
Okay, so. Apparently I have a new obsession with Narcissa and her family (see Counting, and What Happens After). So sue me. Anyway, I don't know the age order of the sisters, so I made it up for this one-shot. What I do hope to have correct is the spelling of all of the names and the order of events that happen in the lives of each of the characters. I have the HP-lexicon to thank for that. You should all check it out. It's amazing. Really.
"The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can ever end." -- Benjamin Disraeli
The Noble and Most Ancient History of Black
Christmas, again, and the whole family is at Grimmauld Place.
She's sitting across from him so that she can see him perfectly. Everything he says, does, and eats. They're at the "kids' table," though none of them call it that, because that would mean admitting that they're still kids. Her sisters are on either side of her and his brother is to the left of him, and they're all arguing about something different.
"No," Andromeda says to Regulus, "if a witch marries a muggle, or a wizard marries a muggle, they shouldn't be disowned. They're just not as magical, that's all. It's not a crime."
She's eleven, he's six. Both are hot-headed and young, but Andromeda thinks she knows more than he does. She's older, after all. Narcissa ignores them both. She eats her bread pudding.
"Andromeda, look at your sleeves!" Bellatrix scolds her. The oldest sister. She's dark and elegant and haughty, and everyone always listens to her. "You're getting them in your food! Really, you're such a pig."
Andromeda looks as if she's going to cry. She's too sensitive. Bellatrix always makes her cry.
"Aw," Bellatrix laughs, "is wittle Andwomeda going to cwy?"
"Get over it," Sirius says, leaning back in his seat with his hands behind his head. Always so confident.
Bellatrix raises her perfectly arched eyebrows at him. She's twelve, he's nine. She's older, his superior. His opinion doesn't matter to her.
Narcissa smiles at him, and he smiles back at her. She's nine, too. The same as him. They get along the best out of all of the cousins, even though he's the oldest child in his family while she's the youngest. Andromeda is always defending anything someone puts down, so she is always against someone. Bellatrix is the oldest, condescending and scornful. Regulus is the youngest, spoiled to every last inch of his being. But Sirius and Narcissa are the same age, in the middle. They keep the balance. They have an alliance.
"Are you going to finish that?" he asks her, pointing to her pudding.
She finishes it. He glares at her, but his eyes are laughing. "I guess you are."
"You are such children," Bellatrix says, and she stands, throws her dark hair over her shoulder, and retreats like a queen to the kitchen.
Sirius laughs at her after she's gone. Narcissa asks him why, and he says, "I hid a frog under her pillow tonight."
Another few Christmases, and now they're both twelve. Still children, almost teenagers. Regulus is nine, Andromeda is fourteen, and Bellatrix is fifteen. After dinner they run upstairs to play hide and seek. Andromeda is the one seeking, and everyone else is hiding. Except Bellatrix. She's too old to play childhood games.
Narcissa creeps into Sirius's room. It's dark, but she can still see the pictures on his wall, on his desk. Him and James, him and Remus, him and Peter. And then, right on the corner of his desk, in a frame that looks old and dirty, is a picture of the two of them. She smiles at it, turns away, and sees him standing in the corner.
"I'm already hiding in here," he says. "Find a new place."
"No," she says simply, right back at him. "I'm going to hide behind the bed."
"I'm hiding behind the bed."
"Fine. Then I'll hide under the desk."
"Fine."
He disappears behind the other side of the bed while she crawls into the niche under the desk, and both wait in silence. She sees scratchings on the desk – mostly of snitches. One marking clearly reads "James was here" while another says "Remus severely dislikes vandalizing other people's private property."
After only a few minutes, there is a lot of rustling and Sirius suddenly appears under the desk beside her. He pulls his knees to his chest, like hers are, and then he lets out a sigh.
"What are you doing?" she asks him, feeling very claustrophobic.
"Hiding," he says, eyes twinkling mischievously. "What are you doing?"
"Hiding," she smiles, feeling her shoulder brush his.
"I don't like hiding very much," he says.
She frowns. "Why?"
A shrug. "It's more fun to be in the action. To see what's actually happening, you know? I like looking for things. Fighting for things. Not hiding from them."
"Hiding is much easier," she says. "Not really as comfortable, but – "
"Yes, but that's because your shoulder is crushing mine."
"No, yours is crushing mine. I was here first."
"I was born first."
She doesn't argue with that. She twirls her shoelace around her finger instead. "I wonder where Andromeda is. She's certainly taking a long time."
He shrugs. "It's not like we'll have to hide here forever if she doesn't find us."
She shrugs back at him. "But if we did, it wouldn't be so bad."
Christmas again, and now they're both fourteen. They aren't at the "kids' table" anymore – neither is Regulus, even though he's only eleven. Andromeda is sixteen, quiet, but with a mischievous gleam in her eyes. Bellatrix is seventeen, haughty and beautiful as ever.
They're all split up. The table is very long, with thirty or more people strewn on either side of it. Sirius is on one side and Narcissa on the other, but they're too far away from each other to talk. They shoot each other glances and Sirius makes funny faces; Narcissa tries not to giggle into her goblet. Andromeda is sitting next to him, looking very pretty. Her hair is tied back in a large bow and she giggles when she sees the funny faces Sirius makes, even though he isn't looking at her. Regulus is also sitting near them, but he doesn't notice them. He is too busy listening to his parents as they praise and spoil him.
They say nothing about Sirius.
After dinner, Sirius and Narcissa go up to the attic. Narcissa loves the attic at Grimmauld Place – it is always dark and musty and mysterious. Sirius likes it too, but he likes the roof better, and he climbs out of the attic window to get onto the roof.
"Here," he says, offering her his hand, and he helps her step out onto the roof in her long, annoying Christmas robes. They make her trip and she almost falls, but he's still holding her hand. "Look," he says, pointing down at the world below them. There are people on the other side of the street dancing in their front yard, though there is no music. They are laughing and clapping their hands, and there is a large decorated Christmas tree on the lawn near them.
Narcissa lets go of his hand. "They can't see us, can they?"
"Nope," he grins, taking a seat on the edge of the roof, letting his feet dangle in mid-air. "We're practically invisible."
She sits down beside him. Her feet dangle next to his.
"I never see you in school," he says, running a hand through his hair. He never used to do that.
She shrugs. "We're in different houses. I still don't know why you're in Gryffindor."
"I still don't know why you're in Slytherin."
She looks at him, shocked. "You were supposed to be in it, too. All of our family is supposed to be in it."
"Why?" he demands, and she's surprised to see him angry. "Why is it so wrong to be different?"
"We're pureblood," she says fiercely. "We belong with the other purebloods."
"We're pure scum," he says scornfully, kicking the air with a vengeance. "I hate it."
She stares at him again. "You hate your family?"
A shrug. "I don't know." A pause. "I don't hate you."
"And I don't hate you."
He looks at her. "You don't have to be like them, you know. Just … refuse it."
She shakes her head. "I like how I am right now. I don't want to change."
He shakes his head at her. "You only like who you are when you're talking to me."
She gets angry at him for saying this, but, for the life of her, can't figure out why.
Another Christmas. They're both sixteen. He isn't there.
She remembers the last time she saw him, just a few days before he left. They were all at Grimmauld Place for his parents' anniversary, but he and Narcissa were upstairs in his room. He was laying flat on his back on his bed; she was sitting on his desk, swinging her legs back and forth.
"I'm thinking of leaving," he says, still on his back.
Her legs freeze. "What? Leaving where?"
"Here," he says. "I hate it here. And they hate me – why should I stay?"
"They don't hate you," she says, voice caught in her throat. "And besides, you can't leave. Where on earth would you go?"
"I'd live with James. His parents said they would take me in."
"You can't actually be considering this?"
He sits up. He isn't smiling. "Of course I am. I have to get out of here, Narcissa."
She slides off the desk. "They'll disown you if you leave. They'll hate you." She's suddenly angry. "You won't be allowed here anymore. We would never see you again."
"You would see me," he says. "Come on, you know how I am. I turn up everywhere I'm not supposed to be." He's grinning.
She glares at him. "You won't leave."
His grin drops. He arches an eyebrow. "Of course I will. I thought you would be happy for me. I'm finally going to be living how I want to live!"
"You'll be hiding," she snaps, because she knows it's what will make him angry.
He does get angry. "You're so – you can't even – you're just like them, you know that?"
"When they hate you," she says acidly, "when they talk about you as if you're dead," walking spitefully towards the door, "I won't stop them."
He's still angry, but he tells her to stop.
She spins around furiously, her white hair flashing like glass in the dim light of the room. "What? What could you possibly have left to say to me?"
He's standing now, too. She notices how tall he's gotten. How long his hair is. So long that it falls in his eyes. "Narcissa … will you disown me?"
She stares at him, eyes flaring, cheeks flushed. "Yes," she says. "I'll hate you too."
And she leaves him.
Now, months later, at Christmas, she sits at the table alone, surrounded by her entire family except for him. He moved out. He moved in with James and the Potters. There isn't even an empty chair where he should be; his parents hid it in the kitchen.
"I miss Sirius," she says aloud.
Everyone stops what they are doing and looks at her. All of them are glaring, even Regulus, who's only thirteen.
"We don't know anyone by that name," his mother says quietly. Everyone continues with what they were doing. Narcissa looks away, grimacing.
There's an empty place in her stomach, but food can't fill it. She pushes her plate away. After everyone leaves, she goes upstairs to his room, sits under his desk, and cries.
Another Christmas. They're both eighteen. They haven't spoken to each other in two years, not even in school, not even at graduation. They run into each other in Hogsmeade, at night, when it's snowing and cold everywhere.
They're in a bookstore. She's standing in an aisle skimming a rather thick book and he's in the aisle next to her. He sees her, and he accidentally says her name.
"Narcissa?"
Startled, she drops the book.
He's older now. She's seen him at school, yes, but not really up close. They've been invisible to each other for two years, almost three. For a moment, she forgets her anger with him and lets him hurry around the aisle to hug her. He doesn't only hug her; he swings her around in a circle until she's laughing herself dizzy, and she feels like they're children again.
"Where have you been?" he asks her, brushing his hair out of his eyes. No use. It falls back in his face again.
She's surprised to find herself blushing. "I don't know – home, everywhere! Where have you been?"
"Home, everywhere," he says, grinning at her. He's very handsome. She's very pretty. She blushes again, but this time it's because she's upset.
"Which home? The one you left, or the one you're intruding upon?"
His grin drops. The playful, doglike look in his eyes is gone. "Please, Narcissa, don't start with that. I had to leave."
"You didn't have to do anything!" she hisses at him. All happiness at seeing him again has turned to anguish. Her stomach becomes a knot. She feels wetness in her eyes. "You could have stayed, and – "
"And what? What, Narcissa? Become the monster they wanted me to become? Not a monster, even, but a puppet! They wanted me to become some despicable, careless, cold-blooded criminal like my idiot brother! Did you really expect me to give in to that?"
"They didn't want you to be horrible," she hisses. People are shooting them irritated glances. "They wanted you to respect them. To respect us. Your family."
"What family?" he growls. "A family doesn't do the kinds of things that our family does to other people. Our family is twisted, Narcissa." He pauses, and his eyes suddenly widen. "And now they've sucked you into it! You're a part of them now!"
"Of course I'm a part of them," she snaps. "I always have been. I always will be. They are my family, Sirius, and I refuse to betray them like you betrayed them."
"They deserve to be betrayed," he spits bitterly. He suddenly grabs her by the wrist, pulling her up close to him, so that she can feel his breath on her nose. It makes her shoulders tremble, makes her knees weak, and she begins to fall, but he takes her by the shoulders and holds her close to his face. "You need to escape them," he whispers violently, as if he's trying to save her with his words. "They're trapping you in this evil web they've strung, but you don't belong in it! You're too strong for them … you deserve better, Narcissa … you … you could come live with me! I've got my own place now, and you could come stay with me, and we could disown the lot of them together, just like they've all disowned me! Think about it, Narcissa – just you and me, doing whatever we please, whenever we please, free from all of the evil and scheming and pureblood rubbish!"
"I can't," she whispers back, chin trembling furiously. There are tears wetting her pretty face. She doesn't know why it is so hard to refuse him. "Please, don't ask me again…"
"I'm not asking you, I'm begging you. Come with me, Narcissa. We could have our own life together! We could be free of this!"
"We won't ever be free," she whimpers, trying to break free of his grip. He's hurting her. "Even if I … if we … we still wouldn't be free of it. They would find us, they would follow us … we would never get away from it. You won't ever get away from it – you won't! It will haunt you, Sirius! I hope it haunts you for the rest of your life! You turned your back on your family – you may not like them, but they're yours. Years from now when you're older and tired and gray, you'll go back to that house where we spent so many Christmases together and you'll look around and you'll see what you left behind, and you'll hate yourself for it. Family isn't a duty, it's a privilege. You treat it as if it's a burden."
"The Potters are my privilege," he says back, shaking her so that she'll understand. "I can see it in your eyes, Narcissa – you hate your life. You envy mine. You want to escape so badly and yet something is holding you back. What's stopping you? What is it? I'll get rid of it, whatever it is, and then it can just be you and me, and we'll never have to think of them again! I promise you that I will never, ever, let them bother you again! I will keep you safe from them! I will make you happy! Do you understand me?"
"I can't!" she sobs, trying to hit him with her fists. "Please, don't ask me!"
He doesn't give up. "What's stopping you? What?"
"I'm to be married!" she gasps, trying to stop her tears.
He lets go of her. He takes a step backward. "What?"
Her shoulders feel cold, and she suddenly wants him to be holding her again, shaking her to make her understand. "Married," she repeats. It's barely a pathetic whisper.
It takes him a long time to ask, "To who?"
She takes his hand in her own. He tries to pull away but she pulls him closer to her, like he did only moments before. "Lucius Malfoy," she whispers.
A look of the utmost distaste envelopes his entire face. He rips his hand from her grip, accidentally pushing her against the bookshelf at the same time. Her back hits it hard but she doesn't notice the pain. He doesn't apologize. He's glaring at the carpet, the shelves, the books, the walls, the ceiling, everything. "Malfoy?" he chokes, waiting for her to correct him. When she doesn't, he repeats, "Malfoy?"
"It's a good match," she says desperately. "He's very wealthy, and his family's pureblood, and – "
"Listen to what you're saying," he says miserably, slamming his fist against the wooden shelf. "Look at what they've done to you! They've ruined you! You could have broken away – you could have been anything you wanted – you could have been so much better than them – they've ruined you!"
"Don't say that!" she wails. "I want to marry him! I love him! It's a good match!"
"You don't love him," he snarls. He takes a step towards her. She backs up towards the shelf. "You're marrying him for his money." He takes another step. His eyes are wild and furious. "For his family. His social status." Another step. He's still snarling, and his whole body is trembling with a frightening rage. "You know you won't be happy with him." He's so close now that their chests are touching. Her back is against the bookshelves, the wood is digging into her spine, but she still doesn't feel the pain. He's staring at her and she's staring at him, and she knows that she has one last chance to give him an answer. One last chance. One.
"I can't," she whispers miserably, starting to cry all over again. "I don't want to be with you."
And she wonders why this is so difficult for her to say. The hardest thing for her to say.
He doesn't back away for a moment. He looks at her long and hard, knowing that she won't change her mind and hating both of them for it. He then leans down, whispers something she can't understand, and brushes his lips against her forehead. Then he backs away, straightens his shirt, looks away from her, and leaves.
It isn't until two days later that she realizes what it was he had whispered.
Another Christmas, and they're both twenty. She's married and lives with Lucius Malfoy. She's lost half her name, but she's still a Black.
She's sitting in her kitchen by the stove, crouched down on her knees, because the house elves haven't lit the fires in any of the other rooms. Lucius is out for the morning – before he left, he said he would bring her back a wondrous present to make up for the time he was away from her. She smiles a little as she rubs her hands and then puts them to her stomach. She feels warmth spread all through her body, and she thinks she has never felt so wonderfully complete.
The doorbell rings.
She rubs her hands together again, waiting for a house elf to answer the door.
It rings again.
Annoyed, she gets to her feet. The cold immediately surrounds her and she wraps her cloak more tightly around herself. She walks through the house until she gets to the door, and she sees that no house elves are in sight. Sighing, she opens the door just wide enough to stick her head through so that she can see who it is. She nearly faints.
"I wanted to see you," he says, before she can say anything.
"Sirius," she breathes, her head and eyes and stomach fluttering all at once. "You can't – what if I hadn't answered the door? You can't just – just – show up like this!"
"We are family, you know," he says, and he's almost grinning. For an instant, she sees him as a twelve year old again.
The image vanishes as he steps inside and shuts the door behind him. "It's cold in here."
"I don't know where the house elves are," she says. Her eyes never leave him. "They were supposed to start the fires in all of the rooms."
His eyes scan the room, the furniture, everything. "It's a very nice house."
"Thank you."
"You – " he breaks off, and she sees a struggle in his wrinkled forehead. "You – must – you must be very happy. You look well."
"Thank you," she says again, blushing. "I'm very happy."
There is a pause that seems to last a lifetime.
"Sirius – are you happy?"
And then he smiles. She feels her heart breaking all over again, because she's forgotten how much she missed that smile. She loves that smile. "Very happy," he says. "Lily and James – did you hear that they got married?"
"Yes," she says. She can't help her nose wrinkling at the mention of Lily Evans.
"Yes, well," he says, "They're going to have a baby. They just told me two days ago. It's due in July."
"How lovely," she says, just as she's supposed to. She can't help her stomach fluttering at this sudden news, however, and she wavers, putting one hand to her stomach and another on the back of a chair.
He frowns. "Are you ill?"
She shakes her head. "No … it's just funny you should mention that news …"
He looks startled. He knows what's coming, yet he says, "Oh?"
She nods. "I'm going to have a child, too. In June, I think."
And he notices that under her cloak, her robes are certainly tighter around her waist. "You're – you're having his son or daughter," he says, lips curling in distaste. "You actually – I mean, you – with him?"
"That is what comes after marriage, you know," she snaps. She will not let him make her feel guilty about this. "I'm very happy. We're hoping for a son, both of us, but we'll be happy just so long as the baby is healthy. We've even started decorating his or her room."
He looks angrily at the ground. "Well, I'm – if it makes you happy, then – good for you. Congratulations."
She looks up. "Really?"
He looks up. "Really. I betrayed my family, after all. I didn't betray you. I'm still allowed to wish you well, aren't I?"
"What are you saying?" she demands. "I've never been a part of your family?"
He shakes his head. "Neither of us. We've never been a part of that family. But only one of us was ever able to escape it."
She shakes her head, and she's crying again, and she hates him for it. "We can't escape," she whispers. "We never will."
He nods, not believing her. "It was good to see you, Narcissa. Good luck with – everything."
"You too," she says. She isn't sure if either of them really mean it.
He turns to leave. He opens the door, steps out onto the porch, and has made it down the steps before she calls out for him. He stops, turns, and only has a moment to see her before she flings herself into his arms, giving him the last hug she'll ever give him in their lives. She knows it's the last. She then whispers something he can't understand, stands on the tips of her toes, and kisses him lightly on the cheek.
It isn't until he's sitting quietly in a cell in Azkaban that he realizes what it was that she whispered.
A year passes. The babies are born. Andromeda, who is twenty three, has long since run away with a muggleborn, and her family has disowned her. She and Sirius have been spending a lot of time together, especially after she married the muggleborn, Ted Tonks, and had a child of her own, Nymphadora. Narcissa has heard the way Sirius refers to Andromeda. She's his favorite cousin now. She has been for a while. She's free-spirited, like he is. She believes in what he believes. She betrayed her family, like he did.
Another year passes. He's in prison now. He betrayed Lily and James and they were murdered, and now he's in Azkaban. Lucius is in danger. She's afraid he'll be arrested for his allegiance to the Dark Lord. She's afraid he'll be thrown in prison. Like Sirius. She can't raise a child by herself.
Another year passes. Bellatrix is in prison. She and her husband, whom Narcissa has always found to be extremely ugly, were discovered, and they were thrown in Azkaban. She should visit them, but she doesn't.
Five years pass. Draco, her son, is now almost eight. She decides to visit Bellatrix and Rodolphus, though she can't understand why she wants to. She goes to Azkaban, and the guards have to clear the dementors for her. She enters the prison. She walks through the dark, murky, shadowy, deathly rows of cells until she sees the face that she hardly recognizes. Bellatrix isn't beautiful anymore – her eyes are sunken in and she's gaunt as a skeleton. She looks grateful to see Narcissa, but she doesn't say anything. Narcissa leaves. As she's walking out, she hears a very familiar voice.
He's still there. Alive. Of course he is. He's a Black, after all.
She can sense what cell he's in as she passes it. He weakly calls her name, and it's obvious that he thinks he might be imagining her. There is desperation in his voice. A yearning. He's begging her.
There is a distinct moment when it is right for her to stop. There is one moment, only one, when she can stop and look at him, maybe put him out of his misery for only a moment. There is a moment.
It passes. She does not look at him.
She holds up her robes so that they don't drag on the ground behind her, and she breaks into a run. She doesn't stop running until she's so far away that she can't hear his voice anymore, not even the echo.
Seven years pass. Her son is fifteen, in his fifth year at Hogwarts. He hadn't wanted to go to Hogwarts – he'd much preferred Durmstrang – but she told him it was too far away. She hasn't told him the real reason he couldn't go.
He comes to her house again one afternoon. Not on Christmas. He doesn't knock. He doesn't even come up to the door. She doesn't know if he knows that she can see him. Narcissa is sitting by her bedroom window when she suddenly sees him standing behind a tree, just a little ways off her property. He looks up at her house for a moment, and he looks so different than she remembered him from their childhood days. Hiding under his desk. Sitting on the roof. Even the night in the bookshop. She's surprised to notice that she only feels coldness when she thinks of him now.
She's grown bitter. Everyone notices. None of them know what has caused this change in her – most blame it on her sisters. She hasn't spoken to Andromeda in over ten years and Bellatrix, as far as she knows, is still stuck in prison. When she looks down at Sirius through her window, she knows he can see her. She wonders if he can see her scowling. She feels nothing for him, though she wonders if maybe under all of that nothing, there's a something that's too small to notice. A part of her wants to find it.
The rest of her body turns to ice, and her scowl deepens. She ignores him. She continues with her reading.
At the end of this year, he dies. Bellatrix kills him. Narcissa is surprised to find that she isn't sad. She doesn't cry. She doesn't feel anything.
"Bloody bastard," Lucius says, on the night before it happens, before he's arrested and sent to Azkaban. "Can't believe he's related to you. There's bad blood in every family line, I suppose."
"Yes," she agrees. "He was definitely the bad seed. Him and Andromeda."
The house is quiet without Lucius. Draco says nothing about it. He never says anything against his family. He never seems to have desires to escape, to search for something better in life. Narcissa wonders about this.
One night, she asks him, "Draco? Do you ever feel trapped in this family?"
He looks at her, obviously confused. "What do you mean?"
A shrug.
Sirius's fourteen year old face flashes past her eyes, laughing at her.
"Just … trapped."
He shakes his head. "Never. Our family is one of the only decent ones left."
She nods. "I know."
That night, when she goes to sleep, the other half of the bed is empty. She looks out the window. She rolls over so that she's facing the wall. She remembers Sirius's absent chair that one Christmas, and how much it had hurt her to see it gone. She laughs at that now. She smiles, at least. She's too tired to laugh. She thinks about what Sirius told her, about being able to escape. He is dead. He has escaped.
She reaches out her arm and feels the empty space in the bed next to her. She takes her other hand and holds it to her stomach, comparing the two, wondering which is emptier.
If she chooses the bed, she betrays her cousin. Her blood. Her family. Choosing the bed means that it is emptier because her husband isn't there to fill it. If she says that her stomach is emptier, she betrays her husband. Her partner. Her family. She opens her eyes. She stares at the wall. She is a Black, no matter who she is married to, or where she lives, or how many children she has. Blacks don't betray their family.
She chooses, she groans, grimaces, and she closes her eyes.
She chooses her bed.