1996 -

"Thank you, Bella," Narcissa said, willing her voice steady. Willing it warm.

Her shoulders threatened to droop unseemingly. Narcissa kept them straight. The Dark Lord wouldn't be leaving the Manor anytime soon. She couldn't allow the situation to overwhelm her.

The two witches had just apparated at the edge of Malfoy Manor, half a country away from that dreary Spinner's End. Foreign stands of magic, Severus' magic, pulsed under Narcissa's skin, entwined in hers by the vow's unbreakable bindings. It wasn't uncomfortable, but it was there, and would not abate until the vow was fulfilled.

Narcissa's chest was tight. She should have been relieved, and she was, but Draco was still a pawn to the Dark Lord, and now she had put Severus in even more danger than he already was.

But what choice did she have? How else could she protect her Draco?

"I think it's because his childhood was happy," Bellatrix muttered, a thoughtful, faraway look on her face.

What, Severus'? "Who?"

"Rodolphus. That's why there's nothing much left of him. Me... Well, Cousin Sirius, too, he didn't act all that madder than usual, did he? Us Blacks don't need happy memories to remember who we are."

Who we are. Narcissa's muscles, from neck to calf, were painfully stiff. Bella, the old, whole, Bella, would never have murdered cousin Sirius.

"I barely remember you," Bella admitted, her lips puckered in a pout as they walked arm-in-arm through the gardens. Bella was always touching Narcissa when they were alone. But a sister eager for physical contact was hardly the worst consequence of Bella's sentence in Azkaban. White peacocks pranced around, oblivious to the Manor's new permanent guests. "I remember some moments, fights... Silly arguments that shouldn't have been such terrible memories... We cared a lot about each other, once, didn't we?"

Her tone held annoyance, wistfulness, rather than true regret. As if she couldn't quite grasp what she had lost. She stared at Narcissa with benevolent curiosity, a pale shadow of what had once been. Narcissa was no fool. Bella sought her out because she was hungry for company, hungry for memories that felt real, and the Dark Lord was too busy to indulge her every minute of every day.

"I still care about you." Narcissa willed her tone to stay pleasant. "You remember him."

Bella's left hand went to her forearm, her fingertips brushing the Dark Mark in reverent caress. "Yes. Nobody can alter the Dark Lord's mark. He showed me how to bind my memories of him, of us, to the mark, after that feckless Flint Obliviated me." Bella giggled, a woman-child's giggle, but thick with relief. "I remember almost everything."

Narcissa flinched. It hurt. Oh, many things hurt these days, but this - Bella's memories of her, of everything good they had lived through, were shadows, hollowed out like they had been the story of someone else's life.

Bella's memories of the Dark Lord were vivid and vibrant.

He was the only person she remembered, truly remembered, crafting spells with. The only one whose words of praise echoed in her mind. Whose smile was easily remembered (although that particular smile had been lost forever sometime during the last couple of years of the war). When Bella thought of what it meant to be cared for, she had no other point of reference than the Dark Lord.

No wonder he was her everything.

"Why are you crying, little sister?"

Bellatrix said the word 'sister' like she was trying it out.

Narcissa smiled. She tried to smile at Bella like she had smiled when they'd been girls. Two decades of frayed bonds tightened her eyes and cheeks, but with Bella in front of her, so alive in her form-hugging black dress, it wasn't that hard. As complicated as things were, Narcissa had missed her terribly. "Because I remember you. Thank you, for being my bonder today."

"Well, I couldn't have you asking anybody else... I didn't expect Snape to accept." Bella's face was an open book. Pleasure at being thanked, a somewhat fond possessiveness as she talked of Narcissa, surprise and suspicion as she mentioned Severus. Bella had always been the less guarded of the Black sisters, but this was something else. Like a small child in a woman's body, stripped of the layers age and wisdom wrapped people in.

"He's wanted to kill Dumbledore for a long time." Narcissa couldn't honestly claim to know of Severus' feelings regarding the Headmaster. But these were not times for honesty. Every side had its narratives, and the least she could do was speak up for Severus. "Can you imagine, teaching lazy, rude children every day for a decade and having to say 'thank you' to Dumbledore for the opportunity? By refusing him an official trial, Dumbledore's protection was slavery. Hogwarts has been his jail all these years."

Bellatrix snorted. "Did Sevvie truly expect anything else? You... you think him loyal to our Lord?"

Our Lord. Narcissa was proud she didn't flinch. "Absolutely. Why don't you?

Bella opened her mouth. She closed it. The light in her eyes sharpened, making her look more focused, more entirely there, for an instant. "People are such a disappointment, little sister. I... It's so boring, to be the most powerful, the most advanced in any room." She hummed to herself, as if she was organizing her thoughts, or perhaps hunting for a memory. She finally shook her head, a graceless jerking motion. "Sevvie, he's the son of a muggle and a disgrace, but he's still something, isn't he? I don't believe he's loyal because I can't believe this is his best. He surprised me today." She tilted her head, her lips twitching into a considering smile. "Maybe he's loyal to you, pretty Cissy."

"He's loyal to the Dark Lord," Narcissa said tightly, her heart hammering with the brittle fear that nowadays clung to her like an extra layer of clothes, "but he has always been a good friend of the family. Draco looks up to him."

Something unpleasant darkened Bella's features. "Soooo, do you think you could have gotten me out of Azkaban, if it hadn't been for your little heir? Or, one small, short little visit, at least?"

Chill seeped in Narcissa's veins. Even at her best, Bella had been possessive and jealous.

"Children were never something I wanted," Bellatrix pursued before Narcissa could answer. Bella spoke a lot these days, perhaps to make up for all this time spent alone. "Meda didn't want kids either, right? Can you believe that muggle made a Metamorphmagus... Decent dueler, pity they ruined her." Bella's smile hardened, her cheeks flushed with that magic-fueled rage she powered her Dark with. Her voice rose, almost a shriek. "And I. can't. kill. her! That's your spell, Cissy, protecting Meda, her muggle, and Meda's whelp." Bella's eyes narrowed. She wasn't looking at Narcissa as she waved her arm, wand in hand, in slow, thoughtful circles. There was nothing to target, except perhaps a lingering peacock. "You should kidnap the Metamorph, make her ours through mind arts and make her a Black." She shook her head, disgust twisting her lips. "Your boy's a Malfoy. So soft and whiny... You wanted a girl anyway, no?"

Narcissa nodded slowly, as if she was considering it. As if all this didn't make her want to scream, to flee. To bury herself in books in the hope of inventing a Time-Turner able to fix all this.

"Do you want ice-cream? You liked ice-cream," she said instead. They had almost reached the Manor's front doors, but Narcissa had no wish to go inside.

"Do I really? I can't recall."

Narcissa squeezed her sister's arm. "Exactly."

Excitement widened Bellatrix's eyes. "Fine. Let's go."

Had Narcissa anticipated that Bella's newfound passion for ice-cream would have lead to her kidnapping Florean Fortescue, she would have led Bella to a muggle shop, and even let her pick a muggle to play with along with a three-flavors cone.

Once Bella had figured how to operate Fortescue's magical ice-cream maker on her own, the poor man was used to test the wards around Malfoy's long-empty cells and the Dark Lord's interrogation techniques (it wouldn't do if a person convinced themselves of untrue facts in order to put an end to torture). It was Rodolphus who killed Fortescue, to prove he could still be useful for something. Rodolphus had become a husk of the cheerful, irreverent man Narcissa remembered. Bella rarely looked at her husband, even when the Dark Lord gathered them in the same room, as if the sight of him pained and disgusted her. She demanded to be called 'Ms Black' and only answered to 'Lestrange' if the answer was to be a hex.


"My dear, you look much better than you must feel," the enchanted mirror said. "Very elegant."

Narcissa gave the full-length mirror a tight-lipped smile as she magically adjusted her layered dark-purple dress. If she lost any more weight, she would have to wear glamours to avoid looking emaciated. She flexed her fingers. Open. Closed. Open. Her arm burned. Her whole body had burned, but her arm kept burning despite the last cruciatus having been cast over a day ago.

The Dark Lord had learned of Draco's failed plan to get an a cursed opal necklace to Dumbledore.

"You ordered someone under the imperius to cast an imperius themselves?" the Dark Lord mocked as Draco shivered on one knee, his head bowed and his shoulders braced for a blow. "The Dark Arts require their caster's full commitment. How could an imperiused person, especially an unremarkable light witch like Rosemerta, possibly succeed? No wonder the Bell girl gave herself away. Tell me, Draco, didn't your parents bother to teach you the basics of magic?"

Narcissa was glad it had been her and Lucius rather than Draco. Draco was drowning in panic and despair. She desperately wished he'd start listening to Severus.

She started when the bedroom's door flew open. "Cissy!"

"Cissy! Come, I -" Bellatrix froze as she noticed Narcissa's tremors. She scrunched her face up and sighed loudly. "You should've taught him better, Cissy. England doesn't need any more spoiled kids. Mind you, he must have gotten Malfoy brains, 'cause it's not like Mother and Father taught us all that much. We didn't need to be told to learn."

"If it hadn't been for those mudbloods, I could've given him a sibling." Narcissa spat, desperate for an outlet for her own fury. "Maybe then, things would have been different."

Bella patted her shoulder. "I'll ask the Dark Lord to just tell Draco he's torturing you. Don't tell anybody, though, or he'll have to crucio you for real."

"Thank you," Narcissa managed. And she was grateful. Despite her sister blaming her for the torture she had been put under. Bella interceding for her was a true favor. It filled her with hope, for the two of them. "Why were you looking for me?"

Bella grinned. "Yes! I have something to show you. The Dark Lord left me some to experiment."

Some what? Bella's eyes shone with excitement, but there was something else there. She was clutching her wand too tightly. Narcissa took her own wand out before they apparated, her heartbeat accelerating.

The place was a kind of stable, with wooden walls and a beaten earth floor. Four grimy stalls were obscured by magic, making it impossible to see what was kept inside. The air smelled of nothing, betraying the presence of a freshening enchantment. Light filtered poorly through dusty glass windows, but the place hummed with magic. A lot of magic. It stank of recently raised crude wards. As if someone with too much power but too little know-how -or maybe just no patience at all- had lathered the place with enough dark wards to contain a pack of werewolves.

Bella took a shuddering breath. "Alright, here it goes. Watch out, I've been starving it." She waved her wand at one of the stalls.

"Starving what-" An sudden, unnatural chill cut off Narcissa's question.

She stumbled. Her vision blurred as all her senses were dragged to another time. "I'm so sorry, Lady Malfoy. You won't be able to conceive any more children." Her occlumency shields slammed into place, dulling the accursed voice.

"Expecto Pa-"

"No!" Bellatrix shrieked. "Let me! Look!"

The chill intensified. New voices rose in her mind.

An unnatural cruel voice. "Draco, you will kill Albus Dumbledore to redeem your family. You will succeed or you will die."

Her teen-aged sister, raw and disbelieving. "A muggle! Surely she's bewitched! Meda would never leave us for a muggle!"

Narcissa gasped for breath as the hooded creature floated – It wasn't floating towards her. It was floating backwards. It was trying to flee as much as it was attacking them.

Ten-year-old Draco, his voice shaking despite his best efforts. "Mother, I think Father is crying. Is grandfather dead?"

Lucius, a coiled black snake pulsing on his pale forearm. "The Dark Lord is the future."

Somewhere close to her, Bella chanted in Latin. Under the dementor's assault, Narcissa couldn't make out the words. She shut her eyes, focusing on her mental defenses lest she scream or lose control of her magic. She pushed the memories away before they could take root, instinctively trying to focus on three little girls' shared laughter instead.

Draco, screaming under the cruciatus.

Gasping, she remembered Severus' words. "Fill your mind with a bad memory, bad enough to satisfy the dementor, but manageable. One that does not make you lose control."

Narcissa focused on giggles of a broken mind. On darkness dancing behind painfully familiar eyes. "I killed Sirius, the traitor."

Her eyes slowly cleared. Bellatrix was still chanting. Narcissa was half-sprawled against one of the grimy walls. She hastily put herself together.

"Avada Kedavra, straight to the chest!" Bella giggled, eyes wild. "The Veil claimed him."

The Dementor, a hooded nightmare bundled in tattered clothes, looked... bulkier, but also less. Magic shimmered all around it, weighting it down. Narcissa sucked in a breath. The chill was gone.

"Avada Kedavra!" Bellatrix howled.

An inhuman screech silenced Narcissa's nightmares. It happened in less than a second, as if a force had shredded the hooded wraith from the inside. The once-dementor became a pile of grayish... goo, no larger than a a grown man's foot.

Bella's triumphant laughter filled the abandoned stables. "I've been thinking of ways to destroy those abominations since my first days in Azkaban!" Sweat ran down her temples and her heaving chest. Her eyes were mad, madder than usual. A grin lit her face, of the kind that belonged on an acromantula who had spotted an unsupervised child.

Narcissa stared at where the dementor had stood just seconds before. Dementors weren't something you destroyed. Magic just... slipped around them. Their appearance could make one question how living they were, but they had nothing in common with ghosts. They were shifted in time, here but also echoes of a kind. From there came their ability to feed on the feelings attached to memories. Only patroni, born of the most unequivocal happiness, existing in the physical world but also as memories, could block or strike them.

"You... how?"

"I powered this with hope." Bella's smile softened. For the first time, Narcissa gazed upon the woman and saw her sister, the one she'd lost in her early twenties. She found herself smiling back, amazed. "I didn't remember we'd made that spell, Cissy, not before Meda's whelp survived my blasting curse in the Hall of Prophecies. Now I remember! And I remember how. It's easier when I know what to look for."

"Dementors don't just feed on our happy memories," Bella's lecturing tone was breathless and passionate. "They can't resist happiness, so they suck it out of our mind, shattering everything in their path. But they revel in nightmares too. The worst of the worst, dragged from our pasts until it becomes our present once again. Awful emotions are better savored like that." Bellatrix swung her arm around Narcissa's shoulder. "There's a spell the Dark Lord invented, to make time go slower for him for a handful of seconds. He taught it to me, before Azkaban. It opens a crack in time." So that was how those two managed to duel so impossibly fast. "I did it Cissy! I dragged the dementor wholly to our time so it couldn't escape the killing curse. Hope found me the right crack in time, see. Hope's just not really in the present, see? Not like the other feelings."

Narcissa's smile broadened. She remembered. It was the reason why the three of them had chosen hope to power the blood-bindings they'd cast on themselves as teenagers. Fear made powerful shields and facilitated escape, rage fueled hexes and curses, jealousy and want could unravel wards and enchantments, but hope was special in that it could brush away a reality you disliked and favor one you did. Crafted in the hope Meda, Bella and Cissy would always be the best kind of family, the blood-bindings refused to let spells unworthy of that sisterhood affect their intended target. Offensive hexes and curses were therefore diminished, the excess power absorbed. And none of them, not even Bellatrix, could cast a spell capable of overpowering a bond willed by three.

"The other feelings, they're much more present," Andromeda had told them in those long-gone days, as they excitedly sat together in their Hogwarts dorm. "Try to be fully there, to smell, feel, see all that is around you and fiercely hope. It's hard. Because hope takes you out of the moment and takes you to what you wish to be."

Of course, too much hope-fueled magicks would steal one away from the present. All dark arts came at a price.

"You have permission to destroy them all?"

Grinning, Bella whipped her wand. The remnants-of-dementor morphed into a fire-cracker. It exploded with a bang, filling the air with a acrid sulfur smell.

"We don't need those abominations," she declared. "We can make our own prison. When the Isles will have bowed to the Dark Lord, he'll let me kill them all."

"He doesn't need them, for Europe?"

"I'm working on giving him something better. You should help me, little sister. It'll be easy for me to convince him you're valuable, then."

"Of course, I'll be happy to help you." And Narcissa would. It wasn't just a matter of what was right, or of what Narcissa's heart craved. It was a matter of survival. She needed her sister back.

And so, together, they began to make monsters.

Luckily, Narcissa was able to enchant a fail-safe within the monsters. During the Battle of Hogwarts, nobody but Bellatrix, who was by then too busy fighting for her life, and the Dark Lord, too obsessed by the Elder Wand and the prophecy, realized that the Death Eater's inferi should have much more dangerous than usual reanimated undead.


1998 - after Voldemort's death

Narcissa aimlessly walked the Manor's halls, her eyes drinking in details she had stopped seeing years ago. The Manor, as grand as it was, had never been truly hers, but perhaps houses passed down through generations of pureblood were never meant to feel quite like home.

Narcissa's figures brushed the painted-stone rendering of Morgana, tall like her forearm and clad in the finest miniature clothes. One of the few objects she had taken from the bedroom she had grown in. Her hand spasmed briefly. She willed it still, willed herself to feel glad that the stilling only took four seconds, when it was still eight a few weeks before.

She refused to let herself break.

She had lost in status and wealth, but it seemed like a reasonable price to pay to get the Dark Lord out of the Manor. She tried not to think of the fact nobody burst into her bedroom to demand her company these days. In Molly Weasley's place, she would have done the same thing.

An engraving in the chandelier had her pause. This was no heraldry she recognized. Could it date back to the Malfoy's piracy days?

Malfoy Manor would soon be requisitioned by the Ministry to house those who had lost theirs. Narcissa had already begun sending the more valuable memorabilia to Lucius' siblings. She took photographs of the rooms, corridors and gardens, in the hope it would help her grieve. She didn't let Lucius see her. He refused to accept the Manor may be lost to them.

Narcissa's shoulders drooped in defeat. She wasn't sure if her marriage could survive all this. Lucius was... brittle, these days. In mind and body. She knew not to blame him entirely, he'd had little choice once the Dark Lord had come back, but the name Malfoy left a bad taste in her mouth these days, like Black once had.

Perhaps it was time to leave England. For now she stayed only because Draco would not hear of leaving.

No. That wasn't true. There was also Andromeda. Meda.

Narcissa had never known how to ask for forgiveness. Poise, perfect pureblood manners, those had come naturally to her, but learning forgiveness had never been needed (in truth, she had worked very hard at her poise and manners, but nobody had noticed, so she flattered herself by thinking it was all natural talent. But then, wasn't that the crux of the matter, the sickness that had led to the war: valuing birth, blood, talent, all the things one couldn't control, over one's actual achievements?)

A part of her rebelled still. Why did she have to be the one to forgive?

They had promised each other always, and Meda had walked away as if it meant nothing.

No, not nothing. Narcissa had read Andromeda's letters. It had just not meant enough.

Nevertheless, what was stopping Andromeda from coming to her now?

After weeks of dithering, Narcissa decided pettiness didn't suit her. Andromeda had lost her home, buried husband and daughter, and was caring for an infant. She probably had little time to spare a thought for her estranged little sister.

It was in tailored pale-gray pants, heel and a broad-shouldered jacket, a look she had seen on a shop-mannequin in central London (a place she had gathered that muggles of a certain class chose their clothes), that Narcissa walked the outskirts of a small town called Warwick. It was a pleasant early summer morning, the haze of white clouds still filtering sunlight. When passing muggles turned to look, it was with appraisal rather than confusion or disapproval, so Narcissa decided she had not gone wrong with her disguise. She could have disillusioned herself and avoided stares altogether, but these days, ignorant muggles were the only ones who didn't look upon her with pity or hostility.

She stopped in front of the house she knew to be Andromeda's. It was a little removed from the town itself, concealed by a cluster of trees. From the outside it looked like an abandoned muggle mansion that had known its glory days generations past. Behind a tangle of weeds, one could glimpse broken wooden shutters, cracked paint and a moss-spotted leaking roof.

The hair on the nape of Narcissa's neck rose as she gingerly stepped towards the house, between an overgrown rosebush and a sad looking birch. Her magic stirred, recognizing blood-kin. Narcissa sucked in a breath. Behind the wards, the mansion's true aspect was better, but still dreadfully neglected. This was not a home, only a refuge.

She froze when Andromeda appeared. It had been years since Narcissa had so much as caught a glimpse of her eldest sister. Her black hair was cut short, her face lined, her shapely body hugged by a light blue dress. She was still attractive, and looked painfully like Bella, or the person Bella could have been.

"Narcissa." Andromeda's body was stiff and her lips pinched. "What do you want ?"

Narcissa swallowed. She didn't know how to do this. In her mind, imagining the conversation had only drawn blanks. Suddenly she was sixteen again, desperately longing for her big sister. She recognized now that she'd buried her grief under pride, anger, betrayal. She was tired of pretending.

She mustered a smile. It came out sad. "I want my sister. If we never talk again after this, at least it will be truly our choice, and not... circumstances."

Andromeda looked down. She shook her head slowly, exhaustion creasing her features. "I'm not at my best."

"I know. I'm sorry. I can't begin to imagine. I... I mourn Bella, who she was." Who I foolishly thought she could become again. "I'm sorry about Sirius. I... I chose Draco, all those years ago. It was made clear I would have paid dearly for any interest in Azkaban."

"It was Dumbledore's job to give Sirius justice. His actual job, not just his moral responsibility. Not yours. Unless you knew specifically about Pettigrew, this is not something I blame you for." Andromeda took a slow breath and invited her inside. "I stopped mourning Bella years ago, but I understand." A small smile finally graced her lips. "Classy muggle clothes, little sister."

"I tried," Narcissa said, legs heavy with relief as she entered the home. It was terribly muggle, with bare walls except for garish flowered wallpaper and odd lighting appliances left unused. Illumination charms floated around the living room, but even the furniture looked like it had been abandoned along with the house. Andromeda had magically fixed everything to be serviceable, but no attention had been paid to appearance.

A fierce nostalgia gripped Narcissa as she spotted the baby, lying on his stomach on a play-mat. His hair was a shocking unnatural orange, and his face scrunched up in concentration as his chubby arms clumsily reached for slow moving blocks.

"Teddy's angry. He doesn't understand why his parents don't come back."

Narcissa could hear the cry for help in Meda's low tone. She had nothing to answer to it. No fix to offer except words. "You'll be a wonderful grandmother."

Silence answered her, thick with grief. Narcissa took a shaky breath. "I always wanted more than one child."

Andromeda's sad eyes flickered to hers. She had always been less intense, more empathetic, than Bella. "You couldn't?"

So Narcissa told her. And slowly they opened up to the other, stirring awake childhood habits, memories of long buried intimacy.

"Did you know Dora threw her auror's entry exam?" Meda waved her wand, making Teddy's cubes cartwheel and drawing a few giggles out of the little boy. "Alastor suggested that being too good would encourage those who used the excuse that she was Bellatrix's niece to deny her the position."

"What was their actual problem? Surely a Hufflepuff half-blood isn't such a disgrace?"

Andromeda's lips curled. "Their problem was that Dora was the kind of person that Mad-Eye Moody would mentor. The kind that might speak up about corruption or incompetence. She made them look bad. So she was outstandingly average during her exams and got the job."

It spoke of the sad state of affairs that Narcissa wasn't even that surprised. She bowed her head. "I'm sorry I never got to know her."

"It's the people like her who die." Meda's voice shook, anger tightening her shoulders. "The competent, the brave, those who wants things better. When the war's over, the cowardly, the mediocre, they leave their hiding places and we're trusting them to build our future."

"Kingsley Shacklebolt was on the front lines. I thought he had your respect." Something hollow filled Narcissa's stomach. If even the Order had lost hope -

Meda sighed. "Shacklebolt is a good man, but... They're exhausted. We all are. I see Harry, he really wants to do right by Teddy, but... He's himself so hurt, Cissy. He has so much to work through."

Didn't they all? Of course, Harry Potter of all people... Between the Prophet's abuse, the war and...

Narcissa took a sharp breath as memories of Sirius, a young, passionate Sirius, threatened to distract her. "Is Potter a Potter, or a Black ?"

"He's... conflicted."

"You could be the head of house Black, Meda, and Teddy after you. You could take your name back." The scandal hadn't just been that Andromeda had eloped with a muggleborn; it's that she had taken his muggle name. If he had married her as Edward Black, they would of course both have been disowned by Uncle Orion, but the message would have been different. It would first and foremost have been a family affair. Andromeda would not have been seen as disavowing the whole of pureblood society.

"You also could reclaim the name Black."

Narcissa fell silent. Her deepest dream had been a family united, unbreakable. Lucius' shuddering frame as he was wracked by nightmares, his slouched form as he spent his days staring wordlessly at the Malfoy grounds, picking up feathers shed by his late father's beloved white peacocks...

"Lucius' sister, the one in Mauritania, she knows an excellent mind-healer there," Narcissa muttered after a time. "I must convince him to go."

"You were happy, with Lucius?" Meda didn't ask if she was happy now. It seemed that despite twenty years apart she didn't have to.

Narcissa blinked. "Oh yes. I... if it had not been for the Dark Lord... Perhaps we should have left England when Draco was born. Lucius wanted to send him to Durmstrang: he wished Draco to be forced to meet people he would have to prove himself to. I didn't want him in a school run by a Death Eater. I... I liked Hogwarts."

Andromeda's soft smile was heavy with understanding. "I was exceedingly grateful when Dumbledore allowed Nymphadora to attend."

Her hand reached out for Narcissa's. Narcissa found herself grasping it, unbalanced by how foreign and yet familiar the grip was. She blinked tears out of her eyes.

This silence was still painful, but more manageable. Narcissa was glad she had come.

"Did you see the article on Regulus? Sirius' name has finally been publicly cleared." To think the Black name may not be a curse anymore. "Are the rumors they wish to turn the story of your elopement into a novel true?"

Meda grimaced. "Unfortunately, yes."

"We could be a family again. We can't possibly do a worse job at it than the first time around."

That tore a chuckle from the older witch. "Does Draco truly wish to meet Teddy?"

Draco, pale, painfully skinny, and wracked by nightmares. Unlike Narcissa, who owned her share of darkness, who had grown into her power before the Dark Lord had violated their lives, Draco had been barely more than a child when he had been made a slave to the monster's whims.

No child should see their parents scream and writhe under cruciatus. Narcissa was painfully aware that the only reason it hadn't been worse for her was Bellatrix's interference (although the more Bella remembered, the more she grew jealous of Draco and Lucius, and Narcissa suspected that Bella had wanted her to pay for refusing to disavow them, for valuing them more than Bella herself), and, of course, Severus.

Severus, so very skilled at keeping their paranoid Lord convinced of his loyalty, just not enough to survive the final battle.

Narcissa blinked more tears out of her eyes. Morgana, she was tired of crying. "I'd be happy to bring Draco over," she managed.

"If he comes to my house, I'm not going to put up with attitude I'd have punished in my daughter."

Narcissa took a sharp breath. She was tired of having to defend her son to her sisters. "I'm not asking you to. He'll survive. Do..." a soft sigh left her lips. "Do you truly believe all this was our fault? For prizing blood purity?"

"Not wholly, but it doesn't help. I do despise you for not caring about the state of things as long as you had power and comfort." Narcissa flinched. "And I'm saddened you could find it in you to overlook your husband's Dark Mark."

Saddened. As if Narcissa was guilty of being unable to hold high standards. Sudden fury filled her. Fury she didn't know what to do with. She couldn't, she wouldn't be scathing with Andromeda. Perhaps it was better, that they could air their grievances. "I hear you," she simply said.

"We need to stop focusing on blood and start valuing merit and integrity. Kingsley speaks of reducing the Ministry's size by more than half. It's ridiculous that close to a sixth of working witches and wizards hold administrative positions. Petty politics and a waste of galleons, that's all it is. An excuse to give a position to every mediocre second cousin in the Isles. When England was as its peak, we were a nation of artisans, magic crafters... There are talks to make spell-crafting a third year elective at Hogwarts once more. Perhaps we might even have a sane rational discussion about dark arts one of these days..."

Narcissa nodded, daring to hope. "But you fear it is just talk." She straightened, willing calm and confidence back on her face. "Would you say Kingsley is vulnerable to seductive blondes? I could make sure he delivers."

Andromeda stared, then she laughed. For a second, they were girls again. "Tell me you aren't serious."

"No." Narcissa's smile vanished as grief tightened her chest. She missed Lucius. Her Lucius. "I'm not prepared to mourn my marriage just yet."

There was nothing awkward about Andromeda's hug, or Narcissa's return of the embrace.

So much had been lost, but perhaps the tattered remains of House Black was something they could put back together.


Dawn had barely broken the horizon when the sensation of her face been dipped in lukewarm water-not-wet jolted Narcissa awake.

A dolphin patronus hovered by her bed, its sleek silver body shimmering in the air. It removed its snout from her face. Around its neck hung a wooden pendant.

"Narcissa, come." Andromeda's voice, quiet but thick with purpose. "I need you for this. The spell requires two. It's about Edward. And Bella. The necklace is a portkey."

Narcissa blinked the sleep out of her eyes. She'd seen Andromeda the previous morning. She still had to speak to Draco or Lucius about it.

Nevertheless, there was no question of not answering her sister's summons.

A spell. Instead of warming charms and her usual hair-styling enchantments, Narcissa hastily summoned a cashmere shawl and twisted her blonde hair into a tight bun. Layering spells could be tricky, so better she come with as little magic on her as possible.

Their three surviving house elves had been bound to other families by Ministry order after the Dark Lord's death, so Narcissa left a note for her husband and son to find. She spelled the bed to make itself, sadness filling her at the sight. After the first war, she'd vowed she'd never have reason not to share a room with Lucius again. So much for vows...

The patronus nudged her once more. "Come."

The portkey's tug was so gentle Narcissa was surprised to arrive much farther than the Manor's living room when the pendant fell out of her hand, drained of its transport magic. Instead, she stood in what looked like one of those muggle storage buildings. It was a quarter as large as the Hogwarts Great Hall and spotless. The materials were those of modern London: cement, glass, steel. The lights were electrical. It was empty, except for her sister, in thick gray muggle overalls.

And a two-person brown leather couch floating a few inches off the floor and held down by two ropes. Narcissa raised her eyebrows, now intrigued.

"Cissy! Thank you for hurrying. Teddy's over at Harry's. They're not expecting me until dinner, but there will doubtless be a crisis that requires my intervention by lunch time."

Andromeda looked like she had been awake for the last twenty hours, and possibly drinking pepper-up potions in excess.

"Where are we? Why are you wearing-"

"Giant pajamas? Comfort, and they have elastic bands on ankles, wrists and stomach. I have a set for you. We're in Edward's hangar. Near Cardiff."

As she spoke, Andromeda gestured to the hangar's walls. Posters and pictures Narcissa hadn't noticed at first stole her ability to form words.

Moons, constellations, planets. Space. Machines in space. Muggles in huge white body-suits and something like black glass hiding their faces.

Narcissa took a slow breath. "Meda, what am I looking at?"

"I need to say goodbye to my husband. We'd promised each other. I've let the others have their proper official burial, but this is what he wanted. And this is something I want for Bella too." Andromeda chuckled. The sound held a note of hysteria. "Perhaps she truly would have come back to haunt us, had they not exorcised the battlefield... But she liked things grand, she wanted to push the limits of magic, of... I think she might have actually liked this. And well, if not, as the eldest, I'm exercising my right to make this call." All hints of amusement, of wistfulness, were suddenly replaced by cold, quiet fury. "I couldn't let them keep her, not like this."

'Meda, you need to sleep.' The reasonable part of Narcissa wanted to say. But this was a situation beyond reason.

Because if that dragonhide pouch Meda was fidgeting with was what Narcissa thought it was, then her sister was now a criminal. Bellatrix's body, along with the Carrows' and some of the more reviled Death Eaters had been frozen under lock at the Ministry since the battle of Hogwarts, until 'an appropriate course of action' could be decided upon. Clearly, Andromeda had lied (perhaps to herself as much as to Narcissa) when she had said she had stopped mourning Bella years ago.

Narcissa smiled softly at her. "So what is it you plan to do with our sister's stolen ashes?"

Andromeda smiled back. The content smile of someone confident they were in the right. "I dare them to arrest me," she whispered. "Come, Cissy, you must change and I need to apply some spells first. Then we'll be going to space."

Space.

Numb with shock, Narcissa let her sister weave her enchantments. Warmth, oxygen, notice-me-nots, electromagnetic shielding ('you need this against the sun' did little to enlighten Narcissa on what electromagnetic could possibly entail).

"Ted was so thrilled when the papers announced that the ISS's assembly was finally under way. That's Zarya over there."

To Narcissa's eyes, this Zarya object proudly displayed on a man-sized poster was just another machine. White and sleek and massive, certainly, but nothing from her world.

"Now." Andromeda took a deep breath. "Last time Ted and I made the voyage, Nymphadora had completed her auror training. We felt it was important to show her that the world is so much bigger than what even Hogwarts teaches us." Her voice caught, her words strangled. "She loved it."

Narcissa gently grabbed her sister's wrist. "Meda, I know this is hard for you, but I need you to explain."

Her sister nodded apologetically, eyes bright. "A geostationary satellite is a machine in space whose position relative to the ground doesn't change. As it's a fixed point, we can use it as a portkey destination. We will be portkeying to one of the dysfunctional satellites, so we do not have to worry about magic interfering with the electronics." Her lips twisted into a pained smile. "It's not the moon, but Ted and I were rather proud of ourselves."

A geostationary - "How far?" Narcissa Malfoy did not squeak, but her words did come out unattractively high-pitched.

"From the equator, close to 36000 kilometers, so add a few more thousand from here." Meda squeezed Narcissa's arm as the younger witch swayed at the number. Even the longest international portkeys didn't exceed ten thousand. "That's why I need you, Cissy. First, I need to cloak you in one last spell. Put these on, please."

Clad in the same unflattering gray ensemble than her sister, Narcissa was suddenly flying. No, floating, just above the ground. She moved her arms and legs, and frowned when it got her nowhere.

"Anti-gravity. Exiting the atmosphere requires enough speed without having to fight gravity." Behind every one of Meda's words, every spell, Narcissa could detect months, if not years, of work. Despite Meda's exhaustion, her raw grief, there was also excitement at being able to share this, with Narcissa.

A grateful smile bloomed on Narcissa's face as she finally measured how special this was.

She was warmed to see Meda grin back. "Now we must strap onto the couch. I hope you noticed how soft the portkey who took you here was?"

"I did. With regular portkeys I don't think I'd survive forty thousand kilometers."

Meda chuckled. She floated around Narcissa, somehow at ease with the bewildering sensation of anti-gravity. "Remind me to tell you about the time we tried porkeying to the Everest in under five seconds. You almost lost a sister that day. Now, the spell. We'll be going at such high speeds that we must power the shield spell into the portkey. It requires too much power for me alone."

The floating leather couch turned out to be the portkey. Meda harnessed herself and Cissy to it with straps. Protective runes were etched into the sides.

"Repeat after me," Meda said as she began her incantations.

The spell itself was not complex. It wasn't even Dark. A simple temporary ward, enough for a few hours' protection. Space. As the runes glowed with their magic, Narcissa was filled with increasing awe. Another kind of awe warmed her veins : this was not blood magic, or something Narcissa alone could do for her sister, and yet Meda had asked her. Perhaps, truly, they would grow to be close once more.

"We now have fifteen seconds before the portkey activates." Seated next to her, their legs almost brushing, Andromeda smiled slightly. "There's barely enough space for two. Nymphadora had to morph into a toddler so I could strap her to myself." The satchel containing Bellatrix's ashes now hung around her neck, and another small bag, which had to be either Edward Tonks' ashes, or a placeholder memento hung next to it. She sat up straight and grabbed onto Narcissa's hand. "Alright, swallow, take a deep breath, and lie back relaxed. You can close your eyes if you wish to."

Narcissa did, never letting go of Meda's hand. An invisible weight slammed into her as a force propelled her upwards. In her floating state and attached to the couch, Narcissa felt more secure than she ever had during her international portkey travels (England-India was twenty unending seconds of feeling like a fish in a hurricane), yet she couldn't breathe, and the sensation wasn't stopping. Seconds became a minute. Her heart pounded as her lungs protested.

"Breathe slowly."

Startled by Meda's low injunction, Narcissa opened her eyes.

Usual portkeys magically passed all kinds of barriers at ground level and so there was nothing to see, only a dizzying storm of shades and magically-muted howling wind. Narcissa was surrounded by the blue sky. And the sun. Not the crack-of-dawn pale orb she'd just left behind, but the sun in all its majesty.

Slowly, she breathed. Forcing air into her lungs despite the pressure. Blue sky gave way to darkness, despite the sun burning brighter, bigger. The wind's howl was gone. It was so silent Narcissa could hear her own pulse. Space.

And Morgana, the moon! Whole, huge!, huger than Narcissa had ever thought it could be.

"There," Meda said. "The satellite."

Narcissa lacked the words to satisfactorily describe the machine. It was larger than them, but smaller than the Knight Bus. Some of it was covered in what looked like crumpled silver sheets that glowed gold under the sun (aluminum, Andromeda corrected). The rest was a cylinder covered in dark tiles, that Andromeda would reveal to be solar panels. Structures like baskets (antennas) and a wand-like long rod (another antenna) pointed towards the Earth.

Earth. Morgana, it was all there! Europe, Africa, almost half of Asia. Home was a speck of nothing hidden beneath a swirl of clouds. The line between light and darkness cut Ireland, Spain and West Africa, leaving South America shrouded in night. Except... no, there was light, some places seemed illuminated from within (electricity in cities, Andromeda revealed, and Narcissa began to truly measure the depth of her ignorance).

Two more thick leather strands had shot out of the warded couch and now kept them attached to the satellite. 36 000 kilometers of nothing under her feet. Narcissa giggled, overwhelmed.

"Congratulations, Cissy, you're the first non-disowned British pureblood witch to have set foot in space."

"I think she would have liked this," Narcissa breathed, her eyes drinking in the spectacle before her. "Bellatrix doubtless would now be thinking of ways to weaponize the satellites, but she would have liked it."

Her awed smile died when she realized Meda, still clutching her hand, was weeping, her free hand around the two small bags around her neck. It wasn't dignified, silent weeping. Soon, her knees tucked against her chest, Andromeda shook with violent sobs.

"We were supposed to go to the moon," she choked. "We would've, given time."

Narcissa found herself sitting awkwardly, and unable to hold back her own tears. She had never met Edward Tonks, but here among the stars, she felt a sudden sense of acute loss. How could she dismiss him as inferior, how could she call Meda's choice a mistake, when witnessing what he and her sister had achieved, together? Her heart twisted at Andromeda's grief. Yes, Lucius was damaged, but he was alive, Draco was alive. Narcissa wept for Edward, for Bella, for the niece she had never been an aunt to, as she stared down upon this Earth she had seen so little of. Something about the sheer immensity of it filled her with a sudden lust for life.

Morgana, she and Meda weren't even fifty! They had over half their lives to live still. Enough regrets. Narcissa's eyes roamed over the continents, vowing she would not be confined in her speck of Britain anymore. Who cared about the Manor? She and Lucius had enough money the Ministry knew nothing about to live twenty lives in luxury. It was time to stop cowering and to begin anew.

It was long wordless minutes until Andromeda spelled the two bags outside the protective shell around the couch. They shot out, propelled by magic, and fell.

With a farseeing lens charm, the witches watched the remains of their loved ones burst into flames as they entered the atmosphere. Within seconds, they were consumed into nothingness.

Andromeda wiped her tears, offering Narcissa a shaky smile. "Thank you."

"Thank you." Narcissa giggled again. Nerves. Her cheeks were still wet. She flailed with her feet. A leather couch. In space. She knew the moment was supposed to be solemn, but she felt giddy like a little girl. "Tell me you two just used this couch to enjoy the view."

"Morgana, Cissy, your marriage sounds so boring."

Thirty-six thousand kilometers over the Earth's surface, Narcissa laughed and pretended to scourgify the portkey-couch she was sitting on.


Aaand, I'm terrible at sticking to a plan and somehow magical space-burials happened. So there'll actually be one last (this time truly the last one^^) chapter narrated by Narcissa before we move on to Bellatrix. Be ready for back-to-Earth Harry and Draco interaction.

I'd love to hear your thoughts! Thanks to A Strawberry for leaving a review last chapter (since I can't thank you by PM).