Author's note: Enjoy!

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns the canon, world, and characters portrayed below and you can tell I'm not J.K. Rowling because #transrights

Hogwarts: Assignment 2, Mythology Task #3: Write about siblings not getting along.

Warnings: Running away from home, alludes to familial violence, canon-compliant prejudice


Poisoned Lullabies

It took a moment for Bellatrix to realize why the crying from Narcissa's room didn't stop, and then it hit her all at once like a bag of bricks or a curse to the chest: Andromeda wasn't there. Andromeda wasn't there to do what Andromeda always did, which was wake up at the slightest noise and creep over to Narcissa's room to gather their little sister in her arms and soothe her back to sleep.

Bellatrix's mouth suddenly tasted bitter again, as if she could spit poison—just like it had when she'd run into the parlour to see what all the screaming was about only to find Andromeda with her fists clenched after a lifetime of not even raising her voice. Just like it had when her father had raised a hand against her and Andromeda had blurted that she was pregnant before it had come down. Just like it had when their father had twisted his hand in her hair, demanding to know who have you been with, Andromeda had spat in his face instead of answering and used the second during which everyone was too shocked to move to slip out of his grip and run out of the house—summoning a bag she had packed as she ran for the door. Just like it had when Bellatrix had leapt after and run outside, only to find that she had already vanished into thin air.

"Cissa?" she asked when she opened her little sister's bedroom door. There was still a tinge of venom to her voice which was wrong for the occasion, but what of it? She had spent so long damage-controlling the situation and plotting out the family's best options with her enraged father and heartbroken mother that she'd been too tired to safely Apparate home to Rodolphus, because of the absolute mess her sister had made of her life and of the family name they'd all been fortunate enough to inherit. So yes, she had every right in the world to be in a bad mood.

Still, that wasn't Narcissa's fault.

"What is it, Narcissa?" she asked, trying to force her voice to be gentler for her youngest sister. Well, her only sister now. Andromeda might as well be dead, for all Bellatrix cared.

"I… I had a nightmare," she said softly from her bed. Bellatrix could see her ever-so-faintly with the dim light cast from the tip of her wand. She looked especially small that way, sitting among the blankets of her canopy bed and swimming in her loose nightdress, with her hair hanging loose around her face. That was something else Andromeda hadn't been there to do, she supposed: braid Narcissa's hair into the braids she always slept in that gave her hair its usual curl.

"That's fine," Bellatrix said. It was still too stiff.

"It was really bad," Narcissa informed her.

"Okay," Bellatrix said. "What do you… what do you need?"

"I don't know," Narcissa said.

Bellatrix gave it a second. Then she sighed and asked: "What did Andromeda do when you had nightmares like these?"

"Is she home yet?" Narcissa asked shyly.

"No, which is why I'm asking," Bellatrix said. Narcissa's lower lip only wobbled more in the dark.

Bellatrix took a deep breath and summoned every ounce of patience she had in her, which meant that she wouldn't have any more to give for the next fifty years at least.

"What did she do, Cissa?" Bellatrix asked. "Did she sing a song or something?"

"Yes," Narcissa said quietly.

"Which one?"

"The one about the birds and the moon being in love," Narcissa said. For a second Bellatrix's blood ran cool as she realized that she didn't know that one, it wasn't something their mother had ever sung to them. But then she remembered hearing Andromeda make up that song was to calm down Narcissa during a thunderstorm, back when they'd all been much younger and sharing a nursery. She might be able to cobble the lyrics together.

"Alright," Bellatrix said, shutting the bedroom door shut behind her and wandering into the fray. She sat next to Narcissa on the bed, and Cissa automatically rested her head on her lap. Merlin.

"Put your blanket on," she told her sister since that seemed familiar as well. Narcissa listened as Bellatrix racked her mind for the lyrics. She had the melody in the back of her mind, annoyingly catchy and in her sister's soft voice which seemed sharp as a shard of glass now, but not the words.

"How does it go, Cissa?"

"You don't know it?"

"I know it," Bellatrix said. "Just tell me how it starts."

Narcissa frowned but then said softly.

"Do you know why the birds go in the sky, sky, sky?

Do you know why they touch the stars, stars, stars?

It's so the stars can tell the moon for them;

Your love is thinking of you, you, you."

Right. That.

"And then the moon tells the birds, birds, birds,

To bring her kisses back to earth, earth, earth.

So when the birds peck around after it rains.

It's to taste all of the moon's love, love, love."

It was a stupid song, but Narcissa seemed to like it so Bellatrix sang it from the top again, very aware that she had not been the musical one in the family by any stretch of anybody's imagination. Even Rodolphus, smitten as he was, would pay her no such compliment.

"That's it?" Narcissa asked.

"What do you mean 'that's it'?" Bellatrix asked. "I sang it twice."

"But it's a sleep song," Narcissa said. "So you have to sing it until I fall asleep."

"That's just something Andromeda made up," Bellatrix said.

Narcissa was quiet for a while.

"You didn't ask me what my nightmare was about."

"Did you want to tell me?" Bellatrix asked, partially wishing she'd let Narcissa tire herself out. Wasn't that what her parents always said should be done when children cried?

"I dreamed that Andromeda never came back," Narcissa said.

The poison flooded her mouth again, lullabies be damned.

"That wasn't a dream, Cissa. She isn't coming back," Bellatrix said. "She can't come back."

"Nightmares aren't supposed to come true, that's why they're in our heads," Narcissa said.

"Did Andromeda tell you that too?" Bellatrix asked. "Cissa, she's gone. You need to understand that quickly, for your own good and the family's. Alright?"

"But…"

"No buts," Bellatrix said. Yes, she'd been the oldest sister, but she'd never needed to be the soft and nurturing one when Andromeda was around; feeding sugar-water to baby birds that fell out of nests, playing along with the make-believe games with their little cousins, savouring tea out of empty teacups, making up songs, and making funny voices as she read storybooks. Nobody had needed a reminder that that's who Andromeda was and who Bellatrix was not, and yet there they were now. It was just one more thing for Bellatrix to be fuming about: the fact that Andromeda had taken that person, that gentleness, away from their little sister. Because Bellatrix wasn't about to start giving it out. She was the leader of the three, the sharp one, the decisive one, the one that didn't hesitate and got them in order and checked things off their lists. It was no good pretending she was not: she could only give what she had. And frankly, Narcissa could use that too. After all: you needed something sharp to cut things like ties and anchors and attachments to things that could no longer be.

"She's gone," Bellatrix said. "It's easier to forget about her. Do you want a different song?"

"No," Narcissa said quietly after a beat.

"Suit yourself, then," Bellatrix said. She got up and tucked her sister in. "Go back to bed: there will be plenty of visitors in the house tomorrow for all sorts of reasons, and Father will need you to be on your best behaviour."

"Okay," Narcissa said quietly.

"Sleep well," Bellatrix conceded on her way out. As she closed the door behind her, she heard Narcissa humming to herself, to the tune of love, love, love.


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