Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Harry Potter series.
Harboring
At first she had thought it was the raging storm that had awoken her. But the gale beating against the windows was nothing to the eerie feeling that crept up her spine for no apparent reason. Narcissa was staring blankly up at the canopy over her bed. The sky seemed to explode as the windows rattled with the force of the thunderclaps. Slowly, she sank back under the covers, rolling over onto her side. Narcissa winced as she ran her hand across the empty expanse of the bed where her husband should have been sleeping.
She didn't know when he had left, but it must have been in the depth of the night while she slept, unnoticing as his Mark burned viciously into his skin. The storm, alive with a dangerous electricity, sent chills through her. It seemed to be catering a foreboding, one that Narcissa didn't understand, but frightened her all the same.
There was the sound of an opened door banging back and forth with the wind, no it was just the wind pounding on a closed and locked door, Narcissa told herself as she slipped out of bed to listen at the door. But then there was the scurrying noise of a house elf prancing across the floor. There was the sound of a low hurried whisper to which the house elf squeaked back quick replies. Then the house elf gave a shriek of pain as it was undoubtedly kicked to the floor. Straining her ears, Narcissa heard the whimpering house elf mutter submissively back to the other voice whose words she could not determine.
Narcissa hurried back to the nightstand to grab her wand and then quietly slipped out of her bedroom. Her heart raced as she wondered who was downstairs. You're being foolish, Narcissa, she scolded herself, for all you know it's Lucius. But she knew this wasn't true. Even from the brief rumble of whispered conversation she had overheard, Narcissa knew that wasn't the voice of her husband. Nor did she recognize it as another Death Eater who might have come to the house seeking to recuperate after a fight. But that didn't make sense. Lucius had made sure, the Dark Lord had made sure, that the only way to gain entrance to the manor was to bear the Dark Mark. Unless the security had somehow been broken. Narcissa clutched her wand tighter.
Ministry officials making a surprise raid, she worried. But they would have been far more diplomatic about it. At least they would have had the decency to announce their presence. Your husband is still in their good graces; they trust him, Narcissa reassured herself. An Order member? And as her imagination went wild with fear, that idea seemed entirely plausible. But what could they do to her? Nothing, she reasoned, because she didn't even physically bear the Mark. No, it just loomed around her house and through her blood.
Narcissa held her wand in front of her warily. She felt her way down the long staircase, neglecting to light her wand for fear of giving her presence away to the intruder. In almost all cases, she didn't look forward to dueling, but if it came down to it, Narcissa at least wanted the advantage of surprise.
But as she reached the landing, she regretted the darkness. Narcissa was filled with dread; she knew the intruder was in close proximity, if not mere inches away from her wand. Holding her own breath, Narcissa could hear, practically feel, the ragged breathing of the unidentified figure.
Her wand held tightly, Narcissa gathered her nerve.
"Stupefy!" she shouted, never having mastered nonverbal spells particularly well.
With the blast of red light, there was a startled shriek, and the sound of a chair falling. Narcissa was surprised to find that it was a woman's voice.
But then the woman laughed. It was almost a hacking sound, rough, and jagged. But the dark allure, piercing and haunting rang through the low chuckle.
Suddenly Narcissa gasped, clutching her heart.
"Show yourself," she stammered, a thousand nightmares taunting her at once. The tip of her wand was now lit just barely.
"Really, Cissy," the voice rasped in amusement. "After all these years, this is how you greet your sister?
The house shook as lightening pierced the sky. The flash of great light shined through the windows, illuminating the woman with a terrible sharpness.
"…Bella," she whispered, barely audible.
Narcissa choked back her horror as the light from her wand fell over her sister eerily.
"Aren't you glad to see me?" Bella laughed, her eyes gleaming, darker than Narcissa had remembered.
Narcissa didn't respond. She was too busy analyzing the figure before her because this couldn't be her Bella. The woman was a skeleton, so thin Narcissa wondered how she was still standing. The prison robes that hung like curtains over the last remnants of a body were dirtied and stained. Bella's once shimmering dark hair, a Black heirloom in itself, was lusterless and wild. Scabs seemed to have formed at the hair line as it must have been clawed at in exasperation and hysteria. The face was sickly and gaunt. It looked like the face of someone awoken from the tomb. Sunk into her face, Bella's eyes were the only think that bore resemblance to her former condition. Still heavily lidded, they were dark and black as sin, though no longer enticing, they were malicious.
"As the Lestrange Manor is obviously under strict Ministry surveillance and control, the Dark Lord has requested that I stay here," Bella added since Narcissa hadn't given a coherent answer.
"Of course," Narcissa said quickly snapping from her sorrowful inspection of her returned sister, "You needn't even ask."
She gave a half smile to her sister as she realized that she would now be harboring Azkaban's most wanted witch in a house the Ministry would obviously check right away. She also felt like bursting into tears of outrage. Narcissa had childishly imagined her sister's triumphant return every night when she woke up screaming from a nightmare filled with the faces of her estranged, one by choice the other by force, sisters. She had perfected the scene in her mind so well that she could replay it in her head until it rocked her to sleep like some sick lullaby.
Bellatrix would strut in (not hunched forward like she was now) with the wake of the storm (the only similarity to this night). As Narcissa heard her sister's victorious cry, she would run into the room. There she would find Bellatrix standing in the open door way, the wind whipping her waist long, but still glimmering, curls. Bella's pale face would be a beacon of light, even as Bellatrix was engulfed in the glorious darkness. Her arms outstretched, Bellatrix would throw her head back and laugh and laugh and laugh. Narcissa would run into the safety embrace of her older sister and she would be young again. Nothing would have changed…
"Rodolphus is still speaking to the Dark Lord," Bella explained, breaking Narcissa from her dream, "But he will arrive in a while, I think, if you will have a room prepared for him as well."
Narcissa nodded, not about to ask her sister why she couldn't just share a room with her husband. "Who else escaped?" she asked for want of something to say. She couldn't stand the silence with her sister in the room. (A part of her feared that this might still be a dream; that Bella was really still locked in her miserable cell and Narcissa in her empty home.)
"There were many of us, though I did not quite see everyone's faces. I think you'll find that the Dark Lord will want to keep them here," Bellatrix said slowly, watching her sister's expression suspiciously.
But Narcissa had been expecting this much. "Yes," she replied, "The Dark Lord has been using our house as headquarters for some time now."
Bellatrix's eyes flashed with pride as she declared, "A great honor for your family."
Narcissa was about to note that it was also a bit of an inconvenience, but thought better of it. Her sister didn't seem entirely… right. The glow of obsession seemed to radiate off of Bellatrix's entire person now, not just her left forearm.
"I…" Narcissa didn't know what she could say to bridge the gap of fourteen years, so she said the first mundane thing that came to her, "I'll show you your room then."
She turned and walked up the steps. Though she was more than happy to accommodate her sister, Narcissa cringed at the idea of housing so many escaped Death Eaters. A shortage of rooms would be about the only thing she didn't have to worry about. Behind her Bellatrix laughed in her strange way again.
"I haven't forgotten my way around your house, Narcissa."
Narcissa winced as she said softly, "No, of course not, Bella. How silly of me."
Why did she feel like she was talking to a completely different person from the Bella she had missed everyday for so long?
She opened the door to one of the guestrooms and then walked over to turn down the covers. Bella was gazing longingly at the overstuffed bed. Narcissa saw only the pristine white sheets and then stared warily at her post-Azkaban sister.
"I'm so tired, Cissy," Bella said drowsily, as if reading her sister's mind.
Narcissa put her hands on her hips. "Bella, you are not going to sleep until you take a bath. I don't know how to put this nicely, but you're filthy and quite frankly, you stink."
Bella raised an amused eyebrow as she said quietly, "I've missed you too, sister."
And with that Narcissa broke. She buried her face in the crook between Bella's neck and shoulder. As her tears fell from her face onto Bella's tinted skin, little streams of grime followed, but Narcissa couldn't have cared less. She was only concerned with holding onto the fading form of her sister. As her embrace tightened desperately, Narcissa winced because she could feel seemingly every bone of her starved sister. Bellatrix, once so strong, was leaning her full weight-which wasn't much anymore-against Narcissa as if needing the support to merely stand up straight.
"You need something to eat," Narcissa said quickly, her maternal instincts flaring in anger at Azkaban for marring her sister of… everything.
Bellatrix nodded.
"I'll get a house elf to make you something while you take a bath."
It was a telling mark on Bellatrix's physical condition that she didn't protest to her little sister's authoritative manner. As Bella sulked over to the adjoining bathroom like the stubborn child she would always be, Narcissa left the room and summoned a house elf with a snap of her fingers. Having ordered it to prepare something for her sister to eat, Narcissa went back to her room and found a nightgown for her sister. In a matter of a half hour, Bellatrix had exited the bath and changed into the nightgown that was far too light and frilly to be mistaken for her own.
Narcissa eyed her sister with tight lips. At first glance she wasn't even sure that Bellatrix had taken a bath, her skin still dark and stained. But her hair, instead of being a frizz of knots, was now a wet frizz of knots, so Narcissa sighed and realized that it was going to take more than a few baths to restore Bella to her original state. A small voice told Narcissa that Bellatrix would never be able to reclaim her former beauty, but Narcissa pushed that thought away irritably. At least she had washed the first level of grime off, Narcissa supposed.
Stretching lavishly, Bellatrix smiled as if possessed by the inviting comforts of a soft and overstuffed mattress. Indeed, as she slid under the covers she sighed in delight. It looked as though she was going to drift into sleep already.
"Bella, you need to eat first," Narcissa instructed, carrying the tray of food that the house elf had delivered over to her sister.
At first it seemed that Bellatrix barely even had the strength to eat as she poked her food with her fork noncommittally. But then, as she managed to take a first bite she acquired a renewed vigor. Bellatrix ate as though she hadn't done so for ages, and as it looked, she probably hadn't. Narcissa grimaced as Bella tore the meat from the bone with only her teeth, horrified not by her sister's lack of table manners for once but the desperation with which she consumed the food.
"Slow down, Bella," Narcissa warned, afraid of the very real possibility that her sister would vomit all over the bed.
But Bellatrix only ate faster, shoveling food into her mouth as if she was afraid that it might be taken away. Finally she finished, gulping down the wine greedily and then gasping for breath. As Narcissa removed the empty tray cautiously, vaguely worried that her sister might rip off her arm and start gnawing on that, Bella moaned as she clutched her stomach. With a smug laugh, Narcissa crawled under the covers next to Bellatrix.
"Are you going to be sick?" she asked tentatively.
Bellatrix swallowed hard and then shook her head. "No," she said weakly.
In an unexpected moment of vulnerability, Bellatrix curled up closer to her sister, clinging to her arm. Suddenly, she was sobbing into Narcissa's shoulder, though Narcissa couldn't tell whether they were tears of joy or exhaustion, maybe a mixture of both. Narcissa wrapped her arms around her sister protectively because she wasn't about to let anyone take her Bella away again.
Hiccupping quietly, Bellatrix sniffed. She avoided Narcissa's eyes, so afraid to appear anything less than strong.
"It will be all over the papers tomorrow," Bellatrix whispered, a childish excitement filling her voice. "Everyone will know how we have triumphed. How the Dark Lord rewarded his most faithful servants…"
Bella trailed off with a wide yawn, scooting further under the covers to rest her head on Narcissa's lap. A small smile formed on Bella's cracked and out of practice mouth. In a matter of minutes, Narcissa heard her sister snoring gently. Still sitting upright, her fingers tangled in the streak of gray, Narcissa pulled the matted hair, once such a glorious mane of pure ebony, away from her sister's face. She ran a finger over the deep lines that now creased Bellatrix's forehead, lines that had not been present before Azkaban.
Bellatrix bore the signs of a warrior who had been through many battles. But it was with hot white fury that Narcissa knew that no opponent could have harmed her sister, but an internal war against the prison walls of insanity. Narcissa was shaking, trying not to cry, but there was no point. There was still much more fighting to come.
Bellatrix had escaped, finally, but Narcissa knew that she was only being pulled deeper into the fight. Even and especially as she held her older sister.
The war had never been closer.
Author's Note:Hide your children, Bellatrix is waiting in the shadows. (Unfortunately for some of us, that's all the more reason to head for the shadows... ) I hope you'll forgive the sentimental sap that comes when I write Cissy, but I couldn't resist. Your reviews give me hope within the walls of Azkaban. And, with yet another self-plug, I recently wrote a humorous Black Sisters (minus poor Meda) entitled What Greater Gift Than Sisterhood and it can be found on my profile. Thanks for your time!