Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Harry Potter series.

Finishing

Narcissa stood in the doorway of Bellatrix's room and watched her sister prepare for battle. Bellatrix dressed in the almost dark of the very early morning, waiting for her master's expected summon. At the last meeting, the Dark Lord had spoken of Hogwarts. Narcissa sensed a finality to the battle's staging. She was certain her crowd would exit the fight victoriously, certain that this fight would bring the end of the second war of her lifetime, but uncertain that she would find herself happy at the end of things.

Bellatrix said, "I'm going to finish things today."

Narcissa frowned, considered her warrior sister.

"What do you mean?"

Bellatrix's eyes gleamed with the passion and thrill she derived from fighting, from war, from her deranged sense of purpose.

"I'm going to get our little niece."

"Will that really be enough?" Narcissa asked, because, somewhere in her whirling thoughts, she thought of Draco. No, Narcissa thought of losing Draco.

But such sentiments would be lost on Bellatrix. Bellatrix, who smirked with a tired hungriness.

"What more can mere magic bring me?"

Not enough, Narcissa knew. Not enough to fix fallen stars, broken sisters.

So Narcissa nodded and hoped Bella would find happiness on the battlefield of Hogwarts if that was what Bella sought. It was perverse, far-fetched, desperate, but Narcissa wished Bellatrix happiness.

"Help me?" Bellatrix asked, indicating the loosely woven back of her corset.

Narcissa complied. As she wove together her sister, Narcissa tried to shake her despondency. She leaned against Bella's shoulder and hoped to feel stronger and safer. Instead, Narcissa felt the leather of the corset and the wiry hair that brushed her cheek. Closing her eyes, Narcissa rested her chin on Bella's shoulder and pretended one last time that things were all right.

Then Bellatrix touched a cool hand to Narcissa's warm cheek, and she might have actually believed it.

"We're so close," Bella breathed. Her eyes were shut, and her lips spread easily across her face. She looked almost peaceful at the thought. "It's going to happen. Today. This is the end for them. I can feel it. And then we'll have the world again." She drew in her breath as if savoring her liveliness, contemplating her life to come. Bellatrix repeated, "We're so close."

"We were never really that far away."

Narcissa could not quite determine Bellatrix's reaction to this comment, but it was most likely that Bellatrix hadn't heard, too lost in her dream.

"Bella," Narcissa said.

She detached her cheek from Bellatrix's hand.

"I'm coming, too."

Narcissa's voice surprised the room, not with the words it chose, but with the finality that voiced her decision.

Bellatrix's silence, so seldom employed, tested Narcissa's assurance more skillfully then could her sister's words.

"For Draco," Narcissa clarified. "And Lucius."

Bellatrix nodded, waited.

Narcissa fought with a mad urge to deny her sister's expectations.

She lost.

"And for you."

Narcissa gave Bellatrix a vast opportunity to manipulate the words and the motives behind the words.

Bellatrix struck in a cold voice, "You think I might die."

Narcissa paused, wondered if that was indeed her real reason for joining the fight.

"The possibility is always there."

Bellatrix clenched shut her mouth, looked annoyed, insulted. Then she picked up her wand and watched sparks fall from it as if they were an extension, the last feeble bits, of her soul. The mirror met Bellatrix's gaze unforgivingly. But Bellatrix, Narcissa knew, was good at nursing delusions. So perhaps Bellatrix saw the future queen of a purer world, or whatever Bellatrix fought for these days, just waiting to confirm her reign, just waiting for her crown. But Narcissa, who had once thrived and existed off delusions, was tired of fooling herself. She watched Bellatrix and saw Bellatrix, and that was it.

Something changed in Bella's eyes; triumph, or something just short of triumph, replaced insult.

"Cissy, you're wrong."

Narcissa gazed apathetically at her defiant sister. Curiosity slowly thawed Narcissa's protective veneer of emotionlessness. She wondered. Was Bellatrix's stubbornness the result of fear or true conviction?

"Bella," Narcissa said, and she wasn't sure that it wasn't a lie, "You're still human."

The dark glow emitted from Bellatrix's eyes disproved the good parts of this characterization.

"You aren't invincible."

Bellatrix raised an eyebrow and then surprised Narcissa.

"You think I don't know that?"

Narcissa's mouth parted slightly as she struggled to reconstruct her statement.

"I know your worries, I listen to your reliefs, I sense your hesitations." Bellatrix stared at Narcissa. "You wouldn't display such evidence of doubts if you still believed I was invincible."

Still believed, the words echoed in Narcissa's mind, took her briefly into the past when she was a young girl and Bella had only the storm to fight.

"And if you've lost your blind confidence in me, why should I fool myself into thinking otherwise?" Bella laughed, a brittle, cracked sound. "No, sister, I'm not invincible. Not anymore. Not yet."

Bellatrix remained silent for a moment as though reassuring herself of some questionable truth.

"But soon. The Dark Lord-" Bella began.

"But until then?" Narcissa interrupted. "Today? Now? This battle?"

Bellatrix shrugged. "The same knowledge as any other time. But a bit clearer."

Narcissa waited, as she always would, for her sister's words. As she strained her ears, the room's solitary clock ticked, impatient, ready.

"That I'll return from the battle as a victor or I won't return at all."

The stubbornness was from neither fear nor conviction. The unyielding force and fight came from the warrior herself. So Narcissa wondered. Was Bellatrix the result of fear or true conviction?

"I will win," Bella said softly, simply, "or I will die."

Narcissa stared at the wand clutched in her sister's hand. Something was wrong in the way Bellatrix held the wand, not quite naturally. But, of course, the wand wasn't truly Bella's wand, only a temporary replacement for the missing wand, the wand that chose Bellatrix. Narcissa wondered if it would matter. Narcissa shook the worry from her mind. Bella had possessed a magic before she possessed a wand.

"Could you say the same, Cissy?" Bellatrix asked suddenly, and it was not an accusation, not a taunt, but a question.

Narcissa shook her head.

"No, Bella."

And there Narcissa found her answer. Bellatrix had conviction, perhaps nurtured by insanity and far too sharp and begrudging a memory, but still it was conviction. Narcissa harbored the fear.

But she was not a coward.

"I'll make my own victories as I have to," Narcissa said.

"And I won't compromise," Bellatrix mused quietly.

The sisters sat in the quiet weight of their statements. Bellatrix's loyalty knew no bounds and she would crusade always to spread her loyalty further and farther. Narcissa's loyalty knew only the bounds of her own heart and the remaining few things she kept in it. The realizations of differences determined their courses of action.

Narcissa gave Bellatrix a small smile.

Bellatrix gave Narcissa a small laugh. "How can we possibly lose?"

Then Bella gasped, and it was a mixture of pain and pleasure and undeniably duty.

She clutched her left forearm, glanced at her sister.

"It's time."

Author's Note: And yet another summer closes, and yet another year of writing this story closes. Two years! Thank you so much for your fantastic support of my Sisters Black musings. To prevent any confusion as could be caused by this chapter's title, this is not the last chapter. I just like to be dramatic. :) My return to school draws near, but I hope to continue updating semi-regularly!