Andromeda found quickly that being a good big sister was not as easy a task as she would have thought it would be. She was impatient with other people by nature, and Narcissa – a small child, and not a very bright one at that – demanded constant patience. Despite what their parents had insisted, Narcissa had not grown more interesting as she got older – she was every bit as dull now as she had been when she was first born.

Granted, she was dull in rather different ways.

Andromeda had thought that Narcissa was dull as a baby because she couldn't talk or play games or even go out onto the grounds with her, and those were all things that she had known full well the baby would outgrow.

And she had. Narcissa had learned to talk, she was old enough and clever enough – though, only just clever enough, in Andromeda's estimation – to grasp rules for games, and she was allowed out on the grounds, under her sister's supervision, at least. But now that she was old enough to do all those things, she was demonstrating very clearly to Andromeda that she was also dull in ways that she might very well never outgrow.

Narcissa did not like the games that Bellatrix and Andromeda so thoroughly enjoyed. Andromeda tried to coax her into fairy tale imaginings – bribing her with roles as princesses and queens and fair maidens who married knights in shining armour – but Narcissa was staunchly opposed to all of them.

"Why?" she asked Andromeda when she tried to convince her to pretend to be a princess for Andromeda to save.

Andromeda tried to explain to her younger sister that there wasn't a "why" – that playing these games was something to do for fun, without any real purpose, but Narcissa simply did not understand. She stared blankly at her sister until Andromeda gave up.

Not only that, but because Andromeda constantly had Narcissa trailing around after her, and because Narcissa reported every last thing that she – Andromeda – did during the day, Andromeda was unable, not only to go out onto the moors, but to so much as look at them. She wouldn't have gone out onto them anyhow – she had promised Bellatrix that she wouldn't, after all – but it made her days all the more bleak when she didn't even have a chance to admire them from afar.

"What are you doing?" Narcissa asked one day when she caught Andromeda gazing wistfully out the window at the craggy hills in the distance.

"Nothing," Andromeda snapped. She had been in the middle of a familiar and wonderful daydream, in which she, Andromeda, was locked away in the clutches of an evil queen and Lady Bellatrix came to save her. Not the most creative of fantasies, but one that Andromeda like to retreat into for comfort's sake, enjoying the familiar staples of the story and mentally adding embellishments depending on her mood.

She looked over her shoulder at Narcissa only after she snapped at her, and was shocked to see her little sister looking hurt.

"What is it?"

Narcissa quickly hitched a defiant expression onto her small, delicate face. "Nothing!"

"You're upset. What's wrong?" Andromeda sighed. This was, she supposed, part of being a good older sister. After all, Bellatrix had asked such questions when she sensed Andromeda was upset about something.

"Nothing!" Narcissa repeated, but her voice cracked a little and she swallowed hard, clearly struggling to keep back tears.

"Don't give me that, Cissy. Something's wrong and I just want to know what it is."

"I told you, n- nothing," Narcissa said. She looked down, and her voice went quiet and weak – surprisingly so. Normally, when Narcissa spoke to Andromeda, it was in a loud, rather shrill voice. Now, it was just… soft.

Andromeda raised her eyebrows and fixed her sister with a stare. It wouldn't take long for her to crack – Narcissa was terrible at keeping her emotions locked away. Not like Andromeda, who was so skilled at hiding her feelings that her parents were quite convinced that she adored Narcissa and rarely even thought about Bellatrix.

"All right," Narcissa sighed at last. "Not nothing. Just… how come you're always so mean to me?"

"What?" Andromeda had not been expecting that answer, and she was outraged. "Mean to you? I'm not mean to you! When have I ever been mean to you?"

"You are so! You were being mean to me just a second ago!"

"What, when I told you I wasn't doing anything? I wasn't being mean, I was telling the truth!"

"You were not! You were doing something, and you lied and you said you weren't doing anything and you didn't say it nicely either!" cried Narcissa, stamping her small foot on the carpeted ground.

"You're being silly, Narcissa. I wasn't either being mean to you." Andromeda crossed her arms over her chest and glared at her younger sister.

"Were too," Narcissa muttered mutinously, dropping her head a little and glaring up at Andromeda through her eyelashes and a curtain of hair.

"Was not," Andromeda told her.

"Were too."

"Was not."

"Were too."

It was at times like this that Andromeda wished for Bellatrix the most. Bellatrix would have known what to do. She would have stopped the argument – distracted both parties with food or a story or something. But Andromeda didn't know how to do that, and Narcissa was not going to back down, no matter how wrong she might have been.

Andromeda drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. She was the big sister, she reminded herself, and Narcissa was only a little girl. She – Andromeda – had to prove that she was the better one, and that meant that she – Andromeda – was going to have to be the one to back down. She didn't want to. She hated backing down from arguments. But she didn't see any other possible way for this to end.

"You're right, Cissy," she said. Narcissa's head snapped up and her blue eyes sprung wide open, her lips parting in surprise. She had clearly not expected to win the argument. Andromeda expected Narcissa thought it would come to blows, or an intervention from their parents, or both. She had certainly not thought that it would end in Andromeda backing down. Andromeda never backed down. She was a stubborn girl, everyone knew that full well.

"What?" Narcissa asked.

Andromeda hid a smile. Narcissa looked so surprised that it was quite comical.

"I said you're right, Cissy. I was being mean to you, and I'm sorry."

Narcissa looked as though the shock might kill her. She actually swayed slightly in place, mouth open, as though she was going to faint.

"Really?"

"Yes, really." Andromeda patted the window seat next to her. "Come on, sit with me."

Narcissa appeared a bit wary as she climbed onto the seat next to her older sister. Andromeda had never been so kind to her before, and it was a little strange and quite unnerving for her to be now.

"Is this a trick?" Narcissa asked bluntly of her sister. "Are you playing a trick on me?"

"No," said Andromeda. "Why would I be?"

"Because you're never nice to me," Narcissa said simply, shrugging her shoulders. "I don't think it's really... I don't think you have it in you to be nice to me, sometimes."

"That's not fair," protested Andromeda. "I'm nice to you lots of times!"

"Like when?" queried Narcissa, tilting her head to the side and raising her eyebrows at her sister.

Andromeda wracked her brains. Surely she had been nice to Narcissa... many times. She felt like she was always straining to be nice to Narcissa. Surely she wasn't really being mean to her when she was putting so much bloody effort into being nice...

"I... I gave you an extra piece of cake at dinner last night?" she tried.

"Only because you were taking an extra one and you didn't want me to tell on you, so you let me have one as well," Narcissa countered.

Andromeda flushed. Damn.

"And now you're telling me you're doing nothing when you're obviously not, and you weren't saying it in a nice way either, and then you told me to come sit with you? I mean... wouldn't you suspect something too?" Narcissa asked. She sounded surprisingly logical, more so than Andromeda liked to admit.

"Well, I'm not playing a trick on you," she told her younger sister. "What kind of trick would make me want you to sit on a window seat with me anyway? I can't think of any good tricks that have the trickster and the person being tricked sit on a window seat together."

Narcissa smiled, even giggled a little bit. "Good point..."

"So," said Andromeda, pulling her knees up to her chest and looking at her younger sister, "What do you want to talk about? Sisters are supposed to talk about things, right?" What was the word Bellatrix used to describe it? "Bondage… no, bonding. Sister bonding…"

Narcissa smiled even more widely, and Andromeda was surprised. She had such a pretty face when she was smiling... stunningly... angelic and happy-looking. For just a second, Andromeda could almost see what everyone saw in Narcissa. She looked like a baby angel sent down to earth - perhaps a Christmas one, who belonged on a card, or in a painting, overlooking the Virgin Mary and Joseph and the baby Christ in the manger. Having long, sleek blonde hair - so unlike any of the rest of the Blacks - and wearing that sweet little white dress that Druella never seemed to stop wanting to force Narcissa into only increased the angelic appearance. In fact, when Andromeda took a really good look at her younger sister, it was a touch disturbing.

"Why are you staring at me?"

"What?"

"You're staring at me. Is something wrong?"

"Oh…" Andromeda shook her head. "No, Cissy. Nothing's wrong. I'm just…"

"Just what?"

"Just sorry that I've been mean to you," Andromeda said, then leaned down and hugged her sister as tightly as she could.