Blood Thicker than Water
Toujours Pur
I was born on a smoldering afternoon in late May, 1954. How do I know that I was born during an unexpected heat wave?
"Oh, Andromeda - I went through the twelve trials of Heracles in the lowest pit of hell to give birth to you," Mother promptly told me every opportunity she got.
Her bitter tone reminded me clearly enough that I was born disappointingly female. The only thing that my parents, Cygnus Black and Druella Rosier Black, had in common was a desire to provide a male Black heir to the family line; this might explain their strained relationship, considering how that wish never came true.
I have the suspicion that my parents reacted the worst at my birth out of the other two that all occurred in the span of four years. They welcomed Bellatrix, the first-born, with knowing indifference - the Blacks' mediwitch had informed the newly-wed couple of the child's gender long before she was born. After Bella's birth, Mother went through reproductive complications, and thus she and Father cherished my conception as their last opportunity. To be blunt, I shattered the dream that united my parents. Narcissa came as a completely unexpected, unthought-of surprise. Mother had accepted that she would no longer bear children, and furthermore, she and Father had gotten over their disappointment with me, so my younger sister's birth was simply welcomed.
The Black Mansion stood gargantuan and gothic in the middle of nature in Cambridgeshire. The Black legacy derives from the Middle Ages; therefore the Black Mansion in Cambridgeshire, Grimmauld Place in London and the Black Manor in Edinburgh all bore a gothic structure and style in decoration that has persevered for generations.
After Bellatrix died and Rodolphus received life-imprisonment in Azkaban, Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy tried to take possession of the Black Mansion, in vain. It was eventually exposed to Muggles as a historical house open to the public.
The mansion consisted of a stark, severe-looking building with more lugubrious chandeliers than windows, surrounded by a labyrinthine expanse of vegetation and located in near proximity of a beautiful, clear lake populated by swans during the autumn season.
Bella, Cissy and I grew up living two different worlds: one of obedience and the other of home-made leisure. The life of obedience consisted of, first of all, our education. I cannot remember the number of tutors that my parents paid handsomely to teach us the French, German and Italian language, in addition to literature, mathematics, history and genealogy.
Logic has always come naturally in my head, but the tampered version of wizarding history and the dull, statistical nature of genealogy bored me. Defying sleepiness during those lessons was a tough task, but Cissy seemed to be actually interested in memorising pureblood magical families by heart. Bella, instead, thrived in sports and in music. While Cissy and I lagged along our piano and harp lessons, Bella managed to effortlessly pump life and zest in the notes from her violin.
However, the most important part of our education involved the art of etiquette, its lessons provided for us by Mother and, occasionally, Aunt Walburga. We were taught about curtseying, the perfect sitting and standing postures and even the exact amount of muscle work required to smile politely in public, all by the age of three. I had the most difficult time mastering etiquette out of my sisters: I always seemed to forget the correct movement required to pour tea, and I faced the worst problem at dinnertime, what with all the forks, knives, spoons and plates involved. Once, Mother sent me to my bedroom under the supervision of one of the house-elves for having rested an elbow on the table while supper was being served.
It could be that part of the life I have described above may horrify some readers; such old-fashioned ways are, after all, long gone now. However, our other world was kept alive too, that of quiet recreation, which made up for all the rules that dictated our childhood.
The Black Mansion, despite its gloomy exterior (and interior too, to be honest), was a place particularly fertile for childish imagination. Bella and I wrote silly plays that we enacted, often joined by Sirius and Regulus too. The dark nooks and corners, the never-ending twists and turns of corridors, and the thick vegetation outdoors provided a rich variety of locations to stage dramatic games and plays. Sirius, Regulus and Bella played the male characters, whereas Cissy and I just had to be rescued and carried away by one of them, sometimes empowered by two or three lines to recite.
Growing up, I gained an internal restlessness that attached me to Bella further than I already was. We spent days exploring our environment, discovering some hidden passageways and a couple of undiscovered Black heirlooms, some of which might have dated back to the mansion's foundation itself.
But what truly connected us was the independent streak ingrained in our mind after years of being left alone to fend for ourselves, when boredom and apathy settled in the Black Mansion like fine dust.
Moreover, there was precocity in perception in the minds of both of us. This is best exemplified that time when Bella was twelve and I was nine, and we were looking for the best place in the house to choose as a setting for our newest play. It was right in the middle of a dinner party, and we were bored. Cissy had retreated to her bedroom early, as she was, yet again, suffering from one of her frequent drops of blood pressure. Sirius, Regulus, Barty Crouch Jr, Lucius Malfoy and all the other male children of the guests were using Uncle Orion's ivory wand-holder to make bubbles sprout out of its end, an activity that was about to irk Bella to an unsafe level.
As innocent as a nine year old could be, I stood frozen and inexplicably washed over by terror and disgust as I watched my father and Anastasia Burke hurrying into the cloak closet. I remember Bella catching up with me, resting a hand on my shoulder, asking,
"What's wrong, Meddie?"
And I know that she had seen what I had, because her hand clawed at my shoulder to a point I almost cried out. I will never forget her gradually slackening grip and her low whisper,
"How about the attic, Meddie?"
We never talked about our father's adulterous behaviour, although we both understood.
Taboos between Bella and I were created even earlier on. There was a game we used to play outdoors on summer days, in which we pretended to be curse-breakers on a mission to kill the Chimaera terrorising the island of Mykonos. The game often led us to argue, because we both wanted to play the wizard's role, since neither of us wanted to ride Diana sidesaddle.
Diana was the purebred Arabian Mare of our childhood. Father, Bella and I fell in love with this animal at first sight - its muscular, sinuous-shaped body was of a midnight-black, and the deep, dark, intelligent eyes told more than words. Whereas I spent hours brushing its thick, luxuriant mane, Bella preferred to ride Diana, and I remember watching her fully galloping at age nine, looking like an Amazon. She sometimes pushed Diana way too hard.
"You don't have enough faith in Diana, Meddie," were her words whenever I worried that the horse showed signs of fatigue after a ride.
It was when Diana finally collapsed that I saw Bella's dark side for the first time. She was galloping at a dangerous speed, her average speed. Father flaunted his pride towards his first-born daughter's natural talent in horse-back riding, and Mother simply couldn't be bothered to scold "her every little rebellion".
So Bella was riding like the wind, when, slowly, in a decelerating motion that filled me with dread, Diana faltered and finally fell. I remember the fear that jolted through me at seeing Diana and Bella slumping on the ground; Bella stood back up. Diana didn't. She looked pathetic, foam frothing from her mouth, unable to breathe, looking up at us with dark eyes.
I was so used to react in the same way as my older sister that what occurred right after the fall traumatised me. While fighting against the tears simmering behind my lids, Bella moved, and what I saw frightened me: her eyes looked close to popping out of their sockets, and her mouth was twisted in ugly hatred. She began kicking Diana's side with strength rare in nine-year old females; when she started throwing stones at it, I impulsively dove in to shield the animal with my own body.
I woke up snuggled in the covers of my four-poster, fenced by Bella and Cissy, wounded on the side of my head.
"Diana died?" I asked.
Cissy avoided my eyes and Bella stared at me without emotion as she said,
"Never mention it again." Nobody dared to rekindle Diana's memory again, but I can't help but wonder if Bella's relationship with Diana, as well as that with Voldemort, was the only commitments she took in life. I have a nagging suspicion that Diana's failure marked the moment when Bella's disgust for the ordinary, weak nature in everyone and everything mortal finally emerged.
Cissy and I shared a very different bond. She shone like the gem of the Black family, Father's little princess and Mother's pride and joy. Contrary to belief, Bella and I weren't jealous at all. She represented our own angel, the baby sister we protected and spoilt. Cissy certainly looked like a cherub, with her soft, blonde curls, her delicate widow's peak, the blue eyes and porcelain skin. She took after Mother, a Rosier in looks.
Being only a year apart, we were naturally close. Having a calmer temperament than Bella, Cissy and I spent much of our childhood together, usually talking. She became my most trusted confidante, and unlike with Bella, we told each other everything. I was strangely at my ease with Cissy, for her sweet and patient disposition refreshed me in its predictability.
The two years without Bella at the mansion, the two years in which she preceded us to Hogwarts, Cissy and I felt vulnerable and lost; our mutual company and dependence grew.
"Meddie, let's play with the new dollhouse," she would say, and we would plan a whole family history for the dolls, which would inevitably end up being an account of our own life in the Black Mansion. Without Bella home, I found myself being less outdoors, because of Cissy's fragile health and incompatibility with the unpredictable weather.
Once I started attending Hogwarts, I began noticing that Cissy sometimes reminded me of a mannequin. She seemed to wear whatever side one wanted to see in her; the gentle-mannered, soft-spoken beauty in front of our parents, the adoring, uncomplaining eager-to-please sister with Bella, the attentive and note-taking student with our tutors and the trustworthy bearer of secrets with me.
She was only nine when, on an ordinary day, she disappeared from my sight for some hours. I grew anxious about her whereabouts, because Cissy never deliberately provoked worry in others. I found her sprawled at the bottom of a staircase, her arm clearly broken, enormous purple bruises blooming all across her legs and arms. But what struck me were her vacant eyes, staring straight at the grandfather clock.
"What have you done, Cissy?" I hissed, forgetting all about manners and tumbling down the stairs without grace whatsoever.
"I fell all the way down here," she replied in a monotone. I thought she had hit her head hard. Those bruises must have taken ages to spread like that, but I overlooked the fact that she hadn't called for help until I found her, hours later.
"I've been trying to cry, Meddie. Why can't I cry like Regulus did when he broke his finger that time Sirius shoved him?" I just stood there, left without words.
I saw Bella shed tears from time to time, always out of uncontrolled rage. But Cissy, she never cried. She might have done sometime past, but she remains forever cold and dry-eyed in my memory of her.