Narcissa twiddled her ring as she sat on the stairs; the ring was one that was given to all daughters of the house of Black when they came of age, to remind them where they came from and the duties that came with their family. The words 'Toujours Pur' were inscribed in the silver next to her skin, while the outside was encrusted with tiny pieces of jet. The voices from the study below had now changed from shouting to an angry hushed tone and Narcissa could no longer hear what was being said.

She looked over at Rodolphus, who smiled guiltily and then to Lucius, who was sitting on the other side of her, he seemed to find the whole affair rather amusing.

Her mother's wailing came drifting up the stairs "And I thought you had both been murdered in your beds!"

She laughed at Bella's snide reply "Well if we had been murdered in our beds we would have still been in them." This only stood to make mother worse and Narcissa rolled her eyes at her sister's stupidity, would Bella never learn to keep her mouth shut or to think before she acted?

The voices were hushed again now. They could go on for hours; she rested her head against the banister and sighed.

"I never thought it would cause this much trouble" Rodolphus told her, resting his head in his hands.

"Well that's the problem – neither of you thought! And I don't want to be caught up in the middle – I'm telling mother that you blackmailed me into this." Lucius was chuckling at Narcissa's scolding.

She had been awoken two nights previous with a hand clapped over her mouth by a grinning Bella. "Come on" she had whispered "we're eloping". It had taken Narcissa a while to realise what was going on, but she quickly dressed and aided by Bella she climbed out of her bedroom window. Since Andromeda had left their parents had installed anti-apparition charms in their bedrooms to stop them disapparating like their sister, so they had to be out of the house to apparate. When she looked down she saw Rodolphus watching them impatiently, and at his side, waiting with a slightly bored look on his face was a tall blond aristocratic figure. Narcissa followed her sister as they climbed down the trellis which aided roses to grow up to Narcissa's window. The four had then apparated to London, where Bellatrix and Rodolphus had been married in a small secret service, with only Narcissa and Lucius as witnesses.

Violet Parkinson had been cast to the wayside by Lucius almost the moment that Narcissa had suggested that he do so, and Lucius hadn't even thought of her since, save when she sent him an envelope which had led to him coming out in rather uncomfortable boils. Charles Jugson however had been slightly more difficult to rid themselves of, due to his and Narcissa's rather more substantial relationship. Narcissa felt in this situation that honesty was often really been the best policy and that blatant lying would not really work. However she only told him snippets of the truth.

"Father will never permit it" she told him as he bent down on one knee with an engagement ring in his hand, "and even if that wasn't the case Charles, I could never accept you" she told him sadly "It would never work between us." He had, with some reluctance accepted, but though the break-up was amicable afterwards Narcissa had cried for an hour.

"Narcissa" her father's voice drifted towards them "could you come here please?"

Narcissa walked down the stairs, head held high as she glared at Lucius and her brother-in-law. She opened the door to her father's study where the rest of the family were gathered. Bellatrix was standing in front of their father's desk with an unreadable expression on her face, which slightly concerned Narcissa; her sister had never taken criticism well. Her father was standing looking out of the window and he turned to face Narcissa as she came into the room.

"Well don't look at me" she exclaimed "It certainly wasn't my idea."

"I can believe that" her father agreed "You're the only one of your sisters that ever had any sense. Which makes it worse on your count as you knew better. You should have told us what was going on"

"Well at least you had already granted the groom permission" Bellatrix added her two-penneth, however the obscure reference to Andromeda did not help matters.

"That is not the point!" her father roared "Again you doused the family name in scandal. You are as bad as Andromeda – now get out of my sight. I'll talk to you when I've had chance to calm down." With that Bellatrix stormed out of the room, and loud cracks were heard as she and Rodolphus apparated out of the house, presumably to his town-house.

He turned to the only daughter he had left sadly, though he would never admit it, it had broken his heart that he had not been present at the weddings of his two oldest daughters. Narcissa walked over to him and kissed him tenderly on the temple, which brought a smile to his wrinkled face "Don't worry Daddy", she told him gently "I have no intention of eloping – with anyone."

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Narcissa had never felt as lonely in her life as she did over the next few weeks. Bellatrix and Rodolphus went off to South America for their honeymoon, leaving Narcissa alone in the dark corridors of Ravensden. She missed Bella so much it almost hurt physically, it was as if a part of herself was missing, she wasn't used to the absence of her sister, Bellatrix had always been around, even during the two years that Bellatrix was at Hogwarts, while Narcissa had been waiting patiently at home her elder sister had written her almost-daily letters, and for some of it she had had the, much inferior company of Droma to occupy her time.

She currently hadn't heard from Bellatrix in three weeks.

And there was no excuse for it as Bella had been back from her honeymoon for the best part of a week. When a letter arrived a week later in the familiar hand of her sister, though from an unrecognised owl, Narcissa threw it straight in the fire without opening it. She missed Bella dreadfully but her anger was cold and terrible, she was hurt by Bella for having being forgotten, and resentful of Rodolphus who had stolen away her sister and taken her place, she had always been Bella's top priority, her best friend and confidant, and being passed over hurt.

Narcissa had been energetically shopping for the last three hours and had unfortunately spent her shopping allowance for the month. Her father, who was more than capable of indulging the every whim of his daughters, had decreed that Narcissa needed to learn some sense of decorum, though Narcissa knew that it was really to prevent her from being capable of running off like her older sisters. He had therefore given her a generous, though limited monthly budget. Which she had spent the last of an hour ago, with two weeks until her next instalment was due. She sighed as she gazed at a set of pale blue dress robes in the windows of Gladrags, they would be ideal for Violet Parkinson's coming out party next week.

She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn't notice two figures approaching her "Are you going to stand out here all day or are you going to go in the shop and buy them?" Lucius Malfoy asked her, his voice like silk and honey.

"I haven't decided yet" Narcissa lied, turning round. "Oh, Hello Rodolphus, I didn't see you there."

"Hello Narcissa", her brother-in-law smiled as he bent down to peck her on the cheek before Lucius put his arm round her waist possessively.

"Hello Rodolphus" she smiled back in return.

"We've not seen much of you lately" Rodolphus remarked to her conversationally "are you well? You look pale."

"I'm fine" she reassured him, she hadn't left Ravensden Hall in a month, she had only ventured out because her mother had insisted that she go and get some fresh air, and she did feel better for it.

"Why don't you come back to the house with us Cissy? Come and see Bella's new place, I know she's dying to see you and show you around."

She really couldn't think of a reason not to go. And she did want to go and see her sister, so she accepted his offer.

It was common practice for the richer of the pure-blooded families to have two houses, one in the country and one in London; it was also common for the Eldest son of the family to take up residence in the town house until the event of their parent's death, when they would inherit the larger country home. Narcissa had never been to either the Malfoy or the Lestrange town houses. Rodolphus and Bellatrix's home was significantly smaller than Grimmauld Place, the Black family town house, where her Uncle Castor and his family lived. However it was a pleasant, bright house, which was, in Narcissa's opinion much nicer than Grimmauld Place, which she had always found to be a bit dark and gloomy.

When she arrived at the house, arm in arm with Rodolphus, with Lucius walking alongside her, Bellatrix was standing in the hallway of the house waiting for her husband, her eyes were red and puffy, she had obviously been crying quite hard for quite some time. As soon as she noticed her sister she flung herself into Narcissa's arms and began to sob. Narcissa watched her perplexed, with a worrying feeling developing in the pit of her stomach; she had never seen Bella this upset in a long time.

Rodolphus was the one to take charge "What's wrong Bella?" he asked, gently extracting her from Narcissa's arms and sitting her down on the sofa in the parlour.

The next few moments passed by in a blur for Narcissa, she was never really able to remember them properly.

"There was an attack… made by the Aurors… maybe they wanted to catch some death eaters, I don't know, anyway they had a tip off… oh my god… Cissy" she whispered, her voice high and girlish "they attacked Dempsey's."

Narcissa's face paled.

Dempsey's was a social club for the wizarding elite, to even be considered for membership you had to be rich, have an impeccable bloodline, and know the right people. Everybody in the room had family members who went there on an almost daily basis.

"Several people were killed" she paused, and for a moment Narcissa thought she was going to be sick "Narcissa, mother was in there… she was hit by a stray curse." Tears were slipping down Bellatrix's face as she broke the news.

Narcissa jumped up as if she had been shot, and ran to the front door and disapparated, Lucius watched her go, then went to follow her but he was stopped by Bellatrix "I saw your mother" she told him wearily "after it happened, she's fine."

"I'll go find Narcissa" Rodolphus insisted as Bellatrix got up, "Lucius, could you be so good as to wait with Bella?"

"Of course" Lucius didn't look like he wanted to stay with the elder sister, he had never seen her looking so vulnerable, and it worried him slightly.

Rodolphus strode to the front door and disappeared.

When he reappeared he was standing in front of a ruined building in the middle of Diagon Alley. It was a building that was as familiar to him as his own home; Dempsey's the site of his eighteenth birthday party, numerous family weddings. He had even proposed to Bella there.

A crowd was gathered around the building as the remaining survivors were pulled from the rubble, he looked across and soon spotted Narcissa in the middle, her face streaked with tears, he quickly made his way over to her, she was standing with Violet Parkinson, who looked to be in a similarly distressed state to Narcissa.

"Who was in there?" he asked his sister-in-law, who had seemed to have no developed an aura of calm, despite the commotion around her.

"Mostly people we don't know" Narcissa recounted with relief that very few names on the list of the dead were ones that she recognised, "but apart from…" she couldn't bring herself to say it yet "Charles Jugson and Lucretia Parkinson."

Violet's mother had been in there too, and Violet's father had died years ago in a tragic quidditch accident.

"I've arranged for mother to be brought back to Ravensden later" she told him with a false calmness "but we need to go and tell Daddy." She took Violet by the hand, the other girl was peering helplessly into the rubble, as if it would make it not true. "Come away now Violet" she urged, and the other girl followed her as they went back to the Black family home.

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It was a well known fact, among the pureblooded elite families that there had been no death eaters in Dempsey's that day, however, with the deaths of so many innocent bystanders those who had previously only been sympathetic to Lord Voldemort's cause took the mark, and the number of death eaters tripled within the month. Among them were Bellatrix and Regalus Black, while Narcissa Malfoy who refused to take the mark aligned herself with her family's new cause.