1962-Black Hall-7 years old

Days like this, Narcissa was grateful that she lived at Black Hall instead of Grimmauld Place, like her cousin Sirius and the new baby, Regulus. What a horrid name for a baby. Whatever Aunt Wallie had been thinking, she didn't know. He was such a pretty baby, but anyone with the ability to read could have told Aunt Wallie that it was an absolutely atrocious name.

She liked to go over to Grimmauld just to see the baby-the proper baby. Reggie was the sort of small pink baby that she was finally old enough to hold, and he had those same brilliant grey eyes as the rest of them. Sometimes it made her stomach hurt, how much she loved her baby cousin. Not like her other cousin, Sirius. He was only three years old-exactly the wrong sort of baby. All he did was cry and scream and throw tantrums even though surely he was old enough to know better by now. At least Reggie was so small that everything was so big and so scary, and all three of the Black sisters would take turns passing him around and cooing at his little hands and talking about what they'd name their own babies some day.

Bellatrix was already eleven and about to start at Hogwarts where she was going to meet Rodolphus Lestrange. There'd been a contract in place for them for years but Mother had decided it wasn't proper for them to meet until they were at Hogwarts. After all, that's where mother and father had met despite their contract. Of course Aunt Wallie and Uncle Orion had already known each other due to them being second cousins, but the rest of the Blacks thought the proper way to go about things was to meet at Hogwarts where they'd be attended and chaperoned at all times.

But Bellatrix was eleven, and about to meet her future husband, and it all seemed so very proper and grown up as she had held their sweet baby cousin and rocked him in her arms. "I think I would name a boy Rophan. Perhaps Rennier. For a girl, maybe Renate, or Rosalind."

This is my sister, Bellatrix and her husband Rodolphus-and their beautiful children, Rophan and Renate.

She could almost picture it, Bellatrix with her wild, black curls doting on beautiful, chubby, pink-cheeked babies. They would be so, so beautiful, and so, so loved.

"I always liked the name Nymphodora," Andromeda had said as she reached a finger out to push one of Reggie's soft curls back from his cheek-damp from the hand he kept pushing into his mouth whenever he remembered that he had fingers.

"Nymphodora?" Bellatrix had shrieked with laughter, startling the baby before she shushed him and resumed rocking him against her shoulder. "What sort of name is Nymphodora? I know you spend more time with your nose in a book than talking to anyone in the real world, but I guarantee there is not a single child named Nymphodora wandering around anywhere in the world."

"I read it in a book," Andromeda had whispered. "Nymphodora the Noble was really smart and really very brave. I think she would be a good character to name a daughter after."

Bellatrix snorted. "And that's why Mother hasn't found a single family willing to sign a betrothal contract for you yet. What sort of family would sign up to have a Nymphodora in their midst? Only a muggle would be stupid enough to let you name a child that."

"Maybe you're right," Andromeda had said, dropping her hands into her lap.

"What did you just say?" Bellatrix had asked, her voice turning ice cold as she swiveled her head to stare at their sister. Whenever Bellatrix got angry, things got very scary very quickly. Narcissa had wondered whether she should take the baby from her arms and into her own, but elected to stay very still and very quiet instead.

"No, Bella. I said 'you're right'. Only a muggle would let me name a baby 'Nymphodora'. I'll start thinking of better names more suited. That's all I meant by that," Andromeda had answered quietly, pulling into herself. Narcissa felt as if something significant had just happened, but wasn't quite sure what. Sometimes, she absolutely hated being seven. It seemed there were so many things that Bellatrix and Andromeda knew that she didn't know yet- and when she would ask, Bellatrix would always say something like 'when you're my age, I'll tell you.' But Bellatrix was four years older than her and would always be four years older than her, so she would never get to know!

Bellatrix had stared at Andromeda for a long moment before Narcissa felt the icy chill of whatever that moment had been leave the room. It was almost like a cloud had crossed back over the sun, and the entire room felt brighter and warmer as Bellatrix had shaken off whatever it was that had plagued her.

"I think I'd like to name a baby after his father, if he is a boy. Or Evelyn, if I have a daughter."

"No one asked you, Narcissa," Bellatrix had said, running her finger back down the bridge of Reggie's nose and pressing a kiss to his forehead. "You are seven years old. Practically still a baby, yourself."

But babies aside, days like this one made Narcissa Black very grateful that she lived at Black Hall instead. Darkness seemed to permeate every corner of Grimmauld, and a chill in the air seemed to follow her everywhere she went throughout the house. And besides, how Aunt Wallie could stand to live sandwiched between all those muggles would never make any sense to her at all!

But here at Black Hall, they had an estate. And for her most recent birthday, Father had let her have a swing in one of the trees in the glen. The glen was her favorite place on the entire estate. There were hills towards the back of the property which she couldn't see beyond no matter how high she got on her broom-not that she ever flew quite as high as her sisters-and woodlands with trees tall enough that she imagined their tops scraped the bottoms off of the clouds that passed overhead.

It was her safe place-boring to her sisters-a vibrant palette of green and yellow, a haven where she felt untouched and unhurried by whatever hustle and bustle was occurring inside the estate. Whenever her mother would invite over her friends for tea and gossip, after Narcissa had paid the requisite 'how do you do's, she would always retreat to the grass and the green where she knew no one would follow.

The sweet scent of wildflowers filled the air as if trapped there by the boundaries of the small valley, and the summer breeze rustled the leaves in the copse where her father had placed her swing. The dappled sunlight filtered through the branches, offering a respite from the heat when the sun would beat down heavily in late summer. The contrast of the rich emerald of the grass, the delicate pink and purple flowers, and the chestnut trunks of the trees was the most beautiful thing that she had ever seen.

She could see the stream when her swing hit the top of its arc, and could imagine the sound of it even though she knew it didn't carry quite as far as the trees. The water was cold and crystal-clear and its melody, when coupled with the sounds of the birds nearby, must have been the sweetest sound in all of England. When she was there, time itself seemed to slow and every moment felt as if it belonged to her and to her alone.

On days such as this one, when the early summer sun was bright but not so hot as to make her freckle, she would spend hours on the swing, trying to see how high she could go. Sometimes, she imagined that she could get high enough to see past the creek with its rushing water that made her anxious to wade through it even when Bellatrix and Andromeda would surge forward through the water, high enough to see past edge of their property and into the countryside beyond, high enough to see the towers of Hogwarts off in Scotland where Bellatrix would be headed come September first. She knew her mother would be incensed if she knew not only that she had the swing in the first place, but had known just how high Narcissa would let herself swing.

Although she wasn't quite brave enough to jump, part of her wondered what would happen if she let go when she was at the very top of her arc. If she let go, would the summer breeze catch her hair, catch the cotton of her dress, catch her outstretched arms and carry her off until she could-

"I bet you won't do it," an unfamiliar male voice sounded from the trees behind her.

She startled and almost fell from the swing, but luckily her reflexes had her hands close tightly around the ropes of her swing rather than let go.

She turned her head, trying to figure out who it was who had come to visit, but between her speed and his odd angle just out of eyesight she couldn't quite tell who it was. Certainly his voice did not sound like anyone she knew, and he was too young to be a friend of either of her parents. He sounded closer in age to her and her sisters, nothing like the stuffy adults that frequented the Hall.

"Of course I won't jump! Can't you see how high I am? That would be absolutely ridiuclous!"

She tried to slow herself down, tried to stop her legs from pumping and kicking herself higher, but it was almost as if her legs and her mind were not of the same accord. No matter how hard she tried, it felt as if she were still climbing ever higher instead of slowing down.

"What are you? A coward? Jump!"

She was starting to get dizzy, unused to moving this fast on the swing or going up quite so high. Who was this boy? She wanted to yell down at him that no, she wasn't a baby, but Mother said it wasn't ladylike to yell. And besides that, she felt a sort of uncertain terror that had her stomach and her heart meeting somewhere in her middle where neither organ quite belonged. She felt sick, her head was racing, her heart was pounding, oh Merlin how high up was she?

"I said jump!" The boy screamed, and suddenly she was flying-no-falling.

She'd had dreams before, dreams where she was falling. In those dreams, time slowed to a crawl and it felt as though she fell forever. In her dreams, she could see every detail of every leaf as she gently fell, could see the world as it passed her by, could tell you the exact shape of the wings of a bird as it flew past.

Dreams are nothing like reality.

In reality, the world flew by in a rush of color and the ground came up much faster, and much harder. In reality, falling hurt.

She slammed into the ground, the grass of the glen doing little to cushion the blow. She landed hard on her left arm and felt it give way beneath her-the bone making a sickening sound as it bent in a direction that human arms were certainly never designed to bend. She'd always imagined that she'd be quiet and stoic if she were seriously injured-that she'd be able to grin and bear it like her father did when his injuries from the Grindelwald War acted up-that she wouldn't be a baby like Bellatrix always liked to call her.

But as she looked at her arm, crooked and her hand already starting to change color, she couldn't stop the tears that welled in her eyes from spilling over or the sobs that wrenched their way out of her throat.

"Don't cry," the voice said, coming nearer to her. A thin, pale hand reached out to her and hoisted her up by her uninjured arm. Although he hadn't grabbed the arm which she so clearly knew was broken, she couldn't help the sound that it pulled out of her when the sensation jostled across her collarbone.

The hand was connected to a boy, eyes a piercing shade of blue which betrayed a coldness that seemed to seep out of him and pull the warmth from the air around them. His features were sharp and defined and his skin as pale as alabaster or porcelain. He looked almost like a fairy-not that she'd ever tell him that-there to pull her from the land of the living and into some sort of kingdom from which she'd never return.

He was tall and elegantly build and even as he hauled her to her feet, she could tell that he moved with a certain grace that belied a confidence and assuredness. His robes were tailored closely, a mix of dark green and black, and they served to highlight the aristocratic air with which he carried himself. He couldn't have been much older than Bellatrix was, but he held himself as if he knew the world was at his command. Every movement he made seemed intended to draw the eye.

Her heart pounded in her throat, a mix of trepidation and fear. His face was eerily impassive for someone who was holding rather tightly onto an injured and sobbing girl, and she felt certain that he could switch at a moment's notice into something horrible and unnameable, much like when fits of anger overtook her eldest sister. There was something dangerous about him, and she instinctively knew that there was something about him to be wary of. His fair, almost white hair framed a handsome face that looked equally suited for charm and cruelty, and she suddenly felt both very young and very small as she stood before him. He reached his other hand into the pocket of his robes to slip something-a wand?- into its depths.

"I said don't cry. It's not becoming."

He'd marched her back into the Hall, the ice seeming to melt from him just as they entered the drawing room where her parents usually received their company. The atmosphere was practically palpable between her parents and their guests. In a chair next to her mother, who prattled on about Merlin knows what, sat a small, mousy woman. She had an unassuming grace, but something about her seemed timid and unobtrusive as if her very existence was something to apologize for. Her eyes flicked to Narcissa as the boy led her in, and the woman stared at her with a look that spoke to an entire lifetime of silent observation. Although she was dressed in a well tailored gown that was rather fetching, something about her called the eye to pass her over and she seemed to almost blend into the surroundings as she perched on the edge of her chair with her hands folded submissively and delicately in her lap.

The man speaking with her father, presumably this woman's husband, was an imposing figure dressed head to toe in opulent black robes. His presence demanded the attention that his wife's seemed to reject, and his voice was loud and booming with an air of authority that echoed off the polished walls and drew attention. He carried himself like a man used to getting his way, and as she looked at him it began to dawn on her that these must be the parents of the imperious boy who'd pulled her into the room.

Narcissa had stopped crying at some point during their walk, although most of her consciousness seemed narrowed down to a fine point on the injury to her arm. From what she could hear, the man appeared to be negotiating something with her father, and it dawned on her with a growing horror what that something could be.

The woman beside her mother, still silent, stared at her with eyes that seemed to do speaking that her mouth did not. Resignation, a touch of sorrow, and a flicker of some subtle maternal concern as she flicked her wand so lightly that Narcissa only caught it because she was staring at her rather than further attract the attention of the man speaking to her father.

With a very painful and almost bitterly cold shift of something deep within her body, the sharp twinge in her arm faded as the bone inside shifted into its rightful place and the stains from the grass and dirt faded from her pale blue dress. She tried to subtly rotate her own wrist, pleased to find her range of motion was returned but the action carried with it a dull, deep ache.

"Father? I managed to find her."

The man stopped his conversation with her father and cast his attention down to her, trailing his eyes up and down her frame in a way that made her choke down a shiver of revulsion as she tried desperately not to move. The boy walked around her to join his father, bumping harshly into her freshly healed arm and seeming almost annoyed that it didn't make her cry out.

Silence fell on the room and lingered, and the weight of the man's gaze felt heavy on her shoulders. She was acutely aware of his scrutiny and she tried to maintain her composure although her fear felt almost palpable and she was certain that it showed on her face. The man seemed to relish in her reaction as he smiled in a way that once again made her stomach roil before turning back to her father.

"This one will do."

A/N

I'm back, babey! The next few chapters will be an interlude of snapshots of Narcissa's life before the main events of this story.

Long time, no chapter. I've spent a lot of time thinking about where this story is going, because I'm queen of the ideas but terrible at the follow through. I started using "tome." to help me and I think I have a much better, much clearer idea of where this is going. I started this story two years ago when I was in the middle of law school and trying to find something to bring me joy. I'm now a barred attorney, just got engaged to my wonderful partner (who uses his English degree to let me work out some of the kinks in this story) and I'm feeling like some of my creative energies are back.

Thank you to all of you who've stuck around. Lots of love for you during any winter holidays you celebrate, and all the best in the new year.