Chapter V
Development
THE CLOUDS DRIFTED over the enchanted ceiling, flitting sunlight across the breakfast tables. It was quite the picturesque scene, full of colours and people milling about. But the one person I wanted to see was nowhere in sight. I felt the dull pressure on my hip where I had tucked the two wands, hoping I would be able to talk to Harry after breakfast. And yet, the teachers' table was inauspiciously devoid of Defence professors.
Eventually, I caved in, letting my mind wander to all the things I distinctly did not want to think about. I was lost, I had no plans, no ideas. The boy who was supposed to be courting me was playing lackey to a supposed megalomaniac. So was my sister. Did my father know? Did he regret signing her off to Lestrange now?
I watched as the butter slowly melted on my crumpet, seeping into the dough, as I contemplated whether I should write to him, or to mother. But what would I say? Hello, mother, I know this may be out of the blue but I overheard Malfoy and his group of friends going off about a Dark Lord. My face twisted into a grimace. Like that would help, I thought as I stabbed my breakfast.
And then there was Harry. And what a mess that whole situation was.
I had woken up in the Room, clammy with sweat and tangled in sheets I did not remember falling asleep in. I could still feel the ghosts of tear tracks where I had cried myself to sleep last night, could still feel where the inside of my cheek was ridged and stinging as I chewed my breakfast.
I saw him, still sprawled on the floor, his hand shining silver. Sprawled in a forest clearing in a pool of blood.
I saw the glint in Gaunt's eyes as he charmed his way through the conversation with Lord Avery during the summer.
I saw dark shapes twisting in the night. Rough, jagged branches leaned in to suffocate. I felt them slithering across my skin like barbed wire, all a-whisper with yellow eyes that stared murder into my soul.
I heard the sound of glass breaking and I flinched. Scars, haunted eyes, a sad smile.
It hurts that you do not trust me.
I looked up as I felt my hand grow damp and noticed the broken carafe of juice someone must have dropped. The table was bathed in dark red as it ran in the little channels of the wood ridges. Someone vanished most of the juice and repaired the jug. I rubbed my hand on my skirt to dry it and felt as it bumped against cold hard wood.
"There you are!"
Fuck shit what the—A hand squeezed my shoulder. I whipped around to see Rosalie and Cara standing behind me. Cara looked like she had not slept much; her robes were crinkled and there were dark circles underneath her eyes.
"Sorry," she mumbled.
"N-No, 's okay," I muttered back. "I got startled, is all."
"I noticed," Cara said as she swung her leg around the bench. Her foot caught on the edge and she half-fell onto me.
"What brings you to breakfast so early?"
"Cara here has been worrying about you all night," Rosalie said as she sat down on my other side. I could read the 'so have I' from the way she looked at me.
"Last I saw you was yesterday morning as you left the common room with Malfoy. Nobody's seen you since, and after the chat we had…" she trailed off.
My chest tightened as I looked at the two of them. I had not realised. I was so caught up in my little world that I completely forgot about Cara and Rosalie and everyone else. What a shit friend I was.
"I'm sorry, a lot of things happened yesterday."
"What'd Malfoy do," Cara almost growled as her eyes scanned the Slytherin table.
"Hold your hippogriffs, Cara. It was not Malfoy—well… not entirely."
I wanted to hunch over my plate as I felt their eyes on me, overwhelmed by how much they cared. Afraid I could not give them honesty. How do I even explain what happened yesterday?
I was born a Potter in nineteen eighty.
"Listen, do you mind having breakfast… Not here?" I said as I suddenly stood up and wrapped some waffles and berries into a napkin. I shot Cara a grateful smile as she stole some bacon and toast from the table, no questions asked.
We wandered outside to a terrace beside the hall. I shivered against the chill of the morning as I leaned against the stone balustrade and unwrapped the rest of my breakfast. I did not mind the cold, it woke me up. It was too cold for my mind to wander.
"So, if not Malfoy, then who? I can't imagine what'd make you look so off other than boy trouble," Cara said, now wide awake as she cast a warming charm on herself.
I guess it was boy trouble. Because I like you. Not now. Shut up.
"Malfoy ditched me after lunch again," I started. Rosalie rolled her eyes. "But that is nothing unexpected. I went for a walk around the village to clear my head afterwards, and overheard him talking with the Lestranges, Avery and a few others."
"Sharing the sordid secrets of your heated romance?" Cara joked in tones as flat as the breakfast table.
I patted Rosalie on her back as she choked on some of her toast.
"No, not exactly. I actually noticed them because they mentioned Bella. I have not heard from her since—" I waved my hand under my chin. Cara nodded. "Anyway. I overheard them talking about some Dark Lord and then they all took a portkey somewhere. It was really odd, and they made it sound like Bella was involved somehow. I guess I just got worried and distracted."
"Shit," and "That doesn't sound good," said Cara and Rosalie respectively. I shrugged as I took another bite of waffle.
"I guess I just got caught up with everything after that. I ended up going to the Room for some time to think, and by the time I realised what time it was, it was already past curfew so I decided to just sleep there."
Not the truth, but not exactly lies either. It still made me feel filthy. All they did was show me care and worry and here I was, stringing them along. But… I needed to sort myself out before I told them. At least that was what I told myself.
"Do you think they were serious? About the whole Dark Lord business."
"I think so, Rosie."
I jumped as Cara swore so colourfully it could be hung in a gallery. She looked as if she had seen a dragon.
"What?"
"My father… He told me before I left for Hogwarts that he might match me with someone from a new 'political alliance'," she said as she drew quotes in the air. "I didn't think much of it at the time but… You don't think it's… You don't think it's related, right?"
Oh Cara. Sweet, sweet Cara. I exchanged a look with Rosalie before I drew her into an embrace. Sometimes, life did not feel fair at all.
All I could do was hold her and wish she would get luckier than me. The clouds parted and sunlight painted a kaleidoscope of colours off the stained glass windows of the Great Hall. It felt disrespectfully pretty for such an awful morning.
···
I waved to Cara as she entered the Greenhouse complex. A part of me wanted to go with her, but I knew I was being silly. I did not even take the class, and anyway, she would be okay. She had Marlene and she had me and her other friends. We would figure something out, like we always did.
I sighed as I made my way through the Transfiguration Courtyard towards the Defence classroom. I did not want to talk to him, at least not yet. But I already felt bad for delaying so long. Thank Morgana I had a free period first thing on Mondays. I patted my side to check if the wands were still there. At least Rosalie had confirmed that the little vial in my robes was indeed veritaserum.
Rows and rows of desks lined the classroom, casting long shadows from the morning sun and making the high arches look like the ribcage of some monstrous beast. The room smelled like old wood and older stone. It reminded me of Grimmauld Place and did nothing to ease the twists in my stomach.
The knocks echoed off the rafters high above like gongs of a bell. I folded and twisted and folded and twisted the hem of my skirt as I waited. Then I knocked again. The silence was almost suffocating, like it was trying to choke out the last dregs of my resolve.
I sighed as I leaned on the edge of one of the front desks. A part of me wanted to cast my patronus and send him a message. The rest of me screamed to just wait for him to come. I wanted to have more time to talk. To have less time to talk. To see him and apologise and talk about what happened last evening and to cry and cry and embrace him and not see him at all and ask him the thousands of questions that were flitting through my head.
I did not know what I wanted.
I sent the patronus anyway. Feeling its warmth and strength helped, a little.
Seeing his face with its small smile helped, a little.
Hearing him speak in that soft, half-amused tone of his helped, a lot.
"Morning, Narcissa."
"Good morning, Harry."
I sat there, perched on the desk. He took a seat on the desk across, neither of us really wanting to go to the office just yet.
"I'm sorry for…" What was I even sorry for? For thinking he was a Dark Lord? For hexing him and his snake? For having no trust, no faith, no anything for someone who had helped me so much? "For taking these with me. I forgot—"
I took out the two wands out of my robes and looked at them. It felt like I was seeing them for the first time. One light and knurled in twisting patterns, the other one dark and smooth and polished with little nicks and grooves from who knew what. Slender and beautiful and terrifying and not mine.
Just like him, I tried not to think.
I stretched out the hand that held them, not wanting to move closer yet yearning to be close. He summoned them without a word, and they flew to his hand.
"Thank you, and think nothing of it. I understand." His eyes danced with mischief. "I have to admit, though, I don't think I've been disarmed this thoroughly in years."
I laughed, despite myself.
"It really is—Funny, I mean. I've been called many things, many uncouth, most of them true. But I don't think anyone has ever accused me of being Voldemort. It is a terrifying thought."
I shrugged and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear where it had fallen into my face. "You do have quite a lot of shared characteristics from what you told me."
He scowled, then, and I wondered if I had ruined it. He rubbed his forehead where a faint zagged line traced down to his eyebrow. "I did not mean—"
"You're more right than you know, Narcissa." If it had not been so quiet, I do not think I would have caught the whisper. Also, what?
"It just keeps on coming with you, does it not?" I asked.
"Hmm. Sounds about right."
The silence stretched and stretched and stretched as the light shafts made their slow journey across the room. I wanted to ask a thousand questions, but every time I tried to speak up the words seemed to get caught in my throat.
"You can ask, you know?"
I looked up to where he was twirling his wand and it spun in a blur of dark brown.
"I—Is your snake okay?" Out of all the fucking questions, Narcissa, you pick this one? Honestly, what was wrong with me?
"She's quite alright, although I had to spend quite a long time convincing her not to bite you next time she saw you." Oh, right. Parselmouth. I had almost forgotten.
"That is… Good, I suppose." He gave me a small smile. "I do not really know what to ask, to be honest. It just all seems like a lot."
"You don't have to ask now, y'know? My door's always open to you."
I felt the cold claws of fear that I did not even realise were there release and I took in my first proper breath in what felt like days.
"Thank you. I thought that—That after what happened yesterday…" I closed my eyes, trying to find courage in some dark corner of my mind. "That you would not want to talk with me," I finished in a rush. The archways seemed to be falling, closing their jaws around me as the words left my mouth. I felt small and defenceless.
"Ah. Don't be ridiculous, Narcissa. You handled yourself masterfully yesterday. I couldn't have done it better myself, had I been confronting a Dark Lord in his office." He chuckled and ran a hand through his hair. "Although, I would have expected some more permanently incapacitating spells first and questions after from my star student."
"That sounds awfully like a death wish, you know?"
"All in all, I'm quite happy the worst I got is bruising, but I expect you to do better next time," he said as he stood, slipping into his lecture tone. "If I had wanted to, I could have summoned the wand from wherever it had fallen, or used my other one, or a thousand other things. I have found that with powerful and dangerous enemies, bonebreakers to the wrist usually do the job. It's quite hard to concentrate through the pain and even more difficult to hold your wand afterwards."
It felt like we were in the Room again, practising spells and talking about duelling. Like the shattered windows creeping closed, the cracks disappeared and I felt like I could finally think straight again. Maybe it was not all so ruined, after all.
"I do not think you will find that in auror manuals, Harry."
"No, I s'pose not. They prefer their stunners and binds, but they're very easy to dispel. Dangerous wizards require dangerous methods."
"What about dangerous witches?" I asked before my mind fully caught up with what I was saying. I felt my cheeks heat up.
"Dangerous witches are even trickier," he said with a chuckle, "as they're far more likely to use subtlety and underhanded techniques to gain an advantage."
"Is that so?"
"Indeed, one moment they're talking with you and the next you're unarmed and at wandpoint, easy as breathing."
I swallowed and looked back up at him. His head was tilted to the side as he watched me, wand still twirling on its never-ending journey through his fingers. The scar on his cheek gleamed white in the sun, angled just right from where his cheek dimpled.
"Do you have much experience with those kinds of situations?"
"No, not really. I don't usually go down so easily. I'd make for a pretty bad Defence teacher if I did, don't you think?"
"Perhaps, although the Defence staffing for the last few years has been far from exemplary."
His wand stopped spinning and he tapped it against his cheek.
"You know, that's Voldemort's fault, too."
"Indeed?"
"Yup. He cursed the position when Dumbledore rejected his application for the Defence position, nobody's lasted more than a year since. I found out about it at some point and spent a nice September evening removing the curse."
"Yet more secrets of the Dark Lord, Harry?"
He grinned as wide as a cat. "But of course. I'd wager my whole vault that they're a lot more interesting than the usual gossip you hear in the dorms."
"True, but this sort of thing is not for everyone, whereas everyone loves to hear a good, steamy romance."
"Like the ones with the hot mysterious professors?"
I was glad that I was sitting at that moment, since I had just spectacularly failed not to overthink what he had said. I looked at him from underneath my hair, using it as a shield. Hoping against hope as several inappropriate images flashed through my mind.
"No need to look so shocked, Narcissa, sometimes you overhear stuff in the hallways," he said with a chuckle.
I breathed out in relief. I was quite sure I had not talked about him with anyone, not even Cara, really. I told her that he had helped me with duelling, but the innuendos stopped coming after I turned up slightly singed and bandaged one night.
"Alas, I don't find seventh year Gryffindor prefects desirable, even though I did admire the courage."
Hold up. What? Surely not.
"Did you get asked out by Mary Macdonald?" I said incredulously.
"You didn't hear it from me," he said with a wink. "Anyway, that's enough gossip for one day. I presume you don't have class since the first period starts in… two minutes?"
I shook my head, still trying to digest the actions of one Mary Macdonald.
"Good, then I believe it's time you learned the bone breaker hex. I meant what I said about incapacitation. If Malfoy and his friends are already sneaking out of the castle to do who knows what for Riddle, it's going to get ugly soon."
"Yes, professor," I said, more on reflex than anything.
"Good. Now, the bone breaker is somewhat of a misnomer. The original charm to break bones is still used to re-set bones in medical settings, but the hex as it is known today shatters the bone, rather than breaking it cleanly."
I grimaced, rubbing my wrist as I remembered its potential uses. Still, I have read and cast spells far worse. The Black family library was not exactly known for its comprehensive collections on healing magic.
"Indeed, not very pleasant. However, it requires less focus and does greater damage, and is therefore superior in most combat situations. The wand motion is a clockwise circle followed by a vertical downwards slash. The incantation is 'Confractio', but I expect you to learn to cast it silently. The intent is pretty straightforward."
With that, he flicked his wand in a blur of motion, and one pale yellow curse later, the training dummy next to the professor's desk had its wrist forcefully blown out. The small cracks echoed off the bare walls. I blinked at the white bones that stuck out at odd angles. I nodded. Circle, then a slash. I flicked my wand and pictured the hand bones shattering to mush. A second set of cracks echoed off the walls.
"Excellent job, Narcissa. Now try making the circle smaller so it's faster to cast."
···
I was sitting cross-legged on my bed, drying my hair with my wand, when Cara opened the curtains to my bed. Adelaine's soft snoring drifted in as the sound-damping barrier broke.
"We need to talk, Cissy," she said as she sat down on my bed and shut the curtains again.
"Have you heard of knocking?"
"On what, exactly? I guess I could wiggle your curtain, but it's not like I haven't seen you naked before," she said as she closed the curtains and Adelaine's snoring cut off.
"Are you jealous, Cara dear?" I asked as I put my wand down on top of a little groove in the headboard. She stuck her tongue out at me.
"We both know I'm hotter, what with quidditch practise and all."
"Marlene's words?"
"Yup," she said as she smiled, bright as a sickle.
"Well, I do not trust her opinion, she does not have the full picture, after all."
"Oh, don't worry, she does."
"Indeed? Saturday night?"
Cara suddenly found the edge of my duvet exceedingly captivating. I could not see her very well in the dark, but I was quite sure even her ears were red.
"How'd you know?" she asked after a pause.
"Call it a hunch. But do not divert, I want to know the details."
"It was… It was great. Amazing. She's amazing. And so's the Room. I… I love her, I think, you know?"
I smiled, then, and all the shadows that had haunted my bed before Cara came had fled somewhere far away.
"I know, Cara. I am so very happy for you. From what I have seen, she loves you, too."
"Good. Dad can go stuff himself if he thinks I'm going to be his little political token. Maybe I'll do an Andromeda if he does."
"You, Cara? A proper pureblood daughter, eloping with your lover? How very scandalous. I am all for it."
We laughed and I felt her fall down on her back next to me.
"So, what about you?"
"What about me?"
"Don't play all prim with me, Cissy. Was it Malfoy? And don't try to deny that something happened. Rosie might fall for it, but I know you'd have no issues sneaking back to the dorms."
I sighed. I should have known that Cara would be able to tear through whatever excuses I made like wet paper.
"Not Malfoy, not really."
"Ah bugger, I was so looking forward to cutting his balls off. And then watching whatever Rosie'd dig up to kill him painfully."
"She told you about that?"
"Mmm-hm. Told me when it became clear you weren't coming back last night. So, if not Lucy-boy, then who?"
"Does it have to be a who?"
Cara poked my side with a finger. I groaned and fell back on the bed as well. We watched the dark water swirl above us for a while, as I tried to figure out how to tell her and how much I would regret it afterwards.
"You know about Potter?"
"Ha-ha! I knew it!"
"Not this again—"
"You have the hots for Professor Potter!" she teased as she poked me again.
"Shut up."
"Sooo, did you two kiss already?"
"No, and shut up!"
"Did you tell him, at least?"
"No, and I told you to shut. Up!"
"You're so boooring, Cissy."
I rammed my elbow into her stomach and she made some sort of pained noise that felt as sweet as honey. That would teach her.
"Okay, I'll shut up. But you tell me everything. Deal?"
"Why do I feel like you are getting the better terms?"
"Because I am, silly. Now spill."
"It was because of Potter that I ended up in the Room. Well, Malfoy, but—"
"Deep breaths, Cissy, and start again. You're not making any sense."
I turned and propped my head up on my hand.
"I already told you how I overheard them talking about Bella and the Dark Lord after Malfoy ditched me—" Cara snorted, "—and I, well, I went to Harry to talk about it."
"Harry now, is it?"
I hit her with a pillow. "Anyway, I went to talk to him about it, since he mentioned that there was a war coming when we first started to practise duelling, and it felt far too coincidental. And then… He told me a lot of things about this Dark Lord, far too much of which seemed like the sort of things hidden by too many murders to be known by a professor."
I watched as something dark swam over us, slow and languid and probably very dangerous.
"And there were so many similarities between them that I—I attacked him."
"You what?" Cara gasped.
"I know, awful decision. I jumped to conclusions and before I knew it, I had his wand and was asking him questions. And he told me a lot of very private things, so please do not ask, and it was all too much at once."
"How did you disarm him, though? He doesn't seem like the sort of guy to just flop over."
"He… He didn't defend himself, Cara. I asked, you know? Why he didn't." I fiddled with the corner of my pillow, tugging and twisting as I tried to get my thoughts into order.
"What'd he say?" she asked, softly.
"He said 'because I like you', and it was all too much and I all but ran out of the room."
A pause.
"Wow, okay. Hey, that's… Good? I guess? I mean, did he seem upset that you attacked him?"
"No, and I… I kind of accidentally took his wand with me, so I went to see him this morning to give it back. And it seemed all alright. It was like any other time, we practised some duelling, mostly. And we might have flirted or I might be overthinking it and he might just like me as a student and I really just don't know, Cara."
"Oh, you got it bad, Cissy."
And she was right. I was too aware of the fact. Denial had only worked for about a week. But how could I pretend that everything was fine when half the time we were together I wanted to kiss him until we couldn't breathe?
"I know, Cara. I know."
"This may sound dumb, but have you thought about just asking him?"
"I did, and it wouldn't work. He told me, today in fact, that Macdonald asked him out and that he'd said no."
"Merlin, really? Mary Macdonald? Didn't think she had it in her."
"Right? But still, he said no."
"Did he tell you why, though? It sounds like a lot of coincidence that he'd just share this sort of thing with you."
"He said something about not finding Gryffindors desirable? I think?"
Despite what I said, the words burned bright in my memory, like everything else he said and did.
I don't find seventh year Gryffindor prefects desirable.
"Well, it's not exactly a blanket no, then."
"No, but it wouldn't work anyway. He's like in his twenties, I'm sixteen. And he's a professor. And he's technically family."
"He's nineteen, you know? Marlene overheard some older Claw girls talk about him."
"Really? Does the whole castle now talk about him?"
"Of course, silly, he's the hot new professor," Cara laughed. I felt like another elbow attack might be appropriate. She was being far too smug about this all. "And you're turning seventeen next week. And technically everyone's family with everyone else and you know it. So what's the real reason why?"
Why did she have to be so painfully accurate? And when did I become one of those girls with fantasies about professors, again? Morgana give me strength, Cara would never let me live this fiasco down, no matter how it ended.
"Because… Because I don't want to mess up what we have. Because if it doesn't work out, he's still Auntie Dorea's son and the whole family would know and my father would probably burst a vein because of the courting agreement with Lucius."
Cara looked at me for a long time, then.
"Is that why you were asking about poisons for Lucy-boy?"
"What? Cara, honestly, you're incorrigible."
"Well it sounds to me like you get rid of Malfoy, then you go and talk to Potter and it either works out or it doesn't. Either way, you'd have done something about it and you won't have to wonder what could have been your whole life."
"You know it is not as simple as you make it sound."
"Isn't it? It's what I did with Marlene, y'know?" she said in a whisper.
I stared at Cara, then, and wished it was someone else lying next to me.
