Chapter 10: The Misperceptions
Hermione paused in front of the floor clock. It's been hours since she had left the two Black sisters alone. Mrs. Malfoy arrived around 8:30am, and it was already close to 5pm. She started to seriously wonder whether the younger Black sister was even alive still. Lestrange didn't have a wand, unless she liberated her sister of one, but still…Hopefully no shooting of the messenger was happening in the house.
Just how long could it possibly take to outline their situation?..
The first two hours Hermione took residence in the informal dining room anticipating Narcissa's reemergence and curious about the outcome. She was even curious to see Bellatrix again. Determined not to let the other witch mere presence intimidate her. After all, she kept reminding herself, she held all the cards this time around. She had a wand. And it was her friends ready to drop by at any notice... difficulty of access notwithstanding.
When the blond failed to appear, Hermione spent an additional hour pacing the room and dreading the possible reasons as to why the conversation was running for so long.
After three full hours passed, Hermione started to wonder whether the witch somehow left without her noticing after all. So she quietly strolled by the sunroom. The French doors were shut, but she spied the two witches through the doors' stained glass panels.
It was clear they were discussing more than just the realities of marriage law by now. So, Hermione stopped by the kitchens to get snacks and retreated to the library.
She needed to think, and to come up with a plan. On some level she didn't think the witch would wake. For all her protestations during the floo call with Harry, she never really thought of what would happen next, other than the outcomes tied to Bellatrix continued unconsciousness. Now that the witch was awake, automatic annulment was off the agenda, and the consummation within the next 21 day was on.
An involuntary shiver ran through her. The thought of being this intimately close to her tormentor was not very inspiring. Would Bellatrix be disturbingly eager to have a legal excuse to be in her space or thoroughly disgusted at the necessity to be this close to her?..
She wasn't sure which reaction would be worse.
Hermione paced around the library, too nervous to get distracted by a book, unable to stop her thoughts returning to the dark witch.
The witch could refuse all together. Hermione remembered reading a section of the law dealing with violations and being outraged. The law had its ways to compel. At the time she was focused on finding loopholes to avoid marriage, and deemed those sections alarming but irrelevant. She would need to revisit them now that they suddenly became not so irrelevant anymore.
On the upteenth track around the library, Hermione spied the type of books she usually scoffed at at the bookstores. Hermione stopped and examined the shelves thoughtfully. Mrs. Malfoy was still nowhere in sight. Perhaps, she could do something marginally useful while waiting. She summoned parchment and quill, perused the available options, made her selections, and took a stack to a nearby desk.
That's how the older witch found her several hours later.
Narcissa found Hermione in the library.
She didn't need the clock to tell her it was quite late. She was tired and had a splitting headache. Bellatrix wanted not only to hear everything that happened while she was unconscious but to see a number of things as well, a number of times. It took all of Narcissa's concentration to keep her sister within the memories she was willing to share.
Hermione put the latest book she was studying on top of the stack on the side of the table, and pushed the mostly blank parchment with her observations to the side as well.
Blue eyes curiously followed the book, and before Hermione could protest Narcissa summoned it to her side.
Dark blond eyebrows arched.
In Her Clutches, a story of a dashing wizard and an ugly hag he had to marry...
Hermione's cheeks pinked and she rolled her eyes.
'It is research.'
To Hermione's mortification the blond summoned two more books from the stack.
Dragon's Sacrifice, a tale of a treacherous animagus and a brave witch who tamed the beast...
Blue eyes twinkled.
Avada Gone Wrong, a tale of a battle wizard and a healer who saved him...
'A highly misguided decision.' Hermione muttered blushing harder.
Narcissa went to summon remaining books from the stack, and Hermione had had enough. She sent all five books flying back to their proper places on the shelves.
'Romance novels entertained my other sister, Miss Granger. You won't learn anything about Bella from them. She was entertained by magic. All of it…theory, practice, experiments.'
'My mistake, then' Hermione said flatly.
She wasn't looking for Bellatrix's summer readings. She was researching how two strangers can go from hating each other to sex. She purposefully picked books with personal conflict between the main characters. The books were absolutely useless. If she were to follow them, she and Bellatrix should either just do it, all the while professing mutual loathing, or to slyly arrange run-ins into each other over the next several months or even years, until they suddenly realize that they wanted to sleep together all along. The first option seemed odd, but the second option was simply unrealistic under their timeline of 21 days.
'I didn't mean to embarrass you, Miss Granger.' Narcissa rubbed her temples and sighed. The witch touched Hermione's shoulder in passing as an apology as she settled across from her.
'Let me arrange for tea and we'll talk.'
'You are freezing.'
'That's why I want tea.'
The blond witch summoned a house elf to request tea and biscuits for them.
'But Bellatrix said… What is wrong with her?' Hermione wanted to let the other witch set the pace for conversation but her patience was running low. 'The flowerpots, and curtains, and fireplace… I didn't change anything about the fireplace!'
'I know, Miss Granger. I am quite familiar with that room. The sunrise from there is quite beautiful. '
'Is it caused by Mrs Weasley's curse?'
'Not directly, as I've seen her like that on two other occasions… both worse and better than she is now. I believe it is a reaction... to stress or pain or some specific emotion. Of course, my sister would never admit anything is wrong, or see a healer about such thing, so it is all just my speculation.'
'So she will come out of it?'
'I believe so.'
'Back to her crazy self?'
Blue eyes narrowed.
'She won't assault you. I've explained the situation to Bella and she is grateful.'
At least Narcissa hoped that's what her sister's placid hum meant.
'Is she really? So she will stop with name calling at the very least and remember my actual name once in a while?'
This, Narcissa had serious doubts about, something must have indicated her misgivings, as Hermione rolled her eyes.
'Really grateful.'
They drank their tea in silence.
'When were the other times?'
'Pardon me?'
'The other times Bellatrix was as she is now.'
'After she was freed from Azkaban, and about a month before her Hogwarts graduation.'
'How long did it take for her to come out of it?'
'A couple of months.'
'Both times?'
'Azkaban.'
'What about the first time?'
'I've only seen her for just a day then.'
'But that's when it started?'
'Not necessarily. Perhaps... That's when I first became aware of such peculiarity.'
Narcissa requested more tea, before explaining.
'While you are a child, age difference often defines your interactions. We are almost 5 years apart. She was precocious, willful, and a troublemaker. Our parents arranged for her to start Hogwarts a year early to get some peace around the house. I, on the other hand, was sickly and unsure as a child, and my parents held me back a year before sending me to Hogwarts. Not only were we 5 years apart in age we were 6 years removed in education and social circles. I was just a baby sister, not someone to confide in. If anything odd was happening, she would have shared with Andromeda...before her betrayal of course'
'Mrs. Malfoy, would you tell me what happened that first time?'
Narcissa thought about it. She didn't like to share. Personal knowledge could be used against you after all. But this was mostly about Bella, and perhaps this could help make her more of a actual person in Miss Granger's eyes… She took another sip of tea.
'I prefer whatever I share to be kept in confidence.'
Hermione nodded.
Narcissa sighed, pursed her lips, but then started speaking.
…It was shortly after the Easter holidays of my 1st year in Hogwarts. My parents decided to keep me home for the remainder of the year. I was on and off sick through most of the fall and winter with pretty much every magical malady one can encounter in public setting. My middle sister ran away with a Muggleborn over the Christmas holidays that school year, and since then the mood at the Manor soured.
Mother cried. Father brooded.
I was up early for my History of Magic study, the only shared activity Father still honored, and the only time I was allowed into his study. He was not there though. I took the window seat with the book waiting for him as he left no instructions for me to do otherwise. Soon I heard arguing in the hallways and soon after the doors burst open and Father and Bellatrix entered and continued shouting.
They had a terrible row.
The language they used was ugly and not for a 12 year old ears. I could not understand any of it. Quite honestly for a good portion of the shouting, I was clamping hands over my ears. Neither knew I was there, as I was hidden by the curtains. I could see them though.
Eventually they stopped screaming.
Bella was slumped in the chair. She looked like she was in a fistfight, and she was crying. Father's back was to me so I could not see his face but I saw him pouring himself a firewhiskey. Usually a sign that he was trying to calm down.
'How can-'
'Don't start Bellatrix!' He slammed the raised glass on the desk hard enough that some of the drink went over. 'You can choose between the Lestrange boys, but you will be married by the end of June.'
This was strange.
Bella was betrothed to a Frenchman, an heir to one of Paris pureblood houses. Luis and I make an excellent pair, she would say, and have a look as if there was some hidden secret behind that declaration. The only available Lestranges were spares, the two younger brothers; and the youngest, Rabastan, was closer to me than Bella in age. They were hardly an improvement on Luis.
Bella cried. Father drank. And I was terrified I'd get discovered.
Eventually Bella composed herself enough to speak again.
'What of Luis?'
'After what happened he is hardly an option.'
'He won't care.'
'He doesn't make decisions, his parents do. And I'm not waiting for them to negate the engagement and mar our family in another scandal. I've already sent the dissolution notice.'
'So that's your idea of doing what's best for me.' she whispered. She looked so betrayed.
'I'm doing what is best for our house, and so will you.' he said back in such an ugly tone. 'You should be ashamed of yourself. I expect your decision on Lestranges tomorrow morning before you head back to Hogwarts. You will graduate. And you will marry.'
Something changed then in her. That was the first time I heard that horrid cackle of hers.
'It was not my fault, Father. And I am not sorry. It is not me who should be ashamed, who should be sorry! You are a pathetic excuse for the head of the family!'
She turned and headed to the doors.
Father touched the wand on his desk and sent a hex her way, but it didn't reach. It was as if she expected him to do so. And it is not something that was common in our family. Her shield was cast already, with her back turned.
She turned, wand in hand, and she had this empty look to her eyes, not as flat as now but similar. And then she said quietly Crucio.
I never heard the word or knew what it meant till that day.
She stalked back to the desk. Father was sitting but even from the back it was obvious he was in distress, under the curse.
"I will do as you order. And everyone will be sorry. So very sorry. Father.'
She screeched the second Crucio and left.
I took advantage of my father's poor state and slipped out of the study.
I found Bella in her rooms. I thought the rooms would be destroyed as would usually be the case after her disagreements with mother or father, but the rooms were intact. She was curled in the middle of her bed crying and muttering about not being sorry, and about it not being her fault. She let me comfort her, which was as strange as everything else that day. Bella was always rigidly clear who was the eldest, and who therefore protected and comforted whom. This day she just curled into herself with her head on my lap and cried for hours it seemed.
That's when I encountered her odd perceptions for the first time.
She kept picking at the scratches on her forearm so much that it bled. I asked if I could clean it up for her, and she stared at it and said 'Oh Cissy, that's just some dirt. I'll wash it off later.' The way she said it, she wasn't trying to pacify me or make fun, she believed it to be dirt.
I didn't pay it much thought, since she was so distraught.
Then, some time after that, she looked at me funny, 'Cissy, when did you start charming your hair? Don't. Yours is pretty-different, not ugly-different. You don't want to be black.'
Now, I wonder whether she was talking only about the hair, or some of the statement referred to our house name.
Either way, I pulled my hair to my face and it was as blond as always.
Next day Bella was gone from the Manor.
I saw her two month later at her wedding. I have no idea where she stayed between graduation and the wedding, perhaps at one of our other properties. Whether my hair and her blood were the only cases of confusion at that time I can't say. We had a proper conversation again only two years later. She was fine by then...
Hermione sat silently. This was way more information than she expected from the usually reserved witch.
'And were they?'
'I beg your pardon?'
'Sorry. Were they, whoever they are, sorry? Who were they? Do you know?'
Narcissa blinked, knowing her sister they most likely were. If not right away, then as she became more assertive under Voldemort tutelage.
'I don't know. Whatever misfortune befell Bella or whatever misfortune she wrought on others, it was not gossiped about at school. I was already upset with Andromeda who failed to even write after her treacherous departure, and then Bella all but disappeared, and then mother died and father became even more withdrawn and bitter. I didn't go looking for gossip about my sister, Miss Granger. I concentrated on establishing my social circle at Hogwarts.'
Narcissa fell silent, surprised at her own candor. She hadn't spoken about that day with anyone before. Of course, the only time she even thought of that day was when Bellatrix's peculiar behavior after Azkaban reminded her of it. She wasn't entirely sure why she felt free to tell the story to the young witch in front of her. Perhaps because she was now a family... even if neither her sister nor the young witch thought about their circumstance in quite such terms yet.
'I don't advise asking Bella for details… not until you two establish some good will.'
Hermione bit back a snort. She could just imagine the dark witch's reaction to a heart to heart attempt with her.
'Is she aware of the law, our situation and what it means in the near future?'
'I explained the expectations the law places on the spouses.'
'And?'
'She didn't seem too outraged by the idea.'
'How...strange.'
Narcissa had to agree.
'If you permit, I would like to visit Bella twice a week, for an afternoon tea perhaps.'
Hermione shot the witch a surprised look at the odd wording.
Amusement sparkled briefly in the tired blues.
'You do remember you are the one deciding Bella's house arrest rules, Miss Granger?'
She did not think about that.
'You are welcome to visit breakfast through dinner, if you so desire, Mrs. Malfoy.' Hermione paused. 'She cannot leave the property, can she?'
'Not by floo, and she'd need a wand for apparition.'
Narcissa rose to leave.
'I'll keep visits to two per week, lunch or afternoon tea.'
Thin fingers snapped thrice, and an elf appeared.
'Quills, parchments, wine…bring several... and a glass. Now!'
Bony fingers drummed impatiently on the desk waiting for the requested items.
A deep sigh.
The open palm slammed into the desk.
'My own sister!'
The requested items appeared along with the elf.
He opened the bottle, filled the glass and was gone.
The quill scratched furiously over the parchment leaving deep lines thick with ink and breaking parchment in some places.
"A MUDBLOOD!
She married me off!
Signed me off!
How dare she!
I am her OLDER sister!
And to a MUDBLOOD!
She couldn't find any other one available!
NO!
Had to be that mudblood!
Just when I got rid of one-"
A hand paused, then without finishing started a new sentence.
"And she says I am mad!
How is that a better option to dying!
I will kill that mother hen and her litter.
For many things…
For landing me here she deserves special regard!
And Narcissa!
Why does she hate me so?
She hates me.
Cissy hates me!
Hates me!
Hates me!
Hates me!
What have I done to her?!
Ever!
Hm…
Fine!
What have I ever done
that was so horrible
as to sign me off to a
MUDBLOOD?!
Can't even scream or curse her properly yet…
She sure enjoyed rubbing that in!
She is worse than-"
The quill snapped in half.
Another quill appeared in the thin hand.
'Do be civil, Bella' muttered darkly.
Instead of finishing the last thought, it went to scratch off the slurs.
Replaced them with a Miss Granger.
Scratched off Miss.
Tapped thoughtfully.
Scratched off Granger.
Started to write Hermione, and scratched that off as soon as the first four letters formed.
The parchment eventually held just the dark splotches of ink in those spots.
'All better.'
The quill traced the last unfinished sentence.
Instead of finishing a finger waved in a triangular pattern resembling capital A over the parchment.
Nothing happened.
The gesture repeated and a whisper of Incendio joined the movement.
Nothing happened still.
After several more tries the parchment was still intact and the remains of another quill rested at the edge of the desk.
The parchment was crumpled and flew to join the broken quills.
Another blank scroll landed in its place, still rolled up.
A finger pressed mid-width.
Diffindo
'Oh!' a surprised breath
The two halves of the cut scroll rolled slightly away from each other before stilling.
'Still a witch' a quiet whisper
One narrow piece unrolled, and a thin hand with a new quill started to write along the length of the scroll.
In a short time the narrow parchment held numbers from 1 to 31.
The first nine were crossed, and a new set from 1 to 22 was written under the remaining.
Then the quill doodled a star, and an uneven hourglass shape. Orion Constellation.
The hand paused for a time before circling the number 31 and the 22 under it.
I die appeared next on top of the circle.
The quill snapped and joined the growing pile of trashed writing implements.
The narrow scroll was rolled up and set aside.
A snap of fingers.
'Mistress?'
'Burn these.'
The elf motioned for the discarded parchment and broken quills to collect.
'No. Burn them here. I want to see them burn.'
The papers flashed a warm orange, then slowly blackened and fell apart into ashes.
'Perhaps Cissy has a point... this is still better than a dungeon…'
End of Chapter 10
