Mademoiselles Noir
“Me, my name is Miss Black
And as you can see
I don’t smile or laugh or live,”
And that’s all she said.
Peppina | Mademoiselle Noir: A Tragedy
o0o
“A Black family lullaby,” Remus recalled the gentle, sirenic melody –– like the echo of a forgotten mediaeval lute.
“Every woman of House Black sings the lullaby to her children,” Narcissa’s voice was placid and velvety. “My mother, Madame Druella, sang it to me when I was an infant. One day, my future children will hear the song as well, so that this beautiful tradition will endure, unchanged as the constellations.”
The title, Madame , struck him as odd, coldly formal. He’d never heard anyone speak of their mother that way, not even Sirius. “What's the song about? I don’t speak French.”
Her lips curved into a pitying smile. “Even if you did, you wouldn't understand it anyway,” she said. “It’s in Middle French, spoken around five centuries ago.”
For a moment, she seemed to weigh her words, as if pondering whether she should proceed or not.
“It is about a Black mistress who was burnt to death in the 15th century.”
A frosty silence pervaded the space between them.
“Witch hunt, then,” he said at last.
“Precisely,” replied Narcissa with an arrogant monotone. “I presume your History of Magic grade is tolerable, so you must know not every witch could wield magic to save herself.”
Remus's History of Magic grade was, in fact, the top of their year. So he wasn’t bought by the sanitised version of history they often taught students. He knew the ugly truth hidden beneath the surface –– that while most witches could escape execution by using a Flame Freezing Charm, some couldn't avoid death when their wands were taken, or when they were bound by unbreakable metal chains. He also knew now why this Black lady execution was not mentioned in Bathilda Bagshot’s A History of Magic . The Blacks were too proud, after all, too iron-clad to bare the cracks in their armour for the world to see.
And yet––
“For five centuries,” Remus slowly repeated. “Your family has sung of a witch's execution to coax babies to sleep.”
This was even madder than the grim Slavic nursery rhymes about deaths and abductions that his mother had told him about last summer, when the bookshop acquired new items about Russian folklore. So Sirius had grown up with this lullaby, then. Coupled with a crypt of decaying corpses and thousands of cluttering Dark artefacts that could put the entire Knockturn Alley to shame, Remus didn’t imagine sleeping at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place as all that child-friendly.
“We need to be constantly reminded of the grievous crime that tore our family.”
Narcissa’s voice was now colder than the winter wind. In the darkness, she looked white and state like a moonshine.
“Countless Muggle lives were saved by my ancestors when The Plague was ravaging the entirety of Europe –– and yet that was how they repaid us,” Narcissa’s tone now carried venom, smooth and glabrous. “Do you know how they killed her? They stole her wand, locked her up in prison without a trial, and tortured her for ten days. Muggle's mediaeval methods of torture.” Poison bled into Narcissa’s tone, with an intuitive consciousness of her power. Even with that Psyche knot and swan-like neck, she looked more forbidding than he’d ever seen her. “When she almost died from a jail-ridden disease, they tied her to a cross and set her aflame. They didn't even wait for death to take her before they lit the fire.”
Narcissa paused for a while, to meet his gaze with hers. It was so cold that one could die of hypothermia.
“She was so precious –– a princess in her prime, loved and adored by everyone who was lucky enough to meet her… Yet she was wrenched from this family, her body tormented and destroyed, her screams unheard… Slaughtered like a pig in an abattoir by those vile, soulless Mudblood beasts.”
The air between them twisted by a ghostly silence.
“The tragedy of Vega Black is a lesson carved into our bones,” Narcissa said at last. “We were birthed and raised strong, because we do not forget or forgive. That is why we are The Noble and Most Ancient. Empires may rise and fall — but the House of Black persists.”
A winter wind rustled by the balcony with a hollow, shivering sound, like the lament of the long-gone past. Somewhere in the darkness, the soul of the lost centuries was crying in solitary, damned and condemned, tormented by an eternal hatred that calcified with time.
No , no, Remus thought to himself, already feeling irritated. Those were the dust of the bygone ages, they meant nothing to this day anymore. Whoever still clinged onto that ancient tragedy would all be rotten in its wretchedness, like the toxic pathogens in the tomb of pharaoh Tutankhamen that had taken those luckless archaeologists’ lives.
“But he never understands that,” Narcissa continued, her sculpted jaw clenched, which lent her a startling resemblance to her sister Bellatrix. “He never understands that loyalty to our family comes before everything. He never understands that there are generations of our noble ancestors behind him, their shadows trailing after every one of us until the end of our days. He never understands the family is far greater than him, and he must live up to what he is expected of and take that as an honour.”
Remus noted a peculiar consistency among the Blacks –– a disdain so profound for their heir that they couldn’t wait to antagonise him with every breath.
“He loved that lullaby,” Narcissa said suddenly, “He loved it so much that he played it often, when we were kids… but he criticised our family for ‘turning a beautiful song into an indoctrination weapon'. How much he hated us, all of us,” she tossed her hair back as if she couldn’t care less. “Save only Andromeda. He loved her always, and he loves her still, even now she’s long gone.”
Andromeda. Again, that name came up, and Remus felt like he was chasing a ghost. “Long gone? Do you mean that she's dead?”
“Worse than that.” Narcissa’s voice was devoid of mercy. “She betrayed our family. Ran away to marry a Mudblood named Edward Tonks. My Aunt blasted her off the family tree as soon as she was disowned, her name erased from existence. Mother was heart-broken, and Father could die from shame.”
He didn't know what to say. So he let Narcissa speak, who seemed suddenly emboldened, her fury rising like a tide.
“Two years have passed since, no sight, no news, no letter. Two years. She's forgotten us that quickly, that ungrateful wretch. And worse still –– it always bothers me that she chose a Mudblood over us … Oh, how much I had admired her. To think that I used to admire a blood traitor!” her lips trembled. “But she was a brilliant witch. I admired Bella, too, but she I feared more than admired. Andromeda, on the other hand, had a sophisticated soul. She was the perfect daughter and sister… then suddenly she renounced all the obligations she was supposed to undertake as a mistress of House Black –– rejecting her own birthright –– putting an unerasable stain on our name.
“For two years, I keep asking myself why . We were brought up under the same roof, studied in the same house, and were almost inseparable… Since when had the rebellion gotten into her? Why did she get to cast aside all the duties expected of her? Was she corrupted by love ?”
Narcissa's bony hand clawed on her elbow, fingers digging in so deep that they would leave marks on her skin.
“That's why I want to break into her keepsake box. To find the answer. I want to crack it open, see what she cherishes most, and then destroy it.”
It struck him then that Narcissa was less livid about Andromeda’s marriage to a Muggleborn than she was wounded by her own sister’s betrayal. Apparently Andromeda, the missing piece of the Black sisters, had left behind not just the Noble and Most Ancient family, but a wound that cannot be healed, but only festered with every passing year.
“You and Sirius,” at last Remus said, “are more alike than you thought you were,” he told her evenly, “And I hate to admit it. I truly do, because I want to think that you are entirely, irredeemably different from one another.”
It's easier to hate you that way, spoke that nasty little whisper inside him. But every time he thought about them, about their identical Grecian features and sharp elegance, about their unrelenting pride, their steadfastness, their thorns…
“I? Similar to him ?” Narcissa suddenly exclaimed in an aggrieved disbelief, as if the sheer thought of it insulted her. “ C’est pas possible! ”
It set an alarm to him instantly. “Calm down, woah, please calm down!” He held both of his palms up, trying to placate the youngest Black mistress. “Merlin, you Blacks are tempestuous creatures, aren’t you all? Even the iciest one has a temper in her,” he muttered.
A few people strolled by, and they both shut themselves in silence. Narcissa used this short pause to recover her slipped composure, masking any crack on her façade with a mechanical professionalism.
“You are wrong,” When they were alone again, Narcissa spoke with her habitual hauteur. “I am no more like him than ice is like fire. Natural, bold, and unhinged, that boy is the synthesis of pure chaos!”
Something bled into her tone, rose to the frozen surface and threatened to break it –– the faintest rush of female blood. It made the ice statue of Narcissa livelier, softer, and slightly more touchable .
“The first time he exposed magic, every window in Grimmauld Place shattered, letting all the wild winds rampage in. The first time he laughed out loud, Abraxas Malfoy left our dining room with goblin piss on his face, swearing that he'd never come for supper again — Don't give me that dopey smile, Lupin, it has always been abhorrent like that, for he is a demonic creature to his core. He resents me too, I know; to him I'm boring and tiresome. Not worth his care.”
Remus took out a cigarette, casually lighting it. “What made you think he thinks so?”
“The way he looks at me,” Narcissa lowered her voice as she turned her head away, expressionless, from the wavering flame. “To him, I’m always less than Bella and Meda. Both he and Bella are people of strong characters –– before everything went to hell, as children they used to play and dance and laugh like no one else. I could never be like her, nor could I be like Meda, whose sweetness he loved against reasons, against all discouragement from the family after her run-away. When he looks at me , like I am a little hassle that he had to put up with, a mundane, repetitive household chore…” her voice went quieter still, “No one else has ever looked at me that way.”
“And you can't look back at him the same way –– only ‘natural, bold, and unhinged’ ,” replied Remus without mockery nor sympathy, only the matter-of-fact. “That's what bothers you to no end.”
“I didn't mean it in any positive way, you fool,” said Narcissa in dismay.
“Oh? Why not? To me you seemed quite enthralled.”
“I did love him sometimes, but now I don’t. I have grown sick of all that madness, not just him, but anything existing within the four walls of our house that serves as the stage for his madness,” Narcissa gave a little shiver. “It is like a game of cards –– you never know what will greet you as you draw from the deck; when he’s cold, he is the spitting image of Uncle Orion; when he gets angry, then Aunt Walburga takes possession of him. When he laughs… it’s Bella I hear, since her laughter has haunted me since she nearly drowned me as a child. But the maddest of all is that he’s afraid of none of them –– not Bella, not Aunt Walburga, not even his father. He’s careless just so.”
Then her voice was reduced to a whisper, her eyes widened. “He lives as if everyday is the last day he lives. When I look at him, I see no tomorrow. No future.”
Remus blinked the astonishment out of his sight. And then, he laughed.
He laughed aloud, for the first time, in front of her, which, too, surprised her.
“You told me it was ‘small, trivial affection'!” There were twin dimples on his cheeks when he smiled. “Are you sure you hate him as much as you claim?”
“Perhaps not,” replied Narcissa with a small timbre of hesitation, but it vanished as soon as it came to existence. “But I wouldn't mind leaving him rotten in despair, if the situation called for it –– maybe he'd even thank me. If he was gone, I wouldn't shed a tear, and I'd thank him for making me a widow. Wedlock will be just fun,” she concluded, full of irony.
You are right about many things, Mary, Remus thought, and that some pureblood scions don’t hate him as much as they appear to is among those. He observed Narcissa through the stream of white smoke from his cigarette.
“Is that what you want, Black?” His gaze was clear and piercing. “I don't believe that's what you truly want.”
Narcissa's ice-blue eyes fixed on him strangely, like she had yet to believe someone had just asked her such a question.
“I want Lucius,” she said, and suddenly her voice drifted away, until it was as distant as an echo from another world. “I want a pureblood husband who loves me, and is compatible with me in every way that matters. I want a child to dote on, to whom I would teach the traditions of my family just like my husband would teach about his, so that our roots would run deep and deeper. I would wrap my child in indulgence, and of course, his parents would be wealthy enough to satisfy all of his whims.
“When I look at Lucius, I can envision all of that: the continuation of the old life that I know we used to have, in the Black family, with its sweet perfection and slow grace and air ripe with laughter.” For a moment, her eyes were no longer cold but shone warm and bright. “Do you know there is a glamour in it, Lupin –– a glamour like the Pax Romana ?”
Merlin, she speaks like she lived through the Roman Empire herself.
Remus didn't say anything. He simply listened with a dimly lit cigarette in his mouth — a brandless fag he bought for forty pence a pack in some dingy Muggle convenient store — all while coated in a second-hand vest which his mother had had to work hard to buy, what with all those night shifts and crumpled medicine bills and cheap coffee.
“From the deepest of my heart, I yearn for that life back,” continued Narcissa, unaware of his silence. “Only Lucius can bring it to me, and no one else, not even the other Sacred Twenty-Eight heirs. And I want to share it with Lucius, because when I lie on my bed and dream of that life, he is always with me,” she whispered. “It's like we've known each other for a lifetime.”
A cold wind swept through and Narcissa shivered, pulled back to reality.
“But it doesn't matter what I want,” she said again, and now her voice had lost all of its floating dreaminess. “It doesn't matter what I deserve to have, for my future path is mapped out and indiscussible. The betrothal has been decided.”
She looked quite lonesome now, even more stark than when Sirius had left her at the middle of the ball –– she looked like someone so tough and cold outside, yet fraught with solitude inside. This woman, who’d been constantly painted as the epitome of ideal pureblood female, must have tried her best to live up to the Her Royal Highness image –– the only image expected of her, as the object of desire. Never a being capable of desiring. She also seemed to believe in that lie, going about with perfect adherence to the role she’d never been given a choice to refuse. And Remus thought of the way Sirius had used his father’s voice to subdue her, the way Remus himself had held prejudices of her –– so, so many quiet prejudices that he mostly kept to himself. For the first time, he wondered who Narcissa Black was beneath all that.
“There is something you should know,” he said finally, breaking the silence. “Even though you might deem it unimportant.”
A flash of curiosity flickered through Narcissa’s eyes, thin and fast like a comet. “Speak, then.”
He lowered the cigarette, now only a feeble ember.
“He does care about you.” His tone, so often neutral, started to reveal a harsh conviction –– the most blatant emotion Narcissa had seen in him.
Narcissa Black prided herself in her ability to read men, to toy with their emotions like a lethal Duellist toyed with their opponent. But she found no battle ground for her in front of this half-blood Gryffindor. He was disturbingly unreadable, even her Legilimency could not break through. Those strange eyes of his did nothing but make it worse — one shadowy and impervious, one bright and coldly lucid.
“He never abandons his affection,” the Gryffindor slowly continued, his voice rasp from smoke, his strange eyes illuminating in the dark. “He is all or nothing –– fire or cinders. Once he cares about someone, he'll care about them until the end, even if circumstances sway and turn that affection into hatred. But, in a way, love and hate are two sides of the same coin, aren't they?”
His rhetorical question hung into the frosty night. There, he had done it. He had given Narcissa a piece of Sirius, had handed the knife to someone from the other side, placing a bet.
They both stayed in a strained silence for a while, listening to the faint music from the ball and to the unresolved voices inside them.
Eventually, she shifted her stance, looking up at him.
“Those scars on your face — from where did you get them? It looks a little funny.”
That particular heart beat of him was as loud as a thunder.
“I prefer to keep the endearing secret to myself.”
An artful eyebrow raised at the small sarcasm, but she didn't pry for more.
“No wonder why you attract him,” said Narcissa finally. “That MacDonald girl –– she's prettier than average, but there is no mystery about her. Not to mention the mediocre blood that runs in her and the half-magical one in you –– it makes all the difference, doesn't it?”
“Not quite,” said Remus coolly. Narcissa remained unfazed.
“Don’t be harsh,” she said, “It’s the first time I get to know a person of your blood. Your class.”
Another song was on, and the inhabitants of the ball stirred with the change of music. The song had a nice melody and a catchy rhythm. His and her eyes caught on one another, the air between brimming with an invisible anticipation.
“You haven't properly danced tonight, Black.”
He dropped the cigarette and grounded it with his shoe.
“You enjoy dancing, don't you? I noticed it when you were with Sirius earlier. Would you like to dance now?”
Narcissa looked as if he'd just lost his mind.
“Let's pretend,” he smiled, still very politely, but now added with something diabolical –– something she could never have expected of him given a thousand guesses. “Just for a moment, that blood and class don't exist. Only dance for the sake of dancing. When it’s over, you'll be back to the way you are, and I will do me.”
Her gaze hardened. She stood there, glowing in the dark, but pale and cold as a statue decorating the dark hallways of Satis House. A statue that made Pip’s young heart tremble.
“I am the daughter of The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.”
“Duly noted.”
“I am your friend’s fiancée, who will take him away from you.”
“Sore point.”
“My sister is Bellatrix Lestrange, a sworn devotee to the Dark Lord.”
A beat passed.
“You ask too late, Snegurochka. The entire Britain already knows that.”
Her stare lingered on him for what felt like an eternity… before she placed a dainty hand on his shoulder.
Hopefully the darkness could help him obscure his coarse suit.
“You owe Sirius a proper dance, though,” Remus said as he held the Black mistress in his arms. He could count about ten boys who would kill to be in his position right now. “A dance that doesn’t involve slapping his face. Now I’m collecting the debt.”
Narcissa laughed coldly, as if it was the least humorous thing she’d ever heard. “I’m certain he deserves that slap.” The hem of her deep-blue dress brushed against the tip of his shoes. “He, however, is the last thing I want to discuss right now.” A pause. “Why do you call me Snegurochka?”
“It means The Snow Maiden , whose heart was so cold that once she knew how to love, she melted away. You remind me of that fairy tale.”
“Does this tale have a happy ending?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“Entertain me, then. With your little story.”
“Once upon a time, in the winterland of Russia…”
And they drifted along the music, their robes rustling over the cold floor; a slow, languid thing. Not Charleston, not Viennese waltz, but it was the strangest dance ever; they both moved like sleepwalkers on the half-shadowed, half-lit balcony, with a pre-snowing thickness in the air, and the lustreless moon and starless sky above their young heads.
When the song was over, they parted.
“One last thing, Black.” He suddenly said as she turned to leave. “Who is Dorothy?”
She glanced back to regard him for a moment, a flicker of something indecipherable crossing her face. But she swept away, then, her voice as clear and cold as it had forever been.
“You'll have to ask him, halfblood .”
o0o
When Remus returned to the ball, the party was in full swing. In the center of the room, Sirius and Lily danced together to the upbeat music.
The both of them attracted some of the most scandalised, scathing looks: the eccentric scion of House Black and a nameless Muggleborn! How brazen, how improper. This Black heir must have some nerve; he’d chosen to dance with not one but two Muggleborn girls instead of his esteemed pureblood cousin. How could someone of the class like him have such a quirky taste? And look at the way they dressed –– the girl's vulgar display of purity with that billowing white gown and the boy’s appeal of someone dredged up from the pits of hell… What an odd combination.
But Sirius met their intrusive glance with a scowl, shielding Lily away from the hostility by flooding her with dances and laughs and music. Both of them were having so much fun that they eventually threw it all away. No one could take their eyes off the girl's flying red hair, or the way the boy held her like she was springtime in his arms. They spinned one another in a radiant foxtrot, and when Lily's green orchid fell from her fichu, Sirius blew it away and grinned, “James would've said you don't need this flower, Evans. Your eyes are far, far greener.”
That was when Severus Snape stormed out of the ball, his long black robe billowing dramatically behind him like an angry giant bat. Lily's laughter died instantly, and she pulled away from Sirius to follow him, muttering exasperatedly “Fucking hell — Severus, hey!”
Taken aback, Sirius caught Remus’s eyes across the crowd. He gave his friend a complicated, quizzical look, and Sirius shook his head in the “Godric knows why she's still friends with that git" expression in return. They exchanged a very nasty chuckle, like two little clowns. It warmed Remus’s cold heart.
‘It’s the first time I get to know a person of your blood. Your class.’
‘Halfblood.’
Her blood also runs in his veins, Remus thought, spending a moment too long staring at the gleam in Sirius’s eyes. They grew up under the same roof, raised by the same bigoted hyenas… And yet…
Their shared moment only lasted until Mary McDonald arrived. She pulled Sirius down by the collar, and kissed him soundly.
Remus suddenly felt very interested with the rug underneath his feet. It was a good rug. Green, water-proof.
Some people, who’d been working up some courage to ask Sirius for a dance, stepped back at once. Others glared at them, appalled, but Sirius didn’t seem to care. The goblet in his hand clattered to the floor as he dropped it –– he cupped Mary's cheeks with both hands, returning the kiss… A bit cliché, but they kissed like on the movies. And a new song was on play –– a Muggle one, filled with The Ronettes' sweet-nothings about a youthful romance.
I'll make you so proud of me
We'll make 'em turn their heads every place we go
So won't you, please (be my, be my baby)
Be my little baby? (My one and only baby)
Even though Sirius’s hair obscured where their lips met, one could tell he was kissing passionately. He tilted his head to meet Mary's lips, his fingers cradling her jaw and fiddling into her thick brown hair.When they broke the kiss, they smiled at each other, all shy and blushing as the teenagers they were, after which she reached for his hand and dragged their way out of the ball…
… Alright, Remus tore his gaze away from the green rug, he admitted himself was really not a party animal. He probably should call it a day and return to Gryffindor Tower, where a warm shower and a cosy bed await him like a fucking fantasy. All these vain affairs and short-winded sentiments of Wizardkind had nothing to do with him, thanks Godric for that. After finishing one last glass grudgingly, he bid good night to Kingsley Shacklebolt, who had also watched the whole Evans and Snape and Black and McDonald drama with the exact same complicated expression to his, then he slipped into the outside corridor and welcomed the darkness like an old friend.
Unless, where he ended up heading to was not his four-poster bed in Gryffindor Tower.
Instead, Remus found himself in the library, searching for The Plague and witch burnings in the Middle Age.
o0o
The Blacks were so determined to erase any trace of their association with Muggles that Remus only found one book that mentioned the role they had played in The Plague, after an eternity of ransacking the shelves.
Outside the window, the snow had begun to fall. The first snow of the season always comes like that, in the most tender, unassuming way, like a childhood melody we have long forgotten but stumbled upon by accident when we’re walking down a street, slipping through our fingers as we try to catch it.
A fucking poetic setting for a dive into mediaeval gore, in all the spirituality of this dead-night hour. Remus set the candle on the table, and began reading.
… Among the best Healers of that age were members of the House of Black, one of the oldest wizarding clans in Britain. With their reputation of practising the Dark Arts, Black Healers did not hesitate to apply this dangerous magic into their impeccable healing techniques, whose methods extended to curing both Muggles and wizards affected by The Plague,
There have been conspiracies that The Plague is also named The Black Death because it was masterminded by witches and wizards in this house. It has been suggested that the disease, developed from ancient curses in China, was used as a tool to eliminate their rivals and monopolise the Potions ingredients trade between the West and the East. However, this book concerns itself with historical facts, not speculations and gossip. Hence, we remain insistent with the fact that the Blacks had played a crucial role in curing Muggles from this devastating disease…
Under the text was an ink-drawn illustration of a Medico della Peste — a Plague Doctor wearing a very disturbing black mask. It resembled a bird, with a hook-like beak and glass-covered eyeholes. The figure held a wand in one hand, its long dark robe dropping like an imposing shadow beneath a tall hat.
Cepheus Black (1317 - 1360), former Potions professor of Hogwarts, magister scholarium of Oxford Faculty of Potions, inventor of the cure for the plague.
He turned back a few pages to re-examine the Black family crest, scanning over the skull, the armoured arm reaching towards the stars, and three gaunt crows. His eyes darted between the ominous crows and the plague mask, and he almost laughed at the lack of creativity — couldn't they make it less obvious?
The information of Vega Black was harder to find, in a book that was so old that the ink could barely be made out on the corroded pages.
… They went down in Muggle history as“Wars of Roses”, but us wizards simply called them trade disturbances. One of the prime examples of witches and wizards who loved to meddle in Muggles' politics was Lady Vega of House Black. Known for her unrivalled beauty, she seduced the Earl of Warwick into cementing ties with France, where a large quantity of the Black businesses remained key to the family's wealth and influence. With hair as dark as oriental ink, often adorned with a dragon-horn headpiece, Vega Black's exceptional charm led to various political turbulences that followed the progression of the war.
Her schemes, however, later developed into something above self interests. Historical evidence suggests that between 1470 and 1471, Vega Black attempted to forge an army of Inferi. whose sole mission was to aid Warwick against the Yorkists in battle. Whether she succeeded was unclear, as Warwick was killed in the Battle of Barnet before the intervention of any Inferius. Vega Black refused to retreat and stayed with the Earl until the end, as proof of her fierce loyalty to her lover. However, remnants of Warwick's followers accused her of using “witchcraft” against their lord and sentenced her to death on a burning stake…
Hair as dark as oriental ink… a dragon-horn headpiece…
"... Causing a rampant mess after Professor Slughorn's ball,” muttered a vicious voice outside the library. “Pointing their nasty little wands everywhere… Only under severe punishments will they learn a lesson, Ma'am.”
“Potter, Black and Snape?” echoed another voice, deeply coloured with exasperated anger.
“Yes, Ma'am. And that Evans girl. When I arrived to catch them in the act, the girl was there shouting at all of them…”
It wasn’t the first time. Or the hundredth.
Remus quickly blew the candle out and slammed the book shut. When Professor McGonagall and Mr. Filch's footsteps died out, he hurried back to Gryffindor Tower as soundlessly as a ghost.
Their dorm was empty when he got back to the Tower; Peter had likely been dragged along by James. He took a quick shower and slipped into his pyjamas before throwing James' Invisibility Cloak over his shoulders, not forgetting to take with him the Marauders' Map in case old Filch let Mrs. Norris patrol the corridors.
He took an alternate route to the Transfiguration classroom corridor, careful to avoid the caretaker and his monstrous cat. When he reached where the painting was hung, quiet and unnoticed by most students, he casted a Muffliato ward and dropped the Invisibility Cloak.
If the Blacks’ influence at the mediaeval Hogwarts had been as great as it was implied, then it shouldn’t be a surprise to find a mediaeval Black portrait in the castle.
“Lady Vega Black.”
The unheimlich woman in the portrait stirred.
Seated in what looked like a putrid armchair, she stared down at him from her portrait. Against her too pale skin, her flowing dark hair was the most magnificent thing he’d ever laid his eyes on, and he wondered why he’d never noticed it before –– atop that lush mane sat a dragon-horn headpiece, gleaming in the dim torchlight. Joel-Peter Witkin, he thought, eyeing the grey skull she held in her hands. She could be the muse for those distorted and rotten post-mortem photographs of Joel-Peter Witkin. Her paleness reminded him of The Soul Has No Gender , featuring a trans woman posturing as Mary Magdalene.
For a long moment, she didn’t speak. She simply studied him, white and hollow-cheeked, her lips pressed into a wicked, taunting line.
“What is this newfound courtesy, boy?” Vega Black finally spoke, arching up her eyebrows. “I remember the last time we talked, you told me to sod off.”
She was definitely, unarguably a Black. “Not my proudest moment, I admit,” he coughed. “I was in a foul temper, and you happened to poke on it.”
“Foul temper? Had your professor given you an E instead of an O for your homework, because you look just like that type of student,” Vega Black’s thin lips curved into a smirk. “Pupils these days are wild. Back in my day, you got what you deserved, no discussion. Cross the line and you'd know what the Cruciatus Curse tastes like…”
“I was having a row with a friend,” said Remus firmly. He did not want to hear more about the Cruciatus part.
She regarded him like one would regard a peculiar creature trapped in a glass jar, her eyes as black as coal.
“A friend, you said… Are you implying my direct descendant, Sirius Black?”
“You recognised ?”
She laughed airily and stroked her hair with those rings-adorned fingers.
“It is impossible not to. After five hundred years sitting in this portrait, I am able to recognise the Black dark hair and angular face anywhere, at any time.”
Remus observed her, and he noted that she was beautiful. Not the conventional sort of beauty, but, as she had said, there was an otherworldly angularity in it –– one that could almost be described as gaunt and sunken. Her smile was so careless that he had to remind himself this was a formidable Dark witch, who had forged a dead army to serve her lover and who had been burnt alive by misogynistic madmen.
“Well?” Vega Black hummed. “Is my Gryffindor descendant a menace? I heard Phineas complain about him all the time that my ears could have started bleeding…”
“Phineas?”
“Phineas Nigellus Black, former Hogwarts headmaster. His portrait is hung in the headmaster's office. A cranky old git, if I am to be honest. Can't be a popular one if you run a school with your finger stubbed up your nose, can you?”
Apparently, not every Black was very elegant.
“Well, what are you here for anyway, at the dead of the night?” Vega callously queried, adjusting her massive headpiece like an Elven queen.
“History of Magic essay,” he lied without blinking. “My apologies if my questions were too bold.”
“You're not being honest, boy,” she said sharply, her voice cutting like a dagger. “My family destroyed every trace of my existence in historical records. You wouldn't know about me from your little History of Magic class.”
“That's not true,” said Remus impatiently, holding up a finger, “I found one book, and there's the lullaby…”
“Ah, so the true intention came from the lullaby!” A victorious smile split on her heart-shaped black lips. “How did you know about it, young lad? Did Sirius sing it to you? He doesn't seem like the lullaby singing type, from what I observed...”
He shook his head, though he admitted he would quite like to hear Sirius sing it. “I overheard it from his cousin. It was completely accidental.”
Vega Black's smile faded as quickly as how it had appeared. In the tumult of the dark corridor, where the moonbeam could barely touch, she looked like a corpse maiden, her skeletal-pale skin stark against the darkness. Beautiful, yes, but macabre.
“They never want to let people know about me,” her voice was as low as the pitless rumble of the ocean, “They never want the world to know that I used to live, to laugh, to love . They never want them to know how I died… How I died!” Her voice cracked, and her gaze darkened. “ Will they ever know how it felt?”
It all happened in a blink: Vega Black's ink-dark hair flew up as if she was a drowned body rising from the depths — an Ophelia returning from the brook. Her beautiful visage twisted grotesquely and morphed into something gruesome. Blood streamed from her fathomless eyes, the rumble of her voice hollowed with an unbearable sorrow. Her skin became crumpled and flayed, her long hair burned like a scorching halo, and her long sleeves burst into fire…
Remus didn't back-away. He knew portraits couldn't harm him. She wasn’t dangerous –– she was simply in pain.
“But of course, who am I to complain?” Like a curse broken, the flame extinguished, her hair fell back into place, and her features resumed their dark, otherworldly beauty. “I'm not Vega. I'm only a vestige of her, trapped in this painting for five centuries. Vega Black had long gone with the dust, so immemorial that she seemed to never have come into this world under any form of existence.”
“They have a lullaby about you,” he reminded her with a reassuring tone. “They sing it to every generation of children.”
And turns from Muggles healers into the mad blood purists, Remus thought to himself. You were the strand of hair that hung the Damocles sword, and when it snapped, the sword fell, cutting through everything.
“Ah, yes, my family's language of love,” her voice warped into a vicious sing-song, “Burying it deep inside, gnawing at the pain. When it becomes unbearable, they grind it under their feet, only to pick up the debris and bury it again. The cycle never ends, as long as no one else knows!”
“But I know.” There must be some paranoia about all these Black women. “Narcissa Black told me about you. How you died, how your death has been a tragedy for the family ever since.”
“Narcissa?” Her brow lifted. “Is that the blonde girl?”
“The one and only.”
“I’ve only met her sister, Andromeda,” Vega whispered to herself, reminiscing. “She used to come here and talk to me, very often. A wonderful, striking girl… But lonely. Yes, very lonely . We both were, that’s what had drawn us together. Not many people know about me, you see. In this century, there are only three people that have ever come to speak to me. You, Andromeda, and a handsome Slytherin boy who refused to give his name, some decades ago.”
Her coal-black eyes flicked back to him, in a manner that suggested she was peeling away layers of his soul.
“Your name isn’t Moony, is it?”
Remus huffed a disbelieved laugh. “Hell, no.” He shook his head. “Should I be concerned that you know my secret nickname instead of Remus Lupin?”
“Your friends aren’t exactly discreet, are they?” replied Vega haughtily. “But well, Remus Lupin … One of the two founders of Rome… Not a bad choice for a name.”
He didn’t know how to respond to that. Now the mediaeval Black lady was regarding him with requesting eyes, perhaps too proud to be pleading.
“Will you—will you come to see me sometimes? At your convenience, of course… It's quite lonely here.”
It indeed was. For a painting, time stretched eternally until it all became meaningless. It must be impossible to distinguish the days here.
“If that’s what you wish, would you please do me one favour?”
He inhaled, internally cursing himself for his stupidity, for when he was rushing on the way here he hadn’t thought at all about the risks. Vega was listening attentively. It must have been so long she hadn’t had a living person speak to her.
“Please don't tell anyone about me,” At last, he gave in. “Especially your family — in case they have another portrait of you hung in Number Twelve Grimmauld Place.”
An uncomfortable silence evaded the air, as he waited for her to laugh at his naivety. But then, he saw Vega Black smile. A ghoulish smile, but a smile nonetheless.
“Worry not, Remus Lupin. You’re looking at the only portrait the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black don't dare to keep in their mansion.”