Drowning
Narcissa watches her friend with a level of curiosity she doesn’t believe she’s ever had.
She is not the type to prod or question when Alexandra is in a mood. She usually notes it under a flurry of reasons, big and small. A poor night’s sleep. The weight of a letter left unopened on her desk. A particularly distasteful encounter with one of their own. Today, it is something different.
The flickering candlelight of the Slytherin common room casts long shadows over Alexandra’s face, sharpening the angles of her already unreadable expression. She sits by the fireplace, her posture deceptively relaxed, one leg tucked beneath the other, fingers idly tracing the rim of an untouched goblet. It’s a careful mask. Narcissa has seen it often enough to recognize when Alexandra is trying too hard to appear as though nothing is wrong.
She doesn’t ask outright. She never does.
Instead, she leans against the arm of the chair, watching as Alexandra finally takes a sip of her drink, expression unreadable. “You’re quieter than usual.”
A lazy scoff. “I wasn’t aware there was a usual.”
“You have your silences,” Narcissa muses, tilting her head slightly. “But this isn’t one of them.”
Alexandra exhales through her nose, an almost-scoff, an almost-laugh. She doesn’t look at her. Instead, she turns her head just enough to watch the others across the room—Lucius, reclining in his usual seat, speaking in low tones to Avery and Rosier, his gaze flicking briefly toward them before returning to the conversation. Barty, hunched over a piece of parchment, his quill scratching furiously against the surface. Mulciber, stretching out his legs, looking every bit the self-satisfied brute he is.
Alexandra finally speaks, her voice light but edged. “What is it you think I’ve done?”
It is a test, Narcissa realizes. A way of determining whether she has seen, whether she has noticed the way Alexandra’s hands had curled into fists earlier that day, the way her lips had parted—just slightly—when Evans’ hair hit the ground. The way she had turned away too late.
Narcissa does not answer immediately. Instead, she reaches forward, plucking Alexandra’s goblet from her grasp and taking a sip herself. It’s watered-down firewhisky. She expected as much.
“I think,” she says finally, setting the goblet down with a soft clink, “that you’d best ready yourself for tomorrow.”
Alexandra makes a soft, humorless sound in the back of her throat. There’s nothing surprising about Narcissa’s words. They sting anyway.
“You should be more careful, you know.”
“Of what?”
“Of looking like you care.”
There is no immediate reaction, but Narcissa catches the faintest twitch of Alexandra’s fingers. A tiny tell. A sign that something had cracked, just for a moment. But Alexandra, ever composed, only leans back further in her seat, lifting her chin in a way that might be mistaken for amusement.
“Careful,” she murmurs, voice slow, deliberate. “People might think you’re giving me advice, and we both know that’s beneath you.”
Maybe there's a bit of a distaste in her words. A bite that laces the sarcasm that she dishes out so often. Narcissa rolls her eyes. “I don’t give advice,” she corrects, allowing a small smirk to tug at her lips. “I give observations.”
Alexandra hums, but doesn’t respond.
They sit in silence after that, the fire crackling softly in the hearth, the murmur of voices filling the common room. The weight of the evening settles between them, heavy, lingering, unspoken.
The firelight dances against Alexandra’s skin, gilding her in molten gold, but Narcissa knows better. It is not warmth that sits beneath her skin—it is something sharp, something gnawing, something dark and endless, coiled in the hollow of her ribs like a parasite feeding on regret.
Alexandra drinks again. The goblet tilts just slightly, and the firewhisky spills over her tongue, but there is no relief. It does not drown out the memory of Lily Evans, red hair severed like the lifeline of some long-forgotten hero. It does not drown out Sirius Black, his voice a blade that has carved open something she cannot name. And it does not drown out the weight of the letter, now a crumpled ruin in her fist, its ink bleeding into her palm like rot.
Her father is coming.
The thought makes her stomach churn, her organs twisting like vines strangling each other for space. It has been two years since she last stood in his shadow, but she has never been free of it. He is a god of fear—spine rigid as iron, gaze dissecting, voice of judgement that sentences her to the cruel whims of fate.
He will see her. And he will know.
Alexandra presses her thumb against the rim of her goblet, feeling the cool metal bite into her skin. She has spent years locking away her emotions, sealing them in an airtight box and burying them beneath layers of indifference. But tonight, something has escaped. A single crack has formed, and through it, the darkness seeps.
Black she thinks. It is all his fault.
“What are you thinking?” Narcissa asks, voice deceptively light.
Alexandra exhales, slow and measured, though it does nothing to quell the suffocation. She could tell the truth. She could tell Narcissa about the way her lungs feel waterlogged, about how every breath feels like dragging herself to the surface only to be pulled back under.
But what would be the point?
Instead, she smirks, tilting her head just enough to catch Narcissa’s gaze. “Nothing worth saying.”
A lie. But an elegant one.
Narcissa watches her for a long moment, gaze assessing, but she does not push. She never does.
She just watches as Alexandra lifts the goblet to her lips once more, drinking deeply. If she is concerned she hides it very well. It’s less genuine worry though. There is a glint in her eye that twinkles just so, it wonders what has caused her friends’ descent. It eyes the bottle and then the parchment in her grasp.
Tonight it does not seem as though Alexandra can taste the firewhisky. It seems as though it carries very little effect as she downs it gulp after gulp, as though it were the salt of the sea and she were a suicidal castaway.
The night drags her under like a riptide.
Sleep does not come. Instead, Alexandra drifts somewhere between consciousness and reality, floating in a feverish sea of half-formed nightmares and fragmented memories. The firewhisky does little to quiet the noise in her head,if anything it makes it louder. She is chased by a blur of flickering candlelight, self hatred and the echo of Sirius Black's voice.
The morning does not soothe her troubles. It pulls her out of a well of horror into a basin of agitation and annoyance. The winter sun leaks in through her window and blinds her in her existence of misery. Her mind is on fire, her heart is in her throat. She is nauseous and unable to breathe.
Her father is coming.
Her breath smells of firewhisky and bad choices. Her hair is skewed across her face and her makeup smudged under her eyes. Her hands shake when she reaches for her wand, her whole body seemingly rejecting the notion of consciousness as she moves on anyway. She does not have the luxury of taking care of herself.
The floor of their dorms is shockingly cold. The ice of it clawing around her ankles and threatening to drag her down, to force her to collapse. There is a cup of water laying on her bedside. She forsakes it to finish the bottle she left discarded on the floor.
She doesn’t let it give her comfort. It only serves to worsen whatever edge she’s precariously dangled herself over. Its edges are sharp. The rough floor of the mountaintop she paces across scratching reminders into her. Unwanted cruel reminders. But necessary reminders.
She’d forget herself without them.
Her wounds stings as she passes a washcloth over them. They aren’t visible. They aren’t telling. They serve their purpose and do nothing else. The ghost in the mirror, hair a frizzy crown on her forehead, skin void of life and eyes dark with what might be an unidentified sadness if she looks deeply enough.
There is no way he will not see through her facade today.
She tries her best to stop him nonetheless. The sweat on her body is rinsed off, the strong smelling soap invading her senses. It makes her think of the summer, strawberries and a certain level of nostalgia that she can’t place. It’ll do her well to be in a cheerful mood when he meets her. Her fear of him is better disguised.
There's a level of satisfaction she has as peers in the mirror. The glass fogs up as she comes closer, as though putting up its own defences at her appearance. Bruises under her eyes are no more, and the curly mess atop her skull has been pulled back into ropes so tight it seems as though it hurts to think.
The pain is numbing, she supposes. It’s a nice change from the usual attacks she receives from within her skull. The girl looking back at her now is better.
Or at least believable.
The prefect badge winks at her from amongst the sea of green on her robes. Perhaps confused by the change in demeanour. The stress on the face of the girl so unfeeling. It looks accusing, cruel. She cannot blame it exactly. She is a fraud. She is an actor. But Merlin, she is good at it.
The dorm room is abandoned in a few movements. The other girls have not yet awoken. The hours outside are too early for the likes of them. Those with no struggle in the night.
She doesn’t doubt that they have their own issues. Their lives are similar to hers after all. They simply have different ways of dealing with it. Narcissa, ever polished and adaptive will thrive wherever she is. Her brain will buzz with all sorts of agony, and her heart will silence it with acceptance. Nesrin is much the same. Discomfort is something she doesn’t truly understand. Her family is loving as far as love will go during these times. They will allow her a pick of husband and she will choose correctly. There will be no turmoil.
Alexandra isn’t quite certain about Allegras situation. The girl is never wholly with them. Even as she floats in and out of slumber, her body twitches with the urge to run. It’s clear this lifestyle is not fitting to her. They all know this. They simply pity her.
Alexandra occasionally wonders what will become of this dorm room and the people within it. It’s never a particularly frequent thought. It is fleeting and uncatchable the way the wind is. She may never understand where it originated, whether it springs from a deep care or a bored curiosity, where it will go, whether it will leave her when they inevitably go their separate paths, or whether it will linger like many other things.
It might dance between her words every now and then. May kiss her cheeks as she goes to sleep. It may wrench tears from her eyes and soften her actions as she lives. She may choose to pack this dorm in her mind and store it for the rest of her life, or she may discard it. The room is an empty carcass of coincidence. A meaningless museum.
The corridors are dark and watching her as she moves. The portraits also watch. Perhaps a quiet routine they have come to form in her 7 years here. She does not bother them, and they do not bother her. Not when the morning is young and the walls are washed in a yellow shadow. It’s rather beautiful. It almost makes her walk past the young man in the corner beside her.
Almost.
He is life itself if it were boxed and caged in the physique of a human. He is impossible. He is terrible. She cannot escape him however hard she tries. There's no way for her to leave her own mind after all. He has started to situate himself too comfortably in the furthest corners of her consciousness. There are times she kicks herself for being so reckless and throwing herself at his whims. She cannot kill him now. She would die too.
Arms crossed over his chest, he leans across the stone wall as though it belongs to him. It’s beyond aggravating to her. It’s arresting and it makes her feel like screaming at him. It always has. She chooses not to.
“Blood traitor.” She utters with as much disgust as she possibly can. His crude arrogance, his disrespect, his loathsome attitude makes her want to vomit. “Do you have a reason to be stalking me or are you here to give me another moral pep talk?”
He is void of his usual charm today. His appearance is severe and wrinkled, As though chasing sleep even while awake. It’s mildly disconcerting. Like an incomplete picture that has all the lines drawn in.
“Well?”
There is no reaction from his end. No burst of anger nor simmering hatred beneath the surface. No, his hatred is very plain to see today. In the way he eyes her before straightening, as though something about her offends some deeply sacred part of him. His jaw clenches, the skin of his temple twitching. It makes her smirk. She gets under his skin. Good.
And then he touches her.
Rough fingers around her wrist. Not high enough to touch the markings they’d put on each other a few weeks before. But close enough to make her remember the feeling. Strong enough to make her fight it and lose. Unpredictable enough to make her want to hex him and run away.
He doesn’t give her the chance to.
“I’d kill you.” He mutters, loud enough for just her to hear. There is no true anger, no over exaggeration. It is as plain as day, as present as the cobwebs in the corner above them. He scoffs a little, “But i’ve already promised not to.”
She doesn’t know what to do. She claws in the back of her throat for a reaction of some kind. A bitter comment that might make him live up to his urges after all. The bastard is no better than any of them. He isn’t even good at hiding it.
Her choice of reaction is to reach for her wand in the sleeve that he grips onto so tightly. No mark will be left over, but she will feel it in the morning. Even if he is barely holding onto her.
There is no prolonging of the altercation. He doesn’t want to antagonise her. Well maybe he does, it works regardless. He shoves a peculiar object into her fist and closes it. It’s crumpled and faintly warm as though he has been holding onto it for a while. She chooses not to ponder over that fact too deeply.
“Whatever you think of me-” His eyes bore into her own. Grey darkened to shadows.It isn’t quite like the storm that brews usually across his face when she sees him. He doesn’t look as though he cares much right now. As though he has detached himself from the situation entirely. She assumes her own expression mimics his. “ know that if I had a choice here, I wouldn't waste a single breath on you.”
There’s no need for him to verbalise his thoughts. No need to make the space between them more alive with aggression. She goes back to her wand and he lets go. He steps back and without so much as a glance toward her he stalks off. His broad back staring at her as he leaves.
The sound of his footsteps wear away after a while. She’s simply left alone in the corridor, a hangover still knocking aggressively at her skull, and something burning the palm of her hand.
A note.
The bastard handed her a note.
She doesn’t want to look at its contents. She doesn’t believe it will be good. She can’t think of anything other than opening it.
The odds never weigh in her favour anyhow, she thinks.
The corners are sharp or her skin is particularly sensitive. The paper is cheap, joke shop paper she assumes. She wonders if she’s just willingly made herself the target of one of his pranks.
The handwriting is messy. It’s rushed. It’s sharp with his distaste and reluctance to write to her. To secretly communicate. It's written in every word of advice.
Skeldov
Likes things clean. Composure over charm. Use “sir” when speaking. Don’t interrupt. Don’t look bored. Don’t let your temper show—he hates women with tempers.
Adeline
Wants fluency. Speak French at least once. She’ll know if it’s fake, so don’t butcher it. Compliment her school, not her. She hates flattery unless it’s directed at her intellect. She respects spine—don’t flinch. Smile like you mean it. Try.
Skeeter
Rookie journalist. Three years above you. Predictable. She feeds on scandal. Don’t give her meat. Give her sentiment. Tell her your mother taught you strength. That your father taught you control. Say you believe in unity. Say it like it’s been written on your bones and she won’t be able to twist it.
You’ll hate every word. Doesn’t matter. It works.
Or don’t use any of it. I’ve done my part.
She folds the note in half. Then in half again. Her fingers are twitching like they want to set it on fire.
He didn’t have to write this. That’s what pisses her off most. He didn’t have to. He shouldn’t have. And he shouldn’t know this much—shouldn’t know how to help her, how to make her more likable, more polished, better..
She feels like scrubbing her skin raw.
She shoves the note deep into the lining of her cloak, as though hoping the distance will erase its weight. It doesn’t. If anything it weighs her down. She won’t thank him. She doesn’t owe him anything. He knows that.
She’ll remember that he did it anyway.