Sodding Perfect.
It was seeing her that did it. Her voice was deeper, softer, tainted with age. Her magic swirled around, racing, screaming, too grief-stricken to constrain. But different.
She looked the same.
She looked the same.
Narcissa hadn’t wanted to look at her. But when the woman knelt next to her, pulled the pins out of her hair, let it fall in those pretty waves, she had to.
She had seen pictures, sure, she had heard rumours. Wasn’t the same.
She was already a blood-traitor. Her husband disgraced. Son endangered. How much worse could she get?
She shouldn’t have. She shouldn’t have looked at her.
But she did.
Narcissa wanted, oh Narcissa wanted. A million things she felt compelled to do, and all of them traitorous. She was consorting with a traitor. A traitor that looked just like her sister, but callous and cordial, cunning and complex. Both of them were complex.
That was not Dromeda.
This was a defector, who denounced her kind, dishonoured her family. And perhaps most importantly, deserted her. Andromeda Tonks. Andromeda Cedrella Tonks.
A disgrace.
She should kill her. Narcissa was no stranger to liquidation, but sororicide would leave her an only child, murder always left a sour taste in her mouth, and she wasn’t sure she was quite ready for that today.
Besides, if they were both blood-traitors, it was overshadowed by the elimination of their house. The last living members of The Noble And Most Ancient House Of Black. Andromeda was not a Black. Neither was she, although, they were both sisters, and they came from a family sometime, somewhere.
Rationalisation was an understatement.
She was just so pretty. Who couldn’t look at her?
It beat staring at the lych in front of her, two types of guilt bubbling inside her for two types of sist- two types of witches.
Should not have looked at her.
The years showed, lines where there hadn’t been. Eyes were the same, rich and carmel and sparkling. Hair was the same, released from the fixed bun, gracing her back, shoulders. Long, flowing, with one strange addition, a dying strip of grey, chunked at the top. Definitely intentional, definitely ugly. Andromeda had never wanted to colour her hair. Maybe it was natural, a result of the senescence she had been subject to. Her nails poked past the end of her fingertips, practiced coffins.
The medium. The mix between Bella’s long claws, and Narcissa’s filed squares.
The ring. Spotted diamonds and golden vines, intricate, serpentine, winding the promise of marriage. The marriage Narcissa was not there for. The marriage to someone far beneath her. The stars in the sky, the vines of the earth. Fitting. A good choice.
Sweet.
Possibly better than hers.
The robes. Simple. Stunning. They only made her shine. Being surrounded by filth made her shine.
Narcissa had saved that filth, to save her son.
Andromeda Tonks had married filth, to save herself.
Andromeda Tonks looked sodding perfect.
She shouldn’t have looked.