Narcissa
Summer, 1961
Narcissa doesn’t have many fond memories from her childhood, but all of them undoubtedly include her sisters and cousins. A personal favorite of hers is the first time she saw Regulus, in her uncle’s arms at the celebration that was held for his birth. The little baby was bundled in a green blanket embroidered in silver threads with the Black family crest.
He'd been so unaware of the horrors of the world he’d just entered. She’d connected with that innocence, still hanging on to her own at the age of six.
He was quiet from the start, content to sit alone on the sidelines and observe, rather than mingle with the crowds. Dark corners and hidden spaces quickly became his most comfortable position as he grew old enough to wander about the manors on his own. Narcissa could always find him, however, as could Sirius. Though the older of the brothers, ever loud and wild, could never understand Regulus’ need for solitude. She thrived in such conditions as well, but Regulus was different even from her.
Where Narcissa loved the indoors, quiet libraries, and warm fires, she’d catch Regulus sitting out in the pouring rain, calmed by thunderstorms. He spent summers growing up in their coastal vacation home chasing the violent waves back and forth, testing fate and thriving on the adrenaline. He’d take long walks through the forests wherever he could, never fearing what could lurk beyond the treeline. Or perhaps the fear fueled the curiosity.
1967
When he was six, he’d once brought a field mouse into their estate on the coast, excited to show it to his brother and cousins. That was back when they all still got along for the most part. Bellatrix had looked down her nose at the little creature, wrinkling it in disgust, tell him to put it back outside before it’d infected him with some disease. Sirius had tried to take it from him to get rid of it before their mother saw.
Regulus started crying, upset that they hadn’t been kind to the little mouse, so Andromeda and Narcissa told the two to get lost if they were going to be rude. Andromeda had found some blankets and a box to make a home for the mouse in Regulus bedroom, while Narcissa snuck down to the kitchens to steal a little bit of food for it.
They’d strictly told Regulus that he had to be very careful about hiding it, or he’d be in great trouble. Walburga had found it anyway, and Regulus’ punishment had been to watch her in horror as she crucioed the poor thing to death. He’d lost his affection for creatures after that, hiding it away within himself so deep Narcissa almost thought he hated animals, but she knew better.
1970
When he was nine, he broke his arm falling down the stairs. Sirius is who he’d gone to first, and his older brother had promptly taken them to Kreacher, telling the elf to heal the arm and not tell their mother about his clumsiness. Kreacher had been given orders from Walburga previously to tell her of any mishaps with the children, so that’s what he’d done.
Narcissa had cried and begged her aunt to heal the injury, unable to stand her innocent little cousin being in pain. Walburga had dismissed her, telling her to mind her own business before she broke Narcissa’s arm as well.
Sirius had then tried to convince his mother to heal Regulus, and only been ignored. Regulus punishment for being clumsy, and unlike how a proper Black should be, was to wait for his arm to heal the muggle way, but she would not allow a cast. Narcissa knew his arm bothered him for years afterward, chronic pain that he had to grit his teeth through when it got bad.
1971
At ten, Regulus had forced himself to keep his composure on the platform as Sirius went off to Hogwarts, but as Narcissa boarded the train herself, she could see the lack of light that was usually in his eyes as he was being left alone. She never knew what occurred throughout that one year with Regulus alone with his parents, but she never saw that glint again.
1972
At eleven, being sorted into Slytherin stole the last of his childish innocence from him. Walburga forced her pride down his throat at every opportunity, throwing him into extra studies and grooming him to be the heir that Sirius was already failing miserably at.
Narcissa blamed the older of the two brothers in a way, for being the reason such a burden fell on Regulus. A burden that sucked the life from him more and more, year after year, until he was nothing but an empty person running on autopilot. And then he died. She feels as though she lost him years before she received that word from her aunt and uncle that he was dead.
November 15th, 1979
Narcissa
To my dear cousin, Cissa.
Narcissa’s hands shake as reads the first line of the letter. She had been confused, at first, when her Aunt’s house elf had arrived on the doorstep of Malfoy Manor just minutes ago and asked to see her. Though, Kreacher had only given her an envelope he’d found while cleaning Regulus’ room, addressed to her.
She had ripped the envelope open before Kreacher had even pulled his hands away from it, hoping desperately that it may give some clue to where Regulus was, in which case there was not a second to lose.
Now, reading the first line, she realizes what this letter is. It sinks into her gut and settles against her chest with the pressure of a lead ball, white-hot.
Narcissa folds the paper gently back up, fingers barely steady enough to tuck it into the pocket of her robes. She can’t face that today.
November 30th, 1979
To my dear cousin, Cissa.
If this letter has been found and delivered to you, it is because the charm I cast to hide it from anyone else’s sight has been undone. In other words, it is because I am dead.
I expected this outcome, and I have taken measures to ensure that my goal is completed even once I am gone, and that is all I wish for anymore. I cannot give you specifics, but if this one task is completed, then with or without recognition for it, I will have left some good in my wake, and therefore I cannot regret that it has killed me. Though, I regret not having said goodbye.
I wish you well, and the best of luck. Be a better mother to your child than the parents that we had. That is all I ask of you.
R.A.B.
Narcissa scans the tear-stained letter over and over again as she paces her bedroom. She read it for the first time three days ago. The relief that Regulus’ death had not been a suicide, as she had initially feared, did not, in the slightest, damped the pain in her soul at the loss of him.
There is something so fundamentally wrong with a world in which Regulus Arcturus Black does not exist, and that is the only thought that occupies her mind on the day of his funeral. They have no body to bury. Three days prior, she had informed her aunt of the letter, lying about the contents, telling Walburga that Regulus had taken his own life. Whatever his plan had been, she won’t risk anyone figuring it out and sabotaging it. How horrible it is, she thinks, that anyone who had seen her youngest cousin in the days leading up to his disappearance would believe the story without question.
Regulus had been sickly looking in the end. Too much and not enough sleep. Too many energy supplements and calming draughts and not enough food and water.
There’s a knock on the door and Lucius enters a moment later, his face blank, like hers should be. Her aunt will have a fit later if the funeral guests can see that she’s been crying.
“I’m not ready,” she croaks, unashamed of her undignified appearance in front of him alone.
“Narcissa,” Lucius sighs, though not unkindly. “They won’t wait. We have to go out there now or we’ll miss the burial.”
“What does it matter? It’s not a burial. The casket is fucking empty.”
Lucius, to his credit, doesn’t bat an eye at her sudden change in tone, used to her moods being all over the place as of late, only worsened with her cousin’s disappearance, followed by the news of his death.
“I believe Regulus would have wanted you to be there, if no one else.” He’s right, and she knows it. Dozens of family members will be at the funeral, but there are only two that Regulus would have cared about. Only one that is welcomed, that would even bother to show, so Narcissa knows she must put on a brave face for just a little while.
The service is bleak and precise, like every other funeral Narcissa has attended for a family member. The only difference is that there’s more people who turned up, and an abundance more money spent on a much more ornate gravestone. Only the best for the heir, she supposes.
Far too many people whose names she doesn’t remember from other occasions, and even more whom she doesn’t recognize at all try to speak with her, offering empty condolences and making useless chatter. Lucius steers these people away from her, and towards her older sister.
Bellatrix usually basks in the attention and the feeling of being someone important, being a Black. Today, she looks barely better than Narcissa. The eldest Black cousin is the picture of poise and composure, but Narcissa knows her well enough to decipher what she’s really thinking and feeling beneath her various masks. She’d bet every knut in the Malfoy vault that her older sister spent the morning tearing apart Lestrange Castle in a fit of devastation and rage, and she doesn’t need to see Rodolphus’ displeased expression to guess so. Bellatrix holds a short and polite conversation with each guest that approaches her, just enough to please their parents and Walburga before she skillfully dismisses them.
For the most part, Narcissa skirts around the edges of the crowd, avoiding as many people as possible until it’s late enough that she can leave without being rude.
December 2nd, 1979
It’s well past midnight the first time Narcissa visits Regulus’ grave after the burial, just days later.
She’d woken up with the need to see him, to speak to him. So she’d slipped out of bed without waking her husband, and didn’t bother to change out of her nightgown, putting a thick robe on over it before apparating to the Black family’s private cemetery.
Sitting down on the fresh dirt in front of the pristine headstone, she leans forward and presses her forehead to the cold surface of it.
The casket lying six feet below her is empty. Hollow, like Regulus had been before he died. Wherever his body is, she can only hope that it’s someone it can lay without being disturbed. Regulus enjoyed peace. It’s the least he deserves.
The air is bitter cold. The winter has been brutal so far this year, and it only devastates her more. Regulus loved the season. From the time he could walk, he’d venture outside in the snow and would play in it for hours if he would’ve been allowed. Bittersweetly, she remembers Sirius and Kreacher following after him, one with his shoes and one with his coat, forcing him to put them on.
The older he got, the more at peace he seemed in the violent winters they’d get in the countryside at Black Manor. As a child, perhaps it was merely the wonder of it that appealed to him. As an adult, she thinks maybe it was the numbness that the cold brought with it. She wishes she couldn’t understand that. It’s the reason she hasn’t bothered with a hot air charm right now. The longing for her mind to be as numb as her toes and fingertips right now.
A rustling behind her alerts her to a presence in the bushes along the edge of the gate. She whips her head around, expecting to see Lucius, who’s been keyed into the cemetery wards now that he’s married into the Black family. No other Black would be here at this hour, and no one else can get in.
The figure that appears, crouched low to the ground and stalking slowly closer to her is not her husband. Fear grips her for a moment, thinking it’s a wolf at first. No animals should be able to enter either. It comes closer, straightening to its full height and stopped just a few paces from her, at the end of the patch of dirt that marks the grave.
The Grim.
She breathes out a cloud of fog.
“How fitting,” Narcissa chuckles humorlessly. The Grim doesn’t so much as blink, just continues staring blankly at her, so still she’d think it wasn’t alive if she didn’t know any better. Narcissa turns back to the stone and rests her head on it once more.
The great black dog’s presence hardly bothers her. If it’s here because of Regulus, then it’s several weeks too late. If it’s here for her, then she won’t be sad to go.