I
Andromeda and Bellatrix had always been at each other’s throats. As children they acted wickedly, even for issues as mundane as the colour of robes or amount of bows one girl was allowed in her hair. Bella would sharpen her nails, Dromeda would bare her teeth, and their mother insisted it was all innocent banter, no different than she and her own sister at the same age.
(But— Druella never inhaled dark magic the way her eldest daughter did. She didn’t need to maim and torture just to get through the day. Cygnus deemed her a keen mind; any man would be lucky to have her as his wife.)
And no matter what they fought over, Bellatrix was always right. Their parents, with wide eyes and strained smiles, would give her whatever she wanted. Even if, one day, she asked for their second daughter’s life.
Every year, as summer bled into autumn leaves and back again, Bellatrix grew madder. Some whispered her teeth were always stained pink with blood, and more claimed she was in a cult with the Lestrange boys where they tortured animals then ate them alive. It was perhaps the sanest explanation for the guttural whines and shrieks heard from their dorms, followed by moans of ecstasy from a good meal. Lost her wits, they whispered, but the whispers soon turned to shouts; dangerous girl, sharp as a dagger and twice as lethal.
Bellatrix may have been loose on some things, but she was certain of her hatred for mudbloods. She couldn’t understand how the likes of them were allowed to rub shoulders with the oldest and most powerful lineages of magic; after all, she bet she could trace her roots to Salazar himself. She hated mudbloods — dirty and sensitive creatures — but she hated their sympathisers more. How could anyone from a respectful family think such animals were worth a knut? Certainly no one raised right, with proper and noble values. It was why, until her death and even beyond, she swore she despised no one more than her sister, after she had caught Andromeda holding hands and making eyes with a fucking Hufflepuff, of all things. A pathetic, mudblood Hufflepuff.
It was Bellatrix’s seventh year, and she had met a man who called himself a Lord. She had no need for weak links in the glorious future he envisioned. She hadn’t planned to make a scene, but as she stepped into the common room with Narcissa — she had wanted to warn her littlest sister of the traitor in their midst — she saw her, curled on a chair, less than an hour after seeing her curled around a different beast.
“You’re a harlot, Andromeda Irma,” she declared, arms crossed and feet planted. Solitary gasps moved like staccato around the room. Andromeda blushed a furious red and glanced at her surroundings discreetly, but they were not the house of snakes for nothing; everyone made good work at appearing disinterested. Eyes may have stared at the floor, but ears were turned to their dispute. “A filthy whore,” Bellatrix continued.
“Bella,” Narcissa hissed, blue eyes wide. Her pale hair was held back with a velvet green bow. It used to be Andromeda’s but Bellatrix had stolen it some years ago, then passed it along to Narcissa after she complained of troubles managing herself in Potions.
“No, Cissy,” Andromeda said, “I’d like to hear what she has to say.” She shut her book and stood up, matching her sister’s glare with her own steely determination.
“You’re bringing shame to our family,” Bellatrix sneered.
“Really? And how is that?” Andromeda raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms. They were the same height, and so their dark eyes — parallel reflections — bore into the other. Narcissa looked between them as though it were a quidditch match. Her bottom lip was beginning to quiver.
Bellatrix scoffed. “Don’t play coy. If you’re only associating with mudbloods—” Andromeda visibly tensed “— to be rebellious, quit it.” She narrowed her eyes. “Now.”
Andromeda shut her eyes and inhaled deeply. “First,” she began calmly, “don’t use that word—”
“What? Mudblood?” Bellatrix giggled, first softly and then louder — an ugly and screeching noise that turned heads. “I’ll say whatever I want!”
Narcissa tugged at the sleeve of her sister’s robe, but she wrenched her arm away and stalked towards Andromeda. For a sure second, Andromeda was certain Bellatrix was going to strike her — to claw at her eyes and cheeks with her filed nails, leaving her scarred like she did a poor Gryffindor three years ago, when Andy had been in her third year. Instead, her sister shouldered past her and leaped up on the chair she had been sitting on. She made sure she kicked away the book Andromeda had been reading, bouncing up and down on the velvet settee as though she were five and lacked common sense.
“Mudblood!” she said, voice echoing in the common room. If people had been pretending to not watch before, they certainly gave up the pretence now. “Mudblood, mudblood, mudblood!”
“Get down right now,” Andromeda said, her voice low but made of goblin-wrought silver. She could feel the eyes on them — the infamous Black sisters who threw tantrums like toddlers when they didn’t get their way. The princesses of Slytherin, who did nothing but were revered like gods. The boys wanted them, the girls wanted to be them, but most of all everyone hated them so, so much.
Bellatrix bent her knees and jumped higher, and higher, and higher. Andromeda thought she would blow through the ceiling. She continued to shout, her voice so loud Andromeda wondered if Slughorn could hear her from his rooms, or if the Ravenclaws heard the tail-end of her screeches all the way in their tower.
“Mudbloods, mudbloods, we kill mudbloods,” Bella chanted. Andromeda heard Narcissa whine, a low and pitiful sound. She wanted to cover her sister’s ears, pull her face to her chest and block her from the horror. But she couldn’t move — she felt so hot and cold at once she thought that it must have been a dream. It had to be a dream. This could not be real.
“Hunt them, hunt them, hunt the mudbloods,” a chorus of boys joined in. They sang cheerily, as though they were rooting for their house in a quidditch match. Andromeda didn’t need to look to know it was the Lestrange boys, the only ones perhaps more macabre than Bellatrix. It was no shock, given the rumours of the salacious things the three of them got up to in their dorms.
Andromeda’s hands were clenched into tight fists, her nails digging into her palms so hard that she could feel her skin break. The sharp pain hurt so, so much, but not as much as the sight before her: an unravelling. She felt helpless, like a child being slapped and told that she didn’t get to talk back to her elder sister, that she couldn’t cry when her pretty robes were torn apart from manic jealousy, or the more she screamed the more spiders would be stuffed in her mouth. She thought of her parents, oblivious to the darkness under the roof, the two little girls quivering in fear from another.
She thought, and thought, and then her helplessness turned to rage. It was a slow onset, starting in her chest and blazing a trail down her arms to the tips of her fingers; up her spine to her head, until she could only see red and feel an anger so hot and burning that she couldn’t think of anything other than how much she wanted to shut her up.
She broke. Her arm lashed out and she wrapped her hand around Bellatrix’s ankle before she could jump again; her momentum compromised, she fell sideways, her hip smacking against the armrest of the chair. Andromeda pulled, dragging Bellatrix’s body forward until she slumped onto the ground with ominous cracks and a groan. Andromeda kneeled over top of her — legs caging her in and hands placed on either side of her face.
“Look at me,” Andromeda said softly, she pushed Bellatrix’s hair back, the black, curly mass that swarmed around her head like a dark halo or an evil cloud. It was almost tender. Then, when Bellatrix’s eyes fluttered open, her gaze confused, Andromeda leaned forward until they were nearly nose-to-nose, their identical eyes only inches apart. “I will be the last thing you see before you die.”
Bellatrix snarled. With no hesitation her hands came around her sister’s neck, digging into her soft flesh with every nail she had, and then pulling. Andromeda could feel her skin tearing off, thin strips peeling away that revealed tender blood. She could feel it trickling down her throat until red droplets appeared on Bellatrix’s face. Her eyes grew bright, her snarl twisting into a sadistic grin.
Andromeda felt everything: her shredded skin under her sister’s nails, the little hands that grabbed at her arm and tried to pull her away, the weight of expectation. Bella’s hands moved away for a second — just enough for Andromeda to see her own blood staining her sister’s nails — and Andromeda clenched her hands into a fist.
Bellatrix winced for a second, a new hatred burning in her gaze, and Andromeda didn’t understand why until she realised she was still tangled with her sister’s hair. She pulled, experimentally, and when Bellatrix tensed again, she was off like lightning — she pulled her hair, gripping it in her fists and trying to tear clumps from the root. Bellatrix outright screamed, impossibly shrill like a banshee. She clawed at Andromeda’s shoulders, trying to get through her robes but only managing to make a mess as she writhed beneath her. It was glorifying, and it was sickening.
Suddenly, she felt herself flying through the air. Her back hit a wall, and the air left her lungs completely. She was dizzy and lightheaded, seeing black spots and finding it impossible to breathe, breathe, breathe.
“You need to take a deep breath Andy,” Narcissa said into her ear, voice wavering. Her little hand was on her shoulder, gripping onto her impossibly tight. Andromeda tried to comply, but she only managed to cough, the movement ripping out of her throat. She must have been as raw inside as she was outside.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” someone said. A man. A shadow loomed over, and in what felt like a century Andromeda tipped her head up, squinting and still breathing raggedly. It was difficult to see clearly, but the dark hair and broad shoulders, voice clipped and familiar, she could piece together as one of the older Rosier boys — a cousin. A cousin that was probably as much in love with Bellatrix as the Lestranges were.
“ — could have killed her,” he was ranting. “Or yourself, for that matter.” She could hear the sneer more than she could see it. “Not that I give a fuck what happens to a muggle lover.”
Andromeda inhaled deeply, aware of all her cracks. “That’s okay. They wouldn’t shag you anyways.”
He kicked her in the stomach, and she didn’t feel a thing.
II
Andromeda had felt when she was burned off the tapestry. A dull throb began in her chest, enough to cause discomfort but not raise alarm. She brushed it off with a wince and twisted in her chair, figuring a sore muscle. A minor discomfort that would disappear in time. But then the throbbing turned to stabbing, and it spread from beyond her heart to her stomach. Her muscles cramped and she gasped, clutching at her torso as her lungs began to constrict, every organ in her body feeling tighter and tighter and she could only pant and hiss and curl into herself unable to breathe oh God she couldn’t breathe oh God oh God oh —
“Andromeda!” Ted. That was Ted, wasn’t it, floating over her. She could barely see — everything had turned to blurry objects: vague shapes and colours that she could only identify through familiarity of her surroundings. There was a weight on her head, fingers brushing through her hair, so gentle as though she were averse to touch. Everything still felt wrong, though; too tight. Every intake of air was a gasp, a fight for her life to bring in as much oxygen as she could. She could have been on fire. She could have been drowning.
She began to speak, croaking out her words with as much effort as she could. Even Crucio had never been this terrible. “I don’t —”
Something in her stomach ripped apart, muscles and the very essence of her coming undone, and all she could do was curl into herself, legs bent and arms wrapped around her knees until she lay curled like a ball on her side, moaning through the pain. She felt as though something were trying to fight its way from the inside out, using all the knives and vicious spells it had in its arsenal, and it kept hurting and hurting and hurting until, just as quickly as it had come upon her, it waned. She could breathe, just barely, desperate and wet gasps that felt sharp down her throat. Everything spun, her mind feeling so light despite the heavy burden her body had endured, until finally her eyes slipped shut on her own accord and she went limp, a piece of her soul ripped out of her.
Three years later, Narcissa came to her crying, face shining with tears that reflected light like liquid diamonds. She refused everything — tea, biscuits, a face cloth — and instead sat on the edge of Andromeda and Ted’s rust-coloured sofa, shivering. Her black robes, worth more than what either of them made in a month, were a stark contrast to the weathered orange fabric, her cream hand far too elegant for their small living room.
“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed, her body shaking with her words. She could barely look up, her face trained to the muted psychedelic carpet. Everything in her had coiled so tight that like an elastic, she snapped under the strain. “I didn’t think— I didn’t know what—” She broke off again with more hysterical cries, the sound pulled deep from her throat. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“You already did,” Andromeda said, before her mouth could catch up with her brain. She felt Ted look at her in shock, and she matched his gaze with wide eyes of her own. Though she looked at her husband, and not the trembling and twisted form of her sister, she spoke to her alone. “I haven’t been your sister since they burned me off the tapestry.”
Narcissa looked up sharply, her mouth dropped into a gape. Beneath the glaze of her eyes, Andromeda could see the icy blue of her irises, always so cold and sharp. “Don’t say that,” she whispered. It felt like a plea. “It’s not true. I’ve always been your sister.”
“Then where were you, when I invited you to my — our — home every week for a year? Where were you at our wedding, or the birthof my daughter?” She hadn’t realised she had stepped into her space, nor that Narcissa was standing now, her body stiff. Nose to nose and eye to eye; Narcissa had somehow grown taller and thinner since their adolescence. “Even when I was stuck in the hospital for a week, convinced I was dying because I felt like I was burning from the inside-out, you never came, or sent a letter, or even found a way to ask how I was.” Her voice began to fracture, the words breaking ungracefully, but her gaze was strong. “A part of me died right where you stand, and any love—” she spat the word “—died with it.”
Narcissa was silent, and still. Except her eyes, which traced her face as though looking for something she knew she’d never find. Ted must have got up — she couldn’t feel the warmth of his magic — and she hoped he was in the nursery, watching their daughter and protecting her as much as he could.
Andromeda didn’t turn away from her sister. It would feel too much like defeat, letting her be the one to stare and catalogue without abandon. Instead dark eyes met light — an icy blue that she couldn’t have inherited from either one of their parents — and held onto each other, until finally Narcissa sighed and bowed her head, and sat again. It was a small victory, but it felt like something worse.
“I came,” Narcissa began softly, her voice poised as though she were to sing a lullaby, “to extend a branch. I have never blamed you for the decision you made. Please don’t blame me for theirs.”
“It’s entirely different,” Andromeda hissed. “I chose love, and they chose the most vile kind of hate — they’d kill me without a second thought!” Narcissa stayed silent, her vacant gaze trained to the rug and her hands clasped in her lap. Demure. Druella Black’s perfect daughter. “And you would do nothing to stop it,” she continued with a new venom. She felt a rage unlike anything she’d ever experienced take control of her, from her head and shoulders down to the tips of her fingers and heels of her feet. It felt like vengeance.
“That’s not true,” Narcissa said adamantly, looking up now. Her eyes glimmered with the promise of new tears, her bottom lip quivering. She’d never been able to hide her tell before she cried, not since they were children and their mother screamed at them for some indiscretion or the other. Narcissa was nineteen, and a grown woman by all societal standards, but the simple quirk turned her eleven and fearful again.
“It’s already happened,” Andromeda said. There was a war inside her: the sister and the daughter. The sister who wanted to grab Narcissa by the shoulders and never let go, and the daughter who would kill for every slap and sneer and slight that had been committed against her.
“Please don’t do this,” Narcissa said, more to herself than Andromeda. Her voice cracked over the words. “I want you there. It will be okay. Just come.”
Andromeda sighed. She was twenty-two and she was tired. She was a mother, and that was the part of her that won when she kneeled onto the floor. Her muscles, sore, groaned in protest, but she followed through until she had shrunk herself to the same height. Narcissa still wouldn’t meet her eyes, but from her new angle and no hair to hide her face — she held it back with a velvet green bow — she couldn’t disguise the wetness of her cheeks and glassy eyes.
“You know I can’t,” she said gently, as though she were her Nymphadora. Her hand drifted to her knees, and Narcissa didn’t flinch; she leaned towards her. “They would tear me limb from limb if they ever saw me again. They would torture me until I was the shell they wanted, and not the woman I am.” She smiled, rueful and in pain. A knife carved her heart from her chest and laid it out, bare. “At the very least, Bella would do it all and they’d watch and laugh.”
It was a terrible thing — a vile thing — but between the sisters it passed as a joke. Narcissa’s lips twitched to match her own half-smile. Their eyes met and understanding passed between them, and just as quickly Narcissa dissolved into a terrible mess of sobs. She leaned forward, until she was on the ground and practically curled in Andromeda’s lap, her body shaking while her older sister held her tightly and murmured false assurances.
“Why does it have to be this way?” she cried, blubbering. Andromeda felt a pang — of jealousy, of longing — at how Narcissa still seemed to glow. She could never look ugly, not a day in her life. “Why can’t I have you back?”
“I know,” Andromeda soothed. It wasn’t an answer to her question — it wasn’t an answer to anything at all — but it was all she could think to say. She knew the pain Narcissa felt, for she had felt it every day in the past four years she’d been gone. If she could, she wanted to carry all her grief for her, so her sister could be a source of light again in such a dark, dark world. But she would never be a lighthearted child, fixated about ribbons in her hair and the latest books on the shelves — she was to be married in a fortnight, and then she would be locked away for the rest of eternity.
Andromeda held onto her tighter. “I know,” she repeated. “But this is how it has to be. We’ve made our choices.”
“But I choose you,” she whined. She continued hiccuping, her body wracking so intensely Andromeda was worried she’d suffocate. Her eyes stung, and she blinked rapidly but it only made things worse. A tear slipped down her cheek, rolling past her chin and down her neck, tracing a path that split her open.
“It’s okay,” she whispered, leaning forward, her lips brushing the shell of Narcissa’s ear. She tried to keep her voice steady, fearful that it would crack. “You give me your pain, and I’ll carry it in my heart. A reminder of the sister I have loved and lost.”
Narcissa tensed and dug her fingernails into Andromeda’s arm, but she didn’t speak. She only cried harder, unable to form the words that surely beat at her chest like wild caged animals. She would rebuttal with something valiant, surely, about how she wasn’t lost and not to presume to speak of her in the past tense. But she already knew Andromeda was right. It was a battle fought and they were cruelly defeated.
“For now I’ll hold you,” Andromeda continued gently. “And we can pretend this is not the end.”
III
Bellatrix stared at Narcissa, but Narcissa didn’t have the courage to look back. Her elder sister’s gaze followed her from the doorway of her room as she walked down the hall, piercing, and heavier than the veil atop her head. Narcissa was going to drown from the weight of the eyes on her, or the ridiculous tulle threatening to wring itself around her neck.
“Slow down, flower,” said her great-aunt Cassiopeia. She leaned on a cane heavily, her bones fragile despite being just sixty years old.
Narcissa complied. Her bottom lip was between her teeth, and she bit and licked and pulled until she saw her mother’s glare and forced herself to stop. A final swipe of her tongue, and she tasted the sting of blood. Her mother was going to be horrified.
“There should be no haste as you walk in the ceremony. Let everyone look at you, soak you in as the new Lady Malfoy,” Cassiopeia continued.
“The strongest and purest of wizards do not rush through their rituals,” her mother added. “Time belongs to you, not the other way around.”
“Yes, Mother,” she mumbled under her breath. Druella lifted her brows and a scowl began to threaten her twitching lips. “Yes, Mother,” she repeated, louder.
“Little Cissy’s nervous for her big day,” Bella cooed. Her squeaking voice threatened to crack glass. “I think I ought to talk with her before the ceremony; make sure she understands what's expected of her.”
It was nearly imperceptible, but Narcissa had trained in the art of subtle warfare and become a master: her mother stiffened, unease laced up her spine not from irritation, but the smallest bit of fear. A kind of horror that dawned like sunrise — steady at first, then suddenly blinding. If Narcissa focussed she could see the patch of Druella’s cheek that shimmered just so under the light, a glamour covering where her skin had been burnt and peeled away after a curse from her eldest daughter. At the time she had bit her lip to keep from crying out, like a proper woman of her standing, but had only succeeded in her teeth going straight through the skin and the inability to talk for two weeks after the incident.
Druella did not press her lips together, but Narcissa still noticed how they curled inwards slightly, as though by muscle memory alone. Her fingers twitched, torn on what to do. Ultimately, she stilled and released air through her nostrils. She nodded her acquiescence, spun around silently, and stalked down the hallway. Cassiopeia cast an untrusting look at Bellatrix, but hobbled after her niece soon after.
Narcissa stared at a spot ahead, where the wall had begun to moult and wrinkle as though drenched in water. It had been there for years — even before Andy had left — and just like the life of her sister, the family chose to ignore its existence. Deluded, as though nothing were wrong. But Narcissa knew magic, knew the power that ran through their blood was a dwindling purity, and their ancestral home was crumbling like her family. The house could only be as strong as the owners, and the Blacks had lost their strength long before Andromeda locked eyes with a mudblood Hufflepuff.
Bellatrix dug her nails into her sister’s cheeks and pulled her face towards her. Narcissa’s eyes welled and stung at the corners, but she took her pain and pushed and pushed until her throat throbbed and she couldn’t breathe. There was nowhere she could look but Bella’s face, the mass of dark and unruly curls that framed her like ruffled feathers. Druella had always tried to tame her hair but Bella found the counterspell every time and would unleash it while her mother watched, disappointment and resentment and grief endlessly embraced in her gaze.
Bella never wanted to be someone’s complaisant daughter. Narcissa knew that if she had tried, the eldest daughter of the House of Black would be the one marrying Lucius, and the daughter scratched off the tapestry would have still lived in the room next to hers. They would wear braided crowns of pure white daffodils and all be married to wealthy pureblood boys, and their children would be named after the stars and they would be like the women before them and the women before them.
“Don’t mistake this as an escape,” Bellatrix hissed. Her breath smelled sweet but overwhelmingly so, until the lingering scent dissipated to a rotten and bitter core. Narcissa gagged, and Bellatrix’s grip tightened. She was piercing her skin now, her claws embedded in pretty porcelain and aching to leave cracks.
“I— I don’t—” Narcissa choked on her fear and grief. She couldn’t push any more words out.
“I can smell her on you,” she said. She gnashed her teeth together, a muscle in her cheek jumping erratically. “Our foul sister.” She spat the last word. Spittle landed across Narcissa’s face. “Tell me, is she still fat after giving birth to a half-breed?”
Narcissa wanted to rear back — she tried — but Bellatrix held her with surprising strength despite her bony wrists. Her nostrils flared and she brought their faces together, nose to nose. She breathed out again, and the smell of her breath was so pungent Narcissa’s eyes rolled back and her mind blanked, vertigo claiming her.
“You are never to see her again,” Bellatrix continued, looming over her. Narcissa’s knees had buckled, and rather than allow her the mercy of the floor Bella clung onto her, bending herself at the waist so they were never more than millimetres apart. “She is a stain. She is poisonous, and corrupted. She is not worthy of a name or even a fleeting thought.” Her sneer morphed into a wicked grin, mouth curled at the edges and teeth bared. “I ought to Obliviate her from you. From everyone. I want her unremembered in this life and the next.”
“No!” Narcissa cried out, unable to stop herself. She burst into tears properly and flung wildly about, grabbing and pulling Bellatrix’s fingers in hope she’d release her. Her nails eventually made contact with the back of her hands and she scraped away thin slivers of skin. Bellatrix whined like a wounded animal and dug deeper into Narcissa’s face, before finally relaxing her hold and letting her fall to the floor. She laid panting, her wedding dress a crumpled mess and her veil stained with pink sports from her blood. She wiped the back of her hand across her cheek and it came back sticky and red.
A hand ran through her hair and she shrieked. Arms wrapped around her torso and she prepared herself to make a quick getaway — she was ready to crawl if she had to — but she was dragged back onto another body. Her head came to rest somewhere between Bellatrix’s thigh and waist, her sister sprawled horizontally with her head supported by a propped arm. Bellatrix stroked her hair again, pensive. Her eyes were latched on Narcissa’s pale locks, tracing the path of her hand with every brush.
“You’re weak, like our mother,” she said softly. The tone of her voice betrayed the cruelty of her words, as though they were once again five and nine and sharing bedtime stories. “She always did what she was told, and for her cooperation she was given no sons and became the shame of her family.” She leaned down until her lips brushed the shell of Narcissa’s ear — the young girl shivered, but couldn’t bring herself to move away. She was frozen, century-old roots grounding her to her sister’s lap. Bellatrix continued, whispering, “But you’ll never be free, even if you run. So don’t bother trying, Cissy.” She found her hand and squeezed. “We’re in this together.”
Narcissa pushed herself away, though all she truly managed was to flop onto the rough carpet. Slowly, she pushed herself onto her hands and knees, and spoke barely louder than a whisper. “M no weak.”
“What?” Bellatrix snapped.
“M not weak.”
“Speak up!”
“I’M NOT WEAK,” she said. The air trembled with the weight of silence that followed her declaration. Her hair fell over her face, covering her vision and not allowing her to see her sister beyond her stretched legs and fingers curled tight into fists. Like prey, Narcissa didn’t want to move, scared that any sudden reactions would lead Bellatrix to pounce upon her and eat her whole. But then she saw her sister begin to shake, and didn’t understand until laughter spilled into the ether.
Her laugh was not pretty, like bells, or waves crashing on the shore; she laughed with blood between her teeth and nails on chalkboards and glass shattering. Like the banshee that haunted their attic, howling and screeching until Narcissa had no choice but to cover her ears and rock on her knees. She felt it in her own throat, everything within her pulling apart and stitching itself back together.
“You stupid, stupid girl,” Bellatrix managed in her hysterics. Narcissa looked up, her hair falling to the side like a curtain. Bella’s face was scrunched in pleasure, her eyes shut and teeth bared. She had a hand around her own throat, lost in the throes of an ecstasy only she understood.
“You’re just like the rest of them,” she continued. “Just because you think you’re so much prettier and wittier than the other girls doesn’t mean you’re better. You’ll end up in just the same position, with a dimwitted husband and ungrateful brats to watch over. But not me.” Bellatrix mirrored Narcissa’s stance and pressed up close against her. They must have looked like a mad pair, on their knees and nose-to-nose, hair knotted and necks and hands covered in pretty red scars. “I’m going to do something about our sensitive little world. No more catering to unworthy mudbloods and muggle lovers — only the strongest and the purest shall remain.”
“When did you become so cruel?” Naricssa asked, and when her words caught up to her she gasped, though the noise was strangled in her throat. She prepared for a retribution, but Bella grinned. Her teeth were sharpened like daggers.
“All I did was choose myself. Does that make me cruel now?”
“Yes,” she said, because it was all spilling out of her and she couldn’t stop it. Because Andromeda chose herself and became an outcast, but when Bella did it she was something to fear. It wasn’t fair. “If everyone chose themselves the way you have, the world would have burned. We have to make sacrifices.”
“And what would you know of that?” she sneered. “Marrying into a wealthy, respected family with no expectations to work or slave. I don’t see much of a sacrifice there.”
Narcissa opened her mouth to respond but could think of nothing to say in rebuttal. She couldn’t think in proper sentences anymore, only guttural moans and sharp nails. She wanted to pierce all her fingers through Bellatrix’s skin until she screamed and understood the grief that ran through her bloodstream as strong as magic. She wanted pain and blood and Andromeda, so all three of them could finally tear each other apart and be done with it.
Her breathing had grown heavier, the corset under her dress suffocating and squeezing her ribcage and with it, her heart. Bellatrix’s face blurred around the edges. Narcissa’s wrists grew sore.
Suddenly, there were hands on her arms, tugging her until she stood up like a marionette: limbs loose and partially bent at the waist.
“What did you do?” she heard her mother demand. “What have you done to her?”
“I spoke to her, woman to woman.” Bellatrix stood up, smiling widely. It looked unnatural, a snake playing pretend. “I’m her only sister; no one will love her like I do.”
“Is this what you call love? Look at her face!” Fingers pressed into Naricissa’s cheeks and her mouth formed an involuntary O. “Oh, she’s ruined,” their mother moaned, stumbling back a step as though she threatened to fall and die right there.
Cassiopeia tutted and focussed on Narcissa, healing her face and arms and mumbling about ungrateful girls and irresponsible women. The young bride flushed pink with embarrassment, then shame, then an anger so ancient it could have only been inherited. Bellatrix still grinned, and her mother couldn’t bear to look at either of her daughters.
As soon as Nariccsa was healed and her dress fixed — all blood vanished, all tears stitched — she was grabbed by the shoulders and pushed down the hall. She tripped over her feet and her head swam, her stomach twisting in tight, complex knots as she began to hear the chimes of glass and the incessant murmur of gossip. She kept her gaze down, focussing on keeping one foot in front of the other and not tripping down the steps.
Yet, she couldn’t help but pause, just between one breath and the next, to look over her shoulder. At the top of the landing, Bellatrix stood frozen with wild eyes and mouthed, over and over, Sister, sister, sister. It was a threat, a declaration, a promise, all rolled into one sharp word. Sister, sister, sister.
Narcissa felt herself harden and turn into stone right then and there. She knew in her heart, in her soul, what she would become: a statue, cold to the touch and impossible to break; a storm, never to be contained. She would birth dragons and stars and galaxies, and she would do it alone. Her sisters had chosen themselves, chosen to be selfish and cruel and forget their littlest sister and her fragile flower heart… and her parents had turned a blind eye and let them burn. Even her aunt, with all her soft touches and sweet anecdotes, had poison in her blood. Narcissa came from women weaned on cruelty, yet only she suffered the betrayals, and the violence, and the marred skin.
Let them destroy each other, she thought viciously as she descended down the stairs, a manipulated vision of purity and innocence and a beacon of a new age. Let them try to touch me ever again. I will be the sharpest object they hold.