There were no expectations on Cygnus Black and his merry band of girls with Rosier shaped faces. The sheer miracle of none of the three turning out to be squibs was reason enough to leave the city behind and move to an old Black property in the country. They’d holiday in London on occasion, and take the girls on trips to Wales in the spring, where their mother was from. The winter after Narcissa turns 6 and Bellatrix is sorted Slytherin, Druella Rosier dies from a long dormant family curse. The house in the country becomes unbearably cold and empty, Cygnus disappearing for large swathes of time. So perhaps this is why she doesn’t mind as much, doesn’t remember enough, as Bella and Andromeda do when Cygnus packs them all up for the summer to escape.
Grimmauld Place is just as grand as Narcissa remembers. The girls are given the empty room next to the boys’, along side Regulus’s. It’s large and has is own floo with three small beds tucked into the room’s alcoves. The dark headboards have the girls insignias carved into them: an A adorned in swirls of stars and constellations, a B protected behind shields and lances, and an ornate N, the legs coiled tightly with brambles that bloom into flowers that result in laurels. The townhome is always lively and full, Walburga's summer saloons banishing the kids to the fourth floor. Sirius and Regulus are attached at the hip, and Narcissa follows behind. Her father remains just as distant but at least he’s physically around, smoking a pipe with Orion in his study or grumbling about the state of things with Walburga over the evening edition of the Prophet.
Summers are spent slipping into the walled garden, begging the adults for a portkey to go flying out in the country, speaking French leading up to Bastille Day, putting on foolish, fantastical reenactments of goblin rebellions, and elaborate birthday celebrations piled on Regulus’s bed. She remembers the boys looking apprehensive, slower to smile as September sneaks up on them every summer, until years pass and they too join the girls on the train platform September first.
Her sisters come back in the evenings for dinner, and they spend the time getting ready for bed gossiping, centered around Hogwarts and homework as summers draw to a close. Andromeda plaits Narcissa’s hair to get it off of her sticky neck in the worst of August heat. The windows are open and London is so loud and full of muggle noises that when the girls leave again in the fall, and her and Cygnus return to their house, Narcissa is briefly glad for the quiet and cool that ensconces West Country, how peaceful the days are after every whirlwind summer.
Andy leaves early one July, as soon as she’s turned seventeen, curses chasing her out the front door, head ducked.
“I’m sorry” she cries up to the landing, to Narcissa, “I'm sorry, I can’t stay here.” Cygnus lets her go, lets Andromeda be blasted off the tapestry in front of all of them. Bella pales, and has nothing to add for once.
“Best not let that happen to you,” she says into their dark room that night.
“Of course not,” Cissy murmurs back. Her hair goes unbraided the rest of the summer.
*****
Narcissa can still remember what Sirius’ room looked like before he covered it in still, near naked muggle girls and Gryffindor regalia. The wall paper is a luxurious dark green with crushed velvet of the same color, patterning a sleeping dragon wrapped around the base of a broad fir over and over again across his room, bigger than Regulus’. He pulls her in, in May before the family collects Bella from the train.
“Narcissa,” he says solemnly, “When I leave for school this year, it’s just you and Reg.” Only, it’s been just her and Reg for a while now, Sirius’s room strangely empty before they get up to knock, when he used to sleep til high noon. He looks exhausted when he shows himself after lunch, sleeves of his robes buttoned exactly at his wrist bones no matter the heat. There’s no more fun and games with Sirius, as if he’s suddenly found himself too old, declining to stage their nonsensical rebellions and his French perfected, even if he only speaks in the most formal turns of phrase now. When the two had pressed him, he’d only spat “Andromeda leaving spooked them.” Regulus seemed to understand more than she had at any rate.
“Look," he says desperately, I’ve been talking to Dromeda-” and Narcissa can’t help the way her voice rises and he claps a hand over her mouth looking around in a panic. He scowls when she licks his hand, and lets it fall.
“Really, you’ve talked to her? Is she alright?”
“She worries about you.”
Narcissa sits back on her heels. “Why?”
“You know why Narcissa,” he says pointedly. She nods along, pretending to understand and Sirius moves on.
“Listen, when I’m gone this year, I need you to stick with him, don’t let him get down when his lisp slips out, or - or when my mum is having a go at him, and get him to practice his French, you know he confuses verbs, and….” Narcissa wonders, after he abandons them, if he was already planing his escape here, leaving her to train his successor.
Years later, when Sirius flees, there’s a terrible shout on Boxing Day, Walburga’s shrieks echoing round and round the wooden staircase. Bella’s not around that night, finding herself at some social event at the Travers’. Narcissa runs to the third floor landing, as close as she dares to get.
“How dare you-“ and it’s expletives and curses and ‘dishonor on this House’ and suddenly Orion is yelling too, only she’s not sure at who but knows the steps running up the stairs, and is quick on his heels as he curls into his room, packing random cloaks and gifts, snatching his wand off his bedside. “Siri what happened?”
The muggle girls’ eyes seem to follow her at as she edges further into the room. “Where is Regulus, why is he not up here?” She demands, as a great crash can be heard. “What did you do?” He looks as if he’s gone mad as he whirls to face her, contemplating. He winces as another cry comes from floors below.
Narcissa slips back into her own room as Sirius spins back to continue ripping through his belongings. She curls into bed, under the covers against the chaos of it all, in a room too big for one person alone. She watches the sky darken, the occasional bang or shout the only measure of time. There’s a muffled conversation happening in Regulus’ room now, the tones too low to hear clearly. There’s a final silence and a trunk bumps into the frame as her door creaks open. The steps pause halfway between the fireplace and her bed, the floorboards creak and Narcissa tries to keep her breathing even. The back of her neck prickles. She hears him continue his strides towards the grate after what feels like an eternity. The room flares bright green, then- “Potter Manor, Yorkshire!” and Sirius is gone.
*****
Narcissa laughs so hard she begins to sob, reading about the disgraced Black heir’s pregnancy announcement in the social pages. Andromeda Black named her daughter Nymphadora, what a ridiculous mouthful of a name. There’s hope for her yet, what a name! She sends out a formal notice of congratulations, and Andy’s thank you letter comes back just as stiff, just as distant, as if they both don’t see the humor in it, except for the handwritten post script, Ted insists we’ll be calling her Dora.
*****
Narcissa is fourteen; Sirius has been burnt off the tapestry for two years; Bella is getting beautiful and courted, getting branded and cruel, and Walburga loves her. They talk wedding plans during the day, and Bella rehashes them with Narcissa late into the night most of the holiday, Regulus banging on their shared wall to tell them to be quiet. Bella poses for her First Cast portrait, and revels in casting silencing charms and apparating into Reg’s room to wake him up in the mornings.
Cygnus and her Yuletide visit turns into January, has turned into an extended stay in March when Hogwarts has spring recess. The LeStranges come over frequently to hash out details that spring. Rabastan, Bella’s betrothed is strutting around their house, he conjures flowers for Narcissa and pays her small compliments on her neat hair. Narcissa feels his leer follow her when she moves, wonders if Bella has noticed it too. Her answer comes one late night, as she mills around the kitchen. She runs into him searching for fire whiskey and he lunges for her, crowding her against the counters, she can smell him he’s so close- Bella is there suddenly, stunning him with so much force that his body crashes through the pantry doors. Bella hugs her close for the first time in years. She has to appreciate her sister’s fierceness even if it’s a detriment to herself when he pulls out of the engagement.
Bella marries his brother a year later.
Narcissa freezes at the wedding when she sees him, until Bella pulls her aside, stunning in white and gold robes, but all Narcissa can feel is her last sister leaving her.
*****
There’s no time between her turning seventeen and getting her First Cast portrait done before seventh year starts back up again. With Regulus graduated, running around with Bella’s crowd, she doesn’t want to think about what it meant that his spring robes were always buttoned down to his sleeves, what that meant was on his arm. Walburga seems content at least. She’s been busy this summer, orchestrating June soirees and inviting over the Malfoys, and their tall blonde son with hard eyes.
“A fine young man for you Narcissa, very important Ministry job, his family is well established….” Narcissa isn’t even sure she wants to be engaged, she has NEWTS to study for, but his cool voice washes over her teasing, telling her not to study too hard, that he’ll take care of her.
He comes to King’s Cross with her when she leaves again for seventh year, parting with a kiss that makes Narcissa stiffen slightly. Her carriage mates ask about her summer in excruciating detail but there’s not much to tell. They had so rarely been alone. He’s intelligent, charming and he has an excellent impression of his father that causes Narcissa snort into her tea and Walburga to glare at her from across the room. The girls coo enviously and blush. “Narcissa he’s older-“ “Cissy he’s so tall!” “The Malfoys!”
It’s not until winter, when his family leaves after some Yule Ball held in Walburga’s enlarged parlor, that anyone asks her what she thinks of all this. Its been a whirlwind betrothal, her father mumbling his blessing and Walburga corresponding with Bella about what they can improve on from her wedding. Narcissa is tidying the parlor and righting it’s size, her wandwork unbelievably complex for this many elements in one room, she loves charms this year, when Orion knocks on the door frame, formal robes undone.
She smiles as he sits on the previously Banished sofa and pats the spot next to him. It’s only when he takes her hands in his that she realizes this will not be more of the same pleasant platitudes she’s come to expect, the only thing people want to talk to her about lately. She falters as he clears his throat. It’s never been awkward talking to Orion, Narcissa so clearly his favorite, evidenced by the small portrait of her at nine hanging in his study perpetually grinning, or by Regulus sending her to ask for anything they wanted in the summer, knowing he would acquiesce with a wink.
But now he seems tired and old as he tries to find whatever he’s about to say. She’s taken off guard by him bringing up Sirius first. “You were close once, maybe you’ve spoken to him…” She shakes her head before he’s finished with the thought. She hasn’t seen him in years since he left school, or talked to him for years before that, a newfound distance that shrunk back only marginally in the summers after she had begun school with him. She opens her mouth to say as much when his shoulders slump. She didn’t know Orion had cared about his wayward son, any mention of him sure to send Walburga into rage only Regulus could quell.
Come to think of it, where is Regulus? She hasn’t seen him since midsummer, surprising him with a small cake with a single candle on his birthday. He had been crouched speaking to Kreacher. He’d straightened immediately when catching her hovering in his doorway.
“Happy Birthday,” she’d managed. A tight grin, a kiss to her cheek, and a door closed in her face had been the festivities.
It clicks. “I don’t know if Sirius has seen Regulus. I don’t think they were speaking either.” How had she not noticed Regulus’s absence? Had she been so wrapped up in wedding planing that she didn’t realize one half of them was gone? “Have you not seen him either?” She asks in a small voice. His eyes tighten and Narcissa has never before noticed how many wrinkles her uncle had collected. When?
She’s abruptly furious at herself, for letting Regulus slip out of her life as she focuses on a man who’s best characteristic is his Gringotts vault. It certainly isn’t his name, she thinks cynically, she already has the best surname in the country, maybe all of Europe. What a ridiculous farce this all is, planning a wedding when there’s a war going on. How had Walburga let Regulus go? Orion notices her hands clench, and he catches her eye.
“Narcissa, are you sure about all this” he looks around at the remnants of the party.
No she wants to scream. The freshly unshrunk bookshelves shake. She knows she’s crying but this is how she must go forward, the only reason she’ll be able to access her vaults, the only way be a witch in this life. Walburga had became fiercely protective of what she has built here, because if her Noble and Most Ancient house of cards collapses, what becomes of everything she had given up? Andy paid the price of her family for freedom and Narcissa still isn’t sure that was worth it for her.
Her mother died too young, taking care of three girls isolated in the country. All she has is memories that feel like dreams of her mother, blonde just like her, sorting Narcissa’s hair out at night with a heavy brush and helping with her cloak fastenings. How despicable of Cygnus to drag them back to his sister’s after his wife dies, as if he can’t possibly take care of his own children.
Lucius is a compromise to herself; she leaves Grimmauld behind but she gets her inheritance and she gets her family when she inevitably produces an heir. Even if she has to say goodbye to Andy and her overall formal letters once a blue moon. He has a respectable job and he’s nice enough. He’s fine. She can handle him, handle this. Narcissa jerks her chin up, answering Orion’s inane question that truly only has one answer. Death and disgrace are not options she’s going to entertain.
“Yes,” she says clearly, “I’m sure.”
*****
Orion dies on the New Year. Regulus, her ring bearer, is declared missing presumed dead three months later. Andromeda pens a short note expressing her sorrow at being unwilling to attend. It’s not you Narcissa, it is the wolves that surround you. Tous mes vœux et félicitations pour votre mariage. Distant and polite as always; it is the pair’s last exchange for decades.
Her owl returns Sirius’s invitation unopened. As with Andromeda’s graceless exeunt from the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, she doesn’t understand Sirius, how he cleaved them so cleanly out of his new life, seeing past her and Regulus when they were in school, as if he had wished he couldn’t see them at all. How do you give us up, she wants to scream at him when he passes, just as she did when Andromeda’s grey owl delivered emotionless notes. A perfect five star point of attack, did they not all live the same long summers in that narrow house?
*****
Narcissa prays and prays for Draco to be a boy, as much as she would love a beautiful baby girl, and she cries when Lucius cuts Draco's hair for the first time, downy blonde curls falling to the floor. She’d loved combing them out as she put him to bed, loved how he’d tug on them. Narcissa assures herself it will safer for him to grow up a boy (not for Sirius, not for Reggie), safer for him to be the heir. She was so thankful she had gotten pregnant quickly after the wedding, she was so happy Draco arrived just as June got warm, a summer baby like her, like Regulus, like Andy.
The Ministry is warring with the Dark Lord, and Lucius is rarely around as she raises Draco, holding his tiny fists as he fights to stand up, wanting to cry along with him when he wails. She feels more alone than ever in the unfamiliar Manor. There are days she goes without saying a single word to another adult, Bella’s presence as scarce as her husband’s. When the Dark Lord is vanquished by a boy a hair younger than Draco, and she’s high in the gallery for Lucius’ trial, Narcissa thinks how little her life would change if a guilty verdict was handed down.
Hearing the news about Sirius takes her breath away. Perhaps it was wishful thinking that when this all ended, she’d still have him. If there was anyone she had to worry about, it shouldn’t been him surrounded by light and lions. He was supposed have gotten out of all this by dumping it all in Regulus’s lap. She stares at the picture of him insane in the paper, her hands shaking so badly she almost tears it. Where is all your righteousness now? She asks Lucius after he’s released, tentatively “was he ever there? Sirius, at your meetings…” Lucius gives her a look so severe she swallows her need to beg for any explanation.
When Narcissa attends Bella’s trial against Lucius’s wishes, she mourns and cowardly dodges Augusta Longbottom, wishing that someone, anyone was here with her. The Black family solicitor barely spares her a glance.
And its all alone, when she almost reaches out to Andy but its been two years and a war between them, and Lucius would hate it and ask why she’s using the owl even though Dorothea is all hers, from the back coop at Grimmauld, hers since she was 10 and no one else was around to feed the owls.
*****
She sees Walburga after the war. Its 1982, and Narcissa needs a break from her house and the monotony of it all, its all too easy isn’t it? Atonement comes in the form of checking in on her aunt. Lucius refuses to let her bring Draco, “Not in that house, “ he argues. Narcissa doesn’t mind the excuse to be a Black out in London again no husband, no child but even then there’s familial duty to be done.
She doesn’t recognize Walburga anymore. The Black madness has full descended upon her only aided by Kreacher, never the same after Reg had disappeared. The bite is not gone at all from Walburga’s raspy voices as she stutters about the tapestry and honor. Narcissa can only make it through two cups of tea.
“Do you need any help? I'm sure I could send another elf to help maintain-“ Kreacher is glaring at her as Walburga wheezes.
“I don’t need a blasted Malfoy elf in my home. Foul, lowly…” Narcissa stands abruptly, how could this woman not remember, she introduced them! She’s livid until Walburga looks up at her as if she’s noticing her for the first time. “Oh Narcissa dear, how lovely of you to visit, does Orion know you’re coming, you know he would love to see you…”
When Narcissa finally is able to bring her son, Walburga dotes on Draco like Narcissa has never seen. The harsh woman melts away as she holds and bounces him, cooing as he pops bubbles she’s conjuring with her twisted wand. More secret visits follow, stopping in to give Walburga something to ground her, after Narcissa takes Draco to visit daddy at work, or frequents the shops. What Lucius doesn’t know won’t hurt him.
Its not until years later, after a particularly volatile visit with Walburga that she begins to recognize the dread that accompanies her visits alone, that there is a reason all the cousins drifted away from Grimmauld summers, why they would rather be at school, or at the Potter’s, or play at being muggle with men. Perhaps Walburga’s outbursts were more than the odd night in the summer. Perhaps only Bella enjoyed it with her, just as she was the only one to stand beside her as she exchanged her surname for another that didn’t quite fit. What does that say about her? Is she as cruel as Bellatrix? As passive as Orion and Cygnus, to let it all happen?
Is she as angry as Walburga?
*****
Lucius being imprisoned doesn’t change her life as much as having Bellatrix freed does. Azkaban has made her more unreachable, but for pure precious seconds Bellatrix will laugh good-naturedly at the wireless or bring Narcissa up a biscuit and sit with her in the conservatory. It’s enough to have her drawing closer to the snake in the grass, like Bella is twelve, Narcissa is seven and Andy will be coming home that evening, eyes bright and they’ll whisper in their room after dinner, like no secret could ever be bigger than the three of them. But now its Bella who worships the whims of a man who has claimed her only son, given him a death sentence. Bella who killed Sirius, the two winter children sparring yet again, Sirius who was innocent, who should’ve had it all. Bella who killed her cousin, who is willing to let her nephew die.
There are drafts of letters to Andromeda that go unpenned, mirroring diary entries she'd written as a child. Andy, Bella tripped Siri on the stairs, he rolled down two flights and split his lip. Andy, he put a beetle in her soup at supper so she charmed his robes green.
Andromeda, Bellatrix killed Sirius.
Narcissa can’t bear to have Draco receive the Mark but who is she to argue with the Dark Lord, in the face of Lucius’ failure? Even Bellatrix, in her steadfast faith cannot convince her not to ask for help, to lower herself. “Severus please, my son…my only son…” Her son who painted the house elves and loved the stars. She begs and begs Severus to keep him safe when she no longer can. Its undignified but there nothing she wouldn’t do for him, to keep him innocent, to keep alive, to keep him with her.
When Snape is dead and the Dark Lord sends her over to the body (all she can see is Regulus in James Potter’s son; the ducked head, skinny build and black hair) lying twisted on the forest floor, she knows what she is going to do. Enough is enough. Even if it makes no difference in the end, if they’re both struck down again as soon as he so much as twitches. She hasn’t seen him in hours, watching as his peers escape and still he refuses to appear. She has to know. “Is Draco alive, is he in the castle? She’s been desperate for years now.
*****
Narcissa feels so young again sitting with her sister. Andromeda’s posture has always been the most proper. She knows Andromeda is still waiting for an apology from her, has been since Narcissa tentatively reached out. Narcissa is waiting for an apology too, but she’ll take anything; an excuse, a reason, a lie. Maybe that’s why their conversations always go the same way, fodder for acquaintances.
“My only way forward was Bella and Walburga’s way, how could I have done better for myself? Everyone had drawn lines in the sand and I was still upstairs finishing school.”
Convictions are not to be shaken, and Narcissa draws the strength to finally tip the scales, to shatter the careful illusion of civility her and Andy have built. "I’m sorry I was not willing to part with the only life I’d ever known. I was not you, and I was not Sirius. I wasn’t willing to be that selfish.”
“It’s not selfish to save yourself. Sirius did it the hard way, you did it the easy way, the path laid out for you.”
Disbelief. “Easy? I was eighteen and alone with a baby, I knew no one outside the orbit of that house, you and Sirius had flung yourselves so far outside my grasp.” Regulus was dead.
Andromeda is gentle still. “Sirius and I…Narcissa there are things you didn’t you didn’t see! We tried so hard to keep it away from Regulus and you. Do you know what Walburga was like when we weren’t around?” And no at the time Narcsissa didn’t. She thinks back but Walburga was so peripheral then, throwing parties and directing her fleet of house elves that Narcissa so rarely saw her.
Andromeda continues in her even tone, “It was hard watching Sirius, I think he had to grow up faster than I did. He would send me letters while I was at school and after, angry I’d left. I didn’t offer help because I didn’t know how to give it. I’m ashamed to say I still hadn’t figured it out when he told me he had finally left too, told me he left Regulus and you in that house. It killed him to do that, Narcissa you have to know it did.”
Narcissa latches on to a minor part, as if Sirius leaving her never kept her up at night, why did he pause, wondering if he’d determined there was nothing to salvage when it came to her.
“It took years for you to send me a letter, and you were here, keeping casual correspondence with Sirius! I just wanted to know where you were.” If you were happy. “Why didn’t you come back for me?” She wants it to sounds accusatory but she knows she just sounds small and brittle, feels her eyes burn, not at all like the dignified woman sitting across from her.
Andromeda’s measured answer sounds as if she’d admitted it to herself a long time ago. “I didn’t want to raise you. Or Sirius or Reggie. I wanted Cygnus to step up for once, I wanted to be seventeen and foolish, I wanted to see what else the world had to offer.”
Bitter, spiteful replies well up Narcissa’s mouth, coming to rest at the tip of her tongue. You got married and had baby because you wanted to escape? You moved to this ho-hum village because your life was too predicable? She wants to shriek.
“I was an acceptable loss then. Bella was already a lost cause but me and Reggie deserved what we got? Is that it?” Her voice is climbing into petulant hysterics but all she’s had for years is polite afternoon tea and brief notes of well wishes. Is it any wonder Bella became who she did, after Sirius and Andy left on their high horses and abandoned them to shoulder a burden meant for five?
She wants Andromeda to snap back at her, like she used to bite into Bellatrix. Where is her temper now? Andromeda older and wiser, curse her, looks nothing but sad. Her measured follow up stings nonetheless.
“Did Sirius deserve what he got? Did my husband, did my daughter, your niece Cissy? I don’t think things could’ve gone any differently once we all stepped foot inside that house. It was poisoned, cursed. We were all just bidding our time.”
The tea is cold; left untouched the rest of the afternoon and both women watch the sun set over green hills in silence.
“I’m sorry lost my composure.” Narcissa stands to make for the floo.
Andromeda stands as well. “I think it needed to happen.” She pauses, a concession following; “Narcissa I think- I think those first summers were a gift, getting us out of the dark, I don’t mind you remembering them fondly, you were so young when mum died, you don’t remember how different it was from how we were supposed to grow up. But there were expectations that came quicker in Grimmauld than they did in our house, and the more time passed, the more those summers were merely a ceasefire: me and Bella playing civil, Walburga holding off on those boys, pretending there wasn’t a reckoning looming. I could only bite my tongue so long. Do you understand?”
At last, Narcissa thinks she does understand, why Andy's only option was to go, why she felt her only option was to stay, and feels the rage quiet back into something manageable, a calm she hasn’t felt in years, no longer waiting for the other shoe to drop. She takes her leave quickly then, a brief kiss pressed into her sister’s cheek.
The next week, at their standing appointment, it’s as if it never happened. The women talk about the weather, and how its looking to be a warm summer. Maybe they can go to the continent together, the seaside, Teddy should see the French countryside, yes maybe Draco can meet up with them in Nice….
Acting my age, not my horoscope
Guess that's growing up
Now I'm sending you love
And wishing you well
Wherever you are