Anna IV
Anna passed the few measly minutes - hours, seconds, who could tell - with Narcissa’s inane babbling in her ears. It became a comforting tune that she could relax against, a pillar that supported her weight and, as if the girl could understand that, something that had her unbothered by continued lack of verbal and physical responses.
Trying to process that she had been gifted some natural ability that, by all means, was powerful was something Anna was still stuck over. The chatter was a backdrop that she tuned in to when she wanted, Anna somehow separating her mind into two pieces. One focused on Narcissa and another on her starting panic attack.
In the duration that Narcissa talked for, stumbling over certain words adorably, Anna learnt that Orion brought the best presents, that Aunt Walburga thought that Orion was a fool and that Pollux and Arcturus enjoyed spitting vicious, mental insults with each other and spoke them aloud often enough if they weren’t in the other’s company. How very interesting, she thought as the girl babbled on meaninglessly.
Narcissa stopped suddenly, shooting up onto her feet with bright eyes. The two halves of her mind snapped together obediently and Anna shivered with the force of it. “Aunt Walburga and Uncle Orion are here!”
She was right. As soon as the words escaped her mouth, Anna could hear the distant sounds of a haughty woman - Walburga, Anna thought wryly, like greeting an old enemy - and Druella’s dulcet tones trading verbal jabs as they caught up on the latest gossip between insults. Most likely, Bellatrix and Andromeda were trailing behind the duo - or trio, if Orion was there - like dutiful daughters and listening with smiles as their Aunt and Mother sparred.
“..take that boy anywhere in the future!” Walburga’s voice sounded through the wooden doors and Anna braced herself for her sharp voice. “I can only hope the next one will be quieter in the future.”
The door opened and out came the two figures who she heard on an almost daily basis. In truth, Anna had never caught more than a passing glimpse of Walburga but she had listened to more than enough of her rants to get a stereotypical depiction of her. It was rather surprising to see, instead of the disintegrating woman described in the portrait, a dark-haired, bright-eyed woman with features that could kill a man.
Walburga took in the decor of the room - fairy lights, green draped over every available upholstery, enchanted tinsel that twisted around the metal hangings and false snow fluttering down the window panes - and gave it a satisfied nod, a near-smirk appearing on her face.
“Such a job you’ve done with the decor, dear sister, truly befitting of the next heir. You would have thought Cygnus would receive us, wouldn’t you?" Walburga flicked her long hair over her shoulder. "It’s much more appropriate to have the head of the house greet guests.”
“My husband is busy with the floo network to Ridgeway. The old manor’s network has been working up in recent years.” Druella raised an eyebrow, manoeuvring around a silver statue that glittered. She looked to be in a much better mood as she approached Narcissa - Bellatrix and Andromeda following obediently - with a milder disposition than she left with.
Narcissa relaxed at the lack of hostility from her mother and Anna felt herself relax in turn, not even noticing that she had become apprehensive in Druella’s presence. She shook off the relief she felt for the younger girl easily, feeling it fall to the side.
“It always has been.”
Anna had almost missed Orion Black, caught up in her own mind. The man was taller than Cygnus had been but no less delicate with high-cheekbones and hair that fell to his shoulders, half of it tied back with a silver ribbon. Whilst Druella could match him in beauty, Anna thought, not unkindly, she could safely say that Walburga had them both out-matched.
Behind him was a house-elf, young but stunted with a clipped ear and down-cast eyes, who carried a small toddler in its arms. From where she was, Anna could only make out a few fluffs of dark hair and a wriggly shape that begged for attention.
Walburga sniffed haughtily as if only noticing her husband was there for the first time. “I take it we are the first to arrive? I find my father is often on time to the annual Yule dinner, Alphard complained about it regularly enough. Don't tell me you forgot to invite him, Druella.”
Anna didn’t know how that could be taken as an insult but Druella’s expression froze into one of polite tolerance. “Trust me, I am as equally as befuddled as you are, sister.”
It was probably some unwritten pureblood rule or some past event that Walburga is alluding to, Anna thought with a strange weariness.
Now Anna was using vocabulary like ‘allude’. What her world had come to.
“We are half an hour early by your demand, Walburga, let me remind you.” Orion cut in quickly, his tone neither frosty nor scalding. Anna felt unnerved by it regardless. “I have a new niece I’d like to meet; then, you don’t mind.”
You won’t mind, was the hidden message there. Anna nearly brightened at understanding the hidden meaning even if it was blaring like a siren in her face until she noticed the blank stare on Narcissa.
Anna shifted in her general direction, hoping to offer the child even the slightest bit of comfort. Neither of her elder sisters seemed to care too much, enraptured by the adults and their talks and Druella were too absorbed with battling Walburga to turn her head in their direction.
“You’ll find her as quiet as you on the best of days. Now, Druella, don’t you mind if I check on Cygnus?” Walburga remarked nonchalantly, already turning back to leave the sitting room. Druella’s stare had turned into one that would rival the arctic in terms of freezing but she merely tilted her head with a sliver of a smile.
“So close to your darling brother, I’d be almost a disloyal wife to keep you two apart.”
Narcissa’s eyes widened, turning away from the two women hurriedly. Anna wondered for a moment if she would press the girl on the details if she could still speak. Unfortunately, she didn’t, being a baby with little vocal strength but she did reach out a chubby hand to grip one of her fingers instead. Narcissa’s expression didn’t clear but her grip did loosen on the bassinet, to Anna’s delight.
“Marriage calls it’s due, don’t you think?” Walburga offered with a razor-sharp smile before sweeping out of the room with a dramatic flair that Anna had only seen on Bellatrix.
A silence enraptured the room. Bellatrix and Andromeda swapped unidentifiable looks and whilst Anna weren’t sure if they were overwhelmed or bored, there was a certain tinge to the air around them that gave them the air of excitement. Druella’s cold expression crumpled into one of placidity as soon as Walburga was out of sight, looking a sight more comfortable with just Orion - and Sirius, technically, who had been placed on the opposing sofa before the house-elf snapped away - in the room.
“That was uncalled for, Dru,” Orion said in a tone that could almost be mistaken for as fond.
Druella gave him a look of disdain. “Are you saying I’m right, Orion?”
A gazing contest between the two led to neither being the victor. Anna pondered on what they meant, exactly. Narcissa seemed to have a firm, yet shaky, hold on what the conversation had implied but Anna was still stuck on the finer details. Neither Orion nor Walburga was happy in the slightest with their marriage if the distance between them and the frigidity shared was anything to take note of.
Narcissa’s grip on the bassinet tightened but this time, she seemed much more relaxed as she turned back to the adults who had yet to relent. Bellatrix and Andromeda were conversing quietly between themselves, secret smiles on their faces, but neither one of them failed to turn to Druella when Narcissa did.
“Grandfather’s here!” Narcissa said spiritedly but she lacked the same enthusiasm she had when Orion and Walburga had turned up. All gazes landed on the door as Narcissa clambered down from the sofa with a strange grace that shouldn’t be present. It kept striking her, that despite her age and abilities, Narcissa was still raised a pureblood child and held those ideals.
Narcissa skidded over to where Sirius sat, the toddler looking out-of-place and grumpy but strangely silent, and picked him up with as much gentle handling as she could. A lighter chatter, not at all resembling the bustle that had Walburga, was the only warning as the large door opened.
Cygnus was conversing quietly with an older man who held a resemblance to him, at least in colouring. He had flecks of silver lining his hair, and while his face was lined with the tenure of living, there was a delicacy to his features that had been passed to his son. Pollux, Anna thought grimly as she watched the pair enter the sitting room.
But, even more curiously, a woman of equal age was holding onto his arm. The numerous Black genes outshone her but there was a softer, rounded beauty to her that was mothering in quality. Her cheeks were plump and her eyebrows high, and her eyes were shaped like almonds. She was short of stature and was rather curvacious but looked all-around happy, smiling up a Pollux with a lined face.
Walburga trailed behind her brother, enraptured in a conversation with a man who shared Orion’s eye colour. Arcturus, Anna thought as she observed the bordering on angry expression on his face. His features were broader than Orion’s, she noted with a peculiar curiosity, and he seemed painted with the brush of annoyance.
“Father.” Orion greeted, not unkindly. There was a stilted note to his voice that told an entire story.
“My son,” Arcturus noted with a half-hidden sneer of disdain. Compared to Cygnus and Pollux, who, whilst not looking to be the warmest father-son pair in the world, were talking in low, pleasing tones Anna would have thought they hated each other's guts. Anna couldn’t hear what Cygnus and Pollux were saying but Narcissa seemed to give her a smug glance as she scrambled past them with Sirius wobbling unsteadily beside her.
Anna wasn’t sure whether or not babies should be walking at that age but, she made a careful note on what age Sirius was, he looked mightily unsteady yet determined all the same.
“This is Ursa,” Narcissa whispered to the boy, ushering him up. “Say hello to your new cousin, Siri.”
Sirius looked ruffled by Narcissa’s overbearing nature, something that Anna hadn’t taken much notice of, to be frank. The toddler waved his chubby hand with hesitant enthusiasm, reaching over Narcissa’s lap to peer closer as he babbled but no sound came out. He opened his mouth again, trying to speak, but he only stirred the air with heavy, heaving breaths.
"Silencing charm, Siri. What did you do now?" Narcissa murmured quietly, keeping a tight hold around his waist.
Narcissa was careful to not let his robes wrinkle as Sirius jerked wildly. His hair, reaching his ears is loose waves, flung around his head like a halo as he thrashed. Narcissa only patted his hair with a short smile on her face.
“I assume the children won’t be joining us at dinner?” Arcturus asked after a long, drawn-out silence.
Anna didn’t need to look to see the rising fury on Bellatrix’s face.
“Sirius and Ursa will be placed in the nursery for the duration of time it takes us to eat.” Cygnus slid over to the opposing sofa where Druella had taken a seat. Walburga sat on his other side, giving Druella a silently smug look. “I’m assuming that Charis, Callidora and Alphard will be at the annual Yule rituals even if they all... denied invitations to dinner.”
“We’re all still too young to go.” Bellatrix huffed quietly.
Anna jolted her hand an inch away from hitting Sirius up the face, at the girl who had unexpectedly appeared on the sofa. It came as a surprise that the girl had even known the meaning of subtly. Narcissa didn’t seem to care in the slightest, pulling Sirius back from where he was starting to drool into the bassinet.
“You get to go next year, Bella.” Andromeda reminded her softly, looking both anxious and envious. “You’ll tell us what happened, won’t you-”
“I’ll tell you, of course. Otherwise, where’s the fun for Cissy?” Bellatrix agreed enthusiastically. Narcissa's face darkened. “And then the year after, you can be ready to do it with me.”
Andromeda gave the girl a small smile that held far too much adoration and awe for Anna’s comfort. It made her wonder where exactly the two had gone wrong. In the books, Bellatrix had held so much loathing for her younger sister and it had been returned in equal amounts. What had happened, in the years between the books and now, that had caused such a rift?
Would marrying a muggle-born be so detrimental to their relationship?
“I have received confirmation that Charis will be coming with Callidora but I haven’t heard from Alphard yet,” Arcturus said gravely as if it was a matter of life and death. His gaze flickered to Pollux, who stared back with an obstinate gaze, his eyes flickering with irritation. “Pollux, have you heard from your wayward son, perchance?”
“Alphard last sent a letter in late August, when he was still around Asia.” The woman sighed before Pollux could say anything, nearing fond. “I’ll give him a good tongue-lashing if he doesn’t turn up for the rites, though. He didn’t come last year either, did he, Pollux?”
Pollux let out a strained huff. “Turned up two days after the solstice. A lot of good that was.”
The woman's face turned into a sneer. “I almost thought that he mixed with the muggle traditions, the heartbreak I felt.”
“Is it worse than the heartbreak that he forgot about the family, Irma?” Said Arcturus blithely, staring at the woman with a steely gaze.
Irma gave him a deliciously sweet smile. “We all know about children forgetting about the family. Tell me, has Lucretia come by recently? I do miss her company.”
Anna could hear his teeth grinding together.
“Regardless,” Orion said quickly. “The only reason we’re at the Black Manor instead of Ridgeway or Grimmauld is for one reason.”
Most of the room turned their eyes on Anna. Apart from the gathered crowd, Walburga had turned to Druella, both ladies smiling at each other whilst hiding knives behind their backs, and sitting with tea in one hand and deadly gossip in the other. Cygnus looked uncomfortable between the two, ready to make a run for the door.
“Come, Cygnus, see your own daughter,” Pollux beckoned.
“His fourth,” Arcturus smirked, passing a glance with Pollux that looked deathly poisonous. “Is it true that Druella will never have another? What a shame.”
In the background, Anna could see the woman in question tighten her grip around a teacup. Walburga looked like a baying beast, teeth flashing with new information as Druella bared her own right back. Cygnus stood up jerkily, coming to stand behind the men with great relief.
She felt like an animal on display as Sirius was pulled back to sit fully in Narcissa’s tiny lap, even though he looked on the verge of tears at being removed from his new plaything. The men all gave her cursory looks, eyes flashing with potential schemes that would never involve her consent, staying far enough away that Anna was merely observed. Only Irma approached her.
Irma's own dark hair, browner than the usual black, fell in ringlets down her back and she omitted warmth unnaturally. Sirius clapped his hands, overjoyed at someone approaching him who wasn’t Narcissa and went to greet her with a degree of cheer Anna hadn’t received. He was lifted up speedily by Andromeda who took him off the younger girls lap, much to his silent displeasure.
“You are a dear,” Irma murmured, a hand stroking Anna's cheek. “My Walburga looked like you when she was a babe. You’re eyes though, entirely Rosier blood there, like little Andromeda when she was your age. Hmph, not half-bad. My son has pretty daughters, at the very least.”
Cygnus flushed in the background.
“Don’t smother her,” Pollux said, unheeding his son. “You did it to all of them and every single one of them bawled after.”
Arcturus took the opening gleefully. “I’d presume that might just be her personality, cousin.”
Orion patted Cygnus on the arm sympathetically.
“See,” Irma puffed up, giving the two men a glance as a smile came onto Anna’s face unwittingly. “One of them doesn’t mind.”
“A low record.” Pollux dismissed blithely. “I might just agree with my dearest cousin on this one, wife.”
“You flatter me,” Arcturus said dryly.
What the everloving fuck has my life come to, Anna thought as she observed the room. Sirius was clawing at Bellatrix, who looked utterly repulsed but was trying to sit still. Andromeda was holding him tightly, crinkling the robes he had on but she seemed far too smiley to restrain him properly. The two most common features in his life were chatting - gossiping, her mind reminded her - over tea - again - and the few people in charge were snarking away happily.
Seriously.