Anna V
Whatever had occurred during Yule had been substantial enough to put even Druella on edge.
Anna prided herself on her ability - although she was sure it was out shadowed by the pureblood Blacks around her - to read people. Druella had been a composed person in the amount of time that Anna had spent with her; her anger encrusted with ice, her affection tainted with steel, her sorrow upright with beams of iron. But now there was an air around her, fading as the days past, that kept her on her toes.
None of the other Black sisters had missed it either. Bellatrix kept giving her mother looks that Anna couldn’t pin down and Andromeda stared up at her with wide eyes when her back was turned. Perhaps it was Narcissa who was the most open about her worry as she clung tighter to her mother’s scarlet skirts, trying to hide beneath her courtesies.
Whatever it was, however, Narcissa wouldn’t confide it in Anna. Not in this, apparently.
It didn’t stop the girl from spilling the daily going-on to her, the Tales of Beedle and Bard open on her lap as she read not from the stories of the book but rather the gossip of the day. Anna delighted in the little excitement she could glean from them.
Whilst Druella took Anna with her on her daily duties - tending to the books of the house, checking in on the house elves and organising the sister’s education with a governess - but not on the trips to tea with Walburga or with the various, unnamed ladies who Anna only knew about due to offhand comments. It left her trapped on entertainment.
“Bellatrix keeps bragging about the Yule rites,” Narcissa complained to her. “Not to Andromeda, of course, just to me.”
Yule rites, she had pondered curiously. The idea had been played with, even Anna had toyed with the concept of it, but what was the true version of it like?
“I threatened to tell mother, of course, but she laughed in my face.”
How very unlike her, Anna had snarked mentally.
“So, I’m putting snakes in her bed. Let’s see her talk her way out of this one.”
Anna would’ve raised her eyebrows in mild surprise if there was motivation. It was unlike Narcissa to be so petty, often resorting to publicly outing her eldest sister to their parents. But, one day, she would be Narcissa Malfoy who undermined Voldemort in a play to save her son, so she would have to learn her cunning someplace.
The days moved on past Yule, that most special day. She found herself growing with at a rate that she could remember on the few babies she had seen on regular basis. Anna had kept an eye on the conversation about Sirius’ accomplishments since she could remember him being mentioned and tried to plan in advance but as days and nights passed, monotonous and marvellous in equal amounts Anna lost a definite track of the days.
She assumed that Yule was on the 25th, like Christmas, then the rites had been on the 27th. But they hadn’t been. Anna had overheard Druella’s organised murmurs on pain of setting up a brunch on the 27th and, considering it had been after the rites, Anna’s shambling semblance of time was shattered.
With that in mind, she reordered how the basic steps should go.
Fuck it, Anna had thought, her patience finally beginning to fray, who cares what they think on how odd it is? I’m driving myself insane sitting here.
Anna sat herself up, trying to heave with the effort. Quiet exercise in the dead of night - exercise was a strong word, perhaps practice might have been better - had strengthened her muscles to a point that she felt more able to move. Druella hadn’t so much as blinked, and for some reason, Anna felt mightily disappointed, but she did cast a smile that rippled with pride before turning her attentions to the thick book of numbers - from what she could glean- again.
“Isn’t she too young for that?” Narcissa had piped up from where she was sitting, her skirt gathered around her. It was a rare occasion that Druella allowed one of her children to sit with her whilst she worked. It was only Narcissa’s tutor who had come down with a nasty case of the Mumblemumps, leaving her youngest daughter without a caretaker for the afternoon, that had given her permittance to sit in Druella’s study.
Druella merely hummed noncommittally, disinterested. “Dear, your sister was talking before she was nine months old. Sirius was walking as soon as he could stand without help. If any magical child wasn’t completing milestones before the estimated time, or so help us, a pureblood scion, then there would be a probable cause for concern.”
Narcissa simply peered at Anna with large, silver eyes. “It’s normal, then?”
“Yes, Narcissa. You need to learn not to listen to muggle nonsense.”
“Oh, Andy told me.” The girl replied, turning back to her dolls when her curiosity was sated.
Druella sighed irritably. “I need to have a talk to that girl about running down with the filth down the way.”
“She hasn’t been in a while.” Narcissa shrugged, pretending to pour tea for her dolls. False steam rose from the flowery painted cups. “Andy prefers to stay with Bella when she practices her casting.”
“Mmm.” With the distant look in her eyes that only appeared when she worked, Druella turned back to the thick books. “Good.”
Whatever that had meant, Anna refused to ponder it, it was an assured green light. She moved on from trying to hold her neck up to trying to speak, sounding out sounds one by one. Her mouth felt numb with ice when she spoke and her tongue was heavy and unusable in her mouth. More than once, she had bitten it on accident.
Anna was grateful to not have teeth, for once, but the ache that had begun in her gums spoke of a new, fresher agony that wasn’t spending more time with Narcissa’s beloved mother.
She started with the vowels, sounding out ah, then oh, then ee, then ei, the ou, then y for good measure because the letter was always so neglected, in Anna’s opinion. The pain of relearning to speak reminded her of the time she spent learning German. The fluency of the language had left her some years ago but holding a meagre conversation in the tongue would be no hard feat.
When she got the hold of basic vowels and a rudimentary grasp on the rest, Anna tried her first word. “Mam.” She managed to wrangle out, feeling both disappointed in her failure to words and alight with her success to sound tangible. “Mamm. Ma.”
Singular letters were easy, words were harder.
But the days only got better after as she found out the date the next morning. How funny, Anna mused, feeling strangely hazy, that the date is a luxury to me.
Druella had taken a fancy of Anna sitting in the straight-backed, wooden highchair at the family table. On most occasions, Cygnus was absent and the sisters argued and bickered and snatched at each other. On the days that he was present, they surrendered themselves to quiet glares and kicks beneath the table. This mourning, he was hungover, heavy, dark bags beneath his eyes and his curly mop of hair twisting around his eyes. His robes were twisted around his form, wrinkled and coloured with a rich merlot.
“Walburga just had her boy,” Druella informed him airily, looking unfazed at her husband's boorish appearance. The woman was his opposite, with her pale, blonde hair tied into a french twist and wore a robe of sea green and silver. “I received Arcturus announcement this morning.”
Cygnus didn’t move from where he blinked blearily into his eggs. “When?”
“Three days ago, on the 19th of March.” Druella gave him an icy smile that shone with disapproval. Anna had come to learn that a hungover Cygnus was not an unusual sight but his wife’s disdain grew stronger with every sight of him. “Born just shy of the equinox. Orion has named him Regulus, after his beloved uncle.”
“Him, beloved?” Cygnus snorted under his breath. It was only the proximity to the couple that kept Anna conscious of the conversation. Across the table, Narcissa ducked her head. “Regulus was a spiteful little man with too much ambition. Pity the child, more like.”
“I’d pity anyone with Walburga for a mother,” Druella murmured.
“She’d do the same for you, I’d wager.” The man hummed, his hand twisted between his curls, the dark strands a stark difference between the pale skin.
Druella eyed his hand with wary distaste. “Ask the house elves for pain relief if you are so agonised. Stop letting the children see your pathetic state.”
Stop letting me see your current state, went unsaid.
Cygnus gave her a look that sat stiffly on his refined features. Druella refused to meet his gaze or so much as look at his face, turning obstinately toward the subtly snickering girls. Anna couldn’t decide what was transpiring between them. The two had an odd relationship with each other. One moment, Druella would be offering a hand to help and the next, she was glaring steely daggers into his skull.
Did she care for him like a wife did a husband? Anna could see that she had once, see it in the tiredness of her movements and the sorrow at the corners of her eyes, mourning what they had been. What had they been? Did they marry on their own accord? Cygnus was the youngest son of the younger line, not with a priority to marry high.
Cygnus swallowed audibly at his wife's performed indifference. “Tell me of Rosetta.”
“She is faring well in Egypt.” A true, small smile graced Druella’s face. “Rose writes to me on odd occasions. She uses the same way of delivery that Melania used when she lived. Did she learn it from her?”
“Melania was quite a well-taught runes master. Her mother was a Rosier too if I remember correctly.”
“It’s our one good trait, apparently.” Druella shrugged languidly but there was a tenseness to her shoulders that made Anna want to frown. “Rose is going down the same passages that your cousin went down once. I worry about her. Melania barely escaped with her life.”
Cygnus cast her a solemn stare that went overlooked. “It was a one time mistake, Arcturus was sure of it.”
But there was worry in Druella’s eyes that wouldn’t be capped by the sureness of the patriarch. Her hand tightened around the thin, painted handle of the teacup but her knuckles didn’t whiten and her arm stayed still. “Of course,” Druella said smoothly, shakily. “Of course.”