Anna VII
Anna hadn’t stuck around - or, to be precise, been allowed to - to see the last of Rosetta. Narcissa and Andromeda had camped down in the room they’d been in before, both girls with watery eyes and withheld tears, sniffling. Bellatrix had been right on one account, though. It was only with discreet manoeuvring that Anna hadn’t toppled from her arms and onto the floor below.
An hour or so later, Bellatrix had joined them. Her eyes were ringed red and her cheeks were flushed, faded stains reached from the corners of her eyes down to the apex of her chin. She sniffled awkwardly at the doorway but neither of her sisters said a word against her. “Mother doesn’t want any visitors.” She announced in a weak imitation of her haughtiness.
“Bella…” Andromeda sighed. Her green and lemon skirts were splayed around her as she sat on the floor, the bright colours a jarring contrast to the damp mood, holding Narcissa close. “Come here.”
For a moment, Anna imagined that a flash of hesitation went over Bellatrix before the girl stalked into the room with the proud and condescending demeanour that was typical of her. There was a space where her sneer would be and a sullen silence where her sharp remarks would spill but there was no lack of steel in her spine. Bellatrix sat herself down beside Andromeda but she didn’t lean into the girl’s offer of comfort nor turn away.
Andromeda murmured something under her breath that Anna couldn’t catch from where she sat on the sofa, reluctantly chewing on a teething toy that soothed the pain that had began to spread its wretched tendrils through her gums. Bellatrix hissed something back, eyes narrowed with hurt pride but she placed a stiff arm around her sister’s shoulders. Andromeda gave her a small smile and kept up a conversation that Anna could only see by the movement of their lips.
Whatever they talked on, Narcissa was impassive.
Or perhaps just asleep, Anna mused. Anna was tired enough - trying to walk was physically draining and just watching the recent Black family drama (or, she thought, Rosier family drama) was emotionally taxing. It would be, to anyone.
With a start, Bellatrix shot up as the door opened, lurching away from Andromeda’s loose grip like it had burned her. If the girl in question was offended, she made no obvious showmanship of it. Narcissa merely shifted in Andromeda’s grip, hands tightening in the soft fabric of her skirts.
“There you are,” Cygnus noted coolly, stepping into the room with unnaturally light footsteps. “I take it you heard from your mother…?”
“Aunt Rose-” (“Aunt Rosetta,” Andromeda corrected in a murmur) “-called us up. One last goodbye.” Bellatrix told him, her silver eyes damp. It was abnormal to see on someone who was always alight with the sheer willpower contained within them. Cygnus’ jaw tightened. “Will she be down for supper?”
“That’s very unlikely, Bellatrix,” Cygnus remarked stiltedly, casting his eyes over the three huddled girls. “Come, where is your youngest sister?”
And that was how Anna found herself being pawned off to Cygnus.
She didn’t have the energy to fight - she hadn’t fought much, not in this life, unless you were counting that incident with that monstrous contraption Druella had tried to pass as a dress. Cygnus reminded her very much of Narcissa, in the quiet way he held himself and his slight build, but he was a fully-grown adult and father four-times over. His hands weren’t shaky when he lifted her and when he settled her on his hip, there was little to no wiggle room.
He didn’t speak when he brought her up to the nursery. Anna had never thought of the light chatter of either the sisters or Druella as anything more than background noise. It made a stark difference when all she heard was the click of shoes against the wood and the rustle of fabric.
A snap of his fingers. “Bring my daughters their dinner where they’re currently situated.” He ordered. There was a pause as a light crack swished through the air. Cygnus sniffed. “Elves, I tell you, girl. Wretched things, but adept at following orders.”
For one abrupt moment, she could see the family resemblance between the siblings.
Where Walburga was a force of nature, a battering ram - not unlike Bellatrix - Cygnus was the lockpick that unlocked the door, ripping through your house like a steely breeze. One made a grand statement of their being there and the other simply never told at all. In the throes of her mind, Anna considered that Cygnus would have made a splendid thief if he wasn’t a Black.
The door to the nursery was already open when they arrived and Cygnus walked like he owned the place, which he probably did. He wasn’t kind with her handling into the crib but he didn’t have the inexperienced hands of Narcissa or the cold, rough care of Walburga when Druella let her hold Anna. He merely was. Druella held her like she was a precious jewel to be coveted and, to her surprise, Anna found Cygnus' treatment preferable to Druella's - albeit heartwarming - swaddling.
“Sleep, girl.” He spoke, not unkindly, as he turned to face the door again. His robes were loose around him as if put on in a hurry and several locks of hair escaped from his perfected style. “Merlin knows it will be a task to get the rest of them to bed.” He muttered as he left.
The door closed with the same silence the rest of them had.
Anna had always had fanciful dreams, even before all… this. Some of them were events she would experience - a glance of a page in a book, a move of someone’s hand, the sun in the window - and some of them were nonsensical but pleasant nonetheless. Gradually nightmares and dreams became one, over a long time, becoming a shrieking, light-hearted contraption worthy of a tasteless horror movie.
This was a newer brand of dream. Where there would be air, even false, was a vast void, where there would the hazy idea of a breeze the feeling on her hands was nothing and when she blinked, there was limitless darkness. She ran a dry tongue along cracked lips, rolling her shoulders, feeling more at home than she had in ages. This was a body Anna was familiar with but had not inhabited for a good few months. A strained smile passed over her face.
Then, a large eye opened in front of her.
It was red, ringed in green, ringed in blue, ringed in gold. The pupil was scattered instead of whole and the black fragments squirmed in the depths of the colour. The area around it shivered as the eye blinked, a massive thundering thing and Anna was abruptly aware of the tight grip around her waist and the choking song that spilt from its pores.
When she looked closer, a surge of bravery rocketed through her veins, she could see tiny carvings along the ridges of its eyes. The delicate engravings were covered by crusted over wounds, blood long dried and sticky upon its skin and open sores that wept bitterly. Anna fell deaf as a roar swept past her ears and was gone in the next moment. It sounded happy, almost, if such a thing could be.
Anna woke up, blearily, to the comforting ceiling of the nursery and a confining body with limited ability. For once, in the very long and arduous months, she had spent in this world, Anna let out a long breath, of relief and of safety and wondered why panic seemed to surge in her veins.
It was too late. The dream had faded like a bad memory.
In the days following, Anna saw neither hide nor hair of Druella. Her constant companion instead became a miserable Narcissa who was on the receiving end of reflected thoughts from her siblings. Extended moments spent with Bellatrix made her snappish and increased time spent with Andromeda made her sullen, leaving Narcissa a withdrawn wreck. What was very odd, Anna noted, was after that first day she never cried.
She was very sure that Andromeda did. Her eyes were often ringed red and her cheeks stained. It was with a sudden urgency that Bellatrix had found herself with excess tissues on hand, of course. Anna was less certain about Bellatrix herself, but if the speed that she emptied her pockets of said tissues were too fast for one person, she would never admit it.
Narcissa informed her, with a desolate air about her, of the funeral in one of her happier moods. “I’m not sure Aunt Walburga is very pleased.” She had frowned. “But, I’ve never seen her, so I’m not sure, really.”
As Rosetta’s niece, Anna had gotten a nice invitation to spend the day in the wet days of spring, standing over the funeral.
It was the first she had seen of Druella, beyond a few snippets. For someone who had looked like a ghost drifting through the halls on the rare, rare occasions that Anna had gleaned of her, she was remarkably put together. There was an emptiness to her warmth, a pale shadow cast across her cheeks, the sat uneasily with her. There were no false smiles but there was no true cheer. Well, I wonder why, something within Anna told her, sarcastically, it’s not like her sister died recently.
So Anna swallowed her unbidden disquiet and let herself be dressed in a simple, black and white embroidered dress.
“Is Aunt Rosetta going to be laid in the Rosier mausoleum, Mother?” Andromeda piped up, curiously as they stood in front of the fireplace. Anna realised with a start their way of transport, feeling sick to her stomach already. She could stomach rough rides but the idea of stepping into a fireplace left her feeling uneasy, one could say.
Druella swallowed, grimacing if she was choking on her words. “Yes, as I will be after her passing.”
“Why?” Narcissa asked quietly. She was clinging to Druella’s skirts as subtly as she could, Anna knew. “Why not in the Black crypts with Father?”
“The body of the deceased can power the family ritual site but only if they’re a member of the family, dear,” Druella murmured, “It’s why you will join your father’s predecessors and I will join mine. Don’t go around telling everyone, now, it’s a pureblood secret.”
“I know.” Narcissa reminded her. It was at times like this when a child's curiosity could be helpful to Anna. The numerous questions she had swirled in her mind and without another prompter, she wasn't going to go around and talk like a fully-grown woman.
Druella hummed, “You always do.”
Cygnus arrived with Bellatrix, who seemed to be turning from depression to acceptance with a great and heavy reluctance and a small bag of floo powder that he tossed to Druella after taking his pinch. Giving his wife a look, he took his place into the fireplace and with a woosh of green roaring flames and whispered words, he was away.
“Speak clearly,” Druella pushed her youngest daughter forward. Narcissa frowned worriedly. “Don’t hesitate and most importantly, don’t fall.”
Narcissa cast her a look that was unreadable to Anna’s eyes but, if she were to guess, it was something around the lines of wary apprehension. Not fear, though, she observed keenly. Druella nudged her on and when Bellatrix went to take a pinch, huffing at finally having grown impatient, she swatted her away.
She stepped into the flames that licked up her skirt but left no scorch marks. It wrapped around the dark fabric of her skirt and twisted around her legs, all shades of emerald, shade and shamrock. For a moment, Anna thought she wouldn’t do it but Narcissa steeled her shoulders and with a yelled location, unlike the silent words of Cygnus, disappeared in a roar of gleaming fire and smoke.
“She took longer than you, Andy,” Bellatrix smirked at her sister, dipping her hand into the bag of floo powder. Andromeda frowned as she copied her sister, the mint coloured powder slipping between her fingers.
Both girls left in a swoosh of similar flame.
Druella scraped her foot along the floor, through the remnants of where the loose powder had fallen to the floor, a frown curling along her face. Two taps of her heel against the floor had it wiped away as if it had never been there, to begin with. She shifted Anna in her arms and murmured a quiet apology as she stepped into the fireplace, soot and ash beginning to paint her skirts a shade of silver. It was pretty, Anna admitted to herself, if you ignored the-
Anna felt her stomach try and turn itself inside out as her body was twisted around. The world was a rollercoaster and she, an unwitting participant. Anna had liked rollercoasters but only when she went on them willingly. Being rocketed around and tossed through random loop-de-loops was not what she signed up for-
It stopped suddenly and Druella let out a strained but genuine laugh at her befuddled face.
“I imagine that was my reaction too.” She said, dryly, as she brushed the soot from her skirts. “My mother laughed twice as hard.”
Anna greeted a miserable, weepy day. The overcast crowds were a grey that came close to a mourning black and the little sky visible was thundering. Whilst no water fell, there were certain promises and the lingering threat was shown throughout the cobblestones in form of deep, languid puddles. Druella stepped over them all with experience.
It was a very odd place to have a fireplace, Anna thought. What she could glean without breaking her neck was a large, marble block that had carvings writ into the stone. It was ancient and pockmarked with years of angry duels from grieving mourners and water-engraved grooves. The fireplace itself was merely a simple, Victorian-looking thing that paled in comparison to the wretched structure.
As they approached the proceedings and the crowd of people, the weather only grew in it’s morose. Anna assumed that Druella would stand with her husband and children first, as they waited by the grave sight but instead the woman went towards an older couple with shared silver canes.
“Mother,” Druella greeted them with a slight curtsey. “Father.”
“Druella.” The blonde, spindly woman embraced Druella loosely, leaving a kiss on her cheek as she pulled back. Her eyes were a dim, damp grey, very unlike the Black silver, but there was a faded beauty to her that reminded Anna of the woman holding her. Her face was heavily lined and her hair streaked silver, but she kept a thick eyeliner around her eyes and rouge on her cheeks.
“It’s…” Druella started in a watery voice. “It’s good to see you, even if it’s in these circumstances.”
The woman’s eyes glistened warningly. Her voice cracked. “Darling-”
The man let out a low chuckle. It was a forced, tired thing that was an attempt to lighten the mood. “Come now, Regina, don’t suffocate her.”
“Don’t patronize me, Augustus.” Regina snapped back but there was no real heat in it. Augustus frowned. He was a honey-haired, tall man with deep-set eyes and a scar that went from his cheekbone to chin. The older woman sighed at the silence that ensued. “I’m sorry-”
Druella swept her mother into a hug before she could begin. “Come now, mother.”
Anna thought the woman was about to wail into Druella’s shoulder, to be frank, and her husband seemed to share that line of thought if his awkward hovering was any indication. Anna squirmed awkwardly in Druella’s arms, stuck between the two women and their stiff gowns of cloth and conduct.
Regina was the one to pulled back first and if she wiped openly at her eyes, neither her daughter nor husband made any note of it. She gave her husband a brief nod, watching him rescind his hovering, before turning back to her daughter. “Who’s this little one, then?” She asked in a shaky voice, a tenuous smile appearing on her face.
Druella brushed a stray curl out of Anna’s face. “Ursa Elladora Black, the first.”
“It was such a relief, after what happened with Rigel…” Druella shuddered slightly at her mother’s words but the pair didn’t pick it up. “But we’re glad to see that this one was healthy. I could swear she’s a carbon copy of Bellatrix, though.”
“Odd naming choice, though, isn’t it?” Augustus commented.
“Rosetta’s idea.” Druella smile quivered on her face.
A wet laugh spilt from Regina’s lips. “I always thought the Blacks needed more originality. Always with the same old, same old. Bellatrix is the thirteenth holder of her name, isn't she? Ah, the Rosier's are better in that regard, at least.”
“Alexander had a boy just a month ago, didn’t you hear? Evan the Second.” Augustus crowed, taking his wife’s arm as they drifted in the direction of the crowd. “His wife is staying home - dear, what was her name again?”
“Thelma,” Regina reminded him, in a mockery of normal pureblood chatter. Following along, Druella didn't engage as she once would have but she smiled at remarks and frowned at every other one. “From a branch of the Avery’s I think? Or mayhaps a Tripe. They have enough daughters to marry every pureblood by now, man and woman.”
Anna narrowed her metaphorical eyes - it just wouldn't do good to be suspicious so early on.
“Didn’t Isabella Travers marry one of their daughters?” Augustus wondered. “I heard from Corban Yaxley it was quite the show. They had dancing fountains and freshly enchanted draperies hanging over the hall.”
Anna breathed a silent sigh of relief.
“They got reviled by some muggles when down in their part of London, so Isabella says,” Regina murmured. “Silly things, aren’t they? So wound up about who dates who.”
Augustus looked ready to speak again, a spark of laughter in his eyes that dampened as soon as he saw who interrupted him. “The service is starting soon.” Cygnus slid in smoothly. Anna would have jumped out of her skin if she wasn’t being held tightly by Druella. “Do you want me to…?”
“If you would,” Druella said shortly, handing Anna over to Cygnus. She squirmed in his grip which tightened with every discreet movement but it was a relief to be away from Druella's scratchy lace collar, in truth.
“We’ll be off then,” Regina eyed Cygnus with a piercing gaze before tugging on Augustus' arm and drifting off to another pair, which looked to be eyeing the silver ornaments that hung off the sparse trees with greedy eyes. She gave Druella a significantly less poisonous stare, patting her on the arm. “I will see you there, dear.”
Anna watched the couple go, walking up the cobble-pathed path with a sombre cloud hanging around them securely. The clearing was well-worn with a grand but worn church looming on a small hill just wayside of the crowd’s gathering.
The church once had held glass in its windows but instead, there were cracked pieces of coloured glass and shimmers were magic kept wind out of the crevices. Beside the cheerful church, the mausoleum was pitiful against the grand building. It was made out of the same marble as the structure that the floo had been in was and equally as exquisite. There were four golden posts from what Anna could see and a large, double-doorway that flashed against the meagre sunlight.
“Take care of her, Cygnus,” Druella demanded sharply, turning on her heel. Her skirts swished behind her, dragging against the wet floor and soaking up the shreds of liquid. It made no difference to the fabric.
Looking a defeated man, in a place where weakness was preyed upon, Cygnus swallowed. “Druella… I’m sorry.”
Stopping in place, Druella turned back with mournful eyes and a morose frown lined her face. She looked twice her age as she cupped his cheek as a lover would. “I know what you’re asking, Cygnus. I can’t forgive that. Not now, not ever.”
“I’ve done everything-” He croaked out.
“I don’t want an act of forgiveness. What use are your sorries and regrets to me? It still hurts, Cygnus.” She murmured, dropping her hand as if his skin burnt and broiled. Druella held it close to her chest. "I want you to keep your promises and to heed me, next time."
“I will.”
Druella smiled then, a terrible thing to behold, full with cracks of their strained marriage and the tears that she had shed. “No, you won’t.”