Narcissa IV & Ursa VI
The day had begun as most of her Tuesdays in Hogwarts had; she had woken up at six, brushed her teeth and showered before styling her hair into something more respectable rather than the offensive styles that mudbloods and half-bloods favoured. She dressed in her uniform, fixed her tie (- and wouldn’t you be brilliant, there- ) and secured her mind to prevent any unwanted intrusions to her own mind or otherwise. She was too young for any makeup, however much she knew how to use it, and her mother hadn’t sent her any jewellery that could withstand constant use.
Waiting for her sisters was unseemly and showed that she was unable to stand for herself, so she linked metaphorical arms with Beatrice Parkinson, a daughter of a minor and forgettable branch of the Parkinson family, and Ida Carrow, the betrothed of a french Pureblood and set to inherit her families estates as the eldest daughter of a primarily matriarchal family, unlike the Blacks, instead. Narcissa greeted her fellow first years - and some ambitious but ultimately pathetic second years - and made her way to breakfast, where a spot was left open for her to take.
She ate quickly. It wasn’t that she had any particular dislike for the Great Hall but her mental shields, while stronger, weren't so strong as to hold out against an onslaught of so many minds for longer than the time it took to shove food down her throat. She didn’t try to fool herself that Bellatrix came in when Narcissa wasn’t there for any sort of sisterly affection, she was just too lazy to get up until half-past six.
“I was still eating!” Beatrice always complained, when she and Ida stood up at the same time with their bags slung over their shoulders. It was highly unlikely, nigh impossible, that Ida shared the same woes as Narcissa did but regardless of her reasons, she had never opened her mouth to disagree. “Just a minute more?”
It reminded her of the whining children that had hung around the play park with sticky hands and dirty faces, looking up at their mothers with the expectant hope that would be squashed by the setting sun. She’d never done it (none of her sisters would dare try something like that, with mother being so strict, not even Ursa) and it filled her with a bitter disappointment that her magical brethren would act like a five-year-old muggle child. Narcissa had only needed to nail her with one, cold look to take the heat behind her words and the complaints had become empty.
Today followed much the same pattern as they pulled themselves up. “I can’t believe you wouldn’t let me stay.” Beatrice pouted. “The eggs looked gorgeous today.”
Ida deadpanned. “They’re the same eggs as every day.”
“But they look better today! Hey, Narcissa, didn’t they look better today?”
Narcissa bit down the pain of being surrounded by panicking N.E.W.T and O.W.L students ( i can’t remember any of this - blank paper, scrawled -) and shrugged. “They’re eggs - unless they turn purple or pink, I don’t see a need to cause a fuss.”
Eggs, in her household, had a tendency to turn blue. Andromeda was very quick with her charms when displeased and their mother wasn’t always there to smooth over disagreements. Charms that didn’t work - for this one, see the time that Andy tried Bombarda - turned either green or a sickly, displeased yellow. The Pink (not purple, however much Ursa argued for it) Eggs incident was firmly buried within her shields and forgotten.
Beatrice snickered. “You’re funny, Narcissa.”
“Because everybody else is just dying of laughter, Beatrice.” Narcissa drawled, sweeping up the stairs to her first class of the day with her minions dogging her steps. “But please, don’t let me stop you.”
Yes, today was perfectly normal.
Today was not perfectly normal for Ursa.
If Ursa didn't know what blood in her mouth tasted like, she’d think she was hacking up half of her blood into her mouth. As it was, the sour, gritty taste at the back of her throat was nothing less than residual magic from the curses that her father continuously flung her way. Sweat beat down her back, soaking the clothes that she had been shoved in for training, as she moved back into the ‘proper’ duelling position.
“Move your foot back or you’ll overbalance, Ursa.” Despite his decisive movements and stamina, Cygnus looked almost as exhausted as she did, if for a different reason; dark shadows made a home in the crevices of his face and stress gouged lines in his skin. Ursa wondered, idly, how much sleep he was getting.
She coughed, but only spit came up. “Does Mother know about this?”
“Perhaps.” Cygnus deflected, a flick of his wand and the movement of his lips the only sign of a curse coming her way. It was for her sake only, she knew, and Ursa bit down on the anger that she was being treated with kiddie gloves. The emotion, much like any other emotion she deemed too irritable, was carefully packed away and promptly ignored.
Narcissa had never had any duelling training and Cygnus hadn’t said anything about keeping it a secret . Druella had calluses on her hand from prominent wand use and a near-perfect aim that didn’t come from being anything less than subpar, so perhaps her sister had learnt from her instead of their father. Even still, she’d never looked like she’d just walked into a fight with a tiger and lost, badly , but that might have more to do with Cissa’s compulsive need to look better than anybody else at all times.
Ursa scrambled to sidestep a spell. Alright, dodge now, questions later .
After three spells had struck at her feet, another one narrowly missed her by a hair , one finally landed on her elbow and sent her spiralling. A mercy blow, as he immediately cast the counter-curse when the air fled from her lungs as she landed on her back.
Footsteps approached her, not the usual clicking of her mother's shoes but low, quiet steps, and when her father peered down at her, Ursa flung a hand over her eyes. She was a child , basically a baby, freshly-turned six. She wasn’t meant to be duelling with an adult, or any sort of fighting that wasn’t playfully shoving Sirius into a wall. Cygnus studied her as if she was a particularly curious insect. “Well, I suppose that was a good attempt. For a beginner.”
She didn’t spend enough time with Cygnus in a non-formal setting to judge whether or not he’d take her ‘insolence’ well. Walburga certainly didn’t, and now Ursa kept her mouth permanently shut around the woman, even if Sirius insisted on testing his luck. The one time she’d spoken up in front of Callisto Malfoy, a waif of a woman that she was, she’d gotten a mildly disapproving look that was really… pathetic. She hadn’t done it again out of sheer pity.
“Understand that you are a Black, even if you have half of your mother’s Rosier blood, and you will be capable of standing up to any standards set in the academic world or beyond. This includes duelling.” Cygnus swept a hand out across the hall. “For now, we’ll continue to work on basic stances and focus more heavily on your defence. Your offence is moderate, for now.”
Ursa stretched out her fingers, cramped from being tightly wound around a borrowed wand. She didn’t know many spells, beyond what she picked up from her sisters. The basics, the very first spells, the easy, learn-from-a-book everyday spells that her sisters showed their parents when they looked and not the ones cast behind their backs. “Why?”
A small smile stretched across his face; small but genuine. “Your mother asked me too.”
“Why?”
“Because,” He stressed. “You have shown admirable progress in your academic studies. You pick up things with incredible speed and are nearing the level of what you would expect to be entering Hogwarts .” Which was, for a muggleborn, often nothing at all. For a Pureblood, that would be most of the basic principles at the very least. It was a wonder that Malfoy, in the books, was bested as often as he was, academically or otherwise; or perhaps, she reasserted her thought as she remembered Hermione Granger's tedious study, he simply left his skills to rot. Even the thought made her recoil. “It’s only normal that the rest of your education speeds up in tandem.”
“But Narcissa never-”
“Your sister was a special case. Your mother dealt with that side of her education, not me, but if you must know, both Andromeda and Bellatrix studied the Black duelling style under me. If you really are insistent on working with your mother, then you can.” He stalked around the room; it was like the dining room hall, where they gathered when all the extended Black family decided to stop hurling threats at each other, without the chairs, tables or decorations. The curtains that hung over the windows were charred by magical flame.
“I’m fine with learning from you,” Ursa told him, standing on shaky feet. Her breath had come back into her lungs during the short duration of their conversation. And it was true; Druella had not only been her main parental figure, but also her main instructor when it came to inheriting the talents of the past generations. Most of her rune work - if copying out pre-selected sigils counted - had been in Rosier-style and she had learnt the Rosier family tree, small as it was compared to the Black’s, first.
Cygnus blinked slowly, like a cat observing its prey. In a spurt of peculiarity, she wondered if any of her family were an animagus. Likely, her monkey-brain, that was busy trying to do academics instead of social interaction, but who?
Shut up , Ursa snarled back, sick of its shit. She was going to beat it with a stick one day and hope that it finally died like it should have when Anna got hit by a car. It was really getting on her nerves now that she actually had to think about what was expected of her, instead of just having Cissa verbally thwack her over the head and fix her mistake.
“Then I’ll arrange it to slot into your schedule. Since you’re still young, you’ll only do it once or twice a fortnight. No need to overwork you when you're already doing above average.” Her father - and a normal six-year-old wouldn’t hesitate to call him that, right? - gave her a brisk nod as he gathered his discarded belongings flopped over the benches that lined the hall. The water bottle he had brought with him sat untouched. Hers was half-empty. “I’ll see you at dinner, daughter.”
She was certain there was some protocol she had to follow when saying goodbye to her parents, or somebody of a higher rank to her, but Ursa didn’t have the heart or the energy to push through with it. Instead, she hauled her body over to the benches and slumped over as soon as she sat down. Most of her items were the usual; quill, parchment, whatever book she decided she liked more that week. The spare space in the carrier bag that she had stolen from Narcissa was crammed full of Transfiguration notes for her ‘homework’ set by her tutor.
A few peaked over the leather and Ursa picked a flyaway note up. The words were scrawled and hurried, Mandez states that Agumentai is a Transfiguration spell that does follow Gamp’s Law because it is not changed from one substance to another, but summoned from a pre-existing pool of water, whereas Lorsa argues the opposite, that it does not follow Gamp’s Law, as it is a charm and therefore does not appeal to the rules of Transfiguration as it is usually not pictured in the mind of the caster as is required for all Transfiguration spells.
The rest of it was unreadable, but she could guess the point anyway.
Ursa had read some of Narcissa’s old writing and…
Narcissa didn’t start Gamp’s Law until she was nine , never mind writing out runes - which was harder, since it required a degree of calligraphy and understanding -and she certainly never worked her way up to algebra by Ursa’s age, although that was just the matter of remembering the half-forgotten principles. Sirius was smart, he was still young, still learning basic maths and theory as a child unable to comprehend advanced material. Regulus studied diligently but still lagged behind, hindered by the lack of effort put into his education as the second son.
Was it because she started early, pushed by her own boredom and lack of understanding, curiosity having eaten away at her patience? Or was it because she wasn’t a child, not really, but still with the spongy-child-brain that had soaked up everything it came in contact with? Would Ursa, if she hadn’t been born without memories, be as smart as she is now? Anna had been smart when she tried, but only when she tried . Ursa was just messing around, jumping from one topic to another as she pleased, and was likely getting farther than Anna would ever have- or, maybe, if-
What if, what if , she kept going around in circles. She wasn’t getting anywhere and she wasn’t going to; unless she made herself into an omniscient being and studied a non-reincarnated Ursa in a warped spot-the-difference game.
The subject was dismissed, placed to the back of her mind for further study like all the mysteries that came with being her as she placed the borrowed wand back in the box she got it from, watching as the painted stripe around the lock turned from bright gold to a steel grey. It was a precautionary measure for thieves and children with sticky fingers and unless unlocked by a wizard over seventeen, would blare an annoying alarm through the hall. Ursa had never seen a reason to take one of her long-dead ancestors' wands when there was lower hanging fruit in her parent’s pockets, and besides, pickpocketing didn’t blow out her eardrums.
It was mid-afternoon, a decisive check at the clock placed strategically outside the hall told her, and she had an hour until dinner. The Transfiguration notes in her bag rustled tellingly as she limped down the stairwell and out of the training wing. She restrained a groan, already feeling the pain that would come with writing for an extended period of time.