Chapter Text
She remembers the first time she'd ever looked at Narcissa.
It was a dark evening, snowing outside. Bellatrix didn't even remember which manor she was at, except that it had an icy demeanour - pale white tapestries woven into shimmering gold that fluttered in the wind.
It seemed that whenever she regarded Narcissa, she was reminded of those tapestries.
Druella Black followed closely behind, tired only as much as she would allow herself (which is to say, she had the slightest hint of paleness), bounding by in swift silence. Bellatrix bowed her head down and gave a wide berth, peering over into the cot that the new child was in.
Druella paused, and behind her, Andromeda's hold tightened on Bellatrix, her fingers sinking into the skin of her shoulder.
"Daughters mine, there is another to join your ranks," Druella looked down on them, piercing them with blue eyes, "Narcissa Aria Black. Treat her well." There was a sharp smile at the end of the sentence, and Druella walked away.
Andromeda finally took a step towards the cot, which was held by a house elf. Gently, she took the cot in her hand, and with a single beckoning look, Bellatrix was by her side.
She could already see - Narcissa had soft white hair that sat in a tuft on top of her head, and the same blue eyes that had pierced her not two moments ago. She seemed deathly pale, and rather chubby. Andromeda dropped a hand into the cot, and touched her skin with a gentle nudge.
“She seems much too young for a name like Narcissa, right, Bel?” Andromeda said, still fixated on the small creature.
“Perhaps we can call her Cissy? She is our sister.” Bellatrix said, feeling the tiniest bit accomplished at such a smart decision.
“Rather,” Andromeda said as she chuckled, her smile sinking into those familiar dimples, and her eyes warming into a molten brown.
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“A fine bride, Cygnus! The finest of the lot, it seems. A true diamond! A bride so becoming for a scion like Julius, I must admit, I did not expect to find!” The rather excitable, pot bellied man sat in their drawing room exclaimed, looking over Andromeda as though she were a piece of meat.
Bellatrix sat on the set of chairs comfortably opposite to Cygnus, and Cissy sat next to her, attentive to the processions, her pale white hair bound out of her face, and her delicate little nose slightly turned up.
Andromeda shifted slightly, imperceptible to anyone but Bellatrix, who was aware of the unnatural stillness that was Andy. It was something to aspire for, in all honesty, to be frozen still, stick straight while she was most relaxed, and move in a miniscule when she was not.
“Of course, Marcius. Our dear Andromeda is the perfect wife.” He took a healthy pause, savouring the drink in his hand while the man eyed his daughter like a price mare. He levitated the drink, wandlessley of course, down to the table.
“But a perfect wife, Marcius, comes for a perfect price.” Cygnus said, eyeing the man in front of him with no change in expression. He did not blink even once, and titled his head the slightest degree.
Marcius seemed considerably less excited, now. In fact, he seemed to have sunk into the plush couches of the Black Manor, and eyed Cygnus with caution.
“All I ask, my dear friend, is that wonderful vanishing cabinet that you possess. It is all, and you shall have the bride of your dreams, not to mention the backing of the most powerful family in Britain.” His drink was back in his hand, and he took a sip at last, and the smooth gulp of his neck was like victory.
The man appeared to be considering it, and then it seemed that with one look at Cygnus, he realised he didn’t have any real choice in the matter. He shot a sideways glance at Andromeda, sizing her up, deciding if she was worth it, Bellatrix realised in a flash of disgust. Why disgust? She did not know.
“Anything for such a bride, Cygnus, anything at all.” The man conceded, his head bowed to Cynus.
A good-natured flush made its way to Cynus’ cheeks, “With all that you speak of her, one may think she is your bride, nay your son’s!” He exclaimed with all the poise of a drunkard.
Andromeda twitched, her eyebrows creased, and her eyes grayed.
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“Where are you going?”
It was evening. A dark night had descended, which found Bellatrix in her silk night clothes, a shaky lumos weathering the rain. And in front of her stood Andromeda Laetissia Black in all her glory, towering over Bellatrix, her eyes almost red. Her hair whipped around like coiled chains in the wind, just as Bellatrix imagined hers was.
“With Ted.”
“Who’s Ted?”
“The love of my life, Bel.” Andromeda said, going perfectly still.
“Surely not…Ted Tonks?” Bellatrix said with an aghast gasp, falling a step back.
Movement returned to Andromeda.
“That’s the one, luv,” There was the word again. That accent that she had picked up from that wretched Tonks boy. Why had she not noticed that her eldest sister had changed? She ran a hand through her hair, tamping it, “I will not be sold off like property for a cabinet by the drunkard of a father we have. I won’t. And I won’t have anybody interfere. At all.”
Andromeda’s last words left her mouth and dispelled a magical charge into the air, and it turned a strange red for a second.
Bellatrix stood in front of Andromeda.
In another life, she might’ve just killed her.
In another one yet, she would’ve just left.
But in this one, she smiled, raising her hand into a motion she’d seen Andromeda do to her beloved little mudblood Ted, and waved.
“Goodbye, Andy.”
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The month passed by with quite a lot of breakage of items on Cygnus’ part, a lot of screaming on Druella’s and a mute on Bellatrix’s.
She eyed her mother with the same clear-eyed confusion, and blatant negative, as the woman’s tight, pale face appeared in her frontal view, her dark, dark, blue eyes piercing her yet again.
“Where is she, girl? You had better tell me now, when the deal with those imbecilic Devearuex’s is yet to fall out! We shall be capable of nothing more than gravel on streets, daughter, if you do not tell me where that filthy little whorish bitc-” Drulla does not finish her sentence.
Druella does not finish her sentence, because she finds her neck at the end of Bellatrix’s wand.
It is then that she understands the Bellatrix is not another daughter she can sell. Her wild hair frizzles with magic, and her eyes are rapidly moving from a dark, dark blue to a cutting black to a still brown, and the silence that emanates from her is deafening. Until she speaks, and she is somehow louder than any screaming Druella could produce from her vocal cords, and she eyes her daughter with a suffocating fear and a sense of awe.
“Speak another word of her, and this manor will remember you as nothing more than a small, unworthy, vile speckle of dirt. I swear it.” Her wand seems to sharpen with every syllable, until it is a silver knife at her throat. It draws blood – a sharp line that sits right where the shadow of her face ends.
The wound remains fresh even when she dies, and the three drops of blood that drip onto the manor’s flooring never quite fade out.
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“He’s rising to power, Black. You ought to join him now. Before it’s too late.” Avery’s voice filtered through the muggy atmosphere around her ‘lodgings’ - a spare Black manor that she had somehow tricked into believing that she was the Lady of House Black, not her stupid little father.
In another world, Bellatrix would’ve obsessed over this dark lord. He was everything she believed in, and held those beliefs to the utmost degree. Even as she refused Avery, she held a deep respect for him. But she could not let this respect turn to obsession.
The House Black could not depend on weak little bugs like her parents, and Walburga and Orion disgraced themselves with that son of theirs.
And luckily for her, Andy had taught her that ‘House before Heart’.
Her tapestries had taught her ‘House before Heart’.
Lately, her dreams had been telling her the same things too. And Bellatrix was nothing if not what she trusted the black of her eyelids for.
“You can tell him that it’s a no from me, Avery. And let him know that if he wants to convince me, he might want to do it himself. I bow to no one, especially not someone who believes me so easily won over.” She declared, and she knew she did not sound posh for even one minute – every word she said was a proven and sure thing, tested like hard metal and cold steel.
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Bellatrix sipped her tea, the Pureblood Directory open to the very last page in front of her. It had been her second time reading it cover to cover, which was highly unusual – such activity could be attributed more so towards Narcissa.
Suddenly, she heard a distinct, muffled pop behind her. Her wand was in her hand within the second, and pointed at the cloaked figure in another.
“Reveal yourself.” She said, and her head tilted up slightly.
The cloak fell back, and in front of her stood the glorious Dark Lord, only vaguely human. His features were very snake-like, and she imagined that before whatever it was he had done to become like this, he might’ve been rather handsome.
“Lady Bellatrix Black, I come to you personally to recruit you within my ranks,” He spoke with admirable authority. A shame, truly, that he had none over her.
“And I refuse you. End of the story, Lord. You may leave my manor through the front gate.”
She returned back to reading the book, but she knew the interaction was not over. Her muscles pulled taut, her wand gripped tight, she waited for the next word.
“I must say, I did not expect this. And why is it that you say ‘no’, Lady Black?” He asked, genuine intrigue in his beaded red eyes.
Bellatrix breathed a small sigh,“I am not a follower, nor am I a fanatic, Lord. And I am no Lady, yet. Simply Bellatrix Black.”
“You are wrong, Lady. I understand not why such a shift has occured, but the house magicks have accepted you as their new Lady, and whoever was the previous Lord is no longer,” His cloak floated back into his face, “I will bother you no longer, Lady Black.”
He did not leave through the front gate, and it aggravated her to no end. But finally, finally she could kill her father without being shunned by the magicks.
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Narcissa was not delighted when her parents skip over Bella and move onto her as property to sell. She was not very delighted at all.
She had no idea why she was sitting in the foyer, sitting in front of the same pot-bellied man they had once tried selling her eldest sister to. He looked at her, his grin reaching the corners of his sweaty, fat face, creasing like a crumple of paper.
Narcissa made eye contact with him, as filthy as he was, and immediately he turned away. Afraid. Privately, she thought it was rather funny.
“So, Cygnus, this one won’t vanish?” He said, a tone that she was sure nobody appreciated.
“Rather, Marcius. She shan’t.” He said, and the same whiskey he had was in the same glass, swirling around it as he levitated it down to the table, “Be assured, this one will be enough for your son,” And nothing if not a businessman, “And you, perhaps…?” He added.
Disgust trickled into Narcissa’s mind, revolted at the mere suggestion – her own father, how could he –
The doors to the manor swung open, and for reasons unknown, Narcissa let out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding.
And in stormed Bellatrix Black, with all the silent force of a warrior on the battlefield, and raised her wand in a graceful arc, severing the man’s head from his shoulders. Narcissa saw his blink for a last time as his head fell.
A pregnant silence fell over the room. Narcissa licked her lips, taking a breath in.
She turned to get a look at Bellatrix, and her heart melted at the sight. She had grown up now, for sure, and towered over even Cygnus. Her posture was defiant, and her shoulders cut an angle sharp in the air, and her hair frizzled with magic. Her eyes were a steely grey as she regarded Druella Black as though she were dirt on the bottom of her very expensive boots.
“Cissy, pack your things. I’ve to talk to our dear parents.” Her sister smiled, and the smile sunk into a strong dimple on the right side of her face.
When Narcissa returned, both Druella and Cygnus were gone.
In a minute, so was she.