Chapter Text
In her green cashmere dress, with her cheeks lightly flushed, her big luminous eyes, and her pale curls pinned up out of the way, Cissy feels she might just be the prettiest little girl in all of England. She presses her nose up against the cold glass of the window, watching the bustle of people down below in the garden as they swap handshakes and smiles.
“I don’t know why we’re not allowed to go to the party,” Bella sulks, pacing, “It’s our own house.”
There is no one to look after them. Mother is having Grimble the house-elf alter her dress which is far-too-long-and-tight-around-the-shoulders and Father is running around making sure not to forget things for the grown-ups’ party. Annie sits at the foot of the bed reading a comic called ‘The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle’.
“None of the other children will be there,” Cissy says, though she wishes it weren’t true. She wants to be part of the grown-ups too, with a wonderful pearl necklace and her hair braided atop her head like a mini wedding cake. Longingly, she runs to the stairs and peers down at the winking glasses and twinkling plates being put around the table. More and more things keep on coming, just out of reach. “Mother will be so cross if we go down.”
“I don't care!” Bella grumbles at the same time that Annie says, “We can have our own tea party, can’t we?”
Cissy looks back at her two big sisters. Annie is ten and already sounds more grown-up than twelve-year-old Bella, but Bella is the brightest and Father’s favourite. She looks like Father too, with a tiny aquiline nose and dark, mournful hair that goes all glittery under sunlight. So does Annie, but Annie’s appearance is sweeter and more washed-out — her hair, for example, is not black like Bella’s but the strangest and loveliest colour of almond lady-fingers. Only Cissy takes after Mother.
“Really?” she says, “Can we invite Curse-Breaker Teddy Bear too?”
“And Monkey the Mudblood!”
“What about Goose the Blood Traitor?” Annie is beaming from ear to ear, already prancing about trying to find something shiny to put in her curls.
Cissy doesn’t like Monkey or Goose. They aren’t nearly respectful enough, and Monkey is still missing an arm from that time Father was showing what they could do to Mudbloods who don’t behave. How is Monkey going to hold his teacup?
“They’ll have to sit far away, in exile,” she decides, turning her nose up in a perfect imitation of Mother’s haughtiness. “Curse-Breaker Teddy Bear gets the best seat.”
“You sound just like Mother!” Annie grins, “Goose can have a duel with Teddy Bear after the tea party, how about that?”
In the corner, draped across the arm of a little princess couch, Bella tosses her head back and scoffs. There is a light in her eyes that suggests she’s planning something naughty. Cissy always notices these things, and more — she is always curious, always tactile, watching everything, wanting to touch everything.
“You know,” Bella smirks, “I can show you some real magic now. I’ve been at Hogwarts for a year and a half.”
“You’re not allowed to do magic outside of school,” Cissy replies, “You’ll be in big trouble.”
“Once won’t hurt, Prissy,” Bella croons. “Nobody will find out because we’re purebloods and everyone in this house uses magic anyway. And besides…” She leans forward, propping her chin on the soft flats of her palms. “Everyone knows that Father would never say no to me.”
The idea is incredulous, but it has stuck with Cissy and will not leave her head. All throughout the tea party, she imagines how nice it would be to see some real spells, to go to Hogwarts and be sorted into Slytherin and make Mother proud. The little tea pouch in her porcelain cup has begun to bleed, a thin mossy strand that spirals more and more into the clear water like a spreading smog. When she takes her first sip with her pinkie finger lifted, it is already too bitter for her liking.
After tea-time, Cissy goes to the bathroom to splash cool water onto her face, then wipes her dripping brow with a towel before clambering onto bed with her two sisters. It is late now; the sky is darkening, even as she watches, to a deep asphalt. She can hear the grown-ups’ laughter drifting up the stairs, and someone is playing on the piano. She imagines the sweet smelling, silky, rustling ladies and the men in black with funny tails on their coats, the dinner dishes, which probably include Mother’s favourite — duck breasts with blackcurrant chutney — and thinks mournfully about the pudding Grimble the house elf has prepared for dessert. How she wishes to go down there and watch all the people talking — but she won’t make a silly of herself like that. It would hardly be proper.
Their room is pitch-black except for the little night-light in its saucer on the wall. Cissy isn’t tired.
“Are you asleep, Annie?”
Annie stirs beside her. “No. Are you.”
“No.” Cissy whispers. “Bella? Are you asleep?”
Annie twists around to kick Bella lightly in the shins.
“No, Merlin. Don’t kick me like that, Annie, or I’ll tell Father.”
“You can’t. He said we’re not to leave this room.” says Annie, who seems to have a similar idea, “Are you going to show us your magic or not, Bella? You promised!”
In the darkness Bella jolts from the bed as if enlivened, an apparition moving quickly in these shadowy rounds. Cissy watches her sister rooting around in her school trunk, and soon enough she is being tugged with Annie out into the hallway. The sudden brightness of it all makes her cry and she can’t remember the air ever seeming so cold and rarefied as it is tonight. She has forgotten the little sheer shawl that Mother always tells her to wear ‘most beautifully’.
“What are you doing?” She hisses, “It’ll be so obvious — Mother will see.”
“Don’t be such a baby, Cissy.” Bella huffs, “Trust me. I’m smarter than you, remember?”
Bella can be so cruel, sometimes. The words sting, but Cissy holds onto Annie’s hand and follows her eldest sister down the twisting staircase that leads to the back gardens.
It is the first time Cissy has ever been out so late. Everything looks different — the manor looks smaller and the garden sprawls far bigger than it does in the day. The wind is tough in the dark, snuffling and howling. Bright stars speckle the sky and dabble the hedgerows with a cold and metallic looking silver. She suddenly has the forlorn sensation of being stuck in a dream.
“Look at that stick on the ground. There.” Bella demands, staring at it with her concentrated gaze, “I can make it fly.”
Cissy watches in hollow wonder, still clutching tightly onto Annie’s clammy palm.
“Wingardium Leviosa!” pronounces Bella, and the stick flies from the ground to hit the silver birch tree. She laughs very shrilly, and laughs some more, “Ah-h-h! Just think, Cissy! If only that had been a Mudblood instead.”
Cissy cracks a smile, then laughs, too — she always does the same as other people. But Annie stays rooted in place and crosses her arms, “Is that all, Bella? It wasn’t very exciting. Did you learn nothing else in Hogwarts?”
Bella swivels around to face Annie, furious. “Of course I did!” She is red in the face now, “Lots more. But I’m not going to show you. You don’t deserve it.” Bella smiles cruelly, jutting her chin out, “You wouldn't get it anyway.”
Cissy is impressed. Bella always has a way of spinning the blame outwards, but Annie is seething. She stands toe-to-toe with Bella, her hair just as wild now in the wind, and Cissy thinks they look like twins in the half-shadow, a shocking similarity of manner and bearing that leaves her feeling very left out. How she despises her sisters’ rows!
She thinks they might have to stay there forever until a sound from the house breaks the standoff. Footsteps on the grassy path, followed by Mother’s laughing voice. “Such a pleasure to see you, Walburga. Do give my regards to Orion...”
On instinct — maybe the instinct of a child who has grown up in a house of severity — Bella slaps a hand over Cissy’s mouth and closes her fingers around Annie’s wrist, dragging them down into the thicket. Cissy is suddenly quite, quite still, with wide open eyes and knees pressed together. A little noise bubbles out of her throat in fear. She can feel her heart thumping like a trapped dove against the confines of her ribcage, and she is sure Mother can hear it from all the way on the portico.
“I do hope little Sirius and Regulus are well. You know it is so much harder with boys. Bellatrix and Andromeda are difficult enough to manage.” Mother’s slim figure swans down the steps out into the garden, “Oh, yes, goodnight, dear. Goodnight, have a good night! You must stay longer next time, I have missed you so…”
There is a loud pop of apparition, and then finally Mother is walking back into the hug of awaiting lights, the parlour full of bones and bits and shells and dirty plates and dwindling laughter. They stay hidden in the thicket for a few more minutes until they are sure that the door has clicked shut.
“Next time be quiet, Cissy!” Bella whispers hotly once Mother is out of earshot, “You were squeaking! Did you want Mother to find us, or what?”
“No, I wasn’t!” Cissy protests.
“You were. Like a teapot,” says Bella, and she blows out her lips in emulation. “Eeep! If you’re going to sneak about at night, you must learn not to squeak.”
“I don’t intend to make a habit of sneaking,” Cissy says primly. She feels so improper, all crouched in the dirt like a garden gnome. “Mother would have been so cross if she found out.”
Bella rolls her eyes. “Whatever, Prissy. Stop talking and come on, before someone really does see us.”
The walk back to their room has never felt longer to Cissy. She cannot open her eyes wide enough. She is sure that if she stands still for even one moment she will fall asleep. By the time they get to their room, she is staggering about a bit drunkenly.
“Be careful. Don’t fall,” Annie whispers. “You’ll bang your head and then we’ll really be in trouble.”
It is so late. The clock says eleven pm. Cissy locks their bedroom door shut and drops onto the pillows before rolling over.
“That was fun,” says Bella, kicking off her shoes and flopping onto the bed like a dead weight. The sheets are so nice and cool beneath them.
Cissy lies there staring at the walls, and the little paintings of fairybells and white picotees on them, waiting for the room to stop spinning. “No, it wasn’t. I’m never going to do that again,” she decides without conviction.
“Sure you aren’t,” replies Annie, “Don’t you want to see more? Do more? It’s so boring up here in this little room. Mother never lets us go anywhere.”
Cissy doesn’t think it’s boring up here. Every little girl has rules to follow, after all; it is just the way of the world.
“No, Annie. I think I want to sleep now,” she says softly. She shuts her eyes, but the stars stay like glimmering rings on the dark, innerside of her eyelids. She likes these optical replicas — they are like little ghosts in argentum colours, she thinks. Bella is saying something in response, probably to make fun, but Cissy isn’t listening anymore. Oh, how tired she is… She really does hope that the garden will keep all their secrets.