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Format: Novella
Chapters: 2
Word Count: 3,783
Status: WIP
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Mild Language, Scenes of a Sexual Nature, Substance Use or Abuse
Genres: Drama, Romance, Angst
Characters: Sirius, Andromeda, Bellatrix, Lucius, Narcissa
Pairings: Sirius/OC, James/Lily, Lucius/Narcissa, Other Pairing
First Published: 03/28/2010
Last Chapter: 10/23/2010
Last Updated: 10/23/2010
Summary:
The life of Narcissa Black. The known. The unknown. The never-told.
Breathtaking Banner by Lady Malfoy @ TDA
A/N: All you recognise belongs to the great JK. Rowling.
Please remember to leave a review!
Mmm. So, you want to know about my life?
Beautiful... rich... and aristocratic, the youngest daughter of Black. I'm infinitely curious as to what you think of me and how you imagine my life to be...
I must warn you, while love and riches intertwine, this is hardly a tale of romance. I can’t promise happy endings...
Still interested? Well let’s get on with it then. Tea? No? Suit yourself.
Let's talk about Family.
Family is all that you have when the world perishes around you. For most that may be true. But the world where I lived in, the family I came from was very different in every way imaginable.
If you weren’t loyal, you didn’t exist.
One may wonder what it may be like to be a Black...
Riches beyond imaginable. Nobility, they recognised our class wherever we may roam in the wizarding world. A Gringotts vault at the age of 15. But above all power. Power unseen by many. The power to overturn fate. Sounds inviting, does it not?
Born to one of the richest and most powerful bloodlines, the youngest of three daughters, everyone believed that I was the perfect prize.
They believed I was loved the best and doted upon the most. The way I perceived it, I was brought up to perfect the mistakes of my sisters. I was taught since a young age to be more strong-willed, more graceful, more beautiful, more charming, more independent and most importantly more proud of my birthright as a Black.
The Blacks were near royalty, the high elites in the wizarding community. As if you didn't know! If you lived under a rock you’d still hear the name in passing.
So come my 11th birthday I recieved a gift, an offer that would change my life:
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
It was there I would learn to harness the magic coursing through my veins, where I would reinvent myself, where I would become everything I am to be, a witch.
A Pure Blooded Slytherin witch.
Not long ago parents from our family sent off their loving children to school knowing they will make them proud and become part of the new generation of Slytherins.But all that changed with a certain Mr. Black.
Sirius Alphard Black defied the sacred tradition of Slytherins by pleading to be housed under Gryffindor, their sworn enemy. I was 9 years old when I heard the story of how the young Black had shamed our legacy. How his mother stayed in bed for weeks after hearing the news and how his father locked himself up in his study, ashamed to face the world.
As the months passed the other Slytherin elders feared for their own children, feared that they would follow the unholy footsteps of the vile Sirius Black.
Being Blacks, our parents feared most of all. Children of our age born to our families were bribed with many riches or threatened with much force to never defy the great Salazar Slytherin.
I remember my mother came to my room the day I was to leave for Hogwarts. She gave me a family heirloom that belonged to my Grandmother. A locket with green emeralds encrusted into the front in intricate patterns around a large golden S. I remember admiring it as a child sitting on her lap. I was told I will recieve it on my fifteenth birthday as an honour for being part of the Black generation. But instead they gave it to me before departing to Hogwarts to remind me where I belonged.
I remember riding the train that day thinking all the while of one thing. There was only one place I belonged. In Slytherin.
Like the rest of my family I would take up my place in the House of Slytherin, the greatest of all founders and declare my faithfulness to my predetermined fate.
During my first year I was Bella’s apprentice. Bellatrix is my oldest sister, the family favourite. She loved me very much. Under her wings the rest of the Slytherins respected me, even though I was so young.
We were the most beautiful of the Black sisters, everyone said. Beautiful in very different ways. My mother adored my appearance since I was a child. She said my hair would shame a Veela, that my skin flushed the colour of roses and that my eyes were as clear as the sea after a storm. She said these eyes alone would vex any man I unleashed them upon.
Bella's beauty was in her dark unfathomable eyes and her playful charming smile. Her high cheek bones, sharp features and long sheet of silken black hair made a her the object of interest of many high born boys. Yet she never paid them so much as a sideways glance. She had the Slytherins eating out of her hand and she was training me to take over her reign once she left school.
Andromeda my second older sister, was merely a shadow of Bella’s beauty. She made her stance in academic excellence, always the top of her class and a Prefect well on her way to becoming Head Girl. Though the love my parents had for her was stolen by large by Bellatrix, among our Aunts and Uncles Andra was the clear favourite.
I was always the young silent one. The one that mostly lingered in the background where I observed while I let my sisters take the spotlight. Obeying the orders of my parents and following my sisters’ footsteps, I didn't battle them for my parent's love. I didn't battle them for academics. I didn't want them against me.
I simply wanted to learn to take command of the different worlds they both had conquered. I watched quietly as my parents praised them for their achievements. Be it academic or otherwise.
I watched as I was sure that when the time came I would outshine them all.
No matter how much we loved each other as sisters we were always internally at war.
For the fact remained that only one of us could be known in history as the greatest Black Bride, the highest honour that could be given to a family that had fathered all daughters.
Since we were all women with no male heir to the family heirlooms and a pure bloodline, it was time to show them all that the little sister was much more powerful than they ever dreamed possible.
Basically, it was open season.
......................
I hope you got a feeling of how Narcissa thinks and acts. This is just a prologue next chapter will be longer :)
Kindly Review!
Thanks for reading xx
A/N: 1.This has been written for a while but didn't get editing done so sorry for the delay.
2. There is a bit of deviation from canon in this story where I presume the Black sisters to be in school during the Marauder's school going era although not in the same year.
Also to that fact, deviating from canon this story's Narcissa is younger than the Marauders.
Other than that I've tried to keep everything very close to canon. I hope my imagination of Cissa agrees with you :)
Please read and review!
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Warm... soft...wet.
His tongue slid slowly down along my neck, his breathing harsh and violent against my skin. My own breathing came in gasps as I struggled to breathe while he pinned me down on the couch. We were getting carried away in our own worlds, our fingers grasping at fistfuls of each other’s hair. His kisses travelled up to my mouth again and I parted my lips welcoming his probing tongue.
If there was one thing Dorian Pucey knew how to do, it was to kiss.
His hand travelled along my thigh, grazing the lacy stockings and his fingers disappeared under the hem of my skirt. His other hand gently pulled my neck as he deepened the kiss further, softly distracting me while his expert fingers undid the clasp on my suspenders.
Crash.
Suddenly there was a sound of breaking china. We pulled apart quickly, staring at each other. My eyes searched the room which was still empty. I pushed Dorian slowly and slid out from underneath him. While I got up off the couch he groaned falling into the comfortable cushions. I narrowed my eyes at him as I pulled on my dress still wondering about the intrusion. The sound had probably come from the room next door so I tip toed across the carpet where our shoes were abandoned after getting back home from the Ministry of Magic Gala.
I leaned against the large polished door of the library trying to listen to the argument beyond it.
The voices echoed in the large space of the drawing room.
“How could you even think of such a thing! The shame!”
“Please, be calm-”
“Calm!? CALM?! Do you even realise what this will do to our family!? We will be outcasts! Do you think of no one but yourself? How could you even think of this! I cannot even fathom... You were always the responsible one, the one who made the most prudent choices and always held up the family honour. You never disappointed us! Now you talk of such repulsive affairs! Where has your sense disappeared to!”
“Do not be so alarmed mother!”
“Listen close my child, this is no longer a discussion! You will never as long as you are my child enter into such an unholy alliance! The shame! How are we to show our faces in society again!?”
“With all due respect dear mother, that is no longer your decision”
I could not understand what was happening in the other room. I crouched and leaned closer against the door. I felt a hand on my back, Dorian who had gotten bored had come over to investigate what was more interesting than him.
“What’s going on?” he whispered.
“Shhh!”
We both listened intently as conversation resumed again beyond the library door.
“You have been given everything, everything you could ever ask for! Why would you defy l us this way? What have we done wrong? Answer me!”
“Mother please! This is not a personal vendetta against you or Papa! Please please try to understand? This is something I must do... for me”.
“Enough! This blasphemy is not to be spoken of again! It ends tonight! Andra as long as you are my daughter and as long as you live under this roof you are never to see that boy again! Do I make myself clear?”
The room was silent although the last words reverberated across the walls. I waited wide eyed listening to my sister.
“I’m sorry mother, I can’t do that” her voice was quiet and shaky and yet it was strong... final.
“This is not a joke Andromeda! You must choose what is good for you, your family who provides and comforts your every need or a street whelp without two Sickels in his pocket?”
Stupid foolish girl! Andromeda was always too strong-willed. Grandmother Irma always said she’d be in trouble because of this. I knew my sister, and I knew she would never agree.
I slid my face along the door so I could see through the key hole where my sister faced my mother with an impossible choice to make. Her long dark brown hair cascaded down to her waist. Her lip trembled as she mustered her courage and finally let loose her folded hands.
“If you forbid me to behold the one person who gives me true happiness, then I cannot belong here. If I choose to disagree to your demands and thus become outcast then perhaps you may not have loved me as dearly as you say.”
Gentle tears streamed down her face but she didn’t wipe them away. She held her head up, steadfast as she always did.
I yearned to burst into the room to comfort my sister, to urge her to rethink things and see that her choice will surely destroy her life, but I was bound where I sat by my curiosity of what would happen next.
“Mother I love him. No force nor being could ever change that and if I cannot be with him while under your roof then I have no choice” she paused for a moment “I hereby sever all association with this family.”
I gasped clapping a hand to my mouth. “No!” there was no voice as the exclamation escaped me.
My mother had lost her voice. Her eyes were permanently widened as she stared in shock at her eldest daughter who had just chosen a boy over her.
“Forgive me”
Andromeda removed the locket with the Black family crest upon it and laid it on the mahogany table beside the surviving tea cups. She turned swiftly and left without a word and the sound of her footsteps on the stairs faded away.
****
I sat there crouched on the carpet while a long solitary minute ticked away on the large grandfather clock in the room I spied on. My mother was breathing heavily, out of anger or the pain of losing her daughter I couldn’t tell. She clutched her chest, her face still a mask of disbelief.
I whipped around to face Dorian. My fingers barely grazed across the lace seam of my dress but the next second my wand tip was at his throat.
Dorian looked surprised and scared but he narrowed his eyes facing me defiantly.
“You are never, never, to speak of this to anyone!” I pressed my wand tip into his flesh “Am I understood?”
Dorian gave me sheepish smirk “Fine”.
Although Dorian was possibly the best kisser of the fourth year student body he was also well known to be the place where all rumours began.
“Get out” I said quietly but urgently.
“Fine” he responded again. It was understood that our relationship was over on my terms. He gathered his coat and shoes and slipped out of the other door into the hall.
****
I knocked softly against the door of my sister’s bedroom and pushed it open. Two large suitcases lay open on a large queen sized bed. The clothes left the open mahogany closet one by one and folded themselves before fitting into a neat pile inside the suitcase.
Her unmatched skill at charms and such were always painfully evident when she managed such tasks with perfection and ease neither Bella nor I had ever managed. It was one of those things that gained her praising glances from both our parents and I hated that.
She sat in front her dressing table with the three large mirrors reflecting her downcast eyes as she sifted through the contents of a jewellery box I’d seen only once before. I knew she kept her treasured souvenirs in it.
Every Christmas she would dare Bella and I to find it. To this day we had never succeeded.
Her long deep brown hair flowed elegantly to the middle of her back. She had tied it in place. I assumed from her long grey overcoat that was slung over the armrest of her favourite reading chair that she was indeed serious about her departure.
I was confused, I couldn’t understand. She was forbidden to see the unworthy brat she’d fallen in love with. She’d chosen the evidently poor misfit instead of her family. He wouldn’t be able to support her. She had no real job or source of income since being disowned by her family would mean she cannot access her own vault. She would wither away to nothingness in no time. She would lose everything she had worked for since she was a child and still, she looked... happy.
“Have you come to convince me to stay” she questioned my reflection on the mirror, her unique sisterly smile on her face.
“No”
I stepped into the room as the last of her clothes folded themselves neatly into her suitcases, the numerous books fitted snugly into the empty spaces and the lids closed on them with a snap of the clasps.
Andra got up and walked toward me. She had a horribly ordinary set of muggle clothes on and yet in them she looked beautiful.
“This is for you” she pulled my hand and placed a diamond encrusted flower brooch on my palm.
It was a gift she had received when she was sorted into Slytherin, similar to my sapphire silver combs and Bella’s black pearl necklace. They were gifts that the family offered to their children which will someday become an heirloom for their own.
But Andra was no longer a part of our family and she willingly gave away the one thing that signified her part in it.
She smiled at my confusion, “What’s wrong?”
“Why?” I asked her, unable to hold it in any longer.
“Why am I choosing him?” She looked at me with eyes full of mixed emotion. I only recognised one of them. Pity.
Why did she feel pity towards me? She was the one who was losing everything for a lost cause. Why do I need to be pitied?
“How could you just... throw all of it away?” my voice was harsh, as if I questioned her sanity, so I tried to tone it down. “Don’t you realise you’re letting go of everything you’ve ever wanted since you were eight years old? You’re just a shy away from having it all. I don’t... understand the choice you’re making. Andra if you walk out those doors, you have no future. How can that fail to bother you the slightest? How could be so calm , so... happy?”
The words came out of my mouth just as I realised it. She was happy. Her eyes glowed and her face had colour I’d not seen in a long while.
Andra smiled again and kissed my forehead.
“My darling Cissy, you are so naive...” she stared into my eyes and again I saw only pity. I clenched my teeth.
“Of all the things that the fame, ideals, power and riches of this family had done to you and Bella, by far the worst is blinding you to true love. I hope with all my heart that somehow, someday both of you will have the courage to find it for yourselves. Because then, you will understand why I am making this choice today. There are some things in this world even magic cannot gain Cissy” she hugged me to her and I lay my head on her shoulder.
Although her words bordered lunacy at best I couldn’t help but feel a morsel of sisterly love towards the girl who’d always been more of a mother than a big sister.
There was a timid knock on the door. It creaked open again and Gluntes our aged house-elf stood there. He bowed in curtsey.
“Madame, carriage arrived outside. Shall I be taking Madame’s luggage downstairs?”
“I shall manage on my own, thank you Gluntes”.
The elf bowed again and left.
Andra pulled me away from the hug and kissed my forehead again.
“Be good, Cissy. The good life is rewarding” she smiled once more.
I simply nodded.
“Will you write?” I doubted she would but I asked none the less.
“To school, perhaps”
She pulled out her wand and the suitcases slid off the bed onto the floor and dragged themselves out the door. With her direction the covers on her bed folded themselves neatly and the pillows fluffed themselves. The thick gold curtains drew close across the window.
The last of her belongings including her childhood toys left the shelves and packed themselves into the two large boxes at the foot of her bed. The drawer on her dresser pulled out and emptied into the purse on her reading chair. Her infamous jewellery box packed itself into one of the boxes which then sealed themselves shut.
It was disturbing how quickly a beautiful room could lose its lustre and become eerily empty and forlorn
The lights left the lamps and zoomed into her wand and the room was thrown into darkness. She pulled the door closed as we stepped out into the hall.
I held my sister’s hand while we walked down the staircase to the front doors. Her luggage had already preceded her to the carriage.
Bella, who had had liberal amounts of Firewhiskey at the Gala slept it off in blissful sleep on the cough at the bottom of the stairs. Andra walked over to her and kissed her forehead too in a wordless goodbye.
It was fortunate however that Bella didn’t get to voice her farewell because it was unlikely to be as modest as mine.
I wanted to see the face of the human who was so important to my sister waiting by the carriage, but she released my hand before we reached the entrance. It was her way of saying goodbye without hurting my feelings.
I knew she was right. I rejected the world she now clung to. My sister was the only part of that world I cared for.
In a matter of minutes she’d waved her last goodbyes and shed her parting tears and stepped into the carriage.
The horses galloped soundlessly pulling the carriage with it and disappeared into dark night air.
I stood there by the front door wondering as she walked out of our lives if the hollow feeling I felt in the pit of my stomach was permanent or short lived.
I wondered what I would feel when I saw her again. I would see her again wouldn’t I?
I wondered if the pain of parting for my mother was greater than my own.
I wondered what Papa would say when he found out about Andra, if any words should escape him at all. Of all of us Papa loved Andra the most.
Andromeda was gone. Her room was now dark and empty.
I climbed the staircase alone and reached the top landing flicking my wand as I went extinguishing the lamps. I stood next to the top floor window overlooking the street. It was just as empty and dark as ever.
I felt the sadness deep and cutting inside me. I felt the anger, anguished and twisting within me at her choice. But there was something else inside me... a feeling I didn’t recognise. I breathed slowly and in a sudden rush of the devil rising inside me the feeling became too real... recognisable.
Triumph.
I flicked my wand and the last lamps of the hallway snuffed out with a soft hiss.
One down. One to go.
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