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Chapter 30

Narcissa wants security

A l o n e

(because everyone knows how she hates to be)

The fire dances in the chimney merrily, casting shadows upon the silk emerald carpet.

"It's so pretty," Narcissa thinks, but she would never word it.

Her hand quivers slightly as she writes.

Dear Santa,

The penmanship is not hers – it is shaky and upright, Druella would be ashamed.

She tears it up into shreds, and sets a new piece of parchment on the glass coffee table.

The fire hurls a glow across her pale, pale face – it is orange and yellow and happy – not at all right for her.

Dear Santa,

She rolls her eyes. How childish she is being! If Bellatrix was here, she'd slap her little sister, and scold her for believing in great magic other than the Dark Lord. If Andromeda was here… well, Narcissa doesn't want to think about that. Andromeda is a blood traitor, therefore she cannot be thought about. Andromeda has cut ties with the Black family; therefore she is no longer her sister.

She cannot stand to think about it, anyway. Andromeda was always the nicer one, the one who shared secrets and spells with her. Bella was always so busy with her magic, experimenting with her wand and potions.

Thinking again, she raises her quill.

Dear Santa,

But the letters she longs to write would not flow through her long beautiful fingers, would not be said through her full, luscious pink lips.

(Black life has frozen her delicate fingers, silenced her petty words.)

Gone. The word hit her like a Crucio.

That's what her parents were, buried deep in the ground – royal ground, in fact, the Graveyard of Black. They would never again sit stiffly at the dinner table and lecture her posture and manners, or criticise on her choice of robe, or even sniff slightly at her forgotten-to-brush-but-nevertheless-still-lovely hair.

That's where Bellatrix was, away from her and at the Dark Lord's side, probably kissing the hems of his robes and feeding him firewhisky, she thinks bitterly, but then quickly stops herself for thinking so – Bellatrix is a true Black, pure and loyal to the end. Even if she didn't love Rodolphus or have any children to bear the name, or even stay to scourgify the house in the name of Black, Bella is always right.

That's where Andromeda is, hiding from the Blacks, no longer one herself. Narcissa remembers the day she eavesdropped on her parents, that Andromeda was no longer going to return, that she had married a Mudblood named Tonks, that she was a disgrace and no longer a Black. She had felt pain, hot-burning anger that day for her sister, but now she could do nothing but long for Andi's homecoming.

That's where Sirius and Regulus and Aunt Walburga and Uncle Orion and everyone else who had always been near her were. Sirius was in hiding, Regulus had disappeared, Walburga was in the hospital, and Orion dead.

She stands up, and walks to the fireplace. "Well, I guess it's just you and me now," she thinks, to the flames, sighing.

The fire flickers and dies.

(She is all alone)

She longs to feel her mother's presence, demanding and yelling, but nevertheless there for her. She longs to hear Bellatrix shrieking at her, and Andromeda whispering in her ear. She longs to see Sirius pulling pranks on Aunt Walburga and Uncle Orion, see Regulus perceive Sirius's every move.

(But no one is there)

All she wants is people surrounding her, taking care of her as they always did since she was a child. If only she could put it in words.

By Avindara Nirvene