N-nothing
important. That is, I heard a good deal about a ring, and a dark lord, and
something about the end of the world, but please, sir, don't hurt me. Don't
turn me into anything... unnatural.
J.R.R.
TOLKIEN
“That
doesn’t work, does it?” Narcissa pointed at a sentence in Severus’ homework. He
showed the spell in question to her, and once again, she marvelled at him. He
was only a Second Year, for god’s sake!
Only a
few more weeks to go until the holidays – she had a calendar to cross out the
days – more than two months of peace lay before her – what a blessing! If only
she had known then what she was in for… On the other hand, she couldn’t have
prevented it anyway, so one might say that she was lucky not to know in advance
and fret and ruin the little hope she had. The origin of all the disaster ahead
was in fact a rather happy event, or it would have been happy, had the
circumstances been different, for later that evening, Andy came over to her
sister’s armchair in the Common Room, asking her for a private word in an empty
classroom nearby.
While
striding over there, Andy was beaming madly, and as soon as they had shut the
door behind themselves, she cried out, “There you are, Cissy! Oh, I couldn’t
wait to tell you – I wanted you to be the first one to hear it!”
“You
haven’t got a sneak view at the questions of your NEWTs yet, have you?”
“Oh,
forget about that, dear me! Is that all you can think of? Studying and results,
ts!” Saying thus, she raised her left hand and brandished it in Narcissa’s
face, who winced back.
“What did
I do to be slapped now?!”
“I’m not slapping you, silly girl! Look!”
Look where? Andy kept waving her hand, and at
last, Narcissa spotted a very slim, plain ring of silver that she thought to be new.
She raised her brows and groaned, “Yeah, so what? You’ve got nicer ones!”
“To be
sure, I have not!”
“But it’s
boring! Did you find that in a Christmas cracker?”
Andy put
on a sulk and pressed her lips tightly. “That’s an engagement ring, you daft
cow! They do look like that!”
The
message took some seconds to sink in. Engagement ring – engagement – engagement meant wanting to get married – marrying whom – marrying Ted, obviously… She
nodded slowly. “Aha –”
“Isn’t it
wonderful? Oh, Cissy! I could sing and dance all day long, it was so romantic!”
Narcissa
had no sense for romance and smirked.
“Awww. Did he fall down to his knees or something?”
“As a
matter of fact, he did,” Andy said tersely. “And spare me your sarcasm, will
you?”
“No, I’m
very happy for you. He’s a nice fellow, I’m sure. I’m just not into that whole
falling-to-one’s-knees business, you know…” It wasn’t as if Narcissa hadn’t
seen this coming, still she felt not entirely prepared when gazing at her elder
sister’s hand now. Nothing impressive when one knew her other jewellery, but
Andromeda beamed at it as if it was the Ring of the Nibelungs itself. “Dear,”
she tried tentatively, “Look, I’m not certain that our parents will approve of
–”
“Do you
have to throw cold water over every good thing, Cissy?”
“Not at
all. All I meant to say is that your felicity may come a little early.”
“And why
should that be? I’m engaged! How
could I not be happy?”
“By
remembering that your fiancé is likely never to be invited to our house.”
Andromeda’s
face darkened considerably, and she hissed, “Curse them if they don’t approve!”
“Andy!”
“No! I’m in love,
Ted loves me too, we’re going to marry – if my own parents can’t be happy for
me, they can bugger off!”
“Andy!
You mustn’t speak like that! So – uh – what do
Papa and Maman say?”
“I
haven’t told them yet – didn’t you listen? You
are the very first one to hear!”
Narcissa
frowned and bit her lip. “Well, in that
case you shouldn’t print the invitations yet, should you? After Papa’s died of
a cardiac arrest, you can’t get married within the mourning period!”
“Oh,
he’ll get over it. For Christ’s sake, in which century are they living,
anyhow?”
“You
remember what happened with Aunt Cedrella, do you?”
“I’m
their bloody daughter, what are they
supposed to do?”
“Disown you
– never talk to you again – curse you – try and kill Ted,” Narcissa suggested
off the cuff, finding the whole idea less and less favourable. Their father was after all pretty old, his views were
old-fashioned and his heart weak. Surely Andy didn’t want to kill him, right?
“Oh,
don’t be so melodramatic, Cissy! Kill Ted, right! And spend the rest of his old
age in Azkaban or what?”
“He might
still prefer that from having a daughter marry a Muggleborn Hufflepuff –”
“Oh,
rubbish! He’ll throw a tantrum – or ten – and will get used to the idea then.
No probs,” Andy growled, not sounding very convinced herself. “I thought I’ll
tell them when they come here for my graduation ceremony.”
Narcissa
gave a feeble laugh. “So while you’re holding your laureate speech, our mother
will cry her eyes out and everyone will assume she is moved by the occasion?”
“Something
like that, yeah –”
“Good
luck, Andy, I don’t think it’ll go all that smoothly. And don’t count on Bella
being your bridesmaid. It’d be such an embarrassment, when the bridesmaid
scratches the bride’s eyes out!”
Andromeda
sniggered, but it didn’t sound amused. “But you, you will stick up for me,
right?”
“Sure.
But what good will it possibly do?”
“You’re
their little favourite, Cissy! They do listen to you!”
“Oh, get
real, Andy! Maman will listen to me when it’s about choosing a wallpaper
design, and Papa will listen to me when I play the piano and that’s it! You
don’t seriously believe that anything I
could say about you marrying a Muggleborn will make any difference!”
Lost in
thought, she returned to the dormitory that night, her insides churning with
dark premonitions. Their parents not
having a fit was as unlikely as a month full of Sundays, the only question was how bad
that fit would be. Andromeda wasn’t the first one in the family to marry
‘beneath’ her, there was quite a list of aunts and uncles that no one ever
mentioned, because they had married Muggles or even supported the wrong
political party.
Andy was
right in one respect – she was their
daughter, and Mr and Mrs Black were very attached to their children. They
wouldn’t just cast her out, would they? Narcissa realised she had never given
this matter much thought, after learning about her sister’s relationship to a
Muggleborn. She had sensed that their parents would not be pleased and had consequently avoided betraying the secret, but that
was all. Ted wasn’t Andy’s first boyfriend. Narcissa had simply assumed that,
like his predecessors, he wouldn’t last. Andy was right in another respect, too
– Narcissa was their parents’ favourite, perhaps because she was the youngest
of the three, perhaps because she was the most compliant. She had never refused
any of their demands and wishes, had eagerly practised the piano and the harp and
voluntarily learnt just about anything that they considered suitable for a
‘young lady’.
But, just
as a matter of interest, what would happen if she ever chose to marry a Muggleborn? Would all her accomplishments
make up for such a choice? Not that she had anyone in mind – if one asked for her opinion, matrimony was out of the
question. She took no interest in boys, they were all such terrible idiots, and
who was the greater idiot – the idiot, or the idiot getting married to one?
Anyway…
“Who’s
put a fly in your potion?” Martha
asked when she entered the dorm.
“Mind
your own business,” Narcissa retorted without the tiniest bit of humour, threw
herself onto her bed and jinxed the curtains shut.
She felt
like the burden of carrying this secret was more than she could bear. Suddenly,
she faced something far more serious than her usual annoyance about Perpetua’s
snoring, Martha’s nosiness, Yaxley’s insolent come-ons, or the fact that she
was hopelessly bored with her classes. She was fond of Andy, she didn’t want to
lose her. Neither did she want her parents to be upset, nor… Good Lord, in
times like these! What was Andy thinking?
If one could believe some of the rumours (which weren’t all completely made-up!), they were facing another war, and this
time, it wouldn’t just be some rebellious goblins disturbing the peace…
In one of
her rare letters, Bella had called it a ‘wake-up call for the wizarding
community’. Narcissa had overheard Evan telling Lucius that Mr Rosier was a
high-ranking member of this new, secret society that everyone whispered about,
but she had assumed that Evan had simply been bragging like usually. Even Mr
Black, normally not prone to believe just anything, had mentioned something
like this when she had been home for Easter. What had he said? Narcissa racked
her brains – she hadn’t listened too closely then, she found politics boring.
‘I’m not saying I agree with his agenda, but that wizard has some right ideas,
and the people will fall for it.’ Something like that…
‘That
wizard’ was some warlock who had only recently returned to England, no one
really knew who he was and a whole lot of legends were linked to his true
origin. Some said he was the last descendant of Salazar Slytherin himself,
probably because his stated objective was getting rid of the non-pure elements
in the wizards’ community. Others made him appear like some sort of perverted
Jesus figure, the fatherless saviour coming to save them all. What was
seemingly true however was that he had gathered enough followers to found some
kind of ‘Dark Order’ – Dark because they all were devoted to the Dark Arts,
which had got a bad name among wizards in the last hundred years.
Narcissa
had never quite understood that distinction. The Dark Arts – what was that,
anyway? It was a certain brand of magic, more dangerous than the normal stuff,
but then again, also the common spells could cause great damage, if applied in
the wrong way or with ill will. She found them mildly interesting, simply
because she was bored out of her mind in this school, and the Dark Arts would
at least have been some sort of challenge. But their Headmaster wouldn’t have
it, he didn’t even allow most books in the library that dealt with them. Even
now, facing a threat like that Dark Order, people still recoiled, instead of
just learning Dark spells themselves. Which was stupid. Know your enemy, know
his weapons. ‘If you know both yourself and your enemy, you will come out of
one hundred battles with one hundred victories. If you only know yourself, but
not your opponent, you win one and lose the next.’* How would they conceive a war with
so much less effective means?
And that
war was to come, perhaps it had truly started already. People were missing,
others had been found dead for no obvious reason. These people had one thing in
common – they were either of Muggle origin, or somehow connected to Muggles, or
openly supported Muggles and Muggleborns. Narcissa wondered whether anyone had
bothered to research how many plain Muggles had in fact perished so far.
She
didn’t care much; there had always been wars and there would always be. Not
that she approved of this fact, but what use was to fret about things that one
could not influence anyway? It had nothing to do with her, she had thought, she was no Muggle after all, she was no
Muggleborn, and she hardly knew anyone who could be considered to be in danger.
Until now. Her older sister was about to become Mrs Muggleborn, which put her
into peril, just like her soon-to-be husband and every possible offspring of
that relation. Hadn’t she thought of that? Couldn’t she see the corner into
which she was manoeuvring herself there? Did she want to be the next one found
dead?
Lying on
her bed, she got another notion – what about little Severus? He had a Muggle father, too – did that
put him in danger as well? No one right in their mind who had witnessed even
just some of his spell work could believe him to be any less worthy than all
the purebloods around, some of whom were so moronic that they rather resembled
trolls than human beings. The same was true for Andy and her new fiancé, but did these Dark Order folks
make such subtle distinctions?
* From: Sun Tze, ‘The Art Of War’
*****
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