14Summary: This was supposed to be a one shot fluff of how Narcissa Black and Lucius Malfoy fell in love. It evolved into the origin stories of all three Black Sisters coming of age. The first half isn't fluffy at all. The second half will far more light hearted. Hope you enjoy.
WARNING: This is rated M for a reason. There is non-consent in this story, torture, and dark themes of family/child abuse. And additional sexual content and swearing. I do not condone non-consensual acts in reality, this is fiction.
Prologue - Sisters Three
If there was anyone more feared, more dangerous, or more lethal than the Black Sisters, then there was no one living left to recall a name.
Perhaps one might list Tom Riddle, Pollux Black, Abraxas Malfoy, or even Walburga Black. But those figures were defined by the power they wielded over others. What was Riddle without his Death Eaters? What was Pollux and Abraxas without their fortunes? What was Walburga without the limits she drove her young sons to?
No, as individuals, as witches of power in their own right, there was no one who walked the halls of Hogwarts as terrible as the Sisters Black. Even Albus Dumbledore steered clear of them, turning a blind eye to their victims.
Andromeda Black was the mastermind, Bellatrix Black was the hammer, and Narcissa Black was the sweet kiss of death to silence your screams in the dark. When they walked the halls, people -students, professors, and ghosts bent over backward to get out of their way.
It was only natural, after all, the myriad of students who had turned up in the hospital wing too scared to speak about their attackers was nearly as large as the number of students too scared to seek help out of any kind.
No one had died yet, the key word being yet. Though it seemed only a matter of time, and every student seemed desperate not be the 'until now.'
It would be incorrect to call the Black Sisters bullies. Bully implied children doing cruel things to other children. The things the Black Sisters came up with were not the acts of children. Terrorists, was likely the more apt term for what they were.
And what they were, was ruthless, sadistic, and above all else -bored.
Bellatrix's Seventh Year
Bella lounged on the library table, her booted feet resting on the stacks. Her skirts were quite inappropriately bunched at her waist, spilling over the side of the table. Any sense of decency was either saved or utterly ruined by the pair of tight leggings she wore under her skirts.
Nobody complained. The last prefect who thought to speak up had found the side of their cheek grown upward into the side of his ear. They had needed to go to St. Mungo's where the healers had to do a muggle style surgery and then regrow the flesh.
The little prefect knew better than to talk to a Black much less accuse a Black sister of anything again.
"I'm bored," Bella whined.
Andromeda threw a book at her head, which Bella caught on reflex, "Read, you dunderhead, you won't pass your NEWTs by scaring the proctors like you did during your OWLs."
"Only because we haven't met them yet," Narcissa quipped, flipping lazily through a book on magical creatures.
"Damned foreigners," Bella agreed, as she peeked into the book about Defense Against the Dark Arts. A useless subject in her estimation. The best way to defend against the Dark Arts was by using deadlier Dark Arts.
"The old coot definitely hired them to get back at us," Andromeda agreed. She sighed at the redundant text, "How the hell can these books be standard? These potions never come out right and Herpo the Foul isn't dead because he-"
"Shhhh-" Cissa hushed her. "Honestly, Drom, you have no regard for secrets."
Andromeda threw up her hands, "Like wizards ever care what we have to say."
"Oh, we will make them hear us," Bella said, twisting off the table into a seat beside Cissa in a liquid movement. "And when I graduate, either Lestrange listens to me, or I am torturing him to death."
"The Lestranges," Andromeda hissed.
Both she and Bella were engaged to the Lestrange brothers. Bella would be married at some date after graduation, and Narcissa's groom to be would be decided over this summer.
"My children will never have an arranged marriage. I don't care what I have to do, I don't care if I have a child who wants to marry a half-blood. I will not force them to marry a stranger," Narcissa vowed.
Bella scrunched her nose, "I am not having children."
Neither Andromeda nor Narcissa tried to dissuade her, it was well understood and agreed upon that among Bella's strengths, child rearing was not among them.
"Well, I'm sure you will be a wonderful aunt," Andromeda said pleasantly.
Narcissa chuckled, "Or we will skin you."
Bella glared at them both for the implication, "I don't understand why either of you wants children."
"Lots and lots of children," Narcissa and Andromeda said unison, then laughed.
Bella frowned, "Why?" It was perhaps the only thing she did not understand about her sisters.
"Because Bells," Andromeda said, "Our children will be our family. Father, Uncle, Grandfather, Mother, and Auntie can go turn themselves. When we start our own families, we get to make the rules. No one can dictate anything to us."
"Except our husbands," Bella said softly.
Andromeda reached across the table to hold Bella's hand, "We will do away with the Lestrange brothers and anyone else unworthy."
Narcissa placed her hand on their hands, "No one will ever be worthy of us."
Andromeda sighed, "I guess we will have to settle for pretty and good in bed."
They laughed.
Several hours after studying they made their way to the great hall for the great hall.
First years squeeked as they jumped out of their path, as did the seventh years. At the Slytherin table, they were hailed as queens; welcomed, feared, and adored.
Lucius Malfoy, one of the brave enough to address any of the sisters directly, made eye contact with Andromeda across the table, "Are you ready for your OWLs, Black?"
Andromeda leaned forward across the table, and batted her large brown eyes, "You need to ask, Malfoy?"
Andromeda and Lucius were top of their year. She was ahead of him in potions and he was ahead of her runes.
Bella was top of her year along with the unmentioned, veritable genius Edward Tonks. But Bella had slipped the mudblood a little something, to ensure that his marks did not surpass hers.
Perhaps it was cheating, but the filth had proclaimed himself a potions master, and in Bella's reckoning if you could poison a potions master then they weren't a master in the field. Liars deserved fires. He would not be attending his charms test the next morning.
"Perhaps not. I hear Heir Black is coming to Hogwarts next year?" the blonde wizard remarked.
All three sisters couldn't help but shift in their seats.
Siri was slowly going crazy living with Auntie Walberga. Uncle Orion's way of mediating their conflicts was less than helpful.
"He will make a fine addition to Slytherin House, I hear he's already quite powerful," he continued.
Bella exchanged a look with Andromeda. It was true that Siri was powerful, as it was equally true that his chances of getting sorted into Slytherin were growing slimmer by day. Sirius had taken it upon himself to contradict anything his mother told him to do, no matter the punishment.
If he was by some slim chance sorted into Slytherin, Black or no, it would mark the ruin of Slytherin House.
"What is it?" Lucius asked them, catching onto their mood.
"Nothing," Andromeda said smoothly, "Sirius is quite powerful, almost as strong as his force of will."
And his ability to endure punishment, Bella thought. And though she had never personally tortured her little cousins, she had seen it done often enough. Reggie was rarely on the receiving end of Auntie's temper, he complied with anything and everything that was asked of him, humbly and meekly.
Siri was anything but meek.
Lucius turned his attention to Bella, "Excited about your wedding?"
She bared her teeth at him.
His lips curled in response, "Good thing both the Lestrange boys graduated ahead of you."
"Why would you say that?" Andromeda asked innocently.
"Something tells me they would not have escaped these halls unharmed," the blonde said.
He wasn't wrong.
Andromeda found Ted collapsed in the room of requirement. Today, he had missed their last day of herbology. Andromeda hadn't found an excuse to look for him sooner.
"Ted!" she exclaimed.
He groaned.
Relief swam through her as she fell to her knees beside him. She took his pulse before she rolled him to face the ceiling in order to get his face off the floor.
"What did you do?" she hissed, checking him over for wounds. It had to be poison, had to be.
"Bloody balls," she cursed, she hadn't brought her potions kit with her, she needed, she needed-
A besour appeared on the floor within reach of her hand.
She seized it and shoved it into Ted's slack jaw. He was conscious even if his eyes were disturbingly rolled back into his head.
She cupped a hand over his mouth and pinched his nose, his body accepted the besour she had shoved in the back of his throat. A moment later he was sitting up coughing and shaking, but fine, safe, blessedly safe.
"What did you do?" Andromeda demanded.
His face was flushed, "I may have drank a glass of water that smelled of mint and sage."
Andromeda hit him in the side of the head, "Moron, you could have been killed and you definitely would have missed your charms exam tomorrow."
He rubbed his head and gave her a sheepish smile, "I wasn't thinking, I was absorbed in revisions."
She rolled her eyes and helped him to his feet, only for a comfy sofa to appear which Ted seemed overly grateful to sink into. He closed his hazel eyes in relief.
"Do you need anything?" she asked, concern seeping into her voice. Outside of her sisters and cousins, Ted Tonks was the only other being to catch her being kind.
Amusement curling his lips, he asked hopefully, "Food?"
She huffed, "Is that all you ever think about?" And even as she asked it a table appeared with hot soup and warm bread.
He sat forward and dug in admittedly.
"You were just poisoned and you are going to eat something that magically appeared?" she asked.
He froze with his mouth full of bread, then swallowed, "Hogwarts wouldn't poison me."
She sighed, "Silly trusting Hufflepuff."
"Paranoid Slytherin," he shot back with a grin.
"I'm not the one who was incapacitated on the floor."
His grin grew, "Ah but I have friends to save me."
She glared at him even if her insides warmed. She stayed silent as he ate, watching his dark blonde hair fall over his ears.
"How was your day?" he asked pleasantly between bites.
"Studying in the morning, we three skipped class."
"Let me guess, History, DADA, and potions?"
"However did you know?" she asked sarcastically. "Herbology was dull."
"Of course it was," he said, his smile huge, "Your secret best friend was missing."
She couldn't help but smile back and agree. "That he was."
He laughed, it was so free, so warm, Andromeda found herself envious. She loved this boy, maybe not the way a woman loves a man but she did love him all the same.
He was a mudblood and if Bella ever found out they were close she would try to kill him, but Andromeda couldn't have cut him out of her life if she tried. He was the only person who saw the best in her, believed that she was a good person.
Andromeda Black was not a good person. Everyone thought Bella was the most sinister of the three of them, but it was Andromeda who came up with darkest ideas. She would like to say it was because of the way she was raised, but it was not the truth. She was just a perverse person and when an idea struck her, there was something undeniable in her that drove her to pursue it. To see how far she could go, see what she could get away with.
It was a character flaw to be sure, and with her sisters' skills and powers at her back… well, Bella could be excused for her mental instability, Andromeda didn't have that excuse.
And yet, Ted believed her good, believed underneath all the immoral actions was someone worth befriending.
They had become friends the night Andromeda had freed him from a nest of Devil Snare someone had been growing in a broom closet. Some Gryffindor punks had thrown the little third year in, likely not knowing the danger. Andromeda's attention had been attracted by the muffled scream.
A simply summoned flame had saved him, a spell that even as first-year Andromeda had been more than proficient at. Ted, a third year at the time had thanked her endlessly. No stranger had ever thanked her for anything, and from then on he had worked his way into her life. He made her want to be the person he thought she was. It was part of the reason she let people believe Bella to be the most devious, because it meant Ted rarely asked hard questions.
Now, she didn't know what she would do when both Bella and Ted graduated.
"Dromeda?" Ted asked softly, "Are you alright? You look so sad."
Andromeda met his searching gaze and was amazed all over again that he could read her moods, that he cared. She wanted so badly to be the person she saw reflected in hazel eyes. She wanted to be a good person like he was, she wanted to be loved without the restrictions of her society.
She wanted freedom.
"Dromeda?" he asked again, reaching a hand out and placing it on her knee.
His touch was warm.
"My sister is getting married at the end of the summer," she said tightly.
"Congratulations!" he enthused, "That's great news!"
She felt her expression harden.
His smile fell, "Or not, I guess, she's kind of young, huh?"
"It's an arranged marriage."
"Oh."
Andromeda looked away from him, "When I graduate I'll have to marry her groom's brother."
And she would have to, because as much as she wanted them both dead, it would take time to plot an accident. Spending the rest of her life in Azkaban would be worse than a loveless marriage. She knew it, Bella knew it.
Andromeda shuddered, she couldn't imagine what the dementors would do to her older sister. Her sanity was tentative at the best of time, but if she was ever broken… Well, Andromeda would never forgive herself for failing her.
Ted's hand tightened on her knee, "Do you even know him?"
She turned back to his earnest expression, "I've met the Lestrange Brothers, they aren't people I would choose to associate with, they are nearly as stupid as they are cruel." And she meant that, the Lestrange Brothers had their own representations at Hogwarts, calling them brutes would be a bit of an understatement, how they managed to not get expelled, she had no idea.
One thing that had saved the infamous Black Sisters from expulsion was that they were clever, the Lestranges weren't clever.
"In the muggle world, arranged marriages were done away with in Britain," he said, frowning.
She shrugged, not wanting to dwell on it any more than she had. If her home life was suffocating now, a life with a Lestrange boy would be… unbearable.
She would do nearly anything to escape that fate. And day by day, giving up magic and leaving her sisters behind seemed more appealing.
Another character flaw. Andromeda was a selfish, selfish thing.
Suddenly, Ted yanked on her wrist, pulling her into a bear hug, so warm, so safe, her natural instinct to strike out was swept away.
Merlin, she loved him. She wasn't in love with him, but there was no one she would rather spend an afternoon with. No one she trusted more.
She tensed in his arms, an idea, a mercenary, unforgivable idea occurred to her. She did not love him the way he deserved to be loved, but… but.
Ted pulled back, looking down at her, "Dromeda?"
She tilted her head upwards and before she could reason herself out of her rash, foolish, diabolical idea, she kissed him.
He reared back, "Dromeda!"
But she followed, and kissed him again, and pressed herself against the length of his body. He was soft, not fat, but someone who studied more than worked out.
He was hesitant, surprised, and she knew, knew he had never thought of her in this way, but after a few moments, he kissed her back.
It was sloppy and she didn't feel the least bit lustful, but neither was she uncomfortable. It was a nice kiss, in Ted's presence, she couldn't help but feel anything but safe.
When they parted again, he was short of breath. "Dromeda," he said again, almost in question this time.
"I love you," she said for the first time. It wasn't a lie.
But it wasn't the truth.
"I- I- I don't kno-" he began stumbling over his words, face flushing.
She had a plan, and she needed him not to think, not to doubt her. She wished she could have been subtle, wished she could have been honest and come up with a less extreme solution to her problems. But she would do nearly anything to escape. With a wave of her wand, her outer clothes disappeared, folded neatly on the floor. Leaving her straddling his hips clad only in a pair of black undies and matching lacy bra.
Ted let out a small gasp, his face turning a deep red. Andromeda knew exactly what she looked, and maybe Ted had never thought of her in this way before, but she had curves in all the right places, her skin was blemishless, and her dark brown curls cascaded over her back. It would be difficult for any heterosexual teenager not to react, least of all with her full breasts being very much at eye level.
"Dromeda," he breathed, his voice shaking.
She knew she had won when his hands alighted on her waist.
"I want it to be you," she said, voice thicker than honey, "I trust you, Ted, I trust you more than anyone else. I want you."
When she bent to kiss him again, it was sweeter, better, and less hesitant. His hands traced her shape, explored her curves, made her shiver. Merlin, but there was nothing that could compare to the touch of a healer's hands.
Her own hands went exploring, and it didn't take much convincing to slip him out of his shirt. His skin was smooth and a passion she didn't know existed in her began to rise.
This was wrong, so very wrong. But she wouldn't stop now. As she undid his belt, she could see her life unfolding before her eyes. On one path their awaited only darkness, a downward spiral, and on the other there was Ted. A person she would kill for, a person she would give herself up for.
His hands caught her as she went to undo his trousers, the hard press of him rising underneath their clasped hands.
"Wait, Andromeda, wait, you're- I mean you're beautiful, but I've always thought of you as a friend, a sister."
Her smile was sultry, and she gently drew her hands from his. She sat straight and arched her back, undoing her bra. She saw his eyes darken even in the firelight from a fireplace that had appeared sometime in their kissing. Bless the Room of Requirement.
"Ted, please," she said softly, so softly she wasn't sure he heard her.
He swallowed hard, "We shouldn't do this."
She quirked a smile at him, "All the more reason to do it, to do me."
It was unfair for her to do this to him, and she knew he was a virgin, and knew the girls he liked were just as full of breasted as she. Although Andromeda had the hips and butt to balance out the look. She considered herself to be one of the most attractive young women within the castle walls. She had hit maturity early, and though she might be two years younger than Ted, her body wasn't unready for the task Andromeda had planned for it.
"What about, you know- the chance of you getting pregnan-"
"I'll take care of that," Andromeda said, and not meaning it the way he would interpret her statement. "Some of us are actually potion masters." And fertility potions were within her capability.
She kissed him again, and the moment her bare breasts pressed into his bare chest, he was hers.
The lovemaking wasn't incredibly extraordinary, they were both virgins after all. She managed to suppress her pain sounds, which wasn't particularly difficult, he was gentle, patient. He managed to find a pleasant rhythm before he finished.
He drifted asleep on the sofa, her not far behind. She laid bare against his front, in the circle of his arms under a magically gifted blanket. The fire burned low and crackling.
She was the greatest villain, but she couldn't regret this choice. She would never be able to make it up to him, but she would try. She would be everything he asked of her, if it meant severing her family ties, storing her wand, and being the moral person he believed her to be, she would be.
She would learn to love him, learn to love him in the way he deserved to be loved.
Four Months Later
Narcissa felt lost, and like she very much wanted to kill the Lestrange brothers and Lucius Bloody Malfoy. Lucius the blonde prima-donna who was to be her husband. She hadn't thought that Bella's wedding could be made worse, until her mother announced that little fact at the toast.
Her only, only comfort was that Lucius had seemed as surprised and taken off guard as she, and thankfully or regrettably he didn't look put out by the idea.
She had made it her mission to avoid him, which she was fairly successful.
"How long do you think he'll last?" she whispered to Andromeda.
"Who?" she asked sounding bored. Weddings weren't that different from normal family gatherings. The small talk was poisonous and the fashion was cut throat.
"Lestrange, how long do you think- you know until Bella does away with him?" Narcissa whispered.
Her sister gave her scathing look, "She can't kill him, fool. She knows that, I know that, and he knows that. Not unless she wants to spend the rest of her life with dementors."
"But you said-"
"And you thought what? That his disappearance and the timing of his disappearance would go unnoticed? Grow up, Narcissa." Andromeda stood up abruptly and headed to the restrooms.
Leaving Narcissa flushed in her seat. She looked to the table Bella was seated, the way Lestrange pawed at her sister's side, the despondent look on her usually animated face.
Fear iced her heart. She wondered if the same would happen to her with Lucius.
No.
She decided then and there that Lucius would never touch her, not without making a fool of himself, not without her express permission.
Sighing, she got up to follow after Andromeda, she had been getting sick often this summer and she hadn't been eating much. They were all worried about her.
By the time she reached the waiting room before the stalls, their mother had beat Narcissa there.
"Why haven't you been drinking?" her mother asked Andromeda harshly.
"Because I don't want to," she responded sullenly.
"It is a wedding, you drink."
"I don't wan-"
Druella backhanded her.
Narcissa pressed herself to the wall.
"Do not give me that shite, little girl. What have you gotten into?"
"I have been reading from the book-"
"Save it. Did you think I wouldn't notice, that I wouldn't put two and two together?"
"Mother-"
"Drink this."
Andromeda took the vile and smashed it on the ground.
"You little bitch," Druella snarled. "You can't finish school if you have a baby."
Narcissa felt her expression go slack.
Andromeda is pregnant? With a baby? She had sex without telling Bella and me? Who is the father?
"I am having this child," Andromeda said in the voice that was so self-assured, so confident, it should have put even their mother in her place.
But it didn't.
"If you don't want to drink the potion than fine, there are other ways." Druella unsheathed her wand from a hidden slit in her sleeve.
Narcissa acted without thinking, "Expelliarmus!"
"Stupify!" Andromeda echoed a moment after.
Druella hit the ground, her head thudding against the marble wall.
"Cissa," Andromeda breathed.
"What have you done?" she asked her older sister.
"Cissa, listen-"
"No. Tell me who the father is," she demanded.
A look of sorrow and determination crossed her face. "Ted Tonks."
"Ted Tonks," Narcissa repeated slowly. "Edward Tonks, the mudblood Hufflepuff boy Bella hates so much?"
"He's kind."
"He got you pregnant."
"It was my choice."
"You are hardly sixteen."
"It was my choice," she repeated.
Narcissa looked down at their mother crumpled on the floor, "You should go."
"Ciss-"
"You choose yourself over us, go, Andromeda, go. And don't come back."
"I'm sorry."
"I know," she said coldly, "you will be." Narcissa turned her back on the person she had trusted most in this world.
Andromeda had left early, and mother had been wailing about something, causing enough of a scene that Lestrange had been able to excuse them to their honeymoon sweet before Bella could hear what the commotion was about.
Something had been off about Andromeda's farewell, but Bella was too worried to figure out what. She was nervous about performing for her new husband.
She would rather torture the bastard than giver him her virginity.
Give herself to him.
She shuddered in repulsion, hating the world that with all her power this is what she had been reduced to; a wife. Her parents had traded her away just as they would to both her younger sisters.
She hated their parents, their society, hated them all.
She followed Lestrange numbly through the halls and it wasn't until they got to the suit did she notice something was wrong.
He didn't have a key with him, he simply knocked.
The door opened of its own accord.
She should have run, she felt it in her bones.
I should run.
But then she would have been a coward.
Lestrange walked through the entrance without a backward glance. Raising her chin high, she followed. She frowned when she found both Lestrange brothers smirking and grinning at her when she entered.
She pulled her wand and pointed it at the younger boy. Despite them both being older than her, they were still boys.
"I only married one of you," she snarled.
The door slammed behind her at the same time an arm came around her waist as a hand took a hold of her wrist and twisted sharply.
Her wand clattered to the ground. There would be a bruise tomorrow.
"None of that now, my dear, it is your wedding night, you must be loving, giving," a rich voice said in her ear.
It should have sounded pleasant, but in that moment she wanted nothing more than to kill him. She fought him. And for all her effort, she felt as weak and ineffective as a songbird on a string. His strength was unnatural, more than his frame should have allowed for.
She reached forward, commanding silently for her wand to come to her hand but her new husband caught it mid air.
She screamed, rage filled, sounding less like a woman and more like a wild beast. Hate bloomed in her like wildfire. Deep, all consuming, she knew, knew there would be no recovering who she was before this night. Not with this fire burning through her bones.
The inhuman scum got her on the bed, a spell stripping her down to the skin, his hands claimed what was not his to take.
No one had the right to touch her like this. No one. Not her mother, not her new husband, and most assuredly not this stranger astride her, ruthlessly holding her down. The bruises would heal, the feel of his flesh on hers…. she was not sure that could ever be washed away.
"Get. Off. Me," she growled, wishing she was as good at wandless magic as Andromeda.
"You are mine, my sweet whore," he simpered, running his hand through her silky black hair. His gaze caught hers and she froze. His smile grew ever more self-satisfied. "You were bought and sold the moment your father signed you away, before you walked down the aisle. You were mine. Always, mine."
His eyes were red.
His eyes were red.
His eyes.
Red.
The fractured soul is red.
Red.
Thine eyes are a reflection of thy soul.
Thy fractured soul is red.
Red.
Red.
He took her.
This fractured soul broke hers.
She stopped fighting.
She didn't look away from the red, red, red pools above her.
"Who are you?" she asked, as his gaze finally broke away from hers.
She hardly registered that he was finishing.
That her husband and his brother were watching, laughing, jeering.
Red Eyes smiled at her, his handsome face was the most disgusting thing she had ever beheld.
This fractured soul that had broken her.
Her soul.
Anything could be bargained away, but not the soul.
But hers felt broken. There was no fire in her anymore. She felt nothing.
Perhaps she was dying.
Perhaps she was a monster, too.
Only monsters had broken, fractured souls.
She was broken.
She felt broken.
"Master," he breathed, rolling off her.
She was broken, used, no longer worth even this monster's attention.
"I am your Master, your Lord." He held out his hand to her. His red eyes glittering at her.
She didn't move. She couldn't think. She wouldn't move.
Maybe he would kill her. She could feel nothing. Perhaps she would be grateful.
He took her hand and yanked her from the bed. Her legs could barely hold her weight and a liquid spil-
She jerked her attention away from herself, attempted to jerk herself from the monster who had ruined her. Broken her.
He was fractured.
She was broken.
She would break him.
The fire she thought he had snuffed out came roaring back, like a receding wave changing course.
He saw it, he smiled, her Red Eyed Monster.
He made one mistake. He gave her back her wand.
"Avad-" she began.
But he twisted her wrist, green light harmlessly sparking off the ceiling. He tsked at her, "Crucio," he corrected. "Crucio. Killing is quick, easy, but if you cause your prey pain…" He made a sound like one he had made above her not minutes ago. "Break them."
Break him.
He manoeuvred himself behind her, him fully clothed, her fully on display. He held her, one hand on her wrist, he directed her to point her wand at her husband. "Crucio," he murmured into her ear.
She repeated it. She would destroy them all.
Her spell hit true, and her husband laughed, "I wonder if your sister will be as easy."
She felt her world spin. She would kill them. They would not be allowed near her sisters. She would destroy them.
"You have to mean it," the Red Eyed Monster purred in her ear, "You have to want him to hurt."
Hurt? What did this thing know of hurt? Hurt.
She hurt.
She would make them hurt like she had been hurt.
"You have to mean it," he whispered again.
Crucio, she said, she prayed, she screamed, she cursed, she knew not if she spoke the Latin at all.
Her husband fell to the ground screaming.
Screaming.
Screaming.
Screaming.
She screamed. He screamed. It laughed.
The white of their eyes.
The red of its eyes.
Red.
Screaming.
She lost.
She had her wand, and she still lost.
She forgot.
She hurt.
She couldn't separate the pain from the fiction from the hurt.
She was lost.
She fell apart.
Her broken pieces.
Screaming.
They would not touch her sisters.
Red.
Andromeda would save her.
Crucio.
But she was broken.
Red.
She couldn't tell who was screaming.
Was it her?
These fractured souls, red, red, red.
It, he, ugly, beautiful, horrid monster.
Master.
Lost. Broken. Fractured.
Laughter.
She meant it when she cursed them.
Laughter.
She meant it.
Screaming.
Andromeda would save her.
Laughter.
She wasn't coming back.
You have to mean it.
She made them hurt like she had been hurt. Broke them as she had been broken.
Fractured souls, red, red. Red.
She laughed.
She was never coming back.
There was nothing left for Andromeda to save.
So she would save Andromeda.
Little Cissy.
Fractured.
Broken.
Red.
Monster.
Master.
Laughter.
His, hers.
Crucio.
