Andromeda relaxing releases a tension she didn’t know existed. Her shoulders fall a half an inch and Narcissa breathes easily again since the moment of panic that maybe Andromeda doesn’t want her around. Her life is full of moments like that: realizing she’s unwanted, hated even, dreading walking into a room if she’s not sure who’s inside, sometimes even when she is sure. Nobody likes her here in Scotland, and she can’t even blame them. Look at who she was married to. Look at her sister.
Look at this sister, too, the one who left and sent a letter and she’d been frozen in place, in terrified teenage indecision, wanting to follow because she needed explanations and reassurances from the sister she loved. Narcissa couldn’t imagine a life without Dromeda, back then. She’d been locked in her room for a week for daring to say maybe it was best the wedding didn’t happen, if Andromeda didn’t love Lucius back. She’d hidden Andromeda’s letter from their mother; luckily the owl had come straight to her bedroom window, bypassing Druella’s wards. Monitoring her correspondence, in case Andromeda tried to convince her to leave, too. Narcissa wrote a ten-page letter back and burned every page. When Bellatrix came by, noticed the ashes, she lied and said it was old pictures of Andromeda.
She has a lifetime to apologize for, but nobody wants to hear her apologies, save for Andromeda, and even then she’s not sure. Narcissa’d managed to apologize for unspecified things the night they were reunited, but in conversations since then it’s been hard finding the words she wants to say. She listens, mostly; when she has to speak, she talks about Draco, about Fletcher’s flat. Once, she talked about her nightmares, the ones about Lucius finding them, Bellatrix bursting in and killing the entire Tonks family. Somehow, those are almost as bad as the nightmares about Lucius carrying Draco away and leaving her here. She hasn’t told Andromeda about those.
Narcissa follows and sits obediently. She likes to watch and listen–Andromeda looks like Bellatrix, but her eyes are soft and her face rounder, and her voice has a cadence she picked up somewhere in their ten years of separation that Narcissa knows didn’t come from their upbringing amongst the pureblood high society. She has a confidence that reminds Narcissa of their adolescence, but it’s different now, matured into something else. Narcissa is fairly certain that, if she ever had a similar air, she’s lost it by now. Strip away the haughty facade, and she’s become something timid, too afraid of repercussions, willing to turn a blind eye to things that are surely terrible because to look too closely means to confront what she has been a part of her whole life.
Except now, sort of. She’s trying to reject the person she used to be, accept the perpetual discomfort of her new life. If nobody on this side of the border thinks she is deserving of redemption, she can only embrace their judgment and beg them not to let it extend to her son. Even if she is damned for eternity, meant to endure a life in derision, Draco deserves better. Not the sins or his father nor mother.
She wants to hug Andromeda, offer her sister some measure of comfort, of support through great stress. But the gap of a few inches spans a dozen years and she isn’t sure how to bridge it, still. Narcissa’s fingers twitch toward Dromeda’s arm as her sister passes, instinct attempting to push past emotional barriers, nosing the walls for cracks.
“Thank you,” she says instead. “How are you feeling?” Hoping her smile is something reassuring. Stomach still in knots over hearing Dro call her my sister. She isn’t sure she deserves that, now.
How is she feeling? It’s a good question. She feels like she’s on a very rocky boat. She feels like she has the weight of the world on her shoulders. She feels worried for Dora –– constantly, worried for Dora –– and worried for every child in the world. She feels sad that Albus is dead, glad they don’t have to defy him to his face anymore.
She feels like she’s very far away from the woman who Narcissa knew, once upon a time. The handful of years between them in age had never felt like an issue to Andromeda. Her younger sister had been her equal in almost all things. As clever, as beautiful, as strong. She’d been someone that Andromeda could share every secret with. She used to sneak into Narcissa’s room and talk to her for long hours, curl up on her bed and gossip, share dreams and worries and fears, and every feeling she ever had.
That was a long time ago. Narcissa isn’t that girl either. They’ve grown up and apart and in different directions. Maybe they can grow back together again, with careful tending.
“Overwhelmed.” She sighs, honest as she can manage. “I’m feeling overwhelmed.” And it feels silly to be standing here, making tea. She’d only offered because it felt right, felt like what you do, what you offer. She just wants to sit down. She finishes anyway, sets the chipped and stained mug down in front of Narcissa and distantly hopes she won’t mind the state of it. It’s a far way off from the fine china she’d be used to.
She slumps into her own chair, when she gets the chance. “And worried. M’worried too.” Nymphadora today, at the funeral, so distant and moody and withdrawn from her and Ted. She didn’t know what to do about it, how to smooth it over. She glances at Draco, sitting quietly still, for once. “But you know how it is, with children. You’re always worried about something.”
