▵ — Sirius watched his cousin carefully as he spoke, felt all the anger and all the hurt that he’d worked so hard to bury under all of his asinine traits dig their way to the surface, clawing at his mind and his body, making his head pound and his hands shake involuntarily. The sight of Narcissa looking on the edge, on the verge, made him wish he’d given her a second, third glance in the past, made him wonder what would be different if their family weren’t such a mess, if he hadn’t been such a royal fuck up.
He never could blame her for not standing up for him. By that time she’d already lost Andromeda, the friendlier sister, and Druella’s reaction had been disgusting. The woman was as frightening as Walburga but only half as ugly, and Sirius despised her just as much as he despised his own mother. He never allowed himself to wonder what life would have been like had he not been placed in Gryffindor and met James and the rest of them, mostly because he was afraid to think that he might have gotten stuck. Which is exactly where Narcissa seemed to be now.
Sirius no longer considered this with the caveat of “if she was telling the truth”.
He was more surprised than he wanted to admit when Narcissa finally spoke, and he listened to her, for the first time in his life keeping his mouth shut. His hands still shook at his side, somewhere between rage and grief and confusion. He could tell she was fighting back tears and he wondered if he was doing the same. When she finished talking, he stayed silent for a moment longer, staring. He clenched and unclenched his jaw as her words flitted through his mind, thinking, wondering, wishing.
“ Is that what you think of me, Narcissa? ” he asked, surprised at the hurt he felt in the wake of her words. “ Do you think I would have turned my back on you, all because I was young and secure enough to make Walburga want to kill me and you weren’t? ” Sirius laughed, unable to keep the bitterness out of it, as he never could when talking about that day or that woman. He suspected if she so much as glimpsed him on the street she’d come at his throat with a knife, and not without a shriek to make the whole world put their hands over their ears, the harpy.
“ I never expected anything from anyone. Not everyone is as stupid as I am, not everyone puts blind faith in their own ability to just barely escape death. Trust me, that’s been made abundantly clear over the years. But this has never just been about me, Cissa, it’s been about them. It’s been about protecting them. I could’ve made out like a bandit in our family, and you could, still, but you’re here. Because they’re dying, and they shouldn’t be. And you know that. You believe that. ” It was as he said it that Sirius realized this must have been true, and he stared at Narcissa: the wife of a death eater. And a mother, and a sister, and a cousin. And someone who didn’t belong, just like he hadn’t, just like Andromeda hadn’t. He repeated himself again, this time a question, this time his voice betraying him and breaking as he spoke. “ You believe that? ”
--- narcissa felt herself beginning to tremble, fingers clenching tighter around her cloak. she’d spent so long trying to bury her emotions, to keep everyone out, and she could imagine the scowl on her mother’s face if she could see how clearly narcissa’s small frame shook. no, narcissa shook her head. she had to stop doing that, stop imagining druella’s reaction to everything she did. the only way she could imagine druella was as the bigot that she was. she couldn’t imagine the black family as anything but what it was. she wanted her family with lucius and draco to be different, but she had nothing to model it after, and it wasn’t like she could make lucius change his mind about agreeing with their parents.
she had never blamed sirius for having rebelled, for having left. she wondered what their lives would have been like if druella and walburga had pushed less for their pureblood ideals, but she assumed that had their wives not pushed the ideals, orion and cygnus would have been more outspoken to their children. she couldn’t imagine what would have happened had she been the different one. what would’ve happened if she’d been sorted differently ? she could imagine druella disowning her there and then, at eleven years old.
what a spectacle that would have been. what a spectacle it would be now if she switched sides, if it was made public.
narcissa had to admit she was surprised that she wasn’t interrupted. when she finished, wide blue eyes watched as sirius’ hands shook, and her fingers clutched her cloak tighter. she could imagine draco comparing her to tippy, and it almost made her smile. but although her lip twitched, she didn’t let the smile actually appear. it wasn’t exactly an appropriate time.
narcissa shook her head. no, she didn’t think that he would turn his back because he was secure. she had assumed that no one would have believed that narcissa black had wanted to switch sides after having spent her entire life trying so hard to be perfect in her parents’ eyes. “ i didn’t exactly think of myself as trustworthy. there would have been plenty of reason to assume that i had been sent to pretend i was tired of the pressures being put on me by my mother just so they could get to you. ” she spent too much time thinking about every worst outcome possible. “ slytherin self-preservation, ” she added, as if that explained anything.
“ you’re not stupid, ” she cut in immediately. she didn’t see protecting his friends and wanting out from the black family as being stupid. “ you’re brave, much braver than i’ve ever been, or ever will be, probably. probably why you weren’t sorted into slytherin, ” she spoke softly. listening to his words, she shook her head, taking a step forward when she heard sirius’ voice break as he asked if she believed that, almost reaching for him, but stopping herself. “ i- you-know-who is wrong, and the war is stupid and the death eaters shouldn’t be killing anyone, but- i don’t know- ” but what would happen to draco if she defected ? her self-preservation had long since been overtaken by her worry for her son.