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crowd ; narcissa & sirius & remus

The last time Narcissa let herself into the seventh year Gryffindor boys’ dormitory, it had been easy…but it had also been a transgression of opportunity. It was nothing to drift upstairs, away from a party to which she’d been invited if not welcomed, to steal a few minutes and steel her curiosity. It was entirely different tonight, making the long and lonely walk from the dungeons and past the portrait.

Narcissa was not her sisters; she was not her cousins. Misbehaving came with more difficulty to her because she did it so seldomly. Because she was always let off the hook before the consequences could touch her. But she had some tools at her disposal. A working knowledge of where the Tower was, for one; it seemed simple, but a surprising number of her peers had never bothered to find out. A password overheard at a prefects’ meeting weeks ago. Hopefully they hadn’t changed it since.

And, naturally, the one thing the Blacks kept on hand at all times. A blind and uncompromising tunnel vision toward achieving her short-term goals.

Vaguely, Narcissa was aware that it was well past curfew – that hazy middle ground between two and three in the morning where time ceased to mean anything, and all of the castle’s occupants were either deeply asleep or deliriously awake.

The Common Room was horrible, without any people in it. Narcissa had only seen it the once, and at the time she’d been able to see why Sirius loved it so. Packed with people, bright lights above, the roaring welcome of a fire. Now the couches were shabby and deserted, and the room was too crowded with things. Was there any sight sadder than the last embers of a fire burning away? Narcissa couldn’t imagine so, looking at the dwindling stone fireplace as it threatened to throw the room into true darkness. Even without the fire it was too warm.

Narcissa tugged at the collar of her shirt with one finger, trying to breathe. She wasn’t successful. Hadn’t been successful in taking a deep breath since earlier in the evening. There had been a gasp, when she heard what happened to Bellatrix, and an even deeper inhale as she refused to cry there at the hospital bedside of her previously-indestructible big sister. From there, it had all been stale sterile air and brave nods for her parents’ benefits.

She hadn’t spoken a word on the trip back to the castle. Neither had Andromeda. As if they’d planned it, when the time came to head back to bed for some unsatisfying, fitful sleep, Andromeda had taken a turn to the left – back toward the dungeons – and Narcissa had stayed straight on, up the stairs. She could lie later and say that she was going to the prefects’ bathroom to drown her sorrows in a bath, but Andromeda wouldn’t ask. She never asked lately.

Anyway, it was their old routine. Andromeda would check on Regulus. And Narcissa would run to her oldest hiding place.

Narcissa had so many questions – was somebody attacking their family? Was she next on the list? Was it a horrible idea to be out of bed, without protection, at this hour? Was Bellatrix going to make a full recovery, would the wedding go on?

As she made her way up the steps to the boys’ dormitory, her shoes looking absurdly prim against the weathered stone, more questions clouded her mind. Will he even see me? What do I have to gain from seeing him?

The second was easy enough to answer. Knowing he was safe, even just for now, was no small win.

At the top of the stairs, the door was closed – but the sight was promising. She couldn’t quite hear voices, but light escaped through the inch gap in the bottom of the door, leaving a little golden pool for her to step into as she lifted a hand and considered knocking. Music was playing, it sounded like. Not a party; something sedative.

In the end, Narcissa decided against knocking.

“Sirius,” she was already saying as she pushed the door open. Her eyes reached for the ceiling; she had no way of knowing what boys got into when unattended in the dormitories and had no intention of finding out if she did not need to. Narcissa was mortified to hear her voice crack, like the terrible shattering of a sheet of ice. She was sure she was a wreck, with her wrinkled clothes and red eyes and hair askew. It wasn’t vanity that made her conscious, but fear of looking as pathetic as she felt.

“Someone attacked Bellatrix. She’s in the hospital. I’ve just been to see her.” And you weren’t there. She knew better than to say it.

Never before had Narcissa had to ask to stay with Sirius. Either he would plant some gossip that summoned her to him, hopping mad for no reason, or he’d retire his room to find she’d already claimed it, catlike on the bed and rifling through his belongings. This time, she wanted to hear him say it.

“Can I come in?” — @sirius-whoisleft & @remus-whoisleft

#chats #cremus #csirius #whoisleftstarter

how the other half lives ; narcissa & remus

Boys, Narcissa concluded, had no idea how to play house.

The idea had been hers for a while now, inspired by housewives’ gossip and lessons about her own, eventual homestead. Things like decorations and party planning had filled her head, or else chores and meal preparation and the delegation to servant creatures. She had not been thinking along the lines of boxer shorts littering floorboards alongside messy trails of mismatched socks. Or sheets kicked out of place, hanging over the edge of an unmade bed – honestly, it took ten seconds to make a bed in the morning, if one didn’t mess up their wrist-flick during the appropriate charm.

She had not been invited up to the Gryffindors’ seventh-year male dormitory in the first place, and she had especially not been invited to judge it. But the invitation to Remus’s party had been extended to the entire castle; she was comfortable assuming, to her own ends, that it also gave attendees full roam of the turret. The empty, wood-musty room was a proof point to her theories about the sloppiness of men. It was also, blessedly, a chance to take a moment along.

The party raged downstairs. Music, shouts and laughter floated up the staircase and were muffled by the mostly-closed door she’d shut in her wake to keep from being interrupted. A thousand excuses filled her head should she need them – errant trip to the powder room, hunting down a lost friend – but she knew that need wouldn’t arise. She was Narcissa Black. Roaming where she pleased came with that territory.

It was not difficult to tell which bed belonged to Sirius. If not for the familiar trunk at the foot, she’d know it by the robes thrown over the headboard. A slovenly, careless move – but at least he was still himself enough to know better than to leave expensive clothing to wrinkle on the floor. Narcissa moved closer. Slowly, as if the wild fete downstairs would somehow not be enough to mask her footsteps across aging wood. Her hand ghosted above a couple items on the bedside table – a book, a half-drunk glass of water, a watch that she neither recognized nor liked. That broke the spell, and she moved easier afterward. She pulled open a drawer, curiously. She plucked up a jumped slumped across a chair and folded it properly, only choosing not to hang it up because no hangers seemed available in the crowded armoire.

It was a pack of cigarettes she was holding when she was finally interrupted – not bumming a single stick but holding the entire cardboard box to her nose, inhaling nostalgically.

Because she did not feel guilty, Narcissa did not wheel around and gasp when the room filled with new light and the presence of someone in the doorway became undeniable.

“This room is occupied,” said Narcissa, seeming bored with the entire situation. She moved to fluff a pillow, doing a half-baked job of it. “Move along, merci.”

– @remus-whoisleft

#whoisleftstarter #chats #cremus

ghost stories ; gideon & remus

Cautionary tales, as far as ideas went, did not seem all that objectively horrible to Gideon when first presented. The recruits were new and damn proactive; clearly keen to get started on this war business, even before they arrived in hand-holding droves at the Barns for their first days of practice. As Gideon pictured it, it was to be a night of near-misses and lessons-learned, a gently reality check to temper the newest of their ranks.

But in the Order, Gideon had found that events had a tendency of going one of two ways: party, or funeral. This campfire business quickly became the latter. Eulogizing and proselytizing were the name of the game, a Moody scare tactic standing small on the shoulders of the veterans’ bottled up need to vent.

They had gone around the circle and Gideon, solidly halfway, thought at first he’d stay silent when the time came for him to speak. Instead, he took a deep breath and began to speak. A little bit about being worried for his friends and family; then a lot about Weldon Elks, and the mission he’d died on, and the story of how horrible it felt to feel like family at the funeral, surrounded by the man’s actual family. The family couldn’t be told how their lost member really died; the Order couldn’t claim their lost member as one of their own.

It was a straightforward, sad story and Gideon poured the remaining sips of his drink forward, into the campfire that hissed in protest, instead of downing it. A little homage, but he didn’t know who it was really for.

The air was heavy, not just from the summer humidity, when the campfire ended. Gideon reckoned there would be less people partying tonight...but those that did would drink twice as hard, and he could probably pick them out of a lineup.

He didn’t notice that Remus Lupin was in his orbit until they nearly collided: two loose-orbiting figures alone together on the dusky grounds.

“Cheerful, wasn’t it?” Gideon asked, his grin more worried than self-deprecating as he caught Remus’s eye and nodded a hello. “You see now why we don’t invite our fearless leader to our parties, usually.” — @remus-whoisleft