
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/203667.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      F/F, F/M
  Fandom:
      Harry_Potter_-_J._K._Rowling
  Relationship:
      Bellatrix_Lestrange/Narcissa_Malfoy, Lily_Evans/Narcissa_Malfoy, Lucius
      Malfoy/Narcissa_Malfoy
  Character:
      Narcissa_Malfoy, Bellatrix_Lestrange, Lily_Evans, Lucius_Malfoy
  Additional Tags:
      Sibling_Incest, Mythology_-_Freeform
  Series:
      Part 2 of Heavenly_Bodies
  Stats:
      Published: 2011-05-24 Words: 2225
****** The Path to Hell ******
by Etrangere
Summary
     "Let me tell you three versions of the myth of Narcissus."
Notes
     Thousand of thanks to bwinter for the beta ♥
Bella mocks her blonde hair and her flowery name. Changeling child, she calls
her, not a proper Black. She scoffs at her vanity and her pretty dresses,
always inviting her to a fist fight in the mud. Cissy used to screech in
response, but she learns. Learns to ignore Bella’s baiting and remain cold and
composed. Bella taunts all the more, devilish and stinging, and there’s a play
in there, a cruel affection that is Bella’s signature mark.
“Am I really a Black?” Cissy asks Andromeda once.
Andromeda doesn’t laugh. “Why wouldn’t you be?”
“I don’t have the name of a star.”
“Stars or flowers are both youths transformed by the gods to hide them away
from the sorrow of the world. It’s all the same,” she explains.
Cissy doesn’t relent, “But Narcissus was such a stupid boy !”
“Was he, really?” Andromeda smiles her mysterious smile and bends down to
whisper into Cissy’s ear, “Let me tell you three versions of the myth of
Narcissus.”
 
1.
Narcissa was beautiful. She’d always been told so. It wasn’t that her sisters
weren’t pretty, too, with long legs, black curls, and thick lashes. It was
that, all that Narcissa was, was beautiful. She wasn’t strong like Bellatrix,
because everything was easy. She wasn’t clever like Andromeda, because
everybody listened with a smile no matter what she said. She didn’t have
friends like Sirius, she had admirers and toadies. She was never obedient and
respectful like Regulus, because everything was forgiven of her, anyway. But
she was beautiful. Everybody said so.
She liked prettying up, too. She liked dressing up in satin and linen, the soft
texture of silk gliding over her skin, the practiced folds of velvet falling to
her ankle. She liked admiring the gradients of gold and amber, and the glints
of aquamarine over white skin. And putting up smooth, shiny hair in a roll,
with just a lock to accent her nape.
It felt fitting and orderly. Safe. Like a barrier against cold wind and bitter
dispute. She and Mother had done this, when she was a child, she remembered.
Before Mother had died, and Andromeda had ran away.
She lost hold of a perfume bottle and it broke down on the floor. Narcissa made
a scowl that disfigured her face in the mirror. She did hate a mess.
Boys always made a mess. She was not very fond of them. They never remembered
manners or how to behave in a graceful way (especially Sirius), and they looked
at her avidly as if she was beautiful for their express pleasure. She smiled at
them, cruelly, and asked ridiculous things of them. And they did them. Behaving
like servants because they wanted to possess her. This she found ironic.
Bellatrix was no better than men. She liked the boys’ games, the violent and
dirty ones, and she wanted like a man. Here, and now, and give me, give me,
give me! No sense of subtlety or patience. She did have cunning, though, and
never shied from the means to get what she wanted. Repeatedly, she would chase
away the boys buzzing around Narcissa, and corner her in corridors. And she
wanted, and wanted, and wanted all across Narcissa’s body. Narcissa shuddered
and let her do, wicked tongue and wickeder fingers that slithered between her
legs. She thought of Bella’s chipped and dirtied nails down there, and it was
such a mess, but at least Bella was family so it was a beautiful mess. And
maybe, just maybe, Narcissa was a little bit afraid of Bellatrix, and it was so
much easier to get what she wanted from her, afterward.
Narcissa was beautiful. Everybody told her so. Which meant do what I want, and
don’t do, and be what I want, and don’t be. Narcissa lived surrounded by
mirrors, but Narcissa had never seen herself. Maybe she didn’t exist.
There was another girl at school who was beautiful. Everybody said so, even if
she was a Mudblood. Even Sirius’ Blood Traitor friend admired her. But she was
smart, too, and strong-willed, and she had many friends and was always mindful
of rules and righteousness. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair! So Narcissa decided
to teach the Mudblood girl a lesson about what being beautiful meant.
She schemed and bribed and crawled her way up the Gryffindor Tower, and came in
the girl’s room she knew was empty of anything but a sleeping Lily Evans.
Sprawled on the blankets, red hair turned to dark burgundy in the night’s glow,
pale face smiling. Smiling, and Lily opened her eyes and said :
“I was waiting for you.”
“Quiet”, Narcissa said, her wand in hand as she strode to the bed. “Don’t say
anything.”
“Anything”, Lily agreed, still smiling. She was pale and beautiful, and
arrogant like no Mudblood ought to be, but uncertain too underneath that
bravado. It was like kissing a mirror. Cold lips, cool flesh. Or maybe it was
hers which were so cold that Lily’s were burning. They fell over into the bed,
nothing but long limbs and graceful curves, and beautiful, beautiful things
that Narcissa loved so much. It didn’t feel like a mess at all, but it did feel
like drowning.
Later, much later, Lily whispered. “I’d seen you watching me. I’d been watching
too.”
“Why?”
“Because. You never say more than you have to say. You never do more. While I
always have to prove myself, to show them I’m capable even if I’m Muggleborn. I
always have to be nice with everybody. I always have to do more.” She made a
grimace. “You never even bother. I always have to be perfect. You, you’re
perfect no matter what you do. I wanted to see what it was like to have such a
Black queen in bed.”
Narcissa laughed quietly.
“Aren’t you tired of putting on a show all the time?”
“Yes”, Lily said, “but here, we can be ourselves.”
So they could.
Although they both had other loyalties and ambitions, they were free with each
other to be selfish, and to take from each other. And seeing Lily twist in
pleasure and cry out delightfully was not a indulgence that Narcissa was
willing to refuse herself.
When the time came, they said goodbye without bitterness. In many ways,
Narcissa pitied Potter who would never know Lily as she did, the Lily who was
vicious, fierce and ambitious as well as kind and brave.
Lucius was everything that Lily wasn’t. Brilliant but icy, cruelly arrogant yet
gentle.
He took her on a date one night, when she was eighteen and barely out of
Hogwarts. They talked of History and politics, gossip and frivolities. It was a
very engaging and fascinating evening all around, so it was only once she was
back home that she realized he’d never once told her she was beautiful.
Some mirrors, she thought with a shiver, people can see through.
 
2.
Once Narcissa had tried to explain to Lily what it was that was dying, that
Lily was helping to destroy. It was not a cruel death, surely not! They were
bribed with all the privileges and all the adornments to keep quiet and smiling
in their gilded cage. But it was death all the same, a slow and agonizing slide
toward oblivion, as more and more of them, rude and vulgar and disgraceful,
joined their rank and their ways slowly replaced theirs.
She’d tried to explain to her that Pure Blood Wizards might be proud and bright
and powerful, but they were also brittle, and few, so very few, and that whole
Muggle world surrounding them, ready to sweep them away if they let it do so.
I know that, Lily had said, protesting, I know that. But why do you think of us
as enemies? We’re not. We want to be part of your world. Why won’t you let us?
You can’t help it, Narcissa had answered, feeling oddly tender in the lingering
mellowness of orgasm, it’s in yourself. Hand pointing to her heart, curving
onto her breast.
Blood?, Lily had said, eyes flashing bitterly.
Milk, she’d answered.
Milk, and tears, and kisses, and a thousand gestures of caring branded onto her
flesh, as she was branding them now, handling Draco’s little, tiny body,
cleaning him, feeding him, teaching him to speak his first words and the first
games of spells and magic.
Nurture, through which all children educated in the Muggle world failed,
bringing instead their twisted fashions and silly customs..
That’s not death, Lily had argued, again and unrelenting, that’s just change.
Renewal. Replenishment.
Just the sweeping wave of seasons turning flowers into fruits, and green leaves
into red gold.
It might have been Lily’s spring, but it was Narcissa’s autumn. So she kissed
her good bye and drank pomegranate juice with Lucius at the wedding and let
Lily marry her Potter fool.
The Narcissus was a flower sacred to Hades. There would be sun enough, in the
underworld, to bear the cold season.
But now everything was gone. Lily was dead, and Voldemort had vanished. And
gone all their hopes as well, she could tell by the faces of all of the
remaining Death Eaters gathered in dead silence and disarray at the news of the
Dark Lord’s disappearance.
She could hate the Dark Lord for that too, for giving them hope, giving them
that light to cling to when there had been none. He had only ever given them a
choice in their way of dying – more fools them for not realizing it. Bellatrix,
earlier, had already chosen, stalking out with a cascade of scathing words for
their cowardice and faithlessness, and taking in her trail a few of her
favourites. Narcissa had said no word to stop her – hadn’t known anymore if
Bellatrix would have listened to such words coming from her.
She ached at the thought of everything that she had lost, all the bright ones
taken. Regulus, Evan and all the other youths – barely more than children –
killed in the war. Andromeda and Sirius, who had left without looking back. And
Lily, oh Lily, whom she had loved and hated like all the beautiful, deadly
things that she was wont to love. But Narcissa was proud, too, and showed
nothing of her grief.
And she would lose more tonight, she thought, and in the coming days But not
everything, not if she could help it. So she cradled closer her sleeping child,
taking a step toward her husband.
They were lost, but they would follow Lucius’ lead, she knew, their eyes would
rekindle easily at the slick clarity of his words. If only Lucius’ pride would
bear it. She put her free hand on his shoulder and gazed into his eyes. He
looked so defeated and hopeless. Men, who would break and give away at the
first storm. “Stay,” she said, knowing that he would not refuse her. “When they
come, tell them you were under Imperius. Surely, we’ve put enough people under
that curse that they won’t be able to laugh it out. If they can’t separate the
victims from the culprits, they’ll let everybody free. They’ll want to forget
about it all and go back to their snug lives.”
“And what will we do, then?” Eyes narrowed, calculating.
“We wait. We bid our times. We endure.”
No winter lasted forever. And in between, maybe, they could learn to change.
She tightened her hold on Draco, once more.
Maybe some things were worth changing instead of dying for.
3.
When they took her husband to Azkaban, Narcissa realized she’d been wrong all
along. Lucius had never fallen before, she’d never reigned in the underworld.
She’d never even known what hell was. Now, at last, she was on the way.
When Draco came back with a blot on his flesh and a mission in his feverish
eyes, she truly knew despair.
She put on all the beautiful silk, bright jewels and attributes of seduction
that were hers and went to her sister. Bellatrix had stayed in Azkaban, in the
citadel of despair. She’d always been the Dark Lord’s favourite, she was the
true sovereign of hell. She would know, she would help.
Bellatrix removed every one of Narcissa’s clothes and jewels and got her on her
knees. Narcissa, who’d never knelt to Bellatrix, who’d always stood proud and
unflinching while Bella thrust her fingers into her quim. Narcissa knelt, and
licked, and sucked Bella’s body, Bella’s wet lips, and Bella’s red clit, until
Bella purred with contentment.
Tell me, tell me sister, tell me how to save my son, my beloved, my precious
bright one?
Bella wouldn’t know that, but at least she told her what was Draco’s mission
and all the missing facts falling into places.
So Narcissa walked down another level, down the sticky maze of the Spinner’s
End, and knelt in front of an ugly Half-Blood man. She begged and she cried
until her pride was as naked and forlorn as winter.
She’d been a daughter once, she was now a mother. There was nothing she
wouldn’t do.
She got her oath, wove her magic, felt the binding. Something to hope for. She
brought lilies to Lily’s grave, and remembered. The narcissus was the first
flower to appear under the snows. So she hoped, and waited for spring.
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