Like a Kiss

Like a Kiss

Bellatrix/Narcissa

Fanfiction by Meg E. F. Albatou

They come together in the night when the wind sighs outside the house, the wind with its voice that drowns out the sound of them. White flesh and black bone, the colours of that house, where the girls grew painfully into women. Time was their only playmate, and was dead and gone before they knew it, transforming their slender and soft bodies into aching, burning flesh, clambering for a touch beyond the ice of their lives.

Long ago the sisters knew their destiny. It was in their blood, that livid red, singing to them at night while they slept, engraving images in their heads, images of wealth and glamour and duty, of sweet ivory skin accented by shimmering green and silver. They thought it was what they wanted. They didn't understand what wanting was. They had everything they needed, they were told. They needn't ask for any luxury.

But as time went by, they began to think in different ways. The first, Andromeda, began to feel a strange emptiness in her heart. She asked her sisters what it meant.

"Too much excitement," said Narcissa.

"Too much boredom," said Bellatrix.

Andromeda searched inside herself, in very deep, to the heart of her blood's purity. What she found was an acute absence of love. She immediately told her sisters what she had discovered.

"Our blood is cold," said Narcissa.

"Love is warm and clouds our blood," said Bellatrix.

They smiled conspiratorially at their sister's tears. They had beaten the curse of the pure bloods, the lack of affection and warmth. They were creatures of ice.

Andromeda ran, ran as far from the house as her weak and pampered legs could take her. She married a man of impure blood, a sweet and gentle man, who loved her, and whom she loved. She began to feel strong again, to feel the circulation work back into her body. She had broken her shackles. She would never return.

Narcissa and Bellatrix fought, each day after that, for their sanity.

Without Andromeda, they were no longer three. Three went with everything they were- silver, green, snakes, blood, luck. Without three, they were an incomplete two. They were lacking something now, just like Andromeda. They came to know wanting.

Today, they are almost grown. The blood that flows in them is full of silver air. Every day the wanting has grown, until they both cry out in the night with the pain of it. They are cut free and drifting, on a sea as black as their dreams.

They dream of falling... of sinking, of drowning. They dream of life without their blood shackles. They wake up and are ashamed.

Soon there are men, calling at the house in the daytime, writing to their mother by night, sealing deals and pacts. The dreams of the sisters fill with dark and sinister men, who capture them and keep them prisoner in houses like the one they grew up in, with their traditions and actions and meaningless motions.

Narcissa wakes up afraid, after a dream of a black lake with no bottom. She goes to her sister's room.

"Hit me," she says, breathless. "To see if I'm awake."

Bellatrix hits her, hard, across the face. Her nails leave bloody welts. It feels good, and she smiles. Narcissa's eyes brim with tears.

"Hit me again," she says. "To see if I'm alive."

Bellatrix kisses her instead. It is a kiss as savage as a physical blow, and sends Narcissa reeling back onto her sister's bed.

She comes to the room after that, each night, and the kisses and the fumblings in the dark turn to bites and scratches, and heavy words of passion and pain.

"Make it stop," Narcissa begs her sister, with a hoarse voice she doesn't use in the daytime. "I can still feel it, Bella. It's so empty. Fill the space, please, please... I'm dying..."

Bellatrix does her best to cover her, to smother her, muffling her cries with her own savage mouth. "Shut up," she moans. "Just shut up..."

In the dark, love and hate mingle and become an interchangeable being. Narcissa cannot tell the difference of caresses- when her sister hits her, it's like a kiss. And a kiss is a blow of death.

Time passes, and they are married off to the men they had seen in their nightmares. Powerful men with pure blood, a blood to mingle with their own and make it stronger, stronger in its emptiness. Narcissa becomes pregnant, has a son, and Bellatrix is put into captivity alongside her husband. They do not see each other for many years.

Time, once their friend, now their enemy.

It is years and years later, but the sisters' connection is not forgotten.

Narcissa is reading the newspaper, and learns of a massive escape from Azkaban, where her sister was held. Her heart jumps in her chest. She knows she must go and seek out her sister. Her husband is at work, and her fifteen year old son is in school... she must hurry. She throws a shawl over her shoulders, and runs to the door.

When she opens it, her sister is sitting on the front steps. It is a shocking sight. Bellatrix is thinner, almost gaunt, and her hair is long and ragged. Her eyes are rimmed with purple and black, whether from bruising or exhaustion it is hard to tell. When she looks up at Narcissa, her dark eyes are filled with pain.

"How long have you been here?" asks Narcissa, almost whispering.

"Forever," says Bellatrix, standing with difficulty. Her legs are shaking.

"Won't you come in?" Narcissa reaches for her sister's arm. Bellatrix allows herself to be led inside.

"Are you angry at me?" asks Bellatrix. "I didn't want to leave, you know. I had to. I've... thought about you often."

Narcissa grimaces. "I was a slave here," She says, an uncommon passion filling her voice. "I had a child, a pureblood, and I am forced to condemn him to our fate. I am just as empty as I was when you left me."

"I know." There is silence. Then, "I... I wanted to apologize, sister, for what I did to you."

Narcissa stays silent, just staring.

"I can't imagine," says Bellatrix, "what it must have felt like to you."

Narcissa is still for a moment, then reaches forward and hits her sister, hard, across the face. Bellatrix, in her weakened state, is thrown backwards onto the carpet.

Narcissa sits beside her sister, on the ground. She takes her head in her lap, and wipes the blood off her cheek.

"How did it feel?" she asks.

Bellatrix smiles, and wipes away the tear that has trailed down Narcissa's face.

"Like a kiss," She replies.

They think for a moment. Then, slowly, they both smile.

It is how they keep the emptiness at bay.