The Oddest of Couples

Morning was close at hand. The taste of the new day was fresh upon the air, though the gold of the sun yet had to lick at the faint curls of cloud that still clung petulantly to the horizon.

Not many people liked to be up so early, far too many so lazy that they missed the best part of the day. Most people, she knew, would never have felt the simple pleasure of the morning dew soaking the hem of their robes or heard the voice of the first bird heralding the morning.

Her fingertips sliding down the broad, elegantly-carved balustrade as she descended the broad, granite staircase, she glanced back towards the vast doors, through which she had exited, wondering if anyone would question her absence from her room.

Doubtful, she knew, since no one else would be up for hours and by then, she would be back inside, probably settling down with a book in front of a fire, ignoring anyone who tried to interrupt her or even talk to her, to bid her a good morning.

Only a few people could and would nowadays, most likely because everyone else had heard of her rare, but spectacular shows of temper.

There was no sign of any life, not even birdsong on the air, which didn't bother her in the least. In fact, she preferred it, no distractions, just time to wander alone and think.

Making her way across the courtyard and onto the silvered grass, she watched the hems of her thick morning robes deepening a little, just as the metallic sheen on the lawn gave way to darkened emerald beneath her feet.

The grounds were vast, every inch of them were hung with the gauzy, silvery mist which clung like a glistening, silken layer upon everything that she could see, the threads of faint mist smeared away by the sun.

How long she had been walking, she couldn't be certain, but the sky was brushed with pastel shades, soft, warm, the first rays of the sun peeking over the horizon.

Passing into the dappling shade of the trees, she hesitated, glancing back. It was growing light and she knew she couldn't stay too far away. She liked this private time and she knew, with the petty, narrow-mindedness of those indoors, they would expect she was meeting someone secretly.

A delicate scowl rumpled her face and she turned to make her way back, when an arm suddenly wrapped about her waist, a second hand clasping over her mouth even as she started to cry out in surprise and fright.

"I thought I might find you here," a frighteningly familiar voice breathed in her ear. "All on your own... what a pity..."

She froze, her nails biting into the hand closed over her mouth, a combination of panic and loathing spreading through her. It couldn't be him! He wasn't even meant to be anywhere near here! No one knew about this little ritual of hers...

Unless he had been watching her with as much suspicion as she had used to watch out for him, as she had for years.

"Now, what could you be doing out here, I wonder... meeting someone, were you?"

Growling in her throat, she tried to bite into the pale, thin hand that was covering her mouth, only for it to jerk harder against her, almost suffocating.

"If I were you," the softly male voice continued, murmuring against her wind-tousled hair. "I would behave. Don't want to make me angry. Not when you haven't got your precious boys to look after you... and they wouldn't even hear you, if you screamed..."

A shudder of involuntary fear skittered down her back and she shook her head. She knew what he could be capable of and she didn't even have her wand. She had never imagined needing it.

"Good girl," his voice rippled against her ear, rough, quiet.

She was jerked around to face him, the hand dropping from her mouth, that angular, familiar face sending an unwanted thrill through her. He had always been so dangerous, off-limits, bad... and that was her weakness.

"I hate you," she hissed, struggling uselessly as he steered her down onto the dewy grass, his deceptively thin body stronger than hers by far. "Why can't you leave me alone?"

A barking laugh fell from his lips. "Still all that bad blood between us?" he smirked at her, his pale features shadowed, the sun spreading behind him. "After everything I did to help your lot?"

"Help?!" she yelped in outrage.

"Well, close enough. Rumours. Nasty things."

His face was close to hers, his breath stale, the wind whipping fair and dark hair together in a sinister tangle. One hand caught hers, pinning them, captive, together as the other dropped, sliding beneath her dark, heavy morning robes.

"Get off!" she gasped in mortified shock as a rough hand rudely squeezed her bare thigh.

He grinned, hand shifting, curling upwards, drawing an unwanted gasp from her and she tried to squirm away. It didn't help. If anything, it seemed to make matters worse, her eyes pressing shut.

"You really want me to stop, hmm?" he growled against her throat, his breath hot and damp. Even the closeness of his lips to her throat made her shiver, her fingers curling, white-knuckled, wrenching against his bruising grasp.

"You know I do!" She wished she had the nerve or strength to scream it, but they both knew it would be useless. She was too deep in the grounds for anyone to hear her without the aid of magic.

His fingers shifted and she bucked against them. "Something about this tells me you're lying," he chuckled cruelly, his body pressing against hers, as effective a trap as any cage.

"You are sick, perverted son of a..."

"So you have met my mother," he drawled as his hand continued its dogged wandering, claiming every whimper that sputtered from her throat. Grey eyes flashed and he laughed again, that rough sound, when she arched into his touch and bit on her lip to prevent herself from crying out his name. "Knew things hadn't changed..."

Beneath him, she hissed, trying to jerk away from him, his wicked hands and his devilish touch that always seemed to draw the most unwanted of desires from her traitorous body.

It had been the guilty pleasure of her youth which had hounded her, even into her adulthood.

Blood trickled from her bitten lip and she turned her head away even as he lapped at it, his pale eyes glittering. "Feeling dirty, are you?" he whispered hotly against her throat that she had bared without thought. To the predator, the one who terrified her more than anyone else simply because of the power he held over her lithe, treacherous body. "Have I the more tainted blood... or have you?"

Tears of fury and loathing seeped from beneath her tightly closed eyelids, her teeth gritting together. "Bastard!"

"Now, now," he smirked, running a long, wet lick up her throat. "Even you know that I'm legitimate, as much as you all hate me for it." His canine scraped the taut tendon upon her throat and she thrashed furiously beneath him.

"When the time comes," she hissed, jerking around the glare at him, her gaze like steel. "I won't stop them from killing you."

"Never imagined you would." He grinned down mockingly at her, his hair hanging in disarray about his lean face. "And, until then..." He wriggled his fingers, making her jolt again. "You can be sure I'll be keeping my eye on you."

"Don't put yourself to too much effort," she glowered as he pulled away from her, lazily sprawling back on the grass, letting her adjust her robes with shaking hands, her slim fingers massaging bruised wrists. She managed to stumble onto her feet, staring malevolently down at him as she readjusted her robes.

"Not an effort at all," he replied, still smiling wickedly at her. "Nice to keep up with the family, if you know what I mean."

She hated him more that instant than before.

Somehow, he still managing to summon an air of the casual arrogance he had always embodied despite the state he was in. His hair, though longer than before, swept dashingly over one eye, giving him even more of a devilish look than before and only he could make ragged clothes and skeletal thinness seem attractive.

"You will die," she whispered with certainty, cold and unrelenting. "Like the dog you are."

Rising from the ground, Sirius Black caught his cousin by the arms before she could move and pecked her cheek. "Love you too, Cissa," he said with mock-affection, before transforming into the hideous black beast that was his animagus form and loping off.

Standing on shaking legs, Narcissa watched him go, her nails biting into her palms, hate on her face and she knew that one of their kin would see him dead before the year was out.