Ad Mortem Festinamus

She pointed at a sentence and said, "What's this supposed to mean?"

"Oh - uh - it's a spell that I've invented -"

"You've invented it?!"

"Yes - you see, it's not all that difficult, and it allows you to constantly control the temperature of the potion while stirring it. You just turn your wand into some sort of thermometer, if you know what I mean -"

"That doesn't work, does it?"

He showed it to her, and once again, she marvelled at him. He was only a Second Year, for god's sake!

Only some more weeks to go until the holidays - she had a calendar to cross out the days - more than two months of peace lay before her - what a blessing! If only she had known then what she was in for... On the other hand, she couldn't have prevented it either, so one might say that she was lucky not to know in advance and fret and ruin the little hope she had. The origin of all the disaster ahead was in fact a rather happy event, or it would have been happy, had the circumstances been different, for three evenings later, Andy came over to her sister's armchair in the Common Room, asking her sister for a private word in an empty classroom nearby.

While striding over there, Andy was beaming madly, and as soon as they had shut the door behind themselves, she cried out, "There you are, Cissy! Oh, I couldn't wait to tell you - I wanted you to be the first one to hear it!"

"You haven't got the tasks of your NEWTs yet, have you?"

"Oh, forget about that, dear me! Is that all you can think of? Studying and results, ts!" Saying thus, she raised her left hand and brandished it in Narcissa's face, who winced back.

"What did I do to be slapped now?!"

"I'm not slapping you, silly girl! Look!"

Look where? Andy kept waving her hand, and at last, Narcissa spotted a slim, plain ring of silver that she thought to be new. She raised her brows and groaned, "Yeah, so what? You've got nicer ones than this one!"

"To be sure, I have not!"

"But it's totally boring! Did you find that in a Christmas cracker or what?"

Andy put on a sulk and pressed her lips tightly. "That's an engagement ring, you daft cow! They look like that!"

The message took some seconds to sink in. Engagement ring - engagement - engagement meant wanting to get married - marrying whom - marrying Ted, obviously... She nodded. "Aha -"

"Isn't it wonderful? Oh, Cissy! I could sing and dance all day long, it was so romantic!"

Narcissa had no sense for romance and smirked. "Awww. Did he fall down to his knees or something?"

"As a matter of fact, he did," Andy said tersely. "And spare your sarcasm, will you?"

"No, I'm very happy for you. He's a nice fellow, to be sure. I'm just not into that whole falling-to-one's-knees thing, you know... So when is the big day? Try to make it during term so I can get a couple of days off."

"We don't know yet. Gee, for a start, I want to go to College, and Ted needs to find a job and all."

Narcissa sniggered. "If you hurry up a bit, you can upset Bella. She will be wild with envy if one of her younger sisters gets more quickly married than her!"

At that, Andromeda's face darkened, and she groaned, "I'm afraid Bella will be wild with something else. Her sister marrying a muggleborn wizard - can you imagine her face?!"

It wasn't as if Narcissa hadn't seen this coming, still she felt not entirely prepared when gazing at her elder sister's hand now. Nothing impressive when one knew her other jewellery, but Andromeda beamed at it as if it was the Ring of the Nibelung itself. "Dear," she tried tentatively, "it is very pretty, to be sure, but I'm not equally certain that our parents will approve of the implications likewise."

"Do you have to throw water over every good thing, Cissy?"

"Not at all. All I meant to say is that your felicity may come a little early."

"And why should that be? I'm engaged! How could I not be happy?"

"By remembering that your fiancé is likely to never be invited to our house."

Andromeda's face darkened considerably, and she hissed, "Curse them if they don't approve!"

"Andy!"

"No! I'm in love, Ted loves me too, we're going to marry - if my own parents can't be happy for me, they can bugger off!"

"Andy! You mustn't speak like that! So - uh - what do Papa and Maman say?"

"I haven't told them yet - didn't you listen? You are the very first one to hear!"

Narcissa frowned and bit her lip. "Well, in that case you shouldn't print the invitations yet, should you? After Papa's died of a cardiac arrest, you can't get married within the mourning period!"

"Oh, he'll get over it. For Christ's sake, in which century are they living, anyhow?"

"You remember what happened with Aunt Cedrella, do you?"

"I'm their bloody daughter, what are they supposed to do?"

"Disown you - never talk to you again - curse you - try and kill Ted," Narcissa suggested off the cuff, finding the whole idea less and less favourable. Their father was after all pretty old, his views were old-fashioned and his heart weak. Surely Andy didn't want to kill him, right?

"Oh, don't be so melodramatic, Cissy! Kill Ted, right! And spend the rest of his old age in Azkaban or what?"

"He might still prefer that from having a daughter marry a muggleborn -"

"Oh, rubbish! He'll throw a tantrum - or ten - and will get used to the idea then. No probs," Andy growled, not sounding very convinced herself. "I thought I tell them when they come here for my graduation ceremony."

Narcissa gave a feeble laugh. "So while you're holding your speech, our mother will cry her eyes out and everyone will assume she was weeping with movement?"

"Something like that, yeah -"

"Good luck, Andy, I don't think it'll go all that smoothly. And don't count on Bella being your bridesmaid. It'd be such an embarrassment, when the bridesmaid scratches the bride's eyes out!"

Andromeda giggled, but it didn't sound amused. "But you, you will stick up for me, right?"

"Sure. But what good will it possibly do?"

"You're their little favourite, Cissy! They do listen to you!"

"Oh, get real, Andy! Maman will listen to me when it's about choosing a wallpaper design, and Papa will listen to me when I play the bloody piano and that's it then! You don't seriously assume that anything I could say about you marrying a muggleborn will make any difference!"

Lost in thought, she returned to the dormitory that night, her insides cringing with dark premonitions. Their parents not getting a fit was as unlikely as having Christmas and Pentecost at the same weekend, the only question was how bad that fit would be. Andromeda wasn't the first one in the family to marry 'beneath' her, there was quite a list of aunts and uncles that no one ever mentioned, because they had married muggles or supported the wrong political party even.

Andy was right in one respect - she was their daughter, and Mr and Mrs Black were very attached to their children. They wouldn't just cast her out, would they? Narcissa realised she had never given this matter much thought, after learning about her sister's relationship to a muggleborn. She had sensed that their parents would not be pleased and had consequently avoided to betray the secret (Ted wasn't Andy's first boyfriend, she had assumed that, like his predecessors, he wouldn't last), but that was all. Andy was right in another respect, too - Narcissa was their parents' favourite, perhaps because she was the youngest of the three, perhaps because she was the most complying. She had never refused any of their demands and wishes, had eagerly practised the piano and the harp and learnt just anything that they considered suitable for a 'young lady'.

But what would happen if she ever chose to marry a muggleborn? Would all her accomplishments make up for such a choice? Not that she had anyone in mind - if one asked for her opinion, matrimony was out of the question. She took no interest in boys, they were all such terrible idiots, and who was the greater idiot - the idiot, or the idiot getting married to one? Anyway...

"Who's put a fly in your potion?" Martha asked nosily when she entered the dorm.

She felt like carrying a heavier burden than she could bear. In one moment, all her problems had been her stupid class mates, and how she had done in her exams, and in the blink of an eye, it all became meaningless and she faced something far more serious. She was fond of Andy, she didn't want to lose her. Neither did she want her parents to be upset, nor... Good Lord, in times like these! What was Andy thinking? If one could believe some of the rumours (which weren't all completely made-up!), they were facing another war, and this time, it wouldn't just be some rebellious goblins harassing the peace...

Even Mr Black, normally not prone for easily believing just anything, had mentioned something like this when she had been home for Easter. What had he said? Narcissa racked her brains - she hadn't listened too closely then, she found politics boring. 'I'm not saying I agree with his agenda, but that wizard has some right ideas, and the people will fall for it.' Something like that...

'That wizard' was some warlock who had only recently returned to England, no one really knew who he was and a whole lot of legends were linked to his true origin. Some said he was the last descendant of Salazar Slytherin himself, probably because his marked objective was getting rid of the non-pure elements in the wizard's community. Others made him appear like some sort of perverted Jesus figure, the fatherless saviour coming to save them all. What was seemingly true though was that he had gathered enough followers to found some kind of 'Dark Order' - Dark because they all were devoted to the Dark Arts, which had got a bad name among wizards in the last hundred years.

Narcissa had never quite understood that distinction. The Dark Arts - what was that, anyway? It was a certain sort of magic, more dangerous than the normal stuff, but then again, also the common spells could cause great damage, if applied in the wrong way or with ill will. She found them mildly interesting, simply because she was bored out of her mind in this school, and the Dark Arts would at least have been some sort of challenge to accomplish. But their Headmaster wouldn't have it, he didn't even allow most books in the library that dealt with them. Even now, facing a threat like that Dark Order, people still recoiled, instead of just learning Dark Spells themselves. Which was stupid. Know your enemy, know his weapons. How would they conceive a war with so much less effective means?

And that war was to come, perhaps it had truly started already. People were missing, others had been found dead for no obvious reason. These people had one thing in common - they were either of muggle origin, or somehow connected to muggles, or openly supported muggles and muggleborns. Narcissa wondered whether anyone had bothered to research how many plain muggles had in fact perished so far.

She didn't care much; there had always been wars and there would always be. Not that she approved of this fact, but what use was to fret about things that one had no influence on anyway? It had nothing to do with her, she had thought, she was no muggle after all, she was no muggleborn, and she hardly knew anyone who could be considered to be in danger. Until now. Her older sister was about to become Mrs Muggleborn, which put her into peril, just like her soon-to-be husband and any possible offspring of that relation. Hadn't she thought of that? Couldn't she see into which corner she was manoeuvring herself there? Did she want to be the next one found dead?

Lying on her bed, she got another notion - what about little Severus? He had a muggle father, too - did that render him to be in danger as well? No one right in their head who had witnessed only some of his spell work could believe him to be any less worthy than all the purebloods around, some of which were so moronic that they rather resembled trolls than human beings. The same was true for Andy and Ted, but did these Dark Order folks make such subtle distinctions?