The Nightshades

TWO

Family Feuds

It was hot that summer: a ferocious type of heat, one that made even the shade under the giant fruit trees that were scattered around the courtyard of my family's summer house burn my skin. Strangely enough, though, the heat, at its strongest during the middle hours of the day, seemed to disappear once evening set in, replaced by a bone-chilling coolness. Then, one would wrap blankets around oneself--usually to no avail--and hope not to be frozen to death by the next morning.

I, being made more for indoor studies than outdoor play, would have been oblivious to that fact if my family had been living in our regular house, rather than our summer one. La Maison du Sang Pur--the House of Pure Blood--was its name.

Every year, in the week preceding my cousins' return from Hogwarts, my mother would praise old Altair Black, who had been given the Maison as a gift for services to the Ministry back in the 1300s, for giving the house such an appropriate name. She would then rant and rave until she was blue in the face about how much the name "Grimmauld Place" didn't suit the family at all. My mother would never rename our house though, I knew; she was too attached to anything named, or inherited, or bought by the Aancient Blacks.

I don't care much for the Maison's name; it just seems a bit too tacky to me.

Built in the early Middle Ages, the Maison always seemed to be whatever temperature it was outside, inside. The draftiness of the place set it far apart from 12 Grimmauld Place, the home I was used to, and spent most of my time in. Though Grimmauld Place was old, it didn't hold a candle to the seemingly immortal air of the Maison.

Unlike Narcissa--who, as the oldest, got the best room and would sometimes let me sit in there with her and read for a while--Bellatrix thrived in the outdoors. If the weather outside was fair, no one bothered asking where Bella was--it was obvious. I have vague memories of her when I was young, looking out the window at sheets of rain and glaring at it as if to say, "go away," in that authoritative tone she would often use on me.

As she aged--into a beautiful young woman, if I do say so myself--she would still spend the majority of her summer outside, though now mostly just crunching fruit she'd coaxed from the house elves under various trees; or sitting on the bank of the small creek that ran in the back, letting her toes nip at the water; or just wandering through the endless maze of bushes in the courtyard. This willingness to be around nature startled Mother--it was the only thing she disliked about Bella--and one you could often hear her complaining to Aunt Cleneatha about it during the summer months: "Cleneatha, honestly, Black women are supposed to be timid, unknowing of the outside world. How do you ever think she'll get a good husband when she acts like that?!"

Sirius loved being outdoors too, though not as much as Bella. I agreed with his logic--the old and secret passageways of the Maison were just as interesting--or more, in my opinion--as the twisting maze in the courtyard and the tiny, muddy creek.

Still, there was Andromeda: strong and beautiful and intelligent in her own right. Though she wasn't one who brought attention to herself, you could always tell she was there; there was an ominous aura around her that signified you of her presence. She was powerful, and she knew it.

She would never admit it outright, but Andromeda was most definitely Mother's favourite of the sisters--not Narcissa, the seemingly-perfect, beautiful one, or the strong-willed Bella. No, it was the quiet middle sister that she'd taken to, who, though startlingly different from her siblings, was obviously a Black--and not just because she looked like one either.

Mother once said to Vanora Malfoy that she could see what Andromeda, definitely not in her prime now, was going to be in ten years--an obedient wife of a man respected by all--maybe Lucius, she'd have to talk to Cleneatha about that--and the mother of a child who would bring great honour to the family name.

"It's a thing called potential," she'd said.

***

Despite his rather dramatic entrance, the Sirius I had grown up with hadn't changed much since he had returned from Hogwarts--he was as stubborn as ever. Bella had been right--Mother was furious at her eldest son, and though she made said the principal reason was making the family late and leaving them no choice but to loiter with Muggles, I could tell that there was more than that. My mother had always had an obsession with the Gryffindor house; whenever the topic somehow slid itself into a conversation, she would spend what seemed like forever talking about what a disgrace they were to Hogwarts, and then what a disgrace Hogwarts was to England.

No, the only major difference was that my brother wasn't talking much. I must admit, Black children are usually very talkative--a trait my mother had always tried to drum out, mostly to no avail. We liked the talk; talking was how we vented our anger--or affection.

Secrets weren't something long kept in our family. Sooner or later, someone would have to tell someone else--usually a house elf--and once you tell one creature, you've told everyone. House elves are very easy to extract information from, if you pick the correct language and use the right tools.

Well, what I said before isn't entirely true. Sirius did talk--only toAndromeda and Ime, though he thought I was a bit too young for him, now that he had grown up and gone to Hogwarts. He tended to stick to Andromeda, though. There was something soothing about talking to her; she was a very good listener, if you found the right topic.

And it was because of that that I found myself in the middle of a conversation I probably shouldn't have been in.

"I'm telling you, 'Cissa, he's gone mad. He--"

Narcissa sighed. "Bella, calm down. You're starting to act more and more like Aunt Arachne, and that thought in itself is frightening."

Bella and I were on the floor, playing Wizard's Chess, while Narcissa was attempting to complete her summer Potions questions, though she had only managed to finish one question in an hour. Bella had started the day outside, but once she found that Sirius was out there too, she had stalked off to her eldest sister's room, declaring that she didn't want to be in the same vicinity as he. I could hear my brother's voice from the courtyard, shouting the exact same thing back at her.

"Knight to F6." The black knight moved where my cousin directed it while Bella shot her sister a look. "You're telling me to calm down?"

"Yes. I believe I'm quite calm right now, thank you very much."

Narcissa once again dipped her quill in her ink pot, and began to scratch notes on a piece of parchment. Bella, who had seemed to forget our game, was now boring a hole into Narcissa's head with her stare. Half a minute later, the blonde looked up and met her sister's gaze; it would have been impossible to ignore it.

Again, Narcissa sighed. "Bella, just ignore him."

"Ig--ignore him!"

"That's what I said."

Bella sputtered. Narcissa and I shared a smile; it was a rare occasion that anyone got to see my cousin like this. "Bishop to F6," I said, my chess piece violently whisking Bella's off the board. Bella didn't even notice when the rest of her pieces complained of her short attention span.

"He's a Gryffindor! In our house!" she finally managed to say.

"Bella," said Narcissa coaxingly, as if her sister was a little child who wanted some sweet she couldn't have. "I know. And Gryffindors aren't worth our time, are they? They aren't even worth the dirty looks you insist on giving them. They are nothing. So just let him be. I bet he finds your anger hilarious anyway."

"I--I--Fine!" my youngest cousin fumed. "You can do that, but I'm going to give him hell! Do you know what those first year Slytherins called me at the beginning of last year? 'That girl with the Gryffindor cousin.' I'm not my own person anymore; I'm the cousin of the boy who got Sorted into the wrong house. You might not care, Narcissa, but I do! I'm never going to get anything accomplished in life with him around. I can only hope that Regulus won't follow in his footsteps!" She turned to me. "Get Sorted into Gryffindor and I'll kill you."

Not exactly sure how to respond to this, I said, "Oh."

Narcissa made an elaborate show of rolling her eyes. "Stop threatening Regulus; it's not going to get you anywhere."

Red in the face, Bella yelled, "Leave me alone, Narcissa! No one cares about you!"

The blonde rolled her eyes again, and proceeded to do her Potions homework. I could hear her mumbling various herbs and elixirs under her breath, and her pen scratching away at the parchment. Crossing her arms hotly, Bella stared in the opposite direction of the one her sister was in.

"It's your turn," I said quietly. Bella glared at me.

***

For what started out as a spat between siblings--unusual, but not so abnormal that it was a shock to the household--Bella and Narcissa's fight turned into quite a quarrel. Sirius loved it; here lay victory for him. His main enemy had another one to focus on, and truthfully I think it confused Bellatrix a little--which one deserved the most negative attention from her? In the end, it was sisterly love that spared Narcissa from the most of Bella's wrath, though she still experienced some of it.

The person who suffered most was, in fact, the one who had nothing to do with it. Andromeda hated it when her siblings fought. Narcissa and Bella and Andromeda were best friends; the worst things could happen to them and they would get through it, just because her sisters were there. I used to long to have this relationship with Sirius, but after I saw Narcissa and Andromeda practising kissing on each other, I wasn't so keen on the idea.

Andromeda was everywhere: trying to talk sense into Bella, and listening to Narcissa rant about how she didn't wish for a childish fight, but she wasn't going to talk to Bella until she got some sense knocked into her and stoppeds taking things so seriously. My middle cousin was also trying to deal with her aunt, who, usually in agreement with Andromeda's actions, was now furious at the fact that she was going out of her way to try to understand Sirius' position.

Father, of course, didn't care. He was spending more and more time with the Ministry, and Uncle Rigel was now joining him. They were becoming obsessed with getting rid of Mudbloods--more obsessed than before, I mean. Mother was always hounding him about it, and now he was taking her seriously. I do did not know what was going to come out of this, but I know knew it probably wasn't going to be good.

Frankly, I was starting to get a bit confused.

It was a few days after the argument between my cousins when I decided I could not take it anymore. Aunt Cleneatha had taken me aside to tell me that this was normal family rivalry, and that it would pass, but I got the idea from the way she said that that she didn't think that was so. I had so many questions, and if I asked Narcissa--the only one who was now talking to me that wasn't an adult, since Andromeda was too busy--she would just give me a look that said, "Don't even bother, you're too young to understand it all."

But I'm not too young. I'm nine--and a very mature nine, according to Bella. I lived there; I deserved to know what is happening in my own house!

I stormed off towards the courtyard, soon lost within the maze of bushes that wove through it. This was the only part of the outside I truly liked--this was the perfect place to think. You could just run along through the maze, not knowing where you were going or where you had started, just thinking about whatever you wanted to. I could sit there for hours, undisturbed. Even though we--my brother, my cousins and I--had learned how to get through the maze in the quickest time possible when I was four, all one had to do is make one wrong turn and you could be lost for the rest of the day. It was times like this when I really appreciated the Maison.

My fingers were a bit sore from the bushes sharp leaves and sticks--I had been running them along it, contemplating how to solve this family feud that had erupted in our household. The stones that bordered the pathway were covered with dirt; no one had been here in a long time. Touching my head, I flinched--I had forgotten how hot it was outside, there in the shaded courtyard. Sometimes I wished I had blonde hair, just like Narcissa's.

"Oh--it's just you, Regulus."

I spun around to see my cousin Andromeda's head popping out of one of the niches made in the maze, where I usually went to read. I began to wish that I had brought a book; reading always seemed to calm me down.

"Hello, Andromeda," I said. I began to kick at some of the excess dirt on the stones, not sure of what else to do.

"Come here. I feel like I haven't talked to you ever since I got back from Hogwarts." She beckoned to me to follow her into the niche, where I was suddenly overcome by her body practically on top of me. I hugged her back. Out of all the sisters, Andromeda was the one who was the most open with her emotions, which was on the top of the list of things Mother hoped she would grow out of.

Andromeda let go, then gestured for me to take the seat next to her on the bench. I complied, brushing a thin layer of dust off before I sat down. My cousin smiled. "So. How was your year? It must have been very boring, having no one to talk to except Kreacher, Aunt Arachne and my mother."

"It was," I confessed. "Sometimes I wished that Sirius would come back... but now that he's back, I don't know if that was such a good wish to make." I met Andromeda's eyes with my own; I didn't know if that was the right thing to say or not. One could never know with Andromeda.

She sighed. "I don't know why everyone is acting this way. Sirius got Sorted into Gryffindor--but he's still the same person inside. No one's giving him a chance--he needs a chance!" Dropping her voice a bit, she continued. "And your mother isn't helping at all, no she isn't. It's horrible, the way she treats Sirius--she was doting on him last year. I've heard her talking to Mother; both of them, they think Sirius is a failure! Merlin..."

I assumed Sirius wasn't a good topic of discussion between Andromeda and I.

Trying to find another thing to talk about--I hate awkward silences as much as the next person--my eyes fell on a book half-covered by my cousin's robes, as if she didn't want me to see it. "What's that?" I said, pointing to the book.

Andromeda glanced at the spot I was pointing to. "Oh--that. It's a book. A very good one, too. You can read it after I'm finished."

Though she didn't seem to want to talk about it, I grabbed the book from it's hiding place and stared at the cover. "'To Kill A Mockingbird'," I read aloud. Turning to my cousin, I asked, "What is it about?"

"Two children growing up in southern America during the 1930s. Their father is a lawyer, and their mother is dead. Then their father--Atticus--takes on a court case and... well, you must read it. It's so much more interesting than it sounds."

"I believe you," I said. It was in my experience than Andromeda's taste in books was very close to mine.

She smiled. "Here--let me read it to you. It'll be just like when you were little

Normally, I loathed being reminded of my younger years, but this was an exception. The only thing that was better than curling up with a good book was curling up with someone else and having them read it to you. Andromeda and I had first did this when I was three, and that was how I really began to read.

"Okay." I handed Andromeda the book and she began reading, in an ominous but pleasing voice.

"'When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem's fears of never being able to play football again were assuaged'--" I made a mental note to look up 'assuaged' during my next free moment "--'he was seldom self-conscious about his injury. His left arm was somewhat shorter than his right; when he stood or walked, the back of his hand was at right angles to his body, his thumb parallel to his thigh. He couldn't have cared less, so long as he could pass or punt.

"'When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed the events leading up to his accident...'"

I rested my head on Andromeda's shoulder, looking forward to a night with no worries about whether Bella and Narcissa were going to murder each other, or whether Mother was going to throw out Sirius, or whether Sirius was going to throw out himself.