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Narcissa brushes her fingertips over the skin of Bellatrix’s naked back. The poultice bowl in her other hand is momentarily forgotten. Bellatrix stirs sleepily. She stretches, having almost dozed off while Narcissa tends to her.
“Cissy?”
Narcissa swallows. “I don’t remember you having so many scars when we were children.”
Bellatrix tenses under her touch. “I didn’t.”
“It’s alright,” Narcissa presses her palm flat against Bella’s back, preventing her from moving. “None of us did...” Tracing one scar thoughtfully, she asks, “Will you tell me about them?”
The silence between them stretches out for a long moment, and Narcissa worries she’s overstepped.
“I don’t know if I even remember most of them.”
Narcissa licks her lips, thinking. Shaking her sleeve back up to her elbow, she says, “Then let me show you some of mine...”
She worries Bellatrix will be furious. None of her scars are born from anything like Bellatrix has suffered. But Bellatrix shifts to look at her more comfortably, a slight desperation in her eyes, and there’s a brittle realization that Bellatrix is so desperate to reconnect, to learn about Narcissa’s life, that she cares about silly things like trivial scars.
Clearing her throat, Narcissa keeps her composure. “This scar is where one of Lucius’s peacocks attacked me. Lucius decided to try his hand at breeding them one year, and I unknowingly got too close to the chicks. Well, Draco was learning to run, and he could slip away at a moment’s notice. I couldn’t have Draco in danger of getting attacked. I put a stop to Lucius breeding them.”
Bellatrix snorts. “So protective. You certainly didn’t get that from our parents.”
Bella’s smile fades. Holding up her wrist, she shows Narcissa the thick scars around it. Glancing at Bellatrix’s other wrist, Narcissa sees a matching scar.
“When I first went to Azkaban, they chained me to the wall of my cell. Too much fight, I think. I tried to free myself from them. The wounds got infected. I wanted them to let me die, but they didn’t. Can’t feed off a dead body, see... I went quiet after that, and they unchained me... We all went quiet in the end...”
The light in Bella’s eyes dims, leaving only a haunted, faraway look in her eyes.
Narcissa rubs Bella’s back. Bella blinks, coming back to herself. With a shaky laugh, she points to another small scar on the back of Narcissa’s hand.
“And this?”
Narcissa laughs softly, though her chest aches. “Draco brought home a kitten...”