Narcissa's heels clicked in perfect rhythm against the stone floor.
It was the only sound for several long seconds after the door shut behind them.
Behind that door, Bellatrix was still with him.
Narcissa didn't like that. She didn't hate it either. She just… hadn't decided yet.
Andromeda broke first.
"Well," she said, folding her arms as they walked. "That was unsettling."
Narcissa snorted softly. "You find everything unsettling lately."
"I find him unsettling," Andromeda shot back. "There's a difference."
They turned into a quieter corridor, away from the meeting room and its heavy door and hungry silences.
Narcissa let herself exhale, just a fraction.
Tom Riddle.
He had certainly felt like everything the whispers had promised: cold, confident, intense. Power so thick in the room it was hard to breathe around it.
And yet.
"Something was wrong," Andromeda said, as if plucking the thought right out of her head. "You felt it."
Narcissa hesitated. "Wrong how?"
Andromeda frowned. "The magic. Around him. On him. It was… different. Like he'd just stepped through a storm and not all of it had settled."
"That's what power feels like," Narcissa said. "He's not some Ministry clerk. He's trying to reshape half the world. Of course it feels strange."
Andromeda shook her head. "Strange I can handle. That was… slippery. Like it wanted to be one thing but kept thinking about being seven others."
Narcissa rolled her eyes. "You're being dramatic."
"You didn't feel it when he took your hand?" Andromeda pressed. "When he said he was 'testing' us?"
Narcissa thought back to that moment, his hand in hers. Cold. Heavy. Strong. Magic pressing against her skin like a weight, evaluating her, judging her.
Unpleasant. Impressive.
"I felt judged," she said honestly. "And I didn't appreciate it."
Andromeda huffed a laugh. "Naturally."
"You would rather he be impressed by everyone he meets?" Narcissa added. "That's not power, that's desperation."
Andromeda didn't answer right away.
They reached a window; pale light painted the stone and their dark robes in muted shades.
"You didn't feel it," Andromeda murmured, almost to herself.
"Feel what?" Narcissa snapped, patience thinning. "You keep circling it like a Hufflepuff around a confrontation."
Andromeda's jaw clenched. "When he held our hands. There was something under the surface. Not just power. Something else. Something that touched and then pulled back, like it was tasting us."
Narcissa stared at her. "Tasting."
"Yes."
"As in metaphorically," Narcissa said slowly, "or as in you truly believe Lord Riddle is wandering around licking people with his magic?"
Andromeda pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose. "You make things sound stupid on purpose."
"It's a survival skill," Narcissa shot back.
For a moment, both sisters fell silent again.
The torchlight flickered.
"…You're not entirely wrong," Narcissa admitted finally. "It didn't feel like any spell I know."
"And it stopped," Andromeda said quietly. "When I pushed back, it left. Cleanly. Too cleanly." She looked at Narcissa. "That is not how most Dark magic behaves."
"Maybe he's simply better at it than what you're used to," Narcissa said. "Not all of us read banned theory for fun, Andromeda. Some of us prefer working models to books."
Andromeda actually smiled at that, a tiny flash. "I read so we don't all end up cursed, Nars."
"Yes, well," Narcissa replied dryly, "if his magic is a curse, you'll have the pleasure of telling Father 'I told you so' when we're all doomed."
Andromeda exhaled. "Comforting."
Narcissa shrugged delicately. "You wanted honesty."
They kept walking.
The question that had been bothering both of them since the door closed finally slid into the open.
"Why her?" Andromeda asked. "Why keep Bella?"
This time, Narcissa didn't answer immediately.
Her.
Bellatrix. Their elder sister. Their storm in human form.
It wasn't surprising, not really. If a man like Tom Riddle was shopping for zeal, Bellatrix might as well have come with her own sales pitch: dangerous, eager, willing.
Still.
"He wants a weapon, not a partner," Narcissa said at last. "Bella is good at being pointed at things and told to destroy them."
Andromeda flinched. "That's a cruel way to talk about our sister."
"It's also true," Narcissa replied calmly. "She doesn't want a seat at the table. She wants to flip it over and laugh while it burns."
"She wants to matter," Andromeda said quietly.
"So do you," Narcissa pointed out. "You just hide it behind principles and clever arguments instead of bloodlust."
Andromeda's mouth tightened. "You make it sound dirty."
"Wanting matters is never clean," Narcissa said. "You can pretend it is, if that makes you feel better, but Father didn't raise us to be naive about what power costs."
Andromeda fell silent again.
Narcissa glanced sideways at her.
"She caught his eye," Narcissa went on, voice cooler now, analytical. "That much was obvious. She didn't look away. She didn't flinch. He likes that."
"He liked her obedience," Andromeda countered. "The way she dropped to her knee at the slightest approval. That wasn't power he admired, that was worship."
Narcissa almost smiled. "And you dislike worship."
"I dislike blind worship," Andromeda said firmly. "Especially directed at men who talk about the world like it's a broken toy only they're allowed to play with."
"Most men in power do," Narcissa said. "At least this one admits he wants to break it."
"That's not an argument in his favor," Andromeda muttered.
"It is for our purposes," Narcissa said. "A man who knows he's dangerous is easier to predict than one pretending to be harmless."
Andromeda opened her mouth, then shut it again, frustrated.
They reached the corner where the corridor forked.
From here, one path led to the main staircase and the safer, louder parts of the castle. The other led back toward the quieter, more discreet routes the Blacks preferred to use, where fewer eyes watched them.
Narcissa leaned casually against the wall.
"What did you think of him," she asked, "aside from 'slippery' and 'unsettling' and 'tasting,' which is still a ridiculous word, by the way."
Andromeda looked back in the direction they'd come.
She thought about red eyes that seemed to look straight through her. About a voice that wrapped itself around sentences like a coil. About the way the air bent around him.
"I think," she said slowly, "he's dangerous in a way that has nothing to do with the Ministry or our parents or anything we've dealt with before."
"We knew that," Narcissa said.
"No," Andromeda insisted. "We heard it. We read it. Today, I felt it. He doesn't just want influence. He wants…" She searched for the word. "He wants ownership."
Narcissa arched a brow. "Of what?"
"Everything," Andromeda said simply. "Rooms. Conversations. People. He spoke to us like we were already… his."
Narcissa's lips quirked. "And you didn't like that."
Andromeda's jaw tightened. "Did you?"
Narcissa considered.
He had spoken to them like chess pieces, yes. But he had also looked at Narcissa like she was a valuable one. Not a pawn. Something more.
It was insulting and flattering at the same time.
"I like reality," Narcissa said at last. "Men like him take what they want. Better to be useful than invisible."
Andromeda's gaze hardened. "Useful is one step from disposable."
"Which is why," Narcissa replied smoothly, "we do not become only useful. We stay interesting. Indispensable. Irreplaceable."
"Do you truly think he will see us that way," Andromeda asked, "when he kept Bella and sent us out like servants?"
Narcissa's fingers tapped once against her arm.
"That," she admitted, "I do not like."
Silence again.
This time, it was Andromeda who broke it with a soft, worried sigh.
"She'll throw herself at him," she said. "Body, mind, soul. You know she will."
"Of course," Narcissa said. "That's why he kept her."
"That's why I'm worried."
Narcissa glanced at her. "Because you don't trust him, or because you don't trust her with him?"
Andromeda didn't answer.
She didn't need to.
Bella with a cause was already dangerous. Bella with a man as her cause? That was a disaster with a family crest etched into the side.
"He looked at her like she was a tool," Andromeda said. "She looked at him like he was—"
"Salvation?" Narcissa suggested.
Andromeda made a face. "I was going to say a very sharp toy, but yes. That too."
"Does it matter what she calls it," Narcissa said. "She is what she is."
"We are what we are," Andromeda shot back. "But we weren't born pre-shaped to be someone's weapon."
"We were born to be someone's something," Narcissa said coolly. "Daughters. Wives. Bargains. Father tried very hard to make sure 'weapon' was at least on the list. It pays better."
Andromeda's expression twisted like that tasted bitter.
"Do you ever tire of talking like everything is a transaction?" she asked.
"Yes," Narcissa said. "But it keeps us alive."
Footsteps echoed down the corridor behind them.
Both sisters turned.
Bellatrix walked toward them.
Her steps were the same. Her robes were the same.
But something in the way she moved had shifted.
Her back was straighter. Her eyes brighter. There was a hum about her, an almost electric sharpness in the air.
Narcissa noticed it in the way her skin prickled when Bella passed under a nearby torch.
Andromeda noticed it in the way the magic around her had… changed.
It flared and narrowed at the same time, like a wild flame that someone had cupped their hand around.
"Finally," Narcissa said lightly. "We were starting to think he'd forgotten about us in there."
Bellatrix smiled.
Narcissa had seen her sister smile before. Sharp, mocking, vicious. This one was… softer. No, not softer.
Deeper.
"He doesn't forget things," Bellatrix said. "Not when they're his."
There it was again.
His.
Narcissa opened her mouth. Closed it. Filed that tone away for later.
Andromeda went for the direct attack.
"What did he do?" she asked. "You feel… different."
Bellatrix looked down at her own arm, flexed her fingers once, as if testing something only she could sense.
"He marked me," she said simply.
Narcissa's breath caught. "Already?"
Bellatrix's smile sharpened. "You sound jealous."
Andromeda stepped closer, studying her. "What kind of mark?"
Bellatrix's gaze flicked to her, eyes bright. "His," she said. "That's all that matters."
Andromeda's stomach sank. "Bella."
"He chose me," Bellatrix said, voice low with a kind of fervent satisfaction neither of them had heard before. "Out of all the witches he could have. Out of all the families." Her fingers brushed the inside of her sleeve, over her wrist. "Do you know what that means?"
"That he's efficient at recruiting fanatics," Andromeda muttered.
Bellatrix's head snapped toward her, eyes flashing. "It means I matter."
"You already mattered," Andromeda shot back. "To us. To the family."
"The family wants me married off to some inbred cousin with a vault," Bellatrix said. "Father wants me as a trophy. He wants me as a blade."
Narcissa's chest tightened at the bitterness in that first sentence. She pretended it didn't.
"We're not knives, Bella," Andromeda said.
"I am," Bellatrix said simply. "You can be whatever you like."
Narcissa watched the two of them, feeling something cold creep into her spine.
"Did he say what he wanted you for?" she asked, keeping her voice casual.
Bellatrix's expression softened in a way that made Narcissa's fingers itch. "He said I don't pretend. That I'll go further. That I'll enjoy it." Her lips curled. "He was right."
"That is not a compliment," Andromeda snapped.
"It is coming from him," Bellatrix said. "He doesn't praise lightly."
Andromeda rubbed her temple. "You met him once."
"And he already understood me," Bellatrix replied. "Better than anyone else in that room ever has."
Narcissa swallowed her immediate response.
Had he? Or had he said the exact words Bellatrix had always wanted to hear?
Subtle difference. Deadly one.
"What did the mark feel like?" Narcissa asked.
Bellatrix's eyes went distant for a second. "Cold. Sharp. Then… warm. Like lightning settling in my veins." She looked at them both and smiled too-wide. "It made everything clearer."
Andromeda's unease sharpened to fear. "You realize how that sounds?"
"Yes," Bellatrix said. "Perfect."
Narcissa opened her mouth, then closed it again.
Pushing now would only make Bella dig in deeper. They knew that from childhood: tell Bellatrix no, and she'd set something on fire just to prove she could.
"You should rest," Narcissa said instead. "It's been a long day."
"Maybe," Bellatrix said. "I have… thinking to do."
That might have been the most terrifying sentence of the week.
She walked past them, head high, shoulders back, moving like someone who'd finally been given permission to become exactly what she wanted to be.
As she passed Andromeda, the hairs on Andy's arm rose.
Something under Bellatrix's skin hummed near her wrist. A wrongness. A connection. A presence.
Andromeda's magic reached out on instinct, brushed that place, and recoiled.
Foreign. Alive.
Her eyes widened.
She caught Narcissa's sleeve the second Bella turned the corner.
"Nars," she whispered. "There is something on her."
Narcissa didn't say "you're imagining things."
She didn't say "it's just Dark magic, get used to it."
She met Andromeda's eyes and saw, for the first time that day, real fear.
Not of their parents.
Not of the Ministry.
Of him.
"Then we will watch it," Narcissa said quietly. "And her."
"And if it's wrong?" Andromeda asked. "If it's more than a mark?"
Narcissa's jaw set.
"Then," she said, "we decide whether it's more dangerous to cut it away… or to let it grow."
The castle hummed quietly around them, ancient stone and old secrets listening.
Somewhere far above, in a room they weren't invited to, a crimson thing curled deeper into Bellatrix Black's wrist, getting comfortable.
The Blacks had attended their first meeting with the Dark Lord.
Only one of them had come back carrying him.