The Last of the Blacks

Chapter 59: Tea

September 1st, 1980

Walburga wasn't living the best life the last few years. Starting with the spell Orion had put on Sirius that couldn't be changed or taken away, ending with Regulus' disappearing. Oh, and let's not forget the fact that her brothers had died.

But in the same time Walburga knew that her house was going to last though the years.

She had heard that both Narcissa and Sirius had children after they had gotten married. Sirius to that lovely Rosier girl that smiled and laughed and looked exactly like her aunt Addie and Narcissa to the Malfoy boy.

Both of those children were the legacy of the Noble and Most Ancient house of Black. Even though they hadn't realized it yet.

"Mistress," Kreacher said, "there is a visitor for you."

Walburga stood up from her armchair in the living room and put her needlework aside. She looked herself in the mirror and smiled with her most lovely smile.

She was a Black, she reminded herself. She always looked good.

Perfect even.

"Let them in, Kreacher," she said coldly.

Even though she was alone most of the days Walburga was used to visitors. Bellatrix and Narcissa came by pretty often, telling her about the war and some times, when they had heard something, for Sirius. Her mother came by too. So did Alice Rosier née Lestrange.

Alice was a dear friend of Walburga's ever since they were children. She and her brother Corvus (who was the husband of Addie and father of Pandora and the Lestrange brothers) were born in France, but moved soon after her birth. She was sorted into Slytherin and there was no surprise in that. The surprise came after Alice fell in love with Hector Rosier, the oldest one of the Rosier children.

Together they had three children. Only Emma survived through her childhood.

She dearly hoped that Alice had come or, despite the fact that her heart knew that it wasn't going to be him, Sirius had come with his little girl. Cassiopea, Alice had said, was her name.

She even showed her a picture of a beautiful baby girl with blue eyes that looked so much like her father when he was a baby. Walburga had kept that photo in the living room.

The surprise hit her after she saw the person who came into the living room, following Kreacher.

"Tom," she said.

"Hello, Walburga," the Dark Lord smiled at her. "You look lovely."

That wasn't true, of course. He was just being nice and manipulative. As always.

Exactly like Regulus and Sirius had said.

"Thank you," she smiled, even though she remembered the silver hairs in her hair. "You too. What brings you here, T... My lord?"

"Tom is fine actually," he said. "Not many people call me that way anymore, but I am always happy to hear it by an old friend."

An old friend, she repeated. What an amazing idea to call her old friend knowing the fact that they had been each other's first and probably only love.

Well, Tom was her only love. She didn't know about him, but she remembered that day all those years ago when Sirius was just a little boy and he had opened the front door to the one and only lord Voldemort. He practically had come to beg her to be his Dark Lady.

What if he had come for the same reason now?

"Would you like to stay for tea?" she asked.

"If you want me to, I will be happy to stay and have a word."