''𝙅𝙖𝙢𝙚𝙨 𝙙𝙤𝙣'𝙩 𝙛𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙞𝙩 𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙚, 𝙨𝙝𝙚'𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙧𝙪𝙚𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢 𝙖𝙡𝙡. 𝙄'𝙙 𝙠𝙣𝙤𝙬- 𝙨𝙝𝙚'𝙨 𝙢𝙮 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙨𝙞𝙣.'' Loving you was the most exquisite form of self destruction.
- VOLUME I of the HOUSE OF B...
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• ── ≪ ✧ ◦《✩》◦✧ ≫ ── •
NARCISSA'S ARM LOOPED TIGHTLY THROUGH ESTELLA'S as the pair made their way down the looming black alabaster staircase of Black Manor. As it was their daughters first official meeting as Death Eaters, Druella and Cygnus leapt at the opportunity to host the gathering.
Clearing the staircase, the pair made their way towards the manors Great Room. Bearing more resemblance to a hall as opposed to a mere room, the space stretched a great expanse and housed looming pillars of black marble and a heavy oak table that sat an easy forty.
With the arm that Narcissa wasn't clutching onto, Estella rubbed a ghostly pale palm across her brow. There was no sleep for the wicked and Estella Black was no exception. After the promising ceremony, sleep suddenly became a thing of the past, and the evidence was clear.
Estella's skin was no longer porcelain and creamy, but grey- translucent. With purpling veins that pressed against her paper-thin skin and hair absent of all its usual sheen, Estella looked frightful- ghostly in fact.
Night terrors had replaced the pitiful handful of minutes she'd grown accustomed to sleeping at night. Raging storms of blinding wickedness that invaded her conscious. They swept in through every open orifice, nose, eyes and ears- a black sickness that seeped in, a cancer.
Estella would writhe, petrified, with guttural screams that flayed her throat dry, and she would wake to find her sheets without fail, drenched in cold sweat that left her with the dying whisper of a fever- her will too strong for it to leave her bedridden, but just enough to traipse around in a state of death the following morning.
Just as Estella and Narcissa neared the Great room, Narcissa pulled back. Her arm slipped from Estella's as the impermeable mask all four Black sisters has been taught to brandish like armour, slipped. It was just a fleeting moment, a farce in her perfectly blank expression, but evident enough for Estella to spot.
Fear, uncertainty, regret.
''Is there a problem?'' Estella spoke. It wasn't a question, but rather a warning. They were not just part of The Ten anymore waiting for their chance to serve their Lord. The time was now, and it was too late to back out. They forfeited that chance the minute they received matching brands of black on their forearms. There was no turning back now.
Narcissa jutted her chin out, as if that pathetically minute action could disguise the fear that Estella still saw brewing like a torrential storm, at the back of her mind. She snatched at her sister's wrist, for the first time feeling no sick satisfaction at Narcissa's sharp intake of breath, or the way she trembled like a petrified rabbit.
