The Last Horcrux

Paris

Paris was very cold in December. The wind whipped off the Seine and people pulled their dark woolen coats close around themselves and hurried by without looking up. The river was an olive green with an oily sheen. The stores were brightly lit, shining with Christmas lights, but Narcissa found them artificial and uninviting.

The Night Circus had set up in Parc Georges Valbon in Saint Denis, on the outskirts of the city center. It was a gritty park in a gritty neighborhood. Trash blew in the streets and young men walked about in groups wearing expensive sneakers they could not afford, their hoods pulled up over their heads.

Narcissa had been put in charge of the rat show. It was not a job she relished. Spending hours in a stuffy tent, while Peter performed a series of tricks for sniveling children was a nightmare of tedium and boredom. Rodolphus had set up Lucius as his second in command. He was a kind of lieutenant, who kept track of employee's hours and dealt with the hundreds of minor problems that came up in the day to day running of the circus. The two men spent hours together in the back of the snake charmer's tent, drinking schnapps and talking. Bella twined around her husband's shoulders, her dark tongue flickering. Peter chittered to himself in a cage on the desk.

Narcissa didn't understand why Peter and Bella retained their animal forms. Whether it was out of fear of discovery or because of some kind of shock they had been through she could not ascertain. She did not much want to sit with her husband and Rodolphus, drinking and plotting, in the cluttered office. She feigned headaches or fatigue and retired to the small caravan she and Lucius had been given as living quarters. It was outfitted with a tiny coal stove. She huddled beside it and tried to read or to think. She was often kept company by one of the many cats that had free rein of the place and considered no space out of bounds to them.

One grey and windy day she took the metro to the Seventh Arrondissement. She sat on a bench in the Champ de Mars in the shadow of the Eiffel tower. The cold was keeping the tourists at bay, and Narcissa ignored the few vendors who approached her, staring them down with an icy glare that cowed even the most persistent. At last a woman in a grey cloak approached. Narcissa rose and hurried to meet her.

The woman paused. They stood a few feet apart, staring at each other.

"Andromeda?" Narcissa said at last.

"Hello, Narcissa."

Narcissa stood speechless in the windy plaza under the Eiffel Tower, overcome with emotion. The last time she had seen Andromeda she had been little more than a girl. Andromeda had been a beautiful young woman, fierce and full of defiance. She had left home to marry the man she loved and she had never looked back. Since that tearful goodbye they had only seen each other from a distance. They had never spoken in all the time that had passed.

Narcissa found it hard to reconcile the middle aged woman who stood before her with the young girl she remembered. The years showed on Andromeda, as she was sure they did on her. Andromeda was tall, but she had grown stout. Her grey hair was pulled back into a bun and the lines etched on her face spoke of the losses she had suffered. Yet, she still held herself erect, proud as ever. The look in her grey eyes, as it always had been, was one of steely determination. Narcissa had a keen feeling of loss, for all the years that were gone, all the things they had not shared.

"It's good to see you, Narcissa," Andromeda said at last.

"You too," said Narcissa. She felt the hoarseness in her voice.

"Let's get a drink," said Andromeda.

They went to a small cafe and ordered aperitifs. The alcohol felt steadying. Narcissa looked at Andromeda's careworn face, the lines around her eyes. She realized that although her own life was hard, and lonely, bitter with loss, it was nothing to her sister's. Andromeda had lost everything.