Chapter Text
The lane was long and winding. Tall, elegant houses lined it, spaced far apart and filled with elegant people who referred to it as a country lane. The street itself was cobbled deeply and unevenly. Cars did not come here, while horses occasionally did; but primarily it was a lane for people to walk in. At this particular time there was a miserable gray rain tapping at the elegant windows in the elegant houses, and it was only a few minutes after dawn. The street was empty.
A faint pop sounded.
A figure cloaked in a deep hood and a skirt long enough to rustle over the cobbles appeared. It consulted the street numbers on the closest gates, then, getting its bearings, began to walk down the street furtively, hurriedly. If there were eyes at any of the nearest windows, they would not have found this remarkable, for furtive, hurried and covered in deep cloaks was the accepted way for the elegant women who lived on this street to come and go, if indeed they had a need to come and go alone, which they rarely did.
The particular cloak was a deep navy blue and embroidered with stars. It did not recognizably belong to the widowed Mistress Edgecombe, Gloria Longbottom; nor the yet-unmarried Miss Willa Crabbe; nor any other young woman who might have had reason to scurry home in the dawn light on this secret; and so it did not provide useful fodder for gossip. But it was clearly of their sort of person and did not attract interest for being out of place either. There was no reason for interest at all.
A second, louder pop sounded, and a second figure appeared.
This one wore a cloak just as deep and long, but of a uniform dark color and a decidedly shabbier quality, with a few discernible patches in it. This was still not cause for alarm, but the way it rushed after the first might be.
"Wait!"
The first figure glanced over its shoulder and hurried faster. The second raced to catch up, startling a squirrel at the base of a nearby tree. Both figures jumped.
"Cissy - Narcissa, wait," the second figure called, softer, hurrying to catch up with the first.
"You have to go back, Andy," Narcissa said, turning to stride off quickly in her original direction. The second figure paced her, although from several feet away.
"We have to wait for Sirius--"
"I have made up my mind. Go back, Andy," Narcissa said, speeding up. "When she sees you--"
"Oh, because the old woman's going to be happier to see you?" Andy said, undeterred. "We said Sirius would--"
"Sirius will be ill for months yet. I have decided," Narcissa said, looking away to close the discussion; but her confidence that the second woman would only argue was misplaced. Andy caught up and grabbed her arm, swinging her around to face her.
"Andromeda--" Narcissa said.
"Tell me you at least have a plan," Andromeda said. "Were you just going to knock on the door and hope?"
They glared at each other from inside their hoods. The rain fell in streams down their waterproof cloaks, forming small rivers that flowed around and sometimes over sunken cobblestones.
"Fine," Narcissa said at length. "But let me do the talking. I wasn't going to knock on the door at all; I know which window is her bedroom."
They made their way, side by side, down the road. At the far end of the lane, the houses were perhaps a bit shabbier, the gardens overgrown. These houses had once been as tall and elegant as those where the sisters had first appeared, but they had gone out of fashion a bit, sustained damage that had not been repaired. A few were clearly closed up, not just for the season, but for years.
"Here," Narcissa said finally. "Number thirteen, Chichevache Lane."
They stood back a moment and looked over the iron fence. The climbing roses had taken over the property; they streamed over the fence and around it, binding the gate nearly permanently shut, and assaulted the red brick of the house. A number of windows would probably never open again. They had swallowed the hedge along the house and were slowly strangling it, had laid siege to and collapsed the trellis, and were on the verge of pulling apart the roof.
"I'd swear that rose was malicious," Andromeda remarked.
"Perhaps Muriel Prewett's turned it into her Horcrux," Narcissa said, and swung surprisingly nimbly over the useless gate, avoiding the thorns.
Andromeda followed her and swore when they tore her cloak hem. Narcissa only laughed and circled slowly around the property.
"No wardings?" Andromeda said questioningly.
"The usual enchantments," Narcissa said. "We don't intend the household harm."
"True. Which window, then?"
Narcissa pointedly silently to one of the few entirely clear of roses on this side of the house, four stories up. They looked at it for a moment.
"Here I forgot my broom," Andromeda said.
"Don't be stupid," said Narcissa, and stooped. She located several pebbles and, taking her wand from her sleeve, levitated them up to tap at the window. She also drew back her hood, just enough that it was possible to make out her face.
The window was thrust open only a few minutes later, and a woman put her head out. She had once been as elegant as the people who filled the houses down the lane, but she was now rather tired and nearing seventy. Her face had sunken into a kind of diffident apathy that was not an attractive look on anyone and her movements were sloppily quick instead of graceful and deliberate. She banged her head into the casement and swore, in fact, in the process of looking down.
But her near-black curls streamed down all the way to the window on the next story down, and the lines of her face were familiar to both sisters.
"Lucretia!" Narcissa called, cupping her hands around her mouth. "LUCRETIA!"
"Narcissa!" Lucretia called back. "TEN MINUTES!"
"SIDE DOOR!" Narcissa roared back. Her shouting entirely belied her usual soft voice and dainty persona. In fact she sounded like a commander bellowing orders on the battlefield. Lucretia saluted wryly before pulling her hair back inside and banging the casement shut.
Narcissa led the way again to the side door. It was drowning in rose alongside a competing ivy from the opposite side of the house. The ivy had long ago resigned itself to strangulation and death, but was going to make the rose pay dearly for it.
"Are you quite sure this door will open?" Andromeda asked after they had stared in silence at it for a little too long, and the quiet began to feel ominous.
"Diffindo," Narcissa muttered, slashing her wand up. It was still inside her sleeve. Rose and ivy fell in a tangle from the door frame, and Andromeda, who had not seen her sister draw, jumped. "Sloppy, Andy."
"I imagine I'll be back in practice soon," Andromeda murmured.
"When she comes out," Narcissa said. "Perhaps you had better not--"
"Talk, I know. You can't hide me from her forever, and if she agrees to come to Sirius--"
The door opened and Andromeda cut off abruptly.
Lucretia had dressed as well as packed in ten minutes. She was now wearing a set of navy robes fifteen years out of date and a periwinkle shawl over her contained hair. She carried only a carpet bag, with a bright pattern that appeared to move on its own.
She seemed to have changed her personality as well as her clothing in ten minutes; her face was realigned into an expression of bright interest, and her eyes sparkled. It made her look quite as beautiful as any of the people on the street, if not more; perhaps even as beautiful as the two nieces who had come to retrieve her.
"Your wand?" Narcissa asked at once, and Lucretia shook her head. Narcissa ground her teeth audibly.
Lucretia laid a hand on her shoulder. "It hardly matters now, Cissy." She glanced at the other figure. "Bella...?"
"Not as such," Andromeda said, and drew back her own hood as well.
Narcissa groaned audibly, but Lucretia only looked thoughtful. "Andromeda, then? What do your sisters call you...?"
"Andy, usually," Andromeda said. "Look, we need to go before Muriel sees--"
"Oh, there's not much risk of that now," Lucretia said, lips quirking. "Not ever again."
Narcissa smiled back, bright and fierce. Andromeda looked between them, and after a long moment when it seemed she might object, smiled, too. "Good," she said, and Lucretia stepped forward to kiss her cheek.