Harry Potter - Fanfiction

Year 6 - Spinner's End

It's a chilly and windy night as a hooded figure, a woman by the name of Narcissa, stands across the road of rows and rows of dilapidated brick houses, their windows dull and blind in the darkness.

"He lives here?" asks a seconded hooded figure, in a voice of contempt. "Here? In this Muggle dunghill? We must be the first of our kind ever to set foot –"

But Narcissa is not listening; she has slipped through the gap in the rusty railings and is already hurrying across the road.

"Cissy, wait!"

The second hooded figure known as Bellatrix follows, her cloak streaming behind, and sees Narcissa darting through an alley between the houses into a second, almost identical street. Some of the streetlamps are broken; the two women are running between patches of light and deep darkness. The pursuer catches up with her prey just as she turns another corner, this time succeeding in catching hold of her arm and swinging her around so that they face each other.

"Cissy, you must not do this, you can't trust him –"

"The Dark Lord trusts him, doesn't he?"

"The Dark Lord is... I believe... Mistaken," Bella pants, and her eyes gleam momentarily under her hood as she looks around to check that they are indeed alone. "In any case, we are told not to speak of the plan to anyone. This is betrayal of the Dark Lords –"

"Let go, Bella!" snarls Narcissa, and she draws her wand from beneath her cloak, holding it threateningly in the others face. Bella laughs.

"Cissy, your own sister? You wouldn't –"

"There is nothing I wouldn't do anymore!" Narcissa breathes, a note of hysteria in her voice, and she brings down her wand like a knife, there is a flash of light. Bella lets go of her sister's arm as though it burned.

"Narcissa!"

But Narcissa has rushed along. Rubbing her hand, her pursuer follows again, keeping her distance now, as they move deeper into the deserted labyrinth of brick houses. At last, Narcissa hurries up a street named Spinner's End, over which the towering mill chimney seems to hover like a giant admonitory finger.

Her footsteps echo on the cobbles as she passes boarded and broken windows, until she reaches the very last house, where a dim light glimmers through the curtains in a downstairs room.

She knocks on the door before Bella, cursing under her breath, catches up. Together they stand waiting, panting slightly, breathing in the smell of dirty river that is carried to them on the night breeze.

After a few seconds, they hear movement behind the door, and it opens a crack. A sliver of a man can be seen looking out at them, a man with long black hair parted in the curtains around a sallow face and black eyes.

Narcissa throws back her hood. She is so pale that she seems to shine in the darkness; the long blonde hair streaming down her back gives her the look of a drowned person.

"Narcissa!" says the man, opening the door a little wider so that the light falls upon her and her sister too. "What a pleasant surprise!"

"Severus," she says in a strained whisper. "May I speak to you? It's urgent."

"But of course."

He stands back to allow her to pass him into the house. Her still-hooded sister follows without invitation.

"Snape," she says curtly as she passes him.

"Bellatrix," he replies, his thin mouth curling into a slightly mocking smile as he closes the door with a snap behind him.