The Big Dipper

Prologue

All her life, Cassiopeia had been the prettiest Black sister.

With large grey eyes, silky black curls, and a permanent smile, she had been their parents' favorite. She had been everyone's favorite. She was the most likeable, the friendliest, and the most optimistic of the four sisters.

The happiest, Narcissa later supposed.

But despite, or perhaps because of, her privileged, even spoiled upbringing, Cassiopeia was the most unpredictable of the sisters.

So when Cassiopeia disappeared, Narcissa didn't go looking for her. She knew that her sister would find her if she wanted to. And she did.

The next time Narcissa saw her sister, she also met her niece. Narcissa told no one of the meeting, or that her sister was staying with Andromeda, who had been disowned several years prior. She didn't tell anyone when Cassiopeia took her daughter and moved. She didn't know how Bellatrix had found her.

Deep down, Narcissa would never forgive Bellatrix for telling Antonin Dolohov, Cassiopeia's ex-fiancé, where to find her. Not when, after a year of searching, Dolohov found her in Muggle London. Hidden in plain sight.

And when Narcissa was told to enter her sister's flat and find the child, she knew she would never forget what Bellatrix had done. Not when Cassiopeia had been so brutally murdered.

Narcissa didn't look at her sister's body for longer than a glance as she entered the room. She didn't look at the torn pillows, the smashed mirror, or the blood that covered the room. She didn't look at the blood that splattered across the walls, the blood that soaked the curtains, and the blood that dripped from the ceiling into a pool on the floor.

She strode over to her sister's vanity. All of Cassiopeia's possessions had been broken or knocked onto the floor. Narcissa lifted a strand of pearls from under a pile of smashed picture frames and twisted it between her fingers. Each sister owned an identical pair, gifted to them by their parents. Cassiopeia, while unpredictable, always acted with purpose. If she wasn't wearing hers when she died, as indicated by the unbroken clasp, then she must have understood, for once in her life, how much danger she was in.

Narcissa turned, tucking the pearls away as her eyes scanned the room for any sign of her niece. While she knew many of the Death Eaters figured, and perhaps expected, that finding the girl would be as hard as finding Cassiopeia had been, Narcissa knew that wasn't her sister's style.

Cassiopeia had been found hiding in plain sight, so her daughter would be the same. Narcissa strode over to the wardrobe, opened the door, and found a pair of large grey eyes staring back at her.

"Hello Ursula."