For Dorrito’s Every Flavour Mood Beans.

*****

Confused

Some days she is Alice and he is Frank. Some days she can pull and pull and finally see for one small moment. She remembers fragments, names of things. Blanket. Pot. Shoe. Flower. They present themselves fiercely, as if they’d always been there, as if she was herself again.

Others are hidden, deep behind the haze—an older woman, sharp and frowning, the round-faced boy with the soft smile and sad eyes. She gives him a present to please him, but the eyes won’t change.

Blanket. Pot. Shoe. Flower. Frank. Frank. Frank. She recites these over, to keep from sinking.

For Dorrito’s Every Flavour Mood Beans.

*****

Cold

The sitting room had developed a chill. She’d scolded the house elves to no effect at all, and of course Lucius was to blame. A husband imprisoned was a trial for any woman. A husband who fell to a band of misfit children… well, some things were simply too horrible to bear.

Her fingers ran over the small, lacquered box as she carefully pronounced each sequence of spells. Times like these were all about options, and Narcissa Black always kept her options in view. On her last word, the box sprang open, revealing its contents in perfect order. Narcissa smiled.