This is my response to Maria Mississippi's "Mothers Challenge".

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Her life has been worthwhile, if not good. It has been one filled with success, if not happiness. Druella Black knew very well that she was dying - she could feel the fierce determination that had propelled her through life, from one triumph to another, ebbing – and she was not afraid. Druella was tired. She could no longer tell if the shadows flickering above her head were real or imagined, nor did she care.

Even as she lay dying, Druella was ensconced in the finest linen sheets money could buy, clad in a luxuriously plush night gown, although they did nothing to keep the cold seeping through her bones at bay. Forcing herself to remain awake, Druella reflected upon the only things in life that had ever given her warmth: her children. Never had Druella been prone to the foolish maternal fluttering of others, but there was no denying the measure of satisfaction she felt when she considered the many qualities of her daughters, or even the surge of love.

Bellatrix.

In her first daughter, Druella could see much of herself. Bellatrix was cunning and strong: she did not allow her husband to rule her, and although Druella would never have praised such wilfulness in life, as her time drew to a close, she found the thought a pleasing one. The fire crackled, the sound strangely distant – or was it the memory of Bellatrix igniting a curse, with lightning speed and no remorse - but the thought did not bother Druella. Unwavering in her convictions, Druella's eldest daughter would never flounder.

And-And after that came Narcissa.

Her own colouring was dark and Narcissa's light, and so the similarities between mother and daughter were not immediately noticeable, but they were there nevertheless. When Narcissa had been born, she did not scream until she was red in the face, as the others had done. After a long and difficult birth, Druella had been ready to resent her youngest child, but one look from those bright blue eyes had ended these thoughts as the sun does the night. Narcissa had only grown more beautiful, more elegant, as time had passed. In the shape of her face, the mesmerising poise, and her social ambition, Druella saw herself in Narcissa. Narcissa had always known the worth of her looks, and always would. Druella did not worry for her youngest.

Druella waited, wondering how many more times her chest would rise and fall. Something nagged at her, spoiling the contentment she felt.

Andromeda.

Even now, Druella's second child managed to irritate her. Was it the shame of being related to the blood traitor, or the guilt of having failed as a mother that irked her? She snarled at the thought and banished it, but not before it had been branded onto her consciousness. Her conscience. Andromeda had always been a dreamy child with no head for politics, and no thought of duty – overly sensitive and too romantic by half. Druella pictured the soft brown hair, exactly as her own had been before she had gone grey, and the whimsical look in eyes that would otherwise have been identical to her own. Andromeda had known how to dream, and without daring to imagine marrying a man so renowned in their circles, Druella would never have had this life.

A little of her was in all three of her daughters.

Druella sighed and did not breathe again.

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