Author's Note: Enjoy! Written for the 31 Days of Soulmate!AU Day 7: A countdown timer that counts down until you meet your soulmate.

Disclaimer: The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.

Warnings: Toxic home; child marriage; self-mutilation (unrelated to mental health)

Stacked with: MC4A; Shipping Wars; Hogwarts; Harmony of Souls Eternal

Individual Challenge(s): Slytherin MC (x5); Bow Before the Blacks (Y); Seeds; Old Shoes; Themes & Things A (Family); Themes & Things B (Corruption); Themes & Things C (Pillow); Rian-Russo Inversion; In a Flash; Yellow Ribbon; Yellow Ribbon Redux

Representation(s): AU where you have a countdown timer that counts down until you meet your soulmate

Bonus challenge(s): NA

Tertiary bonus challenge: Obscure

Word Count: 1855

Shipping Wars

Ship (Team): Narcissa Black/Lucius Malfoy (Icicles)

List (Prompt): Spring Medium 1 (Soulmark AU)

How to Stop Time

It's the terror of knowing what the world is about

Watching some good friends screaming

"Let me out!"

Pray tomorrow gets me higher

Pressure on people, people on streets

-Under Pressure, Queen

Narcissa sat in her room with her eyes shut, trying to pretend that she wasn't in the house—trying to pretend that Bellatrix wasn't screaming in the room across the hall, trying to pretend that Andromeda wasn't crying, trying to pretend that her parents weren't yelling back…

She knew they'd sent her to her room because they hadn't thought that this fight was her business, they didn't want her added into the fray since she was the youngest. But what was it that Andromeda was in trouble for? What was it that Andromeda was asking for from her family? To break free from a wedding that she did not want to a man she did not love. Whoever her soulmate was, Andromeda swore to anyone who would listen that it wasn't the handsome Mulciber boy, whose family her parents had begun negotiating a dowry with just last week.

"Your countdown expired when you began your time at Hogwarts," Cygnus shot back, his voice so loud that Narcissa felt it rattle her bones even from across the hall.

"That doesn't mean it's him!" Andromeda raged. "It's not him!"

"Then who?" their father boomed. "Do you mean to tell me that you've been whoring-around at Hogwarts all these years?"

Narcissa had a sneaking suspicion that Andromeda had a pretty good idea of who her soulmate was; why would she be fighting this hard if she didn't have something to fight for?

And what scared Narcissa was that she had a countdown on her arm too, tick tick ticking away as the days until she met her soulmate passed. So wasn't Andromeda's fight, in a way…

Something shattered in the next room over and Narcissa was startled out of her thoughts. Andromeda cried and begged them to stop this, not to let this happen, not to do this… Narcissa curled up in bed and put her pillow over her head. She didn't want to hear more.

Hours and hours later, Narcissa crept to Andromeda's bedroom and touched the tip of her wand to the doorknob. Her parents had kept it locked all day, ever since they'd slammed it shut and rushed downstairs, letting Andromeda storm within her four walls and fester and… when had her sister last eaten, Narcissa suddenly wondered?

"Alohomora," she whispered. She heard a clicking sound as the door unlocked, and looked over her shoulder to make sure that the rest of the house was as asleep as she thought they were. Satisfied, she cracked the door open and crept inside.

"Andromeda?" she whispered.

Her sister was laying in bed, facing away from the door. She didn't move, but Narcissa could tell by how tense her shoulders were that her sister was indeed wide awake.

"Andromeda, do you need anything?"

Andromeda didn't reply. A moment passed.

"Who is it?" Narcissa asked quietly.

"Who?" Andromeda said quietly, still not stirring in bed.

"The soulmate you're fighting for," Narcissa whispered back.

Andromeda turned to face Narcissa. Her eyes looked empty and the rings around them were dark.

"How do you know I'm not just fighting for myself, Cissa?" she said quietly.

Narcissa was sitting in the sitting room, working on the latest embroidery project that Aunt Walburga had organized for her. The sitting room seemed to be the most out of the way place that Narcissa could tuck herself away in, as Bella and her parents raged and tore the house apart and sent word out to other families, looking for Andromeda who… well, she had vanished.

Narcissa felt her hands shake every time she tried to recall if she'd remembered to lock her sister's bedroom door last night, after visiting her.

Had she? She didn't know. Narcissa couldn't remember. This could very well be her fault.

Then again, Andromeda was powerful—a lot stronger than their parents thought which, come to think about it, may have been a quite purposefully maintained impression. She'd shown Narcissa how she could do wandless magic once, and had smiled to herself as she'd flickered the candles all around Slytherin Common Room on and off and on again. It was quite possible that Andromeda had gotten out all by herself—but Narcissa would never know for sure.

So to stay out of the way and to assuage the guilt and anxiety churning in her stomach, Narcissa tucked herself away and tried to think of the quietest, most peaceful thing that she coudl possibly do. Mother always liked to see her working on her projects.

"Oh, what a sweetheart," she had indeed said as she'd crossed the parlour and seen Narcissa dutifully stitching. She had run a hand through Narcissa's blonde hair. "You reassure me that this… that this isn't our fault."

Now, Narcissa sat alone and the house was devastatingly quiet. She felt alone, accompanied only by the grandfather clock and its nice and even pendulum and tics. She kept her eyes on it, all the way across the room, and did her best to swallow the silence like a hard pill.

It took Narcissa some time before she realised that the unnervingness of it all was because this was the time where Andromeda always sat and went through her piano exercises and worked on her music. The house was without music for the first time in a long time.

And because the rest of her family was in the next door room, doing their best to have a quiet conversation.

"The engagement has already gone too far…" her mother whispered. "What are we going to do? The negotiations with the Mulcibers have been long and painful; we cannot possibly cancel and lose face now."

"Find Andromeda," Bellatrix said, her voice like a growl. "Bring her back."

"She's vanished," her mother panicked. "She's vanished, and she's shown herself unworthy, unpredictably and, quite frankly, most likely tainted. The Mulcibers are powerful. We won't be able to fool them…"

"We could give him Narcissa," her father interjected.

Narcissa was so surprised that she pricked her finger. She brought its bleeding tip to her lips and focused on their conversation again, just in time not to miss a beat.

"Cygnus!" Mother said.

"Not yet," her father said. "Not yet, no. She must finish her schooling, evidently, but once she's reached the proper age..."

"Will the Mulcibers wait for the next two years?" Mother worried.

"What other option do you have?" Bellatrix chimed in.

Narcissa gasped. Had Bellatrix truly condoned this scheme so quickly?

She glued her eyes to the grandfather clock, trying to focus on its comforting rhythm to still her heart.

"And how do we explain the sudden change of plan?" Mother inquired anxiously.

"We need only tell them… a twisted version of the truth. We cannot hide what Andromeda had done; word that she vanished will spread, you know how these rumours go," her father schemed. "We will be frank. And we will tell them that when Narcissa found out that her whore of a sister wouldn't marry Aurelius Mulciber, she was so relieved she—yes, she cried, that's a good touch. We will say that Narcissa confessed everything to us: told us that her countdown expired on the night of the engagement party—when she first met their son…"

"Yes," Bellatrix said. "And Narcissa and Mulciber must have seen each other on the train's platform, on his and Andromeda's first day of Hogwarts… we will find a compelling way to tell the story; Narcissa will corroborate."

"And how will we explain that Narcissa's countdown is still ticking?" Mother asked.

Narcissa looked at the grandfather clock.

Then down at her arm, where her countdown was.

Then back at the grandfather clock.

Then back at her countdown.

"I can think of something," Bellatrix promised.

The breath caught in Narcissa's throat.

When she looked down at her arm, Narcissa saw years and months and days and hours left until she met her soulmate. The amount of time left had always left Narcisa feeling rather indifferent about its status. But something in her felt incredibly wrong and incredibly sad, as she realised that those numbers would be made to lie.

What other option do we have? Bellatrix had said.

How do you know that I'm not just fighting for myself? Andromeda had said.

Narcissa looked back at the clock again, the other thing ticking in the room. She wondered how one would make it stop; how someone would go about stopping it from going forwards just like her numbers would be stopped from trekking backwards.

For whatever reason, Narcissa felt the urge to punch through the face of the clock. A red hot fury took hold of her and she realised that maybe she wasn't quite so different from her storming, scheming sisters after all. The shards of glass would dig into her skin and it would hurt, but by God did Narcissa ever want to stop time from ticking forward…

She looked at the countdown on her arm again.

And then at the scissors in her basket of embroidery floss.

Her parents should have been angry when they saw what she had done, even before Narcissa explained that it hadn't hurt at all—that she hadn't felt a thing, as if the countdown that had been marked on her arm had never truly been a part of her in the first place. But they didn't even say anything or ask about it. They just looked exhausted when they saw the patch of white scar tissue where the numbers and the countdown and her so-called fate had once been.

Perhaps they were confused.

Perhaps they were shocked.

Perhaps they couldn't bear to lose two daughters in the same day and Narcissa, by virtue of sitting in the parlour instead of having run away Merlin knew where, was the one they would keep.

Maybe, and Narcissa thought that this was a distinct possibility, they were too cowardly to admit that their intentions had been and didn't want to discuss why that countdown would have mattered so.

So nothing was said about the broken countdown on Narcissa's arm, and the engagement with the Mulcibers was broken.

It was years before the topic of countdowns came up again, and honestly Narcissa didn't mind when it did. Mostly because the night air was cool and fresh, the moon shining down on Malfoy Manor was bright, and the man in front of her was quite handsome.

"I didn't know how to tell you this…" Lucius said, taking a deep breath. "But when I met you, the numbers on my arm ran out. I knew you were the one from the second I laid eyes on you, Narcissa Black."

Narcissa smiled, but she must have looked pensive.

"Is…" Lucius hesitated. "I'm not entirely certain that this is the sort of thing that people tell each other."

"Maybe it is," Narcissa said. "I just don't know what to reply. You see, I love you because I choose to."

Lucius smiled.

"I treasure that too," he said.