This story was written for the fic exchange hosted by The Bellatrix Lestrange Forum (other entries can be found on the forum's account). I wrote it for nigerutmea anima.

Story guidelines were as follows:

For these prompts, it would be nice to have a story inspired by one of them, but it doesn't need to contain it if that would cramp your style. Or whatever young people are saying nowadays.

1. "In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." - Winston Churchill

2. "I know God won't give me anything I can't handle. I just wish He didn't trust me so much." -Mother Teresa

3. "Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again." -Andre Gide

Just please put somewhere (in an A/N, separate post, PM once we know, etc) which one you chose.

Character or pairings: Whatever is good. No bestiality please or weird slash. Or rape. Also, don't feel obliged to include a pairing. If that's not what you're feeling, then not required by any extent.

Likes: I generally like darker stuff, more drama than fluff, (and OK with violence or insanity if that's what you want to include) but like I said previously, if that's not your style or if you have a really good idea for a story I don't want my perimeters to mess you up. Other things I like include abstraction, unusual POV, unexpected twist at the end.

Dislikes: I'd prefer no romance-centered fic, or smut.

I chose to write for the first prompt—it strongly inspired the fic and I tried to take full advantage of each part (the bodyguard especially—I kept the first sense, protection, but also the implications of the word with the lies guarding her and the theme of physical closeness). However, I didn't include the quote in the fic.

The story was also inspired by the poem "Elsa at the Mirror" by Louis Aragon. I swear I only realized the similarities after I'd written it. Blonde women combing their hair during wars… Well, nothing is ever really new, I suppose. The title is also a line from the poem (translation by A.S. Kline).

Enjoy!

Narcissa Malfoy sat at her dresser, a queen in golden lights, and slowly, carefully combed her hair.

There was blood on the floor in her cellar, several floors beneath her feet. There was a girl who was as fair as she, as white-faced, though lacking her beauty. She was young and so very thin, and Narcissa could see her eyes if she closed hers very tight. She always could.

She preferred not to.

The images hovered, shut away and ever-remembered. Red on gold—irony, dripping, staining her house. She never wished she hadn't seen. Lucius did—Lucius spied her out the corner of his eye, anxious. Lucius' every touch was an apology, every kiss an offering, in the hope that he could make her forget. And she would look back at him with clear blue eyes, fingertips brushing against his cheek, feather-light.

Do not fret, my love.

She did not turn away her gaze, never flinched in the face of reality. The war sat at her table, feasted in her home, hollowed out the faces of her husband and son—lines of desperation, anguished tears, shed in imperative secrecy. And Narcissa carried those truths beneath her smooth skin, her artful masks. She carried them in her pure blood and her fragile bones, in everything that made her human. She remembered, with crystal clarity.

Truth was all she had, and appearances all that saved her. She knew the game well, always had; she could pretend easy as she breathed, the lie rising like a shield, wrapping over her. She held it close and knew better. She had seen too much, lived too much to deceive herself by now. Her truth lived in the core of her: pride, and love, and fear, and regret—all that made her, all that could undo her. Her secret, painful and painfully guarded.

The mirror sent her back a near-perfect image, regality and control. She combed her hair as if it mattered, mattered most importantly, of all things. She didn't feel the urge to weep. Even here in the privacy of her bedroom, a tête-à-tête with herself, the lie kept her breathing. The lie held the horror at bay. She was Narcissa Malfoy, and could handle it all. She was Narcissa Malfoy and nothing could break her.

Her husband entered the room no more loudly than a shadow. She did not turn right away, allowed a few seconds of waiting to hover between them, easing the moment. She let him observe her and finished her careful work. Then she looked. Her cool, loving eye swept over Lucius' gaunt face and slightly dishevelled hair. He took her in like a man drunk with desperation, long deprived of hope.

"Narcissa," he spoke, slightly cracked voice made softer just for her.

She did not try to give him a smile. Too glaring a lie would have destroyed the precarious balance she held them all in, by the sheer force of her will and devotion. She rose instead and walked towards him. She made sure that no hint of uncertainty could be spotted on her features, only kept the warmth she wished to suffuse him with. She let it seep out of her until only was left a hollow core of icy truth.

But protected, always protected, tucked out of sight.

The careful, painful work of holding him together made her head swim and kept her focused, detached from herself—as safe as could be. Lucius kissed her hand in silent wonder. She kissed his mouth, banishing distance. For one instant, control fell away and her hands gripped his robes like claws, willing to pull him under her skin, wrap herself around him and forget everything that wasn't her husband.

Then she shifted and remembered herself. Her passion burned on, only slightly held back.

They fell onto their sumptuous bed, and for a short while, the world and the war were but an illusion.