Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Portrait of a Lady
by hasapi
She certainly was a lady, he knew. She may have been one by birth, but it was the way she held herself that helped it to show through. She stood upright when she walked, keeping her head level with the ground and her face expressionless. The amount of control she held over herself was amazing, and he envied it, especially these times when there were so many emotions he needed to hide.
He did not understand why she had married him. The man was not kind to her, he knew; much the opposite, in fact. They showed no emotions to each other, so far as he could tell. Their son, nearly a year old, was spoiled by his nanny and rarely visited by his father.
He watched her as she settled in the chair, placing her right arm on the armrest and leaning against it, looking past him to something he couldn't see—and he doubted she could see it, either. Five days now, she had seated herself in the exact same manner, and he had painted her as she sat, attempting to catch the way the sun lighted upon her hair and brought out the golden specks in her brown eyes.
She was as beautiful as she was a lady. Even her husband would admit to her beauty; it was one of the reasons he had married her—the other being, of course, her lineage. Pureblood through and through, not a drop of Muggle in her. Unlike him—he had a Muggle grandmother somewhere along the line, though he had been sure to keep that fact from his employer.
The man was despicable. He was grateful he had been signed to do the painting when the man was not home, as he did not know if he would have been able to stand it, those gray eyes following every stroke of the brush. The man was notorious for having high expectations, and he knew that anything but the finished project would not be enough.
He had watched their interactions, when the man had happened to come home early, just three days prior. He did not know what the man did with his time, as a man of his station had no actual job. Politics, he supposed.
"Hello, dear," the man said, placing an obligatory kiss upon his wife's cheek. Her brown eyes followed him as he walked to the portrait to inspect its progress. His mouth twisted almost imperceptibly.
"It is not finished," the artist said, anxious to defend his work.
"I should hope not," was the cool reply.
Her demeanor changed naught, but he thought he sensed a change in her attitude. "Dear," she said, mimicking her husband's tone, "perhaps it would be best if you refrained from looking before Master Granst has declared it finished."
"Of course," the man replied coldly, walking past his wife and out the door.
"Don't mind him," she whispered, training her eyes behind him again.
He hadn't. He had minded her, watched her as she struggled against her husband's coldness, searching for her niche in this life, a niche she should never have had to find. She should have had roses placed at her feet, and poetry sung to her from the rooftops.
She never said anything, never gave him any indication that she cared. But it didn't stop him from caring, from watching her with something in his eyes he couldn't name—wouldn't name, because naming it would make it seem less than what it was.
He was a painter by trade, an admirer because he could be.
It just so happened that the woman he admired was Narcissa Malfoy, née Black.
Imagine that.