Prompt: Noir
Optional Prompts: 1. Milk 4. Dialogue: "I have no money left" 11. Perfume
There was something incredibly sexy about the rain. Something romantic that she couldn't find in anything else. Yet she still wondered how something that was, in essence, so very beautiful could end up being so tiresome.
Right on cue, she pulled the cowl of her cloak back over her blonde hair, for the rain had galvanized it away once more, and frowned faintly. But even that slight frown contorted Narcissa's pale, delicate, and otherwise magnificently attractive features. Maybe that was why she disliked frowning. She'd trained herself not to frown long, long ago because it tampered with her beauty. Or maybe she just wanted to feel like she was happy. A simper, a playful pout, maybe even the slightest flash of white teeth for a particularly attractive schoolboy, but no frowning. Never frowning.
Her sister, of course, frowned quite a bit. She almost never smiled. She was always getting into things and causing a raucous. She didn't know how beautiful she would look if a smile would grace her features every once in a while, or if she did something more to her hair than let it look like an exploded hedgehog.
And Narcissa also remembered the games that Bellatrix would play. Narcissa didn't enjoy such frivolities. She was the good child. She kept herself graceful and strong. She trained herself to be the epitome of difference from her sister—who she did adore most of the time. Not that it was hard, of course. Narcissa and Bellatrix had been born polar opposites. It was that way from the beginning.
Now, she realized, in the deepest depths of night, that she was turning away from everything that she had trained herself to be. She was letting go for one of the first times in her life. And she didn't know if that was good or bad—or if it was anything. She didn't know if she was scared, sad, angry, lonely…
"I don't know anything," Narcissa murmured. She felt like her voice was too small to be coming out of her throat. She felt like it was too small to have the power to summon air and part her plump lips. Yet another thing that she didn't know or understand.
Shaking her head, she took slow steps forward on the path, and held herself at the relaxed stance that she had taught herself for this particular moment. Then it was there, as though it had snuck up right in front of her like a black cat prowling through the shadows. It was an ominous little place, small for the most part, but the roof was much wider than the house, itself. If it had been painted a different color, maybe it would have seemed more welcoming, and less like a sort of haunted hell.
She amended herself on the last point. It wasn't big enough to be welcoming.
Yet Narcissa still rapped her pale knuckles on the wooden door. Still forced a smile. Still waited for the door to open.
There was a shivering, broken creak from the door. In chorus with the creak, the trees rising overhead rustled in a dry breeze, their branches and leaves touching and courting with a discordant chorus. But then, finally, the shadowy house regurgitated another, more welcoming figure. Black hair, murky brown eyes, a slightly uneven stubble on his chin… There was no doubt in her mind now.
"Hullo, Narcissa," he said tranquilly. His brown eyes seemed to lose a bit of their depth, as though he was coming to the surface after being in deep water. She loved the way that they twinkled now. "Are you here to buy more perfume?"
Narcissa laughed gently. "For that," she said, "and a few other reasons."
His eyes glittered again. "And those reasons would be?"
She answered cryptically, "They would be reasons, of course. What else could they be?" Then she grinned, a little mischievously, and went into the house. Narcissa could feel him following her, could feel his presence, so very strongly that it was like he was walking right at her back. But he was at least two meters away from her by now, for her stride was long and consuming and she couldn't hear the deep but welcome thump of his boots on the floor until a long few moments later.
He soon sat down and peered at her face with an idle intent. Narcissa did much the same, her eyes darting upon him and his expressions, his features. She looked at his eyes, dark brown, filled with thoughts, framed by lashes and set with bushy eyebrows just above. She looked at his face and the contours of it, and how there were laugh lines there and a little dimple. She looked at his black hair for a very long time, studying how the curls and waves seemed to spill over the collar of his shirt, doing what they wanted. She looked at the stubble on his chin for an even longer time.
Her fingers, resting on her lap, tensed and twitched slightly. It was such an unusual feeling that Narcissa almost didn't recognize it. Then she did.
She realized that she wanted to touch him. It was an inexplicable urge that droned deep within her mind. She wanted to feel the stubble, something that she'd never felt before. She was used to a clean-shaven chin. This was like a new discovery to her. But wanting to touch someone unnerved her, and greatly.
For hers was not a touching family. Her life had never been about touching or loving. Touches were for discipline. Touches were to make boors and dolts who were watching envy you and your "happiness". Touches were not for love, though maybe they should be.
No, Narcissa didn't touch. But she wanted to.
"Would you like to try the newest addition?" he asked her. It was almost as though his voice was being guiltily drowned out by the deep, pounding severity of her thoughts. And yet she could still hear it, could still hear him. His voice was quiet and soothing, much like the voice you'd use to soothe a little baby to sleep. It had always been like that.
Narcissa shook away her thoughts. Her attention was taken by him. "I have no money," she answered at length. It was not a lie. She'd awoken early and taken no money with her
He tilted his head slightly. "No matter. I've never much cared about money, anyway." His eyes gave another faint glimmer. Then he took the nearest bottle of perfume, this one tinted a gentle teal blue. She held out her arm; he sent a slight spray onto her wrist.
In a calculated, delicate movement, she bent over to sniff it. "It smells amazing." The words were true, but the perfume wasn't what she was thinking about.
When she looked back up, their eyes met, his with hers. She felt as though her throat was closing for a moment. She saw his movement. She felt like she was so connected with him at that moment that they could have moved at the same time like snakes in an enchanting dance.
His fingers brushed faintly against hers. She took in a deep, labored breath. Her heart convulsed quickly, her face became damp. Everything that she thought she wanted was suddenly pushing harder against her, changing her mind, her decisions. Taking her down yet another path. This man was a perfume maker. He was different from everything that she knew and wanted. He had almost no money. He was a muggle.
It was only natural that Narcissa pulled away and left, never to see the man that she had such an infatuation with. Maybe because he had been different. Sometimes she wondered what would have happened if she had stayed. But then she remembered what happened when she came home.
When she had gotten home to the man with whom she was tied, he looked to her. She wanted Lucius to ask her why she had been gone for so long, why her hair was a disheveled mess, why she looked as though she'd been crying, why she was wearing perfume and dressed in unflattering clothes... But when she passed him, face flushed, he stood, barring her way, and simply brushed a hair away from her face with his finger the color of milk. She could feel his skin on hers for just a fraction of a second, delicate and over-powering.
What a bad girl she'd been. And all for love. The love of a man that she had married to for money and blood and material things. She had unknowingly done it all for a man who she never thought that she would love.
All so he would notice her.