A/N: This is for "The Title Challenge". Thank you to everyone who reads this, and I hope you all leave a review! Enjoy!
Opened Windows
The blonde haired girl stood before the opened window, dressed in layers of silky downy snow like material, her hair customized for the day's events; the event, her big day. She had had so many chances to get out of this, she had had so many open doors and so many, in fact if she was to be truthful with herself, all of those doors had closed.
She let out a sigh; she knew that he was waiting down there for her, in the courtyard of his parent's house, with all of his, their friends waiting in the pews laid out in the makeshift garden wedding. She had needed space and air and so she had come up here to escape the pressure that was waiting for her down below but again if she was to be truthful with herself, she had not escaped at all. In fact her turmoil, her rampant emotions had followed her to her hiding place and now they were wagging war inside of her mind and heart.
Another sigh came echoing from her plush red lips, prepared for his perfect kiss. He was rich and handsome, all Malfoy's were, but he was a follower of you-know-who, a man that the blonde girl did not fully understand or trust and yet as soon as Lucius was to be her husband she knew that she would have no choice but to act the part of the loyal wife, and the submissive follower of the Dark Lord.
Again, another sigh echoed from the blonde girl's lips. She knew they were waiting, she didn't have long now. Most girls on their wedding day were not tranquil, they were not relaxed or prepared, and Narcissa was no different. She wasn't tranquil, she had had no peace, and she had no air, it felt as if she was suffocating underneath all the pressures that this marriage would ensue. She could feel herself getting closed in, she could hear all the doors slamming close, all her chances of escaping flying out the windows as they too slammed shut. But had the windows even been open, Narcissa was not sure if she would even try to escape through them, she knew, like a dying man, that her time, her freedom was nearly over. She'd be bound by the shackles of her vows, by Lucius's ring on her finger.
A resounding knock on the door echoed around the room and Narcissa let out another sigh. "I'm coming," She replied loud enough so that the person on the other side would hear her. She felt the walls of her heart closing in as she turned away from the open window. No, even if the windows of opportunity were open, the windows of chance open, she wouldn't have tried to escape. She knew she had to carry on, this was her duty to the noble house of Black, this was her duty to her family, and her duty to herself. Lucius Malfoy was a handsome and rich man, and he would be able to give her everything she desired in life but if she could love him, and he love her in return she didn't know, it was an answer that only time could bring.
She felt the dress swerve around her ankles as she made her way down to the back foyer, this was where she would start her walk down the carpet, down the aisles, and to the alter, to meet with the priest and with the man that she was to marry.
Her mother gave her a soft smile, as did her sister and she looked up to see the incomprehensible look in her father's eyes.
"Are you ready?" He asked, his deep baritone voice resounding around her, soaking into her skin, and deep into her bones, the voice that had carried her to sleep, the voice that had healed all her wounds, and wiped away all of her tears. The voice of her father, the only man that even till now the girl had loved.
"No, I'm not but I don't have a choice do I?" Narcissa replied truthfully, searching in her father's eyes for the comfort that she had found there time and time again but there was nothing in his eyes now, nothing but a sad, hopeless look that Narcissa's soul replied to with a hopelessness that echoed her father's.
"No, I'm afraid not Cissy." Her father replied on a broken whisper, he caressed his daughter's cheek for a moment before placing a love kiss on her forehead. She could feel the tears brimming in her eyes, but she would not cry; she could not afford to cry. From all the years that she had known Lucius from Hogwarts, she knew that he did not take pity on the weak and she quickly learnt that the only way to survive was to be strong.
The wedding march started then, and Narcissa wouldn't have even cared if it had been her own funeral march, she wished that she could be anywhere but here, walking down the aisle on her father's arm, smiling as if she wanted to be there.
Narcissa looked up into the steel grey eyes of her fiancé; she could see the deep burning desire in his eyes, as he took her hands in his. She watched as his lips moved making his vows but she didn't hear anything, all she could hear was the beat of her heart, racing through her veins, setting her body alight with an all-consuming fire.
"Do you Narcissa Black; take Lucius Malfoy, to be your lawfully wedded husband, to support him through thick and thin, through the good times and the bad, until the day that you die?" The Priest asked her. She looked to the man that was wedding them and for a moment, if only for a moment she imagined herself refusing, denying to marry the man gripping onto her hands but then she turned back to Lucius and from the corner of her eye she could see her father and mother watching her, begging her silently to say the two words that would forever condemn her.
"I do," Narcissa replied, trying to lace the words with the happiness that she should be feeling but she could only feel the final open window being slammed closed as her invisible shackles locked onto place as Lucius slipped her ring onto her finger. She was bound to him now, his property and all Narcissa wanted to do was cry but she forced herself to respond to his kiss, to whisper her love to him before they both pulled away. Her eyes met her father's and she could see the dead look in them, and she knew that her soul was responding to his.
She could smell the delicious scent of roast beef, of herbs and spices, of the rose gardens, and the orchards in the distance but she could also smell the scent of the cold damp room, the metallic tang of new metal, the mustiness of stale air, and the sweat drenched rags that she knew her soul was bound in.
She had missed her chances, all the doors were closed, the opened windows shut and there was no freedom for her, she was bound to Lucius Malfoy for life. She was no longer free, content Narcissa Black. She was now bound, hopeless Narcissa Malfoy. She would bare this man no children if she could help it, she would make his life as miserable as he would make hers, she would do everything in her power to make sure that no child of hers was to be brought up under Lucius's power-hungry gaze because if she could not survive this hell – that she had now irrevocably bound herself to – then how could she expect a child to do the same.
No, Narcissa would burn alone and she'd bring down Lucius with her if she could.
"I've missed you," Lucius purred in her ear, as they made their way up to his room in the Malfoy Manor. She would burn alone, in her own personal hell but she wouldn't go down without a fight.