Honeymoon
Disclaimer: I own the plot and original concepts, characters, et cetera. Everything else belongs to its respective creator(s).
Nervously, Narcissa twisted the wedding ring around her finger, the large, marquise-cut diamond solitaire on its slender platinum band feeling foreign and ungainly in its novelty. Her gut was slowly unclenching itself from the knots it had twisted itself into, her bowels like a hemp rope tied by an expert sailor and swollen with liquid so it was tighter. Slowly, she breathed deeply, the air drying out her mouth as she sucked in and exhaled it with her jaw relaxed and her mouth hanging slightly open.
She was newly married, the blushing bride of Lucius Malfoy. She should be so happy, as Mrs. Malfoy, wedded and soon to be bedded, but all she could feel was anxiety over the bedding. The best pureblood families had old-fashioned wedding where the only aspects of the bride taken into consideration were lineage, social status, and an intact hymen, and the Malfoys and Blacks were notorious for being sticklers about that. A marriage was an alliance between two people for the betterment of both and the preservation of purity, not anything as silly and frivolous as sentiment or that dreaded four-letter word, "love".
Narcissa reached back and unzipped the back of her wedding gown, warm white and lacy as a leaf consumed by fuzzy, fat caterpillars down to the skeleton. She pulled it down her body, feeling the texture of the ivory Chantilly lace. It'd been aged from its original pure, snowy white to a warm ivory color. Something old, she thought, remembering the legends of the generations of blushing Black brides and the happiness the antique wedding gown had brought them. Narcissa hoped some of their prosperity and luck would rub off on her like a thread of the silk lace making up the beautiful dress.
With trembling fingers, she fumbled with the silver net of creamy pearls and adamantine diamonds that flashed icily with a prism of fiery colors. It decorated the tight bun of pale blonde hair hanging low at her nape. Her mother had had it custom-made for her, the thin threads of twisted silver and the pearls and diamonds strung onto it ordered from an elite, high-class jewelry store. In her mind, she chanted: Something new.
Then she slid her aching feet from the ballerina slippers after untying the ribbons on her ankles, feeling distinctly glad that the satin toes didn't have a wooden support. The cream satin felt smooth, but the thin skin of her feet was even smoother, silky and pale. Her feet had high arches that made it uncomfortable to walk or stand for a long time and had fine bones. Her ankles were slender and pretty. As Narcissa shoved the slippers under the bed, she couldn't help thinking of the amateur ballerina that she'd borrowed these from, a girl with long hair between mousy brown and dishwater blonde and burning blue eyes so dark that they seemed pitch-black at times, her younger sister Andromeda, who was rebellious and full of dreams and wore the same size shoes as Narcissa. Something borrowed.
Finally, she pulled off the lingerie she'd been wearing, made of Oriental silk dyed such a pale tint of blue that it seemed almost white and embroidered with navy blue vignettes on the straps of her brassiere and the band of her underpants. She traced her finger along the tiny, leaved vines. Something blue, she thought, taking off the lingerie and revealing pale, translucent skin that glowed luminous white.
Every inch of her noble, aristocratic skin had been polished with fine-grained sand before being smothered in rich emollients with just a hint of mica ground to a fine powder. She was softer, smoother, and suppler than she'd ever been in her life, and Narcissa knew that even as she grimaced at the thought of all the trouble and embarrassment involved in her preparations.
Then she slid naked into her new bed and waited, crossing her fingers and hoping that the first time wasn't as painful as the bridal horror stories made it out to be and that it would be as good as her seven-times-married great-aunt obviously thought it was.
The bedroom door opened, and Lucius stumbled in, smelling acidly of champagne. Then he flicked the lights off and slid under the covers with her.
The wedding was over.