Wicked Garden
Summary: Narcissa's midnight wanderings through Grimmauld Place lead her somewhere unexpected.
AN: Here's a fic I found nestled in my hard drive, written in May 2004. I've cleaned it up some, but any criticism would be welcomed. Oh, and Merope was the name I assigned to Sirius and Regulus's mother in L'Histoire Noire, and I just stuck with it here.
It was late.
Midnight silence permeated every nook and cranny of the Black house, and as Narcissa crept through the halls, she imagined that her every movement caused deafening sounds sure to wake the rest of the household. She knew that she could easily explain her midnight wanderings as insomnia, but that did nothing to erase the exhilarating tingle of fear that had settled along her spine.
She paused as her foot hit a creaky floorboard just before the steps and looked around. No sign of either her mother or Aunt Merope. She reluctantly breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn't really sure if she was ready to go through with this, but if she wasn't caught then, she had to. She simply had to. She refused to go back on her promise. Besides, she knew that although this was wrong, she wanted it.
It had been her idea to initiate it, after all.
She moved up the stairs quickly, her bare feet slapping the carpet silently. The portraits in the hall stared down at her disapprovingly, their stately faces twisted in disdain. She had nearly reached the end of the hall when the whisper caused a surprised whimper to escape her before she could clamp a hand over her mouth.
"What are you doing?"
She whirled around, expecting to see one of her sisters but instead met the gaze of a portrait. The painted woman had thick dark hair done in an elaborate knot, and her heavy lidded eyes immediately reminded Narcissa of her sister Bellatrix. She looked for some sort of identification telling her who this woman was, but oddly there was none. The wallpaper below the portrait had a brighter strip where the plaque identifying this woman had been removed.
"Well?" the woman asked again. Narcissa resisted the urge to shush her, and instead only glanced nervously up and down the hall. She was so close to her destination...
"Well, what?" she finally answered the portrait.
"What are you doing, young lady?" the woman asked again.
Narcissa scowled at the mothering tone the woman in the portrait dared to take with her. This obviously wasn't a close relative, she would have recognized her, and the portrait was too out of the way for it to have been anyone truly important. "None of your affair."
"I'll not have my House besmirched by the likes of you," replied the portrait.
"The likes of me?" snapped Narcissa loudly before remembering herself. Her eyes darted nervously as she hissed, "The likes of me?"
"Yes, the likes of you, skulking around the halls in the dead of night. From your coloring I wouldn't even be able to tell you were of my kin," replied the portrait snootily.
Narcissa couldn't help her flush. She'd always been slightly self-conscious of her pale tresses, especially when around her primarily dark-haired family. Her sisters, both possessing heads of hair as black as the midnight shadows currently filling the hall, had taken every opportunity to tease her about not being a true part of the family. "You aren't Black at all," Bellatrix would still taut when they had a particularly nasty fight. "Look at you."
Narcissa sometimes still resented that she resembled their pale mother, Rosamund, but other times relished the attention that she received for her looks.
"Who are you?" She snapped at the portrait. "I don't even know if I want to claim you as my kin."
"Iphigenia Black," replied the woman proudly.
Narcissa searched her memory for details about this woman's life, where they stood in relation to one another and most importantly, any scandals associated with the name. She recalled a long dead great-aunt named Iphigenia, a spinster and a recluse.
Apparently misinterpreting Narcissa's silence, Iphigenia huffed, "Well, do you want to claim me now?"
"I really can't help that I am, unfortunately, related to you," Narcissa said. "Such a wasteful life you led."
"My life was not a waste!" snapped Iphigenia. Narcissa looked warily around. Only two of the rooms on this floor were occupied, but she would be hard pressed to explain her presence if the wrong door opened.
"You haven't even made enough of a mark on the walls of the house you lived and died in to warrant a nameplate," Narcissa said haughtily, raising her chin high.
"What? I have a nameplate," Iphigenia said, confused. "And I didn't die in this house."
"Really?" Narcissa said in a distinctly disinterested tone.
"I died in the garden," Iphigenia continued. "My brother's filthy wife poisoned my tea."
"Words can't express my sorrow at your passing," Narcissa said, "but I really must be on my way."
"You can't do this," Iphigenia protested. "You know that."
"This is none of your concern," Narcissa replied. She paused. "How did you know what I'm doing, anyway?"
Iphigenia had the grace to look embarrassed. "I overheard a conversation."
"Which one?" hissed Narcissa immediately. Oh, she just knew that somehow she had let something slip. Word would be getting back to her mother and aunt at any moment, and she would just die of shame...
"The one you had this afternoon. Highly inappropriate, if you ask me," Iphigenia replied.
"I didn't," Narcissa replied. She knew that this was wrong. That was undoubtedly why it felt so right.
"You are to be married soon, are you not?" Iphigenia continued. "One of the portraits of a cousin downstairs spoke of your engagement."
"Yes, my wedding is in two months," Narcissa replied.
"To a Malfoy," Iphigenia said, giving Narcissa's golden hair a disparaging look.
"The Malfoys are a fine family," Narcissa snapped. "I'm lucky to be marrying Lucius. He's a fine man."
"Yes, he is handsome," Iphigenia acknowledged, "I saw him walking past. Why is he staying here tonight?"
"Father wanted an early start for his special day tomorrow, and felt it kindly to offer Lucius a room here for convenience. If you spy often then you know they like to discuss politics late into the night," Narcissa replied. The Black family and associates considered worthy had all gathered for the celebration of Betelgeuse Black's twenty-fifth year as acknowledged head of the family, thus giving her the opportunity that she had craved. She fidgeted with the tie of her silk robe. She loved Lucius dearly, and hated the thought of any deception between them, but the chance was too tantalizing to resist. Her husband-to-be would just have to live in ignorance.
"Then why aren't you set on visiting his room tonight?" Iphigenia asked.
"I'll have a lifetime with him," Narcissa replied. "This is my only chance with..." She trailed off, unwilling to admit what she planned aloud, for fear of eavesdroppers.
"With your cousin," Iphigenia, who had no qualms about eavesdroppers, said bluntly. "Regulus is your first cousin, girl. Your father's brother's son."
"I'm aware of that!" Narcissa replied.
"Then why do you want to do this?"
"Because," Narcissa said, "Because of one afternoon when I was fourteen."
Iphigenia raised a painted eyebrow. "Continue."
"We were at Hogwarts," she said. "It was a Hogsmeade weekend. He was a second year, and so he couldn't go. I had a Transfiguration essay due, and decided that I'd rather finish that than waste time at the joke shop or drinking that vile stuff passing as butterbeer at The Three Broomsticks. I was at my favorite table in the Slytherin common room, and Regulus came and sat next to me. He asked me what I was doing, repeatedly, was being silly and flipping the pages in my books while my head was turned, things I would have cursed anyone else over. But he was Regulus, so of course I didn't. Then he turned to me, as serious as a twelve year old can ever be, and said, "Cissa, you're beautiful."
"I was shocked and surprised, so I just laughed and told him to stop being silly. He shook his head, and told me that I wasn't like my sisters. I wasn't like the rest of the family. I told him that my hair color made sure that I wasn't like the rest of the family, but he told me that wasn't what he meant. "You're just different to me, 'Cissa. That's all," he said and acted all shy.
"I wasn't sure what to say, so I leaned forward. I was going to hug him, I think, but he raised his head and the next thing I knew we were kissing." Narcissa stopped. She didn't want to share anymore. This was the fabric of some of her deepest fantasies, and bringing it to light would fade and tarnish it.
"So a clumsy kiss between two children inspired you to have relations with a relation?" Iphigenia said scornfully. "Think, girl. Do not dishonor your family like this."
"I'd rather think this was honoring my family," Narcissa snapped.
"This is a mistake, child," Iphigenia said. "Trust me."
Narcissa turned and stalked several feet down the dark hall before pausing. She faced the portrait again, and asked, "Are you going to tell?"
"Are you truly going to go through with this?" Iphigenia replied.
"Yes. Are you going to tell?"
"No," sighed Iphigenia. "But I do not approve."
"Silence can be interpreted as approval," Narcissa replied with a flighty grin as she continued her walk down the hall. She paused momentarily before her fiance's door, but then continued steadfastly to Regulus's door. She rested her hand on the cool doorknob, then opened it and stepped into the room before Iphigenia's doubts could plague her further.
The blackness enfolded her as she pushed the door shut with a soft click. The room was unnaturally, magically dark, with no light even slipping in through the window that she knew was on the other end of the room from childhood memory. She did a quick silencing spell to ensure that Lucius heard nothing of what was to occur.
"I didn't think you would come."
Regulus's voice was nervous, scared against the dark. She did not create any light, there was nothing here but voices and shadows and a feather light touch as she found her cousin standing nearby.
"I said I would."
His arms wrapped around her hesitantly. Forbidden fruit was often the sweetest, but it took time to work up the nerve to eat it. The darkness made the awkwardness both more and less acute. The lack of sight made the initial contact a fumbling mess, but at the same time the blindness allowed both to forget how wrong this truly was. They weren't family, anymore, they were two individuals succumbing to an age-old pleasure.
She'd claimed that the single kiss they'd shared back at Hogwarts had been the catalyst for this. In one way, it had. Without that memory, she knew that she never would have admitted what she wanted from Regulus.
Sighing beneath a touch and a whisper, Narcissa gave herself fully to sin. This was decadence and sinfulness and pleasure entangled as one, and the knowledge that this was a once in a lifetime moment only sweetened it with a pang of loss.
The kiss from the twelve-year-old version of her cousin, her lover, had not incited the feelings she felt now. No, it had been quick and soft and nice. The niceness was what had thrown her for such a loop. Even her family, known for its depravity, frowned upon such close relationships, so she knew that disgust was the feeling that should have been to the forefront. But niceness- niceness had never been a trait she would associate with any of her kin.
Niceness was not present now. Now was passion and drive and inhibition thrown to the wayside. Now was sweat soaked darkness wrapping around vulnerable, bare limbs. Now was about flesh and movement and sating bodies fully.
Lying in the darkness, and waiting for shame to slip slowly into her conscience, Narcissa wondered if she should leave now, before words marred the evening. Regulus's breath tickled her neck, and she shifted.
"Leaving?"
He sounded so young.
"I have to eventually," she replied.
"But not right now."
She leaned over, groped in the darkness, and found her robes lying in a puddle next to the bed. She found her wand, and lit two candles on either end of the room. The flickering light lit Regulus's features, classically Black and familiar. She caught a glimpse of the tableau they made in the mirror on the other side of the room. She was all light against his shadow, and she knew the casual observer would not know why the two lovers were so wrong together.
She sat up, her hair spilling across her bare shoulders and breasts. "Regulus, you know this will never happen again. I said as much earlier."
"I know," he replied. He trailed his hand along her arm. "I wish it could though."
Narcissa smiled sadly. "I can't. You can't. It's-" She paused. She didn't want to say wrong, that had been obvious from the get-go. "Dangerous," she said finally.
Regulus sighed. "I know. No one can find out."
"No one," Narcissa stressed. "Not my sisters, not our parents, especially not Lucius."
"Wouldn't want to get his knickers in a twist," grumbled Regulus.
"No, because he wouldn't hesitate to kill you," Narcissa snapped. "I love him, and I wouldn't stop him, Regulus."
Regulus looked startled. "But-"
"Come on. You knew that," Narcissa said. "Everyone knows how I feel about him."
"I thought this meant something. You aren't a casual girl, 'Cissa," Regulus said.
She sighed. "No, I'm not. But in the hall earlier, I specifically told you that anything that happened would not happen again."
"Why did you even come to me? How did you know?" Regulus asked.
She smiled. "That kiss."
Regulus grinned. "You have no clue how much nerve that took. I thought I was going to die."
"Am I that scary?" Narcissa replied.
"Intimidating is the word I would use. You've always been too beautiful by far for my peace of mind." His slow smile was too intimate. She picked up her robes, and slid into them before standing. She no longer wanted to feel wanton, she just wanted to return to normalcy.
"You didn't answer my question," he said.
"I thought I felt the way you did," she replied. "I thought you were someone I could have loved under different circumstances. I know how you look at me, and the sly touches and comments that no one else could recognize, and I know how they made me feel."
"And now?"
"And now I know you feel this much more than I do," Narcissa said. "I'm letting this go. I've held onto fantasy too long, and you should move on too."
"Because you're getting married."
"Yes, and because I love Lucius, and because you need to find someone you can marry."
"I know who I love," Regulus said.
"I didn't say anything about someone you can love, Regulus, I said someone you can marry. Someone to carry on the family name, and spend your nights with," Narcissa said. "I will not be unfaithful in marriage for you."
Regulus nodded. "I should have expected this."
"Yes, because I told you so," Narcissa replied. "This was a one time opportunity that I took. Nothing more."
She strode across the room, and extinguished the light. She wanted to say something else, something to smooth over the wreckage she felt that she was leaving behind, but nothing came to mind. She chose silence, and left the room.
She ignored Iphigenia on the wall as she strode past, and forgot her earlier caution as she raced down the stairs and back into her room.
Hopefully come morning this would feel like a dream.