Disclaimer: None of this belongs to me and the characters herein are property of J.K. Rowling and affiliates. I make no monetary gain from this.
Author's Note: I love Narcissa and Lucius and, with what little there is to go on from canon, enjoy writing about them. Our story follows Narcissa's visit to Lucius after his incarceration in Azkaban during the second war.
She glances at the clock, eyes lingering on the slow seconds as they tick around the face with a malaise that she resents entirely. There are so many hours in the day which stretch and distort her once pristine, organised life. With a flick of her hand the clock flies off the dresser, sliding wildly before it shatters into tiny pieces around her feet. Then as quickly as her moment of rage came, it goes.
Deft fingers reach up to comb through her coiffured hair in frustration. Recently, no matter how carefully she casts the spell, it will not sit as cleanly and neatly as it used to. When she catches herself in the looking glass she is startled not only by the lines around her eyes but the dark, unevenness of her skin. She had hoped, with futility, that it would not manifest itself in a physical way. She feels that even her magic is ebbing as her skin grows grey and her body grows old.
To be her is a humiliation in itself, without sacrificing once lauded looks and cleverness. A little, painful punishment to see yourself grow old prematurely.
She lifts shaking fingers to smooth out the lines under her eyes. They reappear again instantly. Then she trails her fingers absently to the silver pendant which lies just between her collarbones. An emerald-eyed serpent stares back at her in the mirror, jewelled eyes dead and enticing at the same time. It is cold against the thinness of her clavicle, jutting out so much more than even it used to. Silken scarves and velvet robes are the tools of concealment she chooses.
The pendant had been a gift. He is fond of elaborate, symbolic gifts.
Chosen carefully that morning, she always selects something that will remind him of what they have had, what they once were. It is a painful ritual in itself, choosing what baubles to wear and she wakes up early to make her decisions. It has occurred to her, more than once as she stands in her dressing room before the jewellery cabinet that he commissioned for her, that she may be doing this to punish him. This morning, as she trailed her clean fingers over the different gems, she cried tears which dropped onto the soft velvet and items laid out before her. Her tears were reflected in the diamonds and emeralds he had bought her once and she had thought to wear that necklace; then it seemed ostentatious and so very arrogant. If it is a punishment then the punishment is equally as sore to mete out as it is to receive it, or at least that is what her inner-narrative tells her when she lies alone in the cavern of their bed.
It is a poor placation to the guilt she believe she should not feel.
So she selected this pendant, the gift he gave her on their wedding night. He had draped it around her neck, telling her then she was legitimately his wife; that she was now Malfoy, that she was Malfoy's. There is something desperately sad about her recollection, her recollection of the feeling of his hands, gentle, upon her.
His hands are not always gentle but they are always for her.
She lets her fingers fall from the jewellery and land in her lap.
"Madam," the little voice, high-pitched and grating, splits her from her isolation.
She turns on the seat expectantly, pleased at least there are no fresh tears for the elf to witness.
"It is time to go madam," the elf says.
"I know," she says coldly, maintaining the tone he'd want her to have, "I know."
She pulls on her heavy velvet cloak. The last time she dressed in soft cornflower silk, and wore sapphires he had gifted her in an extravagant moment of romance, and the journey had left her tired and the visit cold. It had ruined her pretty dress and robe and she had burned them on her return as tears made her face ugly and sore. She had been so very pretty once, men had written sonnets about her patrician face. The tears were her punishment too; those sore, individual agonies that soaked her pillow night after night.
As she passes the table in the cavernous hall she glances at the pile of yellowing Daily Prophets. It is usually the first thing she reaches for in the morning but she has been unable to do so since becoming the story du jour. She feels blunt around the edges when she sees the photograph of him plastered across the front; it's becoming boring now, that same picture of him on his knees clutching a sign. Today it claims to have a singular exclusive that reveals his first few weeks in Azkaban have been tougher than the pampered Malfoy expected. She wants to congratulate the editor of the Prophet on their shoddy and puerile journalism. Where once she was the darling of the society pages, now she's the pariah wife. This is a punishment in itself she thinks as she flicks her wand and the papers burst into flames, making the little elf trailing behind her jump. At the door she takes her hat and turns to her left to take a final glance in the looking glass; her eyes are brimming with tears.
She apparates to the tiny, rotting little jetty upon which an Azkaban guard awaits. There are still some things their galleons can buy and, taking pity on her, the Ministry has permitted her another visit much sooner than she thought she would be allowed. He gives her a curt nod and indicates to the boat. The same man as before, he seems to have lost any shred of respect he might have had for this, the poor wife of Lucius Malfoy. Instead he treats her as if she knows the routine – and she does – and waits for her to take her place in the boat. It is an indignity in itself, taking her place in this little vessel of misery.
The sea is calmer but the briny water still splashes up into the boat, dampening her cloak and testing her mood and reminding her of her punishment as it reminds her of her tears. She asks him, as politely as she can, to set a charm to row more quickly. He ignores her.
She is indignant in her silence and when he offers his hand to help her from the boat, she refuses resolutely and stumbles out herself. Stopping for a moment she casts her eyes up, her ears soaring past the wails and screams and moans and her hands clenching at her sides, to the very top of the ominous structure. There is no sun in the sky here, there are no birds. There is simply a huge, concrete tower that radiates a coldness that even she, a Black by birth and a Malfoy by marriage, has never known.
The guard inside still retains the snivelling, dreadful faux kindness that she does not want but desires at the same time. There is so little light that his pitying smile is distorted and illuminated in turns as he casts charms over her to search her person. The indignity of it, the very real violation, is worse because his rough and unskilled hands will not touch her. In her growing madness, she imagines him ripping her robes from her and taking her in this grimy, damp antechamber where only a wall separates them from dementors and death. It makes her laugh almost, the sound of madness bubbling up into her throat before she swallows it and chokes on her own propriety.
She has tried to quell her madness as it grows inside her but it is like a burgeoning life. As a woman she has a duty as a vessel and nurturer of whatever her husband has given her. Once upon a time she carried and birthed Draco, now she carries and will birth insanity eventually. She will be the one to pay for what he has given her, as her taut stomach grew soft and has never been the same after Draco. As the guard swishes his wand across her for the last and final time, and finds himself disappointed, she thinks of her husband's head resting across her abdomen, his hair fanned out across her body. He likes to do that when they are finished sating their desires and the first time he did it after Draco's birth she had asked him not to. He had laughed and told her not to be absurd.
She wonders if he would think her absurd now.
"You're clear Mrs Malfoy," the guard murmurs, smiling in that horrible way again.
"I am well aware," she says icily, "I would not imagine smuggling something past you."
He knows she is being rude but he says nothing, "Follow me."
As she climbs endless, slippery stairs, she thinks about the first time she met him. She was eleven and he was seventeen; she hated him. She hated his iciness and his handsomeness. The despicable haughtiness he was so renowned for had curdled her stomach, making her feel ill and desirous in turns.
The guard takes her to the dark corridor in which his cell is located. When he tells her they unshackled him so that he could see her properly, she bites back tears that are bitter and burning.
The guard steps back as the cell door creaks open.
"Half an hour Mrs Malfoy," he says as she steps into the darkness.
"Narcissa? Narcissa!" The voice, like velvet and gravel all at one, moves towards her.
He pulls her into his embrace as he steps towards her. The stink and filth of shame clings to him, his hair is matted and dusted with grime and on his proud body there are tattered prison pyjamas. Across his chest he bears the mark of Cain.
His body is thin; where once there were vain and proud muscles, his skin does not fit anymore. Two rake-thin bodies clashing in the darkness of a hell that the wizard Alighieri could not have envisioned in his wildest imaginings. They are the same shade of ashen as their hands knit together. His nails are dirty and cracked and this small detail nearly breaks her. Now, here, she will birth her insanity.
"My beautiful wife. Mine. I love you. I love you Narcissa," he says it like he always does, as if she should be grateful to hear it.
And She is.
She is grateful to hear it.
And that, above everything, is her punishment as it is meted out to her.
Thank you for reading. Please review!