This is for Round Four of the Word Limit Competition which had the prompt playing it cool (which I took as the traditional meaning as distant and aloof) and had to be 2000 words (this is about 1990). I really thought I would not get this done so it is a little more rushed than I would have preferred.
Home was where the heart was, home was where someone felt safe and home was where people should feel happy. If that was indeed true, than Narcissa was sure this was no longer her home.
Now, Malfoy Manor made her feel the exact opposite; she felt unloved, unwanted, scared and depressed.
It had felt like home once. When she was only eighteen and had been shown around by Lucius Malfoy who was then just another suitor, she had fallen in love with the luxury and the antique furniture which had lasted through generations. She had still been in love with the manor when they had been newlyweds and they had made love in every room.
Narcissa fell out of love with the home when she had seen her husband in Azkaban behind bars and had watched the Dark Lord step into the marble Entrance Hall and take what had been her home.
The Drawing Room was eerily quiet. A thousand pins could have dropped and she could have heard and counted the descent of each one. The only sounds were the breathing that the occupants in the room tried to keep controlled and measured and the occasional rustle of robes when someone was brave enough to move in their seat.
She was not one to even twitch.
Dressed in robes that were the colour of deep ocean water, cinched in at her waist and flowed down the rest of her body freely, she sat tall with impeccable posture in her seat. Someone could have even slid a board down her body and her back would have been just as flat as the object.
She was frozen and immobile.
Her hands were placed daintily on her lap, one over the other as her piercing icy blue eyes stared straight into the wall before her. She tried to focus on the dark purple wall, but it was difficult. Her mind kept wondering to conversations she had so long ago when she had begged Lucius to allow her to paint the walls the colour she loved.
It was something small and it had happened so long ago, but she held close any memory of her husband. Draco had been only five and it had been only a few months since the death of Lucius' mother. Narcissa had pleaded to transform the room. She had wanted something to prove that the home was now their home and had not been infiltrated by the ghosts of his mother. Lucius had protested that the colour was ridiculous and too feminine. He had said he had loathed it.
However, for her, he had relented.
Even as she much as she loved the memory, Narcissa tried to push it out of her mind. She needed to keep cool. She needed to stay like this. Thoughts of Lucius would not help her.
Instead her eyes caught on a portrait next to the spot on the wall. The figure of her mother in law Astra Malfoy stared at her from the elegant leather armchair that she was positioned in. With a wine glass in her dainty gloved hand, the grey eyes that Lucius' had inherited focused on Narcissa.
Astra had never had a positive relationship with her daughter in law. Despite the fact Narcissa was the very picture of how a pureblood lady should be, Astra had seen faults. After her husband had died, no woman could ever have been good enough for the only man that was in her life, so she took it out on Narcissa. It was not much but always the cold glare that persisted, judged and somehow managed to stab into Narcissa's cold heart.
However, it was different. There was no cruel judgement in Astra Malfoy's eyes; only pity.
For Narcissa, it was worse.
She did not want that. She could not handle that. If she was subject to those looks she would be left to ponder her own situation. No one could be allowed to see her misery or any emotions. Instead she needed to keep cool and composed. She needed to keep playing the game correctly or she would be eliminated as would everyone she cared about. She did not want to think about how easy it could be; Lucius could be left rotting in prison forever and, one flash of green light from the end of the Dark Lord's wand, would see the end of her precious son's life.
How could she ever keep composed with those thoughts? She never could so she battled with them and forced them all away so that all that remained was the rich dark purple paint that engulfed her mind.
Purple. Cold purple. Cold, cool, purple. Cold, cool, and only purple.
Over and over again her mind repeated her mantra as her coolness did not melt or waver. She was the very definition of ice. Seemingly with her chin that was raised high and emotionless eyes, she seemed like she could not be affected by anything.
Her ruse lasted unobstructed for a long time before it shook as a voice knifed its way through the silence of the room.
"Welcome my Death Eaters." The voice of Lord Voldemort declared in his eerily calm voice that still managed to chill everyone in the room. "We have some matters to discuss."
Before Narcissa could help herself, she flinched; her body tensed and her eyes widened. Her posture even broke as she instinctively leaped back until she managed to restore herself to ice.
Unlike everyone else in the room she was not a Death Eater. She could have been. Time and time again Bellatrix had tried to get her to take the mark, but she had refused. It was disgusting. It was bad enough to see it tainting Lucius' perfect flesh let alone marring her own arm.
There was no doubt that Narcissa did support the cause and believed mudbloods should be flushed from society and purebloods placed in pinnacles of power. She just preferred not to know about their methods. Even when Lucius returned home at odd hours and she would be left to heal his wounds, she only requested that he never tell her where he had gone. She could just not tolerate hearing how he had killed someone or hear the story about the gruesome details about how one of his colleagues had slaughtered children.
Now she did not have that luxury. After only a week of occupying Malfoy Manor, the Dark Lord had ordered her to be in attendance. She did not do anything other than sit there so it must have been for no other reason than his sick amusement; possibly he wanted to make her squirm or maybe he just wanted to keep an eye on her, but, for whatever reason, she was subject to attend every one of these meetings as if she had a mark on her arm.
However, she never gave the Dark Lord any satisfaction. No, she always acted as her position and rank dictated. She kept stony and perfectly cool, even if inside she was screaming like the mudbloods in the missions that were described.
Everything was deplorable and unbearable. There was the tale of how Yaxley had burnt down a house with five children inside and he could hear the wails from hundreds of feet away. Then there was Amycus Carrow who had been tortured in front of the meeting as he flailed and begged for mercy that would never come.
Narcissa had learned one lesson to cope; always stare straight ahead.
The first time she had been subjected to these meetings, she had been silly enough to look to her right. Her sister had been beside her. Rather like a dog in heat, she had been leaning so far off her seat she had almost fallen onto the floor as she had stared at the Dark Lord as if she had been mesmerised.
It was still sickening to even think about.
Despite what she was, Narcissa genuinely loved her sister. She may have changed from when they were young, but she was still Bella. Just seeing her like that, hearing her tell tales of sadism and destruction and watching her torture her comrades without remorse made her doubt her views.
So she had turned away and now Narcissa refused to turn to her sister or anyone else as these dreaded meetings progressed.
No, she would continue to stare straight ahead. She would not do anything but look. Her face would only be ice cool.
It was the best way to behave.
The hearth burned strongly and fiercely. In the lace nightgown that Lucius had brought for her the last Christmas that they were together, she clutched her arms around her body as she tried to keep herself cool. In public and in the sight of others she was successful and the ice never melted.
Now it had all slid away and water trickled from her eyes as she quivered.
Trying not to stare at the fire, she turned away and buried herself in the bed behind her. It was the bed that Draco was conceived in and the bed Lucius had held her in every night.
Except for the past six months.
He had been in Azkaban. He was left rotting in a prison. He was no doubt getting sick and ill and she may never see him again. Worse he might come back torn to pieces like how poor Bella had returned.
How could she sit in a warm bed when Lucius was left in that hell hole?
Wrenching the covers off, she threw them on a ground and snapped her wand into her hand. A jet of water left her wand drenching her body and dousing the fireplace in water. In a second the light was snuffed and the warmth that infiltrated her body disappeared.
Tears slithered down her aristocratic face as she mourned the loss of her husband and her life. It was only now when she was alone that she could allow her cool facade to break.
Narcissa tried and swore by her cool disposition. She could withstand her erratic sister, dangerous Dark Lord and her taunts about her husband, but there was only one person who could make her cool facade crumble in public.
The twentieth of December had never been so anticipated and so dreaded. In long thick robes that were no doubt exuberant and expensive, Narcissa stood more in the shadows than she ever had in her life. She did not want to be confronted by the mudbloods and filthy students. She only wanted to see her son.
He was one of the last ones off. With his leather trunk levitating before him, he was so different to when she had last seen him; he had allowed a faint trickling of stubble to dot his chin, there were dark shadows around his eyes and his face was oddly grey as if he had not seen a ray of sun in months.
He probably wouldn't have.
There was no trace of cool ice as it fell away upon the sight of her son. Before he had even taken a few steps, she was already at his side. Her arms shook at her side until she threw them around her son. She was shacking and sobbing into his shoulders as her mass of blonde hair obscured her unusually flushed face.
"My boy," she murmured her voice muffled by his robes. "My brave brave boy. My poor Draco."
She would have expected him to push her away, but instead he wrapped his arms around her and held him like there was no one else watching. Unlike her, he stayed silent. The only noise she heard was heavy breathing.
Both had lost all their cool composure as they held each other.
After six months of worry and fretting, they were finally together.
They hoped that soon they would have their husband and father back.