Disclaimer: Rowling's property is her own.
Dedication: To Faith, for loving me, and Adolfa, for loving them. *gestures downward*
Warnings: Flowery, first-person-perspective, and present-tense. Usually all things I frown upon, but I rather like this.
I
Narcissa's Narcosis
by Veruka
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Pureblood.
The tarnish that word has endured, the desecration---
The very thought of the slander it has become causes my own to bubble hotly within my veins.
There is irony in my anger -- or so my wife has claimed, and in those moments I know not whether I truly appreciate her sentiments, or am merely humouring her.
No -- no. My beautiful queen . . . were there any true condescension on my part, I would will it that the guillotine in the west wing be polished and sharpened, and prepared for my throat.
No, not humouring her. Not condescension: desperation. Wrath, sorrow, and a captivation that has not waned in our twenty years of marriage. Frustration.
Pureblood. We are named thus, and those who scorn the title do so with demented tongues, look upon us through eyes scratched and turbid with oblivion. Even those whose families have been laced with magic for centuries have forgotten, have been blinded.
Many speak of vision, of clarity. Of purity. Our Lord is one, of course. Tainted though He was in His youth, His vision was such that it stretched beyond the stars, one eye fixated on the future, and the other, peering into the past. He remembered the magnificence of His bloodline: a bloodline far too potent, far too powerful, to allow the idleness of senility that His madwoman of a mother had tried so very diligently to affect.
Pureblood. Remembrance. Magic is not a gift to be sown at random -- it is a pattern: intricate, beautiful. A tapestry to be woven with great care and precision. A priceless heirloom.
Open your eyes, and drink in the present world.
Suppress a retch.
The loose stitching, the frayed ends that have been so heedlessly threaded, the disrespect . . . . The passage of time serves only to further the sloth of each generation. Their blood thins. Their minds grow empty, weak, worthless, built upon sapless aspirations and decrepit arrogance. Is it any wonder why we choose to enshroud ourselves in the past? For all our imperiousness, at our most basal, we all bow to that which lifts us above the mire of the subaltern classes. What our ancestry dictates, we obey. Even Muggles are not ignorant of that particular virtue: honour thy father and thy mother, and all cultures deem disloyalty to be an inexcusable offence. They must be punished for what they have done. Their misery -- their humility -- must mirror our own.
Blood; magic. Together, the words arouse an innate knowledge: tread with discretion -- here lies power beyond your ken. And how quickly they forget, that those words intertwine well beyond the finespun art of Haemomancy. Blood, magic; blood, family.
Let them fear what they do not understand -- what they choose not to understand. What they once knew, but chose to bury, when their search for progression bred only shame.
No, not condescension. Never shame.
Desperation and, in better moments, pride.
There are times when she thrashes, when the anguish is too much, and their minds twist into knots of grief. Strangely, it is during those times that my pride in her stirs -- to bear witness to the depths of their blood, the sufferance of their link, is breathtaking. The arc of her body is an ivory blade, her arms splay like white wings, and her gasps are soft echoes of her sister's screams.
Yes . . . pride stirs within me then, as do many other emotions. In her greed for comfort, her ardour is a flame of white heat. Pleasure and hurt become one to her, for her world has become scarcely more than a stark seperation of numbness and feeling. The passion of surrender encompasses her, immaculate and intoxicating. It is our heritage, our birthright, our devotion and our adoration. Family, blood, magic; our vows of eternity will never be severed, and that fact is made clear as crystal with each elysian congress, each glimpse of our son and heir.
Other times, she is silent, and it is those times that pain me most. She does not move, does not speak. I am wary of touching her, fearful of the warmth of my fingertips causing a fissure to crackle through her flesh and ruin her glacial perfection. Cold tears do not slip past their cage of flaxen lashes, but linger glittering in her half-lidded eyes.
Now is one of those times. I know it upon sight of her, as I enter the room we share.
Her pose is akin to one of concupiscence, and to others it would give the appearance that she had perhaps been awaiting my arrival home, and had fallen into slumber. She reclines in a serpentine manner, her flawless face turned toward the west, her toes pointing east. It is dusk, and the sunset filters through the frosted windows that stretch from the ebony floor to the ornately carved ceiling. Her skin is painted a twilight rose, giving her the illusion of a wanton flush; her hair is fanned in tendrils of pale gold that gleam against the black and white satin of the pillow slips. Her arms are outstretched, pallid palms upturned and long, slim fingers curled into loose fists.
My footsteps reverberate faintly throughout the room as I make my way to our bed, and I wonder if the sound is enough to shatter my glass wife. She gives no indication that she is aware of my presence, nor do I expect her to, even as the mattress shifts with my weight as I perch upon its edge to study her.
Bellatrix Lestrange has been imprisoned in Azkaban for nearly fourteen years, and a piece of Narcissa Malfoy has been enchained alongside her.
Though born two of triplets, they have long since been referred to as twins. Even in the womb, they had forged a closeness the ill-starred Andromeda could not compete with, and ensured their middle sister's status as the runt of the litter early on in Cassiopeia Black's pregnancy. A closeness that, to this day, ascertains that they will forever be inseparable.
In pride, it awes me.
In desperation, my own selfishness wishes everlasting peace would take hold of my dear sister-in-law.
I never permit the thought to become anything more than a fleeting whim. Azkaban has spiralled sweet Bella into lunacy, and Narcissa has followed her path at a distance, caught between sororal, uxorial, and maternal allegiances. Were death to claim her cherished sister and conceal her beyond the whispering shadows of the netherworld . . . I could not bear the effect it would have upon my wicked queen. Only then would she truly flee into madness, or further, pursuing Bellatrix into the darkest of realms.
I do not fool myself with the notion that she would experience the same collapse if Draco or myself were to die, nor do I believe she treasures either of us any less. But Narcissa is the youngest sibling -- though born a scant twelve minutes aft Andromeda, seventeen aft Bellatrix -- and it has been too long ingrained in her nature to haunt her favoured elder sister. Draco and I are her anchors, binding her to sanity; our graves would only shackle her mind to the earth.
I lift a hand to her porcelain face and cautiously sweep a lock of hair away from her forehead, my fingers a breath away from truly touching her.
How I love her . . .
I rise before I can give into the temptation to trace her delicately-boned features, and set about disrobing for the night. It has been a rarity in recent days for my schedule to leave me an evening free for leisure. Certainly there are other ways in which I had hoped to spend this time -- Narcissa's spells oft assume control of her mental faculties at inconvenient moments -- yet I can think of no activity that would not seem lacklustre without her presence. I have no desire to dine, even less desire to dine alone, and there is precious little within the manor that captures my attention as thoroughly as the woman in the centre of the bed.
My robes and shoes are shed, left in a careless heap on the floor, and I've only just begun to unbutton my shirt when a quiet mewl reaches my ears. I turn round; she stirs.
"Lucius . . ."
Without hesitation, I return to her. Her eyes are now closed. Twin liquescent tears are poised at their corners, but do not fall.
She breathes slowly, deeply, composing herself. Her wand rests on the bedside table, and some absurd part of me almost expects her to pick it up and point it at her temple with a whispered "Reparo."
Her back bows in a feline stretch, and she raises an arm to press the back of her hand against her brow -- a gesture that, performed by a woman of lesser elegance, would appear dissembled and cliché.
When her hand falls again to her side, my fingers comb through the silk of her hair, and for a moment I envision Bellatrix's black tangles, coarse and begrimed on Rodolphus' skin.
Narcissa opens her eyes, her gaze a spectral blue, luminescent as nightfall bedims the world.
"We have to get her out," she intones, her august voice tincted with the desperation I am helpless to express. "Lucius, we have to get her out."
"Soon, my darling," I promise her. It is all I can do. "Soon . . ."
My words are sincere, and queerly, they reassure my own mind as well as hers. For the first time I find myself comforted by her silence, knowing that Bellatrix is at her most unhinged when the dementors are near. Narcissa's tranquility would denote that they are leaving her sister to repose, to gather her wits to the best of her abilities. It is a good sign, a subtle preparation, and the barest hint of an encouraging smile touches my lips.
"Soon . . ." Narcissa repeats, trailing off into a wistful sigh ere her eyebrows lift slightly in mild surprise. "You're home."
A wry smirk curls my mouth. "Very astute of you to notice, inamorata."
"Mm," she agrees, satiric humour returning to her. "I have excellent perception. Or does the compass of my sight . . . elude you?"
She trails a single slender finger along the confluence of my shirt in a demure invitation I would be certifiable to decline.
Our evening is spent in luxuria, her flesh so chilled as to feel searing against my own, and for a few hours intensity and fervour banish our unease.
In the aftermath, she sleeps. I lie awake for some time, running my fingertips lightly over the smooth curve of her spine, satiation, darkness and quiet beckoning my contemplations to return.
It always leads back to blood; blood spilt, blood ties. My motives are plain, fierce, as I look upon my wife's beautiful countenance, her brow slightly creased with restless dreams -- dreams shared by another, incarcerated miles asunder from our sterling asylum. Blue blood; Black blood; bruised blood; pureblood. The ancient magic of family. This is what I am fighting for, what I am burnt and scarred for, my loyalties emblazoned upon my left forearm. I will not allow my son to mature in a world that would dilute this most precious, this most binding, of all powers. He will know the sanctity of consanguinity, and he will remember.
It always leads back to blood: family and eternity, our Ouroboros.
We are pureblood, we are Slytherin, and our pride in our curses shall never be quelled, nor adulterated. To that we hold with our coiling grip. To Him we hold, to the Heir, for the love of our own.
I press my lips to Narcissa's alabaster shoulder, lay down my head, and succumb to her narcosis.