QLFC S7 R2


Team: Appleby Arrows - Beater 1
Prompt: Write about a character(s) striving to attain their concept of "perfection"

Additional prompts:
Passion (word)
"Knowledge is realising that the street is one-way; wisdom is looking both directions before crossing anyway." (quote)

Word count: 2184 (google docs)

A/N: Thanks, Newt, for your edits! (:


The Perfect


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Daughter.

One of her first memories involved a series of gaunt faces crooning over how exquisite she was. Judgmental eyes took apart every centimeter of her—from her hair, to the set of her shoulders, to her dainty feet—not bothering to contain their opinionated remarks, before deciding that she was, indeed, the perfect little doll. They fawned over the silver-haired, large-eyed, button-nosed youngest child of Cygnus and Druella Black.

She could recall her mother's fingers pinching her cheeks, not in adoration, but to give them a healthy flush. "You are a Black," her mother had said as she pinched the young girl's cheeks once more for good measure. "You are to live up to the expectations attached to our noble House."

With Bellatrix's wild and unruly mane framing enviable features, Andromeda's wide eyes and chestnut hair falling straight as sheet metal to her shoulder blades, and Narcissa's crystalline eyes and silvery locks, the Black sisters were a striking set to behold.

Even so, it was clear that the youngest sister best exemplified the Black family name. Bellatrix was boundless in her temerity, and Andromeda was far too meek. Narcissa, on the other hand, possessed both qualities in equal measure—strong and proud when the situation warranted Black poise, but also subservient, as a daughter should be.

At social dinners, her younger cousin often mocked her for being "Little Miss Perfect".

Narcissa would simply quirk an elegant brow and fix the dark-haired boy with a look that was telling of her upbringing. "Perhaps you'd be praised more if you bothered with hygiene. You smell like a dog," she'd retort with a primness beyond what a mere ten year old should possess.

The young boy would predictably respond with a wolfish grin and a series of barks that fully embarrassed his relatives, earning a smack to the back of the head from her furious Aunt Walburga.

Narcissa would sniff in disapproval, idly brushing at her skirts as if waving off her cousin's presence. He was a smudge on the Black family name and there was perfection in the pristine. She would tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, ignoring Bella and Sirius' arguing and Andromeda's insecure fidgeting.

Her head held high, shoulders back, she'd offer pretty little smiles as her aunts and uncles remarked on her impeccable manners and how she'd make a wonderful matriarch one day.

Image and perfection were everything.

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Student.

"'Knowledge is realising that the street is one-way; wisdom is looking both directions before crossing anyway,'" the Headmaster recited, unwrapping a piece of candy. He gave the student seated before him an appraising look from behind half moon glasses, allowing time for his words to properly sink in.

Narcissa disliked the shrewd look he gave: as if he peered directly into her soul, picking past each and every one of her insecurities. She stiffened against a shiver, halting her body from betraying her discomfiture.

"Do you know who said it?" he inquired.

"Who said what, sir?" the student replied, blinking out of her own thoughts.

"The quote," Dumbledore answered, aimlessly gesturing his hand, "about knowledge and wisdom."

She shook her head.

"A Muggle," he revealed without pomp. "I often find Muggle works fascinating. You see, Miss Black, I believe that to gain wisdom, we must look through the eyes of many. Not the eyes of a few." He paused then, watching the Slytherin with an unreadable expression.

Narcissa returned his level gaze.

Dumbledore went on, "Now, that particular saying could be interpreted in a myriad of ways, but I have come to understand it as this: knowledge and logic are not enough. One has to understand, and take into account, unpredictability. People like things to be organized in certain ways, but the universe has other plans."

He studied her once more, and this time the young witch could have sworn she felt something prickling around in her mind, but it was gone before she could pinpoint it.

"Am I in trouble, sir?" she asked instead, lifting her chin in a manner befitting her family name. She couldn't understand just why she was called to the Headmaster's office. She had been nothing short of a perfect student since her First Year. She had caused no trouble and ruffled no feathers. Unlike Bella, who was often yelling insults up and down the halls, iniquity knowing no bounds, Narcissa embodied perfection in every aspect of her life, from her impeccable hair to her polished shoes.

Which was why, as she sat in the overly plush chair facing the Headmaster, she was at a loss for any reasons she might be in his office at all.

"You have been an excellent student, Miss Black." The house name on his tongue lacked the usual reverence Narcissa often heard accompanying it. "Professor Slughorn has nominated you as a Prefect for next term. Normally we do not interview our candidates, but as it stands, recent...experience in having a Black as a Prefect warrants a modicum of caution."

A soft frown befell her features. Bellatrix was a bit...enthusiastic in her short-lived role. Narcissa wondered if anyone had ever been removed as a Prefect before.

"I'm not like Bella," the young Slytherin declared confidently, hands folded neatly in her lap. "In my four years at Hogwarts I have never stepped a toe out of line, haven't so much as—"

"An excellent student, as I said," Dumbledore agreed. "However, I approve Prefects on much more than their ability to follow. Prefects are leaders, Miss Black. They must be able to distinguish between right and wrong. They must understand a situation and act accordingly. Do you understand?"

Narcissa met his stare with an unwavering one of her own. "Yes, sir."

"Your sister said the same thing," the Headmaster mused.

"I thought you didn't normally speak to prospective Prefects about their appointment?"

Dumbledore leaned forward in his seat, steepling his hands before him. "Oh, Andromeda Black wasn't suggested as Prefect," he answered with a gentle smile. "But I certainly wondered if she would have been a better option than—"

"May I go?" She could feel her heart thudding against her ribcage at the mere thought of her traitor of a sister. Her own blood abandoning family to run off with that filth.

Now, that was unpredictable, her mind sneered as she ruminated on her lost sister's betrayal and Dumbledore's words, and how chaos and disorder lent itself to imperfection.

Without waiting for dismissal, Narcissa stood from her chair, lowering her head to restrain whatever threatened to leap from her: rage, sadness, and something else Narcissa had trouble identifying.

"Yes, Miss Black," Dumbledore said as the student disappeared out the door, "you may go."

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Lover.

Tinkling laughter filtered through the trees, carried along by the spring breeze. Budding flowers dotted the branches overhead, their pastel hue rivaling the young woman's moon-pale hair.

"You are a cad."

A haughty smile punctuated a perfectly symmetrical face. "But a handsome one, don't you think?"

Narcissa shook her head, the motion tossing her unrestrained locks down her back. "If your head gets filled with any more hot air, you'll have no need for that new broom your father purchased."

It was the spring of their final year at Hogwarts, and though she really should have been more concerned with their End of Year Exams, the young witch found herself far too consumed by the surprisingly witty Lucius Malfoy. He embodied the very idea of perfect, with his chiseled jaw and aquiline nose, and, Narcissa dared think, his rather impressive build.

Now, she was not a fool; she was well aware of the fact that their encounter in First Year had hardly been an accident. Their meeting, their odd friendship, had all been part of the grand design of both families. Even so, she counted herself lucky to be matched with someone so fit.

Schooling her expression into one of nonchalance, the young woman shrugged a single graceful shoulder, always playing demure just as her mother taught her.

"My Cissa, always so indifferent," the wizard grinned, reaching out to tuck an errant strand of hair behind her ear. "Do you have any idea how I feel towards you?"

Inclining her head away from his touch, Narcissa grinned. "You think I'm perfect," she answered.

"That's certainly a fact," Lucius chuckled, "but that's not how I feel."

She blinked in turn, unsure of what he meant. He fancied her, and they both knew, even as they remained a respectable distance on the checkered blanket upon the grass, that they would soon be wed. "How do you feel, then?" Narcissa teased, allowing a careful smile to stretch across her lips.

The look in the wizard's eyes darkened with an entity that only made itself known to Narcissa in her dreams. It was a look that boasted wild emotions, unbridled desire, and it shook her to the core.

She briefly recalled when a similar sensation overcame her—three years prior, when the Headmaster had spoken so cavalierly of her lost sister. But that emotion had been consuming in the worst of ways.

With Lucius, the emotion was entirely different.

He leaned forward to catch her lips and the kiss ignited something in the witch that her mother had secured away with lock and key. Everything came as an outpouring of emotions: fury, jealousy, elation, depression, shock—all the weaknesses that made humans imperfect and Blacks unshakeable. There they all went, tumbling out, drawn from her with every movement of Lucius' mouth on hers.

Certainly, they've kissed before, but it was always respectable; it wouldn't do to go about besmirching her reputation and name, now would it?

But now they were seventeen, on the brink of graduating, soon to be engaged. How could she deny the man what he sought when his fervent attention made her feel so desired, so cherished?

She whispered his name like an incantation, as if he was a god bestowing upon her everything she had never cared to know, and she was becoming all the richer for it.

Despite her carefully outlined life, her meticulous attention to every aspect of her character, her routine, her future, the silver-tongued Malfoy managed to catch her off-guard, to turn her world upside down in a way she never thought possible. Never had she witnessed such adoration, such passion, from a match like what Lucius promised in his kiss.

Not from her parents, nor her aunts and uncles, and certainly not from her own sister's match. In fact, Narcissa suspected that Bella felt as strongly about Rodolphus as she did about the weather.

For the first time in her entire life, she questioned her mother's wisdom, and reflected on Dumbledore's words.

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Mother.

"You. Examine him. Tell me whether he is dead."

She was faced with the ghosts of her past, the echoing vestiges of expectations swimming in her head, pouring from every long forgotten crevice between her memories. But as she knelt there, heart racing, ice running through her veins, Narcissa came to the irrefutable conclusion that her mother was wrong.

Detachment, poise, and pride were not what made one perfect. What was perfection when no one was there to appreciate it? What was the point? A flower could be perfect, as could a diamond, but with no one to admire them what did they ever achieve?

Nothing.

Narcissa, if nothing else, was a prideful woman. She was proud of her family, proud of her husband, but most of all, proud of what she had brought into the world.

Crouching down, she placed delicate hands upon the one boy who could possibly end this madness.

"Is Draco alive?" she whispered, voice barely audible over the breeze. "Is he in the castle?"

Beneath her palm, Harry Potter's heart remained beating, albeit weakly. It was his response that gave her something tangible to hold on to—"Yes."

She froze, hand involuntarily clasping around that invisible sliver of hope, before withdrawing from his beaten form.

Something finally cracked within her, something desperate and manic and decidedly un-befitting of a Black. But she wasn't a Black anymore, was she? She was a Malfoy, and Malfoys put their family above all else.

The Dark Lord didn't take into account that his pawn might defect. He didn't even entertain the idea that one of his followers might be far more loyal to her own blood than the greatness he promised. He assumed her desire for a 'perfect' world overruled her love for her husband, her son, and herself.

Narcissa's eyes hardened.

He was a fool.

"He is dead!" she declared, breaking free of all the bonds that had held her so tightly.

Amidst the celebration that followed her deception, she slipped into the castle, concerned not by the tattered state of her robes, nor her disheveled hair. The only thing on her mind was what was most important in the world, what gave her a reason for living, for it was through Draco—through saving him and giving him a chance at building his own legacy, in rebuilding her family—that Narcissa could achieve a state of perfection even her mother could never attain:

A loving, whole family.