The Masks We Wear
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. – Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
"Would you like me to pour you a drink, Mother?"
"I just had a drink, why would I want another?" Druella snaps impatiently.
Narcissa knows right then, in the hollowness of her response, that her bitterness, apparently having eased for the time being, is still there. It lingers beneath the pasted on perfection, the protection from her scorn that only guests are granted.
She feels her own smile waver, just a little, and she quickly excuses herself to go to the bathroom and collect herself. Gracefully hurrying through the house, she shuts the door and leans against it, lowering herself to the ground, forgetting about propriety or manners or the supposedly sacred image of the put-together Black's.
Narcissa is not proper or put-together. She's a fragile patchwork person, and she's splitting at the seams almost faster than she can sew herself back together.
There's a knock at the door and bile rises to Narcissa's throat – she can't let herself be seen like this! "Cissy? Are you okay, can I come in?"
Relief makes her shoulders sag – it's only Andy, so she steps away from the door and her sister slips inside.
"Oh, Cissy," Andromeda clucks in sympathetic understanding. "It's nearly September, soon we'll be back at Hogwarts again. We'll be free from them." She grabs a tissue from the box next to the sink and tenderly wipes away the few tears that have slid down Narcissa's cheeks.
"What do you mean, 'we'll be free?' There's nothing here we need to be free of! That's not a nice thing to suggest about our family, Andy." She's recovering her composure, and with it, her familial loyalty, yet even as she insists there's nothing wrong, she knows it's a lie.
There is. There is a mother with moods and expectations less stable than the weather, a father who drinks to get away, and three sisters who drift further and further apart with each passing day.
As a teenage student at Hogwarts, Narcissa Malfoy looks into the Mirror of Erised, and she sees a family not quite like her own. At first, she can't pinpoint the difference, but after staring at the image for a few seconds, it dawns on her: these people, so like her and her sisters and her parents, possess one crucial element the real Black family does not: they are happy.
It must be nice to live a life like that, Narcissa thinks. Maybe she will, one day.
And then Andy leaves them all behind to live with a Mudblood, Bella gets the Dark Mark branded on her forearm, and Narcissa is betrothed to Lucius Malfoy.
She complies with what's expected of her, turning up her nose at Andy's choice, and praising Bella for hers, but Narcissa's not stupid. She admires Andy for her courage, and even envies her a little for turning her back on everything she's ever known, and bravely embracing the freedom for which she'd yearned for so long.
Bella, on the other hand, Bella frightens her, with her wild ideas and wild eyes and wild rage. She could have been so much, she could have had it all, except she chooses to marry into a loveless union with Rodolphus, all the while pining for someone who can never love her back, and it slowly drives her closer to the edge of insanity.
Azkaban tips her off, and Narcissa cries that day, for the sisters that she's lost – one to a Mudblood and one to her mind. Narcissa's not sure which is worse.
Married and with a family of her own, the image Narcissa sees in the Mirror isn't much changed. Lucius is out of Azkaban (or maybe he's never gone in), and Draco looks content, the arrogance and newly acquired exhaustion missing from his face. In this utopia, the Dark Lord does not exist. There is no war or danger or expectations. It is a fanciful dream, and Narcissa turns away from the image before she can start wishing it is real. Hopes and dreams cannot save her now.
She's weary, she's exhausted, and she's so very tired. She's escaped from one cage into another, far more dangerous and far more frightening. She never forgets her Black breeding, forcing a smile, even when every fibre of her being urges her to crawl into bed and never get out. Blacks – Malfoys – have an image to uphold, and falling apart is not an option.
"Draco, we'll go to Diagon Alley next week to get your school supplies. The start of the year is drawing closer and we might as well get it over and done with."
Draco nods sullenly. His eyes flick up to hers for the mere fraction of a second before returning to his plate, and Narcissa can see fear there, though he tries so desperately to hide it. It pains her to see him like this, feeling like he can't confide in her, or anybody. It reminds her too much of her own childhood, a life she swore she would never inflict on her family.
The clock on the wall seems to be ticking backwards. Time is stagnant, frozen in this awful place where nothing is what it was, and it might not ever get better. There are only two of them at the table, mother and son, and the knowledge of the Dark Lord sits between them, his presence so suffocating it's almost like he's really there.
The only sounds in their too-large dining room are the clink of cutlery against plates and the steady tick-tock of the clock. Draco and Narcissa are two people at the same table, but they might as well be in different worlds. In many ways, they are.
"May I be excused?" His voice is hollow, and it makes her want to throw her arms around him and never let go. Instead, she simply nods. They have an image to uphold, after all.
She dreams of the Mirror of Erised sometimes, and on those rare mornings, she wakes with a genuine smile on her face, before reality settles in and her smile fades away, replaced by the heavy darkness that has become her sole companion .
Slowly, with a massive amount of effort, she makes herself get out of bed and get dressed for the day. She takes an inordinately long time making herself look presentable, covering the bags under her eyes, the wrinkles that have crept onto her face and the greys that have crept into her hair. It seems ridiculous, paying such close attention to the small details of her appearance at a time like this; Lucius is certainly too preoccupied to notice or care, and no-one else ever would. She does it anyway, not to be noticed, but because it's the small details, the things she can control, that keep her sane in a world that's spinning uncontrollably.
Many years later, the image in the Mirror becomes a tangible picture of her life. Narcissa is old by then; she's seen and done a great deal more than she had as a teenager, or even when Lucius was in Azkaban. Reality is not exactly as she had imagined it. Andromeda is in the picture, for one thing, and having her sister back in her life is a joy she wouldn't have considered possible.
Lucius is a shadow of his former self, and Draco has a son of his own. Scorpius is the light of all their lives, an affirmation of how far they've come and all they've survived, proof that redemption and happiness is possible for them, after all.
The smile she wears doesn't have to be a mask any longer. It's real, and sincerity looks more beautiful than any lie ever could.
Written for:
The Fantastic Beasts Challenge: Merpeople
The Flower Language Challenge: Alstromeria
The Sherlock Competition: Episode 1, Prompt 18.
The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition
Team – The Holyhead Harpies
Position: Chaser 1
Prompts: rare, sentence (The clock on the wall seems to be ticking backwards) and the Anna Karenina quote.