Chapter Ten
Narcissa Black
Trigger Warning: This chapter contains elements of sexual harassment and attempted sexual coercion. The act is described in some level of detail but is not traumatic or violent. The scene is mean to educate, not romanticize. Please proceed with caution if such scenes have a negative impact on your mental health.
When I was fifteen, my mother took me to a butterfly conservatory in a busy Muggle district, one of the many secrets she kept from my father, who was surprisingly flexible given his upbringing, but not completely. These creatures were a kaleidoscope of colours and every beat of their thin, gossamer wings thwarted gravity. I admired first their resilience, and then with prodding from my mother, I determined there was something noteworthy in their gentleness too.
Like many young girls, I wanted to be more than what the world told me I could be. A misstep in a curtsey, a joke that lands crudely with the recipient, a few moments left alone with a gentleman, and I was reminded that my life was nothing more than a bargaining chip, a desperate pawn atop a broken chess board. Every ambition I had, every tiny fantasy of my future I might hold could be stripped of me for one mistake. Life as a young pureblood woman taught me to be silent and civil, that the only discourse I was allowed to have with others considered dressing gowns and ribbons, not issues of government, politics, or philosophy. So, I learned that in order to get anywhere in life, you have to exonerate yourself of impurities. To love someone so simplistically and with devotion is to err very deeply, and so I learned by experience to never let anyone touch me. The only way to live freely is to become either or a legend or a ghost.
Love is a wildly intangible thing, and I trust nothing to that degree of importance that I cannot empirically solve or hold in my hands. I have no use for such a thing. I know ink and the smooth curl of parchment at the bottom of every page I fill. I know the deep labyrinth of stories. Love is just a plot point and it is either written exquisitely or poorly depending on who wields the quill.
My birth was a small ember, a spark. My life is a forest fire; my furies can never be quelled. There is a rage inside of me, the likes of which no one has ever seen. I would burn down the house of my husband should he try to oppress me. If I am on fire, he will be made into ashes for trying to pin me. And who can love such destruction? How can someone like me love someone in return?
I know you, Reader, and you want to know why I would not marry Lucius Malfoy. I have told you a piece of my story, but allow me to tell it in full.
My family's reputation hung in the balance in the spring, with Andromeda's disappearance going public. I watched the furniture in my home silently disappear as my parents prepared for the worst. Servants that practically raised me were ghosts in the pale morning light, and I watched their retreating figures going up the drive until they were small, misshapen black dots from the vantage point of my window. My prospects diminished. Where cards from suitors and friends had once appeared throughout the day, they vanished now. Envelopes fat with cardstocks and carefully written invitations was a privilege no longer afforded to us. Eventually, our society dwindled to such that I questioned whether we ever belonged to them at all.
At first, I blamed my sister for leaving, for marrying that Muggle man to escape. The three of us envisioned a future with us together, but one swift, impulsive, and stupid decision from Andromeda (who possesses unshakeable middle child syndrome, she always craves attention) and everything was ruined. I wanted to scorch her memory from my heart and mind. She ruined my life, I thought, by achieving a small bit of a happiness for herself. I never considered the fact that I would not be able to marry because it was never my intention to marry. This notion was well known by my mother and father, who approved of my unconventional methods, while still worrying if our wealth could afford such a decision into my old age.
When my mother consulted Lucius and begged him to marry me and save me from an impending disaster, I confess I was mostly insulted that this was what my life had come to. It was a resounding slam, a closed door on a woman seeking independence. Or perhaps a more apt metaphor would be that I was the last broken-winged butterfly in a bell jar, fighting against the inevitable.
My society did more than restrict me from a profession, from wearing trousers, or not marrying. I was now also prohibited from marrying at all; one more door slamming shut, thoughts of any future not steeped in loneliness impossible for me.
I was the stalwart Black sister who held up the Moonflowers. I acquired a legacy member into the fold—a man no less—and was working on more. We were at the highest member count in history, and I thought we might change the world. I knew one day the Moonflowers would not be a midnight haunt, but public philosophers and lecturers, female scholars who would shake the foundation of the pureblood society. And a few men would help us too, to the chagrin of everyone. This was all hubris because I have learned that most people like me still lose even when they try, and try, and try.
I forgot that the world was composed of towering walls, embedded with deep layers of black ice, so thick I could not hope to penetrate or climb. The world, dear Reader, is grotesquely ugly and terrifying. When my sister's name was printed on the front page of The Daily Prophet, my fate was sealed.
Lucius, as my mother always says, is a sweet boy. How do you reject someone who looks at you as if you were the key that unlocks the secrets of the world? You reject it when you know that you are not the key—when you know that you are the lock that imprisons him.
"Do you fancy him?" Mara asked me once, after his bewildered gaze and perfectly balanced posture swept away from her. He had asked her to dance spontaneously, and it had made her a nervous wreck to have the attentions of a Malfoy wielded on her.
"No!" I cried reproachfully, "He's just a legacy!"
Mara was convinced that, because he saw her at the Moonflower Society meeting, he would tell someone. I knew better because my family has been in society longer. He would never expose her identity because that would mean he would have to admit he committed strong acts of impropriety too, and a man like him never would.
I thought he would simply lose interest at first. Men of our kind are so rarely interested in anything feminine unless it pleasures or caters to their sensibilities, so when I discovered he had not only read Jane Eyre, but procured the copy from his mother, I admit a small flame inside of me ignited with hope. Lucius, of course, went through the pitfalls and detractions as he chipped away at our societal institutions. He went through a kind of rapid transformation until one day, it was like seeing him for the first time. I fancied he was a block of marble and the books we read chiselled away at him until he became a work of art.
This vanished when he suggested I marry him. All of my cloaked admiration and amusements, and our friendship. My ability to destroy anything that hurts me is powerful, and I was vengeful. I wanted to burn him down. The swirling configuration of pain still beats rapidly in my heart. Lucius Malfoy disappointed me by being the man he was raised to be, by looking at through a simplistic lens in which high connections and influence could solve everything. He thought that he could save me by marrying me, but he never asked if I wanted him to save me.
Spurned, I withdrew from his life. I concaved into my own brain and stayed there, lying in bed long past mid-morning and into the afternoon, fastidiously scanning the paper each morning to evaluate the ruins of my life. He vexed me so, with his ignorance and sacrificial desire to aid me in my time of need. I never wanted his assistance; it felt weak to need it, and more than anything, I detested the idea of relying on someone. The idea of marrying him made me want to die, not because I found Lucius repulsive, but because it felt like losing.
Then, one morning the front of the Daily Prophet printed something other than a Black-family smear campaign across the front page: LUCIUS MALFOY DEATHLY ILL, ST. MUNGO'S HEALER SELWYN SAYS NO HOPE IN SIGHT. Was this a ruse? Another attempt by Lucius to thwart my enemies onto himself and spare me? This infuriated me too, should it be the case, for parts of me had become accustomed to the sadness and the dilapidating nature of life collapsing around me. I was resigned to it, I would no longer fight the inevitable. In some ways, this gave me peace for not having to try so hard. Yet here he was, demanding me to rise above. Challenging me to be the Narcissa Black he sees, not the version that has always disappointed me.
"Mother," I said, flashing the thin page in front of her at the breakfast table, the first in weeks I attended, "Is this true?"
She evaluated the headline and then me for a long moment, her hands spindled around the cup of Assam she was nursing slowly, for long had the tendrils of heat dispersed. No doubt, it was room temperature now.
"Yes," she finally said, "His mother says it is a dreadful brain fever with no cure."
"I see," I replied softly, placing the palms of my hands flat against the table.
I began to rise up swiftly, and found that the strength in my legs had gone entirely, and I had to sit back down. The world would take this man then. Engulf him in sickness and render his body replete of nutrients and defences. He would die. He would never stand on the Windemere peaks overlooking the lake and revel in the poetry of it, never read the masculine side of the literary world. He would never know Keats as a friend, or laugh at the absurdity of Lord Byron's life. He would never know of Robert Browning's devotion to his wife Elizabeth Barrett Browning, nor would he know that she was the better writer of them, though he was given far more credit.
All at once, I realized that there was a whole world I never showed him, and he would have loved it all. He would have drunk where I insisted he drink, been a pilgrim on the holy path I mapped out for him. He would have done everything with me. The injustices I fought, the struggles I faced. Lucius Malfoy would have deconstructed those, would have made it easier to change the foundations of our culture. Unlike Andromeda, I never wanted to leave my life. I wanted to improve it.
My anger, my pride, my obstinance, and my inability to see what was in front of me would rob me of a life. I knew then, at that breakfast table, that I should have married that wild man regardless of the cost or consequences, because he was the only one who had never wanted to put me in a gilded cage with a red ribbon tied around my eyes and mouth. Lucius Malfoy was the sort of man who suggested a tailor for my suits and never stared at parts of me with a hungry obsession until fear flickered up inside of me, because he saw me as whole.
"Mrs. Malfoy said his symptoms are quite difficult to deal with, and so they have kept him subdued with generous amounts of laudanum," my mother prattled, "His head and neck aches so, and he's no appetite and extreme sensitivity to light—"
I paused. "You said it was a brain fever?"
"Yes," my mother replied, with a huff of impatience, "That was the first thing I said, Cissy—honestly, you really should be a more attentive listener—"
Where had I heard those symptoms before? I wracked my brain. Brain fever. That phrase felt distinct in my mind, as if I knew I had read something about it before, but I could not think of it. The symptoms felt all too familiar as well. Something was calling to me from the dredges of my mind, begging me to remember. Remembering might save his life.
"I have to go," I said, shoving my chair back roughly.
My mother followed me out of the room and into the main foyer. I sprinted up the stairs. When I reached the top of the stairs, I turned right into my bedroom and thrust the door open. Quickly, I unwrapped my bath robe and tossed it over the end of my bed and rushed toward the closet, removing the pyjamas on my body, which I had spent the last two or three days wearing, and searching the back of my closet for clothing that blended well with Muggles.
"Where?" she demanded.
"Lyme," I answered, distracted, thrusting a black sweater over my torso and a pair of plaid pants over my hips. I peeled the thick woollen socks from my feet and put a new pair on, and then stuffed my feet into black boots with thick block heels.
"Why would you go to Lyme?" my mother asked, bewildered.
"Because," I said, looking in the mirror and frowning at the wiry, tangled mess that was my hair. I tapped my wand against my head and swirled my hair up into a messy bun, determining there was nothing I could do about the weeks' worth of knots I had let fester there. "I know what illness that is, I just can't remember what it is called."
"Brain fever," she retorted, "Once again, I already told you…"
But I wasn't listening to her then either, and with an exaggerated roll of my eyes, went to the foyer and out of the house.
The bookstore in Lyme was familiar. I visited so often to purchase the books for the Moonflowers that the owner knew me by name. Warren Knightley was the proprietor and a Muggle. His daughters were witches, Muggle-born, hence why he settled in a magical seaside village which incidentally coexisted in private with other Muggles like himself. Magic was the worst kept secret in Lyme, perhaps the only village of its kind where a kind of peace existed between the two.
The bell above the door jingled as I came in. Today must have been slow, as among the stacks in the Muggle sections was a circle of metal chairs and men in camel hair and wool suits of various patterns sitting together. Warren Knightley was a retired Literature teacher, so bookselling was an apt job for him to take on, as he was more well-read than most that entered the store.
Smoke curled from the lips of several of the men in the circle. They were discussing Aeneid by Virgil, and amongst many of the philosophical or literary groups of men that came into the shop, they reeked of pretension.
"Narcissa!" Mr. Knightley greeted, pulling his cart of books forward from a shelf and blocking my path to the front counter, "How good it is to see you. Which book is it this month?"
"Actually, this is an independent study," I replied, flashing him a smile.
He nodded his head approvingly, "Very well, what can I do to help?"
"I am trying to remember a book title," I explained, "One that mentions a 'brain fever' with very specific symptoms; headache, lethargy, swelling, a lack of appetite…"
"Oh, well," he replied, somewhat sheepishly. He took his wire rimmed spectacles from his face and wiped them with his shirt. "Might be a bit difficult if that is all you know about the book, but I know the Victorian era authors wrote a bit about brain fevers."
"Did someone say brain fever?"
A young man who seemed to speak from his nasal cavity rose from his seat and swept across the aisle into our fold. His hair was faded blond and his suit was expensive; the watch on his wrist, though I've no notion of Muggle brands, looked as luxurious as the one I stole from Lucius.
"Yes," I replied, pursing my lips.
I tried not to let my hackles raise. He was, after all, a customer of Mr. Knightley's and I respected him, so I would do well to respect someone he depended on for a living. This man scrutinized me, first, I thought, as a normal man might, his eyes flicking down my body with a slow, methodical deviance. His eyes rested on my chest and moved up to my face, which was bare of makeup. He took in the frenzied, messy look of my hair and no doubt my puffy, tired eyes and grim expression too, and decided my countenance was not worth the effort of a conquest. Therefore, he seemed to surmise, my only use was to be an echo chamber for his ego.
"Warren is correct in that the phrase 'brain fever' was popularised in Victorian-era literature," he replied, waving his hand dismissively, "But that is such an outdated phrase, you simply should not use it, how embarrassing. There are legitimate illnesses associated such symptoms now."
What little patience I had was wearing thin, and with a high, clipped voice, I replied, "Yes, but I am looking for a book from the Victorian Age, which depicts what they called a 'brain fever' so…whomever you are, do you perhaps have a list of books you can recall? Because I've forgotten the title. I am not trying to educate myself on current medicinal practices."
"I see," he replied, with a bored tone, "Well there's the ones favoured by females…A Little Princess or Wuthering Heights, these you may be familiar with."
"Or how about Dracula?" Mr Knightley interjected, his lip curling, "Sherlock Holmes, I think, has several cases with brain fever referenced."
"Yes," the man agreed, cutting his eyes to Mr Knightley respectively, "I forget you are so well-read, Warren."
My fist reflexively balled at my side and I fought the urge to hit him. But neither of the novels mentioned, of which I had all read, recalled the memory I was attempting to unlock.
"There is also," Mr Knightley remarked, ignoring the young man and focusing on me, "Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Pip contracts a brain fever, if I recall."
"That's it!" I exclaimed, and I whirled away from both of the men to the shelves.
My hands found the book before my eyes did, so accustomed to the arrangement of the titles that memory guided it to me before the conscious part of me did. I flipped through the pages until I settled into the symptoms and the descriptions of the disease.
"Pip may have contracted meningitis," the blond man remarked, "Dickens, of course, would not have a word for it, but that is what contemporary scholars believe he was describing. Of course, this is a disease we can cure now with antibiotics. It's still deadly, but a relic of the past, no doubt…"
I hadn't realized he had followed me.
"And do you treat meningitis, sir?" I asked, raising my eyebrows, "Are you a doctor and a literary genius?"
"I am a doctor," he replied smoothly, and after a slight pause, he added, "of Anthropology."
"How nice," I said, pressing around him without touching so that I could move to the front counter.
"I studied at Oxford," he continued, "I completed my dissertation on the study of women in the workforce."
I placed the book on the table as Mr Knightley added the purchase to my account.
"Oh?" I replied, folding my arms over my chest, and trying to resist the urge to roll my eyes.
"Yes, the research I conducted proved what we all think, really," he said, with a soft sneer, "That a woman's job is home and hearth. There are devasting effects upon a woman who does not have children, for instance. Their minds become addled, mired by hysterics, with nothing to coddle. In fact, a truly happy woman is one who has many children, who is almost in a near constant state of pregnancy—"
I plucked the book up from the counter and turned on my heel. At four inches taller, I outpaced him across the store with little effort. I hardly cared if he watched me Apparate, so long as I could escape him, but the door shut solidly behind me, and the miserable little man was left to his own torrential opinions.
The next place I stopped was St. Mungo's in London. It was pouring in London and the sky was a roiling, cloudy grey, but I slipped into the hospital and dried my clothes before I entered the administration lobby; this was the back end of the hospital where employees entered.
Behind the counter at the foyer was a friend of my sister Bellatrix, Edith Selwyn. What she did was scarcely called work; she mostly ignored those who approached the desk for information, but her father worked was a Healer, and if anyone was personally overseeing the health of a Malfoy, it was him.
"Edith," I said, forcing my tone to sound breezy and lightly, "Is your father in? I have a research question for him."
She glanced up from her box of Bertie Botts beans, wincing as it appeared she had bitten into a rather foul flavour, and nodded. "Sure, in the office in back, working on something."
"For Mr. Malfoy?" I asked curiously.
She shrugged her shoulders in response as she stood up with a large key ring. I followed her behind the desk and down a narrow, dark corridor. Her father was in his office, flipping through a very large and ancient book. As I sat down in the chair in front of him, I saw that there were very grotesque and accurate drawings of brains in front of him.
"Mr. Selwyn," I greeted, forcing my voice to remain demure rather than squelch at the sight of the images he was looking at, "I assume you are assisting on the Malfoy case?"
"Yes, Miss Black," he replied, folded his arms over the images so that I could not see them.
I plucked the book from my reticule and thumbed through the pages. "Mr. Malfoy's symptoms are very similar to a book I have read," I explained, "I wondered if you had spoken to a Muggle doctor, as this disease may be something they could treat—"
He interrupted, as I thought he might, "Miss Black, forgive me. There is no Muggle ailment that magic cannot cure. And no…paltry book of fiction will shed light on the nature of Mr. Malfoy's contagion. I assure you, despite what the Prophet is reporting, it is quite under control…"
"Is this why you are frantically searching your references for the disease, sir?" I asked him, "because you have identified the disease and know how to cure a brain fever?"
"I admit, it's a bit odd for a man to contract such a disease," Mr. Selwyn answered loftily, "Mostly women who have had some sort of, ah, emotional distress, but no matter."
"Have you ever heard of a disease called 'meningitis'?" I asked, boldly, as I had no notion if the man in the bookstore was even correct, "It's a disease Muggles can cure, with the aid of antibiotics."
Mr. Selwyn regarded me as if seeing me for the first time. He threaded his fingers together and spoke firmly, "Miss Black, I have entertained your whims for a long time now. And with my wife gone, Merlin bless her, I have often found solace in your visits to me. But I believe you are becoming too invested in a study you know little of, and women, of course, cannot entertain the idea of a profession. I merely keep my Edith here to ascertain and protect her from falling prey to pureblood men, but this is not a place for women to be. I have allowed this behaviour too long, I think, you have begun to think you belong here."
"I assure you, Mr. Selwyn," I replied, "I have never felt like I belonged."
He reached forward and grasped my hand, his thumb slowly stroking the back of my hand. "Now, we can't have you feeling unwelcome, can we?" he murmured.
It took Herculean effort to not reach for the letter opener to my right and stab the fleshy part of his hand. I watched him grow bolder and run his fingers up my wrist. When I was eleven, I was reading in my father's study while he and a few of his business partners worked. My father and two men left for air, but one man remained behind. He crouched on the floor near the chair I was sitting in with my feet on the table, the book stretched in my lap. He offered to help me feel relaxed, slowly working his fingers from my ankles to my calf, gliding up to my knee. I screamed when he reached my thigh and kicked mercilessly, repulsed by instinct rather than good sense. His nose broke and blood poured from his face, the bone and cartilage twisted and gnarled. This frightened me more than his wrinkly, old hands and I leapt from the couch, book in my hands, fleeing the study.
When I told my father, he put his "lizard hands" on my legs, I never saw him again. In fact, his funeral occurred almost six months later. His heart had simply given out.
But my father was not within screaming distance, could not protect me from the suggestions of men.
"I'll tell you what," he said, releasing my hand. He walked slowly around the desk and sat in the seat next to mine, dragging it slowly until my knees were in between his legs. Boldly, his hand dipped in between my legs, running up my thigh until he stopped, his fingers lightly rubbing my centre. "I will let you keep coming here and learning if you let me perform a little procedure. Nothing major, Miss Black, I assure you, and it may hurt at first, but I promise, the more times you do it, the better it becomes."
I folded one leg over the other and trapped his hands in between my legs. He took this as encouragement and fumbled against the fabric, vainly trying to stimulate me. The only reason I had come here previously to ask him questions was for the research of one of my novels; I needed precise medical knowledge that could not be gleamed from my own research.
"Do you mean?" I asked, blinking rapidly and stupidly at first, "That you'll work to cure Mr. Malfoy, of which I am sure you are being paid a great sum of money, if I let you do the procedure?"
"Yes, yes, of course, just a tiny procedure," he remarked, grinning, pressing his other hand into my thigh and kneading the flesh.
"What is the nature of this procedure?" I asked, pretending to let out a tiny whimper of pleasure, and while he focused on rubbing me, I used my free hand to slip my wand out of my back pocket.
Mr. Selwyn didn't notice and replied eagerly, "It will change sometimes, but I think we will start simple. You'll put your mouth on a part of me, Miss Black, and I'll teach you to suck on it, very gently, see, and the research will be in how well you develop this skill…"
"Oh," I breathed dramatically, alternating between the urge to laugh and cry, "And when will you decide to fuck me, Mr. Selwyn?"
"You're very bold, Miss Black," he replied, excitement in his eyes, he moved the hand not trapped between my legs and lightly rubbed the tent at his robes, "but I've always admired your spirit. You're a dirty little girl, aren't you?"
He pulled his robes up his legs, exposing himself to me. His penis was engorged, veiny and stubby, and his legs were a forest of patchy, black and silvery hair. His legs were strangely scrawny compared to his upper body, and I watched his member throb and tried not to laugh. He gripped himself and pulled, exhaling as he tried to keep hold of me and rub me in tandem, though his own pleasure was clearly the most important, and he had little notion that the fabric of my trousers were too thick to feel anything.
I smiled and leaned forward. His teeth were pearly, menacing gleams as his fingers inexpertly rubbed the thick fabric of my pants, his own hands shucking at himself liberally. He removed his hand from himself to reach for one of my breasts and I met him there, knocking his hand aside and shoving my wand to his neck.
"I'm not dirty at all," I said, "I'm vicious and I am a wild and designed for violence, and Mr. Selwyn, if you do not remove your hand, I will destroy it."
He blinked rapidly and tried to move his hand, but I still had it trapped. His eyes flashed angrily, "Nasty fucking slag," he hissed, jerking on his flabby, misshapen knob faster.
"If you think I am nasty after you have touched me, shouldn't you be more concerned with the state your hands?" I snapped, "Mr. Selwyn."
"Harlot," he hissed, freeing his hand from in between my legs, "I wouldn't have you if you were the last woman on earth."
"I was under the impression you wanted me right here," I said, "Or do you only get an erection when you lie?"
Primly, I stood up. The air around us was charged and crackling with tension. I thought of him then, wriggling his tiny worm inside of me, and I felt a strong urge to truly kill him. The anger inside of me was so wound and coiled, I thought if I let it, that the rage would take me entirely into madness. I would fall from the edge of a cliff and never return.
He contemplated me with all the rage and hatred he could feel, but he didn't remove his hands from his penis. In fact, he seemed more excited by the threat of utter humiliation.
"Pray that I never catch you alone again, Mr. Selwyn," I told him, snarling, "You've heard the rumours about how vengeful we Blacks get, have you not? And with my reputation in the ground, I have nothing to lose. Killing you might relieve the boredom."
A slew of profanity, all surrounding my status as a harlot, slut, and whore, mostly inflected because I didn't let him make me those things, came forward from his frothing mouth as he sputtered and shot onto the carpet.
"Check with your Muggle contacts," I demanded, focusing on the goal I had in mind instead of the bile rising in my throat, "Have them see if they can diagnose him correctly. If you don't, I think my sister and I will pay a little visit. You remember Bellatrix, don't you?"
I turned on my heel and marched from the room. Of course, he remembered my eldest sister. He had made the mistake of challenging her to a duel at a dinner party, the night her engagement was announced, and he never recovered from the humiliation. Now, I thought I understood why he'd done it.
He grinned like a Cheshire cat as left. As the door snapped shut behind me, I saw Edith nervously pacing in the corridor, as if she anticipated what was going to happen and was trying to summon up the courage to interrupt it.
"I'm sorry, Narcissa," she whispered, "He's just been so lonely since my mother died. Two of his female aides quit just last week; I thought he might be…"
I frowned solemnly. Of course, Mr. Selwyn had all of the power and prestige of which his position and title afforded him. Reports of this kind were useless. The only way to have the upper hand against a man like him was to avoid him, or flee. If a lady threatened him for his actions, then the lady would also anticipate he would retaliate, that he would use all of that influence and power to ruin her.
But I had nothing left to lose.