Narcissa had a memory. It was a memory of being held tightly in her mother's arms, and it was the only one of its kind.
Her mother's house was a near-empty graveyard of antique furniture and portraits. It had been in the family for centuries, and, except for a few select rooms, was decorated solely with dust and cobwebs. A few simple charms could have cleaned the place up, but Corrinne Dormus had never seemed to want it clean. It was better, she thought, to leave it dirty and abandoned, the giant house, meant to be occupied by a large, powerful family and its servants instead filled by a mother, a daughter, and a lone remaining house-elf. The family, like the house, was in shambles. It was only fitting that they match one another.
Narcissa remembered her mother as a cold woman, sparing in her affection, chilly to the touch. Cold and miserable and angry. She was obsessed with maintaining the pretense that the family line was still powerful and strong, selling furniture to buy the finest robes and any jewelry or enchanted objects that could be brought out of the house and shown off. Narcissa was merely a pawn, or a dress-up doll, meant to aid her in her quest. Meanwhile, they lived in an old magic house, that would have fetched a high enough price to sustain them for years in a more appropriately-sized abode. Corrinne would not have it; she preferred status to sustenance.
It was after a party, an unbearable party at the Rookwoods' mansion, when Narcissa was eight. The girl had been dressed in painfully formal robes, and spent the hours sitting severely straight, keeping a pleasant expression plastered on her face, and hating, hating, hating her mother.
This was why she had been so surprised when, after they came home and Narcissa was measurably comfortable in her nightrobes, Corrinne had entered the room and sat down wordlessly on and old chaise. She had stared at Narcissa, eyes blank and sad and not really seeing her daughter there. Narcissa herself was frozen, unnerved by her mother's unusual actions and expression, usually so carefully composed into the image of a privileged socialite. Now the woman appeared almost blank, if not for the distinct sadness buried so deeply within her that it seemed to seep invisibly out of her pores and infect her every movement with an trace of hopelessness. Frightened, but inexplicably drawn to her, Narcissa took tentative steps to the chaise. The floor was so cold that she felt it might freeze her toes right off, so she hurried to her mother and sat down on the musty, French-style furniture.
There was an awkward moment. Narcissa contemplated the pattern on the chaise's upholstery, which was enchanted to match the décor of the rest of the room. It was currently dark, bluish grey. It matched her mother's eyes, she realized, and looked Corrinne full on the face. She stopped staring, and dropped her gaze to Narcissa.
"You are a wholly useless creature, daughter," she sighed. Neither of them changed expression, merely looked one another in the eyes, challenging, calm. The daughter wasn't surprised to see the same resentment she felt filling her own heart reflected in the eyes of her mother, but she said nothing. She was old enough to know that emotion was dead in this house, with this woman, and had long ago stopped bothering to feel much of anything. Still. It hurt to see.
Her mother's arms encircled her shoulders. It was meant to be affectionate, she guessed, but her mother did not know how affection was meant to be given. Narcissa crawled into the lap of her mother's thin, almost emaciated frame. Mother and daughter held one another for a few tense moments, until, at the same moment, Corrinne pushed the girl away and Narcissa slipped quietly away from her mother's body for the last time.
***
It screamed and giggled and bellowed. It would not stop. She swore it was a demon. Most of all, she swore.
A small, frail-looking little boy, hair of palest gold, ran about the room screeching. Its mother had long ago given up chasing it; it was fast and tiny and had an unnatural ability to fit itself into small, impossible to reach places. She merely stood watching it, gritting her teeth. She was tempted to pull a tapestry off the wall and smother the boy with it. In its hand was her wand, and the child was attempting to cast spells as it ran, more often than not just sending out sparks that singed the furniture. Occasionally, however, it did manage to "Accio!" something, like a rare, fragile vase, and send it spinning in the air, only to be dropped to the floor and shattered.
Narcissa was not amused. If she ever got her wand back, she would immediately transfigure her son into a teacup and keep him locked in the china cabinet for the rest of eternity. She imagined herself pointing it out to guests, a black porcelain piece emblazoned with an angry, silver baby dragon.
Lucius was in his study, orchestrating the last remaining maneuvers in his campaign to return to a position of power and favor in the Ministry of Magic and the British wizarding community in general. The Malfoy name had protected him from punishment, but it could not stop the whispers and the frowns and the general mistrust bestowed upon all of the acquitted Death Eaters. Consequently, he had very little patience with the boy when he was screaming. Or, for that manner, when he was not screaming. He would undoubtedly be extremely irritated, to say the least, when he found out that his precious things were being destroyed by a toddler whose mother could not control him. Narcissa hesitated. Draco was often terrified of his father, but his stubbornness consistently outperformed his fear. He tested his limits daily, sometimes hourly, even against his father, even at three years old. A part of Narcissa admired the child, and was exhilarated when she saw him stand up to Lucius in a way she had lost the strength and patience to do.
She decided not to disclose her son's most recent expression of childhood villainy, and waited for an opportunity to trip him. It seemed the most logical non-magical option. She took a slow, shuffling step toward the circumference of the circular room, sticking her right foot out casually. He rounded the sofa and deliberately, artfully stomped on his mother's toes, continuing on his way.
Well, now she'd had enough. Narcissa bolted after him with enough speed and anger to match a disgruntled blue jay, and fell face forward just in time to grab him by the ankle. Draco regressed from hellion to screaming, insulted child in a matter of seconds as he sprawled onto the floor. Narcissa hoped he hadn't poked his eye out with her wand, but no, he had dropped it, and she scuttled forward to pocket it before scooping up her son and placing him on the sofa.
Draco stared at her, baby teeth slightly bared, taking deep, angry breaths. His foot shot out and connected with thin air, and Narcissa marveled at how old he seemed inside, even as her hand instinctively found his cheek.
She waited for the guilt to come as his eyes began spilling tears and his lungs launched another crusade against her ears. He sat for a moment, visibly torn, not knowing whether to crawl into his mother's arms or to run as far away as his tiny legs could carry him. No guilt came besides the vague sense of remorse associated with apparently having no feelings toward one's offspring at all.
She could pretend. She should at least pretend. It would come later, the love, the affection, the bond. Why wouldn't it? At the same time she realized that such emotions could prove to be very inconvenient, and reasoned that perhaps it was all right this way.
Narcissa scooped Draco up in her arms and clumsily perched him on her hip. She thanked Merlin that he was a small child; it was often that she was forced to do manual labor, and carrying the equivalent of a living, breathing sack of potatoes certainly counted as that. He was heavy.
"Mother's sorry," Narcissa whispered, touching her pale forehead to Draco's smaller matching one. "We'll go to the kitchen and have hot chocolate, hmm?"
She smoothed his hair and he smoothed hers back, grinning. All was forgiven.
Narcissa paused. "Draco, darling. Where is the kitchen?"