No mortal eye - whether it be human or house elf, sparkling or dull – had
ever beheld Narcissa Malfoy in a state other than melancholy. She was
devoted to the aspects of her melancholy the way that lesser artists –
Da'Vinci, for instance, Dickens or Rodin - were devoted to paint and paper
and clay. She, like them, went through her bouts of inspired mutations.
There was a period in particular, when she gnawed her lip in such a way as
to indicate that she had lost a great love. It made a great many people
exceedingly sad before she relinquished it. Picasso had his blue period,
and Narcissa had her lip gnawing phase, and they both knew when to stop.
In her latest incarnation her head drooped as perpetually and delicately as a gardenia on an August afternoon. She withered in an exquisitely aristocratic fashion amidst the heat of ill-bred humanity. Her fragile chin hovered sadly, but bravely, above her diamond encrusted neck. It has been wondered, aloud on occasion, what a woman with a diamond encrusted neck had to be melancholy about - but not by anyone with good taste.
Those who are lucky enough to possess good taste were already well acquainted with Narcissa before they had ever met her. They've already seen the quiver of her rosy, petulant lips as the Lady of Shallot gazed out forlornly at Camelot, or as Ophelia's grass stained garments billowed about her waist. Those who had intelligence, as well as taste, could see in Narcissa's sadness a certain element of pretense. But they also recognized that she believed her own pretenses, and that was what made her extraordinary. "She's a phony, but she's a real phony," as was once said about a woman considerably less phony than Narcissa. But whatever could be said about Narcissa, whatever airs she put on, they were always in the very best of taste.
Poor Hermione. She didn't know what she had gotten herself into.
The failure of the meeting could perhaps have been credited to the fact that Severus, like most heterosexual men, knew nothing about women's fashion. When Hermione pressed for details on what constituted "wearing something pretty", Snape replied, sneering slightly, "A thing. Not a school robe. You know, a frock. Wear a frock."
"Like a ballgown?" asked Hermione, "That seems awfully overdressed for an afternoon meeting. I wouldn't want to look pretentious."
"Nothing too ruffly. I don't think she likes ruffles. You know, ruffles, those thingies that they have sometimes, on dresses. Stay away from those. No ruffles."
"So nothing lacy, nothing overly feminine? She'd want more clean lines, something simpler? Nothing extravagant, you're saying?"
"I'm doing you a favor you silly girl. Must you pester me with this ridiculous line of questioning?"
She labored over her outfit. She agonized. Tears were shed – but only once, when she found out it wasn't advisable to cuddle Crookshanks while wearing anything black. When she was finished, she saw herself as the paragon of quiet, tasteful simplicity. It was worth pointing out that this wasn't the kind of thing she labored over often.
Ron, at least, seemed to appreciate her choice in clothes. He sidled up to her the next morning, as she was crossing the common rooms and preparing to meet Professor Snape and muttered, sotto voce, "Hermione, I really like your pants. It's a fascinating fabric they're woven with. I'd like a pair made out of the same sort of cloth, really, I think it's great. And this is kind of embarrassing for me, because I probably should know, but I was wondering if you know what material they're made out of."
"Um," replied Hermione, "Khaki."
"Right," murmured Ron, "Khaki. I have to remember that."
She had paired her pants with a sweater that was blue. She was working on the assumption that since blue was pretty, her sweater must also be pretty. This was not always the best assumption to work on.
Professor Snape seemed more or less in accord with Ron. Of course, that could have been because he was in the midst of a conversation with Blaise Zambini when she approached him, and was somewhat distracted. As Hermione stared at Blaise's enormous hooded sweatshirt and large sweatpants she couldn't help speculating about his/her gender. Just before they flooed to the Malfoy manor she leaned over up to Severus' ear and whispered, "I'm sorry, but is Blaise a male or female? It's been troubling me for years."
"Male," replied Severus, "but one with terrible gender issues. I think it's his parents fault for naming him Blaise."
"How so?"
"Well, what would you do if your name was Blaise? I mean I suppose as a female you could change it "Blaze" and become a stripper, but..."
"No, I mean what kind of gender issues?"
"He flips. He's androgynous . Some people out there see him as entirely female. I tried to get him to tell me the whole story, but he was not receptive. I was fairly nice about it. I cornered him, and I poked my finger at his chest, and I said "Male or female? Male or female!? MALE OR FEMALE?" and he started screaming about how I might live in a box but I wasn't going to put him in a box, because he's claustrophobic. And then he called me a gender fascist, and told me that if you knifed a puppet in the ass it would probably dance, but he wouldn't dance, because he wasn't my puppet. Then he called me Herr Puppet Fuhrer and sat down in a corner and started crying. I ran away. It was really scary."
"I don't think a puppet would dance if you did that. I think it might just splinter."
"Don't put the puppet in a box, Miss Granger. I approve of transsexuals, but frankly, the Blaise thing gets too confusing for me to manage."
"I'm just relieved that someone else couldn't quite figure it out either."
"Really, nobody can figure that one out. Shall we?"
"Do I look alright?"
"Well, you're not wearing school robes."
Mere moments later Hermione found herself in what she could only assume was a greenhouse. Everywhere there were piles of flowers, the petals of gardenias and zebra orchids and lilies crushed into each other. Vines dripped down from pots suspended on the ceiling, giving them the appearance of overgrown party decorations. There was, however, a pronounced lack of yellow roses. (It's not a commonly known fact, but poor Voldemort was scared half to death of Narcissa Malfoy. She made him feel common, and stupid, and very, very ugly and he inevitably felt he was going to trip and make a fool of himself whenever he entered her house.)
However, on closer inspection Hermione began to realize that it wasn't a hothouse at all; it was a sitting room. On the walls, shrinking back from the foliage, was a collection of impressionist paintings depicting pastel young wizards and witches seducing and destroying muggles in the nicest possible way. The rug was oriental in design and it displayed, in bright, sunny colors, tiny house elves dancing about, their mouths pursed open in song. And perched on a divan in the middle of all this finery was Narcissa Malfoy, in a simple white robe, which, as Severus had predicted, possessed no ruffles, but which unmistakably fetched a sum well into the triple digits.
"Severus," Narcissa murmured, raising her troubled eyes to his, "you've brought the girl..."
Back in his youth Severus had been one of the many, many men who had thought he might take Narcissa away and make her almost happy. Narcissa had made it clear that if he wanted her, he would have to become very rich and he would have to bathe twice a day. He hadn't minded the prospect of being very rich, but the bathing thing had made him twitchy. The relationship had been doomed from the start.
"But why is she so ugly?" continued Narcissa, with a long and questioning sigh. "Why have you brought something so ugly to me? Do you want to hurt me? I can't imagine why. Such things she wears, clothes such as I dare not meet in dreams... she is hurting me. I am in pain. The ugliness, the unbearable ugliness! Physical pain. I think I'm going to die. She's killing me. She's killing me, Severus."
"Do try to look more attractive, Miss Granger," Professor Snape insisted firmly.
"I can't breath!" gasped Narcissa, her hands beginning to droop limply against the divan, her lips tightening in a rapid frown.
"We'll hide her behind a flowerpot!" declared Severus.
"Can't you cover her?" moaned Narcissa. "Just take off your cape and cover her. She burns my eyes! My poor languorous eyes!"
"I thought the blue was pretty," stated Hermione sadly, who had now been thrust behind a large pot of purple hyacinths.
"Blue..." whispered Narcissa, "blue is pretty. Sometimes, when I'm very sad," she cast her orb like eyes up at Severus, who patted her hand reassuringly, "I think about how blue my blood is. It is blue, the bluest this fading world has probably ever known. Sometimes, I surprise myself with a gesture or a look so pureblooded that I wonder where it comes from. It comes from my mother, of course. Though the height of her ambition was simply to tumble the odd visiting vicar, now and again. That, and to get the bloody house elves to repair the leaky plumbing. I have higher ambitions; I just don't know what they are quite yet."
"But," explained Severus, "that's exactly what we came to talk to you about. Your volunteer work!"
"Which cause?"
"Elfton."
"Oh," sighed Narcissa, her lips puckering prettily into a yawn, "you mean Lucius's cause. Don't tell anyone, but I'm just in for the parties. Such beautiful people at those parties... unless they let the elves in. Elves can be so common. Although I like Stevens. And Kreacher has panache. I suppose Bellatrix would never forgive me if I didn't approve of Kreacher. But you know. Undergraduates."
"But," Hermione said, her head popping slightly above the flowers, causing Narcissa to flinch, "I was wondering if you could tell me about the history of the institution? Or perhaps the specific programs? House elf curriculum must be rather different than anything we could expect."
"Is that really all you came to talk to me about?" Narcissa seemed deeply bewildered.
"Well, if you had any other information I'd love to hear it. House elves are kind of a passion of mine, and this is a really new area that I just learned about. It would really interest me a great deal."
"Dear girl," she murmured, "are you aware that in coming here you interrupted something of much greater importance than any of your passions?"
"I'm sorry," replied Hermione, "what was that?"
"My mid-morning nap."
Hermione gasped. "Are you really that self-absorbed?"
"Oh yes. It's quite justified. I've never found any other subject worth half so much of my time. Don't worry, I like me like this."
"Well," declared Hermione, stepping out from behind the urn, "if that's really true, then I think you must be very lonely. I feel very sorry for you."
She turned on her heel, and strode determinedly through the room, and was halfway down the stairs before she realized that Professor Snape had the floo powder and she had no way to get home. "Oh, hell," she thought as she walked into the entrance hall where she stood for a few minutes, gnawing her thumbnail and contemplating how having to wait for Professor Snape to come down was playing havoc with the flair of her dramatic exit. Just as she was trying to decide whether she could storm up the stairs and demand to leave while still maintaining a sense of dignity, a brunette, clad in dark green robes and clutching a glittering snake shaped purse, stepped through the doorway. Upon seeing her, Hermione's mouth refashioned itself into a tiny oval, and she seemed ready to turn and flee at a rapid pace, when the woman, meeting her gaze steadily, and smirking only slightly, remarked, "Hello."
"Have we met?" enquired Hermione.
"I don't believe so. If you remember that we have," replied Bellatrix, "you must dwell more on the past than I do."
"Ah. I see."
"Have you been visiting Narcissa?"
"I tried to."
"Tried?"
"They made me hide behind a flowerpot."
"Oh," Bellatrix laughed, "you got off easy. I'm her own sis – her own cousin, and I'm not allowed to speak to her. I just have to sit there silently. When I speak I say ugly things that make her want to kill herself."
"I made her want to kill herself! Is there anything seriously wrong with her?"
"Nothing twenty rounds of Avada Kedavra wouldn't fix."
Hermione paled, and looked quite nervous.
"Oh, don't worry," said Bellatrix, "it's just an expression."
"From where? Transylvania?"
Bellatrix laughed. "So," she said, depositing her purse on the mantelpiece, where it wriggled menacingly, "which flowerpot did they have you behind?"
"The hyacinths."
"Good choice. She once caught me in my work robes, and they were so unattractive she started suffocating and I had to dart behind the peonies. They were rotting too. God, I hate the smell of rotting peonies. There are entirely too many flowers up there. Do you like that look?"
"I hold with Apollionaire. He said 'I prize fruit-'"
"'- and hold flowers in disdain.'" finished Bellatrix. "You know Apollionaire. Well, that's formidable. And you're so young. What were you seeing Narcissa about? Certainly not to talk nineteenth century thinkers. They might say ugly things."
"No, I wanted to ask her about Elfton."
"You're interested in house elves, then! How wonderful, so am I."
"Do you know anything about it?"
"I can find some things out for you. I know a professor there; he was my tutor growing up. Well, tutor, nanny, confidant, you know how it is. We were very close. I don't get to see him as much as I'd like now, but I still visit him a good deal. He'd certainly have a syllabus and probably a lesson plan for his classes."
"I'd really appreciate that."
"It's my pleasure. Would you like to come out with me? Have a drink? I was going to visit Narcissa, but she can usually only manage about one visitor a day."
"I'd love to, but I have to get back to school. I've got a paper I need to finish editing before tomorrow. Some other time. Do you have any floo powder, incidentally? The man I came with seems to have abandoned me."
"Always. Men are so unreliable. Who brought you? Not one of Narcissa's groupies."
"I think he may be. Professor Snape."
"Severus Snape?"
"Yes."
"So you must be Miss Granger. I thought so. He left you hiding behind a flowerpot? The bastard. Well, don't take it too hard. He's a little stupid, sometimes, but he's not a bad sort. Not a nice sort either, but not a bad sort."
"I'd go more with the bastard line of reasoning, myself." Hermione stated, as she approached the fireplace. "And if you see him, you can feel free to tell him that I said so."
A/N: The "phony, but a real phony" mentioned is Holly Golightly, out of Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's.
In her latest incarnation her head drooped as perpetually and delicately as a gardenia on an August afternoon. She withered in an exquisitely aristocratic fashion amidst the heat of ill-bred humanity. Her fragile chin hovered sadly, but bravely, above her diamond encrusted neck. It has been wondered, aloud on occasion, what a woman with a diamond encrusted neck had to be melancholy about - but not by anyone with good taste.
Those who are lucky enough to possess good taste were already well acquainted with Narcissa before they had ever met her. They've already seen the quiver of her rosy, petulant lips as the Lady of Shallot gazed out forlornly at Camelot, or as Ophelia's grass stained garments billowed about her waist. Those who had intelligence, as well as taste, could see in Narcissa's sadness a certain element of pretense. But they also recognized that she believed her own pretenses, and that was what made her extraordinary. "She's a phony, but she's a real phony," as was once said about a woman considerably less phony than Narcissa. But whatever could be said about Narcissa, whatever airs she put on, they were always in the very best of taste.
Poor Hermione. She didn't know what she had gotten herself into.
The failure of the meeting could perhaps have been credited to the fact that Severus, like most heterosexual men, knew nothing about women's fashion. When Hermione pressed for details on what constituted "wearing something pretty", Snape replied, sneering slightly, "A thing. Not a school robe. You know, a frock. Wear a frock."
"Like a ballgown?" asked Hermione, "That seems awfully overdressed for an afternoon meeting. I wouldn't want to look pretentious."
"Nothing too ruffly. I don't think she likes ruffles. You know, ruffles, those thingies that they have sometimes, on dresses. Stay away from those. No ruffles."
"So nothing lacy, nothing overly feminine? She'd want more clean lines, something simpler? Nothing extravagant, you're saying?"
"I'm doing you a favor you silly girl. Must you pester me with this ridiculous line of questioning?"
She labored over her outfit. She agonized. Tears were shed – but only once, when she found out it wasn't advisable to cuddle Crookshanks while wearing anything black. When she was finished, she saw herself as the paragon of quiet, tasteful simplicity. It was worth pointing out that this wasn't the kind of thing she labored over often.
Ron, at least, seemed to appreciate her choice in clothes. He sidled up to her the next morning, as she was crossing the common rooms and preparing to meet Professor Snape and muttered, sotto voce, "Hermione, I really like your pants. It's a fascinating fabric they're woven with. I'd like a pair made out of the same sort of cloth, really, I think it's great. And this is kind of embarrassing for me, because I probably should know, but I was wondering if you know what material they're made out of."
"Um," replied Hermione, "Khaki."
"Right," murmured Ron, "Khaki. I have to remember that."
She had paired her pants with a sweater that was blue. She was working on the assumption that since blue was pretty, her sweater must also be pretty. This was not always the best assumption to work on.
Professor Snape seemed more or less in accord with Ron. Of course, that could have been because he was in the midst of a conversation with Blaise Zambini when she approached him, and was somewhat distracted. As Hermione stared at Blaise's enormous hooded sweatshirt and large sweatpants she couldn't help speculating about his/her gender. Just before they flooed to the Malfoy manor she leaned over up to Severus' ear and whispered, "I'm sorry, but is Blaise a male or female? It's been troubling me for years."
"Male," replied Severus, "but one with terrible gender issues. I think it's his parents fault for naming him Blaise."
"How so?"
"Well, what would you do if your name was Blaise? I mean I suppose as a female you could change it "Blaze" and become a stripper, but..."
"No, I mean what kind of gender issues?"
"He flips. He's androgynous . Some people out there see him as entirely female. I tried to get him to tell me the whole story, but he was not receptive. I was fairly nice about it. I cornered him, and I poked my finger at his chest, and I said "Male or female? Male or female!? MALE OR FEMALE?" and he started screaming about how I might live in a box but I wasn't going to put him in a box, because he's claustrophobic. And then he called me a gender fascist, and told me that if you knifed a puppet in the ass it would probably dance, but he wouldn't dance, because he wasn't my puppet. Then he called me Herr Puppet Fuhrer and sat down in a corner and started crying. I ran away. It was really scary."
"I don't think a puppet would dance if you did that. I think it might just splinter."
"Don't put the puppet in a box, Miss Granger. I approve of transsexuals, but frankly, the Blaise thing gets too confusing for me to manage."
"I'm just relieved that someone else couldn't quite figure it out either."
"Really, nobody can figure that one out. Shall we?"
"Do I look alright?"
"Well, you're not wearing school robes."
Mere moments later Hermione found herself in what she could only assume was a greenhouse. Everywhere there were piles of flowers, the petals of gardenias and zebra orchids and lilies crushed into each other. Vines dripped down from pots suspended on the ceiling, giving them the appearance of overgrown party decorations. There was, however, a pronounced lack of yellow roses. (It's not a commonly known fact, but poor Voldemort was scared half to death of Narcissa Malfoy. She made him feel common, and stupid, and very, very ugly and he inevitably felt he was going to trip and make a fool of himself whenever he entered her house.)
However, on closer inspection Hermione began to realize that it wasn't a hothouse at all; it was a sitting room. On the walls, shrinking back from the foliage, was a collection of impressionist paintings depicting pastel young wizards and witches seducing and destroying muggles in the nicest possible way. The rug was oriental in design and it displayed, in bright, sunny colors, tiny house elves dancing about, their mouths pursed open in song. And perched on a divan in the middle of all this finery was Narcissa Malfoy, in a simple white robe, which, as Severus had predicted, possessed no ruffles, but which unmistakably fetched a sum well into the triple digits.
"Severus," Narcissa murmured, raising her troubled eyes to his, "you've brought the girl..."
Back in his youth Severus had been one of the many, many men who had thought he might take Narcissa away and make her almost happy. Narcissa had made it clear that if he wanted her, he would have to become very rich and he would have to bathe twice a day. He hadn't minded the prospect of being very rich, but the bathing thing had made him twitchy. The relationship had been doomed from the start.
"But why is she so ugly?" continued Narcissa, with a long and questioning sigh. "Why have you brought something so ugly to me? Do you want to hurt me? I can't imagine why. Such things she wears, clothes such as I dare not meet in dreams... she is hurting me. I am in pain. The ugliness, the unbearable ugliness! Physical pain. I think I'm going to die. She's killing me. She's killing me, Severus."
"Do try to look more attractive, Miss Granger," Professor Snape insisted firmly.
"I can't breath!" gasped Narcissa, her hands beginning to droop limply against the divan, her lips tightening in a rapid frown.
"We'll hide her behind a flowerpot!" declared Severus.
"Can't you cover her?" moaned Narcissa. "Just take off your cape and cover her. She burns my eyes! My poor languorous eyes!"
"I thought the blue was pretty," stated Hermione sadly, who had now been thrust behind a large pot of purple hyacinths.
"Blue..." whispered Narcissa, "blue is pretty. Sometimes, when I'm very sad," she cast her orb like eyes up at Severus, who patted her hand reassuringly, "I think about how blue my blood is. It is blue, the bluest this fading world has probably ever known. Sometimes, I surprise myself with a gesture or a look so pureblooded that I wonder where it comes from. It comes from my mother, of course. Though the height of her ambition was simply to tumble the odd visiting vicar, now and again. That, and to get the bloody house elves to repair the leaky plumbing. I have higher ambitions; I just don't know what they are quite yet."
"But," explained Severus, "that's exactly what we came to talk to you about. Your volunteer work!"
"Which cause?"
"Elfton."
"Oh," sighed Narcissa, her lips puckering prettily into a yawn, "you mean Lucius's cause. Don't tell anyone, but I'm just in for the parties. Such beautiful people at those parties... unless they let the elves in. Elves can be so common. Although I like Stevens. And Kreacher has panache. I suppose Bellatrix would never forgive me if I didn't approve of Kreacher. But you know. Undergraduates."
"But," Hermione said, her head popping slightly above the flowers, causing Narcissa to flinch, "I was wondering if you could tell me about the history of the institution? Or perhaps the specific programs? House elf curriculum must be rather different than anything we could expect."
"Is that really all you came to talk to me about?" Narcissa seemed deeply bewildered.
"Well, if you had any other information I'd love to hear it. House elves are kind of a passion of mine, and this is a really new area that I just learned about. It would really interest me a great deal."
"Dear girl," she murmured, "are you aware that in coming here you interrupted something of much greater importance than any of your passions?"
"I'm sorry," replied Hermione, "what was that?"
"My mid-morning nap."
Hermione gasped. "Are you really that self-absorbed?"
"Oh yes. It's quite justified. I've never found any other subject worth half so much of my time. Don't worry, I like me like this."
"Well," declared Hermione, stepping out from behind the urn, "if that's really true, then I think you must be very lonely. I feel very sorry for you."
She turned on her heel, and strode determinedly through the room, and was halfway down the stairs before she realized that Professor Snape had the floo powder and she had no way to get home. "Oh, hell," she thought as she walked into the entrance hall where she stood for a few minutes, gnawing her thumbnail and contemplating how having to wait for Professor Snape to come down was playing havoc with the flair of her dramatic exit. Just as she was trying to decide whether she could storm up the stairs and demand to leave while still maintaining a sense of dignity, a brunette, clad in dark green robes and clutching a glittering snake shaped purse, stepped through the doorway. Upon seeing her, Hermione's mouth refashioned itself into a tiny oval, and she seemed ready to turn and flee at a rapid pace, when the woman, meeting her gaze steadily, and smirking only slightly, remarked, "Hello."
"Have we met?" enquired Hermione.
"I don't believe so. If you remember that we have," replied Bellatrix, "you must dwell more on the past than I do."
"Ah. I see."
"Have you been visiting Narcissa?"
"I tried to."
"Tried?"
"They made me hide behind a flowerpot."
"Oh," Bellatrix laughed, "you got off easy. I'm her own sis – her own cousin, and I'm not allowed to speak to her. I just have to sit there silently. When I speak I say ugly things that make her want to kill herself."
"I made her want to kill herself! Is there anything seriously wrong with her?"
"Nothing twenty rounds of Avada Kedavra wouldn't fix."
Hermione paled, and looked quite nervous.
"Oh, don't worry," said Bellatrix, "it's just an expression."
"From where? Transylvania?"
Bellatrix laughed. "So," she said, depositing her purse on the mantelpiece, where it wriggled menacingly, "which flowerpot did they have you behind?"
"The hyacinths."
"Good choice. She once caught me in my work robes, and they were so unattractive she started suffocating and I had to dart behind the peonies. They were rotting too. God, I hate the smell of rotting peonies. There are entirely too many flowers up there. Do you like that look?"
"I hold with Apollionaire. He said 'I prize fruit-'"
"'- and hold flowers in disdain.'" finished Bellatrix. "You know Apollionaire. Well, that's formidable. And you're so young. What were you seeing Narcissa about? Certainly not to talk nineteenth century thinkers. They might say ugly things."
"No, I wanted to ask her about Elfton."
"You're interested in house elves, then! How wonderful, so am I."
"Do you know anything about it?"
"I can find some things out for you. I know a professor there; he was my tutor growing up. Well, tutor, nanny, confidant, you know how it is. We were very close. I don't get to see him as much as I'd like now, but I still visit him a good deal. He'd certainly have a syllabus and probably a lesson plan for his classes."
"I'd really appreciate that."
"It's my pleasure. Would you like to come out with me? Have a drink? I was going to visit Narcissa, but she can usually only manage about one visitor a day."
"I'd love to, but I have to get back to school. I've got a paper I need to finish editing before tomorrow. Some other time. Do you have any floo powder, incidentally? The man I came with seems to have abandoned me."
"Always. Men are so unreliable. Who brought you? Not one of Narcissa's groupies."
"I think he may be. Professor Snape."
"Severus Snape?"
"Yes."
"So you must be Miss Granger. I thought so. He left you hiding behind a flowerpot? The bastard. Well, don't take it too hard. He's a little stupid, sometimes, but he's not a bad sort. Not a nice sort either, but not a bad sort."
"I'd go more with the bastard line of reasoning, myself." Hermione stated, as she approached the fireplace. "And if you see him, you can feel free to tell him that I said so."
A/N: The "phony, but a real phony" mentioned is Holly Golightly, out of Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's.