Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A/N: A little shorter and hot off the press! I only read over it once because I was so anxious to post it! Wow, I expected it to be easier than it was, writing Narcissa. Thanks again to all who reviewed the last chapter: RT, Nianko, Yours Truly, Aelys, Pantz, and CrazyTomboy! It really means a lot and it keeps me going!
Oh and the first quote in here (what Sirius says) is from Chapter 14 of book 5. I left it in italics cuz I didn't want to do that whole embedded citations business from English class :P Anyway, Cissa is odd but Cissa is cool and quite interesting…well to me anyway. Read and review!
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The Golden Princess
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"…The world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters," said Sirius with a wry smile and he was very right. Andromeda was one of the 'good people' and Bellatrix had been a Death eater. Where oh were could you place Narcissa? Unfortunately there wasn't a nice little slot in which one could categorize the middle sister because although she often resembled a pretty, blond, pampered princess, looks wouldn't fail to deceive and Narcissa Black was never really as happy as the picture-perfect smile on her face made her seem.
There were some people in the world who tried to be difficult to read and they either failed or succeeded. Narcissa had always tried to be easy to read and straightforward but was unsuccessful. As a child she had been quiet but honest. She didn't know whether it was everyone's misunderstanding or ignorance that made her more internally reclusive as she had grown older. She was not a social recluse in any way because how could someone so beautiful and intelligent and sharp not be loved?
"There's my darling Cissa," mummy would croon, even as she got older. She was the favourite and they all knew it. Meda and Bella would shoot her looks of loathing and she would pretend not to notice and act as if they didn't affect her one bit when all she wanted to do was slam the great oak door to her room and shove her face in the black velvet-covered pillow and cry until her fair face flushed and her gold curls were in tangles. Perfection? I think not. Why could no one ever see?
She was blessed with love—in comparison to her sisters anyway—from her parents throughout her childhood and then from her husband after her marriage.
Also, she was blessed with gold: from the hair on her head, her husband's, and her beautiful baby boy's, to the riches she lived amongst in Malfoy Manor. The only thing she was a little unfortunate with was being the in middle of everything and it posed as a problem despite her aristocratic life. She was the middle sister, always unable to choose, always in search of a middle ground, always with a mediocre opinion, and always caught amidst a much larger confusion. Just another pretty face, basically, with not many tales to tell.
Life was a story, her husband had said. This was a while before he had become her husband. It was when they were young and in love and she believed that he would make her life complete. She wasn't totally wrong about that because although Lucius was far from perfect, he was—in many ways—perfect for her and she couldn't imagine life with any other.
"But if life is a story then where do I belong?" she had asked him coolly. She didn't know it then but he had loved her iciness and admired how she could be so loved and worshipped and so regal and still sound so detached. He was quite similar, truth be told, just not as cold. Not with her anyway. He just couldn't manage it.
"You, my dear, are the protagonist, the villain, the bystander, and the storyteller. You are anything and everything depending on what you want to be."
"What if I don't know what I want to be?"
"Then you have to find out. It is the key to everything."
If you say so, she thought. He was probably right too. It just depressed her to think about it. She didn't know what she wanted to be and she never really found out either.
So life was a story and everything you did was for the sake of telling your story and making it worthwhile, your legacy, your passing-on, your heirloom. It was all from the life you lived, and maybe you could choose that story and maybe you could not. In his case, he had always had the opportunity to make a choice. In her case, there wasn't much opportunity, nor was there much of choice itself. The biggest choice presented to her was probably whether or not to marry Lucius Malfoy, but even that was not much of a choice as it was bound to happen—love just reinforced it and that was bound to happen too. For her, it was set in stone and written in the schema of her destiny. She had left it to that and much of her life was spent like that.
She didn't have much control over her life even after her wedding. Lucius was charming, Lucius was elegant, and Lucius loved her. Lucius, however, was also a lot more than met the eye. When he joined the Dark side, her world turned to stone and choices didn't matter anymore. It was when her indifference was of utmost importance and her greatest tool. She could've done anything but she wouldn't have done anything. She was a girl who took marriage seriously and would stand by her vows till death did them apart even if her husband had become a ruthless murderer. You could call that her loyalty or you could call that her mistake. Often people would say that her mistake lay in her loyalty but she would argue otherwise.
It really wasn't so intolerable, his service to the Dark Lord…until she saw the blood. His clothes, his skin, his hands. That was where she felt she would have to draw the line. The first time he came home with bloody hands her eyes widened and she shrieked like a madwoman and when he started to approach her to silence her, she passed out.
When she came to, she swore to him that he would have to wash his own hands and his own clothes and she would not have anything to do with that whole business. Even as a pureblood, even as a Black, she disapproved of it strongly.
She didn't sleep in the same room as him for a week and everyday of that week he would bring home red roses for her and everyday she would tear the petals off and scatter them in the garden saying "This is for whoever you killed today, my love." Always emphasizing the last two words with sheer bitterness. She knew she couldn't do much to stop him but at least she would play her part in making him feel guilty and she knew she was having effect too because she began to see less and less blood on him. Or maybe it just bothered her less and less as she got more and more used to it.
It was funny because she never—not once—threatened to leave him and although she hated him for all the blood he shed, a part of her loved him relentlessly and always would.
Finally, he swore to her that he had quit all that Dark business and Voldemort's fall followed conveniently soon and so she was thoroughly convinced.
The next decade or so was spent with the Malfoys dedicating their lives to raise their beautiful, albeit spoiled, baby boy. Her son, Draco, was the one person in her life for whom she would sacrifice anything and everything. She loved him more than anyone else and everyone put together, even more than Lucius.
The façade of a normal life was pleasant while it lasted: son enrolled in the greatest school of Witchcraft and Wizardry; mother, the perfect homemaker and social witch; and father, ideally employed at the Ministry.
Too bad it didn't last forever. They really would've stayed happier that way and they knew it too but people make bad choices and people make mistakes and that's what she would tell herself over and over again when life started to fall apart once again. This time, however, it didn't go back to normal and this time, she was out of iciness and indifference—perhaps all used up from her childhood with her sisters and the earlier years of her marriage with Lucius.
In the last few years of her life, she didn't do much else than curse Tom Riddle's soul to hell and back and to hell again. It seemed that whenever Voldemort was around, her life would be dictated according to his will. Her marriage would be on the rocks and the family would become increasingly dysfunctional. Lucius was a loyal supporter once the Dark Lord rose again but at least his ultimate death was from defying Voldemort's orders and not obeying them. It was the only way she could make herself forgive him and be at peace with herself. But that didn't mean she didn't love him all along.
After years of not knowing what she wanted to be, she realized that it didn't matter. It wasn't what you wanted to be that counted but what you should've been that made all the difference. What she should've been all along was strong and so it was what she became. Time hardened people and it finally took its toll on her. Life left her no choice really because although being strong for everyone was a tough job, someone had to do it.
She realized later that it was also what she had wanted to be all her life. Too bad we realize some things too late.
Narcissa Black Malfoy left this world hoping she had been strong enough and done the best she could've for her son, and she died praying for forgiveness on her husband's behalf. "He wasn't a bad soul" she had said to herself and to anyone and everyone whether they believed it or not. The Dark Lord had a bad soul, maybe even Bellatrix too, but not her husband, not her beloved, not her Lucius.
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A/N: Next and last is our beloved Bella. Hope this one wasn't too bad? Expect more for Bellatrix…I'm really putting my soul into writing her. Thanks again for reading and I'd love it if you review, telling me what I did right or what I did wrong, or just saying hi :)