A Different Kind of Empty

By Avalon Estel

Disclaimer: "Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros., respectively. I make no claims to it. This was only written for personal entertainment.

A/N: I don't really feel bad for Narcissa, except for in the second chapter of HBP. I just wanted to write this. (grin)

Narcissa sat by the fireplace in a plush armchair, an open book discarded in her lap. The fire in the hearth glowed brightly, throwing slashes of scarlet and white on her golden hair as it danced, but she felt she could not get warm. Sometimes she thought she would never be warm again.

The house.

It was empty now, empty and forbidding and dark. It had been empty sometimes when Draco was at Hogwarts and Lucius off on Ministry business, but that had been a different kind of empty. She was used to that loneliness, because it was only temporary. Soon, Lucius would be back, and Draco would come home with stories from his year of school. But now she was alone. Lucius was in Azkaban. Draco might never return from Hogwarts.

The fire continued crackling, but her thoughts spiraled ever farther into a dark reverie.

She was not afraid of the dark. It had a soothing effect on her. When things became too fevered, darkness could always calm her down, wrapping her in its obsidian infinity. She could become lost in it.

Which was what had happened.

Lucius Malfoy had swept into her life like a cold blast of winter wind. He was two years ahead of her, but they were in the same House. She had gotten to know him steadily, and when she graduated, he had proposed to her. Blissful, she had accepted. She hadn't realized that at the time, he'd married her because her family line was one of the purest in Britain. He grew to love her, and she had always loved him.

Then he had shown her his Dark Mark. She had been horrified, not because he had joined what was considered such a terrible group of people, but because she didn't want to lose him. He was her darling, and she needed him. He assured her with a laugh and stroke to her hair that nothing would happen to him.

"Nothing, indeed," she muttered now to the night.

She joined the Death Eaters so that she could be with her husband. Her Dark Mark was a permanent ebony on her arm, a symbol of what she'd become.

She didn't care about what she'd become.

Now she was alone but for her son, her only child, her dear Draco. The only thing she had left of her beloved husband. Then he'd decided to follow his father's footprints and enter into the Dark Lord's service. He'd come to her afterward in tears.

Narcissa had cried that night, holding Draco in her arms. Draco never cried, but he had cried then, his heavy sobs wracking his thin frame, his tears soaking the bodice of her gown. Her own tears fell into his pale hair, and soon they had exhausted themselves into silence. The Dark Lord wanted him to kill Dumbledore, the Muggle-loving slug that was in control of Hogwarts. Narcissa had hated him when she'd gone to school, and she hated him now more than ever. If Draco was unable to do carry out his orders, Voldemort would kill him and his family.She and her son had spent the night wrapped in Narcissa's deep blue comforter and each other's embrace.

And now Draco would become a murderer.

Yes, she wanted Dumbledore dead. She didn't want her son to be the one to kill him. She didn't want his capable, intelligent hands to be bloodstained. She had wanted him to have a prosperous future, and now he was at Hogwarts, trying to kill one of the most powerful wizards in the world.

She gave a dry sob and closed the book. She wouldn't be reading that night.

There was only one person that she hated more than Albus Dumbledore, and that was Harry Potter.

He'd taunted her son endlessly. He'd gotten her husband put in Azkaban. He'd made her son swear vengeance for his father. He'd ruined everything, the cursed little rat, and he'd ruined her, as well.

Now she was cold and lonesome, a candle snuffed out by the wind. Her heart, once bright and proud, was now a wasteland, barren and empty. Yes, she'd felt empty before.

But this was a different kind of empty.

FIN