My father had enchanted an American car about fifteen years before I was born, and when I was twenty he gifted it to me so that I might ride around in all the style and grace of a well to do young man. Why he ever chose that classic Duesenberg as his own I'll never know because my father had always hated Americans about as much as he hated Muggles, but if he ever loved anything in his miserable life it was probably that car. Nevertheless, I personally liked the Duesenberg because even as it was designed by some blithering mudblood, my father had accoutered it luxuriously, and riding around inside the spacious coach was like a dream.
"This is a very nice car, Lucius," Narcissa noticed, admiring the interior as she ran her hand over the velvety suede of the seat beside her. She had crossed her leg effeminately, the cream skin of her calf enticing me as it peaked out through the slit in the side of her gown. I looked up at her and noticed that she had been assessing the way I admired the shape of her leg. I watched as a hint of delight flashed across her face but it was gone almost before it had arrived. "Did you say it was your father's?"
"Indeed it was," I replied.
"And then he gave it to you?"
"For my birthday two years ago."
"What a wonderful gift," she folded her hands and placed them in her lap, the long fingers elegantly linking together while the perfectly manicured nails caught my attention. They were bright red, accentuating the pale color of her skin. She wore only one ring- an antique sapphire, which I noticed brought out the intense color of her eyes at that precise moment. I hadn't noticed on Christmas Eve how changeable her eyes were but now I was catching on to this unique quality she carried. One minute they seemed grey and the next green, but right then, in the waning light inside the car, those eyes were so dark a blue that sapphires paled against their beauty. "I have often wanted a car of my own, but Father doesn't think it wise."
I scoffed, "And why not?"
"Well, he would never know where to find his daughters, as they would be off racing all over the English countryside in what he has called muggle-deathtraps," she smiled appreciatively, but clearly she only humored her father. "Of course I would want to drive the car myself though, not be driven in it, and that would mean lessons, and all those other complications."
"I see," I nodded. "It isn't so difficult as all that."
"What do you mean?"
"Why, driving a car," I said.
"You know how to drive?"
"But of course."
"Really, Lucius, I thought you would be above such petty mugglery as driving a car yourself."
"There is nothing muggle about driving a car, I'll have you know," I insisted. Really there isn't. It is a common misconception that the first car was designed by a muggle. He was actually a warlock, and his design was far superior to some of the modern cars we have today, but alas its superiority broke several muggle protection laws in his day and never made it to market. "I could teach you, if you'd like me to."
She laughed nervously, "Oh, I don't know."
"Come now, there's nothing to it."
"Isn't it dangerous?"
"Well, perhaps a bit, but I wouldn't let anything happen to you."
"I like danger," she narrowed her eyes a little, their heavy lids lingering a moment longer than usual. When she opened them again, their color was paler, more like moonstone. She had spoken with a hint of flirtation that hadn't entered into any of our other conversation through dinner. "It fascinates me?"
"Really?" I swallowed and inwardly cursed myself once I'd realized what I'd done. What an idiot. How obviously juvenile I must have appeared to her. "I would love to give you lessons," I said. "Driving lessons, I mean."
"Perhaps I'll take you up on them sometime." She had become suddenly aloof, the conversation after that dwindling into false starts and sparks of nothing and I could feel myself deteriorating from the inside out. How had I managed to become such a blithering dolt in her presence, and even worse, why did I care? She had arrived more than hour late for our first date, had sat across from me in the car on the way home instead of beside me, and when we pulled up in front of the infamed Black Mansion at the end of the most uncomfortable silence I had ever partaken in, I doubted that she would even kiss me good night if I walked her to the door.
However, like a perfect gentleman, I helped her from the car and offered her my arm, walking through the frigid evening toward the veranda where a solitary, green gas lamp burned. We said nothing during that short jaunt from the car to the door and I kept asking myself why it was such a big deal if she kissed me or not. I had other women, women who would kiss me. In fact, I planned to leave there and scare one of them up to placate the alienation from self I often felt myself experiencing her strange presence.
"I want to thank you, Lucius," she stopped short of the cobblestone pathway that led straight to the door. "I don't think I've ever had such a wonderful time in all my life."
Obviously she exaggerated, "No, thank you, Narcissa," I smiled winsomely, hoping that score me a few more points with her. "I had a fabulous time. You are an intriguing conversationalist."
She looked down a little, but I could still see that she was smiling. It was the most beautiful expression I had ever seen on a woman, both demure and alluring, the faint, green light from the nearby lantern made perfect shadows against her pale beauty that drew attention to the length and elegance of her neck, the slender slope of her nose and the full fruit of her sensual mouth. I wanted so badly to taste of that fruit, dear gods I would have given anything to kiss her, but when I leaned forward, she stepped back looking up at me in innocent alarm. The silence that pitted itself between us had the potential to become permanent and I couldn't let that happen.
"May I see you again?" I tried to sound casual so she didn't find me desperate, and I was almost positive I had failed. "Perhaps before you return to school?"
"Perhaps," she gave me nothing more. "I'll send an owl."
My smile must have seemed so idiotic; I could feel myself nodding in a way that felt as though it were happening outside of me, like I was some sort of puppet and she was pulling my strings. "Please do." Sweet Jove! I was so needy! What had she done to me?
"Well, good night, Lucius," and just as I was expecting her to turn and walk toward the door, she leaned up and pecked me on the cheek so quickly that I barely had time to react. My face felt as though it were on fire, lit like a match in the place where she had laid her lips, and when she turned around, walking toward the door, the strings tugged at my arm and I found my fingers caressing the place her lips had last touched. My heart was galloping. I was in trouble. This girl. . . why she was still in school and it made no sense. It was preposterous!
I must have stood there on the walk for more than a minute after she disappeared into the manor. Had anyone seen me I would have been the laughing stock, the love struck moron touching his face in the last place she'd touched her lips to. A sigh escaped me and a peculiar mold had shaped my face against my will. I was smiling in such a way that I might never be the same again, and that smile only broadened when I returned to the car and told my driver to just drive, for there in the seat across from me, in the seat Narcissa Black had occupied only moments early was a silk handkerchief, delicately embroidered with the letter N.
I lifted the silk against my cheek, breathed in her divine essence and held it in inside until I thought I might explode. I relaxed the overcompensating thump of my foolish heart when I finally exhaled. That handkerchief was my key. If no other evidence existed that Narcissa felt the same as I did, that token she'd left on the seat said it all. Narcissa wanted to see me again, and she had left behind the perfect excuse for me to return to Black Mansion.