Narcissa stood up after the room was vacated.
"Why?" she asked simply. Of all the girls he could have, far more appropriate matches I am sure... and why didn't he say anything to me?
Malfoy remained still. "Why what?" he asked softly, not taking his eyes from her.
"You know, if you had just asked me to marry you, I wouldn't have felt like an animal being sent to the slaughter. And why do you want to marry me anyway? I think you have mistaken my... sometimes shyness, for obedience. Believe me I am not customarily so quiet and... agreeable!"
She stood tall, her past fears evaporating now that she was faced with an inescapable reality. First impressions counted. She would not appear weak to someone with whom she could spend the rest of her life.
"I'm very glad to hear it," replied Malfoy, still unmoved.
Narcissa raised her chin and her eyebrow, studying him closely. "Why then did you insist on this antiquated façade? Why not just ask me?"
He crossed one leg over the other. "Because you would have said no."
Narcissa opened her mouth to protest, but closed it. Picturing the scenario she felt her heart flutter. It's true, I would have been terrified., I would have turned on my heels and run... then I would have congratulated myself on receiving such an esteemed proposal, but excessively glad I had declined. She looked back at Malfoy. He nodded and began to smile knowingly. Narcissa remained upright.
"Besides, it was my mother's suggestion. She said these things should be done properly. I believe she initiated the talks with your father..." He paused, leaning back again in his chair. He looked as if he were about to continue; something about keeping pureblood lines together, Narcissa guessed, but instead he merely looked at her.
She moved to sit down, still determined not to show even a flicker of the trembling she could feel mounting inside her.
"Of course, I cannot force you into such a union if it is undesired. Our parents may have decided on the wedding, but I am giving you the opportunity to decline, if that is your wish." He looked at her still, his steely blue eyes, which she felt could see right through her, were resolute.
"Ah, you're worried that if our marriage was unwelcome on my part that I'd be a disobedient wife?" she asked, crossing her legs and feeling slightly more confident.
Malfoy gave a small half-smile.
"No," he said meaningfully, "I am not in the least bit worried about that." His voice was firm. "Merely that I would rather you were... acquiescent to the prospect."
Malfoy was confident. There was no way the Blacks would allow another suitor to be dismissed, certainly not one from the prestigious Malfoy family. Narcissa would be his, whether she knew it yet or not.
8 - 8 - 8Malfoy had not stayed long, in fact his hasty departure had left Narcissa thinking that he had indeed changed his mind and would soon be calling off the engagement.
Narcissa pondered this thought the next day. She stood before a large mirror, forged in bronze with nymphs adorning the edges. Her mother was dressing her in long swathes of a white fabric. Being made of lace, it had the effect of pale moth wings, fragile and beautiful. Narcissa suddenly had a feeling of foreboding. She was terrified again, though this time her fear was that he would reconsider his proposal.
She stared at her reflection wondering if perhaps she was schizophrenic. The thought of marrying him makes me feel sick with fear, she thought. He scares me, more than any other man, and yet the idea that he might not want me is perhaps even worse. The veils and drapes were beginning to take shape now, and Narcissa had the distinct impression that the figure looking back at her was a fairy, or sylph of some kind. She smiled, forgetting her troubles for a moment as she realised how beautiful she looked.
Her mother stood back.
"The robe was my mother's before me, and her mother's before that." She beamed at her daughter who seemed luminescent in the gown. Narcissa suddenly felt it irrelevant that Malfoy was still waiting to hear her confirmation. For now, she was content.
After her mother had left, insisting as she did that her daughter take off the gown, Narcissa was left in her room. She began to imagine life away from her house... how different it would be, being a wife rather than a daughter. She was interrupted from her reverie by a clamourous whooshing sound. She spun around to the hearth to see Bellatrix step out.
"Bella, are you quite mad! Why did you come by floo to my bedroom?"
Narcissa looked incredulously at a rather dishevelled Bellatrix. In answer to her question another figure stepped out of the grate. Tall and dark, with cheekbones that could cut glass, it was Sirius.
Narcissa flung her arms around him. "Oh Sirius, does this mean you have gone back to live with Aunt and Uncle?"
Sirius scoffed. "Not likely, cuz! I wouldn't go back to that hellish abode if it was the last place on earth."
He sat himself down on Narcissa's bed. "I'm still with the Potters."
Bellatrix stopped him going any further. "Shut up about whatever filthy place you have chosen to live, that's not why we're here, is it?" She spat the words out.
"I'd have thought that a marriage rejection would have humbled you a bit, Bella, but alas, you're still the superior cow I always knew."
Narcissa stood between them. "Whatever you two have to say I think you should say it. Father would go mad if he found you here, Sirius."
The two walked to opposite sides of the room and then both turned to face Narcissa, who stood uncertainly in the centre.
Sirius spoke first. "All right. 'Cis, you are making a big mistake marrying Malfoy... Huge. You absolutely cannot do it."
Narcissa paused. "I haven't seen you for... however long... and you come to see me to tell me not to get married, something that I really don't have a choice about?"
Sirius interjected, "He is trouble, Narcissa, he always was, and this isn't just some Hogwarts rivalry thing. Everyone suspects he is in up to his eyeballs with Voldemort..."
Narcissa turned to Bellatrix. "Then, if that is indeed the case, I can't see why you would object so?"
Bellatrix smiled calmly. "My darling 'Cis. I am not tied up with Voldemort, I have acquaintances who heed his cause, that is all. Besides, his political preferences are not the only reason you should reconsider this marriage."
Narcissa had known that Bellatrix would try to stir things up, but still she was intrigued.
"He is not a nice man... not the kind of man for a nice girl like you anyway. He may be loyal to his kind, but pureblood or not, he will play with you like an animal. He cannot be faithful to one woman..." She was on a roll now, "Do you really think that he will stop his philandering ways with a ring on his finger?"
Narcissa did not know where to look. Sirius stepped over to her.
"Bellatrix, shut your jealous mouth. Narcissa, whether or not he is a promiscuous bastard, and believe me I have no doubts about his capability in that department, it is neither here nor there. Voldemort is getting more dangerous by the minute."
Narcissa looked at him. "If what you say is true, then surely I would want to be on the right side... the powerful side?"
Sirius opened his mouth to shout, but Narcissa carried on, "Both of you can go. All you have is conjecture, gossip. There is no real reason to refuse even if I could, which I can't because I would be yet another of the Black sheep of this family!" she concluded triumphantly, before waving her hands and apparating out of the room.
8 - 8 - 8
Narcissa walked through the garden, despite the fact that it was late. Her path was brightly illuminated by the moonlight. She pulled a fleecy cashmere shawl around her tightly as a particularly cold gust of night air breezed around her. She would marry Lucius Malfoy.
Apart from the fact that I would most likely be disowned if I did not... perhaps it is time I took a few more risks.
The advice Bella and Sirius had given her chilled her, but she had listened, not without excitement. She was intrigued by the man who was apparently so abhorred by some, and yet simultaneously loved and respected by others. Even so, she began to formulate that perhaps it was a respect derived most probably from fear. She was just so fed up of Bellatrix and her dark, rebellious insinuations, as if Narcissa was nothing more than a child.
Walking back through the courtyard of their palatial gardens, Narcissa walked up to the Owlery. Taking Echo, a dusky-feathered Tawny owl, she slipped him a letter.
It bore one single word: Yes.