Posted: 12/05/15
Beta: the artful scribbler
Birth of a Phobia
15th August, 1998
Narcissa lovingly caressed her string of milky pearls, willing their soft, almost malleable texture to soothe her. She examined her face in the wide mirror attached to her ivory-colored vanity, and compared the nacreous glow of the creamy orbs in her hand to the pallor of her skin. A corner of her pink mouth flickered upward with satisfaction, and the undiluted joy of self-love. She'd often been told how young she looked for her age and Cissa lapped up these compliments, the way those on the brink of death by dehydration guzzle water. She was still quite beautiful and she knew it.
Every morning, no matter what the day's gloomy forecast augured, she sat in front of her mirror and made up her face until it was the brightest ornament of every room. She made sure every hair of her brow was in its proper place, either smoothed down or removed. She curled her honeyed eyelashes, and darkened them, just a touch, to give them more length, and to add an extra element of depth to her ice blue eyes. She had a panoply of powders, some packed and others loose, with an array of brushes, sponges, and applicators, lined neatly up, like obedient servants waiting to do her bidding. She worked in the decadent creams, gently rubbing and patting, until every irreverent crease was filled in, obliterated. She dabbed and powdered away every natural variation of pigment and each stray lentigo. All of these magical mixtures, whether paid for or hand-made, were a more cleansing ablution than the hottest, sudsiest bath.
Narcissa's face was one of her most fortuitous attributes. She admired the curves of her high cheeks, the dainty shape of her small pointed chin, and she particularly loved the diaphanous sloping of her nose. She had a thing about noses, for she believed that a bad nose could destroy an otherwise perfect face. She studied them the way scholars assess runes. The subtle dints, the zig-zagging ridges, and the lamentable protrusions fascinated her. She didn't care for ninety-nine out of one hundred that she analyzed - or even less maybe - but she was exceedingly pleased with her own delicate unobtrusive one.
Narcissa had a very narrow concept of beauty. Her small family and a few of the better looking witches and wizards in her social circle were the only standards she could justify holding. Pale skin, the whiter the better, was the main criteria; blonde hair, if it could at all be managed; and slight features, even for men - although, men could usually achieve success with a more robust chin and hardier nose. But thin, fine-boned frames were a must for both sexes. Not like some of those churlish, hulking wizards that served the Dark Lord, like Macnair and Rowle. They made her shudder in revulsion. Lucius's slight build was her ideal; he was taller than her, and the breadth of his shoulders eclipsed her own, but only by the slenderest degrees.
She often wondered which would be worse, to stand in front of a crowd with a naked face, or a naked body. She was so used to seeing herself with a thick coating of cream over her skin that she could barely stand to look at it when it wasn't covered. It just seemed the most indecent thing imaginable.
Fortunately, she would never have to make that sort of choice. This thought was all that comforted her some days. No matter how old she grew, Cissa could always fall back on her dressing table. It would always support her, prop her up in times of despair. It was more than routine, much more than a ritual to her; it was the most pious prayer, an indispensable and unparalleled benediction. Even the morning after Lucius received his sentencing for Azkaban had found her here, for her mirror and her pots of epidermal potions were her sanctuary. Eventually decay would overcome her magical elixirs, but she wouldn't allow that to happen for another couple of decades. Her mother and her grandmother were her testaments of this happy fact. While it was true that time was her beauty's worst enemy, a shameful destroyer of youth and freshness, it was possible to stave it away until the eleventh hour. Narcissa wouldn't dwell on it. This truth was tantamount to the total collapse of her carefully constructed peace of mind.
For many hours, as a little girl, but even more so as an adolescent, her mother and her maternal grandmother had taken her to their own dressing tables and tutored her in the arts of beauty, grace, and poise. They had given her endless lectures, stressing the importance of taking care of her looks, and how she should go about highlighting it with the aid of cosmetics, jewelry, clothing, and accessories. They had indefatigably defined the exquisiteness of her golden tresses, her alabaster skin, and the sweet fragility of her brow, cheeks, mouth, nose and chin. Andromeda and Bella sat through these tedious monologues as well, but neither of them for as long as she. It was her arctic irises, and her fair, silky locks that singled her out from her sisters, who both had the misfortune to be born with brown hair and brown eyes. So she was the pièce de résistance, the one who would make the most prestigious conquest; and Narcissa had certainly lived up to her birthright and made her family proud.
In the past two years alone, Narcissa felt that she had aged unforgivably. It was Lucius's fault of course, for going to prison and making it necessary for Draco to join the Death Eaters before he'd even reached an age of legal accountability. But she would never speak this thought aloud. Never. Acknowledging Lucius's shortcomings as a husband, a father, and a wizard would be even worse than their existing.
That was the problem right there. A husband, a father, and a wizard. Those, she knew, were the proper order, but not to him. Not to any man, probably. To Lucius it went: wizard, husband, father. It was why he couldn't make love to her, or stop drinking long enough to sober up for three seconds. Men could only be defined by their outward appearances and capabilities. Lucius was only what the world perceived him to be, in skill and rank. Without those he was like a meatless shell: cracked and empty. Eaten. But Narcissa was a mother and a wife, then a witch. She knew that with or without a wand, she would always be those things first and foremost. Lucius, though she and Draco still loved and respected him, and would forever, couldn't abide without a commendable position to his name. He was still a Malfoy, a beautiful, Pure-blooded Malfoy. The magic, and the proficiency and knowledge to make it and use it, were all inside of him still. This was a dark time for him, for them, yes; Narcissa couldn't deny that. But it wouldn't last forever. Life had at least taught her that much.
Narcissa hated the darkness of these ruminations and she did her best not to linger over them. She fastened the cord of pearls around her neck and then carefully selected a bracelet, a couple of rings and a set of ear bobs to match them. She crowned it all with a lavish brooch which she pinned with care to the lace of her décolletage. She stepped away from her behemoth altar and went to the full-length mirror beside her armoire to pay homage at the shrine of her entire reflection.
Narcissa swiveled this way and that, tilting her head and hips to appraise her loveliness from every angle available. Perfect.
She left the boudoir then, passed through the cathedral-like lavatory, and into her and Lucius's bedroom. Her lazy husband was gently snoring in the enormous four-poster bed. The satin sheets had slipped off his chest and his white-blonde hair was fanned out over the goose-down pillow. She'd been up for two hours now, bathing, dressing, and preening herself. They had a busy morning ahead of them and she was not about to let him shirk his duties for a lie-in.
She removed her wand from a strategically placed fold in her gown and with a broad arcing motion shifted the brocade drapes. Sunshine flooded the room, illuminating the gleaming chairs, tables, candelabra, and the marble mantleshelf.
Lucius began to mumble incoherently and tried to bury his face in the covers he had flung off while he slept. His slim arms fumbled in futility and then, giving up, he rolled onto his stomach and sandwiched his head between the mattress and pillow.
Narcissa sat down on the bed beside him and placed her middle and index finger on his back and began to slowly, playfully walk them up his soft skin. Nothing. She leaned down and kissed a languid, sensual trail from the waist of his pajama bottoms to the base of neck. He still didn't stir. Smiling even wider, Cissa pointed her wand at his bottom and whispered a steamy incantation right where his sensitive exit should be.
He started to growl and with serpentine reflexes he rolled around, grabbed her waist, and pinned her to the bed beneath him.
Her mouth was pulled back as far as it could go, exposing both rows of her lustrous teeth, and her eyes were shining with pleasure. Lucius was still growling, his blood-shot eyes narrowed to steely slots of flint.
"What sort of way is that to wake your husband, woman?" he asked in his rusty morning voice.
"The only way, apparently," she answered glibly.
His morning breath was terrible, but, slipping her hands into his silk trousers to cup his cheeks, she leaned up and captured his lower lip between her teeth, and languorously, flicking her tongue over the juicy morsel of his mouth, pulled it out, stretched it, gently raking her teeth along the length of it.
"Hmm," he moaned.
Her legs were hanging off the bed, bound in layers of skirt, tulle, and shift, but she longed to wrap them around him. He hadn't made love to her in two years, and every time he touched her there was a conflagration under her skin and between her legs that he never doused. Would her husband never sate her again?
And sure enough, just as she knew he would, he released her and rolled away. Narcissa lay there for a moment, breathing hard and trying to swallow down the knot that seemed to have lodged painfully in her throat. Why didn't he want her? She had, more than once, considered donning a flimsy négligée and trying to seduce him. But if he were to reject even that overture, she would die.
Before Azkaban she would never have allowed him to make love to her when she had just stepped away from the labors of her toilette. Creasing her robes, mussing her hair and make-up, it would have been sacrilegious. But now… now she would gladly sit through it all again for the sake of a sweaty, vigorous roll around their magnificent bed. Even if meant chancing the Dark Lord's ire.
After a moment, she felt Lucius maneuver himself off the bed and then heard the door of the en suite close. She stood up and began to straighten out her robes and smooth down her hair. It didn't matter. She was beautiful still and would remain so, whether she was properly made love to or not. At least, she consoled herself, I know he is not getting it somewhere else. And he never would. She had made sure of that on their wedding night.
She left their room and made the short journey down the corridor to the spare room where Jane slept. She unlocked the door, let herself in, and used her wand to pull the heavy curtains back from the windows. She went to the bed and studied the sleeping mudblood with a detached gaze of cold disdain. But as the day's agenda unfolded in her mind, her thoughts softened a bit. Having Jane here was a despicable tragedy - that was undeniably true - but experimenting on her was turning out to be a surprisingly agreeable education for them all.
The Dark Lord had brought them a vial of riptaseura blood. It was one of the rarest substances in the world, and she, Narcissa Malfoy, had not only got to hold it, but she had been allowed to mix up a concoction of Diosponia Descratos with it. It was indubitably the most complex and challenging potion she'd ever had the pleasure to brew. It was also a darker magic than she had ever dreamed. Delicate, dangerous, and so, so beautiful in its all-consuming power, the entire Brewery had been suffused with a soft blue glow during the last stages of its completion. Once the light had faded, and she and Lucius knew it was ready, they had carefully ladled some into a cup and handed it to the vermin to sip. If she or Lucius had drunk it they would have spent the next twenty-four hours seeping blood from every pore and orifice of their bodies, while uncontrollable bursts of magic shot out from their bodies, destroying every living thing within a seven mile radius, and then they would have died. If an ordinary muggle had drunk it, they would have simply bled to death, slowly. Jane had just got some hiccups.
Then there had been the day their master had brought an Orb of Thanatos for the cockroach to fondle. He'd kept it sheathed carefully in a thick, black velvet cloth, and as he slowly unwrapped it, Cissa, Lucius and Bellatrix had all let out loud sighs of amazement and longing. There were only three of these orbs known to be in existence, and every legend on earth traced their inception back to Merlin.
Being careful not to let it touch his skin, he had instructed the freak-of-nature to pick it up. She had been scared to touch it, as though even she could sense its power. As she gazed at it, Jane had seemed drawn to it. All six of them felt compelled to touch this priceless artifact; that was a part of its deep magic. The glass ball encased a shadowy, shifting black smoke, while a muted crimson pulsed and writhed in the center, seeming to beckon any observer. Narcissa had had to use every fibre of strength she possessed to tear her eyes from it, and use a spell to restrain Draco from reaching out for it. He couldn't seem to rally the resolve he needed to escape that overpowering call, and, like Jane, he was taking steps toward it.
Jane had slowly crossed the room to it, lifted her small hand out for it. "Is so perty," she'd crooned softly. But just as she came close enough to pick it up, she had stopped, dropped her hand, and looked up at the Dark Lord. "What's it?"
"An Orb of Thanatos, child," he had answered her. He was more patient with Jane than Narcissa had ever imagined possible. "Now touch it."
"What's it doin'?" she had asked quietly; wisely wary.
"If you're pure of heart, then nothing," he answered, and then he laughed one of his cold, mirthless laughs that Narcissa always thought could maybe kill a baby.
Bellatrix, for some inexplicable reason, had joined his laughter. Narcissa was sure that whatever the Dark Lord had found amusing, it was something that nobody else would ever fully grasp. But, unless he was directing his cruel, mocking jibes at her, Bella always laughed when he did. She was desperate that he, and everybody else should think she understood him completely.
"Touch it," he had commanded, his tone ringing with his authority.
Slowly, so slowly, Jane had clamped her eyes on it once more, and tentatively applied the pad of her index finger on it. When nothing happened, she seemed to grow braver and had used the palm of her hand to caress it.
"Is warm," she told them. "Can I's holded it?"
"Be careful with it," he told her, and allowed her to take it from him.
She cradled it cautiously with both hands like an ostrich egg, smiling at it. Narcissa could see the flickering red center of it reflecting off Jane's glasses. Then she had done something that they rarely witnessed. She laughed. Her laughter was the antithesis of the Dark Lord's, warm, deep and pregnant with lilting inflections.
"S'I per of 'eart then?" she asked the room.
"No. You are unaffected by its power, Jane," the Dark Lord had informed her calmly.
"'Ow you's bein' knowed that?" she asked.
Bellatrix had scoffed in loud disgust at her impertinence.
But the Dark Lord did not seem at all offended by her question. He, like the Malfoys, could detect nothing but curiosity in her voice. Not the insolence that Bella apparently imagined.
"If you were a normal person, the moment you touched it, you would have fallen to the floor and been rendered senseless. Your spirit would have been instantly transported to the underworld and, once there, you would have come face-to-face with the three Harbingers of Fate, mythically known as the Moirai. They would pass judgment over your life thus far, and only if you were found to be unsullied and innocent would you have been allowed to return to your body and continue your earthly existence. If found wanting, they should have sent you to straight to Hades."
Her eyes widened with transparent astonishment as he had explained all this to her.
"You's be touchin' it?" she had asked, clearly incredulous.
He laughed again, and this time Lucius and Narcissa had joined him and Bella, easily able to share his amusement at her childish ignorance.
"Nobody lays hands on them on purpose. Only the unlearned or the undisciplined will be foolish enough to deliberately handle one. I thought, for a brief moment, that you were being pulled in by its magic, as I watched you cross the room for it; but when you stopped and asked me what it was, I realized that you were attracted merely by the glowing center, simple-minded as you are." Bella snorted derisively at this comment. "There are many legends in the world of magic that describe these orbs and the terrible uses to which their powers have been put. Originally, there were seven. Three have been destroyed, three are kept well-guarded, one in China, one in Romania, and one in…America." His eyes narrowed on the last word. "But this one was lost. Every historical record of them clearly states that they were created right here, in Great Britain. But the countries which have them will not return them to us. So I, long ago, decided to find this one, to bring it back home where it belongs.
"I followed the legends; broke into magical strongholds to examine ancient texts around the world. I gathered every clue, until, finally, all the pieces fell into place. I made my way to the Andes of Peru, and buried deep in the mountains, in the ruins of a crumbling temple, I followed the hieroglyphic runes carved into the disintegrating stones and, as was inevitable, I unearthed it from a heavily protected sarcophagus."
"Master," Bellatrix practically moaned, her eyes glistening with tears of love and admiration, "I wish I could have been there with You. The things You've seen and done…" She trailed off, unable to finish due to her overpowering emotions.
"Nobody has seen and done what I have, or can even comprehend my unsurpassed erudition. Nobody." He stated this simply, not exactly bragging, just laying down an indisputable fact. And even Narcissa couldn't help feeling impressed by it. Thank Morgana they had aligned themselves with him.
Sometimes Narcissa thought it was almost worth having Jane here with them, just so they could witness and participate in the Dark Lord's experiments on her. Of course, each time they gave her a poison to drink, or cast a near-fatal curse at her, or instructed her to touch an object that should have damaged, if not killed, her, Narcissa could not help hoping, every time, that this might be the piece of magic that would prove the exception. If Jane would only die, their lives would be much easier.
Narcissa took a few steps closer to the sleeping child and looked her over. As the ripe smell of her assaulted Cissa's nose, she scowled and retreated a bit, then sighed. How many days had it been since she had argued and threatened Jane into the bath? Four perhaps, maybe five. She had sincerely hoped that the Dark Lord might lay down a dictum for Jane to bathe herself every day or two, but he had not. In fact, whenever Jane picked her nose, or broke wind, or exposed her thighs, or belched, or engaged in any unsavory conduct, he just smirked at the Malfoys, as though it were all a brilliant joke. Well, Cissa had realized ages ago that he had a rather warped sense of humor.
With a simple spell, Cissa took some dollops of water from a glass on the small stand beside the bed. She began to disperse it, in the form of a fine mist, over Jane's face. Jane immediately opened her eyes and sat up, wiping the cold moisture off her face. Then she fixed Narcissa with a look of deepest loathing, which Narcissa returned steadfastly.
"Get in the bath, Poisson," Narcissa said.
"Why?" she asked, as she reached for her glasses and put them on.
"Because you stink," Cissa told her bluntly.
"I's do not," was her irritating reply.
"Yes you do. And we're sick of your stench, you filthy animal," Cissa said calmly, trying not to lose her cool façade in the face of Jane's impudent apathy.
"Well, I ent" she said. "Sides, I's just 'avin' one."
Jane threw back her covers and then she reached for her artificial leg. Every night she propped it up on a pillow, and then she drew the blanket up around the lower half of it, as though it were an honored guest. It might have been amusing, if it weren't so disgusting and odd.
Narcissa cast her eyes at the floor when Jane lifted her nightgown and started to attach the false limb to the stub of her leg, which ended right above where her knee should have begun. Her deformity was, in Cissa's opinion, the most repulsive facet of Jane's appearance. It was grosser than her mustache and that frizzy, oily mop atop her head, which looked like an exceptionally thick, wooly cap. Her handicap was even more obscene than her dusky skin.
It took Narcissa a moment to pick up the thread of her argument. "That was five days ago, Poisson. You have to start bathing more frequently. This isn't an acceptable way for you to take care of yourself. A lady should always make sure she smells good."
"I's ent a lady, 'member?"
You're telling me, she thought.
"Nonetheless, you are female. Members of the opposite sex do not like females that smell as though they have just finished playing in the toilet."
After she climbed down from the bed, Jane looked at Cissa and asked, "So would I's bein' doin' it for Mr. Malfoy, your son, or the Dark Lord?"
Narcissa narrowed her eyes at this remark. "Don't you dare get cheeky with me, you perverse little cripple," she admonished, her voice rising a bit with her anger. She could feel her face flushing with anger at Jane's saucy remark. "You have to take a bath. Now, Poisson. Clean yourself up before you come for breakfast."
"Or what?"
"Or you will not receive any."
Jane merely scoffed at this hollow threat.
"And then I'll have Lucius and Draco throw you in the shower, naked, and hose you down with hot water," Cissa told her, calm and in control once more.
Since neither reasoning nor the simple satisfaction of actually being clean and smelling good would work on the brat, Cissa had to fall back on this old threat. Morgana only knew what measures Cissa would have to take if this type of intimidation ever lost its credit with the grubby child. Probably she, with the help of Bellatrix, would wind up disrobing her, and take turns holding her down in the bath while the other soaped her off. She fervently hoped it would never come to that, but what else could they do? They already had to keep at least two or three feet away from Jane just to skirt the radius of her noxious miasma.
Thankfully, Jane's eyes tinged with fear at Cissa's words, and she limped to the lavatory. Narcissa waited until she heard the bathwater running, before she went to wake Draco.
~x~}{~x~
"The Gorlatsia's looking good," The Dark Lord said, idly stirring the cauldron before him. "Nice vermillion shade. Excellent."
He moved to another, smaller cauldron, and used his wand to gently siphon some of the hot, bubbling liquid out and then let it fall back into the pot. "This is too thick!"
"My lord, I have not added the petrified amphibian eyeballs to it yet," Narcissa rapidly explained, her voice slightly constricted with her anxiety.
"Shouldn't you have added them a few hours ago?"
"Not according to the copy of Potentia's Guide to Darker Potion Making that you gave me to use," she told him. "The potion has to simmer for another six hours, and then I have to-"
"Alright, alright," he cut her off. "Do you have Thursday's list of spells?"
"It is here, my lord," Lucius informed him collectedly.
The Dark Lord looked over the sheet of parchment that Malfoy handed him and ran his eyes down the line of spells.
"Who performed the Clabersternium Curse on her?"
"I did, My Lord," Bella stated hurriedly, her eyes shining with pride.
"Are you sure you cast it properly?" he asked, his voice thick with doubt.
Bella's face grew quite red at this inquiry. "Yes, My Lord," she said with the faintest touch of sulkiness.
"Have you ever used it on someone besides Jane?"
"Yes, My Lord," she said, nodding vigorously. "When I was twenty-nine I performed it on my cousin Fabian Prew-"
"That's fine then," he interjected, uninterested in being subjected to another of Lestrange's stories of her magical prowess. "This is pretty good. There are only five incantations that you three do not know, out of sixty-three. That is a vast improvement from the last list I gave you. I have made up a new one." With his wand, the Dark Lord materialized a thick roll of parchment and handed it to Lucius. "I want you to get through as many of them as you can in the next four days."
"Yes, my lord," the three Malfoys and Bella answered quickly.
He moved around the Brewery examining the different potions, each in different stages of completion, praising a few, but for the most part, criticizing.
Jane was exploring the tiny drawers of a miniature bureau that rested on top of a table. She was poking through each small receptacle, pulling out potion ingredients and bringing them up to her nose for tentative whiffs. She never grew bored of being in the Brewery. She would probably be content to spend hours in it, examining all the various herbs and jars of preserved livers, tongues, and other organs. Sometimes she asked them questions about her discoveries, which the Malfoys would reluctantly answer. Bella usually told her, in a very unladylike way, to shut it. She also liked to look through their collection of potion grimoires, gasping and making horrified faces over the grotesque illustrations of people being flayed, eviscerated, or otherwise maimed, all while still alive.
Jane wandered over to another table in the middle of the room and began to study an ornately carved wooden box that the Dark Lord had brought with him. It looked quite old and worn. She traced her fingers over the scallops edging the rims and then ran them across the geometric patterns incised into the sides and top.
"What's it?" she asked quietly.
The Dark Lord's eyes lit up at her query and a small grin twisted the corners of his thin mouth. "You shall see soon enough, little one."
Jane gulped. Bella beamed.
"Come and sit here, my dear," he instructed her, resting one of his white spidery hands across the back of a fauteuil that he had ordered Draco to fetch when he first arrived.
At the words 'my dear' Bella's eyes darkened and her brows drew together.
Jane slowly shuffled across the room and sat down.
"Did you happen to overhear Danvers telling his wife whether he had changed his mind, when you slipped away yesterday evening?" he asked her. He began to cast some spells at her.
Everybody's ears perked up at his question. The Dark Lord had never discussed anything of this nature with Jane in front of them before. They were intensely curious about this ability of hers, but she never talked about it with them, and pressing her for information about it seemed imprudent.
"Um," she began. "'E's were sayin' it to 'er 'bouts it at supper."
"What did he say?"
She brought her small hand up and started to fidget with the neck of her gown. "'E's sayin' 'e'd do it."
"Do what?"
"Vote's 'gainst it. But then a man be comin' over. It were that man, Goodbell, and when they's goin' to anuvver room for smokin' an' drinkin' togever, then 'e's sayin' to 'im that they's just ought to vote to do away's wif it."
The Dark Lord laughed. "And how did Goodbell respond to this?"
Jane was steadily, rhythmically swiveling her good leg in little half arcs. "'E were sprised, yeah? And 'e's sayin that they's shouldna be timidatered by you or any uvvers oo'd be freaterninim' 'em. But Danvers, 'e's just shakin 'is 'ead like, an then 'e says to Goodbell, 'e could do as 'e's pleasin', but 'e's ent riskin' 'is family fer the Muggles."
"Well, what did Goodbell say to that?" he pressed her, his eyes fixed on her with a manic glow.
"Well, e's seemin' right sad, or somefink. 'E's ent sayin nuffink fer a whiles. Then 'e's says it's no good. Iffin Danvers and Boofby bofes goin' gainst 'im then 'e can't see no point in going fer it all's alone like."
He laughed again, with unrestrained pleasure at this news. "Excellent. That's excellent, Jane. Did you watch Goodbell after he left?"
She nodded.
"Did he go to that whore, again?"
She nodded.
"Did he talk to her?"
She nodded.
"Well," he said impatiently.
Jane sighed. She laced her twiggy fingers into her nest of hair and started tugging at it.
"'E, um, 'e's be sayin to 'er… that they's maybe oughtta just be's going."
"Going? Where?"
"Spain. Or maybe Greece."
The Dark Lord ceased his spell-casting at these words. Narcissa watched him, could see his brain working rapidly at this unexpected turn of events.
"Did he tell her how they would get out of England?"
She shrugged. "'E's sayin 'ow 'e being knowed a wizard could 'elp them."
"Did he tell her this wizard's name?"
Jane shook her head. She kept her eyes on the window.
The Dark Lord walked over to her and bent himself at the waist, until he was leaning over the mudblood. He rested his hand on her upper arm as he spoke to her.
"Look at me," he commanded. She obeyed him. "You know that if you ever lie to me, and mark my words, I will find out, I will have Bellatrix take you into the woods behind the manor and slit your throat. You know that, don't you Jane?"
Jane simply nodded at him, and from the phlegmatic manner with which she absorbed this threat, Narcissa thought that it must be something he told her quite often.
"She's stuffed," Jane told him.
"Who's… What?"
"Marie. She's…gonna 'ave a baby."
The Dark Lord stood up and gave her a piercing, searching look. "Did she say it was his?"
Jane nodded.
"Does he believe her?"
She nodded again.
The Dark Lord walked around the Brewery without saying anything for a while.
"Did you see or overhear anything else that I should know, Jane?"
She shook her head.
"Put your arms down," he commanded.
Jane stopped her restless movements and looked at him uncertainly. She casually lowered her hands to her lap.
"No. I want you to put them on the armrests," he corrected her. He watched as she put them up on the wooden panels. "That's a good girl."
With a casual flick of his wand, ropes flew out and snaked themselves tightly up the length of her arms, down her legs as well, and also around her chest and stomach, until her circumscription was total. She immediately started to cry and struggle.
"Please! I's ent be lying, I's swears it!"
"Quiet down!"
She ceased her useless pleas but continued to cry and strain against her bindings.
"I believe you," he told her. He went and picked up his involute box from the table.
"This is something that needs to be done. I have given you some of this to drink in potions, however," and using magic, he opened the lid of the box and levitated a black and bright orange spider out of it - its body was the size of a saucer, "I would like to see what happens your blood is directly envenomed."
He floated the spider towards her.
"NO! PLEASE! NO DON'T!"
Jane was completely hysterical by this point. She started to scream, her eyes were stretched out until the whites were exposed on every side, and she kept them locked on the enormous, exotic arachnid coming closer and closer to her.
The spider was flailing angrily, uncomfortable with its inability to find purchase on anything solid, while its huge mandibles clicked loudly.
Bella was beside herself with excitement. Her lips parted as she softly panted and her pupils dilated.
Narcissa felt a small pocket of hope bubbling inside her chest that this might be the end of the mudblood, and Lucius silently shared this sentiment. Draco, who always made an effort to keep well out of the way when the Dark Lord was present, wandered over to the window and gazed out onto the prolific grounds.
"Calm down child!" the Dark Lord loudly rebuked her. "Its fangs are quite tiny!"
But Jane did not mind him. She continued to cry and scream and beg.
He carefully lowered the spider onto her lap. They watched as it seemed to get its bearings for a moment. Then it started to climb up her chest. It finally decided to plant its fangs into her right shoulder.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"