SUMMER 1973
Narcissa Black disliked the stars.
She disliked them only because she had not been named after them in the usual tradition, as all those born into The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black had been sworn to the purest of the stars. All of the Blacks, all iron-willed and destined for greatness, were named after the heavens except for a select few — and her.
Narcissa ripped a petal off a silver-painted rose as she stood by an old decorative table in a quieter hall of the party. It supposedly belonged to a dead king, or so Lucius had claimed, or so Lucius had claimed last summer when he had snuck her out of the manor in the middle of the night and had tripped over it in the darkness.
She let the silver petals fall to the ground and nonchalantly picked another from an array of metallic roses that sprouted from a hideously tall pink vase centered on the table. She had been named after a ridiculous flower like the one in her hand.
He loves me. He loves me not. Or...maybe he loves no one.
She sighed and searched for a face she might recognize in the sultry crowd of familiar strangers, all finely suited in dress robes and swanky gowns of summer's brightest colors to celebrate the new season.
She watched as a young girl with a falling coronet braid, outfitted in snowball blue, stood upon a velvet chair and shoved a half-eaten bite of cake into the mask of a decorative knight. Narcissa assumed the woman who rushed over to pick the girl up by her puffed sleeves as ladies laughed was the child's mother. They noted how lovely and ridiculous it was that the little girl was missing a sock with nothing but affection in their eyes. Narcissa smiled to herself, half-wishing she could still wear socks and flat shoes on nights like this.
She leaned back against the fine French floral wallpaper, sensing she was briefly unnoticed. She remembered how her own mother would often swoon over her at parties such as this one when she was a child.
"She was so beautiful when she was born. How could I not name her after the most breathtaking of all flowers?"
The ladies used to dote on her, too, insisting she spun in circles until she was sick while they fawned over her chubby-cheeked smile and admired her tulle dresses as they wiped away her chocolate and sugar stains with magic. Now, they only forced a troubled half-grin when her mother noted her grace. The other mothers were more concerned than enchanted with her. They whispered more often than not about which dark gentleman's eye she might catch.
As she grew older, she couldn't help but worry over those same whispers in the silence that followed the soft murmurs and shrill pleasantries. It was the worst silence, a hollow one when she heard nothing but the ringing of her own ears that echoed like the clinks of champagne flutes. She sat alone in her bedroom, filled to the brim with empty compliments.
Narcissa often thought, and thought some more, as she faced her most honest self in the silence and her bedroom mirror that reflected a bare canvas for beauty to be painted on. She found it poetic how alike they were. A mirror was only a piece of fragile glass that was painted a spotless silver, and with magic, they could both showcase what the world might find most pleasing. She brushed her hair tirelessly as she examined every flaw, smiling in different and new ways to hide and perfect her imperfections.
Her mother would arrive late in the evenings, always tucking her in last as the youngest-born sister, and always pleased to find her seated at the vanity.
"Don't stare too long, my darling flower," her mother would warmly whisper, always referring to the unfortunate legend, and always reminding her of her strengths — her advantages.
She wondered if her mother had crafted each of her daughters into clever weapons and what she might have whispered to Bellatrix and Andromeda each night. Her eldest sister, Bellatrix, was brave, unstoppable, and masterfully gifted in the Dark Arts. Andromeda was skilled in healing and stubbornly compassionate. She would restore life to plants as she danced by the greenhouses when they were at Hogwarts. Narcissa was the youngest and perhaps carried no true or obvious magic calling, but her mother forged her all the same.
"You were born into The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black," Druella Black murmured quietly in her sweetest daughter's sugar-pink bedroom. "Power is your birthright."
Her mother would brush her hair and care for it with meticulous attention.
"Your beauty is a knife, Narcissa," she would declare, night after night, until it became a calming mantra and until Narcissa understood that her beauty was power. Poison even, if she so wished it to be.
"Your beauty is a knife, Narcissa, but don't cut yourself."
Her namesake, Narcissus, was the son of the lunar goddess and was said to have been so beautiful that he had fallen in love with his own reflection as he rested by a quiet lagoon. So entranced by his beauty, Narcissus remained at the pool's edge until he weakened and withered, and when the nymphs came to lay him to rest, he transformed into a mesmerizing white bloom.
It was a shame, Narcissa often thought.
The seer Tiresias had told his mother that he would live a long life as long as he never knew himself, but Narcissus had been foolish. Narcissa reckoned that all men were senseless after several courtings, and all far more vain than she. Even the men of House Black, who bore names of stars instead of her, she had concluded long ago that they were all too prideful. Grossly boastful, overlooking their flaws. She was far more astute and deserving of the naming tradition than any of them.
He loves me, she surmised, although there were no more petals to pull.
Narcissa sighed as she regrew the silver blooms she had picked from the stems and placed them back in the vase. She turned, wishing she could stand in a corner all evening but knowing she couldn't. This was her party, after all, even if she only knew a quarter of the crowd.
She floated through the foyer of the Malfoys, all aware of how her inviting smile and relaxed posture in the sway of her hips conveyed ease — a level of comfort in their home. She wore silver and white, a statement amongst the sea of jewel tones and enchanted chandeliers dripping with emeralds and other precious stones. She was a canvas, ready to reflect new colors to the world.
"Narcissa," Lucius sang behind her ear as soon as she made herself known.
She newly appreciated her name, only liking the sound when it floated beneath his perfect cupid's bow and wide, pouted bottom lip. His hand found her waist with an inappropriate squeeze. Narcissa slapped his hand away, and Lucius hissed as if it had almost hurt.
She turned yet stopped short of an insult as she saw his eyes, so silver she might never care for the riches of gold again. They smoldered beneath his low brow as he looked down upon her as an equal despite his height. He believed a dragon breathed behind her sweet kisses.
She broke into a smile.
His blonde hair fell like a closing curtain as if he knew he would be the end of her story, although she had attempted to break his heart after his own graduation party this same night last year. He had begun growing out his hair over the long months apart while she had finished her schooling. He claimed to her in a letter that short hair made him resemble his father, which he hated. He detailed how he would be better than him. Build a safer world — for her. Lucius wrote to her weekly, obsessively, detailing every thought, no matter how mundane and no matter if she rarely responded. Yet he knew that she liked the way he dreamed. She liked the way that he was the only Malfoy with a touch of gold in his hair.
She hoped he never lost it.
He pushed back his blonde locks now beneath the glimmering gemstones of the fantastical chandeliers that hung high above, unknowing of what it did to her. The orchestra lulled as the violins swayed into a sweetened melody. His grin fell for a moment to reveal he was nervous, something she would never let slip through her cracks, but his new smirk begged her to reveal that she felt the same.
I am a patient and faithful man, he had written.
It was written in his eyes now, determined to be the only one she might ever really fall in love with. He bravely placed a bare hand dangerously low on her back as he stepped forward, and she noted that he wore no rings tonight.
The hummingbirds swooped and sang within the enchanted painted skies of the foyer. His magic had the air shimmering around them as if to convince her this was only fate at work — they were carefully destined.
How could you not suspect? He spoke through her thoughts.
"The stars must have divined this," he used to whisper by the Black Lake as he fell for her in the last breeze of summer the prior year, unknowing how she secretly hated the stars above. She would never admit to him that she might soon like them since they brought him to her.
Narcissa placed a hand over his against her back and coyly smiled. She loved their game.
I love him.
He had painted her skies a shade of lovesick, a lavender that only clouded her better judgment. He didn't court her properly — thought he was too good for it since he was a Malfoy. He had instead taken her as if she was the rarest of the riches that already belonged to him. She was his manifest destiny, and here in the manor, drenched in the opulence of the party he had thrown to celebrate her, the world around them drifted far and melted into insignificance.
He parted his lips like he might admit just how much of his heart she had stolen. He kissed her palm, and it was soon a rarer moment when she thought she might want to admit it first. Admit something for the first time and scream that he had captured all of her heart, too.
But the moment was quickly stolen away. He was ripped from her intimate grasp with the obnoxious chuckle of Evan Rossier. He pulled Lucius along by the arm through the growing crowd, drunker than she thought possible as if the men had something to celebrate tonight. Rodolphus Lestrange followed with a drunken sneer behind them. His face was always contorted in such a way as if he truly hated the world and all its creatures.
Lucius gave her an apologetic glance that neared a grimace as he was dragged along. Her heart sank regardless, but a soothing voice was quick to her ears.
"Narcissa," Valentine Prince vivaciously drawled. The older woman was unapologetic in all of her ways, but Narcissa knew the different tones of her voice. She meant well and knew she needed an anchor in this moment.
Narcissa shifted her weight, determined not to lean against one of the sparkling columns of the Malfoy Manor since it would be horribly impolite, but her shoes were beginning to pinch now that she was grounded in the absence of Lucius.
"Hello, Ms. Prince," she sighed, happy to find a face she could be honest with. She kissed both sides of her gracefully aged cheeks.
"You look rather gorgeous in that dress." Her eyes drifted in the direction of Lucius. "You are priceless. Always remember, my little fox."
Narcissa glanced down at the intricate shimmers that draped her body as if she were an ancient goddess. She waved her hand demurely as Valentine bounced her white curls.
"Thank you," Narcissa hummed.
Valentine clicked her tongue. "Do you know where my granddaughter is?" She checked her bare wrist like a boastful man might make a scene out of reading an expensive watch.
"Ah!" She whistled gleefully. "She'll come to find you in a minute or so."
She twirled a cherry in her drink with her finger, rather pleased she had answered her own question. The cherry perfectly matched the taffeta of her gown and darkened lipstick.
Narcissa quickly flashed her eyes to the crowd, noting that the older women surrounding them were whispering. Narcissa didn't care, and Valentine paid them no mind, having tired of their cruelty long ago. She had been adopted by the regretfully childless, pure-blooded Prince family at the age of seven after they had found her dirtied on the edge of a cursed crossroads. The Prince family had assured the community she was pure of blood since her divining capabilities were terribly accurate, but it could never be fully confirmed, and she was hard-pressed to reveal her true surname so they could properly confirm her true heritage.
Valentine was a black sheep amongst the Sacred Twenty-Eight families, and opinion only soured when she bagged the soon-to-be-married, cooky Spudmore heir to the broom-making fortune and birthed a child out of wedlock. Spudmore married neither, although Valentine had already spent a piece of his fortune.
"That marriage was arranged," she used to counter in her defense as the woman whispered. The affair had painted her scarlet in society. She still mumbled about it beneath her breath as she lost her wits with age.
Their daughter, Violetta Prince, was determined to make a proper place and name for herself, to Valentine's horror. It didn't matter that she was on her fourth marriage; Violetta had found her way into society's heart by throwing the grandest parties that rivaled even the Malfoys, all on the galleons of her ex-husbands. With the iron hearts of the Prince matriarchs, it was only foreseen that Violetta's daughter and her wild heart would want nothing more than true love.
Valentine took Narcissa's hands in hers, interrupting her thoughts.
"Congratulations on your graduation, my wonder. What a beautiful evening thrown for such a beautiful girl," Valentine cooed with sincerity, a tone usually reserved for her granddaughter.
A cheery roar erupted somewhere in the sparkling crowd, and Narcissa sighed as she glanced around to see if she could spot Lucius in the sea of bright ensembles and gloved-handed trays.
The orchestra suddenly seemed as if it was blaring.
"So curious to be cursed with such a name," Valentine commented as she caught the lovestruck distress in the newly formed purple pools beneath Narcissa's eyes.
Narcissa was critically aware of how apparent the pools of purple were in the harsher light, such as the glowing wreath of citrine that hung above them, but she gasped at the daring rudeness. Valentine cracked a smile, and Narcissa laughed loudly for the first time in a long while.
She smiled back warmly, leaning against the cold marble column behind her. "Do you think I'll never find another to love, Ms. Prince?" She quipped playfully. "Loving only myself as Narcissus did doesn't seem so cursed..."
Narcissa flashed a cheeky smile as Valentine rolled her eyes.
This ridiculous party. His quick-silvered eyes, she kept in her mind like a secret. The long summer nights to come as she made him enter through her bedroom window to visit her. She couldn't hold out from cutting herself by loving another for much longer.
Valentine sighed in disappointment as if the only true curse was a woman's inability to resist falling in love.
"You'll suffer all the same. Such beauty comes with consequence," she answered shrewdly, viciously popping the cherry from her drink into her mouth.
Narcissa's pink-painted mouth slackened as an arm slunk over her shoulder.
"Cissa!"
Valeria Prince stumbled to her side, having seemingly bribed an entire bottle of extra fizzing champagne from the Malfoy kitchens. She brought the evidence to her crimson lips instead of politely sipping from a proper glass like the rest of the guests. Despite her apparent drunkenness, she was a winter's dream in midnight blue. Her liquored pink cheeks only made her resemble a sugar plum fairy.
Before Narcissa could scold her, Valeria sparked with the most endearing smile, which made it impossible for anyone to speak poorly of her at the least and reprimand her at the most for her behavior. Narcissa shook her head and pulled up the crystal sleeve that had fallen off Valeria's shoulder.
Her friend gasped, uncaring or unnoticing of her slipping dress. Her eyes lighted as if remembering something so impossibly incredible. "Narcissa, I've just heard the most wonderful thing!" she whispered loudly, gleefully.
Valeria quickly pulled her by the hand through the blurring crowd. Narcissa nearly dropped her glass, but Valentine was quick to take it for herself.
"Come! It's important!" Valeria called back, a fateful grip on her hand as she pulled her through the never-ending ballroom. The orchestra played furiously beneath a golden spring's twilight painted upon the vaulted ceiling. Enchanted, honey-pink clouds formed a myriad of woodland creatures within it. Guests squealed in delight as droplets of golden rain and jewels fell from the bursting puffs as the ballroom sky transformed into new clouded creatures with charmed magic.
Valeria laughed in amusement as she caught pink and yellow sapphires. Her hair, as white as snow, fell from braided pins as she was lost in the swaths of her own deep-blue silk. It danced around her in the air of the open French doors, so tall they blended with the true night sky. The scent of wild roses from the gardens beyond filled the ballroom.
"Where are we going!" Narcissa exclaimed. She couldn't help but grin. It was too fantastical. She knew the world would once again be too grim tomorrow.
"The mazes, of course!" Valeria sang.
"Run! Run, my darlings!" A dancing couple shouted in the crowd, and Narcissa knew this behavior was only tolerable as she held the hand of Valeria Prince.
"We're running to find the fae lands to never return!" Valeria called back to the couple.
For a moment, Narcissa almost believed her. Anything was possible, only a dream away, in the palms of Valeria Prince. She was a rare light, uncaring of the wicked world blooming around them. She carried on as if she was too pure for it to dampen her rays. She truly believed in her conviction that everything would be better, eventually.
She belongs in a place like this, Narcissa thought as they escaped the extravagance and into the lazy gardens. The sumptuous air hugged them tight, warming their cheeks. The heat of the sun was still present beneath the newly alighted stars.
Valeria dropped her hand, and Narcissa couldn't help but frown. The world came into focus without her touch.
"Come on!" Valeria giggled, taking a final swig from the champagne bottle before placing it in the hand of a marble-crafted cherub at the foot of a bench.
Narcissa snorted. Valeria smirked back as she kicked off her shoes and soared down the palatial steps toward the hedge mazes.
Narcissa thought it appeared like a fairytale unfolding as she breathed in the sweetened air and heard the lull of tiny fountains and the sighs of hidden lovers below. She hung over the stone railing that was steeped in hanging flora like the Gardens of Babylon. Valeria's crystalline sleeves fell to her shoulders again as she raced midnight, carrying her gown at her waist as her bare feet padded the white stone stairs. The roses seemed to reach for her between the railings — nature shaking its head with affection. She wasn't real.
She was fantastical, worth every sonnet — until she tripped and fell.
"Oof!" She grunted, landing at the bottom stair upon the gravel with a sickly thud before laughing loudly.
Gods. Narcissa sighed heavily as she pushed off the railing. She trotted down the stairs after her, refusing to take off her own shoes under any circumstances. The music became faint as she neared the landing and kneeled down at Valeria's side.
"Are you alright?" Narcissa bit her lip with concern.
"I'm okay," Valeria laughed. She coughed and pushed her wild, moon-bleached hair from her face. "Just feeling a bit ridiculous now..."
Her voice drifted in a soft and meek whisper as she inspected the bloodied scrape on her knee.
"Where's your wand, Val?" Narcissa asked, pulling back her own pin-straight hair to help.
Valeria glanced up, her round hazel eyes wide. "I'm unsure..."
She casually shrugged. "It always turns up, though."
Narcissa poorly held back her amusement as she made herself comfortable on the pavement. She folded her legs at her side as she placed her clutch on the stone steps. They both relaxed on the gravel beneath the stars in their pristine gowns.
"I never wanted to be a witch really, anyways," Valeria muttered.
"Don't say that," Narcissa whispered. "Especially here," she snorted.
Valeria looked to the manor with a simper morphing into a scowl upon her rosy face. They both noted how the night's stars shined a hair brighter above the magnificent home of the Malfoys, and her face fell into a full frown.
Narcissa reached for her, reading distress upon her friend's thoughts. It didn't matter if they drifted, unable to find time to speak for weeks on end. There was always a warmness in the silence between them. They were bound by the fading strings of girlhood, both knowing what it was like to regrettably mature within a siege of dark power and monstrous men. They hoped, searching for heaven in the eyes of ambitious boys, and both braced for the worst.
Narcissa took out her wand. "You loved Hogwarts. I've never seen someone wield astronomical magic like you. You're too great not to be a witch."
She sighed, "But we'll never return to Hogwarts." She paused, almost flinching. "Well, you might, but this party marks the true end."
"It's not the end, Val. We can't be girls forever. It's only the beginning," Narcissa countered quickly.
Valeria pursed her lips. Narcissa meant to soothe her anxiety, but the words had landed cold and ominous as she thought of nothing lately but her own sisters. They were torn on both sides of a heightening war and had abandoned her in the process.
She bottled her sudden show of hurt. I'm a knife, she remembered.
"I'm scared, too," Narcisa added quietly, unable to push down her emotions far enough as she mended the scrape on Valeria's knee. She was so rarely this vulnerable.
Valeria watched as the wound healed, but healing felt temporary.
"Cissa?"
Valeria knit her brows together, the blue and green in her hazel eyes crashing with heartbreak. It made the hair on Narcissa's skin rise as if she had heard a howl in the night.
"I think I'm going to die young," she whispered.
Narcissa froze. A shiver brushed her spine, and the crickets ceased as if they sensed it, too. "Why would you say that?" She asked, chuckling uncomfortably to make light.
"I've divined," she answered in a desperate hush.
Narcissa playfully scoffed. "Divinations are rarely accurate. Ask any witch or wizard. Don't waste your worries, Valeria."
Valeria looked to the manor once more.
"Come here, Val."
Narcissa hugged her friend tight and smoothed her wild curls. A gentle wind cooled their skin, and a small silence befell the gardens.
"They answer, but they won't show me," Valeria whispered, nearly slurring.
Narcissa went cold under an oppressive weight. Something made her feel small in this world —this infinite, crushing universe. She pulled back. A starless sea waded in Valeria's eyes as she shook her head, unable to make sense of it.
She brushed her friend's too pale skin as she took her hand; freshly unsettled, Narcissa had the sense Valeria revealed something she shouldn't have.
"Who are they, Valeria?" Narcissa murmured, face fallen serious. "Please tell me you are not conversing with the dead. Demons," she mumbled low. It was an unspeakable act.
"No, no," Valeria gracefully sniffed. "It's no matter. Just a terrible feeling, honestly," she mumbled, pocketing her dismay. "Don't speak of this."
Narcissa wished to say something more but felt Valeria moving past the moment too quickly. She was drunk in a blur of fleeting melancholy. She had wondrous highs and dreadful lows, and sometimes, it seemed she tested both limits in a single passing minute.
"Valeria..."
Narcissa squeezed her fingers, face scrunching as if to say, 'I'm here.'
Valeria gently placed a gloved hand on Narcissa's arm, her demeanor lighting with newfound conviction. "Please listen," she whispered. "This is important. Something wonderful will happen this evening, and you mustn't be afraid. I can't imagine a world without the brightness you'll bring. Promise me that you'll never be afraid. We'll build a better world. Us. And you will survive this. I promise."
Narcissa embraced her tight, one last time. "We'll survive this."
Valeria's head snapped to the maze hedges before the crack of a branch sounded. Sometimes, Narcissa was sure she was a witch born for the natural world. Nature answered her magic effortlessly always.
Valeria's brows furrowed, and she steeled herself in a flash. Narcissa followed her gaze, standing quickly with a new shiver as a shadow emerged from the maze between the largest cream roses she had ever seen. They were tipped red, and in the moonlight, it looked as if they were smeared with blood. The paths inside the mazes were so lean that only slivers of moonlight could guide the way once within. It made the hedges appear as if they reached for the sky in order to escape, too. It painted those who ran along its paths as nothing more than shadows in the night.
Narcissa straightened her spine as the wraith before them was bathed in light.
"Dev!" Valeria gasped. "I didn't know you would be here this evening!"
Val's shoulders relaxed as Devereaux Aldair appeared from the crisply cut maze, his raven hair shining bright with an indigo gleam as it fell in shortly cut waves to frame the harsher angles of his face more gently. Narcissa knew it was intentional. She knew it was an attempt to appear less wolfish. She saw what others couldn't in the finer details of how they moved after studying others and herself in the mirror after all these years. She recognized the same eagerness within him to please the world. He wielded the same knife as she with his too-wide smile and chameleon eyes.
Tonight, he changed them from glacial clear to a shade of blue darkest before sunrise as he strolled to Valeria. He ignored Narcissa's protective glare entirely as she laughed, enchanted by the predictable party trick.
"Did you purposefully match your eyes to my midnight-inspired dress, Aldair?"
She looked up to him as he knelt down beside her, smitten with high hopes.
"If I said yes, would you paint them with starlight?" His voice was lyrically smooth and irresistibly gentle with her. He cued his perfectly boyish smile, flashing every tooth and squinting with charm as he made her blush. He whispered something delightful in her ear.
Not one to be rendered speechless, Valeria sweetly bantered. "The jewels on the sleeves tick like tiny clocks of stars when I snap my fingers," she giggled.
He brushed his fingertips from her elbow to her fallen sleeve. Devereaux snapped his fingers, and the crystals sewn together with magic upon her bare arms began to swirl clockwise like stars and sing delightfully.
"Tick-tok! Tik-Tok! The clock shall never stop!" They harmonized in an endless loop.
He chuckled as she leaned forward into his arms, astonished and giddy at her own charmwork. His eyes warmed, melting to reveal something true in the always-changing shades. He was so sick with love that Narcissa wanted to believe that Valeria was the only thing he ever wished for, but she knew better. She only wished Valeria would give up and play the grand game instead of hoping to find the good in rotten men.
She was wildly romantic, falling in love too fast and fighting in the halls, but whether Devereaux truly loved her for the chaos or played her soft heart to his advantage, she couldn't be sure. He was horribly clever yet said all the right things. He was magnetic to most, as was Valeria. Perhaps that's why he chased her over the years. Maybe he told her they were carefully destined, too, and maybe they were, but Narcissa believed no one was truly deserving of a Prince.
"Val, I think we should go back inside. Don't you want to dance with me?" Narcissa asked, crossing her arms as if there was an invisible chill.
Devereaux cast his clever eyes up to her with a spreading smirk as if he hoped she was uncomfortable. He turned his eyes back to Valeria and held out his hand, adorned with rare and foreign rings.
"Shall we dance till sunrise?" He smiled in earnest as if asking her to dance forever.
"That's a wonderful idea!" Valeria sighed like she was worried she was dreaming. She reached to push back Devereaux's falling waves, and he stole a kiss. She pushed him away with a scandalized hand.
She leaned back, palms against the gravel, as she feigned injury. She shoved her exposed knee towards Devereaux's face. "I don't think I can even stand," she laughed. "I fell, and now, how will I ever make it to the ballroom?"
Devereaux kissed the bare skin of her leg with a darkening gleam as he never broke gaze. He was hypnotized by her. Obsessed.
"Be careful what you wish for," Devereaux chuckled.
Narcissa could have gagged, as there was nothing he wouldn't do to finally call Valeria his, but she loved the attention. She loved the idea of true love and its acts. She loved the chase.
Narcissa held her gag, but she did settle on an obvious eye-roll as he swooped her into his arms in one easy motion and stood tall. Valeria always sang that it was so fitting that he was handsome like a real prince, her own namesake. Narcissa hated to admit that she was right, but as he stood with a lucky smile and dressed in black finery, it was undeniable. He looked like someone's truest love. Tall and heavenly dark, his shadow followed like a beast behind his lean frame as he glided up the grand staircase with Valeria cradled in his arms like a worn doll.
Narcissa couldn't bring herself to follow. She stood frozen in a hollow moment as her ears rang.
Am I so foolish, too?
"Pst!" She heard someone call.
She whipped around quickly as her heart skipped a beat. There was no one in sight as she peered out to the starlit lake in the distance. It would soon be barely visible in the early hour fog. She took a step closer, standing between the entrance to either maze as the sweet-scented hedges loomed. She wouldn't be intimidated. She was born from House Black.
"Narcissa!" Came a quick, distressed whisper.
The roses shook to her left, and a rumpled sleeve punched through the hedge. She screamed in shock as she covered her mouth. She wasn't intimidated, but she was easily startled.
"Please!" The whisper growled.
Narcissa narrowed her eyes and tilted her head.
Wait. I know that arm.
Gleaming in the moonlight was a silver signet ring engraved with the Malfoy crest.
"Lucius?" She found herself whispering back as she stepped closer, although no one was around to hear them. "What are you doing in your gardens?"
"I came looking for you!" He yelled. "I thought you were in here, and now I can't find my way out! These bloody bushes..."
Narcissa slowly smirked as she heard him shuffle around on the other side. She loved when he was inconvenienced. It happened so rarely. She also had an idea of why he might have come to find her in the gardens. He hardly ever could resist her, and she loved the game.
"What a shame," she sighed, picking a rose. "I do hope you find me before I leave for the evening."
She breathed in the crisp sweetness. It went straight to her head — a fleeting intoxication. She sensed his grin, and before she could step back, Lucius took her hand and pulled her through the hedges.
"Ow!" She hissed, colliding with his chest after a good fight with the bush.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I just-"
He stammered, caught in the relief of finally taking hold of her as he sighed. There was a moment so beautiful when they finally found each other alone, an optimism.
She breathed out, now breathless, too.
The moonlight shimmered against the hollows of his cheeks. His mouth hung open, perfect and deliciously crimson as the skin of an apple, but his brows were pinched. His eyes, so heartbreakingly silver tonight, were frantic.
"What is it?" Narcissa dropped the rose she had been holding, her stomach falling. She worried her heart was next. Falling held consequences.
He said nothing, his gaze finding the gravel.
She reached up and brought a hand to his cheek. The other to his bare chest beneath the fabric where he had popped the buttons open by his neck. He was so warm, flushed with ale.
"You can trust me..."
Lucius shook his head."It was so stupid of me..."
He shifted uncomfortably as he pouted with himself, unable to meet her eyes.
She dropped her hand from his cheek. "Tell me, Lucius."
He looked up to the stars and wiped the pity from his face, finding courage. He finally pierced her gaze and covered her hand upon his chest with his.
"There's about a hundred swans in that lake..."
He nodded north behind her as he whispered foolishly.
"I've even hired circus performers," he snorted.
"Brought them in from Paris...your favorite city," he scoffed to himself.
Narcissa tilted her head, lips parting as she tried to make sense of why he would do such a romantic thing. She tried to find one reason why he might think himself foolish for it. He wasn't the first suitor to do something utterly ridiculous.
"I thought you would like it..."
He laughed, smooth as cream. It usually had her stomach tightening, but she realized in the creases that pulled his mouth into a grimace — he doubted himself. He had come to the same conclusion, too, with a horrible sense of insecurity as he had wanted to be different from others in her eyes.
She smiled for him to prove that he was the only truly spectacular thing she had ever seen. Ever wanted.
"I most likely would have liked it, but now you've ruined the surprise," she lightly teased as she wrapped her arms around his neck in a more daring display of her honest feelings.
She wouldn't admit that she was so much more frightened of this than him. Their story was messy. It had been from the beginning as she feared nothing greater than falling in love. He had loved her from the first moment he had caught her eye, and he had dreamed of nothing and no one else since. He would always be pushing against her current, trying to find the bottom of her heart through the many layers — the games they played. His molten silver eyes were drowning now, though. He had caught her love in a fever dream that he thought might threaten to stop his heart.
And in the sea of petals, with no one to hear a word but the stars above, she thought it might be okay to admit something kind to save him. He broke her so vulnerable, for once, that she cut out a piece of her own heart for him — a map to find his way to the depths of her heart.
"You don't have to try to impress me, Lucius Malfoy," she whispered, brushing her pale fingers through the new lengths of his hair.
She paused. It was stuck on her tongue, terrified to speak her next words again. She hadn't told him in so long, but her small admittance was enough to make him brave.
"That is why I want to," he breathed incredulously as he hesitantly cupped her flushing face. She allowed it without a fight, even secretly reveled in his touch.
"That is why I love you," he admitted, so certain.
She held her breath, bracing for his next words as his truth bled out. This was no longer only a game — but had it ever been beneath the surface?
"There is a crowd out there that wishes for me to get down on one knee in front of you — for them, as I had planned, but I can't..."
One side of his mouth curved in amusement. "I realized you'd hate it. Really fucking hate it," he sighed.
She thought she might be shaking as his hand fell to her waist, and he brushed his cheek against hers.
"They want a spectacle, but I just want you," he whispered, breath shaking and hot. "I only want you."
He pulled back with renewed courage. He was so beautiful in the moonlight, as if he had asked them to sparkle brightly now for this moment. For her.
"I want you to marry me, Narcissa Black. I've never wanted anything more. I love you indecently, so much so that I can't even think of anything but you and how you look at me. It makes me wicked. I want to be yours, beg you to take me on my knees, but I want to know that you still love me, too."
There was so much certainty in his eyes. He was resolute to be cut by her knife whether it killed him or not. She stood there, mouth agape like she was suffocating despite the fact that she had never heard anything better in her life. This was what she wanted. In the clarity of his clear silver eyes, she had never been able to deny that she might have loved him from the first moment, too.
Don't be afraid.
And Narcissa smiled. "I do. I love you," she exhaled, shaking her head in disbelief. She pressed her forehead to his. "Of course, I love you."
He breathed out in heavy release as if she were his drug.
"Then please marry me," he wished. He brushed his hand up her arms, healing a cut from the thorns from when he had hauled her through the bushes. "I'll never let you break."
Her mind raced with possibilities. Beginnings and ends as she stumbled for an answer, although she knew what her heart wished for.
Lucius tipped her chin higher, more confident than ever. Falling was painless for him, but not for her. What would be her strength without a bare finger and a smile that promised possibility? She believed beauty was only desired if it was for sale.
"I'll name the stars after you, as it truly should be."
She grinned, knowing the stars were rolling their eyes. He believed she hadn't been named after the stars because the heavens strived to be named after her instead. It was so foolishly romantic. She hated it so much that she loved it.
"Please say yes," he murmured desperately.
I can't be afraid.
Her mind spun in a dance of answers, and only one of them was honest.
"Please, say yes so I can send those bloody swans home," he chuckled at the perfect moment. How could she ever say no with a laugh so heart-stopping?
I won't be afraid.
"Yes," she laughed.
How could she deny it? He was always right; they were destined.
He bathed himself in shadows as he fell to his knee with her hands in his. Before she could think of anything, he was sliding a silver ring upon her finger. She would be a Malfoy, and she could have sworn she heard the wild laugh of Valeria Prince in the distance.
— — — — — — — — — —
Narcissa fidgeted with her wedding band, and for the first time in a long time, Lucius took her hand in his beneath the table. His fingers were colder than usual, as if death-touched — maybe he was.
Still, she held onto them like a lifeline as she drowned in another day of an endless war. She summoned warmth, only wishfully thinking that it would banish the cool decay that infested her husband. He had breathed in the foul air of the dementors for far too long. There was a newfound hopelessness placed within him that she was afraid she could never mend for him, no matter how many pieces she cut out of her own heart to replace it.
Lucius squeezed her hand. A ghost of himself, yet his love for her beat on.
"Where has the boy gone?" Severus asked as he quietly counted out doses of a restorative brew in the silent night for Lucius.
They sat in the low darkness, a single flame upon the old table to alight the abandoned wine cellars of the Malfoy Manor. It was the only place of peace left within the walls. Severus had arrived late from Hogwarts, holding out hope that Theodore Nott would make a safe return.
"Bad news from old Albus?" Alexander Nott taunted his least favorite professor.
He was dirty, still painted from the prison in ash and rubble. A sneer was upon his face. It was a warning of the rage breaking his bones within.
Severus whipped his cold eyes to the less decent of the Nott brothers, in his honest opinion. There was a different cruelty that lay within him. One that Severus recognized had no means to an end.
"Do not lie to me. I bear no grief for the barbarian that was your father," he bristled, not even bothering to sneer back at him.
Alexander leaned back into his seat, delivering a hard look. The wooden chair scraped the smooth, black stone beneath his shifting weight. "I do not know. Truthfully," he sighed.
"As I told you, there was a delay in retrieving my father for reasons we may never know now. The ministry was alerted sooner than anticipated since that bloody dragon wouldn't blow the entire tower with Theodore inside."
He threw a pack of cigarettes on the table and lit one in his mouth.
"Thank Gods," he added.
Silence passed as each of them came to a different conclusion.
Narcissa turned to her husband, the circles beneath her eyes pronounced in the light of the flame despite her polished appearance.
"Did you see Tiberius?" She whispered.
Lucius stared, eyes caught on the resemblance of Tiberius Nott, now dead.
"No," Lucius answered shortly. His voice was quiet and rough. The elegance of his black robes now looked terribly uncanny upon him with his grim complexion.
"My father chose to run on his own in the end. Probably broke Theodore. The Order chased him down like a dog," Alexander proclaimed, mumbling half-truths.
Narcissa straightened in her chair.
"They murdered him? In front of his own sons?" Narcissa murmured tightly, sneering in disgust. She glanced at Severus, who remained stoic but listened carefully as he organized his potions.
Alexander bit his cheek. He was a wash of bitterness and breaking regret as he stared down at the cracks in the wood on the table. Exhausted. Broken.
"Yes," he answered beneath his breath.
Narcissa inhaled sharply, furious. "They're no better than what they claim of us. The filthiness," Narcissa hissed.
She covered her mouth, crumbling. A son of hers, now shattered and lost.
"Theo disappeared shortly after. He's gone," Alexander added quickly, rubbing the ash down his face. "I was unable to find him. I've checked everywhere."
He had no desire to linger on the subject, still processing the day. The tragedy. The blood on his hands. He blew out an air of smoke.
"What has the Dark Lord deemed this?" He nodded to Severus.
Snape remained focused on his task at hand in the candlelight. "Here, Lucius," he said calmly, passing a goblet to his old friend. Lucius cleared his throat and drank.
"The loss of Tiberius and others had briefly disappointed him," Snape finally answered.
"And what of Theodore?" Narcissa whispered in a panic.
Lucius squeezed her hand as he felt her heart beating quickly.
Snape sighed heavily, hiding his own opinions. "He believes the boy will return here soon — on his own accord. The Dark Lord is certain he'll want vengeance," he paused, finally raising his eyes to Alexander. "On The Order."
The eldest Nott shook his head, sneering once more. "No. Mark my words. He'll return to Hogwarts. He's still sick with her. He'll return for Dahlia Aldair — even if she will eventually be promised to your son as the papers have claimed before."
Narcissa eyed Lucius, whose own mind was caressing her mental barriers with questions — ones she didn't want to answer until he was fully out of shock.
They sat quietly in the musty air, out of words but left with so many questions. There was a bloated silence that couldn't be fixed. There was no solution but to wait. Theodore Nott was untraceable. Gone on a crack in the wind. Somewhere in the world, he grieved. A boy with nothing but a fortune and a severed heart.
Severus did the favor and broke the somber air.
"He will eventually have to return for her. For the Dark Lord."
He blew out the flame of the candle, and they waited for a new day.