Work Text:
She wanted to weep, it was true - she didn’t want to admit it to herself because father always taught her that crying was a sign of weakness and there were no weak women in his family. Crying always meant a harder hit, and she’d learned very early on to repress those emotions, or at least wait until she was back at school and everyone was out of the dormitory so she could have a moment of weakness alone. No matter how hard she’d cried, though, tears never came and for years she worried she was broken.
That night, though, the tears came and the sobs cluttered her throat as she lie in her cold bed, half empty, waiting. It’d been two days since she’d last seen her husband, and no news had come from anyone else. It was as if the entire world had gone silent and she was left alone in isolation, without any indication of time and space.
She touched the charm around her neck - a diamond that they’d bewitched years ago when all this had first began, a way to communicate without words so she would know he was okay, alive and probably not well but alive. She pressed it into her palm and wished it would bite the skin and draw blood so she could see that she was, indeed, alive.
No answering glow came from her charm, and she sat up finally and buried her head in her knees as she wailed. A desperate sound, she was sure she woke the elves and prayed that none of them would come in to check on her. She could not handle anyone coming near her unless it was him, her husband, the man she now pictured lying dead or captured in the hands of the Ministry. She preferred the latter, as he could get out of that situation with ease, but death was final.
The manor creaked and groaned, as old houses and mansions tended to do, a sound she was familiar with from living in old estates that had belonged to her family for centuries. She could hear the utterances of the portraits in the hallway who were likely awakened at the sound she’d allowed to escape her lips. They constantly worried about Lucius, whenever he left, and for hours she would hear them mutter to each other and visit each other until he came home. The house was empty aside from her and the elves, yet she still felt as though she was surrounded by ghosts from the past. Ghosts of the life she had envisioned for herself when she and Lucius married - happiness, joy, love. Of course, there was love. They were not lacking for that, despite what the Daily Prophet gossip columns liked to speculate. But there was no happiness there, no joy. There hadn’t been from the moment Lucius had shown her what adorned his forearm, when he’d explained to her that he needed to do this to build a better future for her, for their children that she had not given him yet.
She glanced at the large clock in the corner of the room and saw that it was about 4:30 in the morning. There was no point in trying to go back to sleep, so Narcissa rose from the bed and wrapped her dressing gown around her chilled, lithe frame as shivers ran through her. While the manor was beautiful, it was cold. That was for certain.
She made her way to the master bathroom, to their large bathtub that was not nearly as large as the prefect’s bathtub at Hogwarts, but a good rival. She swished her wand and the water started, along with the concoctions of bubble potions and bath salts. As the bath prepared itself, she walked over to the small little alter in the bedroom and burned the candle that was close to going out. Old magic swelled inside her and she smiled at the small peace it granted her. Anxiety still churned in her belly but it had lessened a touch.
As Narcissa shed her dressing gown and the small nightgown she’d slept in, she kept the necklace around her neck and pressed her fingers to the charm again. She willed Lucius to feel her worry, her fear, to let him know she needed to know he was alright. When there was no response, she got into the bathtub and sighed as the hot water eased her tense muscles. It was a deep bath, with seats carved into the marble. She pushed her shoulders under and settled in the heat, breathing in and out, willing her anxiety to calm before she got sick to her stomach.
She thought back to their first year of marriage, the way that Lucius was there always and never more than a call of his name far from her. She smiled as she rested her head against the marble floor of the bathroom. She’d loved him since she was a child, and she’d never looked at another man the way she looked at Lucius. They played together as children, and as they grew into young adults at Hogwarts, so their love grew with them. Lucius had not wanted to marry a Pureblood witch who had no ambition, no brains. Many Pureblood girls dumbed themselves down to find husbands, and Lucius had told her before she went to Hogwarts that he figured she would be the best in her year. He wasn’t wrong, and he always told her how proud he was of her success.
She’d taken her O.W.L.s a year early for Charms, Transfiguration, and Potions and therefore got into N.E.W.T level classes earlier than her classmates. Lucius had enjoyed working with her as they were paired up for school assignments, and liked the discussions and sometimes disagreements they got into.
Narcissa sighed as she realized she’d taken those days for granted. Never in her wildest dreams had she expected her future husband to become a Death Eater, to follow the Dark Lord in a way that she had not prepared for. He’d informed her a year into their marriage about his plan, about how his father had introduced him to a man named Tom Riddle and how the Purebloods would finally rule the Wizarding world as they were meant to. She’d grown up with the same beliefs and ideologies, and had been taught to let her husband do as her husband needed to do, so she had not argued or put up a fight. Now, though, she wished she had. She wished she had said something to him and told him she was not ready for what would come, but to be fair, at that point she had no idea what it would require of him. Or of her, for that matter.
The numerous nights spent alone were one thing, but the times when he was unable to respond to her or even let her know that he was alright were another entirely. It was nights like this one that she felt alone and exhausted and weary from her husband constantly abandoning her to do the Dark Lord’s bidding. What he required of his soldiers, his Death Eaters, was to put their lives on the line for the sake of blood purity. In Narcissa’s opinion, blood purity was not enough of a cause for her husband to die for. Nothing was, really. Even if he died trying to save her, she’d be angry with him.
She summoned the bottle of Fire Whiskey from the bedroom and a glass, which landed carefully on the marble floor near her head. She poured herself a drink and figured that 5:00 in the morning was as good a time to numb her anxiety as any. Before all this, she’d never liked the burning taste of Fire Whiskey, but the evenings alone spent in worry about her husband’s life had taught her that it was better than any champagne she may drink. In fact, she’d come to like the burning down her throat, as if it reminded her that she was alive.
Several months prior, she’d been forced to take a break from the whiskey. Both at Lucius’ pleas and the fact that she’d gotten pregnant. She glanced down at her belly which no longer was round with child and sighed to herself. At least she could have her Fire Whiskey again, wasn’t that a nice silver lining?
She touched the necklace one last time and closed her eyes. Perhaps the magic wasn’t working correctly, or she wasn’t sending a powerful enough signal for it to pick up her desperation. Narcissa willed that her husband hear her, feel her, and know that she needed him to give her some sort of indication that everything was alright. Or, at least, that he was alright. Everything was not alright, that she already knew. It hadn’t been for quite some time but there was no fixing that.
She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath until she released it as her hand let go of the charm. She took a deep inhale of air as she pressed fingers to her eyes and willed the tears to go back where they came from. She’d already cried once and she did not need to cry again and humiliate herself further. Instead she took a sip of the whiskey and let the tears run down her cheeks while she stared ahead of herself. She did not weep, cry out, or sob. She wouldn’t break that easily.
The pop from her bedroom startled her, as did the wail that came from whomever had apparated into the room. She tore from the water of the bath and wrapped a robe around her, wand at the ready in case it wasn’t someone friendly. She never could know these days, with the world at war and her husband on a very specific side of that war.
She came into the room and found her sister, who was covered in blood, along with her husband Rodolphus, who was trying to help a very wounded Lucius onto the bed.
“Merlin. What happened?” Narcissa gasped as she ran to her husband’s side.
“The aurors knew our plans,” Bellatrix explained, sitting down on the chair near the vanity and looking extremely wiped out and wounded.
She did a quick cleaning spell so as not to stain any of the furniture as she watched Narcissa and Rodolphus fuss over Lucius, who was out cold. Narcissa rushed to her apothecary, the trunk at the end of their bed, and pulled out what she’d need to heal Lucius’s wounds while Rodolphus attempted to do some sort of healing spells that didn’t work all that well.
She shoved her brother-in-law out of the way and he went over to Bellatrix, who was also working on her own wounds. They watched Narcissa work - a woman skilled at Charms, Transfiguration and Potions, as she’d been known for in school, but also quite skilled at any sort of healing, whether that included potions or spells or Herbology.
Bellatrix wandered into the bathroom and picked up the Fire Whiskey before taking a swig from the bottle and she handed it off to Rodolphus as Narcissa made a paste out of some plant roots and other ingredients that they couldn’t see in the dark. Once the paste was completed, she closed her eyes and did some proper healing charms to close up the open gashes before she applied the paste.
Lucius began to wake up at the pain of the paste but she urged him to keep sleeping, to rest. She felt around his head for any sign of injuries, and when she found none, she kissed his forehead and turned her attention to her sister and brother-in-law, who were finishing off the bottle of whiskey with exhausted looks on their faces.
“Do you need to stay here?”
“If possible. Rodolphus nearly spliced us all out of sheer exhaustion.”
Narcissa took the bottle from her sister. “Let me see your wounds.”
Bellatrix rolled her eyes. “I’m fine, I healed them myself.”
“Let me see.”
Bellatrix showed her wounds and Narcissa examined them to make sure they were healed enough for her liking. She checked Rodolphus next. Their wounds were not as bad as her husband’s and she knew they wouldn’t need the paste, so she showed them to their room down the hall. They both looked exhausted, but she provided them with a light sleeping draught should they need it. Bella had always been prone to nightmares when they were children and with everything that was going on…
As she made her way back to her husband, dread filled the pit of her stomach. Narcissa had loved him for as long as she could remember, and she loved watching him become the man she was married to. Ever since he’d shown her the mark on his forearm, ever since this nightmare started, he had changed in ways that she had never anticipated. He was never cruel to her, thank the gods, but he was different. There was a lack of light behind his grey eyes, as if the constant dark magic was wearing on his soul, as it would any wizard or witch. She saw it within Bellatrix, too. She saw it in everyone she’d gone to school with who had joined the Dark Lord’s cause - not just the ones who were clearly under enchantment, but even those who joined of their own free will.
Lucius was still asleep when she returned to her bed, and she wasn’t sure whether she felt thankful for that or resentful. She hadn’t seen him in so long, she wanted to hear about all the things going on, but he also needed his rest. She looked him over, the way his face was relaxed and there wasn’t a worry in the world present. Merlin, did she wish that was his permanent state. But of course, their lives were destined for something else entirely.
Narcissa took off his bloodied robes, she would have the house elves take care of cleaning them in the morning, and then she herself took off the dressing gown and slid under the covers next to her husband. She held his hand in hers, resting on his chest, and closed her eyes. Before she finally fell asleep, she prayed to anyone who would listen that maybe the mayhem and misery would stop soon, that she could have her husband home again, that they could work on raising a family. Hopeful, she drifted off into another world entirely.