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The scent of tea and faint clatter of fine china laden with scones and clotted cream gave Narcissa more than a slight sense of nostalgia. So, too, did the young adults in the room, two blonde heads tilting toward each other as much as their stiff postures allowed.
That had been her and Lucius once, settled at an exquisite table for tea while they and their families went about the familiar rituals of an arrangement, a courtship following almost after the fact.
Morgana help her, had she been so young then? The pair before her were barely twenty and nineteen - a fairly common age for an arrangement. Narcissa had been even younger now that she thought on it, though the haste had been due to extenuating circumstances - namely her elder sister’s unfortunate elopement right out from under both their parents and the Malfoys’ noses.
Narcissa had known she’d been a disappointment then, the quiet sister, a younger watered down version of a proper Black witch, too much Rosier in her, or so her relatives had always said when comparing her to her older more striking sisters. She was not Andromeda, polished and witty and considered oh so perfect in her deportment until her final betrayal; nor was she Bellatrix, that wild, vivacious, vicious creature that inspired lust and fear all at once.
Narcissa was simply herself, elegant enough, intelligent enough, demure enough. But never more than, never exceptional, as her family and that of her betrothed both made clear.
Lucius had perhaps not been displeased as such, but he was still... dispassionate. That was the word she was searching for. Dispassionate and too uninterested to be actively unimpressed.
The Black alliance had been Abraxas Malfoy’s particular desire, not his heir’s.
She might have preferred outright disgust over that painful disinterest.
Ignoring the hurt that thought caused her as she had for the years of her marriage, Narcissa delicately nibbled on a petit fours and eyed the young witch sitting across from her, feeling a kinship for the quiet girl.
She, too, was a disappointment to a Lord Malfoy.
Lucius had insisted on the elder Greengrass girl for this union, had demanded a proper Slytherin Heiress for his only child’s bride instead of a mere Ravenclaw of a second born daughter. Narcissa had known better: the Greengrasses, so carefully neutral during both wars and holding firmly to their status as members of respectable society, could hardly be expected to offer up their Heiress to a House that had not once but twice been associated with the Dark Lord and now had been irrevocably tainted by the incarceration of the Head of the family. That they would agree to even consider an arrangement was the next thing to a miracle, and refusing the younger Miss Greengrass would have been a horrible insult the likes of which would have near guaranteed Draco would struggle to align with any pureblood House at all!
There was no convincing Lucius of this inescapable truth, however. He’d all but raged at Narcissa in his letters - he was only allowed to write to her and Draco from Azkaban and his son no longer opened any of his - ordering her to arrange things according to his will or else.
She hadn’t bothered to ask “Or else what, exactly?”
Narcissa wasn’t bothering to ask her husband much of anything of late. She’d been dutiful for so long. Had done her best to mold herself into a proper wife and hostess and mother, presenting her husband and their son in the very best of lights no matter what she might actually feel at any given time. Lucius had been… fond of her, in his own way, she supposed. She’d never been struck or cursed; he’d even been faithful, outside of course for those instances of what he claimed were necessary infractions during the Dark Lord’s revels. It was not done to abstain when his Lord commanded, after all.
Yes, he’d been faithful to a point, but never loyal, she realized. Never to her. She and the son she’d born had never been first on Lucius’s list of priorities, not even when they’d thought the Dark Lord vanquished those several years.
And he’d never loved her.
She’d thought he had once, that he had grown to love her in the early days of their marriage when they were busily at work with the business of begetting an Heir for their House. He’d been attentive, even affectionate, and he’d been so proud the day Draco was born. Narcissa thought – she had been so sure – but it hardly mattered what she thought. Lucius had clarified the issue after Draco’s birth when he refrained from visiting her bed again with anything like the same kind of enthusiasm. He had his son – an Heiress was for lesser Houses in his mind – and while a spare would not have been unwelcome, he hardly felt it necessary. Not when his first born was strong enough to carry the weight of the House’s future on his shoulders, or so Lucius stated adamantly.
His little shoulders. They were wider now, stronger. Strong enough to bear the weight of all they had lived through, she and her precious son.
She had regrets – of course she did – that he’d had to live through it at all, that she’d been unable to keep her husband from sacrificing them both at the altar of his Dark Lord.
But they’d survived it, hadn’t they? They’d even outlived the vicious bastard and remained free while his servant now languished in Azkaban. It was a terrible fate, even now with its merely human guards. Narcissa had thought she might try to win his freedom at one point, early in the trial, but as he’d condescended and showboated and scorned and belittled every single advocate she’d hired for him, and her and Draco as well when they tried to urge him to accept the representation… Well. There was only so much she could do against his stubborn Malfoy pride. She had known better than to refuse her solicitor’s advice and instructions, and she’d convinced Draco to do the same, not that he’d needed much convincing. Not after everything.
Malfoy though her son might be, he was not so stubborn as to ignore the lessons life had set before him.
Even those his parents’ marriage had taught him, though it broke her heart to know she had a part in teaching him thusly.
But it was worth it, Narcissa reminded herself, murmuring inanities to Lady Amandine Greengrass’s equally inane questions as they both played at making small talk while their focus remained on their children. It was worth it, for even the vaguest chance that Draco might be growing into the man she always thought he could be, both as a Lord and as a husband.
Morgana, even now, so early in the courtship, her son was so focused on his likely bride-to-be, giving her his attention like an offering she deserved simply for being herself, for being Astoria.
Did Lucius ever truly listen to Narcissa the way Draco listened to Miss Greengrass now? No, Narcissa knew, he never had.
So be it. Lucius’s hold on her was all but shattered the moment she lied to the Dark Lord, and it would weaken further still as the years went by with him forever behind bars. Her life was too short to mourn his indifference any longer.
Soon, she knew, Draco would petition the Wizengamot for his father’s Lordship, and, with luck and all the political currency Narcissa could beg, barter, or steal, it would be granted. Soon after, she thought, she would ask her son for his help in dissolving her marriage, in retaking her maiden name in hopes of remaking its reputation into something to be proud of, instead of lying dormant but for the shaky heirship left ignored by one Harry Potter. Soon, too, she hoped, there would be a wedding between the two young hearts at the table, both still shining so brightly despite the darkness they had lived through.
Soon, Merlin bless them all soon, she hoped, there might be children. And Narcissa knew her son would be a better father than Lucius just as she was sure he would be a better husband, and indeed a better man in all ways.
Narcissa swore upon her magic she would be a better grandmother than she had been a mother, and that she would do her best to be better for Draco now, too. To be a mother-in-law that Astoria could respect and trust to love and guide her as a daughter of her heart.
Lucius couldn’t stop her any longer. It was time to make her own arrangements for her life.