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Narcissa had always known that she was born not of love, but of purpose; of desperation. She had been her father's last hope for a son, and she thinks that he hated her most of all just because she wasn't. Or maybe it was because she looked so much like her mother. She never really bothered to ask. The noble and ancient house of black was one of noose-tight rules wrapped around her throat, and expectations that never had to be said, it was just known.
Narcissa had always known that she was never truly her own.
When she was a girl, she was dressed up, prim and proper. She was paraded around with her sisters and cousins, cooed at by older relatives on what a lovely wife she would make. The old women would regard her with judgemental eyes when they saw her, picking her apart. Narcissa watched each time as that judgement turned to jealousy when they saw that she had a chance at everything they wanted.
It made her want to scream.
But she never did. She was the perfect mask of stoic compliance. Always a delight to be around. Always calm. Always silent. Always trapped.
Narcissa had dreamed, once, when she was young and still far too foolish, that she would be whisked off her feet and carried away to somewhere safe and loving. Somewhere that was warm in all the ways her heart had ached to learn. But then she had grown up, and her heroes turned their backs to her, and left her stranded in the hell the Black family had created for themselves.
She had grown up, and far too quickly, had it led her to where she was now, laying in a bed that felt like a cage, next to a husband she did not love, and who certainly did not love her. When her marriage had been finalised and she had officially become a Malfoy, she remembered not feeling much of anything. Her world hadn't changed, it had only varied in location. The cold walls of her father's manor traded for those of the Malfoy's.
When Narcissa deemed sleep as something unattainable that night, she sighed quietly, carefully standing from her bed and making her way down to the one place where she felt she could breath: the gardens.
Now, it was true, that the entire thing was still rather grim...or perhaps just sad. There really was no other way to put it. The bushes were neat and proper and perfectly maintained, all the flowers white. Row upon row upon row. A colour of purity. Though, if you asked Narcissa, she thought it looked as if all the life had been drained from the poor things. And in the night, where the colours muted to shades of grey, it looked nothing short of a graveyard in her eyes.
But she always found herself drawn to it, nevertheless.
She found her way to an iron-wrought bench, sitting down in front of a patch of daffodils.
"I would plant you a feild full, just to see you smile, love."
The flowers didn't make her smile. They made her ache. They made something deep and ugly and festering inside her cry out, because these flowers hadn't been planted with love. There had been no care put into them. The flowers were tended by the gardeners that came and went.
Narcissa wished they would all wither.
But alas, the flowers did nothing, no matter how long she stared and silently pleaded.
She should be used to it by now. Life had never been hers. No, she had only ever been foolish enough to think it had been.
Like all foolish things that came in life, she had been young. Young and not so hardened by life. Young and desperate for someone to care. And Alice? Oh, Alice had been just as young and foolish, she supposed, but so much kinder than Narcissa. Alice had been a steady light, sweet and soft and loving. She had been everything Narcissa knew she couldn't dream of having. But she had, for a while. The two had each other, silently and through stolen glances, stolen moments, stolen kisses, stolen time.
Narcissa had held her like light in her hands, glowing faintly through the gaps between her fingers. The kind of light that made you stare and smile.
The kind of light that was gone too quick.
"Alice, please, don't make me choose between having you or my family," she had begged. Oh, she had pleaded.
"Did I ever really have you?"
Narcissa has since learned that if she wanted something in life, she had to take it. Begging would leave her with nothing but bruised knees and lost hope. It had been that night that still left her sore, the memory of Alice leaving. The knowledge that she could have chased her, agreed to her ridiculous plans of running away and tasted freedom.
But she hadn't, and even now, Narcissa could still feel the ache, if she pressed her fingers into the bruise Alice had left—tucked away and hidden in her heart, like a secret, or something sacred for her.
It was.
It was.
It was a shame, that life had very little sympathy for humanity's self-made holiness.
So that night, when Narcissa could no longer stay numb to the cold, she crept back into the house, back through the halls that held a different kind of chill, and back to bed. She thought of Alice, and of the man next to her, and of the baby sleeping just a few doors down. She thought until her heart was begging her to stop, because it simply couldn't take anymore.
And when the morning came, and she woke up to an empty bed, she could close her eyes and pretend for a few moments. Because the truth was that she had once been foolish enough to believe her dreams, but even now that she had grown, couldn't quite stop herself from dreaming, no matter how hopeless she knew they were.