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Roses are red, violets are blue, Narcissa Black loves Lucius, and Lucius loves her too.
"You shouldn’t leave the castle without your cloak." Lucius' softened tones fell over Narcissa, stopping her in her tracks.
"Lucius, you started me." Narcissa blushed demurely at him. Her fiancé leaned over her back, placing a cloak around her shoulders. The fabric was a thick velvet in a shade of blush, trimmed in white sable fur. Lucius likely commissioned it as a part of her trousseau.
"It's freezing. You shouldn't leave in such light wear." He twisted her palm under his fingers, placing a gentle kiss above her knuckles.
"Thank you, Lucius." She nodded, wrapping the garment tighter.
Narcissa had donned a walking dress her mother sent weeks prior. It hung off her body, where it should have clung teasingly, a size too big for her gaunt figure. She thanked the seasons she currently navigated, knowing she couldn’t hide in a warm Scottish summer.
Escaping the tunnels of Slytherin but moments before, she navigated her way to their favorite spot in the castle. Past the transfiguration classrooms and up the staircase that led to the Great Hall, she’d found herself between the astronomy tower and her destination. Now gently swaying her way, fiancé at her back, she led them in the familiar path southward along the castle parapets to the East Ward Viaduct bridge.
Narcissa adored this open view of the grounds. The towering ramparts blocked most of the high winds midwinter, while providing shade along the bridge during the heat of summer. In high spring it twisted with blooms of climbing roses in various shades of flora. The heat from the Hufflepuff dormitories and kitchens below always kept this area of the castle warm.
Warmth was a luxury for a Slytherin, any time of year.
Narcissa waited patiently as Lucius pushed open the heavy oak doors to the outside. Winds wiped along the towers rolling up the bridge. Lucius cast warming charms with frivolous flicks of his dark wood wand, the heirloom of his namesake passed to his hands with coming of age.
Wand and cane.
The polished snake handle, gleaming. Narcissa smiled, memories of the unruly boy she knew. His vinewood with unicorn hair core meant for mischief in the corridors. His hair cropped short, stormy eyes filled with laughter. A chaos that only a boy on the cusp of entering puberty can have.
She remembered the exact moment she fell in love with him. Lucius lips tilted up into a grin, teeth flashing under his long mouth. Glinting grey eyes somehow smoked in the afternoon sun. Her heart bent on romantic walks with stolen kisses. The condescending voice of Bella whispered back at her now. Stealing the pleasure in the memories.
No vinewood wand now, no sweet kisses left to steal.
The bite of cold froze her lashes. She coveted the sting, sleet nipping along her face as she gulped in the bitter air. Ice pelted her frame, the pins and needle like feeling a respite.
Lucius stood behind her, not quite caging her but enough that she felt the warmth of him. From the moment she stepped out of the carriage that took her to Hogwarts, her betrothal agreement iron clad and wrestled over by the two family patriarchs, Lucius Malfoy was the ever present gentleman. A man that she knew would hold his own in the world shaping around her. She had to believe. In him, and them.
The explosive fighting between her sisters came to head this hols. The families of Black held court with dangerous alliances that had never been openly pursued in the past. The changes Narcissa witnessed in the dark alcoves of her home made her stomach roll. Catching Bella tangled with the Lestrange siblings.
Her brain whirled, trying to untangle her thoughts. Images of offices her mother had taken her to. Men coming and going at all hours to her father's study. The gleaming eyes of a man at her aunt's house. Andromeda had left that night, gone. Cousins vanishing, no explanations.
It had emptied her.
How she yearned to engage with Andromeda. A letter. A single secret sentence between sisters. A vial wrapped in cloth, exchanged. Three days was all it took. Lucius seeking advice from a younger student supplied her with pain potions. Narcissa clutched the letter close, taking the time to memorize the scrawling loops of her sister's hand.
No- Mrs. Tonks.
She had to disassociate, had to let go.
"Please, Lucius." Narcissa turned into her future, forcing the letter into his hands. Her hand wrapped his forearm, the burden branded on his flesh. The forcing of it at the hands of their fathers. No longer wide eyed and innocent. They hardened themselves as to what was to come.
“I beg of you." Lucius wiped his love's face. A man faced with difficult choices, could not bear the tears of his fiancé.
"Together only. Do not lose sight of us," Narcissa whispered. The wind wiped it from his hands, shredding it.
Lucius's hands curled, cupping her abdomen. Emptiness settling into both their hearts. The vial drank. Her womb bare. A necessary survival.
Narcissa clutched her hands gripping the long fingers of her soon to be husband. The aching loss of a child permeated her womb, leaving her empty. A reminder of the one that couldn’t be.
"Narcissa, my love, my life, my hope," Lucius murmured low into her hair. The eyes in the walls would see a man doting on his future. "One day we will fill our manor with children. However many you gift."
Narcissa could picture it. The warmth of rose gardens, wisteria blooming along every surface. She would throw open every window latch. So the Wiltshire house could be open to the air, cleansing it after each winter, like the old ways. Breathing life back into the walls.
"Us. Always us," Narcissa whispered. "We will plant a single rose bush. Every year in her honor."
The spattering of tears clung to her lashes. Now visions of the future she would aim to achieve formed in her head. One where old power hungry men didn't make choices with her life. Narcissa fought back the tears, swallowing them with all the well-bred manners forced upon her. Her brain whirled in plans, her emotions honing to a fierce drive building inside her.
Every year the garden would grow for the child that couldn't. She leaned over the stone barrier, her fingers grazing the winter dead vines. "Red roses."
"Of course, Cissa."
𓂃˖˳·˖ ִֶָ ⋆🌷͙⋆ ִֶָ˖·˳˖𓂃 ִֶָ
Narcissa perched on a gorgeous wrought iron bistro set tucked back along the formal gardens of her home. The shade of the gazebo on the East side was the first of her gardens she worked to bring back. Her tea cup warmed her hands, even as dirt sat under her nails, bringing a smile to her face. She was engulfed by the rich reds of her climbing roses. Fat blooms everywhere tangled in green foliage. The rose hedges ran the length of the garden, less formal but still lovingly curated. Narcissa breathed deeply, taking the scent into her lungs.
"Cissa, darling." Lucius placed her shawl around her shoulders. The material warmed as the charms imbued in the pashmina worked against the early morning chill. "You'll catch a chill out here."
The cane Lucius used to walk now was just that, he lowered himself beside her. Pain in his left leg still ached after taking a vicious curse during the war.
"Happy Valentine's Day." He reached into his cloak, a slim box from the inner pocket. A pleased smile stretched across his face, as she accusingly narrowed her eyes at him.
"Come now, you think I wouldn't take this chance to dote upon you, love?"
"A muggle holiday, really?" Narcissa laughed at him when his smile changed to a scowl and an eye roll. "The ancestors are rolling within the mausoleum, Lucius."
Narcissa opened the box to reveal a bracelet with a single delicate rose charm, the cathedral setting holding a single radiant ruby. Reaching forward, she clasped Lucius's hand. The two held fast to each other as they breathed in the roses around them. Both watched their now adult son, the only child they had been blessed with, playing in the fountain with his own child.
"Us. Always Us," Narcissa whispered.