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“Does Lily look upset to you?” Severus says. He is boring holes into Lily Evans, who is delicately nibbling on her toast, thin lines creasing her forehead.
Narcissa does not care if Lily is upset. There are dress robes to be ordered for the upcoming holiday banquets, a Charms assignment due later that day that she has yet to complete, and the dreaded post. There is more to life than Lily Evans.
Reluctantly, she offers the girl a cursory glance, seeing the sullen blankness of her face.
Odd.
Lucius resolutely doesn’t look from behind The Daily Prophet. “Potter has been declaring his undying love for her in artistically more nauseating forms since first year. I’d be upset too – or at least perturbed.” His tongue rolls over the words, painting them with insult like the aristocrat he was. He flips the page, and glances at Severus and then at Lily. In the end he lingers on Severus, a moment too long, but discreet enough no one notices – unless they are Narcissa. She has been watching this dance for too many years.
Narcissa takes pity on him. “Your hair looks…smashing, Lucius,” she lies through her teeth. "Very much on....character."
It looks awful and she’s been avoiding looking at it all of breakfast. From the corner of her eye, a second year a few seats down inhales sharply as he overhears her compliment.
“What do you think Severus?” she presses.
Severus dazedly glances over and blanches, as if he were seeing it for the first time despite sleeping in the same room as Lucius.
“It’s wretched.” He eyes the cropped, tousled blonde hair, peeking over the tops of Lucius' newspaper. His lips curled into a sneer. “I don’t know why you insisted on having Mulciber cut it.”
So he had noticed.
The second year from before looks gratified, releasing the breath he has been holding. He glares at the monstrosity on top of Lucius’ head murderously. It was an embarrassment to Slytherins all around. Narcissa finds the exchange amusing, refocusing her concentration on her unfinished Charms homework.
“It’s in fashion,” Lucius insists with no heat, a shy flush creeping over his sallow skin, and still hiding behind the Prophet. Good for him.
Severus scowled. “You looked less pitiful with longer hair.”
“I don’t remember asking for your opinion, Severus,” he snapped, no bite to his words, harshly turning the page. Narcissa catches an advertisement for Madam Wilkins’s Devilish Desires perfume and contemplates adding it to her list of purchases.
Severus presses his lips into a thin line. “You should have. I could have saved you from looking like a tragedy.” He narrows his eyes at the shortened hair. “Did Mulciber use a butter knife? It looks like a rat's nest.” The blonde ends were wispy and raggedly, a contrast to the typical stern lines of Lucius' tresses.
Lucius purses his lips, his vanity clouding his fashion forward choices.
“At least mine doesn’t look like Filch’s mop!” he hisses. “Yours looks like it's never even seen a wand!”
Severus grits his teeth, eyes flashing and darkening at all once. “Narcissa--”
“I've been trying to convince the house elves to cut it in your sleep, but they kept crying you’d hex them and cut them up into your potions,” she drawls, still occupied by her homework.
His hair now sweeps the tops of his shoulders, jagged and uneven, with a stringy greasy appeal. Narcissa is reconsidering their friendship.
“It’s because he has,” Lucius interjects.
Narcissa quirks an eyebrow at Severus, who clarifies, "Hexed them. Not exterminated."
"Just a matter of time," Lucius' murmurs darkly, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Narcissa ignores Lucius' pointedly. “I did, however, take the liberty to switch out your shampoo. It doesn't bode well for the house's image if one of our looks unkept.”
Severus’ glower deepens. “Fine – after class, take care of it.” He barks at Lucius and sinks his anger into an apple from their breakfast spread. Lucius scowls but there is a pleased glint in his eyes.
Narcissa resists the urge to roll hers, focusing on question four: the charm to repel water and its magical theory.
The sounds of beating wings and low hoots pull her attention to the opened windows that line the Great Hall. A swarm of owls come fluttering by, and Narcissa prays to Merlin that today will be a no post day. She almost gets her wish, and just when the last flock of owls are leaving and she is ready to delve into relieved elation, a brown owl with yellow eyes drops a bloody package before her.
She wants to scream. Silently.
Lucius is delighted, the newspaper shuffled to the side and forgotten. “What is it this time, dear?” he says with sickening glee, and she contemplates throwing her inkwell at his poncy face.
“I don’t intend on finding out.” She readies her wand to vanish it when a letter flutters up from the parcel and unfurls into a swan. A serenading swan. Complete with a storyline where it flutters in the air and music.
Dear Merlin. She internally groans.
The swan passionately delivers its sonnet, catching the attention of the remainder of the Slytherin table. Slytherins do not make a public display of guffawing at the misery of their housemates, unlike the Neanderthals in Gryffindor, but there are smirks and haughty faces that do the same.
Severus and Lucius continue on as if it is commonplace for her to be receiving singing paper swans and parcels, which she loaths to admit it is, but there are glimpses of joy in their eyes.
“Keats,” Severus intones, crunching into his apple.
Lucius appears impressed. “One of his more classic poems. Very tasteful. At least Regulus is more refined than his brother.”
“He’s my cousin,” Narcissa says, distressed.
“All the better,” Lucius insists.
“I would have personally gone with Edgar Allan Poe’s morbid poem, Annabel Lee.”
“It sounds charming. Will you perform it for me?”
Narcissa almost rewards Lucius with an impressed eyebrow at the lack of eager hope in his voice.
“I’ll recite it for you tonight, with the moonlight highlighting the wickedness in your eyes,” Snape deadpans.
“Severus, you beast! What will the others think?” Lucius says with cool indifference and sips his tea.
Narcissa knows exactly what Lucius thinks of Severus reciting him poetry.
“I think they are still trying to determine what inspired you to hack off your hair.”
Narcissa doesn’t really care for Lucius’ hair or the singing swan in front of her, and it is only the fear of retribution and her well-mannered upbringing that keep her from setting Lucius’ hair aflame alongside her post. She sees Regulus from the corner of her eye, and though he does not appear outwardly bothered, there is a line of disappointment etched into his shoulders as the flames lick away at her parcel and the screeching burning swan. Someone should write a poem about the paper swan’s burning grief. They finally crumble into black ash and Narcissa returns her attention to her homework.
The second-year is openly looking at her in horror, and Avery sigh deeply from next to them, spelling away the aftermath of Narcissa’s demure rage.
“And that, is why we do not fuck with the women of Slytherin,” he gravely informs the second year, who is nodding along in understanding, mouth still parted open.
Lucius offers her low clipped applause. “Well done, Narcissa. You always had a way with pyrokinetic spells.”
He turns to Severus. “She set my peacocks on fire for opening their feathers during her grand entrance at my birthday ball over the summer hols.”
The corner of Severus’ lips curl up into a half moon. “So I’ve heard. Bellatrix was quite disappointed you didn’t include her in the roasting,” he directs at Narcissa.
She hums thoughtfully and skips question four on her parchment.
A cry of admonishment reaches their ears. There’s commotion brewing over at the Gryffindor table, Sirius Black egging it on while James Potter cheers in camaraderie with his housemates, and Lily, whose face is still solemn, hastily collects her things and escapes the Great Hall in the mess.
“I’ll see you in Charms.” Severus abandons his apple and hurriedly follows the young woman out of the Great Hall.
Narcissa counts to five before Lucius’ water glass shatters, dousing Mulciber, who is falling asleep on his pancakes. He’s wide awake now and dripping wet.
“Impervius,” Narcissa recalls, and scratches it down onto her parchment.
There’s a beat of silence, aside from Mulciber’s dangerously calm interrogation of who had hexed him, before Narcissa cuts in, “Your hair, Lucius? Your pining has become ludicrous. Your father would be appalled.”
Truthfully his father would be screaming imposter because no Malfoy would ever dare to disgrace their pureblood ancestry and taint thy hair.
Lucius clenches his jaw. “Malfoys do not pine, Black,” he says pointedly
Narcissa looks up through her lashes, and sees a waterfall of long tendrils cascading down Lucius’ back.
“Your glamor is wearing off.”
She had known it was a glamour all along. Malfoys are as religious about their hair as they are about their peacocks.
Lucius emits a low growl of frustration, gracefully collecting himself from the table.
“Perhaps next time you should glamour your hair red.”
She blocks the hex with ease and it goes soaring towards Regulus who looks up at the flash of pink smoke and is left with a duck bill and feathered shoulders. He squawks indignantly.
Narcissa smiles faintly and wisely does not look up from her homework.
Severus doesn’t have a chance with Lily. And so long as Lily is within Severus’s eyesight, Lucius will never with Severus. Unrequited love is ever so…lonely. Narcissa is quite familiar with it herself.
And despite the fact she still has not answered questions 3 or 7, the only thing whirling around in her thoughts is who has dragged the somber moon across Lily’s face.
When Narcissa comes to Hogwarts the whole school is eating out of Lily’s palm. There’s Potter, her shameless cousin, Severus, and Merlin help them all even Lucius who watches her like a hawk, waiting for her to swoop in to take what’s his so he can fend her off.
Lily is already in her head before she even has a chance to meet the girl. When they do eventually meet, Narcissa is nonplussed as Lily has exceeded her expectations in being both dull and blindingly plain. She also finds the clashing colors of the girl’s hair and house colors to be revolting. Lily Evans is just another Gryffindor - as fascinating as dung beetles.
She doesn’t get the chance to see Lily as everyone else does until Quidditch tryouts. There are a few spectators scattered across the stands from all houses. Out of the corner of her eyes Narcissa sees Lily and a group of her friends sitting amongst the crowd.
The Slytherin team is in the middle of a practice drill with a new beater. Technically Narcissa is not needed for this training exercise, as she’s the Seeker and they fly on their own, but she enjoys being in the sky and the hum of anticipation under her skin when the Snitch is released.
She’s too busy looking for it when their potential beater accidentally sends a Bludger flying into her broom. It bustles past the bristles and sends her spinning out of control. She curls up on her broom, trying to steady herself when she hears a groan and the sound of more thrashing and breaking wood. She turns in time to see the Bludger has torn through the Ravenclaw stands and is hurtling back toward her at alarming speed - too quick for her to escape.
Fuck.
She braces for impact, tucking her head behind her shoulder, already calculating the number of broken bones she’s going to need repaired and the days she’ll be stuck in the infirmary recovering, when a clear voice rings out, “Daracks!”
There’s a pause, and then a deafening plummet of stone smashing to the ground.
Narcissa immediately looks up and sees the Bludger that had been coming toward her innocently sitting on the ground, her teammates all watching her with bated breath as they realize how close they had come to losing her for the season.
Standing just a ways off from the Bludger is Lily Evans, wand pointed at the Bludger and eyes wide in alarm.
Narcissa clenches her jaw, rage bubbling to the surface as she flies toward the Gryffindor, neatly dismounting from her broom before her feet are even able to touch the ground.
“Spectators are not allowed to use magic during Quidditch games. It’s a punishable offense,” she starts dangerously.
Lily's mouth falls open. "I stopped a Bludger from bludgeoning you over the head. I hardly did anything that could be considered offensive.”
“You could have been trying to sever my head for all I know. You Gryffindor snots are all the same,” she sneered.
“The only thing I did was save you from a month long stay in the infirmary, Black!” There’s a wild look in Lily’s eyes as she gets in Narcissa’s face. “You could have been killed!”
“Aww little lion, didn’t know that you cared.” Narcissa’s voice is sickening sweet and distrustful.
“Of course I care! Are you even listening to me?! YOU COULD HAVE DIED!”
“You’re being melodramatic, Evans,” Narcissa refutes. “The worst that would have happened is I would have broken a few bones and had a mild concussion. That’s no cause for you to be pulling out your want in the middle of our tryouts!”
Lily’s lower lip quivers and a pinched look crosses her face. “This game is barbaric! The headmaster--” Her rant falls on deaf ears.
Narcissa is surprised - not because Lily had saved her, but because she cared.
Lily’s melancholy stretches over the next few weeks. There is a blanket of faded sunlight and gray skies that wrapped around her. She’s quiet in classes, aloof and distracted. She grazes during meals, tiny bites and always not enough. She’s usually always surrounded by her friends. Now, it’s just her saddened eyes that keep her company.
Narcissa doesn’t understand the onslaught of depression that encompasses Lily. Lily has always been radiant. Even as a Gryffindor and as a Muggleborn, no less, she continues to penetrate all four Houses. Lily is everywhere – her name perfumed into a breeze. Narcissa does not understand how a girl like Lily Evans could ever fall into mourning.
She also doesn’t know when she started noticing Lily Evans.
Somehow, with Lily’s decline, the sun has been chased away from Narcissa’s mind, and she is subjected to darkened days. Lily has her on the edge, clinging onto her for dear life as she hovers over the impending doom beneath it. She is the light in all of the darkness. Lily is more than just blood and bones. She is magic alive and not just living. And she can’t stop looking.
Narcissa does not think that justifies her watching Lily.
However, Lily does eventually find solitude in Severus, to whom she has not given the light of day in over a year. Of course the foolish boy goes to her, drawn to her faded light like a confused fairy drawn to candlelight. He carries her books, their chatter is cloaked in the nights – as if their Houses haven’t noticed, he gracefully accepts the vile hexes thrown by Potter and his crew, and even takes his pranks with a regal air that he must have learned from Lucius. All because Lily Evans gives him a shard of her life.
Narcissa hates that she knows how to read Lily.
Lucius is of course not pleased. There is a feral light in his eyes and there is a too wand-happy twitch that doesn’t go amiss. She’s seen it in Bellatrix. She’s even seen it in herself. But it has never before surfaced in Lucius.
“Mulciber is beginning to notice,” she murmurs softly as she passes him in Potions. The twitch subsides and Lucius viciously rips into his Potions text.
Lucius has taken great care to keep his feelings for Severus hidden under lock and key. His father would not approve of a Half-blood watering down their Pureblood status. Had it not been for Severus’ potential his father would have forced Lucius to cast aside their friendship.
Narcissa floats to an empty workbench and prepares for the lesson. Moments before class, another pair of students slip in next to her, and she’s startled to see Lily’s tentative sweet smile.
“Hello, Narcissa.”
She swallows thickly. She’s never been so close to the sun – close enough to touch it. To taste it.
“Evans,” she returns confidently.
Whatever uncertainty that was wavering over Lily evaporates, and Narcissa is offered the full intensity of her brilliance. The rest of the lesson she basks in the rays, potion left to Severus as Lily reads aloud the instructions, occasionally pausing to ask Narcissa her opinion.
She mulls over the memory and the warmth for days after.
Narcissa doesn’t give herself a chance to back away and wonder what it would mean to fly so close to the sun. Later on Severus mentions if she had bothered to read Muggle mythology, she would have learned from Icarus’s mistake. She only scoffed and waved away the Muggle drivel.
It is a random evening and she is searching for Severus for his assistance on a Potions essay that she is burned.
She has found Severus. And she has found Lily.
There is a whistle of robes as Lucius, who had followed along to demand Severus write his essay, angrily retreats. His footsteps echo behind her, diffusing through her ears to heart – telling her to leave.
This is what she gets for playing with the sun.
But she stares, transfixed and burning, as Lily kisses Severus.
If Lucius was ever worried of Mulciber, he certainly isn’t any more. The common room is in shambles – shattered porcelain, ashen flame marks marring the walls, and the entire House watching him with fear and interest as he destroys their home.
For Lucius, Lily will always be a shroud of darkness taking from him the thing he has never known he needed. Like Severus’ heart. He will never see Lily as anything less than a dagger that bleeds his heart and dragged its silver edge into Severus.
After tonight, Narcissa sees her as the same.
Lucius raises his wand, intent on sending another hex at a sobbing portrait. She deflects it easily, and alarmed he turns to her, his lips curling into a nasty sneer.
He sends another.
She blocks it with ease, like they’re playing a game and he isn’t actually trying to hurt her.
He’s advancing on her, a flurry of hexes flying toward her.
She deflects them all and they bounce off Lucius’ shields.
When he’s before her he’s breathing so deeply she can see the rise and fall of his chest. When she quiets the storm in her head she can hear her own ragged breath. Lucius’ eyes are cutting into her, devouring her.
The crushing kiss is inevitable. Narcissa puts all of Lily Evans into it, because someone deserves to have her if not Lily.
She tastes like ash she thinks, and the portrait door swings open. Lucius recoils and Severus looks at them, haunted by what he has witnessed.
Lucius clenches his jaw, and grips her by her neck; his mouth is on her again.
This time she’s not sure if the bruising kiss is meant for her or Severus.
They’re in Potions again, but this time Severus is not there to serve as their buffer and the tension is so thick their housemates have left two empty rows of workbenches between them.
Narcissa flips to the next page of her Potions text, tasting the ash on the tip of her tongue. “You won’t find what you’re looking for in Severus.”
Lily stares at her in surprise, eyes narrowing as an afterthought. “Severus is my friend--”
Contrary to popular belief, Narcissa is good at Potions. She grabs for the Jobberknoll feathers and holds them over the cauldron as if she were holding her own ashes over the flames.
She stares at Lily icily and says, “He’s your friend.”
She releases the feathers and the cauldron bubbles warningly. Lily doesn’t notice – she’s still staring at Narcissa, realization awakening in her eyes. The potion explodes and Narcissa doesn’t mind that she has damaged her lavish Yeti wool cloak.
She can always order another.
Lucius comes to her after her nightly fly around the Quidditch pitch. He reaches for her, reeking of desperation and despair. She stops him firmly with her wand, the wood digging into his jugular.
“I will not be making the same mistake again,” she informs him darkly.
He’s too proud to be cowed and Narcissa can see the defiance in his eyes. She walks away but keeps her wand at the ready for Lucius’ impending hex.
She is jealous, and jealous of Lucius of all people.
Lucius has always been the sort of monster that resorted to curses and hexes to alleviate the source of his reign of terror. With Severus, he throws punches, draws blood, and screams his passion into spiteful words that he throws at his lost love.
And without Narcissa to relieve his animosity, he decels into an animalistic spirit that claws into Severus and won’t let him walk away.
Narcissa has never had the courage to love something so deeply and to hold onto it.
She purses her lips and ignores the two troubled boys rolling around on the common room floor throwing punches.
It’s a Hogsmeade weekend, and she’s ambling through the town, pockets lined with purchases, when she sees the store. She considers it briefly then walks past it. She reaches the end of the block before she hesitates, spins on her heel, and marches into the store.
Soft blushing warmth enthralls Narcissa’s senses, and she’s accosted by visions of plums, delicate blues, daring buttercups – it’s a sight to behold. There are darker, vengeful blooms tucked away to one side. Narcissa has always been fond of flowers. The rose garden at her manor was designed for her. She fingers the stem of a puckering violet when the thought comes to her.
She weaves through the rows once more, looking at them with new eyes.
She finally finds what she is looking for, tucked between an Angel’s Trumpet that wouldn’t stop trumpeting and Sneezewarts. They’re short and cropped. They look nasty and not at all kind.
“Is there something I can help you find, Miss Black?” The shopkeeper creeps up behind her. All of Hosgmeade recognizes the Blacks.
“Do you have any more of these that look less... dismal?” she says after a pause.
He furrows his bushy eyebrows. “I’m afraid those are all I have in stock. And they’re the top of the crop,” he adds.
She snarls, “You think these are the best?”
He cowers and hastily explains, “Well no, but yes they are--”
Narcissa is disappointed and stares at them again, before another thought comes to her.
“Can you order more bouquets?” she cuts off his excuses.
He looks faintly confused and curious. “O-of course, absolutely. W-would another bouquet of –” he stammers.
“No,” Narcissa cuts him off again and this time grimaces as she explains. “I will be needing one from a Muggle shop.” She shudders as she says it, the words dripping from her voice like acid.
He promises to deliver it within a week. She threatens him into sending it in three days. She receives it by post, before the sun has come up, and painstakingly wraps it with attractive tissue paper and ribbon that she has stolen from a second year.
When it’s ready she hands it to her owl who stares at it as if he is deeply offended. She gives him a firm look and he reluctantly accepts it with one clawed foot, keeping it from him at a distance.
Boys. She thinks.
Breakfast is a quiet affair. Lucius and Severus are still warring and the house is uncomfortably confused. Lucius is sporting an angry purple welt on his cheek, showcasing his trophy despite having a wand to chase it away, and Severus has scraped by with barely a smudge on his alabaster skin.
The post comes fluttering in, and for once, Narcissa feels nervous butterflies fluttering in her stomach. A familiar brown owl drops an offensive package before her and zooms off. Narcissa searches for her owl and when she sees him, he is slowly dropping the package before Lily. The Gryffindor is startled, a change from her usual look of sorrow, and looks at the package in confusion. She hesitantly touches it and the package grows and morphs into a lush bouquet of petunias.
Her mouth drops open and she looks up, unexpectedly locking eyes with Narcissa who hasn’t looked away like she promised herself.
A moment of awed understanding passes between them and then a rush of relief.
Narcissa resolutely looks away and pushes away from the table.
She’s flying in loopy circles, try to console her erratic heart. When she glances down she sees the familiar green eyes sitting in the stands, watching her.
She sighs deeply and descends. She flies over to Lily, hovering over the benches.
There is so much she had wanted to say, threatening to spill out of her mouth, but at the sight of Lily it’s spelled away.
“You gave me petunias,” Lily says finally.
Narcissa’s demeanor softens. “Yes, I heard you were rather fond of petunias… like your sister.”
Lily searches her eyes looking for a Narcissa she might know.
“My sister and I were best friends growing up. It was her, and me, and Severus.” She paused, still looking at Narcissa, analyzing and cataloguing. “But you already knew that.”
“I know too much about you,” Narcissa admits.
Lily smile grows sad as she scans the Quidditch pitch. “I miss her. She used to write to me every week… It’s been two months since her last letter.” She turns her wistful eyes to Narcissa, curling in her lower lip, trying to keep herself together.
Narcissa knows this too, but she doesn’t say that she overheard Lily mentioning this to her roommates, or that Severus had rambled over their lifetime together before Hogwarts, or the lingering hopeful looks she gives her owl when it swoops in empty handed. Narcissa has figured out Lily forever ago and now they are just playing catch up.
“You won’t find what you’re missing in Severus.”
Lily grins, all traces of melancholy fading away. She reaches out and Narcissa stares in confusions as wraps her fingers around the air, and slowly peels it back to reveal a bouquet of daffodils.
“Is that an invisibility cloak?!”
Lily shrugs innocently. “I borrowed it from James. These, however--” She picks up the bouquet and presents them to Narcissa. “--are for you.”
Narcissa turns her astonished eyes to the pretty blooms and hesitantly takes them from Lily’s outstretched hands, thighs still clenched around her broom.
“What for?”
The resulting pretty pink flush of cheeks causes Narcissa to raise an inquisitive eyebrow.
“I think… I was just looking at the wrong person.” She looks Narcissa straight in the eye and breathes deeply before holding out her hand. “I’m Lily Evans.”
Narcissa looked her up and down, eyes finally settling on her elegant fingers.
“Seriously?”
Narcissa’s heart is beating madly and Lily’s smile falters.
“Evans, don’t be foolish,” the Slytherin mumbles, blushing, and decides that she won’t be outdone by Lucius Malfoy. She grips Lily’s hand and yanks her forward, her own face lowered so she can press her mouth to Lily’s.
Heat flares up between them and Narcissa is pleased to note that she no longer can taste ash - just Lily.