You sit in the kitchen, enjoying your breakfast of the day, which consists of a warm toast with an avocado spread. It's delicious, but a bit bland, or maybe it just feels like that because you're tired- you, Draco, and Delaney didn't get back home until 1 a.m. this morning. And Draco had to take her home.
It took a lot of motivation to get up and get ready. Today, you're wearing a plaid pink skirt and light pink top, with a small golden necklace and ring to match.
Taking a sip of some water, you hear Draco and Narcissa walking downstairs together- still without Lucius for some reason- and she seems to be happy about something- so is Draco. She's wearing a dark green dress that complements her eyes. "Morning," you say, and Narcissa gives you a quick nod, while Draco is acting a bit distracted. They are still giving each other some sort of look. "What are you two on about?" you ask, and Narcissa shrugs and smiles. You leave it at that, not sure if you should be asking, even though they are like your family-
You decide to forget about it. Draco leaves for a moment "to go piss," leaving you alone with Narcissa for a short time. "Darling," she says, with you looking directly at each other, "Would you like to bake some bread with me today? We will make the good kind." You smile, enlivened at an opportunity to spend some time with her. "Of course," you reply agreeably, and she gives a short smile. Usually Dobby would make it, or help make it, but somehow Harry Potter freed him- you don't know the whole story. It doesn't matter. It's more fun this way. She slowly walks into the pantry to get ingredients- her dress flows when she walks. It's gorgeous.
You catch yourself staring when you are suddenly interrupted with footsteps coming towards the kitchen; Draco is done and is coming back to get breakfast. You, however, are finished with breakfast, so you put the dishes in the sink, take out your wand, and wash them. Going to put the plate back into the pantry, you are with Narcissa again, and you watch her take out the flour, the yeast, the salt, the oil, the baking powder..
"Darling, do you need something?" she asks. "Oh, no, sorry," you respond and quickly put the plate in its place with your wand, making a quick exit as you aren't sure if she noticed your silent watching. Hoping it isn't awkward, you leave to sit with Draco.
"Morning," you say again, and he responds with the same word in a quiet, raspy voice. He's tired. He didn't get back until around 2 a.m. from taking Delaney home. A realization comes to you that what happened yesterday, your fight, actually happened; you had forgotten all about it. I hope he's not mad- I should be mad if anyone's mad.
Draco finished his toast quite quickly after that, but he always eats quickly so you don't think anything of it. He nods at you and goes upstairs. Why didn't we even talk? We talk for hours most of the time.. I'm sure he's just tired. I'm overthinking it.
Narcissa leaves the pantry with the ingredients and a recipe and comes up to you. "Y/n, ready?" You nod, you have never made bread before- but you know she's almost an expert with it. She hands you the recipe:
two tablespoons yeast
one cup warm water
one-third cup granulated sugar
one third cup canola oil
one egg
one and a half tablespoons salt
three and a quarter cups flour
She already has everything except the eggs and water. You summon a measuring cup to get the water and go to the silver sink, filling the measuring up with it. She already has the bowl, so you send the measuring cup to her carefully with a quick spell. She is mixing the dry ingredients together.
She finishes and starts playing some music on a small radio, but it's not like the normal music you listen to. You hear a beautiful piano playing in the background and you comment on it, saying, "That's beautiful." She nods, smiling, saying, "It really is." In that moment, there's nothing more that you want to do than dance with her to the music..
You summon another bowl for the eggs, and you walk to the fridge, back turned towards Narcissa, and you feel someone looking at you. You turn around and she seems to be looking.. below your back.. wait is she looking at my.. nevermind.. You continue searching for the eggs, trying to hold in your smile, because you really wouldn't mind her doing that.
You locate them and take one out. You crack it in the small bowl and use your wand to disintegrate the shell. As you take it back to Narcissa you begin to whisk the egg. It doesn't take long, you know you could probably be using more spells but that ruins a certain part of baking that the both of you love.
You check the recipe which is next to Narcissa, she is now reading it. "Narcissa?" you ask. She responds with "You can call me Cissy, darling, and what do you need?" "Oh, I just needed to know what I mix with this egg." She smiles and shows you the recipe. "You just mix it with the dough. I already let the yeast and water rise, I have a spell that makes it go faster. You know I don't like using many spells in baking, but they can be damn useful." You nod. "Would you like to mix the egg with the rest of the dough?"
You nod again, and pour the egg in, taking a spatula that is sitting next to the bowl and kneading them together with it. You know how to make bread in general, even though you have never made it before, so you sprinkle some flour on the counter and take out the dough, starting to knead, as she watches you.
It's quite simple, but can be a bit difficult as you get closer to being done, and you're struggling a little, so you make eye contact with Narcissa, making it obvious that you want her to give you a bit of help. She lightly touches your arm, signaling for you to move, so you do, and you watch her expertly knead the dough with her beautiful hands. She's done pretty quickly. "Darling, could you get me the bread pan from the pantry, please?" she asks you.
"Of course," you say, walking to the pantry and scanning the area for a bread pan. You find one, but it's on a high shelf, so you summon it and bring it back to Narcissa. "Thank you love," she says, carefully placing the bread into the pan. She realizes she forgot to preheat the oven. "Shit-" she says, annoyed, but only with herself. "I'm sor-" you start to say, but she cuts you off with a "It's not your fault, darling," and you accept that. She preheats the oven and she says, "Well, I guess we'll just have to wait now." It only takes about two minutes to preheat, you helped cast a charm on it one year so it could do that.
Narcissa looks at you and asks, "So, have you started dating anyone else yet?" You are startled for a second. She said "anyone else" because you dated Charlie Weasley for a year once. He would never break up with you, though. You broke up with him. At the point when you were getting close to breaking up, you were starting to think you didn't even like guys. He treated you nice, he was handsome, he had a great family, but you just didn't feel much.
"No," you respond. "It's not that I'm not over him," you quickly add, secretly wanting her to know that you are open to dating, "I just.. haven't found anyone." Narcissa smirks a bit, to the point where it's not very obvious, but you can see it. "I see," she responds quietly, and for a second you think she's about to add something to that, but at that moment you hear Draco come downstairs in a rush. "What's the rush, Draco?" asks Narcissa, clearly a bit confused at his abruptness. "Nothing," he says. "I need to go to Delaney's. Now." And with that, he runs out the door.
Narcissa is clearly confused, and so are you. She shrugs and the oven beeps. Taking the pan into her hands she puts it into the oven and sets a timer for thirty-four minutes. "Now what?" you ask, and she responds, "How about we go on that walk that we were going to go on the other day?"
You smile and nod, the two of you heading towards the coat rack. You take your white coat and she takes her black coat. You seem like polar opposites at that moment, but, as they say, opposites attract.
Narcissa softly grabs your arm, leading you towards the door, and you can't help but smile a bit at that. You walk out, and, despite it being summer, it is a bit cold, which you find odd, because of the fact that yesterday it was much more temperate.
She smiles down at you, as she's a bit taller than you. You walk on the cobbled path towards the gate. "I always forget how beautiful the manor is," you say. She laughs and says, "So do I. Lucius thinks we should get rid of the vines.. I love the way they make the manor look so gorgeous yet mysterious at the same time. I don't know what it is." You agree. "Yes, they're beautiful. They match the hedge fence too." She nods in agreement as you are finally past the gate and out in the open, Narcissa leading you towards a fountain in the distance.
"But enough about that," she says, "How is it at your house?" You laugh. You live in a nice enough cottage, but it doesn't even compare to Malfoy Manor. "It's nice," you say, adding, "It's quite peaceful there!" She smiles. "I always wondered what it was like to live in a small cottage.. it sounds lovely! I wonder if you could show me around one day?" "Of course, Cissy," you say, deciding to add, "You can stay anytime."
You are now close to the fountain, and she says, "You know, I helped make this." You are confused. "A fountain? What? How?" She laughs. "This manor is very old, and so is everything in it, but we wanted two more fountains, so I actually helped build it. You'd think Lucius would never let me, he'd hire someone else, but I did it." "I'm impressed," you says laughing, and she laughs with you, taking your hand and sitting down next to you on the fountain. The fountain is beautiful and grey, it's quite tall and has water falling down in elegant piles.
A bit of water is spraying on the both of you, so you stand up and decide to just walk around. To your left there is a well-kept garden and to your right is the large hedge that acts as a fence for the walkway leading to the manor. You both go to the left, there are walkways among the many flowers, and it smells amazing. Most flowers don't smell like much, but these smell like heaven. There are kinds in all colors, but the green ones catch your eye; they come in all different shades. It's absolutely gorgeous. "Lovely, isn't it," she says, and you nod in agreement. It really is. There are rows and rows of flowers that all look perfectly vibrant. "Who planted these?" you ask. "Me," Narcissa says.
You're a bit surprised, you know Narcissa has many talents but you didn't know gardening was one of them. You had seen the garden from afar before but didn't really spend time in this place at all. "Wow," you say, and she blushes a bit. "Let's go back, darling," she says, taking your hand, so you do go back. She lets go of your hand as you continue to walk with her, but you wish she didn't.
It's already almost two, you didn't wake up until about ten-forty-five; you had spent the entire day so far getting ready, making breakfast, eating, making bread, and of course walking. As you once again approach the manor and walk through the gate, you ask, "Do you think the bread's almost done?" She nods. "I think it's been around forty minutes." You're slightly shocked. To you that felt like five minutes- there's no way you were out that long. You're getting close to the manor and once again notice how the vines of ivy complement the hedge and the colors of the manor. It really is gorgeous.
Heading back into the kitchen, you see that it had been thirty minutes, so you were right, in a way, about the time. It still felt much shorter, though. "I'm gonna go up to my room if that's alright, Narcissa?" She nods. "I'll take the bread out and call you when it's done." You head upstairs to your room and see Draco in there, waiting for you. How long has he been there? Did he know I was coming upstairs? Wait- didn't he go to Delaney's today?
"Hey, Y/n." he says. "Hi," you say, and he asks, "Tonight Delaney and I are doing a sleepover and she wanted you to join- would you like to?" You nod. You hadn't seen Draco all day, so that seemed like a great idea. You still thought he was annoyed with you in some way, since he was a bit quiet this morning, so that's another reason you were happy about it. "We're gonna try to get some sleep, though. Since we didn't get much last night." "Of course," you say, and Draco says, "Don't eat all of our bread, by the way," as he leaves, you laugh, but are a bit annoyed. I baked the bread with Narcissa- why shouldn't I eat it?
You walk across the room and sit on the window-seat in your windowsill. The sky is grey and cloudy, matching the manor. You watch the clouds, mesmerized in their slow movement across the sky. At the door, you hear a quiet, "Y/n, darling, the bread is ready." It's Narcissa. You walk downstairs and see the bread you two have made, it looks absolutely delicious.
"May I?" you say, with the response of, "Of course!" You take some and it is warm and delectable. So does Narcissa. You are careful not to eat all of it, but it really is quite difficult because it was quite good. "This is delicious, we are quite a team," she says, and you smile at her, taking another piece of bread.