Dawn was quickly approaching. It had taken Narcissa a couple months to get used to the new solar and lunar pattern. It was only 5:32am and yet the sky was unfolding and blossoming in bursts of magenta, amber and bumble bee yellow. There was no point fighting it so she crossed over to the window and opened the ivory curtains, the sun rays sparkling on her skins surface. Watching the sunrise had become a morning ritual for her, so had walks in the morning. Habits kept her sane. She left the house at 7:30am, deciding to spend that swelteringly hot day on the beach. The weather wasn't unusual for the region, especially in June but it was significantly different to the damp and depressing Wiltshire weather. She locked the old wooden door frame, sealing the contents which were a lot grander in size and wealth than the exterior let on. Like most wizarding houses in densely populated muggle areas, it had been charmed to have a large interior compared to its cardboard box size exterior.
The beach was anything but deserted. Like all beaches this time of year it was full of desperate romantics who were trying to fit in their honeymoon before the kids broke up from school but nevertheless, Narcissa found herself a little secluded area that was sheltered by a solitary palm tree. The day was passed by watching the waves crashing against grey eroded rocks and sea air tickling the back of her neck. Narcissa hadn't even noticed that it was almost 4:30pm. She had dinner reservations with Jemima tonight so she picked up her beach towel and bag before dissapparating.
*
Back at the villa, guilt suddenly came flashing back through her bloodstream , nothing could stop it. Narcissa had tried to put tomorrow out of her mind, she had for the past 19 years. But looking back upon family photos, memories she had made here past and present. She couldn't let it get to her, , if she did then he would have won again and he wasn't worth it.
So she turned her preoccupied mind to the situation in hand: what to wear ?
It was between 3 dresses. The first was a pearl white and was floor length with a train of cotton topped from hem to neckline with cedar wood buttons, mimicking her favourite button down blouse. The second was the complete opposite. It breathed fire and power unlike its sisters angelic beauty. It was a red maxi dress, bodycon with a square neckline and mermaid ruffles at the end of the skirt.
But something about the third and final dress screamed perfection. Unlike the others, it was patterned yet simple with white and yellow daisies blossoming on the cotton material. It had kimono style sleeves and trailed to her ankles. The decision was hard, it took Narcissa back to a time where every part of herself had to be perfect or else she was no more than an embarrassment to Lucius and his family's name. Closing her eyes, she just focused on the sun or what was left of it that could be seen over the horizon. The sunset was beautiful in Greece, especially compared to England, and watching the sun set to make room for her sister, moon, was Narcissa's favourite part of the day sometimes. Taking time to sourly think allowed Narcissa the chance to let go of all that made her so fruitfully unhappy. She was on,y awoken from her stage of zen and mindfulness by what she had recently learned the other day, the muggles called Fireworks. They twirled and danced in the night sky, dressed in colours of purple, pink, green and orange as they weeded through the houses and cliffs.
It was already 6:15pm and she was supposed to be meeting Jemima in the old town in 15 minutes. Narcissa grabbed the daisy patterned garment as she summoned her wand (wandless magic and non-verbal magic were some of special skills) to curl her hair. He platinum curls laid perfectly around her face, gracefully falling to the arch of her back. Slamming the door behind her, Narcissa decided to walk to the restaurant allowing herself to be alone once again. Her mind was a state of peacefully tranquillity.
"I'm so sorry I am not late, time really flies in this place. Have you ordered anything yet ?" Narcissa said taking a seat outside next to her best friend.
"No, not yet. I was waiting for you to arrive. I have only be here" she looked at her watch "10 minutes maximum". Narcissa want to put her wand away but Jemima stopped her mid way "You don't have to do that here. Everyone here is like us, this is the only place that isn't full of muggles really. Most of the old town is off limits to muggles now, what with more and more witches and wizards moving out here. I'm surprised you didn't feel yourself pass through the barrier"
"Phew." sighed Narcissa relaxing in relief into her chair "My magic has been a bit temperamental lately but anyway, what shall we order, I'm starving"
*
"Narcissa, Narcissa" Jemima yelled, shaking Narcissa slightly on the shoulder.
"Huh, what. What's going on ?"
"You were in a world of you own just them. Your pasta salad has just arrived" Jemima said, pointing at the multicoloured assortment of lettuce and other vegetables in front of her friend.
"Sorry" Narcissa said, quieter than usual, with tears now rolling down her cheeks like happy children riding bicycles through the valleys.
"Narcissa, is something wrong. If there is, you know I'm here. If you need to talk, you know." Jemima softens her grip on Narcissa's shoulder but refused to let go. She could she her friend slipping slowly away from her.
"It's nothing. It's the anniversary of my father's death tomorrow. It will be 19 years tomorrow" she replied, wiping the innocent tears away.
"Oh Cissy, I'm so sorry. I didn't know"
"No" Narcissa replied, turning to finally face the truth as she placed her soft cold hand onto Jemima's "I never told you. I have been lying to myself, to you. To everyone"
"I don't get it" Jemima said, staring back puzzled in an attempt to find some sense behind those blue iris' that were so often clouded by society's harsh judgement
"I say he died and he did but that's not the whole story. He was murdered !"
Jemima relaxed in a sense of relief "Be as that may, it isn't a crime Narcissa."
"Isn't it ?" Narcissa snapped, snatching her hands back from underneath Jemima's grasp before putting them back into her pockets
"You misunderstood me. I simply meant that it's ok that you lied. You wanted to forget what this despicable person has done to your father, to your family."
A sneer gleamed across Narcissa's face "I could never forget what she did. I mean you see death and murder in films but nothing truly prepares you for the real thing. I will never forget my mother crying over my father's dead body and I could never forget the look on my sisters face when she realised that she had done the deed, her hands covered in tainted blood. My fathers blood"
Jemima's jaw dropped "I can't believe it. How could she do that to someone you all loved so dearly ?". This stunning conversation made Jemima drop her butter and crab covered knife onto the cobbled pavement outside as she clapped her hand to her mouth.
"You didn't know him like I did Jem. No, I stopped loving him the day he stopped loving me like he used to. And that started after we got back from Cyprus in 1969."
Narcissa went quiet once again, deep in thought, going back to memories she kept secret and sealed.
"Yeah, I remember the day well. It was late September, just after my 14th birthday. He began to treat me differently compared to my 2 other sisters. I mean I didn't notice it at first, he always called me his special little girl but everyone said I was the golden girl out of the three of us. But his words were no longer sweet and innocent, they were sour and cruel. Jem, you have to understand that there was nothing left of the man I used to know, the father you knew. He just suddenly changed."
"Oh my gosh Cissy, are you ok. What happened after, you know after he died ?" Jemima asked, wiping the vacant tears with a nearby napkin.
"Well, it took mother at least 6 months to get over his death naturally. They did love each other you know, in their own ways and she never knew about what he did to me. I didn't want to burden her with my petty problems, she had enough to deal with but we had to get over it, we had to learn to live our lives without him. Bella married 2 months after his death, Andromeda was disowned by my Aunty Walburga for marrying a muggleborn and then of course I got married and had children. Years went on and I got used to living with the memories, guilt and pain and then Bellatrix, in true Bella fashion, got herself arrested and sent to Azkaban."
"For your father's murder ?" asked Jemima, inquisitively
"No. By the way Jem, no one else knows about that so please keep quiet about it. No, she tortured Frank and Alice Longbottom to the point of insanity. They don't even know who their son is. She got life in Azkaban and now it's just mother, me, my husband and my children"
"Oh, I thought you were single !"
"What mid-30's, single, no children in a pure blood society ! Anyway, we might as well be single. Our relationship is so strained, it has been since our second child was born."
Jemima decided to try to get through to Narcissa "Why, what happened between the two of you ?" but it was no use. All this did was frustrate Jemima when Narcissa, as usual, refused to answer. She didn't often open up about her private life or her past, before she arrived in Greece 6 months ago. "Look Narcissa, I am really trying her. If you don't tell me, I can't help you."
Narcissa mustered up the courage to spit out her guiltiest secret "It's because I didn't want her, my second child I mean." It was no secret to her family that Narcissa hadn't wanted Evangeline but everyone was desperately confused as to why. She loved Draco with all of her heart, she nursed him and rocked him to sleep almost every night. She was truly unlike any other pure blood mother, why should this baby, why should this time be any different, is what they would always say. Some said it was post-natal depression and some said she was just heartless and that Lucius and society turned her into this icy villain but Jemima knew there were something more to this.
"What do you mean. Do you mean you wanted an abortion. I mean if you did, why didn't up you have one. It's not like they are illegal anymore. Even if they were I'm sure they would do one if they could see what this has done to you." Jemima interjected
"Lucius wouldn't allow me to have an abortion, he probably was worried about his status in society and what other people would think. I mean don't deserve to be their mother, I have already screwed up my son and his life, I just didn't want to do it to this baby as well."
"Yes you do" said Jemima, in a comforting tone. "You are a good mother. No one is perfect."
"How can I bring my daughter up in a home of love and happiness when I didn't. I don't even know what love is, I don't understand what it means. She would be better off dead than unloved. How can I be so unfeeling ? I don't belong anywhere Jem. I can't go home because all I know about home is that I wasn't wanted."
Jemima grabbed Narcissa's chin as she gasped for air between sobs "Narcissa, it wasn't that you weren't wanted, it was that you were not loved and that is not your fault. We don't choose to be unloved by those who should love us but you, you decided to put your children first and that, that Narcissa makes you a good mother."
"But" Narcissa crier "How can I show her the right path, when I never followed it myself. I've left my husband, my children and I let my husband lead my only son, my whole world into a world of death and pain. He is leading my son a death mission. How can I make this right Jemima ?"
"By going home Narcissa." Jemima simply replied "Please Narcissa. Please don't abandon your daughter because you felt abandoned !"
And with that, Narcissa broke, shattered into pieces like a fragile pain of glass. The barrier that not even her own mother could penetrate was finally defeated. Narcissa, underneath 19 years of grief and pain and 2 layers of the finest foundation money could buy, was at heart still a heart broken, abused little girl. Still hurting, still grieving. Gaps could be heard around them which caused Narcissa to turn, just to check they weren't the centre of attention and gossip. That's all she would have needed, her past and personal life being spread round the whole community. News travels fats in the wizarding world, it wouldn't be long before it would get back to Lucius and the British ministry. But luckily for her , the crowd was gazing at something over by the coves so breaking out of their tight embrace, Narcissa and Jemima walked over to the balcony that overlooked the rocky bay, to see what the commotion was all about. The coves were beautiful,e specially this time of night. There something peaceful about how the tranquil waves calmly brushed against the cliffs like a little goldfish brushing its fins along the side of its tank.
"Look Jemima" Narcissa said, grabbing her friends arm slightly harder than she had anticipated "Shooting stars."
Narcissa was indeed right as she pointed up towards the twinkling sky
"You know what they say about shooting stars ?"
"No." Narcissa replied
"Well shooting stars are basically dying stars and I have heard them say every shooting star is a sign that heaven has just gained another angel. Narcissa go home; make sure this star isn't your little angel !"
Something Jemima has just said lit a spark in Narcissa's mind and soul, it sent a feeling through her that she hadn't felt in such a long time. Suddenly she stood up, knocking the table cloth and her dinner to the ground as she did so. As Jemima went to salvage the table decorations and remaining pasta Narcissa grabbed in an affectionate way.
"Thank you Jem. All the words in the workd can not explain what you have done for me. We must meet up soon but for now, I am going home."
And with that she left and dissapparated, feeling herself pass through the invisible barrier between her world and the muggle one she had become to grow accustomed to.
*
The room seemed so bare without the embellishment of her excellent taste in interior design, so did the rest of the house. She had decided to leave it till morning to dissapparate back; she was too tired to apparate now and you had to be alert and preferably awake when you apparate or god knows where you will end up. Narcissa had been reading in the accident and ailments section of the daily prophet about someone who had fallen asleep on their commute home from their job at the ministry to their house just outside Plymouth, Devon and had actually ended up in Plymouth, Massachusetts because he was asleep when he passed Devon and had also failed to mention, due to his exhausted, which Plymouth he meant as there we countless of them across the globe. Narcissa knew it wa slate but time flew by and it felt like she had only just shut her eyes when her frog alarm clock shouted ......
"Wake up or you will be ugly !"
Trust me, it's the only thing that would get her out of bed on time in the morning. Being ugly in society was almost as bad as wearing out of season fashion, maybe even worse. Despite never being an early riser, she slipped out bed and into her baby blue dress and overcoat co-ord before taking a good look around the room tahtbshe had occupied for the past 6 months; soaking up every nook and cranny like an absorbent sea sponge. But there was no time like the present, as her cousin Sirius once said. She never really ever listened to what he said or did, after all he did manage to get himself disowned by his own mother (regardless of wether he ran away/left home first).
Her key dropped through the letterbox in a simultaneous motion with her tears as they trickled to the cobbled pavement. Once again she was homeless and stranded, setting off into the sunset in a final bid for happiness. Apparating long distance always freaked her out, Bellatrix always filled her with horror stories as a child and like the daily prophet accidents column truly showed, 'you never quite knew where you were going to end up'. She often found that poetry helped calm her nerves somewhat. Today's choice was 'The Garden Of Proserpine' by Algernon Charles Swinburne and by the time she had reached the penultimate stanza, she was once again presented with the stand off ish black oak doors that so sinisterly invited her in with a cold, grey stare. The gates were bewitched to only let certain permitted people in without being searched by the guards. Lucius obviously must had not had the time to update the security system, or maybe he had always had hope that she would return but for whatever reason, she passed through without any trouble, as if she hadn't left at all. With the penultimate stanza still in her mind, she stepped into the manor
'That no life lives forever
The dead men rise up never
But even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea'
She heaved her luggage over the threshold where many of times she had kissed the man she used to love, she used to know: one time of which had been the happiest day of her life, her wedding day. She summoned an elf to take it up to her and Lucius' bedroom, telling her very carefully not to pass Lucius' study. She never bothered with the death threats or the 'Or Else' comment on the end, Lucius did that often enough for them to know. The door banged shut behind her, alerting her husband upstairs of her return or at least the presence of another being in the house. Narcissa knew he would know it was her. Lucius' mother Evelyn Malfoy had died 18 months after her father had, it was one of the things that had helped them bond as a couple and a thing they comforted each other on. His father Abraxas Malfoy was nowadays living at the Malfoy Estate in Cyprus. Many thought it was because Lucius had inherited the estate in England and France so many believed he had retired to Cyprus but Narcissa knew better. Abraxas was smart, he knew the drak lord would return at some point, so he took the chance to escape. Although Abraxas had never taken the dark mark, he was very close to Voldemort, even introduced Lucius to the Dark Lord and eventually little baby Draco. Abraxas was too close to You Know Who to be let off.
*
"Dobby, Dobby." Lucius called from his study on the third floor of the west wing but no answer came "Dammit, I forgot that stupid potter boy lost me that pathetic thing. Olsen"
A sad looking wrinkly animal dragged itself in trailing the stained wrap that hung off of his malnourished body.
"Yes. What is it that Master Malfoy is requiring today?" The creature was positively trembling all over, I mean who wouldn't be scared being Lucius Malfoy servant. Narcissa was always brought up to believe that they were lower creatures that didn't deserve respect like Lucius was but she always felt sorry for them. Narcissa could remember when she freed one of her mother's house elves who was basically on her death bed. Druella never got to bottom of which sister set it free. It could have been Bellatrix trying to spite her mother, she never really cared for anyone. Andromeda was never the traditional pure blood girl; she believed that muggleborns, half bloods and all creatures were equal. But a Narcissa was really the least likely to do something like that. She almost always got on with mother and always try to be the best pure blood girl. Yes it was true that Narcissa wasn't as prejudice and cruel as everyone thought but it was her motherly instinct and caring side that lead to do it.
Lucius looked down at the creature like it was a piece of dirt on his shoes "I want you to go downstairs and see who in the blazing hell that was. If it's my father, tell him to owl me next time he decides to remember he has a son and wants to visit. If it is a reporter tell them to do one before they regret it. I have better things in life that I need to worry about without having to see a load of pathetic satire plastered all over the pages of The Daily Prophet." But before the elf could leave he collided with another of his kind.
"What is it now ?" Lucius moaned not looking up from his to scale size mountain of important and confidential ministry paperwork.
"Sorry to bother Master Malfoy whilst he is at work but I have just seen Pipin taking luggage up to the master suite part of the east wing."
Lucius rolled his eyes in disbelief at their stupidity "well didn't you ask who's luggage it was or who asked for it to be brought up to MY bedroom ?"
"Nnnnno, so sorry master I didn't catch their name but apparently you have a visitor who you might want to see."
"If it is my father, turning up unvited, tell him I will meet him later. Tell him I am busy right now."
The elf just stood there with a blank expression on its face before whimpering "No sir, it is Mistress Malfoy. She has returned from her trip."
"What !" Lucius yelled, leaping up from his desk, doing almost a pirouette as he did so which only meant that he knocked off the majority of his paperwork as he fell back. Taking the stairs 3 at a time, he made his way to the entrance hall where the original noise had come from and where he guessed his wife would most probably still be. He didn't know how to feel: wether to be excited or furious with her. On the one hand, she had left him for 6 months with a newborn baby, a house to loon after and 2 demanding jobs. However one the other side, he had missed waking up next to her warm touch and he had missed her sweet embrace greeting him everyday. But nothing truly prepares you for the real thing or the real moment. Finally making eye contact with his wife after all this time eventually made his eyes well up with tears. She still looked as perfect as the day she left, maybe with some visible differences. For one she was slightly slimmer but guilt, stress and anxiety were the part recipe for her weight loss. Also she was now I slightly sun kissed pale rather than porcelain ice goddess but the most noticeable difference was her hair. No longer did she have her beautifully long platinum blonde hair. Obviously where she had been living, she must have had a her hair cut but her hair had changed colour and the black family's hair never changed. It was in the DNA to never change as Black family members where stubborn and set in their ways. Narcissa had not doubt had a big personality change but was it for good. Narcissa now resembled both the Noble a And Most Ancient House Of Black and The House Of Malfoy as her hair was now a dark chocolate shade of brunette with her signature platinum blonde streaks. Was it to show that there was both light and dark in her ? Despite the difference in appearance, you could still not mistake her, for her eyes were the gate to her soul. Even though she now bore little resemblance to her past self, he could still see little features of hers in Draco and nearly every feature in Evangeline. Evangeline truly was the spitting image of her mother, bearing little to no resemblance to her father. Narcissa dropped her pearl white velvet cloak to the floor, letting the sky blue feather accents around the edges soak up the water residue that her shoes had trampled into the floorboards. This action was her melting away her first line of defence, she was beginning to like being home.
"So, the wonderer returns ..." said Lucius, which made Narcissa chuckle slightly. Lucius stepped forward slightly to greet his wife back into his life again ......