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As she made her way back up to the main house, the scent of loamy earth and roses clung fondly to Narcissa like the warmth of a banked fire still radiating from its embers. A freshly cut bouquet in one hand and a nameless melody on her lips. Only a fragment of a melody, really. One she couldn’t place, but neither could she seem to put it from her mind.
With a subtle twist of her wrist, Narcissa parted the glass-paned double doors and waltzed inside. Setting her wide-brimmed sunhat on the rack beside the door, she continued onwards to her chambers, the softly cushioned soles of her garden boots swallowing the sound of her steps. Accustomed as she was to the usual snappy click of her pumps on the polished wood, the silence felt eerie, like she’d misplaced her own shadow.
Out of habit, she extended her hand once more, ready to wandlessly flick open the mahogany door to their chambers, but found it already ajar. Something tightened inside her chest.
“Lucius?” she called, stepping over the threshold. She wasn’t expecting him until dinner that evening. Perhaps the renovations on the new bastide in Luberon had been completed ahead of schedule. But there was no sign of him. The tightness in her chest abated and she released the breath she’d been holding.
She laid the bouquet carefully down on the side table so as not to crush any of the perfect blooms.
Yellow roses for renewal, white snapdragons for grace, lavender for devotion.
She sighed and picked up the empty fluted crystal vase. As she crossed to the ensuite to fill it, she heard a rustling inside the dressing room.
“Mimpy? Is that you?” Narcissa stilled and waited a moment but heard no answer, only more rustling and the screak of a wooden drawer in need of waxing. When she pulled the dressing room doors open, the first thing that caught her eye was the shock of white blonde hair. Draco sat on the floor huddled over a familiar-looking polished black box. It took no more than a glimpse of the distinctive phthalo green satin lining, and the vase slipped from her hand, crashing to the hardwood floor.
"Draco, no!” she cried, panic gripping her body, driving her forward.
Startled by her raucous intrusion, Draco let the lid slip from his grasp. He wailed as it fell closed on his little fingers. Likely more from the shock than anything else, but it plucked at the strings of her heart all the same. Broken glass crunched underfoot as she hoisted him swiftly up onto her hip.
“Oh come now, darling. I’ve got you,” she cooed. He buried his face against her chest and sobbed as she carried him into the bedroom, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.
She settled down into the bergère by the window. Mid-morning light floated in through the partially drawn curtains, casting a warm golden hue over his fine, silken hair. She soothed a hand over his back, hushing him with soft little sounds and breathing him in. He was growing so fast. No mother wanted to see their child ill at ease, but she’d be remiss to let such a moment go unsavoured. How many more times would she be able to carry and cuddle him like this? How much longer would a kiss from his mother be all it took to remedy the worst of his troubles?
“Let me see, dear,” she whispered, taking his small hand in hers. A red mark crossed two of his fingers; she placed a tender kiss on each. “Now let me see you wiggle them like caterpillars.”
His fingers curled and wiggled, indeed, much like the pale grubs she’d dug up that morning. “Look at them go!” She wiggled her fingers back, creeping in slowly toward his neck for a tickle, and he forgot the shock of moments ago, his face still splotchy and tear-stained as he squealed and giggled. Her heart swelled to bursting.
Despite her reluctance to let him go, there were matters that required attending to. After one more kiss she called for Mimpy and the house-elf appeared with a crack.
“Look after Draco today. When you find his governess, let her know that we no longer require her services, and if she has yet to vacate the premises by the time Lucius returns, she is liable to lose more than her livelihood.”
“Yes, Mistress.” Mimpy’s bulging eyes flicked toward the crystal that lay in glittering shards by the dressing room doors.
“That will be all.”
“Yes, Mistress,” she said, taking Draco’s hand and apparating away.
Alone now, her mind began to turn over all of the leaves it had temporarily let lie.
Taking a breath to settle her nerves, and her wand in hand, she set about repairing the vase. It was an old piece, not as ornate as others she had come to own. But it had held the endless parade of flowers her grandmother taught her to name when she was a girl. It was far from the first time it had shattered.
A chill crawled across her skin at the thought.
As she watched the pieces fit themselves back together, she wondered how many times a thing could stand to break before it simply refused to mend.
She cleaned the sap that bled from the flowers’ cut ends into a sticky pool on the tabletop and arranged them in the filled vase. When she could stall no longer, she returned to the dressing room and felt a heaviness drape itself over her as she entered.
There it sat: fine-grained ebony, polished to a lustrous shine.
Kneeling on the Persian rug, her eyes traced the serpentine scrollwork that laced the edges of the box, the gleaming inlaid silver skull with a serpent emerging from its mouth, two onyx stones deepening the sockets of the skull’s vacant eyes.
An insidious abomination. Another lie.
Lucius warned her long ago, in no uncertain terms, that she was never to lay a finger on the mask concealed within. For fear of seeming impertinent, she’d agreed without question. She had no desire to touch the foul thing anyway; it reeked of death and dark magic.
After the fall of the Dark Lord, Lucius had sworn to her that he’d gotten rid of that mask. He hadn’t even had the decency to lock it away. For Salazar’s sake, what if Draco had reached into the box and touched it?
And why had Lucius lied when they were trying to fix things?
A shudder went through her as she picked up the box — the wood felt strangely hot and yielding in her hands. A hollow note rang out where the next beat of her heart should have been, and for a second she thought the snake had begun to move across the lid. She set it down in the open drawer as quickly as she could, blood pounding in her ears. She couldn’t say why, but she hesitated for a long, tense moment before slamming it shut.
She steadied her breathing, then cast a childproofing charm on Lucius’ bureau and exited the dressing room, closing her anger, her fear, and her anxieties away behind the louvred double doors.
𓆺
“Are these for me?” Narcissa asked, accepting the proffered sprigs of lily of the valley from Draco’s little hand before taking her seat at the table.
He nodded, stuffing another halved green grape into his mouth.
“Oh, how lovely,” she smiled, watching his grey eyes light up — a softer shade than the steel of his father’s.
“Master Draco picked them himself, Mistress,” Mimpy chimed as she poured Narcissa’s tea.
“Is that so?”
He only gazed back, his little mouth still occupied, fingers pushing grapes and blueberries around on his plate.
“So very thoughtful of you, my little dragon.”
He smiled, glancing down then back up at her before taking a bite of cheese and chewing pensively, his brow knitting slightly, no doubt planning his next peacock wooing gambit.
They were nearly through with dinner by the time Lucius arrived. He kissed her cheek, then seated himself and began expounding upon the newly completed renovations.
More than a new summer home, it was a fresh start. A chance to make new untarnished memories together as a family.
As she sipped her tea and pressed her fingers to the small twinge at her temple, she didn’t even think about the box hidden away in their chambers. Not even once... Instead, her thoughts took flight, dancing among the swaying fields of lavender in Luberon…
𓆹
Standing before the cheval mirror in the corner of their dressing room, Narcissa ran her fingers through the unpinned curls falling in soft waves about her shoulders, knowing Lucius was on the other side of the double doors, waiting for her in bed.
She trailed a hand down her neck, her skin soft and sweetly scented from the bath. She kept buying new lingerie — partly to entice him, but mostly to entice herself. Gods knew she was trying. Her eyes fell shut at the first frisson of arousal, her palms gently cupping her silk and lace covered curves, fingers tracing her most sensitive places.
And then she was thrown down, cracked open against the craggy banks of memory. She saw that mask — the blood streaked across it. Smelt the stench of death that he wore like another set of those blackest robes, felt the heavy fabric, rough against her bare skin, and the lurch in her stomach as he flipped her over, taking his pleasure like she was nothing to him. She heard his animalistic grunts and his degrading words, felt the shame tear through her. She felt the air in her lungs grow thin and the dampness of the pillowcase as he shoved her face harder against it while she choked and gasped.
“I’ve missed you, Cissa. How much longer are you going to keep a poor man waiting?” The clear, deep tone of Lucius’ voice shattered the illusion.
Narcissa came to, crouched over that demonic box, her hand poised to lift the lid. Heart seizing, she scrambled backward without an ounce of grace.
How had she gotten there? Why was she about to touch that vile thing? And why couldn't she seem to look away?
“You haven't fallen asleep in the bath again, have you, darling?”
She blinked, pressing a hand to her chest to steady herself. “Nearly ready, my love.”
It wasn’t him. It wasn’t his fault. It was the mask. She repeated it to herself over and over as she locked the box away and recomposed herself.
He’d never been a saint, but he had loved her, of that, she was certain. Nearly certain. She wanted— needed to believe in him…
“Sorry to keep you waiting.”
The mattress dipped as he shifted closer, and she felt his fingers slide through her hair. Closing her eyes, she summoned the memory of their wedding night — the way he’d worshipped every inch of her, worked her closer to bliss as though her pleasure was his own, wrung every drop from her until she could hardly bear it. She took a deep breath and tried to hold herself aloft in the sweetness of memory as she turned to him.
“It was worth every second,” he whispered, lips brushing her throat as his hands slipped beneath the delicate silk of her armour, and that sweetness evanesced away like candy floss on a rainy day.
Perhaps she would not have noticed the emptiness in his eyes, his kiss, his touch if she had never known them otherwise…
Year by year, night by night the rift had only grown as the mask’s savage darkness seeped into his blood. Everything warm that had once flowed between them went cold and still. Where there had been love, there was ire and ice.
Yet, when she found herself with child, new depths began to stir within her, like the courage to say never again. That was the night he stopped coming home. At breakfast, he’d sit beside her as though nothing at all was amiss, never a word about where he’d been. She hadn’t needed to ask.
But it wasn’t his fault; she knew that. He’d been under its influence. He’d only taken another to spare her, though it wasn’t even the infidelity that cut deepest. It was the ease with which he’d done it.
Narcissa returned to herself as his movements ceased and the pressure of his body lifted from hers.
He caressed her cheek. “You alright, my love?”
The twinge in her head blossomed into an ache, but she pressed her lips to his with all the nostalgia she could extract from recollections of mornings they'd once spent lazing in bed — languid kisses and tender touches with no destination in mind.
She was trying. She really was.
Slipping into her dressing gown, she excused herself to the ensuite, but as she passed the bouquet she’d placed on the small side table, a fresh dread took hold of her.
“Lucius, did the flowers have these black spots when you arrived?” They had spread over the wilting leaves and shrivelling petals.
“I don’t see any spots; they look fine.”
Her jaw clenched. Another lie.
It was unmistakable. Hoxus Pelmintosis was nothing to be trifled with. It would wipe out every plant in her beloved gardens before morning if not tended to immediately. Perhaps he didn’t care, but she did.
She cinched her dressing gown tighter and laced into her garden boots, snatched up her wand and headed out into the night. Her head throbbed, and that blasted melody pierced through her thoughts as she tore up every infected plot.
Yellow roses for infidelity, white snapdragons for deception, lavender for distrust.
One had to be swift and aggressive in such matters — merciless culling was the only way to contain the contagion.
When she returned hours later, stained with mud and trickles of blood from the scrapes of thorns that had torn through skin and silk, Lucius was asleep. Bile rose hot in her throat at the sight of him. Black spots burst in her eyes. She stumbled soundlessly back into the dressing room, unable to resist that hypnotic pull. It guided her onward like a brilliant beacon cutting through the haze, delivering her once more to the warm comfort of that exquisite ebony box in her arms and the mask gazing up from its bed of green satin.
She couldn’t remember why she’d been so afraid. She’d never realised how lovely it truly was.
Why had he tried to keep it from her? She deserved pretty things, didn’t she?
Dutiful wife, mother of his heir, his godsdamned whore.
She deserved whatever she pleased.
She brushed a fingertip tenderly along the arch of its brow… The first touch was the warm bloom of a fine wine across her palate, opening, unfurling, spreading nerve by nerve… A seduction that stirred things in her, which Lucius never had. Supple against her skin, moulding to the contours of her face, naming each of the depths that dwelt within her, replacing that dreadful pain in her head with a euphoric clarity unlike any she’d ever known.
He’d told her that the mask chooses its master. Apparently it had reconsidered its loyalties. All it had witnessed, all its truths, were her truths now, and she received them like the gifts they were, watched in awe as they unfolded petal by petal, cradled in her open hands.
At long last, she understood. It was never the mask. Lucius was the monster — the decay — and always had been. All the mask had done was reveal his heart… a mask that dropped the mask.
He never loved her. She could see now. How eagerly he awaited his next chance to slaver at the heel of that madman, to bow his head, bend his knee.
He was weak.
He would see her son kneel beside him, heir to his atrocity, his brutality, his Legacy of Rot.
He’d preyed on her, stolen from her. She had let him make her weak, but no more. She would bow to none, be beholden to none, break herself apart for none.
“Petrificus Totalus,” she lilted, settling herself astride Lucius’ rigid hips, her filthy boots grinding dirt into the duvet.
His eyes went wide with fear.
“Is there something you’d like to say for yourself, my love?”
They darted frantically up and down, the veins bulging in his neck.
Her tongue slid slowly along the back of her teeth. She felt the tingle of a spell that wanted to be called forth. “Pity. I’m not really in the mood for any more of your lies.”
She notched the tip of her wand to the hollow of his throat.
She would salt the bloody earth.
Root out the infection.
𓆸
The sun was rising as Narcissa made her way back up to the main house. Black dirt, torn silk, and defiance still adorned her like sacraments. A freshly cut bouquet of white calla lilies and black hellebore in one hand and that same melody on her lips. Only now she knew its name. Could summon it at will.
The doors parted before her and she strode inside. Leaving her boots behind, she continued onwards to Draco’s nursery, relishing the cool, earthy feel of the wood beneath her bare feet. She sang louder. Let her lungs expand, unburdened.
She laid the flowers at the foot of his small bed like an offering, and lowered the bedrail to sit down beside him. Her heart softened and her lips curled into a hopeful smile as she lifted her sleepy little dragon onto her lap, holding him so very close. His eyes fluttered open, peeking up at her just for a moment before falling closed again, and settling his sleep-warm cheek against her breast.
“Mimpy!” she called softly. “Prepare our things. Draco and I will be taking a little trip to France."