I.22. – To Those Who Walked Away

Empty spaces – what are we living for?

Abandoned places – I guess we know the score.

… Does anybody know what we were looking for?

The show must go on, the show must go on!

Inside my heart is breaking

My make-up may be flaking

But my smile still stays on.

QUEEN

“Why did you even come if you’re so determined to leave again as soon as possible?” Cygnus asked irritably and forcefully put down his glass – so forcefully indeed that half of its content spilled and stained the costly damask tablecloth.

Bella had just announced that she and her husband would have to leave straight after dessert; now she glowered at her father, her lips pursed. “Well, if you must know – we’ve come because Maman insisted on it, this being your seventieth birthday and all.”

Narcissa mimicked at her expressively, their mother cast her eyes to the ceiling, why, even Rodolphus shot his wife a mildly dismayed glance. Only Mr Black seemed to have decided that he would ignore the implicated deprecation, or perhaps not, because he changed the topic wilfully. “Tell me, child – what can you possibly have to do that is so urgent? Because my old friend, the Dean, tells me he hardly sees anything of you in College.”

Bella grinned sardonically. “You know what’s the most fabulous thing about being married, Papa? Being accountable to one’s spouse, not to one’s father.”

Narcissa bit her lip not to laugh. The last man on this planet who would check Bella, or to whom she would answer was her own husband. Rodolphus had neither the means, nor the necessary will to do so. Their father seemed to think the same; his eyes rested on his son-in-law with that habitual blend of incredulity, pity and contempt, which he always had in store for Rodolphus. He had given his consent then, of course he had. Regardless of what people might say, Cygnus Black was a modern man in many ways, and that he could hardly control whom his daughters wished to marry had not taken Andromeda’s sad example for him to understand. In fact, he disapproved only a fraction more of young Ted Tonks than he disapproved of Rodolphus Lestrange, if for thoroughly opposite reasons. Pureblooded the man might be – but that was really the best that could be said for him, if one had asked his father-in-law. But what should he have done about it? It wasn’t as if any of his attempts on parental guidance or authority had ever made an impact on his eldest.

“Bellatrice,” their mother said now, a little crinkle between her brows, “Be’ave, please. Zere is no need to be fresh with your father.”

“I’m not fresh, just frank.”

“I think Bellatrix has got a point there,” Cygnus said fairly unexpectedly. “I believe I can consider myself lucky that at least my little flower is never going to marry and thus abandon me.”

His eldest cast him a look that betrayed how she thought her father had turned a little loopy with old age. “What?! When am I supposed to have said that?!”

“Why should our little Narcisse not get married? Zere is no prettier girl in all England!” Amandine cried, feeling her last remaining chance of ever arranging a proper wedding for any of her children suddenly threatened. Narcissa simply goggled at him.

“Pretty she is, oh yes, you are, my darling –” He gave Narcissa a very fond, but also defeatist look. “But no decent man is going to attach himself to you after your sister has tainted the family name in such a fashion.”

“What did I do this time, then?!” Bella groaned, and then, “Oh! I see. You don’t mean me by that. – Must be a first time in its own way –”

Amandine looked shocked, as if this possibility had never occurred to her before, but made perfect sense now that she gave it a thought. Narcissa opened and shut her mouth, remembering that she had had a similar notion too, back then in summer, after Lucius Malfoy had stopped courting her. Not even he, who surely didn’t even count as ‘decent’ in Cygnus’ books, would attach himself to a girl whose own sister had ‘fallen’ like that.

Everybody, even Rodolphus looked awkward, but Bellatrix started giggling. “Oh please! Seriously, Papa, I know you hardly pay attention to these things, but we’re no longer living in the eighteenth century! Our Cissy will be an unmarried old maid because she cannot be bothered to deal with other people, not because any man gave a shit about Andy’s deplorable lack of sense and taste!”

“Hey!” Narcissa protested, slightly offended by the comment. ‘Old maid’ – she wasn’t even seventeen yet!

“If that should truly be a problem, I’m sure my brother would be happy to oblige,” Rodolphus offered helplessly.

Before Narcissa could think of any polite turn of phrase to tell him that his brother really was the second last man on earth she’d allow herself being married to, Bella scoffed, “Oh, shut up, Roddy!”

“I’m sorry, my dear –”

“You’re all starking bonkers, you know that?!” Bella ranted on, taking to her element of discordance like a duck to water. “I’m not saying that Andy wasn’t a disgrace of epic proportions, throwing herself into the arms of a goddamned Mudblood –”

“Bella!” Narcissa and Amandine cried in unison.

Bella wasn’t to be impressed. “But this is the twentieth century, even if none of you guys has noticed it! The world has changed – will change a whole lot further yet. I can’t believe we’re even talking about this rubbish! We’re at the eve of war between the new world order and the old conservative forces, and all you lunatics can think about is how to marry off your daughters most profitably!”

“Listen, Bella – only because you married the world’s greatest bl-” It was obvious that Cygnus had been about to say ‘blighter’, but he checked himself and went on more graciously and with a forced smile, “bloke, it doesn’t follow you were an expert on marriage or, indeed, politics. Don’t strain your pretty head too much, daughter, and leave it all to your husband.”

Bella sneered disdainfully and turned her ‘pretty head’ sideways to mentioned husband, and Mr Black seemed to have the same idea – namely that his last statement had been a travesty in and of itself. He had spent a fortune to have his daughters educated in the best possible way; they were all smart by nature and erudite by education, smarter than most people and most certainly more erudite than a vast majority of men. Additionally, Bella had got married to a particularly uninformed specimen, making the discrepancy between her superior – and female! – mind and her husband’s all the more eye-catching.

“You’re being deliberately funny, are you?” she snarled and eyed her father in downright mockery. Her husband nodded his approval with whatever his beloved was about to say.

“There is nothing humorous about this situation, nothing at all!”

“You truly think only because I’m a woman, I didn’t know about politics? Mark my words, Papa, I do know. More than you even – which is, admittedly, not all that hard!”

“Bellatrice!” their mother shrieked. “Zat’s enough!”

“You want to be glad, because you’ll only have to endure another ten minutes of my bad behaviour.”

Narcissa was pained to see her parents’ hurt expression. One daughter run-away, another merely coming to visit if she had no other choice, and the third one compelled to leave again right after dinner. She had merely gained permission to leave the school because her father was who he was and today was his seventieth birthday, and what should have been a joyous celebration had turned into yet another little brawl. She privately cursed Bella’s self-will, put on her sweetest smile and her arms around his shoulders.

“Come,” she said lightly and deliberately cheerfully. “I’ll play for you, Papa. What would you like to hear, hm?”

She gently pulled him up, returned her mother’s grateful smile and shot Bella an angry glance over her shoulder, but her sister just shrugged. They all walked over to the parlour, even Bella and Rodolphus, and under his breath, Mr Black muttered, half to himself, “Andromeda should be here, too.”

Narcissa suppressed a sigh and it took her all her self-control to keep on smiling so serenely. “I’m sure she’d love to be here, Papa. You should have sent her an invite.”

“She’s chosen that – that scoundrel – over her parents. She no longer appreciates our company.”

“But that is not true, Papa. She –”

“You were here, my darling. You’ve seen her go. She would not even stay even though her own mother was in deadly peril; her mother, who’s always been there for her, who’s done everything and given everything for her, and still…” His voice trailed away and his shoulders slouched a little.

Behind them, Narcissa could hear Bella give a quiet, but all the more annoyed little sound. “We’ll stay for another half an hour,” she said through gritted teeth and added even more quietly, “I swear, one day I’ll wring the little wench’s neck!”

“But Bella, my dear,” Rodolphus cried. “We need to –“

“I know. That just means we’ll have to hurry and keep on these robes instead of going home and changing,” she replied, a clear menace in her tone. Rodolphus fell silent at once, and another look over her shoulder showed Narcissa his submissive smile at his wife. She frowned despite herself. She had not been raised to believe in female subjugation, but Bellatrix was taking emancipation to decidedly misguided heights in her sister’s humble opinion. Not that she knew much about any of these things, certainly not. She had just thought, in one of her weaker moments perhaps, that if she should ever – well… Oh well, if she should ever venture to form a relationship of this kind with a man, she’d want it to be a relationship among equals in every possible meaning of that phrase. A sentiment that Bella clearly did not share.

A blind man could see that Rodolphus adored his wife. The best that could be said for her in turn was that she didn’t seem to mind him. Narcissa had never quite understood why they had got married – or how Rodolphus had managed to gather enough courage to dare asking. At least Andromeda had married for love – if everything else had gone astray, it was comforting to think that, and Narcissa knew that even her parents drew secret solace from the idea. But Bella? What did she see in this man? He was friendly enough, all right, and the elder son from a very good family – but Bella had never cared much for either money, nor rank, nor common civility. It must remain a mystery to her younger sister – and her parents – why she had said yes to Rodolphus Lestrange.

She would never do that, Narcissa thought and without noticing it, raised her chin a little higher. If she should ever get married – and she found that very, very unlikely, in rare accordance to the entire rest of her family, apparently – it would be for love and nothing else, true love for a man who was her equal, in sense, situation and what else. She would never endure being belittled, like so many men felt compelled to do with their wives, and neither would she want to be the one doing the belittling. She could not imagine living with someone who did not respect her, or whom she could not respect.

‘Respect’ – this was the pivotal pillar of her conviction that conjugal life was not for her. Because the only person that she had ever – uh – well, contemplated… That person could not be trusted. Her respect for him had always stood on wobbly legs at its best, and frequently been shaken, if not downright shattered. He was clever, yes – and there was nothing she valued higher. But he was also reckless and – and – careless of other people’s feelings – her feelings, more precisely – and that just wouldn’t do.

Yes, if she was very honest with herself, which happened now and then indeed, she had to admit that the only boy that she had ever thought of in that way was he. It should have tipped her off that they had had such a bad start upon their first encounter – but then Narcissa had never been one to trust her instincts or listen to her gut feeling. No, in the months following that encounter, she had got second thoughts about that boy and reversed her opinion based on her first impression of him. She had learnt, for example, that his occasional lack of the proper manners was due to him having no mother to teach him those. Well, he had one in theory, but she delighted in being ever-so-absent. After meeting old Mr Malfoy this summer, Narcissa was no longer so sure how much she could really blame his wife, though.

And Lucius had been nice to her, very nice indeed. When Andy, who was in his year, had teased her little sister, for example, Lucius Malfoy had been the only one not to join the sniggers – and had laughed out loudly when Narcissa had given a quick repartee in turn. He had shown her how to forge old Slughorn’s signature in order to get books out of the forbidden section, and had stolen the caretaker’s keys so she could have access to the antechamber where the grand piano was, and practise a little.

In time, little Narcissa in her first year had formed the opinion that Lucius Malfoy was the only boy in the entire school who was not exclusively moronic (most of his peers, and practically every boy in her own year, would rather have pulled her hair and the like). Jeanie and Lassie would possibly have called it a little crush – if somebody had asked Narcissa though, she would have admitted to like him, which had said a lot, because she had heartily disliked virtually everybody else.

But that was just the crux with him, wasn’t it? It was his specialty to appear nice and occasionally charming, when in fact, he was simply sly and knew how to get what he wanted. He might be able to fool the other girls, or Professor Slughorn, but Narcissa had learnt to see right through his smooth act, had learnt it the hard way, one could say.

No, no, no, Lucius Malfoy must not be trusted; that was an empiric truth. Whenever she let down her guard and tended to rethink that assessment, she was most cruelly disappointed in turn. Narcissa had actually been naïve enough – and that didn’t happen too often, did it? – naïve enough to believe that his affection for her was genuine, so genuine at any rate that he would try to stay in contact with her. He did write to Severus, after all! And Evan! And occasionally, even Gibbon received the odd postcard now and then. During the summer holidays, she had still consoled herself supposing that he must have grasped her precarious postal situation after Andy’s lapse, and had therefore thoughtfully refrained from writing. Of course he had not been that thoughtful – what had she been thinking, really! It angered her beyond words that she had been so gullible, but it could not be helped – he still kept on creeping back into the back of her head in every free moment, and frequently in the most inconvenient moments, too.

As much as Narcissa might frown upon her dorm-mates in general and their idle talking in particular, she still could not but overhear quite a bit. Except Perpetua, they all had or had had boyfriends, past or present – Martha, that brazen cow, had even gone out with Lucius once or twice, so had Jeanie – and they talked of hardly anything else but boys. Whether she liked it or not, Narcissa got to hear that Yaxley’s kisses were ‘too wet’, that Evan would ‘bite’, that Solomon Goldstein was ‘good in bed’ and Sheldon Derrick so totally was not. And hearing all this gave her ideas that she thoroughly disapproved of but could not extinguish either; they assaulted her at night in her dreams, and it was always, always darned Lucius Malfoy taking the male lead.

She had come to positively fear her favourite class, because in Potions, they practised Amortentia these days. It took Narcissa all her self-control to be standing there, swathes of fumes enclosing her, that all smelled somewhat of old parchments and leather covers, but mostly of Lucius’ cologne, and even the book smells reminded her of the very distinct scent she had once experienced in the wondrous library of Malfoy Manor. It was insufferable – and yet it had to be suffered twice a week.

She tried to congratulate herself on the fact that at least he was no longer a student of this school, but to quote Evan – ‘denial’s not a river in Egypt’ – not even she bought into her own pretensions there. She was too acutely aware how badly she longed to see him again. So much indeed, she had nicked one of Jeanie’s magazines. More precisely: she had nicked an issue of Witch’s Weekly that featured a ridiculous top ten list of ‘Britain’s most eligible bachelors under thirty’, for it had come with a photo of Lucius, who had, not entirely unexpectedly, merited the number one spot on that list. He was rich beyond measure, he was extremely handsome – what else could a sensible young witch want? It infuriated Narcissa to read such nonsense. Trees had to die for this utter rubbish! Young women should not be told that life’s one and only aim was an advantageous marriage. And on the other hand – yes, he was good-looking and undoubtedly rich, but there was so much more to him, and generally speaking – nobody should be reduced like that, as if he was a prized horse. He was clever, he was resourceful, he was easy-going and funny, he could be a magnificent wizard if he bothered – and on the downside: he was irresponsible, egotistic, and used girls for nothing but his own advantage. Clearly, that feature writer did not care for either set of qualities.

Narcissa was annoyed with herself for being so sentimental, but could not have helped it – where was her praised composure when she truly needed it? Oh, yes, it excited her to even think of him, remember his smiles, the intensity of his looks at her (and it had always given her considerable satisfaction that these kinds of looks had been for her exclusively, no matter whom he had been going out with that week), but it also tormented her to think that now, he was bound to look at another girl like this, and if only for the simple reason that he could no longer pursue Narcissa. Which was clearly the last thing on his mind, given the number of his letters to her, which amounted to the sensational number of – zero. No, what weighed much more was her knowledge of herself and of him; she knew what he was and what he did, and her self-respect simply forbid her to line up with his other conquests. She wouldn’t have borne it.

“See you at Christmas, Cis!” Bella cried, but Narcissa barely looked over, quite lost in her reverie. Perhaps it was for the better that she had no clue where her sister was heading or whom she was meeting, or she might not have managed to continue playing that sonata so flawlessly. She was aggravated enough as it was.

Oh, if only he had stayed locked up in that darned monastery back then! Then at least one of her chief torments could rest. It just killed her to think what he might be doing now – this very minute, mind you! That she had a vivid imagination didn’t help either. When he had been in school still, he had had three dozen girlfriends, give or take, but while Narcissa hadn’t exactly enjoyed his trophy-hunting, it hadn’t hassled her too badly either, for the simple reason that she had easily seen that he wasn’t serious about any of them. She hadn’t thought much about her own calm then, but these days, it appeared fairly obvious. Now that he was out of her sight, her imagination was running wild; she had actually had a nightmare in which scores of girls had hunted him, wildly waving with the issue of Witch’s Weekly, and he had been enthralled by any of them, had hardly known where to look first; with those beautiful eyes, he had looked at other girls with that sort of expression that should rightfully belong to her and nobody else! Darn it, if nothing else, why hadn’t his father kept him locked up in Romania!

Even this wasn’t entirely true, but one could not seriously expect Narcissa to acknowledge it. Because claiming that she’d be content enough if he didn’t give his heart to another – and at least to herself, she was honest enough to admit to that wish – said nothing of her real desire, which demanded that his heart should belong to her, and her alone. She had no clue what she’d do with it – listening to Jeanie’s and Lassie’s crude descriptions, she was fairly sure that she, personally, wouldn’t want to do any of these things – yuck. As far as Narcissa was concerned, French kissing sounded like the surest way to catch an infection and nothing else, not to mention the other unsavoury indelicacies, that, apparently, were such a vital part of the whole ‘boy/girl crap’, as Perpetua would sneeringly call it. Although one couldn’t help but suspect that Perpetua’s disgust was mainly rooted in the absolute unavailability of the whole business for her. Not only that she wasn’t the least bit pretty – she also wasn’t the slightest trifle nice, and that combination didn’t get a girl anywhere, even someone as socially inapt as Narcissa could see that.

Without really noticing it, she had played for almost an hour straight, lost in her thoughts, and was roughly disturbed by her own dear Papa, who stepped over to the piano with a woeful smile. “It breaks my heart, my dearest, but I’m afraid I’ll have to take you back to Hogwarts now. We’re too late already,” he said and shrugged.

She nodded, got up and let him embrace her. “I’m so happy you were here today, my little flower,” he breathed, pressing her close, and she knew he was. She had been the only of his children who had come voluntarily to his great day; children that had all been raised with all the care and affection in the world; it filled her with sadness to think how lonely he must be feeling, and anger that Bella and Andy did not care more. What was so urgent for Bella to rush away like that, after all? And Andy – certainly, she’d be read the riot act up and down until her head was spinning, but didn’t she know how badly her parents were missing her all the same?

They were corresponding via letter while Narcissa was in school, thus she was aware that Andy’s child was due soon, in only two months in fact. Of course, their parents were just as aware of this, but meticulously avoided mentioning it. After putting away Andy’s photo, that had been standing on his desk in his study, and locking it in a drawer for some weeks, Cygnus had taken it out again, as Narcissa had noticed during her visit this time. He had shot her an embarrassed glance when seeing Narcissa’s gaze pass the small portrait, silently begging her to keep quiet and she had complied, of course. She was glad enough to see that he had put the photo back where it belonged, between his other two daughters. He loved them, all of them, no matter how stubborn or unsuitably pregnant they were.

As she left her parents’ house that night – it was dark already, and the Muggle street lamps feebly tried penetrating the foggy, damp late November air – it was even more stomach-wrenching than usually. She kissed her mother goodbye, watched her father doing the same, before tightly – and decidedly proudly – taking his darling daughter’s arm to Disapparate with her. They emerged in front of the Hogwarts gates, where Mr Pringle, the caretaker, was already waiting in the cold, his crooked nose frozen blue and visibly torn between outrage to be kept waiting for so long, and the usual deference that Mr Black evoked in the more ‘common’ people.

“I’m very happy you could come,” Cygnus said, for the approximately tenth time, completely ignoring the caretaker who had torn open the gates and was frozen in a deep bow - possibly very literally so.

And for the tenth time, too, Narcissa replied with fake cheer, “I would not be anywhere else, Papa. You know how much I miss you.”

“I wish your sisters were a little more like you, my darling.”

She merely kept on smiling. Of course, it didn’t work this way. It was rather the other way round. The worse her sisters hurt them, the more Narcissa tried to please their parents, just to make them happy. It was hard for her to see them like this.

“Don’t amuse yourself too much,” he said as usually when he had to let her go at last.

She shook her head, bravely smiled and kissed his cheeks. No, she wasn’t going to amuse herself. Truth was she had never been more miserable.

*****

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