I.26. – Condition

If you are not too long, I will wait for you all my life.

OSCAR WILDE – The Importance of Being Earnest

He knocked on the front door bolder than he felt. A tiny house-elf opened, glimpsed upwards, hesitated, and muttered, “Yes…?”

“Good evening. My name is Lucius Malfoy, and I’ve come to call on Miss Black.”

“Yes, sir, I know who you are,” the elf whispered timidly. “But I’m afraid I cannot call my dear Miss.”

“On your master’s orders or on hers?”

“On both, Mr Malfoy, sir –”

“You’re a good servant, so I wouldn’t want to cause you problems,” he drawled ironically, gave the elf a sardonic smile and stunned her. “You can put all the blame on me, as soon as you get up again.”

He stepped in and over the limp servant, self-confident on the outside, but avoiding to be too loud – he must to talk to Narcissa before facing her father. Her room was in the second floor, and he sincerely hoped she’d be in there… He went through his speech once more while mounting the stairs, stunned another elf, stopped in front of her door, inhaled deeply, and knocked.

“What is it, Elsy? I told you I don’t –”

He turned the handle and walked in, finding her sitting on a window sill, more beautiful than ever – her dark green robes and the darkness outside made a perfect contrast to the whiteness of her complexion and the gold of her hair. She had curled up her legs, her arms around her knees, her cheek on top, but the peace of this image only lasted for a second. As soon as spotting him, she jumped up and down to the floor, sparkling dangerously.

“What are you doing here?! How did you get in, anyhow?!”

He closed the door, lifted his hands for a soothing gesture, and replied softly, “Allow me to answer both questions before you have me thrown out, please. I got in because I’ve taken down some of your house-elves –”

“What?!”

“– and I will take the full responsibility for this in a few minutes. As for your first question – what am I doing here – I am here because I have to talk to you once more.”

Her cheeks had turned pink. “You do have a nerve to show up here!”

“I suppose so, yes… But I don’t want to reproach myself again for being a coward.”

She sneered in utter disdain. “Ah yes, I see. You’ve got enough to beat yourself up for, haven’t you?”

“Indeed I have. Listen to me, Narcissa, I beg you. Look, until yesterday, I believed that I would never see you again, and I admit, I didn’t leave out any occasion to console myself with whatever crossed my path. I reckon you assume that I was double-timing last night –”

“But of course, nothing could have been further away from the truth.”

“Perhaps I wouldn’t believe this either, if I didn’t know it for sure. Narcissa, in the second I saw you, there was nothing else on my mind, I swear. It must throw a bad light on me to confess this, but I totally forgot that this girl was even there. You wouldn’t believe how fervently I have longed to get just one chance with you, and when I thought it had finally come, I was oblivious to just anything else. I told you, you wouldn’t believe how long I have waited for you, and Merlin’s beard, I have – from the very first moment when I saw you, back then on your first day in Hogwarts, you were in my heart. Nobody else has ever had a place in my heart, Narcissa, there’s only you. And when I got to know you better after all, I knew for a fact that I could never be happy without you. Narcissa, I love y-”

“Don’t say that!” She almost shouted. “Don’t you dare saying that!”

“But it’s true. I don’t expect you’re returning that feeling, but I am sure that you’re not perfectly indifferent to me either. You are the epitome of countenance, Narcissa. I must matter to you, a little bit at least, when you lose your composure for my sake.”

She stared at him, until murmuring at last, “I will not deny that there was a time when I did like you a little bit. But that is over. Now go, before my father finds out you’re here.”

“I said it before – last night – I will gladly face him.”

“You said you would gladly face him if I allowed you. And I don’t.”

“You’ve disliked kissing me then?”

She gave an unwilling laugh. “You know what I dislike? I dislike being interchangeable. I prefer to think of myself as unique and special.”

“You know that you are anyway. So once more for the record – you didn’t dislike to kiss me,” he said in fake smugness, making her smirk, but not as repelled as before.

“That’s what you want to hear? All right, there you go. I did not dislike how you’ve kissed me, but what’s that saying? It’d be a shame if all those years of practising had done nothing for you.”

“I will not kiss anyone else ever again. Knowing how it feels to kiss you – how I felt, kissing the only one I’ve ever cared for – I can never go back to my old ways.”

She started to laugh cuttingly. “You should hear yourself talking! For heaven’s sake, as if you of all persons could live in celibacy for as long as a week!”

“You don’t believe me?”

“I sincerely hope you don’t believe this drivel yourself!”

“So let me make an Unbreakable Vow, right here and now. Let me prove you that I’m serious.”

“An Unbreakable Vow? Get real! Despite everything, I have no intention to get you killed, Lucius!”

Self-respect? Pride? Dignity? Sod them! He fell to his knees. “I know I’ve made more mistakes than you could possibly ever forgive me, still the little time I’ve spent with you has been the best in my life and I will not give you up. I will not stop. Your father can kick me out, he can curse me – you can curse me – but I won’t give up.”

“For Christ’s sake, get up! Get up!”

“I reckon you ought to call your father, for I will stay right here.”

She looked down at him in utter disbelief, but he could see that he had softened up her resistance. “If I called my father, he would kill you, and if he killed you, he’d spend the rest of his life in Azkaban, and what sort of daughter would I be to condemn my own father?”

“I will stay here.”

“I’ve heard that.” She put her tongue in her cheek. “What are you going to do when I leave this room?”

“I will stay here.”

“In the same position?”

“Exactly in the same position.”

“All right then.” And thus, she marched out, for once to test his resolution, and furthermore to look after the house-elves before her father found them. She undid the spells and made them promise to keep their silence about the unwelcome visitor. She didn’t hurry; in fact, she was quite at her leisure, strolling down to the kitchen with sprightly moves to eat a little snack – she hadn’t eaten anything since the day before, and had suddenly discovered her ravenous hunger. Her brains were in some worrisome inebriate condition; she felt like someone who’d received a serious blow on the head – which she had after all last night, so perhaps these were only the after-effects of a severe concussion, just without the hurting. At any rate, she was experiencing some strange blend between qualmishness, exultation, incredulity and entrancement. She didn’t even notice what she was stuffing in her mouth there, stopping short at a piece of roast-beef halfway to her mouth. What on earth was she doing here?!

Next, she went to see her parents in the parlour, played a couple of merry pieces for them, mixed herself a drink and slowly went back to her own room. Either he had remained in that highly uncomfortable position, or he had regained it down to a tee when hearing her come back. Whatever it was, she couldn’t deny she was impressed.

She sipped her drink and tilted her head. “I’ll go back to Hogwarts in two days, Lucius.”

“I know.”

“No matter how determined you were, you couldn’t see me again before Easter.”

“I could see you on your Hogsmeade weekend.”

“Which won’t happen before the middle of February.”

“I will wait, impatiently but nonetheless steady.”

“And how many girls will you hook up with in the interim?”

“I will be faithful. There can be no one next to you.”

She sniggered. “Oh, there can! Last night, one of them hit me on the head with a bottle.”

His white cheeks flushed and he swiftly cast down his eyes. “That will never happen again, I swear.”

She appraised him, her eyes narrowed and chewing on her bottom lip. “You will let me down, sooner or later. Now don’t tell me that you won’t, because all evidence points to the contrary. Given those facts, I have a suggestion to make, which is not negotiable. Right now, you will leave this house without further ado, via the window. We can meet in Hogsmeade, if you still want that then, and I will interrogate you with Veritaserum. We’ll see what happens then. Those are my terms, accept them or leave it.”

 *****

Useful Links: previous chapter, next chapter, Dramatis Personae