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—and the rosebushes are wilting, but Mipsy assures me the hedge maze will not gobble them up. I harbour doubts, for the maze has grown quite brazen in your absence—
Narcissa jerked her quill away from the parchment before she rambled further on trifling matters that Lucius didn’t care about, such as the hedge maze swallowing up half the garden while the house-elves battled it into submission.
She had so used to love curling up amongst the flowers, but that was before she risked life and limb dodging ravenous rosebushes and lecherous tendrils of ivy. Much like the rest of the ancient estate, the grounds had broken free of their restraints and were trying their best to devour her. Or perhaps she was simply in their way, an irritating obstacle blocking their path to freedom.
Not for the first time, or the second, or the fifth, she wished that Lucius wasn’t locked away in Azkaban. He scarcely answered any of her letters, and when he did, they were filled with ghastly instructions she hated following. But she was a dutiful wife—and a desperate one. If there was any hope of whisking him out of that horrible prison, she would do it.
—and do stay warm. I hear the northern seas are awfully windy this time of year—
She winced at her foolishness, but continued scribbling. Silly as it was to fuss over him, she couldn’t help herself. However bad she had it at the Manor, it was incomparable to the misery of Azkaban.
Once she had finished pouring her heart onto the parchment for him to ignore, she sealed the letter by stamping the Malfoy seal in the warm wax—at least the loping curls of his signet ring had yet to strangle her—and gave it to a house-elf. They would see to it that an owl would brave the stormy seas to deliver her love. And if she were lucky, perhaps she would even receive a reply.
••✒︎
An envelope lay waiting for her on the breakfast table. Its corners were dented, and her name dripped down the front in soggy ink fresh from a rainstorm.
All thoughts of grapefruit and porridge fled her mind. She snatched the envelope off the tablecloth and tore it open. She would know those loping whorls anywhere—Lucius had written to her.
Her eyes clung onto every word of his letter, until she reached the middle, where his instructions leapt off the parchment and slapped her across the face.
No, maybe she had misunderstood. She read all the way until the end, and then read the whole letter over again a second time, and then a third. Her head spun. She lowered to the chair before she fell prey to a fainting spell.
Lucius wanted her to … no, it was unthinkable. But he had said so, clearly, in words meant only for her.
She swallowed.
••✒︎
She had never felt more silly peering into the mirror, adjusting the lacy black lingerie over her sagging bosom. A woman of nearly fifty had no business seducing a Ministry official, but Lucius seemed to think it would grant her a discreet visit to the North Sea, where she could pass along … something. Perhaps a portkey, or maybe a wand.
She shivered. Being caught breaking a man out of Azkaban was grounds to be tossed in Azkaban herself. But all other avenues had closed to her, and Circe knew she had tried. Friends had scattered like flies once the ghastly photograph from Lucius’ trial hit the front page. None would speak to her, and the useless barrister at her disposal had ceased to answer her letters and seemed to be out for lunch whenever she banged on his door.
—remember that I love you, my precious daffodil. Thoughts of you keep me warm in this dreary place.
It was those words that guided her hands to straighten the lingerie, to step into a gown, to stroke a brush through her cascading locks of hair. She was dressing up for Lucius, even if he was not there to murmur how beautiful she looked.
He needed her, and she would try, no matter how it sickened her stomach.
••✒︎
She had done the dastardly deed, but of course it hadn’t been enough. She’d had to return again, and again, and again, and smile coyly over her glass of wine and moan breathlessly in another man’s ear. But Lucius had been correct—the balding official had always had his eye on her and couldn’t seem to believe his luck.
“I must see him once and for all, to tell him that it’s over,” she explained demurely to her new lover. She was curled against his hairy chest in the hovel he called a flat, and had almost grown used to the worn sheets scratching her skin.
“Can’t you just send him the divorce papers?” he mumbled drowsily.
“You know how awful he was to me. I need to see the light dim from his eyes as I retell every detail of your prowess,” she whispered in a way she hoped was alluring, and pressed her ample breasts to his chest. “Please, darling, I need this closure to start the new chapter of our life. I desperately want to marry you. Tell me that you do as well!”
“Of course I do. It’s just that, well, travel to Azkaban is severely restricted …”
“Surely a well-connected man as yourself can grant his future wife a favour?”
••✒︎
If there was anything worse than laying underneath a pathetic, lonely Ministry official while her eyes traced cracks in the ceiling, it was returning to the hollow comfort of her bedchambers.
Her heart burned with resentment for what Lucius forced her to endure. He scarcely sent her pittances of love through his letters, and asked the world of her in return. But how could she refuse him? He was trapped in that awful place with gruel for supper and tattered rags to keep him warm.
There was another reason as well, one she preferred not to dwell on. If he somehow freed himself without her assistance, he would not look kindly on a disloyal wife who had abandoned him in his time of need. No, she had no choice but to soldier on and follow his instructions.
It would be so much easier if she could see his charming grin one more time. She yearned to feel his tender caresses as he held her close. If he could murmur reassurances that everything would be all right, her heart wouldn’t bleed out in the gaping void of loneliness.
She sank into their marital bed and buried her head in his pillow. His scent had faded months ago, but if she squeezed her eyes shut, the silken pillowcase almost felt like the crook of his neck. How dearly she wished to curl up with him.
Her shoulders shook. The bed was no stranger to her tears. While she valiantly held in her sobs, the sheets slithered up to cradle her. The brush of silk against her skin soothed her; it was as if Lucius were there, holding her close, tucking the blankets around her waist, draping them over her shoulders, snuggling her in tight, dragging her down with him, smothering the air from her chest, drowning in a violent sea of silken sheets—
“Mipsy!” she cried, before the sheets wrenched over her mouth and pulled her under the roiling waves of silk.
A crack, a flash of light, and then she was freed.
She tumbled to the floor, dragged out from the ravenous bed by her own house-elf.
“Is Mistress all right?” Mipsy squeaked.
Narcissa gasped for breath and stared wildly at the bed that had tried to kill her.
“Just leave!” Draco had shouted at her. “It clearly isn’t safe anymore! Do you want to die?”
“Don’t be silly, do you think this is the only estate with troubles? We cannot abandon ten centuries of family legacy. What will your father think when he hears of his home fallen to ruins?”
Even the bed had lost its fondness for her. Perhaps it sensed the residue of another man on her skin. Or maybe, like her, it mourned the loss of its master who’d kept the estate running smoothly under the iron control of his magic. Without his presence, Malfoy Manor had shed any pretence of order and crept closer to the wilderness every day.
She desperately wished for everything to go back to the way it was, but the more she clawed at her receding hopes, the further away they fleeted.
••✒︎
She was not entirely certain whom she had become: A yearning wife, pining away for her imprisoned husband? A frightened widow, trapped in a manor trying to kill her? A manipulative adultress, whispering words that would have never dared come out of her mouth before her world imploded?
Or perhaps she was simply a seasick passenger on a boat headed to Azkaban. Every roll of the waves lurched her stomach closer to spewing across the decks. It could be nerves, it could be the toast she’d had for breakfast, it could be the lingering echo of wraiths that had floated about the island for centuries, leaving behind an imprint of despair, although the guards that greeted them were entirely human. She ducked her head and followed silently behind the procession of officials.
The rocky path was slick with rain. She watched her step as they marched to the dark monolith jutting up through the stormclouds. What a dreadful place. Not for the first time, she wondered if she had lost her mind, but it was far too late to turn back now; Lucius needed her.
Inside was no less bleak. Wind whistled through the cracks in the brick, and the agony of a thousand prisoners groaned through the shadows. She shored up her nerves. Lucius was close; they would soon allow her to see him.
“He might look different than you remember,” a young Auror cautioned her. He had been kind to her on the boat and had offered a tonic of ginger to ease her nausea.
She forced her lips into a smile. “Yes, I imagine he might.”
They sat her in a creaky wooden chair and told her to wait, but not before divesting her of all her possessions, including her wand and the innocuous gifts she had spent weeks fashioning into discreet portkeys that would activate with a drop of Malfoy blood. Her stomach plummeted.
Lucius would be crushed. His last vestigates of hope, snatched away by Aurors who were too paranoid to allow a wife to gift him a candied apple. At least she would have a chance to see him one last time, before he was locked up forever. She missed him terribly.
Soon, the jangle of chains sounded in the distance, and she realised he must be manacled. Oh Gods. He wouldn’t want her to see him stripped of his dignity. The trial had been bad enough.
But then the door swung open. No matter how she had prepared herself for what she might see, reality was worse than she had imagined. His skin hung sallow off his bones, his hair was matted to his scalp, and his eyes bored into her with the intensity of a dying man beholding water in the desert.
A sob bubbled up in her throat. What had they done to him! She leapt up from her chair and dashed across the room to fling her arms about his ghastly figure. His chains dug painfully into her bosom.
“Lucius,” she choked into his filthy neck.
The Aurors politely averted their eyes.
He rasped something in her ear, then cleared his throat and tried again. “What have you brought?”
The words were low, for her ears only. She buried closer into his neck, both to snatch as much comfort as she could from his presence, but also so that the Aurors would not hear them and pull her away prematurely.
“Nothing,” she whispered. “They confiscated the gifts I had for you. I’m so sorry.”
She hugged him fiercely, although he did little but stand there, and he certainly did not whisper sweetly how much he’d missed her. Guilt overwhelmed her, but there was nothing she could do under the eyes of three Aurors in the middle of the North Sea. She had tried and failed; all those months of debasing herself had amounted to nothing.
Finally, he rasped an incomprehensible mutter about wands. She murmured questioningly, but suddenly she was wrenched about and chains dug into her neck. She let out a garbled shriek as pain lanced across her throat.
The Aurors leapt into action. She was not in a state of mind to track what happened, but one moment Lucius was choking her with his chains, and the next they had wrestled her free.
She stumbled to her knees, heaving for breath and clutching her throat. Her vision blurred, and she blinked away tears, but they fell faster than she could hold them back. She choked out a sob, which blazed her throat in agony.
Lucius was furious with her. She had failed him.
She gasped from the floor while two Aurors manhandled her husband and the third Auror knelt down beside her. He was speaking to her, but she couldn’t hear him over the sounds of her hoarse sobbing.
Cool magic engulfed her throat. The agony dissipated, until she found herself staring into the concerned eyes of the kindly Auror who had helped her on the boat. His wand was out; he had cast a healing spell over her throat.
Oh, is that what Lucius had meant. He didn’t despise her after all; he had created an opportunity.
Bolstered by the surge of crushing relief, she snatched the wand from the Auror’s hand. In the second it took for him to recover from his shock, she stunned him.
Before his rigid body had toppled over, she aimed her stolen wand at the dogpile over her husband and shot out more stunning spells. Alas, her accuracy was atrocious; she blasted the wall behind them instead.
The Aurors flung their heads up, but finally her aim was true: They both seized rigid and fell.
Fine trembles of adrenaline shook her hands. Now she had done it. She would soon be caught, for they had made an unbearable amount of racket, and then she would never leave that horrid place. She would be left to die in a stormy graveyard with the ghosts of dementors for company.
Lucius groaned underneath the two Aurors. A garbled rasp was too quiet for her to hear.
She stepped closer.
“Enervate me!” he hissed out, before devolving into a gurgling cough.
A flick of her wand tossed aside the unconscious bodies of the Aurors, revealing the state of her husband. He looked terrible. The blood smeared about his face did little to hide the mess of cut lips and grotesque nose.
She pointed her wand and did as he bade.
“Enervate.”
He gasped to life. The pale skin of his cheekbones flushed rosy pink, and his swollen eyelids flung open to reveal wide dilated eyes. She had but a moment to soak in his astonishing return to humanity, before he heaved himself off the floor and snatched the wand out of her hand.
“Is there a boat?” he demanded roughly, after clearing his throat.
“Erm … yes!” she said, still reeling from her brazen heroics. “We’re not too far from the entrance.”
Could it be—his rescue might be successful after all? She scarcely dared to hope, but Lucius seemed to have reverted back to a memory of his old self, snapping off questions about their circumstances in the blink of an eye, albeit while wiping blood from his face.
She was so relieved, she could weep into the tattered rags stretched across his chest. Instead, she answered as quickly as she could, for they could be discovered at any moment.
Soon she found herself Disillusioned as they slipped through the corridors. The camouflage spell was shakier than it ought to be: it sputtered occasionally, and their outlines moved paler than the surrounding stone bricks. The months of hardship had clearly taken a toll on his magic control.
She wished she had thought to teach herself the Disillusionment Charm, but she had spent the past weeks too focused on useless portkeys and staring in the mirror, adjusting her lingerie. But she was there, beside Lucius once more, and they truly were running away together. Her heart hammered in her chest.
They reached the entrance in less than a minute. Unlike the empty corridors behind them, there were two Aurors idling at the front desk, chatting with three officials. The way past was narrow and blocked by heavy doors and a looming archway.
Narcissa hesitated, but they had a plan, so she slipped carefully past the wizards while scarcely daring to breathe. They did not so much as twitch at her silent presence. She continued on underneath the arch, eyes intent on the door.
But before they could put their hasty plan into action, the arch lit up. A wave of magic washed over her and swept away the illusion.
No! How foolish she had been! She hadn’t realised the arch was more than an architectural structure; it hadn’t lit up when the group had passed under it earlier. But as Lucius unveiled into existence beside her, he was plain for all to see.
Less than a second passed. It was unclear who was more surprised, the Malfoys or their jailors. But then the Aurors reached for their wands.
A wall of flames erupted from Lucius’ wand. The officials leapt for cover, but there was no escape; the fiery maw gaped open and devoured everything in its path. Wings unfurled from the blazing inferno and roared.
Fiendfyre. Lucius meant to burn them alive.
She did not see how the Aurors reacted, because the doors blasted open behind her, and she was no idiot: She ran.
Salty air cleared the smoke from her lungs. A coughing fit sent her perilously close to the sheer cliffs on either side, but she scrambled to steady herself and kept running.
Lucius was not far ahead, scarcely a hands’ breadth away. His chest heaved with exertion. She worried for his footing on the rain-slicked rocks, but he dashed down the slippery path without care for his weakened state. The boat bobbed below, straining the ropes lashed to the dock.
Shouts rang out, and a rock exploded beside them. Narcissa shrieked and shielded her face from flying shards, but kept running. If she stopped, she would never see him again. She must keep running.
Close. They were close to the boat. Halfway, maybe.
Waves crashed against the jagged cliffs below. She mustn't lose her step, and she must keep running.
Lucius briefly stumbled, but righted himself before she could cast her hands out to aid him. More rocks exploded. Although shards slashed her cheeks, she didn’t stop to register the pain. She must keep running.
The rocky path snaked around a sharp turn. Lucius made the turn, but Narcissa slipped.
She cried out. Her arms flailed, and she feared she would plummet to the watery depths below, but she snatched Lucius’ arm at the last moment and was able to steady herself.
He jerked back from her desperate grip, and then the sky tilted. She was falling. Lucius had shoved her away to keep running.
Dark cliffs raced past her vision. She was plummeting down to the roiling waves below.
Her mind reeled. Twenty years of stripping her soul for kindling to keep him warm, and he hadn’t hesitated. He'd pushed her off a cliff without a second thought.
He didn’t care about her. Maybe he never had.
Her husband’s back was the last thing she saw before her skull ricocheted off the rocks. The sky faded, the roar silenced, and her body plunged into the cold embrace of the sea.