fic post the 2nd!
Sep. 15th, 2005 05:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivendellroseAnd another request finished! I'm sorry these have taken so long, but I'm also happy they kept me busy as long as they did. *g*
This one's for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
diea, who requested my favorite HP canon-pairing, Lucius and Narcissa, with thematic hints from "Bathwater" by No Doubt. Lyrics can be found here for those who are curious.
Set in the first war, just about a year after leaving Hogwarts, this one is a bit of a dark fic. Nothing too grotesque or graphic, but... I'd say "mature themes" probably fits it fairly well. It's also... umm... a teensy bit dense. If the style is weird, I blame Sudafed.
They’ve been married a year and a month, now, their late-August wedding the year prior the highlight of that season’s social calendar. The chapel at Malfoy Manor had been filled with guests and dignitaries, candles and flowers in white, green and gold. Her sister had been her matron of honor, her brother-in-law Lucius’ best man. Their honeymoon had taken them through the south of France and the Mediterranean, and then up to Scandinavia to visit relatives there as well, before settling back in Wiltshire to begin a new life together.
At least, sometimes they were together.
Nights like this, nights when the rain poured down on the countryside and pattered in an endless rhythm on the panes of glass in the parlor and library and bedroom, Narcissa wondered what she’d been thinking when she married her childhood crush, the sweetheart whose smallest smile could send her teenage self into ecstasies, the popular and charming bad boy of society whose casual snub had left her crying into her pillow late nights when she was small. It was nights like this, nights shortly after a society ball where Lucius was still fawned over and chatted up by every woman in the room, nights when he was far away on mysterious business that would bring him back tired and cold and smelling of other people’s blood and fear… it was nights like this that made Narcissa wish she’d chosen a suitor she loved a little less.
He would come home after midnight, close to dawn more likely, and she would wake from fitful sleep to insist that no, she’d napped and didn’t need to go to bed, and did he want some brandy with the dinner the elves had kept out for him? He would accept the brandy, drink it to warm himself while he peeled wet black robes from his body, tucking them carefully into the laundry beneath more normal clothes. She would pretend to ignore the scents that clung to his skin, pretend she didn’t see the white mask that he tucked into a hidden drawer in their wardrobe. Pretend it didn’t make her slightly nauseated to know that these nights, nights when he’d killed and tortured and most likely raped through the countryside with his friends, these were the nights he would turn to her with the greatest passion, the nights he was the most playful and excited lover she’d ever seen him. She’d pretend she didn’t secretly look forward to them for that very reason.
It wasn’t that Lucius was cold on other nights, nights of long meetings and Ministry work, followed by theater or shopping and a peaceful dinner at home. He a thoughtful lover, aware of her desires, and could hardly have been said to neglect her. He often said he tried to treat her as the angel she was, and perhaps that was why the nights when the devil in him had been awakened were the best nights in their bed – he forgot, and by doing so he made her forget, that she was the good girl, the dutiful and quiet third daughter, the gentle voice of diplomacy in the den of snakes. Those nights she was allowed to be more, as his passion pushed both of them beyond propriety.
She had begged him to stay home, some nights when she’d heard the Aurors were abroad seeking the followers of this Dark Lord. She had begged and been ignored, on nights when his compatriots were captured, sent to Azkaban without trial or hope of freedom again. And that was if they were lucky – most were simply killed where they stood.
These nights, nights when she waited quietly at home, waiting to see if this would be the night her husband didn’t return, these nights she waited and went over the planned speeches in her mind. Eat, you’ve been working too hard… Drink some brandy, it’ll warm your blood, your hands are freezing… I ran you a hot bath, you should wash before you come to bed...
Each word was gentle, accompanied by pacifying kisses and cuddles as she led him through their evening ritual, and sometimes as she sponged sweat and dirt and blood from his skin, she thought of the charity meetings arranged for the next day, long hours of commiserating with other society wives over the state of the war, shaking their heads and bringing baskets to homes for the orphans, innocent and sweet faces of the children whose parents her husband killed. And then he would reach for her, draw her to him with kisses and enflamed eyes, and some distant part of her, untouched by passion, would know that she should be ashamed to so eagerly contradict herself.
Nights like this, she would bathe herself in envy and sorrow and joy, contradictions that seemed second-nature after a year, and watch for the light in the courtyard and the crack of apparation, and her husband coming home.
This one's for
diea, who requested my favorite HP canon-pairing, Lucius and Narcissa, with thematic hints from "Bathwater" by No Doubt. Lyrics can be found here for those who are curious.Set in the first war, just about a year after leaving Hogwarts, this one is a bit of a dark fic. Nothing too grotesque or graphic, but... I'd say "mature themes" probably fits it fairly well. It's also... umm... a teensy bit dense. If the style is weird, I blame Sudafed.
They’ve been married a year and a month, now, their late-August wedding the year prior the highlight of that season’s social calendar. The chapel at Malfoy Manor had been filled with guests and dignitaries, candles and flowers in white, green and gold. Her sister had been her matron of honor, her brother-in-law Lucius’ best man. Their honeymoon had taken them through the south of France and the Mediterranean, and then up to Scandinavia to visit relatives there as well, before settling back in Wiltshire to begin a new life together.
At least, sometimes they were together.
Nights like this, nights when the rain poured down on the countryside and pattered in an endless rhythm on the panes of glass in the parlor and library and bedroom, Narcissa wondered what she’d been thinking when she married her childhood crush, the sweetheart whose smallest smile could send her teenage self into ecstasies, the popular and charming bad boy of society whose casual snub had left her crying into her pillow late nights when she was small. It was nights like this, nights shortly after a society ball where Lucius was still fawned over and chatted up by every woman in the room, nights when he was far away on mysterious business that would bring him back tired and cold and smelling of other people’s blood and fear… it was nights like this that made Narcissa wish she’d chosen a suitor she loved a little less.
He would come home after midnight, close to dawn more likely, and she would wake from fitful sleep to insist that no, she’d napped and didn’t need to go to bed, and did he want some brandy with the dinner the elves had kept out for him? He would accept the brandy, drink it to warm himself while he peeled wet black robes from his body, tucking them carefully into the laundry beneath more normal clothes. She would pretend to ignore the scents that clung to his skin, pretend she didn’t see the white mask that he tucked into a hidden drawer in their wardrobe. Pretend it didn’t make her slightly nauseated to know that these nights, nights when he’d killed and tortured and most likely raped through the countryside with his friends, these were the nights he would turn to her with the greatest passion, the nights he was the most playful and excited lover she’d ever seen him. She’d pretend she didn’t secretly look forward to them for that very reason.
It wasn’t that Lucius was cold on other nights, nights of long meetings and Ministry work, followed by theater or shopping and a peaceful dinner at home. He a thoughtful lover, aware of her desires, and could hardly have been said to neglect her. He often said he tried to treat her as the angel she was, and perhaps that was why the nights when the devil in him had been awakened were the best nights in their bed – he forgot, and by doing so he made her forget, that she was the good girl, the dutiful and quiet third daughter, the gentle voice of diplomacy in the den of snakes. Those nights she was allowed to be more, as his passion pushed both of them beyond propriety.
She had begged him to stay home, some nights when she’d heard the Aurors were abroad seeking the followers of this Dark Lord. She had begged and been ignored, on nights when his compatriots were captured, sent to Azkaban without trial or hope of freedom again. And that was if they were lucky – most were simply killed where they stood.
These nights, nights when she waited quietly at home, waiting to see if this would be the night her husband didn’t return, these nights she waited and went over the planned speeches in her mind. Eat, you’ve been working too hard… Drink some brandy, it’ll warm your blood, your hands are freezing… I ran you a hot bath, you should wash before you come to bed...
Each word was gentle, accompanied by pacifying kisses and cuddles as she led him through their evening ritual, and sometimes as she sponged sweat and dirt and blood from his skin, she thought of the charity meetings arranged for the next day, long hours of commiserating with other society wives over the state of the war, shaking their heads and bringing baskets to homes for the orphans, innocent and sweet faces of the children whose parents her husband killed. And then he would reach for her, draw her to him with kisses and enflamed eyes, and some distant part of her, untouched by passion, would know that she should be ashamed to so eagerly contradict herself.
Nights like this, she would bathe herself in envy and sorrow and joy, contradictions that seemed second-nature after a year, and watch for the light in the courtyard and the crack of apparation, and her husband coming home.
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-16 12:22 am (UTC)very nice fic. : ) I think you did a really good job with Narcissa; I still hate Lucius, but I want to like her.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-16 12:41 am (UTC)I like Narcissa and Lucius both, but that's at least in part the product of several years playing one or both of them in various RPGs. Narcissa especially appeals to me, because I love trying to prove that she doesn't have to be either a complete innocent dragged unwillingly into the whole Death Eater thing, or a totally evil bitch who's with Lucius in every decision. She can just be a person.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-16 12:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-16 12:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-16 02:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-16 02:38 am (UTC)