When: 23 October
Where: Fletcher’s flat
Who: @flctchcrs
She shouldn’t pay attention to the papers, but how can she help it? That’s her old life, and it’s hard to cut herself off entirely, even if she chose to leave. And the date--she knows what’s coming. It happens every year, and this is always a huge part of her year, assisting with the planning if it’s a friend hosting and making arrangements for her own outfit and Draco’s brief appearance before he’s whisked away by a nanny. Balls and parties were her job, practically, and the Riddle Ball was hers to host this year.
And then she’d left. They’d been mid-preparations for it already, when she’d gone, because that kind of party took half a year to arrange properly if not more. And Lucius was still hosting it, as if his wife and son’s disappearance was no more than a brief disruption in his life. As if he barely even cared.
At home, if she found herself agitated, she used to vent it by finding house-elves and berating them about anything she found out of place in the manor. In Fletcher’s flat, there were no house-elves, no household at all, just Narcissa and a dingy flat and Draco with a coloring book in the other room. He was, if nothing else, a remarkably focused child, unbothered by his mother’s flustered attitude.
Narcissa begins flinging open cupboards and rearranging what she finds inside--not enough to keep her occupied for more than twenty minutes, she moves on to the rest of the flat, tidying what little Fletcher owns. It’s when she goes looking for a broom that she finds the closet full of curios, and a vague memory pings of Fletcher mentioning it when she and Draco moved in.
Like a magpie, they’ve cluttered the floor with them, a vague sense of organization only discernible to a truly chaotic mind. Narcissa knows better than to reach in with a bare hand and procures a dishcloth, pulling out a round music box that looks familiar.
When she brings it too close to her face, it pops open, metal teeth protruding around the edge. “Ah!” Narcissa laughs. “I remember you. You eat hair, yes?” She flicks her head, bringing the box close to her hair, and the box makes a threatening whirr. “Oh, not eat, I forget. Collect. Like lovelocks.” She twists the key in the side and the box shuts again. “How odd. How did Fletcher get their hands on you, I wonder? Strange little thing.”
