Narcissa Black Malfoy

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“Oh!” The startled exclamation slipped out involuntarily from Scorpius’s lips. It was followed immediately by a flush unfurling across his face as though he had just swallowed a handful of rose petals that were now sprouting along his pallid cheekbones. “No, that’s – I’m sorry, grandmother, I should have explained better, that’s not what I meant.”

It wasn’t a bad assumption, all things considered – wasn’t even an incorrect one either. There were plenty of people at Hogwarts, many of them within his own House, who regularly said truly awful things to, and about, Scorpius. It had gotten somewhat better after he made the Quidditch team last year – had at least given his own housemates a reason to think positively about him in one area, anyway, even if it had only given students in the other three Houses more fuel for their dislike. Scorpius suspected that the fact that he was getting more proficient at hexing, jinxing, and brewing retaliatory draughts had more than a little bit to do with the slight decrease in open vitriol as well.

That, and people were probably just getting used to him. It was doubtless more exciting to insult a new face than it was to keep trotting out the same tired barbs for someone you saw day after day after day…not that it stopped some people.

But familiarity was a Portkey that travelled both ways; just as the novelty of insulting him wore off after a while, so too did Scorpius grow somewhat inured – at least a little – to those tedious, repetitive insults. He didn’t have to like it…but he was used to it. Mostly. It hardly ever even hurt, not really. At any rate, it wasn’t something that was going to stop, and it wasn’t something that he had any power over, so there was no sense fretting.

And grandmother was right. Between his parents, his grandparents, and his friends, what did he care what other people thought of him? They weren’t worth the fuss.

What was worth fussing over was the future of the wixen world at large, however. Scorpius wondered if this was how his grandfather had felt once upon a time when he had believed that the Dark Lord held answers instead of torment and tragedy. He tried to brush the thought away; tried to get his own thoughts in order. He took a deep breath and tried to explain: “It’s how much we’ve lost, all of us, not just the Blacks and the Malfoys and the Greengrass but everybody, the whole Wizarding World – and no one seems to care. It’s like – no, it’s like nobody wants to know our history. It’s like…they think if they look away, it will go away. But it won’t. It’ll just…decay around us. And then what will we be left with?”

He slumped forward, propping his suddenly heavy head in his hands. “Generations of magical history that nobody knows. Like it doesn’t matter – but it does, because whether you know it or not it’s still there.” Just like the holes in the old Black Family Tapestry: the names might have been obliterated, but you could still see the gaps. Could still see what was missing. He looked up at his grandmother again, his grey eyes bleak. “You mentioned Albus and Rose? I know more about their families than they do, and they’re hardly even curious. And if they don’t care…” Scorpius didn’t have to finish the rest of the sentence: no one did.

He sighed heavily. “And once it’s gone, there’s no getting it back, of course. Whether it’s unclaimed jewelry going back to the goblins or family stories that there’s nobody left to tell, you can’t fill those holes back in. What’s the Wixen World even going to be in another generation or two, grandmother?”

Narcissa couldn’t believe that someone so young was feeling so burdened. It broke her heart. Not only were people so cruel to him when he was an innocent child, but now he was consumed with the strain of trying to keep the entirety of pure-blood society and tradition going all on his own.

And with friends like he had, she could understand where his thoughts came from. After all, it was all that one could expect from families like those. 

“My love,” she said, trying her very best to be as soothing as possible, “just because your friends don’t care about their heritage doesn’t mean that no one does.” 

She shrugged lightly and leaned against the wall slightly. “Scorpius, there will always be those who struggle to keep our way of life alive, and I’m honoured that you are determined to be one of them. it means that it will never be gone. I have every confidence that you will teach it to your own children, and they will teach it to theirs, just as we’ve done with you, my darling. It’s how we know it will continue.” 

His question did trouble her, though. Of course the world was a very different place than it had been when she raised Draco, and she was certainly not unaware of that. 

Scorpius’s frown didn’t lighten, despite his grandmother’s reassurance. It wasn’t that Scorpius doubted her – but over the last year or so, he had begun to suspect that sometimes his parents and grandparents coddled him a little bit. It wasn’t something he had voiced an objection to yet – was not, in fact, even something he did object to more often than not, for all that at fourteen he was supposed to be entering a period of outraged adolescent independence, at least according to Rose; sometimes it was nice to be coddled – but sometimes it wasn’t. Or at least, it wasn’t helpful.

Part of Scorpius was tempted to let grandmother go ahead and summon the elves and change the subject and push unpleasant thoughts aside for later – but he thought of all those dead ends on that fading tapestry, all the names in the old books that had been crossed-out or abandoned to the decay of memory – and he knew he couldn’t.

Scorpius took a deep, reluctant breath, and said, “I don’t want to be disagreeable, grandmother, but I feel like this is exactly the sort of thing I ought to be worried about. As the heir, I mean. Isn’t that sort of my responsibility? To be concerned about the future of the family?” He was the future of this family, after all – concerned was probably putting it mildly.

It was more than just their family, though; it was the whole history of the magical world that was fading and shriveling before them. Not that magic itself was in any danger of dying out; there were days when Scorpius would have preferred there to be fewer students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, in fact – but so many of those students had no concept of their past, and even less interest in preserving the history of those who had come before.

He did manage a smile of gratitude for the compliment – it would have been rude not to, and besides, it did make him feel good to hear that his grandmother thought so highly of him – but for once, even praise did little to lift Scorpius’s spirits. “How can you possibly be so optimistic, though?” he asked. “If you heard the way people talked at school…” He shook his head, the expression on his pinched face bleak. He wasn’t looking forward to going back to Hogwarts after Easter Break – not at the moment, anyway. At the moment, it was hard to remember the good things about school, or even about his friends; none of them understood what was so close to being lost…

Narcissa tilted her head to the side as if considering Scorpius’s questions. They weren’t bad questions, after all. And, to be entirely frank, Scorpius was absolutely correct. As the heir to the name, he was responsible for the future of their great family. However, if there was any way that her grandson fell even remotely short of what they expected, Narcissa honestly couldn’t see what it was. 

“Scorpius, my darling,” she said, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder, “you are right. I am very happy that you take your obligation as heir seriously. It’s a good indication of your suitability to the role that you have inherited. However, as I said, I truly don’t believe that you could possibly be any sort of disappointment to any of us.” 

It broke her heart to hear that the children at Hogwarts-- and some of the professors, she’d imagine-- were being cruel to her grandson. While she had hardly expected their family to escape their actions during the war unscathed, she hadn’t ever anticipated that people would be so mean to a child. 

“Scorpius, you know that you are part of a very old and very significant family. However, you also know that there are those in our world who find it exceedingly difficult to forgive or to attempt to understand the motives of those who they have already judged and found wanting by their own standards.” 

She shrugged lightly. “I am sorry that they are taking out their petty vendettas on you, as you are a wholly innocent party but, sadly, that is what is to be expected of people with no breeding or manners,” she frowned briefly. “Please promise me that you will do your utmost to remember that you are treasured and loved and that their opinion hardly matters. Especially not when you’ve got those lovely friends of yours who obviously adore you.” 

@tothemanorwed​ continued from this.

“It’s just…” Scorpius hesitated, picking at the embroidered cuff of his robes while he struggled to put his feelings into words. In a way, it had come over him suddenly, this melancholy – but in another, these were thoughts that had been building for what seemed nearly his entire life. Looking at that fading tapestry with its bleak burned spots half-hidden behind a bookcase at Albus’s house had been the catalyst, yes – but that had been more of a tipping point that Scorpius had been moving toward for as long as he could remember.

He glanced up at his grandmother, unwilling to burden her – but at the same time, he had to talk about this to someone. And who would understand better than her? Besides, Narcissa was so strong. If anyone in his family could bear-up under the weight of this conversation, surely it was she…

Besides, he had broached the topic, even if he had done it vaguely. There was no way she would let him back-out of it now without explaining himself.

Scorpius took a deep breath, looked up at the ceiling so he wouldn’t have to summon the strength to look her in the eyes, and said, “We’re almost gone. The Blacks, the Malfoys… when you look back, there used to be so many of us. There used to be dynasties. Now, it’s just…” He waved a hand through the air, silently indicating the half-inhabited manor house and the meager little family that inhabited it. “To think that all of that, after so long, it’s all come down to just…” To just me, he thought. “Just this,” he said. “You know?” Scorpius looked at his grandmother, eyes full of silent pleading for her to say something that would somehow make it better.

“I don’t know that any food is going to help with any of that,” he finished bleakly, then remembered his manners and quickly added, “Er – but it’s a very nice idea, of course. Thank you, grandmother.”

Of all the things that Narcissa might have expected to be troubling her young grandson, this wasn’t even among the possibilities. She had been prepared for problems with friends, for a romantic entanglement perhaps, or maybe even something academic in nature. Exams were rapidly approaching, after all, and Scorpius so liked to do well in his academics. 

Instead, the poor boy was sitting around the manor and worrying about the future of his family line. What an utterly dear boy he was. 

Narcissa would have been lying to say that this wasn’t something that she’d thought of herself. You would have to be living under some sort of rock to be unaware of how the landscape of pure-blood society had changed after the war and the ruination that followed. So many prominent family lines had merely ended, their last surviving members carted off to Azkaban for war crimes. Truthfully, it was occasionally more than Narcissa could bear. 

But, this wasn’t about her. This was about Scorpius. 

“Darling,” she said, continuing to thread his hair through her fingers, “you needn’t worry about things like this. Our numbers are smaller than they once were. That’s very true. However, I should think that it’s very obvious that both the Malfoy and Black families have always been more concerned with quality than quantity.” 

The number of family members who had been removed for various infractions was certainly a good indicator of that. 

“And, I can tell you in all certainty that, when I consider where the quality of the future of our two great families lies, I have never been concerned even for a fraction of a moment.”

“It gave me the strangest dreams.”

“I always kind of thought it was my fault.”

“I’d had the hardest, darkest feelings of my whole young life that day.”

“These things make perfect sense when you’re a kid.”

“Her clothes aren’t as cool as yours.”

“My headaches are almost constant now.”

“My dreams are so vivid.”

“You know those dreams that feel more real than life?”

“I don’t think there’s anything worse than that.”

“I bet you’d do anything for them.”

“What’s going on with you?”

“You’re holding a fucking screwdriver to my throat.”

“You send us away, out into the dark, and my heart breaks right in half, and I can’t feel anything happy, for weeks and months and years until I can’t stand it anymore.”

“I always thought our whole job was just getting them ready for the world.”

“I’ve always needed someone to keep me grounded, get me out of my head.”

“If you’re worried about your children, you don’t let anyone tell you what you’re feeling is wrong.”

“The world out there has teeth, and it is hungry and it is stupid and it eats and eats mindlessly.”

“So, you accidentally put your hand through a mirror?”

“Do you think there’s something wrong with me?”

“I’m not seriously gonna eat this.”

“I just saw her in the kitchen and she was being really weird.”

“He’s driving them toward disease and heartbreak and sadness and death.”

“Why can’t I wake up?”

“Haven’t you always wanted an endless summer?”

“This is a master key, so it’s supposed to open any door in the house.”

“It’s a house without kindness.”

“I think I know where to find him.”

“Fear is the relinquishment of logic, the willing relinquishing of reasonable patterns.”

“Leave the ghosts where they belong.”

“Is anything real before you write it?”

“The things you write about are real, those people are real, their feelings are real, their pain is real, but not to you. Not until you chew it up and digest it and shit it out on a piece of paper.”

“You take other people’s lives and love and loss and pain and you eat it.”

“I was always a supporting player in your story, if we’re honest.”

“I picked up the check for your dreams and I said goodbye to mine.”

“I never really thought about it, but you send someone a drink without their consent and it’s socially acceptable. But you send someone an appetizer without their consent, and it’s really, really weird.”

“I’m just trying to be funny.”

“I’ve got all the makings of a mean martini if you want a nightcap.”

“It’s taken 60 million years to develop the carnivorous biped you see before you.”

“It was nice to meet you and I enjoyed the conversation, but I’m going to say goodnight.”

“The bills were screaming and the children were screaming and your husband just drifted out of focus, didn’t he.”

“It was like nothing happened.”

“She knows something most people don’t.”

“The instant someone dies, they learn everything.”

“I don’t feel anything else.”

“Fear and guilt are sisters.”

“Don’t apologize to me.”

“It wasn’t your fault, never once.”

“I don’t want to be dead.”

“The rest is confetti.”

“Everything’s been out of order.”

“I thought for so long that time was like a line, that our moments were laid out like dominoes and that they fell one into another and on it went, just days tipping into the next, in a long line between beginning and end.”

“I was wrong. Our moments fall around us like rain, or snow, or confetti.”

“A house is like a body, and every house has eyes.”

“I don’t know how to do this without you.”

“I learned a secret. There’s no without.”

“I’m scattered into so many pieces, sprinkled on your life like new snow.”

“I loved you completely.”

“Forgive a girl for being lonely.”

“I have told lies and made a fool of myself.”

“Whatever that life is, we bear witness.”

“We loved each other so well that it spread out into the universe and it created a new star.”

“The night sky is full of dead stars.”

“Nothing bad will ever touch them again.”

“I would have followed you right into the darkness.”

“Journeys don’t end, not if you love someone.”

“Once upon a time, the world was just play.”

“Probably best you didn’t say anything to them.”

“I’m having the strangest dream.”

“I’m gonna burn this house down to the ground. Make sure that every room, every wall, every splinter is immolated.”

“The house is full of precious, precious things, and they don’t all belong to you.”

“I’ve been so wrong about so much.”

“I’ve lived with ghosts since I was a kid.”

“Ghosts are guilt, are secrets, regrets, and failings.”

“A marriage can be like a house and a marriage can be haunted.”

“I have something that I have to tell you.”