Who: Narcissa and James When: Backdated WWAAAYYYY back when she first stayed at the cottage Where: James cottage What: Meeting, chattin Warning: nothin
Narcissa Black was an absolute mess. Her long, blonde hair frayed and tangled over her shoulders and back. Her bright eyes were rounded with dark circles. Her lips were chapped. Her face a little blushed from wandering around in the daylight as if she had never been outside before. One could easily mistake her for a street urchin who stole an older woman’s very expensive and refined green robes and a white dress that were now so dirty, torn and scorched with various spells that they didn’t seem valuable anymore in the least. Still, she was a tall, stately girl with perfect posture and clever eyes. This was enough for Narcissa to feel as though she wasn’t going to be laughed right out of this quaint little cottage.
As she walked, she smoothed her hands over the dirty lace frills at the edges of her robes and then slowly began picking the loose parts off with her fingers, ripping the delicate lace down until it came off in jagged, stringy pieces. Narcissa frowned, certain she made part of it worse, part of it better. She looked up, nose inches away from the cottage door now without even realizing it and she took a step back, then a step forward to knock and then a step back again. She straightened her spine once more, considered lifting her nose up as an attempt to be a funny rain cloud, but then decided the Potter boy may not find it very funny at all.
When he opened the door she smiled warily at him. Tired, a little loopy from sleep deprivation (though she’d never admit it) and actually a bit happy to see him in a strange way. It was like James and his friends were living examples that things could be different this time. That she could find a new path for her life. “I apologize for telling Severus you are a toad.” She said, the smile turning into a clever smirk. “I’m taking my shoes off, they’re wretched and dirty and I hate them.” She declared, already peeling off the once glamorous looking heels.
It was midday and the sun was high and hot over the green trees that surrounded the cottage in the forest, a secret kept from the world at large. Inside the little house, behind shuttered windows done up in the country, it was warm. The fires were naught but wood charred black as the night before James had forgotten to charm the flames to keep them from burning too quickly. He was tired, having spent hours poring over the stack of Prophets Sirius had brought with him when he’d arrived, and it showed on his otherwise obscenely healthy face, two little bruises under brown eyes, hidden behind spectacles and a terribly messy bush of black hair. In socks Pitch-green, decorated with three hoops spanning the ankle. As he wore only the soft, loose hanging velvet of a second-hand robe over a Puddlemere t-shirt and boxers, the socks were completely visible on slatted, foot-worn wood.
He had a cup of tea floating by his elbow when he opened the door, only momentarily surprised by the apparition of Narcissa Black, or one who might have been her, without her usual Black polish. She was right haggard—sodden, torn robes, once fine, perhaps, her hair a mess, and her upturned pureblood nose ruddy from the sun.
She smiled.
He smiled back, not at all sheepish about it. He did rather enjoy seeing her having fallen, the House Elf’s glee at his mistress’ misfortune.
“As you know it’s quite untrue?” He queried, stepping away from the door and into his tea to allow her inside. She tore her shoes, terrible contraptions that looked rather painful and not at all for walking, from petite feet, though her lips quirked into a very Slytherin sort of smile. His own turned rather roguish, harkening back to his days as Quidditch captain, all self-satisfaction. “Make yourself at home. I do apologize for the lack of House Elf, but I’m happy to genuflect, if it would make you feel better.”
Narcissa caught the reason for that smile and tisked, waving her finger in the air as if he had just committed a social faux pas in the middle of a pureblood elite party. “I suspect there is a whole world of wizards out there determined to smile at me for the same reason.” There was a flicker of fire in her eyes that wasn’t meant for him that looked as if she could scream and flatten the cottage if she decided. Narcissa took one heel, shook it at him like a murderous weapon and then threw it with all her Black anger out behind a bush. It made a satisfying sound when it hit the mud and she grinned almost maniacally as she chucked the next one in the other direction. A moment of savageness that would have matched what James had seen with Sirius; grinning, silly and messy madness that boiled under the skin of everyone in her family tree. “Blast those shoes. I shall never wear heels again!”
But, then the likeness to her cousin was gone and she turned with a whirl of her dirty robes, chin up and eyes confident as she took the tea before he could knock it over, one long hand under while the other held the handle of the teacup delicately like a paint brush. It was then that he could see the ink marks all over the side of her hand and down to her fingertips. “Oh,” she took a sip of his tea and made a face at him. “You make tea like a dying House Elf. I remember you having a little more spring to your step! Where’s the sugar? Is your wife home? Sirius?” She poked her head around the inside, floating the cup of tea again in the air as she spun off her cloak to reveal a white dress meant for an older woman that had seen better days.
The mercury of Narcissa’s mood didn’t yet alarm James, who was all but oblivious to the torrent of emotions others had the capacity to feel all at once. He was smiling, eyebrows lifted only just, as the girl flung her shoes into the green with some edge of anger tempered by the same Black smile Sirius often donned, it was a dogged thing, not nearly as refined as the family so wanted to present itself, and James personally found it both endearing in its familiarity and ...adorable, which was not a word he would have thought to use with Narcissa Black ever before. That startled him more than anything else.
The boy shifted back inside, over the threshold in socks, and into the dimness of the house, eyes drawing down only to watch the Slytherin girl nick his tea and sip from it, one pinky held aloft, blackened with ink on the side. Her pulling a face earned only a reciprocation from James. He stuck his tongue out at her and huffily snagged the teacup from the air between them. It was slightly cool, a weak brown in saucer white. He sipped it and pulled a face too.
“No one thought to buy sugar yet,” he admitted, shuffling to the sofa and sitting. James propped feet up on a stack of books and squinted at Narcissa from behind shining lenses. “No one’s here. Just you and I. I’ve not seen Lily yet and Sirius is hardly ever around. No one is going to hex that ...delightful... dress to tatters. You may come in.”
Narcissa smoothed her hands over the tattered dress, tried to fix her otherwise shiny, shiny blonde hair and then closed her eyes. She sniffed. “We are in a moment.” A delicate, ink stained hand pointed at him and she took a seat across from James so beautifully it would make her mother cry with joy. Bellatrix was strong, Andromeda was hopeless and Narcissa was the perfect girl to be married off to the perfect family. She was groomed over and over until even in this state of rags and tumbling, messy hair, she could not forget the manners and etiquette that was carved into her.
“A special moment. Yes, indeed.” She folded her hands, lifting her chin up to see if there was anymore tea left before turning to give James an expectant look. “I don’t believe you’ll ever father Harry. And, I don’t think I’ll ever mother a Draco. You might die to be an old man and I could be tortured and punished by the Dark Lord within a few days if he fancies it. Isn’t that strange to know the future, but to also know it doesn’t truly matter anymore?”
James was Accioing the teapot from the kitchen wordlessly. He tipped his head back to shoot a glance toward the darkened doorway, to make certain the spell had caught, when Narcissa’s words pulled his attention back to the center of the room. Behind spectacles, his brown eyes were questioning. There was such a seriousness to the Blacks, something that was impounded in thin blood, that had never touched James’ veins. His smile was sidled to one side of his youthful face and his glasses were a little off kilter, as they were wont to be.
The teapot, a flowery thing only a woman would have bought (though, in truth, James had, from a Muggle shop he felt entirely too conspicuous in to stick around longer than necessary), shimmied into the air between Narcissa and the boy. It started tipping forward. James hurriedly leaned forward to catch the spill of piping tea, a much deeper brown than before, in the porcelain of his cup. He waved the pot away with all the arrogance of a boy used to service and passed the teacup off to his guest with his best Potter charm.
“It matters. Don’t be ridiculous. It matters in the way history matters, I reckon. It has happened and its shadows are lingering. There are influences we might not recognize, hm?” James’ words came out with the brightness and levelness of someone who didn’t truly believe in bad things. He smiled and shrugged, running a hand through the tangle of his black hair as was his (bad) habit. His eyes found Narcissa’s robes again and roved a thoughtful moment. He looked up to catch her eye. “Do you want some clothing?”
Narcissa raised a single, thin eyebrow at that boyish almost jovial switch he turned on and tried not to seem very amused by it. She remembered James as a small, wild haired boy with a mean streak that could make even the coldest Slytherin faint. She remembered a little boy who would stomp on her robes to make her scream as if she had been attacked by a nest of rats and their king. But, here he was handsome and a little funny and bright, so she tried very hard not to think it was amusing.
She sat up with perfect aristocratic posture and delicately took the teacup from his hand with a gentle bow of her head and a polite thank you. Narcissa was a little bit like a windup doll that way. Remind her of things like tea parties and afternoons in the sitting room with her mother and she became that Slytherin princess everyone knew her as. Even in her rags and her frizzy hair and without noticing the shift in manners at all. “Are you offering to clothe me?” Narcissa asked, pinky out as she held the tea up to her mouth and blew across the piping liquid. “Yes, I would like that very much, Potter. But, first tell me how you’ve been since you were dropped here as I enjoy this tea.” Narcissa smiled up at him. The warmest smile he had ever seen the ice princess give anyone.