bathysmal (bathysmal) wrote in triumphic, @ 2014-06-03 22:07:00 |
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Entry tags: | !scene, 1991 : 05, black regulus, malfoy narcissa |
who: Narcissa Malfoy & Regulus Black
what: A spot of archiving discussion, hmm
where: Malfoy Manor
when: The evening of May 26th
notes: PG13 themes
Malfoy Manor, in gloaming-light, was almost welcoming. Whatever the nature of the bond he shared with Narcissa, and Draco, the house was its own symbol -- and perhaps its own self. But such thoughts were set aside easily enough as he gave his coat over to the waiting house elves and allowed himself to be lead through to the library; appreciated before, but never explored.
Less easily set aside were the possibilities of that room, but Regulus’ mind was not fully caught up in the hypotheticals of what Lucius Malfoy may or may not left behind him either. First and foremost: family (this was, it seemed, quite the day for it). Recent events and familiar faces might threaten the stillness of Grimmauld Place, but the world Narcissa constructed for her son was in many ways more fragile, and certainly more easily broached.
“It’s going to rain, I think.”
“Hmmm,” came the noncommittal reply, drifting in from the perimeter of the room. “Perhaps not a bad thing. We seem to have suffered a scourge of fires recently.”
Long ago, Narcissa had perfected her armour of unaffected nonchalance. Tonight, she called upon every ounce of it now to ground her, to steady her hand as her fingers lightly brushed over the crystal decanters sitting on the bar.
The truth was that she was relieved to have Regulus here with her now, for she feared the library for more reasons than that it contained any given number of ancient books of Dark Magic. Lucius had spent most of his time here when he had been home, had conducted his meetings here, had brooded here, had…. And even in death, he still seemed to find life in this large, cavernous room, where books lined the shelves and the shelves lined the walls, disappearing all the way up to the ceiling where the light from the double fireplaces could not fully illuminate. In all the years since his death, she could count on one hand the number of times she had ever willingly entered it.
“Would you like a drink? Tea? Something stronger?” she asked, finally feeling as if she had fully collected herself and turning around with her second tumbler of deep amber-coloured liquid. “Lucius did love his bourbon. Since he died, I’ve found myself taking quite a liking to it as well.”
How to explain to Narcissa that the effects of alcohol (taking the edge of his anxieties and increasing them in equal measure) were not ones he could bear after recent events, as he strove to keep his own fears under tight control? No easy thing, and not a fruitful one besides; Regulus smiled, small and brief, as he shook his head. “Thank you, but not tonight. And you deserve the good bourbon far more than he ever did, you may be quite sure.”
Which was rather enough said on that account; Lucius was alive enough within this room without dwelling upon him more than strictly necessary. “I’m not sure this rain will put out the fires to come, I’m afraid. But I’m rather glad anyhow.”
There was a draw to the quiet of this room, a heavy stillness which spoke very much of presence. Even Muggle books of a certain age carried their histories with them, but magical texts were quite different. Perhaps not malevolent, these, but -- for lack of a better word -- certainly watchful. An idle enough query: “Draco doesn’t like it in here?”
“When woods and streams and caverns beckon outside? I imagine there is hardly competition,” Narcissa said, drawing her arms around herself, curling her glass to her chest as her gaze skirted around the library. “He’ll make use of it for his homework. His tutor is very exacting, and Draco does not want to disappoint him.” Paternal figure, she half-suspected.
When her cursory examination of the room was once more drawn back to them, she took a moment to finally study her cousin more closely, from the pallor of his skin to the anxious tightness around his eyes, every rigid line smoothed over with well-bred politeness and charm. “Should there be any other reason for his aversion?”
He would not soften this: “Yes. There’s old and there’s dark, and there’s some that are one and the same; no place for a child. Especially not now; old friends and such like.”
Safer in the streams and caverns and woods by far, and in his mother’s garden and parlour -- but the menton of a tutor piqued his interest intensely (though of course his cousin’s child had a tutor); a person suitably qualified to guide Draco Malfoy would find much to engage them within this chamber, should they be permitted to enter.
“They may not come now or ever, but I will not lie: it is a distinct possibility, and it would not be pleasant.” A slight tilt to his head. “I would like to catalogue the books, if you are willing.”
Oh Lucius, what have you done? Or has it always malevolently lurked within these walls, poisoning the mind of its long-term occupants? Her mind shied away from such implications, making her feel chilled in a way that even the bourbon could not stave off.
“There are hundreds of books in this library. Some can only be touched by the house’s acknowledged master -- Malfoy blood -- but…I can help.” Knowing that such a day would eventually arise, where her status as widow, mother of heir would not quite be enough, she pulled on the chain around her neck, brought its pendant out from where it usually lay hidden beneath her robes, against her rapidly beating heart. It was hot in her palm, and horrible. With a forceful yank, the chain snapped, and she opened her palm to reveal a small vial of viscous, dark crimson fluid. “I took it,” she whispered, staring at it. “From him. After. Just in case. It’s funny, the things you do when you don’t know why.”
“It is the soul, knowing somewhere deeper than thought what it may yet have to do to save the body.” A pause in which that thought was given full and weighty contemplation; evaluated for what it was, and within the circle of his own existence (Sirius; Narcissa; Bellatrix; James; Dumbledore; Voldemort). “Or the body’s reflex, which may one day salvage something of the soul.”
There was part of this which was beyond Narcissa -- which she would not appreciate being drawn into; genuine ignorance was her most true and strong defence -- but she was also blood, and of his house, and entitled to choice.
“You did a good thing, Narcissa.” His finger traced a shadow upon the mantelpiece. “There are double-bookcases -- dangerous texts can be bound and stored on the inside, away, if you wish to keep them here. Or there are vaults which can be arranged. But if there is something more here, I will remove it and I will deal with it. Is that acceptable to you?”
“If you find what you are looking for, then what happens when old friends come, and do not find what they know to be here?” she said, a touch of a mirthless smile turning the corners of her mouth.
“I will leave a simulacrum, and -- if you permit -- you will forget all but that I offered to help archive the library as part of my research, which will in essence be truth. So it will be a theft, and you the injured party.” There was a certain humour in his own answering shift in expression. “More than that I cannot do.”
“And so be it all on your head? No, that is unacceptable to me.” Not Regulus, shouldering the wrath of her sister, whom she loved and feared in equal measure. With only a slightly trembling hand she drained her glass, clenched her teeth against the burn of it, then felt its warmth suffuse her limbs and lend her strength. “In turns then. You should take only a small assortment of randomly selected books to analyse at a time. They will be replaced with decoys until such a time you deem them safe and they can be returned. Anything more--Draco may not notice, but his tutor will. If...if you find what you are looking for, then we leave the simulacrum. But I won’t be made to forget, Regulus. I cannot willingly abandon you like that.”
“Narcissa. I will accept your terms -- this is your home, and they are sensible -- but you should reconsider; it is not abandonment.” It would be impossible to keep her hands clean of it, Regulus knew, should even the slightest shadow linger in her mind. “Won’t you sit, please, and I will explain.”
After a moment of consideration, she left her empty glass on a nearby table and crossed the room, lowering herself into a leather upholstered chair before the hearth. She briefly wondered how many late night conversations transpired here, before the fire, if during one of them, agreements were made which led them to here and now. The past was not so neat as a book, concluded once one shut its covers. It was an ocean swelling into high tide, sending wave after reaching wave onto the shore. “You don’t look well, Regulus.”
Even steps took him to her, and he sat facing her without letting his shoulderblades fall against the support of the chair despite the fatigue which ran bone-deep. “I daresay you’re right.”
How to say what was necessary without a degree of openness neither she nor he would be thankful for in the coming days…
“They are the vanguard and He is coming, that is a certainty.” A breath. “I am marked; it is a question of when my reckoning will play out, and not if. Let it be on my head.”
At the mention of Him, her breath stuttered in her throat and a reflexive chill curled down her spine settling into something akin to sick resignation. So this was happening again, the old fear curling within her heart: she felt it from the moment she heard Bellatrix had come back.
She was tempted to acquiesce. To wash her hands of it and retreat back into the carefully constructed world she had made for her and Draco. To pretend they weren’t what they were and that this wasn’t happening. It was easier. So easy. Swallowing thickly, she said, “I believe it was that very chair in which you sit where Draco was conceived when Lucius bent me over the back of it. I remember being relieved when I found out I was pregnant again, because then I wouldn’t be touched, at least until I had the child or lost it.”
Her features twisted into a mixture of bitterness. “I lived in fear every day of my life. My husband was not a very nice man. In those last few years, he became a monster. My sister and my cousins worked alongside him. I don’t doubt they knew what he was, but that didn't protect me. After Draco, I thought I could bear it. I could until Lucius told me He had plans for the children. My child. And then I knew I could not bear it anymore."
What came after, planning, execution, the interrogations, the evidence, her story told over and over again until it was seamless. If the Dark Lord had lived for very much longer, she would have taken Draco and fled the country before the truth of her husband's death would inevitably have come to light. That was her, all her. "If you say He is back, then I do believe all of us are marked and upon all our heads this will fall. I survived then. I saved myself and I saved my child, because I refused to stay in those shadows anymore. So if you think I would be better protected by stepping back into them when I am, by my own blood, in the very snake’s pit, then you are wrong."
With that, she leaned forward and took one of his hands, pressing the vial into his palm and then keeping it there for a moment longer. "I can take care of my own."
He took a moment to assess its weight, and its feel (warm from her heart's work, hour after hour, day after day); to assess his cousin. Undesired, the weight of families they bore, and the pasts they dragged in their wake heavier still, but their generation had birthed survivors. One who stepped away, two who stepped forward, and two in this old, haunted room who stood their ground -- all survivors, and as close in certain aspects as far in others. Family.
Regarding the chair, and the conception of his young cousin at one remove, for those words could not be ignored even though he had little to say regarding men-as-monsters past and present which would give Narcissa comfort: "If I favour any habits so far as children and heirs are concerned it is those of the Romans." Though for all his actions on behalf of the house -- and whatever Bellatrix might consider them, they were for Regulus as well-crafted a defence as could possibly be made -- its continuation was not something he cared to dwell on in the slightest. A better legacy than flesh and blood for his tenure; and that would be a victory too, against the creature who strove and failed to hide his fixation upon the oldest and finest toujours pur blood.
“I don’t doubt He had plans for your child; He had plans for everyone. I respect you word and deed, Narcissa, and your perception of the snake pit is clear-sighted, but then know this: there are things I will and must do which will serve you no good should they fail, perhaps not even if they succeed.” He inclined his head, slightly, twining his fingers with hers about the vial. “I will help you if I can, but there is no safe harbour now; my regard and affection for you will not, cannot, alter my purpose. Ignorance is the best protection I offer, but it is your choice.”
After a moment, lighter: “And you can, yes.”
“Then you must do as you will, and not hold back. I would support you as much as I am able,” she promised, although it went unsaid that her line was at cost to Draco, and it would never be crossed. “I would happily die than live in a world in which He has won.”
Regulus in his turn would protect his cousin’s child so much as his task (and the protection of Sirius -- often hated, yes, but utterly necessary) allowed; as much as I am able was a space which he knew very well. The last ten years had been a process of distillation of essence -- no further words on this were required, not with this cousin.
His smile was sharp, pitiless; the daily mask of Regulus Black disappeared for a moment in that old room, before being carefully and precisely restored. “We may well die. But I haven’t the slightest intention, dear Narcissa, of holding back.”