Special delivery for wizard_love Title: Once, a Spider Author/Artist:snapelike Recipient's LJ name:wizard_love Rating: NC-17 Pairing: Narcissa Malfoy/Sirius Black Word Count: 4,000 Warnings: adultery, breathplay Summary: What a Black wants she gets. But Nacissa Malfoy is no longer a Black, and things do not turn out the way she planned them. Authors notes: Thanks to my lovely beta, M.
Once, a Spider
He whispers to you at night. The slide of his black hair over your skin; the way his sky-grey eyes appreciate you. The scent of his expensive aftershave. The longing for the slender-fingered hands that have never stroked your untouched skin. Everything about him whispers to you. He makes you long for something you do not own; for something you can never have.
Your pride and his is a wall; a reinforced stronghold built between you, separating lust and allegiance.
He whispers to you at night, despite the fact that he hates you, and you despise him and nothing in this world can ever make him change his mind. He whispers to you at night, despite the fact that he has never spoken two words to you that weren't rude. He whispers to you at night because his longing for what he hates is as strong as your longing for what you cannot have. You can see it in the way he looks at you: a look of disgust and desire mingled.
He is at the height of his prime, a beautiful young man, when they come to take him away. For twelve years, all you have is the memory of his eyes, glittering with hatred – for you, for your lord and for the husband you never wanted. You are both prisoners, you and he, caught up in lives and circumstances you never wished for. Imprisoned lives; yours somewhat more comfortable than his in all its glittering wealth. His life... is cold, wasted.
You go there once, to Azkaban – or almost there. You stand at the shore, watching the grey waves slosh lazily against the battered coast. Azkaban island is a small pinpoint far, far away. You imagine how the waves grow on their way back to the depth of the ocean, hammering forcefully against the sharp-toothed rocks that the prison perches on. The northern wind brings reminders of winters and ice and feels like a polar bear's bite: so painful that it burns and eats you up. Azkaban is colder than the North Pole, more ruthless than the most feral of predators. It devours souls, it swallows bodies, and no one leaves without scars. Just watching from outside leaves scratches, sore wounds that will not heal.
You go home, your wound carefully hidden in your heart: this unquenchable longing that has never left you. 'You're cold, Narcissa, let me warm you up,' Lucius tells you when he wraps his arms around you that night. He is right. You are cold, but he will never be able to warm your heart. You love him, or at least you pretend you do. He is a good husband, tender and caring. You love your son – the son Lucius has given you. You love your life, if it wasn't for the thorn that continuously grates your heart, hollowing it and leaving nothing but a heart-shaped shell with nothing but emptiness in it.
So you open your arms and spread your legs for your husband – payment for being a sheltered pure-blood wife of the highest standing. Lucius is the only one who does not make you feel as if you were lowering yourself. You are a Black. Royalty. And you chose Lucius because he was the only one who was worthy of you. Apart, of course, from the one you could not have.
But royalty and breeding is not enough to rule your rebellious heart. When Lucius presses himself into you, his lean body on top of yours, forceful and so beautiful, the name you moan isn't his. If Lucius hears you, he pretends not to. Isn't that what breeding and tradition is all about? To maintain normality and ignore the rest?
So he takes you, in his clean, normal, polished way. And all you want is to be in his arms, your cousin's, to be taken roughly, dirtily against a wall or on the bed or in an alley where the scandal, if you were discovered, would be as dirty and overwhelming as the sex. But he has never touched you, Sirius Black, and you have never even once let the need you have for him show in the way you looked at him. It is hopeless. Hopeless. Your cage is built on tradition, the bars pure arrogance. Fed on a diet of hatred and fear of the Muggle world around you it makes it impossible to break out.
You don't know if it makes things better or worse that you are the one who built the cage your treacherous kin is caught in. Sometimes you feel ashamed knowing a few words could free your tormented cousin: Sirius Black was never a Death Eater, and you know it, and so do the rest of Lord Voldemort's henchmen. A few words, and he would be free...
But saying those words would shake your world and leave it shattered and broken up in razor-sharp pieces, and you do not know how to collect the fragments of such a life and make a whole out of them. You are a coward. A coward...
You tread a road of twisted, crushed wishes, pretending they don't cut your naked feet. Pretending everything is well. Pretending this is what life is supposed to be. Mother, wife, high society heiress. But the woman who was once Narcissa Black... she has gone, falling to pieces as the woman she became - this nameless liar - built a life on pretence.
That is how it goes. Day after day. Year after year. Your son grows and your heart diminishes. Until...
The train leaves the platform, a white trail like a maiden's veil hanging in the air until a whiff of autumn wind picks it apart, making the crispy blue September sky visible again. You walk with your husband to the exit, a normal day in a normal life: sending your son back to Hogwarts, together with other normal young men, sent off by other normal parents.
Your hand rests on your husband's arm as you walk outside because you are his and you love him (because your pretence has been going on for so long it has begun to taste like the real thing). Mr and Mrs Malfoy; the perfect couple. A black mutt that seems to have neither collar nor lead passes you, leaving distinct smell of wet dog behind. The dog stops and turns and for a moment you seem to see recognition in the glittering black eyes; recognition and laughter. The dog barks, once, mockingly, then runs off. You, on the other hand, stands there, with your heart beating so fast that it feels as if it is going to leave your chest.
A hand closes around your arm, firmly. Not too hard, that is not the way your husband does things.
'Remember your duty, Narcissa,' Lucius reminds you in a low voice that cuts into your soul. He lets go of your arm and looks at you with a coldness you have never before seen in his eyes. His expression, even, seems frozen.
You stare into the snow-crusted bleakness that is his mind. He knows, just as you do, who the mutt was. It reeks, the mutt, of Sirius Black, of confident arrogance and pure blood.
'We shall not speak of this again,' Lucius says. 'You will forget his name, and as a gift to you, so will I.' He leans forward and kisses your lips. Despite his lips' warmth it feels like a kiss of the northern wind that holds Azkaban in its icy embrace. 'Do we understand each other?'
You look away. You understand very well. You breathe in deeply and let your mind be filled with the pride of the ancestry that has been your pride and your burden all your life. 'I know my duty, Lucius,' you reply, returning his icy glare with a fiery one, strong enough to melt his cold anger. 'From the moment I married you I have done my duty to my blood and my family.' You sigh. You do love your husband, and you let him see that. 'My life with you is not wasted,' you tell him. 'You have made me happy.'
His expression mellows. 'Let's go,' he says, and takes your hand, tenderly.
The weight of your promise is heavy. You cannot forget. How would you be able to? Your cousin is out there: dirty and ragged and hunted by Aurors and Death Eaters alike; Azkaban's waste, a criminal and a blood traitor on the run. It is as if his degradation makes him even more attractive, and you work hard to keep the impure thoughts of him out of your bed and of your mind – to no avail. You wonder how it will feel to be taken by him, desperate as he has to be, longing for a woman's company. Maybe he has paid someone, or taken one already, out of need and insanity. Oh, you know how he will have suffered, how his mind will have been abused; he will not be the Sirius Black you once knew.
None of that matters, just like Lucius' anger and jealousy doesn't matter because you want. Want! And it is the way the universe turns: when a Black wants, she gets. Conveniently you forget that you are no longer a Black but a Malfoy. You forget the love you hold for your husband and the promise you gave him.
Once, you tell yourself. Just once. Then you will be able to come to terms with what you have, and with what you don't, no matter if your cousin is desperate enough to do what you want him to do or not. If only he had stayed in Azkaban, if the temptation had been contained still... if you had forgotten the way he once looked at you, with the carnivorous desire of a thousand fires in his glittering eyes...
It is when Walburga Black's ancient House-elf finds you that you find a way to do what you have feared and dreamt of. The pitiful little creature that has been fed on a diet of contempt and superiority (another proof that a Black never stops being a Black) is all too willing to tell you what you want to know. 'Miss Cissy,' the elf mutters angrily and clings to your hand, bowing and looking so horribly miserable that you almost feel compassion for. 'Miss Cissy must rid the house of the foul traitor! My mistress would never have allowed...'
Miss Cissy would like that. But no matter what you do, you cannot make the elf tell you the location of the Black residence, and you cannot remember precisely where it is. You suspect someone has charmed the place because all you can remember are the distorted childhood memories of a huge, luxurious London house – and of Sirius. Sirius the child; charming and sweet. Sirius the teenager: a rebellious beauty. Sirius the adult... betraying his blood... erased from the Black family tree forever. Toujours Pur... You sigh at the thought and mutter a spell, rummaging through the messy attic that is the House-elf's mind, you manage to find an approximate location of the house. It is enough. You know Sirius well enough to know he is not going to sit idle in the house he probably hates intensely, his only company that wreck of a servant. He will leave, and when he does, you will find him.
Once, you have promised yourself, and that promise exceeds any other promise you have made. Once. That is all you need.
Spinning your net of wards through London -from Ladbroke Grove to Earls Court towards the River - you are like a pale spider waiting for a male to mate with and devour. You know of lures and traps that he – because he deserted the family – does not know of. Dark Arts, he would snort derisively. You barely shrug. You use only what you need, and the colour of your innocence and motives is as black as the spells you weave.
Lucius is busy doing whatever it is Death Eaters do. It has never interested you – the Dark Lord seems like an upstart, despite his alleged connection to the old pure-blood lines, and you somehow feel it beneath you to join his ranks so you never did. Although you sympathise with the cause and the work your husband does, all it matters now is that it gives you time that your family is busy doing Tom Riddle's bidding.
The only one who notices your absence is your sister. As usual, she is perceptive when it comes to you. Despite the fact that Bella has been infatuated for years with another man other than her handsome husband, you do not think she will understand. 'Tired of Lucius, Cissy?' she asks you and laughs that sinister laughter that proves that she has lost in Azkaban what sanity she possessed before.
She comes to you one early morning. You sit on a bench watching the shallow waves on the Thames, a glittering snake sliding its way through London. The early spring sun chases away the night's coldness, showing the Muggle city at its best. You find that you almost like it. Almost. 'Kreacher told me you have been asking questions,' Bella tells you, the insanity gone from her eyes. She seems normal and you cherish the moment, despite the uncomfortable question. 'Don't do anything that will direct the Dark Lord's anger at you,' she warns. 'I might not be able to protect you.'
'I don't know what you are talking about,' you say. But you know, and so does Bella. She has probably discovered the trap you have set for your cousin.
'It is not... serious, is it?' Bella says. 'I can kill him for you when you are done. It'll be safer. We don't want the Dark Lord to get his hands on him long enough to wring that information out of him. If you insist on acting so recklessly, sister...'
You sit there watching the morning and the birds and the river. There is a tiny spider hanging on a thread from the tree that stretches its spring-green branches over your head. Bella is right. It will be safer. For you, for your heart, for the life you have. You nod, once. The spider clings to its silver thread and makes its way back into the tree, to the safety the green leaves offer. Yes. It'll be safer. Mate and be done with him, the blood traitor, that is your decision. Guilt is not something you need to bother with.
'Incy, wincy spider.' Bella laughs madly, and sends a jet of red light into the trees.
When it finally happens, you wonder briefly if it is you who are going to be eaten, the spider - or the fly. The wards you set have been triggered, and you Apparate directly into the trap he has set for you. The hunter has suddenly become the hunted.
'Do you think I have lost my marbles entirely? Or do you regard me as just plain stupid, what with all those little traps of yours?' The words are whispered softly in your ear. There is something pressed against your back: the tip of a wand. He pushes you towards the small alley that runs along the back of the posh upper- class terraced houses.
'No... I-' You can recognise the whisper anywhere. It is the whisper that has haunted your dreams and your fantasies for years. 'Sirius...' You follow him, partly because he threatens you, partly because you want to. Your need is throbbing in your body already; this unbearable warmth that has nowhere to go.
'My prim and proper cousin wants to dirty herself, is that it?' he growls, roughly pushing a hand between your legs. 'I suppose that is why you have turned into a stalker, instead of turning me in to your little Death Eater friends. Tired of the silken sheets, Cissy?'
So secure of himself, still. Sirius Black is certainly one of a kind. 'You are ruining my dress,' you snap, knowing that his sweaty, dirty hand will leave a mark on the fabric. 'And I don't care for silk sheets. They stain far too easily,' you add arrogantly. 'You should know - I am certain your adolescent nightly dreams made you stain the sheets in your family's home more than once.'
'Yeah,' Sirius grins. 'And I was thinking of you, my flower, more than once.' He leans forward and licks the naked triangle above your breasts where your skin is visible. 'When I'm finished, I'll have ruined more than your dress,' he says and you can feel the tip of his fingers searching for your opening. 'Just like you want it, doll.'
You flinch at his mocking words. 'You are such a dog, Sirius,' you say, trying not to moan at the feeling of your underwear's lace rubbing against your sex. You fight against his grip, not really wanting him to let go. You like his brutal strength, so different from your husband's gentle touch.
Sirius laughs. 'And wouldn't that make you my bitch?' He grabs you by the upper arms and turns you, roughly. He pushes you against the wall, facing it. The summer-warm bricks are sooty; a hundred years of dirt settling here. You feel the slide of your robe, of his calloused hands against your thighs. 'You know what happens to little bitches in season, don't you?'
'Sirius... please...' Your breath is loud, as if it is the only sound in the narrow alleyway between the former stables and garages.
'You are such a waste, Narcissa Malfoy,' Sirius groans. 'Such a waste.' You can hear the sound of trousers being opened, and your heart beats loudly. Is he not going to prepare you? Your shivering moan seems to entice him. He puts an arm around your waist and fumbles for a moment between your legs, pulling your knickers aside. The French lace makes a satisfying sound when they tear.
Then he is inside you and it feels both better and worse than you have dreamt of. It pain feels so good that you want to scream. You're wet, and he slides into you easily, whispering in your ear when he bends over you, his naked groin slapping against your buttocks. It is hard and dirty and brutal, and you know it is the end of your many dreams. Once. This one time you will forget about the woman who is Narcissa Malfoy and just give in to this naked flesh-filled lust.
Sirius fucks you like he lives: carelessly, flamboyantly. He is good, and he knows it. He finds the right angle, the precise way to move his slender hips to bring you more pleasure than you have ever had. 'More.' you beg, 'more!' You don't care now, whether you keep your dignity or your cool facade. You just want, and you want to enjoy every touch, every dirty word, every thrust.
He caresses your neck, none too gently. He hesitates, the hand stills. Slowly he closes his callused fingers around your throat as he pounds into you, harder and harder. It is impossible to breathe. 'I could end it here, Mrs Malfoy,' he gasps, obviously aroused by what he is doing. 'Take you away from Lucius, just like this.' He doesn't make sense, but you are not expecting him to. Your brain refuses to work; air is becoming sparse and the world around you shrinks; there is just Sirius' hand and the pleasure that races through your body, making you feel as if you are drowning in it. 'Just a small taste of how it felt to sit in the jail you and your friends let me rot in for more years than I cared to count.'
You gasp something unintelligible, clawing at his hand. He rams into you, brutally, ruthlessly, and he leaves your body aflame in the narrow rectangle that is the remains of your consciousness. Behind you, his breath is rough, rasping against your soft shoulder. He moans a muted yes, muffled by your robe's folds, and lets go of your throat. Air! Blessed air! The rush of oxygen mingles with your spiralling lust and you come, hanging limply in his arms as you support yourself helplessly, hanging on to the brick wall in front of you. He spills himself inside you, fills you, enough to send a stream of warm semen down your shivering thighs. For a few seconds you share the warmth and the intimacy you have dreamt of almost all your life. A few seconds of fulfilled desires, of broken dreams healed.
Then Sirius pulls out, smacks you on one buttock and zips his trousers. 'Give my regards to my cousin-in-law,' he laughs and is gone before you manage to react.
Incy, wincy spider - back in the tree, in safety, before his female can eat him up. You don't cry. This is all you would allow yourself. It is done. You don't mourn what could never be. You just clean yourself, brush the robe you are wearing and whisper a spell to remove the visible stains. The invisible... those you carry with you.
Incy, wincy spider...
You go home to your husband pretending nothing has happened. The grim reality has made your fantasies fade. Lucius is ignoring any odd behaviour you might show, or maybe he is too caught up in Lord Voldemort's schemes. June is in full bloom, and so are the Dark Lord's plans. You, on the other hand, sit in your tangled web without knowing what to do with it.
When Lucius comes to your bed, you do not refuse him. You want to go back to the normality that was your life before you let your obsession unfold itself.
'Narcissa,' he murmurs lovingly as he lies on top of you, making love to you, tenderly, like he always does. 'I am such a lucky man to have you.' He kisses you, and your lovemaking is more enthusiastic than it has been for a long time. When you are done, Lucius sighs happily. 'Losing you would make my life unbearable,' he whispers and kisses you. 'It is for you I fight, for you and Draco. To make a world for us. Our plans are going to be set in motion soon. Very soon.'
'I know,' you say, and smile at him; for the first time in months a true smile that reaches your eyes. You think you can let go of your cousin now, to fulfill the promise you have given yourself. Sirius is not worth losing Lucius over.
The next day Lucius kisses you tenderly. He is wearing his Death Eater robe as he pulls you into his embrace, and he almost looks like the young, beautiful, enthusiastic Lucius you married. 'I have been summoned,' he informs you, 'our Lord is moving now, Potter will be history come morning.' Another net is tightened. 'I am going to the Department of Mysteries.'
'Be careful,' you say, looking deeply into your husband's eyes. I have chosen you, you say, wordlessly.
But when morning comes, and the news spreads, it is clear that your choice does not matter at all. Sirius is dead, killed by your sister, just as she promised you. Your husband has been taken to the ministry, facing years in Azkaban. Tangled in your own web of lies and plans and choices, you are left with none.
Incy, wincy spider... down came the rain and washed the spider out...