the art of betrayal (narcissa)

[plumforests]

Don’t you know? A mother’s love
neglects pride the way fire neglects the cries of what it burns.
My son, even tomorrow, you will have today.

—Ocean Vuong, Headfirst

“Do you know who I am, Regulus?”

But the answer never came—the answer was his open, gaping mouth, his paper-white throat, brimming with black water.

He was so still, she thought, he could be anyone’s son.

She touched his ears. No use. She turned his face towards her. To face it—the night sky in his sea-black eyes. The face that looked so much like Uncle Orion’s, and Sirius’s, and her father’s, yet entirely different; he wore a copy of a face, his father’s face, to hide in plain sight. A face full of the regret mirrored in her own; and she would learn to wear one, too, the only way she could, and then she pulled his jaws shut, gently, so that he wouldn’t look like he was still screaming, still breathing lakewater, in and out, only his chest did not rise or fall, and it never would again; his blank eyes, once brimming with the remnants of stars, now held nothing but dark matter, unseeing and unreachable. She stared into them as though they could spill the secrets his lips no longer could, but she couldn’t even see her own face reflected in them. He would never know anything again but the darkness of water, already consuming him, stealing what was left of his features.

She released him, her tears scattering like pearls onto his blurred, empty face, and then she began the faithful work of drowning.

Twenty years later, Narcissa would look back at this moment, just a fleeting shimmer of recognition as she crouched, trembling, smothering the terror clawing at her throat, in the Forbidden Forest, lowering her ear to the black-haired boy’s body at her feet—warm.

Alive.

And she thought of Draco and of how she would die for him, and she thought of Regulus and of how he had died, cold and wet and colourless in that dark, horrifying cavern, and she finally understood.

His words echoed and swam before her, pounding against the backs of her eyes—

Once, he had been ten, waving his brother off at Kings Cross, pin-straight and solemn by their mother’s side, an echo of his father’s stature.

Eleven, beaming at the Slytherin table as the Sorting Hat left his head.

Sixteen, taking the Mark, too young to know what it would take from him, only that it would make his family proud.

Seventeen, standing ashen-faced in her parlour, opening his mouth to confess his love for James Potter.

Eighteen, and dead.

Eighteen, walking straight towards death for a purpose Narcissa had yet to comprehend.

Not knowing that two decades later, she would find herself knee-deep in the grass, her head pressed against the still-beating heart of the son of the dead man that Regulus had once loved. Dead, and dead.

Her old school, a battlefield.

Her home, irremissibly ravaged by the most virulent of magics, tainted with so much darkness it seemed inconceivable that she had once prided herself on purity of soul.

Her husband, once so powerful his very name promised security, reduced to the Dark Lord’s puppet.

Her parents, her aunt, her uncle, her cousins—dead, dead, and dead. One estranged sister, the other barely human.

Her son.

Draco’s life flashed before her—

Six, already the picture of pureblood poise, eagerly determined to emulate his father.

Eleven, enthusiastically writing home after the Sorting Ceremony, bursting with pride.

Twelve, desperate to play Seeker for Slytherin, and she’d been delighted to receive the team photograph that year, if not for a slight pang at the memory of Regulus, smiling at the camera from that same spot.

Fifteen, receiving news of Lucius’s imprisonment, his face for the first time looking as though his entire world had fallen apart.

Sixteen, taking the Mark, determined to prove himself, not quite understanding his lack of a choice. The weight of his family’s honour on his shoulders, not quite knowing what it meant.

Eighteen, still alive.

Alive.

I know loyalty. So much so that I know when it begs for betrayal.

Regulus, who had seen the light long before she had, and it still hadn’t been enough to save him. Dear Regulus, whom she had once thought was so much like herself, back when they were children—when nothing had seemed more important than family; when they couldn’t understand why their older siblings saw things differently. When they had thought of duty as the purest form of love; when they hadn’t known the weight of that responsibility until it was suddenly thrust upon them.

Regulus, whose last act had been to give his life to rectify his regrets. Regulus, who had mastered the art of wearing a face; who had hidden his heart so well, even beyond death.

But Draco was, possibly—no, he had to be—alive. She hadn't been able to save Regulus, but she still had a chance to pull Draco back from the same fate.

The art of betrayal, at the last minute.

The decision required no deliberation. It wasn’t even a sacrifice; the risk was inconsequential in comparison to what she stood to lose. If Draco was still alive—and despite the terror that coiled within her, instinct told her that he was, for she had raised him to protect himself above all else—then there was still hope. She could still save him.

Potter had survived, impossibly, defying death more times than she was willing to bet against. If he was anything like his father, she knew he would place righteousness over old grudges. She held a life in her hands—the fate of a boy who held the power to vanquish the Dark Lord. If he succeeded, his sense of morality would surely not allow him to overlook her defection. He would verify it, if the Dark Lord fell. And if he failed—well, then he would be too dead to implicate her. She would find another way into the castle, another opportunity to ensure Draco’s safety.

She was tired. Fatigue had worn into her bones, so deeply that the thought of fighting for her own life seemed irrelevant; she might have lain down on the spot and let death take her.

But, Draco—Draco was all she had left, her last tether to this world. Status, honour, legacy, even purity of soul—all of it meant nothing if she lost him. She would tear her soul apart if it meant sparing his.

She wasn’t a martyr like Regulus, nor a hero.

She was a mother.

So when the boy's breath graced her ear, carrying with it her salvation—Yes—Narcissa Malfoy rose, composed as ever, and called out to the master she had just double-crossed.

“He is dead.”