lomonaaeren

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Chapter Eleven—Comfort and Beauty

Narcissa dressed carefully.

A red gown, it would be, for multiple reasons. It would match the room in which she stood to welcome Potter to her home; it would soften her face and lend color to her features; it would touch something deep in Potter, at least if he was as much of a Healer as she thought he was; it would echo the Heart’s Blessing spell, which was a benefit for her if not for Potter.

She had to remember what they owed him, even in the moments when it was most difficult.

She stepped back from her mirror and cocked her head critically. The mirror extended itself when she motioned with one finger. It drew molten silver from a source implanted in the wall behind it, and spread glittering arms along the walls, flashing here her face, there the back of her head, there the middle of her spine, the place she always found most difficult to see without this trick. A murmured spell, and the spot of mirror remaining directly in front of her glowed with a spell that assembled the reflections in her mind and let her see herself as she was, and not merely as flattering light or fancy would have her.

Narcissa turned and swirled her skirts behind her, then calmed herself with a faint smile and a tap of her foot. Yes, she looked better than well. Another spell caused the carpet to become softer, which cushioned her feet in the fancy slippers she wore. The magic ran in a faint, fuzzy wave beneath the door. It would continue down the stairs and blend seamlessly with the carpet in the entrance hall, where she would rendezvous with Potter, ensuring she walked in comfort all the way.

Before she left, she turned with a hand on the door and craned her neck to look around the room, trying to see it with a stranger’s eyes. Potter would never have experienced this level of comfort and beauty before. If she could imagine how he would react to her chambers, then she might be able to think of how he would react to the rest of the house, and what changes she should order the elves to make.

Her rooms resembled a secluded bower in an enclosed garden; Narcissa had always preferred crowded space, over the mere largeness that Lucius favored or the number of discrete ornaments in discrete places that Draco gravitated to. The ceiling was high, but from it hung braided skeins of mirrors, visible wards, bells, crystal, and gems, mostly emeralds, sapphires, and firegems, those cousins to opals which cast a milky iridescence over a background of solid color, rather than the other way around. The lowest of the skeins nearly brushed Narcissa’s hair. The bed was one of a number of cushioned shelves planted along the walls, blending with the windowsills and the ordinary cabinets in which Narcissa kept her collections of shells and ferns. The cushions glowed red, blue, and green, changing color subtly with the turning of the skeins. A net of rugs covered the floor, which itself was carpeted beneath them, the patterns rippling from the carpet onto the rugs without a break. Magic had made and matched the carpet, but Narcissa had bought the rugs from ordinary weavers. She preferred the touch of real craftsmanship to that which she knew would come if she used spells.

She suspected Potter would gape at all the extravagance and luxury and declare it waste. He would flinch and be unhappy with the skeins hanging over him. He wouldn’t see the point of making many sitting places soft, when most people needed only one bed to sleep in. And no doubt he would never notice that the floor beneath him had both carpet and rugs; Narcissa doubted that he was sensitive to textures.

Narcissa let her eyelids fall as she shut the door behind her. There was no reason for her to give up her own beauties; Potter would not be intruding into her rooms. But they had chosen fine, comfortable rooms for him as well, because there were no poor ones in the Manor. How to convince him to use them and like them? Because he would have to like being part of the family, or Narcissa doubted he would stay long, and it was easier to introduce someone to objects he would praise than to make him care for the Malfoys as people.

Be solicitous for his comfort, of course. Take his concerns seriously. Neither Draco nor Lucius would, Narcissa knew; Draco had already told her slightly incredulously that Potter seemed to care more for his libraries than for the room where he slept, and Lucius seemed to think springing the Manor’s finery as a surprise on Potter was the best course. He did delight in catching Potter off-guard.

But Potter already had confidence issues, Narcissa thought, as she passed down the first staircase and beside her husband’s rooms. A glance in that direction showed that Lucius had engaged his wards again. And a house-elf stood outside the door, his face stern and his arms folded. Narcissa smiled at recognizing Rogers, certainly the most valuable elf the Malfoys owned, and one that Narcissa could have wished in her own family when she was a little girl.

“Good evening, Rogers,” she said. “You are looking forwards to our new arrival?”

“Rogers is not,” said the elf, his ears twitching to the sides and then flattening like the ears of a sulky donkey. “He must be trained. He will not know the Malfoy code of conduct. And Master Draco says that he does not want to know the rules.” He gave an emphatic nod, though whether to the words themselves or to some private confirmation of them in his head, Narcissa wasn’t sure. “And rules is being life.”

Narcissa shook her head. “I think Master Draco prejudiced against Master Harry,” she said. “Because Harry does not do exactly what Draco wants when he wants, he decides that means he’s disobedient. But—“

“Master Harry is not being an elf,” said Rogers, frowning. “He is not needing to obey every request Master Draco makes of him.”

“I know that.” Narcissa smiled again. “But do you remember what Draco acted like when he was a baby and had acquired that pet Kneazle?”

“Dreadful,” said Rogers promptly. “Master Draco was not knowing how to treat something small but independent of him. He pulled its tail, and it clawed his hand.”

“Exactly,” said Narcissa. “And by the time he learned better, the Kneazle was wary and wouldn’t come near him again for fear of being tormented. I want you, Rogers, to prevent that from happening this time.”

“Master Draco shall not be alienating Master Harry,” said Rogers, and clicked his heels together as he bowed his head. Narcissa had never managed to determine how he could make such a loud noise with his feet when he wore no shoes, but then, some mysteries of house-elves should belong to the house-elves. “Rogers is promising it.”

“Very good, Rogers.” Narcissa turned and swept around a turn in the corridor, confident that she could trust the safety of both Lucius’s body and Draco’s temper to their old and faithful retainer.

*

Potter emerged from the fireplace with soot in his hair. Well, perhaps the shower in his rooms would be sufficient to take care of that. Narcissa found herself using a faint smile as she stepped forwards and extended her hands. Despite her doubts about Potter becoming part of their family permanently unless Lucius and Draco tried to understand him better—both his strengths and his limitations—she did enjoy the chance to play one of her least-used roles and welcome a new family member home. She had only done it before after Draco’s birth. And a grown man would be a better spectator of the grand rooms than an infant would.

“Mr. Potter. Be welcome to our home, as one who shares our blood and has our good will in mind.”

Potter bowed, and even though Narcissa thought he was only doing it to conceal his surprise, she admired the formal gesture. Perhaps he wasn’t entirely hopeless after all.

Of course, he was more slender than he should be, to the point that one of the wrists sticking out of his sleeves looked like a stick, and his hair was a disaster, and his glasses were tackier than they should be. But perhaps the glasses could stay. They added a certain charming air of ordinariness to his face, and Narcissa thought they could do with that when people began to question, incredulously, why Harry Potter was staying with the Malfoys.

His eyes darting to every landscape and tapestry in the room, past the warm carpets whilst noticing their red and green colors, and up to the small starlamps that lit the distant ceilings of the hall, he took her hands. “I—thank you, Mrs. Malfoy. Of course, maybe I should say that your husband shares my blood rather than the other way around.”

His voice rose in a hopeful lilt at the end. Narcissa nearly gave herself away by raising an eyebrow. He sounded as though he wanted her to dispute with him.

Why?

And then of course she understood, as completely and thoroughly as she had anticipated his discomfort with the size and beauty of the house. Because it would comfort him to be in opposition to us. He’s been in opposition to us for so long. And he still does not define this as a permanent arrangement in his own mind. He resists and stamps his heels. He wants us to act more like the Malfoys he remembers.

Narcissa could not please him there; she would not deliberately antagonize someone who had saved her husband’s life with shared blood, though she could wish it had been someone else, who already knew more of their traditions. But Potter would do. And when he had had some instruction and earned himself a place in the household by a little judicious struggle with Draco and Lucius, he would more than do. She had to admit that.

She smiled, and watched his eyes widen at the gesture. No, he had not expected any of this. “When someone has done as much for us as you have, Mr. Potter, how one speaks of the sharing does not matter as much as the fact of that sharing.” She rolled a shoulder, and a floating candle darted over to them. Potter blinked at that, too. “If you will follow me? I chose your room, and whilst it is magnificent, it is also some distance from the entrance.”

She had done that deliberately, to give Potter time to grow used to the splendor of the house as they passed through it. But it would do no good to say so. Potter would only accuse her of manipulating his reactions, and not understand if Narcissa explained that of course she was. One thing honest, guileless people like Potter found hard to comprehend was the use of manipulation for comforting ends.

But in this case, perhaps she should have explained it to him, because her manipulation seemed to fail. The higher they got, the more Potter’s shoulders tensed, and the one time he smiled, Narcissa was sure he was thinking of something else. Not even the glorious colors of the staircase they passed, echoing deserts, forests, seascapes, and other scenes she had thought would appeal to him, with the passion for Quidditch and being outside that Draco had described in him, soothed him.

“Really, Mrs. Malfoy,” he blurted out as they reached the top of the staircase, “I don’t need a magnificent room. A comfortable one will do fine.”

Narcissa threw him a quick smile over her shoulder, and caught his eyes, wide and staring, and the wordless way his hands twisted together.

And a shudder of sweet compassion passed through her and melted some of the previous prejudice she’d had against him. Ah, she should have known. Yes, Potter was guileless, but she had been thinking of that word strictly in the sense that it meant he did not understand the gestures and small rituals any pure-blood wizard would have gauged the meaning of in moments. It also meant that he did not perform manipulations of his own. And his discomfort was pure and real.

Combine that with what Draco had said about Potter not believing that he deserved the small beauties of ordinary human life, and Narcissa understood her new son much better. He would come to understand his surroundings only when he internalized the idea that he didn’t deprive anyone else by enjoying them.

She would need to relax him, or he would never reach that point. And so she let go of enough of her own reserve—easier than she had expected it to be, when he had shown her so much of himself—in order to make a small joke. “I’m afraid there are no rooms in the Manor that are not both, Mr. Potter,” she said, with some truth, though it omitted the dungeons. “You will simply need to tolerate it.”

She went on, though she heard him stumble slightly with surprise as he followed her. She muffled her smile with her wrist pressed against her mouth as they rounded several more corners in the corridor and came to a stop at last before an oak door with a bronze knocker in the middle of it. She touched the knocker, and heard Harry shuffle behind her as though he thought that would cause a ward to spring out of the door and devour him.

It did activate the wards, but since he was the one staying in this room, he would have complete control over them. Perhaps he did not appreciate that—Draco had told her about the insufficiency of the wards on Harry’s house—but he would have them nonetheless. The quiet, continued presence of certain objects could cause those objects to become necessary to one’s existence. Narcissa, who had had to put up with the panic of the Malfoy house-elves when she ordered them to buy new cutlery on her marriage, had ample experience with the process.

She believed that Harry should be able to understand those objects, however, and not simply have his understanding of them assumed, as his understanding of pure-blood customs was assumed by Draco and Lucius. That might be flattering, but it was not practical. She said, “This knocker is the center of your wards. It will secure them across the door so that no one but you can disturb them whilst you’re in the room. When you come out, only touch the knocker if you wish to change them—to allow others to have access to your room when you’re elsewhere, for example. Of course, the house-elves have access no matter what the settings of the wards.” She flicked her fingers towards the knocker this time and whispered the Latin command for them to transfer their allegiance from the Malfoy family in general to Harry in particular. She didn’t think Harry needed to know that word just yet. If the worst happened and he tried to betray them or invite the Weasleys in without their permission, then at least he would not be able to take over other rooms in the Manor.

Harry gave an audible gasp as they stepped into the room. Narcissa glanced around, and smiled a little. She supposed she could understand Harry’s overwhelmed response, since this chamber was one of the most beautiful in the house. At the same time, its natural resemblances should, she hoped, give him that comforting feeling of being outside and not enclosed in walls.

She had assigned Harry a suite of rooms with a library, a loo, and a bedroom. After some thought, she had decided against giving him any of the sets that had a dining room attached; that would only grant him an excuse to eat in his room and avoid contact with them at meals. He must become acclimated to their presence more quickly than that, if this small experiment was to work at all.

This room had once been decorated in violent shades of green and silver; it had been Lucius’s room for the year before he went to Hogwarts, with his father apparently intent on pushing his heir into Slytherin against the slimmest odds that he might go elsewhere. Narcissa had to admit to some contempt for Abraxas Malfoy, both because he did not have the slightest understanding of Lucius’s character—or he would have known that room not necessary—and because his choices in green and silver had been hideous. She had redecorated, and she had chosen green for the dominant color.

Both carpet and tapestries were green, but Narcissa had varied the color of the tapestries more, modeling them on the various shades of sunlight that would appear through the leaves of a forest in summer. Towards the end, therefore, they parted into blue and gold, as the sun and the sky would begin to appear through such leaves. She had let some of the wood show, because that would give the simulacra of trunks and increase the sense of being outdoors. She had striven hard to keep a delicate balance between the beauty of the wood and the impression that she could not afford enough tapestries to cover the entire room; she had known Death Eaters’ wives who would have thought the latter. Even if they never saw it, even if this room remained one that only those of their blood sojourned in and those only occasionally, Narcissa was not inclined to show weakness.

The theme continued in the bed, which had posts and rods and legs—though they were hard to see from this angle, Narcissa had to admit; she had not considered the view from the door sufficiently—carved to look like branches and roots. Glimpses of bark-faces shone now and then from the headboard. Narcissa was not fond of them, but the carver she had hired had insisted on putting them in, and she had supposed genius must have its little freaks. Besides, she could hide them sufficiently with the green curtains and the brown and green pillows. Harry looked a little heartsick as he stared at them. Narcissa wondered if they reminded him irresistibly of something evil from his own past. She would ask Rogers to change their colors subtly and watch the expressions on Harry’s face when he did so.

And of course there were cabinets among the tapestries and on the walls, especially near the library door, mimicking the crevices that might open between the roots and inside the trunks of hollow trees. Narcissa thought that Harry might appreciate them as places to put his notes, Healing books, and anything else that he was not ready to share with his family.

“I do hope you appreciate it,” Narcissa said, calculating that enough time had passed to allow Harry to stew in silence and turning towards him. She made sure to keep her voice calm, so that Harry would know she was anxious for his comfort, not for his gratitude. “Some of the other rooms are larger, but they don’t have attached libraries. The house-elves have brought up all the books we have on healing, and of course there are spaces for any you brought with you.”

Harry spent a moment staring at the floor. Narcissa expected the protest, but not the words that began it.

“Mrs. Malfoy,” he said.

Narcissa was startled for a moment, and then chided herself. Of course a pure-blood would know to call me by my first name now, but he is not a pure-blood. I will be caught up in Lucius and Draco’s blindness next if I do not watch myself.

“Please call me Narcissa.” She smiled again—Harry seemed to need a lot of smiling—and sent the candle floating to cast more shadows around the room. Perhaps it would seem less intimidating to him if it looked smaller. “That’s a privilege that family members have.”

And she did want to hear the name from his lips, she realized. He was charming in his own way, as Draco might have been if he had grown up hardened to battle-danger but unskilled in the more subtle ways of living. Sometimes Narcissa thought Draco might have been better off if she and Lucius had raised him that way.

But there were rules of pure-blood conduct that could be bent and broken, as Lucius and Draco were continually demonstrating, and there were those that it was good sense to obey. Wars were temporary, subtlety eternal.

“I—you’ve done too much for me,” Harry said. “I appreciate this, of course, but I don’t deserve it”

Draco was right. He does have some of the traits of a keen observer, though of course I am the one who contributed them.

“I’m only the mediwizard who’s treating your husband. Not even a full Healer! You don’t need to—” He paused, and Narcissa knew as clearly as if his chest had opened to show her the words written on his heart that he had been about to say something about bribery. She let it pass, this time. They had committed their own sins of misunderstanding. “You don’t need to put yourself out for me in any way,” he ended up saying.

Narcissa dropped her smile and moved closer to him. She would need to speak sternly to him, that was clear. He had understood the grandeur and comfort of the Manor, but he refused to apply it to himself. He would not even see that the sheer size of the house meant that the family was unlikely to have been “put out” for him; they would hardly have needed to change their rooms or their habits.

“Harry,” Narcissa said, and made her voice lulling, “do you know how many people have ever saved my husband’s life?”

“Er.” Discomfort wriggled and darted across Harry’s face like the silverfish her dear sister Bellatrix had once tried to raise for pets. “Two? Four?”

“One,” Narcissa said. “And that was years ago, and the man who did it probably did it for his own reasons.” She let the pain at the thought of Severus show; Harry would relax more around emotions he could understand. Besides, it was not hard to be bitter at the thought of the way she had extended her hands to Severus and he had turned his back and walked away, mocking himself and the Malfoys with every step. At least Harry had accepted the status in their family that the Malfoys offered. “You have done it twice in a few days, and for reasons that we now know are not self-interested. You will excuse me, I hope, if I honor you as I think you deserve.”

Get him used to the thought of deserving. Draco will do it in his own way, I must do it in mine, and Lucius will do just fine as a patient.

Harry stared at the floor for moments so long that Narcissa thought he might follow Severus away after all. And then he looked up and nodded.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

Narcissa held out her hands and waited patiently until he took them. He stamped and shuffled and shifted his bag out of the way. Narcissa leaned in to lightly kiss his cheek. In her head, she incanted a silent blessing, not quite a spell, but words the Black family had sometimes used to turn fate sweet.

Unexpected emotion seized her, as if she had been turned sweet by a spell herself. She wished she could have gathered Harry into her arms and held him there. She wished she could have asked if he had ever known an embrace, or someone to tell him he deserved things. She did not think so, from the way he stood.

This is what comes of letting Muggles raise a wizard child.

And then the tide was gone, and it was a relief to retreat into ritual words. “Be welcome to our home, Harry,” she said. “Everything you may need or wish for is at your disposal. Including the good-will of everyone who lives here.” She stepped back, curtsied to him, and swept out of the room.

Behind her, when she shut the door, the wards caught and turned sharp edges towards her. Narcissa nodded. That was the way it should be. Until Harry learned to think he merited protection, they would need to defend him.

She turned, then, and paced deliberately down the corridor towards Lucius’s room. Draco was with his father, which made the timing convenient for a meeting.

We must speak.

Chapter 12.