His Private Affairs

His Private Affairs

-----

She had thought it would be fun to sneak into his rooms. He had always been very insistent that she not go in, that it was private, and this has always been a sore point for her. They were engaged - what did he have to keep from her? She firmly believed in openness in relationships, and if she had to do a bit of sneaking around to keep things open, well, the ends justified the means.

She was also curious. What *did* he have to keep from her? She knew he had his private affairs, but surely it couldn't be anything so private she couldn't know about it. He loved her - he would just have to realize that they couldn't keep things from one another this way.

Narcissa had always resented the other parts of his life, the Floo conversations he terminated when she came into the room, the owls he tried to hide from her - it angered and confused her, trying to piece together the little things. Sneaking into his private rooms would be her revenge, and it would clear the air between them.

She cracked the door open a fraction, peering in with eye, not so much to check and see that the room was empty - she knew it was, the house elves were working elsewhere and he was off on business in Glasgow - but to maintain the game. For her this was just fun, a bit of a lark - she was sneaking about, like a detective on a radio show. She wasn't really expecting to find anything of consequence. She was just curious.

She pushed the door open silently and stepped into the study with exaggerated care. The room was carpeted - a pale sea green - and there were two thick, lavish Chinese rugs on the floor. The windows were shuttered, and she opened them, the light pouring in, illuminating her pale oval face.

She stood at the window for a moment, enjoying the light breeze brushing her hair off her shoulders, gazing out at the rich, wind-swept green fields far below. She tilted her head, marveling for a moment at the pure majesty stretching out as far as she could see.

At length she turned away from the window and rested her eyes on the room. It, too, was majestic in its own way, and spoke deeply of the man who occupied it.

It was sparsely furnished and decorated - one lone painting, a seventeenth century Eustachius of a young witch collecting water from a wooden tap, hung in an elaborate gilt frame on the far wall - but the furniture and decorations had been selected carefully. This was his study, and it consisted of a tall, formidable-looking antique writing desk, a matching chair, and in the far corner, an elaborate, plush-looking couch, upholestered to match the equally plush-looking rugs. Abandoning her game for a moment, she crossed to the couch and stretched out on it, luxuriating in its richness and the feel of its soft velvety folds enveloping her. She wondered if Lucius ever laid on it. She doubted it.

Gazing lazily around the room, she spotted an open letter lying on the desk and sprang up from the couch to see it. She picked the letter up, excited, and scanned it, but was disappointed to find that it contained nothing of import. Just a note to one of his beastly old friends from school, Walden Macnair. Narcissa hated Walden. She always saw him staring at her and knew exactly was on his mind, and the thought repulsed her. Shuddering, she set the letter down primly and patted it, and didn't think of it again.

The letter forgotten, she inspected the desk. Althought it was possibly centuries old, the wood shone like new, highly polished, no doubt with the aid of a few intricate polishing charms. Narcissa knew a few, but none that could produce such a luminous veneer. She ran her fingers over it lightly, caressing.

The chair, too, had that same brilliant, unnatural veneer, and the seat was upholstered with a similar material to the rugs and couch. She wondered if Lucius had decorated this room, but doubted it. Lucius did not have much sense of style and coordination, and detested having to have anything to do with it. He hated even picking out his clothes in the morning, so Narcissa usually picked them out for him. Sometimes they made a game out of it, and she would hold up the most garish pairs she could find, and tell him how fabulous it looked - sometimes he played along, and those times were the most fun. But many times he was in a bad mood, or in a hurry, and she tried to have his robes laid out before he came to the room after breakfast. It was one of her morning chores.

She gave the room one last glance, taking in the rich elegance, then she closed the shutters and walked, her heart pounding with excitement, to the door that led to his private bedroom.

Lucius did not sleep in his private bedroom - not unless they were fighting - but he had insisted that it was necessary to have it and that she must never go into it. She had always resented this, and had taken up her own private bedroom as a sort of limp, futile revenge. He never ventured into her bedroom, but she did not know if this was out of a sense of fairness or just because he didn't care to go in. She suspected that if he ever felt he needed to - or wanted to - go in, he would, and not give it a second thought.

She opened the door slowly, savoring the feeling, relishing the power and her own cleverness. The room was dark, and she crossed to the shutters and opened them quickly, then spun about to see the room.

It was more casual than the study, although just as sparse, and considerably larger. There was a bed coming out diagonally from the far corner, a small nightstand, a tall bookshelf on the wall adjacent to the window, and an austere-looking dresser. There was a painting in this room, too - Lucius had a vague appreciation of art, and occasionally bought pieces on a whim and brought them home to show her. Narcissa, who found art excruciatingly boring, just nodded and agreed with what he said. He knew she didn't care about art, but he liked to hear himself talk about it, especially to someone who couldn't contradict him when he got carried away talking about something he didn't really know anything about, so he talked to her about it when he was in the mood. Thankfully, his moods were rare.

She saw a small collection of records in a box and went over to examine them, curious. They kept all their records in the lounge so that they could play them for guests. What was he keeping in here? She glanced through them and gasped suddenly.

These were *muggle* records! She laughed out loud, delighted. He had muggle records! Lucius, the perfect model pureblood, who scolded even her for her occasional lapses, liked muggle music. This was the best thing she had seen all week. She fingered the cover of a record by a band called the Doors, gleeful. Even if she could never rag Lucius about it, it was enough that she knew, and that the next time he scolded her for reading a muggle novel, she would hold her head high, knowing that he was not quite so above it all as he might like to pretend.

She put the record back carefully, still smiling smugly. Even if she found nothing else this whole exploration would have been worth it. But she turned her attention to the rest of the room, taking in the large bed, nearly drowning on a huge, heavy velvet coverlet, the nightstand, with an antique lamp and a clock that was about five minutes fast, and then to the bookshelf, which she scurried over to, giggling, wondering if there were any muggle titles in it.

She was disappointed. She thought she saw one that might have been a muggle book, but couldn't have been sure. Narcissa, afterall, was not a connissuerr of literature. She swept a finger over one of the shelves, and was annoyed when it came off clean of dust. The thought of house elves - the filthy little beasts - coming in to clean where she was forbidden to go made her furious. But she made herself turn away. It wasn't worth getting angry over. She was here now, wasn't she, and that was what mattered.

The dresser was quite a bit more sinister than the rest of the room, large and somewhat looming. She crossed to it with some trepidition, tentatively running her small fingers over the elaborate carvings on it. It was beautiful, she thought, sighing.

Quickly the went through the drawers, reckless, curious. She did not find anything, and was heartily disappointed. This was where she had been expecting to find all his marvelous, mysterious secrets, all the things she wasn't allowed to be in on. But, aside from neatly folded and pressed clothing, there was nothing.

A glimpse of white caught her eye, and she straightened up, peering. On the top of the dresser a corner of something white poked out from underneath a carelessly discarded silk shirt that the house elves who cleaned in here probably hadn't been able to reach. She moved the shirt aside and the breath went out of her when she caught sight of what had been lying underneath it.

She stumbled back, one hand pressed against her mouth, eyes wide. The plain white mask stared up at her blankly.

She knew what it was, of course - she had seen Bellatrix's often enough - but to encounter it in her own home was something else entirely. She felt the tears starting. Why had she come here? Why hadn't she understood what he meant when he said that he had private affairs?

On some level, she knew, she had known exactly what he meant. How could she not? Narcissa was no fool; she had known, or at least suspected, what Lucius was involved in, but she had tried not to think about it. It was too ... And now here it was, staring her in the face, and she stood paralyzed, breathing shallowly, quickly. Forced now to accept what she had known all along, Narcissa could do nothing but stare.

All the pieces fit now, of course. Now she understood all the whispered conversations, his bizarre 'business trips' all over Europe. In a way, she had gotten her wish. She understood everything now, but she wished with all her heart that she didn't.

Wiping the tears from her eyes brusquely, she turned and fled the bedroom, dashed though the study and down the stairs and across the landing, her bare feet crashing on the wood. She came at last to her own bedroom and threw herself into her luxuriant pompasan chair. She pulled her knees up her chest and rested her face against them, and wept.

-----

Lucius arrived home later that evening. He noted Narcissa's odd coolness, but did not give it much thought. She had her moods, and he wouldn't begrudge her them.

He went up to his rooms to change into house clothes before dinner, going to his private bedroom and selecting a flimsy silk robe from his closet. Narcissa had always liked that one - perhaps it would warm her a bit. He opened his dresser and took out a night shirt, noticing that he had left his mask out on top of the dresser and mentally berating himself for his carelessness.

When he noticed a lone, curling strand of blonde hair glinting atop the dresser, his berations became much more severe.

How could he have been so careless? After all the work he had done to keep up Narcissa's illusions of normalcy, and now to have it ruined by a single moment of thoughtlessness. It did not occur to him to be angry with Narcissa, as he felt that the abrupt destruction of her carefully-constructed fantasy of denial would be punishment enough. It explained her strange mood, at least.

He sighed, resting against the dresser and regarding the mask absently. Well. There was nothing to be done about it now, he supposed. He had been lucky thus far, only a few close calls, and Narcissa, for all her suspicions, for the most part kept out of his business. He didn't know what had possessed her to sneak in here today - not that it mattered now, he supposed. The damage had been done.

But what to do?

-----

As they were getting ready for bed after an excruciatingly awkward dinner, Lucius showed signs of wanting to talk to her, but Narcissa brushed him off. She most certainly did not what to talk about it, not any of it. She did not know how he knew that she had been in his rooms today, but she could tell that he did. He didn't seem angry, though, for which she was at least greatful.

She took a long bath, partially because she felt she needed it after such an awful day, partly in hopes that he would be in bed when she was through. But no - he was sitting up reading when she came out of the bathroom.

Silently she got into her nightclothes and crawled into bed, as far away from him as the space would allow. He set his book down, watching her.

There was a long silence. She burrowed into the blankets, shutting her eyes and hoping she would fall asleep instantly. He watched her, hesitant.

"Narcissa," he said at last. She opened her eyes, but did not turn toward him.

"Narcissa ... " he said again, more gently. He put a hand on her shoulder. She did not flinch away, and turned her head slightly toward him.

"Yes," she said, her voice level, calm.

He said nothing for a moment. She turned her head and sat up to regard him fully, palely curious.

"I love you," he said finally, catching her off guard. She inclined her head quickly so he wouldn't see her sudden tears, drawing in a sharp breath.

He reached out a hand and his fingers brushed her jaw, pulling her face up to look at him. Unwillingly, she raised her eyes, and he saw her tears, and brushed them away, feather-light, with the tips of his fingers.

She sniffled. "You have muggle records," she said suddenly, startling him badly.

"What?" He asked, blinking.

She sniffed again. "You have muggle records," she said again, sulkily, "so you really aren't that much better than me."

He smiled at her, wry and tender. "No," he said gently, "never."

He held her then, and she buried her face into his nightshirt and shut her eyes tight, willing the world away, and they wished for her innocence back.