Entropy

She's getting older now. She can feel it in everything she does - she feels it especially when she visits Lucius. He hardly talks to her when she is there, and after all these years, she worries about him.

She worries about her son more. Her Draco, still so young and stuck with that horrid school. She remembers a time when she insisted he go there. It's closer, we can't have him so far away, she said, and he threw a tantrum. He gave in though, and so did Lucius. Hogwarts was good enough for her, and it's good enough for her son.

But she doesn't like it now, in this anarchaic time, and she doesn't like how it has made her son. He does not understand; he is a child still, and motivated by a child's desires.

He hates the Potter boy, but for all the wrong reasons. He thinks she doesn't know, but she does. He gets too emotional over the boy, hates him with a child's hatred. A spoilt child's hatred, she thinks - she knows she has spoilt the boy. She only wants to protect him, but now she can't, and her protectiveness has left him weak and unable to fight his own fights - or even know which ones are worth fighting.

Lucius says... Lucius said, the boy pays more attention to his own wants than the needs of our master. And Narcissa thinks, he may be your master, but he is not yet mine. She will follow the dark lord, but he is not her master - she has too much pride for that. Lucius was disappointed to the point of rage when she would not bow to his will and receive the mark. She is foolish enough to think she can be her own person, but smart enough to pretend to get away with it. Lucius is, in a way, her protection. He cannot force her and will not, if she is quite and agreeable in other matters, and Narcissa is. Narcissa learnt a long time ago it is better to please others than please yourself, but she still has pride, and will not roll over like a good wife does. And even though it makes Lucius mad, she thinks he admires her for it, and that is why he lets it go. He is a good husband, most of the time. Of course, he cannot be any sort of husband at the moment, and no sort of father. She wonders how Draco is coping, home for the holidays, but so silent. She hardly ever sees him anymore, and he won't admit anything. The house is so empty without Lucius.

It will be emptier still, when Draco goes back to that place - even if she never sees him, at least she is not alone. Of course, there are always house-elves - but they are nothing. You cannot talk to a house-elf. To be honest, they get on her nerves. But they obey her, and for that she is grateful.

Well, there was that one - always too himself for his own good - but he is gone now. Lucius never told her what happened; it was a sore point, she thinks, and she did not press it. Her own hurts she is less cautious about - what does not kill her, after all, will only make her stronger. And what does kill her will kill her dead, and that will be the end of it all.

She is the last one as it is. She does not think about this, but it is always there, just under the skin. Sometimes it hits her, and she cries - always where no one can see her. But no one can anywhere now, in this big old house, with Draco locked away in his room doing god-knows-what. Lucius would probably find out, but Lucius isn't here, and Narcissa doesn't know if she can be bothered trying. She is so tired she rarely bothers even to cry. She used to, but the tears no longer come. She thinks she has used them all up, squeezed dry like the blood... there are so few of them now. It doesn't seem so long ago that it was the mudbloods dying off, and it almost makes her laugh to see how the tables have turned. Her husband's fight, she realises now, is a useless one. He is only attempting to delay the inevitable. Every generation the blood gets thicker, and there is less of it. They are dying out - she can feel it, every drop of her own pure blood screams it. She wishes she could've had more children, but that really, would've been as futile a fight as her husband's.

Anyway, she is too old now, whatever she wishes. Although when she got so old, she does not know. It's like she's slipping away, gradually. One morning she woke to find a grey hair. She plucked it, but she knows there will be more, and that it is another futile fight. You can't stop aging. You can't stop death. You can fight it, but you have to give in at some point. The Dark Lord will realise that one day. But Narcissa does not know when, and she is so old now she thinks it must be long after she is gone. She cannot be bothered fighting anymore, and it is easier just to give in.