The Terrible Social Graces

Harry Potter hated polite society. He hated it more even than he hated war. War, at least, was an honest enterprise. Society, on the other hand, was not at all so black and white as battle. In the undertaking of armed conflict, one knows who is friend and who is foe; one knows what is to be done, and to whom, and how and occasionally even why. But in the genteel world of the banquets and balls of the wizarding aristocracy, there was no separating those who wished you well from those who wished you harm. And so it was that Harry Potter had found himself the guest of honor at a gala being hosted by one of the most despicable witches of his acquaintance.

Oh, he was sure enough that Narcissa Malfoy had not chosen him to be the Hero of the Age, or whatever it was that they'd named him. But she was the organizer of the damned event, and so it was with no small caution that he'd accepted his award from her very hands. He had made certain, of course, that there was a mighty cadre of photographers in attendance to witness the ceremony, many of whom he'd invited along himself. Harry wasn't normally the type to go in for excess publicity, but he had to do everything he could to see to it that the brass plaque he was given was merely a mundane object and not some poisoned trinket or Portkey to hell. He'd not have put such an act of malice past her.

Narcissa Malfoy had, in the years of open conflict, become a fixture in polite society once again. Her son had been reported dead just after he'd run from Hogwarts and rumor had it that she'd only been to Azkaban to ask after her husband once. Harry found it odd to analyze how long it had been since he'd gotten his first impressions of her. He'd been a hopeful and well-meaning lad of fourteen then. Now, as he neared his twentieth birthday, he was aware of how drastically he had changed in those years. And yet he was somehow certain that Narcissa Malfoy hadn't changed in the least. A leopard doesn't change its spots, and no one stops being a Death Eater.

So what if she was the chairwoman of the Ladies Aid Society? And so what if she held an honorary position at every soldiers' hospital in Wizarding Britain? She was still the wife of Lucius Malfoy and it did not matter one iota that she'd been tossing the bastard's money about; even if it was to a stack of worthy causes. Harry himself supported many of the same causes that she did, but he was convinced in himself that his devotion to hospitals, orphanages, libraries, and the like was more sincere somehow than hers had been. She was only giving of her time and money so that no one would dare arrest her.

These were the only truly worthwhile causes left. And the only causes that were politically neutral. That was the crux of it as far as Harry was concerned. She wasn't giving money to either side. That would be as good as allying herself with one or the other and would therefore perhaps cost her social currency were the wrong side to come out on top. She needed an apolitical expression of her innate goodness so that she would find herself in an advantageous position no matter how the war came out. It was a cunning strategy, and one worthy of a Black and a Slytherin, but Harry found her despicable in spite of her cleverness.

Harry, of course, supported the same causes for much the same reason. He had an intense and lifelong hatred for Lord Voldemort, his followers, his supporters, and his tactics. However, the Ministerial Guard had not been waging a fair and honorable campaign for years and Harry had chosen not to ally himself too closely to them. Although the Ministerial Guard fought the forces of the Death Eaters and was therefore Harry's natural ally, the bureaucracy behind the Guard was suspect in his mind. He might have been convinced to take up a position in their army had they not promoted Dolores Umbridge in the same week as he had been offered a commission. No; better to fight for what he believed in than for someone else's agenda. He was that much more surprised then, when he had received the notice that the Ladies Aid Society was planning to award him this meritorious whatever.

He had apparently impressed some of the ladies on the committee with his deeds after the battle of Valence. It hadn't been such an unusual act in his part. He'd been late in coming to the fracas and much of the violence had ended by the time he'd arrived. Harry had merely staved off a few frenzied and overly malicious Death Eaters as the Healers from la magie d'hôpital de médecine in nearby St. Etienne gathered up the wounded yet living from both sides. It had been no great act of bravery to Harry, but it was enough to get him invited to this cursed event.

Harry honestly wasn't sure of exactly why he'd accepted the invitation. He certainly would have thought better of it had he any indication that the lady who'd issued it had been Narcissa Malfoy. As it was he figured at least a third of the ladies present to be the wives of Death Eaters. He'd been introduced to the bunch of them by Horace Slughorn, his former potions master from his sixth year at Hogwarts. Slughorn had always been a notorious social climber and he practically lived to be standing next to whomever the man of the hour might be. So it was no real surprise to Harry when Slughorn had attached himself early in the night. He'd been introduced to people upon whom he'd have been more than willing to spit in his former life. He wasn't fully sure that he wouldn't spit on them later in the night were he to be forced to remain here for too much longer.

Slughorn had dragged him about the room, introducing him to the likes of Marnie Ellen Avery, Ivy Parkinson, and Isabelle Bulstrode. These cackling witches made Harry feel ill. Here they were all dressed up in their silks and their jewels while the word outside of this stupid ballroom was waging a cruel and desperate war. There was a big band playing on stage and all of the young ladies (most of whom he could only guess were on their summer holidays from Hogwarts) seemed to be enjoying dancing with the soldiers from the convalescent hospital who'd been allowed out for the occasion. Harry thought the whole idea of a glamorous fundraiser was abhorrent. There were better ways to help the wounded and the widowed than to throw a party and drink to your own goodwill; not that Harry could think of any off the top of his head, but there had to be.

He hated the entire thing. He couldn't stand another minute of bad dancing, or of fake smiles or forced politeness. He spotted a door near to the stage and thought he might find a bit of peace, or at least solitude, on the other side of it. He waited until Slughorn was fully engaged in a conversation with Ellison Goyle and Imogene Macnair (mothers of Slytherins in his year, who he had just learned were sisters) to make his escape. He slid from the periphery of the circle of chatting people and ducked as stealthily as he could behind the stage door.

As he shut the door behind him, he was more than happy to discover that it did in fact lead to someplace dark and quiet. He turned around to look at the room he'd walked into and suddenly cursed his decision to leave the party. Just a few feet in front of him sat a kelly green horsehair sofa and a pair of chartreuse colored velvet parlor chairs. And on one of the chairs sat Narcissa Malfoy.

Harry frowned when she looked up at him. "May I help you, Harry Potter?" she asked him, a tinge of unabashed nastiness in her voice. He hated the way she said his name 'Harry Potter' with the same disgust as he would utter the name of 'Malfoy' or 'Voldemort'. It was as though they were equal in their disdain for one another, and he could not allow himself a thought that he might have anything innate in common with this imperious woman. She was perched on the chair in her black taffeta ball gown as though she were a queen ready to receive her subjects, and yet the look upon her face was obviously that of a person who'd been surprised by having been approached. She held a wine glass in her hand, and he could see the bottle from whence the tawny liquid in her glass had come on the floor between the chair and the sofa.

"I..." He wasn't sure what to say. He couldn't just fling a curse at her for sitting there with a glass of wine, even if he did hate the woman desperately. He regarded her for a moment. She didn't look like he remembered her looking, not even a few minutes ago when she'd handed him his stupid plaque. There was something different about her. Perhaps she had been drinking heavily. "I was looking for the bathroom," he lied. Mrs. Malfoy shook her head at him.

"Well, it isn't back here, now is it?" she retorted. Harry squared his jaw and shook his head. She looked back down at her glass and took another sip. He noticed that her face looked swollen, and ruddy. He could see that her eyes looked as though they had glazed over. Had she been crying?

No, there was no way that this woman cried. She was barely even human. There was absolutely no chance that she was capable of the kind of emotion that might lead to crying. "Are you quite alright?" Harry heard the question leave his mouth before his better thinking took hold and he wondered why in the name of Merlin he had asked. Mrs. Malfoy sneered at him and shook her head.

"Leave me be," she ordered him, casting her eyes to the floor. It was very odd; she sounded more tired than peeved.

"But you're..." Harry all of the sudden caught himself. He would not be the one to point out to this powerful and obviously off-kilter woman that she was crying. He would not put it past her to jinx him purple for saying anything to her at all. She looked back up and rolled her moist eyes at him.

"If you must know, Harry Potter," she said to him with the same disdain as before, "I went down to the kitchens to check on the progress of dinner and there were onions being cut up and the fumes were just awful." Harry nodded. She had been crying and what's more: she was ashamed of it.

"Onions," Harry countered, "that's a good one when there's a kitchen around to blame it on." He was baiting her and he knew it, although he wasn't sure why. "Of course," he continued, "I wear eyeglasses, so I can say there's a glare and I needed to rub my eyes. And, obviously, if there's a plant anywhere you can just say that you're allergic."

"Well, you've caught me, Harry Potter," she snarled. "Would you like to take the stage now and announce to everyone that you've found the steely Mrs. Lucius Malfoy in the greenroom crying into her glass of port?" Harry suddenly felt a little bit guilty for just having been so blunt and insensitive. He may find her spiteful and foul, but she was still a lady and perhaps he should have remembered his manners.

"No," he assured her. He really had no interest in humiliating her publicly. He had only wanted to hurt her a little bit, which he realized was mean spirited and uncalled for. "It's just..." Harry thought that he might as well be honest at this point. "It's just that I've been there," he admitted. "I know how you feel."

"You know nothing about me, Harry Potter," she snapped back at him. "And you know nothing of pain." She took another pronounced drink from the glass in her hand and turned to refill it from the bottle beside her chair. Harry was incensed. How dare this woman who had never before had so much as a civilized conversation with him decide what he knew of pain? He'd had more than his share.

"You're the one who doesn't know anything," he accused. Narcissa Malfoy looked back at him and screwed her face into an unbelievable frown. Her expression slowly changed as she shook her head slowly. And then she did something that Harry never could have expected. She laughed out loud.

"Tell me, Harry Potter," she encouraged, patting the sofa as though to invite him to sit. "Tell me something I don't know." She gave him a wry smile and pointed her wand at the ground near her bottle of wine. Harry watched as a glass that matched her own materialized there, and she filled it from the bottle. Harry shrugged his shoulders and crossed to sit where she had indicated. Somehow the idea of conversing with Malfoy's mother was preferable to rejoining the party outside.

"My two best friends were killed last month," he offered up as a fact she didn't know. He hadn't mentioned Ron and Hermione to anyone since they had died; not even to Ginny. Ginny was somewhere fighting alongside the Ministerial Guard, and Harry only knew that he would see her again some time. When Ron and Hermione had been killed, he hadn't even been able to get in touch with Ginny to let her know. By the time she had learned of the deaths of her only remaining brother and sister-in-law, they had already been buried. The only time Harry had managed to see Ginny since that day, they had agreed to spend the day enjoying each other's presence, and not dwelling on the sadness that plagued them the rest of the time.

"The Weasley couple?" Narcissa guessed. Harry just nodded. Narcissa sighed in reply and continued. "Pity," she commented. "I heard about that. Car bombing, wasn't it?" she asked. Clearly she'd read about it.

"Yeah," Harry answered with another tiny nod. Suddenly, he thought that a bit of wine was a very good idea. He picked up the glass at his feet and took a generous swallow.

"I must admit that I always thought Arthur Weasley to be an insufferable miscreant, but I was rather fond of Molly when we were children." Narcissa took another sip of wine from her own glass and continued. "I had thought to write her when I heard, but I hadn't any idea what to write." Narcissa brought her fingers to her temple for a moment and looked Harry in the eye. "She wrote me," she told him, "when she read about Draco. She wrote to me with her condolences. I should write," she confirmed, likely more for her own benefit than Harry's.

"Not to bother," Harry told her, taking another sip of wine. "She's dead." Narcissa gasped.

"You're not serious?" she insisted. Harry shook his head.

"They died in the siege of Peles," he confirmed. Narcissa closed her eyed and pursed her lips.

"Molly Prewett," she whispered.

"Molly Weasley," Harry insisted. Narcissa dipped her head and smiled at him in deference. "All of them but Percy, Ron and Ginny," he added. It had been the most tragic news he had ever received when Ron had come to him asking for his help in bringing his family's bodies home. Ron and Hermione were so recently wed as not to have their marriage certificate through the process of filing yet and Ginny was off somewhere engaged in bloody battle when it had happened. Molly and Arthur, Bill and Fleur, and Fred and George and Charlie had all been at Casteul Peles, trying to outlast the enemy, when the well had been poisoned and all present on both sides had perished.

"All of them?" she asked him, a look of utter disbelief in her eyes. Harry nodded again. "But there must have been a dozen of them," she added. She shook her head suddenly. "But then, I don't know anybody who didn't lose someone at Peles."

"Did you?" Harry asked, looking up at over her over his glass of wine. She shrugged.

"My brother-in-law died there," she told him. "But no one too dear to me. They were all gone already." She inhaled sharply and then exhaled with a sigh. "I really was always fond of Molly," she told him. "And I must admit I envy her a little."

"Because she's dead?" Harry asked. It was a personal question, but it was almost true for him, so the odds were that was what she meant. Narcissa smiled at him. It was a true smile, and Harry had to admit that he found it most disarming. She really was a very beautiful woman when she wasn't acting ugly.

"Because she died with her husband and her children," she confirmed. "It's harder to be the only one left alive."

"Don't I know it," Harry commented. Narcissa snickered and picked the bottle of wine up off of the rug between them. She topped off his glass and then filled her own only halfway before the bottle ran out. She frowned at her half-empty wine glass and then picked her wand back up off of her lap and flicked it through the air.

"Accio Colheita!" She called. She turned to Harry with a small smile, "There will be more presently," she told him. "It's for charity, you know, so I bought cases of the mediocre stuff for the guests, but I always get something hard to find and reserve vintage for myself and my closest associates at these things. And today, I suppose that's you." She took a drink from her glass and shrugged her shoulders.

"Thank you," Harry answered her. He was enjoying the wine; it was quite possibly the best wine he had ever been privileged to taste. He wondered for a moment if Malfoy had a taste for wine. He wasn't convinced that his old rival was really dead, as he tended to believe that nothing that the Daily Prophet printed was altogether true.

"Are you the only one left alive, Harry Potter?" she asked him. He really was starting to hate that she kept calling him by both his first and last name, but he had no idea as to the appropriate thing to tell her to call him.

"I have a fiancé," he answered, shrugging.

"How lovely for you," she answered. Harry found it odd, but her voice sounded completely sincere.

"Well," he admitted, "I call her that, but she's not really agreed to marry me." Harry shrugged and took another sip of wine as he watched the previously summoned bottle land softly on the ground at Narcissa Malfoy's feet.

"She will," Mrs. Malfoy assured him, pointing her wand at the bottle until the cork popped out and landed on the floor near the hem of her skirt. "Have you asked?" she inquired of him. Harry shrugged. Had he?

"I've brought it up," he told her.

"No, no," she admonished, topping off her own glass and then his. "You must ask her, Harry, formally. And there must be a ring involved."

"I've got the ring," Harry assured her. He could tell that he hadn't eaten enough and that this was very good wine, as he realized suddenly that he was sharing somewhat personal information with her. Narcissa brought her left hand from the bottle on the floor and looked down at the jewels that adorned her finger. She stroked her diamond for a moment with the thumb of her right hand and smiled up at him.

"Never under estimate the power of a diamond, Harry Potter," she counseled. She had done it again, called him by his first and last name; but somehow this time it didn't bother him. Perhaps it was that the tone of her voice had become pleasant and familiar. He looked down at the jewel that shone on her hand.

"May I?" he asked. She nodded and held her left hand out to him. Her rings were beautiful, but not nearly as flashy as he might have guessed them to be. He examined her diamond engagement ring very carefully; it was a large, round center stone set high in platinum with two smaller diamonds flanking it. The ring was carved intricately and her wedding band matched it, although the band had no diamonds attached. "It's lovely," he told her. Narcissa took her hand back and looked closely at her engagement ring again.

"Twenty-five years in March," she told him. Damn. The Malfoys had been married longer than he had been alive. Of course he'd have had some indication of that, seeing as Draco was a month older than he was. But still, the idea that the Malfoys had been together nearly as long as the Weasleys had; that was weird.

"That's a long time," he observed.

"Yes," she agreed. "You should think about how long before you do the formal asking."

"I have," he assured her. Narcissa nodded. Her smile toward him looked somehow sadder as she looked him in the eye again.

"You're ready for the 'triumph and tragedy; victors and vanquished' part?" she asked him. "It's harder to do than to say. Believe me, I'm living proof."

"I think so," he affirmed, having another drink. This woman took her marriage vows seriously; that was nothing to hate her for, was it? In fact, she'd been quite personable to him in spite of the fact he was part of the reason her husband had been taken from her and locked away for what likely would be the rest of his life. "I mean, I'm sure it's harder to live the vow than to speak it, but I think I'm ready for it."

"Then you have to ask, Harry Potter," she said again. "A woman needs to hear the question."

"I intend to ask when the war is done," he confessed. "I don't want for her to think I'm asking because I believe one or both of us will die before we can wed. She needs to hear it when there's not an impending emergency, I think. Every time I've brought it up that's the gist of what she's said back. She doesn't seem to want me to get the question out."

"You've a good instinct," she affirmed. "She might not agree to it of she thinks that's why you're asking. Perhaps it will be better received once there's no chance of either one of you getting blasted to pieces anytime soon."

"And she's younger than me," he confessed. "I don't want to feel as though I've robbed her of her youth or anything." Narcissa shook her head as she swallowed yet another sip of wine.

"The war has done that already," she told him. "War does that. It takes away anything that's innocent and pure and returns to you only a bloodied and damaged version of whatever you used to be." Harry could see a look on her face that he didn't really recognize, but somehow knew the meaning of.

"You're thinking of the last war," he posited. Narcissa nodded her head.

"I am," she affirmed.

"Did you fight?" he asked, sipping at his glass and not fully sure she wouldn't hex him for the inquiry. She didn't seem even mildly affected by his question, though. She shook her head and answered him.

"No," she sighed, "I have no stomach for violence. I sat at home and didn't sleep." Harry believed her. He didn't know why, but he did.

"So you knew about it?" he asked. Narcissa gave him a half smile and a slight nod.

"I was fully aware of my husband's... affiliations," she admitted. "Although I will say that I was never completely apprised as to the extent of his activities. I knew what I was getting into. I remember the night he became a Death Eater; the night he took that blasted Mark onto himself." Narcissa frowned and shrugged her shoulders as she had another sip of wine. "I was eighteen years old," she told him. That was Ginny's age. It seemed odd to Harry that Narcissa had first become involved in this conflict, even if only peripherally, at the same age as Ginny was now.

"You were married already?" he asked. He had to say that he was both curious as to when the Malfoys had gotten married (he understood that their marriage had been arranged for them as children) as well as just how old Narcissa was; as she certainly did not appear old enough to have been married for a quarter of a century.

"Not yet engaged," she corrected him. Harry must have frowned in surprise because her expression changed and she arched her eyebrows at him. "Does that disturb you Harry Potter?" she asked; "The idea of Lucius and me as a young couple courting a romance; does that bother you?" Harry shook his head.

"No," he answered. "I'd just thought that..."

"That our marriage was arranged and that we had no choice in the matter?" she finished for him. Harry shrugged and nodded, his wine glass at his lips. "That seems to be a popular opinion among those outside of our social circle," she told him. "And I'll admit that it's an opinion that we have allowed to prevail when it suited us."

"When it suited you?" he asked. Harry was suddenly very curious. When would it suit someone to allow others to think that they were in an arranged and loveless marriage?

"Like now, for instance," she answered him. "No one in power in our government now has any idea that I love my husband. That will work in my favor when this war is over. They will award me for my contributions to the well being of widows and orphans and library books and will perhaps be willing to show me the courtesy of letting me bring him home. I've no illusions of a faerie tale, and I understand fully that he's likely to be much changed by these years apart; but still I wish him returned. Triumph and tragedy, victors and vanquished."

"I knew it!" Harry exclaimed. He couldn't even allow himself to be the tiniest bit moved by her expression of loyalty, as he was too consumed by knowing that he'd been correct in his assumptions as to the root of her wholehearted devotion to charity. "I knew you had some ulterior motive. I knew you couldn't just be throwing your money around for no reason."

"Of course there's a reason," she admitted. "There always is. Nothing in this life is done without a reason. You'd be wise to learn that, Harry Potter. But as for 'ulterior motives'; think more along the lines of fringe benefits."

"Fringe benefits?" he asked. She nodded.

"I give money to hospitals and orphanages because I know what it is to be alone and hurting, Harry Potter. I have lost everything but my fortune, and I would gladly give that up to have my family home safe. And so I give money away by the tens of thousands of Galleons to let myself feel a little better. I know that, through my contribution, someone else may be spared my pain. And if, at the time of the cessation of hostilities, those contributions make it possible for me to have some semblance of the life I set out to have when I was your age... well then, I will feel that much better for it."

"Oh." Harry was at a loss for words. He hadn't ever thought of it that way. Somehow, even when he had watched Draco Malfoy cry and bleed in their sixth year of Hogwarts, he had never extended the ability to experience pain to his rival's parents. He had always pictured Lucius Malfoy as a hard and cold and vicious man, with no capacity for anything beyond that. And the one time he'd had a conversation with Draco's mother, she had seemed equally devoid of warmth. But here sat a woman, much more human than Harry had ever guessed her to be, who was able to speak with some authority on pain and on what it was like to have to live up to your marriage vows. He had to admit that it did creep him out a little.

"You're not what I expected, Harry Potter," she declared, standing from her seat. "You may sit here and finish this bottle of wine. I must be taking my leave of this wretched place."

"Lucky," he quipped. Harry wanted nothing more than to be allowed out of this stupid party.

"No," she countered, stepping away from the sitting area. "I was once," she added. "Now I am merely busy." Narcissa dipped her head to him and then quickly slipped through the door and back into the company of the revelers in the ballroom. Harry reached down to the bottle at his feet and refilled his glass yet again.

He had more to think about than he'd first considered. He raised his glass into the air and spoke aloud. "To the end of the war, Mrs. Malfoy," he called out, "and to a day when we can drink wine in peace with our loved ones." Harry took another long gulp from his glass and sighed. He found himself appreciating nearly every bit of Mrs. Malfoy's advice. Nearly every bit. War or no war, he was going to propose to Ginny as soon as possible.

FIN.