Perfection

Perfection

~*~

I have always loved perfection.

When I was little Poppa bought me perfect dolls. When I was a teenager Momma bought me the perfect dresses. When I was a young woman my parents bought me the perfect husband.

My elder sister, Bellatrix, was much different from me. While I preferred everything to be new and lovely Bella thrived on blood and carnage and destruction. It was most imperfect, in my opinion, but she was my sister, and we were best friends all the same.

Bella and I chose different paths as we aged. I chose to become a lady of society. She chose to become one of the few female Death Eaters. Neither of us understood exactly why the other did what they did. All we understood was that, no matter what, we would always be there for each other.

And that was perfect enough for me.

Bella and Lucius and Bella's husband, Rodolphus Lestrange, always told me that their Master was undefeatable. I believed them too. Each day I saw more and more destroyed and overtaken by the Death Eaters. I too thought it was a lost cause for the side of the Light.

But I was wrong.

How could anyone have guessed that a fifteen-month-old baby would have reduced the darkest wizard of the age to a mere wisp of magic? And even then, I would never have supposed that my sister, dedicated to the Dark Lord in the most extreme of ways, would have gone after two Aurors and tortured them to the point of insanity. She was sent to Azkaban for that. I didn't see her for fifteen years. I hated the Potter boy so much for taking my sister away from me and sending her to the most imperfect place in the whole magical world.

But now Bella is out. Her husband was not so fortunate, and now she is a widow. Her face, which was once as beautiful and perfect as mine, is ruined by the years spent in Azkaban. Her eyes, once so striking with their heavy lids, are now hollow and piercing. I used to love to hold staring contests with Bella, but now it frightens me to look into her eyes too long.

Bella is the one who told me about Lucius. She held me while I cried, and she was even so thoughtful as to write the letter to Draco informing him of his father's imprisonment. She also mentioned the passing on of our cousin Sirius--a rotten, imperfect blood traitor if I ever knew one--but she didn't say how. I know she played a role in his death. I saw for myself the frightful, haunting glaze that fills her eyes right after she kills.

It is evening now, and Draco arrived home from Hogwarts just two hours ago. He stormed around angrily, as if making enough sound for two people would bring his father home from Azkaban. Bella has locked herself in her room--she is still upset about "failing to carry out Master's wishes"--and so I am left to my own accords.

I hear something glass shatter--if it was Bella or my own perfect Draco who broke it I do not know--and I hate Lucius and all the bloody Death Eaters and even the Dark Lord himself for making my life so imperfect. Tears spill down my cheeks, not yet beginning to show any signs of aging, and feel like breaking something myself.

I know what Draco thinks--he thinks that the "oh so perfect" Dark Lord will aid his father in escaping prison. He thinks that Lucius will be free and home before next week. Or, at least if he isn't rescued soon, that he will be before October.

I know better.

From Bella's reenactment of the night Lucius was captured I could tell that, in the Dark Lord's eyes, Lucius had failed. I know enough about my husband's Master to know that failures are of no use to him. I don't want to tell my son that the most likely reason that the Dark Lord will remove Lucius from Azkaban is to kill him. It is likely that Lucius will rot away to nothing in Azkaban, and that I too am a widow in the eyes of society.

This is so far from perfect! I scream, but no one cares enough to hear.

Now who will earn our wages? We can't lose this manor with its perfect gardens and all our memories with it! I am sobbing now. My eyes are red and puffy, and I look so far from perfect that I sob harder.

"Mother?"

The voice is soft and nervous. It is that of Draco. I turn to see him standing in the doorway to my room. I see Bella lurking behind him. Despite myself I almost begin laughing...What a mess I must look to them, crying my heart out in my cream colored slip and undershirt.

"Yes, dearest?" I ask in a choked, weepy voice.

"The house-elves prepared dinner. You didn't show up, and we thought..." Draco never told me what he thought, but I understood well enough.

"Thank you for telling me, Draco, but I do not think that I'll be joining you tonight. I...I have some things I need to go through." I gave him the softest smile I could muster.

Draco looked as if he wanted to push me into coming down, but Bella reached out and tugged him out of my room. "Don't you go bothering your mother," she hissed, and Draco shot me one last pleading look before disappearing down the hall.

When they were gone I stumbled over to my bed. I had asked a house-elf to bring down an old photo album from the manor's attic. I wanted to look back to times in my life where things were perfect. There were pictures of Bella, myself, and our little cousin Regulus Black at our grandparent's home. There were old family portraits of which my little sister Andromeda had been scratched out, and there were pictures of my wedding to Lucius.

I was so absorbed in the photos--none of which waved at me, for Blacks would never do something so disgraceful--that I didn't notice when Draco and Bella appeared in my doorway again until they were practically at my bedside. When Draco cleared his throat I looked up quickly. He had sounded so much like Lucius, and I suppose wishful thinking had tried to make me believe that it was he.

"Mother? Aunt Bella--She and I told the house-elves to make your favorite, minestrone." He had three bowls of soup balanced on a silver tray. "Can we eat with you in here? We'd like to...keep you company."

It was only then that I noticed my older sister. She was almost useable, hidden in the shadows of the hallway. Her dark green dress was ill fitting around her skinny, boney, malnourished frame, but her smile was something like the one she used to give me before Azkaban.

"Just like our old house-elves used to make, Narcissa," she said in her hoarse, throaty voice.

"Oh, I suppose..." I set aside the pictures and thanked Draco when he handed me the soup. It was, as Bella had promised, just like our old house-elves used to make. We all ate in silence, the quiet broken only by one of Draco's long slurps, and when everyone was done I summoned a house-elf to take away the dishes.

Not too much later Draco got up to retire to his room. Before he left, however, he gave me a hug, and whispered in my ear, "I'll see us through this, Mother. I won't let you down."

Bella followed him out. "Remember, Narcissa, that I may be a murderer, but I was your sister before that, and I'll never forget that."

The both of them paused halfway out the doorway, and their faces were bathed in both shadows and light. Draco wore a smile that, for the first time in his life, was not something that could be called his father's. Bella still looked gaunt, and she hadn't gained enough weight in our meal to begin to look like a normal, healthy person, but the fierce protectiveness that was so uncharacteristic to her face made her beautiful in a way all her own.

They didn't say a word, just nodded and continued on their separate ways, never knowing how deeply there words affected me. They taught me, in less then fifty words, the two most important things I will ever learn. Firstly, perfection in itself is imperfection. Whatever imperfections I saw in my sister were only the things that made her the person that she is.

And secondly? Well, I learned that when you have your family, you don't need much else. And that, I believe, is a perfect end to this story.