Talking to Angelus

Talking to Angelus

Narcissa slid the needle into her skin, savoring the feel of it. The cold steel in her veins satisfied an ancient lust for pain. She used to cut herself with razor blades before she married Lucius. But then Mother caught her...when she was careless...and she didn't do it anymore. Needles left fewer marks. Lucius Malfoy's bride couldn't be seen with a latticework of scars on the fleshy parts of her arms. Needles left finer scars. And she was careful about the tracks.

The "little death" seized her as muggle potions flowed freely into her blue blood.

She never mentions the word addiction
In certain company
Yes, she'll tell you she's an orphan
After you meet her family

She felt the whole world slow down as she settled back into her chaise. She savored the feel of the velvet beneath her, sinking into it like a feather bed...or mashed potatoes. She giggled at the thought. Laying down in mashed potatoes and rolling around in it and squirting it through her toes. Rather sensual...in a crazy kindergarten sort of way. But then, children are extremely sensual creatures. Draco taught her that. And also about mashed potatoes.

Her thoughts randomly swam around her alabaster son. She lived for Draco, he was her angel. He hated mashed potatoes when he was three. He used to throw them at her. She didn't mind really. Draco was usually such a sweet baby. But he liked to throw mashed potatoes. One day, after a particularly messy session, she had the house elves make a huge batch of mashed potatoes and pour them into his little wading pool, complete with butter and gravy. Once they cooled, she dressed him in his swim trunks and tossed him in. He threw them all over and ran about, leaving potato-and-gravy footprints on the hardwood floors. After that...Draco loved mashed potatoes. The house elves cleaned it up before Lucius got home. Lucius would not have approved. Mashed potatoes were for eating. Children were to be heirs. Wives were to be trophies. And that's the way it is.

Narcissa wondered why she even thought about that day. Such petty silliness. The drugs were wearing off now. The world was speeding up. Locked in Narcissa's mind was the image of her son, white-blond hair smeared with mashed potatoes and gravy, smiling up at her with orange floaties on his arms.

She pulled herself off the chaise to prepare herself for "company."

She paints her eyes as black as night now
She pulls those shades down tight
She gives a smile when the pain comes
The pain gonna' make everything all right

She kept her eyes smoky because it hid the bags underneath. Luckily, smoky-smudgy eyes were fasionable. She would be wearing black silk tonight. To celebrate the return of the Dark Lord. That was good, she supposed. The Dark Lord would ensure a place for Lucius and later for  Draco. He treated his loyal followers well. He did horrible things to the cowards. Maybe he would kill Lucius. Then Draco could shine...

Draco would shine with or without the Dark Lord, Narcissa knew that. He was a force of will that would not be denied.

She looked down at the empty needle on her boudoir. Just one more hit before tonight...couldn't hurt...

Says she talks to angels
They call her out by her name
Oh yeah, she talks to angels
Says they call her out by her name

"Mum...?" He couldn't work the complicated clasps on his robes. But his mother could. She always did it for him.Â

She heard him just before the rush took her. "Yes, Filius?"Â

"What's...this...?" Draco held up the needle with distaste. He knew exactly what this was. He just wanted to hear it from her.

"Just something to make everything slow down." Narcissa smiled benignly. "I just need to remember."

Draco dropped the needle onto the silver platter on his mother's boudoir. "You're better than this, Mum." He took her by the wrist and examined the pink dots in the crook of her elbow. "Does Lucius--?"

"No, Angelus." Narcissa said affectionately. "And we won't tell him, will we?"

Draco sighed. "No, Mum. We won't."

"Puer bonum, Angelus."

"Good boy, my Angel." Draco translated mentally. Mum loves Latin.

"You have to get dressed for Lucius' party. Mum..." Draco touched her arm. Her skin was warm.

"Let me be, for now."

Draco looked into his mother's vacant eyes. "Avolus Angelus..." she whispered.

"Fly away, my Angel," Draco thought. "I will not. Lucius won't be pleased if we aren't ready. Let me help you." Draco pulled her up on her feet. "Just stand there. I'll get your dress."Â

Narcissa shook when he left her side. "Don't leave me, Draco!"

Draco looked back over his shoulder. "I won't. You know that."

But he was shaking too. Muggle potions...drugs...killed wizards as easily as they killed muggles. And Lucius would work faster than the drugs if he found out how Mum debased herself by putting that muggle filth in her veins. Draco, however, loved his Mum too much to be ashamed of her. He would get her dress and fix her up and nobody would know.

She keeps a lock of hair in her pocket
She wears a cross around her neck
Yes the hair is from a little boy
And the cross from someone she has not met
Not yet

She shook there, wavering between standing and sitting. She could still feel the drugs. She rode her memories like waves. She was remembering Draco's first haircut.

Draco sitting in that highchair screaming. Narcissa screaming, too. Blood pouring from his little nose, red on white. So much blood. Blood on the wall where Lucius had ground Draco's face into the rainbowed plaster. House elves scrubbing away the crayon on the wall. He had drawn a picture for Lucius, because he loved his father then.

"Lucius! Stop!"

"He has to learn discipline!"

Draco howled. Lucius slapped him silent.Â

"He's two years old, Lucius. He didn't mean to! The crayons will wash off--LUCIUS!" She screamed at him. "STOP Â HITTING HIM!"

Lucius rounded on Narcissa.

"Yes," Narcissa whispered to the shade of Lucius moving in her mind. "Hurt me and leave my angel."

And the blows fell like rain until she didn't feel anything anymore. And the angel wept for his mother when she stopped moving.

Narcissa pulled herself out of the pool of blood and white hair, like down feathers, plastered to her by blood. The baby was crying. She pulled him out of the highchair. He shook as she nestled him against her and stroked his head. Lucius had cut the hair too short. Draco was as naked on top as a shorn lamb.

She still had a lock of bloodstained hair. She kept it in a locket next to her rosary.Â

Says she talks to angels
They call her out by her name
Oh yeah, she talks to angels
Says they call her out by her name

"Angelus!" she cried out, still half-dreaming from the heroin.

Draco carried her black silk dress from dressing room to the bedroom. "I'm here, Mum. We've got to get you ready..." He pulled off her dressing robe, careful not to knock her back into the chaise. The silk dress slid easily over her head, but it got caught up on her shoulders. "Please...help me before Lucius gets home."

Narcissa obediently held out her arms so he could clothe her. "Did you bring my jewelry?"

"You had gold laid out, but I thought silver would look more elegant," Draco said. "Besides, Lucius wanted you to wear that huge diamond thing he got from Africa. It's set in silver. Silver and gold together is rather gauche, don't you think?"

Narcissa wondered, at moments like these, if perhaps Draco would have benefitted from a brother or a less aloof male role model.

She don't know no lovers
None that I've ever seen
And to her that means nothing
But to me it means, means everything

Her memories took her one last time, without the muggle potions to help. Looking down at Draco, who was trying to pull her together, she thought about Lucius. When she was young...Lucius was the only thing constant in her life. From birth, her mother told her how rich and powerful and handsome he was. She met him for the first time when she was seven. He was almost nineteen. He looked dirty.

He was awkward with her; he didn't like children. She was afraid of him. She was afraid of the finality of it all. Her prince had arrived wearing tarnished, rusty armor. He was dirty...

That went away, of course. He was beautiful when she saw him next, at her sixteenth birthday party. He gave her the ring, and their betrothal was made formal. But then, most wizards and witches lose natural abilities, like aura perception, after childhood.

And she was petty. And she was vain. And so was he.Â

But Draco happened. Narcissa remembered how non-plussed she was about pregnancy. She couldn't wait to slough Draco off onto a wet nurse, just as her own mother did her. But then she saw him...and he was perfect. Ten  fingers...ten toes...little pink cheeks...a wild shock of white hair...wailing and squirming and so ALIVE. She dismissed the wet nurse and threw away her social life for the love of her Angelus. How could she have almost let herself miss out on the past fifteen years? Draco had turned out so well...loving and giving and absolutely nothing like Lucius.

Lucius would not be holding her hand right now. He wouldn't have dressed her and cleaned her up. He wouldn't have hidden the needle and the muggle potions. He wouldn't have done any of it.

She paints her eyes as black as night now
She pulls those shades down tight
She gives a smile when the pain comes
The pain gonna' make everything all right

Draco loved his Mum. She was the only person he really loved, excepting himself. Lucius would find out, of course. Lucius found everything out. And he would kill her. Or he would try. Draco supposed he would have to kill Lucius to save her. The idea neither frightened nor surprised him. He had always known that he would end Lucius' life. It was only a matter of where and when. For Mum, he would do anything. He was her angel, and an avenging angel if need be.

But for now, he would pick up the pieces of her, and make her pretty so that Lucius could show off his trophy. He evened out her black eyeshadow for her, making it more sleek and less sloppy. She looked fabulous when he was done. But then, she always did. He turned her toward the mirror, in the hope that maybe she would see it this time.

"There. Now Lucius won't know and it'll be okay, Mum. How do you feel?" He leaned his head on her shoulder.

"I'm fine, Angelus." She brushed her hair idly. "Where did you learn how to do makeup?"

A twinge of pink crept into his cheeks. He learned how to do makeup because he had to cover up the hickies that Pansy left on him. "Uh...I did Vincent's makeup for Halloween. He...uh...cross-dressed."

Narcissa smiled as the pleasant, sleepy drug feeling drained slowly from her. "Oh. That's nice. What was Gregory?"

"A zombie, like always."

"I'm sorry for this, Angelus. I shouldn't burden you."

"I don't want you to die, Mum." Draco's voice quivered a bit, and he didn't like it. "Muggle potions are dangerous."

"I know."

"St. Mungo's can detoxify you...make it easier...but you have to quit."

"Lucius would find out, if I went to St. Mungo's." She set her brush down on the vanity. "Don't worry about me, Filius. I'm not going to die. I can't leave my Angelus to the world yet."

Draco hugged her tightly. "Mum...you can't do this to yourself."

Narcissa remembered the feel of the razorblades as they cut her smooth, pale flesh. Slowly, she smiled. Lucius hadn't undressed her in ten years. Why not return to her roots? "I'll stop the drugs, Draco. For you. I couldn't hurt my Angelus."

Says she talks to angels
They call her out by her name
Oh yeah, she talks to angels
Says they call her out by her name

Fifteen-year-old Draco smiled before slowly faded to nothing in her arms. She was back again, wasn't she? And young Draco was almost ten years gone. He would have helped her clean this mess up...but not this new Draco.

Tears streaked the pillow she cuddled, sending bright pink runners over the soft pink silk. She ran her fingers through her limp, pale hair, pulling it from her eyes. Mascara and eyeshadow mixed with saltwater and crept quietly down her cheeks and settled into the collar of her dressing robe. The empty needle was still beside her chaise.

She had to get ready for Lucius' party. To celebrate his triumph. To usher in a new era of Malfoy rule. To watch her angel take the crown and become his father, tainted and unclean.

Angelus' icy grey eyes peered out of a wrought metal frame beside her silver tray. He was wearing black robes and carrying a mask in one hands...and his eyes were vacant and cold as Lucius' ever were. Narcissa felt sick...so sick...of watching her sweet angel being corrupted. She was there in Diagon Ally where he killed fourteen people, six of them children, to prove his ruthlessness. She watched him raise his hand to Pansy and his son. She watched him torture the muggle family of Hermione Granger three years ago. She had always hoped for this for him; had always wanted him to take command of the Death Eaters, hadn't she? Draco was pure and strong once, wasn't he?

The razorblade was ready. She promised Draco that she wouldn't use the needle, after all. And she could leave this world, where she had failed Angelus, and he had embraced his father's ways. With one cut, she could live forever in her memories...where Draco was pure. She hung the locket around her neck. She wrapped the rosary around her wrist. Narcissa stared down at the shiny metal blade and all she could see was Angelus, smeared with mashed potatoes and gravy, arms open for her. The blade fell and rosary beads dropped to the hardwood floor like rain.

"Avolo Angelum ergo..."