Blood Is Destiny

Blood Is Destiny

When I first met Lucius Malfoy, he was as he has always been: jaded, suave, always scheming. We were purebloods from the highest echelons of wizarding society. Did I like him? I'm not sure. Did I dislike him? I'm not sure either. It might have been a personal matter. My pride never absorbed the blow he dealt to it when he was anointed Saint Head Boy of the Order of Salazar Slytherin and I was without special distinction. But, no, Narcissa, that's not how you look at it, Mum wrote to me in a letter. You do not hate Lucius Malfoy because he is Lucius. You hate Lucius Malfoy because he is a Malfoy, and you have let a Malfoy best a Black. For shame, daughter. For shame.

It wasn't a personal matter, then. It was a matter of family and name and honor and recognizing yourself as a single thread in an infinite tapestry of lineage and rank. Recognizing, in essence, your own insignificance.

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The blood in your veins will determine who you are, who you will be, who you will always be. There is no You in the blood because the blood is You.

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Weren't we the same, though, him and I, reared in the same blue-blooded society, the same prim conversations over tea, the same rampant disdain for anything below us? Weren't we both ambitious with an utter disregard for accepted rules of play (he took this much further than I), both striving to exceed expectations and siblings and people we offhandedly called friends? Weren't we all, beneath the trappings of high life, lonely, exhausted, looking only for an inviting pair of arms to reach out and take us away?

Perhaps the real question was who was going to realize this first, that the battle of blood was simply that. A battle of blood.

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You are nothing if not for your blood. Blood is destiny.

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Learning to love him, marrying him, bearing his child and loving him too - these were all acts of rebellion. Rebellion because I acknowledged Lucius as more than simply a Malfoy, a rival pureblood that I had to accommodate for survival's sake alone. Rebellion because on the Tuesday morning I looked across the Great Hall and saw him staring up at the magical ceiling, I did love him. Rebellion because my pristine Black blood soiled every time he thrust into me and I called out into the night like a wanton whore and enjoyed it.

You married so very well, they would tell me. Oh, what I wouldn't do for the chance to fuck a Malfoy every night. Imagine the manor and - oh, the art! Narcissa, dear, you must tell us all about the exquisite art that Lucius has. The Malfoys have collected fine Wizarding art for centuries, one of the best private collections in all of England, some say. The house-elf service is superb too, I hear. Oh, your parents aren't happy about this, are they? Well, not to worry. What matters is that you love him. You do love him, right? Oh, I shouldn't doubt you; of course you love him.

That is the simplistic interpretation of what happened. I say the real story runs deeper, underneath skin, flesh, and the broken words of long ago.