Chapter Text
The phrase “yummy mummy” is often applied, in a slightly derogatory tone, to Range-Rover-driving, lululemon-wearing, brat-raising housewives of a certain level of wealth. The yummy mummy is a species best observed in its natural habitat of an overpriced cafe, buying a pistachio croissant and gossiping to the other PTA members of her child’s school. The yummy mummy is rarely, if ever, Narcissa believed, to be found in a darkened room full of maniacal murderers unwanted guests, frantically shielding her critical thoughts of the situation from the creepy murder boss.
Quite frankly, she would much rather be studying the caricaturised muggle character, and perhaps even achieving a yummified state herself - if only to embarrass Draco - but no. Instead she was a prisoner of her own dining room, forced to sit with her good-for-nothing husband and, quite frankly, disturbingly obsequious sister. (Seriously, was it even an act at this point or did Bellatrix actually have the hots for the Dark Lord?)
The Death Eaters weren’t even the worst part of the whole meeting. No, the worst part was definitely the levitating corpse, just casually rotating above their table, whilst the Dark Lord passed on orders to Macnair about some mission somewhere in the middle of Ireland. (Narcissa thanked her lucky stars that she didn’t have to go there at least, then quickly shielded her gratitude with ideas such as pureblood supremacy and wow I love snakes! in case the Dark Lord decided to whip out his legilimency skills right then and there.)
Still, the corpse was bothering her. Putting her off her steak, if she was honest. She’d been chewing her bite for the last 3 minutes, partially out of disgust at the whole situation, but mostly because there was a lot of fat in the meat and it didn’t seem polite to delicately spit it into a handkerchief while she was being ogled by Fenrir and his leery friend. (She really did need to learn all of their names, if only so that she could avoid them.) Narcissa took a deep, calming sip of her wine to wash her mouthful down like a pill, ignoring the resemblance the liquid held to the blood dripping onto the centre of the table - oh come on! The house elves would have to spend decades getting that out. I mean was it really not enough for the entire creepy brigade to take over her home? Now they had to destroy everything nice she had too? Once again, she found herself relieved that she had hidden the crystal glass in her Gringotts vault. That had been a wedding present from Andromeda - her only normal sister.
Although she was a bit of a nag, and look how that turned out! Marrying a muggle. Or a muggleborn. One of the two, basically the same thing. Yes, Narcissa was infinitely blessed with her family. Let’s see:
- Darling son, whose obsession with Potter rivalled only by the Dark Lord’s
- Husband whose only currently winning asset was his hair
- Bellatrix (needs no description)
- Bellatrix’ creepy husband
- Morally superior older sister with unfortunate marriage (disowned)
- Dead cousin #1
- Dead cousin #2
- The house elves
Quite frankly, the last item of the list was currently her favourite, but the bar was exceedingly low. Practically buried, really.
She was jerked out of her thoughts by Bellatrix’ piercing laugh. Creepy bitch. Resuming her blank stare at the wall, she checked briefly in on her occlumency shields - intact - and took another long sip of her wine, emptying the glass. Minty appeared behind her immediately to fill it up. She hoped her slightly-less-blank glance at the house elf conveyed her sentiment.
You are my favourite conscious being in this room, including my son.
Speaking of Draco, Narcissa glanced towards him, gripping his cutlery with white knuckles and pushing around a limp strand of asparagus. She frowned. He really did need to eat his vegetables, he was looking a bit peaky, although the present company likely wasn’t helping. Shaking the thought out of her head, she returned to the more pleasurable activity of listing.
How about…a list of everybody in the room, from most to least favourite:
- Minty (still counts even if she just left)
- Draco
- Lucius (on thin ice)
- Severus
- The snake
- Everybody else
- Greyback and his creepy friend
Well that was short and, quite frankly, depressing. She was coming dangerously close to listing methods of suicide when, finally, the Dark Lord began to wrap up the meeting in his own long-winded way. For someone with such a hoarse voice, he sure did like the sound of it.
Another day, another Death Eater meeting, and still no change to her mission. That was a blessing, really. Reconnaissance of the muggle world was the best, completely unimportant task, and she hoped her enthusiasm conveyed utmost loyalty to the cause rather than her true eagerness to escape the suffocation of the manor and its occupants.
Finally, meeting adjourned, Narcissa almost hurried up the stairs for her favourite, secret project. The hidden joy of her life known only by herself and Minty, the devoted house elf - her vision board. To hark back to the beginning of her thought train, she had recently discovered the muggle idea of a “yummy mummy”, and it had been her life goal of almost a week now, to inhibit the creature’s skin, to creep under its flesh and transform through beautiful metamorphosis from a sad, crawling Death Eater’s wife into a thriving, matcha-drinking social butterfly. Not only would this identity be perfect for her recon of muggle London (still a useless mission), but a sort of personal journey and potential source of embarrassment for Draco. She was a mother above all else, after all.
“Minty, bring out the board.”
For a moment there, alone in the West Wing of the manor, commanding and ready to access her passion, she felt like the true Malfoy wife she was. The feeling faded rapidly when Minty appeared, almost tottering under the A2 board of paper cutouts and potential. There was clearly a lot to do.
She helped the elf to mount the board on the easel, requesting her supplies and eyeing her workspace. To infiltrate the muggle world, Narcissa would need to create her ideal identity - and one thing Narcissa Malfoy was not guilty of, was doing things half-heartedly. A person is a complex thing. A muggle, perhaps, slightly less so than a wixen, but complex nonetheless. She may not need to create a stylised magical signature, but likes and dislikes, a constructed personality of falsehoods interwoven with enough truth to make it stand, would be task enough.
She flipped through her first sample source: an edition of British Vogue, a most intriguing and useful muggle magazine, if a tad dull at times. The centre of any constructed identity is a theme. Something which encapsulates everything that person has the potential to be. In Narcissa’s mind, always a colour. The most delectable thing about a yummy mummy is the great range of shades available to her. She could be bright, eye-popping pink or a muted beige, blending into the background.
It would have to be bold, she had decided, and the sticking charms from her last session held true, glueing images of activewear in varying shades of fuschia, cyan and lime to the board. But that was wrong, and she was enlightened now, knowing that her assumed identity had to fit comfortably atop her own. A colour she could wear and what could Narcissa Malfoy - leached of colour from her pale skin to the black streaks of her hair - splash into her monochrome life? Well the answer was obvious, wasn’t it. The one colour that she had never quite managed to integrate into her wardrobe for fear of the repercussions. One that spoke of boldness and classic beauty, a streak of blood on the white marble altar of her soul.
Red.
A flick of her wand whisked the neons away from the vision board, another incinerating them in midair. One delicate flip through British Vogue found the page she had been searching for: a dark-skinned model mid-twirl, clad in a satin dress the exact shade of a fresh raspberry which flowed out into delicate ruffles towards the bottom of the skirt. It was statement, it was delightful, it was delicious. She outlined it with her wand and charmed it onto the board. Ideally, to become fully muggle, one would have resorted to scrapbook methods of scissors and muggle glue. But Narcissa Malfoy would not be caught dead with sticky fingers - metaphorical or otherwise.
It was a pleasing routine. Flip, select, stick. Over and over as her board sprang to life with outfits and books and, her personal main objective of the entire mission, the gloriously green pistachio croissant. Filled with creamy, nutty goo and likely an unhealthy helping of sugar, the croissant had been Minty’s favourite part of the research process, and the darling elf had promised to recreate it as soon as they located the ideal specimen in some muggle cafe. Perfection.
Narcissa had never actually tried a pistachio. Pistachio gelato, to the disgust of their parents, had been Andromeda’s signature choice at the Italian gelaterias, visited in the summers of their youth. Whereas Narcissa and Bellatrix had opted for fizzy lemon sorbet, bubble-head bubblegum, or the classic strawberry, Andromeda had flaunted her relative maturity and superiority with her “subtle and grown up” pistachio. Bitterly, Narcissa wondered if Andromeda’s muggle suitor had even known her favourite flavour when they had absconded so shamefully. He certainly couldn’t have known her better than the sister she abandoned.
Still, it wouldn’t do to dwell on the past. Besides, Andromeda wasn’t the one with albino peacocks and a croissant-based vision board now, was she? So who was the real loser? (It was definitely still Narcissa, but only because of the unfortunate company residing in her house, and really it should be Bellatrix seeing as she was the one pining after the Dark Lord like some sort of amortentia-struck teen.)
Dismissing the thought from her mind, she was able to work quite happily for almost an hour until a tapping at the window revealed the arrival of Severus’ personal owl. A devious grin crept up her face as she summoned Minty to hide the board away for the night and made her way over to free the letter from the bird’s talons.
Narcissa Malfoy did not take unnecessary risks. Nor did Severus Snape. However, being two of the only sane and intelligent people in a room full of murderous maniacs was a precarious position. One not only had to watch out for their status, but also their mental wellbeing.
So the two had figured out an essential system to prevent either wizard from succumbing to the pit of misery offered by life on the side of a megalomaniac Dark Lord: Cipher encoded gossip notes exchanged covertly via owl.
Narcissa wasted no time in unfolding the piece of paper and running her wand along the surface to decode it.
Ryg kxqbi gyevn dro Nkbu Vybn lo sp Lovvkdbsh nsckzzokbon? S psxn rob myxcdkxd pkgxsxq yfob rsw xkecokdsxq.
Became:
How angry would the Dark Lord be if Bellatrix disappeared? I find her constant fawning over him nauseating.
Perhaps Narcissa was not as alone in her disgust as she had thought. It genuinely was quite disturbing to watch as Bellatrix attempted a flirtatious giggle. The only sight more repulsive was the Dark Lord’s attempt at “smouldering” stares back at her. Neither seemed to be aware of the immense revulsion provoked by their freakish interactions. Sartre was on to something with the whole "Hell is other people" idea.
Unable to fully encapsulate her mood in her own words, Narcissa decided on the age old tactic of borrowing philosophical quotes to seem put together and well-educated. She opened her quill drawer and sat down at the mahogany desk, scratching the ink onto the page with her lips pressed tightly together.
L'enfer, c'est les autres.
Hell is other people indeed. She ran her wand over the words and watched as letters fell into place, creating her encoded message:
V'oxpob, m'ocd voc kedboc.
A tad pretentious, but Severus would enjoy it. He really did have quite the flare for the dramatic. What was the phrase Draco had used to describe his first appearance in first year potions? Narcissa couldn't recall the exact wording, but it was something to do with a black peacock whose dramatic cape sweeps could rival the plumage displays of their own white ostentation. The letter had then disintegrated into a page and a half long rant about something to do with the Potter boy choosing his own friends? Or some other terrible offence to that effect.
In Narcissa's defence, she treasured every letter that her dear son had ever sent her, but she challenged the universe to find somebody robust enough to wade through the deepest bogs of preteen angst and emerge unscathed on the other side. It had been a relief when, at some point in third year, his letters had begun to evolve into something slightly less whiny, and more conversational. (Possibly as Draco was now saving all complaints for his monthly letter to Lucius, which inflicted more psychological damage to the poor man than any letter to his mother ever had.)
Still, that was what Lucius deserved after dragging the entire family into the weird pureblood cult he had foolishly become entangled in. Narcissa had been stupid enough to believe it was over when the Dark Lord was first defeated but no Lucius had to have his precious feud with the Weasleys, and now the Dark Lord was back and they couldn't ever just have a nice dinner together without her insane sister or Werewolf McCreepyface Greyback intervening.
Perhaps she would be more sympathetic towards Lucius if he had not had the audacity to dip his long fingers into her considerably expensive hair potions as if his own haircare routine was not already anything but an intricate 16-step process. (Possibly slightly exaggerated.) That little stunt had earned him a good week of sleep in a guest room, which Narcissa was quite enjoying so far. The peace and quiet was rare, but regrettably she did slightly miss him.
She tied her reply onto the owl's leg and offered him a treat for his efforts, shutting the window behind him as he left. Down in the rose garden, Bellatrix's raucous and apparently inescapable laughter was echoing, no doubt causing physical trauma to the flower beds.
Draco really was lucky being an only child. After all, Narcissa had two sisters and what had that got her? Certainly nothing good.
I mean, what was so funny that Bellatrix just had to be laughing all the time? Was she just practising her evil flair? She had it down pretty well already to a deranged sort of cackle. It didn't need any practice and quite frankly the entire manor would appreciate if she could step out of the hysteria for a second and have a decent conversation.
How the Dark Lord put up with it was beyond Narcissa. Although she constantly surprised herself with how well she put up with the Dark Lord, so maybe their suffering was similar. If Lucius ever reached Bellatrix levels of insanity, Narcissa knew that she would be taking drastic, fatal action to protect not only herself and Draco, but the rest of the Wizarding World, from the damage he could inflict with a grating laugh.
Luckily for her, Lucius had learned that it was a good idea to be sensible, because an angry Narcissa is not a fun Narcissa to be around. If only the rest of the world could pick that up so quickly.
She closed her eyes and pressed a finger into either side of the bridge of her nose, warding off the oncoming headache. She should go to bed. She needed her beauty sleep for maximum sanity to deal with whatever shenanigans tomorrow had in store. Then, she could finish her vision board and plot her infiltration of muggle London.