Narcissa Elladora Black
“Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.”
black coffee and old books. old sheet music resting on a piano. classical music. rainy afternoons. lazy mornings tangled together in the sheets. delicate, beautiful flowers that can kill you. the perfect little doll. a bird in a gilded cage. smothered by the darkness.
~BIOGRAPHY~
TW: eating disorders
Years after Andromeda was born, Cygnus and Druella Black were surprised to find themselves expecting another child, contrary to the Healer’s insistence that Druella would not be able to bear another child. Despite the surprise, they allowed themselves to believe that the Fates were allowing them one more chance at an heir. Narcissa was born into the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black with the expectation that she was going to be the long-awaited son Cygnus and Druella Black had so far failed to conceive. When the disappointing news that they had once again borne a girl was delivered, Druella’s reaction was, “Well, at least she’s beautiful. That can be used to our advantage.” Growing up, Narcissa’s beauty was always the first, and usually the only thing, anyone noticed about her. Of course, there was talk about Narcissa’s unusual colouring; blonde hair was unheard of in the Black family, and her looks were anything but those of the Blacks. To her mother, she was nothing but a valuable asset to be pawned off to the highest bidder in exchange for social rank; Druella knew her daughter’s unusual beauty would land her a perfect match with one of the higher ranking Sacred Twenty-Eight families. Druella was strict with Narcissa, and instilled impossible beauty standards in her that she did not force upon her other two daughters. And her father wasn’t home often enough to protect her. Or at all, really.
By the time she was 8 years old, her mother had all but beaten the ideals of a perfect Pureblood wife into her. “The best pureblood wife is beautiful, elegant,” her mother told her during one of their many etiquette lessons, “Demure, but strong. Intelligent, but never outwardly. She is never to appear more intelligent than her husband. You must be beyond perfect, my petal. Perfect is what ensnares the best. And you were born only for the best. You must not show a single flaw, or the spell will break. You must be compliant and appealing; only then will you be able to manipulate a man into doing whatever you wish.” Druella began talking about how wonderful it would be to have a match between a Malfoy and a Black, two of the Most Ancient and Noble Houses. Though she was nowhere near the age for her parents to even be considering a marriage contract, Narcissa suddenly found herself to be the subject of the marriage negotiations being discussed between her mother and Mrs. Malfoy. She had thought, since Lucius Malfoy was closer in age to her older sister Andromeda, that the negotiations would involve the two of them. The Malfoys, however, had requested Narcissa, despite her young age. She looked, they insisted, like a Malfoy with her decidedly un-Black looks and colouring, and would fit the family perfectly. They would settle for nothing less than a girl who fit the Malfoy aesthetic perfectly. While conversations are in the works, there has been no agreed upon arrangement up to this point.
As she grew, a rare gift Narcissa possessed began to make itself known. She began to see things others couldn't, visions that often frightened or worried her. She told no one of the visions except her Grandfather Pollux, who told her she was experiencing visions that a Seer would often have. He called it a gift, but she considered it a curse and made him promise not to tell anyone. Always intent to keep the trust of his little Petal, Pollux took the secret to his grave. He did, however, insist on teaching her some skills to keep her secret safe. Legilimency and Occlumency. At the age of 10, Pollux handed her a few books on Legilimency and Occlumency from his own personal library, intent to support his granddaughter in keeping her secret––and ultimately keeping her safe. She told no one about this endeavour of hers, as she was tired of being lied to and spoken about without having any input on her life. She studied every book her grandfather gave her, discovering she had a natural aptitude for it. She practiced with him daily until it was time for her to go to school. By the time she was ready to go to Hogwarts, she had learned all she could from the few books she had at home. She went to Hogwarts determined to learn more about it, along with Occlumency. If she was going to look into people’s minds to discover their intentions, she wanted to protect herself from people looking into her own mind.
Narcissa’s arrival at Hogwarts was somewhat tumultuous. Out of all the students in her year, her sorting took the longest, ending in a near 7-minute Hat Stall. She spent the time arguing with the Hat, pleading with it to put her in Slytherin where her family wanted her, though the Hat refused. She ended up in Ravenclaw, where the Hat said she truly belonged, and spent her first few nights terrified of how her parents would react to her sorting. Her parents, as expected, were less than pleased. But Ravenclaw at least was the second best House in their eyes. As the term went on, she began to feel at least some of her mother’s hold on her slip. Though she typically remained shy and fairly reserved, something which eventually earned her the title of Ice Queen as she grew older, Narcissa slowly came out of her shell little by little while in school. Despite her mother’s insistence that she not be seen as more intelligent than her future husband, Narcissa consistently received top grades in her classes. Her intelligence was one of her first small acts of rebellion towards her mother.
Her mother’s influence didn’t dissipate entirely, however. Critical comments on her appearance would often continue over the Christmas or summer holidays, and finally a rather critical comment managed to take root in her mind. After her mother pointed out a fairly non-existent weight gain over the Christmas holidays of her second year, Narcissa began to watch what she was eating (despite the fact that she was already very small for her age and was still growing). This slowly developed into an obsession over her years at Hogwarts until it developed into a full eating disorder, which led to her hospitalisation in fifth year with Madame Pomfrey and multiple rounds of nutrient potions. The school matron started to take her under her wing, constantly mothering her and making sure she was eating.
During sixth year at Hogwarts, Narcissa developed a small crush on a boy she knew her parents would never approve of, a boy they would never allow her to marry. A Hufflepuff boy. A Muggleborn. It wasn’t until she was paired with him in NEWT level Potions in their sixth year that Narcissa even talked to this boy––Iain Stewart––for the first time. Unfortunately, getting to know him only deepened her crush on him. In another small act of rebellion, however, Narcissa allowed herself to spend time with him, usually under the guise of working on their Potions homework and projects together, or doing their assigned Prefect rounds together. Of course, she was always careful to disguise her true feelings for him when others were around. She fell in love with him completely by accident and against her better judgement. The relationship ended when Bellatrix discovered her writing to him over the summer between sixth and seventh year. It was the worst day of her life. Bellatrix threatened to tell their parents if she didn’t end it . . . and Narcissa knew Bellatrix had eyes at Hogwarts in the Slytherin girls. It hurt her to hurt him, but she did it to protect him.
Seventh year brought with it many benefits, though it also included much inner turmoil, something that had started during her fifth year when professors began pulling students aside to ask what they would like to do in life. She knew what was expected of her as a Black, but she also knew it wasn’t what she wanted. The last thing she wanted was to spend the rest of her life as an accessory on some controlling, Pureblood husband’s arm. She wanted to be smart and desirable, and love who she wanted to love. She wanted to spend her life performing on the stage, but she also wanted to get a job that would show off her intelligence. Either way, she knew she would be going against her parents’ wishes for her. Her indecision about her future career led to her simply taking as many classes as she reasonably could, just to cover her bases.
After she finished seventh year, she received an invitation to attend WADA, though her mother refused to let her, stating that it was "improper for a Pureblood girl to been seen selling her body on the stage," essentially telling her daughter she would be no better than a prostitute. Narcissa, though, didn’t want to just be a Pureblood trophy wife. She wanted to be something, to do something. What was the point of being smart if she couldn’t use it? Unfortunately her parents won and sent her off to finishing school to become perfect Pureblood wife material. But she didn’t let that stop her from practicing her music, and she certainly didn’t let it make her demure and obedient. She simply acted the way the school wanted her to in order to graduate and get away from the awful institution.
Narcissa has always been perceived as cold and uncaring by others. The truth is that she feels everything far too deeply. The only way for her to deal with it at times is to try and compartmentalize, something she began to get more proficient with as she learned (and then eventually mastered) Occlumency. She wears a mask of indifference and perfection, when in reality she always feels as if her life is constantly falling apart at the seams.
She was raised to believe her family’s blood supremacist ideals, and she held onto them for a long time. They were challenged when she fell in love with a Hufflepuff boy named Iain Stewart in sixth year, and she continued to try and fight what she considered a belief that her family tried to control her with for years afterwards. When she was finally forced into an engagement with Lucius, she felt it as a failure of sorts. She had failed to get away like Andromeda and Sirius, and so now she may as well just embrace what the world believed her to be. The stuck up Ice Queen. The supportive future wife of an heir to one of the Sacred 28 families, and eventually the loyal wife of a well-known Death Eater. Why try to dispute what people believe?
The Ice Queen persona became another sort of protection over the years. A protection from her family, the Death Eaters, her husband, and from everyone else in her family’s circle. A protection from the world. Why should she let anyone else see who she really was if they didn’t really care to truly know her? There had only ever been one person who had loved the true her, after all. How disappointed he would be to see what she had become. A shell of her true self. And what she would become after the end of the Second War. When the war ended, Narcissa was relieved to be free of the Dark Lord. To be free of Lucius. She felt as if she was finally free to breathe and be herself again. And ideally, she would have been able to do that. Ideally, she would have embraced the girl she left behind all those years ago when she told Iain to flee the country. When she watched him leave. Ideally, she would have gone to find him. Ideally, she would have reconnected with her sister, admitted to everyone that she had shoved down her true feelings about her alliance for years.
But then her trial came. Of course, she was pardoned for her part in the war, namely that torturous few years where she was housing the Dark Lord himself in her house. She was pardoned because she saved Harry Bloody Potter by lying to the Dark Lord. Of course a Gryffindor would interpret it in that way. All she had wanted was the ability to search for her son. To make sure he was safe. But the deal Potter had cut for her behind closed doors was the reason she was only given probation. Her pardon was conditional: she had to testify against other Death Eaters…including her husband. It terrified her to testify against him. She didn’t care about the others.
She was pardoned, but that didn’t mean her life was easier for it. What the Dark Lord hadn’t used of their estate to bankroll his war was seized by the Ministry immediately after. Unfortunately for Narcissa, this left her in a position where she was unable to afford to care for herself. The house was in disrepair and she couldn’t afford to maintain it. But it ended up being seized for a time as well, so that wasn’t really her problem. Until recently when the Ministry gave her the house back with lifting of some of the terms in her probation. Her friends (if she could call them that, really. They had only been the wives of other Death Eaters) had completely abandoned her for her role in convicting their husbands. And of course, Harry Potter’s side would never trust her with a ten foot pole simply because of her surname. She was alone, and she didn’t know what to do.
So she turned to what she knew she did have: her beauty. That was what would support her, no matter how much it disgusted her to have to lower herself to such a place. But if there was anything she was good at, it was acting.
~PLOT INTEGRATION AND CHARACTER ARCS~
THE REDEMPTION ARC: As another part of her sentence, Narcissa has been tasked to give her service to a ministry provided service. The Ministry wanted her to prove that she could be reintegrated into society and genuinely care for and help those less fortunate than her. So she was assigned to a new orphanage that had opened for the orphaned children of the Muggleborns who had died in the war. Of course it was not only the children of Muggleborns who were in this orphanage. There were children of all blood statuses. But the majority were the children of Muggleborns. She is tasked with visiting the orphanage at least twice a week to provide assistance in whatever way the orphanage needs.
THE “MATCHMAKER”: Narcissa has fallen into disrepute following the war, and much further than just that. To the rest of the wizarding world, she presents herself as a matchmaker. Of course, the rumours have gotten around that it is a front for something else. That she is selling herself to survive. But what else can she do? It would be great for Narcissa to have some clients, whether they’re clients who believe the mask that is her fake profession or if they’re there for her true services. It would also be fun to have someone unexpected, perhaps trying to help her get out of it, much to her displeasure (it would probably be someone from the “other side” who she can’t stand to let help her).
~BASIC INFORMATION~
NAME: Narcissa Elladora Malfoy (nee Black)
NICKNAMES: Cissa, although she wad Cissy with her sisters (as much as she hated the juvenile nickname)
FACECLAIM: Hannah Waddingham (older), Lucy Boynton (younger)
GENDER/PRONOUNS/SEXUALITY: Cis Woman, She/Her, Heterosexual
AGE & BIRTHDATE: 20 & 23 June 1960
FLUENT IN: English, French, Latin
OCCUPATION: Escort/Prostitute (she tries to market herself as a sort of Matchmaker, but wizarding society knows what she really became post-war); she also designs her own line of elite clothing and has for years. Her parents never considered it a real vocation despite the fact that she was paid handsomely for her creations.
CURRENTLY LIVING IN: Malfoy Manor (recently returned after being seized by the ministry)
POSITIVE TRAITS: passionate, loyal, intelligent, insightful, sensitive
NEGATIVE TRAITS: very perfectionistic, anxious, cold, withdrawn or distant, self-critical
MBTI: INFJ-T
BAD HABITS: the occasional cigarette (a habit she picked up during school during periods of high stress and anxiety), picking at loose threads on clothing or the skin on the sides of nails, biting her lip
GUILTY PLEASURES: Red velvet cake with cream cheese icing
~WIZARDING INFORMATION~
HOUSE: Ravenclaw
WAND: Silver lime wood, phoenix feather, 11″, slightly swishy
PATRONUS: White Swan
BOGGART: Her mother and all the cruel criticisms she gave her daughter; it went much further than that, however. The boggart’s criticisms go beyond her mother’s, mentioning the numerous ways she had failed or was going to fail. As she got older, her Boggart transformed to extend her failures to her son. Usually it would take the form of her son dying, by the Dark Lord’s hand or some other form.
AFFILIATION: Neutral (her family sided publicly with the Death Eathers, but she was never marked and only went along with it to protect herself and her family. She very often wanted to find a way out, especially when things began to get bad and Draco was ordered to kill Dumbledore)
~APPEARANCE~
HAIR: Pale blonde (closer to a pale strawberry blonde than white blonde), often short just abover her shoulders.
HEIGHT: 5′11″
BUILD: Curvy
COMPLEXION: Fair, with a light dusting of freckles over her nose and cheeks
TATTOOS: None
SCARS: A scar on her left arm from where the kitten she got in her first year of Hogwarts scratched her when one of her roommates managed to spook her.
ANY OTHER IDENTIFYING MARK(S): She has a light birthmark on her left hipbone that ironically happens to look vaguely like a daffodil
~INTERESTS~
FAVOURITE FOOD: Red velvet cake, though she tends to be fairly picky about both how the cake is made and the cream cheese icing and will often end up making it herself
FAVOURITE MUSIC: Classical, opera, and she has developed an affinity for Spanish and classical guitar music
FAVOURITE COLOUR: Pale pink, lavender, and robins egg blue
CLOTHING STYLE/PREFERENCES: Her clothing style tends towards something of a 1940s kind of style. You will never see her in pants, only ever dresses or skirts and blouses.
HOBBIES: Narcissa plays the piano, the cello, and the harp, though she will always say the harp and the cello are her favourite. She sings as well. Growing up, she did ballet, and was even recruited by the Wizarding Academy of Dramatic Arts (WADA) after she graduated her seventh year at Hogwarts––she was unable to attend as her mother believed that “a pureblood girl should not be seen selling her body on the stage.” Is developing a fondness for baking, though she is absolutely horrible at cooking. She has quite the talent for Herbology, and keeps a secret garden back at the manor that is her pride and joy, and she’s currently working to bring it back to life after the Ministry’s seizure of the manor killed it.
LIKES: Dancing, reading on the hidden window seat in the library, red wine, black coffee, daffodils
DISLIKES: Poor etiquette, her mother, Care of Magical Creatures (she found it far too dirty), getting dirty in general, threats to her family
