Drops of Dittany
Why did the day after Anthony Nott’s thrice-forsaken party have to be so remarkably sunny? Ordinarily it would have been a treat to have such a bright and blazing day this time of year; ordinarily Narcissa would have called it beautiful and settled in the garden to enjoy the juxtaposition of cold air and warm sunlight. Ordinarily she hadn’t been a vampire. Now sunny days made her glad of her uncommonly pale complexion which served as the perfect excuse for opening a parasol or donning a broad-brimmed hat or putting up her hood -- or better yet, to simply stay inside. But she couldn’t do that today, oh no.
Today she had to sit in this unpleasantly warm and cheery ground floor waiting room outside the Artefact Accidents wards of St. Mungo’s Hospital, waiting for her husband to emerge and tell her that he had taken no permanent damage from the brief etching of the emblem of the Ashen Phoenix (or at least, what Narcissa had decided their emblem ought to be; the classless filth who populated that vile group seemingly hadn’t yet bothered to design one themselves) into the flesh of his chest -- news that she would attempt to receive with surprise and relief, despite knowing far better than any of the Healers here that the charmed snuffbox which had administered the fleeting curse was entirely transient -- for after all, it was her snuffbox and her curse.
But it would never do for anyone to suspect that, so here she sat at the hospital, playing the role of the nervous wife who was ever-so-slightly embarrassed for over-reacting to something that had been banished with a few drops of Dittany -- but oh, darling, shouldn’t we have the Healers look at it anyway? Just to be safe? she had gushed to Lucius as she tugged him over the threshold and up to the Welcome Wix, he playing the part of the husband reluctant to go to all that bother as elegantly as she had her own. No one looking at Narcissa’s drawn features and the twisted handkerchief clutched in her hands and the nervous way she kept worrying at her lip (at the now-healed spot she had cut open with her fangs last night, not that any of them needed to know that!) would think she was anything but anxious for Lucius’s well-being...when in reality, she was just impatient to leave.
Finally the door swung open and disgorged a face familiar to Narcissa from her school days: Dorcas Meadowes, once a fellow prefect, now the Healer who had been assigned Lucius’s case. Her pretty face was rather less welcome than Lucius’s since her arrival meant that Narcissa wouldn’t be leaving just yet -- but Cissy made herself start as though she had just seen something horrific. “What is it?” she gasped, lurching halfway upright from her chair as though torn between running straight to Lucius’s side and swooning backwards. “Will Lucius be all right? He is all right, isn’t he?” she pleaded.
It was a rather good performance if she did say so herself: just the right touch of over-the-top passion to suit her usual attitude, but not dipping so far into melodrama as to seem overdone. Narcissa knew she was being watched; the elderly aide at the desk might seem to be engrossed in that book, but Cissy had caught the reflection of their eyes flitting over behind their spectacles between every third page, and the young father dozing behind a tattered copy of last month’s Witch Weekly had the look of a born gossip -- and really, who wouldn’t watch Narcissa Malfoy, especially in her distress? Everyone liked to see the mighty brought low, made human (ha!), even if it was only for the length of one short hospital visit. She was counting on it; counting on her audience to spread word of how very distraught she had seemed, how genuinely she had fretted for Lucius’s health in the aftermath of that dreadful attack by those Ashen Phoenix barbarians!












