narcissa black malfoy through the years . . .
childhood.
narcissa was always the smallest of the sisters, the youngest and the last to come alive. she was quiet, very obedient. she had wide eyes and that often meant naive, meant foolish — but cissy wasn't foolish. she had a sharp gaze — she knew she couldn't make the same mistakes as her elder sisters and she didn't. with guests, she was very prim and proper. she allowed them to pamper her, etc; and she always did the same as other people. if an aunt laughed at something andromeda said, cissy would laugh with her. it always seemed to please the adults. she was continuously in need of proving herself to her parents, and especially her mother. she was in truth very sensitive, but she always did hate showing weakness ( mother never liked it ). like most other children this age, she was incredibly self-serving but she also hated having fights with other children her age. i like to imagine that cissy liked to play house.
school years.
as a teenager, narcissa was very sharp, very shrewd, very observant. she was very polite with others but that politeness was also quite cold and aloof. she often saw the worst in people but that was really a pragmatic sort of thing. she was not close to anybody in hogwarts, but she had some admirers and an abundance of acquaintances. narcissa was not naturally clever in the way bellatrix was, but she was ambitious and used to getting what she wanted. she would work toward her goals one step at a time until she reached them. in her later years, after andromeda began to steadily defect, narcissa became more manipulative, learning to silently sabotage her sister's muggleborn friends in an attempt to protect her. when andromeda left, she became much colder and more closed-off, possessing a newfound hatred toward muggleborns as she viewed them as the people who had poisoned her sister and stolen her away. when narcissa was nervous she became very icy and standoffish. she was quite selfish and self-absorbed.
first war.
now married to lucius, narcissa found her comfortable position in society as a high-class, wealthy pureblood woman. she liked stability, control, safety, but because she was still young she also enjoyed the idea of power, of external control. she was in strong support of the death eater movement, but she was not asked to take the dark mark. as a result, she continued to support her husband behind-the-scenes, having tea with people who were deemed useful and gleaning information from them. she would then feed this information to lucius, effectively helping him gain his prominent position as the dark lord's right hand man. when she became pregnant with draco, her priorities shifted. she believed that she would never put a man's needs above those of her son and her husband, but still continued to silently support the dark lord's cause as it proved no detriment to her. she viewed muggleborns / half bloods / blood traitors as the dirt beneath her feet, and unlike bellatrix who was actively aggressive toward them, narcissa had a habit of turning her nose up at those inferior to her, as if she had smelled something particularly revolting. tensions between lucius and narcissa rose as he became more involved in the dark lord's cause and spent less time with his family. even more so as narcissa realized the horrific deeds the death eaters committed, such as murder & massacres. still, she did not do anything because she was relatively comfortable in her societal position and had no real desire to change anything. narcissa disliked change and loved tradition. she was very tender to her husband and son behind closed doors.
in between years.
narcissa's best years yet. she retained her high status in society alongside her husband; she had a beautiful little boy to take care of; she had money and a wonderful home. the stability and safety of it all were very enjoyable to narcissa. she was a very hands-on mother, and her love languages were acts of service & gift-giving. she spoiled draco to bits, but she was also not one to fuss over her child excessively and say 'i love you' every single day. she showed her love by giving draco more of those expensive desserts he liked, etc. real, tangible things. she remained exceedingly tender with her loved ones and was very proud / appearances-centric. still very cold and aloof toward people outside of her family.
second war.
a very desperate mother. her world was flipped upside down, and this was not pleasant to a woman who valued stability & safety above all things. her ambition and dogged will to survive came back to the fore, and now that things were getting very dangerous, she was fighting for her family, not the dark lord. narcissa was very pragmatic; when she encountered problems, she did not like to waste time wallowing in self pity but went straight to a 'what shall i do then?' mindset. indeed she was ruthless in her pragmatism. she did not care who was killed or injured, as long as her family was safe. she knew what she wanted and how to get it. one step at a time.
post-war.
narcissa did not lie to the dark lord because she was being heroic. it was a selfish act. she wanted to get to draco as fast as possible and the quickest way to do so was through the 'dead' harry potter. she held no real sentiment toward harry, but after he saved her from azkaban, they formed a sort of truce / mutual respect. the post-war world saw the malfoy reputation crumbling and narcissa's societal status demolished. she found this new order of things very upsetting. narcissa was still very cold and still very prideful, but now she was actively hiding her prejudice in an attempt not to cause trouble. her injured pride made it very hard for her to go outside and face things. she continued to do her best to adapt in order to survive in this new world order.
