Anything on Cygnus and Narcissa really
CYGNUS META QUESTIONS / accepting.
so first , just a general conclusion about the relationship he has with his youngest child: by the time druella is pregnant for the third time , cygnus expects a girl. they plan for a girl. he has himself geared up for another girl , and he has been raising bellatrix to be the heir. meaning that when narcissa is born , there is a substantially less amount of pressure on her shoulders. he and walburga are at odds , and he and druella have more or less isolated themselves from her.
now orion is there , no doubt on walburga’s orders , but he never speaks out of place. he respects cygnus , and they’ve both been chewed up and spit out by his wife , but she’s also being more and more abusive towards orion due to their lack of heir. but i think through this bond , cygnus is able to actually ENJOY being father throughout narcissa’s first few years ( regardless of gender assigned at birth ). cygnus’s stress has been considerably lowered by now , but his rigid parenting doesn’t change much. still , he holds narcissa more than he held the other two , falls asleep with her , is more protective as she grows up. which is one of the reasons it was rumored —and believed by his older children— that narcissa was his favorite.
in matters of raising narcissa —because i’ve said of course that he raised each of his daughters in a different way , adapting his strategy to what he saw in them young— his style is DRASTICALLY DIFFERENT from the way he raises bellatrix , his heir , and andromeda , who he believes will be the spine of the family —which proves to be true and false later on of course. as she grows up , a lot of her rearing is left in druella’s hands. not only does it alleviate some of the worry that cygnus had favorites —he obviously spent more time with bellatrix and andromeda in the later stages of their rearing and their academics— it also alleviates the pressures of his own expectations from narcissa. she’s raised more within the traditional expectation of pureblood women ( i.e. druella ) with a more pronounced femininity, but they never attempt to suppress her strength or smother her intelligence. she spends ample time in the library with her father , and he is as honest with her as he is with her sisters. but she’s allowed a lot more room for personal exploration and growth.
now i will say , even if narcissa had been assigned male at birth , cygnus would have stood by bellatrix as his heir regardless. he would have been perhaps even more lenient on narcissa due to this , but he still would not have smothered or suppressed her. if we are being absolutely honest , narcissa expressing herself as a woman —which i would guess is as close to the terminology as a pureblood wizarding father could get— cygnus would not be all too pressed , surprised surely but not overly agitated. he definitely wouldn’t think it a failure on his part , but he would have his own ulterior motives for his acceptance. for one , it’s another middle finger to walburga , who probably would have tried to wield cygnus’s son against him. nonetheless , cygnus would have been overly protective of narcissa once she came out in the face of walburga. because cygnus , above all , loves his children , and his sister is not in a place to demean them. bella learns to fend for herself so well that walburga eventually stops antagonizing her because that slick tongue leaves marks. she doesn’t even go at andromeda because andromeda’s best weapon is her silence , and she doesn’t give you a reaction unless she wants to. but this strength he sees in narcissa is of a new breed , and he will protect that with his life.
now lastly , i would like to say that THE MAIN REASON CYGNUS WANTS TO SEE NARCISSA MARRIED IS SPITE. see , cygnus’s desire for his daughters to wed is never quite embedded in stability —he knows his daughters can provide for themselves if he cannot , and he also knows they will always provide for each other— or even in status. he went through the movements more or less , and again , bellatrix’s wedding was definitely more a partnership under tom’s hand. and when andromeda leaves , i think a lot of fear and doubt floods cygnus , but it isn’t enough to doubt their raising of narcissa. but walburga has sons now , and he doesn’t want his daughters to play anchor to a sinking ship. the black family can live and die on walburga’s steps for all he cares , but he no longer wants his daughters affiliated with this legacy. a marriage to a malfoy seemed both smart and assuring , and it would breed a better reputation than what a black would these days. and so while he would have at least inquired about narcissa’s interest in marriage itself , he chose a malfoy for this reason despite his dislike of lucius and distrust of abraxas. beyond that though , he never saw any of his daughters as cattle or breeding mares. he loved them all , and narcissa , in any case , would never be an exception to that.
