Party’s End (Nott With A Bang)
@markedpotter
“Regs--!” Narcissa started to snap but it turned into more of a breathless shriek as a tangle of limbs and grabs at cross-purposes turned to shoves, to staggers, to steps backwards where no steps were and then it was just empty air under foot, empty air and falling.
All too soon that falling turned into landing, to tumbling akimbo down the staircase. Narcissa scrambled and scratched at the banister but her fingers skidded off the smooth, aged hardwood with a touch that was eerily reminiscent of just missing a Snitch -- and then it was just one long series of bumps and thuds and flyaway robes and hair tangling around her. The plush carpeting did little to blunt the sharp edges of the steps as they crashed against shoulderblades and backside, and Narcissa felt like she’d not just missed the Snitch but run afoul of a dozen Bludgers by the time her fall finally stopped with one last, somewhat squishy thump--
And then it was no longer stairs digging into her battered skin but knees and elbows and breathing, so close it almost seemed to be swirling in her own lungs, breathing and a heartbeat, a thick hot pulse so close she could near taste it--!
Narcissa opened her mouth, stretched her jaw and felt her fangs lower, sharp and white and gleaming and close, so close, she could almost taste it...and then with a strangled little gasp she snapped her mouth shut again. The prick of pain as one fang caught and pierced her bottom lip on the way went unnoticed in the flare of panic as Narcissa realized what she had so nearly done--!
She stared through the thin curtain of her tousled hair into the brown eyes of none less than one James Potter, of all the people she could have landed on, could have nearly bit -- had he seen? Did he know? Narcissa took a breath, searched for...what? An excuse? A threat? A joke to laugh it all off as some sort of pretense or prank?
Whatever she might have said vanished under the shrill cry of yet another victim of her Ashen Phoenix ruse (somehow so much less entertaining now than it had seemed a scant five minutes earlier) and she yanked at her limbs instead, scrambling to pull herself free, to get away, to -- to find Lucius, yes, that was what she need to do, to find Lucius and get out of here and the two of them could figure it out together but surely there was nothing to figure out; surely Potter hadn’t noticed surely he wouldn’t believe it even if he had, not Narcissa Malfoy with fangs on her face oh no, of all people not her. Surely, surely not...!












