Personal: Meditations on Worth
Title: "Meditations on Worth"
Game date: August 8, 1998
Time of day: 8pm
Characters featured: Narcissa Malfoy, mention of Lucius and Draco Malfoy, Gregory Goyle, Severus Snape, Bellatrix LeStrange, and captives at Malfoy Manor.
Location: DMLE detention
Status: Personal
Brief summary: Narcissa still has a lot to think about.
Completion: Complete
Stone walls do not a prison make
Nor iron bars a cage.
Narcissa rapped her knuckles against the wall of her cell. Her knuckles came away sore. "Seems pretty solid to me," she muttered wryly under her breath.
What must Lucius and Draco be going through, she wondered? Lucius had seemed so broken when the DMLE officials had taken them away from Hogwarts. She had never, ever seen him look that defeated before, and it made a shiver run through her, to think about it.
Draco had looked...exhausted. They had found him kneeling beside the body of his friend Gregory Goyle, who was injured but not dead, thank goodness. Narcissa smiled at the memory. He had stayed to make sure his friend was all right. Despite Death-Eaters, Voldemort, and mayhem going on all around them, despite the things Voldemort had coerced him into doing, Draco had done something good, that night.
A Death-Eater would have abandoned a fallen comrade; her son had not. She wondered if she would ever be allowed to tell him how proud she was of him.
It was odd, Narcissa thought, that she didn't classify Lucius as a Death-Eater, though he certainly was one. She couldn't swear that he wouldn't abandon a comrade if the need arose. Yet she still considered him a cut above the rest. The rest were sniggering, simpering toadies and thugs--well, except for Severus Snape. He and Lucius had always been professional, and she respected professionalism. The rest? Narcissa snorted to herself. She would have happily cast an Evanesco on the lot of them and their Dark Lord, if it would have done any good.
She frowned. Then there was Bella--not a sniggering toady, but definitely a thug. Narcissa shuddered. She could still hear that Granger girl's screams. She suspected they would inhabit her nightmares for quite a while.
What was the value of being pureblooded if it meant you became someone who would do that? The memory made Narcissa ill. The purpose of preserving purebloodedness was that you were supposed to be better than those of lesser blood--stronger in character, wiser, more skilled at magic--worthy of the power you claimed by right of blood.
Where had it all gone wrong?
And she knew she herself was as unworthy as the Death-Eaters she disdained. Where had her strength of character or wisdom been when the Dark Lord had come to their home? Had she tried to stop that professor's murder? No. The Granger girl's torture? No. The imprisonment of Ollivander, that Lovegood child, and--of all creatures--that goblin, in her home?
No.
She wished she could talk to Lucius about it. Somehow, while the Death-Eaters had overrun their home, she had felt closer to Lucius than she ever had, before, freer to share her frustrations and fears with him, because he too had been afraid.
She wished he were here now, to hold in her arms and bury her face against his chest, to stroke his hair.
It was at least a nice dream to have before they all went to Azkaban, she thought.
Game date: August 8, 1998
Time of day: 8pm
Characters featured: Narcissa Malfoy, mention of Lucius and Draco Malfoy, Gregory Goyle, Severus Snape, Bellatrix LeStrange, and captives at Malfoy Manor.
Location: DMLE detention
Status: Personal
Brief summary: Narcissa still has a lot to think about.
Completion: Complete
Stone walls do not a prison make
Nor iron bars a cage.
Narcissa rapped her knuckles against the wall of her cell. Her knuckles came away sore. "Seems pretty solid to me," she muttered wryly under her breath.
What must Lucius and Draco be going through, she wondered? Lucius had seemed so broken when the DMLE officials had taken them away from Hogwarts. She had never, ever seen him look that defeated before, and it made a shiver run through her, to think about it.
Draco had looked...exhausted. They had found him kneeling beside the body of his friend Gregory Goyle, who was injured but not dead, thank goodness. Narcissa smiled at the memory. He had stayed to make sure his friend was all right. Despite Death-Eaters, Voldemort, and mayhem going on all around them, despite the things Voldemort had coerced him into doing, Draco had done something good, that night.
A Death-Eater would have abandoned a fallen comrade; her son had not. She wondered if she would ever be allowed to tell him how proud she was of him.
It was odd, Narcissa thought, that she didn't classify Lucius as a Death-Eater, though he certainly was one. She couldn't swear that he wouldn't abandon a comrade if the need arose. Yet she still considered him a cut above the rest. The rest were sniggering, simpering toadies and thugs--well, except for Severus Snape. He and Lucius had always been professional, and she respected professionalism. The rest? Narcissa snorted to herself. She would have happily cast an Evanesco on the lot of them and their Dark Lord, if it would have done any good.
She frowned. Then there was Bella--not a sniggering toady, but definitely a thug. Narcissa shuddered. She could still hear that Granger girl's screams. She suspected they would inhabit her nightmares for quite a while.
What was the value of being pureblooded if it meant you became someone who would do that? The memory made Narcissa ill. The purpose of preserving purebloodedness was that you were supposed to be better than those of lesser blood--stronger in character, wiser, more skilled at magic--worthy of the power you claimed by right of blood.
Where had it all gone wrong?
And she knew she herself was as unworthy as the Death-Eaters she disdained. Where had her strength of character or wisdom been when the Dark Lord had come to their home? Had she tried to stop that professor's murder? No. The Granger girl's torture? No. The imprisonment of Ollivander, that Lovegood child, and--of all creatures--that goblin, in her home?
No.
She wished she could talk to Lucius about it. Somehow, while the Death-Eaters had overrun their home, she had felt closer to Lucius than she ever had, before, freer to share her frustrations and fears with him, because he too had been afraid.
She wished he were here now, to hold in her arms and bury her face against his chest, to stroke his hair.
It was at least a nice dream to have before they all went to Azkaban, she thought.