More than a Woman
By MorganRay

Winged angels, so arched and beautiful, guarded the entranceway. The meaningless family name above the doorway held no interest for me. Normally, I would have tried to read the engravings above the doorway to see what prominent people lay in the vault, but only those carved seraphs caught my attention. Carved in the likeness of Greek goddess with perfect classical bodies, they turned their backs to each other, and their stone wings made an arch over the doorway. Naked, immaculately sculpted, they wrapped their arms around their chests to preserve their modesty while they turned their lovely faces towards the sky.

It was the one above the door that captivated me. Her upper body emerged from a niche above the family name, and she, too, held her arms protectively over her finely chiseled chest. However, she stared down at the realities of the world instead of gazing heavenward. As I gazed upon that stone face, whose expression was obscured by rigid tresses, I saw myself immortalized over this mausoleum.

I heard the footsteps behind me. I didn’t turn around and waited to the taller figure, completely cloaked in black like myself, drew level with me.

“Come,” Lucius whispered in my ear as he drew me towards the door of the mausoleum. Only the shuffling of our footsteps echoed in the silent graveyard as we passed under the arch of the goddesses’ wings. As Lucius exposed his arm to grant us entrance, I gazed up at the face of the angel above the doorway.

She was miserable, not in a state of rapture like the other two seraphs. This woman knew her fate.

“Narcissa.” Lucius led me by the elbow into the dank tomb. With the grating sound of stone against stone, the door shut us in this house of death. “Lumos,” I muttered, lighting my wand in the absolute night of the dead. After Lucius lit his wand, we walked, him leading me, down a winding stair until an eerie green light met us at the very end.

In a circular chamber, with strange bowls of green flame sitting in alcoves around the edge, waited the group of the Dark Lord’s elite. I focused on the cold, emotionless stones under my feet so I would not meet any of their eyes or truly see who had gathered here. I could feel his presence, though, as if the Dark Lord electrified the very air I breathed so that I could taste his power.

“Come.” He commanded, and I walked away from Lucius, who followed me for a time. When I heard Lucius stop moving behind me, I knew I stood in front of the Dark Lord.

“Look at me.”

I did.

After a moment of stripping my mind naked, he turned away, pointed his wand at Lucius, and, in a velvet voice, called, “Crucio.”

“Crucio!”

Lucius writhed across the slimy river stones, and his usually erect and dignified form twisted and convulsed like a worm. I gazed on as his silvery hair clung to the sweat on his face and the damp, cold stones. In the midst of his screams, I swallowed down the fear churning in my gut, repressing it in the very pit of my stomach.

As he kept his wand pointed at Lucius, the Dark Lord’s head turned around so that his eyes focused entirely on me now. As those heartless eyes appraised me, my limbs tingled with numbness, and they seemed to not be my own as his eyes scanned over me.

“No tears? Come now, a loving wife will not cry for her husband in so much torture and pain? Crucio!”

“I . . .”

The fear, digested in my stomach, swam through my veins. I could not cry. God, I was so afraid.

“Come, come, Narcissa,” the Dark Lord continued to talk in a casual voice with Lucius’s screams as the undertone. “Lucius said you would make a valuable asset to our group. Do you agree with this?”

“I have nothing to hide.” My voice finally came out in a dull, hoarse whisper.

Then, the Dark Lord stopped his torture and turned towards me fully. Those eyes with those slits narrowed as he took a couple languid steps towards me.

“Really. I don’t like my trusted followers to be weak, but more than that,” he paused for affect, and I could feel my heart thudding wildly in my chest, “I don’t like liars. What haven’t you told me?”

“I . . .”

“Yes, you’ve already admitted guilt,” the Dark Lord snapped, and my mind flinched away. As those eyes bored into me, I felt my attempt at occulemency was as thin as sheer silk. However, he didn’t charge into my mind immediately, but waited casually, and I felt him probing at the boarders of my thoughts.

“Tell him!” Out of my peripheral vision I caught sight of Bella standing in the circle. She’d shouted to me, and I didn’t doubt that a healthy dose of torture would be my lot.

“I have no other loyalties! I am a Black by birth, pure of blood,” I declared in a voice that shook less and sounded more like my own.

“Yes,” the Dark Lord affirmed, and I realized he had gone through my thoughts as I had spoken. “But you still hide things from me, Narcissa. Do you have a weakness?”

I pictured myself touching my stomach as I gazed into the full body mirror in our bathroom. I smoothed my hand over my skin . . .

“Lucius!”

The Dark Lord turned instantly back towards Lucius, who had begun to raise himself off the chilly ground.

I threw my hands over my mouth to muffle a scream. He knew. He saw me, knew a secret I hadn’t spoken, and it horrified me to my very depths.

The bile churned in my stomach as I kept my hands firmly clamped over my mouth, unable to move my own body. As I gazed on the profile of the Dark Lord, whose vicious gaze bored into Lucius’s already weakened from, I knew I couldn’t conceal the horror from my face. Coming here, I wanted to prove my worth and my strength. Now, my own secrets betrayed me, and I watched, as if detached from my body, as the Dark Lord rounded on Lucius once again.

“Tell me, why did you bring her here?” the Dark Lord asked, and his voice was a mixture of poison and velvet. I felt the marrow of my bones freeze, even as my blood pumped more vigorously through me veins.

“She wants to serve you, my lord. She is pure. She is . . .”

“Crucio!”

With a great exertion of will I didn’t know I possessed, I watched the Dark Lord continue his work. Thankfully, he stepped farther away from me as he taunted, “Do not make me jog your memory again. Confess your folly to your master!”

“I do NOT KNOW!” Lucius shrieked as he convulsed across the unyielding stones of the mausoleum floor.

“He didn’t know,” I whispered from behind me hands. However, the Dark Lord continued his work. “HE DID NOT KNOW!”

With a casual flick of his wand and a slightly too quick turn on his heels, the Dark Lord turned once again towards me. The very graceful and almost inhuman movements he made startled me. The fear that I had just overcome rekindled anew inside me.

“Ah! What is this?” he asked, with his voice dramatically softened now from a moment before.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “No one knew but I.”

"What special knowledge or service do you hope to offer the Dark Lord for giving you the honor of being among his followers?” he asked with sarcasm dripping from his voice. “Come, Narcissa, tell me what you could do. What use have I for a defective woman?”

“I am of pure blood,” I stated, and my own voice stayed level.

“Yes, yes . . . and you came to offer my your loyalty anyway,” his voice crescendoed as he continued to speak, “knowing full well you could be of no use!”

In that moment, I could not say another word. Standing in front of his opposing power, I felt my insides stripped, and my dignity seemed to seep out of me into the cold stones Lucius had been tortured upon.

“You know I cannot have use for a pregnant woman,” he stated coldly, and the very thing that caused me joy now shamed me. “A woman with a child will put her child’s life above all else. I need absolute loyalty! Above all, a woman with child is weak.”

In a rush of emotion, when my eyes glazed over for a moment with tears, I opened my mouth. “I am not weak!”

It was a declaration that, after spoken, echoed through the mausoleum vault. As I heard my own voice, which didn’t feel like it came from me, I knew I sealed my own doom in some form. As I stood there, still shaking with emotion, the Dark Lord scanned me again with his eyes. That scrutinizing gaze judged my worth once more in several sweeps of my frame.

“If you are a true believer in your blood . . .” the Dark Lord mused out loud. Then, a twisted smile of pleasure slithered across his face. “I am going to send you somewhere, Narcissa. You may only return once you have proved that you are as pure as you claim.”

With a flick of his wand, he conjured a small, gray ball that could fit in the palm of my hand. A silver spider wrapped itself around the orb, and its fangs sank into part of the shimmering glass. “This will be your port key.”

After a moment, I extended my trembling hand, and the cold crystal and spider, which weighted quite a bit, shimmered for a moment before the room dissolved around me. As my insides swirled, the gloomy death house warped into a comfy living room. As I stood there, trying to gather my bearings, black, wispy smoke spewed out of the spider’s mouth.

“Cleanse your blood,” was etched in the air before the vapor faded away.

As I gazed around the sitting room with its low, crackling fire, I realized that the mauve carpet seemed familiar. I started silently as my eyes fell upon the homely arrangement of the beige couch and loveseat. Beside the fire sat a large, comfortable green, purple, and white plaid rocking chair that had a threadbare and worn appearance to it. I’d only been in this room several times, but as I scanned the mantelpiece, I knew where I was.

Above the blazing fire, a set of pictures stared back. Most of the pictures were of a happy woman with dark, black tresses holding a baby or standing with a tall, rugged looking man. There was something uncouth about that man, even in photographs, and I scowled despite myself. On one side of the mantel, there was a set of pictures of three young women standing together. In those days, we smiled together.

As I stood in the center of the room, a chill shot down my spine.

I knew what he wanted me to do.

“Who’s there?”

From the top of the staircase, I heard the familiar voice call down to me. As her feet trod down the stairs, my pulse pounded hard in my ears. When the staircase ended at the living room floor, I saw my first glimpse of the flowing inky tresses that made her so lovely.

She gasped and lowered her wand when she turned her face towards me. “What? Narcissa?” I kept my hand firmly on my wand, but it felt like lead, so I couldn’t raise it. As she examined me with her dark, penetrating eyes, I realized once again how much she looked like Bella, but her skin was fair like my skin.

“What are you doing here?” She cautiously stepped around the couch towards me, and I realized I still clutched the crystal with that grotesque spider on it. “Cissy, you look ill.”

“Andy,” I murmured in a quavering voice, and my resolve threatened to dissolve to dust. How could I do this? But now I could see her entire frame, I knew I had the clearest shot at her, but I could not move my wand. However, the crystal and spider weighted down my other hand, and the weight of the Dark Lord’s task intensified as Andromenda stood there, wand down, and unprotected.

“Cissy, what’s happened? Is it Lucius?” Her voice was brimming with concern as she took a couple less cautious steps towards me. God, what would happen to Lucius if I failed? That crystal would make my hand fall off it I held it another second.

In an instant, my wand hand moved from the folds of my cloak. I felt it wasn’t me that raised my wand and pointed it at Andy’s chest. Something else, an evil spirit perhaps or something stronger than my will compelled me, and I opened my mouth and spat out venom. “Avada Kedavra!”

It happened quickly, quicker than I thought I could act. Her pale, fair skin that looked so much like mine suddenly took on the pallor of the dead, and the rouge left her cheeks. As I looked down at her now lifeless eyes, with irises almost as dark as her pupils, I mumbled, “I’m sorry. Andy, you wouldn’t . . .”

But I wasn’t able to finish as the world collapsed and reformed around me again like glass shattering and then rebuilding itself into a different form. Once again, I stood before the imposing figure of the Dark Lord. In that moment, standing before the Dark Lord, I vomited across the damp, slimy stones that made up the floor of that miserable mausoleum. As I emptied my stomach at his feet, I dropped the crystal to the floor, and it shattered to pieces, and the spider lay lifeless and glistening on the ground.

“You are devoted,” the Dark Lord told me as I wiped my mouth on the sleeve of my robe. “Rise, Narcissa.”

“Yes?” I whispered.

“You have cleansed your blood, but you are found wanting. I need those who are committed, and you will be more of service in raising your son for me. Now, take her away, Lucius.”

Something in the way he said it, maybe, broke something inside of me. I felt the tears well up in my eyes. At the moment, I stared down at my hidden stomach, and ran my hand across it. My son, yes, my son, who seemed to be destined to be more important to me than my sister and my duty to the Dark Lord would be to me. As I stood there, the image of the stone angel flashed across my mind. It was an odd time, but I realized I pictured myself in the place of that angel. As I remembered that face, I realized the artist had carved my sorrow into her face, trying to warn me away.

And I hadn’t heeded that warning.