Narcissa knows exactly what death smells like - like burning wax and cloves and rain.
Kneeling on the ground next to the bed, she stifles a cough and leans into her mother's whispered voice. It's nonsense, as she knew it would be, as it's been for the past seven days she's been declining. Lucius tells her it won't be very long now, and Bella tells her that they ought to get her affairs in order, and she tells everyone that Mother's not dead yet. All of them are right, of course, but she can't help it if she wants to hold on a moment or two longer.
Even though she was never close to her mother, she wants to hold on. And if she's honest with herself, she wants her mother to tell her something that makes sense, because everything is so wrong right now, so confusing. Lucius's Dark Lord is gone and Sirius is newly in Azkaban and the whole world went and turned itself upside down all in one night.
She remembers clearly what happened - Lucius burst into the bedroom in the wee hours, and for one heart-stopping instant, she thought something was wrong with Draco, but then he started babbling about how the Dark Lord was dead and they'd lost and something about a baby and Godric Gryffindor, and then they were both awake, and Lucius started panicking because surely the Ministry would come for them. So Narcissa did what she was bred to do, and kept her head on her shoulders.
She calmly walked out of the room and returned with a bottle of wine and two glasses. Pouring one for herself and another for her husband, she began to talk. Lucius, think clearly. The Ministry has no proof that you were in league with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. If you play your cards right, they'll never need to find out.
And she did what her mother would have done, concocted a story of Imperius Curses and bribery and penance, and thus assured Draco a lifetime with his father. But everything from then on was so difficult, what with setting everything up and dinner parties with the right sort of people and the hardest part - trying to control her sister.
Bella is livid about the entire situation, and it's taking all of Narcissa's energy to stop her from doing something rash. Now, with mother dying and Draco wailing three doors down, she almost doesn't care. Let her sister do what she thinks is right. Narcissa has to take care of her own affairs.
The candle burns lower in its wax, nearly dead. This is the rule in the Black family, and has always been - a dying person receives exactly fourteen candles. Each candle is burned, and if the member of the family has not died by the time the last candle snuffs itself out, whoever took care of them will put them out of their misery. Fourteen candles takes exactly seven days to burn, giving the invalid one week to either get better or keel over. Some would call the practice cruel. Narcissa calls it charity.
The fourteenth candle flickers, and dies.
-:-
Narcissa knows exactly what death looks like - like brown leaves and red wine and white skin.
Kneeling on the ground next to the bed, she forces herself to watch her father's chest rise and fall. Rise and fall, in the dim light. It's raining outside, pouring down in a lightning-studded fury, the night sky alive with electricity and water. She is alone with her dying father, alone because Lucius is home with Draco and Bella is trapped in Azkaban with Sirius now. Part of her wants to run away, to escape all of this, to run all the way to Andromeda, who used to tell her fairytales. Part of her wants to walk away, to go back home and sleep the rest of the night away. Part of her wants to burn this house and these memories and this man to the ground, but all she has is a pool of wax and a fraction of a wick clinging to flame.
She wants to hold on, if only for a moment. She doesn't want to kill him. She wants her father to miraculously stand back up, or better, to miraculously stop breathing. To give up the ghost before she has to force it out of him. She leans closer to his chest, wondering if he even knows she's there.
But he doesn't react and she leans back onto her knees. Dressed in black lace, a thin veil covering her features, supposedly to hide a mourner's face from the indignity of being seen to cry - but in reality, so save her the effort of making the illusion. She will not cry tonight, or tomorrow morning, or the day after. She will calmly walk away from here, leaving her father's house to its dust and disuse, and she will not return.
The fourteenth candle flickers, and continues to burn. In one movement, she snuffs it out and takes her wand.
-:-
Narcissa knows exactly what death sounds like - like church bells and singing birds and the quietest wind.
Kneeling on the ground next to the bed, she watches her aunt's eyes flicker under closed lids. The unlovely woman shudders in her sleep, fever on her brow and vague froth on her lips. Narcissa makes no move to clean the sweat or spittle. Head bowed, she listens to the summer wind and Kreacher's wails down the hall. Lucius is here, teaching Draco about his distinguished history upon the tapestry, aided by Uncle. She is struck, suddenly, by the callousness of it all. His wife is dying, but her uncle doesn't care and won't stand to be in the room.
He leaves the care of her to his youngest niece, knowing as well as she that that means Narcissa will have the burden of killing her aunt unless her aunt has the decency to die on her own. And Aunt Wallburga was never that kind.
A grandfather clock chimes ten o'clock from somewhere deep within the house, and the candle continues to burn. She doesn't move at all, watching her aunt's lips forming words that don't reach Narcissa's ears. She can barely make out the syllables of Sirius and pretends she's seen nothing. Is Wallburga regretting, or insane? Does she miss her son, or does she believe he's with her? Narcissa smiles acidly. How delightfully ironic - the only moment her aunt shows any humanity, and it's as she dies.
How ironic, and how like the Black family. Draco begins crying down the hall - he's tired. Ten o'clock is late for a three-year-old boy. Lucius may take him home, or they may stay the night here. Half of her thinks that's awfully morbid of them, to stay in a house with the recently dead. The other half thinks it's practical.
She blows the fourteenth candle out, and hesitates.
-:-
Narcissa knows exactly what death feels like - like silken sheets and bloody hands and the shape of wood in her palm.
Kneeling on the ground next to the bed, she watches her uncle without remorse. He coughs loudly, violently, blood spreading between his fingers and onto the sheet. She makes no move to clean the bright drops from her uncle's hands or mouth. She is alone in the house, unless Kreacher or Aunt Wallburga's loud portrait count, which they don't. Lucius is at home, and Draco is finally at school, in his first year at Hogwarts. She should be proud of him, but he's done nothing yet to deserve her pride. He sends letters daily, and she does the motherly thing, sending him treats and trinkets, but she's curious as to when he'll do something spectacular.
He could be great, she knows, he could be such a good wizard, if he would only try. Her uncle coughs again, and then takes her hand. She recoils slightly, and he struggles to speak - Wallburga?
She pauses, acutely aware of the smearing blood on his palms, the silk under her elbows, and the hardwood floor under her knees. She looks into his cloudy gray eyes - gray like Sirius's, but that's the only way the son resembled his father - and sees something else in the lines on his face. Not regret, but something close. And perhaps a little malice.
In periphery, the fourteenth candle dies. No, she whispers, Narcissa, and kills him.
-:-
Narcissa knows exactly what death tastes like - like clover honey and white wine and bitter poison.
Kneeling on the ground next to the bed in total darkness, she sleeps.