A Mother's Love • [Drarry]

Narcissa - The Dichotomy of Motherhood

A/N: Since Wattpad doesn't have a strikethrough option, I'd like to clarify that the underlined words would be considered "crossed out" or "scribbled through".

August 1999

Narcissa Malfoy has been many things in her lifetime. She was born a Black, a beautiful and pureblooded witch. She developed into a bright student, prefect, then Head Girl. She married into the name Malfoy, wife of Lucius and mother of Draco. She can switch roles like accessories, changing them for the occasion and company. She's done it since birth–has been forced to. She could be nothing less than perfect. She does not resent it; it is what has allowed her and her son to survive.

She wonders, though, at times, if there were better roles she could have played. If different roles would have kept her son from resenting her. If, perhaps, she would now be able to look into the eyes of Harry Potter without feeling such guilt.

It would be a fool's mission, of course, to try and keep either her son or Harry Potter from feeling any grief their entire lives. There is no such thing as a life without grief. It simply does not exist.

She hadn't been alive when Tom Riddle was born. She was only a child when 'Lord Voldemort' took his place. Perhaps, if she'd known how things would end up, she could've stopped him from killing James and Lily potter–but she didn't know. Couldn't have known. She was no more a seer than Albus Dumbledore.

Realistically, however, she doesn't know if she truly would have changed anything at all, even if she had the knowledge to do so. She'd been foolish and selfish when she was younger. Even now, she would do anything to keep Draco safe.

If changing things prevented her pregnancy and the birth of Draco, perhaps she would have let things play out as they have, regardless of how it would affect others.

That is the burden of an unchangeable past and an unknowable future. That is the painful dichotomy of motherhood.

Asteria is waiting on her perch when Narcissa enters her study, breaking her out of her thoughts. She knows with a mother's certainty that Draco has not touched her letter other than to take it from her owl. Still, she gives the bird one of her specially made treats and strokes her gently on the head.

"You did good, sweet girl. Go hunt."

Asteria coos softly, nudging into Narcissa's hand before taking flight.

She spends her day as she has nearly every other day for the past year.

She reads, embroiders, takes strolls in the garden. She eats, less for the pleasure of it and more out of necessity. She writes Draco.

He does not respond.

It's easy to forget that she's ever been more than what she is now. Easy to pretend that she's never wanted to be more than what she is now. She wonders, at times, when she changed so completely. When she lost the ability to be her own person.

Perhaps it happened when her mother started scolding her for playing with her male cousins instead of staying inside and doing more 'lady-like' activities. Or maybe it was when she married Lucius and allowed him to mold her into a Malfoy instead of a Black. If she loved Draco any less, she might consider that it was when she held him in her arms for the first time and realised that there would never be anything more important than him.

A mother, through and through.

She lets days go by like that, as though on a cycle. Some moments, her thoughts turn to a certain visitor. Though their meeting had not ended on a positive note, there was something to be said for the fire Harry Potter refused to let anyone put out.