Notes: Written for the Fall Femmeslash Fest. Was given: Narcissa/Cho or Narcissa/Luna, your choice, and corsets. Thanks as always to Xander, who directed me toward choosing which pairing to write in his usual helpful way.

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The way Mrs. Malfoy smiled bit like frostbite. Cho expected fangs, sharp and pearly to match her powdered skin and unbound hair. It fell over her shoulder as she leaned down now and then to press manicured fingernails against the top of a sugar canister, or a teapot, pouring amber liquid in long streams. China cups. Everything she touched was white.

Her corset pushed the rise of her breasts up to the point of obscenity. Collarbone stood out in stark relief, hollow and fluttering with a strong but steady pulse. Cho watched Mrs. Malfoy as she raised her cup, throat working with long swallows. Her attention was noted. The cup was settled back into the niche of the saucer with a tidy click.

"Is your tea too strong?" she asked in her girlish voice. "Perhaps you should take it with more milk, or I could have Hoddy brew you something weaker. Not everyone likes it as strong as I do, I know."

Cho shook her head, not trusting her voice to speak. She sipped her tea, her mouth burning and her teeth feeling unnaturally slick. She did not have to worry about poisoning at Mrs. Malfoy's hands and knew it. Malfoy Manor was a conspicuous place for a girl to turn up dead, with or without the presence of Lucius Malfoy.

Anyway, she was too valuable to die. If her luck held, Cho might be able to withstand the rest of the war sequestered in no-fire zones like the Manor, doing nothing more dangerous than having tea with the Death Eater's wives. The information could sustain her that long. This mantra was repeated each night as she slipped into cold silk sheets: she would live. For now she bided time inside the Ivory Tower, inside the Manor.

"I hope you enjoyed the gardens," Narcissa began, steering the mostly one-sided conversation as she had ever since Cho's capture three weeks ago. "I apologize for not being able to show them to you myself, but I was… otherwise occupied." She smiled again, disarmingly, and started fiddling with her hair, running her fingers through it. Cho did not think this was a conscious move, but with Mrs. Malfoy, you never knew.

"It's fine."

Narcissa cocked her head and smiled wider, teeth glinting again. Her wrist turned with the rearrangement of a lock of hair, showing the soft underside of her forearm. Cho tried not to look, but it was impossible not to: there was no Dark Mark. There never was. What she saw was even worse, the weak impression of something that appeared to be hiding underneath her skin. It was just more of the powder Mrs. Malfoy wore, though, caked on deliberately, shadowing the Mark. Taunting her by never completely showing itself. The white elephant in the room, and perfectly suited to match everything else.

"Mmm."

They both knew about the Dark Mark just as they knew about why Mrs. Malfoy was occupied the day Cho was granted permission to walk the grounds. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. The Death Eaters called and Mrs. Malfoy went, gone for hours. There were so many elephants; so many that Cho had trouble keeping track of what she could not talk about.

Everything else in the Manor was simple enough; she knew the rules and kept to them exactingly. They played in rote silently in her head—she could not leave her rooms without permission, she could not have a wand, she could not attempt to escape, she could not access the Owlry, she could not act in any fashion that may be construed as disobedient. A veritable slave, chained.

Or, in this case, tied. Laced. Bound. Wrapped up with a nice big bow to match. Whale bones choked off her ability to breathe and most of her movement, making it a painful strain every time she so much as lifted the cup to her mouth. Swallowing was another ordeal. She couldn't breathe in the contraption, her skin seemed as though it was being pushed inside out, and she had an intense paranoia that her ribs would crack if she so much as leaned forward. Biting her lip to hold back a frustrated whimper, Cho blinked and looked just over Mrs. Malfoy's shoulder, seeing nothing but more white.

That mad woman acted like it was a simple tea, as if she and Cho played dolls or dress up in their stupid outfits, and it infuriated her. She hurt, and she was scared, she didn't know how long she could keep her sanity—let alone her life. Meanwhile Mrs. Malfoy poured tea and smiled absently and had the audacity to treat her like a something other than a prisoner, something far worse. Touring the gardens, sleeping in sheets that probably cost more than her father made in a year's work, using heirloom china passed down from Alcibiades Malfoy, wearing silk dress robes with bloody corsets, living in plush rooms adjacent to Mrs. Malfoy's suite in the west wing of the manor. She felt like a whore, and the rattling noises coming from the locked door late at night did not help.

It was only a matter of time, she'd decided. Only a matter of time until Mrs. Malfoy lost what remained of her patience and took what she felt she was owed.

gin@metallicar.org