#emmacissa

[trohpi]

vaneflower microfic [cross-posted on ao3]

@marauders-rarepair-fics • june 16: emerald • 761 words CW: internalized homophobia

“Let me draw you,” Emma murmurs one day. It’s early morning, sky that pale dusky blue that comes before the sun paints in those orangey pink hues as it rises. The Room of Requirement is dim with the barely-there light that filters through the conjured window.

Narcissa stares at the ceiling, though she can feel the other girl’s warm gaze from where she lay next to her. A mix of emotions sits within her. Love. Longing. Shame. Narcissa swallows thickly around them where they clog her throat, choking her in their intensity.

I love you, she wants to say. It’s ruining us both.

“The others in our dorms will be suspicious if they wake before we get back,” she says instead.

Delicate fingers dance along her arm, tracing patterns of warmth. “Let me anyway.”

She lets her eyes flutter shut, soaks in Emma’s touch, and breathes, “Okay.”

There’s something beautiful in the way Emma’s whole person shifts when she’s drawing. The way her deep brown eyes sharpen with focus, the way her head tilts ever so slightly to the left, the way she pulls her plush bottom lip between her teeth in concentration. It's an entirely different beauty to when she’s playing Quidditch or lounging in the courtyard. No, this is more subdued, more delicate. Narcissa can’t look away, and she’s not sure she ever wants to.

She watches raptly from where she’s splayed comfortably on the bed as Emma sits cross-legged beside her, leaning over her well-used Muggle notebook. A tin of cheap coloured pencils lay open by her feet, though the only one gone is the green pencil. Her brown waves are untidy and sleep-mussed, falling over her shoulder as she tilts her head once more, her face twisting into a small frown.

A rush of fond tenderness hits Narcissa, followed immediately by a twisting of her gut. She ignores it, murmuring, “What’s that face for?”

“I can’t get your eyes right,” she sighs, squinting at the paper before her eyes dart back up to meet Narcissa’s, her gaze searching and intense.

“They’re just plain green,” Narcissa says softly. The other girl only shakes her head.

“No, they’re so much more than that, and this cheap pencil can’t capture it.” Emma drops the stick of green pigment on the bedding.

Narcissa swallows. “How are they more than that?”

“They just are.” She shuffles closer, leaning over her notebook to cup Narcissa’s cheek and tilt her head towards her. “Your eyes are like emeralds, you know.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.” Emma quirks a small, fond smile. “My favourite gemstones. There’s these little flecks of blue and hazel that make your eyes look just like them. Makes your eye colour richer, more unique.”

And that choking feeling returns with vigour, leaving Narcissa awash with emotions she has no business feeling. She blinks quickly, clears her throat. Says, “Glad you’re here to draw them, then, if they’re so unique.”

Emma chuckles, tucking her hair behind her ear and allowing the first rays of sunlight to illuminate her face, washing her bronze skin in gold. “I’m glad I’m here too.”

Narcissa flushes, a joyful heat filling her cheeks. She huffs and knocks Emma’s hands away. “That’s not what I said.”

Emma laughs, a melodious thing, and Narcissa’s breath catches at the sound of it. She wants to bottle its very essence, wants to hold it close to her soul like a treasured memory. She wants, selfishly, for no one but her to ever hear the music that is Emma Vanity’s laugh. And that’s what Narcissa is, really. A selfish, selfish creature.

“What’re you looking at me like that for?” Narcissa blinks, Emma’s voice knocking her out of her head. She’s looking down at her, messy hair framing her face as she quirks a soft, curious smile.

“Nothing,” she says, and Emma hums.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Just thinking that I’d rather like to watch the sunrise.”

Emma smiles again, somehow softer this time, and says, “Me too.”

They curl up together under the messy, slept-in sheets, half-done drawing left somewhere to the side to be finished another day, and bask in the slowly-warming light that slips in the room.

And Narcissa allows herself to think that maybe they don’t need to rush back to their dorms. Maybe, just maybe, their roommates’ suspicions wouldn’t be the end of the world. Maybe they can simply lay here enjoying the pinkening of the sky through the window of their secret room, wrapped in each other’s arms, for just a little while longer.

Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.