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Review:Secret Santa says:
Narcissa's POV! A lot of people don't like it when authors change from one character's perspective to another, but this story needed it. I have been itching to see what Narcissa is really thinking ever since the letter back in Chapter One and I'm so glad that you gave it to us!

I like that Narcissa still uses the term 'mudblood' and still strives for pureblood to run throughout her family. It would be unrealistic, I think, to have her see the errors of her ways and become completely reformed. It's a very clever thing you did with having her still have her prejudice. That is such good characterisation.

It's interesting that she calls Sirius her 'stupid, muggle-obsessed cousin' when she shows such regret now at not attending Andromeda's wedding. God, I love what you have done with Narcissa. I can tell that she wants reconciliation with her sister. Or maybe not even reconciliation, but some sort of closure, perhaps, on their relationship? Yet, she hasn't let go of her pureblood ways. And that is just so in character. I know it seems like a trivial thing to say, that someone is 'in character' but I can't think of any other way to say it. It's brilliant.

That reflection of Narcissa's was so well written. It's almost like she doesn't know what she wants. She is confused and, again, so in character. I would even go as far as to say that she is a tiny bit selfish. She wants a relationship with her sister but she is expecting too much, I think.

That part about her being a mother was also really interesting. It made me think of DH and what she did to Harry, all in the name of making sure her son was safe. It is that mother part of her that makes me think that Narcissa is really caught in the middle. I think that she had all the potential to be 'good' but just didn't have the courage to do so. And maybe if she had made the right choices, she might have indeed been 'good'.

I have mixed feelings about Lucius in this. On the one hand, he is so gentle in this and comforting to Narcissa. On the other hand, I kind of wish he had died in the battle. It's good, though. You are making me think so much while writing this and I love it. I think that Lucius is in character, in a strange way. As Narcissa acknowledged, he isn't a good man, but his presence in this chapter just seems to fit. I don't know why or why, but it does.

God, you really make me think. And I love it. You just have all these layers and subtexts and just, argh, it's so good!

Author's Response: Yes! That is exactly what I was going for! Awesome!

Some people write Narcissa as having basically done a complete turnaround after the war, but I never bought into that. I find her to be an absolutely fascinating character, because throughout the books, especially later on, her love for her family - Draco in particular, but also Lucius - really comes across loud and clear. However, at the same time, she's clearly not one of the good guys.

I haven't written anything very Draco-centric, but I do think of him as having changed a lot after the war (and Scorpius says as much at some point in one of my stories). I don't think of him as being especially pleased with muggleborns on the whole, but I think that he learns to tolerate them and is able to befriend a few here and there. However, he was much younger, and I really believe that he didn't quite understand what Voldemort and genocide and death really meant until it started happening, and I think that he ended up discovering that he didn't have the stomach for it.

Narcissa, on the other hand, knew what it was all about. She wasn't a death eater, but she was a supporter of Voldemort and she was clearly okay with what he was doing until he started putting her family at risk. I didn't want to airbrush that away because that's a huge part of what makes her compelling as a character to me - the bad guys can love people, too, and not just in the creepy way that Bellatrix loves Voldemort. That's also part of why I wrote Lucius the way I did - so many people portray him as this guy who's pretty much uniformly terrible to everyone, and who mistreats his son and wife, and I don't see him that way at all. He's a death eater and a terrible human being and I agree that he probably should have died at the end of the last book, but that doesn't mean that he's incapable of loving other people, and I wanted to show that. (Wow, am I making any sense at all? Fail on me. :P)

Yay! I am very glad I'm making you think and that you like this so much! :) Thank you again. You have really made my day with these. You rock as a secret santa.

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