AN: This piece was written for The Fairest of the Rare's Sing Me A Rare OS Competition Autumn 2017 competition, which is housed on AO3 and I highly suggest all the fics that entered! So many amazing writers created such amazing work. I had a choice of song and one character which are High Hopes by Kodaline and Narcissa Malfoy. The admins of the group then randomly chose the other character. All character, spells, magical equipment and locations from the Harry Potter series belong to JK Rowling. This story won BEST ROMANCE. And I'm so honored and humbled :) Thanks as always to the best beta and cheerleader a girl could ask for, Jade Presley. And a special thanks to the judges and admins who made this comp so fun. Please enjoy.
Love in a Hopeless Place
Song: High Hopes by Kodaline
Pairing: Remus x Narcissa
Tags: Werewolf!Draco, Hurt/Comfort, Remus Lives
When it all comes to an end
But the world keeps spinning around
Narcissa is running. She leaps over large tree roots and pushes through when the branches reach out toward her. She ignores the stinging of her skin as they scratch her and the sounds of her dress ripping as the branches get tangled.
She screams, but she's not exactly sure why. She's not sure why she's running either. Or where she is.
It's dark, but she can see just fine as she continues toward an unknown destination. Her feet seem to know full well where they're going.
She can feel her heart pounding in her chest and the sound vibrates around her mind, forcing out any other thoughts. It's just her, the woods, and her fear.
She realizes she's terrified. Her hands shake even as she clutches them close, and her hair is starting to fall from her perfectly coiffed bun.
When she sees his body lying in a pool of his own blood, she stops short. His moans send a shock right through her system, and her knees give way beneath her as another scream — this one altogether more horrified and broken — rips its way from her throat.
She crawls along the forest floor to get to him, pulls him up against her bosom and sobs into his dirty, platinum blonde hair as his blood soaks her cream colored dress.
"DRACO!"
Narcissa wakes up screaming her son's name, soaking in sweat, and her heart racing. She struggles for a few moments to catch her breath, looking desperately around the bedroom she's in trying to remember how she got here.
Her son, no longer blood soaked or visibly injured, rushes into her room with terror and questions written all over his face.
"Mother? Mum! Are you alright?"
He bends down so she can envelop him in her arms and hold him close as her mind — and her memories — slowly return to her.
A small part of her heart clicks back into place as Lucius appears in their sitting room. He's hunched over and shaking, half the man he used to be. She runs toward him, pulling his face up to meet her fearful gaze.
"Where is he, Lucius?" she asks desperately, searching his empty face for any kind of answer or recognition. "Where is our son?"
He moves his lips but no sound comes from them, and his eyes are blank as they look into hers.
"Tell me!" Her tone becomes shrill as she shakes him by the shoulders. "Where did you leave our son?"
"He wouldn't let me —" Lucius manages, but Narcissa only shakes him harder.
"I don't give a fuck what your lord wouldn't let you do! Tell me where our son is."
Lucius falls to his knees, and she bends with him but manages to stay on her feet. "I can't," he whispers defeatedly, and she shrieks against his misplaced loyalty.
"Show me, then," she demands, and Narcissa cups her hand underneath his chin and pulls his gaze forcefully to hers.
"Goodbye, Lucius," she says with finality, pulling out of his mind and turning on the spot with a delicate crack.
Later, she finds herself carrying her dying son up the steps of her sister's home. She'd never been before, but Andy had always told her she was welcome — in letters Narcissa wouldn't admit to reading before tonight.
Her ego, though, was shattered at the sight of her son bleeding and in pain on the forest floor, his shoulder having been ravaged by a beast.
When her older sister opens the door with a concerned face, Narcissa's strength drains from her, and she struggles to hold her son upright in her arms.
"Andy, please — I'm so sorry — I need help."
It all comes out in one breath, in one rushed sentence, and Andy doesn't even stop to consider shutting the door on her sister. She gestures for them to come inside and calls for her husband's help.
Narcissa and Draco make their way downstairs to breakfast, the sounds of a stilted conversation filtering up through the stairway.
"What could they possibly be doing on their own that they don't need anyone's help with? The whole Order is behind him! Doesn't he know that?" Tonks' voice is near desperation as the duo enters the room.
Narcissa's eyes glance quickly from Remus to her sister, but she can feel the man's eyes still on her. She knows he sees through her styled hair, fresh face, and bright smile.
"Harry doesn't share that much with me, Tonks," he admits, though his eyes never leave Narcissa, watching her sit down next to him and pour tea into the cup set at her place.
Tonks takes a large bite of her eggs, clearly frustrated. Andromeda chances a glance at her daughter while she grabs another piece of toast. Ted clears his throat, bouncing his eyes from Tonks to Remus nervously. Draco slinks into a chair beside his cousin, sighing dramatically as he reaches across the table for the pot of coffee.
"I just wish he'd tell us what he's doing," Tonks says, glaring at Remus as he all but ignores her.
Remus reaches for Narcissa's hand under the table, and it takes all of her etiquette training to keep her from jumping at the action. His skin is warm and comforting as it encases her own. Her muscles want to melt into the touch.
Instead, she glances at him from underneath her lacquered eyelashes, hoping her eyes portray her thanks better than the way she squeezes and then drops his hand in favor of spooning a bit of honey into her tea and taking a sip.
Remus finally turns to Tonks with an apologetic smile. "He'll let us know when we need to know. For now, we need to focus on what we're doing."
Later, after the conversation returns to more pleasant things and breakfast wraps up, Remus and Narcissa meet in Andromeda's garden to talk about Draco.
"He knows what to expect now," Remus says as they pass through a few of the more advanced wards that are anchored by the house itself. "It's the best I can offer him, really."
"Can you tell me again? It's going to hurt him isn't?" Narcissa's voice is pained, and she refuses to meet Remus' sympathetic gaze.
"It does hurt, yes," he responds calmly, slipping into his professor voice — one that even he admits he possessed long before he was ever a professor. "But we have Wolfsbane, and that will shield him from the worst of it — the werewolf takeover… He'll still have control over himself."
Narcissa's shoulders lose some of their pristine posture as she breathes out sadly. Suddenly, Remus' scent is all over her; his arms are wrapped around her and his chin is resting softly on her shoulder as his chest presses flush against hers. At first she stiffens beneath his forward gesture. But slowly, just as all other aspects of her relationship with Remus have gone, she softens into his touch, grasping at the comfort he is so readily offering. She finds herself at a loss for words, unused to the kind of intuitive responses to her emotions Remus always seems to provide her.
Support.
She's nearly forgotten what it feels like.
"I know this still feels like an end for you, Narcissa," he says softly. "But I promise you, Draco will be safe. He can still live a happy and fulfilling life."
Narcissa pulls away from him then, still wary of such readily offered kindness.
"Has your life been happy and fulfilling, Remus?"
The question should've been harsh, but in Narcissa's defeated tone it comes off as desperate for more than just physical comfort.
She knows not of his long battle with self hate. She doesn't know all that much about him at all, actually. The way she pushes back on his words meant to comfort is mostly innocent. But it still takes everything inside of Remus not to laugh bitterly in response. Flashes of his childhood friends, all lost in one way or another, and of the relationship he should've had with his best friends' child flash through his mind. The pain and weight of his curse pushes down on him.
Strangely, the Remus he thinks of feels like a different one than the Remus that stands in front of this beautiful woman before him. "I think it could be," he hears himself say, and the hope is foreign on his tongue. But somehow it's true.
Her smile curls slightly at the edges, and Remus' heart soars at the sight.
"We'll make sure this gets passed on to the Order," Narcissa hears her sister say to the man that's come to visit. She hadn't recognized him at first, but Draco had told her it was his old Professor, Remus Lupin — that he could smell him all the way up in his room. She'd been sitting with Draco there after watching over him as he took the potions Ted had secured for him to heal his shoulder as much as it could be fixed.
Now she stands just outside the door of the kitchen as Remus apparently debriefs her sister so that she can communicate with other members of the Order about what he's learned. Her stomach tightens as the conversation continues.
"There's something we think you should know, Remus. Ted and I, not the Order. Well, the Order knows of course. But…"
She hears shuffling, and Remus says what she's thinking. "Andromeda, are you alright? I've never seen you like this."
"I'm sorry, yes, it's my nephew."
"Your...your nephew?" Remus' voice tilts upward as he speaks, putting the pieces of the puzzle together but unable to see the whole picture. Narcissa is breathless as she waits for her sister to continue.
"You know him, I'm sure, from your year teaching at Hogwarts. He and my sister, Narcissa, have defected."
"What does that have to do with me?"
"Well," Andromeda says, clearly nervous. "He's been bitten by Greyback."
"What did you say?"
"You Know Who punished him for failing to kill Dumbledore by turning him over to that monster and leaving him to die."
The sound of a fist smashing against the kitchen table makes Narcissa jump, and she realizes that tears have fallen down her cheeks. She wipes at her face angrily, and the anger and magic coursing through all three of them at that moment warms the air.
Suddenly, her sister is calling after Remus, but Narcissa doesn't have time to move as he barrels out of the room and directly into her.
"Fuck!" Remus barks as his hands move instinctively to keep her from falling, and she yelps at being pinned to the wall by the man. "I'm so sorry!" The emotion in his voice sizzles and cracks, and she thinks he might be apologizing for more than almost knocking her over.
She stutters uncharacteristically and fumbles away from his touch as if he's burned her. "It's my fault!" Narcissa is nearly screaming, and it's clear she also is talking about more than just their physical encounter.
She's crying then, and her thoughts are swirling as she tries and fails to control herself. She does not know this man and yet her emotions boil over as he stands in front of her. He doesn't miss a beat. He wraps her in the second warmest hug of her life, losing out only to that she and her sister had shared the night she first got here.
"I'm so, so sorry," he repeats, over and over, softly into her ear. She's still against him, not returning his abrupt affection.
"Why is this happening?" she demands, though not of him or anyone in particular. "How can this world possibly go on after we've lost this much? How can it keep spinning when everything I know is finished? How could I not have protected my son from this?"
Remus rocks them back and forth as she completely breaks down for the first time since leaving the Manor that fateful night. It makes no sense to her how she could be doing this in front of a stranger, but nothing in her life makes sense anymore.
"Breathe, Narcissa," he whispers calmly. "Nothing is finished, not yet. There is more fighting to be done, and you've made the best choice you could've for your son, okay? I'm going to help him, alright? I know a lot about his situation. I can help him. I will help him."
Narcissa pulls away from him, her eyes are puffy and red as they search his. "I can't ask you to do that."
"You're not asking. I'm offering. Please. Will you take me to him?"
Narcissa nods and gestures for him to follow as she turns toward the stairs to her son's room.
I remember it now; it takes me back to when it all first started
But I only got myself to blame for it, and I accept it now
It's time to let it all go, go out and start again
"Well, you've changed."
It's not the greeting she expects from her husband after he clangs into the private visiting room with chains magically bound around his ankles and wrists. She nearly laughs at the outrageous remark — considering the fact he looks like a skull with skin colored plastic stretched around it to the breaking point; considering the fact he has dead fucking eyes sunken into his face; considering the fact he's less than half the man he used to be — but instead she smiles at him as he sits down across from her.
"Happiness can do that to a person," she responds. "It's obvious hopelessness can too."
"Who is he?" Lucius asks, bitterness and jealousy slithering within the sound.
She blinks blankly back at him. It's funny because it's partly true... it's just beside the point.
"Our son is just fine, Lucius. No thanks to you."
He has the good sense to flinch. "I had no choice," he hisses angrily.
"You always had a choice. You stopped choosing him... and me." Narcissa takes a deep breath and places her hands on the table between them to center herself. It's the first time he's seen her hands, having been placed daintily in her lap before.
He gawks at the sight of them, naked. "You have a duty to me," he demands, angered at the sight of her without her wedding band, without his mark on her.
She stands suddenly, using her hands to lean over Lucius. "And you had a duty to me. I'm going to the Ministry to get our marriage bonds severed. I thought you ought to know."
Narcissa straightens, turning on her heel and ignoring the indignant arguments hitting her back. She'd been worried about coming here, worried it would stir old emotions in her heart or that she might find sympathy for her husband... her soon to be ex husband. She'd been nervous about the idea of a divorce. She hadn't even made that decision when she decided to come here. She realizes some small part of her had held out hope he might've changed — or returned to what he once was.
Her self doubt is quiet now as she passes the guards of Azkaban to retrieve her wand from the warden. The man she fell in love with all those years ago had died when Voldemort was reborn, and he remained steadfast in his choices, absorbed in his own ego and pride, even after Voldemort was destroyed.
Narcissa listens eagerly to the dispute amongst the Order members. She watches Remus intently as he navigates the discussion like a mediator. Finally, as the sound of passionate, strong-headed fighters grows to a breaking point, Remus steps in.
"We'll go at them from the front as Kingsley suggests," he says confidently, and the dark-skinned wizard nods in recognition.
Affection thrums through her as Narcissa watches the rest of the Order begrudgingly agree, putting their own opinions aside in favor of a unified plan.
"Go in offensively, but fight defensively," she says without thinking, a surge of inspiration coursing through her after seeing Remus take charge.
Every pair of eyes in the room falls on her. She's never spoken up during Order meetings before and is only allowed in because of the various oaths she's taken after defecting.
"Defense is light magic, and it physically agitates them to be around it," she continues, taking a deep breath to solidify her confidence. "Take Yaxley, for instance," she says, pointing to the board that levitates above the table they're all huddled around. The blob with his name on it sits amongst the names of other Death Eaters on one side, while a sea of Order members are designated on the other side. "He favors his left side. Parry twice to the left, once to the right, and he'll go back to his left again, so send a stunner to his right hip, and he'll be done."
Narcissa glances up once more to find all eyes on her still, this group of people who never would've listened to her a few months ago now hang on her every word. She realizes suddenly that she's been hoarding this information for much longer than the few days before Draco's attack.
"Alecto," she says, turning her thoughts back to the board, "stays just half a step in front of her brother on this side." The blobs that indicate the Carrow twins shift according to her words right before their eyes. "Throw your spell under hers, and blast her off her feet. She'll take her brother down with her."
Narcissa continues, giving the Order crucial strategic information for nearly an hour before finally dispersing. She can feel Remus following her as she heads toward the Floo.
He catches her before she can grasp a handful of the dark powder.
"Narcissa."
His voice makes her turn, and she smiles up at him as he comes closer.
"That was brilliant, truly. Thank you. Your knowledge is invaluable."
Narcissa dips her head, unable to keep his intense gaze. "Honestly, Remus, I'm glad because that's how I feel about you helping my son. I don't know how to thank you."
He cups his fingers beneath her chin and lifts her face up. "You've done more than enough to thank me, and I'm more than glad to help," he says earnestly, and her heart flutters at the sight of the spark in his eyes.
His gaze drops to her mouth, and she licks her lower lip instinctively, watching him as he follows the motion with his dilated pupils.
"I —" he says, but she interrupts him.
"I really should get going."
He clears his throat as she takes a step back toward the jar of Floo powder. Remus runs his hand through the back of his hair. "Yeah, it's been a long night."
"Goodnight, Remus."
"Goodnight, Narcissa."
She wonders as she steps into the fireplace what it would've felt like to kiss him. She brushes away the small voice in the back of her mind that wonders if this night, before what could be the final battle in this war, might have been her last chance to find out.
It's not that easy
But I've got high hopes
When you let it go, go out and start again
"Remus Lupin, when I first met you, I told you that it felt like everything I knew was finished. That might have been partly true, but what I didn't know then was that everything I needed was just beginning."
The sun shines, warming Narcissa's skin as she stands in front of Remus. Draco is at her side, and Harry is standing at his. A small group of friends and family are there as these two people who should never have met in the first place vow their lives and magic to each other.
She never imagined this kind of happiness for herself. Once Voldemort returned, her hope for the future was shattered. But over time, Remus put the pieces back together and helped her build something completely new and exciting.
He helped her and her son at a time most people wouldn't have, showed her compassion when even she didn't believe she deserved it.
A werewolf and the ex wife of a Death Eater shouldn't fit, but somehow their pain brought them together. The war and constant threat of death only served to accelerate feelings that would've taken Narcissa years to come to terms with under any kind of normal circumstance. They both had grown so much during the war and the year that followed.
Though they had both lost so much in different ways, Narcissa knows that they found each other too, and that made it all feel like the pain they suffered was in part worth it. He would never get James and Lily back from the wrong end of Voldemort's wand, or Peter's friendship cleared of betrayal, or know what Sirius would think of Remus marrying his cousin from beyond the veil.
She would never be able to take away the curse that pulsed through her son's veins, or take back her action and inaction that allowed such a thing to occur. She could not repair her marriage or layer herself behind decades of racism and bigotry to keep herself comfortable. She will always have started on the wrong side of the war. Her complicity in atrocities committed in Voldemort's name can never be wiped away.
But in each other, they found hope.
As she finishes her vows, Remus reaches out to brush the tear that's fallen onto her cheek. She smiles at the gesture and stares into his eyes sparkling with happiness, Narcissa knows that despite the many mistakes she made in her life, this act was not one of them.
She slips into his room the way sunlight peeks through his bedroom curtains in the morning, vanishing the shadows and demons.
He tries not to wince as he sits up in bed to greet her, but the strain that seeps into her smile shows him he's unsuccessful.
"Where does it hurt?" she asks quietly as she sits delicately on the edge of his mattress, a cup of steaming tea lowers itself from its place above her shoulder onto his bedside table.
"Everywhere," he admits with a sigh, unable to meet her empathetic gaze as she pulls a jar of cream from her robes and slowly twists off the lid.
He melts into his mattress when she begins to rub the soothing lotion on his shoulders where the bandages end and his skin begins. His eyes flutter closed, and he has only half a mind to ponder how much of the effect comes from the cream itself and how much comes from the woman slathering it across his aching body.
"What is that?"
"A potion Draco's grandmother created for her husband after The Dark Lord would punish him. The cruciatus curse is as damaging to the body as your own curse. This doesn't work well on Draco, though, I'll have to keep looking."
Remus stares agape. "Why... why does it work on me then do you think?"
"Transforming is torture for you. Draco has in some way accepted his fate. You help my son with such compassion yet you still look in the mirror and see a monster."
Remus looks away, and Narcissa pulls his face back to hers, locking her eyes with his own.
She doesn't flinch, doesn't change in demeanor at all, but it's not the infamous pureblood mask that covers her true fear. No. She's not afraid.
"You should know as much as the rest of us that humanity can be more monstrous than any magical creature. After all, it was no werewolf who murdered your best friends."
He doesn't know how to answer her. He's been dealing with the werewolf inside of him for nearly his entire life, yet Draco's two months as one has brought her more clarity than he could've ever hoped for on his own.
"It's who I am," he insists, still unable to meet her eyes, knowing the understanding they'll hold.
"It is not who you are. Tom Riddle was brilliant, just as Merlin before him. It's not that they were brilliant that made them who they were. It's how they used that brilliance. Hell, Fleamont Potter was brilliant and instead of being evil, he created a potion to help tame horrible hair."
Remus can't help it; he snickers at the way she delivers such a ridiculous line so seriously.
"You are a werewolf, but you are no more a monster than I. I who watched her husband take the wrong path and did nothing to stop him. I who let her son be used as a pawn in this wicked game and did nothing. It took my son nearly dying before I could choose him over my own ego, the need to portray a picture perfect family to the world even as it collapsed around me."
He finally meets her gaze now as he cups his hand over hers, stilling it from rubbing more salve into the muscles along his chest. Her breath hitches in her throat at the touch and what Remus finds in her eyes is enough to awaken the werewolf inside of him.
For once, the man and what he considers to be the monster within agree on something with singular intensity. The harmony spurs him forward, and his hand runs along the skin of her arm and across her shoulder to the back of her neck. He pulls her down a little so that he can meet her in the middle. Her breath is coming out in shaky spurts as she looks at him with a question in her eyes.
"You are not a monster, Narcissa," he says firmly.
"Neither are you, Remus."
The werewolf roars inside him, pushing him to take her lips, and for once, the beast doesn't scare him all that much.
Little moans escape Narcissa's lips as their mouths dance together, and he draws strength from that which he once feared so that he can lift her over him and roll them so that he rests atop her body. Never has he felt so energized after a full moon, but feeling whole lights a fire in his bones.
"Remus, we can't —"
She pulls their mouths apart and pushes against his chest so that he's higher above her.
"Do you want this?"
"What?"
"Do you want me?" Remus asks with a confidence he didn't know he possessed.
"Yes," she responds breathlessly, "but my —"
He cuts her off by crashing his lips against hers once more. "Do what you want," Remus says as he breaks their kiss and traverses the plains of her skin, down her neck and across her collarbone, "without overthinking it, for once."
His hands search for the hem of her dress and bunch the fabric against her hips. Her last half-hearted protest dies on her lips as he trails his fingers along the dampness of her knickers.
"What do you want, Narcissa?" he asks, watching as her face contorts with pleasure when his fingers push the fabric away and tentatively begin an exploration of her body.
"You, Remus. I want you."
It's all the permission he needs.