A/N: This will be a series of three drabbles centered on the Malfoys, because honestly, could anyone read HBP and not be fascinated by them?
Also, the title is not mine. I actually got it from a friend's icon, so I think it's from the musical Wicked, which, like HP and related characters, belongs to someone far cooler than me.
Weakness
He failed.
Two words, she muses now, and three days have passed (a horrid number, three; she's always despised it), and she can't remember breathing since. She supposes she must have eaten, as she does not feel weak – though she doubts she would recognize the feeling – but she cannot recognize sweet or bitter; for her, all the world is ash and gray.
But it's all right, Bellatrix had told her, the deed had been done anyway.
She did not understand how there could be triumph in her sister's voice.
And – and my son? She had not been able to speak his name. Not then.
The Dark Lord will find him. The Dark Lord always finds what he seeks.
What will happen to him? Narcissa had been glad when the tremor left her voice.
Don't think about him, Bellatrix had said sternly.
He's my son.
There is no room for love among the Death Eaters. It is a weakness.
She will not be alone for long; her husband will break out soon. She cannot explain how she knows this, nor can she explain why the thought does not calm her. He will be ashamed of her son – their son, she corrects herself, though it takes a moment's pause – and she cannot bear this thought. When they see him again – she refuses to entertain the word if – there will be revulsion in his eyes. His only son, but Lucius had always been an excellent Death Eater.
She suspects that love will be the Dark Lord's undoing, though again she cannot say how or why. She does not share her sister's assumption of weakness, though she would never dare to say so out loud. But he is her son, in darkness or in light, even with the shadows so heavy now.