Greetings, all. I was indulging in some Lucissa the other day (and had previously been drooling over Lucius in CoS :D) and felt inspired!
Plus, as this is just one chapter making up one short story there is no danger of being caught up in unfinished stories! # '_' #
Just in case the world was not aware: Lucius, Narcissa and Draco Malfoy owe their fictional existence to their respective owner, J.K. Rowling.
This just a bit of soppy Lucius/Narcissa fluffy drabble taking place not long after the battle of Hogwarts, when they arrive back home to see what has been left - nothing at all offensive - unless you don't like Lucissa! :)
At Least We Have Each Other
Narcissa Malfoy stood still, her arms limp by her sides, her hair tumbling down and falling around her face. Her eyes were focused on a spot far in the distance; she did not appear to have noticed the world around her.
Her son stood along side her. His eyes darted across the floor, his lip curling and quivering. He then looked towards his mother, who remained staring far ahead of her.
Her gaze finally flickered when a figure further ahead moved into her vision. She looked up at the splintered swirling railing forming the remains of her first floor banister, and watched the figure come to a halt. The moment the figure's eyes met hers, Narcissa finally had to look away. The new focus of her gaze happened to be a fragment of broken bevelled glass. She bent down, scooped up the chunk of glass and gingerly placed it in the palm of her hand. She ran her finger over the sharp edge as it caught the light from the slowly rising sun.
"I don't think that was from anything valuable, was it?" came a shakey voice from by her side. "I - I think it was just from an upstairs window." He watched his mother run a finger over the sharp edge once more. It suddenly split into her skin, piercing along her finger forming a slow trickle of blood. "Mum?"
Droplets of blood began to patter onto the floor. When his mother remained standing still, watching the blood run from her finger without resistant, he rushed right up beside her and took hold of her punctured hand.
"Mum, don't - I can fix it. I can -" Draco rummaged with his spare hand to grapple inside his cloak, only to remember he was no longer in possession of a wand. He instead clutched her hand within both of his, holding them up against gravity to attempt to reduce the blood flow. Narcissa tried to resist him, forcing her hands back down to face the floor. Blood continued to trail down her hand and onto the cluttered floor, now running over Draco's hands as well. "No, Mum, don't," Draco protested. But it sounded more like a shaking plea.
He looked up from her hand to her face and saw her lips begin to tremble, her eyebrows to quiver and her eyes to well with tears. Then, without warning, her knees gave way, her head bowed down, and she slowly collapsed down to the floor, dragging Draco down with her who stumbled down to his knees.
All the while, the tall figure on the landing gazed down upon the two of them. He then looked away to take in the room around them. Slabs of stone, heaps of timber, shards of glass, chunks of furniture and streams of torn upholstery rested upon the ground, already collecting a coating of dust and ash. The final remains of fire damage lingered in the cold morning air as a smokey cloud circling slowly around the ceiling. The grand chandelier which once hung proudly over the dining table now sat beneath rubble, and stones from the fireplace were scattered across the floor in granuals. Malfoy Manor had been destroyed.
Lucius breathed in slowly, loosening his grip on the banister, and focused back on his wife and son, who were half crouching, half crumbled amongst the ruins. Slowly, he made his way down the wide, rattling staircase and strode through the ruins and rubble until he reached his wife and son.
Immediately Draco shuffled and made to stand up. He hooked his arms around Narcissa, who remained coiled over, in the hopes of lifting her up to stand eye to eye with her husband. He looked up at his father, unabled to decipher his expression.
Then, just as Draco rose fully to his feet to stand before his father, Lucius bent down and knelt opposite Narcissa. Without speaking, he scooped up her limp hands to hold them within his own. He brushed two fingers over where the blade of glass had cut into her finger. His fingers ran over hers once more, before they both slowly looked up until their eyes met.
For the second time in her life, Narcissa saw fear radiate from Lucius's eyes. It was not a fear of what was certain, inevitable or inescapable; but a fear of the uncertain and the unkown. Once again, the Malfoys had seen the Dark Lord fall from power and consequently seen the fate of their family thrust into danger. Only, this time, there was no means of escape from punishment or banishment from the surviving wizarding world. And, this time, there was no lavish lifestyle or magnificent manor to return to. All that remained of the Malfoy's home was a mass or ruins and rubble.
Who or what had specifically initiated such a vicious demolition of their home, Lucius was uncertain of. Whether it was an act performed by the Order to search and dismantle their house, or whether it was simply a result of the collapse of the Dark Lord and his power, all Lucius knew was that just around two years ago they had everything - and now - they had nothing.
Narcissa looked away from her husband and stared around above Lucius, taking in the holes up in the high ceiling, allowing trickles of dust and fine, misty rays of bleak sunlight to rain down upon the two of them. She looked all around the floor, recognising chunks and shards of her perfectly kept home swimming around her like a cold, dead ocean. Draco remained standing, watching his parents with wide shining eyes, conscious of the growing feeling that he was suddenly an intruder upon this unguarded moment between his parents. He shuffled from one foot to the other as Lucius and Narcissa remained silent, their hands clasped, kneeling down oppposite each other.
"Is this it?" Narcissa whispered, now gazing down at Lucius's hands as they cupped hers. "Is this all we have left?"
Lucius looked up at the crumbling ceiling, looking up through to the next two floors and up through the roof to the small patch of murky sky. At that moment, in the far distance past the glass-less windows in the walls, the feeble sun emerged from behind a mass of forest and trees, casting a weak light across the side of Narcissa's face. A fresh tear drop started to roll down her cheek. He lifted his hand and brushed it away with his thumb.
"I'm sorry, Narcissa," he replied in a soft, broken voice.
Draco took a step back and turned away; somehow it was not the sight of his only home falling down, but the vision of his parents finally falling down that caused him the most pain. He didn't want to stand there listening to the sound of crumbling brick work, the stark whistling breeze and his mother weeping. Helplessly he ran to where his front door once proudly stood, clutched the cold stone doorway and looked out upon the forests and woodlands coating the mountains that framed the horizon. He did not dare look back at his mother and father for fear of collapsing himself.
Back behind him, amongst the remains of the main dining room, Lucius remained cupping Narcissa's cheek. A second bead of water tumbled down her cheek, her face crumpled all over again and she keeled forwards. Lucius released her hands and widened his arms to wrap them around her and hold her against him. He pulled her in closer, and she finally unfolded her arms to bring them around his shoulders. She emitted another breathless sob into his shoulder.
"We've lost everything," she sobbed, "everything, Lucius." She sniffed. "There's nothing left for us anymore - nothing."
"Shhh," Lucius tried to hush her, stroking over her hair.
"But it's true!" she cried. "This is all we've been left with. There's nothing left for you, there's nothing left for me, there's nothing left for Dra-" she cut off, sniffling and swallowing, overwhelmed by all her tears.
Lucius held her upright and looked her right in the eye. "That's not true, I haven't been completely left with nothing." He paused. "I still have you," he brushed his hand across her cheek once more.
Narcissa blinked, a lump rising in her throat, her eyes starting to sting once again. "But, what if that's not enough?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
For the first time in almost two years a small smile passed over Lucius's grey, etched face. He stroked his hands along the sides of her face and leaned in closer. He paused for a moment, their eyes meeting each other, then delicately pressed a kiss upon her lips.
Just as he made to pull away, Narcissa's arms rose up to wrap tightly around his neck and press herself back up against him, wanting just for a moment to wipe the ruins of their home all away for the world to be nothing but the two of them together - just as it was all those years ago on the brink of the Dark Lord's first demise. And for a short, precious moment, Lucius held her in his arms, his fingers scrunched and tangled in her hair, his lips against hers, with the sun shining down upon them, and Narcissa's world was perfect once more.
Lucius broke away from Narcissa's parted lips, then brushed her hair out of her eyes and looked back into them with a newly found fierce determination. "And you still have me. And you'll always have me."
Narcissa's heart swelled within her chest, fluttering as it had decades ago when she was just a teenage girl at Hogwarts, the same way it did every now and then when her husband's cold barriers were broken down and the wizarding world was made up of nobody but the two of them.
"Always?"
"Al-" Narcissa's hands slipped around his jaw and neck and kissed him once more, not allowing him the chance to reply. And with that, she let Lucius take her hands within his, and they rose to their feet together. Slowly, they stepped through the stone and rubble to join Draco in the doorway. Narcissa raised her free hand to clasp hold of Draco's, whilst on his opposite side Lucius placed a hand on his shoulder.
Together, as a family, they looked upon the brightening horizon, watching the sun coat a glaze of light over the distant mountains and trees. At least now, no matter which direction they chose to step forward, Narcissa knew they would take it together.
At least, despite all their losses, they still had each other.