Title: A War Wrought with Regret
Beta: CleopatraIsMyName
Word Count: About 1500
Rating: G/K
Prompts/Challenges: Written for season two, round seven of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition (reserve keeper for the Kenmare Kestrals; the fragment of Voldemort that was restored in book four) and the Favorite Era Boot Camp challenge (#8, Window).
Disclaimer: This work of fiction is in no way connected to the author of Harry Potter, JK Rowling. Harry Potter is owned by her, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
The day her husband had left with his mask replaced upon his face, Narcissa worried.
It was past midnight, and her husband still hadn't come home.
Narcissa settled restlessly on the couch within their joint suite, a lukewarm cup of tea held in both her hands. Hesitantly, she placed the cup back down on its saucer, picking up her wand and vanishing what remained of the long-gone-bad tea. The cup back in her grasp, she peered into it.
Despite how little she believed in the unreliable magics of Divination, she also believed in the ability to be born with specially attuned senses of danger and disquiet. The Blacks had been a long line of Dark witches, one of the only Original families still surviving; though, surviving wasn't a word she would ever use, in reality. Dying out, it was more like.
She recognised the signs in her cup and breathed in deeply, staving off her sadness. Now wasn't the time to panic. For Lucius would come home moderately safe, and her son would be out-of-reach of the Dark Lord's well-meaning, if drastic, measures.
But how does one unsee the marks of the Grimm within their cup?
A crack of Apparition sounded just behind the chaise, and she immediately stood from her seated position and spun about. Despite herself, she let out a disbelieving gasp.
Her husband clutched blindly at his left side with a grimace, out of place on a normally calm and cool visage. His body shook and trembled, and he seemed to be leaning on his cane rather than using it as the tool of intimidation it represented.
Narcissa strode forward and took him by his right arm, slowly taking him to the chaise she had recently vacated.
"Lucius?" she questioned quietly, her wand moving in familiar motions, no longer needing to even think as she cast the necessary spells to relieve her husband of some of the effects of the Cruciatus: a few healing charms aimed for any weakened bones, cuts that hadn't yet clotted, and the inevitable muscle and nerve damage. She would have to restock her potions supply again, if this was what would await her in the coming weeks.
"Narcissa," he inhaled noisily in deeply, releasing a raspy breath. That wasn't a good sign. His grey eyes suddenly met hers, and with a whisper of a voice, he stated, "He's back."
And though Narcissa had just been contemplating the future, she was still bewildered. He'd captured Potter? He'd return from the shell of a creature he'd been before, nestled within that abomination of a living receptacle? He was finally a full wizard, again?
Was her family no longer safe from the horrors of a war that could neither be won nor lost?
She shoved her conflicting emotions into a box at the back of her mind, not wanting yet to deal with the full impact of everything her husband had managed to convey within two simple words.
With a nod, she planned.
Several months later following the reappearance of her Lord, Narcissa paced back and forth within her own private chambers, wringing her hands in an unusual show of desperation.
It would seem the man she and her husband had both joined faithfully was no longer as he once was. In contrast to his other goals - the radical ones that spoke of superiority and whispered of power and vengeance - the Dark Lord was a mere husk of his former self. His mad rambles were ones, as divulged by her husband, focussed solely on Harry Potter. And to think, Harry Potter was merely a boy, a simple nuisance that could be gone with a snap of even her fingers.
One needn't be a genius to plot the death of a schoolboy who still resorted to Muggle means with her Draco.
Draco. What was she to do now that the idea of the Dark Lord coming back was no longer a thought, but now a reality? Who could she turn to? Was it even safe to leave her Manor, anymore?
What was she to do?
Narcissa Malfoy née Black was not one used to running about with her hands wedged in her hair, seconds from nearly pulling the strands out by their roots. She planned quietly, and with a satisfaction that matched the brilliance of her most devious of machinations.
No, she would find a way for them to come out alive. One way or another. And if that meant shipping her son across the seas to Beauxbatons, then ship him she shall.
Coming to a halt in front of her window, overlooking the grounds of the Manor with a shining moon hung low in the sky, stars twinkling as they burned with what could be seen as the furiousness for which she protected and loved, her thoughts meandered through the past several years of constant battle, strife, and the fear of her husband leaving for one night, but not returning the next.
When the first war had come about, the Dark Lord had been eradicated when he'd gone after a baby, just a few weeks younger than her own Draco. And while she couldn't readily believe that it could ever happen again - for He had dozens of faithful witches and wizards at his command not just for his impressive way with words - she didn't yet know how she was going to use the cards she had been dealt.
But one didn't just stray from all they believed because of a single concern that could double as an irrational fear. All her doubts were without much foundation, if any. However, one must always plan for all possibilities. The future didn't remain the same because a witch stayed at point A and eventually strode to point B. No, a witch had to do all she could to make sure she came out smelling of the sweetest of flowers.
It may be time for her to start preparing herself for both outcomes: the Dark Lord either won, or the Light.
She could only hope the blood traitors and scum of the wizarding world wouldn't win. She didn't know if she could live with the latter outcome, in any future, of any time period.
Sitting down at her desk, she laid out parchment, quill, inkwell, and set to writing.
Dear Severus...
The day the Dark Lord settled within Malfoy Manor, she knew naught of what to do. He reeked of the most foul of Dark magics, and his presence alone caused a dreary gloom to settle upon the formerly pristine, white marbled staircase. She, at once, knew that she never wanted her son to be near the creature who was once a proud, handsome man; what remained was not a wizard. It was a being of hatred, evil personified.
She carefully shielded the trembling of her hands, greeting him with a curtsey and the bowing of her proud head. She could feel him stride in closer, footfalls echoing down the vast corridor.
And though she had thought he would touch her or speak to her, his attention was immediately taken in by another.
"Young Malfoy," he spoke slickly. She was overcome with the urge to vomit. Her precious son. She clenched her fists for but a split second before relaxing them behind her back. "And how are you doing?"
The ironic tone of his voice made her shudder in fear. All she wanted was to stand in front of her Draco and scream at him to flee, to never come back, to sacrifice what her husband claimed to be the "Good of the Family" - what she, herself, had believed to be true before she had seen the man in his new form with her own two eyes - and protect himself from the decisions they had made, but chosen wrongly.
But this wizard, he would surely win their war. Their war of ages. Of histories and feuds and anger and death. He would surely take the great power he exuded from every centimetre of skin, the great power that slid over his skin as slickly as his voice felt plunging into your ears, and reform the society that once used to be great?
With every fibre of her being, she stood alone, and regretted.
The day the Dark Lord had finally perished, she knelt next to her baby boy, skin gaunt with the reflections of the unspeakable horrors he shouldn't have been witness to, let alone participated in, and embraced him with all the strength that remained within her.
And when Harry Potter spoke up at their inevitable trials and they were offered leniency unexpected for a family who had hosted the Dark Lord within the grounds of their home, she thanked the Gods above, with all her heart, for casting Mercy where it needn't had done so.
For now she understood that a war of ideals wasn't a war, but a massacre that took no prisoners.
Author's Note:
Hopefully, this made sense O_o