Author's Note: Hi everybody. I'm sorry it's been so long since I last existed on FFN. To make a long story short, my life has been too crazy to keep up with all of my commitments, and between graduate school (I have one more year until I get my master's in fiction), teaching, writing and publishing my own original fiction, and taking care of my elderly grandparents (my grandpa passed in March, so that's also complicated things, to put it lightly), I ran out of brain power to keep up with my fics. I'm very sorry for vanishing. With that said, I have missed these stories immensely, and I have decided to bring back LIO and some others, and I also have a new fic idea that I've been wanting to put down in words for a long time. So welcome back to my Malfoyverse, and please bear with me while I get things put in place. x
Chapter One: Alone
"I'll be home in no time. I won't let him keep me from you."
The words repeated in a loop through Narcissa's mind, tormenting her. Lucius had spoken them hours ago, and she'd wanted to believe him. Now, as she sat at her dresser in the dying candlelight, staring at the half-empty glass of wine she'd left there to avoid spilling it while she'd been thoroughly distracted by his kiss, she was beginning to lose hope.
She'd been too frustrated to say anything when he'd apologized for having to leave her. She'd lain still and stared at the ceiling, refusing to let him see how upset she was as he'd kissed her once more and then pulled away to get dressed.
This war was supposed to be over.
It was supposed to have ended fifteen years ago. When the Dark Lord had fallen, Lucius and Narcissa had been able to return to their lives, though not without a bit of difficulty and a lot of political persuasion. Narcissa had never liked lying, but when it was necessary to protect the people she loved, she could do it as easily as slipping on a smile. Of course Lucius had only served the Dark Lord under the influence of the Imperius Curse. Of course the Ministry had nothing to fear.
These lies had ensured that he could remain with her, could remain safe and be around to watch Draco grow. After so long waiting and so many heartbreaking attempts at starting a family, they had finally been blessed with a son, and with the Dark Lord gone, they would be able to raise him together. Lucius had even managed to find work at the Ministry and expand his network of political connections.
Everything should've been fine.
But it wasn't.
Narcissa had almost convinced herself that her family would continue to live in peace as Draco progressed in his schooling at Hogwarts. At the end of his fourth year, however, the Dark Lord had returned to demand the allegiance of everyone he'd left behind so long ago and make very clear his displeasure with those who had not, in his opinion, tried hard enough to find him. This included Lucius, whose denial of loyalty had not earned him favor. Over the next year, he had worked diligently to earn that favor back, and now, he was once again the Dark Lord's right-hand man.
The mission Lucius had departed on tonight was one Narcissa had known was coming for quite a while. The Dark Lord wanted to obtain a prophecy from the Department of Mysteries, and he needed Harry Potter to retrieve it for him. Lucius was to lead the group of Death Eaters who would be waiting to ensure that Potter did as he was supposed to and that the plan succeeded. Even Narcissa had played a role in it, not that she embraced that knowledge. She tried hard not to think about what might happen to her cousin, now that she'd let slip how close Sirius was with Potter, which she'd heard from the elf Kreacher. Sirius had betrayed the Black family, yes, and Narcissa had yet to forgive him for abandoning her. As children, they'd played together, and when he'd started Hogwarts four years after she had, Narcissa had done her best to make her cousin feel safe and welcome at the school. He'd repaid her by falling in with a group of his fellow Gryffindors who had a particular distaste for anyone in Slytherin, and soon after, he'd chosen these people over his family.
Though she would never have admitted it to anyone but Lucius, Narcissa found she couldn't entirely blame Sirius for wanting a life apart from that offered by the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. If his parents had treated him anything like Narcissa's had treated her and her sisters, perhaps getting away from them had been the only way for Sirius to feel safe. Narcissa had barely endured her own; she'd thought wistfully of leaving home many times in her teenage years, but she'd held on. Then she'd had Lucius to run to, and everything had become exponentially better. He was her light in the darkness, and she was his.
If betraying the trust of the cousin who had betrayed hers would help to keep her husband in good standing with the man who often killed the followers who displeased him, Narcissa hadn't seen herself having much of a choice. She hoped Sirius would forgive her, but he was not her primary concern.
"Where are you?" she muttered, moving the wineglass over a centimeter with her fingertip and watching its contents ripple. Tonight was supposed to have been peaceful. Soon, Draco would be home from school for the summer holidays, and time alone with Lucius would be much more difficult to come by. Tonight, in an effort to take advantage of the time they did still have, Lucius had taken Narcissa to supper at her favorite restaurant, and then they'd returned home, where they'd been for less than an hour when he had received the summons to embark on his latest task.
Narcissa shivered. She was still wearing the dark red corset Lucius had bought her for her birthday in February as well as her undergarments and little else. After the second hour of waiting, she'd pulled on a white satin robe, as the candles hadn't been nearly enough to keep her warm.
"I won't let him keep me from you."
Could you ever stop him from doing that? she asked Lucius mentally. She knew he meant every promise he made to her, and she appreciated that more than she knew how to express. She'd been lied to and manipulated by everyone from her own parents to people she'd believed were her friends over the years, but not by Lucius. The only lies he told her were ones of omission when he knew she didn't really want to know what he had been doing with the Death Eaters and the occasional, mostly harmless "I'm fine, really" that he knew better than to think she would actually believe and would eventually admit was false, allowing her to assess and treat his injuries. Apart from that, he was always sincere with her. She knew he'd wanted to spend the evening in her arms, and she'd seen in his eyes that he'd been as reluctant to leave as she had been to let him go.
"I should've said something," she breathed now, shaking her head as she watched the candle sitting beside her hairbrush flicker out, darkening the room as only a few were left burning. "It wasn't your fault."
She never let him leave without assuring him that she would be waiting, ready to welcome him home and bombard him with questions about his well-being. She always said "I love you" too many times as he left, wanting to make sure he knew—to make sure he didn't think she blamed him for having to go and that no matter what he did while he was gone, nothing would change. She would love him just the same. This time, she'd said the words, but they'd been so quiet that she wasn't certain if he'd heard them on his way out the door while she'd been fighting hard to keep herself together. Otherwise, she hadn't said a word after his Mark had begun to burn.
He knows it's not him I'm angry with. He has to. …Right?
She'd told him as much hundreds of times, had assured him endlessly that she knew that whatever reasons had motivated him to join the Dark Lord in the first place, it was no longer a matter of choice to serve. Lucius had been happy with the life he'd had while the Dark Lord was gone—with just himself and her and Draco and whatever they chose to make of themselves. Narcissa knew he wouldn't have traded it in for a renewed contract of servitude and the constant threat of danger and death if he'd seen another option.
The familiar roar of flames sounded from downstairs.
Her heart leaping into her throat, Narcissa stood so quickly she knocked her chair to the carpet. She left it lying there and quickly tied the sash of her robe, hurrying out the bedroom door and down the corridor.
"You had me so worried," she called as she descended the steps, nearly tripping over her bare feet in her rush. The Manor was dark apart from a few scattered lanterns still soldiering on, but the moment she caught sight of the figure standing beside the fireplace in the foyer that had gone dormant again after being used for transportation, she recognized that the shape was not her husband's.
"Bella?" Narcissa breathed. Her sister stood staring into the empty fireplace, her dark hair in disarray and her posture tense. "What's happened? Where's Lucius?"
"He's not coming."
Narcissa froze. Her stomach turned sickeningly, and her body went rigid. "What?"
"He failed the Dark Lord." Bellatrix faced her sister at last, her lips set in a thin line. "He should've let me attack them, and if he had—"
"What happened?" Narcissa demanded, taking a step toward Bellatrix with fire in her eyes.
"He got himself arrested!" cried Bellatrix. "Along with the rest of them!"
A wave of conflicted emotions crashed hard over Narcissa, nearly knocking her to the marble floor. Arrested. For years, she'd dreaded hearing this. She'd been plagued by nightmares in which she awaited Lucius's return only to have Aurors show up at the door to inform her that they'd finally realized where his loyalty lay. The thought of Lucius in prison, in Azkaban, surrounded by dementors… it was enough to crush the air from Narcissa's lungs. She reached out for the nearest chair—the high-backed red one that was her husband's favorite—and gripped it tight to keep herself steady.
She'd always known this was a very real possibility. The thought had always lingered at the edge of her mind each time he'd walked out the door to do something for the Dark Lord, but somehow, she had always managed to keep herself from accepting it. Lucius would not allow himself to be captured, she'd told herself. Of course not.
Now that he had, she was torn between devastation and overwhelming, all-consuming relief. When Bellatrix had said he wasn't coming, arrest had not been the first thought to flit through Narcissa's mind. For a moment, she had been possessed by a terror unlike anything she'd ever experienced before. She had feared for Lucius's life on more occasions than she could count, but each of these times, he'd been the one to return to her. She'd seen that he was all right—often injured, but always in one piece—and her mind had been eased. This time, the wrong person had come home, and the words Bellatrix had used seemed to have been chosen specifically to give Narcissa the wrong impression.
Narcissa let out a long sigh, her hands tightening on the back of the chair as she stared at her sister. "Why are you here, Bella?"
"Someone needed to tell you." Bellatrix shrugged. "The Ministry is keeping them all in custody until the senten—"
"I mean, why are you here and the rest are in custody?" Narcissa pressed. She seldom raised her voice to Bellatrix, but her patience was wearing thin, her chest heaving as she fought to keep the words from coming out in a scream. "Why are you here while my husband isn't?"
"The Dark Lord saved me." Bellatrix's face was as haughty as it had ever been, but Narcissa thought she detected the edge of hurt in her sister's eyes at the question. "Lucius split us into groups and everything went all to hell, and after I killed Sirius, I followed—"
"After you what?" Narcissa felt as though she had been doused in cold water. There was no way she had heard that correctly. She knew her sister placed no value on the lives of most other people, but surely Bellatrix had her limits. Killing a family member was cold even for her.
The elder sister shrugged, her expression impassive. "Figured Dumbledore wouldn't like that, and it certainly got a rise out of that half-blood Potter."
"You… you killed our cousin." Narcissa didn't bother phrasing the words as a question. She realized she had been foolish to doubt Bellatrix capable of something like this. Of course she had done it. It was, she reasoned, more shocking that she hadn't done it sooner.
Well, now Sirius can't forgive me.
"Our traitor of a cousin, let me remind you." Bellatrix stepped forward and reached for Narcissa's shoulder, and the younger witch shrugged out of her sister's grip with an unconcealed shudder. "And after I did, I tried to draw Potter away from his little friends and get him alone, and the Dark Lord arrived."
"And where was Lucius?"
"With the rest of them, fighting Dumbledore and his people."
"And you didn't go back? You didn't even try?"
"I didn't have the chance, Cissy!" Bellatrix threw up her hands. "The Dark Lord took me with him when he left! You think I stuck around to see them all get arrested? I only know what happened because we've a few connections in Fudge's office still and they reported to our master after it was all over."
"Your master," snarled Narcissa.
Bellatrix rolled her eyes. "Now isn't the time for you to disrespect him, Cissy. He's very unhappy."
"Let him come and find me, then, and we'll see which of us is unhappier." In theory, Narcissa knew speaking of the Dark Lord like this to Bellatrix was probably one of the worst ideas she'd had in recent memory, but she didn't care. The man had once again found a way to tear her life apart, just when she'd almost believed things would be all right.
"I'm going to pretend," said Bellatrix slowly, "that I'm not hearing any of this. For your sake. But you need to know that the Dark Lord believes Lucius is at fault for this. He was supposed to lead us to the prophecy and ensure that we retrieved it."
"You said 'Dumbledore's people.' Are you talking about the Order?"
"I thought they were gone, but it seemed like—"
Narcissa cut her sister off. "And the Dark Lord expected Lucius to be able to stop all of them?" She laughed coldly. "Probably outnumbered and with no warning that Dumbledore himself would be part of the fight? That's lunacy."
"I should've been in charge." Bellatrix's nostrils flared, and she folded her arms over her chest. "I wouldn't have let this happen."
The Manor was silent for several moments as Narcissa stared at her sister, her eyes narrowed venomously. When she spoke at last, her voice was firm.
"Get out."
Bellatrix blinked. "And go where? They got Rodolphus, too, and the Dark Lord doesn't particularly want me to—"
"I don't care right now, Bella. If you're going to speak ill of my husband, I want you out of my house."
Bellatrix's jaw tightened. She stood still for a few seconds, looking as though she wanted either to say something biting or fire some sort of curse, but then she turned on her heel and strode out the front door, slamming it behind her without another word.
Trembling, Narcissa made her way around the chair to drop into it slowly, drawing her knees up to her chest and staring into the empty fireplace as she began to weep. She would not accept this. She would make her way to the Ministry at first light and plead her case and do whatever she had to in order to ensure her husband's freedom.
Until then, she knew she would be able to do little more than sit here and scream at herself in her mind for not speaking more loudly when she'd said "I love you" as he left—for not being completely sure that he'd heard her.