A/N: I do not own Harry Potter.

This chapter contains a brief moment of animal cruelty of a fictional animal (to display the depths of Bellatrix's depravity even as a young girl). Please do not read if this offends you.

Chapter 1: The Heritage Room

Soft footfalls carried Narcissa through the halls of Malfoy Manor. She walked aimlessly, wandering from room to room without focus or interest. Someone who didn't know better might even say that her footsteps were meandering. But Malfoys did not meander. At least, they didn't before the war. Now, everything had changed. In this present moment, she approached each room with a mixed air of nostalgia and wonder. It was as if she was re-seeing these vestiges of her life through a new lens. Or maybe the old lens of innate superiority and nobility had simply been stripped away. She wasn't sure.

She walked with a light gray shawl draped generously over her shoulders, and she kept her arms crossed firmly over her chest, as if she were trying to protect herself from the chill and ghostly quiet that had descended on the house since her husband and son had been arrested the night before. The Manor was eerily silent. It was a kind of silence that the Malfoy matriarch had not experienced since before the war – before the Dark Lord had decided to use her home as his base of operations, and long before he had begun using her son as a means of punishing her husband for failure. The quiet could almost have been considered peaceful, had she not been so cognizant of the possibility of facing a lifetime of such silences.

Today, the silence was deafening.

Narcissa was a proud woman. Anyone who knew her could tell you that. She had, to her utmost ability, carried herself in life with class and dignity, even though she did not always deign to display those traits to those she deemed inferior. She had raised a son, supported a husband, managed a household, and she had done it all with flawless grace. It was this proud nature that caused her to note with pleasure the perfect order of the Manor as she moved from room to room. She paused only once – to straighten a vase that had been jostled when the aurors carried Draco and Lucius away. Everything else was as it had always been: immaculate.

Some would call her pride vanity. Yes, like centuries of aristocratic families before them, the Malfoys had often displayed their superiority through fashion, wealth, and airs. Her closets upstairs were filled with the latest fashions, her wizarding robes tailored by only the best. It was also true that Narcissa had dabbled in the Dark Arts from time to time, with an eye toward maintaining her youthful visage and vigor. But that was to be expected. If nothing else positive could be said about them, the Malfoys were a handsome family.

As she hesitated for a moment in front of one of the ornate mirrors that lined the front hall, though, the Malfoy matriarch wondered if that were still true. The stress of the last two years had certainly begun to chip away at her youthful appearance. There were lines on her face where she had never seen them before; her cheeks were pale – at least, paler than normal; her platinum-blond hair had lost its usual sheen. And she wasn't the only one. Lucius had certainly looked worse for wear after his short stint in Azkaban. And even Draco's eyes had lost their usual brightness since taking the mark.

No, the Malfoys had not come out of the war unscathed.

Not this time.

Narcissa was a strong and resourceful woman, though. After Lucius had dropped from the Dark Lord's favor, it had fallen to her to keep her family together by any means possible, and to find a way out of the predicament that her husband had placed them in. Not that it was entirely Lucius' fault, she mused to herself as she moved into the dining room. Spurning the Dark Lord after his return to power was an action that would have carried its own dire consequences, and their family had a long history of standing in the shadow of the most powerful witches and wizards. But Narcissa was not sure that she would ever forgive her husband for driving their son down that same path, for allowing him to be used like a pawn in a chess game. She had wanted something better for Draco.

These attributes alone – her pride, her strength, her resourcefulness – had carried her through the meeting she had held earlier with the Malfoy family solicitor. It had not gone well, and echoes of their conversation rebounded upon her now as she walked.

My hands are tied, Mrs. Malfoy. The Ministry's coming down hard on anyone who bears the Dark Mark.

Yes, she had been following the seemingly endless trials of former death eaters and associates with a keen interest over the past few weeks. Every day, it felt like The Daily Prophet was reporting on another dark follower who had been sentenced to life in Azkaban. She had known that it would only be a matter of time before they came for Draco and Lucius. And perhaps even me. She thought to herself.

Narcissa was not innocent, by any stretch of the imagination. She had acted with cruelty and malice from the very start of the war. She had championed the pureblood cause. She had allowed muggles, muggle-borns, and half-bloods to be tortured on her doorstep. And while others might view her betrayal of the Dark Lord as an act of honor and courage, she would be the first to remind them that she wasn't a bloody Gryffindor. It had been a calculating act to preserve her family, a Slytherin move through and through. She couldn't help it if that one act just happened to lead to the Dark Lord's downfall. But she wouldn't deny that his downfall had also brought her great relief.

Oh no, Mrs. Malfoy, her solicitor had informed her, Mr. Potter's testimony was enough to exonerate you. You have nothing to fear.

Ah yes, Harry Potter. The fucking boy-who-continued-to-live. She cursed his name out of habit, although tonight that curse did not carry any of the passion it had in years past. Her feet carried her into the drawing room just as her thoughts turned to Potter's companions. The golden trio. The Weasley boy, who was part of a family that she had considered blood traitors as far back as she could remember. And the girl, the mud—No, she chided herself, the muggle-born (Narcissa never said the word "mudblood" out loud – it wasn't good breeding – but she thought it often enough). Her eyes swept unintentionally to the spot where Bellatrix had tortured and maimed the child, and she was suddenly transported back to that moment in her mind.

She remembered that night well. She remembered the terror that had flickered over the girl's face before she masked it with impressive bravado – a bravado that had quickly broken as the Cruciatus curse had taken effect. She remembered all too intently the child's screams as Bella had carved that word, "mudblood," into her arm. Narcissa remembered, too, her own reactions; she had observed the torture with a stony silence, but all the while her unyielding resolve inside her chest had begun breaking down. The Granger girl had been a mere child, a girl the same age as Draco.

It could have just as easily been Draco. She thought to herself, before shaking the memory from her mind and turning away from the drawing room, willing her feet to take her anywhere else.

Draco. It was difficult to think about her only child right now.

I've put in a plea for him, Mrs. Malfoy, the solicitor had assured her, but he's still looking at serving at least 20 years. And that's only if the Ministry decides to be lenient.

If anything had humbled Narcissa to the gravity of their current situation, it had been this small piece of information. Draco was going to Azkaban. Their financial prosperity, their pureblood status, their prestige, their pride – none of these could save him. Anger bubbled up inside her chest – anger at herself, at Lucius. How could they have been so misguided? They had allowed themselves to be blinded by pureblood mania, and now their son was paying the price. If only they had been more cautious with their allegiances, more calculating . . .

Her thoughts broke off abruptly as she realized where her feet had carried her. Lifting her gaze, she took in the Heritage room spread before her, majestic in all its grace and elegance. The room was a source of pride for the Malfoy family. To her right stood three floor to ceiling windows, each spanning five feet across, and divided from each other by short three-foot stretches. Through their panes, Narcissa could make out the sloping hills that encompassed the front of the Malfoy estate. Directly across from the windows, to Narcissa's left, was the Malfoy family tree. She supposed that most pureblood families had their family tree displayed as a source of pride, but the Malfoys took it to the next level. The entire wall was covered in black obsidian glass, delicate and opaque. The glass stretched across the ceiling, and also onto the back wall, which hosted a truncated version of the Black ancestral chart (a wedding gift to her from Lucius). Unlike the tree at her aunt's house, the Malfoy chronicle did not use portraits. Instead, hundreds of names and dates were neatly scrawled in silver across the wall. Silver words to reflect their silver tongues. Narcissa absentmindedly ran her hands over the names of Lucius' distant ancestors until she reached the wall's center. There, slightly above her head, was emblazed the Malfoy family creed: Sanctimonia Vincet Semper

Purity Will Always Conquer.

Yes, and we're bloody conquerors now, aren't we? She mused to herself.

She continued tracing her hand across the wall until she came to the three names at the end. Lucius. Narcissa. Draco Lucius Malfoy.

She paused, closing her eyes and remembering the day that she had been surprised to find Lucius engraving their son's name on the wall. Tradition dictated that the child be at least five years of age before being added to the ancestral chronicle, but Lucius had barely waited six months. When pressed, he had excused the action by claiming that the five-year rule was a vestige of an age when children often did not survive infancy.

"Besides," he had said, grasping her hands in his and leaning down to kiss her on the cheek, "he will be a dragon."

Hold on, my dragon.

Pushing back the tears that she could feel forming at the corners of her eyes, Narcissa moved toward the back wall, gazing on the names of her own relatives. She paused, tracing her fingers over a single name, one that she had not considered in quite some time: Sirius Black.

Her thoughts carried her to a single memory.

The summer of 1965. She was nine, a month or two shy of ten. Sirius was five. They were camped out underneath one of the willows that grew on her family estate, playing with a kitten that Andromeda had given her for her birthday. They laughed as the kitten pounced again and again on a piece of thread that Narcissa had found in the bottom of a sewing basket in the servants' quarters.

That laughter had quickly died away at the approach of Bellatrix. The teenager eyed them shrewdly, and before either of them could move, she snatched up the kitten with one hand, holding it above her and cocking her head to ogle it one eye, the other hid fast behind a curtain of her long black locks.

"Such a fragile little thing, isn't he, Cissy?" It wasn't clear whether Bellatrix was talking about the kitten or Sirius.

Narcissa opened her mouth to speak, but Sirius beat her to it.

"You put him down, Bellatrix!" He had jumped to his feet and strode over to her, his fists clasped tightly at his sides.

Bella sneered down at him. "Oh, looky, looky. Brave little Siri standing up to big, strong Bellatrix." She lowered the kitten down, just above his head. "Come on, Siri, he's just out of your reach"

"Bella–" Narcissa began, but her sister cut her off.

"Hush, Cissy. This is between me and our darling little cousin." She looked down at him, adopting a sickeningly sweet voice and batting her eyelashes. "What would you have me do, Siri?"

"Let him go!"

Bella smirked, and Narcissa caught the mad gleam in her sister's eye a second before it happened:

"As you wish," she said, before throwing the tiny kitten up as high as she could into the air. Narcissa remained rooted in shock to her place by the tree. Sirius, ever the brave one, leapt forward, trying to catch the small animal, only to be tripped by Bellatrix. The kitten landed with a sickening thud, and the sound of Bellatrix's cruel laughter filled the two children's ears as she strode off. Bella would later apologize to her baby sister, claiming that she had been jealous that Narcissa had liked Andromeda's gift more than her own, and the young child would immediately forgive her. But in this moment, Narcissa stared at the kitten's limp form, unaware of the tears flowing down her face until she felt Sirius' tiny fingers wiping them away.

"It'll be ok, Cissa," he whispered.

"No, Sirius, it won't. The world is a cruel and unforgiving place"

Narcissa echoed those final words in a whisper as her thoughts turned to later memories - Sirius being sorted into Gryffindor, and Lucius turning to gaze at her at the Slytherin table with wide eyes; Sirius befriending blood traitors and muggle-borns, and openly displaying such friendships in the halls of Hogwarts; Him defending Andromeda after her marriage to that muggle-born; Herself reading about Sirius being sent to Azkaban with a sense of satisfaction (with Lucius being one of the Dark Lord's most trusted allies, the Malfoy family had always known that Sirius was innocent); She and Bellatrix celebrating Sirius' death, before receiving the news that Lucius had been arrested that same night; Herself cruelly taunting the Potter boy and his friends about Sirius in Madame Malkin's last year.

Yes, the world was indeed a cruel and unforgiving place, and Narcissa had played a part in keeping it that way.

She allowed her fingers to once again trail over the chronicle, carrying her, as if by their will and not hers, to another name that filled her with trepidation: Andromeda Black. She had not spoken to her elder sister in well over two decades, not since Andromeda had fallen in with that Tonks fellow. Her thoughts carried her to another memory, a painful one.

Hogwarts, 1970. Narcissa was in her fifth year; Andromeda in her seventh. It was late. Narcissa was returning to the Slytherin dormitory after serving detention for hexing a snide little third-year Ravenclaw. The girl had thrown one too many insults at her that morning, prompting Narcissa to reveal that she, also, had a touch of the famous Black temper. She had informed the girl that if she was going to act like an uncivilized pig then she might as well look like one, hexing her into growing pig ears, snout, and tail before Lucius could intervene. Unfortunately, several instructors had also passed by at that moment, and she had landed in detention - a rather unsavory detention of scrubbing the floor of the Transfiguration classroom.

So, needless to say, Narcissa was not in the best mood on her return trek to the Slytherin dorms. She had just rounded the corner that led to the common room entrance when a small laugh caught her ear. She turned, and listened. The laugh came again, from a classroom down the hall. Moving as quietly as possible, she stalked toward the door, intent on catching some of her sly comrades in the middle of a good snog. She slid the door open slowly, carefully. Oh yes, they were definitely snogging. She pushed the door open wider, and then let out a startled gasp. "Andromeda!"

Her elder sister was pressed up against the wall, her arms wrapped around the neck of the boy she had been kissing. A Gryffindor boy. A muggle-born, Gryffindor boy. At the sudden appearance of her younger sister, the elder Black pushed the boy away, her eyes widening in surprise.

"Narcissa, this . . . this isn't . . . let me explain"

But Narcissa was not in the mood for any explanations. What followed was a half-hour argument, and, eventually, Andromeda's confession that she was in love with the boy. She had admitted it in the hope that her sister would understand and empathize with her. But Narcissa had made up her mind by that point. Andromeda was a blood-traitor. She had fallen in love with a mudblood, and had therefore become mud herself. Seeing the steel look in her younger sister's eye, Andromeda ceased her pleading. It would do no good.

And so Narcissa turned to leave, to go back to her dormitory where she would pen a letter to their parents about that night's events, a letter that would lead Andromeda to elope with the muggle-born, and to her being disowned by the entire family. But before she left, Andromeda tried one last time.

"Narcissa, please"

These were the last words her sister had ever spoken to her.

Narcissa pushed away from the wall, and headed back toward the center of the room, pausing at a set of twin white couches and a small cart of alcoholic beverages, a testimony to the Malfoy family's love of entertaining. She fixed herself a drink, and turned, staring up at the family creed as she slowly sipped the smooth wine.

Sanctimonia Vincet Semper

Purity Will Always Conquer.

Purity. Conquer. Always.

But who has it conquered? She wondered to herself. Them? Or us?

She turned back to the cart, facing away from the motto. She poured the last of the wine out of the heavy crystal decanter, and lifted her glass again, taking a sip and staring glassy-eyed in front of her. Someone watching might say that she was merely observing the sun setting on the rolling hills outside, but the truth was that she was too caught up in her own thoughts to notice. She returned the glass to the tray before her, tensing slightly as she moved to grip the edges of the cart with both hands.

The creed echoed in her thoughts again.

Purity Will Always Conquer

And that did it. In one fluid movement, she gripped the heavy crystal decanter and, turning, she flung it over her shoulder at the obsidian glass. As she released the crystal container, a primal roar of anger, frustration, and heartache flew from her, her face dropping its normal composure in favor of an incensed scowl. The decanter barreled forward, shattering with gusto against the engraved silver words of the motto, the impact point obscuring "Sanctimonia." Purity. Small fractures spider-webbed out from this point in every direction, stretching across the wall and onto the ceiling.

It wasn't enough.

Raising her wand, the incantation fell softly, forcefully, from her lips: "Bombarda."

The glass shattered as she fell to one knee, her palms resting against the floor, her head lowered. As the shards fell steadily around her, a single whisper escaped: "Never again"