AN: That just came to my mind. It takes place right after "Order of the Phoenix". I hope you enjoy it! And, like always, for the record: I still don't own HP. And I am still no native speaker, so beware of errors ;-)
Wish
The Order has sent Remus to Narcissa Malfoy on the grounds that the woman held the Weasleys in contempt, Alastar couldn't talk to her without going for the neck and that it would be cruel to expect Andromeda to deal with a sister who hasn't spoken to her in over a decade. Besides, Remus suspected, everyone thought that even Lucius Malfoy's wife wouldn't turn down an old classmate so nonchalontly.
He wasn't too sure about this, however.
When he sat down in the vast elegance of Malfoy Manor to wait for her, he tried to recollect what he remembered about her from his Hogwarts days. It wasn't much. She had always been a loner, a Slytherin so cunning and cold that nobody ever dared to cross her. Low-voiced, glacial, forbidding, a pitiless and seemingly thoughtful but eternally secretive thing, Narcissa had been virtually useless to anyone but herself.
No, he didn't expect any warm welcome on her part.
In this moment the door opened and a slender blonde in her mid-thirties entered the room. For one moment he just stared bluntly at her. He had expected to see her in a state of nervousness since Lucius's imprisonment had been only a week ago, but Narcissa Black Malfoy was just her old self, the same woman, as fiercely proud and exquisitely cruel as she was the day she had entered the Hogwarts train arm in arm with her sisters, all golden waves and sea storm eyes and an obnoxious smirk that could tear you to pieces.
"Lupin", she greeted him coldly. "What a surprise."
"Narcissa." He inclined his head politely. "You look well."
"A compliment I cannot return. You look like a wrack."
It was her first blow and it already hit home. Nevertheless he managed to smile softly. "It's been a hard week."
Hard and lonely and dead like the man he had loved for so many years.
For a moment Remus had to close his eyes, feeling the pain invading him in waves.
Sirius dead.
He still could not believe it.
"Oh please, Lupin. If you want to cry like the idiot you are over my late cousin, please do it someplace else. I don't have time for this."
She looked bored, but nonetheless perfect, a diaphanous white fabric covering her slender shoulders, shimmering slightly in the light streaming in through the windows. He was aware of how dark he must look, amidst all this light and the golden gleam of her hair and despite himself he felt the anger boiling in him again.
"Don't you feel guilty at all? he snapped, forgetting all his good intentions. "Sirius is dead and it's all your fault! You helped to kill your own cousin, Narcissa!"
She waved that away. "I am sorry to disappoint you, but right now, I don't have the time to develop a conscience. I have to take care for my son until my husband returns."
Remus felt like bursting into hysterical laughter when a painfully ironical paralell suddenly stroke him; Lily, their sweet, warm-hearted Lily, died to protect the man and the child she loved. This blonde hellbitch lived for the same reason.
"Take care for your son, yes?", he hissed at her. "Your sister just killed your cousin. Do you really think that it is safe to leave your son in the dubious care of his auntie?"
The blonde smirked as though the werewolf had said something particularly naive. "Is that your strategy?" she asked him. "To make me doubt my decisions? If that's so, I must disappoint you, Lupin. I'm not what you want."
"And what do you think I want?"
"You're looking for a potential ally, secretly longing to be good. That's not what I am."
"So what are you exactly?" Remus asked with a sneer. "A victim? Tragically misunderstood?"
There was an amused pause.
"Did Sirius say that?" Narcissa asked. "No, it couldn't have been Sirius. Actually, it sounds more like Dumbledore. But now I'm curious. What *did* my dear cousin say about me? I'm sure it was entertaining."
"Sirius told me you're probably the devil", he answered shortly. "Until now I thought he was exaggerating."
"Sirius? Come now, Lupin", Narcissa replied with a silken laugh. "You might have idiolized him for all the wrong reasons, but even you've got to know my dear cousin always was profoundly literal. Like a big blunt instrument to the head."
Remus couldn't help it, but he knew she was right - Sirius had never been big with the metaphor. "How do we manage to leave the school grounds without getting into Filch?s way?", "How do you become an animagus" and "Hey, James, why don't you kidnap Lily to make her fall for you?" Sirius did always view things without much complexity, which Remus did never mind. Complex thinkers tended to be smiling, dangerous creatures like the one sitting in front of her in a dress that cost more than his rent.
"Still", he said, reminding himself he wasn't here to discuss Sirius with Lucius Malfoy's wife. "You should think about it. With Lucius in Azkaban, things wont be easy for you and Draco. Voldemort will surely punish you for your husband's failures."
She rose an eyebrow. "Punish me? You mean like not hindering earnest little goody-goodies to entreat me for help in their idiotic schemes without even *mentioning* how the love of my life is doing?" she asked coolly, leaving Remus to feel like an utter bastard. "Maybe I don't want to be rescued. Have you and Dumbledore ever thought of that? I don't need saving. I don't even want to be saved."
She was so pretty, Remus was thinking, and hard. The way Sirius had been pretty and hard, all smiles and seduction and under that faint flicker of wit, something harsh, something alien, and utterly desirable. Both of them had been taught about power and death and ugliness from the craddle on. The only difference was that she had embraced this concept while Sirius had turned away in disgust.
"What do you want, then?" Remus asked, standing up. He was aware that he was trembling slightly. "Name your price. The order needs the information you can give me, and I'm willing to pay."
"Willing to pay? And there I was thinking you were a stern, unbending champion of good," she purred, rising to her feet with that inhuman grace that only members of her damned family could master. Remus was again reminded of Sirius - and of Andromeda. Even, a little, of Bellatrix. The not-so-hidden menace concealed by a beautiful face was very much like Bellatrix's. "I'm sorry, Lupin, but you can't give me what I want. As a matter of fact, nobody can."
"And what is that?"
"I want my life back", she replied very simply. "I want my husband without that mark, I want both my sisters, sane und married to proper people, I want my son to succeed in everything he tries without that Potter kid getting in his way. Can you give me that?"
He did not answer.
She came closer, invading his personal space in a way that made him want to step back which he refused. Her slender hand reached out and found Remus's hollow, unshaven cheek. It was cold, but he had expected cold. What he hadn't expected was the softness of that skin, of the way he'd respond to the touch with eyes drifting closed and mouth falling open.
Siriussiriussirius...
"Ah." Narcissa finally whispered into Remus's damp ear, the hiss of her breathing teasing the delicate hairs. "You have the same wish. You too want to go back and begin over, don't you? You must have loved him very much indeed."
Her last words bited him like a serpent's strike, filling his veins with poison, because, no matter how much he wanted to deny it, there was a twinge of truth in her words. "Sirius was right," Remus hissed, repelled but not moving back. "You're the devil."
"Out of the mouths of babes and morons," Narcissa replied cheerfully. She smirked, and he knew that she counted his anger as a victory for her.
Slytherins. He'll never understand them.
"Go to hell!"
Narcissa raised her hands and gestured about helplessly. "Been there, doing that", she said, smiling brightly at him. "Now I really am quite busy. I am sure you'll find the way out."
"Right," Remus said. "Good luck."
When he was halfway out the door, her voice suddenly stopped him. "Remus?"
He turned around, but she faced him with her back.
"I'm sorry for your loss."
With that, Narcissa Malfoy left the room. She did not once look back.