Characters: Narcissa, Lucius
Summary
: The house is crumbling like an old portrait, and Narcissa prays her husband won't shatter the same way.
Pairings
: Lucius x Narcissa
Author's Note
: Being new to the fandom, OOCness is ever a concern of mine. As such, advice would be appreciated. However, I like to think that Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy have a reasonably happy marriage; there's nothing to suggest anything to the contrary.
Disclaimer
: I don't own Harry Potter.


In a way, the house is trembling, shaking, crumbling. Narcissa wonders how long it will be before it all comes crashing down. Lucius seems to have already crumbled away, anyhow.

The price for failure, they are both quick to discover, is no small one. Even with Dumbledore dead and the Malfoy family partially redeemed in the Dark Lord's eyes, they still walk on pins and needles, and those pins and needles have become a bed of nails. One slip, and death by impalement will be small compared to what the Dark Lord will do.

Narcissa can feel Lucius reaching under the table for her hand at every meal that is shared with the Dark Lord. A brief, tight squeeze, something to tell him that she is still there, and she shoots her pale eyes at him warningly, bracingly, trying to keep him from doing something rash, slipping, doing something they'll all regret. She can still hear Draco's slightly harsh breathing on her other side.

She never really knew—or perhaps did know, but simply didn't appreciate—how much they both needed her until after they had been tipped into the fire from the frying pan. Lucius especially.

Narcissa can see the house starting to collapse from the sheer weight of the presence of the Dark Lord and all those who inhabit this place who shouldn't. The Malfoy manor begins to fall, because the family who lives there falls themselves.

Lucius is falling apart at the seams; their son is little better off, thanks only because he was not alive during the First War and he never witnessed the way Voldemort treated followers who had failed him then. And only Narcissa, she knows, can keep it all from crumbling down entirely.

Her son needs her. Her husband needs her even more—the memory of Lucius's pale eyes darting frantically to her for some sort of guidance is haunting for Narcissa and must be terrifying for Draco, to watch his father collapse in front of him—and Narcissa knows that there is no question of collapsing herself. She alone can be strong; she must hold together, to keep this fractured family from falling apart.

She can see the house begin to disintegrate, like paint crumbling away from the canvas of a painting.

What terrifies Narcissa even more is the way Lucius seems to do the same, growing even more gaunt and hollow-eyed and haunted looking than he did when first out of Azkaban.

For if he falls and shatters like some old and priceless vase, Narcissa isn't sure she can put him together again. Even magic isn't capable of reconstructing a person.

And Narcissa doesn't think she can live her life without him, no matter what path her husband has taken their family down.