A/N: This is just a One-Shot. However, it is also a companion piece to Impromptu Partners. It was already written and part of another story I have on my hard drive (it's not up anywhere), so it was in my head when I wrote Impromptu Partners. Then several people wondered what on earth had happened to drive Draco and Lucius apart.
[I suppose, technically, you could consider this part of the "Should Have Been" universe that exists solely within my head.]
She was dying, and there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing. He sat by her bed holding her hand, but she didn't even know he was there. He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb and her eyes fluttered open. Narcissa looked vastly different than she had. She was so pale that her skin appeared translucent and her eyes were sunken. The illness had ravaged her body and the once beautiful witch now appeared haggard and worn. Draco had been sitting vigil with her now for three days and her lucid moments were few and far between.
"Draco?" She whispered.
"Yes, mother," he answered her gently, stroking her cheek with the back of his hand.
"Oh, Draco," she murmured and she turned her head for a moment. She took a shallow breath and turned back to him.
"Don't leave me," he begged her. He felt like an idiot, or worse like a small child, begging not to be left alone in the dark.
"I don't have much of a choice," she said sadly. "Before…before I go, there are things you must know. Please, don't blame him. He and I both made choices that have turned out badly, but they were choices made to protect you. We love you so much, Draco. Anything was worth it, if it meant that you would be safe."
"Being in Voldemort's inner circle, forcing me to become a death eater when I was still a child in school—that was done to protect me? That's a bit of a stretch, mother," he said bitterly.
The Dark Mark was still there, branding him for things he'd never really had the heart to do; it would mar his skin forever. People looked at you a certain way, once they saw that mark, and Draco favored long sleeved shirts these days. Girls, well women, especially looked at you differently. Most with fear or revulsion, a few with fascinated interest, and it was that latter group that upset him more than the first. It had never occurred to him that there might be women who were attracted to sadistic murderers. There was nothing that turned him off more than Death Eater groupies. He pushed aside such petty vagaries and focused on his mother. She was what was important.
"You don't know what it was like," she whispered sadly, a shuttered look in her eyes. "The Dark Lord almost succeeded the first time. We…we thought he was gone. That it was over. He, your father, was relieved, I think. Then he came back, and Lucius…"
"Rolled over and showed his belly?" Interjected Draco sarcastically. A lonely tear tracked its way down his mother's cheek. Instantly, he was ashamed of himself. "I'm sorry, mother."
"That's what hurts the most, Draco. All of it, all of the stupid choices we have made were made to protect you—and all of it was for nothing. We failed. We tried so hard, and we failed." Now it was her voice that became bitter.
"What about Aunt Bellatrix? What about all of the stuff you and father raised me to believe?" He asked suddenly. This had been bothering him for some time, but he had been afraid to ask.
"Bellatrix was always a little high strung. Even when we were children, you had to be careful around her. I don't know why she married Lestrange. She lived and breathed the Dark Lord. He was her entire world." She spoke slowly, trying to remembering as best as she could.
"Mother, she was insane. She would have murdered me with a smile, if Voldemort asked her to." Draco bit out impatiently. She nodded.
"No, you're right. It's true. I think perhaps the Black line was a little too pure," she gave a weak chuckle. "Merlin knows that my Aunt—Sirius and Regulus' mother, was certifiable."
"But mother, she wouldn't have been a Black, would she?" He asked with a frown. She gave him a weak smile.
"She was a cousin. Third or fourth, I believe, but she didn't have to change her name after the marriage." Draco stared at his mother with a vague look of repulsion. Then something occurred to him.
"Mother, I'm not related to Pansy Parkinson, am I?" He asked with a fascinated sense of dread.
"Of course," she answered as though that would be obvious. "She comes from a pureblood family. I believe she's a distant cousin on both sides. A little closer on your father's side."
The room spun for a moment, and he took several deep breaths to calm himself. The girl he'd dated through most of school—the first girl he'd kissed, the first girl he'd…he felt sick. All of it made him vaguely ill. He wasn't sure when all of this, the world he'd grown up in, had started to feel wrong, but now it did, and he couldn't ignore it. He almost couldn't stand to be in Malfoy Manor any longer. The only reason he was here, now, was because of his mother. She looked sick and wasted as she lay in the bed, and he knew it wouldn't be too much longer. His father had demanded he come home because his mother wanted to see him. He'd longed to tell the bastard that he could stick his demands up his arse, but there had never been any question that he would come home to see his mother. He blinked rapidly and swallowed, trying to control himself.
"Draco," she said quietly after a moment.
"I'm right here," he replied with a hand on her brow, smoothing her hair back.
"We raised you the way we did because it was the way we had been raised. We taught you everything we had been taught. We did what we thought was best," she paused, and seemed to struggle for a moment. "What if what we did was wrong?"
"I think maybe it was, mother." Draco said softly. She stared at him with agonized eyes. The magnitude of her failings as a parent was shining there in her eyes and that look would haunt Draco for the rest of his life.
"Don't blame him for this, please," she whispered sadly, another tear tracing its way down her face. Draco shook his head slowly.
"No," he lied effortlessly. "I won't."
There really was no one left for Draco to blame, except Lucius Malfoy, and he felt a burning need to blame someone. So much had gone wrong in the last war. His family had bent over backwards to the reparations demanded by the Ministry. His mother, damn her, had actually taken on far more than she should have done, and Draco was convinced that some of her charity activities must have led to her contraction of the rare illness that eventually killed her. The healers had sworn to him that that was impossible, that his mother had had genetic markers that predisposed her to become ill with this disease. Consumed with grief and his love for his mother, he refused to acknowledge that sometimes bad things happened—sometimes people became ill and died leaving behind other people who loved and needed them.
The funeral was on a Saturday, and the attendees were mostly those from the old pureblood families. There were a couple aurors from the Ministry who were there to spy on those who came to Narcissa Malfoy's funeral. Harry Potter noted that Draco stood as far from his father as was possible. He nudged Ron and nodded toward father and son.
"What do you make of that, then?" He whispered to his fellow auror. Ron looked where his friend pointed and then looked at Harry with mild surprise.
"A falling out?" Ron said with a shrug.
"What about do you suppose?" Harry pressed further.
"Dunno. Does it matter?" Ron asked with a frown.
"Maybe. What if Lucius is getting back into things he shouldn't?" Harry whispered furiously.
"Oh, right. And Draco, the bastion of Light and Good is upset about it?" Ron scoffed. Harry frowned.
"I don't like it," he said finally.
"Of course you don't like it. It's the Malfoys. We'll figure it out later. Now can we please not get kicked out of this funeral?" Ron demanded.
"It was only that one time, and I swear I thought it was a death eater in disguise." Harry muttered furiously.
"I would like to go one funeral without having to explain to Luna that her boyfriend is being charged with assault and lewd conduct." Ron hissed.
"It was not lewd conduct! The Daily Prophet just tacked that bit on, you know I made them print a retraction," Harry whispered angrily. Ron snorted.
"Yeah, but mum still reads that rag and she almost had heart failure. I had to spend the next two hours explaining the whole thing while Ginny laughed her ass off at me," Ron whispered back. Harry flushed and turned his attention to the crowd, ignoring Ron for the rest of the funeral.
~Fin~