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Icy waiting in the corridor
Bella shivered restlessly, pacing up and down the hall. Narcissa caught her by the elbow as Bella completed another circuit. "Bella—" she said, regretting ever having spoken.
Bella turned her feverish dark eyes upon her sister. "I would be glad to give any son of mine in service to the Dark Lord!" It had become something of a litany lately; Narcissa wondered if it was Bella's way of showing concern for her nephew.
Narcissa removed her hand from Bella's arm, turning away- her pink fingernails needling her palms as she clenched them. "How fortunate for you, then, Bella," she said mildly, "that you have no sons to give." She cast about her, and then hesitated before sitting down on a nearby wooden bench, feeling like a guest in her own home. Bella lowered herself down beside her sister.
The lamps on the walls flickered over dark wood, rich carpets, brownish portraits of sleeping Malfoys on the walls.
Narcissa found her gaze straying more and more past her dark sister and onto the heavy wooden door. Oh Draco, Draco.
She smoothed the robe over her knees, her hands scarcely trembling; she was absurdly proud of that. Finest French silk, midnight blue. It had cost—how much had it cost? An exorbitant amount. Lucius hadn't been happy, but he never was about such things, and it was like she always said- if he liked her in the robes, well, quality cost.
Lucius had paid a pretty penny for her over the years, hadn't he; she supposed this was how she paid- a husband and son branded and bound. Draco behind that door.
She was staring at it again. "How long, do you think?" she asked Bella, absently. Bella had been looking in the same direction, and now turned her gaze on her sister- far away dark eyes. She must have been thinking of her Lord.
"Oh, Cissy. By all accounts Draco did well enough. But he did hesitate."
"He's just a boy!" Narcissa looked away, controlling her voice. "I told Him that," she said in a flat whisper. "But I don't think He cares."
Bella was frightening in her fervour. "Age doesn't come into it. The Dark Lord is just, Cissy. He rewards when reward is due and he punishes when punishment is due. Doesn't he call me his true right hand for keeping the faith all these years?"
Narcissa smiled, a chilly mechanical thing, a clicking of gears. She smoothed Bella's hair back from her face with her white hand and didn't mention that that particular accolade was long gone, since that wretched business at the Ministry.
Bella's eyes were bright but the face was hollow. Narcissa looked away rather than look at her sister. Bella patted her arm, an oddly clumsy gesture. "Don't worry so, Cissy," she said. Like they were children again- little Cissy the worrier- Don't, Bell, we'll get caught… Cissy the worrier, before she learned to freeze all that away, not to let it show. Bella the fighter, oh, twisted into madness, but still true. And Andy—well, Andy the unexpected. Narcissa's once-bitten fingernails were polished and smoothed into perfect ovals now. How different we are, she thought. We three Black sisters.
The door was large and dark and, most of all, closed tightly. Narcissa had never before been frightened in her own home, not even when the Aurors came and dragged and dug about. Vulgar people. She had trusted Lucius to keep them safe, and to make things right.
As if her thoughts had summoned him, Lucius walked along a corridor towards them, soft steps on the stone and his shadow on the wall, and sat on the bench opposite hers.
She had trusted Lucius to keep them safe, and look now where they were. Where Draco was. She slipped her gaze past Lucius, swallowed her bitterness down like a pill. It was of no use to them.
"He's not come out," Narcissa said, before Lucius could say anything. He nodded, tight-mouthed, unspeaking. Perhaps he thought she was trying to hurt him.
"Bella thinks he may be punished," Narcissa continued, and her voice hardly wavered. Perhaps she was trying to hurt him, after all.
Lucius looked tired to the bone, head resting against the wall. "Severus is with him," he said, dry and quiet. He had been in several such meetings with the Dark Lord. Unspoken was: I should be with him. Unspoken was: Yes, you should.
Bella hissed sharply, pushing up her sleeve. The Dark Mark bloomed stark on her arm. "He summons me," she said, smiling in her ruined face, and went almost running down the corridor, pulling open the door and slipping inside.
Narcissa craned forward, watching her sister and hoping for a glimpse of her son. She saw nothing, and sat back with a quiet sigh, eyes still fixed on the door.
Lucius watched her with glittering eyes. She sat unmoving, back straight. He waited a moment, just to see if she would sit beside him, and then in a whirl of cloth he crossed the corridor and sat beside her, briefly blocking out her view of the door.
Without looking at him, Narcissa put out her left hand. He took it without hesitation and they sat a moment, hands twisted together.
"Tell me," Lucius said, low, leaning towards her. "Tell me what I must do to make this right and I will do it—"
Narcissa gave a short shake of the head, left right, "No."
He gave their joined hands a slight tug. "No?"
"You must continue as you have begun—"
"I have made my bed—"
"And now you lie in it, as do we all. You must trust me now."
"Yes. Yes, of course—"
"You must trust me, and I will ensure our family's survival."
He looked at her, intent and silent, and then nodded, because it had become a question of survival. They waited, shoulder to shoulder, for their son.
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