"You," said the Dark Lord. "Examine him. Tell me whether he is dead."
It wasn't that Narcissa was so snobish or too selfish to have more than just one child. She'd grown up with four other children. She'd loved her sisters, she loved her cousins. She always had someone her age and her prominence to talk to and she'd knew how important it was to be understood and supported. She had had a family.
But Andromeda proved herself traitorous and left her years ago. Bellatrix was first incarcerated and now half-mad. Sirius disdained his kins so much he was able kill his own kind. And Regulus, sweet pure Regulus, drew his last breath in his youth.
She wasn't naive enough to believe a child won't left her just because it'll be her own flesh and bone. But there was Lucius. She respected him, she was loyal to him and she'd even grown with time some sort of commitment. He was a proper husband. She was raised to be a proper wife. And part of it was giving birth to an heir. When the time came, she was already alone and heartbroken and sure she won't be able to really love anyone anymore.
Well, life is full of surprises.
She put her hands on the boy's body. He was warm. She felt his breath on her face and his thready pulse under her fingerprints. His eyelids twitched when she touched him. The boy was not only alive, he was conscious.
Her son. She wished so many times he'd be more like Lucius or herself. But he was hot-blooded and extremely proud. He felt much stronger than Narcissa ever did. Brazen-faced slender swashbuckler who still nervously bite his nails sometimes. Short-tempered and bossy with everybody except his parents whom he was utterly devoted. With his pointed face and pale skin, his fair hair and grey eyes, with his lips, once playful, now mostly cracked with fear and disgust, he was all she cared, valued and loved. Literally all.
She shield hers and the boy's faces with her hair. "Is Draco alive? Is he in the castle?" she whispered. When she saw the boy barely visible shied like he'd like to clench his jaw but submerge this urgent need her heart started hammering so hard she wasn't able to read his pulse any longer.
She was happy Lucius teached her son not to befriend people, but to lead them (and when he'd have to follow - never follow anyone blindly). But there was the lack of self-possession factor she hadn't had thought about. Unfortunately, Draco had not inherited Lucius's sense of politics and it was far too late for changes when she understood that even if her son's soul won't be hurt by any false friend, he might be hurt even worse by his countless enemies.
"Yes" she heard, or rather read the boy's lips. She clenched one hand on his arm, the other one on his chest, probably piercing his skin with her nails, but she felt so relieved she could faint without support now.
The boy almost murdered her son a year ago. He owed her blood, he owed her fear. All she had to do was go to the castle and find Draco, take him out of it and run away as fast and as far as possible. So she'd kill the boy now, she would break his neck by her own hand if necessary to show her loyalty for the Dark Lord, so no one would chase them after the war when he'd win, she would just -
If he would win. Because this boy lived more than once. He already lived the Dark Lord's direct Avada Kedavra twice. And he was smart. He was sneaky. He had supporters. Followers. Maybe it would be possible to - maybe if he'd have a greater debt than he had now and he probably didn't felt like to pay it back, if he'd owe Narcissa more than just her son's blood but also his own, maybe if he'd owe her so much, maybe -
She had sat up.
"He is dead!" Narcissa Malfoy called to the watchers.