Disclaimer: We all know that I don't own the Malfoy's, the Black's, or anyone else from Harry Potter. If I did, I wouldn't be sitting here writing fanfics, would I? I just get to hold their leashes.

Chapter Two:
Revenge

It had been two days since Druella had found her youngest daughter stunned and silenced before the bedroom door of Andromeda and proceeded to find out what her second oldest child had done. In those two days, her sister-in-law, Walburga, had blasted Andromeda's name off a tapestry that showed the lineage of the house of Black. The Malfoys had been notified of the situation and they were anything but happy with this. As if it hadn't been embarrassing enough having that girl put it off for two years, she had to go and run off with some muggle (wizard or not, he was no better than some filthy little muggle) to complete the humiliation that both families felt. Andromeda's room had been torn apart by Cygnus when he'd hit his full rage, and then permanently sealed off, her name burned off the wood. Howlers had been sent, though if they reached their destination, no one was sure of, as there was no response – not that Narcissa had expected her sister to respond to any of them. Bellatrix had come home after the first few hours with her husband in tow, furious that her younger sister had done something so disgraceful and intent to remove all reference of the 'filthy blood traitor' that she could find before attempting to reassure her parents that Andromeda wasn't a necessary component and all would be fine in the end. Narcissa had been furious that she'd been silenced and stunned and had left a few things out when recalling things to her father, but then had to return to doing her homework, which did a very good job in distracting her otherwise. And Druella, who was taking it far worse than anyone, had stopped eating and now spent most of her time crying up in the master bedroom. To find her out of the bedroom was a rare thing.

But they did have things they needed to get done. The Malfoys were expected to be coming today to try and settle the debt that Andromeda had left them in. A debt that would probably leave Cygnus and Druella holed up with Orion, Walburga, and their two sons while Narcissa finished school. And so Cygnus had set Narcissa with the task of rousing her mother and making her get dressed and cleaned up rather than dealing with it himself.

It wasn't as if he had particularly wanted to marry that woman. There were so many points about her that annoyed him to no end. Her independence drove him mad, the way she had never seemed to be able to hold her tongue and had clearly never learned what not to say. She was frequently wearing pants (what decent woman wore pants?) and t-shirts as if she were a lowly muggle rather than a proud, pureblooded witch. She never wore make up, nor did she ever do anything to make herself look any better and, let's face it, she was a rather plain one. Lucius could sit there for hours and point out every single one of her faults and every single reason that she wasn't marriage material. He had no problems saying that he was only marrying her to make his father happy and not be written out of his will and end up losing all of his due inheritance. He also had no qualms at all with admitting that, as soon as she was pregnant with the heir he needed, he'd be seeking out other women to warm his bed.

That did not, however, make this any less humiliating for him, nor did it make him any less furious with the circumstances. Sure, he didn't want her. But what kind of sensible witch would turn him, Lucius Malfoy, down for some filthy, poor little mudblood? All right, so maybe life would have been hell for her had they married. But being rich in hell was better than being poor in heaven. What kind of self-respecting, sane person willingly chooses to be poor? It made absolutely no sense.

He let his father rage about, going on about how the Black's were terrible people and if it weren't for their bloodline, they'd all be worthless scum. Lucius had stopped paying attention to Abraxas' rants ages ago. The old man ranted and raved for the first day on the indignities that this presented, the humiliation, and what the rest of the world would say about them. On the second day, he went off about how much money he had spent on the Blacks and what kind of a way was this to repay him?! And while his father yelled on about it, Lucius merely fumed in silence, growing more and more furious as the day went by. The Black's would have to pay for what they had done to his reputation.

In fact, that was what he was doing at the moment, sitting in the living room with his feet kicked up on the expensive antique coffee table with a glass of fire whiskey, trying to figure out exactly how the Black's would pay for what they had done to his reputation. How would he take his revenge for this? He knew that his father would be demanding all the galleons he had spent to be repaid with interest. But, really, how did that help him?

"Lucius!" came Abraxas' rough voice as the older man came into the living room. Glancing over at the door, Lucius had to raise his eyebrows. His father was clearly dressed to go somewhere. "Get up off your ass, boy, we're going to the Black's to settle this right now. The sooner we get it over with, the sooner we can move on and find you someone else."

Lucius had to raise his brows curiously. All right, so he wasn't entirely happy about the whole Andromeda affair. But he most certainly did not want to bother going to 'get it over with', as Abraxas put it. And he definitely did not want to move on and find someone else to marry so quickly. He happened to enjoy being free. "Right now as in right this minute?"

"No, not right now as in right this minute," Abraxas snapped, no patience for his son's lack of respect at the moment. "Right now as in ten minutes ago, you're late. Now up off your lazy ass, put the drink away, and let's go."

Deciding that it seemed rather clear that he had no choice on the matter, Lucius finished off what was left of his fire whiskey and got up, leaving the glass on the table, an elf would remove it later. There was no need for him to go and change or attempt to look more appealing. There was no need to stand to impress. This wasn't a visit to a fiancé to plan a wedding, but rather felt more like an executioner on the way to the next victim.

Cygnus, who really was in no hurry to face the Malfoy's anger, had allowed them to settle into the study before he and Druella went to join them. Taking his usual seat, his wife settling in beside him, there was barely a glance over at the two men while Cygnus' mind was quickly running through options of what to do. They'd had two days to think on this, but there was no possible way that either of them could come up with to pay the Malfoys back for this. There wasn't enough money in the Black vault to cover the cost of the wedding alone, much less all the other ones that Andromeda had delayed and there would undoubtedly be a heavy price for the blow to their reputation.

There was a minute of silence, as Abraxas had decided to allow Cygnus to start with whatever sort of explanation that he could come up with. Cygnus, who realized that he was to begin this meeting, cleared his throat while he decided where, exactly, to start.

"First of all, let me just start by saying that none of us expected Andromeda to do anything like this," he started slowly, taking a deep breath as he tried for a diplomatic approach. Keep them calm. "Druella and I did not raise her like that. I honestly could not tell you where her mind has gotten to, or what exactly has gone wrong with her."

There was another moment of silence before Abraxas, who had cocked an eyebrow during this start, spoke up. "That's all you've got, Cygnus? My son has been humiliated, my gold spent, and all you can say is… you don't know what's gotten in to the girl?"

"None of us planned for this to happen," Black pointed out with his brows raised. Obviously, this would not be an easy thing to settle.

"Andromeda's behavior is utterly humiliating. Do you vaguely understand how much gold we've wasted on her behalf, Cygnus?" Abraxas asked coolly, actually remaining in his seat for once. "Do you have even the slightest hint, at all, of what this has done to my son? He's suffered so much humiliation at the hands of your daughter! Everyone is whispering about how a pureblooded witch would go to such extremes as to run off and wed a muggle to get out of the marriage planned with Lucius! He's being treated as though he's got some sort of disease."

"Druella and I understand that you two have suffered. Do you think we have not suffered at all? This has not been easy on anyone," Cygnus returned, matching Malfoy Sr's tone quite easily. There was a brief pause and a glance over at his wife before he continued. "Give me a number, Abraxas. It might take us a while, but Druella and I intend to pay this off."

"You really think that you've got enough gold to pay off this mess? I know you, Cygnus, full well enough to know that it'll take you years to pay off what you owe us. This house doesn't even come close to adding up," Malfoy pointed out, contemplating for a moment, running rough figures in his head. He didn't have his ledger to look at. "The approximate total cost of the weddings that have been delayed or called off come out somewhere around the two point five million galleon mark. There is, of course, interest to be added to that. At current rates, it brings it up around… three million. And then there's also pain and suffering, so we'll round it up somewhere to three point five. And, of course, with the interest, over however many years it'll take you to pay this off, the price'll go up."

Cygnus barely had time to swallow that – three point five million galleons, plus interest? Druella had put her tea down so that her shaking hands weren't nearly as noticeable. And before Cygnus could say anything, there was an intrusion in the form of a house elf. Black frowned at it in irritation as it bowed before the guests and then he and his wife before speaking in its annoyingly squeaky little voice. "Nobble is sorry to be interrupting, sir, but sir wanted to know when Miss Narcissa was practicing her potions on the house elves again, sir."

As if there wasn't enough on his plate right now, but now Cygnus needed to worry about a potentially deceased house elf. He reached up to rub his temples for a second. "Which one is it, Nobble?"

"Cally, sir," it answered, receiving a wince from Cygnus. Cally was one of the better elves that had been here for over a decade. And he really couldn't afford to be losing house elves at the moment. After an order to bring his youngest to him, the elf left quickly to go and fetch her.

Cygnus looked back over at Abraxas and Lucius, the former looking more irritated than ever and the latter looking mildly amused. "Just give me two minutes to deal with Narcissa, please. I can't afford to have her killing my house elves, they take far too long to train as well as Cally is."

While Abraxas scoffed at the mere idea that a house elf could be of more importance than the current matter on hand, Lucius merely rolled his eyes. The nerve of old man Black really had no end, did it? However, as soon as Narcissa Black had walked in, he quirked an eyebrow slightly, paying just a bit more attention.

After nodding politely at the two Malfoy's, Narcissa turned her attention to her father with her brows raised slightly. "You called for me?"

Cygnus sighed slightly at the sight of his daughter. She was a bit of mess, there was a black smear on her cheek and her hair was up in a messy knot. "What have I told you about practicing your potions on the house elves, Narcissa?"

Ah. So that's what this was about. She shrugged innocently. "Well. I need to do my homework, father. Surely, you don't want me testing the potions on myself, right? That could be dangerous."

"Find something else to practice on. Or don't practice at all, do the theory behind it," he said with a shake of his head. Well, he most certainly did not want her to practice on herself. He didn't need a sick daughter on top of everything.

"Well… I could practice on the horses…" she started thoughtfully, knowing full well that wouldn't blow over. Cygnus loved those horses, "Or the dogs," she suggested, knowing that wouldn't work either. Those were pure breed animals that had been bred for show and won a decent amount of blue ribbons.

"You'll do no such thing, Narcissa, and you know it," Cygnus snapped at her as the suggestions of the expensive animals came up.

Narcissa crinkled her nose slightly. "So, if I can't practice on the horses or the dogs… you agree with me that I really ought to be practicing on the house elves?"

"Yes, do that," Cygnus said distractedly, waving his hand and completely forgetting the point of telling her not to do that in the first place. "Now, Cissy, if you don't mind, we're in a meeting here," he added on, forgetting that he had called her in.

"Of course. Silly me, I'm sorry for the interruption," she said with a nod, turning around and, after curtsying slightly for the Malfoy's as was proper manners, left the room.

It took all of one minute after Narcissa had left and the looks from the Malfoy's before Cygnus realized that he had been tricked. He reached up and rubbed his eye slightly before looking at Druella, who had a small frown on her face.

"She did it again, didn't she?" he asked, watching as his wife nodded. His youngest, and by far his favorite, always had a way of tricking Cygnus into what she wanted. "Would you, please…?" he asked, trailing off and Druella nodded again, getting up from her seat and excusing herself to go and stop Narcissa from whatever she was doing to the elf.

Abraxas had his brows raised at Cygnus as Druella left, waiting for the door to close before he spoke again. "Well, if it's that easy for your daughters to trick you, I can fully see how Andromeda got away."

"Narcissa merely has a way of getting whatever she wants just because she's the youngest," Cygnus said dismissively, not really thinking about it. He was still on the millions of galleons that Abraxas wanted in return. "And my mind is not entirely on the behavior of Narcissa at the moment, but rather on the matter of paying you back just now. I figure we can come to some sort of deal, a payment schedule."

Lucius, who had been thinking and silent thus far, spoke up before his father could say anything in response to Cygnus' somewhat weak offer. "You know, Mr. Black. Some people could consider it unlucky that you tried three times for a male heir to pass everything you own along to and in all three attempts failed. I'm fairly positive at the time, you weren't happy to have three daughters."

Cygnus frowned at Lucius, shaking his head slightly in confusion. Abraxas wasn't quite following his son either, but choose to let Cygnus ask first. "I'm sorry, Lucius, I'm not quite following you here."

"Well, the point of the matter would be that you had three daughters. One's already married and Merlin knows I wouldn't have been able to stand her anyway. The second, well. We've already seen how that one went," he said with a small shrug, leaning back comfortably. How his father would take this, he had no clue. But Lucius saw just how he'd be able to get his revenge on the Black family for what Andromeda had done. "But you still one more daughter left. And I am still very much interested in the blood line."

That was when both fathers caught on. Abraxas wasn't fond of the idea. The girl tested potions on house elves, how long until she graduated to a human? Besides. One Black daughter had already fled, who was to say another wouldn't? But he remained silent, letting his son make the decision.

Cygnus, though, had to shake his head. "Unfortunately, Lucius, Narcissa's hand has already been promised. All three of them had their futures planned before they were five."

"And I'm fairly positive that you'll find it much easier to break off the engagement with a family that's not quite as high up in line as we are," Lucius said with a shrug.

"She's not even of age yet, Lucius," Cygnus pointed out as well, not quite willing to just hand Narcissa off to a man who was undoubtedly extremely upset about what his other daughter had done. It didn't sit well.

"And yet, if I recall correctly, her birthday is in two days and she will be of age," Lucius pointed out in return. He could vaguely recall that Narcissa had been born in December when he'd looked over the family tree and, if he was remember right, that day was in two days on Saturday. "Saturday, in fact. Correct?"

How did the boy know Narcissa's birthday? Cygnus frowned again. There was still one more try to be had. "She's still in school."

"And graduating this coming June," Lucius returned easily, not quite willing to let this one go so easily when Cygnus was obviously trying to hold on to her.

Abraxas, deciding that his son – who had always gotten whatever he had wanted, whenever he wanted it – wouldn't be denied again. "I think it'll be a lot easier, Cygnus, for you to just break off this other engagement rather than try to scrape up three point five million galleons, plus interest, for the rest of your life."

Well, he was just up against the wall on this one. There was really no way that he'd be able to pay that. And besides, Narcissa did know how to take care of herself, right? He had raised all three of them properly in that sense. "And so you're proposing that you take my youngest rather than my gold? When, exactly, would you be taking her?"

That was where Lucius had to pause a moment in thought, glancing over at his father for that answer. She did, after all, still have six months of school. After she graduated? But Abraxas shrugged. "She'll be seventeen this Saturday. I'd rather not take another flight risk. One daughter ran, who's to say the other won't? We have a wedding planned this Saturday. We'll just… have a different bride than we anticipated. Find her a dress."

Cygnus tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair in thought. Saturday. On her seventeenth birthday. Not only would Cygnus have to see his youngest daughter finally grow up, but also he'd now have to see her off in to the hands of a Malfoy. However there wasn't much of a choice in that. He could surrender Narcissa or be out on the streets with his wife.

"Then it looks as though there will be a wedding between the Malfoys and Blacks this Saturday after all," he said with a heavy sigh. Druella would kill him for this.

a/n; Sorry if it's kinda long. I got a wee bit carried away. Review and I'll update faster.