A/N: You're going to have to wait another chap for the baby. I wanted to say I never meant to portray Narcissa as anything but another victim of Lucius', and so I've written this chapter for two reasons. The first being I wanted to give her back story, because abuse rarely affects only one person in the family, the second because I wanted her to leave Lucius, which would be humiliating for a man of his stature. I hope I've done this well. Please leave a review.
Her head hung as she lovingly stroked a picture of her son. How could it have gotten to this? She had risked her life betraying the Dark Lord's wishes to make sure he was safe, and now she had turned her back on him.
It had started with Bellatrix. She had always been the domineering one in the family. At a young age Bella had started guiding her and her thinking, no matter how much Andromeda tried to talk reason into her. At Hogwarts she had been immediately sorted into Slytherin, like the rest of her family before her, and the same rhetoric continued to be swirled around her constantly. And her heart had started to harden. Andromeda was the black sheep of the family, if she had been able to stay at school during the summers she never would have seen her home again. She was with her Gryffindor friends constantly, and while she occasionally sent sympathetic looks at her sisters who were visibly cold on the outside, she was truly happy.
Her own ray of sunshine had been the moment that Bella had managed to introduce her properly to Lucius Malfoy, a year older than she, and considered quite a catch for any worthy Slytherin girl. He had taken a liking to her quickly, and they had spent the first night together talking in front of the fire. He was a gentleman, well bred, kissing her hand lightly as she ascended her staircase. She had fallen for him that night.
He was reluctant to call what they had a relationship for several months. He always had an eye on other girls, and she had to become more and more affectionate to make him return his gaze to her. He had mentioned that he thought she'd look better with her shoulder-length hair longer, and she ordered a hair lengthening potion that night and had waist-length locks three days later. When he said that her face looked a little plain she started wearing makeup. Her skirts got shorter, her blouses cut lower, her heels higher, all because Lucius had told her it would make her more attractive, and she was afraid that she'd lose him if she didn't listen. She did everything he ever wanted, except sleep with him, to show how dedicated she was to him.
One night he was waiting for her as she came in from a night hanging out with Bella and a few of her friends. He was sitting in front of the fire, arms crossed, glaring daggers at her as she entered. Bella immediately herded their friends upstairs, leaving the two alone. Lucius laid into her, accusing her of seeing another man, calling her a whore, saying she was worthless and he would be better without her. She started crying, pleading, hysterically explaining that she was with her sister and friends and nothing more, and asking what she could do to prove that she loved him. She had given herself to him that night, and afterwards he finally acknowledged her as 'his'. Later she found out he and Bella had staged the whole thing, to help her 'get over her fear of intimacy'.
Lucius had gone the old-fashioned way of proposing marriage- to her father. He agreed to betroth his middle daughter to a Malfoy immediately, was enthusiastic that someone of his status was willing to marry her. A large wedding was planned, with Lucius hovering over many of the details. The guest list was heavily his, he felt it was more important that those he wanted were there, and many of her friends and family were excluded. He gave her a list of exactly what he expected out of her wedding dress, and even though she though it more revealing and tight than she had desired, she caved to his demands. He set the menu, he ran the rehearsal, and the day of he dragged his new bride around to make conversation with another distant relative while she neglected her own grandmother.
Things went as normal for the first year of life. Occasionally he would make a remark about her gaining weight, or not dressing 'properly', and she stumbled over herself to please him.
He first out-and-out yelled at her when she had accidentally knocked a picture of him getting an award for something-or-other over while she was re-arranging the stuff on the mantle. It could be easily repaired with a wand and laughed off, but for some reason he blew his top. He called her a worthless, clumsy idiot, and told her she was lucky someone such as himself was willing to marry such filth. He wondered loudly how someone like her had ever managed to get into Slytherin, that Hufflepuff would have been a better choice as it was the house for Squibs.
She had admitted the incident to Bella and Andromeda at their next 'sister lunch'. Bella agreed with Lucius, she was lucky to have landed such a fine gentleman, and that she should do whatever he wanted to make sure that he stayed with her. Andromeda was horrified, and told her she was willing to take her in and help her make the split from Lucius quickly and cleanly. She and Bella got into a loud argument, Andromeda re-iterated her offer and stormed form the restaurant. It would be the last time the sisters would speak peacefully, and the last time Bellatrix and Andromeda talked at all.
As the Dark Lord became more powerful, Lucius' verbal assaults came quicker and meaner. She walked on eggshells around her own home, hoping that whatever she did would meet Lucius' approval, and fearing his wrath if it didn't. They got the house-elf, Dobby, but she would often follow him around re-doing whatever chore he had just completed to make sure it was up to her husband's ridiculously high standards.
She discovered she was pregnant and felt relief. Lucius had wanted a son to carry his name, and now she was able to provide him with one. His words had stopped, and he appeared to be a loving, doting husband towards the end of her pregnancy. She gave birth without a problem, and went into 'loving mother' mode. She stayed with young Draco while Lucius went to work, and to the unknowing eye they were nothing short of the ideal loving family.
When Draco was a year old, Lucius' verbal barrages came back with a vengeance. The Dark Lord had fallen, bested by an infant, and he was doing what he could to sever his ties to Voldemort. He had been named several times during Death Eater's trials, and while he was able to keep his composure in front of Ministry Officials, he took his frustrations out on his young wife, and occasionally his naive son who didn't know why his father was so upset his toys were strewn across the floor.
The first beating came one night after Draco had gone to bed. She was sick, and it was taking her longer than usual to clean up his toy room. Dobby was busy cleaning the rest of the house, and rather than wait for him to make his way upstairs she was doing the task herself. Lucius came in, drunk, demanding sex. She tried to stall, she was in no mood, and he started hitting her, telling her it was her duty to please him. She gave into him quickly, to avoid the pain.
And the sex. The sex had never been all that great. It was Lucius getting what Lucius wanted. When he was done, they were done, if she was satisfied or not. And she was rarely satisfied. A couple of times, early on, she and done the job herself, once Lucius had fallen asleep or left, but he had caught her once, and the result was a day full of unsatisfactory and, at times, painful sex, and she had been to scared to satisfy herself again. Afterwards he decided that she was no longer enough to satisfy her needs, and he would often be out at all hours with young, beautiful women who had no idea what they were messing with.
Lucius had started beating Draco when he was just four. At first the thought of his abuses being passed on to her child horrified her, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized she had no where to go. She wasn't speaking to Andromeda, Bella was in Azkaban on her way to insanity if not there already, her parents were dead, and she hadn't spoke to any of her friends since just after her wedding. She stayed in the marriage for lack of anywhere else to go. She stayed to protect Draco, she knew that should she try to leave with him Lucius would just charm any court into awarding him his son back.
And yet, Draco had escaped on his own. Hogwarts had helped him know a little independence, and none less than Harry Potter himself was there to show him the rest of the way. Never once, in those last few weeks of battle, would she have ever thought Harry would save Draco's life, not once, but twice, though she never thought she would save his. Her heart broke the day Draco informed them that he was gay and moving in with Harry, she knew that Lucius would cut him out of their lives and that she would not be able to see him as often, if ever. But part of her was relieved, he would be out of Lucius' clutches.
Somehow Draco had decided he and Potter would make good parents, and they had gotten Ginny Weasley pregnant. Regardless of the mechanics, it was Draco's child, thus her grandchild. He had told them they weren't welcome in the child's life, no, he had told Lucius he wasn't welcome. By extension she wasn't welcome. Either she went and worried about Lucius' wrath later, or she would never see the child. She would continuously lose more and more of her family, just because of the ring that rested on her left hand.
Why? Why was she still chained of Lucius? The Wizarding World now knew what scum he was- you didn't host the Dark Lord at your home for months on end without being known as scum. How he ever escaped Azkaban was beyond her, his silver tongue saved him yet again, but not with the vast majority of English Wizard and Witches, just with the idiots at the Ministry who were stupid in the greatest measure of the word. After the war they were overtaxed, stressed, and constantly belittled by those who had lost family members. Lucius, who could read anyone like a book, probably knew exactly what moment he could plead his case and stand the greatest chance of getting off, and his gamble paid off. He celebrated by spending the night with two young Muggle girls, then coming home and telling her the war had left her looking old and ugly.
Sobbing slightly she stood and rushed thorough the house. She threw as many of her clothes as she could into her small trunk, added a few mementos of Draco she knew would be destroyed in rage soon, and finally gathered the few family heirlooms that had survived Lucius' many years of rants. She decided no note was necessary, she left her wedding band on his pillow as the only hint of what was going on. She had to hurry. He would be home any minute. She gathered her things, placed a spell on them to make them lighter, stole the bag of emergency gold Lucius' kept in his drawer, and rushed from the Manor. She disappeared with a pop.
The small house was warm and inviting in the brisk twilight. Smoke curled lazily from the chimney, and she could see figures moving around in the windows. She couldn't return here before, she had tried once after a night of brutal beating at Lucius' hands, but the place had been made Unplottable and been given a secret-keeper. She couldn't enter it's boundaries, and had no choice but return to Lucius. But the wards were down now, the war long over. Her knees were weak, her mouth dry, and she had no idea how she managed to make her way to the door. Inside she heard music playing, and a child laughing. With a pit in her stomach she now remembered that her nieces' son was now living there, never to know his parents.
She didn't remember knocking, maybe she didn't. Somehow the door opened wide to her, and the child stood there. His hair, as she watched him, went from a playful multitude of colors to a soft brown.
"Can I help you?" he asked politely.
"Andromeda?" she muttered, unable to say anything else.
"Grandma!" he called, returning to the depths of the house, leaving the door slightly ajar.
She wanted to run. Why did she come here? What was Lucius going to do when he found out? Would he come after her? Was she in danger now?
The soft features of Andromeda came around the corner quickly. She opened the door cautiously, and a look of shock crossed her face, but only for a moment. The door opened wide to accept her sister, and the moment she was inside Andromeda muttered "Cissy," and took her sister in her arms, knowing in that moment everything that was happening.
