Lucius rubbed his forehead. He'd escaped the party of the century, orchestrated as a political and social coup by the bride's terrifying, and tedious, mother and though he knew he'd have to go back out and mingle he needed a few minutes to just breathe. He could see her, the old witch, circulating through the guests in her black robes with a hat so pointed it had to be starched, a glass of whiskey in her hand that elves had been diligent about keeping filled. He wondered how she could even stay upright by now, but this was her triumph and she clearly intended to enjoy every moment of it.

After the way her eldest had run off with someone utter unsuitable, she ought to be grateful this day had happened at all. His father had wanted to call it off. "He'd be your brother-in-law," Abraxas had said with disgust. "What if your wife wanted to have her sister over? Have them both over?"

Lucius hadn't deigned to answer that and his father had dropped the complaint. The one Black sister was unspeakable, the second teetered on being stark, raving mad, but his was perfection. That perfection came up behind him now and rested her cheek against his shoulder. "Enduring?" Narcissa asked.

"I just needed a moment," he said. He inhaled the scent of gardenias and honey that clung to her skin and pictured lying her down in a bed of the first and pouring the second over her. At least a hundred buttons wound up her back holding her robes on, and probably a thousand pins kept her hair piled up with disarming artlessness. "Are you enjoying yourself?"

"The bride is supposed to," she said.

"The mother of the bride certainly is," Lucius said. Druella continued to work the room and glory in her success in landing any husband for girls all tainted by the one sister's mistake. He knew the Blacks considered the Malfoys new money, upstarts, and all that, but they didn't have the social cachet to complain any longer, or hold out for someone more to their liking. It almost made him grateful to Narcissa's sister. He turned so he could tuck his bride into his arm. "But what I care about is you and that was a bit of an evasive answer."

Narcissa smiled at him and though it was mostly her practiced social mask he could see a hint of the real woman underneath. "I'll be happier when they go," she said. "I don't enjoy my parents' company."

"Nor do I," he admitted. "I hope you don't plan to have them over often."

Her smile grew a bit more feral. "I have listened to so many lectures on how a wife's sole duty is pleasing her husband. I'd be an inattentive daughter if I didn't devote myself wholly to that task for the next few years."

Lucius tightened the arm shielding her. He knew the Blacks liked to punctuate lectures with slaps. He'd heard the sound of palm against cheek outside the parlor at their townhouse, had seen Narcissa blink away tears she was too well bred to admit to as she took his hands in hers and said she was pleased to see him. Her voice that day had been so light it floated out to the ears waiting in the corridor. "I'd hate for you to be inattentive," was all he said now.

"And an heir, of course," she said. "A son."

"I look forward to that," Lucius said, his mind returning to the way she smelled of honey. Perhaps that was something she used in her hair.

"I as well," Narcissa said, and his breath caught and his heart lurched and everything in him stood to sharp attention. That wasn't something he'd expected her to say. The party, already interminable, now stretched ahead as an unbearable, sisyphean task. Druella's laughter was as a boulder rolling down the hill to crush his feet under its weight.

Narcissa flinched a little at the sound of that laughter, then squared her shoulders. "Back into the fray," she said before she stepped away from him and prepared to go back to accepting compliments on her marriage delivered with sly digs that she was so fortunate after the incident to find a husband at all.

"Narcissa," Lucius said. She turned and looked back at him. "Thank you."

"For what?" she asked. For a moment genuine confusion filled her eyes.

"Marrying me," he said. She smiled at that before she walked off with her graceful step, her dress swirling around her feet. He thought there might be a tiny lilt in her movements that hadn't been there before. He watched her mingle for a full minute before he also returned to the party where he smiled at people he loathed and shook hands with people he despised, all while waiting for everyone to leave, to go, to disappear back into their own, pathetic lives so he could finally love his wife.

. . . . . . . . . .

A/N - Happy birthday, disillusionist9.