Chapter Thirty Seven

A/N: Thank you to SunPotion7961 for reviewing the last chapter. Cliffhanger over, but trigger warning ahead.

The dull ache persisted in Narcissa's abdomen long after the sun rose, but she did not truly feel it. After all, a little pain was nothing compared to the agony tearing at her heart.

She had woken just an hour ago to find Lucius hovering over her, his face paralysed with fear. Once he saw her eyes flutter, he immediately began to press her with questions, how she was feeling, what had happened to her, but she did not answer. She had felt the pain in her stomach then, and it had not taken much for her to connect that pain with its source.

Lucius had left when she had begun to cry. For all the front he showed to the world, he could never bear to see his wife upset. Perhaps it was because he cared so much about her; or because he knew he had been the one to cause her pain.

The silence of the bedroom was almost enough to drive the woman mad, for it made the thoughts swirling round her head seem like they were there in the room with her, shadows creeping towards the bed and threatening to swallow her whole. Instinctively, Narcissa curled up into a ball, wanting to protect the baby in her belly. But there was no baby there.

Her tears had long since dried by the time the door creaked open once more, her eyes aching fiercely, just one more pain to add to the list. And yet seeing Lucius appear in the doorway, unable to even meet her eye, was another kind of pain entirely.

"Did you manage to sleep at all?" Lucius asked, as if she would ever have thought to do so. She had been unconscious for hours, lying at the bottom of the staircase. And when she had woken, only an hour ago, to find her baby gone, he thought she would return to sleep again. He truly did not know her.

"No." she answered simply, her biting tone conveying all the feelings she wished to express. Sure enough, Lucius winced, slowing his approach to the bed. Where once he might have sat on the edge of the mattress, instead he stood at the foot, not trusting himself to move any closer without igniting her anger.

"Narcissa," Lucius began. Narcissa drew in a sharp breath at the sound of her name, so strange from her husband's lips. Before, she would long to hear him say her name, a melodic sound she could never hear from anyone else. Now, it only left her cold. "I am so sorry."

"Sorry?" she questioned, as if she had not heard him. "And what do you have to be sorry for?"

It was cruel, she knew it even as she spoke. In a few months' time, the baby born would have been Lucius' child as well, and he would have loved her just the way she would. But their daughter had never had a chance to be born, and that forfeited any sympathy Narcissa might have had for her husband.

Two minutes passed before Lucius could form the words, and even as he did, his eyes turned glassy. "If I had been there with you, none of this would have happened. I could have protected you, kept you safe. All of you. But I left you alone. And now… now the baby is gone."

"The baby." Narcissa sighed. "It seems so simple, doesn't it? More an idea than a reality, something to be hoped for, but not to be held. Our daughter. She never had the chance to exist, to be real. And now, she will always be… the baby."

"I can never explain how sorry I am." Lucius professed, reaching for his wife's hand. Narcissa expected herself to relinquish her hand, to slap away his attempts at an embrace. But instead, she left her hand limp beneath his own, not comforting, but no longer accusing. Her actions matched her feelings perfectly. Nothing.

"Is Draco alright?" she asked suddenly. It felt so strange, to think of one child whilst grieving another, but she needed to remember that she was still a mother. She still had a son to think of, if not a daughter.

"I think so." Lucius answered. Immediately, Narcissa's heart began to race. She remembered the footsteps on the landing, the reason for her fall. Her husband must have seen her panic, for he was quick to continue. "He's safe and healthy, nothing has happened to him. He just… I think he's worried about you. It's not often you leave him alone, even for just a morning. He knows something is wrong."

"I'll have to tell him." she whispered, more a realisation than a comment. Lucius nodded gently, not offering to take the awful task off her hands. They both knew that, if such a delicate matter must be explained to their young son, it would be much better coming from her.

"Not for a while yet." Lucius suggested, patting her hand gently. Once again, the urge to pull away rose in her mind, but she pushed it down. If she was to be trapped in her bedroom for the next couple of days, as she imagined she must be, it would not do to be at odds with the one person she could talk to, even if it would take much longer than that for her to move past her anger. "You need to rest, regain your strength. You can see him when you're better."

Lucius left soon after, promising to bring her news of Draco when he returned. His absence left his wife lost with her own thoughts again, and one word continued to echo through her mind.

Better. It was an easy enough word to say, she knew, the type of reassurance she would give their young son if he fell and scraped his knee running around the grounds. Those small injuries would seem monumental when they occurred, the sight of blood shocking the young boy into tears, but within a day or two, the graze would heal and all would be forgotten.

'But how can I forget her?' she asked herself, thinking of the poor little girl who never had a chance to truly know her mother's love. 'She might have been an idea to the rest of the world, but to her mother, she was real the moment I felt the fluttering in my belly. I can never forget you, my sweet girl. My little Cassiopeia.'

A/N: I tried to show the range of emotions Narcissa is feeling right now, and I hope I did so credibly. Please review!