I was so saddened to hear about the loss of Helen McCrory. It hurts in particular because she was so young. In addition to beautifully playing Narcissa and inspiring this and my other stories so much with the way she showed her love for her husband and son, she was also in my favorite film Skyfall. She will be so missed!

Narcissa Malfoy had become such a bitch.

The dust had settled. Years had passed and there were children now who were old enough to walk and talk, and even some who quite soon could go to Hogwarts, who had no recollection of any war. But the adults would never forget, and they were finding that their scars formed and hardened in the most hideous ways.

Narcissa, for all her salons and galas and charity events, never invited another woman back into her life as a friend. She wore her hair turned up now, twisted hard under her hats, and if Draco was ever with her in public, she kept his hand clenched tightly in hers. To earn a smile from her was a feat that few cared to try at. It seemed that she simply was the worst version of herself now. The girl who had once been the happiest, the prettiest, the most sought after, was now only a wife and mother and horrid witch.

His parents will never come back to England. The shame of it.

Abraxas and Sigrid had come to meet Draco once the War ended, although it had been a short visit. Narcissa was hurt that they would stay for only a few days when they had already missed their only grandchild's entire babyhood. Sigrid seemed to place the blame for this on Narcissa, pointing out again and again that Draco barely knew them and was slow to open up.

"Draco is shy," Narcissa smiled over a teacup that she was about ready to shatter in her hand.

"Shyness is an unattractive quality," Sigrid sniffed, and at that, Lucius hoisted Draco into his arms and reached for Narcissa's hand.

"Nap time," he announced.

They're a good family. They give a lot of money. But it's anyone's guess what goes on behind closed doors.

As Draco grew, he spent his time at home with a tutor, or with his grandparents in London, or occasionally with Pansy Parkinson, or whatever other well-bred children his parents could scrape together for a playdate. It was dismally hard, they murmured to one another when he was asleep.

His mother spoiled him, his father thought, and his mother thought his father was taking things like flying a bit seriously for a boy his age. And not just that – Lucius, although he defended Draco from the words of others, could never understand how his son could be so withdrawn. People were already beginning to comment that he was so like his mother, not that that wasn't the greatest blessing Lucius could have hoped for, but Draco was like his mother's new public face, not the Narcissa Lucius knew and had always known. Not the Narcissa he had watched wistfully as boy. Draco smiled through closed lips and didn't like strangers. He seemed entirely aware of his place in the world, and of the lower status of others, and Lucius couldn't quite place how that was a bad thing.

He must sleep around, don't you think? Narcissa is as lovely as ever, but he is so flirtatious.

Lucius certainly enjoyed the attention he received in public. He had to be somewhat aware that it was mostly purchased, but he didn't see a problem with that. If he was rich enough to buy attention, wasn't that reason enough to be proud? And yes, when he was out late working people over for favors in expensive bars, women always seemed to find their way to him. Even a short conversation, even a handshake, sent the rumor mill spinning.

"So what happened?" gossips whispered back and forth.

"No one saw," was always, sadly, the reply.

"And were there lots of women after you?" Narcissa would ask, stretching herself awake from dozing when he arrived home, always faithfully before midnight.

"Just one tonight, although annoyingly persistent. She kept asking me to take off my wedding ring, even though we were just sitting at the bar. She said people would get the wrong idea."

"And why did she think she had the right idea?" she teased, playing at his shirt buttons.

"I haven't the faintest. Everyone knows I have a goddess at home, waiting."

But they didn't know that, did they? The world assumed that Lucius hated his home life, or, perhaps, was hated at home. They assumed his wife was frigid and he was unavailable to her, and to his son.

Despite all these whispered conspiracies, at home Narcissa's hair was down and Lucius was himself. Whatever people thought they knew about them had nothing to do with the way they were together. It was all calm steadfastness, all devotion, all tenderness. They were the young couple they had always meant to be, despite all the aging of the world. Their son was always close to them, growing ever in their image.

I saw his Dark Mark, as clear as day…

It was a pain for Lucius to keep it covered. It flashed at charity Quidditch matches, at bars towards the end of the night, even in hot conference rooms. Everyone knew it was there, of course. It was the shame of his life that his face had once been on the cover of the newspaper, not in portrait, but in a mugshot. And yet the gasps, however well muffled, never died down.

Others had it. Severus, for one, and Igor Karakoff, although it was less likely to cause a murmur in the halls of Durmstrang. But there were admittedly very few of his own who had made it to the other side. All the other Dark Marks were hidden behind bars or had been sent fleeing across the world.

And the Potter boy…

The Wizarding World understood very little of the life of Harry Potter. Occasionally in the rattier tabloids, a far-off photograph of him would run, although one could never be sure it was him, and not just some other black-haired little boy in a uniform. These things never made it into the Malfoy home, but of course the Daily Prophet did, and they would run a little blurb about him on his birthday and on Halloween each year. They were all counting down, however subtly, to the day when he would return to the wizarding world and be their hero again.

Lucius could not help but hold onto some idea that this boy, this mere baby who had killed his master, was their hope for the world they had been fighting for. Narcissa hated to hear of this, and years would go by between instances of him daring to mention it to her.

"Because you know," he would find himself saying against all better judgement as they flicked through the paper on July 31, "the Dark Lord himself was a half-blood. So perhaps it was always meant to be that there would be one stronger, one who would –"

"Stop now, Lucius," Narcissa would cut him off. "Why do you want so desperately for our lives to someone's other than our own?"

But when Draco was old enough to read the paper alongside them, Lucius could not help but encourage him, when his mother left the room, to do his best to befriend the Potter boy when they made it to Hogwarts.