So I had a (dead cute) baby in November. My past self figured 'hey, an infant sleeps like 18 hours a day, how hard can wrapping up a few chapters be?'. My past self was hilariously naive, please forgive her.
Ironically I feel I rushed this a little but it was either that or not posting anything before Summer. Happy reading!
Long ago, seven year old Narcissa had snuck into the yellow dressing room and slipped her small feet in those elegant pearl gray heels Mother so cherished. Instead of added grace, of that je ne sais quoi that made one a lady rather than a mere witch, Narcissa found herself dragging weighted feet like a centaur stuck in quicksand. Her fourth tortuous step was her last: she toppled over in a disgraceful mess of limbs.
Such was the feeling produced by Veritaserum: a panicked loss of balance. Her vision swam, her body slouched. Narcissa's mouth, slave to the questions filling her mind, spat words she had no grasp over as. She held onto awareness by a thin rope of Occlumency : Andromeda's hand, warm in hers. The hard chair.
"Would you oppose a new Rowlands today?"
"No." The answer had tumbled forth before she could consciously register the words.
"Why?"
"I would gain nothing."
"Explain."
Images struck her like panicked bats in a darkened cave. Regulus, fond and solemn as he spoke of the Indian muggles who had taken him in. Harry's broad smile as he walked upon Narcissa and Hermione arguing the finer points of memory magic. Lyra, half-blood and such a joy.
"The cost to relationships I value would be too high." A spark of awareness : Diggory. The owner of the voice was Cyrus Diggory.
"So you haven't changed. It's still about preserving what you have. You have no empathy for your victims."
A crack. A possibility to expand. To interpret the words as a question.
A dreamy voice twisted into screams. Fire, lashing out of a hostile wand.
"Untrue. I feel awful about Mr. Ollivanders and Miss Lovegood."
Meda's hand, tighter for a moment.
"Why did you help your sister capture the Prewetts?" This voice was deeper. Shackerbolt.
Why? the potion whispered. Why! it demanded, confronted with faded memory fragments. Veritaserum loathed 'I don't know'. It couldn't tolerate 'I don't quite remember'. There was a reason the overzealous potion had long been banned from courtrooms.
"Bella and I were growing apart and I wanted to fix that. It made Lucius and I look loyal to the Dark Lord. It kept us safe. Bellatrix looked so fulfilled by her life then. I thought revenge would help me feel whole again." Her head splitting, Narcissa barely managed to push out the last, unasked for, words. "I was very wrong."
The questions didn't stop.
An hour later, Narcissa fled the Ministry in a daze. Andromeda stayed behind to control the damage. Too upset to apparate crisply, Narcissa tore her body out of the London streets and stumbled when overgrown grass snagged her feet. Why wasn't it cut short? And what was that ghastly wooden terrace doing in the grounds?
It took her entirely too long to remember that Malfoy Manor was neither home nor Malfoy anymore. Her ears rang, as if she'd been screamed at, or screaming, for hours. With a shuddering breath, she disapparated once more. To a home that wasn't hers.
Andromeda's house wasn't empty. That woman, Brycin Crockford, stood by the tall hollyhocks that painted the walls a hundred colors despite the frost.
"I hope Regulus got the job," Narcissa said, her voice appropriately cool and detached. A wordless glamor had erased the damning redness around her eyes. She took slow, short steps, not trusting her balance.
"If he doesn't, we'll push harder. Let's make you some bitter tea."
Brycin became a flurry of summoning charms, absurdly comfortable in a house she'd never set foot in. Narcissa stared at that woman, her awful coat, her wild hair, her tattoos. A key to the past Andromeda spoke so little of.
And unexpected help during the interrogation.
Suddenly, the voice was a woman's.
"Pardon me, after she got disowned, who did you stop from helping Andromeda?"
Sirius, arms crossed, owl feathers on his school robes and a parchment bulging his pocket.
"No one."
"Anything you did to help her?" 'You', ambiguous. Narcissa chose to understand it as plural.
"Bella and I made sure the family and our so called friends left her alone."
"Your parents were abusive pieces of shit, no?"
Eight year old Narcissa standing by the empty fireplace, her eyes moist. Mother had left without listening to her play, again.
Nine year old Bellatrix biting back screams, conjured ropes digging welts into her pale skin.
Mother asking "What's wrong?" and Narcissa dutifully painting a smile on her face, again and again until Mother stopped having to ask.
The memory-flashes swiftly combined into patterns, knitted by the serum into coherent thoughts.
Mother, often absent and uninterested in children unless she could show them off. Narcissa, the only one who hadn't given up on being loved, desperate to be perfect, to have those beautiful smiles directed at her. Father, less distant and occasionally affectionate, ill-tempered and violent, for whom all misbehavior was unforgivable defiance, and yet who found his youngest daughter's compliance boring.
Brycin's question was badly phrased. Intended meaning was nevertheless obvious. Narcissa didn't struggle.
"Yes."
"Did any adult offer to protect you when you were a girl? Did anybody among the Order and Allies try to help Death Eaters' kids before or during the war?"
Some of the fog clouding her mind lifted. Veritaserum needed her more clear headed to interpret the ambiguous question. How to define protect? Which war? How to define allies? But again, the intended meaning was quite clear.
"No, not that I know of."
"This line of questioning is not-"
"Oh, it's everything, Diggory," Brycin snapped, as if a tattooed hedgewitch had every right to tell off the Ministry's elite. "You don't question your beliefs any more than she used to, or you'd have helped those poor kids. You just got lucky, being born into more wholesome families."
If Narcissa hadn't been drugged, she might have smiled.
The tea Brycin made was… warm. Warmth was all her potion soaked taste buds could register. Narcissa slumped into the armchair, eyes closed shut, before she'd finished her cup.
She woke up in bed, dazed. She sat up, her wand flying into her hand. No magic bound her, she felt fine. It was still night outside but she could hear motorcars in the distance.
The noise jolted her wide awake. Her classes!
A dozen charms later her clothes were smooth, her blonde hair sleek and her skin perfect. She stared appreciatively at her ugly new wand : for all it still felt foreign, her magic flowed through it without a hitch. Feeling more sure-footed, Narcissa took the time to kiss Teddy goodbye. The boy learned to wait until the cuckoo clock sang seven to get out of his room. Tiny illusions of wolves racing on flying carpets filled his play-pretend tent. Teddy, wolf-eared, was enthusiastically refereeing.
Toddler hugs were worth any Pick me Up.
The morning's warmth was sucked out of her when she found herself in the Headmistress' office. Minerva knew. It had barely been twelve hours, and yet she knew.
Narcissa had to occlude to keep her composure. "With all due respect, was not this why you used to despise me? I am neither incompetent nor a danger to the students "
"It's not enough." Stone-faced, Minerva McGonagall wouldn't even look her way, her eyes on Dumbledore's sleeping portrait. Her wand stayed tucked in her robes : she found Narcissa despicable, not fearsome. "I wrongly thought that your recent actions, what you'd suffered, could erase the past. Bill made it clear he would resign if I kept you on."
"I make sure to stay out of William's way," Narcissa said, words tumbling out in breathless desperation. "I'll -
"What, you'd take dinner in the kitchens? Avoid staff meetings? Don't be absurd. Leave and say the attack made you reconsider, nobody has to know-"
"Don't you dare! If you sack me, you will admit to it." She took a sharp breath. "Perhaps William just needs time-"
"There is not enough time in the rest of the school year for this," Minerva snapped. "I convinced Albus that we needed our own troops. That the Order had to be more than a political group of like-minded light wizards." She turned around, her fists clenched and bloodless. It struck Narcissa then that Minerva wasn't holding her wand because she didn't trust herself with it. "The Prewetts were to meet a man the morning after they were captured. A muggle man. When they didn't show, he panicked and sent an owl. It was intercepted by one of your allies among the aurors. He was killed."
"You knew him," Narcissa said tonelessly. She had lost. What a fool she was to have thought she would be teaching this morning.
"I loved him. He was supposed to be taken to our Headquarters. I took too long to make my choice and they got to him first. Narcissa, I cannot work with somebody who reminds me of one of the worst pains of my life. And neither can Bill."
A muffled chuckle by the wall cut through the painful silence.
Severus Snape peered down at them, his mirthless smile sardonic. The portrait had until now behaved perfectly muggle : black-clad and unmoving, standing over a silvery pensieve, his back to them. Today those haunted dark eyes were searingly alive.
"There's no such thing as redemption. You'll never be good enough for them, Narcissa."
Abruptly leaving a shocked Minerva behind, Narcissa didn't care that she was running as she made her way up to Gryffindor Tower.
Severus was a bloody cynic with self-loathing enough to fill a Gringott's vault. Narcissa would not have a shorter tenure than Dolores Umbridge. There had to be a way-
She almost crashed into Hermione Granger.
"Don't," the younger witch said. "I just tried to change his mind. He's part werewolf you know, and, to be fair, alarmed at how badly he wants to kill you right now."
Had the whole accursed Order witnessed her interrogation? It had been less than a day!
Narcissa struggled to keep an even tone. "I was told the bite had no consequences other than making him unusually carnivorous"
"And if you suggest there's more, I'll call you a liar. It's manageable and there are calming potions if it gets too much." Hermione sighed. "I love Minerva but they're being hypocrites."
That had Narcissa blink.
The younger witch scoffed. "Everything was fine and forgiven when you were thought to have ruined and killed muggleborn and muggles, but the Prewetts? Turns out they are real people."
Narcissa's energy bled away like a pierced basket. Hermione Granger was brilliant, principled, but also young. Grief didn't bow to reason. "Harry?" Narcissa whispered.
"I think he'd convinced himself that Lucius was the evil one while you… enjoyed the money or something." Hermione bit her lower lip, as if struggling not to laugh at Narcissa's sudden dismay. Enjoyed the money? "When you defied Voldemort for Draco's sake, he saw a bit of his mum in you. It was easier to forgive and like you when he could pretend you were a helpless victim. Obviously, he's conflicted now."
A helpless victim. Clearly Narcissa had missed some of the subtext in her talks with the young man.
A frosty smile cut into her stiff cheeks. It was so easy to revert to her old masks. "You didn't think I was a frivolous housewife poisoned by her sordid upbringing?"
Hermione's flat stare was insultingly condescending. "You must recall that I took a lot longer to warm up to you than Harry did. But I've spent too long upset at half the wizarding world. I can respect who you've become. Harry will come round."
"Oh, I'll just wait around then."
Hermione flinched at Narcissa's biting tone.
In a storm of gray smoke, Narcissa fled before her rising temper could cost her any more goodwill.
Narcissa should have gone to talk to the Slytherins. She couldn't bear to see their faces. To face her guilt. To admit she was powerless. Pansy would throw her words back in her face. Astoria would wisely keep her distance.
She wanted Draco.
Wrapped in denial, she had spent the day with Reggie. She assured him that she didn't blame him and then listened to him happily prattle on about Cho Chang who had introduced him to her boss who now wanted to grant him a formal audience. Lyra decided to bake a cake to celebrate and Narcissa was happy to help.
But as the hours passed, it grew more difficult to pretend. How long until Lyra's easy adoration became pity and hate?
Night found her at Meda's. Narcissa sat wand-in-hand on the wet grass, under the open window to Meda's lit kitchen. Around her floated red-and-black cans of that sickly sweet bubbly muggle drink her sister was inexplicably fond of. Narcissa flicked her wrist. One burst open, the black liquid jumping into her throat. She gasped at the sting spreading through her throat and nose.
"Cissy, that's my Coca-Cola!" Andromeda exclaimed from the kitchen, displacing herself to Narcissa's side and shoving the frost-lined window shut. "Cissy, what are you doing?"
"I lost everything," Narcissa muttered gloomily, transfiguring one of the aluminum cans into a kitten. An adorable white kitten. Why couldn't she be the kind of witch happy breeding kneazles?
Her shoulders stiffened at Andromeda's scoff.
"Don't say I deserved it, Meda. I-"
"How dare you," her sister snapped. The cans crashed to the ground. "You have a place to live. Lucius is well on his way to being rich again. You have… Regulus is a squib! You have your magic! Your husband and son are alive!"
Unexpected shame brought a blush to Narcissa's cheeks. She suddenly pictured Meda as a teenager with no home, no name, no family.
"Thank you, for being here," she whispered after a pause, extending her arm tentatively.
Her sister took her hand and helped her up. Meda smiled, eyes serious with understanding. "Shake off the self-pity. It's not a good look on you. What do you want to do?"
Narcissa bit back a childish scream of frustration. She wanted to teach. She wanted respect. Those Gryffindor hypocrites-
Thirty years ago, Diagon Alley.
"Such hypocrites," sixteen-year-old Bellatrix crowed, eyes sparkling in delight.
It was August 1970, the last summer the Black sisters had spent together.
Perched on the edge of Madam Malkin's roof, Bella swung her legs like a little girl, an ice-cream in her free hand. Narcissa, clad in pale blue robes and cooling charms, stood demurely behind her, as if proper poise would distract onlookers from the fact she was on a rooftop. Andromeda, clearly unconcerned about onlookers, was kneeling next to Bellatrix. The eldest Black stared at the commotion below with binoculars, muttering to herself something unintelligible about records and… vee-deo?
A dozen squibs led by two stiff-jawed mages had interrupted a frenzy of pre-Hogwarts shopping. Their robes and boots were dragonhide, more armor than clothing. Families scrambled, dragging wide-eyed children away, while others took out their wands.
Last year's squib unrest had scattered violently. Narcissa knew many of those who'd decided to teach those degenerates a lesson. Mother had been foul tempered for weeks : Rosier had been among the names painted in blood on those wretched people's robes as, in a group a hundred people strong, squibs young and old had marched upon the Ministry.
This time, the squibs were few, but they walked abreast like an eerie marching band, hands holding child-sized balloons that shimmered like ghosts. Narcissa shuddered despite herself. The murdered squib children. The now infamous Perses Carrow and Esme Edgecombe lead the march, grim faced in their dragonhide greens as they clutched their wands. Carrow had been disowned, Edgecombe was as good as.
"They should band with werewolves," Bella declared, all too cheerful at the prospect of a pitched battle. "Same fight really. They're all regular folk with a teensy weensy problem. What are you doing, Meda?"
"This could be History. With good quality pensieve memories, there must be a way to make permanent records. Muggles have video cameras while we are stuck with photography."
A week earlier, Meda had dragged them at the muggle pictures to see Cromwell, shutting down their protests by pointing out that muggles were doing things no spells could and that mages couldn't fancy themselves superior if they didn't fix that. Bellatrix hadn't been able to resist doing something that would give their parents a fit.
Admittedly, for all that the movie's place had been uncomfortable, crowded, loud, and the food terrible, Narcissa could understand why a stories-lover like her sister craved proper mage animated talking pictures.
"Look at them!" Bellatrix cackled, pointing at the people backing away. "Can't deal with squib baby murder? Hypocrites!" She hollered. "Weaklings!"
"Oh hush." Must Bella constantly make a spectacle of herself? "They must be afraid hexes will start flying. They're with their children."
"The presence of sprogs makes shield spells fail now? Look at them : they're the same light wizards that pretend to care about the oppressed and whatnot. Can't they be arsed to learn magic to defend the cause?" Bellatrix shook her head. "I'm counting two wands among that sorry lot. Two. How can you run away from that and not drop dead in shame?"
Not all were running away. A new crowd was gathering. Narcissa recognized the Mulcibers and the Averies, three generations strong.
"Dragonhide doesn't protect you from slippery mud conjured under your feet," Bella continued, taking on a sing-song tone, "or a bag of bricks slammed into your face…"
"That's Arthur Weasley," Meda cut in.
Indeed. The red-headed wizard, one hand sticky with ice cream and the other full with Molly Prewett (Morgana, was that witch pregnant? Those two weren't even married!) was purposefully striding between Mulciber and the squibs.
Prewett was as red as her own hair. Last winter, two squibs had demanded to be recognized as Prewetts and asked for reparations, one of them clutching his mudblood granddaughter. The house had agreed to give money in exchange for the girl. Instead of being grateful she'd be raised by wizards, she'd howled for her parents in front of the whole Wizengamot. Nasty business.
"Huh," Bella eloquently said when Weasley started chatting with the squibs. Soon he began charming names on the balloon-ghosts.
On a balloon the size of a toddler, 'Narcissa' appeared. Narcissa's fists clenched. A toddler. Reggie had been six when he'd done his first magic, what if-. Which family had- Rosier? Parkinson?
Uniformed figures suddenly apparated in the street. "Alright! Scatter now or we'll have to arrest you."
The squibs were surrounded, Carrow and Edgecombe outnumbered three to one. The Mulcibers sheathed their wands at Alastor Moody's scowl. The auror raised his eyes. He and Narcissa briefly locked gazes.
"Hypocrite." Narcissa mouthed. The man had signed Dumbledore's law proposal. If he truly believed the law should treat squibs like wizards, why wasn't he standing with Carrow?
"Good girl!" Bella exclaimed. "Better bleeding heart idiots than hypocritical doormats."
Prewett had sat defiantly next to a young woman whose balloon spelled William.
"Do you want to stand with the squibs, sisters? Some may be relations."
Had Meda lost her mind?
A camera flash betrayed the arrival of reporters. Two aurors tried to block them, but one of them, Molly Prewett's brother, conveniently failed to notice the young wizard slipping past him.
"When we've gotten rid of the roaches, I'll have a fight with those two about muggle rights." Bellatrix declared, eyeing Weasley and Prewett with newfound respect.
Narcissa had always been more of a cynic than Bellatrix, yet now she realized the right thing to do was obvious.
"Who might know where Lawrence Rowlands is living now?"
Andromeda furrowed her brow. Unexpectedly, she grinned. "Oh Kingsley is going to hate me."
Deafened by the wings' motors roar, Narcissa walked down the small airplane's ladder, a scarf around her hair. Luggage carts and signaling vehicles zoomed on the expanse before her. It was chilling to think that there were more workers at Heathrow airport than adult mages in the Isles. Today was Sunday and yet the muggles milled about like thousands of busy ants.
After Reggie's and Meda's tales, the witch had wanted to travel muggle. Why waste the galleons on Ministry-traced international portkey when there were private jets? The pilot had treated them with more deference than anyone had shown Narcissa in years.
No wonder muggleborn returned to their parents' world: it was so easy to live large in it.
"He thought he'd married a witch." Severus had once said, after the first war, in a rare conversation about his late father. "That he'd not have to work. That they'd have nice things. Then my mother got cursed."
It had made sense to Narcissa then, that a muggle would want to marry a mage. Now she understood why even some pureblooded mages might be tempted to trade their robes for suits.
"I doubt I'll ever muster a great interest in turbines and all this machinery but I can respect the..." In this strange world words escaped her.
"Engineering?" her sister suggested.
"Engineering," she agreed.
The weather in Zagreb had been terrible, but Narcissa hadn't come to sight-see. The old shop-witch, Cordelia, released from Ministry custody, had needed only two days to find where Rowlands lived. A city and a name were enough for any decent post owl. They'd landed in Croatia the next morning and the very same afternoon, they were back in England.
The three walked across the asphalt expanse that would take them to the airport building. Lawrence Rowlands stood half a head shorter than Narcissa herself. His thick coat hung loose around his broad shoulders and a white button-up shirt hugged his round belly before disappearing into dark brown trousers. Bald-headed with a clean-cut reddish-gray beard, he turned piercing eyes towards her and Andromeda.
"I left England afraid for my life. Now here I am, fetched by Narcissa Malfoy…" he grinned. "In jeans."
Was something wrong with her trousers? Reggie had said they would tone down her purple blouse and high heels to something appropriately casual.
Rowlands' smile broadened. "You pass perfectly, it boggles my mind. Is this our welcoming committee?"
Before the terminal's doors, two more witches waited, a muggle-diverting field casting a pale blue glow on their clothes.
"Is their concealing magic compatible with surveillance cameras?"
"Quite. Andromeda is quite the expert with electronics. She has a television in her warded home."
Rowlands tipped his head. "I'd vote for you."
Meda chuckled and waved at Brycin who was impatiently waiting for them next to a nervous-looking Hermione Granger.
But nervousness made that witch more talkative if anything. "So, the plan is to get you on the wireless. I have secured a block for you and Brycin tonight. Nobody asked me who I was bringing on, but if they raise a fuss I will use my hard-gained fame to get them sacked."
Rowlands frowned, his smile gone. "How violent a fuss are you expecting?"
"Hopefully nothing. We'll protect you if I'm wrong." Shoulder stiff, Hermione purposefully strode to the nearest fire hydrant. It radiated portkey-magic. "Don't worry, I didn't fight a war to let others walk all over me."
"Diggory's aurors favored their families and Ministry people just as much as anybody else," Brycin said, her eyes locking with Narcissa's. "Laurel Spore worked under him. I'll name him. Cordelia said she doesn't mind us using her story as long as it serves a purpose."
"You want Diggory to fall?" Rowlands asked.
"Not fall," Andromeda muttered, "but a bit of humility will do him good."
Fall sounded nice to Narcissa but she restrained herself.
As the others plotted, Hermione edged closer to Narcissa. "Harry would approve, you know. I don't see why the secrecy-"
"Because I don't need him." Narcissa said. "Let him not worry about being disloyal to the Weasleys or give people an excuse to say Harry Potter is maneuvering to put his pawns in positions of power."
And she didn't want Harry to get the credit. Kingsley and his court were very vocal about merit and righting past wrongs so here she was, bringing them someone smart and ambitious who had been greatly wronged. A muggleborn who, unlike Nobby Leach, did not wish for a Wizengamot seat for his family, but instead to disband birth privileges, force Ministry workers into taking vows against corruption and favoritism, and make sure quality magical instruction was available to all. Ironically, it had been the former Unspeakable's refusal to condemn Dark Arts that lost him critical allies among the light-aligned. Had Rowlands had more support, it wouldn't have been so easy to threaten him into exile.
Lee Jordan's eyes popped from their sockets when Narcissa stepped into the recording studio. His rage twisted in confusion as he caught Hermione's glare.
"They will talk, you won't interrupt or I will tie you up," the witch said breathlessly. "I can tie you up. That way you can tell George you had no choice because I tied you up."
"Does Ron know you're with her?"
Hermione hummed noncommittally. "Ron's nightmares about the time I was tortured in Malfoy Manor are as vivid as mine. He trusts my judgement."
Jordan stared. "Maybe you should tie me up," he finally said. "You know how this works anyway."
Andromeda's eyes crinkled when Hermione conjured ropes. Narcissa might have smiled too, had Hermione's matter of fact reminder of her ordeal not chilled her to the core.
The studio was six chairs and dozens of enchanted speakers, coils and antennas that hummed from the sheer amount of runic magic that made it possible to do what electronics did for muggle radio.
Brycin was muttering 'facts only, don't get carried away' to herself like a mantra. Rowlands patted her shoulder with a reassuring smile.
One of the man-sized speakers before them suddenly filled the studio with golden light. It was time.
Hermione introduced them. Narcissa explained her role in Rowlands' exile and her decision to call him back. Then she let Rowlands and Brycin talk, asking the occasional question, about their lives, and hardships as second class citizens. Her because she was low-born and not exceptional enough to escape her lot, him because despite being exceptional he had the wrong blood and the wrong ideas. Soon, they stopped talking of hardships and talked of their ambitions and dreams.
Hermione was flushed and beaming when it was over. "Wow, it felt like when I was imagining a better world with Mr. Weasley during the summer before my fifth year, except instead of being stuck in secret Headquarters, we're speaking out."
Narcissa smiled too, hoping their enthusiasm would not come crashing down.
The next morning at breakfast, a flash turned Andromeda's living room green. The Daily Prophet dropped against the chimney's bricks with a soft thud.
'A Black Heritage : Narcissa Malfoy revealed.
By Mark Turpin.'
Narcissa lips thinned into a venomous sneer. Once, people had scurried out of her way when she'd passed. She'd not had to ask, only suggest, and they would bend over backwards to accommodate her.
Even as a girl she'd not had to tolerate public insult. The attack in the Hogwarts' grounds had been a crime. This... this was legal.
"You've got to be kidding me," Andromeda rapidly scanned the article Narcissa was too much of a coward to read. "In the name of truth my arse! Watch Teddy." She summoned a coat and strode outside, disapparating the second she'd passed the house's wards.
Teddy, who had been eating his breakfast (and had milk up to his ears) was staring.
"Fly?" he asked cautiously, windmilling his arms.
He squealed in delight as Narcissa made him loop across the room.
Loud harp notes suddenly covered his laughter. The toddler took a sharp dive towards the floor, saved in extremis as Narcissa recovered from her jolt.
The ringing telephone sat on a small mirror. Lucius' smoky silhouette filled the polished glass.
Heart racing, Narcissa picked up.
"Darling," she said, guilt tightening her chest.
"Why didn't you tell me?" His sigh made her flinch like a scolded child. "Narcissa, will you come see us soon?"
"Yule. I have tickets." Her voice shook slightly. Just a little over a week. She could do this. "I was on the wireless with Lawrence Rowlands yesterday."
"Yes, I'm upset I missed it. Draco had to get a memory of it from a friend. Warn me next time you choose to artfully divide and conquer." The smile in his voice loosened the knot in her chest.
"You make it sound like a nefarious plot," she chided.
"My dear, you interviewed the opposition and reminded our young government that they were not elected and worse: that they're not England's most progressive option."
"Aunt Cissaaaa!" Stuck in midair, Teddy had lost patience.
Oops. Narcissa let him land and ushered him outside. "Go pick some hollyhock blooms for Grandma. It'll make her happy."
Lucius chuckled. "These amateurs emptied their quiver. Turpin is no Skeeter. Your new entanglement with Rowlands was clumsily acknowledged and raises questions. In your favor." Concern laced his voice. "Cissy… do please be careful."
Narcissa swallowed. Tears abruptly filled her eyes. "McGonagall sacked me," she mumbled and she hated that she mumbled and that she couldn't shrug it off. Andromeda was right, Narcissa had hardly lost everything but-
"That bitch." Lucius' unyielding condemnation was warm honey down her throat. "You're a great teacher. Watch them, they'll scramble with mediocre replacements for a year or two and beg you to return."
Narcissa caught herself smiling. "I'm fine. You're right: I'm free now, there's nothing left to blackmail me with."
A small hand pulled on her robes when she'd set the phone down. Teddy pointed proudly at a pile of colorful flowers on the grass.
"Oh they're beautiful! You're going to go play with Lyra and Kreacher today, Treasure," Narcissa said, her cool eyes at odds with the softness of her voice. "I have someone to see."
The small brick house was packed with generations of… stuff, from birdcages to beer horns. These people had not only never gotten rid of anything but they'd clearly never heard of expansion or storage charms. Bees buzzed around them, picking at the numerous out-of-season plants that for some reason had to be kept in the living-room (Narcissa had reconsidered her standards in the past two years: she hadn't been expecting a reception hall, but this was… cramped).
"Your allies are now of the lower class. It must feel odd," Cordelia said, offering her a honey biscuit.
"I am very grateful." The biscuit was predictably sweet and Cordelia oddly disquieting, and not just because of her ugly regrown skin.
"I would expect a lady of your social standing to be at ease in any situation, or to fake it at least. What weights on your mind, dear?"
Narcissa blinked. She could not possibly have been that obvious. Dear. The old witch talked to Narcissa like she was not only younger, but smaller. Brycin for all her bluster respected Narcissa, or her power at least. Cordelia… didn't. Stung, Narcissa decided she would play no more games.
"Hermione Granger has made extensive inventory of existing treatments for memory loss. The Americans aren't that much more advanced than us. You are too well, Cordelia."
Bellatrix had left Azkaban in such a wretched state, and here this witch claimed her mind had survived being flayed of seventy years' worth of memories.
"Are you accusing me of lying?" Her faint smile made Narcissa itch for her wand. But Cordelia's hands were empty and Narcissa was a guest, it would be unspeakably rude.
"I wouldn't blame you for having dramatized your ordeal," she said instead. Her hair gone, her skin regrown, her voice altered by burns... Cordelia could be anyone.
"The House of Black was ashes," Cordelia mused after a pause. "And now Andromeda has more influence than Orion ever did and you... You destroyed the dementors, you brought back Rowlands : the Ministry can't disguise its lack of willpower as anything else anymore. Anyone smart will see the Prophet published your crimes as a distraction." A joyous and predatory smile split her face. "The war left a power vacuum our handsome Shacklebolt can't fix, not if he stays true to his ideals. We're going to change this country, my girl."
Narcissa blinked. Each person had a music to their sentences, a particular diction, a way their lips twisted and their eyes crinkled. She could scarcely believe her senses.
"What happened to the real Cordelia?" she breathed. How foolish of her to think over a decades' silence and an untouched Gringotts' vault had meant death.
"Broken, insane. Her son turned to Dark Arts after the specialists failed to tell him what he wanted to hear. She was dying when he brought her to me. Such a perfect opportunity. They all so wanted to believe she was cured… a few spells and her son never asked too many questions. He's so much happier like this."
"Yes, you decided to pass as a shop-witch from the goodness of your heart." Not one hundred years old but eighty-five. Not an old woman with uncommon skill for legilimency but one of the most dangerous dark witches still alive.
That thin smile. A hint of Bellatrix; their mother's fantasy Bellatrix perhaps. One that would have poise and manners.
"Look around you, your friend Brycin and the rest… they have so much rage, they're so desperate for change, but they don't know how to play these games. They're stuck in their swamp. They need me. Us. And we'll give them what they want, because that's where the power is today. You will rise, that Granger will rise faster than she would have without us, even poor Regulus will be somebody. I will fight for them."
"You can't expect me to lie to Meda."
"Oh, Cissy, I'm not! I'm going to take a wager and say she loves Brycin more than she hates me. She wants this change. She's smart enough to pick her battles." With chilling confidence, Cassiopeia Black smiled. "Our house will be great once more, and this time we'll be on the good side of History."
Author's Notes :
Aaaand here it goes. Hope it was worth the wait! I'd love to hear your thoughts.