"So, Draco," Narcissa said conversationally, pouring the boy a cup of tea. "How is Miss Parkinson these days?"
Draco eyed her suspiciously. He clearly had no idea why she had demanded that he join her for tea today. She had, on some level, expected that — he did rather take after Lucius, when it came to political acumen. However, she did expect him to be better able to conceal his suspicion and confusion than he was currently managing. It was possible that he intended to be so overt, of course, but she doubted it. And if he did, he shouldn't. One should never intentionally advertise one's genuine ignorance.
Perhaps Lyra had had a point, when she'd accused Narcissa of raising her son to be 'a little bitch' — he was rather more sheltered than either she or Lucius had been at...well, any age, and much as she wished she could, she couldn't deny that his magical and social skills were far inferior to the expectations Walburga and Bella had held for her at fourteen. Looking back, she'd already known then that she was going to marry Lucius when she left school and become Lady Malfoy eventually, and had been preparing herself accordingly, learning their family history and positioning herself to become a leader among their peers.
By the time she and Lucius were betrothed, she realised abruptly, she had probably been more prepared to take over as the Head of House Malfoy, if necessary, than Draco was today. Yes, he had just turned fourteen, but she suspected that, without serious effort, that would still be the case in a year's time. Which was, well...unacceptable, honestly, she realised with a twinge of guilt. Walburga would be so disappointed if she knew how poorly Narcissa had prepared her son for adulthood — where had the years gone?
But that situation, and the steps needed to correct it, she would have to discuss with Lucius. Today, she had a different topic of discussion in mind — one perhaps even more important, depending on the direction in which the political situation developed over the next year or two.
To put it bluntly, Hawthorne had mentioned (snidely, in passing) that Draco didn't seem to be entirely on board with the direction she intended to take the Allied Dark — which, knowing Draco, probably meant he'd been talking big in front of Pansy again. He hadn't taken Lyra's demonstration of his inferiority at the beginning of the previous school year well at all. Narcissa rather suspected he was trying to convince himself of his own status as well as everyone else, throwing out crass, disparaging comments about mudbloods and line thieves and generally acting like an entitled little twat, as her sister would put it.
This was problematic for several reasons. The Truce had grown dangerously fragile with Bellatrix's escape, for one — no one with half a brain truly believed she was dead — and Lucius was a Death Eater, perhaps the most well-known among those who had escaped Azkaban. His son could not go around advertising his own pureblood supremacist leanings in this political climate. And on a related note, Narcissa was going to drag the Allied Dark into a position to ride out the inevitable democratic expansion of the Wizengamot — kicking and screaming, if necessary — which meant that they were going to become more muggleborn-friendly, whether they liked it or not. Plus, this ridiculous, juvenile feud Draco seemed to be intent on perpetuating with Lyra needed to stop, now. Sirius hadn't been cleared of all charges and recognised as the Head of House Black yet, true, but it was all but certain that the trial would conclude within the week, which meant the Blacks would very soon have a political voice with which to retaliate against Draco and the House of Malfoy if he persisted in his claims that their heiress was illegitimate. (Which Sirius would do simply to make Narcissa's life difficult, because their ridiculous, juvenile feud never had been properly resolved.) Not to mention, if he kept it up, Lyra would almost certainly lose patience with him, and Narcissa was acutely aware of the sort of things her sister tended to do when tedious people insisted on forcing their company on her.
That business with the Hogwarts Divination professor apparently losing her mind, for example, had a very Bellatrix flavor to it.
"She's fine, I suppose," Draco answered, too hesitantly, after a long pause.
"Do endeavor to conceal your uncertainty, Draco."
He glared at her which, while still not the cool, distant mask he ought to be aiming for, was at least slightly better than confusion or suspicion. "Fine, then. Pansy is well, why do you ask?"
"Oh, I just happened to run into her mother the other day. She mentioned the two of you have been discussing politics, of late. Dare I ask what positions you may be developing?"
Draco's face twisted into a sneer, which he attempted to conceal behind his teacup. Unsuccessfully. "If you're asking, Mother, I dare say you already know — I think Lord Nott is right. We should be fighting this ridiculous idea of letting the commoners govern us, not rolling over in an attempt to placate them before just handing them the reins of the Government."
"Cadmus Nott is an idiot," Narcissa informed her son. His eyes widened at her bluntness. "The Dark houses command an ever-shrinking minority—" (A ridiculous oversimplification if ever she had made one, but she suspected Draco understood so little of the situation as to preclude a more accurate characterisation of the political landscape, another failure on her part, and one which she would begin to correct at the earliest opportunity.) "—of the seats in the Wizengamot, and Democratic Expansionism has made drastic gains among the Common Fate and Ars Publica over the past ten years. They will get the majority they need to make their reforms regardless of any efforts we might make to thwart them. That is an arithmantic certainty. If we wish to weather the storm we must prepare for that inevitability — and I assure you, Draco, I have every intention of doing so."
He gave her a petulant pout. "It's not weathering the storm if we lose everything that makes us different from the common riff-raff."
"And what are those things, precisely?"
Draco hesitated. As Narcissa had suspected, he'd simply been parrotting the rhetoric spouted by Nott's faction, rather than developing the argument for himself. "Erm...our autonomy?" he guessed.
"Common Houses are functionally very similar to Noble Houses under the law, in that regard. If we move now to sway public opinion to our side, secure a majority of the new seats, we will be able to ensure that laws degrading the autonomy of Houses — both Noble and Common — remain un-passed. Try again."
"Our history? Our bloodline?"
"Neither of which is affected by the makeup of the Wizengamot, or indeed any laws that might be enacted by it."
"We— Our ideals, then. Culture, and...stuff."
Narcissa fixed him with a rather unimpressed stare. "Culture and stuff?"
"Er...you know, like...not taking on stupid muggle ideas. Like holidays," he added, obviously making an attempt to seize on a point he knew Narcissa believed was important.
"Would these be the same holidays you personally disparage as being disgusting heathen rituals, because you can't stand the sight of your own blood?" she asked innocently, before informing him that, "That argument would hold far more weight if you actually celebrated the Powers." He did, of course, still participate in his mother's holiday rituals, but he never had truly understood Magic, and she held absolutely no hope that he would continue to make any observances as her influence over him waned. "Not to mention, muggles today have almost as little respect for Christianity as your father does for the Old Ways. Muggleborns certainly think our religious traditions odd, but they are hardly the ones attempting to limit or ban our ritual practices."
"No, but everyone knows Dumbledore supports them, don't they want the same things he wants?"
Narcissa sighed. Clearly they ought to have had a frank discussion about this years ago. "No. Some might agree with some things that he wants, but the vast majority of muggleborns see his principles as being more antiquated than ours in many important ways."
"How would you know that?" Draco asked, glaring at her accusingly, as though it were some sort of heinous crime to have actually researched a demographic which was only set to become more of an influence in their political sphere over the next two decades.
"Shocking as you may find this revelation, Draco, muggles do write history books and publish newspapers. Many of them are even capable of verbal communication, should one wish to question them directly about their opinions on religious freedom or economic policy or any number of other political issues."
In fact, Ars Publica, the traditional pre- Death Eater Dark in the Wizengamot, had been more attractive to muggleborns than Dumbledore's Light for some decades now — their inclination to live and let live was more in line with modern muggle sensibilities. The last war had stalled the drift of muggleborns and halfbloods and commoners toward the Dark temporarily, Ars Publica tarred with the same brush as the Death Eaters in Light propaganda despite publicly opposing them, but that trend had sharply reversed over the last decade. In fact, they'd probably already have a solid majority in a democratic Wizengamot, if only in coalition with the Common Fate.
Her son subsided into a furious, embarrassed silence at her sarcasm, frowning down at his tea as though hoping it would give him some sort of hint as to what he should say next.
"Democratic Expansion will happen whether we fight it or not," she offered, in a much more consoling tone. "If we fight it, we will lose, and in the process make enemies of those who will shortly hold a degree of power equal to or even greater than our own. Thus we must make the most of the time we have left to sway the public to our way of thinking. It is the only possible chance we have of preserving any degree of political influence in the long term, and perhaps even reforming the policies which have so marginalised traditional practices over the past several decades. The Allied Dark will follow my lead in this."
"That's not what Lord Parkinson and Lord Nott say. They say they can still fight the Expansionists, and they'll die before they let you compromise our society by catering to the whims of animals over proper wizards."
Narcissa felt her eyes narrow in annoyance. Honestly?
Cadmus, of course, was an idiot, and had never liked her anyway, it was hardly surprising that he (still) had his doubts. She was well aware that he'd been sneaking around meeting with the Browns and Llewellyns in an effort to establish a new alliance, since she'd made it clear the Allied Dark would not be moving in the direction he favored. She'd been aware of his treacherous leanings even before Lyra had passed along the intelligence young Theo had volunteered.
But she'd thought Menelaus, at least, was smarter than that. He'd certainly been wise enough to pretend he'd been attempting to recruit the members of Ars Brittania who were known to have been attending the little gatherings at his home, rather than attempting to defect. She, of course, had pretended to believe him, while simultaneously reminding him that while she might not be able to betray the fact that he had been a willing Death Eater without resigning Lucius to Azkaban and severely weakening her own credibility, that was far from the only potentially damaging information she held over him. She'd had similar little chats with Yaxley, Rowle, and Wilkes (the last of whom she didn't actually have any blackmail worthy information on, but he certainly seemed to believe she might, so she was currently working on ferreting out what it might be). They appeared to have been falling in line over the past few weeks, but if they were now trying to corrupt her son...
"Was this before or after I reduced Cadmus Nott to a smoking pile of bloodied limbs last month? Because their deaths can be arranged." Granted, Menelaus was a more talented fighter than Cadmus, but she was confident she could still take him in an honor duel — he hadn't managed to beat her in a fair fight since she was fifteen, and he had tried.
(Not that Narcissa had ever been inclined to fight fair herself. Assassination was a tried and true method for dealing with enemies of the House of Black, and both Theodore and Tyndareus were more reasonable individuals...)
Draco gaped at her. Understandable, perhaps, she did normally refrain from making such direct comments in front of him — she hardly wanted him thinking that such things were appropriate to speak of in polite company — but it was time he started to realise that their society was far more dangerous and complicated than the impression she might have given him in her attempt to raise him as a young gentleman without subjecting him to the same sort of upbringing as she had had. "You did what?"
Oh, or that. "I can hold my own in a fight, you know," she said drily, pouring herself another cup. He ought to know — it wasn't exactly a secret, even if he'd never shown much interest in dueling himself, and had therefore never progressed past the most introductory exercises in their lessons. Her most recent duel with Cadmus was hardly the first challenge she'd withstood as the leader of the Allied Dark. Certain Dark Patriarchs seemed to have a persistent problem, allowing a witch half their age to dictate their political policy.
(She'd had occasion to wish some of the traditionally matriarchal Dark Houses had joined their alliance, but none had — which was curious, she couldn't think of why that might be.)
"But they were Death Eaters!"
Narcissa had to smile slightly at that, because they had been, yes. Bella had liked to set overconfident Death Eaters against her baby sister and the even younger Regulus, just to make a point. It was hardly fair — Bella had been training them alongside the new recruits since Narcissa was ten — but the point she was making wasn't that life was fair, but that arseholes like Menelaus weren't nearly as good with a wand (or anything else) as they thought they were.
"Indeed. Menelaus was essentially a merchant — a middleman who procured items and ingredients that were particularly difficult to find. Cadmus, if I recall correctly, primarily led raids against muggleborns and their families. They did fight, of course, in the major battles, but they were hardly among the Dark Lord's best."
"I— But..."
In response to her son's wide-eyed shock, she added, "You didn't think all of the Death Eaters were elite warriors, did you? Your father was rather highly placed in the recruitment and intelligence arm of the organisation, but your cousin Lyra could probably best him in a duel."
Honestly, very few of the Death Eaters had ever been very elegant fighters. Certainly all those who had survived were good enough to hold their own in a brawl or a battle against the Hit Wizards, but hardly professional dueling material. And in any case, most of them had gone to seed in the years since the war ended.
Draco scowled at the mention of his cousin. Apparently it was no consolation to him that his father would hardly have fared better in that little farce at the beginning of the school year (though Lyra would almost certainly have had to use spells other than illusions to defeat Lucius). "I still can't believe she's really a Black."
Narcissa sighed. She knew she ought to have told Draco about Lyra when she first appeared, but she'd thought it best, at first, to polish off the worst of Lyra's rough edges, but it hadn't taken long to realise that the two of them almost certainly wouldn't get on. Introducing them and encouraging them to treat each other as family would, she'd thought, be worse than allowing them to negotiate their own relationship (or lack thereof) when they returned to Hogwarts. The very idea reminded her of moving in with Sirius's parents when they'd been five. She didn't really remember who started it, now, but they had hated each other all through school, even before Sirius had abandoned the House for the Light. She was certain that it had been for the best not to subject her son to a similar situation with Lyra.
She had, however, underestimated his capacity for stubborn denial when faced with unpleasant truths. Such as the fact that Lyra Black was, in fact, a Black, and as such his cousin and peer — his better, even, given the difference in status between the Blacks and the Malfoys — not some social inferior he could dismiss with sneering condescension. "She is."
"Who're her parents, then? Where did she come from?"
"That is none of your concern. She is a legitimate Black. Moreover, she is the Black heir, which puts the two of you on the same social level, now that Sirius's exoneration is all but assured, and the Blacks are once again a political entity. Which, by the by, means I will no longer tolerate your juvenile attempts to begin a feud with her."
"But Mother, she humiliated me in front of the entire school!"
"Draco, I will tell you this once, and once only: I do not care. That was months ago, and you were as much to blame for that situation as she was. Picking a fight with Lyra is pointless at best," and suicidal at worst, "and it ends now. She is your cousin, and you will treat her as such."
"I was not — did she tell you that? That I started it? Because I didn't! She's the one who hexed me in the back!"
She was also the one who had saved his life from a bloody hippogriff, which Narcissa thought rather outweighed the subsequent silencing charm. "I do not care who started it — you will stop antagonising her, before her patience runs out and I recieve an owl from Professor Snape to the effect that she has put you in hospital. Again."
"That's not fair!"
"What, precisely, is unfair about it?"
"Well, I— I don't know, it's just not! Why don't you tell her to stop antagonising me?"
Because Bella was constitutionally incapable of not antagonising everyone, really. And also because, so far as she could tell, Lyra had only antagonised Draco by constantly showing him up with no effort whatsoever. "Because she is not my child. You are. And your actions reflect upon myself and your father, and the House of Malfoy at large."
"And hers don't reflect on the House of Black?" he shot back, glaring at her over crossed arms.
Of course they did. Even accounting for the 'fact' that she couldn't possibly have been raised by the Blacks, she was the future of their House. But Bella had been (and Lyra was) in many ways, an exemplar of the Black ethos. Not the practices they'd adopted over the past several generations, but the legend of the Blacks — both their own histories and those of their contemporaries painted them as mad but brilliant, sadistic and self-destructive, absurdly powerful, and impossibly larger than life. The fire at the heart of the Dark, fascinating and enthralling and entirely unattainable. Much as it might pain the Lords of the Wizengamot to admit it, Lyra was exactly what they thought of when they imagined what a Black should be like.
"They certainly don't reflect poorly on the Blacks. If you're going to pick a fight, my son, make sure it's one you can win." Draco apparently had nothing to say to that, staring at her as though she'd just smacked him across the face, perhaps with a fish. Which was absolutely fine, perhaps he'd actually manage to listen, now. "In any case we have been discussing a political alliance with the Blacks, bringing them into the new coalition, so she should have no incentive to continue your little feud."
She continued for several minutes, outlining the goals of the coalition and the expectations she held for Draco in the coming year — she could hardly have him going off insulting muggleborns and taking the Death Eater propaganda at face value, repeating Nott's talking points as though they had some merit, when she was attempting to shift the Allied Dark in a more traditionally Dark direction, away from the more radical nationalist extremes they had drifted toward over the course of the war and not yet entirely abandoned. She had made some progress, in the two decades since becoming Lady Malfoy, but her fourteen-year-old son running around acting like a would-be Junior Death Eater did rather undermine that progress, suggesting that she privately held ideals which ran counter to her public statements.
Which she did, of course, though they were more along the lines that she would be damned if she was going to allow the status quo to fail so entirely that she no longer held the power and influence to which she had become accustomed. She honestly couldn't care less whether that meant supporting the Death Eaters or taking on muggleborn clients. She had already insisted that Lucius diversify their investments to include muggle businesses — those options had been both financially and politically prudent at the end of the war. Portraying herself and her voting bloc as offering a pathway toward harmonious muggleborn integration, rather than maintaining the divisive culture war that both the Light and most of her allies perceived to exist between muggleborns and proper wizards, was hardly an unappealing political model, and more importantly, it was pragmatic.
"Do you understand?" she asked her son firmly, as she came to the end of her explanation of why he must reform his public persona, beginning immediately.
It seemed he did not. "Why do you want to ally with her? I thought you hated Lord Black!"
Narcissa did her best to suppress her frustration. "Draco. My feelings toward Sirius and yours toward Lyra are completely irrelevant. This is not about the Blacks. It is about political objectives, and the fact that ours and theirs, and those of several other prominent Houses, align in such a way as to make them valuable potential allies. Honestly, you'd think I was telling you that you have to marry the girl. You don't even have to like her. But you will drop your little quarrel, and you will drop it now."
The stubborn child muttered something under his breath which might have been a surrender, but might equally have been a rebellious refusal.
"Enunciate, Draco."
"I said, I can't drop it!" he said, shooting her a furious glare. "I— Even if I did, she'd still..."
A chill swept over her as he faltered there, fear creeping into his tone. "She would still what, Draco?"
"She would still retaliate, okay? You said she wouldn't have any reason to continue our feud, but that's not how feuds work — we're not— She's still going to...to do something, I know it!"
"What. Did. You. Do?" Narcissa forced as much disapproving authority into her voice as she could. If Draco was so very concerned that Lyra would refuse to abandon her game with him he must have done something, because according to Severus she had hardly been going out of her way to toy with him — Narcissa honestly rather doubted that Lyra found Draco even mildly entertaining.
She had assumed that if her son stopped poking at her, the girl would find other people with whom to amuse herself — regardless of how annoying Draco might be, Lyra did acknowledge that he was Narcissa's child, and therefore not an appropriate target to entertain herself with. And even he could hardly fail to notice her lack of interest in his attempts to one-up her or reveal her illegal or socially unacceptable habits. She distinctly recalled several letters, in fact, complaining about this very fact. The one that came to mind — especially memorable because Narcissa would be entirely unsurprised to discover that it was actually true — was when he'd started a rumour that Lyra was snogging wilderfolk out in the Forbidden Forest, and she hadn't even appeared to notice.
If he had managed to catch her attention, however... Well, depending on what he had done — and it had to have been something rather extreme, if he was so certain she would feel the need to retaliate... This could be bad.
The boy shrank in on himself, toying with his teacup and refusing to meet her eyes as he muttered, "It's not so much what I did, but...I might have, erm...let her get ambushed by some older students at the end of last year. Or. Er. It's possible she'd think I had something to do with organising the whole thing. I didn't," he added hastily, obviously lying. "It was all Lavender's idea!" (Lavender? He didn't mean Lavender Brown, did he? Dark Powers, if her son had been running around scheming with the children of Ars Brittania...) "But, erm...she might still think I did. And, you know, want revenge."
If he was willing to admit that much, Narcissa suspected that Lyra almost certainly had good reason to believe that he'd been the organiser of said ambush. "What did you do to her?" she asked, bracing herself against the answer. It couldn't have been that bad, she thought, attempting to quash her anxiety. She'd seen Lyra several times over the past few weeks, and she hadn't mentioned anything...
"I didn't do anything!"
"If that were true, you would have no reason to fear her vengeance."
"I– I'm not afraid, I just—"
"You are. And you are lying to me, and moreover you are doing so poorly. I am not upset with you because of your fear—" The Morrigan knew Narcissa would be afraid if she'd organised some sort of attack on Bella and she'd survived. (And Bella had liked Narcissa.) "—but because you did something so incredibly stupid. What did you and your 'older students' do to her?"
"Nothing! It's fine, they obliviated her after, and—"
"Draco! I am trying to help you, here, but I cannot do so if you refuse to cooperate! You do not obliviate someone over nothing. What did you do?"
He squirmed in his chair for a long moment, pinned by her glare, before realising that there was no way out of this. He was certainly not a good enough liar to deceive her, and she was hardly going to abandon her line of questioning. Of course, his admission, when he made it, was once again rather less than clearly audible.
"I cannot hear you when you mumble, Draco."
"I didn't do anything, but they– they beat her. Broke her hand, and her leg. And one of them used some kind of torture spell on her to make her think she was drowning. And Rowle conjured some kind of acid, and, um..."
"Um..."
"Um... Le Parc snapped her wand."
Fabulous. Just fucking fabulous. And Draco still looked entirely too guilty to have confessed everything. "And?"
"And...um...oneofthemusedtheCruciatusonher," he said, so quickly that Narcissa wasn't entirely certain of his exact words. She was, however, certain that she'd heard Cruciatus in there.
"You let some idiot child use the Cruciatus on your cousin?"
He shuddered. Nodded. "It was horrible, Mother, the way she screamed... And then, after..." He trailed off, but the disturbed look on his face communicated clearly enough what must have happened.
"Let me guess: she acted like she'd been hit with a Cheering Charm and said something mocking about the caster's technique?" Narcissa found herself quite unable to keep a note of exasperated resignation off her voice, because of course she would have, she always had been completely insane.
Draco's mouth fell open. "How...?"
"I have seen Bella put under the Cruciatus before," she snapped, in response to his inarticulate question. Several times, in fact — she'd encouraged her trainees to use it as a shield-breaker when they couldn't get anything else through, and de Mort had had a tendency to throw it around in exhibitions. (And as foreplay, but Narcissa didn't like thinking about Bella's sex life.) "Granted, mocking the caster about their technique was a guess, but that she would continue to antagonise them was almost guaranteed." And if the caster was a schoolchild, they'd likely made a hash of it, none of the Unforgivables were particularly easy spells to cast.
"Bella?"
"Yes, Bella. My sister, Bella."
"Er...what does she have to...?"
Narcissa sighed. Someone, Narcissa wasn't entirely certain who, had realised early in the summer that the best explanation for who Lyra was and where she had come from was that she was a bio-alchemy clone of Bellatrix. (It might have been Bellatrix herself, the explanation was leagues more reasonable than any other cover story they'd offered thus far.) Lyra and Mirabella had subsequently decided that, since the House of Black was now on the verge of holding a degree of power again and could therefore offer some protection to Lyra should anyone choose to make an issue of the fact that Bellatrix was her mother, there was no real harm in establishing this as the 'real' story behind all the cover stories they'd spread around last year. Not that Narcissa disagreed. In fact, she was rather of the opinion that they could have used that story from the beginning — it wasn't as though being someone's daughter (or even blood alchemy clone) was illegal, and it did neatly explain how Lyra was so impossibly similar to Bella at fourteen. (Though it would likely have caused authority figures to view her with a certain degree of suspicion from the beginning, so she did understand why they had held off 'admitting' it.)
This wasn't precisely how she'd intended to inform Draco of that 'fact', however. She hadn't truly intended to inform him at all — there was simply no point. Aside, perhaps, from impressing upon him the importance of avoiding her ire.
"Do you recall some twenty minutes ago, when I told you that Lyra's parentage was none of your concern?"
"Er...yes?"
"Lyra is my sister's daughter. In fact, I suspect that Lyra is a simple bio-alchemic copy of Bellatrix. I trust you can see why there may, in fact, be cause for concern, given the idiotic actions to which you've just confessed." The furious pink that had risen in her son's face over the course of this little chat vanished as he realised that the girl he had been attempting to pick a fight with, whose beating and torture he had arranged, was essentially the same person as his mad Aunt Bellatrix, whom no one in their right mind would intentionally antagonise. "If there is any spark of intelligence in that little blond head of yours, you will apologise to Lyra for your part in that little ambush, and beg her not to retaliate. Because while I doubt she has any intention of seriously harming you, I also doubt that she understands exactly how incapable you would be of coping with a proportionate response."
"I'm not incapable—" he tried to protest, but Narcissa cut him off almost at once.
"Stop, Draco. Just...stop. You are outmatched, and as I do not want my niece to accidentally kill my son, this game ends now."
"It's not a game, Mother!"
"What's not a game, Cousin?"
Draco yelped, startling badly enough that he very nearly fell out of his chair. Narcissa could hardly blame him. She had herself only just managed to suppress an eep of surprise at her time-travelling sister's sudden appearance. Where the hell had she come from?!
"We were just talking about you," she managed to say, more or less evenly. Not evenly enough that Lyra didn't catch her discomfort, as she gave Narcissa a mocking grin, but certainly enough that Draco didn't notice. "Tea?"
"Oh, no, I'm not staying, I just wanted to pop in for a few minutes to tell you—"
"Where did you come from?!" Draco interrupted. "How did you get in here?!"
Lyra gave him a patently false look of confusion. "Oxford, and I walked." Shadow-walked, Narcissa assumed, since she was fairly certain Lyra hadn't figured out how to apparate completely silently. She hadn't appeared in some shadowy corner, either, but that was still the best explanation Narcissa could come up with. "Now, hush, Draco, the grown-ups are talking," she said, giving him a patronising grin and taking an uninvited seat.
"You can't shush me in my own bloody house, Black, I don't care whose daughter you are—"
"Oh, you told him about that?"
"I did, yes. Just now, in fact."
Lyra shrugged. "Right, well, in that case, Mummy Dearest says hi. But that's not why I'm here."
Narcissa sighed. "Lyra, you really shouldn't go around implying you've been in contact with Bellatrix. I know you know that." Not that she actually doubted Lyra had been in contact with Bellatrix. Popping off to Italy (or wherever she was hiding out at the moment) to spend a few days with her alternate self was exactly the sort of thing she'd expect Lyra to do — or Bella, if their positions were reversed. Time travel always had been an interest of hers.
"Oh, are you going to turn me in? I'm hurt, here I thought we were family. Speaking of which, Siri also says hi, but I think he was being sarcastic. And Emma will be available to discuss the alliance any afternoon next week, just owl me—"
"I might," Draco interrupted again, glaring furiously at his cousin.
"Might what?"
"Turn you in."
"Do you really think anyone would believe you? Bella's slightly dead at the moment, you know," Lyra said, her tone impressively serious. (For Lyra.)
Narcissa couldn't help snorting slightly at that (and her son's flummoxed expression), trying to suppress a laugh. "Draco, what did we just discuss?" When he failed to respond, she further prompted him, "You were going to apologise to your cousin, were you not?"
Before he could either do so or refuse, Lyra cocked her head to one side. "Why? He hasn't done anything lately. I haven't even seen him in weeks."
"And the last time you saw him?"
"Um..." Apparently she had to think about this. Because of course she did — why would it be significant that she'd been ambushed and tortured only a few weeks ago? Bellatrix, honestly. "Draco, did you actually tell your mum that you managed to get the drop on me?" She must have guessed from the way he froze that he had, because she smirked at him before turning back to Narcissa. "It's fine, Cissy. Dark Powers, do you really think I'd be petty enough to demand an apology just because he got the better of me for once? You've clearly been spending too much time around Malfoys. I mean, I don't like losing, and it's not going to happen again, but it would be really fucking hypocritical of me to get all twisted up over it. Besides, if I was going to complain about anything, it'd be Pomfrey keeping me in hospital for a whole bloody week, not Draco recruiting some allies and making a half-decent play for once. Oh! And also, I was obliviated. So I don't know that your precious baby was behind the whole kidnapping-and-torturing thing, anyway."
"Oh, cut the crap, Lyra. Are you seriously telling me you have no intention of retaliating against your attackers?"
The girl gave her a rather startled, confused look. "What? No... Who said that? I'm definitely going to do something to them. But Draco really doesn't need to apologise for setting me up, and he was barely involved — unless you think that he's capable of casting the Cruciatus or an obliviation, or even that nifty little waterboarding curse, or transfiguring nitric acid. Granted, he could be responsible for breaking every bone in my wand hand, but given how green he's looking at the moment, I kind of doubt it." She shrugged. Shrugged. "So, if that's settled, I just wanted to let you know that the Grangers did agree to our Vassalage offer, and Emma will be taking over as our Proxy as soon as Sirius gets bored of the Wizengamot, probably by mid-September. I'm arranging introductions for her over the next few weeks, so—"
"No, Lyra, that is not settled. As I just told Draco, I will not have my niece getting carried away with some twisted little game and murdering my son, so. What do you want?"
"Er...what?"
"What do I need to do to ensure that you will leave my son out of whatever undoubtedly ridiculous, convoluted revenge plan you happen to be formulating against Draco and his allies?"
Lyra hesitated for a long moment, her brow furrowed in intense contemplation. "Is this one of those questions where I'm supposed to lie?"
What kind of... Honestly, Narcissa did wonder sometimes if Bella had been this...obtuse, at Lyra's age. If she had been, it went a long way toward explaining her...friendship with Mirabella. "No, why would you...?"
"Oh. Well, then, nothing. And I hear sometimes it's a good idea to placate your political allies with polite untruths."
That...sounded like something Walburga would have said, actually. But ignoring that... "Nothing?" Narcissa repeated, more disbelieving than anything.
"I'm not going to kill him, he's on Bella's list—" But not Lyra's, Narcissa noted, glaring at the girl. "—but you—"
"What list?" Draco interrupted, rather too urgently to be unconcerned. "What list am I on?"
The girl smirked. "The list of people Bella doesn't want to kill, and by extension doesn't want me to kill. Keep up, Drakey-poo," she explained dismissively before returning to her previous thread. "Anyway, I might not be allowed to kill him, but you can't just keep going around fighting his battles for him and bailing him out when he gets in trouble forever, so no, there's nothing you can do or give me to prevent my teaching him a lesson about leaving dangerous enemies alive behind you. It might even save his life one day, if he keeps going around starting shite like a Black." She turned back to Draco, grinned. "If you're planning to piss off dangerous people, you really do need to be a bit more ruthless when you have them at your mercy. Your mother should have taught you that, but sadly she seems to love you too much to raise you properly, so you'll have to make do with me."
Draco, red-faced and furious, sputtered incoherently for a moment before managing a painfully entitled, "Mother!"
Narcissa herself was hardly less furious. "Draco is my son, Lyra. He is not a Black, and it is not your responsibility to teach him anything. Nevermind the fact that you are only a child yourself, and—" A wave of cold magic washed over her, cutting off her voice with practiced ease as Lyra slipped her wand back into its holster — that little bitch!
"Call me a child again, Cissy," she said coolly, even as Narcissa cracked the familiar silencing charm. "You wouldn't be nearly so defensive about it if you didn't know I was right."
"You smug little— You are absolutely infuriating! Even when I know you're just trying to get a rise out of me."
"It's a gift. And I'm not just trying to get a rise out of you, I really do think that you did Draco a disservice giving him a childhood. Bella and Walburga would agree with me. Brax, too, for that matter." (Narcissa winced, just slightly. She couldn't help it. Abraxas would be even more upset than Walburga — it was the future of his House on the line, after all.) "And if I had more time, I might make an argument to the effect that he's a Black as much as you are, and that means he is my responsibility, but quite frankly I don't like him that much, and I already have my hands full with Harry. Also, I really don't care. And I have to go if I don't want to be late to breakfast, so."
Draco threw a biscuit at her, seething and mouthing what Narcissa suspected were filthy insults, completely silently. She must have jinxed him at the same time she had her.
"Thanks!" she said brightly, plucking the thing off the table in front of her and taking a bite.
Narcissa cast a dispel at her son, who continued to rail silently at his cousin. "What the hell is this, Lyra?"
"It's new, like it? It'll wear off...eventually...probably." She shrugged, smirked. "I don't know, really, I didn't really care to sit around and wait to find out. The counter's not really that difficult, just specific. And ironic, because Bella thinks she's funny. Anyway, owl me about the meeting, that's all I stopped by to say. And also to tell you to tell Draco that the Grangers are my vassals, now, so if he hexes Maïa again, I'll definitely do something worse than siccing Tyche on him for a few days, though I suppose since he's here... Fair warning, Cousin."
It took a moment for Narcissa to parse that threat, simply because it was so incredibly absurd. "You set the Lady on my son?!"
"Is this going to be like the fake dementor conversation? Though I stand by dementors not really being that bad. Draco's already pretty boring, so."
"Lyra. You cannot simply go around using Black Arts on schoolchildren!"
She had the temerity to laugh at that. "Did I, though? I doubt anyone could prove it. He could've just had a few days of entirely mundane bad luck. And even if he didn't, I don't think asking a friend for a favor really counts as Black Arts if you don't actually do a ritual to get their attention. And—" She checked the time. "—I'm now officially late for breakfast. I should get back to California before the boys take all the muffins. Ciao, Cissy. Draco." And then she disappeared, vanishing into thin air as abruptly and mysteriously as she'd arrived, which was just...
Absurd. Just completely, impossibly, insanely absurd. (In an undeniably House of Black sort of way, but that hardly made it — her — any less infuriating or disturbing.)
Narcissa flicked a quietus at her son — there was only one silencing charm which Bella might consider ironic, its counter being arithmantically indistinguishable from a Sound-Softening Charm — and fixed him with the most intensely serious expression she could muster. "You will adjust your behavior this coming year, and you will accept whatever humiliating punishment Lyra comes up with for your part in instigating that insane plan, and then, if you have any sense of self-preservation whatsoever, you will do your utmost to avoid annoying your cousin ever again. Understood?"
The boy nodded, staring at the chair from which Lyra had vanished with a vaguely horrified expression, still silent despite her having lifted the jinx. She wondered whether it was the casual confirmation that Lyra was in contact with Bellatrix that had so suddenly unnerved him, or the very thinly veiled admission that she was willing to use Black Arts to protect the Granger girl. Or possibly, she supposed, the thought that she would do worse than cursing him with the attentions of the Lady Herself if he dared hex the muggleborn again.
Personally, Narcissa found the implication that Lyra had just casually asked the Lady for a favor most terrifying, but she didn't think Draco was sufficiently familiar with High Ritual to understand how truly alarming the idea of someone just...walking around talking to the Powers actually was. Normal ritualists were bad enough, but just constantly holding the attention of Magic Itself? Not to mention, who the fuck held enough sway to ask a favor without some sort of negotiation of the cost? Rituals weren't just about catching the eye of a particular Power or Aspect. She had never heard of an Aspect granting a boon without some kind of repayment. Well, unless Lyra had sworn herself to the Lady, but that was just...not actually that absurd an implication, now that she was thinking about it.
If Lyra was a black mage in service to Chaos, that would go a long way toward explaining how the hell she'd ended up in this universe anyway. Not to mention her complete lack of human feeling and ridiculously advanced magical skills — Blacks who made the Choice sacrificed their humanity for power, it was part of the Covenant. Though that implied that Bella was also a black mage, her personality was far too similar to Lyra's for only one of them to have done it. Which...also wasn't an unreasonable conclusion to come to...though if Bella was dedicated, it was probably to a different Aspect. The War would probably have gone better if they'd had the Lady Herself on their side. But that (and why Narcissa had never been told, if she was indeed correct) was something to contemplate later.
Of course, none of it made Lyra any less terrifying or suggested that Draco shouldn't avoid her at all costs.
"Say something so I know you can."
"Yes, mother," he answered automatically.
"Very good, Draco. You may be excused."
He fled.
Narcissa sighed. They were probably going to have to have that entire conversation again, once the shock of Lyra being so very Bellatrix had worn off. On the plus side, however, perhaps this entirely disturbing little interaction would help the concept of choosing one's battles to sink in a bit.
(If she was very lucky, he might even manage to make the connection between choosing one's battles and her plan for the Allied Dark, but that might be too much to hope for.)
Hey, look, Harry's not the only character who occasionally acts like a regular fourteen-year-old!
Once again, I am bad at writing notes. More politics things will be mentioned as needed in the story, but we're not going to put out any sort of guide to the political situation. (Pretty sure someone asked about that at some point...) —Leigha
Someone asked us to, like, throw together a fucking wiki with worldbuilding and political stuff in it and, come on, nobody got time for that shit. Who do you think we are? xD —Lysandra
