House arrived back in Hogsmeade around four every afternoon, flooing to the Three Broomsticks and walking back to the flat he shared with the Malfoys. No sooner than he'd walked through the door, his cat, Thirteen, was rubbing up against his legs. He reached down to scratch her ears and pet her, catching sight of Narcissa sitting in the armchair shaking her head.

"By her reaction, you'd think I ignored her all day," she said with a chuckle.

"That's a cat's shtick. Make you think they been ignored and starved as soon as they see you," House grinned.

"How is Severus today?"

"His voice is still really gravelly but he's talking to me and Draco, asking questions. Still dozes off without much warning," House replied, putting his bag on the floor and dropping down on the sofa. "He cares about Draco a great deal."

"Yes he does. He always has, even when he had to hide it during the war," Narcissa replied. "After Lucius died, I was worried Draco would be broken completely when the Ministry came down on us. If it weren't for the requirement to repeat his seventh year at Hogwarts, I think he might have been."

"If he hadn't still had you, he would have been, school or not," House observed, meeting her eyes somberly. "He's able to pull himself together to make sure that you're taken care of."

"You've helped him a great deal too," Narcissa observed casually as she picked up her notes on the lesson she had in store for him tonight. "Lucius loved our son but he didn't uplift him much. He taught Draco that he should expect the best because he was a pure blood and a Malfoy. When you told him that he had a right to live and attend school in this society solely on the basis of being a wizard… that's a new concept to Draco. He's started to come out of the black state we've been in since the Dark Lord returned, even before Dumbledore was killed. You don't know how much that means to me. And the fact that you trust him to teach you what you need to know to live in wizarding society has helped him learn to value himself even more."

House nodded, petting the cat on his lap. "He's a great kid. You can be proud of him and who he's becoming. So what have you planned for me tonight?"

Narcissa smiled and turned to her notes. She'd noticed that House, like Snape, was uncomfortable being complimented although both men desperately wanted to feel valued for their contribution. "Now that we've finished going over the most recent history, I thought you should get an overview of the basic lessons most young wizards and witches get. The basics of the families that make up our society, their traditional allies and how they make up the backbone of our government even now."

"Oh, joy," House said unenthusiastically, though he softened his tone with a smirk. "My least favorite thing. Politics."

"Like it or not, society runs on politics," Narcissa lightly chided with an answering smile.

"Blackmail is much more efficient," House shot back.

"Yes, it can be, but you cannot use blackmail until you know what the person values most and will give anything to avoid losing. That's the basis of politics; to compromise the least while gaining the most from your fellow men in government. Blackmail allows you to avoid compromising, if you choose the right topic."

House looked at Narcissa with an increasing respect for the shrewd and devious nature she had just showed him. "Wow, I didn't expect you to agree and think that way."

"Let's go out to dinner," Narcissa proposed. "Just to the Three Broomsticks and we can start our discussion there."

"Okay," he said, getting to his feet.

"First, you need to change," Narcissa said, smirking at the look of disbelief on his face. "Go on, it's part of the lesson. You don't need to dress formal but do dress well for an evening meal. You are escorting Lady Malfoy after all."

House gave her a sour look and stomped his way into the bedroom coming back just a few minutes later with some dressier clothes on and a robe over top.

"Does this pass muster?"

"Very well," Narcissa answered, rising and coming to stand at his side, smoothing the collar on his robe down. She led the way and once outside, House offered her his arm for the short walk to the Three Broomsticks. He held the door for her and led her to a table in a corner, both feeling a bit uncomfortable when many of the patrons stared at them, murmuring as they walked by. Rosamerta came over to their table and greeted them, effectively sending the message to the other customers that she was accepting of them being there. Rosamerta didn't like Narcissa Malfoy but she did like House and would leave the decision to him whether to associate with Narcissa.

"Good evening Professor House, Lady Malfoy," Rosamerta said, handing them both a menu. "Can I bring you something to drink?"

"I'll have a firewhiskey and an ice water and for the lady," House said, pausing and looking to Narcissa for her choice.

"Red wine, please," Narcissa replied. Rosamerta nodded and left to get their order.

"People need to mind their own damned business," House growled, glaring fiercely at a couple who was staring and whispering at them.

"Ignore them," Narcissa said calmly, putting her hand on top of his. "The Malfoy reputation has been destroyed as a result of the choices my late husband made during the last two wizard wars. They have cause to dislike us."

"They don't have the right to make a scene over it," House growled, though he did turn his attention to his dinner partner instead of the whispering crowds. "So what did you want to talk about tonight?" he asked, leafing through the menu to make his choice for dinner.

Narcissa nodded as Rosamerta brought back their drinks and took their order for dinner. "Wizarding society is very much based on aristocracy. The core group of families are known as the Sacred Twenty-eight. These families can trace their ancestry back the farthest and have mostly pure-blooded wizards in their lines."

"What makes a wizard a pure-blood? Once they marry into a muggle line do they remain non-pureblood even if the children born from that marriage marry wizards again? How many generations would it take to regain pureblood status?"

Narcissa blinked at his questions and took a moment to think about her answer. "There are those like my late husband that would consider even one muggle or even muggleborn ancestor makes a line sullied. Several of the Sacred Twenty-eight believe this. In practice though, I think that so long as both parents are wizards, the child is a pureblood. A half blood would be the child of a wizard and a muggle; that's what you and Severus are. In order to keep power in a very small circle, most pureblood families wouldn't even entertain joining their families to a half blood let alone a muggleborn. Most are very suspicious about how muggleborns are magical if both of their parents are muggles. So bloodlines and ancestry became all important, even to marrying cousins to keep it pure."

"The science of genetics explains muggleborns easily enough," House responded with a shrug. "When first cousins or half siblings marry there is a chance of genetic defect. Do that enough times and that's how you get a squib. Now wizard society often sends squibs to the muggle world to live since they can't wield magic but genetically it's still in their blood. It's what we call a recessive gene and get's passed along to their children. Now if one of their kids marries another kid with the same recessive gene for magic, that gene can become dominant again and create a magical child, one that you would call muggleborn. Really just a descendent of two squibs."

Narcissa slowly nodded, seeing the logic in how that could occur and feeling even worse for the pureblood attitudes she'd been raised with and raised her son with. "That makes the prevailing attitude about muggleborns even more reprehensible."

"In some ways," House agreed with a shrug. "It's not the bloodlines of muggleborns that is dangerous to wizarding society, it's their close ties to muggle society, different customs, beliefs, schooling. Muggleborns are an entirely different culture and in enough numbers they could by majority rule change wizarding society. Whether for good or for ill remains to be seen. There's plenty of things in the muggle world I wouldn't want to see be integrated into wizard society. It would be better to change the views of wizarding families on how they handle squib relatives and what makes a pureblood."

"That's quite a tall order, considering what we have just been through and the disparate views of wizards and muggles," Narcissa mused somberly.

"So… the sacred twenty-eight. Do they occupy the positions of power in society?" House asked after a moment, returning to Narcissa's topic.

"Most of them, yes. Many of these families hold seats on the Wizengamot, the governing council and there are many favors traded back and forth as well as blackmail that keeps families voting together in allied blocs," Narcissa answered. "In every government I think you'll find conservatives, progressives and the all important neutrals that might be induced to choose a side if the situation were dire enough. The conservative bloc, that was heavily anti-muggleborn, consisted of the Malfoys, the Blacks, the Averys, the Bulstrodes, the Burkes, the Carrows, the Flints, the Lestranges, the Notts, the Rosiers, the Rowles, the Selwyns, the Travers, and the Yaxleys."

House, who had been keeping count, gave a low whistle. "Half of the Sacred twenty-eight in the conservative bloc."

"They make up more than half in actuality. The Gaunt line is extinct, the Crouch line is extinct and some others, like the Blacks only exist in the female line, although Sirius Black, the last living male Black, named Harry Potter as his heir and through a female ancestor Mr. Potter is a distant relative to the Black family," Narcissa replied. "Myself and my sister, Andromeda, were born Blacks and Draco is connected to the family through me."

"The progressives represent those families that are for integrating muggleborns completely into our society without regard to blood status. Those families are the Weasleys, Ollivanders, Abbotts, Longbottoms, MacMillans, Prewetts, Shacklebolts, and Slughorns."

The rest of the Sacred Twenty-eight are counted as neutral. They will swing if a clear advantage is to be had but generally prefer to stay on the fence. These families are the Fawleys, Greengrass, and Shafiqs. There are of course other pureblood families that didn't make it into the Sacred Twenty-eight category and most of those are neutral or leaning more toward the progressive side. Lovegoods, Zabinis, MacDougals, Princes (that's Severus maternal grandparents side) Patils, Dumbledore, MacGonagall and others. So while wizarding society has now shifted from conservative to progressive following the defeat of Voldemort, the power families of the aristocracy still count themselves as conservatives. They are trying to reshape themselves to keep their conservative views but comply with the new society's views on blood status after the war. It's a difficult balancing act and none of them want to be tainted by association with the Malfoys, known to be of Voldemort's inner council, host and financier of the dark lord and his forces, although quite unwillingly by the end."

House nodded somberly, able to see how the other families would want to distance themselves from the Malfoys but also able to see how the Malfoys would find themselves caught in a trap they had blindly but willingly walked into with no way to free themselves.

"Will you tell me about battle? I read what the papers reported about Potter's testimony. What happened that he testified in your defense? And why didn't the Ministry fully accept that?"

Narcissa sighed and took a sip of wine. "You'd have to go back to the battle at the Department of Mysteries, over two years ago. Voldemort sent Lucius to get the orb containing a full prophecy about Mr. Potter and Voldemort, after luring Potter there with a vision that his godfather, Sirius Black, was being tortured for it. Potter and a band of his schoolmates were able to hold off Lucius and the Death Eaters for quite some time. Lucius had just gotten Potter to give him the prophecy to save the lives of his schoolmates when they were reinforced by Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix. In the battle that followed, the prophecy was broken, Sirius Black was killed by my sister, his cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange. Lucius and a few others were taken prisoner and sent to the wizard prison, Azkaban. Dumbledore fought Voldemort to a stalemate in the Ministry atrium before the Dark Lord fled. He was so angry at Lucius for failing to retrieve the prophecy and allowing it to be broken so that it could never be retrieved that he forced Draco to accept the dark mark in exchange for freeing Lucius from prison. He also laid a heavy task on Draco, one he knew Draco didn't have it in him to do; to assassinate Dumbledore."

House let out a low whistle. "So Voldemort couldn't do the job on his own and sent a boy in his place. What a loser."

Narcissa gave a harsh chuckle and took another bracing sip of wine. "I don't think I ever thought I'd hear anyone refer to him as a loser."

"I took it upon myself to make an unbreakable vow with Severus to help Draco or step into his place to do the task himself if Draco failed. I know, it wasn't my idea to add that in but I made the mistake of taking Bellatrix with me as back up," she explained as House was visibly taken aback at the terms of the vow.

"Once Dumbledore was dead at Snape's hands, an agreement between the two of them unbeknownst to anyone, Voldemort was able to take over the Ministry and Hogwarts. Potter went on the run seeking out and destroying Voldemort's horcruxes. Do you know what those are?" she asked in a hushed voice.

"Something about storing a piece of your soul in an object against death," House responded in an equally hushed tone.

"Yes, that's the basis of it. You see, Voldemort couldn't be killed as long as these horcruxes still existed. Dumbledore had only entrusted this information to Potter, Weasley, and Granger."

"Did you know about them then? Or have you found out since?"

"Lucius had one in his possession, he didn't know that was what it was until it was destroyed. He searched our library to discover what Dumbledore meant until he discovered what the object had really been and told me about them. What we didn't know then was that there were more. Six more to be precise and it turned out the Mr. Potter himself was a horcrux as well. After Voldemort struck him down at the Battle of Hogwarts, I was sent to see if he was dead. He wasn't. He'd survived the killing curse again and it had affected Voldemort again as well. I asked him if Draco was still alive and he told me that he was. So I lied to Voldemort and told him Potter was dead."

"Well that explains why Potter testified for you but why for Draco?"

"Potter and his friends had been captured and brought to Malfoy Manor. Granger had hexed Potter to somewhat disguise their appearance. Draco was asked to identify him positively but he did not. He said he couldn't be sure. And I understand that on the night that Dumbledore was killed, Mr Potter was hidden on the Astronomy tower and heard why Draco was trying to kill Dumbledore; he saw Draco lowering his wand before the other Death Eaters and Snape arrived. I think those two instances combined made him feel disposed to testify for Draco, that what he had done in the war was under duress and coercion."

"And now the Ministry is doing its damndest to go back on their decision without actually doing it," House stated darkly.

"Yes. I expected to be barred from the Manor for some time and some of the money frozen and seized. But to be barred from everything with no money? I never expected that. It seems the light side failed to take on the best aspects of their fallen leader, Dumbledore and his protege Potter."

"That's usually the way it goes. It might not have been so bad if Lucius hadn't died and they could have satisfied their need for vengeance and justice by sending him to prison. Good thing I was in St. Mungo's that day then. Otherwise I would have missed making a couple of new friends and Snape might have died in that coma," he said with a smile, raising his wine glass up in a toast. Narcissa smiled and clinked her glass against his.

"Indeed, I am happy you were there too."

"Draco said I should tell you that I found out who my wizard family is," House casually mentioned as their dinner dishes were cleared and dessert was brought.

"You did? When?"

"The first day I was here. The MacDougals. I haven't done anything about it though. They mix with muggleborns well enough but I don't know what they would think about a bastard child and my mother was married at the time so add adultery on to that," he explained with a grimace. "I'm not ready to risk being rejected by them."

Narcissa nodded gravely. "I understand why you wouldn't want to experience that at any time but especially when you are still trying to find your place here. I don't know the family personally but I know they were on Dumbledore's side. That makes them less likely to reject you from what I know about the families that sided with Dumbledore. But know this, I, a Malfoy born a Black, do not hold the circumstances of your birth against you. Particularly since you haven't held the circumstances of my downfall against me," she said, placing her hand over his and meeting his eyes when he looked up, startled at the contact.

"Tabula rasa," House responded after a moment.

"A blank slate? Gladly," Narcissa answered with a smile. House paid for their meal and they headed out of the Three Broomsticks. There were still people on the streets and they muttered their displeasure with Narcissa's presence, although once again, House's ability to repel people with his aura kept them muttering at a distance. Just as they were about to round a corner, both were struck from behind with a stinging hex.

Narcissa whirled around, wand at the ready. House turned as well but was too new to the life to think of drawing his wand, brandishing his cane instead. A group of people stood together, some with wands drawn but no further hexes were thrown. Narcissa leaned in close to House. "Do you trust me?"

"Way more than I trust them!" House growled angrily.

Narcissa took his arm and apparated them both to the door of his flat, steadying House as he bent over, trying desperately to steady his stomach from the sensation.

"What in the hell was that?" he squeezed out as she rubbed his back in sympathy.

"Side along apparition. I apologize for no warning. You did well though, if that's any consolation."

"Side along what?" House asked, straightening up and looking at where they were in surprise. "How did we get here?"

"Apparition," Narcissa repeated, opening the door and leading him in to sit down. "A wizard, once trained to control their magic well enough, can use magic to move from place to place at will. No need for a fireplace or floo powder, nor a portkey, unless the security wards are set against apparition, as the wards of Hogwarts are."

"That's completely radical," House said with a grin, seeing all the possibilities that apparition opened up. "Do the side effects wear off?"

"Once you get used to it, yes," she said with a smile. "Better than walking with a disgruntled crowd behind us. Where did you get hit by the hex?"

House shrugged out of his jacket and pulled up the sleeve of his shirt. She put a bit of dittany on it then handed him the bottle and had him do the same for her.

"I enjoyed the dinner lesson," House said as he handed the bottle back to her.

"So did I," she replied. "I think I'm going to take a bath. I'll make some tea for us afterward."

House nodded and settled down on the couch, pulling an afghan over himself. Ever since the disaster with Cuddy, he'd never thought about being with anyone ever again. Certainly not sharing such a small place with a woman and her grown son. But he felt completely at ease with Narcissa something he'd never felt when he was with Cuddy, and he thoroughly enjoyed Draco's wit. Coming to wizarding England seemed to be just the thing to turn his life around. He even felt… happy, he realized. He had been miserable for so long he barely even recognized the feeling.