AN: So I'm really not too sure how I feel about this...Leave a review and tell me what you thought maybe?

This was written for the Pairing Set Boot Camp: Lucius/Narcissa.

The Pairing Diversity Boot Camp: Retrospectively.

The House Cup Competition. Pairing: LuciusNarcissa. Quote: "Monsters are real and ghosts are real too. They live inside us and sometimes they win." – Stephen King. Dialogue: "That changes nothing," Object: Broken Quill and Emotion: relieved.

Also written for round four of the Quidditch League Competition. My prompts were: Malfoy Manor (setting), danger, stupid and below.

Word count: 1,081

Demons

She walked to the edge of the balcony and placed her hands on the railing, letting the air blow through her hair.

Why did this all happen? She thought as she stared off into the night.

She heard footsteps in the room behind her, but she didn't bother turning around. She knew who it was but didn't care enough to want to talk to him.

"Narcissa," a familiar voice said, softly.

Narcissa didn't pull her gaze from the large garden and didn't even act as if she'd heard him. She heard footsteps as someone walked up to stand beside her and felt a hand on her shoulder.

"How long are you going to keep avoiding me?"

As long as needed, she thought but she couldn't bring herself to speak the words or to even look at him.

"Draco's fine," Lucius argued. "Everything's fine and there's nothing you need to worry about."

"Only because the Dark Lord's not around anymore to blackmail my son because of your foolishness," Narcissa stated, harshly – the venom clear in her voice. She turned around and walked back into their bedroom.

"There's not going to me anymore mistakes," Lucius tried.

"That changes nothing," Narcissa retorted, glaring at him. "Nothing you do anymore will change the fact that you're the one who caused everything and it won't change the fact that Draco doesn't want to speak to you."

"He'll come around…eventually, he's a confused teenager who was forced into a war that had nothing to do with him."

"Because he had a father who let him get forced into the middle of everything," Narcissa corrected.

"So you're blaming me for this?"

Narcissa crossed her arms and turned on her heel. "Well, I'm not the one who got sucked into the death eaters and put Draco in danger. I was just forced to go along in the hopes that I could keep him out of that life."

She slowly walked to the door and opened it. She motioned for Lucius to leave. "I'm sure one of the guest rooms will be fine for you tonight."

Lucius silently walked across the room and through the opened door. He turned around to say something but was only greeted with a door slamming in his voice.

The Blonde slowly crossed the center of her bed room and walked to the balcony door. She walked past the crumbled parchment and the broken quill that lay on the floor.

She pushed the doors opened to allow the cool night air to creep into the room; allowing her to breath. It was nice to have a moment alone to try to process her thoughts. Moments like that were few to none and she cherished them.

Not that it mattered, really. She was too upset to think straight – too much stuff had happened at once. Everything had gone to hell and she was stuck with the aftermath. She was relieved, of course, that everything was finally over. But she still couldn't shake her feeling from the war.

Everything was out of her control and she hated it. She liked being in control of her life, instead of hiding in the sidelines and letting someone else tell her what to do.

She couldn't stand the fact that the death eaters had taken over her house as their headquarters and had made a giant mess of the manor, especially room just below her.

She sighed.

She blamed herself for everything. The danger her son was in was all her fault. How could she have been so stupid to let him get involved in this? She was his mother – she should have protected him and kept him away from all this.

But nothing she did was enough.

She slowly turned around and her gaze lingered on the parchment and quill that littered the floor. She'd gotten annoyed at trying to write a letter and had balled the parchment up and broke the quill.

She was wasting her time after all; what's done was done. It was too late for her to even bother writing to her only living sister; a sister who wouldn't want anything to do with her anyway – not after everything that happened when they were teenagers.

Narcissa had sided with their family while Andromeda had decided to run away and make her own decisions.

She never admitted it to anyone but she always looked up to Andromeda, especially the day she left. Because she did something that Narcissa couldn't even dream of having the strength or the courage to do; she walked out on her family's dark way and came out a better person.

Narcissa, on the other hand, stayed silent and just went along with what her parents said. She was too much of a coward to do anything else and was afraid of the consequences if she didn't. Instead of listening to her heart and doing what was really right, she listened to her brain and did what her family told her was right.

Everyone has their demons.

"There are two kinds of people in the world," she said softly.

Those who let their demons control them and those who fight against them.

She was one of the ones who let their demons control them. She's decided that she's not going to be that person anymore – she's not going to be controlled.

The argument she'd had with Lucius just a few moments ago proved that.

Narcissa didn't know what had come over her, but she had just been so annoyed and anger that everything just came out in that moment. A part of her felt that Lucius just didn't care about their son's safety as much as she had. And he had only proven that through his actions throughout the war.

Narcissa closed the balcony doors and slowly turned around. She couldn't help but stare at the rumbled parchment again.

Making up her mind, she crossed the floor, picked up the parchment and quill and threw them in the trash. She walked over to the small desk on the other side of the room and starting writing a short letter to her sister for the second time.

Even if it was pointless, Narcissa still had to try. She was one of Andromeda's only living relatives left.

She folded the letter and placed it in an envelope before tying it to her owl's leg and sending it off into the night.

Everyone has their demons and she wasn't going to let hers control her anymore.