As the rest of the Slytherin quidditch team headed back to the castle after practice, Lucius Malfoy had stayed behind. Regulus Black had just joined the team and had asked for his help with some of the plays, so Lucius had agreed to set up a few extra drills.

"There ya go!" Lucius yelled from the ground, watching Regulus catch the snitch for the fifth time that afternoon, "as long as you keep doing that, you should have no worries!"

Regular beamed as he descended to hand the snitch back to Lucius, who was trying to keep everything contained in the equipment box. Looking from the box to Regulus, he noticed he was looking beyond him and waving. Lucius glanced over his shoulder to see a beautiful blonde standing by the Slytherin tower.

He turned back and shoved the equipment box into the younger boy's hands, "Take care of this for me, won't you, Reg?"

Regulus gave an eager nod as Lucius jogged off the pitch towards his girlfriend.

"Ciss, I wasn't expecting you."

As he got closer, he could tell something was off. Narcissa, who normally was nothing but smiles when they were together, was suddenly very fidgety. She was looking down at the ground when he approached, rubbing her arm in a comforting manner.

"Narcissa?" He questioned, stopping to stand right in front of her.

She closed her eyes and let out a small sigh, "Can we talk?"

"Uh, yeah," He said, carefully reaching out to grab her hand to lead her up the stairs to the stands. He couldn't help but wonder why she was acting so strangely. As they walked, he tried to run through the last couple days to try and remember if he had done anything to upset her, but nothing was coming to mind.

When they reached the top of the tower, Lucius led her to the first row of benches. She immediately dropped his hand before sitting, which slightly concerned him. He sat down next to her, noticing that she had yet to make eye contact with him. Even now, her head was turned down to look at her hands in her lap, blinking like she was trying to fight back tears. It was almost painful for him to watch her try to find the words she clearly wanted to say.

"Narcissa, you know you can tell me anything," he said as he brought his head lower and closer to hers, trying to get her to look up at him, "If it's something I've done—"

"I'm pregnant," she blurted out, her watery eyes finally meeting his.

Lucius had heard people talk about earth shattering moments before, but he had never experienced one until now. What was he supposed to do? All the plans he had made for his future were now nothing more than ashes at his feet. He would be leaving school in a few months and had wanted to travel the world, meet new people, and experience so many things before he had to step into the role of Lord Malfoy. His thoughts then shifted to the current Lord Malfoy. He was pretty sure his father would kill him when he found out. A child out of wedlock was just not done, not to mention that his father wasn't very fond of Narcissa or the Black family, for that matter. Every conceivable dream Lucius had ever had up until this point was shattered in an instant.

By the time he snapped out of his thoughts, he realized that he was pacing the stands in front of Narcissa. He stopped, turned to her and raked his hands through his hair, "Wh-what do we do?"

"I don't know," she quietly muttered. She looked completely numb, staring ahead with a few tears falling down her pale face. It was like she was just processing the news for the first time as well. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" He asked, giving her a confused look.

When her eyes shifted to look at him again, she broke down. "I-I ru-ruined your li-life."

"Hey, hey," he began, retaking the seat beside her and pulling her into a hug trying to calm her as she hyperventilated, "You didn't ruin my life. This isn't your fault, Narcissa. You can't just wish this on yourself, I had a hand in this too."

As he was comforting her, he began to feel guilty for his initial reaction. The second he heard those two words, his world collapsed and he only thought about himself, but this affected Narcissa too, perhaps even more than himself. She would have to deal with the same repercussions he had along with having to grow an actual human person inside of her. Everything about her life was changing and she was very obviously scared.

"What are we going to do?" she mumbled into his chest, calming slightly from being in his arms.

He took a shaky breath, trying to broach the conversation as carefully as he could, "Well, we have a few options. There are potions that we could—"

She pulled away from him, "I don't think I could do that."

"That's okay," he assured as he reached out to hold her hand.

"What if we gave them up for adoption?" She meekly suggested.

He grimaced slightly. He didn't want to talk her into anything because the decision was ultimately up to her, but he wasn't sure he could just live his life knowing that his child was out there somewhere.

"Could you do that?" He asked timidly.

"I don't know," she answered with a sigh, wiping a few stray tears from her face, "But I'm not so sure I could be a mother either."

"I think you would be a great mother. I've watched you with Regulus for years, Ciss. You're incredibly caring and patient so I think you would be a natural at it. Plus you wouldn't be alone, I'd be right there with you. I'll be honest, I think if we gave them up, I would just spend every free moment I had looking for them."

"But we have to be realistic about this, Lu. I know there were things we both wanted to do before we had to be real adults. You have your future to think about."

"My future? Every time we talked about it, it was always our future, together, and it still is. You're my future, Narcissa," he reached out and laid his hand over her flat stomach, "This baby is my future. I mean, we always talked about having a family so why not now?"

Saying the words out loud suddenly brought everything into perspective. He had always planned on marrying Narcissa and starting a family. Of course they had talked about it being way ahead in the future but why not now? He already had an internship at the ministry lined up. He could easily have enough money saved up by the time the baby was born to support both Narcissa and a child if things went badly and they were to be disowned. The more he thought about everything, the more determined he was to make this work for them.

Narcissa seemed to think on his words for a moment and then brought her hand to rest on top of his, "Are we really going to try and make this work?"

Lucius nodded as he leaned down and kissed her forehead, "As long as we're together, everything is going to be just fine."