Chapter Twelve
We settled into the drawing room, where Nic, Danae, and Tina played with the three boys to one side of the room, where we could all see them, but Sirius could sketch a privacy ward to keep the boys from hearing what we were discussing. Narcissa, apparently one of Sirius's cousins, was adamant that her Draco not hear what she had to say, though she was also hesitant to allow him out of her arms. Understandably so, but this arrangement suited her well enough.
"I can go with the boys," I offered, but Sirius grabbed my hand to stop me.
"Stay?" he asked, eyes lost as he looked at me. He hadn't looked that unsettled since the funeral, so I settled onto the sofa next to him without another thought, while Remus paced uneasy behind us. Sirius squeezed my hand gratefully, then turned back to his cousin. "What do you want, Cissa?"
Narcissa, with her expensive robes and nary a hair out of place, had been looking over the room, including the three of us in front of her, with wide grey eyes that looked so much like Sirius's. But at the nickname, her gaze flicked back to him with something that almost looked like gratitude. "You're the only Auror I can trust," she repeated.
"Yes, you mentioned that," Sirius snapped. "Why do you need an Auror?"
She straightened further, until it looked like it might be painful. "I know of an imminent attack on a young family, and I want you to stop it," she declared.
I gasped, looking towards the boys automatically as I clutched my wand in one hand and Sirius's hand with my other. "Who?" I asked, heart in my throat.
"What do you want in exchange?" Sirius barked, though he tightened his grip on me comfortingly.
Narcissa laughed, a thin, brittle thing. "I'm merely a concerned-"
"I might have been kicked out, Cissa, but we were raised by the same family," he snapped. "I know you. You wouldn't go to all this trouble without wanting something in exchange. What is it that you want?"
She sighed, deflated a bit. "Bella is obsessed with finding the Dark Lord," she said, ignoring the question.
"I can imagine," Sirius replied, "since she's been obsessed with him for years. You'd think his death would put an end to it, but her madness knows no bounds, apparently," he added, playing ignorant to the fact that Dumbledore had already told us of his suspicions that You-Know-Who would return.
Narcissa shook her head. "You don't understand," she snapped back, surging to her feet. She paced in front of the small settee. "The Dark Lord, he's… He hated the idea of death. He's done… things to keep from a full death."
"Done things?" I knew, without seeing, that Sirius had looked to Harry, because I'd done the same thing, heart in my throat. "What things?" I asked, forcing the words past the ice threading through my veins. This was confirmation of what we thought, but did she know specifics?
"I don't know, but he's coming back. And somehow, Bella thinks the Longbottoms know something about it. She's convinced both LeStranges and even… even Lucius to go along with her plan. She's- They're going to attack tomorrow night to find out what she thinks they know."
The Longbottoms?! My heart dropped to my feet. I hadn't seen Alice since the funeral, but I still cared about her. And her Neville was just the same age as my boys. "Why the Longbottoms?"
"Why are you telling me this, Cissa?" Sirius countered, voice hard. I looked back to him to see his wand still out and aimed at his cousin.
"They have a child, just Draco's age," she replied, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "And they've done nothing-"
"What do you want for this?" Sirius asked again. "I know you want something, so what is it?"
He stared hard at her, and suddenly, she crumpled back down to the settee. "He's coming back, Siri. He's coming, and I don't- I can't let him take my Draco. Lucius is a sycophantic idiot, and Abraxas is a blind fool. I won't let them turn my Draco into a tool for the Dark Lord."
"Ah, there it is," Sirius said, a dark chuckle coating his words. "I knew there had to be some reason for you to come to me. It couldn't possibly be that you want to stop-"
"Damn you, Sirius!" Narcissa screamed as she jumped to her feet again. "This isn't about me! He's coming back, sooner or later, and when he does, he'll be coming for your godson!"
"Don't you think we know that?" I asked softly, terrified even as I stood to face her. "Why do you think we have so many wards on this house? Everything we've done since Halloween, before then even, has been to keep Harry safe. Sirius and I would do anything to keep him safe."
She considered me, almost as if she were trying to look inside my mind. "Then you understand why I'm here," she said, just as softly, and just as determined, as I had been. "You would do anything for your boys, so why don't you think I would do the same for mine?"
I considered her, both her face and her words. "I think she's telling the truth, Sirius," I turned to tell him, though I was startled to see Remus's hands on his shoulders, keeping him in his seat.
"So do I," Remus added, "so you're going to sit here and listen with an open mind and not be a blind prat simply because you're angry with your family." Sirius growled lowly, and Remus's hands clenched just a bit. "Don't make me have Pet take your wand. I know you won't fight her."
That, for whatever reason, took the fight out of Sirius. He slumped, glaring up at his friend. "Fine. I'll listen."
"Good boy," Remus cooed, patting the top of his head. Even for the grave topic we were discussing, it still made me twitch a smile to see him tease Sirius for his Animagus form.
Sirius just glared harder, then turned to his cousin. "Tell us everything, Cissa."
And she did. She explained how her father-in-law's friendships with important people in the Ministry kept him and her husband out of Azkaban, and her sister and her family were hiding in their home. "Bella's been… Her madness has gotten worse, especially being confined to the house like she has, and she is convinced that Frank Longbottom knows where the Dark Lord is hiding. The plan is for them to go late tomorrow night, after the house is asleep, and she'll kill whomever she has to in order to get what she wants."
"And they don't have what she wants, so she'll end up killing them all," Sirius concluded with a sigh. "But why come to me with this? And not the Ministry?"
Narcissa lifted an eyebrow imperiously. "Any other Auror would have spent as much time investigating my claim as trying to prevent this. And there is no time to waste. And… I think there may be Aurors in league with Bella, and I can't risk it getting back to her. She would kill me, and then who would protect my son?"
"Which Aurors?" Sirius demanded anxiously. I took his hand again, as much to comfort him as myself, but he shot me a grateful smile, nonetheless.
"I don't know," she confessed softly. "I'm not- She's never said names, none of them have, but they've mentioned 'friends in the Ministry' or 'friends in the Auror office' enough times that I can't trust any of them. Just you."
"I've got to tell Moody about this, and Frank and Alice are both Aurors, they'll need to know," Sirius said, and I could nearly see the wheels turning as he began to plan. "We'll have to get the baby and Frank's mother out of the house, though."
"You might even be able to trap the other Aurors, the ones working with the LeStranges," Remus offered. "Make sure only the Longbottoms and Moody know the whole plan, and then tell all the others something different each."
"And then you would know who told by what they told," I continued, warming to the idea.
Sirius nodded slowly. "This could work," he said, gaze still distant as he planned. "I'll go speak with Moody, bring him back here, then we can plan everything."
"Bring Frank and Alice, they deserve to be a part of the planning," I suggested.
Sirius nodded again and stood, squeezing my hand one last time as he stepped away. "I'll be gone an hour, maybe two, but I'll bring them back here. It'll be safest to plan everything here."
He went to the boys, kissing both Harry and Dudley in goodbye, just like he always did whenever he left the house. I found myself smiling at it, at how he treated Dudley just the same as he did Harry. It eased my bruised heart just the tiniest bit each time I saw it, healing something that Vernon had broken. Our little family that we'd built together was something I couldn't have even dreamed of just a year before, even for the ones we were missing.
"Do you want me to go with?" Remus asked Sirius.
He instantly shook his head. "No, stay here with… with the girls and the littles. Hopefully I'm just being paranoid, but now I'm concerned about people finding us."
Remus nodded, even as cold dread trickled through my veins again. "How did you find us, Narcissa?" I asked, the question that should have been first on my thoughts finally coming through.
She smiled, as if she was entertained by my panic. Or possibly my slow reaction. "Blacks can always find Blacks, as long as one knows the proper spell for it."
Sirius was in front of her before I could even blink. "Bella doesn't know it, does she?"
Narcissa scoffed. "Bella could never be bothered with reading old spell books that didn't involve possible torture. No, I found the spell… with Meda. She and I found it in the family library, when Bella was too busy tormenting you and Reg with those spiders she'd found. And you and I both know our parents weren't terribly keen on reading old books either, just in collecting them to show off. So Meda and I are the only ones who could find you with this spell. And Grandfather, of course, but I'm sure he's known where you've been all along."
"Nosy bastard," Sirius muttered. "But you swear? Bella doesn't-"
"Bella's never been one to read when she could be torturing someone or something. And a spell to find wayward family members wouldn't have held her interest before you and Meda left, and she wouldn't know about it now. I swear, Siri, she doesn't know how to find you to get to Harry," she said, firmly yet softly, like she knew exactly what he was afraid of. To be fair, it was exactly what I was thinking, too.
Sirius looked at her for a long time, almost like he was trying for Legilimency, but I knew he couldn't actually do that. Finally, he nodded firmly. "I'm trusting you with my family, Cissa. Don't make me regret that."
"I've trusted you with mine first," she reminded, gesturing toward where the boys were still playing rather well together. "And I'll do whatever I have to do to keep mine safe."
AN: And here's the next one! And it didn't take a whole month or longer (barely!). I'm struggling with my writing a little bit for anything, so I'm usually trying to focus on my original works, but I'm still working on Petunia, I promise. We'll finish the story, don't you worry! Thanks for sticking with us, and a big thanks to those of you who take the time to review. Those emails make me so happy!