That summer was the best that Narcissa had ever known. Days seemed to just trip by like water down a slope, staying too short to be remembered and leaving too much of an impression to ever be forgotten.

She and Draco fairly lived outdoors, spending all of their time outside of the gloomy mansion and at places like the beach or in London. The house seemed now to be a mausoleum to the horrid lives that neither of them wished to discuss, and Narcissa had thoughts of selling it.

"Now that your father is gone," she said one day as she watched Draco practice Summoning Spells in the backyard, out of Muggle view, "I can't see any reason to stay here any longer."

"Where shall we live, then?" Draco had asked, Summoning his broomstick and hopping on it, hovering idly above the ground.

Narcissa shrugged, "I really don't care. We'll find some place. It doesn't really matter." She took off her lavender sun hat and shook out her cascade of still-shining blonde hair, which rippled down her back in the warm sunlight.

"You're happy now, aren't you, Mother?" Draco asked.

"I am, actually," Narcissa smiled, "I have all I ever really wanted now, I think."

Draco floated his broomstick over to her. "Mum? Can I ask you something?"

"Certainly. You just did."

"Something else, I mean."

"Yes."

Draco hesitated, "Did you ever think of divorcing Father, remarrying I mean?"

Narcissa tipped her head to the side, "Often, I suppose." She smiled sadly, "We weren't very happily married, you know."

"I gathered," Draco replied, "Arranged marriages never work."

"I agree." Narcissa hesitated, "Draco, darling, I haven't spoken to Rupert and Lisette Parkinson, but if you really don't want to marry their daughter, Pansy, I will tell them we are breaking the engagement."

Draco's head shot up, "D'you mean it, Mum?"

"I do," Narcissa replied firmly, "No son of mine is going to marry someone he doesn't love. The decision shall be yours."

"Good," Draco replied fervently, "Because I always thought Pansy was a horrid sort of girl."

Narcissa smirked, "Her father thinks most highly of you."

"I don't care what he thinks," Draco snorted, "I'm not marrying her, and that's that."

"I'll notify them first thing in the morning, then." Narcissa pulled a piece of parchment and a quill from her bag, and began drafting a quick letter.

Draco watched her intently. His mother wasn't a bad-looking woman at all, for thirty-six. Her hair had no traces of gray in it, although he knew that was because she used a bottle serum on it, to keep it looking fresh and youthful. There were no lines on her face – although there should have been – because of the cosmetic surgery Lucius had insisted that she undergo. She was still slender, small, and perfect, just as she had been years ago. The only part that was different was the blue eyes that betrayed her real age – they showed the years of abuse and hardship she had endured.

"Mum?"

"Yes, dear?"

"If my grandparents hadn't made you marry Father, would you have married someone else?"

"I suppose so, yes."

"Who?"

"Gracious, Draco, I don't know. I married your father when I was sixteen, that's awfully young to be making life-changing decisions." But Draco noticed that his mother did not quite meet his eye.

"Was there ever anyone – "

"Now, stop," Narcissa said, looking up at him evenly, "It's high time that you went in and got washed up for supper. Scoot!" And she swatted him playfully with one hand as he fluttered the broomstick out of the way.

"Yes, Mum." And Draco jumped off of the broom and ambled towards the doorway, careful to notice the look of bitterness crossing his mother's lovely face.

* * *

There is a secret to this family, Draco thought stubbornly. And if Mother won't tell me what it is, I'll find it out for myself.

It was late at night, and Narcissa had long since gone to bed. So had the maids. Draco knew that he was supposed to be asleep, but something had kept him awake – the thought that his mother was lying to him for the first time in sixteen years.

Draco wasn't lying when he said he didn't miss his father. His father had always been like an iceberg in his life – cold and remote, looming over him. And like an iceberg to the Titanic, he had always been his downfall. But no longer. Draco was determined to find out about his mother's past, how she had come to this fate. And he would find it out tonight.

He could barely remember back to the days when his mother had been banished to the West Wing of the house. She had been moved back into Lucius' room when Draco had been sent away to school – when she could no longer corrupt his childhood. But Draco could remember that room in the West Wing – the room with the mahogany door, that he was never allowed to enter, not ever. But he knew where it was.

He whispered, "Lumos." The end of his wand ignited, blazing light into the interior of the room within. He slowly walked into the room and shut the door behind him.

It seemed a delicate, fragile place, just like the delicate woman he knew to be his mother. Everything was covered with a fine layer of dust, and Draco could hardly keep from sneezing. He walked across the floor and gently brushed one hand over the soft satin duvet cover on the ornate bed. This was where Mother slept, he thought, all of those years she slept alone. An image floated across his mind of his mother clutching one satin- covered pillow in the darkness, tears streaming slowly from her eyes in her loneliness.

Why? He thought. Why was she so lonely?

Ever since he had been a child, Draco knew he had a bond with the mother he never saw. She had been as remote to him as a star, but somehow, he had always known how she was feeling. When he would sit with her for tea, he would bend to kiss her cheek – and see what she had been feeling the night before. Sometimes she would be happy – but it wasn't often. Most of the time she was lonely or scared or in some sort of pain. He could feel flashes of her memory. It was constant, never-changing. And he couldn't stand it.

He had thought it would end when Lucius was gone. He had thought that she would be happy at last. And Lucius was gone. Narcissa was smiling. But she wasn't happy.

I'm going to find out what it was that made her sad, he thought. And I'm going to make sure she never wants for anything again.

He drifted over to her closet and opened the door. Thousands of dresses and robes greeted him, their soft slippery materials all floating together in a sea of fabric. He brushed them with his hand, feeling nothing but indifference. He could recall his mother's bored expressions at his father's millions of dinner parties over the years – like she couldn't care less. There was nothing here that he could use.

Leaving the closet door open, he walked over to his mother's vanity table. The end of his wand glowed eerily in the reflection of the mirror. He shifted brushes and combs and bottles of hair serum, and then his hand closed over the ornate silver jewel box.

Something like electricity shot up his arm. There's something in there, he thought. He pushed the lid aside and began to sort through the layers of velvet that had been piled inside.

Lying at the bottom of the box was a beautiful pendant. At the end of a long silver chain was a single perfect star sapphire, set ornately in the pendant. Draco didn't know anything about jewelry, but he knew that this was something that had been expensive. He reached in and lifted it out.

It was as if he was transported into another body. Standing before him was a beautiful blonde girl, wearing a pale blue sheath dress and turning her back on him. She gestured towards the back of her neck, "Do it up for me?" she asked.

As if willing themselves to, Draco's hands lifted the chain and draped it about her neck. He fastened it in the back.

The girl touched the pendant with her fingers. And then she turned around.

It was Narcissa. Draco gasped. An obviously younger Narcissa of course – probably no older than sixteen – but impossibly Narcissa. He tried to reach out for her, but in an instant the vision shimmered and vanished, leaving him standing motionlessly in the dark room, still holding on to his wand and the pendant.

What had that been about? Draco shook his head. Had he been daydreaming? No, it had been real. All of it had been real.

And what was that in the box? Draco reached back into the jewelry box and pulled out several sheets of parchment. All of them were relatively old – dated back twenty years! He opened one up and began reading.

"Remus (the letter said) – I know that I can never take back what happened. I wish I could see you again, make you understand why I did what I have done. I love with every piece of my heart and soul, and every day that I am without you, I feel my heart grow heavier. You seek to punish me by never speaking to me again, but what you don't realize is that I have already been punished, many times over. I love you with all of my heart, Remus, but I can never tell you this. And I shall never fall in love with another. I cannot make you believe me – but at least I can send you this letter, and beg your forgiveness. I love you. Yours always and forever, Narcissa."

Draco shook his head again. Remus? Remus who? The only Remus he had ever heard of was his old Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher in his third year. Remus Lupin had been youngish, only about thirty-three or so, with light brown hair and sad eyes, and he had always looked worn and patched, as if he couldn't afford better clothes. And then he had turned out to be a werewolf...Good God! Remus Lupin, the werewolf, had been the man his mother was in love with?

He looked at the letter again. There was a postmark on it; she hadn't sent it with a personal owl. And underneath the postmark was another one – showing that the letter had been sent back unopened. This Remus – Lupin or otherwise – hadn't read the letter. By choice? Or had the letter been lost?

It didn't make any sense. Draco put the letter down and picked up another one, one that was dated even earlier. It was from his Aunt Andromeda Tonks, whom his father had said had disgraced his mother's family. He had never met his Aunt Andromeda or his cousin Nymphadora, who was about twenty now. He had heard something about Nymphadora being a Metamorphmagus, but he wasn't sure if that information was correct.

He scanned the letter. It said something about Andromeda's runaway marriage to Ted Tonks, and told Narcissa to follow her heart, rather than her parents' wishes. Draco fervently thanked his mother mentally for breaking his engagement to Pansy Parkinson. Why had his mother not heeded Andromeda's words? Why had she married Lucius Malfoy?

Draco folded the letter up and put it back into the box. There was nothing left. He folded the pendant's chain and laid it in carefully.

He had come no closer to unlocking the secret of his mother's unhappiness than he had been before.

* * *

July tripped by, as did August. And with two weeks remaining until Draco would return to school, he hadn't the heart to confront her about the letters or the sapphire pendant he had found. Narcissa was determined that nothing would mar her son's new happiness – and she did not show how lonely she would feel when Draco went back to school.

"I don't need to return, you know," he had told her, the day his letter from Hogwarts arrived, "I could stay here with you. Father left me enough money, I never need to work."

"You're to finish your education," Narcissa had said firmly, "One school dropout in this family is quite enough, thank you." She examined the booklist, "Well, all of this isn't so expensive, we'll go to Diagon Ally tomorrow to get your things."

"All right," Draco sighed, "It was only an idea."

She looked up at him suddenly, "Are you quite unhappy at school, Draco?"

Draco shrugged.

"I know you better than you think," Narcissa broke in, "Come on, tell me."

Draco stood up and walked over to the fireplace. He put his hands on the mantel and said, "It's just that everyone thinks I'm something I'm not. I'm a Malfoy, therefore I have to be cruel and cold and mean-spirited. It started the first day of school, on the train. Ron Weasley snorted when he heard my name, and I just gave up right then and there. Everyone knew that Malfoys practice the Dark Arts. Everyone knows the Malfoys hate Mudbloods, I mean non-magic people." He pounded his fist against the mantelpiece. "I didn't have a chance to have a new start. I was so scared of being rejected that I went to the only people I knew would accept a Malfoy."

Narcissa felt her heart ache for him, "Do you have any close friends at school, Draco?" she asked.

He shrugged again, "Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. They're both idiots. They're only my friends because they are too stupid to find any others. Pansy dotes on me and all that, but I think she's horrible and obviously that will change since the engagement was broken." He sighed, "The boys on the Quidditch team hate me because, let's face it, Mum, I'm rubbish as Seeker. I only got the position because of Father's money." He turned to her and crossed his arms over his chest. "Everyone said that starting school would be a new chance for me. I didn't get a chance to make a new start. Father's money and name made it for me."

Narcissa opened her mouth to reply, but she never got a chance.

The flames in the fireplace suddenly glowed green and began to rise up. Draco turned and stared at them fearfully, eyes wide.

"Draco, get away from there!" Narcissa cried. She leapt from her chair and grabbed his arm, throwing him backwards into the room.

The flames danced and shook, and a human form shot out from the fireplace. He shook his head, rose to his feet, and dusted the ash off of his decrepit clothing and out of his matted white-blonde locks.

"Well, well, well," he said, "If it isn't my loving wife and son."

And Lucius Malfoy narrowed his steel-gray eyes malevolently.