Disclaimer: I do not own anything affiliated with Harry Potter. So if you recognize it from the books, it ain't mine. So don't sue me, I'm just a humble fan boy bent of the destruction of the cannon world. Good day.

A Cruel Mistress

Narcissa Malfoy took a bite out of her blueberry muffin and switched the radio on. The sun was shining through the bay window, illuminating the vast amounts of crystal in the cabinets adorning the dining rooms walls. Little rainbows filled the room. A soft song began to play about a young witch who had lost the love of her life when he was put under the spell of an ugly hag. Narcissa tapped her perfectly manicured nails on the ebony wood of the table and continued to eat her muffin.

"NO! FUCK! WHY ME!"

Lucius clamored into the room in his green silk dressing robes, his chest rapidly moving up and down. His grey eyes were staring straight ahead in utter mortification. "I'm dying," he told his wife simply, trying not to scream and shout with terror.

"Dear lord! What's wrong!" Narcissa dropped her muffin on the table and dashed over to her husband, grabbing his arm to keep him standing, "Are you sick?" She examined his face for some sign of what ailed him. She expected to see death creeping all over his skin.

"Life is over for me," he began to weep, falling into a chair, clutching to his wife's arm. "My years are numbered. One of my beautiful feet stands in the gateway of death." He shook his head to try and loosen a thought crammed up in somewhere to no avail.

"WHAT IS WRONG!" Narcissa pleaded, shaking her husband. It must be so ghastly if he couldn't say. Lucius was usually straightforward about things. She began to weep as well, imagining a life without him in it. They had been together for so long. "Please tell me."

Lucius shuttered. "It's terrible, honey. I couldn't subject you to it. You just have to believe that I am dying." His nails dug into his wife's porcelain skin.

"You can't be?" Narcissa's weeping became loud sobs. Her tears began to soak Lucius' robes. She pounded on his chest, trying to beat the sickness out of him. "YOU CAN'T BE!" He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. Struggling, Narcissa screamed and moaned, trying to drown out the images of her husbands dead body from her head. But Lucius still held her tight. Eventually Narcissa's body became limp and she rested against her husband's firm body, her crying now broken and quiet. "Don't leave me…" she said simply, kissing the bare skin in the open neck of his robes. "I don't want to be alone."

"You have to be strong, baby. For Draco, and yourself. I won't leave you with nothing. You'll be taken care of for a few more years." He began to pet her blonde hair, staring at his reflection in the china cabinet. In his mind's eye he could see his face getting loose and wrinkly as he began to die, the hair on his head grayed then fell out.

Puffy, red eye lids shut over pupils dilated in fear. He clutched to his wife even harder not wanting to let go of the life he had built around himself.

"Please, honey. Tell me what's wrong." Narcissa asked, nuzzling his chest. "I have to know." Moments before pure light had filled the room. Now the light was muted and everything was cast with dark shadows of sorrow and fear. The world had been draped in funeral shrouds.

Lucius sighed, holding back the tears that had before flowed freely. Frail behavior on his wife's part had shown him that he had to be strong for her now, he couldn't die knowing that she would forever see him as a broken and scared man. The last memory his family was to have of him was that of valor and bravery in the face of death. "I found… I found… Oh Merlin…" His hands were quivering and bile rose up in his throat, he couldn't do it… it was too horrible

Narcissa's eyes widened in fear. Her eyes ceased to blink as she waited for the answer. "It's okay," she whispered, her voice bringing some semblance of peace to his mind. "I'll be here for you. Always and forever."

Lucius nodded and started to say something. His voice was shaky and broken and Narcissa had to strain to hear what he said.

"I found… a… a… I found a… grey hair… I'm old… I'm dying…" He collapsed into a heap against his wife the tears of dread and resignation spilling out of him. Already his body felt weak from the impending death. There was still so much he wanted to do, so much he wanted to say, so much he wanted to see. And now there was no chance that would ever happen. Death was a cruel mistress to court and in the end she always turned on her lovers, like everyone does eventually.

Narcissa just sat there in disbelief, relieved that her husband wasn't going to die, angry that he was so stupid, but amused at the same time. A single tear was suspended on her flushed cheeks, but it didn't fall, just dried in the unadulterated sunlight that was now streaming back into the room. It took all of her will power to no burst into fits of hysterical laughter. He was going to live… he was going to live… but he was so damn stupid.

She reached up and caressed his face. "Everything will be all right." She was going to put off pointing out his "little" mistake. The decision not to tell Lucius the truth was a clever ruse on Narcissa's part to see if Lucius would change his ways and be nicer to the people around him so he could make the best of the few precious days he had left on this mortal plain.

Just then Draco meandered into the room, munching on a muffin. Lucius looked up in alarm. Gone were the tears and weary tone. "Can't you see me and your mother are having a moment to ourselves? I'm dying you ungrateful brat. Go to your room until I call you down!"

Draco looked at the bemused look on his mother's face and the angry sorrowful face of his father, shook his head in a way the meant his entire family was loony and trudged out of the room, muttering something about weird sexual role-plays.

Apparently Lucius was going to be the same crabby self he always was.

"Lucius we need to talk about your grey hair." Her husband shuttered at the thought while hoping his death would be painless. "Well it's just that…"