Chapter 19

Narcissa regarded her son's new pet out of the corner of her eye and resisted the urge to call an elf and have him herded out of the breakfast room. Frankly, the dog was much better behaved than she'd expected, and he seemed perfectly domesticated despite the fact that, according to Draco and Hermione, he had been living outside for months.

Yesterday, she'd sent an elf to pop him back to the estate from Hogsmeade where Draco had escorted him before boarding the Hogwarts Express for the journey home for the Christmas holidays. She had not for one minute considered forcing her tender-hearted son to leave the animal behind when he had been so clearly worried about him. But she'd fully anticipated that he'd be a little wild and would need to stay outside.

But he'd docily allowed the elves to give him a bath and a haircut and Narcissa had to admit that once he'd been cleaned up, he was a handsome dog. Then, according to Jema, he had gratefully taken the bone they'd set aside in preparation for his arrival, and curled up in front of the fire in the kitchens and napped until Draco arrived home.

He won Narcissa over when she saw how devoted he was to her son. He had followed him around all evening and slept at the foot of his bed. He even seemed to love Nox, and she him in return, which was just bizarre to witness. Narcissa had never seen a kneazle get along with any canine. So, as long as he continued to behave he could accompany Draco to meals.

She was pulled from her musings by Hermione's arrival. The girl's parents were working for two more days before they took off for the holidays, so she was going to spend those days at the Manor. She virtually bounced into the room, clearly in a good mood. She patted Shadow on the head and he nuzzled her hand in return. Then she made her way around the table giving herself, Lucius, and then Draco each a kiss on the cheek in turn, and settled herself at her place. Narcissa continued quietly sipping her tea and perusing the society section of the Prophet until she saw the glances that Draco and Hermione were exchanging.

Hermione looked nervous, but it was Draco who truly gave her pause. His expression was the same one he used to wear as a little boy when he believed he'd gotten away with some mischief. And then, suddenly, his face blossomed into an all out grin which was even more worrisome, and he turned to look at herself and Lucius.

"Now that our little master thievess is here we have something to tell you."

"Thievess?" scoffed Hermione.

Draco tilted his head in consideration. "Do you prefer mistress of thieves?"

"I prefer you to be serious," she bantered back immediately.

"Aww, don't ruin my fun, you said this was my Christmas gift, I want to enjoy it!" He whined.

"You're a child," she countered with a roll of her eyes.

"If that's true then you've been snogging a child."

"Keep this up and you won't be snogging anyone," she snapped.

For a split second his face fell, but then it lit right back up again. "You wouldn't last two days before you were all over me again."

Hermione's eyes went wide and her face turned beet red. Narcissa could practically feel it heat up from across the table. Hermione looked up, flicked her eyes between herself and Lucius in a nervous manner and then quickly looked away. Then, without looking at him, she reached over and punched Draco on the arm.

Narcissa decided it was best to just pretend she hadn't noticed anything. As close as she was to Hermione, she realized that she was still a little young to openly discuss such things in front of adults, especially the parents of the boy she was seeing. Frankly, she was a little surprised by Draco's brazenness and thought he deserved anything Hermione decided to do in retaliation.

Lucius set his paper down and cleared his throat. "As fascinating as this little exchange is, perhaps one of you would like to actually explain?"

Draco- who hadn't seemed to have lost any of his good humor- just reached into the breast pocket of his robes and removed a tattered piece of parchment, setting it carefully on the table. "Hermione asked me for my assistance in removing this from Potter's possession before we left school. She thought it was too dangerous for him to keep, but I'm hoping you'll let us keep it. It would really come in handy and we promise not to act like her moronic friend and go sneaking off to Hogsmeade," he finished with a scoff.

"You've lost me," Lucius drawled, and from his tone she could tell that he was quickly losing patience with their son.

"What is it, Draco?" she interjected.

He glanced at Hermione, shot her one more silly grin and then pointed his wand at the parchment. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

What happened next happened too fast for Narcissa to process accurately.

There was a flurry of fur and paws and then she was suddenly looking into the crazed eyes of Sirius Black who was perched on her breakfast room table clutching the parchment Draco had just been showing them. Draco and Hermione had both been knocked to the floor and she was frozen in shock. Luckily, her husband kept his head and a second later her cousin had collapsed, a result of Lucius' stunner. And then, just when it seemed as if things couldn't get anymore bizarre, Nox jumped up onto the table and settled herself on top of the man's chest.

Lucius kept his wand aloft and he didn't take his eyes off of their uninvited guest when he spoke to the children. "The two of you take Hermione's portkey back to her house. Stay there until we send an elf for you. Do not attempt to contact us or anybody else until you hear from us."

"But Father-"

"That was not a suggestion. Go. Now."

Hermione's eyes were wide with fear. She was probably almost as upset by Lucius' harsh tone as she was by the appearance of a madman at breakfast; she had never heard Lucius speak to anybody so harshly, much less his son. To add to that, her husband absolutely radiated power at the moment, if Hermione hadn't understood that he was a dangerous man before, she certainly did now.

And so, she obeyed him immediately. She reached over and grabbed Draco's hand. With her other hand she grasped the locket that she always wore and they were whisked away.

"Should I call the aurors?" she asked, struggling to keep her voice steady as the reality of what had just happened began to sink in. This man had been alone with her children many times over the past months. He could have done anything to them.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Think Narcissa," he pinched the bridge of his nose and breathed out heavily, "What is he doing here? We have to interrogate him and then, if we deem it unnecessary to kill him, we have to alter his memory before turning him over to the Ministry as he knows of our connection to Hermione. Who knows what else he might have overheard?"

She just nodded absently as she stared at Sirius' slumped form. She was surprised that she hadn't realized he wasn't a normal dog. Then again Draco had told her that he believed he was a magical creature, and other than Professor McGonagall she'd never met another animagus. Perhaps there was nothing in their auras to indicate that trait. As a human there was definitely something wrong about the energy surrounding him, but given what he'd been through it would perhaps be more disturbing if he didn't seem a little fractured to her. If she was being honest, she didn't know what any of it meant, and that was the most disturbing thing of all. She wasn't used to being blindsided.

"Do you need to leave? I can do this alone," he interrupted her thoughts.

It was more than enough to snap her back to reality. She squared her shoulders and raised her chin; they were in this together.

"I'm fine. I'll back you up." She carefully reached out and removed Nox from the wizard's chest. Placing her on the floor she then removed her own wand and gave him a nod.

"Renervate," he murmured. "Imperio. Sit up," he intoned authoritatively.

Sirius immediately obeyed, seeming to pay no mind to the various foods dripping from his person. She also noticed straightaway that his eyes were glassed over. She'd never seen the effects of the imperius manifest so visibly and could only assume that twelve years in Azkaban had weakened his mind to the point that it had no defenses left to fight the curse.

"You will answer any question Narcissa or I pose to you fully and truthfully. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Why are you in my home?"

"Your son invited me, practically insisted on it, actually. I thought a couple of weeks of regular meals and a warm place to sleep was better than staying around Hogwarts. I haven't even been able to get anywhere near the castle since I tried to break in on Halloween." The monotone in which he explained this was actually reminiscent of a person who had taken veritaserum.

"For what purpose are you trying to get into the castle?"

"Harry's in danger. I have to kill the rat," he continued in that eerie monotone.

"You have to kill a rat?"

"The rat," he corrected. "Peter Pettigrew."

Lucius glanced at Narcissa and she could see the pieces were falling together for him as well.

"Are you telling me Peter Pettigrew is alive?"

"Yes."

"How is that possible?"

"He's an animagus too. His form is a rat. When I finally caught up with him he cut off his own finger, transformed, and blew up the street to frame me for all those muggles' deaths and to escape unnoticed."

"But then why did you confess?" Narcissa couldn't help but ask.

He faintly sneered in her direction, it was the first sign of emotion she'd seen since he'd been under the curse. "I didn't confess. I was crazy with grief and I said that it was all my fault. The aurors took that literally."

"But what did you mean then?" she insisted, she'd been thinking about this part of the story since she'd first told Hermione about Sirius, and she'd never been able to make any sense of it.

"It was my idea to switch secret keepers. I thought it a brilliant piece of misdirection. You-know-who would come after me- everybody knew that James and I were like brothers- and the secret would stay safe with Peter. It honestly never occurred to me that he could be the traitor."

"And you think that Pettigrew is hiding at Hogwarts, of all places, right under Dumbledore's nose?"

"I know he is and I can prove it."

Lucius looked at Narcissa dubiously. She understood why. Sirius wouldn't be able to lie to them under the curse, but that didn't mean he wasn't simply delusional.

She watched carefully as he unfolded the parchment he was still clutching and Narcissa could see that it was no longer blank. He began to skim the contents.

"Aha!" he exclaimed, slamming the parchment down on the table and pointing triumphantly.

Narcissa glanced over at her husband and then they leaned over to see what he'd supposedly discovered. It looked like some kind of blue-print with blinking dots all over it. He was pointing specifically to a dot labeled 'Peter Pettigrew' which was virtually on top of a dot labeled 'Ronald Weasley.'

Narcissa gasped. "Sirius, what in Salazar's name is this parchment?"

"It's a map of Hogwarts, it shows all the occupants of the castle and where they are at any given time. My friends and I designed it when we were at school ourselves. I recognized it the moment Draco said the password. Peter has been living as the Weasley family's pet rat."

Well that explained why Draco wanted to keep this previously unimpressive looking piece of parchment, and also why Hermione was so concerned about Harry Potter keeping it that she recruited Draco to help her steal it.

"How did you know that he was with the Weasley family and would be at Hogwarts?"

"The Minister came to Azkaban this summer for an inspection. He walked by my cell and I asked if I could have his copy of the Daily Prophet, it had been so long since I'd had anything to read. There, right on the front page was a picture of the Weasleys. They had won the Ministry prize drawing and used the money for a vacation. I recognized Peter perched on the youngest son's shoulder right away. If you can get a copy I can show you that he's missing a toe."

Here they'd been worried about dementors and Sirius, and Pettigrew had been in Gryffindor Tower with Hermione for years. She'd almost certainly been alone with him at some point. He'd attended classes with Draco. And nobody had any idea. Narcissa felt sick.

"What do we do?" Narcissa whispered, mostly to herself.

"We go get him and kill him. I want him away from my godson!" Sirius blurted, looking almost as manic as he had before he'd been placed under the imperius.

Narcissa hadn't known that Harry Potter was Sirius' godson, but she wasn't surprised and probably should have considered the possibility.

"How did anybody believe that you betrayed the Potters? I never did, and that was just a result of knowing how loyal you were to that family. Anyone who knew you were the baby's godfather shouldn't have had any doubts. If you'd put him in danger like that you could have done serious harm to yourself and your magic- I assume you took oaths to protect him?"

"Of course I did."

She heard Lucius sigh. "Stupefy."

Sirius collapsed again and she looked at her husband in surprise.

"You can sate your curiosity later, Cissa. Right now we need to decide how to proceed."

She nodded, feeling shamefaced at being so easily distracted. "I think he could be a powerful ally."

Lucius just blinked at her. "Explain," he carefully enunciated the word.

She pursed her lips as she gathered her thoughts. "Uncle Arcturus never formally disowned him, so he's the rightful Lord Black. If he's proven innocent he will automatically become powerful politically and- more importantly to us- with the Light side and Dumbledore's order. If we help him now he will be indebted to us."

"I'm not certain he'll agree to that. He's at least half mad, and he had no love for Death Eaters in general, or me in particular, all those years ago. I doubt that's changed."

She shook her head. "Circumstances have changed though. Harry Potter is as good as his child. He found a way to break out of Azkaban to protect him. If we can help him get his name cleared so that he can take over the boy's guardianship I think he'll be more than grateful. I know I would be in his shoes."

"Will he even accept our help in the first place though?"

"Would you, for Draco or Hermione? Because he's not getting it from any other quarter," she paused to let him consider that. "And think about it Lucius, the Ministry threw him in prison without a trial. Dumbledore never questioned that or tried to help him. I doubt he's entirely trusting of the Light anymore. And we could really use the Black family library for our research, I think we're at a dead end right now."

"We could just kill him and Draco will inherit," he said it rather drily, but Narcissa knew he wasn't entirely in jest, that there was a part of him that just saw a crazy intruder in front of him and thought it safest to do away with him completely.

"Draco would inherit in three and a half years. I'm not sure we have that long. We have to figure out what that journal is as soon as possible. And if we kill him Draco and Hermione will never forgive us. Which brings me to my next point. He knows about Draco and Hermione. He's seen Hermione in our home. If that doesn't demonstrate that we've changed some of the opinions that he would consider to be...less than savory, I don't know what will."

Lucius began to slowly nod.

"And Lucius, according to the children he's been on or around Hogwarts grounds for months now. That is Dumbledore's domain, the supposed leader of the Light. But it doesn't seem that he made any attempt to reach out to him or let him know Pettigrew was in the castle. He didn't stay at Hogwarts and try to get into the castle again, he came here. He trusts and depends on Draco and Hermione, I think if we frame the argument correctly we can get him to trust us."

She looked at him with raised eyebrows and waited for him to process this. And then he slowly started to smirk. "I do love the way your mind works," he said, reaching out to gently brush her hair away from her face. "And if he doesn't?"

She shrugged. "We alter his memory and figure out a way to get Pettigrew out of Hogwarts that doesn't involve him, I'm certain we can come up with something. I just think this is a better option."

"I will require him to take vows to keep our secrets."

Narcissa snorted delicately. "I wouldn't expect anything less, Darling."

He held her gaze for a moment to be sure that they understood each other, and then turned back to their prisoner. "Incarcerous," he said, securely binding the other wizard and then levitating him into a chair, "enervate."

No longer under the influence of the imperius, he came back to consciousness more slowly this time. He blinked blearily at them and then sneered.

"So what am I, your prisoner now?"

Lucius shrugged nonchalantly. "For the time being, until we know that you can be trusted not to attack my family again. I would ask you what you thought would happen, but I suspect you weren't thinking at all."

Sirius sighed and let his head fall back. "I wasn't, I just saw the map and pounced." He suddenly whipped his head back up, his eyes were cold and angry. "What did you do to me? Let me guess...the imperius? I should have known a Death Eater wouldn't really change his spots. What disgusting plans do you have for that poor girl?"

Lucius seemed almost amused when he answered him. "Hermione? Well, later today I'd planned to show her this rare volume on charms theory I thought she would enjoy, but nothing beyond that. However, in the interest of full disclosure, I think Narcissa plans to ensure that she is the next Lady Malfoy, and has for some time now. She already thinks of her as a daughter, she just wants to make it official."

Sirius actually looked rather surprised by this.

"And climb down off of that high horse, Black. I've seen you use some absolutely lethal curses, even an unforgivable a time or too and sometimes when you could have chosen differently. At least I was only doing what I felt I needed to in order to protect my family, we don't keep veritaserum on hand and I needed the truth from you."

He just stared at him and then turned to Narcissa. "Hello Cissy, long time no see," he said sarcastically.

"Sirius," she nodded at him in greeting, "I would apologize, but I don't typically play hostess to convicts," she answered, with equal sarcasm.

"Ah, well that's where you're wrong, I was never actually convicted."

She couldn't help it, she chuckled. "I actually knew that. And if I hadn't thought you were guilty, of killing those muggles and Pettigrew at least, I wouldn't have kept quiet. We may have rarely seen eye to eye as children but you certainly didn't deserve that place."

He was obviously taken aback but his eyes softened somewhat. "You raised a good kid," he admitted in response, "I like him. He's been kind to me. And he has good taste in witches," he added wryly.

"Thank you, we're very proud of him." Narcissa responded automatically as if they were just making small talk over tea

He craned his neck to look around the room. "Where are he and Kitten?" He asked with what seemed like simple idle curiosity.

"We sent them out," Narcissa said.

"Kitten?" Lucius asked incredulously at the same time.

Sirius grinned. It was rather disturbing. "Yeah, the first time I met her she was mad at Draco and she went on this hissing, spitting rant. And she's such a little thing. She reminded me of an angry kitten, I've been calling her that ever since."

"Oh she's going to hate that," Narcissa observed.

He just kept smiling. "So this thing between them is serious, and you two approve? Draco told me last night she has rooms here. But then why are they hiding their relationship, are you ashamed of her?" He asked, eyes narrowed.

"Of course not!" Narcissa snapped.

"Then why?"

Lucius sighed. "That actually transitions well into what we wanted to discuss with you."

"Well, I'm not going anywhere, get on with it," said Sirius, gesturing with his chin to the bonds that wouldn't allow him to move anything but his head.

"The reason Draco and Hermione haven't let their relationship be publicly known is that it would be too dangerous for them and for us."

He just looked at them skeptically.

"We found out at the end of their first year that the Dark Lord isn't actually dead, just temporarily disembodied."

Sirius closed his eyes and let out a long sigh. "I knew it was too good to be true."

"So you can see, until he is really gone…" Lucius trailed off.

"Right," he responded scathingly, "because you don't get to quit being a Death Eater. He comes back, he'll expect you back too. Bowing and scraping and kissing the hem of his robes and those aren't the kind of meetings where muggleborns are welcome, except as victims."

"Watch it Black!" He leaned over getting in the man's face. "You'll do well to remember that had you not had a more compliant brother to take the pressure off of you, and a family ready and willing to take you in and protect you when you left home, you might very well have a Mark on your arm too," he finished in a low, dangerous sounding hiss.

"I'd have died first!" he snarled.

Lucius sighed and abruptly straightened up, his face softened. "I don't know if that makes you brave or stupid. Perhaps both," he admitted.

Narcissa resisted the urge to reach over and take his hand, he wouldn't want to display any weakness in front of the other wizard.

"Oh come on Malfoy, don't act like you weren't a willing and enthusiastic Death Eater," Sirius continued to bait him.

But Lucius remained impassive. "At the beginning, yes, I was honored. I truly believed in the cause. I believed in the Dark Lord. But by the time I had my own family to protect, I had merely become a very good actor. And because of that family, because of the future I want for my son and that curly haired muggleborn I've grown to love as my own, I am doing everything I can to ensure that he never returns to full power. But if he does, I will return to his side and I will dismantle his organization from the inside out. He will rue the day he ever tried to make a Malfoy into a slave. However, in order to do so I can't do anything in the mean time to make him question my loyalties. So we keep Hermione close, but not out in the open."

Narcissa and Sirius both stared at Lucius in shock.

He raised an eyebrow at his wife, "what? You said you thought he would be a good ally, I am doing my best to convince him."

Sirius continued to stare at him for a few more seconds, he closed his eyes and his body relaxed. "What can I do to help?"

Author's note: Thanks to Weestarmeggie for pre-reading! I did the editing myself though, so mistakes are mine :)

I thought this would be a good point tell you, if you haven't figured it out already, that this fic is going to get darker. We're going to war and Lucius and Narcissa's morals are not quite as...rigid as the protagonists in canon. The rating will almost certainly go up and I'm sorry I didn't warn you from the beginning. There will still be plenty of love and fluff though!

Thank you all for going on this journey with me, the support for this story has just been wonderful!