1973-74 - Narcissa, 7th year
Unlike what Bellatrix suspected, Narcissa hadn't paid Lucius Malfoy any special kind of attention as a young teen. Oh, she'd paid attention to all boys of suitable blood and status for her to marry, but she only started paying attention to Lucius specifically after she'd spied him and his father in Knockturn Alley.
The encounter had taken place during the last week of the Summer Holidays between Narcissa's sixth and seventh years. Dawn painted the oldest merchant street of the wizarding Isles soft blues and pinks. Knockturn was still asleep, shop windows magically obscured and only owls to peer upon the passersby. Bella had heard some artefacts were been auctioned at Borkin and Burkes, and Narcissa had agreed to come, if only to keep her sister out of trouble.
Abraxas Malfoy had evidently heard of the auction too, and he'd brought Lucius. The two men, locked in conversation as they strolled down the near-deserted alley, had yet to notice the Black sisters. The elder Malfoy's shoulder brushed against his son's, as if sharing a particularly juicy piece of gossip. Lucius, in contrast, stood tall and somewhat stiff.
"Father, don't be an embarrassment." There was no edge to Lucius' tone. If anything, he sounded fondly exasperated.
Lucius, with his straight, long blonde hair, and impeccably tailored robes, oozed old money and power. Like his father, he kept his wand concealed in a bejeweled cane. Lucius was everything one expected of an old-magic aristocrat, perhaps to the point that he tried too hard. Abraxas Malfoy, on the other hand, was twice as broad as his son, with wavy hair that fell to his shoulders like a mane, and a gray-blonde beard too bushy to be entirely respectable. There was a friendliness to that man, something deceptively approachable. His slightly disheveled appearance, rather than do him discredit, marked him as someone who had nothing to prove.
Narcissa blinked when Abraxas swung his arm around Lucius' shoulders and leaned in even further to say something else. The laughter in the elder man's tone was obvious, even from a distance and despite the gloom. Lucius froze as he spotted them. Abraxas cleared his throat and straightened up, blue eyes still crinkled with humor.
It was so different than the relationship Narcissa had with her own father that she kept thinking back on it.
As soon as she was back at Hogwarts, she asked Severus, aware the two men corresponded. Lucius had been in seventh year when Severus had been in his first, and apparently, Lucius had also seen Severus' potential. Severus now spoke to her easily of how he owed Lucius for his protection. Severus admitted that he hadn't been using just the Hogwarts' Library to craft his spells by third year (he'd smirked then, proud Narcissa had been fooled into thinking he was so clever he'd learned spell-crafting with no outside help at all. She let him gloat, amused to see him so gleeful.)
The rest of her information, Narcissa went to ask her great-aunt Cassiopeia. Cassiopeia, who had been trying to get back in Bellatrix's good graces for the better part of two years, was remarkably welcoming (but Narcissa would never forget, how Aunt Cassy had toyed with Bellatrix before Bella had finally turned the tables on her). The deceptively slight woman lived in one of the most warded houses in Britain. Like her father and grandmother before her, she had devoted her life to expanding her notorious archives : the fifteenth-century mansion, expanded to the limits of what magic could do, was crammed with files, official documents, newspaper clippings, correspondence and diaries, most acquired through dubious means. Cassiopeia Black's walls held enough secrets to blackmail every prominent (and less prominent) family in the Isles, and a significant part of Europe, into ruin.
When the archives burned during the war, Narcissa didn't know whether to suspect Dumbledore's people, pureblood traditionalists or some opportunistic unaligned wizarding family.
To the outside world, Cassiopeia was a semi-retired politician. She spent half the year overseas, enjoying the hospitality of foreign diplomats scattered all over the world, and always returning home with a suitcase's worth of fresh intelligence. High society also knew her as a talented painter. Few outside the Black family knew that she had perfected the art of making portraits as thin and small as a playing card, enchanted with remarkable hearing and an unwavering loyalty to her. In exchange for access to her archives, Cassiopeia demanded that Narcissa slip one of the cards in Trajan Nott's heavily warded private study, and so Narcissa did. It was sad to see how easily some older men convinced themselves that a teenage girl like Narcissa was genuinely interested in an affair. After a few discreet flirtations during Hogsmeade weekends, he led her into his study, to avoid detection by his wife's house elf. Slipping Cassiopeia's portrait-spy behind one of the bookcases was child's play. When Narcissa 'changed her mind' after a couple more encounters, Nott dismissed it as a young woman's fickleness, and Narcissa had what she wanted.
The Malfoy fortune had been amassed before the invention of trans-atlantic portkeys, before magical settlers colonized the Americas. In the 16th and 17th centuries, hundreds of Spaniard ships sailed across the oceans with cargoes of silver, and dozens tragically perished in 'storms', their treasure 'lost' forever. The Malfoy library still held a whole shelf of weather and seafaring magic. In the early 18th Century, the Chinese Mage-Empress waged war against corruption and forced the Malfoys to abandon that particular trade route. They reconverted and diversified, from silver to weapons, tobacco, indigo and furs. In the 19th century, the North American MACUSA began frowning upon such actions and the Malfoys' days of piracy had come to an end.
Owning more money than wizards and witches could conceive of, the Malfoys had decided to then concentrate on curating their family tree. Gone were the days of marrying sirens or wealthy muggle corsairs. From the mid-nineteenth century onward, the Malfoys became genteel and decided posterity would remember them as having always been so. After all, money could only get you so far : blood legitimacy had become required to reach the heights of society.
Abraxas Malfoy lived his life with the confidence of someone who knew nothing was out of his reach. That was what had drawn him to young Tom Riddle in the first place : Riddle had made Abraxas realize he could want even more, and that he may even be prepared to defer to Riddle to get it. For the longest time, Riddle thrilled Abraxas, because the older man could picture Riddle as Minister of Magic. The Isles wouldn't know what hit them. A man who understood magic and whose power made walls rattle. Who valued tradition but had no respect for those whose merit lay only in their blood, for the corrupt and the weak. A man who had ambitions for their nation and not just advancing a single family's agenda. It was too late, when Abraxas realized Riddle would not go the political route. That Voldemort wanted them all to bow.
Abraxas admitted all this to Narcissa, years later, when the Dark Lord was believed dead and Draco, for his fifth birthday, asked for the same snake as Father and Grandfather on his own unblemished little arm.
Abraxas' late sister and brother-in-law had left two little girls behind after a black-market scheme turned disaster during Grindewald's short-lived glory days. Abraxas raised them as (almost) his own. Like a good descendant of pirates, Abraxas had left an adult child in each continent : Aurelia to mold the finest Maur minds, and Vesta, ever the explorer, to scour Inca ruins for arcane knowledge and artefacts. His eldest, Alvis, had stopped talking about his work in India years ago, so Abraxas was satisfied to believe his ever knowledge-hungry son had become an Unspeakable, or whatever the foreigners called it there. Lucius, his youngest, preferred to be the leader of a flock of sheep than an equal among lions, so Abraxas groomed him for Ministerial counsel, here in England. Besides, Lucius was a bona fide aristocrat : employment was beneath his station.
"Would you be happy, if you became the same kind of father as yours was to you?" Narcissa asked Lucius one night, as they watched the stars from the terrace of the Flint Estate, wrapped in warming charms. It was a late February Saturday. She was supposed to be at Hogwarts for the night, but knew Slughorn would say nothing.
Lucius was drunk from an elixir Narcissa had slipped him. She wasn't fool enough to think he'd trust her with the truth without some nudging. She and Lucius had met regularly during the Winter holidays, at various social functions. They'd flirted, dancing around each other and he'd stolen a kiss. She'd tried to seduce him then, not willing this to be a chase for her body.
'I'd like to sleep with the whole of you,' he'd said, pulling back from a rather enjoyable kiss, 'not just your charming figure. There is no hurry. It's a great evening for a walk.'
Narcissa had been impressed. She liked that he asked her what she thought, that he listened, and that he shared his own opinions even when he suspected she would disagree. His fine, handsome features did not hurt either.
"Ah, Father spoils me. I fear he wants to give me everything so I will stay dependent and in his shadow." His smile was fond, the exaggeration made obvious enough by his body language to satisfy the truth compulsion of the elixir. "The old man isn't a bad father, but I'm afraid I can't do him the honor of letting history think first 'Abraxas Malfoy' when they hear our family name."
"If you had a child, you would also want them to be less than you?"
"I could tolerate to be in my heir's shadow, perhaps. But I would make them earn it."
She liked that Lucius' ambition wasn't just empty words. They had the same conception of what was proper. The same contempt for the purebloods whose crowning achievement was being born in the right family. He'd even admitted to her that he'd be curious to learn more about goblin magic, if such a thing was not impossible.
Their next conversation, in a snow-covered field near Malfoy Manor, was not so relaxed.
"I want to be furious that you drugged me, but I'm more puzzled that you asked me about my father's parenting of all things."
Narcissa didn't blink, as if him breaking through the haze of the elixir, stronger than an average memory curse, was nothing noteworthy. "Would you marry me, Lucius?"
A surprised smile softened his face, swiftly erased and replaced by a thoughtful frown. "I doubt your parents would approve. Parkinson strikes me as more their type."
Ah, Parkinson. Spineless, with mediocre parents that would be happy to defer to their Black in-laws. Neither Abraxas nor Lucius had much use or want for Cygnus and Druella Black. Uncle Orion held some political clout, and great-aunt Cassiopeia of course, but the rest of the Blacks of her parents' and grandparents' generation would politically never amount to much of anything other than a name on the Wizengamot's records.
"Propose to me publicly, at the next gala. Their hands will be tied." If Druella Black admitted her daughter had arranged her own wedding behind her back, she would be laughed at forever. And besides, Narcissa's mother couldn't publicly disapprove of Lucius Malfoy.
"Why?" He looked pleased at the prospect, but his gray eyes searched hers with hungry interest.
Narcissa smiled, not a cold smile, but a smile tightened by too many years spent in a disappointing family. Andromeda was dead to them. Sirius was Gryffindor and slipping away more every year. Cygnus and Druella, hardly model parents in the best of times, now looked suspiciously at the two daughters left in their grasp.
"My life is my own, not my parents'. I like you. I asked you about your father because I want a family that will stay united. A family to be proud of."
Lucius' eyes softened as he took her hand in his. He leaned intimately close to whisper teasingly in her ear. "Who says I don't have a better prospect?"
Narcissa gave him a pointed look. "You've met us all." There were perhaps a score suitable matches between fifteen and thirty-five, and that was counting the likes of Molly Prewett-now-Weasley. "Unless you would spurn me for a foreigner?"
"I don't know. I expected a bit more of a... challenge."
"Oh, Lucius, because you think the challenge is having me?"
Lucius winced at the innuendo. "Let me pretend I'm the first, will you? But I'm curious, if marriage of all things is not to be a challenge. What is to be the challenge then?"
Narcissa smiled sweetly. "Me looking at you with pride in my eyes in ten years' time."
"Ah. That kind of marriage." His gray eyes glinted, and Narcissa knew he was hers. "My mother left my father when I was nine years old, to go with some French castle-owner in Corsica."
That Narcissa hadn't known. "I'd heard she'd died of dragon pox."
"She faked her death as a courtesy to father's reputation. And because she didn't want any owls. We see her every summer. You'll meet her, if you want."
"I'd be honored." She kissed his cheek, to thank him for the trust he'd just shown her. Such information spoke louder than any enthusiastic 'yes!'.
She desperately hoped she had chosen well.
1979-1980
Still as a statue, Narcissa didn't scream. She didn't cry. She kept her face blank, because suddenly she didn't know if the man before her was friend or enemy. Bella... that had been inevitable, but Lucius?
"You will sleeping in a room of your own," she frostily told her husband, "until you can assure me your loyalty is first to this family." Her voice echoed in the grand Malfoy ball room. The portraits winced as they gazed upon the confrontation.
Lucius' face was a myriad of emotions, some was anger at her, but there was enough guilt, enough fear, that she decided this family still included him for now.
"Malfoys don't have the luxury of staying neutral. Remember what happened to Marius Bulstrode. The Dark Lord is the future. The new Ministry will be those who stood by him from the start. He... he is powerful, Cissy. He uses dark arts in ways that would have killed a lesser man, he-"
"Then soon he will be insane. That man already has your father, he has no need of you. What of our son, Lucius?" What of you? What will that man ask of you? It was so obvious now that all those political promises were an excuse for the war and chaos that Lord Voldemort thrived on.
Lucius' jaw hardened. "You underestimate the Dark Lord. He is what England needs to crawl out of the mud it has sunk in. But I will have my sister, Aurelia, send you a Portkey. She has a girl of her own. If it were to prove necessary... Mauritania has its own beauty."
Narcissa nodded grudgingly, one hand on her stomach. It was still flat, but the spells were unambiguous : a boy, conceived five weeks before. It had taken her over two years to get pregnant, and for the last six months, she and Lucius had been using every conception-aiding potion under the sun. "Good. You still will be sleeping in a separate room. And I don't want to hear of you committing crimes you wouldn't admit to to our son."
Lucius nodded stiffly, an unhealthy pallor to his face. His acceptance both relieved and revolted her. She wouldn't have married him had he been the kind to feel entitled to her bed, but had Lucius been truly proud of his new mark, had he been unafraid, surely he would have argued.
How dare you, Narcissa screamed in the privacy of her own mind. How dare you not put me first! Lucius was supposed to be the one that stayed, the one that would make up for everything her family had failed at. It was supposed to be her, Lucius and their children. How dare you!
Before Lucius had come Severus, damned by his association with Regulus. Regulus was no longer the sweet child who'd told her to make sure Lucius loved her before marrying him. Her cousin had also lost his eldest sibling, but for him it had changed everything. Regulus was desperate to live up to the title that was now his to inherit, and the Dark Lord's promises, his sheer power, had ensnared him like a veela's allure. Narcissa had been relieved to see Severus sent to Morocco to study advanced potions-making. At least he could have this (and Narcissa didn't begrudge him his revenge against the Princes, she only feared what it would cost him). None of the four masters in England had accepted to take Severus in, the fools. Slughorn of all people should have known better, preferring Viviane Abbott's social charm and averagely-outstanding potion-making skills to Severus' genius.
Everything changed on December 21st 1979. Less than half the usual families were in attendance at the Ministry's Yule Gala, and none who openly supported Dumbledore's faction, the only one who still stood against the Dark Lord. Narcissa, seven months pregnant, had accompanied Lucius because she'd foolishly though that with children and teenagers present, they would be safe. It wasn't the Order of the Phoenix's modus operandi to target families.
She'd wanted to forget about Regulus. Her wretched grief. The horrible doubts (she'd failed Reggie. Lucius' loyalties were shared. How could she hope to protect her baby?) She'd desperately craved to lose herself in finery and music and pretend.
The sound of retching and shattering glasses put an abrupt end to the gathering.
The poisons were traced back to France, to two mudbloods who had left the country when the new laws had threatened to take their wands. Narcissa vaguely remembered them. Joshua Taylor, a Hufflepuff in Severus' year, and Anita McCarthy, a Gryffindor one year older. Narcissa never found out if the criminals had been caught. She was too busy trying not to lose her baby.
Nine died, four were great-grandparents, three were under ten years old. Over two dozen witches and wizards had to be kept weeks in an already overcrowded Saint Mungo's, safe only because of protective wards that surpassed all but Hogwarts'. The poison was too violent. Narcissa was not expected to keep her son. They told her that it would only be a matter of days. They offered to take him out: he could be made to breathe with the proper charms. She would be able to say goodbye.
That wasn't something she could accept. Her precious baby was still kicking. She could feel him. She would not lose him.
Feverish and shivering, Narcissa stumbled out of the hospital and apparated home. She shrilly sent a house-elf to tell Severus that he had an antidote to make, now, and a second elf to steal samples of every food and drink Narcissa had touched, so he could identify the substances. It took her almost a minute to realize she'd splinched two fingers. Dizzy from pain, Narcissa sent yet another house elf to go fetch them in Saint Mungo's triage zone.
And Severus did. He found a way. Her tiny unborn boy was put in potion-induced stasis until the magical poisons left Narcissa's system entirely. It took weeks until she felt like herself again. She didn't dare think what would have happened had Severus not returned from his one year accelerated mastery a few weeks before Yule.
Severus experimented on pregnant mice and pigs until he was hopeful he could reverse the stasis safely. He and Lucius found heavily pregnant muggle women they could test potions on and monitor from a distance. After months of trials, four muggle newborns were finally born healthy. Severus, eyes sunken from lack of sleep, came to her, smiling at long last.
After fifteen endless months of pregnancy, and six of carrying a still baby that wouldn't grow, Draco was born, impossibly small still but breathing and crying. Narcissa cried, harder than she had ever cried, when he found her breast. It was on a beautiful June morning, her two-day-old son sleeping bundled against her chest, that Narcissa was told the poisons had made her barren.
The shadows of three sisters playing together, of spells been crafted in an underground dorm room, were forever relegated to wishful thinking.
"I'm going to spoil him," she warned. Her voice didn't shake. She wouldn't let it.
"He'll survive," Lucius said softly, his arm tight around her waist.
Draco. Her perfect little dragon.
1981
Seeing Severus' black cloak literally billow as he walked to her sitting room made Narcissa's lips twitch.
"I see you've been working hard on your authoritative demeanor." She was glad he was still crafting spells, even if they were just to intimidate Hogwarts students.
"Teenagers are little shits, and the older years remember me as a student. Dumbledore stressed I cannot hex or poison them, so inspiring terror is all I have left." His sneer softened into a thoughtful grimace. "At least now I live at Hogwarts. It'll take me years to uncover all the castle's secrets, and some ghosts do make interesting company."
Narcissa struggled to picture Severus as a Hogwarts Professor. Well, perhaps to the N.E.W.T.s students... Morgana's breath, his mastery potion had been Wolfsbane! The Isles needed his research, not him hovering over terrified first years.
"Dumbledore wants to make me Head of Slytherin House." The last was a furious hiss. "How could he think I'm... I fear he doesn't care if Slytherin has an underwhelming Head." He crossed his arms in defeat. "He tells me it's a struggle to get Ministry approval to recruit anybody, and that's why Prof- Minerva McGonagall is deputy, professor and Head of House, despite it being traditionally two, if not three, positions."
"I can't be at Hogwarts, but if you need help, or only a listening ear..."
Severus flashed her a small smile that was as overwhelmed as it was grateful. "My weight in Felix Felicis, that's what I need. How is Draco?"
And there came the reason Narcissa had invited Severus. Of course, she began by boasting of eighteen-months-old Draco's distinctly enunciated 'My name is Draco Malfoy', but soon, it was time to speak of serious things.
"Could you be his godfather?" They had yet to name anyone. As the war raged and the Dark Lord grew madder every month, Narcissa had been afraid that broadcasting their trust and affection for anyone would have put everyone involved at risk. "I'd like you to be," she stressed, "but if they made you choose, is it in your power to choose Draco?"
One would have to be suicidal to be a double agent loyal to Dumbledore, but stupid beyond reason to be one loyal to the Dark Lord. Lucius had been naive : nobody was immune to dark arts. A year before his end, the Dark Lord had begun torturing his followers with the cruciatus (rarely Lucius, never Bella – but Bella had destroyed herself, joining her Lord in darkness-), waging destruction with no true purpose. The Dark Lord, gripped by paranoia, saw disloyalty in every corner. A double-agent would give the Dark Lord reason to pay extra attention to them, to be more suspicious than ever. There were a lot of things Narcissa couldn't claim to know about Severus, but he was an intelligent man.
"I am sorry, about Lily." It was a guess, but Narcissa had always been good at reading people.
Severus closed off completely. "Thank you, for saying that," he managed after a time. "But please never bring it up again." Silence fell over them, but the storm behind his dark eyes belied words yet to come. "They give credit to her son," he finally said.
Scorn thinned Narcissa's lips. "They don't know the first thing about magic. They sound like muggles. A miracle. There are no miracles. Just competent witches and wizards." She smiled at Draco, and then pointedly at Severus. She would not conceal her gratitude. He deserved that, at least. Long past were the years where she thought him just someone she could use.
Severus gazed upon her perfect baby boy, sleeping in his crib. His dark eyes were pained. "You're right, I cannot. I'm sorry, Narcissa. I will do my best, regardless. I... Ensuring Draco's healthy birth that year saved my sanity."
It wasn't fair. They weren't yet thirty. Regret was supposed to be something built over a lifetime. Not like this.
Narcissa opened her mouth, and closed it. Regulus' name was on her lips but she couldn't bring herself to say it. Her heart had broken when she'd learned her baby cousin had taken the mark before he'd even left Hogwarts and hid it from them. She'd been pregnant then, too exhausted, too scared to try to save him (she'd not even been able to deter Lucius, and anyway what was the point? It had been too late). Reggie had been a follower all his life. Eager, too eager, to please. And later embittered, dangerously hungry to prove himself. When he'd died, something of Narcissa had died with him. She'd made a point not to learn how or who ('a traitor', Bella had simply said, and Narcissa had been stunned, because Regulus had always been the least rebellious of them all). Narcissa wanted to remember Reggie, the wide-eyed kid who'd told her so easily he loved her. Who had made even Severus relax and smile fondly, because Regulus had cared about that, making people feel good. As a child, and even as a young teen, Regulus had found it so easy to say what truly mattered.
Narcissa opened her mouth again, her cheeks coloring faintly at the awkwardness. But this was important.
"You're family, Severus, don't ever forget it."
She hugged him then. She wasn't entirely comfortable with it, and neither was he, but it was the kind of family she wanted. One that could hug, maybe not every day, but one that could.
Lucius' elder brother, Alvis, came to England that Christmas. He had no ties to Death Eaters and living half-a-world away would be an advantage were the Dark Lord to rise again. Alvis took his vow to be godfather seriously, offering to keep in contact through mirrors between Christmas and the Summer, for their usual holiday in France. He had been the lone Ravenclaw among his Slytherin siblings, and sometimes painfully reminded Narcissa of Andromeda.
"Were you really under the Imperius?" he asked Lucius, a frown creasing his face. Unlike Lucius, he kept his blonde hair short and enchanted spectacles over his eyes. "Why would that man need to enslave you? You had a family he could take hostage."
Narcissa's eyebrows shot to her hairline at the sheer bluntness of the question. Lucius just sighed. "Yes. Not always, not when I took the mark, but often enough towards the end. It seems he didn't trust me enough not to. Father believes the Dark Lord didn't torture loyalty into me instead because he and father were friends of sorts once, and because the Dark Lord couldn't afford to lose our monetary and political support."
Who knew? In the throes of dark magic, what remained of old bonds? Perhaps the Dark Lord had imperioed Lucius to make sure things were done exactly his way. Perhaps that power-drunk murderer had just done it because he could. In front of his big brother, Lucius didn't bother to conceal the fear the mention of the Dark Lord still filled him with.
A childish voice dispelled her dark thoughts. "Fa-er, fa-er, up!"
Draco, trailed by a watchful house-elf, shakily toddled up to them with his little arms towards the ceiling. Lucius' smile was more contained than Narcissa's, but his eyes shone with love and pride as he lifted his son in his arms. Narcissa couldn't remember such an expression ever gracing her own father's face.
Narcissa was a Malfoy now. Alvis called her 'sister'. She called Alvis 'brother', Abraxas 'father', and decided to forget she had ever been a Black. No more tapestries with charred holes, no more children who wondered why their parents didn't love them.
Narcissa had been unprepared for the hate that had filled her after Draco had been born. Hate directed at her parents, at Aunt Walburga and Uncle Orion, and at her grandparents, who hadn't been much better parents themselves. How could they? She looked at Draco, so beautiful and joyful and trusting, and all the excuses, all the rationalizations she'd crafted during the last twenty-five years, were swept away like cobwebs. Their own children! How could they?
Impulsively, she sent Andromeda a card. A simple photograph of her beautiful Draco, with a single written line: 'I'm raising him a Malfoy'. Her sister's betrayal still stung deep, but if Narcissa could still manage to be polite to her mother and her father in public, if she could bear to visit them occasionally for dinner, then a card to Andromeda was something she could do.
There will be a third chapter for Narcissa, set after the second wizarding war, to close this arc. Then it'll be Bellatrix's turn.
