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Hanging upside down
"What do you want, Severus?" Narcissa found herself asking. The dark-haired boy had been shooting her hard looks since term had started, clearly not over his defeat on the Hogwarts express. Now he stood next to the common room exit, almost barring her way out.
"I'm just curious how many people know about you and Potter?"
She had to struggle to ignore the knot of anxiety that had risen in her. "Leave me alone. What does it matter who I'm with?" She didn't understand his obsession, it certainly wasn't jealousy. Snape had been fawning over Lily Evans for even longer than James had been. She really didn't understand why so many boys were obsessed with that ginger haired tramp.
"It might matter to your family. I'm sure they won't want you with some blood traitor."
So that was his game, was it? "I doubt you have even the slightest clue what my family want. James is a pure blood, after all." She knew it rankled him, that despite all his blood purist rhetoric he was really nothing more than a half blood.
She started to walk past him, standing straight, and trying to look a lot more confident than she felt. She had had to do this a lot recently.
"So, it's your whole family then, is it? First Sirius, then your sister, now you…Certain people will find it interesting how the mighty House of Black has fallen. I might not be as pure as you, but at least I'm loyal."
"Keep walking. Ignore him. Keep walking." She repeated to herself. She had never really considered that dating James would put her family at risk as well. She had always known there would be risks for her, but her family, her parents, they had always seemed so untouchable. But as Snape described it, she knew it might easily seem like her family were losing faith in the pure blood cause. Other families had been punished for less.
She would have to owl Bellatrix.
As she finally made her way into the great hall, Narcissa spotted James talking animatedly to…Regulus?
What was going on.
"James, Regulus?" She asked.
"Narcissa!" James responded with an oddly strained smile on his face. "How are you?"
"Hungry, would you let me go to my table and get breakfast."
"As I was explaining to Reg, in the spirit of peace and all that I thought I would suggest that you find somewhere else to sit today."
"What, no." She pushed past him, walking towards the Slytherin table before realisation dawned on her. "Wait. What have you done?"
As she asked an odd silence rose from the great hall behind her. Turning she saw that all the chairs at the Slytherin table were now levitating about five feet in the air, with shocked looks upon their faces.
James was practically beside himself with glee. "We weren't sure if it would work."
"How did you even…" She didn't even know why she was asking. She was frequently baffled both at the imagination, but also the sheer complexity of James and Sirius' pranks. Even as she said it, students were trying to disenchant their chairs to return to the normal level, which only led to their chairs flipping around. Food and drinks were flying everywhere. It was brilliantly done.
"Oh, for God's sake," Regulus muttered, stalking off to the Ravenclaw table to sit, shaking his head as he went.
"Don't know why he's so mad. I stopped him from getting caught up in the prank, Sirius would have just let him hang there."
"You probably should have. To be honest it's probably better for Reg that he doesn't look like he's too friendly with you or Sirius." Narcissa explained, her mind returning to her earlier conversation with Snape.
"You think he'd rather be hanging upside down like Flint over there?"
"Flitwick and McGonagall will have them down in a minute," Narcissa pointed down the table to the two teachers who were deftly lowering students one at a time. "And then they'll both be after your blood." To be honest she was surprised James had stuck around, it only made him look guiltier.
"Eh…yeah, let's go," he replied, grabbing Narcissa's hand. Just at that moment Narcissa's stomach rumbled again, reminding her of how hungry she was.
"James I'm starving, I want breakfast."
"We can go via the kitchen. The house elves there love me."
"Why?"
"What do you mean, why? My effortless charm and wit. Of course."
He was probably bribing them or something, Narcissa decided, as they both left the Great Hall in a hurry.
They both sat in the kitchen eating an assortment of cereals and pastries. The house elves had presented them both with large platters of food the moment James had asked. Narcissa didn't know why she was so hungry, but she was thoroughly enjoying being spoilt.
"So, what did you mean about Reg being better off not being friends with us?" James finally asked. Narcissa had known he was thinking about something. James was never normally this quiet.
"Just something Snape said. About people asking questions about the loyalty of my family. Sirius, Andromeda and now…me, it makes us look weak."
"You're not doing anything wrong. None of you have done anything wrong."
"I know," Narcissa replied. Although a part of her didn't believe her own words. She knew she was doing nothing wrong, but she still felt a flash of fear and guilt when she thought too much about the consequences of her relationship. She wondered if Andromeda had felt the same twisting sensation when she was with Ted. "But just because I know I'm not doing anything wrong, doesn't mean that everyone else will."
"Because what? I'm a Gryffindor. When we leave school, those things won't even matter."
"True, we could just be neutral in this war. Then no one would care." Hopefully. Voldemort would still target them if it benefitted his cause. Of course, James' odd shifting told her that would never happen anyway. He would never be happy with neutrality.
"Or we could fight him! We could do the right thing, and then no one would have to be afraid of fucking Voldemort ever again."
"I love you." She said, kissing him. "And I know that you would fight him, because it's who you are." And she had this fear, deep down inside, that it would get him killed.
Conscious of the house elves still milling around, Narcissa pulled away from James. But it was difficult.
"I suppose we should go to Transfiguration," James finally acknowledged, smiling. They had already missed most of their first classes. Not that divination was any great loss, she still blamed Bella for telling her to pick "the easy option."
"Probably. McGonagall is going to kill you when she sees you." Narcissa laughed at the look on James' face. "She knew it was you in the great hall."
"Yes, but can she prove it?"
"I don't think she has to. It's school, not a court of law."
"It'll be fine, she loves me really. I'm the reason Gryffindor's won the house cup for the last two years."
"James, you do have a whole team that helped you win those trophies."
"So?" He asked, as he grabbed Narcissa and spun her around the corridor as they left the kitchen. He leaned in, kissing his way up her neck.
She shivered as electricity ran through her body, and she responded in kind, melting into James' kisses. It took a moment to remember where she was.
"James, we can't do this here!"
"Why not? There's no one around, everyone'll be in class."
"That's not the point, and you know it!" She laughed. Filch certainly had a habit of almost interrupting them, to the extent that Narcissa felt it was deliberate.
"Okay, class starts soon anyway. Better not be late and give Minnie even more reason to be annoyed at me."
"Minnie? I dare you to call her that to her face."
"Are you insane? I might be reckless, but I'm not suicidal…I meant to say, about what you said about Snape. If he's threatening you, tell me, and I'll deal with him."
"Deal with him how? You think more pranks are the answer?"
"I don't know, we could go to Dumbledore."
"This isn't an issue school can fix. Especially not someone like Dumbledore. I can protect myself, the stuff with my family…I've owled Bella. She'll figure something out."
"Like what?"
"I don't know, her engagement with Rudolphus was all about distracting people from Andromeda. If there are issues, she'll have a plan to fix them."
"You have a lot of faith in her."
"She's my sister. And as crazy as she might seem at times, she is brilliant." The look on James' face said he thought she was more crazy than brilliant, but Narcissa could forgive him that.
Deal with him how?
It was a fair question Narcissa had asked him. James had to admit that he was far too quick to try and protect Narcissa from threats that he didn't really understand. And that ultimately, she could deal with himself. It was an odd feeling.
"Crazy, brilliant, two sides of the same coin," he smiled. Of course, Bella was just plain crazy, but he didn't want to say that to Narcissa.
"Potter! Black" Professor McGonagall barked as they both approached her classroom. "Not you, Narcissa, where is the other Black?"
James wasn't sure. Sirius had escaped the great hall the moment their prank went off. Something about 'plausible deniability.'
"Is it important?" He stalled.
"Not at all, I just thought you'd like to have him join you during detention for this month."
"For what? I didn't do anything?"
"Really? Levitating chairs…you thought I wouldn't know exactly who came up with something like that?"
It was at that moment that Sirius decided to appear.
"Ah, Black, how fortuitous. Detention for a month for both of you, and fifty points from Gryffindor."
"That seems a bit harsh. I've not even done anything wrong left." Sirius pleaded, trying and failing to look innocent.
"An hour I was there getting students down from their chairs." She practically hissed at them. Ouch, the enchantment had been on the floor under the table. Guess neither her or Flitwick had thought to try disenchanting it, which was probably for the best. It would have just dropped all the Slytherins at once.
"That seems unfortunate. Did no one else help?" Sirius asked, sometimes James wished his friend would stop talking. He glanced at Narcissa who had managed to slip into her chair. She rolled her eyes at him and smiled. God, she was beautiful.
"Detention seems fair professor." He said finally, dragging Sirius with him before he said something worse.
"No evidence," Narcissa smirked at him, "I told you it was obvious." She was right, it had been far too obvious it was them, they'd have to be subtler next time. Maybe stop targeting Slytherin so much.
"Just be lucky you weren't incriminated. After all, you were standing with me when it all went off." Another eye roll. Honestly, he half thought that was a family trait.
"Where did you two end up going anyway? You weren't in class first thing?" Sirius butted in nosily.
"I was hungry and my breakfast ended up on the ceiling, so we went to the kitchens." Cissa explained, glaring at them both. Yes, he would definitely have to stop targeting Slytherin for a while.
