Footsteps echoed down the long, wood-panelled corridor. In the paintings hanging on the walls, trees swayed in the wind, and moonlight glittered against rippling waves. Each was worth more than lesser families, like the Weasleys, could ever dream of possessing in their entire life. Lucius' late grandfather, Hyperion, had been a great art collector. In Draco's room hung a fine depiction of a roaring dragon, carefully charmed so that it also provided heat each time the creature blew flames. It had cost a fortune and a half. It had Draco's fifth birthday present, by which time Hyperion knew he was dying – and so he had, in the September of that year. Narcissa had liked him better than Lucius' father, certainly.
But it was no matter. Abraxas was dead too, leaving Lucius as the head of the family. And what a good job he's done, Narcissa thought dryly. She stepped to the side as Greyback stalked past, baring his teeth in what could've been a smile or a snarl.
"Good day, Mrs. Malfoy," he said, eyes beady. She dropped one hand to the pocket of her dress. Her wand was snug inside.
"Good day," she said, pressing her fingers against the wood. He continued down the hall, and she swallowed. Their laughter echoed to the rafters when her niece's abominable taste was brought up, but it was fine to have a foul half-breed part-time residing in Malfoy Manor if Lord Voldemort said it so. Narcissa vowed never to enter that room again. Rumour said Greyback liked to play with his food before he ate it, and she'd no desire to see proof.
She gently lifted a thin chain from around her neck, fingering the key on the end, and checked that she was alone. If anyone lurked in the corridor, they were concealed. In truth, that was the best she could hope for. If they weren't supposed to be there, they wouldn't report, for it would be to give themselves away. If they were supposed to be there – spying on her and her husband – then it did not matter. Only an idiot would think she wasn't being watched, and Lord Voldemort would know of their movements if he wished, regardless of what they did. Besides, there was nothing illicit in seeing Lucius. How could there be?
Narcissa unlocked the door, and slipped the necklace back on, tucking it under her bodice. Lucius sat at his desk, his forehead against his palm. His long blond hair was loose, and hung well past his shoulders now; it nearly matched hers. Dark curtains covered the windows; hovering candles flicked dark shadows across the towering bookcases. Rolls of parchment littered the desk. She shut the door gently behind her, and stepped over a puddle of ink and broken glass. Lucius looked up. Shadows carved deep grooves beneath his eyes, and his skin was still pulled tight over his fine-set bones; when he had first returned home, she had been able to count his teeth through his cheeks.
"Husband," she said, stepping closer. His chapped lips parted. A golden tooth glittered; Azkaban had not been kind. Not just to him. So long as she lived, she would never sleep in an empty bed again; she could not stand it. Until he had been imprisoned, she had spent likely less than two weeks sleeping alone since she'd been twenty-one. But he was here now. Lucius had returned. And it did not matter how many werewolves roamed their house, how many wands were stolen, how many people rotted away in the deep dungeons, not if Lucius was with her. Warmth rushed through her. She embraced him, pulling his head to her chest, one hand stroking his hair and the other rubbing his shoulder. He leaned into her. Narcissa kissed the top of his head, the same way she kissed Draco when he'd been small and fallen from his broom or down the stairs.
"Narcissa," he croaked, withdrawing. Even now, her heart missed a beat when he said her name. She cradled his face, knees weakening. He looked part-inferi. Was he not? Had he not died in Azkaban and then risen from the dead in a half-life, not able to rest, not able to recover. Just a puppet for another wizard. And she felt dead too, dead with him. If not for Draco – if Lucius had been sentenced to life (death, really, any life in Azkaban was death) and she had been on her own –
Her eyes burned. She couldn't cry. She squeezed her eyes shut, pushed them back, and opened them once more, completely dry. When their relationship had been newer, when they'd been children at Hogwarts (she had felt nearly like an adult, in all her teenage glory, but she had been younger than her son was now), whenever Lucius had gone quiet she had asked, 'what do you need?', and provided. Her mother had told her that men were the providers and women the nurturers, but how could you nurture without provisions? Now, she felt as though she was without. Empty. As if she had been Kissed.
But now was not the time for excuses.
These days, she didn't ask what he needed. She knew, in the same way she had been able to tell if Draco was crying because he was hungry or tired or lonely or dirty. He needed a reprieve. A rest. A break. If Malfoy Manor had been hers, she would've given it to Bella without a second thought, and seconded herself and her husband to the countryside for the sake of their health. It was not hers. It was Lucius', and he would not give it up. And she could not give him up. The smartest move might've been to claim ill health on her own part, and to live in the little country cottage on her own. It would give Lucius and Draco an occasional retreat in the excuse of a visit.
But Narcissa Malfoy could not be alone. She was the youngest of three, and wherever she had been, at whatever time in her life, she was rarely alone. Always, there was a parent or a sister or a cousin or a friend or Lucius or an in-law or Draco by her side. Had she been able to have more children, she thinks she would've gone for a round dozen; and fed and clothed them all and had them educated to the highest standard, not like those Weasley rats. Perhaps with a horde of twelve children, the Dark Lord wouldn't have chosen Malfoy Manor. Fate had left her barren after just one child, however, the bitch, and so Narcissa chose to have the company of both her husband and Lord Voldemort rather than neither.
"Draco says he's well," she said, running her fingers through Lucius' hair. It hadn't yet regained its gloss and lustre; no matter how often she brushed it for him, there were always new snags in a way there had never been before. "He's enjoying his classes, excelling. And he assures me they're not overworking him, and that most of his duties as Head Boy are in referring students to the Deputy Headmaster. By all accounts they've tightened up on discipline." She managed a hollow laugh. "Moreso than Durmstrang, maybe. I think I was right in sending him to Hogwarts."
"He would've thrived at Durmstrang," Lucius said. He knew his lines off by heart, naturally. They'd had the conversation a thousand times. "They have rigorous physical education as well as academic, which I believe he would've found beneficial."
"Perhaps," she admitted, the same way she always did. "But I loved Hogwarts, and so did you. Our letters would not come and go so quickly if he was on the continent."
"You have a soft heart," Lucius replied, wrapping his arms around her. She inhaled deeply.
"And my soft heart is yours." He tilted his head up, and she kissed him gently on the lips. Gentle was what he needed, now; down the corridor and in the Hall and the parlour and the training room, there was all too much hardness of heart and pumping blood and passion. They released, after a moment. "May I read the papers?"
Lucius rubbed his temples. "I am charged with collecting information. It feels like a fool's errand. Making lists of who attended what dinner parties, who volunteered with which society, and so on. He is keeping me busy so I've no time to complain about my lack of wand or invaded home." He handed her a roll of parchment. Narcissa unrolled it carefully, silent.
"Enoch Gamp also attended the private Fudge family dinners on several occasions," she said finally. "He was Miranda's youngest nephew, younger than Astor. I would be surprised if the Dark Lord was not already aware of that, however, given Enoch's service to him. And if the Dark Lord is not, then he will have explaining to do. Either way, add him." She handed back the scroll. Lucius dipped his quill in a green inkwell and added the name.
"You're well-informed," he said.
"Agnetha has a son who was the year above Draco," she replied. "We met at a handful of mother's groups."
She conjured a chair, keeping her wand out of her husband's view (he wouldn't have snapped, he would've said he didn't mind, but she wasn't an idiot. They'd been married for twenty years), and sat down on the other side of the desk. As loathe as she was to admit it, it was good to keep her mind busy. All too often, she found herself supervising her self-embroidering needles or dully tapping away at the piano, her thoughts racing. Fool's errands. Half of her wished she could be at school, with her son. No matter where one was at this time, tall shadows loomed, but at least in Hogwarts you could busy yourself with homework and assignments and kid yourself that grades would matter when the Dark Lord's vision was complete.
Lucius handed her another scroll, and she read through it, eyes sharp. Soon she lost herself in memories of swirling robes and bubbling champagne and sweet elfwine. "He met her at a conference in Paris," she said, tapping a neatly-written name. And further down: "I believe they attended classes together at university." Sometimes the room was silent save for the scratch of quill against parchment and their breaths and beating hearts; but it was a comfort, moreso than the chatter at the dinner table. Here she did not need to listen for her name being uttered sixteen people down, or for how someone folded their serviette. Lucius' heartbeat was as familiar to her as her own, if not moreso; there had been many long hours when neither of them had found sleep, and she would put her ear to his chest and watch the candles twinkle and die.
"They were more than familiar with one another," she noted, looking up. "They left the charity gala for the funding of the Janus Thickey Ward together. The one in the summer before Draco went to school." It had gone much later into the night than anyone had expected, and she was certain many narrowly-averted scandals had been born at three in the morning under the shimmering silver light of that hall. She lifted her hand, and placed it atop his. His fingers froze her skin, and an odd lump stuck out from his wrist. His hands dwarfed her in length and width alike.
"The one with the strawberry champagne?" Lucius asked, tone light. They could've been spoken on a balcony in the south of France, overlooking a cerulean sea.
"Watermelon," she corrected, lips twitching upwards. She slid her fingers between his, ran a thumb over his knuckle.
"What I would give for watermelon champagne," Lucius said, shaking his head. Thin tendrils of silver hair trembled, reaching just below the sharp edge of his jaw, which was shadowed with stubble and a hollow from the North Sea. Narcissa's eyes shut slowly, trapping a tear between her lashes and her cheek. She inhaled deeply – don't cry, tears will do nothing – and exhaled, looking at him once more, composed. Women's weeping would not win back those wondrous weeks. Once the page turned, the time was frozen, and that was to go back years.
Light dwindled, fingers stiffened, and half a pile remained when her back's complaints turned to screams. There was a potion for that, somewhere in the house, summonable. Yet somehow, she could not bring herself to wish the pains away. It felt like a sort of penance – for what? – a sort of proof of her toil. Lucius rarely took dinner these days, and so she pressed on into the night without a mention of any evening meal. No invitation came for them to join Him.
A ring clinked onto the candle plate, and the room was cast into darkness. Pale midnight blue hues peeked out from behind the velvet green curtains. Lucius' third finger on his right hand hosted a swelling red blister by his first knuckle. Her lips parted, but she could not make the words. His eyes sunk deep into his face, and his hair glowed eerily in the moonlight. She longed to hold him close, to cry, to tuck him into bed like he were a child and sing him false promises of tomorrow's hope. His gaze lifted to meet hers.
"It was supposed to be glorious," he said, voice monotone. "It was supposed to be better." The necessities came to her at once; it is, isn't it? No mudbloods, no scum, the world at our boy's feet. We can be proud of who we are. If she had been a tree, the words would've been scratched into her from the very first ring of her soul. She took his hand in hers, gently, and bought his ring finger to her lips. She kissed the golden wedding band, looking up at him. I love you. I love you. I love you. For all the arts of legilimency and occlumency, there had never truly been any sort of telepathic link discovered in any corner of magic. She could try, though. She could have faith that he knew. I love you.
"I'll stay," she said instead. "How much more is there to be done?"