Thank you so much for your kind reviews! I hadn't expected so many from the first chapter and I'm very grateful. Anyway – here's another chapter. Let me know what you think.

- Leo

Lucius frowned. His friend was obviously in need of assistance, but they were still Slytherins. Even between their own, help was rarely requested and even more rarely given. Him asking was certainly enough to illustrate exactly how dire the situation was – and so was his response;

"Of course."

Evans shoulders sagged in obvious relief. He closed his eyes and took a steadying breath before speaking. "My daughter is in danger."

Lucius' eyebrows narrowed even further. He tried in vain to school his features into an impassive mask. By the time this night was over, he would have permanent wrinkles. "What do you mean danger?"

"Come on Lucius. Just by existing, just by being pureblood and just by being a girl, she's in danger. You know just as well as I, what could happen. Narcissa certainly does."

Narcissa pursed her lips. She knew indeed.

"Too many of those fanatics are obsessed with continuing the bloodlines, and much too many are obsessed with keeping it pure. So many marriages are arranged and so many couples loathe each other, so they stop trying for more children after the first son is born. Girls are in high demand, and some of the more questionable company we keep will do anything to steal a bride for their sons, or even for themselves." He ground out bitterly.

Narcissa knew exactly what he meant. Her sister had been stolen by the Lestrange family when they were still just in their teens and Merlin and Morgana only knew what they did to her. Bella was never a saint, but she had turned into a bloodthirsty monster, twisted by dark magic and filled with rage, which she would direct at anything that dared breathe in her presence. She tried time and again to get out of the marriage contract – especially after the Dark Lord's rise, but it was sealed with very dark blood magic. Narcissa wasn't convinced that the narcissistic megalomaniac made for better husband material than Rodolphus though. She had been lucky that her parents had negotiated a marriage contract for her that was more on her own terms, and lucky to have a husband who would treat her with respect rather than as a brood mare.

She sighed. "What do you need us to do?"

"I need some favours. It's asking a lot" He turned his sad brown eyes to Narcissa.

Narcissa pursed her lips "We'll do what we can."

Evan scratched the back of his head. "I need you to hide her. I want to put her in the muggle world."

Lucius blinked at him. "Are you daft? She'll be in even more danger! The Dark Lord is more powerful than ever." He exclaimed.

Evan stood up and started pacing. "If she stays here in the Wizarding community, it won't be long until she's taken by another pureblood family or the Dark Lord. What's worse though, is that the Order will be out for her as well, in order to use her to get to me. Dumbledore will twist the mind of anyone who wants to listen and he's more than willing to recruit children. I wouldn't be surprised if he was willing to torture them as well. With our luck, she would be put in Dumbledores custody immediately after my capture or rather my execution."

"You talk about being caught as if it's a certain thing." Lucius' right eyebrow managed to rise from its frowning position.

"Of course, it is." Evan sighed. "Surely you don't think I can run forever – Especially not with a baby. You can't be that naïve. If it isn't going to be the Order, it's going to be the Dark Lord when he finds out what I've been up to."

"What we've been up to" Lucius corrected him.

Evan stopped pacing and turned to face him "That's another thing. You need to obliviate me, so I don't remember your involvement in our little project. If – or when I get caught, I don't want to be able to incriminate you. You'll have to continue without me though. No one suspects you – you seem so loyal to the Dark Lord, yet too kind to be a bloodthirsty maniac" he smirked.

Lucius ran a hand down his face and rubbed the space between his eyebrows with two fingers, trying to smooth out the wrinkle. He had been a leading part of their operation, but only from the sidelines. He had a lot of other obligations – the Dark Lord was especially demanding these days. He sighed and turned his face to look at Narcissa, her hair, shining in the light coming from the fireplace.

She rolled her eyes "I will do it. No one takes me seriously anyways, so no one will notice me going out every so often. They will just assume I've gone to Paris or something equally frivolous." She waved him off.

"But Cissy, it's the muggle world…" Lucius trailed off, knowing that his wife's experience with muggles barely covered sneering at a muggle studies book another student had shown her in fourth year at Hogwarts.

"You think you're the only one Severus talks to?" She scoffed. "I will travel the muggle world by foot and speak to all muggles in the entire country, if I must." She nodded firmly and looked him in the eye as if challenging her.

Lucius smiled at her ruefully. He knew there was no winning this argument. He didn't like it – it was dangerous, and it meant certain death if she were caught, probably by either side. But he also knew his wife was a competent witch. She was a social chameleon; a brilliant actress and her wand work was fast paced and ruthless. She was by far the most talented of the Black sisters and the most underestimated. He knew he had won the lottery with her. Where others saw a beautiful and demure trophy wife, he knew she was a force to be reckoned with. She simply chose not to advertise it, thus taking her enemies by surprise. Slytherin to the core.

"How far have you come along?" he asked Evan, who sighed and sat back down.

"I didn't get the entire list out from the ministry, but I did manage to copy some names. I've tracked down four so far, but I'm still missing six" He wrinkled his nose, not happy with the lack of progress. "I already contacted the parents of those four. I gave them an address to send a letter to, if they have questions. Two sets of parents laughed in my face. One set started calling the police – muggle aurors" he explained when he saw Narcissas puzzled frown. "One of them had already started presenting magic though – she was only one year old! Can you imagine?" He smiled.

"Impressive!" Narcissa exclaimed in surprise. Children should commonly display signs of magic before the age of seven, but most didn't until they were around three or four. Like most others in their circles, Narcissa had been brought up in a strict household, founded upon centuries of blood purity – or inbreeding, however you chose to look at it. Every day, all day the lesson was that muggles were primitive and wizards superior. When she was a child, that had been a fact.

When she grew up and went to Hogwarts, the issue had turned into something far more complicated. Seeing muggleborns do as well, if not better than yourself was mind-altering. Now it was a choice – to toe the line and publicly declare that all muggles were filth, or to be blasted off the family tree like Sirius or Andromeda. Narcissa wasn't prone to self-torture, so she chose the former and did it so well, that it wasn't until three years into their marriage, that Lucius had the courage to tell her about his project and point of view and not least, the ones who shared it with him.

What Lucius really wanted was simple enough. To protect the wizarding world. Each year there was a larger intake of muggleborns at Hogwarts. Contrary to popular belief, Lucius didn't mind the muggleborns too much. He was wary of them and he didn't like the way they were introduced to wizarding society. Waiting eleven years to tell them what they were, was a very long time, especially since there were already recordings of magical children in the ministry and at Hogwarts. Waiting didn't make sense in his opinion. Parents of magical children ought to be informed of their magic as soon as possible and the ministry ought to help them contain the child when they were having magical outbursts. They would of course also have to monitor the behaviour of the parents and if proven untrustworthy, they would have to be eliminated or as a minimum be obliviated. In which case, the child would fall into the custody of the ministry. At first, he had just wanted to kidnap all the muggleborns and be done with it. Make a relocation program of sorts. But he had come to understand, that the bond between parent and child should not be broken unless there was absolutely no choice.

Which brought them back to the current predicament.

"I think I have an idea about where to hide her. We could –" Lucius started, but was interrupted by Evan

"Stop. I trust you, Lucius. The less I know the better. Hell, the less anyone knows about her, the better. She would probably be safest, if people thought she died with Celeste" His eyes were shining in the firelight with unshed tears. He sat on the sofa, scratching the expensive fabric. The next topic wasn't going to be easy. He sighed heavily and willed the tears to stop trying to fall.

"There is one last thing. One that neither of you will like, I'm afraid." He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands.

Both Malfoys were looking at him with scepticism when he looked back up.

"I would like to propose a marriage contract between your son and my daughter" He sighed wearily.

Exactly three seconds passed, where they were processing the offer before exploding

"Absolutely not!"

"You can't possibly mean that!"

He smiled apologetically at them and sighed again, suddenly feeling much older than he was. "I think you don't quite understand, how much danger she's in. Even when we announced Celeste's pregnancy, it wasn't more than a day before the letters started coming, from families wanting to make an offer, in case we had a girl. We've had propositions from Nott, Flint, Goyle and even Parkinson – they're apparently expecting and wanted to cover their bases, in case they had a boy." Evan rolled his eyes but ended the roll in a frown. "What worries me more is that I was approached in person, by Walden Macnair. He said that he knew what I was doing, but that he wouldn't tell the Dark Lord, if we were family" He finished, looking disgusted.

And by greenish hue the Malfoys skin had taken, he wasn't the only one.

"But Macnair? He's even older than us! He can't possibly be serious. He's even already married!" Lucius sneered.

Evan looked grim "A few days later, I talked to Avery. He said that Edith was unable to bear a child and has thus proven herself worthless. He told me that Walden was looking for another to provide him with a suitable heir. My guess is that he already killed Edith and will take any pureblooded girl he can get his dirty hands on" He growled. "The others won't care about her either. They just want to continue the bloodline and need a bloody incubator. I know that you will raise your son right though. As I said, I trust you."

Lucius sighed, the exhaustion setting in his bones. "Evan, you just can't ask this of us. It's our son's future. There will be many things in which he won't have a choice, but we would like him to have this."

Evan nodded in defeat. He understood choice. None of them had had any choice, but to join the Dark Lord, their fathers had started that show. Odds were that their children wouldn't have any choices either. It was join or die on this side of the war.

"We could test them." Narcissa whispered.

"What do you mean?" Lucius asked confusedly.

"After Bella… After her ordeal, my mother wanted me to have a contract drawn. I managed to convince her to test for matches before agreeing to any contract. That way I would at least be somewhat compatible with my future husband." She pursed her lips, purposefully avoiding Lucius' eyes.

Lucius frowned "I don't remember being part of any test."

"You wouldn't" She smirked at him and turned to Evan. "It's a charm and it uses the hair of the ones you need to test. If they are a match, and ONLY if, we might draw up a contract."

Lucius stared at her "Are you sure?"

She nodded "We have to protect her – or at least do our best."