The Twenty-first

Narcissa was changed, and Molly didn't like it. She was acting cold and superior, barely speaking as she sipped her tea. It was as though they had been catapulted back to the beginning.

"I've been thinking." Narcissa finally said. "All this wasn't a good idea. I think I shouldn't come again."

Molly's objections didn't seem to impress her much. In the end, she left far earlier than usual, with a cool "goodbye" and without a second glance.

When Arthur came home, he found his wife with her face buried in her arms, crying. She wouldn't talk to him about it.

First Interlude

Weeks went by without a sign of life from Narcissa. Molly sent two letters, but the owls returned them unopened. Arthur wouldn't hear anything about it. She should have expected it was all he had to say.

She had thought the other woman had severed ties only with her, but as she visited Ron and Draco, she learnt that the latter hadn't heard of his mother since Lucius had thrown Molly out.

Draco's birthday came and went, but even then, Narcissa wouldn't write. While Molly had first been angry, she now became worried. But there was nothing she could do.

Second Interlude

Molly carefully closed the door of Percy's old bedroom. Finally, an hour and a half after she had stumbled into the kitchen, with a black eye, split lip and sprained ankle, Narcissa had fallen asleep.

They hadn't been able to get much out of her, aside from tears and the information that Lucius had found out about the sterilisation – Narcissa hadn't known that he could do Legilimency. After a while, Arthur had tactfully left his wife to the task of calming her friend down and had prepared the bed.

Never had Molly regretted more that she had been proven correct.

The Twenty-second

The three of them were sitting in the kitchen the following afternoon, after Arthur had come back from work, a thick and awkward silence enfolding them.

"Of course, you can stay as long as you want," Arthur finally said surprisingly softly.

Narcissa forced a smile on her pale face. "Thank you. I...I really don't want to go back any time soon." She looked down at her untouched tea. "He's changed a lot since Azkaban. He was different before."

Molly said nothing, but thought that someone who'd been a Death Eater for so long couldn't really have been all that different.