Lucius was pacing, and Draco was late.
They were two of the flaws that Narcissa liked least - impatience and indolence. She had been in a sour mood since her tea with Andromeda, refusing to share with Lucius what had transpired, beyond tersely acknowledging that her suspicion Andromeda had known about the engagement had been correct.
"The absolute cheek of that woman," he had fumed, furious more that someone had gotten the better of him than at any sense of familial betrayal.
Narcissa had ignored him the rest of the afternoon but he remained close by, casting her increasingly black looks as she refused to enlighten him as to her inner thoughts. For Lucius this was a time that should have been spent talking strategy, positioning, what they might be prepared to negotiate with Draco. Every conflict was a battle to Lucius, one that he needed to win at all costs, but right now Narcissa just wanted to understand.
While she reclined in one of the armchairs in the drawing room, gazing into the fire, he was upstairs finishing getting dressed, probably still berating the elf who had presented his watch unpolished. It was a beautiful watch, his grandfather's on his father's side. Draco had been given Lucius' father Abraxas' watch when he turned seventeen, but claimed he had lost it.
"Sold it, more like," Lucius had remarked dispassionately after Draco had returned from rehab the second time. "It would have fetched at least, what, 5,000 Galleons? That's a few weeks of expenses, perhaps."
Lucius would know because he had obsessively pored over the bank statements that had come through those years, going into the bank to dispute charges so often that Narcissa, humiliated, could no longer venture into Gringotts. After they had cut him off, Draco had ripped through his trust fund from her parents at an alarming rate, and then proceeded to wheedle his way onto his family's accounts at any institutions where he could. It was not that Lucius cared so much about the money, she knew - although with the burdensome war reparations they had paid, it had become more difficult for them to maintain - but policing Draco's spending was the only way he had been able to exercise any measure of control over his son.
An elf approached her, bearing her customary aperitif - champagne with dragon fruit - on a silver tray. As she accepted the flute, however, the elf lingered, trembling with some anxiety.
"Madame, Tinsy begs a word, madame."
"Speak," she said, boredly.
"Madame, Tinsy is wondering whether to serve the sherry and wine with dinner. In the past when young Master Malfoy has dined we have served a sparkling pumpkin juice, madame, very delicious - "
Most unfortunately Lucius had entered the room and overheard this. "What?" he snapped. "Of course we'll be serving wine. Who's asked your opinion of the menu, elf? Are you to dine with us this evening?"
"No sir, no, I is not - "
"Just get out," Narcissa said and Tinsy fled. She waited until the elf was out of earshot before adding to her husband, "We're sure about serving wine? After what you saw at his hotel suite this morning?"
Lucius rolled his eyes. "It's wine at dinner, Narcissa, really. If Draco can't control himself we should seriously reevaluate the situation."
"You said the suite looked like an opium den," she pointed out.
Lucius looked annoyed, adjusting his cuffs. "I'm not going to let his foolishness ruin a perfectly good meal."
"But really - "
He gave her a quelling look. "Life must go on sometime, Narcissa."
Life had gone on far too much for her liking in the last seven years.
Down the hall Draco was finally making an appearance. She could hear the murmurings of Tinsy taking his cloak and escorting him down the hall through the library. But there was another voice, high and bright, ringing like a bell with laughter at something Draco said. She saw Lucius register this at the same time she did, and he whipped back to look at her.
"The little coward," Lucius said softly, looking stunned. "He brought the girl."
"Mr. Malfoy and Miss Greengrass," the elf announced, departing with a bow. Draco came forward to kiss Narcissa's cheek in greeting,
"You're late," she said before he could speak.
He raised an eyebrow at her, pouring two sherries with a flick of his wand from the decanter on the sideboard. "Hello, Mother."
"There's no time for a drink now. Dinner's about to be served."
"Hello, Mrs. Malfoy," the girl interrupted, a brassy sheen in her voice poorly masking her nervousness. "Mr. Malfoy. Thank you for inviting me."
"Always a pleasure, Astoria, my dear," Lucius said, bending down stiffly to kiss her cheek, while Narcissa gave Draco a long, hard look that he pretended not to notice.
"I thought this would be a nice time to get to know one another better," Draco said with false brightness. "Now that Astoria is to be family."
"Indeed, you couldn't have picked a better time," Lucius said coldly.
Dinner was served in the small dining room, where she and Lucius took most of their meals now, having little need of the grand state dining room where they had used to entertain so often. Narcissa's watched the girl guardedly as they all took their seats and wine was poured. She was all sparkle - bright eyes, white teeth, a silver lariat necklace that she fidgeted with nervously. As her fingers plucked at the thin chain between her collarbones, the candlelight reflected off her ring.
"I'm so pleased to offer my congratulations, my dear," Narcissa told her, conjuring up only the faintest wisp of a smile.
The girl beamed back and Narcissa instantly recoiled. "Thank you, Mrs. Malfoy."
If she thought Narcissa might take the opportunity to suggest that Astoria should call Mrs. Malfoy by her Christian name, she was badly wrong.
Narcissa participated little in the conversation that evening, which along customary lines devolved into a monologue from her husband on the state of affairs at the Ministry of Magic, the economy, and the great deficiencies in modern wizarding society.. Although Draco's attention wandered everywhere but his father, Lucius had a rapt audience in Astoria, who nodded, smiled, and asked questions as if cued by an invisible conductor's baton. Nothing so warmed an older man as a young girl's undivided attention, and so Narcissa found to her deep disgust that the silly girl seemed to be winning her husband over.
If one were so inclined - and Narcissa was most assuredly so inclined - there was ample fault to be found in her son's new fiancee. But she knew from long experience watching charming girls make their way in the world that most people, like her husband and her son, would not look so closely. A winning smile, a warm touch on one's elbow, a girlish whispered confidence and a private wink would lead them to dismiss all the qualities they professed to esteem in others with the wave of a hand.
It was the reason none of them had ever really worried about Andromeda. She had been the charming one, and they had known that whatever happened, she would land on her feet. Narcissa, shy and standoffish, had watched her sister at school and at parties like a hawk all through her teen years, but it had been in vain. There was no emulating effortless charm.
The girl's bell-like laugh rang out. "I'm sure I don't agree, Mr. Malfoy, but you make a very compelling case."
Lucius smiled at her. "Astoria, please. We're to be family. It's Lucius."
In the months and years to come there would be many fraught conversations, some so bitterly divisive, so venomous they threatened the ideas all of the Malfoys held about family. They would fight about the wedding planning, about Draco's drinking, about family vacations and money and his fiancee's much too liberal views. Draco would stop speaking to them for a week when they threatened not to attend the wedding after discovering they were to be seated with Astoria's uncle and his muggleborn wife. Narcissa would weep when she tried to explain to her son why it had so deeply wounded her that he had not kept his promise about the ring. He had forgotten all about it, he explained to her, and really the ring wouldn't have suited Astoria anyway. He did not understand why she was so upset.
In the end, it didn't matter why she was upset and she did not try to explain. It was not Narcissa's mother's ring sparkling on Astoria's finger, but she was to be family nonetheless.
The victory of obtaining her mother's ring had always been hollow. The ring was never intended for Narcissa, but with Andromeda exiled and Bellatrix in prison, when their mother had passed she had been the only one who could accept it. She had felt the responsibility of such a heavy heirloom keenly, and now it was hers alone - it would never be Astoria's.
Across the table, Astoria placed her fingers in Draco's palm, smiling at Lucius beatifically.
"Family,' she echoed, raising her glass.