So there's been a three-month gap between updates, and for that, I cannot even begin to apologise. For those of you still reading, here is the final instalment of my version of Lucius and Narcissa's tale.
They stumbled down a tight spiral staircase and leaped over a body that was splayed at an odd angle near a narrow window, their breath catching in their throats as they ran on. Draco had to be in the castle somewhere, he had to be.
The broken castle was now empty aside from the shouts and screams of two, maybe three, duels left that echoed up the stairs to Narcissa and Lucius. Her stomach dropped as she heard the cackling taunts of her sister, and powered on downwards. Within seconds, they burst into the empty Entrance Hall once more and saw a flash of blonde dart into a side room.
"Draco!" Lucius cried, his voice hoarse. They sprinted across the room, tears pouring down their cheeks as the blood on the cold flagstones threatened to make them slip. The crackle of a great duel sounded as Lucius wrenched open the door through which they saw Draco go. Behind it was nothing more than a broom cupboard. Trembling in the corner, behind a few old broomsticks and a pair of tail clippers was Draco, covered in soot and shaking uncontrollably.
"Son," Lucius croaked, falling forwards onto his knees as relief washed over him. He stretched his arms towards Draco, and father and son were united once again.
Narcissa, however, was frozen where she stood, her eyes fixed on the Great Hall just visible from where she was. Bellatrix's voice echoed off the walls in the Hall and pierced the silence of the rest of the castle, her shrill voice cutting through Narcissa like a blade.
"What will happen to your children once I've killed you?" her voice cackled amid crashes and bangs as the duelling continued fiercely. "Once Mummy's gone the same way as Freddie?"
As the duellers circled, Bella's opponent came into view and Narcissa saw Molly Weasley's face contorted with rage, an unfamiliar look upon a person that was renowned for being especially kind. Narcissa knew then that her sister was a dead woman. As the final blow hit Bellatrix Lestrange, as the lights went from her eyes, Narcissa's own scream of horror was drowned out by the Dark Lord's screech of rage. She fell to her knees as her sister's body dropped to the stone floor, completely void of life. But why did the battle rage on? Did they not know that she was dead? The world had been torn apart, but yet they fought on. Perhaps the Dark Lord didn't realise what had happened, perhaps he did. Perhaps that was why they were talking. The Dark Lord and Harry Potter were talking. The fighting had stopped. The crowds drew closer, the wands held still. There was nothing left but Potter's voice, bouncing off the walls and finding the Malfoys, disgraced, in a dirty corner of a broom cupboard.
His words were striking fear into the Dark Lord, Narcissa could see that, but she didn't care. Her sister was dead. And being her sister, she was one half of Narcissa herself. A part of her had been slaughtered.
"Father, I don't want to fight anymore," Draco was crying in the corner, looking at his father with tears pouring down his face, his eyes screwed up in an attempt to fight them. "I can't fight anymore!" His words came out in splutters and sobs, his whole body shuddering.
"You don't have to, son, you don't have to," Lucius promised him, taking one of his hands into his own and clasping it tight. All fear was now gone from Lucius' face, replaced with an expression of determination, although he was as white as a sheet. He had found his son, and his wife was by his side – there was nothing to fear now, the worst had never come.
Meanwhile, in the Great Hall, the Dark Lord was learning of his fate. He was learning how Dumbledore had been the owner of the Elder Wand, but that ownership had passed not onto Snape, but onto Draco, leaving Draco the master of it for nearly an entire year. Narcissa heard the words that Potter spoke aloud to his enemy from birth, to the Hall, and to the entire world, but she didn't listen. At that moment, she didn't listen as it was explained that Potter was now the commander of the Elder Wand to which the Dark Lord had become so attached. Bellatrix was gone, and yet they hadn't stopped. Why hadn't they stopped? There was one final cry from the duellers, and then a split second of silence, a moment's pause when the body of Lord Voldemort fell to the ground, the shell of the man he had once hoped to be, fallen at last. Then there were shouts, cries, shrieks of victory as every single witch, wizard and magical creature began celebrating raucously the end of his reign of terror.
Inside the broom cupboard, Draco and Lucius were huddled together, listening intently to what was happening in the Great Hall, not daring to move, fearing the sight that would greet them the other side of the door. Bellatrix's body would be crumpled in a heap, and now the Dark Lord's beside her. The Order of the Phoenix, the organisation that was so close to bringing them down from the start stood victorious, Dumbledore's Army and all those who battled alongside them would be celebrating now. They were rejoicing at the Dark Lord's fall, Harry Potter's victory, and mourning the loss of those who fell in battle, but preparing to make way for a new beginning.
It was the start of a revolutionised world, a world in which, Lucius feared, the Malfoys had no place.
As those in the Hall began filtering out, wandering into the grounds or starting the clean-up of the castle, Narcissa found herself walking into it. Lucius and Draco followed her a few paces behind, and they settled on a bench, looking around warily, not knowing if they would be welcomed, or lynched on the spot. Bellatrix's body had been removed before Narcissa had even realised, and was left in a side-room before she could even object. Of course, now the Malfoy family were in little position to object.
In the days that followed, Narcissa and Lucius slowly found out more details of the battle; they were shocked to learn of Severus' true allegiance, although that explained to them why he had taken that night at Godric's Hollow so badly; they learned from Draco that he almost captured Potter, but could not follow through with it; and Narcissa discovered her younger sister's daughter, lying peacefully next to her husband, looking almost as if she were sleeping, with the tips of her hair a bright pink. Her heart-shaped face resembled her mother's. Narcissa took it upon herself that day to write to her estranged sister. After the death of Bellatrix, the fall of the Dark Lord and the deaths of Andromeda's husband, daughter and son-in-law, she had little left, and Cissy at last found it in her to apologise to the sister she had dearly missed all along.
In the months that followed, Harry Potter personally vouched for the entire Malfoy family at their trials, swearing to the Wizengamot that they had defected against Voldemort prior to the end of the Battle of Hogwarts. The court listened as Mr Potter spoke of how Narcissa had risked her life for him, for his cause, and thus, without her, would have never survived. Of course, he knew that she had not done it for him, but for her son and husband, but deep in his heart, he forgave the trio, and wanted the rest of the world to, too. They were granted full pardons, but Lucius was stripped of his position at the Ministry, and, with his consent, was tracked lightly for the rest of his life, to ensure that any more illegal activity was caught by the Ministry right away. In those months, Draco and his mother spent much time at Hogwarts, helping to clear and repair the grand castle, although they kept to themselves for much of the time. There were times, however, when Draco would spend a few hours with a girl that had been in his house, the younger sister of one of his classmates. Late into the summer, Cissy had seen him from a third floor window where he stood in the grounds with her, and placed a sweet kiss on the girl's check, and she smiled, remembering the glorious days she had spent with Lucius on the sprawling lawns. Lucius couldn't bear to be near the castle anymore. Whenever he even thought of Hogwarts, he saw the flashes of spells and flying bodies, not knowing whether he was stepping over a groaning witch or wizard, or a corpse. He remembered his part in the battle, in the entire war, and couldn't bring himself to relive the guilt.
In the following years, Lucius and Narcissa lived quietly in the country for the rest of their lives, enjoying one another's company, and eventually letting go of the guilt they kept for so long. They lived very happily, not needing Lucius to work at the Ministry anyway, as part of the Black fortune was left to Cissy, and the entire Malfoy fortune was Lucius' anyway. Andromeda occasionally visited the manor, although she never brought her grandson, leaving the little boy with his godparents whenever she wanted to see her sister. Cissy didn't mind, knowing Annie was reluctant to bring him into a family that had such deep roots in blood prejudice. They were quickly reacquainted – they had always got along so well as young girls – and enjoyed one another once more. They occasionally spoke about Bellatrix, but the memory was too painful for Annie. The idea that her once beloved sister murdered her only child caused her pain so great that she felt physically sick. Draco married the girl that Cissy had seen him with, and together they had one child, Scorpius. Cissy and Lucius delighted in spoiling him, having the relationship with the sweet boy that Draco never had with his own grandparents. His mother was half-blood, and so he had the tolerance from a young age that his grandparents were not used to, but Draco supposed that it would be good for them, as it was for him. The young lad had a charm about him that the Malfoys did not, but he was his father's son nonetheless – Draco brought him to the manor one Sunday afternoon looking triumphant, and announced that Scorpius had caught his first Snitch. Cissy and Lucius had, of course, fawned over the little boy, and had even treated him by having a broomstick race between him, his father and his grandfather. All three were highly competitive, and had no inclination to let the other win – but in the end, the head of the family, slippery Lucius, won. As the other two had walked, shoulders hunched, back to the house, Lucius had strutted ahead of them and placed a celebratory kiss on his wife's lips, much to the disgust of Draco and Scorpius. She had laughed as carelessly as she had as a teenage girl in love, and looked up at him, seeing him not as the broken man he had been days after the fall of the Dark Lord, not as the weary father and grandfather he sometimes became, but as the young, handsome man who had captured her heart that first day that he had offered to show her the way back to the Slytherin common room.
They remained very much in love, did Lucius and Cissy, until the time came for them to move on. Cissy passed quietly in her sleep at the grand age of 85, and, upon finding her body cold one morning, Lucius held her in his arms, and fell back to sleep with her, at peace with the world at last. Together, they moved on, and left a dynasty that remembered them as a witch and wizard who played their part in the downfall of the Dark Lord, and a family who would always remember their love for one another and their son, that shifted the course of history.