Disclaimer: I don't own anything but my imagination and whatever else is in this story that doesn't make sense. I was inspired by another romance novel i read and J.K. Rowlings wonderful world. Enjoy!

Chapter 26

"Wrapped So Pretty"

When she turned off the lights, she walked into the living room. The castle felt empty with her company gone. The christmas tree in the corner, sparkling merrily but did nothing to lift her mood.

She could hear him following her, he had exited the kitchen and was now standing behind her. She turned and looked at him. "Tonight's dinner went well I think. It turned out to be a lovely evening with the four of us."

"I don't want to talk about dinner…. " he said.

She nodded slightly and gazed off to the side. "Do you know what I was thinking earlier? That I wished that I could've had a friend like her. She so strong you know! She has a brilliant mind and she decides things for herself, she's nothing like I was at her age."

"You should have spit in my face that day."

"I wish he'd meet her ahead of time. I think…I think he really loves her, and I know she'll be good for him."

"Stop it! I don't want to talk about them! I want to talk about us, I love you Narcissa I don't want this divorce…I want you to come back."

She gazed at him out of those silver eyes that revealed nothing and laughed. "Come back, I never left, I'm standing right her flesh and bone."

"The way you were. That's what I want. You know that's what I mean."

"You are just in one of your moods tonight."

He could feel his throat closing up, but he couldn't be silent. He hated when she acted this way. Cold, distant, nothing could touch or harm her. "I want it the way it was in the beginning. I want you silly in love with me. I want you doing funny things… imitating people you don't like, and teasing me about being too serious. I want lilies back on the dinner table, and tulips in our bedroom. I want you to start giggling so hard you can't breath again, and I want to walk in the door, and you throw yourself into my arms like you use to do. I want you to come back!" he said.

Her forehead crinkled with frustration. She walked over and rested her hand on his arm in the comforting touch that she would give a friend she chatted with on the street. "I can't make us young again, and I can't give you back Cissy and Lu, or everything the way it use to be, its gone.

"No it's not!" He shook her off, rejecting her pity, her suffocating, never-ending fake kindness. "Nothing's gone Cissy. I can't handle this. Can't you see that. I don't like the way things are. I don't like what I've turned you in to."

"You've had a long day. I'll make you some tea to calm you."

As always her sweetness made him feel guilty, unworthy, and mean. It was the meanness that had been driving him lately and telling him to push her so far, to hurt her so badly, that he'd destroy the icy reserve and find the lost girl he'd thrown away.

Maybe if he gave her evidence that he wasn't as bad as he knew himself to be, she'd soften. "I've never cheated on you."

"I'm glad to know that."

"I had chances, but I never went all the way. Once I got myself right to the door of the Leaky Cauldron -"

"I don't want to hear this."

"But I backed off. God, I felt so bloody good about that for weeks."

"What ever you're doing to yourself, I want you to stop it right now."

"I want to start over. I thought maybe on our vacation….but we hardly talked to each other. Why can't we start over Cissy?"

"BECAUSE I HATE YOU!" her words spat out like venom. Her voice roared like thunder, and his heart burst, it broke, shattered into a million pieces, scattered a million ways. "Stop this! Its over Lu, you don't want me, you want to feel young again, that's what you want. It has nothing to do with loving me. Because you'd hate it now just as much as you hated it then."

Every part of it was a lie, he knew it and so did she. She was as unreachable as a distant star, but he still needed to touch her. "I loved you so much, you know that, why would you say that to me?" Fury exploded inside him, fueled by frustration. What has happen to her, who was she now? "Goddammit! Don't you understand anything? I love you!" In all their time together, he had never once touched her in violence, but now he grabbed her arms and shook her with anger. "I can't stand you this way any longer! Change back Cissy!"

"Stop it!" She screamed. Her fingers dug into his upper arms. "Stop it! What's wrong with you?"

He saw the fear on her face, and he jerked away, frighten by what he'd done. But her icy reserve had finally melted, leaving rage behind, an emotion he'd never until this moment seen on her face.

"For years you've been tortured me! For years you've mistreated me!" she cried. "You belittle me in front of my own son, in front of Hermione! You poke at me and jab me and draw blood in thousands of ways! I've given you everything I could, but it was never good enough. And I will not put up with it any longer! I'm leaving you Lucius Malfoy! That's it I'm finished...LET ME GO!" she raced from the living room and flew up the stairs.

Panic welled inside him. He started to run after her, but then stopped just as he touched the first step. What would he do when he caught her? Shake her again? Merlin. What if he'd finally pushed her too far?

He drew a deep breath, dropped to the stairs and screamed for her.

When she didn't return, he wept. Something he had never done before.

He lied to himself… he had too, just to remain sane. She wouldn't leave him no matter what she said. She was still his Cissy, sweet and gentle as a April's eve. She just needed time to calm down, that was all…

He kept repeating this to himself. She wouldn't leave him. There had always been Cissy and Lu. He wouldn't lose her. He couldn't.

…he repeated the lie…as his tears began to fall.