Chapter Twenty Three

A/N: Thank you to GabbiGrl for reviewing the last chapter.

The warm spring air brought with it a delightful breeze, perfect weather in the mind of Mrs. Malfoy, but no matter how hard she tried, she could not bring herself to enjoy the sunshine.

A month had passed now since she and Lucius had received the letter from Edmure Selwyn, and three weeks since they had met to discuss options for the future. Though he had assured them that the possibility of her conceiving a child had not been eradicated completely, it would be almost as unlikely as snow in the height of August. Her husband had tried to reassure her as well, to tell her that the chance still remained, but it had been no use. Narcissa was utterly heartbroken.

However, after refusing to accept visitors for a fortnight and as good as locking herself away in her bedroom for the duration of that time, Madame Malfoy finally decided that enough was enough, and so she arranged to meet her old friends, Viola Parkinson and Carolyna Nott. She had not seen them for a long while, given that all three had been rather busy of late, and so she had thought that now was as good an opportunity as any other.

Narcissa nodded her head to the owner of L'etincelle Magique, an exclusive high-end restaurant in the middle of Cordi Alley, as she passed through the door, making her way to her usual table on the balcony.

As she had expected, Carolyna had already arrived, dressed for the occasion in a flowing gown of green, while Viola was nowhere to be seen. The latter woman had always thought it fashionable to arrive long after everyone else, not really caring that it did more to frustrate other members of the parties than anything else.

Hearing the rustling of fabric in the doorway, Carolyna turned, her face lighting up with delight as she saw the face of her old friend.

"Cissa!" she exclaimed, rising from her seat and moving to embrace the woman. "How have you been?"

"Well enough." Narcissa lied, not wishing to put a dampener on their afternoon before it had even begun. There would be time to confess her reason for absence to her friends later, towards the end of their day; there was no need to spoil it now.

As they pulled away, the sunlight caught Carolyna's finger, bringing her friend's attention to it, or more specifically, to the gold band that rested on it, above a well-cut diamond ring.

"Lyna! When did you get married?!" she cried out, equally pleasantly surprised and slightly disappointed, having not received an invitation to the event.

"Cissa, could you lower your voice, please?" the woman hissed in response, and Narcissa frowned at the sudden reaction, which was so out of character for the more sensible of her two closest friends. However, as she looked left and right, to make sure that no one had overheard, the younger of them finally understood.

"Have you not told anyone?" she asked, a little disbelieving. She could not understand why someone with as high a social ranking as Carolyna should need to hide her marriage. A sudden horrid thought struck her. "You haven't married a Muggle, have you?"

"No, of course not!" the older woman exclaimed, chuckling, though this was more to do with the comical expression on her friend's face than the suggestion itself, though both were almost equally ludicrous. "And he isn't Muggle-born, either. He's a Pureblood. His name is Edmure Greengrass."

Narcissa breathed a sigh of relief, hardly bothering to hide it. Thoughts of her sister, the younger of the two, had swamped her mind at the time, and now they disappeared almost as quickly as they had appeared in the first place. She did not want for Carolyna to end up like Andromeda, disowned, abandoned and cut off from all those she had loved; she could not stand to lose another one she thought of as a sister.

"Then, if he is Pureblood as well, and not a Blood Traitor, to the best of my knowledge, why would you want your marriage kept a secret?" The confusion was quite clear in Narcissa's voice, and so her friend decided to tell her the truth, the whole truth. After all, she could trust her not to speak a word of it, and would never have need to ask her not to; there had never been anyone in the world Lyna had trusted more than Cissa.

"He was betrothed." she began, and immediately, her friend started to understand her need for secrecy. Betrothals in the society of the Inner Circle had never been about the couple involved, but about forming a bond between their families. To break that would be seen as a slight to the family whose betrothal had been broken, and those responsible for ending the betrothal would often be severely punished for it. "But he hated the woman he was engaged to, and... well, he loved me. So we ran away together, and we married before anyone could find us."

"You sound like a couple of star-crossed lovers, running away into the sunset." Narcissa commented, smiling for the first time in a while. Carolyna beamed in return. "And I do not blame you for running. There are some families that can be vicious when betrothals are broken, and if you really are that desperately in love with him, then I completely understand why you did what you did. I would have done the same, if it had been Lucius and I."

"So, how have you been keeping, Madame Malfoy?" she asked, only meaning to strike up a conversation. However, immediately, Narcissa's face fell, and her blank expression returned to her face. "Narcissa, what's wrong? What's happened?"

Knowing that she should not keep her closest friend in the dark over such an important matter, when she had not done so to her, the blonde took in a large gulp of air, trying to steady her nerves enough to say what needed to be said.

However, just as she first opened her mouth to speak, a shadow passed over them, and the pair looked to the doorway to see Viola stroll leisurely through it, smiling widely at the sight of her old friends. Forcing her pain to the back of her mind, thankful that it had barely begun to surface, Narcissa smiled in return, rising to greet her friend. But there was something different about her, something odd that she could not quite put her finger on. And then she saw it, plain as day to her searching eye, though concealed well enough so that it could not be spotted in passing. Beneath her cloak, and the dress under that, Viola's stomach had begun to curve.

Narcissa's breath hitched in her throat as she realised. Viola was pregnant.

A/N: Please review!