Narcissa stood patiently, letting him kiss her, letting his hands slide over her back, bringing her close, crushing her body to his. Then, gently, she placed a hand on his chest.

"Alright Mort. Enough."

"Please, Cissy, I-"

"You are going to go home and make things work with Jennifer. And if you don't love her, then someone else. I used to think there was one person for everyone, Mort. I thought it was you, and I won't deny that. But it's just not true. Lucius is my husband, and finally that means something to me... and I'm not going to give up on it. You asked for one kiss, Rodtimer. I gave you that for the reasons you said- because we do share a past, because once, you were my whole world. But now Draco and Lucius are my world. And no matter what happens, I won't lose that. Nothing on earth could make me give that up. I'm sorry, Mort. Well... no, I'm not. I won't even apologize for that. I do wish you weren't hurting, I still care about you, but I won't apologize for not abandoning everything I love to make you happy. So, goodbye Mort. I wish it didn't have to be this way. I wish you loved her. But even if you don't... you can't give up. You have to let go of me and the idea of me and any inkling of a possibility of regaining what we used to have."

As she spoke, she lifted Draco, who was still soundly sleeping.

"I love Lucius, and I always will," she stated with simple clarity. "Because he is my husband, the father of my child, my life now. And he loves me." As the words left her lips, she easily recognized them to be true. "Now, I'm going to go home, and he and I are going to have a conversation that's long overdue."

She didn't like seeing the pain in Rodtimer's eyes, but that she could bear it was the final proof that she was making the right decision.

The first thing Narcissa heard when she entered the Manor was screaming. For a moment her heart stopped, and she was sure that Lucius was hurt, that something terrible had happened- but almost immediately, she realized it could not be her husband. It was a woman.

The sound was enough to rouse and alarm Draco, and he began to cry as well. Narcissa attempted to comfort him, but her own panic made her of little use as she raced to find the source of the noise. It was close- Lucius's study. She flung the door open, and for a long moment, could not comprehend the scene before her.

Sprawled on the stone hearth, lip bleeding and clearly hysterical, was Lysandra. Her wrists were bound and she was crying, her usually-perfect hair in wild disarray. As Narcissa watched, she tensed and screamed again, twisting, her back arching... near her feet were the shards of a glass decanter that Narcissa was certain had been entirely full of cognac, only a day or so ago... which must mean...

"Lucius!" Narcissa screamed, half in terror, and half to make herself heard over the shrieking woman and crying infant in her arms. He was standing so that Narcissa could see only his profile, eerily lit by the firelight. With one hand he held his wand, leisurely twisting and prodding the air in Lysandra's direction, drawing forth a symphony of torment. The other loosely held a half-empty bottle of Firewhiskey. His eyes were strangely blank. At the sound of her voice, his head turned slowly in her direction. He stared as though he did not actually see her, and as he stared, he took a long pull from the bottle.

"Oh, Narcissa, oh thank Merlin, please-"

"Silence!" Lucius barked, sending what appeared to be a bolt of electricity at Lysandra.

"Lucius, stop!" she cried. "What are you doing?"

"Narcissa..." He blinked several times, as though he couldn't quite believe his eyes. He looked down at the bottle, as though wondering whether or not it might be causing hallucinations.

"Lucius, let her go! What are you doing?"

"Tell her!" he snarled at Lysandra. "Tell her why you are here."

"He kidnapped me, Cissy! He showed up at my flat and dragged me here and-"

"No!" Lucius flicked his wand again, and Lysandra cried out. "Tell her what you to me. Tell her what you did."

"I didn't-"

"Crucio."

She screamed again, and Draco's wails fought to match the volume. "Lucius, no, stop!" Narcissa was torn between shielding her son and saving her friend. Draco was thrashing and wailing, attempting to escape from the horrible scene and sounds.

Lucius lowered his wand slowly, looking frustrated and confused. "Narcissa," he sighed, turning swiftly crossing the room towards her.

"No." She whipped out her wand, gaze ominous. "Stay back."

He looked positively crushed. His hands were outstretched, she realized, hoping to embrace her and Draco. Then, his eyes hardened.

"Your. Fault," he hissed at Lysandra, punctuating each word with a jab of his wand, and eliciting yelps.

"Stop!" Narcissa cried, trying to think over Draco's earsplitting wails. She needed to take him away from this dark, twisted situation, but she couldn't leave him alone in the house, and she couldn't abandon Lysandra either, if only there was some way... or some one...

"Dobby!" she snapped, and the elf appeared. "Go get Severus. Now!"

The creature vanished before Lucius fully comprehended her words. However, he had scarcely opened his mouth to respond when the fire in the hearth blazed green, and Severus stumbled in, led by the hysterical elf. His wand was already drawn, and he very nearly fell over Lysandra's prone body.

"What the fuck is going on here?" he bellowed, sweeping the whimpering elf aside and silencing the moaning Lysandra with a single gesture. "What 'emergency' can possibly..." he broke off, staring at the woman at his feet. "Is that Rabastan's wife?" His chin jerked up, and he stared accusingly at Lucius. "What have you-"

"Severus!" Narcissa cried, rushing forward. "Take Draco. Please. I'll explain it all later, I swear."

"No!" Severus backed away, shaking his head. "No, I will not-"

"This is serious, Severus!" She didn't wait for his agreement; she pushed Draco into his arms. "I'll come for him as soon as I can and don't-" her tone became icy. "Don't give him to this drunken monster."

"Narcissa," Lucius's tone was both pleading and frustrated. "You have to listen." He flicked his wand, lifting the Silencing charm from Lysandra.

"Severus help!" she screamed immediately, causing Draco's cries, which had begun to subside in Snape's arms, to redouble in volume. "Please-"

"Oh, shut up! Crucio!"

Severus, alarmed, quickly cast a shielding charm which threw Lucius off balance, causing his curse to shatter a window pane. He seemed at last to decide that this was no place for a child and, assuring himself the Lucius would never harm his wife, decided to let them solve their own problems.

The immediate void that followed Severus's departure was unnerving. Lysandra's high, hysterical panting finally brought Narcissa back to the present.

"Lucius, let her go!" She dropped to her knees by her friend, but Lucius immediately grasped her arm and pulled her back, crushing her to his chest while still keeping his wand trained on Lysandra.

"Narcissa," he murmured, burying his face in her hair. "Narcissa."

For a moment, it felt so, criminally good to be tucked against him, her face pressed to his chest, inhaling his scent and feeling the strength of his arm around her. Then, she was scrambling to get away, fighting to untangle the situation.

"You'd better explain what's going on this instant," she breathed, eyes darting between the two.

"You thought I was fucking other women." He hurled the accusation at her as an insult, and Narcissa's eyes widened. "This disgusting excuse for a witch was never your friend. From the moment she learned you were my wife, she set out to destroy both of us- although until earlier this evening, I could never have suspected why. By befriending you, you gave her everything she needed. In particular, that you can never have any more children. Her desperate, insane cousin Chelsea sent me an owl today, convinced that I would fall in love with our daughter, knowing that you could never have one... So she made you think that I was sleeping with other women."

"Lucius, it wasn't just a mere suggestion that I believed; I saw with my own eyes-"

"Which is why she's going to tell you the truth, or I'm going to peel the skin off of her hands and-"

"Stop!" Narcissa yelled. "For Merlin's sake, Lucius, with the torture threats."

He shrugged, unfazed. "You missed all the excitement earlier, trying to get her to tell me the full story. And now, she had better tell it again."

His eyes were dark, and he turned to Lysandra at last. "Start at the beginning." He stalked forward and seized her by the wrists with one hand, and heaved her into a sitting position.

Lysandra turned her anguished, exhausted gaze to Lucius's face. "You go to hell."

A slow, eerie smile crept across Lucius's face. He knelt down before her. "Now, now, Lyssa. You don't want to go through this again."

"You sick fuck," she hissed, and spat in his face. Without a change in expression, Lucius wiped it away, and, though Narcissa could not detect further motion on Lucius's part, Lysandra began screaming again. Lucius remained crouching, perfectly still, before her, and the look in his eyes terrified Narcissa.

"Alright!" Lysandra gasped. "Stop, stop!"

Lucius stood, and she collapsed, shuddering. "Chelsea is my cousin, but she's more like a sister. And little Lucy... she needs a father, and I just wanted to..."

"No," Lucius corrected quietly. "This is not about your twisted, pathetic motives. Tell her what you did."

"I lied!" she cried. "I knew Malfoy was Lucy's father, Chelsea told me he was married, and when Rabastan introduced us, when I found out you were the reason she was alone... I knew I had to do what I could to break the two of you up. Rabastan explained about you and Mort, that you'd hated Malfoy when you got married... Why should you have him, and not Chelsea? Why should you get the bloody Manor and diamond when Chelsea had his daughter?"

Narcissa sat down, numb. "But... We spent every day together. You showed me..."

"I needed to gain your trust," Lysandra continued after a sharp look from Lucius. "And besides, it took Chelsea a while to convincingly change her memory. You didn't know what the inside of her flat looked like... so all she had to was keep her face turned away or blocked, and-"

"Her hair," Narcissa whispered. She remembered the shining, golden locks.

"She just falsified the recollection to blonde. With that, I gave you the first piece of evidence. And then Bertha Hopkirk died, and Chelsea persuaded her friend to apply for the position of secretary... once she was hired, it was easy to plant evidence. Your husband would leave his robe on the cloak stand in her outer office, and she'd spray her perfume on it... leave a hair or two on it... even rub lipstick on the inside of the sleeves so it would get on his wrists and look like he'd wiped it off."

Narcissa was shaking. It was too impossible, no one could possibly have gone through all that merely to convince her that Lucius was unfaithful. "But Lysandra... I saw with my own eyes... in his office."

She gave a hollow, bitter laugh. "Yes, that was our best stunt. The careful timing, the Polyjuice potion... It was easy to steal one of your hairs... all the time we spent together... and you remember Lettie? Laetitia Avery? Her little sister took the potion, she's a brilliant witch, and we had to time it precisely, she looked like you when she went into his office, but the moment it wore off was when you needed to see her... that's why I had to make sure you were only in there for a moment, so you'd be gone by the time Lucius realized he wasn't with his darling wife... in that split second of confusion, before he could act, Lettie's sister modified his memory and left..."

She exhaled heavily, hanging her head.

"And tonight? Rodtimer? I suppose that was part of your scheme too?"

Lysandra looked up, confused. "What do you mean? Jen's a sweet girl. We talked about it, but we decided from the beginning not to bring him into this."

Narcissa pressed her lips together and didn't reply. She wasn't sure whether or not she was relieved to hear this news.

"Get out of here," she said at last, raising her head to meet Lysandra's gaze. "I never want to see you again."

"I'd gladly leave, if your monster of a husband weren't holding me here," she snapped. Lucius's eyes narrowed.

"Still feeling belligerent, are we?"

"You heard her, Malfoy. Let me go," Lysandra spat, glaring despite the fact the one eye was now swollen shut. "And you won't deny your spoiled little wife anything, will you? A real man would've had more than pathetic questions and pleas for a frigid bitch like Cissy," she hissed the pet name mockingly. "And all you could do was-"

"Crucio!" This time, Narcissa did not immediately tell him to stop- her own rage was beginning to simmer under the calm she was struggling to maintain. She laid her hand over Lucius's, not wanting to fight to be heard over Lysandra's screams.

"So you thought that you would humiliate us both?" she demanded. "Ruin our lives? You were my best friend!"

"You need to trust your instincts and choose your friends a bit better." Lysandra managed a scathing chuckle, though she winced. "We wouldn't have been friends. How could I be friends with a woman Rabastan gushed about so much? His 'best friend Cissy'... dear Merlin, I hated you before I even met you. And then finding out you were the reason for Chelsea's misery-"

"No one is the reason for her misery except her own twisted self! She told you, I'm sure, that she had to use a love potion to even get Lucius to touch her? She's obsessive and disgusting, and it's her own fault no man will have her. I should have told Rabby exactly what I thought about you the first time we met-"

"As if it would have mattered! He could never get another girl as good me. He used to be a fat, sniveling mess and you know what? He still is on the inside. He'd do anything if he thought he might lose me."

"You're supposed to love him!"

"Like you and Lucius love each other? See how well that's turned out. You became a passive aggressive nightmare at the slightest suggestion, and love has turned the great Lucius Malfoy into nothing more than a drunken idiot."

Narcissa wanted to lunge, but as before Lucius reacted first, and now Narcissa had no desire at all to make him lower his wand. There was a strange, unearthly look in Lucius's eyes, and somehow, Narcissa knew that Lysandra must leave that instant, or they would be hiding a body.

"Get her out of here. Should you Obliviate her?"

"She won't talk," Lucius hissed through gritted teeth, clearly unwilling to cease causing her pain. "No one would ever guess what had happened to her, if she were to disappear..."

"That's not true," Narcissa sighed logically. "Chelsea would undoubtedly suspect us, as well as her dreadful friends... Rabby would look for her, too, though I don't think his search would start here."

Though Narcissa would not have believed it possible, his grip on his wand tightened. She carefully rested her fingers on the white, strained knuckles.

"It's done. Let her leave, and we never have to see her again."

At last, Lucius's arm dropped. The rope fell away from Lysandra's wrists, and she struggled to her feet. She did not wait for any parting remarks; having been offered escape, she seized a handful of floo powder and vanished.

The silence she left in her wake was far more deafening than her screams. Lucius was breathing heavily and his eyes were glazed over as he stared blankly into the green flames that began to warm into their natural radiant hues. Narcissa watched him uncertainly. She longed to fly into his arms and never let go of him, or collapse at his feet and beg for forgiveness- but she couldn't move. Part of it was fear and part shock, but as she waited restlessly, she began to worry that he might not move for the rest of the night.

"I suppose..." she began haltingly. She meant to say that she supposed she should go fetch Draco, but Lucius cut her off.

"That it's over? Yes, I suppose it is."

A knot of panicked anxiety began to form in the pit of her stomach. His words may have meant that their ordeal had finally ceased, but the solemn, dead tone he spoke them in hinted otherwise.

"I won't bother dragging up broken promises to hurl as accusations. Let us behave as civilized adults and take care of affairs as neatly as possible. I'm done with being generous. I want Draco. Money is nothing, but he is mine."

"No." She intended to scream the word, but could scarcely force any sound through her constricted throat. "I'm not going anywhere. Neither is he. Nor you."

"The days of you destroying my life are over, Narcissa Black."

"Stop this, Lucius. I made a mistake, but I won't again. I lo-"

"Don't!" he roared, his head snapping to meet her eyes at last. "Don't you dare say it. You've lied so many times; I don't want to hear this last one."

"It isn't a lie!" she cried. "I always have! I thought, that if I confronted you, that you'd leave me; I thought-"

"Listen to yourself! You're not even making sense."

"I..." It had made sense at the time. Lysandra had made it make sense. But now she couldn't find the words. How could she have been so foolish? Of course Lucius would never be unfaithful to her. Of course she should have confronted him from the first moment of suspicion.

"I'm sorry," she breathed.

He shrugged. "That isn't enough."

"Then let me show you! Let me spend the rest of my life showing you if I must, but I can't live without you, Lucius. I hate that I've hurt you, again and again, but please, give me just one more chance to show you that I am yours. Only yours. You're everything that I've always needed but was too... too stupid, to blind to even realize that I wanted and I took you for granted and I realized too late that I couldn't bear to not have you and... and at just that moment, Lysandra exploited that vulnerability and made me feel that I might lose you and I didn't know what to do, or to think, how to act... and I made the greatest mistake I could! I pushed you away when all I wanted to do was hold you and be near you."

She did not realized that tears were pouring down her face as she spoke; she only noticed, with a tiny ray of hope, that Lucius did not draw away as she inched nearer; that features were not twisted into hatred, but rather seemed to be softening.

"Today, when Rodtimer came, when he told me he still loved me, I knew, I was more certain than I'd ever been of anything, that there's nothing in the world, nothing I want in life if you are not in it. Please," she whispered, choking on an overwhelming tide of emotion as she reached for his hand and he did not pull it back. "Please, Lucius. I'll never lie, or hide from you again. I know I've done nothing to earn your trust, in fact I've done almost everything possible to betray it. I don't deserve another chance. But I am yours, always. A love such as ours is too great to forsake."

She knew it would take time, but she also knew that she could heal the wounds she had inflicted if only he would let her. And, as his lips finally touched hers with an aching tenderness, she knew that their days of suffering had ended; that he would let her.

That their lives had only just begun.

.

(A/N: The end! Just an epilogue left, I think. I'll confess: in the first version of this chapter, Lucius killed Lysandra... I wanted her to die, too. But I figured the Wizarding world wasn't SO lawless as to let that go unnoticed.)