A/N: I meant to say in the last one — I'm more than happy to take requests with this story! I'm basically writing the ideas as they come to me, but because it's less of a cohesive narrative than a normal story, it means chapters are a wee bit less guaranteed. So if there's a character or a theme or a situation that you'd like to see more of, please do feel free to let me know! This particular chapter is a combination of plenty of people wanting to see more Narcissa, as well as one reviewer pointing out that Draco absolutely wouldn't be as chill as he seemed in the first part about the possibility of a Squib (which is true - he wouldn't be, but hopefully this chapter gives a bit of an insight into that!).

This is the first of two parts.

"You look exhausted."

Draco wasn't wrong. If he'd gotten home but five minutes later he'd have discovered the both of them sleeping soundly - Marilyn's eyes burned to the point where every blink stung her eyes, and she was fighting off at least five yawns per minute. But who was counting?

"Good evening, dear husband, I love you too," she huffed a laugh, speaking softly so as not to disturb the toddler who slept soundly on top of her "How was your day?"

"Filled with tiring, stupid people. Yours?"

"My reward for coming home from a day of rehearsals was to read this ten times in a row with no breaks in-between," she brandished their now well-worn copy of The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark "It did the trick, though. Apparently it has meditative qualities."

"Perhaps she knows something we don't. The tenth time around, the owl stops being a coward in the very beginning, saves us all of the tedium."

"That isn't the message of the story."

"Don't worry, when it falls upon me to do the reading I feign enthusiasm rather well."

She mightn't have believed that had she not seen it for herself; he even did the voices - albeit only when he thought nobody but little Evie could hear him. Marilyn found the whole thing much too heartwarming to potentially ruin by bringing up, so she allowed it to be the open secret of their household.

"I'll put her to bed."

Marilyn smiled softly, watching as he slowly peeled their daughter away from her. She barely stirred as he lifted her up.

"I thought we might talk after - if…if you have the time," he paused in the doorway to say.

"I'm afraid I'm fully booked, you'll have to speak to my secretary," she deadpanned, and earned one of his oh so affectionate eye rolls for her trouble.

There was no denying that his phrasing had sparked her concern, though, because it was a 'we need to talk' if there ever was one. Usually if he had something to discuss with her, he simply discussed it. Unless it was very big.

"Why?" She called after him, voice as loud as it could get without disturbing their daughter "What's wrong?"

He hesitated, then shook his head and pressed a kiss to the top of Evie's head "Later."

That didn't bode well at all. Suddenly no longer very tired at all, Marilyn stood up from the sofa and padded out of the living room, through the dining room, and into the kitchen. Draco liked to joke that their home was a cottage compared to what he'd grown up with - and having seen exactly what he'd grown up with, Marilyn could even see why he'd say such a thing. But the fact still stood that it was bigger than anything she ever imagined living in, even as a child who'd seen one too many Disney films. It had taken her weeks - if not months - to get used to living somewhere that made it impossible to tell who was home simply by stopping and listening.

By the time she'd poured them each a glass of wine, Draco's footsteps heralded his return.

"Marilyn?"

"Follow the sound of my voice," she called back "I told you, we should tie ropes around one another to stop ourselves from getting lost around here."

"After almost two years, one might think you'd grow bored of that joke," he shrugged off his suit jacket as he entered, dropping it to the counter before undoing his cufflinks "And if you've developed a proclivity for rope, you needn't use excuses like that to tell me, darling."

"Keep using words like proclivity and Evie will have a sibling before long," she drawled.

That earned her a smirk - even if it was a tired one.

"It was Evelyn I wanted to speak about," he sighed.

Dropping the cufflinks to the counter atop the jacket, he unbuttoned the collar of his shirt, and then began to work on rolling up his sleeves. It was a sight Marilyn would ordinarily sit back and admire, but she was too busy focusing on what he'd said.

"What about her?" She frowned.

"Have you…noticed anything about her as of late?"

"What do you mean? What's wrong?"

"Nothing - well, nothing necessarily. But…you haven't, have you? Noticed anything? Anything of note?"

"Draco, I have no idea what you're talking about but I'm starting to worry. Noticed what?"

"Don't worry - or at least don't panic," he said firmly, leaning across the island to take up the glass of wine she'd poured for him "Only…"

"Only?" She pressed.

Heaving a great heavy sigh, he raked a hand through his already mussed hair, his eyes dark, his brow furrowed, and his lips set into a thin solemn line. Marilyn lowered her glass of wine down to the counter. Her stomach was turning too much for her to stomach it, and she stood there flexing her fingers to try and work some feeling back into them. Pressing him for answers - airing her panic - wasn't working at all. If he was going to voice whatever this great and terrible concern was to her, he was going to do it in his own time, and all she could do was stand there with her heart in her throat and wait for it. And, thanks to the look on his face, her heart was in her throat.

"Her magic should have begun to show by now," he said quietly "I'm certain of it."

A pause followed, and then Marilyn seized her wine glass, sighing heavily into it.

"Jesus Christ, Draco, you couldn't have led with that?"

"What?"

"You had me bricking it! Coming in here all serious like that. I thought she was sick or something - my heart's still bloody well pounding!"

"I don't think you're understanding me. I'll admit, my worry may be premature - there are certainly children who show the first signs at an age older than she is now, and yes although she began walking early she was a little late to begin talking, so there is a precedent. It's not set in stone, it could be years still before she shows a sign, but there's still room for concern. I was one when I first showed signs of magic. There should have been something by now, I'm certain of it. We should at least be aware."

"Maybe something has happened, but while she's been with the nanny," she shrugged.

They did try to minimise that time - Marilyn especially - but with them both working, it was a necessary evil at times. But the nanny was a lovely middle aged woman who radiated warmth, and things like Muggle daycare weren't particularly an option, not only given the potential danger they faced from the early days of their relationship but the fact that if any magic did show, they'd have a hell of a time explaining it to the workers.

"No, she'd have said something. It's akin to first words and first steps - it's not the sort of thing they don't mention."

"All right," she nodded slowly "Say it doesn't happen. So what? Then she's a Muggle."

"Not a Muggle, Marilyn. A Squib."

"Isn't it the same thing?"

"No. A Squib is…it's worse than being a Muggle. A few steps below."

He paused immediately after and winced, but he'd already said it.

"Wow," she murmured "Worse than a Muggle? I might need to sit down. I had no idea. God above, what sort of monster have we produced? Is there hope or should we just surrender her to the zoo now?"

"Stop it," he snapped "I didn't mean it like that - I didn't mean…You know that I didn't...To those who view being a Muggle as a bad thing, being a Squib is even worse. To them."

"Because I so often lose sleep over that lot's opinions of me."

"You don't understand," he sighed "You're not from our world."

"Then stop sniping at me and help me understand," she countered cagily.

"She's a half-blood. She's supposed to be a witch - she should be a witch. Nobody expects Muggles to be magical, it's just a…a nice surprise when they turn out to be so. But when a half-blood - or even a pureblood, especially a pureblood - turns out not to be magical? That carries a hell of a stigma."

"We had this discussion when I was pregnant. I asked if you were worried about her being a Squib, and you said no. Why? Because you thought it wasn't possible so it didn't matter?"

The guilty look on his face and the way he pursed her lips answered that one with a glaring 'yes, that's about the size of it'.

"Then wasn't the time for that conversation," he shook his head "You'd have only taken it as…as…"

"As you saying our daughter ending up like me would be a complete disaster? Yeah. It's sort of sounding that way."

"If you're resolved to take this as an insult, then there's no discussing it reasonably with you," he scowled.

"I'm just telling you how it sounds, Draco."

"For all of your time around my world, you still don't understand it," he sighed impatiently "Nobody expects Muggles to be magical, so it's fine when they are not."

"We can't disappoint because the bar is already low."

Groaning loudly, he shook his head as he frowned at her "We're so far past this sort of argument that it was no longer even on the distant horizon behind us."

"I thought so, too!"

"I'm going to my study. We'll get nowhere with this tonight," he shook his head.

Marilyn knew her husband well enough to know to leave him be. In that particular moment, she didn't want to chase after him anyway.

Some hours later, she was curled up in bed watching the clock on the bedside table mark each minute as it passed. It was digital - another one of Draco's developments. His strides in Wizarding technology was something she'd grown even impossibly more so grateful for once they'd moved here and she'd seen just how much technology she would've previously had to give up once they moved to a Wizarding home. Even if they didn't have Wizarding appliances - radios and such - in the house to interfere with her Muggle tech, their family would soon be more than enough to do so once they were done having children. They knew they wanted at least one more, and that would put three Wizarding folk in the house, which was more than enough to disturb electricity in the old days. But maybe that would no longer be a factor.

The door to their bedroom clicked open at one in the morning. It would take a spat of epic proportions - divorce worthy proportions, really - for them to really sleep apart. Thankfully, any such spat had yet to surface. Still, she knew just how irritated Draco was by how late he'd left it. He rose early most days almost as a rule, out of necessity rather than out of any great desire to see the sunrise. Sure, he was off work the following day, but he must've been knackered. Or running solely on ire. He was rather good at that…as was she. But her panic and fear had faded to annoyance, which had eventually given way to guilt and fatigue.

He paused in the doorway. Knowing he was watching for any signs of wakefulness - and that if she pretended to be asleep she'd only drag this stupid fight out longer than necessary - she rolled over so that her back was no longer to him.

"Round two?" He asked softly.

Marilyn breathed a tired laugh "Give me a minute to warm up. Prepare myself to take everything personally, that sort of thing."

That pried a laugh from him in turn.

"Good. It'll give me time to find the worst phrasing possible for my every point."

She watched quietly as he stripped down to his underwear and then budged up a little as climbed into the bed beside her.

"If Evelyn ends up anything like you, I know we'll have done a good job," he murmured finally into the darkness.

"I was about to say the same thing," she murmured "Between the both of us, the only way she might go wrong is if she gets both of our tempers in one."

"I don't think she'd be capable of containing that much anger."

"Once she's grown a bit - she'll make room for it in time."

He hummed in agreement. Once he was settled on his back, he extended an arm towards her and she accepted the invitation, nestling into his side.

"Would it…" she sighed, closing her eyes "Would it be so bad if she isn't magical? Would it be such a travesty? I'm not saying it's what I want to happen, fuck knows I don't want her to be the only one without magic out of however many siblings she gets, but I just don't get why it would be the end of the world. Not now that…now that you're not of the old mindset anymore."

"This isn't a blip," he sighed "I'm not - I'm not regressing, nor having some stupid moment of weakness. You don't understand. To be a Muggle and to be a Squib are two entirely different things."

When she didn't offer an argument, and instead simply lay there and listened, he continued on slowly - choosing his words so carefully and deliberately that it almost seemed to take some sort of physical exertion.

"I can see why, on the surface, they may appear one in the same to you. Neither have magic, and they often live as Muggles do for all intents and purposes. But it is not so simple - not nearly so simple. It's not something I would wish on Evie, not ever, and if you understood it properly you wouldn't, either."

"How do I understand it, then? I'm her mother. I should know what we're dealing with."

"We might not even be dealing with it," Draco sighed "It's not considered set in stone until the child is seven with no signs, and even then there are late bloomers. I'm over five years early to panicking, I'm only going off of how my magic was."

"But if she is…?"

"If she is," he sighed heavily "Our daughter gets the joy of being living proof that everybody who judged our match and speculated about what perceived disaster it might end in was right. It doesn't prove anything, not really. If my fears prove unfounded and she ends up being the most gifted witch known to humanity, those who are against us would only call it a fluke and stick to whatever beliefs serve them best. We understand that. We can live with that. We've lived with it ever since they found out about us."

"But Evie…"

"We knew what we were signing up for. We willingly signed up for it. Evelyn did not, and yet if fate deigns to mock us and put this upon her, she'll be the one who bears the scrutiny and the whispers for the rest of her life. Nobody will let her forget it."

It was a prospect that settled over Marilyn with heaviness and no small degree of nausea, and she knew then that there'd be no sleeping that night.

"What's the protocol, then? If that's the case?"

"With my family or the wider Wizarding world?" He snorted.

"I'm guessing the ol' family go-to would be leaving the child in the forest for the fairies to take," she muttered.

"Usually, the child is sent to a boarding school either for Muggles or specifically for Squibs. Those who have children at Hogwarts are told the child went to Beauxbatons, those who know people at Beauxbatons are told that it got sent to Durmstrang, those hailing from Durmstrang families are told Ilvermorny and so on. It becomes fairly obvious what the truth is the more stories are compared. Everybody knows what it means when somebody stops and asks 'Durmstrang? She told me the girl goes to Beauxbatons'. It's not the sort of lie that can be truly kept up for long. Depending on the power of the family involved, they're often just banking on nobody having the balls to bring it up to their face. If they were truly fanatical, back in the days of our parents, the child would disappear. Be put up for adoption. Some terrible death conjured - nobody presses for details when a child is involved, you see."

"For fuck's sake," she murmured.

"Quite."

"And the non-fanatical? People like the Weasleys?"

Draco sighed "Even those on the right side of the war aren't quick to own up to having a Squib in the family. Even now. I can't speak from experience on that score, but I do know that even among them it's generally thought kinder to allow them to grow apart from the family and go off to live as a fully-fledged Muggle. Make their own way with no familial reminders of what might've been."

"Absolutely sodding not."

"I agree."

"So what do we do?"

"We may not have to do anything. It's early days yet. Even if my fears prove true, there's not a lot to do. We just…we need to be aware."

"Hm."

"I'm taking her to see my mother tomorrow."

"I know, I remember. I won't be in 'til late anyway, I'm off to see Hermione after rehearsals."

"Would…would you mind terribly if I brought up the matter with her?"

"With Hermione, or with your mother?"

"There's only one out of those two that I think you'd have a problem with."

Marilyn sighed "You're a grown man, Draco, I can't forbid you from discussing things with your mother."

"I wasn't asking permission, I was asking if you'd mind."

"I think it would be a bloody awful idea."

"She loves Evelyn. Adores her. Dotes on her."

"And you're deciding to really put that to the test, are you?"

"She might have advice."

"As to what parts of the countryside have the most ravenous wolves?"

Draco scoffed, but there was no real annoyance behind it. She'd been married to him more than long enough now to discern exactly how to translate each individual scoff and eye-roll, and this was the one that came when she made a good point that he was trying to work out exactly how to counter. As Marilyn waited to hear it, she sat up - partially because she was no longer tired at all, but also because lying down just didn't seem the right way to have this conversation. One of Draco's hands came up to rest, palm flat at the stretch of bare skin between her shoulder blades - whether he was really trying to placate her or just testing to see if she was annoyed at him was difficult to tell; but she didn't shrug him off, which gave him his answer all the same.

"She may know something we do not. This is new territory to us, but raising a child - raising magical children, no less, was something she had drilled into her from adolescence."

"She's going to hear this, and she's going to jump to joy and run to your father to share the good news. And then he'll talk to you for the first time in the better part of a decade just to let you know what…what pureblood broodmare they have lined up for you next."

Sighing, he sat up too, his hand smoothing up until it rested at her shoulder, arm wrapping around her.

"You should know by now that I would not sit by while they insulted either you or our daughter. One disparaging comment, and I pick up Evelyn and leave."

"I just…" she sighed, leaning against him and closing her eyes "I don't know why you're so keen on handing them this victory."

"Because it's not a victory," he said firmly "They may think so, I'll grant you that, but they don't win unless we lose our minds and decide they were right all along. Given that such a day will never come, they will therefore never win. What they think doesn't matter."

So why was it their unimportant thoughts on the matter that he sought in the first place? But she didn't ask, because she knew the answer. Narcissa was his mother, and he wanted her advice. Winning this squabble wasn't worth making him say it out loud.

"Fine," she said quietly "If you do it, I won't hold it against you."

He pressed his lips against her shoulder in thanks, and she only hoped she wouldn't come to regret that promise.

A/N: Part 2 to come. Did a whole lot of research into Squib lore for this one, the Harry Potter wikia truly do be a life-saver. So it's generally accepted as likely among Wizarding folk that Muggle-borns are the product of a Squib being married into a Muggle family at some point or another, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence for a Muggle parent increasing the likelihood of the child being a Squib - but that doesn't mean the blood purists wouldn't latch onto it and insist otherwise because, y'know, agenda.

That being said, there's definitely a stigma around Squibs throughout all of Wizarding society - shown by Ron being embarrassed to speak of a Squib relative - so it's definitely not a non-issue even to those who fought on the right side of the war.

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