No one ever asked Narcissa Malfoy how she felt when the Dark Lord took over her house. She played the role of the doting matriarch, the strong female symbol of the manor who stood loyally by her husband's side even when everything came crashing down. When Voldemort returned, a pit formed in her stomach. Lucius had suddenly been awakened with purpose as if the past 13 years of their lives had disappeared in an instant. There was a renewed vigor in his eyes, and she welcomed it, treasured it like he'd simply found a new hobby that she should support.
When Lucius left that afternoon for the Ministry of Magic on another one of the Dark Lord's tasks, she never expected that the next time she'd see him was from within a courtroom with their son at her side. The horror on Draco's face at seeing his great father cowering under the eyes of the Ministry's judges made her sick. There was nothing she could do now to shield Draco from the burning eye of criticism.
Bellatrix kept insisting that it was an honor, that her son was chosen for such an amazing task by the Dark Lord. Never before did she once consider that Lucius's choices would lead to the demise of their only child.
"What is the nature of your relationship with my son?" Narcissa stood mere feet away from Io, staring her down as she demanded an answer. "I will not ask you again."
The Slytherin family all had a particular ability to command every eye in the room whenever they walked in. It was a trait of Draco's, him with his pale blonde hair and piercing blue eyes which he inherited from his father who was once so respected and feared by the wizarding world. His mother was the same. Narcissa Malfoy knew the effect she had on crowds, and she used it to her advantage. She used her persuasive and intriguing gaze to claim sight, and she knew how to get the answers she required.
Io Visage was not going to be one of the weak souls who gave into her.
"We were schoolmates." Io rose to her feet.
Narcissa had a very specific way of using silence against those she set her eyes on. With every tick of the clock, Io felt compelled to tell the truth even though there were ways to keep herself steady. She took long, easy breaths. If she didn't, there would surely be sweat soaking her fringe.
"I said I will not ask you again."
"I told you what we are -"
"Do not lie to me!" Narcissa's voice was soft as silk, but when she screamed, there was a hoarseness that could only be described as akin to her sister Bellatrix. "Why is it that while your eyes are always forward, his never seem to leave you? How do you explain why there has yet to be a single night when he has not entered your room after dark, not to be seen again until morning? Now, tell me what have you done with my son!"
Draco couldn't have known that his mother was watching. Then again, that would mean he actually cared that she saw. Io didn't notice he stared, and whenever he would slip into her room, it was always late. Sleep did not come easily to her in this house, and only him being next to her managed to make it a little easier.
Io folded her arms across her chest, feeling her heart pounding against her thumb. "Why are you asking me? Even if I tell you the truth, it will sound anything but to you. If I am the snake you suspect me to be, why are you here instead asking your son?"
Narcissa's eyes were wide with disbelief. "Do not command me. I know who you are. I knew your mother and father. You don't belong here."
"And yet," Io scoffed. "You don't know me. I'm doing this to make them proud and follow in their footsteps, much like Draco is doing for you. So interesting how children always do whatever they can to make their parents happy."
"You don't know what my son wants."
"And you do?"
Narcissa stepped forward, closing the space between them, so that she was breathing down Io's face. "How dare you? How dare you question my son's loyalty?"
"I have said nothing about your son's loyalty."
"I am not blind, girl. This is still my house no matter who occupies it. Your mother tried to lie to me, too, once. I saw right through her. She didn't belong here - neither did your father. You're the same. Too pure, too naïve, too aware of what's happening around you to be here."
Io's breathing techniques did nothing to hold down the peeks of anger every time Narcissa mentioned them. "You don't know a thing about my parents -"
"- and you think you know more?" From this distance, Io could see the flecks of dry skin on Narcissa's lipstick. "Didn't they leave you when you were a baby? Don't play me a fool. Draco was only a month older than you and your sister. I would not forget that."
"What does that have to do with -"
Narcissa abruptly held her hand up, interrupting Io. "Your father used to care for Draco when Lucius was away. I saw how he cared for my son, as if he were his own child. Now, for the last time… Answer me."
The dramatic silence she blanketed over the conversation made the smallest bead of sweat drip down Io's back.
"Who are you to my son?"
"I think you should ask him who I am."
"Your father would be disappointed. Your mother, too." Narcissa laughed once and turned her heel to leave.
Io shouted after her, "I said, don't talk about them!"
"Do you know what I did for your mother?" Narcissa teased. "What happened to her?"
The atmosphere in the room suddenly shifted. Io hoped - no, prayed that there weren't any other secrets that would once again change her perception of her parents. Narcissa's threats didn't seem empty though, and she was basically dangling something over Io's head. The weight of it was crushing her chest as she braced herself for whatever awful notion Narcissa was going to tell her.
"Yes, I spoke to Aeris." Narcissa nodded to herself. "Glorious Aeris - whose hair was so pale, eyes so bright, there were days some thought she was Mrs. Malfoy, not I. She was locked away in Azkaban, slowly going mad, and when you go mad in Azkaban, they don't care what happens to you. I gave her the only solace anyone could provide. I did what she asked of me out of mercy and out of thanks for the care she and your father provided for Draco when I could not."
Io moved towards her, but Narcissa backed away, slamming the door shut. Io was left alone, wondering what she could have meant. Even Uncle Altair knew that Aeris went mad; there were records to prove it. But nothing in his stories would ever suggest what happened to her once she ended up in Azkaban. It was a brutal place. Everyone knew that.
Once the door was closed, Narcissa ended up face-to-face with the conversation she was not prepared for.
"Mother, what did you do?"
"Draco… you should be in bed."
Draco's eyes were dark and demanding. This was the next hidden face he'd developed outside of his parents' reach, and it wasn't kind.
"It's my turn to demand answers. What did you do?"
"I… released her from her prison." Narcissa held her head high.
"You… Are you saying you released her from Azkaban?"
"No. I gave her something to end her suffering. She asked - no, begged, so I obliged."
"You killed Io's mother?" Draco felt an unfamiliar brand of anger and sadness bubbling up in his stomach, and it made him sick. "How… How could you?"
"I won't attempt to answer your questions, Draco. What's done is done. This happened a long time ago."
That bubbling rage in Draco's stomach was increasingly difficult to hold down, and Narcissa could see it. He held onto his chest, an overwhelming sensation of guilt from knowing what his mother did to Io's. How could he ever look her in the face again with this knowledge? How could he hold her, knowing that the woman who inspired her so much crumbled to her death through the smallest potion bottle hidden within his mother's robes?
"Would you rather I had let her suffer?" Narcissa lowered her voice, sensing her son's fragility. "Slowly losing her mind over the thought of her child being long gone, torn away by her own mistake, her paranoia. If I didn't help her, she would have killed herself in a much worse way. Aeris deserved to die with dignity. I owed her that much. I am not cruel. I couldn't see that woman be reduced to nothing."
A small tear rolled down Draco's cheek, and it stung more than anything. He could hear the love in his mother's voice, and it was laced with pain.
Narcissa took Draco's shoulders in her hands. "Whatever it is between you and the girl, it better be because you cannot bare to be parted from her. I know you are selfish, Draco, but vanity will hurt the ones you love. I almost lost your father, and I will not lose you because of some girl."
"She's not some girl, mother."
"Then what is she? She's distracting you, darling. If the Dark Lord found out -"
"- and what if he found out? I don't care."
"You should care!" She backed away. "I told you, you will not be ripped apart from me like your father was. I will spend the rest of my life trying to bring him back to the way he used to be."
"I am not him, mother."
Draco looked at Narcissa with a fondness she hadn't seen since he was a child. "I know how father used to love you, and you're right, his vanity got in the way of that. You two raised me with that vanity - did you think I wouldn't notice? That has been my entire life. Vanity was all I knew until Io found me."
As he spoke, Narcissa felt herself crumbling. Sure, Draco would complain all the time when he was little, but never before did he ever speak about how he was raised, how they were parents. He was right, after all. They raised him with love, but that was vain love. They wanted him to be great. They wanted him to be perfect. There's no such thing as perfection, and no amount of parenting skills could ever produce a perfect child. Maybe in their quest to keep him close to the Malfoy standard, they neglected to see how this could possibly go wrong.
"I don't know if you could ever understand what it meant for her to find me, but despite every God-forsaken mistake I've made, she loves me anyway." He stopped shaking. It didn't matter anymore than he was bearing part of his soul to the woman who raised him but never saw him. "Nothing else mattered after that. Not my disgusting childhood rivalry with Potter, not the Devil-driven tasks given to me by the Dark Lord - none of it matters. All I know is that she's here."
Draco stood tall, inches over his mother who looked at him with doe eyes, unsure of how she should see him. Was he a man now? Was this her son or a man who grew up without her knowing?
"So if you must know what she is to me, the only thing I can tell you is that she is mine, and I am hers. That is all."
He pulled out his wand and unlocked Io's door, stepping inside and leaving Narcissa to stare at the wooden frame.
Narcissa couldn't decide where to go. Like a toddler, she teetered her steps, using the walls for support until she reached the master bedroom where Lucius lay under the sheets wide-eyed and despondent. She kicked off her boots and laid beside him. His hair was so fragile, dry and astray.
When she kissed his forehead, he did not stir. He merely closed his eyes with a small tremble at her warmth. Narcissa hadn't admitted to herself in a long time that she missed her husband, and hearing their son talk about a girl he loved so dearly seemed to have done something to her. It made her remember the man who lay ill in their marital bed, broken and alone. His vanity, the very sin Draco spilled out at her feet, was gone now.
Lucius stayed quiet, but she knew he was thinking. Was he thinking of her, of their son, or his mistakes? The one person she prayed he wasn't thinking about was the Dark Lord.
Their son was right. Narcissa fell in love with Lucius's vanity but not in the way Draco assumed. Lucius Malfoy did fall in love with her, and he fell hard. He saw the brightest light in her that he only ever found in himself. If it wasn't a light, then it was the darkest void in a starless twilight sky. It didn't matter which one it was. The point was that even a vain man like Lucius was searching, hoping, pleading for a soul that felt like his - an endless sea symbolic of the phrase "I can, I will, and therefore, I shall."
For her, she saw a man whose pride was the highest mountain, but the trail was only visible to her.
Was that how Draco felt about the girl? The girl… Maybe it was about time Narcissa start using Io's name. She remembered feeling an unfamiliar twinge of what some might call jealousy when she first laid eyes on Aeris Visage. There was a terrible notion in the back of her mind that had Lucius met Aeris first, Draco would not exist.
And when Narcissa first met Ion, well, she understood right away. Ion and Aeris were much different than them. Those two were… warm. So sickly warm, it made her stomach churn. It wasn't because she wanted to be them - God, no. It was because they were, up until the moment they stepped foot in Malfoy Manor, so pure and untainted. They were a dragon-guarded vault of liquid gold no Pure-blood family had ever laid their eyes on.
Narcissa never asked Ion or Aeris to watch over Draco when life got to be unbearable, but they did anyway. They needed it, the interaction with a child because they could not hold their own.
But for Aeris to ask her of a favor even one so devious, Narcissa knew that it was not because she had asked so many others. Aeris needed her. She needed another mother to see her pain - the pain of not being able to kiss her two beautiful daughters or whisper them "goodnight."
Narcissa saw that pain, and she swallowed it and kept it down for years. She never told Lucius what happened, and she never intended to. Now, there was an entirely different issue on hand.
Ridding Aeris of her pain was her payment for Draco's care, but there seems to be one last favor she has to do for the Visage family.
"Hodrey!"
A house elf appeared in an instant.
Narcissa spoke without turning her head. "Ms. Visage has not eaten dinner yet. Bring her something warm and a pot of tea with two cups. Don't forget the sugar and milk. Draco will be taking his tea as well."