A/N:

Thank you for all the kind comments. :)

I'm feeling a little better now, so I quickly finished the second half of what was originally planned for chapter 20. I'm posting it as a new chapter, so people can get their notifications.

This one is a bit different from the others, but I still hope you find it enjoyable!

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Deception. Secrets. Lies.

Those were the weapons of a Slytherin, weapons Narcissa wielded all throughout her life. Weapons she had used both to hurt others and to help her own.

Weapons, that since the end of the war, lay unused and forgotten, discarded between the pitiful walls of the ancient Wiltshire Manor. The monotony of house arrest did nothing good to her psyche, her waking hours filled with anxiety over her son and husband. Trapped in this miserable cage, the days lumbered along endlessly and she could do nought but watch her beautiful blades dull and wither.

Yet, it seemed fate was still kind to her, as it brought her some much-needed distraction in the form of a red-faced, snot-nosed Patricia Parkinson.

She came to the manor one night, sobbing. This was nothing new, other housewives often confided in Narcissa, both for her sound advice, and to crawl themselves into a pretence of camaraderie with her.

But her slobbery screeching left more questions in Narcissa's mind than answers. That was new. She made sure to memorize every detail of the witch's story.

Apparently, Gryffindor's little princess had taken upon herself to conduct a… cultural exchange of sorts. A way for wizards to learn about the Muggle world, and vice versa, if she understood correctly. That, in itself, was expected. The ministry and their ridiculous attempt at a Muggle Studies course was proof enough. All of these self-righteous types liked to do a little show and dance once they got their way, if only to show the world how benevolent they were.

But then came the surprise. Narcissa catalogued each part with care.

One, the little lioness dared to march straight into the snake pit, something that no outsider had done in more than a century.

Two, according to the letter from Parkinson's daughter, she was 'arrogant' enough to say that she did not care about changing people's minds. For the Parkinsons, that made it seem like wasted breath. For Narcissa, it was a strange, and new take on the subject, both intriguing and terrifying. What were her intentions, if not the obvious?

Three, her own son seemed to have been involved in all of this, not only taking the witch's side but actively participating in the talk. This last fact was the one that left Narcissa reeling for a moment.

But after that moment had passed, and she had the elves usher the still sobbing witch out of her home, she wasted no time to pen a letter to this curious girl.

The cogs in her scheming mind started turning once again, constructing theory after theory about the possible motives. She was sure, that whatever this witch had planned, she also must want to keep it a secret. After all, those traded much better than Galleons.

She wrote the letter, assuming Miss Granger would turn her down with a made-up excuse. She already drafted another letter to her son to enquire about the details in such a case. She sensed that something big was happening, and she would not be left out. Not again.

Narcissa had to reassess the situation, when a reply came the same day, accepting her invitation for tea. She read and reread Miss Granger's answer, looking for subtle clues in her tone or penmanship, but her words were clear, and her letters straight. Narcissa now thought that maybe she had given her too much credit. The girl was a Gryffindor after all, and not at all versed in the intricacies of the wizarding world.

With this disappointing realization, she settled back into her daily routine, mildly annoyed that she would have to bear one of those Parkinson-types in her home once again, and on her invitation. Oh, Lucius will never let her live this down.

But when the day came, she found not a snotty, wide-eyed girl in her foyer, but a woman with her wand drawn, and a menacing spark in her eyes. Narcissa had left Abraxas's portrait there on purpose, to see if it would be enough to scare the girl away. Instead of running away, however, she surprised Narcissa how she stepped in front of her son, shielding him, while answering in a saccharine tone to the furious painting.

Maybe this Gryffindor was worth the wait.

She had to step in before things got more heated, and she did it with nonchalance. Again, the poison Abraxas spewed at her was expected.

The sudden flicker of Miss Granger's wand and the subsequent silencing of the old Malfoy was not. It was not a spell Narcissa knew, Merlin knows she would've been using it quite often if that was the case.

How intriguing.

She also noticed and indexed the subtle glances between the witch and her son. While she could not yet read her, one look at her son's face told her everything she needed to know. She wasn't sure how she felt about these developments. She would most certainly have to test the witch somehow before giving them her approval.

Thanks to the careless words of her son and a truly unexpected gift - Miss Granger was so incredibly flustered, Narcissa felt bad pushing her on the matter, but kept the implications in the back of her mind just in case - she had just the right plan to test the mettle of the lioness.

This ritual was one of the oldest, seldom practised nowadays, and the ways it made the girl be appraised with a few casual words made her own skin crawl. Had Lucius tried to introduce her to his parents as a handful of objectifying adjectives, she would've hexed his bollocks off.

Yet, as she glanced at Hermione, instead of seeing her fume, the girl simply regarded her son with doe-like eyes.

Oh, Narcissa knew that expression all too well, and the girl was probably deaf to these words. But she wasn't and when her son uttered his line about happiness, Narcissa finally decided to let the strange little lioness in. Even if she was a bit of an ingénue, there was nothing some lessons from her couldn't fix.

Merlin and Morgana, was she wrong.

Now, as she looked at Hermione fiercely sitting in her son's lap, with a gaze so innocent yet provocative it would've made any Slytherin proud, Narcissa had to reassess her theories once again.

She scrubbed her mental notes clean of any previous assumptions, and after some more scheming and shuffling of the facts she knew, only one thought remained above all else, one she had simply dubbed 'Project Hermione Malfoy'.

—

A/N:

Feedback is welcome as always! I love reading your comments. :)

Now back to the bed with me.

Love,

LydieBerry