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lomonaaerenTitle: Narcissa Triumphant
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco, Lucius/Narcissa
Content Notes: Angst, violence, minor character deaths, gore, torture, crack AU (Narcissa is an assassin)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Narcissa has a war on two fronts to fight, with Voldemort and with the Ministry. But when winning such wars is necessary to avenge her family and keep them safe, her enemies are the ones who will regret their actions.
Author’s Notes: Welcome to the seventh and final fic in the Narcissa series, the AU of DH. This really won’t make any sense at all if you haven’t read the other fics in the series, so do that first.
Last chapter of Narcissa Watchful.
Narcissa Triumphant
Part One
“I don’t understand why we’ve waited this long to get back at the Ministry.”
Narcissa finished signing her name to the parchment with a final flourish, folded up the letter, and turned to make her way to the Owlery. Draco stared at her for a moment, then fell into step beside her. “Didn’t you hear me, Mother? I asked—”
“You did not ask, Draco. You whinged. And given that the answer should be perfectly obvious, I am less than inclined to give it to you.”
Draco flushed, the pale hectic flush that always made him look as if he’d broken out in spots. Narcissa sighed a little. It was possible to teach one’s children to resist the impulse to blush when they lied, but not to blush more gracefully. It was a fact she had often regretted.
“Fine.” Draco swallowed the air he would have used to make a protest and spent the rest of the journey meditating on what he needed to think about. Narcissa smiled down at him, although he showed no sign of noticing. He was much quicker to learn than he had been as a young child.
They reached the Owlery, and Narcissa held out the letter. The first bird that swooped over to claim it was a great gray, and Narcissa examined him critically before she nodded. It was not essential that this letter pass discreetly through the air, after all.
The owl hooted softly and took off through the window. Draco cleared his throat, and Narcissa turned to look at him expectantly.
“You waited this long because you want to attack the Ministry with allies and have a say in the election of the new Minister, and you needed time to arrange it.”
“Excellent, Draco.” His chest still puffed out a little too far when she praised him, but then, she doled out the praise with a stingier hand now that he was nearly seventeen. “Yes. I intend to destroy the Ministry when my blow lands, not merely faze them or shake them or smear their reputation as I smeared Auror Williams’s.”
Draco sneered automatically at the name of the biased Auror who had tried to insist that Harry had committed the murder of Amelia Bones. “But one thing I don’t understand, Mother.” He waited for her to nod before he spoke again. “How are you going to destroy something so powerful? And what about the chaos that would erupt when it falls? How in the world can we have a government if you destroy it?”
“Oh, certain structures will still stay in place,” Narcissa told him, reaching out to stroke the head of Harry’s snowy owl as she hopped along the perch towards Narcissa. Hedwig was fond of Narcissa for helping her master, and Narcissa was fond of Hedwig for being beautiful. It was an interesting mutual relationship. “The Wizengamot, the Aurors, some of the judicial process. But new people will be occupying those spots.”
“You’re going to make Scrimgeour Minister, aren’t you?”
Narcissa turned around sharply. Sirius had asked her that the other day, but he hadn’t been serious; he liked to fling out the names of what he thought were silly candidates and make people laugh. No one had worked his way to the heart of the truth like Draco had.
Draco only shrugged. “I can read between the lines, Mother. You’ve exchanged a lot of letters with him and invited him over for dinner in a way that you haven’t done for anyone else.”
Narcissa relaxed. Now that she thought about it, why should Draco not have guessed? Lucius had not because he knew, Harry was busier than ever with his training this summer, and Sirius did not live with them. “Very well, Draco. Yes. He’s the only combination I’ve found of reliable, sensible, and accepting.”
“Accepting?”
“Accepting of manipulation instead of bribes. Everyone else either wants much more money than I’m prepared to part with, or proudly declares that they’ll stand on their own for the sake of principle and accept no Galleons at all.”
Draco sneered again as he followed her down the steps from the Owlery. Narcissa made a note to give him some lessons in that, as well. Right now, the sneer distorted his face too much. “You do have your own standards of what is acceptable, Mother.”
“I do. And they are the ones that matter.”
Draco ducked his head. “I didn’t mean to challenge…”
“You didn’t.” Narcissa sighed as she stepped back into the dining room where Sirius would be joining them for dinner that evening. “I have some reasons to be on edge, some problems that I have not yet solved. Do not worry about them, Draco. They do not concern you.”
Draco studied her with raised eyebrows anyway. Then he asked, “Is it Voldemort, or is it some of your allies?”
Narcissa flickered a glance at him. Draco stood there and let it bounce off him. Narcissa resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Sometimes I think I raised you too well.” Draco only grinned, so she said, “Allies. The curse I cast on him is killing Voldemort, or at least breaking his ability to hold onto this body. Once he becomes a wraith again, he will be much less dangerous, even if we have to spend some time killing him.”
“But don’t your allies fear you?”
“Yes, but it has been many years since I did them favors or reminded them of my powers, and some of them want to wait and see what happens. Others think they can take bribes from me and the Ministry.” Narcissa shook her head. She would not say that she had stupid allies, but she had some that were too addicted to playing the political field. They would insist on waiting and watching, just in case a better deal came along, even if that was monumentally unlikely.
And if the Ministry collapsed on their heads, then they would rush to her side, when it was too late.
“What are you going to do about them?”
“For now, the Horcruxes are my priority.” Narcissa stretched. She had a potion to brew and consume before she could go after her next target. And she wanted to get at least one full night of sleep, unbroken by owls coming in with letters from Scrimgeour, Sirius, or her allies.
“Can I help?”
“If you want to start dicing some of the ingredients I’ve left on the table in the lab, then I would appreciate it. I’m going to take a nap.”
Draco opened his mouth, then closed it without speaking. Or, at least, speaking until Narcissa was more than halfway up the grand staircase. “Is Harry going to be coming with you when you hunt the next one?”
“No.”
That seemed to be all Draco needed, because the next sound Narcissa heard was that of her lab door shutting. She gave a thin smile as she climbed the stairs. Yes, things would work out. She only needed to be faster, stronger, and cleverer than her enemies.
And that had never been a problem.
*
Narcissa stood in the middle of a circle that Lucius’s ancestors had imprinted into the floor of this particular Potions lab. It was made of gleaming copper and set along the edges with gleaming topazes and turquoises. Not the usual sorts of precious stones that would be set along a circle like this, but then, the circle hardly had a usual purpose.
Narcissa closed her eyes. The circle around her still gleamed in her mind. She could have walked the whole border blind without tripping over one of the small jewels.
She heard the circle begin to rotate around her, the soft sound as it scraped through the tiles of the floor. The shimmering image in her mind extended upwards and outwards, forming first a rising circle, then a cone, pointing towards a distant target and waiting for her to give it the impetus to link there.
Narcissa cut her hand with a small silver knife. Potion-infused blood spilled down her palm and over the heel of her hand. The minute it hit the tiles, she knew it would begin to stream, drawn off to form small red circles around the jewels.
She didn’t open her eyes to watch it happen. It wasn’t necessary.
“Voldemort,” she said. “The one who calls himself Voldemort, who has the link to my blood. Find him for me.”
There was no response until every jewel was soaked in blood, the circle continuing to rotate to make it easier for that to happen. Then Narcissa saw an image forming in front of her, on the darkness of her closed eyelids, replacing the one of the circle.
Voldemort sat on a throne in a dilapidated house—well, dilapidated from the outside. Inside, he had spread the floors with rich rugs and hung the walls with flowing tapestries. Torches flared in the sconces on the walls. There were random piles of emeralds and rubies in various corners, as if to prove to his Death Eaters that he had all kinds of wealth.
Voldemort himself looked considerably leaner than he had the last time she had seen him. Narcissa smiled without moving her lips. He had managed to slow the starvation curse she had inflicted on him, or he would be dead already. But he could not manage to stop it.
He would die soon enough if she waited. But that would only make this body die, and then he would be a bodiless wraith, with a choice of many more bodies around him to possess. No, the only way to kill him was to eliminate the Horcruxes.
Narcissa turned her head a little, sweeping the place with her magically enhanced gaze. Yes. In a corner, his serpent Nagini lay, watching her master.
Narcissa picked up the dagger that lay next to her on the floor with as little movement as possible. The connection of the circle was unique among magic—Narcissa had been thrilled when she had first discovered it, since it was evidence that Lucius’s ancestors had not always been as stupid as they seemed—but it was fragile. Narcissa would break it if she moved too much, or if the blood that had encircled the jewels dried on even one of them.
She had the dagger ready. Narcissa took a deep breath, and said, “The blood binds me to Voldemort. The shared soul binds Voldemort and his serpent. I ask for the connections of the blood and the soul to work for me now.”
The magic of the circle shimmered around her, considering it.
Narcissa touched her wand to the dagger and cast the incantation for Fiendfyre.
The flames that roared up around her backlit the image of Voldemort and Nagini with shapes of leaping lions, leopards, and dragons in scarlet and gold. Voldemort jerked and turned his head around as if he had heard something.
He didn’t have time to react, if he really had. Narcissa closed her eyes more firmly, the better to watch what happened when the circle sent all of this through, and channeled the Fiendfyre into the dagger and the blood link.
There was more roaring in her ears than she had ever heard in her life, as if she had somehow stumbled into an inferno. Narcissa kept her head, calmly sending the incredible magic into the link that bound her to Voldemort. She was relatively sure that she heard him scream, and she smiled, very slightly.
The sparking and popping of the fire streamed down the blood link, and for a second, Voldemort glowed as if lit from within. Narcissa forced her will onto the Fiendfyre, which wanted to devour the fragile human body that he had entrenched himself into, and forced it to spread to Nagini.
The snake began to thrash and utter what Narcissa suspected were screams in Parseltongue, although of course she couldn’t be absolutely sure. She watched in amusement as the writhing became slower and slower and at last died, and at the same moment, the shadow of what looked like a trembling human figure rose from the snake and seemed to take a single step before it, too, departed into smoke.
Voldemort began to scream in turn.
Narcissa found it boring to listen to. She broke the blood connection, and then the one with the dagger. When she opened her eyes, she found the streams of blood that led away from her to the jewels around the circle had almost dried. She had completed the ritual just in time.
She smiled as she went to work cleaning up the ritual tools and the traces of it; this was not a task she would entrust to house-elves. Yes, the Malfoys probably had the only circle in the world that would reach across distance and enable someone to kill or affect the target’s area magically without needing to go to it.
Her “Horcrux hunt” was never going to put her or her family at risk again if she could help it.
*
“You think Voldemort is going to target us more this year?”
Narcissa rested her hand on Harry’s shoulder and bent down towards him, even if their words would mostly be lost in the rush of people towards the Hogwarts Express. “I think he probably has figured out by now that we’re targeting his Horcruxes.”
“Just from you killing Nagini?”
“It’s true that he doesn’t have ready access to the rest of them anymore,” Narcissa admitted. “At least, not to the diadem and the diary, and he never knew the one in you existed, so it’s unlikely that he knows of its destruction. But the locket and the cup? And whatever the seventh Horcrux is?”
“We’ve got to find out.”
“I do have the means to narrow it down.” Narcissa bent to kiss him on the brow, on the place where the lightning bolt scar had faded to the point where only someone who knew it was there could have seen it. “But I want you to concern yourself with protecting Draco and passing your NEWT’s.”
“I did well enough on the OWL’s.”
“Yes, but these are harder.”
Harry spent a moment staring at her, and then his mouth curled up in what looked like a reluctant smile. “All right. I’ll get on the train and think about the best ways to protect Draco, Mother.” He touched her cheek and walked away to a compartment.
Narcissa turned when someone pulled on her cloak. It was Draco, his face solemn as he studied her. “Did you hear that Professor McGonagall had to find another Defense teacher?”
“Even though the previous one is not dead?” Narcissa nodded. “I am not surprised.” The poison she had inflicted on Idunna Freyasdaughter had made her unable to go long without violent bouts of stomach upset—at both ends.
“It’s Moody.”
“Is it?” Narcissa did not allow herself to express more than polite shock. “I am surprised that he agreed to come out of retirement for any reason.”
Draco took another step towards her and lowered his voice. “I’m worried. The gossip says that he has a magical eye that can see through everything, even Invisibility Cloaks like the one Harry has, and he’s a close friend of Dumbledore’s. What if he knows some of the things Dumbledore wanted to do and tries to do them?” Not even here would he say aloud that Moody might know there had been a Horcrux in Harry, and might not believe that it had been removed. “Or what if he senses what we’re doing and tries to stop us?”
Narcissa touched his hair. Draco had grown up into such a handsome young man. Overly serious, some of the time, but so handsome. “I will handle this, Draco. I don’t want you worrying about it, do you hear me?”
“But, Mother—”
“I did say something about that I would not tolerate, Draco.”
Draco stared at her with narrowed eyes, then nodded. He followed Harry onto the train, and Narcissa turned back for the last farewell.
Lucius kissed her gently on the forehead, then the cheek, then the lips. A few passing adolescents hooted at them. Lucius ignored them graciously. He would have been incapable of that last year, before Narcissa had destroyed most of his Dark Mark. Now it was three-fifths gone; she had done the third ritual over the summer.
“Go,” Lucius breathed into her ear. “Be safe. I will be working the political end of things. Already I have any number of people lined up who are tired of the Ministry.”
“We are a good team.”
“We are.” Lucius kissed her again, and backed off when Narcissa gave him a measured glance. Then he nodded to her and turned and walked away towards the entrance that led back to the fireplaces.
Narcissa put a smile on her face for the sake of anyone who was watching, and stepped onto the train. She almost bumped into a tall man with a wooden leg, who stared at her with a whirling blue magical eye.
Best to be prepared. Narcissa smiled. “Professor Moody. I understand that you’re joining the Hogwarts staff this year.”
“Come with me, Malfoy.”
Narcissa sighed and followed the old Auror. She supposed that she shouldn’t have expected basic politeness from him.
It remained to be seen how soon she would teach him a lesson about respecting her.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco, Lucius/Narcissa
Content Notes: Angst, violence, minor character deaths, gore, torture, crack AU (Narcissa is an assassin)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Narcissa has a war on two fronts to fight, with Voldemort and with the Ministry. But when winning such wars is necessary to avenge her family and keep them safe, her enemies are the ones who will regret their actions.
Author’s Notes: Welcome to the seventh and final fic in the Narcissa series, the AU of DH. This really won’t make any sense at all if you haven’t read the other fics in the series, so do that first.
Last chapter of Narcissa Watchful.
Narcissa Triumphant
Part One
“I don’t understand why we’ve waited this long to get back at the Ministry.”
Narcissa finished signing her name to the parchment with a final flourish, folded up the letter, and turned to make her way to the Owlery. Draco stared at her for a moment, then fell into step beside her. “Didn’t you hear me, Mother? I asked—”
“You did not ask, Draco. You whinged. And given that the answer should be perfectly obvious, I am less than inclined to give it to you.”
Draco flushed, the pale hectic flush that always made him look as if he’d broken out in spots. Narcissa sighed a little. It was possible to teach one’s children to resist the impulse to blush when they lied, but not to blush more gracefully. It was a fact she had often regretted.
“Fine.” Draco swallowed the air he would have used to make a protest and spent the rest of the journey meditating on what he needed to think about. Narcissa smiled down at him, although he showed no sign of noticing. He was much quicker to learn than he had been as a young child.
They reached the Owlery, and Narcissa held out the letter. The first bird that swooped over to claim it was a great gray, and Narcissa examined him critically before she nodded. It was not essential that this letter pass discreetly through the air, after all.
The owl hooted softly and took off through the window. Draco cleared his throat, and Narcissa turned to look at him expectantly.
“You waited this long because you want to attack the Ministry with allies and have a say in the election of the new Minister, and you needed time to arrange it.”
“Excellent, Draco.” His chest still puffed out a little too far when she praised him, but then, she doled out the praise with a stingier hand now that he was nearly seventeen. “Yes. I intend to destroy the Ministry when my blow lands, not merely faze them or shake them or smear their reputation as I smeared Auror Williams’s.”
Draco sneered automatically at the name of the biased Auror who had tried to insist that Harry had committed the murder of Amelia Bones. “But one thing I don’t understand, Mother.” He waited for her to nod before he spoke again. “How are you going to destroy something so powerful? And what about the chaos that would erupt when it falls? How in the world can we have a government if you destroy it?”
“Oh, certain structures will still stay in place,” Narcissa told him, reaching out to stroke the head of Harry’s snowy owl as she hopped along the perch towards Narcissa. Hedwig was fond of Narcissa for helping her master, and Narcissa was fond of Hedwig for being beautiful. It was an interesting mutual relationship. “The Wizengamot, the Aurors, some of the judicial process. But new people will be occupying those spots.”
“You’re going to make Scrimgeour Minister, aren’t you?”
Narcissa turned around sharply. Sirius had asked her that the other day, but he hadn’t been serious; he liked to fling out the names of what he thought were silly candidates and make people laugh. No one had worked his way to the heart of the truth like Draco had.
Draco only shrugged. “I can read between the lines, Mother. You’ve exchanged a lot of letters with him and invited him over for dinner in a way that you haven’t done for anyone else.”
Narcissa relaxed. Now that she thought about it, why should Draco not have guessed? Lucius had not because he knew, Harry was busier than ever with his training this summer, and Sirius did not live with them. “Very well, Draco. Yes. He’s the only combination I’ve found of reliable, sensible, and accepting.”
“Accepting?”
“Accepting of manipulation instead of bribes. Everyone else either wants much more money than I’m prepared to part with, or proudly declares that they’ll stand on their own for the sake of principle and accept no Galleons at all.”
Draco sneered again as he followed her down the steps from the Owlery. Narcissa made a note to give him some lessons in that, as well. Right now, the sneer distorted his face too much. “You do have your own standards of what is acceptable, Mother.”
“I do. And they are the ones that matter.”
Draco ducked his head. “I didn’t mean to challenge…”
“You didn’t.” Narcissa sighed as she stepped back into the dining room where Sirius would be joining them for dinner that evening. “I have some reasons to be on edge, some problems that I have not yet solved. Do not worry about them, Draco. They do not concern you.”
Draco studied her with raised eyebrows anyway. Then he asked, “Is it Voldemort, or is it some of your allies?”
Narcissa flickered a glance at him. Draco stood there and let it bounce off him. Narcissa resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Sometimes I think I raised you too well.” Draco only grinned, so she said, “Allies. The curse I cast on him is killing Voldemort, or at least breaking his ability to hold onto this body. Once he becomes a wraith again, he will be much less dangerous, even if we have to spend some time killing him.”
“But don’t your allies fear you?”
“Yes, but it has been many years since I did them favors or reminded them of my powers, and some of them want to wait and see what happens. Others think they can take bribes from me and the Ministry.” Narcissa shook her head. She would not say that she had stupid allies, but she had some that were too addicted to playing the political field. They would insist on waiting and watching, just in case a better deal came along, even if that was monumentally unlikely.
And if the Ministry collapsed on their heads, then they would rush to her side, when it was too late.
“What are you going to do about them?”
“For now, the Horcruxes are my priority.” Narcissa stretched. She had a potion to brew and consume before she could go after her next target. And she wanted to get at least one full night of sleep, unbroken by owls coming in with letters from Scrimgeour, Sirius, or her allies.
“Can I help?”
“If you want to start dicing some of the ingredients I’ve left on the table in the lab, then I would appreciate it. I’m going to take a nap.”
Draco opened his mouth, then closed it without speaking. Or, at least, speaking until Narcissa was more than halfway up the grand staircase. “Is Harry going to be coming with you when you hunt the next one?”
“No.”
That seemed to be all Draco needed, because the next sound Narcissa heard was that of her lab door shutting. She gave a thin smile as she climbed the stairs. Yes, things would work out. She only needed to be faster, stronger, and cleverer than her enemies.
And that had never been a problem.
*
Narcissa stood in the middle of a circle that Lucius’s ancestors had imprinted into the floor of this particular Potions lab. It was made of gleaming copper and set along the edges with gleaming topazes and turquoises. Not the usual sorts of precious stones that would be set along a circle like this, but then, the circle hardly had a usual purpose.
Narcissa closed her eyes. The circle around her still gleamed in her mind. She could have walked the whole border blind without tripping over one of the small jewels.
She heard the circle begin to rotate around her, the soft sound as it scraped through the tiles of the floor. The shimmering image in her mind extended upwards and outwards, forming first a rising circle, then a cone, pointing towards a distant target and waiting for her to give it the impetus to link there.
Narcissa cut her hand with a small silver knife. Potion-infused blood spilled down her palm and over the heel of her hand. The minute it hit the tiles, she knew it would begin to stream, drawn off to form small red circles around the jewels.
She didn’t open her eyes to watch it happen. It wasn’t necessary.
“Voldemort,” she said. “The one who calls himself Voldemort, who has the link to my blood. Find him for me.”
There was no response until every jewel was soaked in blood, the circle continuing to rotate to make it easier for that to happen. Then Narcissa saw an image forming in front of her, on the darkness of her closed eyelids, replacing the one of the circle.
Voldemort sat on a throne in a dilapidated house—well, dilapidated from the outside. Inside, he had spread the floors with rich rugs and hung the walls with flowing tapestries. Torches flared in the sconces on the walls. There were random piles of emeralds and rubies in various corners, as if to prove to his Death Eaters that he had all kinds of wealth.
Voldemort himself looked considerably leaner than he had the last time she had seen him. Narcissa smiled without moving her lips. He had managed to slow the starvation curse she had inflicted on him, or he would be dead already. But he could not manage to stop it.
He would die soon enough if she waited. But that would only make this body die, and then he would be a bodiless wraith, with a choice of many more bodies around him to possess. No, the only way to kill him was to eliminate the Horcruxes.
Narcissa turned her head a little, sweeping the place with her magically enhanced gaze. Yes. In a corner, his serpent Nagini lay, watching her master.
Narcissa picked up the dagger that lay next to her on the floor with as little movement as possible. The connection of the circle was unique among magic—Narcissa had been thrilled when she had first discovered it, since it was evidence that Lucius’s ancestors had not always been as stupid as they seemed—but it was fragile. Narcissa would break it if she moved too much, or if the blood that had encircled the jewels dried on even one of them.
She had the dagger ready. Narcissa took a deep breath, and said, “The blood binds me to Voldemort. The shared soul binds Voldemort and his serpent. I ask for the connections of the blood and the soul to work for me now.”
The magic of the circle shimmered around her, considering it.
Narcissa touched her wand to the dagger and cast the incantation for Fiendfyre.
The flames that roared up around her backlit the image of Voldemort and Nagini with shapes of leaping lions, leopards, and dragons in scarlet and gold. Voldemort jerked and turned his head around as if he had heard something.
He didn’t have time to react, if he really had. Narcissa closed her eyes more firmly, the better to watch what happened when the circle sent all of this through, and channeled the Fiendfyre into the dagger and the blood link.
There was more roaring in her ears than she had ever heard in her life, as if she had somehow stumbled into an inferno. Narcissa kept her head, calmly sending the incredible magic into the link that bound her to Voldemort. She was relatively sure that she heard him scream, and she smiled, very slightly.
The sparking and popping of the fire streamed down the blood link, and for a second, Voldemort glowed as if lit from within. Narcissa forced her will onto the Fiendfyre, which wanted to devour the fragile human body that he had entrenched himself into, and forced it to spread to Nagini.
The snake began to thrash and utter what Narcissa suspected were screams in Parseltongue, although of course she couldn’t be absolutely sure. She watched in amusement as the writhing became slower and slower and at last died, and at the same moment, the shadow of what looked like a trembling human figure rose from the snake and seemed to take a single step before it, too, departed into smoke.
Voldemort began to scream in turn.
Narcissa found it boring to listen to. She broke the blood connection, and then the one with the dagger. When she opened her eyes, she found the streams of blood that led away from her to the jewels around the circle had almost dried. She had completed the ritual just in time.
She smiled as she went to work cleaning up the ritual tools and the traces of it; this was not a task she would entrust to house-elves. Yes, the Malfoys probably had the only circle in the world that would reach across distance and enable someone to kill or affect the target’s area magically without needing to go to it.
Her “Horcrux hunt” was never going to put her or her family at risk again if she could help it.
*
“You think Voldemort is going to target us more this year?”
Narcissa rested her hand on Harry’s shoulder and bent down towards him, even if their words would mostly be lost in the rush of people towards the Hogwarts Express. “I think he probably has figured out by now that we’re targeting his Horcruxes.”
“Just from you killing Nagini?”
“It’s true that he doesn’t have ready access to the rest of them anymore,” Narcissa admitted. “At least, not to the diadem and the diary, and he never knew the one in you existed, so it’s unlikely that he knows of its destruction. But the locket and the cup? And whatever the seventh Horcrux is?”
“We’ve got to find out.”
“I do have the means to narrow it down.” Narcissa bent to kiss him on the brow, on the place where the lightning bolt scar had faded to the point where only someone who knew it was there could have seen it. “But I want you to concern yourself with protecting Draco and passing your NEWT’s.”
“I did well enough on the OWL’s.”
“Yes, but these are harder.”
Harry spent a moment staring at her, and then his mouth curled up in what looked like a reluctant smile. “All right. I’ll get on the train and think about the best ways to protect Draco, Mother.” He touched her cheek and walked away to a compartment.
Narcissa turned when someone pulled on her cloak. It was Draco, his face solemn as he studied her. “Did you hear that Professor McGonagall had to find another Defense teacher?”
“Even though the previous one is not dead?” Narcissa nodded. “I am not surprised.” The poison she had inflicted on Idunna Freyasdaughter had made her unable to go long without violent bouts of stomach upset—at both ends.
“It’s Moody.”
“Is it?” Narcissa did not allow herself to express more than polite shock. “I am surprised that he agreed to come out of retirement for any reason.”
Draco took another step towards her and lowered his voice. “I’m worried. The gossip says that he has a magical eye that can see through everything, even Invisibility Cloaks like the one Harry has, and he’s a close friend of Dumbledore’s. What if he knows some of the things Dumbledore wanted to do and tries to do them?” Not even here would he say aloud that Moody might know there had been a Horcrux in Harry, and might not believe that it had been removed. “Or what if he senses what we’re doing and tries to stop us?”
Narcissa touched his hair. Draco had grown up into such a handsome young man. Overly serious, some of the time, but so handsome. “I will handle this, Draco. I don’t want you worrying about it, do you hear me?”
“But, Mother—”
“I did say something about that I would not tolerate, Draco.”
Draco stared at her with narrowed eyes, then nodded. He followed Harry onto the train, and Narcissa turned back for the last farewell.
Lucius kissed her gently on the forehead, then the cheek, then the lips. A few passing adolescents hooted at them. Lucius ignored them graciously. He would have been incapable of that last year, before Narcissa had destroyed most of his Dark Mark. Now it was three-fifths gone; she had done the third ritual over the summer.
“Go,” Lucius breathed into her ear. “Be safe. I will be working the political end of things. Already I have any number of people lined up who are tired of the Ministry.”
“We are a good team.”
“We are.” Lucius kissed her again, and backed off when Narcissa gave him a measured glance. Then he nodded to her and turned and walked away towards the entrance that led back to the fireplaces.
Narcissa put a smile on her face for the sake of anyone who was watching, and stepped onto the train. She almost bumped into a tall man with a wooden leg, who stared at her with a whirling blue magical eye.
Best to be prepared. Narcissa smiled. “Professor Moody. I understand that you’re joining the Hogwarts staff this year.”
“Come with me, Malfoy.”
Narcissa sighed and followed the old Auror. She supposed that she shouldn’t have expected basic politeness from him.
It remained to be seen how soon she would teach him a lesson about respecting her.
