[Wednesday one-shots]: Narcissa Triumphant, Lucius/Narcissa, H/D, PG-13, 7.3/7

[lomonaaeren]

Part Two.

Part One.

Title: Narcissa Triumphant (3/11)
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.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Three—A Werewolf Army

Narcissa stood up and moved towards the windows that looked out over the front gates of the Manor. She touched the panes, and a soft glow lit them and ran down to spark along her fingers. Narcissa looked at the glow in some amusement. It was testing to see if she was a Malfoy and could do as she’d just done.

“Defending yourself from the werewolves at your gates might seem more urgent right now,” she murmured.

As if the light had heard her, it turned rapidly into spinning gems of radiance around her fingers and then vanished. Narcissa looked through panes that now pierced the dark as if made of sunbeams, and showed her the vision at the gates even though the Manor sat well back from them.

Just outside the wards paced a howling horde of werewolves, all of them great shaggy beasts with mindless eyes. Narcissa counted them until it became obvious that counting was detrimental to her purpose. It just took up time. She did, however, find the biggest, greyest wolf in the front, pawing at the wards as he howled. Narcissa smiled a little as she drew her dagger and cut her arm in a jagged line.

“I wonder how long it will take you to run once you realize what I am, Fenrir Greyback,” she whispered.

The blood ran down the line of the dagger and dripped into the silver bowl Narcissa had already positioned beneath her elbow. There was a flash that seemed to travel throughout the house, this time, instead of only coming from the windows. Narcissa carefully healed the wound and scrubbed away the blood that still remained on her skin. Then she carried the bowl across the room and down the stairs, ignoring the clamoring howls and the sounds of furry bodies hitting the wards.

One could not rush perfection.

Narcissa stepped out into the middle of one of her workrooms. Lucius knew better than to intrude in here, and hadn’t even questioned the expense when she had the walls sheathed with black marble. Narcissa placed the silver bowl of blood on the plinth that stood in the middle of the room and closed her eyes.

A soft throb of magic ran through the floor beneath her. Narcissa smiled and reached out, eyes still closed, to a pinch of fresh mandrake, which she scattered into the blood.

The hammering on the wards grew distant. There was nothing of more importance than the magic her hands wove.

Into the blood went aconite and deadly nightshade, along with a crumb of curare that Narcissa had brought back from a trading adventure to a Peruvian marketplace long ago. She used her dagger to scoop that up. Then she stirred the blood with the same dagger, and called the face of Fenrir Greyback in wolf form firmly to mind.

She held the image there as she lifted her hand and drew the dagger across her own throat.

The blood flowed along the dagger and sealed itself, and Narcissa reached out to the image of the madly howling werewolf that was the only important thing in front of her mental eyes right now.

I am the blood. I am willing to give my life to do this.

There was always a magic to sacrifice, a poetry to being willing to give one’s life—whether or not one gave it. Narcissa felt the great magic flow towards her, magic contained in the Manor. She couldn’t access that power that was only available to members of the family, but her own magic could resonate with the fact that spells had been worked inside these walls for generations.

And the Manor responded well to the intentions of someone who wanted to defend it, blood family or not.

The black walls around Narcissa began to glow. Floating from somewhere outside her body, she sensed that more than she knew it. She laughed, or she did what she could with her throat slit and her blood pooling along the dagger, and gathered the power deep inside herself, ready to fling.

The poisoned bowl of blood next to her stirred.

Narcissa reached out to it, more confidently, and spoke the link between magic and blood and poison and dagger and image. If she was willing to give up her life, then it should be for a good cause. She should be able to kill the way she wanted to. A way that had some elegance to it, and would use the maddened werewolf against his kin.

The blood flowed out in thin streams. Again Narcissa saw it with the eyes that were not the body’s eyes, but the eyes of her discipline. The streams soared through the door and out through other doors, around corners, down stairs, and finally across the Manor gardens. Then they arched over the top of the weakening wards and dripped onto the head of the wildly leaping Fenrir Greyback.

None of the other werewolves appeared to notice when their leader stopped leaping. None of them probably noticed that the quantity of froth dripping from his jaws was less than before.

But Narcissa noticed. Narcissa knew. She smiled and curled her fingers in towards her palms, breathing softly out.

Kill.

Greyback turned and leaped upon the nearest werewolf. It only had time for a surprised shriek before Greyback killed it, biting through its neck with his teeth and pumping his envenomed saliva deep into its veins. The werewolf fell kicking and bleeding as Greyback jumped on another, and another. Some of them didn’t even try to defend themselves, they were so surprised. Others fled.

But a ring did turn on Greyback and surround him, snarling, and Narcissa knew that she couldn’t stay in his body when he was likely to die. She flickered her consciousness away to the marble-walled room again, and set about solving the small problem that she had cut her throat and was now bleeding to death.

Blood moved at her will, winding around the dagger and holding it against her throat like a temporary dam. Narcissa moved her magic calmly, reflecting off the walls, this time directing it to heal rather than make the poisoned blood flow towards Greyback.

The progress did seem to be slower than it otherwise would be, although that might be simply a reflection of the detached way that her spirit hovered back from her body. It might indicate a problem, as well.

Narcissa sighed. Sometimes she wondered why her body and her blood could not simply do as her will commanded them.

She channeled more magic. The marble on the walls amplified it, and it came beaming back to the wound in her throat like sunlight.

Narcissa felt her body sinking and settling, although it didn’t affect the hovering viewpoint that she enjoyed at the moment. The wound was healing steadily, but she had lost a lot of blood, she had to admit. It was annoying.

“Narcissa!”

And that was Lucius, having recovered faster than she had thought he would. Or perhaps he wasn’t fully recovered, Narcissa mused as she turned her spiritual body to face him. He still looked as pale as salt.

But he laid his own wand against her throat and spoke the words of a simple healing spell, and that helped. Narcissa sighed and released enough control that she got pulled into her body again. She drew a breath against the pain, and another, grateful that she could do so without the bubbling of blood within her wound.

“You—you didn’t need to do that,” Lucius whispered, kneeling next to her. “I could have taken control of the wards.”

“I thought you would be unconscious for the rest of the evening,” Narcissa retorted, holding out one hand. Lucius took it and helped her to a sitting position. Narcissa leaned on her husband’s shoulder for a moment. “Would you care to look through the windows and see how the werewolves are handling themselves?”

Lucius’s eyes unfocused as he turned his head, and then he chuckled nastily. “The only ones left are fighting each other. Most of them have fled. Then again, werewolves without the potion aren’t good at fixating on a goal. They need a leader.” He leaned more heavily against Narcissa, revealing that he was still tired. “And Fenrir Greyback appears to have been torn into at least five pieces.”

“Only five?”

Lucius had already fallen asleep again, sagging back against her. Narcissa sighed and called for the house-elves to help them into bed, grateful that she had a whole throat with which to do so.

*

“You’ve never missed breakfast before, Professor Malfoy.”

“Yes, but I’ve also never held off an army of werewolves before,” Narcissa said, and enjoyed the silence that came from Moody’s direction as she finished the plate of roasted chicken in front of her. After the kind of magic she had employed last night, she always craved meat.

“That’s impossible,” Moody finally said. “I would have heard about an army of werewolves.”

“Oh, not near Hogwarts,” Narcissa murmured, and finished her lunch and stood up. Her long nap this morning, although not disastrous since she taught her classes in the evening, meant she was behind on the pile of marking.

“An army of werewolves?”

Narcissa met Minerva’s gaze and smiled a little. “Yes. It seemed that Voldemort saw fit to attack my home.”

More silence was spreading. More professors were gaping at her. Narcissa wondered idly how many of them might be spies for Voldemort, even if blackmailed into it, the way Aurora Sinistra had been. Well, the poor darling had to get his news somehow.

“That shouldn’t be possible,” whispered Rolanda Hooch.

“It wouldn’t be possible without Dark magic.” Moody rose to his feet with a clatter from his wooden leg. “What did you do, Professor Malfoy?”

“Saved my home,” Narcissa said, and walked away from the fool. She understood why Minerva had wanted to hire an Auror, but it could have been someone with a more flexible view of the world.

Moody clattered after her, and caught up with her once they were out of the Great Hall. “I cannot condone Dark magic—”

“Not used by the Ministry?”

“Not ever,” Moody snarled at her, and limped around in front of her. Narcissa sighed. That was part of the problem that came with slitting one’s own throat the night before. Not even the discipline could enable her to move fast enough to avoid being cornered yet. “You can’t play with the Dark Arts and expect to remain untainted!”

Narcissa leaned towards him. “I find it interesting that you are more concerned with what I did than with who sent those werewolves against us, and what they would have done if they had succeeded in attacking my home,” she whispered.

Moody dismissed that with a flick of his hand. “You-Know-Who is going to do what he’s going to do. But you ought to know better.”

Narcissa shook her head. “His name is Voldemort. Should I believe that you are a Death Eater since you can’t say it?”

Moody jerked back from her. Narcissa resumed her interrupted walk, and knew that he was standing there and watching her go instead of trying to follow.

He did shout when she was mostly up the staircase that led to the first floor, “Going to find out if you used the Dark Arts!”

“Going to find out if you knew about the Headmaster’s plans,” Narcissa said over her shoulder. She thought it possible. Moody had been part of Dumbledore’s Order of the Phoenix, and his close friend.

Moody didn’t seem to know what she was talking about. At least, his silence behind her was baffled. Narcissa smiled a little and entered her quarters.

Her sons stood up from the couch in the center of the room and advanced on her. Narcissa studied them for a moment. “Yes?” she asked, as Draco draped a shawl around her shoulders and Harry cast a Warming Charm on it.

“You need help,” Draco said, and rubbed her shoulders briskly for a moment, until Narcissa squeezed his hand in silent question. Then he stepped back and scowled horribly, in a way that honestly impressed her. “Moody has no right to question you like that, when you’re still magically exhausted.”

“He would question me at any time. I must be as prepared to meet him when I am magically exhausted as at any other time.”

“Do you want me to kill him, Mother?”

Narcissa looked Harry mildly in the eye until he flushed and glanced at the floor. “Where in the way I just acted was any hint of asking for his death?”

“He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with questioning you like that.”

“So you keep repeating, Draco, but he is an Auror, and probably a spy from the factions in the Ministry who worry about my growing power. We cannot act openly against him right now.”

Draco turned away, his mouth a tight line. Narcissa studied him and sipped the cup of tea that Harry had made for her. “Well, what is it? Is he troubling you so much in class that you want to take some kind of vengeance on him out of it?”

“He’s engaging me in debate,” Draco said, his voice muffled. He sat down heavily on the couch they’d been sitting on before, and Harry took a seat beside him and gently ran a hand through his hair. Narcissa saw the lines around Draco’s mouth relax, but he kept his head turned away, his shoulders hunched. “It’s just that he does it with questions to the rest of the class, so everyone is debating me. And they’re getting further and further away from thinking that Father did anything honorable in the war.”

“Moody is using the debates to make the rest of the class hate Draco,” Harry added quietly, and pulled until Draco’s head was resting in his lap. “Draco hates it.”

“And them.” Draco curled up harder against Harry’s side.

“Imagine that the worst-case scenario comes true, and Moody makes everyone hate you thoroughly,” Narcissa said quietly, drawing her sons’ attention. “What would you do in that case, Draco?”

“Watch my back very carefully as I go through the corridors? Since I won’t be allowed to hex them if we keep to your regime, Mother, but they can do whatever they want to me.”

Narcissa’s silence made Harry wince a little, but Draco watched her with bitter eyes. Harry did start to open his mouth, but Narcissa glanced at him, and he nodded and sighed and shut it. Narcissa laid out the conclusions, since Draco was too consumed by his anger at the moment to work through to them.

“Then they hate you. You take it in silence, because you know that nothing can truly affect your honor and the pride you have in your family. You have shields so that you can deflect childish hexes. If they use anything worse than that, then they’ve violated school rules and you can report them. They would be in the wrong, not you. You sneer at them, you offer insults that don’t sound like insults and will provoke them into rash actions and leave you looking innocent, and you wait for the day you can take revenge.”

“But—that sounds like the way that you act.”

Narcissa smiled and lifted her empty teacup to her son. “And the way that your father acts, now. Although I concede that he didn’t when the Dark Mark was blurring his senses.”

“What did happen, Mother? You never really explained, and we didn’t have the time to talk to you after lunch.”

“Voldemort decided that your father’s loyalty was suspect at last, and proceeded to poison him through the Dark Mark…”

Narcissa laid it out simply and smoothly, not skipping the part where she had slit her own throat to defeat the werewolves. They listened in what looked like sick fascination, clutching each other’s hands. Narcissa wound down and leaned back against the chair, watching the fire as it danced.

“Please never do that again, Mother.”

It was Harry who was kneeling on the floor by her chair, staring at her with wide-open eyes and a pale face. Narcissa reached out and gently stroked his cheek. “I will try never to do that again, dearest,” she murmured. “I hardly liked it myself. But it had to be done, and that was the surest way, the way that I thought I had a chance of surviving.”

“But you didn’t know.”

“I didn’t know for sure that my curse would work on Voldemort, or that you would take to the discipline, or that you and Draco would fall in love. Some risks are worth taking.”

“Even if you deprived us of a mother?” Draco demanded harshly from the couch where he was sitting, his hands wound together.

“Sometimes,” Narcissa said quietly.

Neither of her sons seemed to know what to say to that. Narcissa leaned down to kiss Harry on the forehead where his scar had once been, then stood and crossed over to the couch to kiss Draco in the same place. “It’s well now. I survived, and you can stop having nightmares of what might have happened, and go back to baiting Moody.”

They still insisted on remaining with her while Narcissa prepared for her classes that night, and remaining within her quarters to wait for her after she came back from them. Narcissa shook her head a little as she walked up the stairs, carrying a pile of marked parchment with her.

They are wonderful sons, the best a mother could ask for. Even if they do worry rather too much.