[Wednesday one-shots]: Narcissa Watchful, Lucius/Narcissa, H/D, PG-13, 6.3/7

[lomonaaeren]

Part Two.

Part One.

Title: Narcissa Watchful (3/9)
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Established Harry/Draco and Narcissa/Lucius
Rating: PG-13
Content Notes: Angst, violence, crack, AU
Summary: Narcissa will search out the Horcruxes. She will remove the Horcrux from her foster son’s head. She will give her cousin Sirius a purpose in life. She will free her husband from his ill-thought-out allegiance to the Dark Lord. She will do something else then, because that is not enough to fill her life.
Author’s Notes: Sixth in a series of stories where Narcissa is an in-demand spy and assassin and Harry’s foster mother. Don’t read this one without reading the others first, seriously.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Part Three

“What are you making, Mother?”

“A list of potential Horcruxes and their locations.” Narcissa frowned at the topmost one on the list. She didn’t know enough about Tom Riddle’s past. While she was almost certain that he would want to make Helga Hufflepuff’s golden cup, the only remaining relic of that particular Founder, into a Horcrux, she didn’t know where he would have hidden it.

“Can I help?”

“Not unless you know more about the Founders and potential locations from Voldemort’s past than I think you do.” Narcissa softened the tone in her voice by smiling at Draco. “Never mind me, my dear. I will solve this problem as I do all the others. What can I do for you?”

“I told Father about me and Harry.” Draco swallowed. He had no actual bruises on his face, but the circles under his eyes looked like them. “He—he wasn’t happy. He said that I wanted grandchildren and I would never have them if I was mating with a man.”

Narcissa stood. Draco fell back from her, eyes wide, and Narcissa wondered why for a moment before realizing that she had probably freely used her assassin grace in front of Draco for the first time. She gave him a faint smile and patted him on the cheek. “Excuse me, my dear. I have to go have a talk with your father.”

“You won’t hurt him?”

“Only enough to encourage him not to do that again, darling.”

Draco smiled tremulously and moved out of the way while Narcissa strode towards the staircase. “He was in his study the last I knew,” Draco called after her.

Narcissa showed that she’d heard that with a slight twitch of her shoulder and quicker steps. Her hand was at her waist, touching first the handle of an ornate dagger that she carried more for use in ritual purposes than for ordinary ones, and then the handle of her wand.

No. She would use the wand only as a last resort. Far better to use other skills to make Lucius understand that he was not to hurt her son.

*

“Narcissa?”

She smiled thinly as she shut the door to the study behind her. This particular one was a modestly-sized room with bookshelves on only two walls. A long table where Lucius’s father used to conduct business took up the south wall, with a magnificent view out the second-largest window in the Manor, and the large marble fireplace dominated the north one. Lucius sat at the central desk in the study, and he was already turned to face her.

In general, he seemed to have recovered more of his intellect since she had destroyed part of the Dark Mark. He responded to threats more quickly and spoke with some words and perspectives that she hadn’t heard in years. But obviously, this hadn’t taken care of all possible stupidity that could spill from his mouth.

“What’s wrong, dear?” Lucius was slowly standing, but he was intelligent enough not to reach for his wand.

“Why, only that you inflicted mental harm on our son when he spoke to you with honesty. What else would be wrong?”

Lucius clenched his jaw for a moment. Then he said, “I hope that you can understand I only want what’s best for the boy. And children and marriage to a pure-blood woman would be that. I mean, look how well it’s worked out for me.” His voice reflected the cringing motion back against the desk he did a second later.

“Harry is being trained the way I am. Draco will have a spouse as protective and powerful for himself as you have. What does the genital configuration matter?”

“There needs to be a next generation of Malfoys.”

“There will be. Or do you think that adoption ceases to function because your son has chosen a male lover?”

“There—there need to be blood Malfoy children. That one imperative has ruled the Malfoy line for generations.”

Narcissa sighed at him. Lucius clenched his hand around an inkwell that promptly slid across the desk and dumped ink all over the carpet. Narcissa waited until the house-elf had popped in and taken care of the mess. Then she said, “There are rituals and spells that will make them as strongly Draco’s blood children as if they were born of his seed. They can use his seed. Did you forget that as well?”

“There are—my father said that there are artifacts in the Malfoy vaults that cannot be inherited by such children.”

“Then you will sell them and use the money to purchase new artifacts that can be.”

“You do not understand! How can I give up my family’s heritage?”

“Well, it will be a means to enable you to hold on to your life. I would think that would make you more interested in doing so.” Narcissa moved a step closer, and made sure that her robes hung in a fashion that meant she could kick easily. Lucius saw the motion, and understood it, and paled further. “Which do you want more, to have ‘pure’ grandchildren or to be alive to see the ones that you will have?”

Lucius looked back and forth from her robes to her face. Then he said, as if talking to himself, “These young romances don’t always last. It’s entirely possible that Draco will give up Potter before they get to the age where they want to have children.”

“It’s possible,” Narcissa agreed. “But if it does not happen, you will do nothing to distress either Draco or Harry.”

There was a long moment when she thought she would have to reinforce the lesson, but then Lucius nodded in agreement. Narcissa came forwards and kissed his forehead. “Thank you, my dear,” she murmured. “I’m so glad that we can have these disputes and then settle them amicably.”

Lucius gave her a sickly smile and went back to working on what looked like a parchment addressed to Gringotts. Narcissa strode back down the stairs to find Draco and Harry and tell them the good news.

*

“If you are sure that you want me to reprise my turn as the Astronomy professor…”

“Several of the students in fifth year got Outstandings on their OWLS, Narcissa. And at least a few of the NEWT students likewise. And we haven’t had any luck in hiring someone who will fill the role. I would ask you to take up the Defense post, but, well.” Minerva looked tired as her face floated in the fire. “I haven’t had any British choices for that, either. That means I’ll have to pick a foreign choice.”

Narcissa nodded thoughtfully. “What is their name?”

“She’s called Idunna Freyasdaughter. Nordic, a practitioner of some of the old Norse magic. She keeps her real name a secret, but says she won’t mind going by Idunna. I hope that if she only comes for a year and then leaves, that will be enough to satisfy the curse.”

“A woman like that may be a better choice than some of the others,” Narcissa agreed, although she would keep an eye out in case Freyasdaughter turned out to be another Umbridge. “Very well. You may expect to see me on September 1st with my sons.”

Minerva smiled in a way that eased some of the lines around her mouth. “You might want to know that I also found some notes Albus made on the possible Horcruxes he investigated. He didn’t locate any of them, but it’s a start.”

“That will serve to punish Voldemort,” Narcissa said happily. “I actually think that I may have destroyed one already, in the past. A diary that had Tom Riddle’s will and soul imprinted into it,” she added, when Minerva blinked at her. “I didn’t identify it as a Horcrux at the time, but I sent it into the Chamber to be destroyed by the creature that dwelled there.”

Minerva looked for a long moment as if she wanted to ask, and then her wisdom got the better of her and she nodded. “Very well. Then we will speak to each other on September 1st.” And she vanished from the fire.

Narcissa sat back, and half-closed her eyes as she began to spin a new plan. It seemed that she would have help on the Horcruxes much sooner than she had counted on. That meant she could concentrate more directly on punishing Voldemort.

*

“What’s the Acting Minister doing here?”

Narcissa gave a serene smile at her sons as she escorted them through the pressing crowd in King’s Cross to the train. Acting Minister Amelia Bones was standing in the middle of the wizarding side of the station with her arms folded and her mouth set in a thin line. Reporters clustered around her, quills scribbling away.

Narcissa was the one who had sent her the anonymous letter that she might want to be here as a sign that she guaranteed the safety of the Hogwarts students. That it took the press’s attention away from Harry was a benefit.

Harry strode along in front of Draco, his hand resting lightly above his wand and his eyes so brilliant that Narcissa smiled proudly at him. He had got four O’s on his OWLS, in Defense, Astronomy, Transfiguration, and Charms. Draco had only one less, although one of his was in Potions instead of Defense. And Draco walked more openly at Harry’s side than he had last year, with a shadow banished from his face since Narcissa had confronted his father.

“Um. Good-bye, my dear.”

Narcissa turned around to kiss Lucius, ignoring the way he flushed. Malfoys traditionally thought such public displays unseemly. Narcissa had made it clear early in her marriage that she did not care what Malfoys thought. “Good-bye. I trust that you will keep your head when you speak to our mutual friend.”

Lucius swallowed. “If—if he calls on me.”

“He will try. I suggest that you remain polite and distant and only respond the way I taught you.”

Lucius nodded. His damaged Mark was incapable of forcing him to feel as much pain as Voldemort usually inflicted on the Death Eaters when he called them. Narcissa only needed him to stand up to the agony he would feel, and send a letter that implied Narcissa was the culprit keeping him home.

Which was true, in the most essential sense.

Narcissa waved to her husband, waited for Draco to shake his father’s hand, and then escorted the boys onto the train. Their compartment was one of the smaller ones, and although it soon became crowded with Slytherins and Gryffindors, the noise produced was of the kind that could be easily tolerated. Narcissa sat back with her eyes closed and her mind slowly stretching and turning in an imagined room of blue, swaying curtains.

She had come up with one way to pay Voldemort back. Time to see if it would work.

She reached out with her mind, hunting carefully through the immense, imagined darkness around her, and at last located the link that had bound them since Voldemort had taken her blood. When she saw it, she understood why she hadn’t seen it very well at first. The link was jagged and uneven, flowing with red at the edges—nothing like the stronger link Voldemort had shared with Harry when the Horcrux was still intact.

Narcissa retreated to her own mental room, attached her end of the link to it, and started working on an arrow. She created every inch of it carefully, examining it with the eyes of her imagination after every new addition. In the end, she had an image of a gleaming black piece of wood, fletched with white feathers on the end.

The tip gleamed, made of razor-edged bloodstone. The symbolic implications were more important than whether the stone would hold that sort of edge in the real world.

This is not the real world. Except where I will it to be.

Narcissa held the arrow in the grip of her mind and opened her eyes for a moment. Harry gave her an understanding look. Narcissa had not tutored him much in battle Legilimency, but he knew the theory. Draco smiled at her.

Neither of them was in danger. Narcissa closed her eyes, leaned back in her seat, and then threw the arrow down the link that connected her and Voldemort, as hard as she could.

For long moments, there was only the sensation of the arrow traveling away from her. Narcissa could feel the vibration, the imagined wind, of its passage, and how it made the link that bound them shake like it was made of wind itself.

Then the arrow hit its target.

The shriek that filled Narcissa’s mind was inhuman and piercing. Narcissa laughed. She had made the arrow of her hatred and her desire to protect her family and her determination to hurt Voldemort. And it had struck.

The pain that came flooding through the link tore apart the blue tapestries she had imagined filling that corner of her mind and tried to inflict magical damage on her. Narcissa twisted agilely aside. Voldemort was experienced at mental combat, but not while he was bleeding from the strike of someone he must have believed could not hurt him.

Narcissa intended to show him how very badly his education was lacking.

Again the great downrush of Dark power came for her. Narcissa turned neatly to the side, and it went speeding past. Then she reached out and plucked the link between them until it rang like a harpstring.

Again Voldemort screamed, and the next attack broke apart like a puff of dust hitting a boulder. Narcissa laughed and raised her Occlumency higher and higher, until the corner of her mind that had been blue tapestries filled with dark mountains.

Then she opened her eyes and nodded to her sons, while Voldemort screamed and raged and battered like a fly on a distant windowpane. “I trust that you are going to improve on your study of Ancient Runes this term, Draco?”

*

A knock on the door of her quarters that night made Narcissa glance up with raised eyebrows. Her children had not looked distressed when they separated to go to their dungeons and Tower, and it was unlikely that Lucius would need her again this quickly.

Then she felt magic making her teeth ring, and sighed. The new Defense professor was standing outside her door, then. Narcissa made sure her wand was in her sleeve, and went to open it.

Idunna Freyasdaughter looked at her without smiling. “May I come in, or will you keep me waiting in the corridor in the most discourteous way possible?”

Narcissa moved out of the way. Idunna stepped past her. She had long golden hair that Narcissa suspected would have hung to her ankles if she hadn’t been wearing battle-braids that curved around the top of her head. Iron clattered at her neck and wrists. That was unusual. One needed to be a powerful witch to work like that with iron, which was more magically inert than most other metals.

Idunna turned around. “I sensed the impurity of your power as soon as I sat beside you.”

“I am a Dark witch. That is most likely what you sensed.”

“I have been around those who use Dark Arts before. This was worse.” Idunna’s tone was precise, and her blue eyes never wavered from Narcissa’s face. “This argued that you have spent your life honing your Darkness, turning it into a way to punish those who annoy you.”

Narcissa studied her, intrigued. She had never found someone who could sense the discipline as a separate part of her, especially since the spells and devices that made it up were all ones that could be used in other contexts. “So you think that I’m going to poison the children at this school?”

“I think you could very well do so.” Idunna’s voice was quiet, but her hand flexed, fingers spreading and contracting as though she was going to grow claws and try to tear Narcissa’s throat out. “I want you to know that I am here to teach children to Defend against the Dark Arts. If you try to hurt someone, including me, I will not hesitate to stop you.”

“Then I should tell you something in return, as a courtesy.” Narcissa nodded. “I have two sons here, one by blood and one by adoption. If you try to harm them when they walk into your classroom, you will be sliced apart and buried in seven different graves while still alive.”

Idunna’s hand stopped moving. “So you have poisoned a child,” she whispered.

“He’s received the poison immunity training, yes.”

“That is not what I mean and you know it!”

“Then tell me what you do mean.” Narcissa’s eyebrows went higher on her face than they had before. “What I can tell you is that you are incredibly tiresome.”

Idunna clasped her hands together, and golden sparks began dancing over her knuckles. “I am a Light witch. I fight the darkness where I find it.”

“And I don’t make a point of fighting the Light, but I do make a point of targeting my enemies. You’ve just declared yourself one of them. Would you like to reverse that declaration?”

“Doing so would dishonor me.”

Narcissa sighed. “Then fight me all you want, but the moment you touch my children or my husband, you will regret it.”

“I would never target innocents.”

And she might not think of Harry or Lucius that way. Narcissa waited until she’d left, then turned and slid her hands into one of the trunks she’d brought from home but thought she wouldn’t need until they found a Horcrux.

Well. One must be prepared for contingencies, after all.