[Wednesday one-shots]: Narcissa Watchful, Lucius/Narcissa, H/D, PG-13, 6.9/7

[lomonaaeren]

Part Eight.

Title: Narcissa Watchful (9/10)
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 Nine

Narcissa stood in the shadows under Harry’s Invisibility Cloak and her own Disillusionment Charm. They were in an abandoned house that had no name Lucius knew. Narcissa, noting the tiny carved ravens that loomed in every corner of the room and paraded around the tops of the door-lintels, though she might be able to guess the last name of the family it had once belonged to.

But then again, the family was long dead. The most important person in the room was the one that Narcissa needed to bring death to.

“Lucius. You claim that your wife controlled you?” Voldemort’s voice was an arrogant hiss. The snake draped around him flickered her tongue now and again, but did not seem to scent Narcissa. She hid a smile. Magically-enhanced beasts—to increase the snake’s size, in this case—often lost some of their natural powers.

“Yes, my lord.” Lucius could do a more graceful and deceitful impression of bowing in place than Narcissa had seen him manage in years. Eliminating the Dark Mark a little at a time was truly an improvement for him.

“And how do I know that this is the truth and not a trick?”

One of Voldemort’s pale hands shot out as he spoke, squeezing down on Lucius’s shoulder in a way that would leave a painful bruise. But Lucius did not gasp or cry out. He only tilted his head back and met Voldemort’s gaze blandly, shaking his head a little. “You know because I have valuable information to give you, my lord, on the curse that my wife cast on you.”

“Tell me,” Voldemort said, so guttural that it was nearly Parseltongue. Lucius shuffled a little, so that his back was more directly to Narcissa, and that meant Voldemort was bent over him and his eyes were also facing her disguised form.

Narcissa slipped rapidly into his mind. She found shields almost everywhere, but she was looking, now, more for emotions, and for the distinctive signature of their blood link. She found it, and followed it quietly through weak places in the shields that had probably appeared since her starvation curse had begun to deprive Voldemort of the little sanity he had left.

She managed a glimpse of the snake draped around him, then an image of the snake wearing a golden locket. That was all she got before the shields came down again and Narcissa had to retreat before she became trapped in Voldemort’s mind.

Narcissa retreated physically, too, and waited until Lucius was done in a thoughtful frame of mind. Voldemort had risked making another living Horcrux? But then, of course, he did not know that Harry had been one at all.

And he probably assumed that the snake was ultimately loyal to him and spent all her time around him in any case. He would see little risk that someone could succeed in turning or killing his pet.

Narcissa smiled. She already had a plan in mind to deprive Voldemort of his pet’s company sooner rather than later.

*

At the High Table during the evening meal a fortnight later, Idunna dropped her fork.

Narcissa, who was seated beside her as usual, turned around with a solicitous frown that was too practiced to reveal how she really felt. “Are you well, Professor Freysdaughter? Did one of the students throw a prank at the table?” She glanced around as though searching for a nonexistent culprit.

“It’s nothing,” Idunna whispered. “A bit of stomach trouble. I think I shall—take my leave.” And she rose and all but fled from the Great Hall, which made the students start whispering until the Headmistress glared them into silence.

Narcissa smiled and went on eating. She was anticipating Draco and Harry’s visit to her quarters, but she ignored their questions until the door was safely sealed behind them and wards that would alert her to the existence of any eavesdroppers or their spells were up over the door and windows.

“What was that, Mother? Your revenge, but you never told us exactly what the poison would entail,” Draco said, folding his arms as he scowled at her.

“We know the poison is called Cadmus’s Gift,” Harry added as he sat on a couch behind Draco, bouncing his leg and staring at her expectantly. “But that’s all.”

“From the name, you should be able to figure out what it does.”

“I did try to look it up in the library. It was too obscure. I couldn’t find any references to it in the books.”

“She probably thinks that we can figure it out from the mythological reference, Draco. But I have to admit, Mother, I’ve studied the myths about Cadmus, since I didn’t know them very well, and I can’t come up with an answer.”

“Cadmus is famous for several things. But he received one particular gift, from Athena, once he had killed a dragon—”

“He sowed the dragon’s teeth, and a race of armed warriors came up!” Draco said triumphantly, a moment before Harry tried to say the same thing. For a moment, they glared at each other.

“And now there are blades piercing her from the inside?” Harry asked, turning to face Narcissa.

Narcissa smiled at him. “You’re emphasizing the wrong aspects of the gift, darling.”

“Not blades,” Draco said, eyes widening. “Teeth.”

Narcissa toasted him with her vine-carved silver goblet of mulled wine. “Exactly, Draco. Idunna will feel the pain of the teeth flowering to life in her, and chewing their way through her stomach and liver. When she manages to expel the teeth that have grown in her, the remaining seeds will sprout. They are living all throughout her now, in the corners of her flesh and guts where no Healer would think to look. Unless a Healer thought to look exactly during the attacks, in fact, they would never find any teeth. They might be tempted to dismiss her pain as simple incidences of food poisoning.”

“And the attacks are brief,” Harry murmured. “Ingenious, Mother.”

“I do want to take revenge and not go to Azkaban, of course, dear.”

“Are they going to kill her?” Draco asked, rolling over so that he could stare at her. He looked as if he were pondering the idea of her as an indirect murderer.

Narcissa nodded at him. “Eventually, of course.”

Draco looked a bit unnerved. “I would never have the courage to do something like that to someone.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Harry said, fiercely enough that Narcissa suspected that this was an argument they had had more than one rendition of. “You still managed to protect yourself against that bitch when it counted. And you can keep on defending yourself. I’m rubbish at politics, but you could be great if you worked on it more.”

“You don’t think I’m great at politics now?”

“Not with the problems that you told me you’ve been having in Slytherin!”

“What kinds of problems are these?”

Both her boys froze and glanced at her. Narcissa watched their faces. At last, she nodded, and both Draco and Harry relaxed with a whoosh of breath. Narcissa smiled.

“As long as you handle it as discreetly as you have,” she said, and shrugged a little, “then I have no reason to worry about it.”

That got her as smiles as bright as the guilty looks had been dark. Narcissa sipped her wine and listened as Draco then inveigled Harry into a political debate about who among the students was going to go over to Voldemort.

She had thought at one point that she would resent the point when Draco grew up. The same thought had occurred to her when she had adopted Harry. She felt in the bones that she was meant to defend them and smooth their paths in life. What would she do when they grew old enough not to need her?

But now they had reached that point, and it was more pleasant than she could have imagined.

*

Narcissa wrapped the cloak more firmly around her face—although a mask with an illusion anchored to it defended that as well—and ducked into Borgin and Burke’s.

A small alarm ward clanged above her head. It sounded like a bell, but Narcissa knew the sounds of all the common alarms, and could tell the difference. This one would wake its caster out of a sound sleep, no matter how quiet it was.

A second later, Borgin came out of the back of the shop, bowing and wiping soft hands on an apron-like garment he wore over his robes. Narcissa glimpsed dark gobbets soaked in blood before Borgin’s wand swished and took care of them. “What can I do for you, my dear madam?”

Narcissa hadn’t made the spells deep enough to disguise her sex, so she was unalarmed by him knowing that much about her. “I am not sure that you can help me,” she said, in a voice deliberately more cool and haughty than she would have used if she had come here openly. “I am looking for a specific item, you see.”

“There are many specific items here, of course!” Borgin swept his hand out and beamed at her in a way that he probably thought ingratiating. He obviously had no use for dental charms. “Please, look to your heart’s content. Although of course you might also tell me what you’re looking for…”

“A locket,” Narcissa said, in the tones Lucius used when he had to explain an order to a house-elf more than once. “Made of gold, with a snake made of emeralds on the front. Or perhaps you would say an S made of emeralds. Some people do.” She sniffed to convey what she thought of these people.

Borgin froze, his eyes widening. “You’re talking about Salazar Slytherin’s locket?”

“It belonged to him at one time,” Narcissa said, offhand. “I am more interested in it due to its Peverell associations.”

“I didn’t think a Peverell ever owned that locket.”

“The Peverells married Slytherin’s descendants, the Gaunts,” Narcissa said, and made her voice soft and slow. “Or do you not know even that much pure-blood history?”

Borgin flushed. “My pure-blood history is perfectly fine!”

“Then perhaps I shall find the locket here,” Narcissa said, and turned, apparently dismissing him. A mirror on the wall began to swirl with bloody colors as she looked into it. Narcissa sniffed, and the mirror stopped, apparently disconcerted.

“Actually—I think that my father’s partner, Caractacus Burke, had the locket at one time. But he sold it, of course.”

“Did he?” Narcissa turned back. “I suppose this kind of shop does not keep records of its customers, and would not know—”

“Of course we keep records!”

“Then you can tell me who bought the locket.”

Burke clasped his hands behind his back as if to keep the blood from staining anything, although of course it already would have at the angle he’d held his hands at. His gaze skittered away from her. “I can’t do that,” he whispered. “My clients do have the expectation of confidentiality.”

Narcissa laughed in genuine surprise. She hadn’t thought that someone like Borgin would have any principles at all, but of course she should have known he needed this one to operate a successful shop.

“I love being surprised,” she said. “It happens so rarely.”

“Madam?”

Narcissa stepped towards him and held out her wand. “You don’t need to move,” she told Borgin, who tried anyway and found his feet rooted to the floor. “I’ll just take what I need and then leave you to your own pursuits.”

She dived into his mind and found a memory easily, pulled to the forefront of his thoughts by the conversation. Borgin had leafed through the ledgers as a child, fascinated by the records of the treasures that had marched through the shop’s doors. He had hit the page where Slytherin’s locket was recorded, furious that it had been sold for what he thought a low price.

And it had gone to a woman named Hepzibah Smith.

Narcissa withdrew from Borgin’s mind, thoughtful. Of course the last name was common even among Muggles, but many Smiths were supposedly descendants of Hufflepuff. And Hepzibah was rare in either world.

“Wh—what did you do to me?”

“Read your mind. And then changed it,” Narcissa added, and Obliviated him. She turned and left the shop, pondering as she did if she should try to find Hepzibah Smith directly, or do some indirect research before approaching her or her heirs. Perhaps the latter. Harry and Draco might like to help her on it.

*

Narcissa glanced up from her marking as the Floo turned green. Lucius stepped through it. He looked as though he was wrestling with some internal decision. Narcissa sat quietly back and waited.

Lucius exhaled, inhaled, exhaled again, and went on until Narcissa wondered if she was being asked to witness his meditation practice instead of his decision. Then he said, “I want things to be the way they were between us.”

Narcissa laid aside her quill. She already knew the third-year Ravenclaw in front of her was going to get a Troll for repeating the same sentence five times. “The way they were before the Dark Mark began to cloud your mind, you mean?”

“Yes.” Lucius took a step towards her. Then he looked as if he might take one backwards when Narcissa stood up from behind the desk. Narcissa waited, calmly, for where his will would lead him.

Then Lucius hissed between his teeth, as if exasperated with himself, and came close enough that he could clasp her shoulders and kiss her.

Narcissa sighed and lifted a hand to caress his cheek. Then she led him out of the sitting room where she marked essays and Harry and Draco trained to the bedroom of her quarters.

Lucius stared at her nervously as she undressed, but Narcissa knew him well, knew the moment when his breathing quickened, and his eyes got stuck on the creamy skin of her breasts as they emerged from the robe. Narcissa shook out her hair and then paused and looked a dazed Lucius in the eye.

“Well? Why are you still dressed?”

Luckily, that problem was solved quickly. And they did indeed resume the way things had been.

*

Narcissa catapulted out of sleep. Her mind was filled with grim triumph, and when she opened her eyes, the blood link she had with Voldemort meant that she saw images of blood streaking the walls and running in black streams along the floor and through the grooves in the stone.

Narcissa gripped her wand. If he was that happy with himself, then—

You thought you could stop me!

The words howled through Narcissa’s head. She began to strengthen her Occlumency shields without replying. She was sure that she would find out, in a few hours at most, what Voldemort had done. There was nothing to be gained by arguing with a madman.

She heard one more howl before the shields strengthened. Next to her, Lucius was stirring and murmuring something, his hand groping for her.

“Voldemort,” Narcissa told him, which made him sit up. Narcissa gathered up the fur-lined cloak that she had worn on a few assassinations when looking flashy would let her pass unnoticed. It was long and thick enough to keep her warm no matter what the weather, and it would conceal the decided lack of clothing she wore underneath it.

“What ‘bout him?”

“Something happened. He yelled it into my head. I fear this may be another attempt to frame Harry.” Narcissa pulled the robe closed in front and used a mirror and her wand to comb her hair into some semblance of acceptability. “I want you to stay here. He might try to strike at you while I’m busy dealing with this.”

Lucius sighed and pulled the blankets up to his chest. “Stay safe,” he whispered.

Narcissa gave him a tender smile and leaned over to kiss him. “You as well,” she said, and raised some of the strongest wards she knew behind her as she left. She hadn’t made all this progress in freeing her husband and getting him back to normal only to lose him to a madman with no sense of taste.

But when she emerged from her quarters, Minerva was already waiting at the bottom of the stairs. She held her lit wand in hand as if she didn’t feel safe without it, and her face was grim and wan in its radiance.

“Minerva?”

“I’m sorry, Narcissa. You’re too late.”

“Do explain what you mean by that.”

“This time, Voldemort put that green lightning bolt above the corpse of Amelia Bones. She was the most popular candidate for Minister. The public is screaming. The Aurors have already arrested Harry.”