Fic: Faith and Hope
Title: Faith and Hope
Username: divagonzo1
Pairing: Narcissa/Luna (with Draco et al)
Type: Gen
Prompt #: 7
Rating: NC-17 (due to the sensitive nature of the piece and the subject matter contained within)
Word Count: 4904
Warnings/content: Dark!fic ; This fic deals with a myriad of difficult subject matter and isn’t for the faint of heart. For those who need trigger warnings, they are as follows: Abuse; gaslighting; blood; with off-page implications of kidnapping, torture, rape, and death. I apologize to those who would want to read it, but my concern for the reader’s emotional well-being is paramount. Cavet Emptor.
Summary: Draco runs to his mum after witnessing events in the drawing room. He asks Narcissa to assist with the prisoner that he left there. She agrees to help once she knows who the prisoner is.
Notes: For rzzmg, I hope this is what you wanted. I was concerned about the subject matter, but I felt like I could write it with some justice and redemption for the characters listed. This was outside my comfort zone, writing wise, but I do hope I was able to fulfill what you asked for in the prompts. I also didn’t want to ask my normal beta, B, to do this since it deals with such painful subject matters.
My thanks to M (and E) for doing the beta on it, and helping cheer me on with regards to the subject matter.
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters/references are property of JK Rowling and associates. No copyright infringement is intended.
Faith and Hope
Draco leaned in the doorway to his mother’s quarters. He had been banished from the drawing room, gone minutes now, and he was still less than steady on his feet. The blood on his knuckles, his lip, and his head required her attention. He’d need a pain potion shortly for the growing headache.
Yet he watched his mother continue to write on the parchment. Her eagle feather quill scratched in the silence of her quarters, ominously distant from the madness that the rest of the house evoked.
One drop fell from his lip, staining his shirt. Draco’s patience was at an end. "Mother?"
Narcissa Black Malfoy held her hand up while she finished her writing. Even her youngest son couldn’t distract her when she was focused on what was on the parchment in front of her.
A minute later, she laid the elegant quill down and turned in her antique chair. Her only reaction to the mess on his face was a narrowing of her eyes. To anyone else, she was stoic, almost cold, except when unleashing venom at a target. But he knew she was upset, just from the flush on her cheeks and the slight hiss when she breathed in through her nose.
Narcissa pulled the wand from her robes and pointed it towards the door. Draco stepped into her rooms and closed the door behind him. Her sanctuary was sacrosanct. No one was allowed into them, not even Father, without her permission. The old wards on the house held to this day. The old magic hadn’t failed them yet.
Narcissa stood up from her padded bench in front of the writing desk and waited patiently for him to cross the expanse of her room. Each step he took ached, having come directly from the drawing room. Not even the plush rugs on the marble tile floors helped alleviate the residual pain in his fingers and toes from his barmy Aunt’s discipline.
He stopped in front of his mother and let her look at him. She was smaller than he remembered. Or he had grown more in the last few months of the asylum known as home and school. She was porcelain to him now, with a cool touch to her delicate fingers.
The fire in her eyes betrayed her cool features.
"Who did this to you?" Draco wanted to step back from her barely veiled rage that belayed the anger in her features. But he stood before his mother and let her prod is busted lip and trail it along the stain to the collar of his tailored dress shirt. She touched the contusion around his eye and lifted the fringe of hair along his scalp to see to the cut, just inside his receding hairline.
"Your sister, Mother, did this." Draco hissed while she touched the wound on his head. "She had a new prisoner up in the room and we were being instructed to interrogate them. I…. I angered her when I didn’t follow her instructions explicitly. I refused to act according to her directions and she backhanded me for being an insolent whelp, as she put it. I said something back to her and she raised her wand to me while I was down on the floor. She cruciated me for bring disobedient. Draco hissed when his mother prodded the cut on his scalp. "I hit my head, I reckon, while I was writhing under her gentle disciplining."
"How long?"
"Long enough and often enough that I should get a nerve potion, shortly." Draco flushed. "Bellatrix blamed me for what was going to happen to the prisoner. She said if I had your backbone, the prisoner would have been treated better. But I couldn’t follow her instructions."
Narcissa took her hands off her son’s face and saw the sadness in his eyes. "Which prisoner was being tormented today? Was it the wandmaker, perhaps?"
"No, Mother." Draco held her gaze, begging her to understand what he didn’t want to admit.
Narcissa looked closer before sucking in another ragged breath. "They were mistreating that child, weren’t they?"
"Yes, mother. Her father, the insolent publisher, was brought in and he wasn’t cooperating with his questioners. To make him capitulate, Avery dragged her up for an audience." Draco shuddered, slightly. "Father and I were there to witness what was happening. When the second prisoner was brought before the Dark Lord, the publisher was asked again. He still refused to cooperate, and claimed he didn’t know where Potter was. His repeated answers forced our response."
Draco looked at the floor and his shoes, anywhere but his mother’s concerned face. "I was instructed to hurt the girl for the publisher’s insolence." Draco looked up again. "I only did it under threat of pain. They made me curse her, in front of everyone, to break him. I couldn’t hold back, not without being hurt, just like her. So I did and she screamed."
Narcissa watched the war on her son’s face. She knew the precarious position Draco was thrust into, one he chose without realizing the depth of his choice, or the consequences that no one could have guessed.
"When I broke off, he offered everyone to the Dark Lord except Potter. He says he didn’t know. So the Dark Lord delved him and he said that the prisoner had no idea where they went when they Disapparated from his hovel called a home. It seems that the barmy fool was right, at least about that."
"Where is the father of the child?"
"He’s probably rotting in Azkaban by now. The Dark Lord departed when he couldn’t break the rogue publisher. When he left, telling Dolohov and Rookwood to take him to Azkaban, he was muttering something about finding the next clue or some rubbish like that." Draco shuddered again, harder this time. "Aunt Bella wasn’t that concerned with him once he was done writhing on the floor. She had her eyes on the other prisoner. She promised the publisher that she was going to make him pay for his disobedience."
"What about the girl?"
Draco looked away from his mother. He couldn’t bring himself to explain what he saw before he was banished from her presence.
"Bella hurt the girl, didn’t she? She hurt that innocent child."
Draco looked back at his mother. He begged her understanding, and her forgiveness.
"She did, didn’t she?"
Draco refused to meet his mother’s gaze, not when it came to this. "Mother, I…"
"What, Draco, did my sister do?"
"Mother, I didn’t want to do what she was commanding of me. I refused and she turned her wand on me."
Narcissa stood there with her foot tapping on the carpet. "It sounds like what she asked of you was terrible. I’m thankful that you’re strong enough to have disobeyed her, even if her lesson in consequences was painful." Narcissa sighed deeply. "I don’t want you turning into your father, if y ou can help it. But, please, continue."
"You’re not going to like what I have to say."
Narcissa looked at her beloved son and saw the humiliation on his face. "I know, but I need to know. How I handle what you’ve told me is my burden to bear, not yours."
"Yes, Mother." Draco shifted on his feet. "Bellatrix imperiused me. She commanded me to act, to hurt the prisoner once again. I couldn’t stop, at least at first. I threw off her curse. She backhanded me to the floor, commanding me to do her bidding. I stood back up and she imperiused me a second time, even more compelling than the first. I still refused and broke it a second time. That’s when she turned her wand on me, insulting me." Draco took a deep breath. "Father tried to intervene but she blasted him off his feet. He flew across the room and hit the wall, hard. I yelled for Father and she turned her wand back on me. She tied me up and silenced me."
Narcissa watched her son fighting to keep his composure.
"I watched as Bellatrix revived father and then imperiused him." Draco’s face flushed bright red. "He couldn’t fight her curse."
"Go on, tell me the rest."
"Bellatrix smiled at me. Merlin, it was evil. I was frightened. ‘This is what happens when you disobey me, Draco. Everything that happens to your precious father is your fault. I will break him, and make you watch, and it will be your fault because of your insolence.’
Draco wiped a rogue tear from his face. "I watched him walk to the prisoner and was forced to watch him hurt her. It was only for a minute. Father, he…" Draco looked to his mum standing before him. "It’s my fault, Mother. Everything is my fault. Father was wandless and I couldn’t protect him."
"Pull yourself together." She watched her son school his features immediately. Narcissa lowered her head in consternation. "Bella’s going to regret that act, one day," she said to no one in particular. She looked back at her son. "And the prisoner?"
"When I left, she was there. If she’s alive, no one’s going to help her. So you’re needed, probably, Mother. No one else would lift a finger to help her, not when your sister was present."
Narcissa made a decision, one that wouldn’t be popular. She turned her heel and walked towards the doors. Draco scurried behind her. "What am I going to find when we walk into the drawing room?"
"Honestly, that she’s dead and we’ll have to bury her, like the rest, or dump her."
Narcissa opened the door from her quarters and sealed it with the specific incantation. "No, that child won’t be dumped. You might not like her, Draco, but she’s a special child and she would get a burial. Children are different."
Draco glanced at his mother while they walked the halls from her private quarters. "You care for her, don’t you?"
Narcissa stopped in the hallway and pulled him into an alcove. She shoved a lone digit into his chest, right over his heart. "Watch what you say in this house, Draco, before you lose your life, and mine. Some things are not to be uttered, even in private. Do you understand me?" She slouched for a second before regaining her countenance. "As you’ve informed me, she is a Muggle supporter, and was part of the leadership of resistance while at Hogwarts. I was also informed, by your Father, that she also resisted our efforts at the Ministry of Magic. But since she’s still a child, she can still be instructed in proper etiquette in the new ways that our Dark Lord insists upon." Narcissa gave her son a hard look. "So, until that child is of age, she is still a child, and no harm is to come of her."
Narcissa left her son in the alcove and continued her way to the drawing room.
Footsteps rushed up to her, falling back in cadence with her heel clicks. "Forgive me, mother. I forgot myself." Narcissa gave him a sidelong glance. "Thank you for instructing me."
"See that you keep your counsel from now on, Draco, unless called upon," Narcissa hissed quietly. "If you are confused with the Dark Lord’s wishes, you can find an outlet for your private thoughts that would not beset you with problems, especially now when he’s close to ascendency. Maybe a book on the ethics of power, or a tome from your private library, by the author Machivelli, would help you settle any lingering doubts."
"Yes, Mother. I concur." She saw his head snap once in affirmation to her cryptic reply. "Thank you for that insight and discipline."
They walked in silence the rest of the way, hearing nothing echoing in the vast hallway leading to the entertainment room, as her sister referred to the drawing room.
They arrived there and saw the doors were closed. That wasn’t unexpected, since an audience with the Dark Lord was never announced or shared with others who were not present nor invited. Narcissa waved her wand at the doors and they opened without hesitation. She walked in, with Draco in tow, to find the child in question crumpled into a heap onto the ground.
Draco stayed by the doors while she walked to the child on the ground. She stood, almost paralyzed for a second, before seeing a shudder from the huddled mass. Narcissa hunkered down to touch the injured girl.
Luna screamed and moved like an injured animal, hitting her back upon the wall nearest to her, under the windows overlooking the ornamental gardens. "NO!" she screamed again. "Don’t touch me, not again!" She screeched.
"I’m here to help." Narcissa knelt there, where the child had been, watching her recoil from her simplest touch. "I’m not here to hurt you, child."
Sobs of terror were the broken child’s response.
Narcissa stood up from her place in the middle of the room and took a step towards the sobbing prisoner. Luna cowered further along the wall, inching her way towards the corner of the room. Each step Narcissa took, Luna slithered back two along the wall until she was cornered, cowering in abject fear.
Narcissa looked at the wand in her hand and realized the source of the terror in the girl’s eyes. "This is what you’re afraid of, that I’m going to curse you too?" She took the wand and placed it in the pocket sewn into her robes. "There, does that help? I’m only here to help, not to hurt you."
Narcissa took a step forward and Luna curled further into herself. She watched the child hide her face behind her dirty blonde hair and threadbare clothes. Under it all, she was still shaking in terror, sobbing to break the cacophony of hiccups.
Narcissa took one last step and knelt down once again in front of the terrified child. A glance around the room told her no one was present, save Draco on the other side of the expansive room. "I’m here, dear. Let me help you."
The girl turned and latched onto her, wetting her robes with weeping that broke her heart. She muttered and cooed as compassionately as she could, a mother comforting a scared child. She saw, out of the corner of her eye, Draco slowly make his way into the room. She nodded once and he slowly made his way over to her in the opposite corner.
"Tell me again what happened. How she hurt?"
"Aunt Bellatrix delved her first, trying to break her using Legilimens. Then she commanded me to do it. She said I was still undisciplined, since she had to do it first. So I did as Aunt Bellatrix told me to do, to break her, using Legilimens on her. I did and I couldn’t make anything out of it. All I saw were images of those other sods." Draco looked around once again before starting. "I tried to delve further but I was shaken from what I saw and already did. I couldn’t answer Bellatrix and she got angry with me. That’s when she imperiused me. ‘You’re a pathetic sod. We’ll have to break her another way.’ Draco frowned. "I’m not pathetic. She tortured me and then expected me to rape her mind that way?
"Hush, Draco. This isn’t about you at the moment."
He bristled at her comment.
"Now go on. What else happened?"
"I told you about that."
"Quit being petulant. I have reason for asking. Now what else happened?"
"Bellatrix used Legilimens on her and she started screaming. I watched in horror that Father was undressing. She’d told Father what he needed to do, to break the prisoner."
Draco took a huge breath. "All I could do was listen to her screaming. Her screams, I doubt I’ll ever forget that."
He shook his head, as if hearing an echo. "She broke contact and I was free of my bonds. I didn’t dare move. She turned to me and put a wand on my throat. ‘If you know what’s good for you, run along. You don’t have the bollocks to stomach what the prisoner is about to endure, unless you want that treatment, too. Now go play with your mortar and pestle.’ I only watched as long as she had that wand on my throat. I saw what was happening, and it was horrible. But I watched as long as she held the wand on my throat. The second she took it away, I did as she commanded: I ran. I didn’t need to see what madness was going on any longer."
"Was anyone else in the room with you and your Father, besides my mad sister?"
"No, Mother. It was just us. I think she was tormenting me to hurt Father even further, since he’s wandless. But she hurt me by hurting Father. He didn’t want to touch the prisoner either, but once she cursed him, he had no choice."
"Did she say anything else to you, anything at all?"
Draco tried to remember what she said to him as he was leaving the room. "She did, Mother. It was a warning: ‘This is what happens to traitors to our cause. Watch and learn, Draco.’"
Narcissa looked back at the child in her arms. Her weeping had settled down to hiccups and sobbing. She turned her head back to her only child, now a young man, standing before her.
"You listen to me, and heed my wisdom. What you saw today is a fate worse than death, you hear me? No one should have to endure that and expect to live, not without consequences." Narcissa looked at the wretched girl in her arms. "Bella was stupid to hurt this child. This child was less than nothing to my sister, and look what she’s done. She’s destroyed someone so beautiful, corrupted her innocence all out of spite."
Narcissa sighed again. "The butcher's bill will be steep for Bellatrix, one day."
Draco stood before his mother in confusion. "Mother?"
"Nothing," she whispered. Narcissa looked back up at her son. "Come. You’re going to help me with her."
"Help? Me? I can't -"
Narcissa gave her son a hard look. "You will help me. No one else will lift a finger to help this child, and from what I can tell, she absolutely needs it. If she dies under our watch, it’s on our head with the Dark Lord, not Bellatrix. Now, we need to get her into the butler's kitchen and she will need potions to sleep and to cope with what happened. So once we get her there, you will go get said potions as I've instructed."
Draco thinned his face out but nodded once in obedience.
Narcissa turned back to Luna in her arms. The hiccups stopped but she was still shivering, from fear more than cold. "Child, we're leaving for the butler's kitchen. Can you walk?"
She felt the words of agreement more than she heard them, from the muffle of her soiled robes. "Then let Draco help you up and we’ll go in there to help you. Can you do that?"
"Mother, I -"
"Hush now and obey me."
"Yes mother." He held his arms out and helped the diminutive witch up from his mother’s lap. She stood awkwardly and dusted herself off before putting an arm around the smaller witch. Draco went first leading the witches down the dusty corridor to the butler’s kitchen, off the informal dining room. They made it there safely, away from prying eyes. The only ones in the room at the moment were the house elves.
One of them came up to Narcissa. "Mistress, an unexpected pleasure."
"Everyone, depart this room for thirty minutes. Tell no one we’re here."
"Mistress?"
"Now. Return in one half hour."
The elf nodded. "Yes, mistress. Bitsy understand."
The three watched the half-dozen elves depart the butler’s kitchen, for wherever they went. When the last elf left the small galley kitchen, she turned to the witch under her arm and steered her towards a bench. She sat her down and glanced at the child.
Her clothes were threadbare, if tidy, but her skirt was torn. They hung off of her, like she had lost weight in her time incarcerated in the dungeons. Blood dotted the front of it, along with bloody scrapes on her hands and knees. Her face was also smudged in blood, along with some matted into her hair and scalp. She lifted the fringe off of the girl’s dace and saw that some patches of hair had been ripped out.
The worst was on her face and neck, with a contusion covering half her face and the shape of a hand on her throat.
Bile rose in Narcissa’s throat.
She turned to her son standing in the doorway. "I need you to go get her a blood replenishing potion, a sleeping draught, a nerve regeneration potion, and a pain relieving potion. The pain relieving potion must work but nothing too strong for her. Do you understand me?"
"Yes Mother." Draco turned on his heel and departed the witches.
Narcissa waited a few more heartbeats before turning back to the injured witch in front of her. Luna was sitting quietly, looking off into the nothingness of the wall in front of her. Every few seconds, she shuddered while sitting on the bench. Each sniff punctuated each shudder.
"How bad did Lucius hurt you?"
Luna turned her badly bruised face to look up at the older witch. "I imagined my first sexual encounter to be something completely different. It was rather disappointing, personally." She hiccupped. "But then, Lucius has no choice in the matter. He hurt me with his body, but not his mind."
Narcissa's chin twitched. "Draco said you screamed when the Dark Lord delved you."
Luna looked at the older witch and sighed deeply. "He was even less adept at delving my mind than your husband was with my body." Luna focused for a moment and Narcissa saw the change in her features. The bruise on her face showed the ugliness that had already corrupted her soul. "Had he asked, I might have answered. But no, he delved me, raping my mind like a sodding bastard."
Narcissa put a hasty hand over the younger witch’s mouth. "Luna, hush, you're still in terrible danger." She quickly released her hand when Luna gently put her hand on her well-manicured one.
Luna scowled. "The only one in danger from me is your sister. I forgive Draco, for he did as she demanded. He merely tortured me, at wandpoint. I know of few who can refuse that terrible decision. I can possibly forgive your Husband for his actions, since he was forced to perform like a minaret. But your sister? She took glee for her actions, for using Lucius upon me. I cannot forgive what she did to me."
Narcissa took her wand from her pocket in her robes.
"I can easily obliviate you of what happened. No one would be the wiser for it."
Luna put a steady hand on the older witch’s arm, staying her action of reaching for her wand in the pocket of her robes. "No, don't. I lived through it, for better or worse. What happened was terrible, I admit. But it's not the worst thing that they could have done to me. For that I am thankful."
"Thankful?" Narcissa looked at the petite witch. "Luna, you were violated, in mind and body. What could be worse than that? Certainly not death."
Luna shook her head, like she had to explain a simple point to a precocious child. "Oh, not death. Death is easy. I watched my mother die when I was 9. Anyone can die, even Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel. They couldn’t escape death, as hard as they tried. But I’m sure that your sister is planning on killing my father. Sending him to Azkaban will be hard enough on him. I will be quite upset when they do that. Or she will let the Dementors at Azkaban do it. But she will have murdered him nonetheless.
"But they can't do the worst to me. Taking away my friends would be the worst. They can lock me in your dungeon but as long as I know I have friends, anything they do will not be the worst thing possible."
"You’re mad, child," Narcissa said harshly. "Your friends aren't with you. The only ones in the dungeon with you are the wandmaker and the goblin."
"Oh, they aren’t my friends, as nice as they are. Mr. Ollivander is kind to me and I learn much from him. He won’t be with us much longer, with his breath as ragged as it is. But that doesn't matter. My friends are in my heart and in my mind. I feel them in my skin. I can tolerate anything else as long as I know that."
"And that's why you don't want me obliviate you, isn't it? Forgetting your friends is a fate worse than death."
Luna nodded shyly. "Someday I'll have to deal with what happened today but my friends will help me through it. I hope they won’t be upset. I tried to be as brave as they are."
"You’re mad, you know. Your dependence on your friends, whom the Dark Lord wants to kill, is a weakness."
Luna’s expression changed. It grew hard. "You accuse me of being weak when I have hope in my friends." The young witch’s voice grew harsh. "What you call madness, I call it courage. You call it barmy. I call it standing up to a tyrant. I accept that they are going to kill me. I am a witch and I will be worthy of a witch’s death. They will have to kill me on my feet, not on my knees like a beggar for their favor. Any fiend with a modicum of power and lack of humanity can do that, kill with the flick of their wand. I accept my fate because death doesn’t frighten me." Luna looked deep into Narcissa’s eyes. "That is why I have power and he doesn’t."
"And your friends? What if he kills them?"
Luna smiled, the first one Narcissa had seen on the child. "Then I'll see them again. That is my faith."
"Have you seen the prisoner? They need to go back to the dungeon."
The two witches turned to the doorway and saw Carlyle Avery standing in the doorway. He looked disturbed, like his supper had been cold in the dining room. "Ah, you have her. She needs to go back to the cell."
"She’ll be handed over as soon as Draco returns with the potions for her."
"Prisoners don’t get potions, or treatment, witch" he scowled. "Now hand her over."
"Mother, I’m here."
Draco shoved past the unkempt wizard and handed over the four potion bottles in his hands.
"Did you take what you needed while you were away?"
"Yes, Mother, I did."
Narcissa inspected each of the vials in her hands. The different colors and consistencies matched what she had requested. She shook all of them before beginning to uncork the first vial.
"What are those?"
"Potions, obviously," Narcissa scowled. "They are what I deem the prisoner needs. Don’t question my actions further unless you wish to risk my sister’s ire."
He snorted as a response. "Fine, then. Hurry up."
Narcissa handed over each vial in the correct order. Luna drank each one, grimacing after each one.
"Come now, you. The Dark Lord doesn’t wait on prisoners. I have more important things to do than bloody guard duty to a pathetic girl." Avery reached out for Luna’s arm and started to pull her off the bench. "If you dawdle, though, I’ll have you for myself."
Narcissa stepped in front of Luna instead. "If you touch a hair on her head I will have your skin for a wall hanging. Do you understand me? This prisoner is mine, to do as I please. Don’t question me further."
Avery gave the older witch a hard look before he yanked Luna out of the other witch's arm. He shoved the younger witch in front of him and took her out of their presence in the butler’s pantry. Narcissa stood watching the doorway for precious seconds, deep in consideration.
Draco watched his mother’s wand twitching in her hand. He hadn’t seen her pull it from her robes. "Mother?" Draco said quietly in the small confines of the butler’s kitchen.
Narcissa turned and saw the concern on her son’s face. She touched his now healed face and smiled gently.
"Come, Draco. Let us return to my quarters. There is much to discuss."
Username: divagonzo1
Pairing: Narcissa/Luna (with Draco et al)
Type: Gen
Prompt #: 7
Rating: NC-17 (due to the sensitive nature of the piece and the subject matter contained within)
Word Count: 4904
Warnings/content: Dark!fic ; This fic deals with a myriad of difficult subject matter and isn’t for the faint of heart. For those who need trigger warnings, they are as follows: Abuse; gaslighting; blood; with off-page implications of kidnapping, torture, rape, and death. I apologize to those who would want to read it, but my concern for the reader’s emotional well-being is paramount. Cavet Emptor.
Summary: Draco runs to his mum after witnessing events in the drawing room. He asks Narcissa to assist with the prisoner that he left there. She agrees to help once she knows who the prisoner is.
Notes: For rzzmg, I hope this is what you wanted. I was concerned about the subject matter, but I felt like I could write it with some justice and redemption for the characters listed. This was outside my comfort zone, writing wise, but I do hope I was able to fulfill what you asked for in the prompts. I also didn’t want to ask my normal beta, B, to do this since it deals with such painful subject matters.
My thanks to M (and E) for doing the beta on it, and helping cheer me on with regards to the subject matter.
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters/references are property of JK Rowling and associates. No copyright infringement is intended.
Faith and Hope
Draco leaned in the doorway to his mother’s quarters. He had been banished from the drawing room, gone minutes now, and he was still less than steady on his feet. The blood on his knuckles, his lip, and his head required her attention. He’d need a pain potion shortly for the growing headache.
Yet he watched his mother continue to write on the parchment. Her eagle feather quill scratched in the silence of her quarters, ominously distant from the madness that the rest of the house evoked.
One drop fell from his lip, staining his shirt. Draco’s patience was at an end. "Mother?"
Narcissa Black Malfoy held her hand up while she finished her writing. Even her youngest son couldn’t distract her when she was focused on what was on the parchment in front of her.
A minute later, she laid the elegant quill down and turned in her antique chair. Her only reaction to the mess on his face was a narrowing of her eyes. To anyone else, she was stoic, almost cold, except when unleashing venom at a target. But he knew she was upset, just from the flush on her cheeks and the slight hiss when she breathed in through her nose.
Narcissa pulled the wand from her robes and pointed it towards the door. Draco stepped into her rooms and closed the door behind him. Her sanctuary was sacrosanct. No one was allowed into them, not even Father, without her permission. The old wards on the house held to this day. The old magic hadn’t failed them yet.
Narcissa stood up from her padded bench in front of the writing desk and waited patiently for him to cross the expanse of her room. Each step he took ached, having come directly from the drawing room. Not even the plush rugs on the marble tile floors helped alleviate the residual pain in his fingers and toes from his barmy Aunt’s discipline.
He stopped in front of his mother and let her look at him. She was smaller than he remembered. Or he had grown more in the last few months of the asylum known as home and school. She was porcelain to him now, with a cool touch to her delicate fingers.
The fire in her eyes betrayed her cool features.
"Who did this to you?" Draco wanted to step back from her barely veiled rage that belayed the anger in her features. But he stood before his mother and let her prod is busted lip and trail it along the stain to the collar of his tailored dress shirt. She touched the contusion around his eye and lifted the fringe of hair along his scalp to see to the cut, just inside his receding hairline.
"Your sister, Mother, did this." Draco hissed while she touched the wound on his head. "She had a new prisoner up in the room and we were being instructed to interrogate them. I…. I angered her when I didn’t follow her instructions explicitly. I refused to act according to her directions and she backhanded me for being an insolent whelp, as she put it. I said something back to her and she raised her wand to me while I was down on the floor. She cruciated me for bring disobedient. Draco hissed when his mother prodded the cut on his scalp. "I hit my head, I reckon, while I was writhing under her gentle disciplining."
"How long?"
"Long enough and often enough that I should get a nerve potion, shortly." Draco flushed. "Bellatrix blamed me for what was going to happen to the prisoner. She said if I had your backbone, the prisoner would have been treated better. But I couldn’t follow her instructions."
Narcissa took her hands off her son’s face and saw the sadness in his eyes. "Which prisoner was being tormented today? Was it the wandmaker, perhaps?"
"No, Mother." Draco held her gaze, begging her to understand what he didn’t want to admit.
Narcissa looked closer before sucking in another ragged breath. "They were mistreating that child, weren’t they?"
"Yes, mother. Her father, the insolent publisher, was brought in and he wasn’t cooperating with his questioners. To make him capitulate, Avery dragged her up for an audience." Draco shuddered, slightly. "Father and I were there to witness what was happening. When the second prisoner was brought before the Dark Lord, the publisher was asked again. He still refused to cooperate, and claimed he didn’t know where Potter was. His repeated answers forced our response."
Draco looked at the floor and his shoes, anywhere but his mother’s concerned face. "I was instructed to hurt the girl for the publisher’s insolence." Draco looked up again. "I only did it under threat of pain. They made me curse her, in front of everyone, to break him. I couldn’t hold back, not without being hurt, just like her. So I did and she screamed."
Narcissa watched the war on her son’s face. She knew the precarious position Draco was thrust into, one he chose without realizing the depth of his choice, or the consequences that no one could have guessed.
"When I broke off, he offered everyone to the Dark Lord except Potter. He says he didn’t know. So the Dark Lord delved him and he said that the prisoner had no idea where they went when they Disapparated from his hovel called a home. It seems that the barmy fool was right, at least about that."
"Where is the father of the child?"
"He’s probably rotting in Azkaban by now. The Dark Lord departed when he couldn’t break the rogue publisher. When he left, telling Dolohov and Rookwood to take him to Azkaban, he was muttering something about finding the next clue or some rubbish like that." Draco shuddered again, harder this time. "Aunt Bella wasn’t that concerned with him once he was done writhing on the floor. She had her eyes on the other prisoner. She promised the publisher that she was going to make him pay for his disobedience."
"What about the girl?"
Draco looked away from his mother. He couldn’t bring himself to explain what he saw before he was banished from her presence.
"Bella hurt the girl, didn’t she? She hurt that innocent child."
Draco looked back at his mother. He begged her understanding, and her forgiveness.
"She did, didn’t she?"
Draco refused to meet his mother’s gaze, not when it came to this. "Mother, I…"
"What, Draco, did my sister do?"
"Mother, I didn’t want to do what she was commanding of me. I refused and she turned her wand on me."
Narcissa stood there with her foot tapping on the carpet. "It sounds like what she asked of you was terrible. I’m thankful that you’re strong enough to have disobeyed her, even if her lesson in consequences was painful." Narcissa sighed deeply. "I don’t want you turning into your father, if y ou can help it. But, please, continue."
"You’re not going to like what I have to say."
Narcissa looked at her beloved son and saw the humiliation on his face. "I know, but I need to know. How I handle what you’ve told me is my burden to bear, not yours."
"Yes, Mother." Draco shifted on his feet. "Bellatrix imperiused me. She commanded me to act, to hurt the prisoner once again. I couldn’t stop, at least at first. I threw off her curse. She backhanded me to the floor, commanding me to do her bidding. I stood back up and she imperiused me a second time, even more compelling than the first. I still refused and broke it a second time. That’s when she turned her wand on me, insulting me." Draco took a deep breath. "Father tried to intervene but she blasted him off his feet. He flew across the room and hit the wall, hard. I yelled for Father and she turned her wand back on me. She tied me up and silenced me."
Narcissa watched her son fighting to keep his composure.
"I watched as Bellatrix revived father and then imperiused him." Draco’s face flushed bright red. "He couldn’t fight her curse."
"Go on, tell me the rest."
"Bellatrix smiled at me. Merlin, it was evil. I was frightened. ‘This is what happens when you disobey me, Draco. Everything that happens to your precious father is your fault. I will break him, and make you watch, and it will be your fault because of your insolence.’
Draco wiped a rogue tear from his face. "I watched him walk to the prisoner and was forced to watch him hurt her. It was only for a minute. Father, he…" Draco looked to his mum standing before him. "It’s my fault, Mother. Everything is my fault. Father was wandless and I couldn’t protect him."
"Pull yourself together." She watched her son school his features immediately. Narcissa lowered her head in consternation. "Bella’s going to regret that act, one day," she said to no one in particular. She looked back at her son. "And the prisoner?"
"When I left, she was there. If she’s alive, no one’s going to help her. So you’re needed, probably, Mother. No one else would lift a finger to help her, not when your sister was present."
Narcissa made a decision, one that wouldn’t be popular. She turned her heel and walked towards the doors. Draco scurried behind her. "What am I going to find when we walk into the drawing room?"
"Honestly, that she’s dead and we’ll have to bury her, like the rest, or dump her."
Narcissa opened the door from her quarters and sealed it with the specific incantation. "No, that child won’t be dumped. You might not like her, Draco, but she’s a special child and she would get a burial. Children are different."
Draco glanced at his mother while they walked the halls from her private quarters. "You care for her, don’t you?"
Narcissa stopped in the hallway and pulled him into an alcove. She shoved a lone digit into his chest, right over his heart. "Watch what you say in this house, Draco, before you lose your life, and mine. Some things are not to be uttered, even in private. Do you understand me?" She slouched for a second before regaining her countenance. "As you’ve informed me, she is a Muggle supporter, and was part of the leadership of resistance while at Hogwarts. I was also informed, by your Father, that she also resisted our efforts at the Ministry of Magic. But since she’s still a child, she can still be instructed in proper etiquette in the new ways that our Dark Lord insists upon." Narcissa gave her son a hard look. "So, until that child is of age, she is still a child, and no harm is to come of her."
Narcissa left her son in the alcove and continued her way to the drawing room.
Footsteps rushed up to her, falling back in cadence with her heel clicks. "Forgive me, mother. I forgot myself." Narcissa gave him a sidelong glance. "Thank you for instructing me."
"See that you keep your counsel from now on, Draco, unless called upon," Narcissa hissed quietly. "If you are confused with the Dark Lord’s wishes, you can find an outlet for your private thoughts that would not beset you with problems, especially now when he’s close to ascendency. Maybe a book on the ethics of power, or a tome from your private library, by the author Machivelli, would help you settle any lingering doubts."
"Yes, Mother. I concur." She saw his head snap once in affirmation to her cryptic reply. "Thank you for that insight and discipline."
They walked in silence the rest of the way, hearing nothing echoing in the vast hallway leading to the entertainment room, as her sister referred to the drawing room.
They arrived there and saw the doors were closed. That wasn’t unexpected, since an audience with the Dark Lord was never announced or shared with others who were not present nor invited. Narcissa waved her wand at the doors and they opened without hesitation. She walked in, with Draco in tow, to find the child in question crumpled into a heap onto the ground.
Draco stayed by the doors while she walked to the child on the ground. She stood, almost paralyzed for a second, before seeing a shudder from the huddled mass. Narcissa hunkered down to touch the injured girl.
Luna screamed and moved like an injured animal, hitting her back upon the wall nearest to her, under the windows overlooking the ornamental gardens. "NO!" she screamed again. "Don’t touch me, not again!" She screeched.
"I’m here to help." Narcissa knelt there, where the child had been, watching her recoil from her simplest touch. "I’m not here to hurt you, child."
Sobs of terror were the broken child’s response.
Narcissa stood up from her place in the middle of the room and took a step towards the sobbing prisoner. Luna cowered further along the wall, inching her way towards the corner of the room. Each step Narcissa took, Luna slithered back two along the wall until she was cornered, cowering in abject fear.
Narcissa looked at the wand in her hand and realized the source of the terror in the girl’s eyes. "This is what you’re afraid of, that I’m going to curse you too?" She took the wand and placed it in the pocket sewn into her robes. "There, does that help? I’m only here to help, not to hurt you."
Narcissa took a step forward and Luna curled further into herself. She watched the child hide her face behind her dirty blonde hair and threadbare clothes. Under it all, she was still shaking in terror, sobbing to break the cacophony of hiccups.
Narcissa took one last step and knelt down once again in front of the terrified child. A glance around the room told her no one was present, save Draco on the other side of the expansive room. "I’m here, dear. Let me help you."
The girl turned and latched onto her, wetting her robes with weeping that broke her heart. She muttered and cooed as compassionately as she could, a mother comforting a scared child. She saw, out of the corner of her eye, Draco slowly make his way into the room. She nodded once and he slowly made his way over to her in the opposite corner.
"Tell me again what happened. How she hurt?"
"Aunt Bellatrix delved her first, trying to break her using Legilimens. Then she commanded me to do it. She said I was still undisciplined, since she had to do it first. So I did as Aunt Bellatrix told me to do, to break her, using Legilimens on her. I did and I couldn’t make anything out of it. All I saw were images of those other sods." Draco looked around once again before starting. "I tried to delve further but I was shaken from what I saw and already did. I couldn’t answer Bellatrix and she got angry with me. That’s when she imperiused me. ‘You’re a pathetic sod. We’ll have to break her another way.’ Draco frowned. "I’m not pathetic. She tortured me and then expected me to rape her mind that way?
"Hush, Draco. This isn’t about you at the moment."
He bristled at her comment.
"Now go on. What else happened?"
"I told you about that."
"Quit being petulant. I have reason for asking. Now what else happened?"
"Bellatrix used Legilimens on her and she started screaming. I watched in horror that Father was undressing. She’d told Father what he needed to do, to break the prisoner."
Draco took a huge breath. "All I could do was listen to her screaming. Her screams, I doubt I’ll ever forget that."
He shook his head, as if hearing an echo. "She broke contact and I was free of my bonds. I didn’t dare move. She turned to me and put a wand on my throat. ‘If you know what’s good for you, run along. You don’t have the bollocks to stomach what the prisoner is about to endure, unless you want that treatment, too. Now go play with your mortar and pestle.’ I only watched as long as she had that wand on my throat. I saw what was happening, and it was horrible. But I watched as long as she held the wand on my throat. The second she took it away, I did as she commanded: I ran. I didn’t need to see what madness was going on any longer."
"Was anyone else in the room with you and your Father, besides my mad sister?"
"No, Mother. It was just us. I think she was tormenting me to hurt Father even further, since he’s wandless. But she hurt me by hurting Father. He didn’t want to touch the prisoner either, but once she cursed him, he had no choice."
"Did she say anything else to you, anything at all?"
Draco tried to remember what she said to him as he was leaving the room. "She did, Mother. It was a warning: ‘This is what happens to traitors to our cause. Watch and learn, Draco.’"
Narcissa looked back at the child in her arms. Her weeping had settled down to hiccups and sobbing. She turned her head back to her only child, now a young man, standing before her.
"You listen to me, and heed my wisdom. What you saw today is a fate worse than death, you hear me? No one should have to endure that and expect to live, not without consequences." Narcissa looked at the wretched girl in her arms. "Bella was stupid to hurt this child. This child was less than nothing to my sister, and look what she’s done. She’s destroyed someone so beautiful, corrupted her innocence all out of spite."
Narcissa sighed again. "The butcher's bill will be steep for Bellatrix, one day."
Draco stood before his mother in confusion. "Mother?"
"Nothing," she whispered. Narcissa looked back up at her son. "Come. You’re going to help me with her."
"Help? Me? I can't -"
Narcissa gave her son a hard look. "You will help me. No one else will lift a finger to help this child, and from what I can tell, she absolutely needs it. If she dies under our watch, it’s on our head with the Dark Lord, not Bellatrix. Now, we need to get her into the butler's kitchen and she will need potions to sleep and to cope with what happened. So once we get her there, you will go get said potions as I've instructed."
Draco thinned his face out but nodded once in obedience.
Narcissa turned back to Luna in her arms. The hiccups stopped but she was still shivering, from fear more than cold. "Child, we're leaving for the butler's kitchen. Can you walk?"
She felt the words of agreement more than she heard them, from the muffle of her soiled robes. "Then let Draco help you up and we’ll go in there to help you. Can you do that?"
"Mother, I -"
"Hush now and obey me."
"Yes mother." He held his arms out and helped the diminutive witch up from his mother’s lap. She stood awkwardly and dusted herself off before putting an arm around the smaller witch. Draco went first leading the witches down the dusty corridor to the butler’s kitchen, off the informal dining room. They made it there safely, away from prying eyes. The only ones in the room at the moment were the house elves.
One of them came up to Narcissa. "Mistress, an unexpected pleasure."
"Everyone, depart this room for thirty minutes. Tell no one we’re here."
"Mistress?"
"Now. Return in one half hour."
The elf nodded. "Yes, mistress. Bitsy understand."
The three watched the half-dozen elves depart the butler’s kitchen, for wherever they went. When the last elf left the small galley kitchen, she turned to the witch under her arm and steered her towards a bench. She sat her down and glanced at the child.
Her clothes were threadbare, if tidy, but her skirt was torn. They hung off of her, like she had lost weight in her time incarcerated in the dungeons. Blood dotted the front of it, along with bloody scrapes on her hands and knees. Her face was also smudged in blood, along with some matted into her hair and scalp. She lifted the fringe off of the girl’s dace and saw that some patches of hair had been ripped out.
The worst was on her face and neck, with a contusion covering half her face and the shape of a hand on her throat.
Bile rose in Narcissa’s throat.
She turned to her son standing in the doorway. "I need you to go get her a blood replenishing potion, a sleeping draught, a nerve regeneration potion, and a pain relieving potion. The pain relieving potion must work but nothing too strong for her. Do you understand me?"
"Yes Mother." Draco turned on his heel and departed the witches.
Narcissa waited a few more heartbeats before turning back to the injured witch in front of her. Luna was sitting quietly, looking off into the nothingness of the wall in front of her. Every few seconds, she shuddered while sitting on the bench. Each sniff punctuated each shudder.
"How bad did Lucius hurt you?"
Luna turned her badly bruised face to look up at the older witch. "I imagined my first sexual encounter to be something completely different. It was rather disappointing, personally." She hiccupped. "But then, Lucius has no choice in the matter. He hurt me with his body, but not his mind."
Narcissa's chin twitched. "Draco said you screamed when the Dark Lord delved you."
Luna looked at the older witch and sighed deeply. "He was even less adept at delving my mind than your husband was with my body." Luna focused for a moment and Narcissa saw the change in her features. The bruise on her face showed the ugliness that had already corrupted her soul. "Had he asked, I might have answered. But no, he delved me, raping my mind like a sodding bastard."
Narcissa put a hasty hand over the younger witch’s mouth. "Luna, hush, you're still in terrible danger." She quickly released her hand when Luna gently put her hand on her well-manicured one.
Luna scowled. "The only one in danger from me is your sister. I forgive Draco, for he did as she demanded. He merely tortured me, at wandpoint. I know of few who can refuse that terrible decision. I can possibly forgive your Husband for his actions, since he was forced to perform like a minaret. But your sister? She took glee for her actions, for using Lucius upon me. I cannot forgive what she did to me."
Narcissa took her wand from her pocket in her robes.
"I can easily obliviate you of what happened. No one would be the wiser for it."
Luna put a steady hand on the older witch’s arm, staying her action of reaching for her wand in the pocket of her robes. "No, don't. I lived through it, for better or worse. What happened was terrible, I admit. But it's not the worst thing that they could have done to me. For that I am thankful."
"Thankful?" Narcissa looked at the petite witch. "Luna, you were violated, in mind and body. What could be worse than that? Certainly not death."
Luna shook her head, like she had to explain a simple point to a precocious child. "Oh, not death. Death is easy. I watched my mother die when I was 9. Anyone can die, even Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel. They couldn’t escape death, as hard as they tried. But I’m sure that your sister is planning on killing my father. Sending him to Azkaban will be hard enough on him. I will be quite upset when they do that. Or she will let the Dementors at Azkaban do it. But she will have murdered him nonetheless.
"But they can't do the worst to me. Taking away my friends would be the worst. They can lock me in your dungeon but as long as I know I have friends, anything they do will not be the worst thing possible."
"You’re mad, child," Narcissa said harshly. "Your friends aren't with you. The only ones in the dungeon with you are the wandmaker and the goblin."
"Oh, they aren’t my friends, as nice as they are. Mr. Ollivander is kind to me and I learn much from him. He won’t be with us much longer, with his breath as ragged as it is. But that doesn't matter. My friends are in my heart and in my mind. I feel them in my skin. I can tolerate anything else as long as I know that."
"And that's why you don't want me obliviate you, isn't it? Forgetting your friends is a fate worse than death."
Luna nodded shyly. "Someday I'll have to deal with what happened today but my friends will help me through it. I hope they won’t be upset. I tried to be as brave as they are."
"You’re mad, you know. Your dependence on your friends, whom the Dark Lord wants to kill, is a weakness."
Luna’s expression changed. It grew hard. "You accuse me of being weak when I have hope in my friends." The young witch’s voice grew harsh. "What you call madness, I call it courage. You call it barmy. I call it standing up to a tyrant. I accept that they are going to kill me. I am a witch and I will be worthy of a witch’s death. They will have to kill me on my feet, not on my knees like a beggar for their favor. Any fiend with a modicum of power and lack of humanity can do that, kill with the flick of their wand. I accept my fate because death doesn’t frighten me." Luna looked deep into Narcissa’s eyes. "That is why I have power and he doesn’t."
"And your friends? What if he kills them?"
Luna smiled, the first one Narcissa had seen on the child. "Then I'll see them again. That is my faith."
"Have you seen the prisoner? They need to go back to the dungeon."
The two witches turned to the doorway and saw Carlyle Avery standing in the doorway. He looked disturbed, like his supper had been cold in the dining room. "Ah, you have her. She needs to go back to the cell."
"She’ll be handed over as soon as Draco returns with the potions for her."
"Prisoners don’t get potions, or treatment, witch" he scowled. "Now hand her over."
"Mother, I’m here."
Draco shoved past the unkempt wizard and handed over the four potion bottles in his hands.
"Did you take what you needed while you were away?"
"Yes, Mother, I did."
Narcissa inspected each of the vials in her hands. The different colors and consistencies matched what she had requested. She shook all of them before beginning to uncork the first vial.
"What are those?"
"Potions, obviously," Narcissa scowled. "They are what I deem the prisoner needs. Don’t question my actions further unless you wish to risk my sister’s ire."
He snorted as a response. "Fine, then. Hurry up."
Narcissa handed over each vial in the correct order. Luna drank each one, grimacing after each one.
"Come now, you. The Dark Lord doesn’t wait on prisoners. I have more important things to do than bloody guard duty to a pathetic girl." Avery reached out for Luna’s arm and started to pull her off the bench. "If you dawdle, though, I’ll have you for myself."
Narcissa stepped in front of Luna instead. "If you touch a hair on her head I will have your skin for a wall hanging. Do you understand me? This prisoner is mine, to do as I please. Don’t question me further."
Avery gave the older witch a hard look before he yanked Luna out of the other witch's arm. He shoved the younger witch in front of him and took her out of their presence in the butler’s pantry. Narcissa stood watching the doorway for precious seconds, deep in consideration.
Draco watched his mother’s wand twitching in her hand. He hadn’t seen her pull it from her robes. "Mother?" Draco said quietly in the small confines of the butler’s kitchen.
Narcissa turned and saw the concern on her son’s face. She touched his now healed face and smiled gently.
"Come, Draco. Let us return to my quarters. There is much to discuss."