[Wednesday one-shots]: Narcissa Triumphant, Lucius/Narcissa, H/D, PG-13, 7.2//7
Part One.
Title: Narcissa Triumphant (2/11)
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 Two-Moody
Narcissa followed Moody down the middle of the train. She could feel people muttering and staring at them. Narcissa ignored them efficiently. She had a relaxed way of moving that made it seem as if her hand wasn’t resting on her wand, and her eyes fastened on the precise point of Moody’s body that would show the most movement if he turned and hurled a curse at her. She was going to keep herself safe.
And keep her sons safe, as well.
They finally reached an empty compartment at the far end of the train. Moody gestured her through the door first. Narcissa smiled at him and stepped past. She heard him grumble under his breath, but he didn’t attack.
A good thing, for him, Narcissa thought idly, and cast a few detection spells on the inside of the compartment. Nothing showed up to her eyes, ears, nose, or other senses. She turned around and watched Moody slide the door closed.
“You know why I want to speak to you, Professor Malfoy.”
“No, actually. If you sent me an owl, it went astray. What is this about, Auror Moody?”
He stared at her long enough to be slightly unnerving, then grunted and scratched his head. “It’s Professor Moody now, same as you. I’m taking over the Defense Against the Dark Arts position this year.”
Narcissa nodded and smiled faintly. “Well, then. At least my sons will have a qualified instructor in that subject for once.”
Moody stared at her as if he didn’t know how to take that. Then he hardened his gaze and said, “I’m aware that you used Dark Arts in the past.”
“I know. I have mostly given them up, you know. Not a lot of use in Astronomy for them. There are a few rituals that I do in the privacy of my own home which still require them.”
“I meant in the school. I want to know why you would do that, when you’re supposed to be instructing our students. Protecting them. Keeping them safe from the Dark.” Moody angled his body in such a way that he could easily hurt her.
Well, he could hurt the woman she appeared to be, the defenseless Astronomy Professor with only a few O’s in magic that was meant to teach instead of harm. Narcissa had no intention of allowing him to strike her, of suffering such a humiliation, but for now there was more worth in holding onto the facade. She let her eyes widen. “What did I do to students last year? No one told me that I was suspected!”
“Had it from the mouth of someone who knows exactly what you did,” Moody said, and his voice was gravelly with pleasure. “She’ll die soon herself, but she wanted someone to know the truth first. Someone who could do something about it.”
Idunna. Narcissa was honestly surprised the woman had lived until the point that she could contact Moody. Well, only her strength of will was dismaying. Narcissa knew that if she had done nothing to take revenge on Idunna, the curse on the Defense position would have struck her, and she would have blamed Narcissa, because that was what Light witches and wizards tended to do.
“Well? Not going to react to the accusation?”
“I would have expected an arrest, from an Auror. Not just an accusation.”
Moody hesitated for the first time. “Doesn’t meet Auror standards of proof,” he finally muttered. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t have an eye on you, Professor Malfoy.”
Narcissa nodded calmly. Yes, prejudice had made Idunna accuse her, and prejudice had made Moody believe her. It was only coincidence that Narcissa was actually responsible for this particular use of Dark Arts. “Well. You may watch me all you like. I have absolutely no intention of endangering our students. Good day, now, Professor Moody. The Headmistress does like me to patrol the train and make sure that no students are getting in trouble or escaping the notice of the prefects.”
Moody didn’t move. Narcissa gave him a patient sigh, and still it didn’t move him. “I don’t know if I should let you into the school like this,” he said. “Not fit to employ a professor who admits to using the Dark Arts. Not right.”
“You said that you didn’t have a standard of proof that would satisfy any Auror except you.”
The insult buried in those words sailed right past him, as Narcissa had suspected it would. He continued to stare at her suspiciously. “You admitted to using ‘em at home.”
“And that is not a crime,” said Narcissa, who on this point knew the law better than the Aurors. “Not for small matters of heritage and rituals that involve all consenting parties.”
“How do I know they were consenting?”
Narcissa laughed. “Well, if you want to question my husband about the rituals employed in our bedroom, then you can.” In fact, the last removal of a piece of the Dark Mark had indeed taken place in their bedroom.
Starting back, Moody stared at her before his face flooded with color. “Didn’t say I needed to know that,” he complained.
“Well, that’s the risk you take when you question someone about private matters.” Narcissa was delighted to see that her emphasis on the word made Moody actually stumble back from her, his hands lifted as if to ward her away. Narcissa let out a soft chuckle and swished towards the compartment door. Moody stepped away from her as if she would suddenly start humping his leg.
“I’ll find out the Dark Arts you use in school.”
“I don’t use them there, Professor Moody.”
“Whatever was killing Professor Freyasdaughter-”
“She spent a lot of time around Dark magic in the pursuit of her post,” Narcissa said, turning her head to give Moody one more glimpse of her patrician profile. It might be an education for him, poor man. He didn’t have to be so craggy. “I hope you know better than to blame me for that.”
Moody didn’t reply, and Narcissa stepped into the corridor. She still smiled as she began the patrol that Minerva did ask of her and which she remembered when it was convenient.
Moody was going to be fun to disconcert.
*
Draco was quiet enough that Narcissa would have suspected something was wrong even if she wasn’t specifically watching for it. He didn’t even respond to the soft teasing Harry was giving him about something in their NEWT Charms class that day. He watched her with a carefully blank face.
Narcissa granted his wish and asked him about it half an hour after he and Harry had arrived in her quarters. “What is it, darling?”
Draco gave only a shade of his usual wince at being called darling. “We had our first Defense Against the Dark Arts class today.”
“Will I need to continue my tradition of murdering your Defense teachers?”
“Oi,” Harry said mildly, not looking up from the blade he was polishing. “One of those murders was mine.”
Narcissa smiled at him. “So it was.”
“Moody gave us a lecture about the first war,” Draco said, his body tense and hunched in on itself. Narcissa put aside her marking to study him. He was far more tense than she had anticipated. “Some of the-the massacres that happened. I didn’t know about them. And he said that we had students in the class who were related to the people that caused those massacres, and people who were related to the victims that died, and he knew who his sympathies were with.” Draco dragged a breath out of the bottom of his chest and stared at her. “Mother, was Father as much a monster as all that? I never knew.”
She stood, careful not to move too quickly, and walked over to crouch down in front of him. “Not a monster, Draco. Someone who did things that he should not have done, yes.”
“But-legally or morally? I mean, do you think that he shouldn’t have done those things because he could have been punished for them, or because he really shouldn’t have done them? If he participated in killing the whole Bones family…”
Narcissa folded her legs underneath her. It seemed they would sit here for a while. And Harry was listening, too, from across the room, although his hands kept up their soft whisking motions across the blade.
“I do not actually think about things like that,” she told Draco. “Not in the same way that Moody does. Legalities do matter to me, but more because I need to know the laws that surround things like practicing the Dark Arts in Hogwarts or what aspects of the discipline I need to keep to myself no matter what and which I might reveal to trusted confidants. I’m not the best one to talk to you about this if you do feel your father did something wrong.”
“Legally wrong?”
“Remember that he was acquitted.”
“But-his being under the Imperius Curse was a lie.”
“Does that mean that he should pay now by going to Azkaban?”
Draco’s gaze strayed away from her, and Narcissa nodded. “It’s not the kind of question that you can answer as simply as Moody is asking you to answer it, Draco. Moody is good at upending a certain kind of moral righteousness. He’s always gone after some of the people in power. But he’s not good at handling other kinds. He’s not good, for example, at confronting the extremism of the Ministry in that time of war.”
“Extremism?” Draco’s voice was quiet, his hands folded in his lap and clutching each other as if he wanted to yank his fingers off.
“The Aurors were granted permission to use the Unforgivables. I don’t believe it’s ever been revoked. Sirius was sent to prison without a trial because that was what the hysteria of the times demanded. You could raise those examples in your next class, and Moody would brush them off. He’s not someone who faces all kinds of injustice, Draco. Just the kinds he understands.”
“He was trying to get to Draco,” Harry said, apparently to the knife he was polishing. “The whole time he was speaking about the crimes of Death Eaters being excused after the first war, he was watching Draco. And then he turned around and spoke about the massacres directly to Susan Bones. I think he’s trying to set us against each other.”
“That would be a subtler way of imposing his will on the school than Idunna tried,” Narcissa murmured. “Did he try to influence you?”
“I think he doesn’t know how to deal with me.” Harry gave her a smile sharper than the knife he held. “He watched me the whole time he talked about both the pardons and the massacres, and I didn’t do anything. And of course he knows I’m your son. He might think I’m evil, or part of a secret resistance against you, or anything, really.”
“I’d like you to show slight reactions.”
“To what?”
“To everything. If he speaks about the murder of your parents-”
“One set of parents.”
Narcissa reached out and gently pressed Harry’s shoulder with the flat of her hand for a moment. Then she nodded and agreed, “One set of them. But react to everything, including that. Make it seem as if you know nothing or that you haven’t considered it deeply. I want him to talk to you, to see if he tries to persuade you. We might learn more about what his ultimate plans are that way.”
“Do you want me to try Legilimency on him if he gets close enough?”
“Draco is more delicate about Legilimency than you are,” Narcissa said dryly. A rampaging Nundu is more delicate. Harry had become good at Occlumency, but he seemed to like the direct attack too much to read minds with a subtle brush.
“I can do that,” Draco said, and he sounded a little more relaxed and a lot more confident. “I can do my best to wield my Legilimency against him.”
“We don’t know everything about his Occlumency defenses,” Narcissa cautioned them.
“I know, Mother, but I want to at least try.” Draco licked his lips. “He said that he was giving us things to think about when he was telling us the history of the war, but I don’t think he was. I think now that he was-trying to rattle me. I can’t believe that I let him get to me so badly.”
“You have no experience with this kind of manipulation,” Narcissa said. “And you should form your own opinions about your father’s actions, and mine, and anything else that could matter to you. The point is that you should be doing so under the influence of your own mind, not your Defense teacher’s. Any more than you should trust and obey my every word.”
“I know who I think is smarter, between Moody and you,” Draco muttered. “I want to do what you want me to do.”
Narcissa inclined her head. She wanted her son to think independently, but it was true that that didn’t include him doubting her so badly that he stopped obeying her. “Then you might try little throbs of Legilimency against him, to see what happens. In the meantime, Harry, react. Let him think that you’re more in need of rescue because you’re a Gryffindor that we might have corrupted, and that he could rescue you.”
“So we can find out more about what he wants, and whether he really is on any side at all?”
“Exactly,” Narcissa said, and watched both her sons smile at her. She would have felt sorry for Moody if such a thing was possible.
They have learned better than he realizes.
*
Her Floo flared to life one evening a fortnight into the term, when Narcissa was alternating between marking largely worthless essays and taking notes on possible ways to get a Horcrux out of Gringotts, where she believed it might now be. Narcissa was on her feet in seconds, one hand on her wand.
The wards on the Floo hadn’t stopped the person on the other side from summoning up the fire at all, which gave her limited possibilities for who it could actually be.
“Narcissa-”
That was Lucius’s voice, with a wheezy gasp to it that showed he was running out of blood fast. His head appeared in the flames, but wavering back and forth in a way that showed he wasn’t in control of the call. “N-Narcissa-Voldemort is draining me-he wants the strength from my Mark to survive-”
There was enough of the Mark left that that could conceivably happen. Voldemort must at last have decided that Lucius’s loyalty was suspect.
“I am coming,” Narcissa said, her voice returning a calm expression to Lucius’s face for a second before it dissolved into a haze of pain.
The Floo connection dropped, but Narcissa grabbed her own jar of powder and opened another one. She charged straight through the hearth, ducking and rolling in a smooth motion. If Voldemort had gained enough control of Lucius, he might attempt to manipulate her husband’s body into attacking her.
Lucius was kneeling on the floor when she turned, and his arm was visibly throbbing and swelling. The snake in the Dark Mark was crawling down towards his wrist, and a black stain was spreading behind it.
Narcissa nodded, unsurprised. It would have been best if they could have waited and eliminated the two-fifths of the Dark Mark remaining piece by piece, as they’d planned on, but she had laid her contingencies for this possibility as well. She reached up and pulled her hair forwards so that it shielded her face.
“Narcissa-you can’t-”
There were times that she listened to Lucius and treasured his input. This wasn’t one of them. Narcissa Stunned him in a single easy motion and then knelt down next to him, watching the progress of the snake down his arm. She would need to strike when it had reached its fullest extension and pumped the most venom it could into Lucius.
She heard the thumping and shaking at the wards then, accompanied by multiple howls. Narcissa sighed. It was the night of the full moon. That was probably what Lucius had wanted to tell her, that there was a werewolf army attacking their home.
It will have to wait. If Lucius died, the wards would fall anyway before they could latch on to Draco, since he wasn’t physically in the room. Narcissa reached out and curled her hands around Lucius’s wrist, waiting.
The snake’s head sank into Lucius’s wrist.
His entire forearm turned black.
Narcissa stabbed down with her knife straight into the Dark Mark.
Lucius’s body jolted under her, unconscious or not. Narcissa twisted the knife, and thick liquid began to pour out, too polluted to be called blood or even poison. Narcissa reached deep into Lucius’s veins and yanked, pulling, using the anchor of the knife to brace herself and forcing her magic through the marriage bond that she and Lucius shared.
He is mine, not Voldemort’s. Her will sank deeper and deeper into his skin, deeper than the brand.
The Dark Mark fought back, but Narcissa had everything on her side: the blood link tying her to Voldemort and confusing the Mark because she had part of its creator within her, the calm matrices the discipline made in her head, blood magic she was prepared to use, the years she had lived with Lucius and how well she knew him. She had shed his blood before. She did it now, and forced his body to generate new blood that pulsed through his veins before they could collapse.
When she drew back at last, Lucius’s arm was covered with ash, blood, and what looked like viscera, but he would live.
Now she just had to deal with the werewolf army.
Chapter Three.
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