[Wednesday one-shots]: Narcissa Triumphant, Lucius/Narcissa, H/D, PG-13, 7.7/7
Chapter Six.
Part One.
Title: Narcissa Triumphant (7/13)
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 Seven-Ripping Apart
“I know this is all your fault.”
Narcissa smiled faintly to herself. She wasn’t actually in the room with Moody at the moment. He was stomping around his office muttering to himself as he packed. But it was simplicity itself for her to send her consciousness through some of the runes that she had broken into his office to carve on the walls the other day.
She hadn’t been about to let someone take her by surprise again, after his curse in the back truly had.
“This is ridiculous.” Moody waved his wand, and books slammed into his trunk hard enough to make it jump on the floor. “The school is going to the dogs. Dark magic! Dark magic tolerated and embraced by the Headmistress! Albus never would have...”
His voice trailed off, but Narcissa remained, listening, as she watched him gather up and stuff his robes in with a packing charm, and then do the same with some of his Foe-Glasses and other instruments for detecting enemies. She didn’t know if Moody would have been close enough to Dumbledore to know his suspicions about Horcruxes. But she wanted to know if he had.
Moody finally stood back and scowled at everything in his rooms, then grunted and picked up a delicate object from the table next to him. Narcissa squinted. It looked like nothing so much as a stirring rod stuck into the middle of a small crystal ball. But the crystal ball itself had whirling flakes of gold and blue and white in it. Moody stood holding it and appeared to think.
Then he nodded, and a grim smile crossed his mouth. “I can at least make it harder for them,” he whispered, and slipped the crystal ball into his pocket.
When he moved to walk towards the door, Narcissa withdrew her consciousness from the runes and opened her eyes in her own office. Then she stood and drew her own wand, casting her grizzly bear Patronus by focusing on the memory of the first smile Draco had given her as a baby.
“Find my sons,” she instructed the bear as it materialized next to her and tilted its head back in inquiry. “Tell them to come to my quarters at once.”
The bear nodded and shuffled out through the wall. Narcissa stepped back and closed her eyes for a moment, softly breathing through her nose. There was enough time for her to prevent Moody from doing anything to her sons. She would hang onto that. She would not speculate on what the small device might be, because she had no way of knowing. She wanted her sons with her to face it when it came, however.
Harry was the first to reach her quarters, slipping in through the door like a shadow. After a glance at her face, he sat down to sharpen his knives. Narcissa smiled. Harry still had the obsessive curiosity he’d exhibited as a child, but he was better about waiting to fulfill it.
“Mother, what is it?” Draco held the door open with one hand, his head tilted a little with the curiosity that Harry had waited to express shining in his eyes. “Only Moody is leaving, and I was going to make sure he actually did leave Hogwarts.”
“I saw him with a weapon, or at least something that might be a weapon,” Narcissa answered briefly, standing. “I want you to remain at my side while I make sure he is escorted out of the castle.’
Draco blinked, nodded, and fell into line behind her. Harry stood up and tucked the sharpened knives in his belt. “What did the weapon look like?” he asked quietly.
“A small crystal ball with a stirring rod positioned as rising out of it at an angle.” Narcissa nodded when Harry blinked at her. “Yes, I don’t know what it is, either, and I want to find out.”
“Yes, Mother.”
Her sons stayed close behind as Narcissa walked with swift steps down the main staircase towards the entrance hall. It seemed that she, Harry, and Draco weren’t the only ones who wanted to make sure Moody actually left. A small group of Hufflepuffs, Susan Bones prominent among them, were standing at the top of the steps down to their common room, and some Slytherins whose parents had fought alongside Lucius lingered near the doors.
Moody stumped into view and paused as he saw them, staring with narrowed eyes. Still, Narcissa believed that he might have walked out the doors and gone about his newly- circumscribed life if his attention hadn’t landed on Narcissa.
“You.” His lips pulled back from his teeth like a rabid dog, but he didn’t immediately move towards her. And Narcissa had never seen a rabid dog so alive with hatred. “You’ll pay for this.”
“I believe that I already have, with threats against me,” Narcissa said in a bored tone. She didn’t know if it was possible to incite Moody to destroy himself more than he already was, but the way she stood, with her hands tucked in her sleeves and her fingers not far from her wand, would serve her either way. “Leave now, Professor Moody. I look forward to not having to call you by that title.”
“You’ll pay.”
“Your monologue is boring compared to some I’ve heard from Dark wizards, I will have you know.”
Moody said nothing, standing still in a way that Narcissa recognized as being bound by rage so deep it was painful. Narcissa raised her own brows and began to turn away.
“You admitted that you know Dark wizards!” Moody bellowed, and Narcissa whipped back around in time to see him take out the crystal ball pierced by the stirring rod, as it still looked like, and heave the thing at her.
Narcissa didn’t want it to fall or hit her, and she didn’t want it to endanger her students crowded into the entrance hall, either. She whipped her wand and conjured a flexible net, which stretched in front of her, caught the weapon, wrapped around it, and bowled it softly to the floor, all in less time than it had taken Moody to toss it at her in the first place.
Moody returned to his gaping.
“I don’t know exactly what the thing was,” Narcissa said, lowering her wand so it pointed safely downwards. The whole point was to show that she was distant from Moody and not threatening him in return. “But I assume you meant it to hit me? Which makes it a threat. Tsk, tsk, Professor Moody. Apparently you find it hard to learn.”
“Alastor,” said a voice that hissed around and between the stairs, and Minerva strode out of the Great Hall to face him.
Moody looked at her, and his voice was uncertain when he spoke, as if he had finally begun to realize something other than his hatred of Narcissa. “She admitted to knowing Dark wizards.”
“Having heard them speak is hardly knowing them.” Minerva turned her wand in a circle, and three cat Patronuses sprang into being next to her, all of their glowing eyes fixed on Moody. “You have proven yourself a threat to enough people enough times in this school, Alastor Moody. Leave, or you will be escorted out.”
“Have you thought to ask her why she’s heard them speak?”
“Leave,” Minerva said, voice on the edge of a yowl, and the Patronuses yowled with her and spread out, stalking Moody from three sides of a square.
Moody huffed and went out. Narcissa tilted her head and watched him go, delicately enjoying the frustrated glare he gave over his shoulder.
“In the meantime, Professor Malfoy,” Minerva went on, and Narcissa turned back to see her holding her hand out, “I’ll take that weapon that Alastor was foolish enough to hurl at you.”
“Let me simply free it from the net,” said Narcissa equably. While she would have liked to keep it and examine it for herself, she did trust Minerva to share any pertinent information she found. And there was a chance that it had been enspelled to react badly to examination. Narcissa would certainly do that if she lost her mind enough to throw crystal weapons at people in public.
Or to create a weapon out of crystal and glass in the first place, Narcissa admitted, as she floated the net over to Minerva’s waiting grasp, a piece of silk instead of her bare hands. She really couldn’t tell what the damn thing was made of. It glowed and seemed more fragile than ever, glistening like a raindrop, as Minerva wrapped it up.
“Mother?”
Narcissa glanced over her shoulder, and found Draco reaching towards her with a stunned look on his face. Harry shouted at the same time, and Narcissa wondered why he seemed to be screaming for her. She was right here.
Or so she had been. Until she abruptly thinned and the light in the entrance hall dimmed, and she found her essence sucked into the crystal weapon Minerva was holding.
*
Narcissa looked around at the faceted crystal, and the distorted reflections of gigantic faces bending down from above, and sighed.
“This is getting entirely too common,” she murmured, before she turned around and snapped out her hand. Her wand flew into it. Narcissa nodded. She had heard of traps like this, invented by wizards with too much time on their hands. Movement and gestures inside the glass were merely an effort of will.
Well, Narcissa was tired of enemies who attempted to keep her from doing what she wanted to do and pin her down in impossible situations. Moody was more annoying even than Voldemort, who was at least currently starving to death somewhere Narcissa couldn’t see him.
Hands pounded on the glass. Narcissa glanced up and determined that they seemed to belong to Draco. She frowned and shook her head, although she might be too tiny for them to see the gesture. What had she taught her sons? Calm and grace under pressure.
Although, admittedly, seeing their mother sucked into a crystal ball that had mated with a stirring rod might be too much pressure for the moment.
Narcissa cast a Lumos, and was pleased to see that her magic at least responded in a normal fashion. She walked slowly around the globe, tilting her head back and forth so she could see in all directions. It appeared to be mostly facets, the cool slant of the stirring rod, and here and there a glint of the magic that was probably keeping her imprisoned.
No, wait. The glints were in the air itself, not the crystal. Narcissa leaned closer, and a second later nodded in satisfaction. Yes, the glints were the ones she had seen in the crystal when Moody was examining it in his quarters. They hadn’t disappeared, as Narcissa had assumed they had, when he’d thrown it at her.
That meant the crystal wasn’t a single flawless prison, and that meant Narcissa had a means to break it apart from the inside. Single constructions, whether of crystal, glass, or stone, were always harder to crack than those that had a join or seam.
Narcissa closed her eyes to shut out the sight of the gigantic faces from above and the pounding hands, and instead channeled her magic through her wand. In a few seconds, light was blazing from her wand tip.
She thought she heard a distorted voice asking what she was doing, but she ignored it for now. They couldn’t help her from the outside, anyway, at least not if Moody’s trap was constructed anything like the ones she was more familiar with.
When Narcissa opened her eyes again, the sparks were hovering near her wand tip, drawn by the magic. Narcissa released the spell, and watched how the magic dissipated into them, rather than striking anything or making a difference.
Narcissa smiled. The prison functioned the way she thought it did, then. The sparks were supposed to ensure the trap held by absorbing any magic that was cast inside it. So Narcissa could cast any spell, and it would only make her prison grow stronger and smoother.
At least, that was the way it was supposed to work.
Narcissa spent a moment breathing carefully, and letting any thought of Moody or her sons slide off her own mental defenses, because they would only get in the way of what she was trying to do. Then she reared back a little, wand in her hand, and cast as much magic as she could through it, all at once, an unfocused blast of power.
At the same moment, she shifted into her Animagus form.
The world around her blurred and shook, as if someone was tossing the crystal from hand to hand. Narcissa calmly held on in the middle of it. This was exactly what the theory said should happen, and she was not going to panic.
The sparkles danced around her, trying to absorb the magic-
And failing. Then they clustered together, and Narcissa, her eyes narrowed so that she could barely see out of them, on purpose, saw bright cracks racing across them. It reminded her of one of Harry’s memories of the Muggle telly that she had seen.
The world around her shattered with a roar. Narcissa spilled to the floor, changing to human as she moved. If someone asked her about a possible bear form later, she would explain that she had manifested her thoughts as well as her magic inside the prison, and it might have made her appear as a bear for a few moments.
As she stood back up, accepting Draco’s embrace from the front and Harry’s from the side, she briefly caught Minerva’s eye. Here might be someone who would not believe the tale of a bear thought-form. But Narcissa only smiled at her blandly and moved on, one arm around each of her sons.
“How did you do that?” Susan Bones was staring at her in wonder, which Narcissa had to admit was flattering. Hannah Abbott, hovering behind her, stared, too, but looked away with a scowl when Narcissa caught her eye.
“The crystal was meant to contain Dark Arts, but the spells I cast to escape were not Dark, and neither am I purely a Dark witch,” Narcissa explained with a small shake of her hair that let it down around her. She let go of Harry long enough to comb her fingers through some tangles in it. “The prison couldn’t contain someone who doesn’t have a corrupted core.”
“So Moody underestimated you,” Minerva said, holding Narcissa’s gaze. Narcissa gazed back in unconcern. Minerva would not be so foolish as to try to make her register as an Animagus or the like. They had an understanding.
“Yes. And intended to trap and assault me. I think,” Narcissa added musingly, “that I do want him arrested.”
“I’ll contact the Aurors at once.” Minerva turned as if she was going to sweep away, then paused and looked over her shoulder. “Could you come with me, Professor Malfoy? Your perspective and personal report will be necessary for the Aurors, of course.”
Narcissa smiled a little, hugged Draco one more time, and then gently put both her sons aside so she could climb up the stairs behind Minerva. “Of course, Headmistress.”
Minerva kept as sharp an eye out for students as Narcissa did, which meant they were swiftly out of sight of them and nearly to her office. Minerva gave her a measured glance then. “Did I see what I thought I saw?”
“I’m sorry, Headmistress, but I’m unable to answer that. I would never use my Legilimency without permission.”
Minerva’s mouth twitched hard, but she kept her expression placid as she nodded. “Then you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“Well, perhaps if you phrased it more clearly, Headmistress? I admit my head is ringing with the effort of breaking out of that prison.”
Minerva’s eyes narrowed in true uncertainty, which was just the way Narcissa liked it. Then they were riding the moving staircase up behind the gargoyle, and Minerva said, with a deep sigh, “You’re an unregistered grizzly Animagus.”
“That is perhaps something people would say about me.”
Minerva opened her office door and sat down more smoothly behind her desk than Narcissa would have thought possible. Her hands folded on top of the desk and she gave Narcissa a long, long look. “If I tried to fight you about this or insist that you register…”
“It would be unfortunate.” Narcissa kept her face grave and her eyes direct. “It might violate that understanding that I was sure we had between us.”
“I know it would.” Minerva drummed her fingers on the desk for a moment. “It is only that it looks bad if you are performing something illegal while also asking that Alastor be arrested.”
“No matter what I might do in my personal life, what he did is still illegal,” Narcissa pointed out peaceably. “And the crime that you are implying I have committed is victimless except perhaps for the person it involves, if they become trapped in the process. I assure you that I am not trapped.”
“And if I pressed…”
“It would be unfortunate.”
After a moment, Minerva gave a short nod, and then turned to throw Floo powder into the fire. “Minister for Magic’s office!”
Narcissa smiled at her back. Yes, she was glad they would preserve their excellent understanding.
Chapter Eight.
This entry was originally posted at https://lomonaaeren.dreamwidth.org/1032478.html. Comment wherever you like.