[Wednesday one-shots]: Narcissa Triumphant, Lucius/Narcissa, H/D, PG-13, 7.11/7
Chapter Ten.
Part One.
Title: Narcissa Triumphant (11/13)
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 Eleven-Spirits
“Here’s my essay, Professor Malfoy.”
Narcissa tilted her head as she studied the young woman in front of her. Hannah Abbott had her jaw thrust forwards, and her hand didn’t tremble as she held out the parchment. Narcissa nodded and took it. A ring on her finger didn’t heat up. That meant that the essay hadn’t been coated in contact poison, as she had briefly thought.
“Thank you, Miss Abbott. I’ll look it over and get it back to you with my comments as soon as possible.”
“Thank you, Professor Malfoy.” Hannah hesitated a moment. “There has to be a better way.”
“Than what? To do what?”
“Even if the Ministry is-corrupt, there has to be a better way of bringing it down and replacing it with something else than you’re doing.”
Narcissa smiled at her. “Many people think that, but they don’t have coherent plans or the will to continue on with the political road when it becomes difficult, Miss Abbott.”
“I would.”
And maybe she would, Narcissa mused. There weren’t that many Hufflepuffs in politics, since they tended to be the kind that got discouraged easily by the revelation of exactly what kind of games they would have to play, but the ones who lasted through had made their names. Amelia Bones had been one of them. And her death hadn’t been because she had failed at the political game, but simply because she had failed to anticipate how far Voldemort would go, which was not a crime.
“Very well, Miss Abbott. If you need some backing or funding, then perhaps we can talk about things.”
That did get her the most satisfying reaction. “What?” Hannah asked blankly. “But if I’m right about what I said in that essay, you’re the one who’s behind portions of the Ministry crumbling the way they have been!”
“And wouldn’t that suggest that we share similar political goals, perhaps even a similar agenda?” Narcissa raised her eyebrows a little. “Think, Miss Abbott.”
“I-” Hannah looked as though someone had just blown up Hogwarts in front of her. “I have to think about this.” And she turned and walked out of the classroom, but at least she wasn’t running the way that some young women would have been after that revelation. Narcisa nodded to her back.
Right now, neither Draco nor Harry showed any sign of wanting to go into politics; Harry wanted to be an assassin and a guardian, and Draco’s path forwards probably lay in studying Dark Arts and protecting the Malfoy family interests. Narcissa would enjoy having a protégé that she could also pass political knowledge on to, and a Hufflepuff would be a more honest partner than a Slytherin.
Humming, she tucked the essay away to read for later, and smiled when she saw another photograph moving on the page of the Daily Prophet in front of her. She couldn’t wait to read about all the reactions to the latest scandals. The scandals themselves she knew about, of course.
And I will watch with more than interest to see what Miss Abbott makes of them.
*
“What comes next, Mother?”
Narcissa kissed Harry’s cheek and settled on the couch across from him. “You know what comes next. I described it the other day, with the Resurrection Stone. Thank you for allowing me to test it before I use it on Voldemort.”
“I’m the only one who could. Lucius and Draco haven’t suffered losses like I have.”
Narcissa nodded. Lucius’s father had died of dragonpox while Lucius was still a young man, but given the level of tension Narcissa knew had existed between him and Abraxas, that had been more a relief than anything. And Draco had been sheltered so that he would never have to experience those losses.
As for herself, well, Narcissa knew she had a blunted sensibility. As an assassin, it was necessary.
“Focus on the air in front of me, then, as I turn the stone,” Narcissa requested softly. “And think about the ones you’ve lost.”
Harry breathed softly, the way he did when he was preparing for some intense bout of physical activity. Narcissa turned the stone three times, thinking only in a general way about who would probably appear in front of Harry. The whole point of this was to see if the stone could summon people other than the spirits most important to the holder of the stone. If not, then Narcissa would have to find another way to torture Voldemort.
Not that thinking of such things is not fun.
“Mum? Dad?” came Harry’s whisper a moment later.
Narcissa glanced up swiftly. Transparent, misty shapes hovered between her and Harry, standing, or floating, with their backs to her. Narcissa could tell that they were young and the man’s hair was messy from this angle, but little else.
“Harry,” said the woman’s spirit in a thin, breathless voice. “It’s so good to see you.”
“Yes,” said the man, and had to clear his throat as though he was speaking through some thickness. “Our little boy.”
“I’ve survived, Mum and Dad.” Harry smiled, although the expression was tinged with more sadness than Narcissa liked to see on her son’s face. “Mrs. Malfoy adopted me and trained me to be an assassin, see?” He took one of his knives out.
“An assassin?” The woman’s voice was faint. “Harry, I…” She ended the sentence as if she didn’t know what to say, and leaned for a moment on the man’s side. Her elbow traveled through the side of his body.
Narcissa opened her mouth. She wasn’t about to let anyone criticize Harry. If someone tried, they could deal with her.
Harry caught his eye through the transparent forms of his parents, and his smile said it all. Narcissa sat back down. She had to let him handle this the way she had let Draco handle the killing of the ring Horcrux.
“I’m not worried by why I became,” Harry said. “I’m strong. I know that I can protect the ones I love. And I have killed, but I hardly kill because I’m ordered to or because I’m irritated. I think you probably killed in the war, right, Mum? Dad?”
How interesting that he asked his mother first, Narcissa thought. James Potter had been the Auror, but from what Narcissa had heard in the first war, Lily Potter’s wand had rarely been far behind his.
Then again, Harry had been raised, at least in the last seven years, to respect that a woman could be deadly.
“I-yes, I did.” James sounded grieved. “But I made sure that I only killed Dark wizards, Harry, or ones attacking me.”
“And believe me, the woman I killed was Dark,” Harry said firmly. “She was tormenting the students of Hogwarts with a blood quill.” He nodded when his parents gasped. “She had it more than coming.”
Lily Potter was silent after her gasp. Harry shifted his gaze to her. “What about you, Mum? Did you only kill Dark wizards or ones who were attacking you?”
“Of course she did.” James tried to put an arm around his wife’s waist, although it drifted through like her elbow had through him.
“Mum?” Harry repeated, and Narcissa listened to the silence, although she couldn’t see the expression on the face of the spirit-woman without shifting more than she wished to or Harry wished her to.
Lily Potter took a deep breath. “No. I killed two people from behind when they were keeping guard on a Death Eater camp and I needed to get past them without being seen or having anyone warned. I-I wasn’t good at the Disillusionment Charm, not enough to pass through a firelit area with people looking for footprints in the dust. I killed them, and I have no idea how Dark they were. They certainly never knew they were there.”
“I mean,” James Potter said, and then paused as if he was listening to the echo of his words before he spoke them. “That’s different. That’s war.”
“My adoptive mother and I are working to end a war,” Harry said. His eyes found Narcissa’s face again through the white mist of his parents, and his smile was so brilliant that Narcissa wanted to salute him. “I think it’s justified.”
“Are you content with your life, then?” Lily asked softly. “I could hardly bear to watch you when you lived with Petunia. You have a better life now?”
“Yes, I am.” Harry paused for a moment. “And how did you not know the answer to that, if you watched me when I was at the Dursleys? How did you not know that I was an assassin already?”
Narcissa raised her brows. She had come up with the same question, but she hadn’t phrased it to herself in the same way Harry had. This, though, was gentler, and more guaranteed to get the spirits of his parents to actually answer.
Well done. Then again, Narcissa knew she had raised a capable son.
“I couldn’t bear to,” Lily whispered, staring down. “Not what I saw after the last time I looked. And we grew more and more distant from the world as the years passed by. I knew flashes of intense joy from you. But by the time we could come close enough to look again, time would have moved on, and we couldn’t be sure that we would see what caused the joy anyway.”
“So there’s a time mismatch between the living world and the dead one,” Harry said, sounding as if he was talking to himself. “Probably it would be too hard for you otherwise.”
“It was hard enough, knowing we died to protect you but couldn’t do anything else,” James Potter said, and there was at least the sound of painful honesty in his voice, as little as Narcissa would trust anything summoned by the Resurrection Stone. “After a while, we stopped looking.”
“But knowing that we have the chance to speak to you again is worth it,” Lily said, and her voice lowered a little. “And perhaps…”
Narcissa perked up. If she wasn’t wrong, there was going to be a major change in their demeanor in a moment.
“What, Mum?” Harry had a gentle smile on his face. That didn’t fool Narcissa. She had seen him cut apart dummies with that same gentleness in place.
“If you find that life as an assassin is making you long for death, or if you get injured when you fight against an opponent, then don’t feel afraid to cross over and join us. Death is like falling asleep. Not painful.”
“Not painful,” James agreed. “Just shocking, like the night when I was murdered and I barely had time to realize I was dead.”
Harry cocked his head a little. “But Voldemort used the Killing Curse on both of you. I’ve seen people who definitely are dying in pain. What if someone’s bleeding out from a gut wound? Or being crushed into a small ball of flesh? I think those methods of killing must be painful, or they wouldn’t scream the way they do.”
His parents stared at him and said nothing. Narcissa supposed there was nothing they could say.
If she was right, they were just images from the Resurrection Stone, mixed with memories and projections of feelings on the part of the people who were seeing them. And they would say things like this to entice the person who had summoned the spirits to join them.
Even if the person who had summoned them was not the same as the person who had most wanted to see them, evidently.
“I…” Lily Potter let one hand pass in front of her face. “I had forgotten that.”
“I suppose I did, too.” James Potter, or the ghost that had his personality and face, sounded bewildered. “I don’t know why. It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you could forget, you know?” He glanced around uneasily, as if something here had caused them to forget the moment of their deaths.
“I think you ought to leave now, Mum and Dad.” Harry’s voice was very gentle, but Narcissa could see his eyes from across their shoulders, and his were hard in the way that they got when he was thinking about someone hurting Draco. “We’ve talked, and I’ll talk to you again someday.”
“I hope you do, Harry.” Lily reached out a hand that Narcissa was glad to see Harry didn’t take. “I hope that you can update us on your life that way.”
“So you can’t watch me even now, now that you know I’m not at the Dursleys’ house anymore and my life is happy?”
Lily tilted her head and said nothing. James Potter scratched his head and opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, but Narcissa turned the Resurrection Stone over again, and they vanished.
“That was hard, Mother,” Harry whispered with his eyes on the floor. Narcissa crossed her office and hugged him.
“I know it was. You were so brave. Thank you for being willing to test the stone that way for me.”
Harry hugged her back, his hands squeezing for a second. “They’ll always be my parents, but you’re here, and you can hug me, and I know you would do anything for me,” he whispered. “That means so much.”
Narcissa kissed his forehead, glad to see that her low opinion of the shades was shared. “I know, darling. I’ll do anything I must to keep both you and Draco in the world.”
*
“And you think it could be that-easily accomplished?”
Narcissa laughed a little as she caught her husband’s eye in the mirror and tucked away the coil of her long hair into the braid that would wrap it around the back of her head. “You think that all this preparation has been easy?”
“That is not what I meant. But it seems that we have struggled for years, and now you are proposing to wrap up the defeat of Voldemort in a single evening.”
Narcissa turned around from the mirror and kissed his lips. “All of those things are true. I find myself growing tired of Voldemort’s presence in the world, especially now that we have destroyed his last Horcrux. And we have spent years struggling against him. I might as well end I this evening.”
Lucius sighed. “Will his death also end the connection that he managed to forge between you in the graveyard?”
“I hope so. Otherwise, we will have to learn the interesting art of necromantic Legilimency.”
Lucius tightened his jaw and leaned heavily on her for a moment. Narcissa bore the weight without complaint. She had always been the stronger of them, and although she was glad that Lucius was no longer as dependent and crawling as he had been under the influence of the Dark Mark, she was happy to know he still trusted her enough to carry him.
“All will be well,” she whispered to him. “Even if I died in this confrontation, all would still be well. I have left clear instructions in my will so that you, Draco, and Harry will be all provided for.”
Lucius swallowed. “I don’t want the bequests or money in your will. I want you.”
Narcissa drew back to kiss him gently. “I know. And I truly don’t anticipate much problem now, except for Voldemort’s tendency to speak in monologues.”
“He is still a powerful Dark wizard.”
“Whose soul-shards are dead, and who is starving to death as we speak.” Narcissa picked up the heavy knife she had decided she wanted to make Voldemort’s bane if at all possible. “I understand your concern, and I take it seriously, Lucius. But I am also allowed to speak from a place of my own careful consideration.”
Lucius closed his eyes for a moment, and then nodded sharply. “As you will, Narcissa. I will be waiting for you.”
Narcissa stole one more kiss from his chin, and then made her way to the Floo. She would take it out of Hogwarts to the Ministry Atrium, and then from there concentrate on the blood link between her and Voldemort to locate him.
*
Narcissa studied the decaying manor house in front of her, and snorted. If she had known that the house where Voldemort was hiding was this close to the hovel where she and Sirius had discovered the ring, she would have destroyed him before this.
Well, perhaps not. Her hand dropped to trace her fingers over the symbol of the Deathly Hallows carved into the top of the Resurrection Stone in her pocket. She couldn’t have used it the way she wanted to if she had simply killed Voldemort that day.
For a moment, the faces of her parents flickered in front of her. Narcissa sighed. “You will have to do better than that, Stone.”
The specters vanished again. Narcissa shook her head briskly and kept walking. She wished the stone would give up and admit that it had been mastered, and stop trying to distract her.
Then again, as long as she was wishing, she’d like to imagine Voldemort defeated, and a unicorn prancing up to lay its head in her lap.
Narcissa moved forwards and through the wards that seemed to shred in front of her as if the blood link was a spear. It was more likely, though, that Voldemort was too weak now to maintain their strength. Narcissa smiled at the thought and walked a little faster.
She found herself in the middle of a decaying drawing room with something on the wall that might have been a ragged imitation of the Black family tapestry. In front of her was a black chair with something hunched in it.
Narcissa laughed when she realized the thing was Voldemort.
He lifted his head. He had shrunk in size, and his white skin hung off him like he was a snake about to shed it at any moment. His fingers bore long, twisted black nails that perhaps he did not have the ability to cut anymore. His furious blood-red eyes still shone in her direction, however.
“Are you ready to defend yourself, Voldemort?” Narcissa asked as she drew the Resurrection Stone forth from her pocket. She intended to summon the spirits that would torment Voldemort the most, probably by making fun of him.
But Voldemort opened his mouth and sat still like that instead of replying. Narcissa considered him. Was he so far gone that he didn’t realize who was in front of him? That would be disappointing, although it would also make him easier to kill.
Then he spat a torrent of white light mixed with golden flame at her, and it stopped being so easy.
Chapter Twelve.
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