[Wednesday one-shots]: Narcissa Protective, PG-13, H/D preslash, Lucius/Narcissa, 3.1/7
Title: Narcissa Protective
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Narcissa/Lucius, Harry/Draco pre-slash
Content Notes: Angst, violence, manipulation, AU, crack
Rating: PG-13
Summary: As Harry and Draco head into their third year, Narcissa finds more and more varied uses for her skills than she ever knew she could. And if that includes intimidating Severus Snape, a werewolf, Sirius Black, and a rat…it’s not like this is this weirdest year she has ever had.
Author’s Notes: The AU of third year for the Narcissa series! This one is going to be a three-parter, most likely.
Narcissa Protective
“Like this, Harry.” Narcissa patiently stretched her foot out and flexed it, studying Harry’s technique. She shook her head a second later. “No, that won’t work. That looks as if you’re trying to snap your foot in half, not make it more flexible.”
Harry looked at her. “I can’t see the difference between what you’re doing and what I’m doing.”
“Try again.” Narcissa patiently moved her foot in the right direction again. She had never had a student in the discipline before, and it was a learning experience for her as well as Harry. “See the way that you’re extending your toes too far? You need to make sure that you’re properly limber, not that you’re limping around on a foot you’ve stretched as if it was made of taffy.”
“Oh. Oh!” Harry grinned at her and suddenly moved his foot the right way. “Yeah, I understand. This is brilliant!”
Narcissa smiled at him and stood up, spending a moment drying off her hair with a towel. She studied Harry’s hair critically as she did so. While he kept it short, he would not have the same problems that some assassins did, with it being so thick it slowed them down or caught on things, or so long that it gave enemies a handhold in battle. Narcissa allowed her hair to remain as delicately flowing and swirling as she did now only because she was mostly retired.
“You’re such a good teacher.” Harry had climbed to his feet, but was wobbling like a new Abraxan foal while he gazed at her with worshipful eyes. “So much better than Snape.”
Narcissa blinked. “I had thought that Professor Snape was a genius at Potions.” That was mostly what Draco talked about, when he talked about professors at all.
Harry paused, and a blank mask dropped over his face. “I’m sure he must be.”
“I’m the one who taught you that mask, Harry,” Narcissa reminded him calmly as she moved up beside him and casually blocked the way out of the room. In a few years he would know six different ways to get around her and twelve ways to disable her while he did it, but a few years was not now. “Tell me what you mean.”
“He just-he’s a git.”
“Informative.”
Harry sighed. “He hates me because I’m a Gryffindor and I’m James Potter’s son. He makes fun of Neville all the time because he can’t brew the way Snape wants him to. But Snape never says how he wants us to brew! He just flings a potion at us and expects us to get it the first time! Maybe that’s okay if you’ve already had special tutoring, but I haven’t and Neville hasn’t.”
Narcissa considered the matter as she led Harry to the dining room, where the house-elves had prepared cool drinks and small amounts of bland food for them. In truth, she didn’t care that much about Longbottom. He wasn’t important at all to Draco, and he wasn’t one of Harry’s close friends. She had intimidated him without a thought a few months ago so that he would stop asking Harry whether he was a real Gryffindor.
But Severus harming one of her boys was a different matter.
“You know that the school is unlikely to hire another Potions professor,” she said, when she had drunk exactly two-thirds of her glass.
Harry sighed and stared at his soup, moving his spoon around in it. “Yeah, I know. Look at the trouble they’ve had keeping a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. I just have to put up with him, I suppose.”
Narcissa reached out and put her hand on his. “Never have that mindset. It is unworthy of a young man who can accomplish whatever he puts his mind to.”
Harry looked up at her with wide eyes. “You want me to kill him?”
“You are not skilled enough,” Narcissa said absently. “And he is a good Head of House to his Slytherins. No, I am going to make sure that he keeps his mind on his work instead of tormenting you from now on. I know a weakness that I can use against him.”
“How can you keep him alive and still get him to stop torturing me?” Harry shook his head so hard that his hair flopped about his face. “I think it’s his favorite pastime.”
Narcissa opened her mouth to answer, but Draco called, “Harry!” from the stairs then, and Draco’s wishes took precedence. Narcissa was pleased to see that was the case for Harry as well as for herself; Harry turned around with a beaming smile and scrambled out of his chair, conversation forgotten.
Perhaps best not to share this weakness with Harry, in any case. He might have found the methods she intended to use…distasteful.
*
“You know that Sirius Black is Harry’s godfather.”
Narcissa glanced up. She had been revising her plan in her mind, making sure there were no other pieces she needed to add to it. She thought it best to intimidate Severus before the new school year began. “I know. Does he seem upset about it?”
“He seemed upset no one told him. I would have, but I honestly did think he knew,” said Lucius rapidly, looking away from her.
“I don’t blame you for not telling him, Lucius. I didn’t think of it, either.” Narcissa stretched thoughtfully. Well, she would be going along to the school this year to keep an eye on the boys after all. But she would act on Severus first. “Do you mind terribly taking Draco and Harry to Diagon Alley alone? I have something I need to do.”
“Something I should know about?”
Narcissa smiled at him. That was enough to tell Lucius the answer. He went pink and buried himself behind his newspaper.
Narcissa did end up looking at the memories in the Pensieve one more time before she left, just to make absolutely sure she could imitate the voice the right way. Lucius had more memories of the particular person she needed to imitate than she did, and so did a few people she’d contacted for favors.
The spells themselves were child’s play to wrap around herself, and so was the Apparition. Now she only needed to wait until she could catch Severus alone.
*
“Seeeeeeverus…”
“Who’s that?” Severus demanded, and spun around, dropping his teacup and whipping out his wand in the same motion.
Still sloppy technique, Narcissa thought dispassionately as she made sure the glamour was wrapped around her face, along with her voice, and that the levitation token around her throat was functioning properly. She had to have her feet looking as if she was floating at least a few meters off the floor. He could step back, cut his foot on the teacup’s shards, and get distracted.
“You know very well who ‘that’ is, Severus,” Narcissa whispered in her disguised voice. “The person you’ve tried so hard to forget. The person you can’t forget. I thought you would admit to remembering me, at least.”
Severus backed up a step, but his grip on his wand was still firm when he did cut his foot on a shard of the teacup. Narcissa only watched as he hopped and cursed, and then she felt the moment was right and released the Disillusionment Charm that had shielded her.
Severus tripped, this time, and lay on the floor shivering under the weight of her gaze. Lily Potter’s gaze, made misty and silvery by the spells Narcissa was using that let her appear as a ghost.
“Lily,” Severus breathed.
“Summoned from the grave by your dishonor,” Narcissa whispered. The hardest thing right now was to keep her voice under control, and not only because of the glamour. She and Lily Potter had cared about very, very different things. “How could you treat my son the way you do?”
Severus fought his way to his knees and shook his head. “You don’t understand, Lily! He’s exactly like Potter, exactly! He wants to get in trouble all the time, and he laughs at Slytherins, and he plays pranks-”
“Tell me what pranks he’s played.” Narcissa was certain she would have heard if Harry was a big prank-player. One of the boys wouldn’t have been able to resist bragging about it.
“He’s stolen from my stores-”
“I don’t think you keep up proper wards if that’s true, Severus.”
“And he laughs at Slytherins! He revealed he was a Parselmouth last year and then used that to prank some Slytherins!”
“Did he, Severus? Or did he wait around the corner from where some Slytherin bullies were planning on ambushing a first-year Hufflepuff and hiss so loudly that they ran away?” Narcissa knew how that one had played out; Harry had told her everything.
“There’s no evidence they were going to bully-”
“Don’t lie to me, Severus. I see everything, now that I’m dead. The revenge in your heart. The way that you would have found some way to hate Harry, because he looks so much like his father.” Narcissa softened her voice. “Except that he has my eyes. You couldn’t bring yourself to be polite to him, for my eyes?” She knew about Severus’s obsession with Lily Potter’s eyes from Lucius’s stories of the man ranting, drunk, about them in Death Eater meetings.
Severus looked as if he might run away or vomit. He still didn’t notice the blood dripping from the cut on his heel. It was so sloppy that Narcissa was reversing some of her former good opinion of him. “I didn’t-I didn’t-”
“There’s so many things you haven’t done that I could spend hours reciting them.” Narcissa made her voice a little crisper. “But we’re not going to do that. Instead, you’re going to start treating my son better from now on, Severus. I know you have the ability to do that. I know you have a kinder heart than you pretend.”
Actually, Narcissa had no idea if that was really true, if he was this sloppy. People could afford to have compassion when they weren’t clumsy enough to cut themselves on shards of porcelain.
But it was probably something Lily Potter would have believed, and more, something Severus would have liked her to believe of him.
“I-I’ll do what I can. But I’ll still assign him detention if I catch him playing a prank.”
After this summer, I will be very disappointed if Harry gets caught. But Narcissa pursed her glamoured lips and nodded. “That’s acceptable. But that’s different from yelling at him when he’s done nothing wrong and calling him names. You have no idea what his life was like before Hogwarts, Severus. He lived with my sister-”
“He what?”
Narcissa sighed and let her head hang. Apparently that was a sore point, and Severus had known Lily Potter’s sister. Well, that was acceptable, and she could adapt her plans on a moment’s notice. “Yes. Of course, it seems the one who placed him there was Dumbledore, and he’s beyond even my reach now. But it was horrible.”
“Of course it was,” Severus whispered, sounding stunned.
Narcissa turned her head as if she’d heard a distant call, and shook it. “I have to go, Severus. I can feel the place I’ve been tugging me back even now.” She smiled at him. “Please try to be kinder to my son, and to yourself, if only for my memory’s sake.”
She turned and drifted “through” the wall, in fact a complicated movement of a prepared spell that released the glamours on her and cloaked her in the Disillusionment Charm again. She heard Severus cry out behind her, a choked sound of loss that made her shake her head a little in disapproval.
Severus was not an effective teacher if he was so caught up in those memories. She would have to keep a closer eye on him when she was in the school to protect Draco and Harry.
*
“Are you coming along in your Animagus form?” Harry was stretching properly this time, and he turned around in the next second and flung a knife at one of the targets on the far wall with such precision that Narcissa applauded.
“How did you know that I had an Animagus form?” Narcissa knew neither Lucius nor Draco would have tattled.
“It just seemed like you would.” Harry turned around and beamed at her. “A practical skill and all.”
Narcissa smiled. “Well, unfortunately, my Animagus form is one I can rarely use. It is neither small nor stealthy. I have used it only twice on missions, when I would otherwise have been trapped and a brief burst of power made my pursuers back off. It would be as useless at Hogwarts as it would everywhere else.”
“Then how are you going to be there?” Harry walked over to a bar on the wall and started scrambling up towards it, a look of wild determination on his face. “It doesn’t sound like it’s going to work.”
Narcissa watched his form for a moment, decided it would do, and nodded. “One of the Hogwarts professors owes me a favor. I am going to join the staff as her apprentice-in a younger glamour, of course-and do some of the tedious work of marking essays and the like, while keeping a watch out for Black.”
“I thought you would come along as the Defense professor, Mother.” Draco lounged into the room and leaned against the wall. There was nothing casual, however, about the way that his eyes followed Harry’s form as he performed chin-ups on the bar.
Narcissa turned her head away to hide a smile, and replied, “Unfortunately, I found the Headmistress had already hired someone for the position.” Someone she would have to keep an eye on, as well. Honestly, Minerva McGonagall as Headmistress of Hogwarts had fewer advantages over Dumbledore than she had imagined possible.
“Who?” Draco didn’t care that much about the answer, obviously, but at least he was subtle about his appreciation of Harry’s sweaty, red face.
“A man named Remus Lupin,” Narcissa answered smoothly. “Apparently, also one of Black’s best friends-and the Potters’.”
Harry went still for a moment. Then he went on picking up the towel to wipe his face. Narcissa smiled, with a pride she couldn’t drain. “Really? And he never came to check on me or see what my life was like?”
“I can make no excuses for him,” Narcissa admitted, and glanced up as she heard a faint clang from upstairs. Apparently Lucius had discovered the spell locking him into his bedroom. Honestly, he shouldn’t have defended his actions in serving the Dark Lord last night. “However, I will say that he would not have been legally able to take care of you. He is a werewolf, and they are strictly regulated.”
“A werewolf? And he’s going to be around me?” Draco’s voice squeaked.
Narcissa turned around and eyed him sternly. “Draco, what have I always told you?”
Draco took a moment to grasp what she was asking before his head drooped, and he sighed. “Mother will take care of it.”
“Yes. A werewolf teaching in the school is no different. You know I intend to be there this year to protect you both from Black. Why would it be any different when it comes to your werewolf Defense professor?”
Draco looked down and traced his boot over one of the cracks in the floor. “It wouldn’t,” he said finally, when the silence had gone on for some time.
Narcissa nodded and swooped over to kiss the top of his forehead. “It will be well, Draco,” she said, when Draco looked up at her again. “I will make it be well.”
Draco finally nodded and shuffled out of the room, with one last glance at Harry. “Lunch is in half an hour,” he said, probably because he didn’t want Harry to spend all of his day in training sessions with Narcissa, the way he sometimes did.
“If werewolves can’t adopt children,” Harry asked when the door had shut and he’d mopped off the last of the sweat from around his eyes, “why can they be around them as professors at a school?”
“Legally? They cannot. But the Headmistress was reduced to a bare number of candidates, and selected this Lupin as the best of them. She doesn’t intend to tell anyone about his status. He also attended the school as a student without anyone knowing of his status,” she added, and watched Harry’s eyes widen.
“That’s-kind of irresponsible.”
“It was. But it was the previous Headmaster’s decision, and unfortunately McGonagall is continuing his absurd legacy in some ways.”
Harry was thoughtfully silent as he finished drying the sweat under his clothes, this time with a charm. Narcissa was adamant that he should know both magical and physical ways of doing all the things she showed him. Finally he asked, “What professor are you intending to go in as an assistant to?”
Narcissa smiled as she opened the door of the training room. “You can figure it out, Harry. With your training? I would be ashamed if you could not, as fast as you are progressing.”
Harry tilted his head. “Well, you already said she was female…and it can’t be Professor McGonagall because she’s really not teaching this term…”
Narcissa nodded. Apparently McGonagall’s replacement as Transfiguration professor was competent, if not incredible. “From there? I’m sure that you can figure this out, Harry. Don’t strain yourself.”
Harry rolled his eyes and strode out of the room. Narcissa followed with a faint smile. She did wonder if he would figure it out before they went back to Hogwarts. He had enough clues at his disposal that he should, but he was also young, and male. It remained to be seen whether he was more like Draco or more like Lucius.
*
“Hello, Aurora. I’m Flooing you to claim my favor.”
“Narcissa Malfoy? I never owed-”
“I had brown hair and glasses at the time, and I killed that infestation of bats you let loose in the cave where you went to study a certain kind of white stone.”
Aurora Sinistra’s shoulders slumped. A second later, she nodded. “All right. What do you want?”
“A simple favor…”
Part Two.
This entry was originally posted at http://lomonaaeren.dreamwidth.org/925133.html. Comment wherever you like.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Narcissa/Lucius, Harry/Draco pre-slash
Content Notes: Angst, violence, manipulation, AU, crack
Rating: PG-13
Summary: As Harry and Draco head into their third year, Narcissa finds more and more varied uses for her skills than she ever knew she could. And if that includes intimidating Severus Snape, a werewolf, Sirius Black, and a rat…it’s not like this is this weirdest year she has ever had.
Author’s Notes: The AU of third year for the Narcissa series! This one is going to be a three-parter, most likely.
Narcissa Protective
“Like this, Harry.” Narcissa patiently stretched her foot out and flexed it, studying Harry’s technique. She shook her head a second later. “No, that won’t work. That looks as if you’re trying to snap your foot in half, not make it more flexible.”
Harry looked at her. “I can’t see the difference between what you’re doing and what I’m doing.”
“Try again.” Narcissa patiently moved her foot in the right direction again. She had never had a student in the discipline before, and it was a learning experience for her as well as Harry. “See the way that you’re extending your toes too far? You need to make sure that you’re properly limber, not that you’re limping around on a foot you’ve stretched as if it was made of taffy.”
“Oh. Oh!” Harry grinned at her and suddenly moved his foot the right way. “Yeah, I understand. This is brilliant!”
Narcissa smiled at him and stood up, spending a moment drying off her hair with a towel. She studied Harry’s hair critically as she did so. While he kept it short, he would not have the same problems that some assassins did, with it being so thick it slowed them down or caught on things, or so long that it gave enemies a handhold in battle. Narcissa allowed her hair to remain as delicately flowing and swirling as she did now only because she was mostly retired.
“You’re such a good teacher.” Harry had climbed to his feet, but was wobbling like a new Abraxan foal while he gazed at her with worshipful eyes. “So much better than Snape.”
Narcissa blinked. “I had thought that Professor Snape was a genius at Potions.” That was mostly what Draco talked about, when he talked about professors at all.
Harry paused, and a blank mask dropped over his face. “I’m sure he must be.”
“I’m the one who taught you that mask, Harry,” Narcissa reminded him calmly as she moved up beside him and casually blocked the way out of the room. In a few years he would know six different ways to get around her and twelve ways to disable her while he did it, but a few years was not now. “Tell me what you mean.”
“He just-he’s a git.”
“Informative.”
Harry sighed. “He hates me because I’m a Gryffindor and I’m James Potter’s son. He makes fun of Neville all the time because he can’t brew the way Snape wants him to. But Snape never says how he wants us to brew! He just flings a potion at us and expects us to get it the first time! Maybe that’s okay if you’ve already had special tutoring, but I haven’t and Neville hasn’t.”
Narcissa considered the matter as she led Harry to the dining room, where the house-elves had prepared cool drinks and small amounts of bland food for them. In truth, she didn’t care that much about Longbottom. He wasn’t important at all to Draco, and he wasn’t one of Harry’s close friends. She had intimidated him without a thought a few months ago so that he would stop asking Harry whether he was a real Gryffindor.
But Severus harming one of her boys was a different matter.
“You know that the school is unlikely to hire another Potions professor,” she said, when she had drunk exactly two-thirds of her glass.
Harry sighed and stared at his soup, moving his spoon around in it. “Yeah, I know. Look at the trouble they’ve had keeping a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. I just have to put up with him, I suppose.”
Narcissa reached out and put her hand on his. “Never have that mindset. It is unworthy of a young man who can accomplish whatever he puts his mind to.”
Harry looked up at her with wide eyes. “You want me to kill him?”
“You are not skilled enough,” Narcissa said absently. “And he is a good Head of House to his Slytherins. No, I am going to make sure that he keeps his mind on his work instead of tormenting you from now on. I know a weakness that I can use against him.”
“How can you keep him alive and still get him to stop torturing me?” Harry shook his head so hard that his hair flopped about his face. “I think it’s his favorite pastime.”
Narcissa opened her mouth to answer, but Draco called, “Harry!” from the stairs then, and Draco’s wishes took precedence. Narcissa was pleased to see that was the case for Harry as well as for herself; Harry turned around with a beaming smile and scrambled out of his chair, conversation forgotten.
Perhaps best not to share this weakness with Harry, in any case. He might have found the methods she intended to use…distasteful.
*
“You know that Sirius Black is Harry’s godfather.”
Narcissa glanced up. She had been revising her plan in her mind, making sure there were no other pieces she needed to add to it. She thought it best to intimidate Severus before the new school year began. “I know. Does he seem upset about it?”
“He seemed upset no one told him. I would have, but I honestly did think he knew,” said Lucius rapidly, looking away from her.
“I don’t blame you for not telling him, Lucius. I didn’t think of it, either.” Narcissa stretched thoughtfully. Well, she would be going along to the school this year to keep an eye on the boys after all. But she would act on Severus first. “Do you mind terribly taking Draco and Harry to Diagon Alley alone? I have something I need to do.”
“Something I should know about?”
Narcissa smiled at him. That was enough to tell Lucius the answer. He went pink and buried himself behind his newspaper.
Narcissa did end up looking at the memories in the Pensieve one more time before she left, just to make absolutely sure she could imitate the voice the right way. Lucius had more memories of the particular person she needed to imitate than she did, and so did a few people she’d contacted for favors.
The spells themselves were child’s play to wrap around herself, and so was the Apparition. Now she only needed to wait until she could catch Severus alone.
*
“Seeeeeeverus…”
“Who’s that?” Severus demanded, and spun around, dropping his teacup and whipping out his wand in the same motion.
Still sloppy technique, Narcissa thought dispassionately as she made sure the glamour was wrapped around her face, along with her voice, and that the levitation token around her throat was functioning properly. She had to have her feet looking as if she was floating at least a few meters off the floor. He could step back, cut his foot on the teacup’s shards, and get distracted.
“You know very well who ‘that’ is, Severus,” Narcissa whispered in her disguised voice. “The person you’ve tried so hard to forget. The person you can’t forget. I thought you would admit to remembering me, at least.”
Severus backed up a step, but his grip on his wand was still firm when he did cut his foot on a shard of the teacup. Narcissa only watched as he hopped and cursed, and then she felt the moment was right and released the Disillusionment Charm that had shielded her.
Severus tripped, this time, and lay on the floor shivering under the weight of her gaze. Lily Potter’s gaze, made misty and silvery by the spells Narcissa was using that let her appear as a ghost.
“Lily,” Severus breathed.
“Summoned from the grave by your dishonor,” Narcissa whispered. The hardest thing right now was to keep her voice under control, and not only because of the glamour. She and Lily Potter had cared about very, very different things. “How could you treat my son the way you do?”
Severus fought his way to his knees and shook his head. “You don’t understand, Lily! He’s exactly like Potter, exactly! He wants to get in trouble all the time, and he laughs at Slytherins, and he plays pranks-”
“Tell me what pranks he’s played.” Narcissa was certain she would have heard if Harry was a big prank-player. One of the boys wouldn’t have been able to resist bragging about it.
“He’s stolen from my stores-”
“I don’t think you keep up proper wards if that’s true, Severus.”
“And he laughs at Slytherins! He revealed he was a Parselmouth last year and then used that to prank some Slytherins!”
“Did he, Severus? Or did he wait around the corner from where some Slytherin bullies were planning on ambushing a first-year Hufflepuff and hiss so loudly that they ran away?” Narcissa knew how that one had played out; Harry had told her everything.
“There’s no evidence they were going to bully-”
“Don’t lie to me, Severus. I see everything, now that I’m dead. The revenge in your heart. The way that you would have found some way to hate Harry, because he looks so much like his father.” Narcissa softened her voice. “Except that he has my eyes. You couldn’t bring yourself to be polite to him, for my eyes?” She knew about Severus’s obsession with Lily Potter’s eyes from Lucius’s stories of the man ranting, drunk, about them in Death Eater meetings.
Severus looked as if he might run away or vomit. He still didn’t notice the blood dripping from the cut on his heel. It was so sloppy that Narcissa was reversing some of her former good opinion of him. “I didn’t-I didn’t-”
“There’s so many things you haven’t done that I could spend hours reciting them.” Narcissa made her voice a little crisper. “But we’re not going to do that. Instead, you’re going to start treating my son better from now on, Severus. I know you have the ability to do that. I know you have a kinder heart than you pretend.”
Actually, Narcissa had no idea if that was really true, if he was this sloppy. People could afford to have compassion when they weren’t clumsy enough to cut themselves on shards of porcelain.
But it was probably something Lily Potter would have believed, and more, something Severus would have liked her to believe of him.
“I-I’ll do what I can. But I’ll still assign him detention if I catch him playing a prank.”
After this summer, I will be very disappointed if Harry gets caught. But Narcissa pursed her glamoured lips and nodded. “That’s acceptable. But that’s different from yelling at him when he’s done nothing wrong and calling him names. You have no idea what his life was like before Hogwarts, Severus. He lived with my sister-”
“He what?”
Narcissa sighed and let her head hang. Apparently that was a sore point, and Severus had known Lily Potter’s sister. Well, that was acceptable, and she could adapt her plans on a moment’s notice. “Yes. Of course, it seems the one who placed him there was Dumbledore, and he’s beyond even my reach now. But it was horrible.”
“Of course it was,” Severus whispered, sounding stunned.
Narcissa turned her head as if she’d heard a distant call, and shook it. “I have to go, Severus. I can feel the place I’ve been tugging me back even now.” She smiled at him. “Please try to be kinder to my son, and to yourself, if only for my memory’s sake.”
She turned and drifted “through” the wall, in fact a complicated movement of a prepared spell that released the glamours on her and cloaked her in the Disillusionment Charm again. She heard Severus cry out behind her, a choked sound of loss that made her shake her head a little in disapproval.
Severus was not an effective teacher if he was so caught up in those memories. She would have to keep a closer eye on him when she was in the school to protect Draco and Harry.
*
“Are you coming along in your Animagus form?” Harry was stretching properly this time, and he turned around in the next second and flung a knife at one of the targets on the far wall with such precision that Narcissa applauded.
“How did you know that I had an Animagus form?” Narcissa knew neither Lucius nor Draco would have tattled.
“It just seemed like you would.” Harry turned around and beamed at her. “A practical skill and all.”
Narcissa smiled. “Well, unfortunately, my Animagus form is one I can rarely use. It is neither small nor stealthy. I have used it only twice on missions, when I would otherwise have been trapped and a brief burst of power made my pursuers back off. It would be as useless at Hogwarts as it would everywhere else.”
“Then how are you going to be there?” Harry walked over to a bar on the wall and started scrambling up towards it, a look of wild determination on his face. “It doesn’t sound like it’s going to work.”
Narcissa watched his form for a moment, decided it would do, and nodded. “One of the Hogwarts professors owes me a favor. I am going to join the staff as her apprentice-in a younger glamour, of course-and do some of the tedious work of marking essays and the like, while keeping a watch out for Black.”
“I thought you would come along as the Defense professor, Mother.” Draco lounged into the room and leaned against the wall. There was nothing casual, however, about the way that his eyes followed Harry’s form as he performed chin-ups on the bar.
Narcissa turned her head away to hide a smile, and replied, “Unfortunately, I found the Headmistress had already hired someone for the position.” Someone she would have to keep an eye on, as well. Honestly, Minerva McGonagall as Headmistress of Hogwarts had fewer advantages over Dumbledore than she had imagined possible.
“Who?” Draco didn’t care that much about the answer, obviously, but at least he was subtle about his appreciation of Harry’s sweaty, red face.
“A man named Remus Lupin,” Narcissa answered smoothly. “Apparently, also one of Black’s best friends-and the Potters’.”
Harry went still for a moment. Then he went on picking up the towel to wipe his face. Narcissa smiled, with a pride she couldn’t drain. “Really? And he never came to check on me or see what my life was like?”
“I can make no excuses for him,” Narcissa admitted, and glanced up as she heard a faint clang from upstairs. Apparently Lucius had discovered the spell locking him into his bedroom. Honestly, he shouldn’t have defended his actions in serving the Dark Lord last night. “However, I will say that he would not have been legally able to take care of you. He is a werewolf, and they are strictly regulated.”
“A werewolf? And he’s going to be around me?” Draco’s voice squeaked.
Narcissa turned around and eyed him sternly. “Draco, what have I always told you?”
Draco took a moment to grasp what she was asking before his head drooped, and he sighed. “Mother will take care of it.”
“Yes. A werewolf teaching in the school is no different. You know I intend to be there this year to protect you both from Black. Why would it be any different when it comes to your werewolf Defense professor?”
Draco looked down and traced his boot over one of the cracks in the floor. “It wouldn’t,” he said finally, when the silence had gone on for some time.
Narcissa nodded and swooped over to kiss the top of his forehead. “It will be well, Draco,” she said, when Draco looked up at her again. “I will make it be well.”
Draco finally nodded and shuffled out of the room, with one last glance at Harry. “Lunch is in half an hour,” he said, probably because he didn’t want Harry to spend all of his day in training sessions with Narcissa, the way he sometimes did.
“If werewolves can’t adopt children,” Harry asked when the door had shut and he’d mopped off the last of the sweat from around his eyes, “why can they be around them as professors at a school?”
“Legally? They cannot. But the Headmistress was reduced to a bare number of candidates, and selected this Lupin as the best of them. She doesn’t intend to tell anyone about his status. He also attended the school as a student without anyone knowing of his status,” she added, and watched Harry’s eyes widen.
“That’s-kind of irresponsible.”
“It was. But it was the previous Headmaster’s decision, and unfortunately McGonagall is continuing his absurd legacy in some ways.”
Harry was thoughtfully silent as he finished drying the sweat under his clothes, this time with a charm. Narcissa was adamant that he should know both magical and physical ways of doing all the things she showed him. Finally he asked, “What professor are you intending to go in as an assistant to?”
Narcissa smiled as she opened the door of the training room. “You can figure it out, Harry. With your training? I would be ashamed if you could not, as fast as you are progressing.”
Harry tilted his head. “Well, you already said she was female…and it can’t be Professor McGonagall because she’s really not teaching this term…”
Narcissa nodded. Apparently McGonagall’s replacement as Transfiguration professor was competent, if not incredible. “From there? I’m sure that you can figure this out, Harry. Don’t strain yourself.”
Harry rolled his eyes and strode out of the room. Narcissa followed with a faint smile. She did wonder if he would figure it out before they went back to Hogwarts. He had enough clues at his disposal that he should, but he was also young, and male. It remained to be seen whether he was more like Draco or more like Lucius.
*
“Hello, Aurora. I’m Flooing you to claim my favor.”
“Narcissa Malfoy? I never owed-”
“I had brown hair and glasses at the time, and I killed that infestation of bats you let loose in the cave where you went to study a certain kind of white stone.”
Aurora Sinistra’s shoulders slumped. A second later, she nodded. “All right. What do you want?”
“A simple favor…”
Part Two.
This entry was originally posted at http://lomonaaeren.dreamwidth.org/925133.html. Comment wherever you like.