Sea Change (Narcissa, PG-13)
Title: Sea Change
Author: tangleofthorns
Website: Spark
Category: Narcissa, various Blacks and Malfoys, rated PG-13.
Words: 2645.
Prompt: #49. A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used, to utter as fully human speech as possible. Powerlessness and silence go together. -Margaret Atwood
Thanks: atrata and daygloparker. Feedback is love.
Sea Change
Not a Healer called in from St. Mungo's, not morning sickness, not her mother noticing a subtle change in the color of her fingertips, not a crystal ball, not blood failing to flow. None of the usual omens tell Narcissa when her life is about to begin. Instead, it's a voice she hears as she rushes down the stairs.
"Step carefully, child," says the voice.
She freezes, looking up at Abraxas Malfoy's portrait. It--he--has always been civil to her, but not what she'd call friendly, certainly never paternal. Now he is smiling down at her, with more warmth and force than a swath of canvas has any right to project. "Can't you think?" he says, as she stares.
His tone makes her certain that he likes her no better than ever he did, that the smile must be for something else. Someone else. He's smiling the way he smiles at his son, she realizes, and her mouth falls open.
"Well, at least you're healthy." Mr. Malfoy favors her with an up-and-down glance and sweeps out of his portrait, leaving only the painted room and its window on the painted sea.
She places her left hand on the banister, her right hand over her navel, and wonders. For the next week, until the test, she says nothing, not even to Lucius. She keeps it to herself, except when she climbs the stairs. The portrait winks at her, and she is surprised into humming her happiness out loud.
*
Nobody knows that she still sees Andromeda. Sometimes she wonders why she makes the effort. Andromeda today is not the sister she knew. Frazzled hair, brown eyes sunk in shadow, and one hand forever clutching after her sticky five-year-old: Narcissa's gotten used to seeing this, but not to Andromeda's consistent cheer. Ruined women aren't supposed to enjoy their ruined lives.
They kiss each other on the cheek and sit in the back of the tearoom, while the five-year-old applies pink icing to every part of her face save her mouth. "She's growing up too fast," Andromeda says, with a long, oddly satisfied sigh.
Narcissa nods behind her teacup and a blush tickles her face. "I'll find out for myself, soon."
A pause, and then Andromeda reaches out to clasp her hands, sloshing hot tea onto both of them. She lets go quickly, but her face is alight. "Oh, Cissy. You're sure?"
"We're sure."
They smile shyly across the table, and then laugh, the little girl joining in. It knits them together, drawing them close across the last ten or twenty years of separations and betrayals, so that for a moment their choices are meaningless and there's only the blood tie. They're sisters after all.
"When is the baby--"
"Oh, not until the summer," Narcissa says, glancing over Andromeda's head, to the window. Outside the afternoon is solid and gray and cold as an uncut block of marble. Summer seems impossibly far off.
As if she hears this thought, Andromeda says, "It'll pass like nothing. You'll wish you had it back--these few months. Sleep as much as you can. Nymphadora, put that down. Down. Thank you." There's no break in her voice as she says this, barely even a change in tone. She is so completely a mother, and for the first time Narcissa thinks to be awed by it.
"Is it--going to be as awful as they say?" Narcissa dabs at her lips with her napkin, crushes it in her fingers. "Having the baby?"
"Oh..." Andromeda looks down at the top of her daughter's head. The tea cools between them, tiny fragments of leaves sifting to the bottom of each china cup. Finally she looks up. "Giving birth isn't the part you should be frightened of, darling. It's the day after, when you realize someone's life is in your hands."
Narcissa lets the napkin go and crosses her arms against her chest. "It already is," she says. "It's already here."
*
She discovers that she loves being pregnant. The weight, the light spreading beneath her skin, the exquisite slowness of time. Her hipbones spread, her heart rises like a ship on the tide. She is a well-ordered universe, orbiting peacefully around one sleeping star.
"We shall have a dozen children," she tells Lucius, in bed one morning. He lifts her hair in his fingers; this too has changed, thicker and glossier than ever before.
"Wonderful," he says. "We'll name them all after me, to save confusion."
So far names have eluded her; she simply thinks, the baby, and she smiles. "The boys and the girls?"
"Yes." He kisses the crown of her head. "And we'll send only the ugly ones to school. No one will care whether the pretty ones have anything to say."
There's a draught in the room, cool and coiling and immune to charm. Well, it is still winter. She hugs the sheets to her rounded body. "You don't believe that, truly," she says.
"I don't believe we could make ugly children." His hand lets go of her hair and slides up the curve of her throat, turning her head. He's grinning, and she relaxes herself into his embrace, rolling over to kiss him. Deep in her belly something twinges, entirely without pain.
An hour later he leaves for London. She stays all day in her dressing gown, wandering through the house, elves chasing her with brie and olives and a single glass of white wine. She sits at his desk in the library and begins letters, makes lists, writes down a dozen names and crosses them out. For half the afternoon she sleeps in a window-seat, cushioned by afternoon sunlight, the baby rocking inside her and sending her dreams of starfish.
She isn't frightened at all.
*
"The woman is a sham Seer," Severus says, ducking his head slightly, "but this was a genuine prophecy."
Silence falls upon the sixteen people seated at the black-lacquered table; she can almost feel its touch brushing across her face. They wait to hear what the Dark Lord will say, but he keeps his back turned to them, watching the sun go down. So it's Bellatrix--of course it is--who dares to speak first, giving a short, sharp laugh. "And you would know how to tell?"
All the candles in the room are lit and still Severus is abnormally pale. His hand twitches on the tabletop, yet his voice is steady. "If you doubt it, Bellatrix, perhaps you should pay Albus Dumbledore a personal visit. I assure you he is taking it as truth."
Rodolphus bristles at this, but Bella holds him with two fingers at his elbow and an angry, almost violent toss of her hair. "Ah, yes. I forget you're so young you still count Dumbledore as a wise old man, instead of a loon."
A look glitters between the two of them like black ice, and Narcissa finds herself hating them both for talking so much and saying nothing. She bites her lip.
"Enough," the Dark Lord says softly, without looking around. His whisper has more force to it than a child's scream. "The substance of the prophecy, Severus."
So he tells it. Narcissa feels the breath being slapped out of her. The room's gone black. No, she's closed her eyes.
Someone says, "A baby?"
Someone says, "July is the seventh month, but--"
Someone says, "Are we to believe this nonsense?"
The Dark Lord says, "We must begin looking at once," and Narcissa opens her eyes. He has not left the window, though the last of the twilight has disappeared. He is looking to his own pale and scarlet reflection. "We will begin looking at once," he says again, slightly louder. "For the defiant ones. In particular, the woman carrying the child."
Without thinking, Narcissa twists her hands in her lap, as if she could hide the roundness there. On her thin frame it showed early; it shows now, and people are looking. Severus has his eyes fixed on a point somewhere in the middle of her forehead. Bella holds her head high, one eyebrow and one corner of her mouth lifted. Only Lucius does not look at Narcissa, his head turned away, intent on the Dark Lord's perfectly straight shoulders. But his hand grips her knee under the table, anchoring her to the spot.
"We will serve you in this as in everything," he says, and Narcissa's heart would fly out of her mouth if it could, if it weren't for the other, smaller heartbeat and the fingers on her knee telling her, as sure as words: keep still. Keep silent.
*
The midwife's hands are thin and hard, like bare bone. At least they're warm. "You're carrying high," she says, prodding Narcissa's stomach with a fingertip.
"Does that mean something?" Narcissa asks, before she remembers she's supposed to be holding her breath. The midwife clicks her tongue and leans in closer, using both hands. Under the thin fingers and the white, tight skin, the baby kicks. The first time this happened, Narcissa was so startled stopped in the middle of Diagon Alley as if she'd been Petrified. Every time this happens, it's a miracle.
"Boy," the midwife says. "None too big, neither. Eat more red meat."
There is a gap of several seconds between the time when she says this and the time when the sense of it strikes Narcissa's mind. "What?"
"And milk. Cream if you can keep it down."
"No, no." Narcissa struggles to sit up on the stripped bed. "You said--it's a boy."
The midwife nods once, impatiently, and hands Narcissa back her robes. "Lots of boys'll be along this summer," she says. "Something in the wind, I don't doubt." She starts to pull away, but Narcissa grabs at her twig of a wrist.
They look at each other. It's quiet, but she can hear Lucius walking down the hall, the sound of waiting in between his footsteps. "When?"
"Can't ever say that for sure," the midwife says, and pulls away with an unexpected burst of strength. Narcissa stands up and begins to dress herself. The baby kicks: she can see his footprint in her flesh.
*
As she swells the weather changes, eases. Sunlight melts like butter on the days, and at night a warm mist rises to meet the moonlight. Narcissa lies awake, sliding into dreams from time to time until her son nudges her back into the room. She wonders whether he can dream yet, whether he has his own thoughts or simply shares in hers.
She hears the muttered Lumos at her door and shields her eyes as Lucius enters. Before she adjusts to the light, it's obvious something is wrong. He limps a little as he crosses the bedroom; his breathing is harsh, and something in his eyes is over-bright. He drops down hard at the end of the bed, shaking them both.
"This is not my finest hour," he says, almost laughing. Not laughing at all. Narcissa doesn't need to ask what happened. He always tells her everything, in time. She is sure. Still, it's too long before he rolls onto his side, his cheek to her ankle, and says, "We missed the Potters."
"Oh." She reaches for the quilt, tugs it up over her naked shoulders. There is more.
"It was fucked from start to finish." He flicks his wand to summon her glass of water from the nightstand, and drinks it down in one gulp. "Pardon."
"Lucius." She hides behind her hands, looks out from between her fingers, and it's just like being under the mask. It's not something she would ever venture aloud, not even tonight, not even alone--but she hates that mask and its cold grip on her face. She would never put it on again, if that was a choice. If she had a choice. "Is anyone--"
"No, but they'll wish it." He sits up, and shadow covers his face, except for the reflection swimming in his eyes. "I have never seen Him so angry. And I think He's becoming more powerful, somehow."
At this she almost laughs. More powerful, as if they have any measure for His power. It would be like trying to measure how many drops of water make the ocean, how many grains of salt. She doesn't laugh at all.
"What's going to happen?" she asks. She asks it of the night, the moon and the mist.
Lucius replies, "We're going to be on his side when he wins." He cups her heel in his hand, lets go and hauls himself up off the bed. "I'll be in the bath."
When she's alone, the bed seems massive, an iceberg drifting through an infinite winter. She curls around the warmth of her belly, her baby, and tries to make herself think of lullabies.
*
Ergot. Shepherd's purse. Black cohosh, and blue. Tincture of motherwort, aloe, angelica, blessed thistle, elecampane, and wormwood.
It is the first daylight hour of the first morning in June. Narcissa is alone in the kitchen, the house elves banished, and she lowers a crystal goblet into the cauldron. The potion is dark and brackish and reeks of smoke. She carries her glass to the dining room table, and lowers herself heavily into the chair at its head. Her posture is perfect. She toasts the air, and drinks.
And then she rises slowly, like a good hostess, and climbs the stairs, nodding to her father-in-law on the way. The next five days are hell.
The next five days are a tunnel that is also her body, and the pain, and the herbs working her in and out of consciousness, and the smell of her own blood, and her mouth dry as ashes, and wordless screams, and the pain, and the pain. At the end of it, though, there is a light.
She holds the light in her own arms.
*
"Draco," Lucius says.
"Yes." She nods. "Draco."
Their son scowls at their voices and turns his crumpled face in against her wrist, his eyes puffed shut, his lips open, almost kissing her. This is love: flooding her chest, filling the hollow spaces in her bones, drowning out everything else, its tide deafening against her ears. And she understands what Andromeda meant, about the fear.
She lowers her lips to his forehead. A tiny hand closes around a lock of her hair. "Yes, Draco," she whispers. As if he could possibly have been anyone else.
"Cissy?"
Lucius never calls her that. She looks up, through her lashes and the blur of drying tears.
"The midwife said..." His mouth trembles and he looks away, quickly. She watches him pull the smile back onto his face before he can look at her again. "It doesn't matter," he says. "That's all."
Narcissa didn't need the midwife to tell her anything. The pain has made her very wise, and much older than the girl who hummed on the stairs. "There won't be any other children."
"It doesn't matter." He climbs into the bed beside her, not noticing when she winces, wrapping his arms around them both. He holds a finger to Draco's mouth, and they watch him move his mouth against it, in blind faith that everything around him can provide sustenance. Their son is perfect, and already he's a separate universe all his own.
It might have killed her, and she knew that all along. And it would have been worth it, to make sure he was born free and clear, unprophesied, and unthreatened. Her hand curves to the shape of Draco's pale downed head, and she knows she will never be loyal to any other power. This is love.
She's crying again.
"I'm sorry," Lucius says. His arm is around her, but his voice is very far away. The tears come harder, now, without a sound.
Author: tangleofthorns
Website: Spark
Category: Narcissa, various Blacks and Malfoys, rated PG-13.
Words: 2645.
Prompt: #49. A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used, to utter as fully human speech as possible. Powerlessness and silence go together. -Margaret Atwood
Thanks: atrata and daygloparker. Feedback is love.
Sea Change
Not a Healer called in from St. Mungo's, not morning sickness, not her mother noticing a subtle change in the color of her fingertips, not a crystal ball, not blood failing to flow. None of the usual omens tell Narcissa when her life is about to begin. Instead, it's a voice she hears as she rushes down the stairs.
"Step carefully, child," says the voice.
She freezes, looking up at Abraxas Malfoy's portrait. It--he--has always been civil to her, but not what she'd call friendly, certainly never paternal. Now he is smiling down at her, with more warmth and force than a swath of canvas has any right to project. "Can't you think?" he says, as she stares.
His tone makes her certain that he likes her no better than ever he did, that the smile must be for something else. Someone else. He's smiling the way he smiles at his son, she realizes, and her mouth falls open.
"Well, at least you're healthy." Mr. Malfoy favors her with an up-and-down glance and sweeps out of his portrait, leaving only the painted room and its window on the painted sea.
She places her left hand on the banister, her right hand over her navel, and wonders. For the next week, until the test, she says nothing, not even to Lucius. She keeps it to herself, except when she climbs the stairs. The portrait winks at her, and she is surprised into humming her happiness out loud.
*
Nobody knows that she still sees Andromeda. Sometimes she wonders why she makes the effort. Andromeda today is not the sister she knew. Frazzled hair, brown eyes sunk in shadow, and one hand forever clutching after her sticky five-year-old: Narcissa's gotten used to seeing this, but not to Andromeda's consistent cheer. Ruined women aren't supposed to enjoy their ruined lives.
They kiss each other on the cheek and sit in the back of the tearoom, while the five-year-old applies pink icing to every part of her face save her mouth. "She's growing up too fast," Andromeda says, with a long, oddly satisfied sigh.
Narcissa nods behind her teacup and a blush tickles her face. "I'll find out for myself, soon."
A pause, and then Andromeda reaches out to clasp her hands, sloshing hot tea onto both of them. She lets go quickly, but her face is alight. "Oh, Cissy. You're sure?"
"We're sure."
They smile shyly across the table, and then laugh, the little girl joining in. It knits them together, drawing them close across the last ten or twenty years of separations and betrayals, so that for a moment their choices are meaningless and there's only the blood tie. They're sisters after all.
"When is the baby--"
"Oh, not until the summer," Narcissa says, glancing over Andromeda's head, to the window. Outside the afternoon is solid and gray and cold as an uncut block of marble. Summer seems impossibly far off.
As if she hears this thought, Andromeda says, "It'll pass like nothing. You'll wish you had it back--these few months. Sleep as much as you can. Nymphadora, put that down. Down. Thank you." There's no break in her voice as she says this, barely even a change in tone. She is so completely a mother, and for the first time Narcissa thinks to be awed by it.
"Is it--going to be as awful as they say?" Narcissa dabs at her lips with her napkin, crushes it in her fingers. "Having the baby?"
"Oh..." Andromeda looks down at the top of her daughter's head. The tea cools between them, tiny fragments of leaves sifting to the bottom of each china cup. Finally she looks up. "Giving birth isn't the part you should be frightened of, darling. It's the day after, when you realize someone's life is in your hands."
Narcissa lets the napkin go and crosses her arms against her chest. "It already is," she says. "It's already here."
*
She discovers that she loves being pregnant. The weight, the light spreading beneath her skin, the exquisite slowness of time. Her hipbones spread, her heart rises like a ship on the tide. She is a well-ordered universe, orbiting peacefully around one sleeping star.
"We shall have a dozen children," she tells Lucius, in bed one morning. He lifts her hair in his fingers; this too has changed, thicker and glossier than ever before.
"Wonderful," he says. "We'll name them all after me, to save confusion."
So far names have eluded her; she simply thinks, the baby, and she smiles. "The boys and the girls?"
"Yes." He kisses the crown of her head. "And we'll send only the ugly ones to school. No one will care whether the pretty ones have anything to say."
There's a draught in the room, cool and coiling and immune to charm. Well, it is still winter. She hugs the sheets to her rounded body. "You don't believe that, truly," she says.
"I don't believe we could make ugly children." His hand lets go of her hair and slides up the curve of her throat, turning her head. He's grinning, and she relaxes herself into his embrace, rolling over to kiss him. Deep in her belly something twinges, entirely without pain.
An hour later he leaves for London. She stays all day in her dressing gown, wandering through the house, elves chasing her with brie and olives and a single glass of white wine. She sits at his desk in the library and begins letters, makes lists, writes down a dozen names and crosses them out. For half the afternoon she sleeps in a window-seat, cushioned by afternoon sunlight, the baby rocking inside her and sending her dreams of starfish.
She isn't frightened at all.
*
"The woman is a sham Seer," Severus says, ducking his head slightly, "but this was a genuine prophecy."
Silence falls upon the sixteen people seated at the black-lacquered table; she can almost feel its touch brushing across her face. They wait to hear what the Dark Lord will say, but he keeps his back turned to them, watching the sun go down. So it's Bellatrix--of course it is--who dares to speak first, giving a short, sharp laugh. "And you would know how to tell?"
All the candles in the room are lit and still Severus is abnormally pale. His hand twitches on the tabletop, yet his voice is steady. "If you doubt it, Bellatrix, perhaps you should pay Albus Dumbledore a personal visit. I assure you he is taking it as truth."
Rodolphus bristles at this, but Bella holds him with two fingers at his elbow and an angry, almost violent toss of her hair. "Ah, yes. I forget you're so young you still count Dumbledore as a wise old man, instead of a loon."
A look glitters between the two of them like black ice, and Narcissa finds herself hating them both for talking so much and saying nothing. She bites her lip.
"Enough," the Dark Lord says softly, without looking around. His whisper has more force to it than a child's scream. "The substance of the prophecy, Severus."
So he tells it. Narcissa feels the breath being slapped out of her. The room's gone black. No, she's closed her eyes.
Someone says, "A baby?"
Someone says, "July is the seventh month, but--"
Someone says, "Are we to believe this nonsense?"
The Dark Lord says, "We must begin looking at once," and Narcissa opens her eyes. He has not left the window, though the last of the twilight has disappeared. He is looking to his own pale and scarlet reflection. "We will begin looking at once," he says again, slightly louder. "For the defiant ones. In particular, the woman carrying the child."
Without thinking, Narcissa twists her hands in her lap, as if she could hide the roundness there. On her thin frame it showed early; it shows now, and people are looking. Severus has his eyes fixed on a point somewhere in the middle of her forehead. Bella holds her head high, one eyebrow and one corner of her mouth lifted. Only Lucius does not look at Narcissa, his head turned away, intent on the Dark Lord's perfectly straight shoulders. But his hand grips her knee under the table, anchoring her to the spot.
"We will serve you in this as in everything," he says, and Narcissa's heart would fly out of her mouth if it could, if it weren't for the other, smaller heartbeat and the fingers on her knee telling her, as sure as words: keep still. Keep silent.
*
The midwife's hands are thin and hard, like bare bone. At least they're warm. "You're carrying high," she says, prodding Narcissa's stomach with a fingertip.
"Does that mean something?" Narcissa asks, before she remembers she's supposed to be holding her breath. The midwife clicks her tongue and leans in closer, using both hands. Under the thin fingers and the white, tight skin, the baby kicks. The first time this happened, Narcissa was so startled stopped in the middle of Diagon Alley as if she'd been Petrified. Every time this happens, it's a miracle.
"Boy," the midwife says. "None too big, neither. Eat more red meat."
There is a gap of several seconds between the time when she says this and the time when the sense of it strikes Narcissa's mind. "What?"
"And milk. Cream if you can keep it down."
"No, no." Narcissa struggles to sit up on the stripped bed. "You said--it's a boy."
The midwife nods once, impatiently, and hands Narcissa back her robes. "Lots of boys'll be along this summer," she says. "Something in the wind, I don't doubt." She starts to pull away, but Narcissa grabs at her twig of a wrist.
They look at each other. It's quiet, but she can hear Lucius walking down the hall, the sound of waiting in between his footsteps. "When?"
"Can't ever say that for sure," the midwife says, and pulls away with an unexpected burst of strength. Narcissa stands up and begins to dress herself. The baby kicks: she can see his footprint in her flesh.
*
As she swells the weather changes, eases. Sunlight melts like butter on the days, and at night a warm mist rises to meet the moonlight. Narcissa lies awake, sliding into dreams from time to time until her son nudges her back into the room. She wonders whether he can dream yet, whether he has his own thoughts or simply shares in hers.
She hears the muttered Lumos at her door and shields her eyes as Lucius enters. Before she adjusts to the light, it's obvious something is wrong. He limps a little as he crosses the bedroom; his breathing is harsh, and something in his eyes is over-bright. He drops down hard at the end of the bed, shaking them both.
"This is not my finest hour," he says, almost laughing. Not laughing at all. Narcissa doesn't need to ask what happened. He always tells her everything, in time. She is sure. Still, it's too long before he rolls onto his side, his cheek to her ankle, and says, "We missed the Potters."
"Oh." She reaches for the quilt, tugs it up over her naked shoulders. There is more.
"It was fucked from start to finish." He flicks his wand to summon her glass of water from the nightstand, and drinks it down in one gulp. "Pardon."
"Lucius." She hides behind her hands, looks out from between her fingers, and it's just like being under the mask. It's not something she would ever venture aloud, not even tonight, not even alone--but she hates that mask and its cold grip on her face. She would never put it on again, if that was a choice. If she had a choice. "Is anyone--"
"No, but they'll wish it." He sits up, and shadow covers his face, except for the reflection swimming in his eyes. "I have never seen Him so angry. And I think He's becoming more powerful, somehow."
At this she almost laughs. More powerful, as if they have any measure for His power. It would be like trying to measure how many drops of water make the ocean, how many grains of salt. She doesn't laugh at all.
"What's going to happen?" she asks. She asks it of the night, the moon and the mist.
Lucius replies, "We're going to be on his side when he wins." He cups her heel in his hand, lets go and hauls himself up off the bed. "I'll be in the bath."
When she's alone, the bed seems massive, an iceberg drifting through an infinite winter. She curls around the warmth of her belly, her baby, and tries to make herself think of lullabies.
*
Ergot. Shepherd's purse. Black cohosh, and blue. Tincture of motherwort, aloe, angelica, blessed thistle, elecampane, and wormwood.
It is the first daylight hour of the first morning in June. Narcissa is alone in the kitchen, the house elves banished, and she lowers a crystal goblet into the cauldron. The potion is dark and brackish and reeks of smoke. She carries her glass to the dining room table, and lowers herself heavily into the chair at its head. Her posture is perfect. She toasts the air, and drinks.
And then she rises slowly, like a good hostess, and climbs the stairs, nodding to her father-in-law on the way. The next five days are hell.
The next five days are a tunnel that is also her body, and the pain, and the herbs working her in and out of consciousness, and the smell of her own blood, and her mouth dry as ashes, and wordless screams, and the pain, and the pain. At the end of it, though, there is a light.
She holds the light in her own arms.
*
"Draco," Lucius says.
"Yes." She nods. "Draco."
Their son scowls at their voices and turns his crumpled face in against her wrist, his eyes puffed shut, his lips open, almost kissing her. This is love: flooding her chest, filling the hollow spaces in her bones, drowning out everything else, its tide deafening against her ears. And she understands what Andromeda meant, about the fear.
She lowers her lips to his forehead. A tiny hand closes around a lock of her hair. "Yes, Draco," she whispers. As if he could possibly have been anyone else.
"Cissy?"
Lucius never calls her that. She looks up, through her lashes and the blur of drying tears.
"The midwife said..." His mouth trembles and he looks away, quickly. She watches him pull the smile back onto his face before he can look at her again. "It doesn't matter," he says. "That's all."
Narcissa didn't need the midwife to tell her anything. The pain has made her very wise, and much older than the girl who hummed on the stairs. "There won't be any other children."
"It doesn't matter." He climbs into the bed beside her, not noticing when she winces, wrapping his arms around them both. He holds a finger to Draco's mouth, and they watch him move his mouth against it, in blind faith that everything around him can provide sustenance. Their son is perfect, and already he's a separate universe all his own.
It might have killed her, and she knew that all along. And it would have been worth it, to make sure he was born free and clear, unprophesied, and unthreatened. Her hand curves to the shape of Draco's pale downed head, and she knows she will never be loyal to any other power. This is love.
She's crying again.
"I'm sorry," Lucius says. His arm is around her, but his voice is very far away. The tears come harder, now, without a sound.