FIC: "Unlocked," Severus/Narcissa, R
Title: Unlocked
Pairing: Severus/Narcissa
Rating: R
Summary: Narcissa has had enough of helplessly watching events unfold around her.
Warnings: Long (5400 words), vague incestuous subtext, references to Severus/Draco for shameless plot device purposes
A/N: Written for crazylittleme for sunandsmut. Thanks to tarie for her patience, and to anoneknewmoose and absinthe_lust for their beta work.
~ ~ ~
Her last owl from Severus had told her when it's supposed to happen, if not how or where or any other of a thousand details that are too delicate and dangerous to commit to paper or a nervous mother's mind. She isn't supposed to know, strictly speaking, since the Dark Lord chose not to tell her, but Severus has become her own saving grace as well as her son's.
She has to act normal around Bella - Bella, her beloved, mad sister, who keeps her unofficially imprisoned in the grand, cavernous Manor that becomes a smaller and smaller cell each day - but as the afternoon drags on, she can't control her agitation any longer.
Thus Narcissa sits alone, silent and terrified in her parlour, wards humming around her (hers, to keep Bella out, and Bella's, to keep her in), waiting for her son to irrevocably change both of their lives.
A sickening sort of relief washes over her when the Summons finally comes.
~ ~ ~
Narcissa Apparates into the circle amongst dozens of other black-robed figures, Bella immediately at her heels.
The place to which they have been called is a large, lavish ballroom that she's never seen before; the only light comes from a single candlelit chandelier. The Dark Lord sits atop a black marble dais along the north wall, flanked by a haughty, smirking Severus. Several more Death Eaters stand behind them - Greyback and the Carrows, and a couple others she doesn't know.
Draco is not with them.
Dread settles like a stone in her stomach, and she suppresses the sudden urge to vomit.
She desperately scans the sea of thrown-back hoods, searching for the familiar shock of white-blond hair.
He isn't there.
Circe and Morgana, he's dead. Gods, gods, please don't let it be true.
The Dark Lord stands and begins to speak, but his words could be in Mermish for all she understands as she sways dizzily on her feet and tries not to be sick amid the cheering of her fellows. She doesn't even recognize her name when he calls her forward.
Bella clamps her hand down on Narcissa's elbow in an iron grip and leans forward to whisper, "Don't make Him wait, Cissy," into her ear before shoving her towards the Dark Lord's throne.
Narcissa falls to her knees before him in obeisance, absurdly grateful for the solidity of the floor beneath her. "My Lord," she murmurs.
"Madam, we have a problem," he says, voice a displeased hiss.
The excited chatter of the assembled Death Eaters abruptly dies.
He's going to kill me. She looks up, despair written all over her face.
"Your son -"
Don't say it, don't make it real, just say the words. Draco, my darling, I'm so sorry.
"- is missing."
She stares, wide-eyed. "How?" Her eyes dart to Severus' impassive face and back again. But that means…
"The deed is done, Narcissa, but at the end of the wrong wand. Draco has disappeared."
"He was not entirely unsuccessful, however," Severus says. "His plan was both ingenious and brilliantly executed, and had I not hurried him -"
"You cannot know that, Snape," Voldemort said sharply. "He is nothing more than a disgrace. Alecto tells me he very nearly let the old man talk him out of it; if you had not hurried him, he may have betrayed us!"
"The boy is many things, my Lord, but never a traitor."
"Explain his absence, then!"
Narcissa bites her bottom lip and looks at the floor.
Severus takes a deep breath. "He was ashamed to have failed you, my Lord, and he panicked. Nothing more. He will return; I am sure of it."
"I have no use for cowards!" His voice rings out in the silence of the room, and he pointedly looks out over the faces of his followers before he turns back to Narcissa. "He is not without talents, and he did prove himself to be of service, but I cannot tolerate desertion."
She swallows hard and nods. "What do you want from me, my Lord?"
He grips her chin in one skeletal hand and looks into her eyes, already pushing into her mind as he asks, "Do you have any idea where he might have gone?"
She can think of thousands of places, but none of them is more than pure speculation. "No, my Lord."
He abruptly severs the connection, apparently satisfied. "Bella!" he calls.
Bellatrix kneels beside her. "My Lord."
"Take her home, and see to it that she stays there. She is not to leave your sight."
Out of the corner of her eye, Narcissa sees Bella's jaw tighten almost imperceptibly. "As You wish."
"You own a house under Fidelius in Dorset, do you not? Part of the Rosier legacy, if I remember correctly."
"Yes, my Lord."
"Who is its Secret-Keeper?"
"I am, my Lord."
"Who else knows its location?"
Bella thinks. "My husband and his brother." Both of whom are comfortably ensconced in Azkaban, she doesn't bother to add.
"No one else?"
She shakes her head. "Everyone Evan told when he Kept its Secret is long dead, my Lord. But for You, of course." She pauses. "The house is entailed on Draco, but I was waiting until he completed his mission to tell him."
"Wise of you, my dear."
"Thank you, my Lord."
"Severus requires a bolt-hole, Bella. You shall furnish him with one."
Despite the anger Narcissa can suddenly feel coming off her sister in waves at this command, Bella merely nods and says, "Yes, my Lord."
Voldemort turns to Severus once again. "Severus."
He inclines his head. "How may I serve you, my Lord?"
"You are certain that the Malfoy boy will return?
"Entirely, my Lord."
He sits back in his chair and looks at Narcissa calculatingly. "What would you stake on it, Severus?"
Severus' lips thin. "I am not a betting man."
"Come now, I know you are fond of the boy, and it's perfectly obvious that you would rather he continue living. I merely wish to know how much your…affection for him clouds your assessment of his loyalties."
Narcissa's eyes widen. I am right here, you know!
With a slight moue of distaste, Severus says, "My allegiance is to you, my Lord, not an adolescent with a pretty mouth." He briefly glances at Narcissa in apology.
"Indeed." Voldemort pauses. "You have served me exceptionally well; it pleases me to indulge you in this."
"I do not ask for -"
"Had you asked, Severus, he would be dead by morning."
Flinching at the casual tone of voice, Narcissa claps a hand over her mouth to stop a cry of anguish escaping. Bella unnecessarily places a restraining hand on her other arm.
The Dark Lord smiles down at her; the kindly expression looks horrifying and out-of-place on his malformed, serpentine face. "Don't fret, Narcissa. If Severus is correct, then you have nothing to worry about."
She notices that he does not say that Draco ought to be similarly untroubled.
~ ~ ~
After returning home, she once again closets herself in her sitting room, the conditions for Draco's redemption swimming in her head.
Three days. Three days during which the person of her son would be inviolate, so long as he refrained from any acts of aggression against the Dark Lord or any Death Eater. Seventy-two short hours for Draco to return to the fold of his own free will and under his own power; seventy-two hours in which no Death Eater might attempt contact him, under pain of both of their deaths. Three days for her to hope and wonder and worry under lock and key and Bella's watchful eyes, like nothing so much as a pretty little songbird in the largest of gilded cages.
She wishes she had the courage to fly away, to look for him in defiance of the Dark Lord's command, but she knows the mere thought is absurd - her Occlumency isn't good enough for her to trust it to protect herself and Draco both. Instead, she knows she'll spend the next three days sitting and waiting once again.
Voldemort had not said what would happen at the end of those three days, but he didn't have to, really.
Narcissa thinks of Regulus, lying silent and still in his mahogany coffin in the front parlour of a grand old house she can no longer picture, and she starts to cry.
~ ~ ~
Bella prowls around the house like a crazy jungle cat, always making sure to stay just inside Narcissa's peripheral vision just in case Narcissa manages to forget she is there. It's obvious that she resents having to stay home and mind her baby sister - just like she had when she'd been ten and relegated to the inconsequence of the children's table when she wanted so badly to sit between Father and Aunt Walburga - but her devotion to the Dark Lord prevents her from carrying out his command with anything but single-minded determination.
That doesn't stop her from spitting venom about Severus at every possible opportunity, however.
Most of it is inane, jealous drivel that Narcissa has heard many times before. Snape is a lying traitor (the old standby); Snape is a lapdog to blood traitors and Muggle-lovers (Narcissa thinks this one is particularly unfair, seeing as how Severus had quite handily bitten Dumbledore's hand clean off while ostensibly being fed); Snape is a vile half-blood mongrel of no good family (also unfair, as Severus' mother's line went back nearly three hundred years on her father's side) and thus of no good character.
Then, as they sit in the solarium after supper on the second day: "They say he's been buggering your son, you know. How dare the filthy pederast touch a pureblooded child!"
Without even stopping to think, Narcissa has her wand out and at Bella's throat before she finishes her hateful sentence. "Not. Another. Word, Bella," she hisses. "You will not speak thus of my son and your heir, do you hear me?"
Bella only laughs mockingly. "Even the Dark Lord has remarked on it, don't you remember?"
"The Dark Lord may say what he pleases; you remain a guest in my house and shall not!" She punctuates her words by jabbing her wand into the pulse point below her sister's throat. Then she's spinning on her feet as Bella pushes her away and snatches her wand from her hand.
"I answer to the Dark Lord, Cissy, not to you. Do not presume to tell me what I shan't do, or I promise that you will regret it." And she slips Narcissa's wand into a hidden interior pocket of her robes and stalks over to the armchair in the corner of the room, sinking into it with a malevolent glare.
Narcissa stares at her, feeling betrayed and worse than naked without her wand, before turning on her heel and making for her chambers. She slams the door to her suite and screams, "Keep her out of here!" at the ceiling.
Bella tries all night to break into her room, even going so far as physically disintegrating the door, but the house itself stops her passing the threshold even as it puts itself back together.
It placates Narcissa somewhat to know that the Manor, the castle of which Lucius had made her queen, is still on her side, and she greets Bella's sullen eyes with a smug grin when she leaves her rooms the next morning.
~ ~ ~
She spends the morning of the third day thinking up credible reasons to spend time in the library, which has one of the Manor's two external Floo connections, in hopes that someone will call with news of Draco. By midafternoon, however, she dispenses with the excuses altogether and simply ignores her sister's patronizing looks.
Bella sits in a corner and watches Narcissa pace the room, tidy the drapes, retrieve and open and close book after book after book. She's said barely a dozen words to Narcissa since the previous night, not even to mock her for fidgeting or spew vitriol about Severus.
Narcissa would probably be worried, if Bella's unusual silence weren't so welcome. If she can't keep a civil tongue in her head, then it's better she remain silent, she thinks, wincing as she recognizes her mother's chiding voice in her own head. She arranges herself on the chaise longue in front of the westward portrait window to watch the sun set over the Manor's grounds, trying desperately to keep her spirits from sinking along with it.
An elf rings the bell for supper, and she hears the rustle of Bella's skirts behind her, but she stays still, staring out the window.
"He isn't coming home, Cissy," Bella says softly in her ear.
"You don't know that." Narcissa turns to face her.
"But you do."
"I know no such thing!"
"You've known it since you dragged me to that bastard's house a year ago; don't play games." Bella's voice is hard.
Tears well in Narcissa's eyes, but she angrily blinks them back. "I did what I had to and nothing more."
"And see where it has got you!"
"I refuse to have this argument again!"
"Denial won't change a damned thing, Narcissa, and you know that, too."
"What do I deny, Bella?" she asks, turning back to the window. "Forgive me if I am not near so ready as you to bury my child."
"Your child," Bella sneers, circling around to loom malevolently over the chaise, "is a cowardly weakling who has spent the last year playing the whore for that Muggle-spawned trash instead of fulfilling his obligations to the Dark Lord. He is not coming home except in a coffin, and you should be pleased to bury him rather than endure the shame of his failure." She pauses. "I only hope that they find your precious Severus with him, so we may be rid of two traitors at once."
Narcissa clenches her right hand into a fist, acutely missing her wand. In its absence, however, she does the next best thing to casting a hex: she slams her fist into her sister's smug, aristocratic face, screaming triumphantly when she feels Bella's nose shatter under her knuckles.
There is blood everywhere almost immediately as Bella staggers and falls to the floor, stunned. Quickly Narcissa tears open Bella's robes to find her wand, and then after a second's thought takes Bella's as well. She stands and steps back with both wands nervously trained on Bella, as if she doesn't know what else to do.
Bella drags herself up onto her elbows, obviously conscious, but her eyes are glassy and unfocused when she looks up. "I'm right, Cissy," she says, voice thick with blood but still fanatical and arrogant.
"No, you're not." Narcissa says slowly, making a decision. "You are certainly not right about my son, and Severus has done nothing to deserve your abuse of him except play his hand better than you have played yours. Siccet." She flicks her wand at Bella's face; the heavy bleeding slows to a trickle. There's nothing to be done about the mangled cartilage, though.
"Give me back my wand."
"No," she says again.
Snarling, Bellatrix lunges towards her feet; Narcissa steps neatly to the side and hits her sister in the back with an Incarcerous. After the ropes have done their work, she kneels on the floor and turns Bella over.
Bella spits in her face, her saliva tinged pink with blood. "Bitch," she says.
Narcissa wipes her cheek with the sleeve of her robe. "I'm going to look for him, Bella, and you can't stop me."
"Don't be a fool; the Dark Lord commanded -"
"I don't give a thestral's arse what the Dark Lord said," Narcissa interrupts. "I will not stand idly by and allow someone else to choose the course of my life, or that of my son. I am going to find him."
"You don't even know where to begin looking!"
"But Severus does, according to you. Tell me where to find him."
Bella clamps her jaw shut and angrily shakes her head.
Narcissa stands up and steps back, Crucio on the tip of her tongue, but she hesitates in the middle of raising her wand. Pain won't make her talk; try something else. "You can't stop me leaving."
Watch me, says the glare she gets in answer.
"You can't, Bella. And the Dark Lord is not going to be pleased that you let me go."
The glare crosses the border between angry and baleful.
"But he'll be much angrier if you run off with me, won't he?" she continues.
Baleful becomes poisonous. "I am not going anywhere, Narcissa, and neither are you."
"Well, I don't trust you, anyway, but that's mostly beside the point. Tell me, Bella; what would Father and Grandfather Pollux say, were they to see you so ready and eager to sacrifice the end of their line to a madman?"
"I will not listen to this!" Bella shrieks, struggling against her bonds.
"You shall, or I swear to you that you will never leave this house again," Narcissa says flatly.
Bella stops moving and stares disbelievingly. "You can't do that."
Narcissa laughs mirthlessly. "No, I can't. But the Manor can." She twirls Bella's wand between her fingers. "Even with this, you're no match for six hundred years' worth of Malfoy protective magic, if I set it against you."
"You don't have that kind of power!"
"You know that I do. Have you forgotten so soon?" She crouches down at her sister's side. "I didn't even have my wand," she says.
Bella's eyes widen with the beginnings of fear. "You wouldn't."
Watch me, she thinks grimly. "I've told you before, Bella - there is nothing I wouldn't do anymore. And so help me, if you do not tell me the location of that house, you will rot in this one. I will bury you so deeply in my dungeons that the Dark Lord himself couldn't break you out with an army of giants, and nobody will ever know what happened to Bellatrix Black Lestrange." She pauses and lets that sink in for a moment before adding, "I wonder how long it will be before he writes you off as a traitorous, cowardly weakling like Draco? Like Igor? Or Regulus, even - surely you remember his crime of conscience, as you yourself killed him for it?"
Narcissa doesn't even try to fight the triumph she feels at the dejected defeat in Bella's eyes.
~ ~ ~
She Apparates to the outskirts of Dorchester just as dusk turns to twilight. Fat raindrops fall from a bruise-coloured sky, soaking her to the skin, as she half-runs towards where Bella had said Rosier Trellis would be. When the sprawling, beautiful house appears before her as she passes a row of overgrown dogwoods, Narcissa very nearly weeps with relief.
A winding flagstone path leads up the hill from the gardens - also overgrown, but it's hardly surprising seeing as how their mistress hasn't visited in almost fifteen years - so she follows it, and it leads her to what certainly looks like the main entrance. She hurries onto the veranda to get out of the punishing rain and dries her robes with a whispered spell.
The heavy, lacquered door with its stained-glass rose is set with a tarnished silver knocker, but she doesn't bother; Bella had told her that the estate is so well-protected that it doesn't need locks, and the house's doors will open to anyone fortunate enough to have learned its location.
Apparently she had been wrong on that count, because the door doesn't budge.
Narcissa knocks using the heavily-wrought chunk of silver, pressing her ear to the door and peering into the dark house through the lovely varicoloured rose. Nothing stirs within the house, and no lights come on; no house elves come to greet her.
No. Please, no. She begins to panic.
She knocks again and again, eventually abandoning the knocker in favour of beating on the door with her fists and sobbing for Severus to open the door. She doesn't notice when the rain starts to fall in heavy windblown sheets behind her, once again turning her thin silk robe into a sodden ruin, or when the skin of her knuckles bruises and breaks.
~ ~ ~
When Severus walks up the garden path, he finds Narcissa a shivering, hysterical mess of soaked robes and bloody hands, on her knees and crying brokenly before the door.
"Narcissa?"
She looks up at him from under wet eyelashes and gathers enough composure to say "Please," before going to pieces again.
He grips her forearm and pulls her to her feet; she buries her face in his robes until her crying subsides to miserable hiccoughs. She doesn't care that she looks a fright or that she's getting him all wet, and he doesn't comment.
Finally she steps back. "I beg of you, please tell me he's safe. I don't - I couldn't -"
He cuts her off by placing his fingers on her lips. "You should not be here."
You utter bastard! Stricken, she only stares at him. "I needed -"
"I don't know how you coerced Bellatrix into divulging this location, but it's incredibly unwise and very dangerous for you to be a single step outside the Manor -"
"Shut up! For the love of all the gods, Severus, I don't need this from you, I just…" She takes a deep, unsteady breath. "You know why I'm here."
"Because you have a death wish!"
"Where is my son?"
He sighs. "Draco is alive, Narcissa, and for the moment he is safe. Now go, before -"
Safe, he's safe! Holding Severus' face in both her hands, she leans forward and kisses him - chastely, but with all the force of her relief and gratitude behind it.
She pulls back after a moment, blushing when she sees the way he is looking at her.
His eyes flick downward for a fraction of a second, but it's more than enough for her to realize that the rain has made the pale silk of her robes translucent and clinging; the tight points of her nipples and the shadow at the juncture of her thighs are both tantalizingly visible. Severus meets her eyes again, and then he attacks her mouth with his own.
She makes a startled sound as her back hits the door. This isn't supposed to happen! she thinks as her fingers scrabble for purchase on the smooth wood behind her. He kisses her as if he's starving for her, cradling the back of her neck in one hand and resting the other on the curve of her hip.
Gasping for air, Narcissa pushes him away. "Severus, I…" She trails off. Absurdly, she thinks, What about Draco? But Severus looks at her with naked longing, his thin lips swollen and his breathing heavy, and she can't remember the last time someone looked at her like that. "Sod it," she says, and twists a hand in the fabric of his robes so she can pull him to her.
Severus' body is lean and hard and warm against hers, and she can feel the dry roughness of his wool robe through her own filmy, dripping clothes. She twines her arms around his neck and seeks his lips again; the kiss is deep, intense, wildly sweet.
Narcissa tilts back her head and moans softly as he kisses along her jawline, his mouth searing hot against her cool skin. Water from her wet hair trickles down her neck, and he catches it by licking a long stripe up her throat. At the same moment, he covers one of her breasts with his hand and brushes his thumb over the hard peak.
She cries out, and he traces the shell of her ear with his tongue. "You're all wet, Narcissa," he murmurs against her skin, and she moans again, louder this time. Severus silences her by recapturing her mouth, tongue sweeping lingeringly over her bottom lip.
His fingers deftly unfasten the row of ivory buttons at the front of her robe before parting ways, one hand opening the front of her camisole and caressing her naked breast and one slipping down to cup her mons through her knickers.
She breathes in sharply and presses her cunt into his hand. He smiles against her lips.
As Narcissa unbuttons his robes, he traces small, teasing circles over her clit through the silk; when he finally pushes aside the flimsy material, she bites down on his collarbone and they both groan in pleasure. She laves the red marks her teeth left on his skin with her tongue and reaches down to wrap her hand around his cock.
"Fuck," he chokes out, and he kisses her again, thrusting jerkily into the circle of her fingers and sliding two long fingers into her in time with his movements. "You're wet everywhere, aren't you?"
She shudders at that, squeezing his cock and hooking her leg around his thighs. "Gods, yes." He pulls his fingers from her cunt, leaving a wet trail over her knickers as she shifts, and then his erection is pressing bluntly against her entrance.
He whispers a spell, and her underclothes disappear, leaving her naked but for the wet ruin clinging to her shoulders, and then Severus pushes forward, head falling forward to rest on her shoulder. Narcissa cries out sharply as he fills her. The feel of it is overwhelming - the soaking wet silk at her back gliding against the hard wood of the door, the rough wool of Severus' own robes rasping the sensitive skin of her breasts, the velvet heat of his cock moving inside her.
She clutches at his shoulders and wraps her other leg around him, completely giving herself over to his rhythm and trusting that he won't let her fall. He sinks his teeth into the muscle between her neck and her shoulder, but he takes her weight.
Time seems to stop when he slips a hand between their bodies; Narcissa can't tell if it's a minute or an age before she comes undone under his fingers, the gentle cadence of the rain drowned out by the roar of blood in her ears.
As she spirals down from her orgasm she draws him into another deep kiss, whispering, "Come for me," against his lips. He obeys with a cry, gripping her hips and shuddering his release before leaning heavily against her.
They stay like that for a moment, spent and panting with his weight pressing her into the door, before Severus lays his hand on the wood and mutters a string of spells Narcissa does not recognize. Abruptly, the door swings open behind her.
She instinctively clings more tightly to his body, but relaxes when he wraps an arm about her waist to support her.
The foyer is dark, but the lamps set in sconces that line the walls flare to life as soon as they cross the threshold. She twists around to see where they are going, and her breath catches at the beauty of the large, airy room. "Oh," she says, entranced.
"Lovely, isn't it?" he murmurs, setting her down on a table conveniently placed to the side of the hall. "Your sister is justifiably protective of such a place."
Bella. Oh, no. Narcissa pulls her wand from her sleeve, stands, and dries her robes and hair, blushing as she does up the buttons over her naked body. "We can't stay here. Bella is…" likely to murder me as soon as she can find me "…not pleased with me, I fear." She Vanishes the puddle on the floor and sits on the tabletop again.
As Severus sets his own clothes to rights, he says, "It would take her a month to break the wards I've put up, and that's only because she rightfully owns its Secret; nobody else could even begin to touch them. You're quite safe, I assure you."
Narcissa looks down. "You don't know what I did," she says darkly.
"You have directly disobeyed an order from the Dark Lord, and you pried a Secret from her which she was no doubt loath to share. If there's anything else that could make her angry beyond those, I confess myself impressed if you have managed it." She feels his eyes studying her, and then he gently tilts her face towards him by lifting her chin. "I am perplexed, however, as to why."
She avoids his questioning gaze. "My son -"
"That isn't what I meant, Narcissa." His grip on her chin tightens almost imperceptibly.
She takes a deep breath and looks straight into his eyes. "I refuse to be powerless any longer, Severus."
He gives her a half-smile. "Only the greatest of fools would ever think you were."
She returns it. "Don't speak that way about my sister."
"While Bellatrix has been incredibly foolish of late, I wasn't referring to her." He pauses. "What did you do to her?"
Narcissa grimaces. "I hit her."
Severus arches a dark brow. "How very Muggle of you."
"Yes, well, she had my wand, so I had very few options. I broke her nose." She looks at her hands, washed clean by the rainwater but still bruised and abraded, and begins to tap each of her knuckles in turn with her wand to charm the contusions away. "And then I left her tied up in the library."
He sits down next to her on the table, and neither says anything for awhile, both lost in thought.
Narcissa finally breaks the silence. "I want to see him, Severus."
"It isn't safe for either of you."
"I am more than willing to accept the risk."
He gives her a sidelong glance. "In a few days, perhaps. Not now."
"A loyal Death Eater would have said 'no,' I think."
"If I see one, I shall be sure to find out for certain."
She bites her lip. "Severus."
"Yes?"
"I don't care whose side you're on, so long as you keep him safe."
Severus doesn't reply.
"I don't care if you're sleeping with him, either, so long as he doesn't get hurt."
He sighs. "Somebody always does, Narcissa."
"Don't break his heart just because Lucius broke yours."
Smirking, he replies, "I always wondered if you knew."
"Do give me a little credit for knowing what goes on in my own house."
"Indeed."
Another moment of silence passes. "I miss him," Narcissa says.
"I'm not doing this for Lucius," he says quietly.
She nods. "I know." I don't know who you are doing it for, but it's certainly not my husband.
Severus rubs at his temple and looks as if he wants to say something, but instead he gets up and makes for one of the myriad of doors that open into the main hallway. "I'd advise against it, but tell me if you wish to leave so that I can reset the wards behind you."
"Thank you." For everything.
He snorts. "Don't thank me, Narcissa. I only opened the door." He gestures toward a hallway that branches off to the right. "There are guest suites that way. Pick one." And in a swirl of black wool, he's gone.
Narcissa takes a deep breath and goes to choose a room. There have to be some decent robes around here somewhere; these are positively ruined.
She smiles when the first door opens into a parlor elegantly draped in green and gold.
~ ~ ~
Late that night, Narcissa's Mark heats suddenly, a sure sign that Draco's three days' grace has run out.
A black-robed Severus finds her curled up in a chair in her sitting room, dressed in a dove-grey brocade dressing gown, cornsilk hair streaming down her shoulders. She looks up from the book open in her lap at his knock, smiles briefly, and then turns back to her reading.
"Well, I suppose that answers that," he mutters, turning to go.
"Severus," she says, and he stops.
"What is it?"
"Be careful of Bella; she'll be out for blood, and I don't know whether she'd prefer yours or mine right now."
He smirks. "I have played this game a time or two, you know."
"Nobody is beyond reproach, not even you. Please be careful."
"Duly noted."
She turns a page. "Will you see Draco when you're through?"
"Almost certainly."
"Do tell him to stay out of trouble, won't you?"
He inclines his head politely and takes his leave.
Narcissa doesn't watch him go.
~ ~ ~
FEEEEEEEEDBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK.
I'm like a zombie, see, except instead of brains I crave sweet, sweet feedback.
BUT I COULD ALWAYS DECIDE LATER THAT BRAINS LOOK TASTIER AFTER ALL.
OH YEAH I WENT THERE.
Pairing: Severus/Narcissa
Rating: R
Summary: Narcissa has had enough of helplessly watching events unfold around her.
Warnings: Long (5400 words), vague incestuous subtext, references to Severus/Draco for shameless plot device purposes
A/N: Written for crazylittleme for sunandsmut. Thanks to tarie for her patience, and to anoneknewmoose and absinthe_lust for their beta work.
~ ~ ~
Her last owl from Severus had told her when it's supposed to happen, if not how or where or any other of a thousand details that are too delicate and dangerous to commit to paper or a nervous mother's mind. She isn't supposed to know, strictly speaking, since the Dark Lord chose not to tell her, but Severus has become her own saving grace as well as her son's.
She has to act normal around Bella - Bella, her beloved, mad sister, who keeps her unofficially imprisoned in the grand, cavernous Manor that becomes a smaller and smaller cell each day - but as the afternoon drags on, she can't control her agitation any longer.
Thus Narcissa sits alone, silent and terrified in her parlour, wards humming around her (hers, to keep Bella out, and Bella's, to keep her in), waiting for her son to irrevocably change both of their lives.
A sickening sort of relief washes over her when the Summons finally comes.
~ ~ ~
Narcissa Apparates into the circle amongst dozens of other black-robed figures, Bella immediately at her heels.
The place to which they have been called is a large, lavish ballroom that she's never seen before; the only light comes from a single candlelit chandelier. The Dark Lord sits atop a black marble dais along the north wall, flanked by a haughty, smirking Severus. Several more Death Eaters stand behind them - Greyback and the Carrows, and a couple others she doesn't know.
Draco is not with them.
Dread settles like a stone in her stomach, and she suppresses the sudden urge to vomit.
She desperately scans the sea of thrown-back hoods, searching for the familiar shock of white-blond hair.
He isn't there.
Circe and Morgana, he's dead. Gods, gods, please don't let it be true.
The Dark Lord stands and begins to speak, but his words could be in Mermish for all she understands as she sways dizzily on her feet and tries not to be sick amid the cheering of her fellows. She doesn't even recognize her name when he calls her forward.
Bella clamps her hand down on Narcissa's elbow in an iron grip and leans forward to whisper, "Don't make Him wait, Cissy," into her ear before shoving her towards the Dark Lord's throne.
Narcissa falls to her knees before him in obeisance, absurdly grateful for the solidity of the floor beneath her. "My Lord," she murmurs.
"Madam, we have a problem," he says, voice a displeased hiss.
The excited chatter of the assembled Death Eaters abruptly dies.
He's going to kill me. She looks up, despair written all over her face.
"Your son -"
Don't say it, don't make it real, just say the words. Draco, my darling, I'm so sorry.
"- is missing."
She stares, wide-eyed. "How?" Her eyes dart to Severus' impassive face and back again. But that means…
"The deed is done, Narcissa, but at the end of the wrong wand. Draco has disappeared."
"He was not entirely unsuccessful, however," Severus says. "His plan was both ingenious and brilliantly executed, and had I not hurried him -"
"You cannot know that, Snape," Voldemort said sharply. "He is nothing more than a disgrace. Alecto tells me he very nearly let the old man talk him out of it; if you had not hurried him, he may have betrayed us!"
"The boy is many things, my Lord, but never a traitor."
"Explain his absence, then!"
Narcissa bites her bottom lip and looks at the floor.
Severus takes a deep breath. "He was ashamed to have failed you, my Lord, and he panicked. Nothing more. He will return; I am sure of it."
"I have no use for cowards!" His voice rings out in the silence of the room, and he pointedly looks out over the faces of his followers before he turns back to Narcissa. "He is not without talents, and he did prove himself to be of service, but I cannot tolerate desertion."
She swallows hard and nods. "What do you want from me, my Lord?"
He grips her chin in one skeletal hand and looks into her eyes, already pushing into her mind as he asks, "Do you have any idea where he might have gone?"
She can think of thousands of places, but none of them is more than pure speculation. "No, my Lord."
He abruptly severs the connection, apparently satisfied. "Bella!" he calls.
Bellatrix kneels beside her. "My Lord."
"Take her home, and see to it that she stays there. She is not to leave your sight."
Out of the corner of her eye, Narcissa sees Bella's jaw tighten almost imperceptibly. "As You wish."
"You own a house under Fidelius in Dorset, do you not? Part of the Rosier legacy, if I remember correctly."
"Yes, my Lord."
"Who is its Secret-Keeper?"
"I am, my Lord."
"Who else knows its location?"
Bella thinks. "My husband and his brother." Both of whom are comfortably ensconced in Azkaban, she doesn't bother to add.
"No one else?"
She shakes her head. "Everyone Evan told when he Kept its Secret is long dead, my Lord. But for You, of course." She pauses. "The house is entailed on Draco, but I was waiting until he completed his mission to tell him."
"Wise of you, my dear."
"Thank you, my Lord."
"Severus requires a bolt-hole, Bella. You shall furnish him with one."
Despite the anger Narcissa can suddenly feel coming off her sister in waves at this command, Bella merely nods and says, "Yes, my Lord."
Voldemort turns to Severus once again. "Severus."
He inclines his head. "How may I serve you, my Lord?"
"You are certain that the Malfoy boy will return?
"Entirely, my Lord."
He sits back in his chair and looks at Narcissa calculatingly. "What would you stake on it, Severus?"
Severus' lips thin. "I am not a betting man."
"Come now, I know you are fond of the boy, and it's perfectly obvious that you would rather he continue living. I merely wish to know how much your…affection for him clouds your assessment of his loyalties."
Narcissa's eyes widen. I am right here, you know!
With a slight moue of distaste, Severus says, "My allegiance is to you, my Lord, not an adolescent with a pretty mouth." He briefly glances at Narcissa in apology.
"Indeed." Voldemort pauses. "You have served me exceptionally well; it pleases me to indulge you in this."
"I do not ask for -"
"Had you asked, Severus, he would be dead by morning."
Flinching at the casual tone of voice, Narcissa claps a hand over her mouth to stop a cry of anguish escaping. Bella unnecessarily places a restraining hand on her other arm.
The Dark Lord smiles down at her; the kindly expression looks horrifying and out-of-place on his malformed, serpentine face. "Don't fret, Narcissa. If Severus is correct, then you have nothing to worry about."
She notices that he does not say that Draco ought to be similarly untroubled.
~ ~ ~
After returning home, she once again closets herself in her sitting room, the conditions for Draco's redemption swimming in her head.
Three days. Three days during which the person of her son would be inviolate, so long as he refrained from any acts of aggression against the Dark Lord or any Death Eater. Seventy-two short hours for Draco to return to the fold of his own free will and under his own power; seventy-two hours in which no Death Eater might attempt contact him, under pain of both of their deaths. Three days for her to hope and wonder and worry under lock and key and Bella's watchful eyes, like nothing so much as a pretty little songbird in the largest of gilded cages.
She wishes she had the courage to fly away, to look for him in defiance of the Dark Lord's command, but she knows the mere thought is absurd - her Occlumency isn't good enough for her to trust it to protect herself and Draco both. Instead, she knows she'll spend the next three days sitting and waiting once again.
Voldemort had not said what would happen at the end of those three days, but he didn't have to, really.
Narcissa thinks of Regulus, lying silent and still in his mahogany coffin in the front parlour of a grand old house she can no longer picture, and she starts to cry.
~ ~ ~
Bella prowls around the house like a crazy jungle cat, always making sure to stay just inside Narcissa's peripheral vision just in case Narcissa manages to forget she is there. It's obvious that she resents having to stay home and mind her baby sister - just like she had when she'd been ten and relegated to the inconsequence of the children's table when she wanted so badly to sit between Father and Aunt Walburga - but her devotion to the Dark Lord prevents her from carrying out his command with anything but single-minded determination.
That doesn't stop her from spitting venom about Severus at every possible opportunity, however.
Most of it is inane, jealous drivel that Narcissa has heard many times before. Snape is a lying traitor (the old standby); Snape is a lapdog to blood traitors and Muggle-lovers (Narcissa thinks this one is particularly unfair, seeing as how Severus had quite handily bitten Dumbledore's hand clean off while ostensibly being fed); Snape is a vile half-blood mongrel of no good family (also unfair, as Severus' mother's line went back nearly three hundred years on her father's side) and thus of no good character.
Then, as they sit in the solarium after supper on the second day: "They say he's been buggering your son, you know. How dare the filthy pederast touch a pureblooded child!"
Without even stopping to think, Narcissa has her wand out and at Bella's throat before she finishes her hateful sentence. "Not. Another. Word, Bella," she hisses. "You will not speak thus of my son and your heir, do you hear me?"
Bella only laughs mockingly. "Even the Dark Lord has remarked on it, don't you remember?"
"The Dark Lord may say what he pleases; you remain a guest in my house and shall not!" She punctuates her words by jabbing her wand into the pulse point below her sister's throat. Then she's spinning on her feet as Bella pushes her away and snatches her wand from her hand.
"I answer to the Dark Lord, Cissy, not to you. Do not presume to tell me what I shan't do, or I promise that you will regret it." And she slips Narcissa's wand into a hidden interior pocket of her robes and stalks over to the armchair in the corner of the room, sinking into it with a malevolent glare.
Narcissa stares at her, feeling betrayed and worse than naked without her wand, before turning on her heel and making for her chambers. She slams the door to her suite and screams, "Keep her out of here!" at the ceiling.
Bella tries all night to break into her room, even going so far as physically disintegrating the door, but the house itself stops her passing the threshold even as it puts itself back together.
It placates Narcissa somewhat to know that the Manor, the castle of which Lucius had made her queen, is still on her side, and she greets Bella's sullen eyes with a smug grin when she leaves her rooms the next morning.
~ ~ ~
She spends the morning of the third day thinking up credible reasons to spend time in the library, which has one of the Manor's two external Floo connections, in hopes that someone will call with news of Draco. By midafternoon, however, she dispenses with the excuses altogether and simply ignores her sister's patronizing looks.
Bella sits in a corner and watches Narcissa pace the room, tidy the drapes, retrieve and open and close book after book after book. She's said barely a dozen words to Narcissa since the previous night, not even to mock her for fidgeting or spew vitriol about Severus.
Narcissa would probably be worried, if Bella's unusual silence weren't so welcome. If she can't keep a civil tongue in her head, then it's better she remain silent, she thinks, wincing as she recognizes her mother's chiding voice in her own head. She arranges herself on the chaise longue in front of the westward portrait window to watch the sun set over the Manor's grounds, trying desperately to keep her spirits from sinking along with it.
An elf rings the bell for supper, and she hears the rustle of Bella's skirts behind her, but she stays still, staring out the window.
"He isn't coming home, Cissy," Bella says softly in her ear.
"You don't know that." Narcissa turns to face her.
"But you do."
"I know no such thing!"
"You've known it since you dragged me to that bastard's house a year ago; don't play games." Bella's voice is hard.
Tears well in Narcissa's eyes, but she angrily blinks them back. "I did what I had to and nothing more."
"And see where it has got you!"
"I refuse to have this argument again!"
"Denial won't change a damned thing, Narcissa, and you know that, too."
"What do I deny, Bella?" she asks, turning back to the window. "Forgive me if I am not near so ready as you to bury my child."
"Your child," Bella sneers, circling around to loom malevolently over the chaise, "is a cowardly weakling who has spent the last year playing the whore for that Muggle-spawned trash instead of fulfilling his obligations to the Dark Lord. He is not coming home except in a coffin, and you should be pleased to bury him rather than endure the shame of his failure." She pauses. "I only hope that they find your precious Severus with him, so we may be rid of two traitors at once."
Narcissa clenches her right hand into a fist, acutely missing her wand. In its absence, however, she does the next best thing to casting a hex: she slams her fist into her sister's smug, aristocratic face, screaming triumphantly when she feels Bella's nose shatter under her knuckles.
There is blood everywhere almost immediately as Bella staggers and falls to the floor, stunned. Quickly Narcissa tears open Bella's robes to find her wand, and then after a second's thought takes Bella's as well. She stands and steps back with both wands nervously trained on Bella, as if she doesn't know what else to do.
Bella drags herself up onto her elbows, obviously conscious, but her eyes are glassy and unfocused when she looks up. "I'm right, Cissy," she says, voice thick with blood but still fanatical and arrogant.
"No, you're not." Narcissa says slowly, making a decision. "You are certainly not right about my son, and Severus has done nothing to deserve your abuse of him except play his hand better than you have played yours. Siccet." She flicks her wand at Bella's face; the heavy bleeding slows to a trickle. There's nothing to be done about the mangled cartilage, though.
"Give me back my wand."
"No," she says again.
Snarling, Bellatrix lunges towards her feet; Narcissa steps neatly to the side and hits her sister in the back with an Incarcerous. After the ropes have done their work, she kneels on the floor and turns Bella over.
Bella spits in her face, her saliva tinged pink with blood. "Bitch," she says.
Narcissa wipes her cheek with the sleeve of her robe. "I'm going to look for him, Bella, and you can't stop me."
"Don't be a fool; the Dark Lord commanded -"
"I don't give a thestral's arse what the Dark Lord said," Narcissa interrupts. "I will not stand idly by and allow someone else to choose the course of my life, or that of my son. I am going to find him."
"You don't even know where to begin looking!"
"But Severus does, according to you. Tell me where to find him."
Bella clamps her jaw shut and angrily shakes her head.
Narcissa stands up and steps back, Crucio on the tip of her tongue, but she hesitates in the middle of raising her wand. Pain won't make her talk; try something else. "You can't stop me leaving."
Watch me, says the glare she gets in answer.
"You can't, Bella. And the Dark Lord is not going to be pleased that you let me go."
The glare crosses the border between angry and baleful.
"But he'll be much angrier if you run off with me, won't he?" she continues.
Baleful becomes poisonous. "I am not going anywhere, Narcissa, and neither are you."
"Well, I don't trust you, anyway, but that's mostly beside the point. Tell me, Bella; what would Father and Grandfather Pollux say, were they to see you so ready and eager to sacrifice the end of their line to a madman?"
"I will not listen to this!" Bella shrieks, struggling against her bonds.
"You shall, or I swear to you that you will never leave this house again," Narcissa says flatly.
Bella stops moving and stares disbelievingly. "You can't do that."
Narcissa laughs mirthlessly. "No, I can't. But the Manor can." She twirls Bella's wand between her fingers. "Even with this, you're no match for six hundred years' worth of Malfoy protective magic, if I set it against you."
"You don't have that kind of power!"
"You know that I do. Have you forgotten so soon?" She crouches down at her sister's side. "I didn't even have my wand," she says.
Bella's eyes widen with the beginnings of fear. "You wouldn't."
Watch me, she thinks grimly. "I've told you before, Bella - there is nothing I wouldn't do anymore. And so help me, if you do not tell me the location of that house, you will rot in this one. I will bury you so deeply in my dungeons that the Dark Lord himself couldn't break you out with an army of giants, and nobody will ever know what happened to Bellatrix Black Lestrange." She pauses and lets that sink in for a moment before adding, "I wonder how long it will be before he writes you off as a traitorous, cowardly weakling like Draco? Like Igor? Or Regulus, even - surely you remember his crime of conscience, as you yourself killed him for it?"
Narcissa doesn't even try to fight the triumph she feels at the dejected defeat in Bella's eyes.
~ ~ ~
She Apparates to the outskirts of Dorchester just as dusk turns to twilight. Fat raindrops fall from a bruise-coloured sky, soaking her to the skin, as she half-runs towards where Bella had said Rosier Trellis would be. When the sprawling, beautiful house appears before her as she passes a row of overgrown dogwoods, Narcissa very nearly weeps with relief.
A winding flagstone path leads up the hill from the gardens - also overgrown, but it's hardly surprising seeing as how their mistress hasn't visited in almost fifteen years - so she follows it, and it leads her to what certainly looks like the main entrance. She hurries onto the veranda to get out of the punishing rain and dries her robes with a whispered spell.
The heavy, lacquered door with its stained-glass rose is set with a tarnished silver knocker, but she doesn't bother; Bella had told her that the estate is so well-protected that it doesn't need locks, and the house's doors will open to anyone fortunate enough to have learned its location.
Apparently she had been wrong on that count, because the door doesn't budge.
Narcissa knocks using the heavily-wrought chunk of silver, pressing her ear to the door and peering into the dark house through the lovely varicoloured rose. Nothing stirs within the house, and no lights come on; no house elves come to greet her.
No. Please, no. She begins to panic.
She knocks again and again, eventually abandoning the knocker in favour of beating on the door with her fists and sobbing for Severus to open the door. She doesn't notice when the rain starts to fall in heavy windblown sheets behind her, once again turning her thin silk robe into a sodden ruin, or when the skin of her knuckles bruises and breaks.
~ ~ ~
When Severus walks up the garden path, he finds Narcissa a shivering, hysterical mess of soaked robes and bloody hands, on her knees and crying brokenly before the door.
"Narcissa?"
She looks up at him from under wet eyelashes and gathers enough composure to say "Please," before going to pieces again.
He grips her forearm and pulls her to her feet; she buries her face in his robes until her crying subsides to miserable hiccoughs. She doesn't care that she looks a fright or that she's getting him all wet, and he doesn't comment.
Finally she steps back. "I beg of you, please tell me he's safe. I don't - I couldn't -"
He cuts her off by placing his fingers on her lips. "You should not be here."
You utter bastard! Stricken, she only stares at him. "I needed -"
"I don't know how you coerced Bellatrix into divulging this location, but it's incredibly unwise and very dangerous for you to be a single step outside the Manor -"
"Shut up! For the love of all the gods, Severus, I don't need this from you, I just…" She takes a deep, unsteady breath. "You know why I'm here."
"Because you have a death wish!"
"Where is my son?"
He sighs. "Draco is alive, Narcissa, and for the moment he is safe. Now go, before -"
Safe, he's safe! Holding Severus' face in both her hands, she leans forward and kisses him - chastely, but with all the force of her relief and gratitude behind it.
She pulls back after a moment, blushing when she sees the way he is looking at her.
His eyes flick downward for a fraction of a second, but it's more than enough for her to realize that the rain has made the pale silk of her robes translucent and clinging; the tight points of her nipples and the shadow at the juncture of her thighs are both tantalizingly visible. Severus meets her eyes again, and then he attacks her mouth with his own.
She makes a startled sound as her back hits the door. This isn't supposed to happen! she thinks as her fingers scrabble for purchase on the smooth wood behind her. He kisses her as if he's starving for her, cradling the back of her neck in one hand and resting the other on the curve of her hip.
Gasping for air, Narcissa pushes him away. "Severus, I…" She trails off. Absurdly, she thinks, What about Draco? But Severus looks at her with naked longing, his thin lips swollen and his breathing heavy, and she can't remember the last time someone looked at her like that. "Sod it," she says, and twists a hand in the fabric of his robes so she can pull him to her.
Severus' body is lean and hard and warm against hers, and she can feel the dry roughness of his wool robe through her own filmy, dripping clothes. She twines her arms around his neck and seeks his lips again; the kiss is deep, intense, wildly sweet.
Narcissa tilts back her head and moans softly as he kisses along her jawline, his mouth searing hot against her cool skin. Water from her wet hair trickles down her neck, and he catches it by licking a long stripe up her throat. At the same moment, he covers one of her breasts with his hand and brushes his thumb over the hard peak.
She cries out, and he traces the shell of her ear with his tongue. "You're all wet, Narcissa," he murmurs against her skin, and she moans again, louder this time. Severus silences her by recapturing her mouth, tongue sweeping lingeringly over her bottom lip.
His fingers deftly unfasten the row of ivory buttons at the front of her robe before parting ways, one hand opening the front of her camisole and caressing her naked breast and one slipping down to cup her mons through her knickers.
She breathes in sharply and presses her cunt into his hand. He smiles against her lips.
As Narcissa unbuttons his robes, he traces small, teasing circles over her clit through the silk; when he finally pushes aside the flimsy material, she bites down on his collarbone and they both groan in pleasure. She laves the red marks her teeth left on his skin with her tongue and reaches down to wrap her hand around his cock.
"Fuck," he chokes out, and he kisses her again, thrusting jerkily into the circle of her fingers and sliding two long fingers into her in time with his movements. "You're wet everywhere, aren't you?"
She shudders at that, squeezing his cock and hooking her leg around his thighs. "Gods, yes." He pulls his fingers from her cunt, leaving a wet trail over her knickers as she shifts, and then his erection is pressing bluntly against her entrance.
He whispers a spell, and her underclothes disappear, leaving her naked but for the wet ruin clinging to her shoulders, and then Severus pushes forward, head falling forward to rest on her shoulder. Narcissa cries out sharply as he fills her. The feel of it is overwhelming - the soaking wet silk at her back gliding against the hard wood of the door, the rough wool of Severus' own robes rasping the sensitive skin of her breasts, the velvet heat of his cock moving inside her.
She clutches at his shoulders and wraps her other leg around him, completely giving herself over to his rhythm and trusting that he won't let her fall. He sinks his teeth into the muscle between her neck and her shoulder, but he takes her weight.
Time seems to stop when he slips a hand between their bodies; Narcissa can't tell if it's a minute or an age before she comes undone under his fingers, the gentle cadence of the rain drowned out by the roar of blood in her ears.
As she spirals down from her orgasm she draws him into another deep kiss, whispering, "Come for me," against his lips. He obeys with a cry, gripping her hips and shuddering his release before leaning heavily against her.
They stay like that for a moment, spent and panting with his weight pressing her into the door, before Severus lays his hand on the wood and mutters a string of spells Narcissa does not recognize. Abruptly, the door swings open behind her.
She instinctively clings more tightly to his body, but relaxes when he wraps an arm about her waist to support her.
The foyer is dark, but the lamps set in sconces that line the walls flare to life as soon as they cross the threshold. She twists around to see where they are going, and her breath catches at the beauty of the large, airy room. "Oh," she says, entranced.
"Lovely, isn't it?" he murmurs, setting her down on a table conveniently placed to the side of the hall. "Your sister is justifiably protective of such a place."
Bella. Oh, no. Narcissa pulls her wand from her sleeve, stands, and dries her robes and hair, blushing as she does up the buttons over her naked body. "We can't stay here. Bella is…" likely to murder me as soon as she can find me "…not pleased with me, I fear." She Vanishes the puddle on the floor and sits on the tabletop again.
As Severus sets his own clothes to rights, he says, "It would take her a month to break the wards I've put up, and that's only because she rightfully owns its Secret; nobody else could even begin to touch them. You're quite safe, I assure you."
Narcissa looks down. "You don't know what I did," she says darkly.
"You have directly disobeyed an order from the Dark Lord, and you pried a Secret from her which she was no doubt loath to share. If there's anything else that could make her angry beyond those, I confess myself impressed if you have managed it." She feels his eyes studying her, and then he gently tilts her face towards him by lifting her chin. "I am perplexed, however, as to why."
She avoids his questioning gaze. "My son -"
"That isn't what I meant, Narcissa." His grip on her chin tightens almost imperceptibly.
She takes a deep breath and looks straight into his eyes. "I refuse to be powerless any longer, Severus."
He gives her a half-smile. "Only the greatest of fools would ever think you were."
She returns it. "Don't speak that way about my sister."
"While Bellatrix has been incredibly foolish of late, I wasn't referring to her." He pauses. "What did you do to her?"
Narcissa grimaces. "I hit her."
Severus arches a dark brow. "How very Muggle of you."
"Yes, well, she had my wand, so I had very few options. I broke her nose." She looks at her hands, washed clean by the rainwater but still bruised and abraded, and begins to tap each of her knuckles in turn with her wand to charm the contusions away. "And then I left her tied up in the library."
He sits down next to her on the table, and neither says anything for awhile, both lost in thought.
Narcissa finally breaks the silence. "I want to see him, Severus."
"It isn't safe for either of you."
"I am more than willing to accept the risk."
He gives her a sidelong glance. "In a few days, perhaps. Not now."
"A loyal Death Eater would have said 'no,' I think."
"If I see one, I shall be sure to find out for certain."
She bites her lip. "Severus."
"Yes?"
"I don't care whose side you're on, so long as you keep him safe."
Severus doesn't reply.
"I don't care if you're sleeping with him, either, so long as he doesn't get hurt."
He sighs. "Somebody always does, Narcissa."
"Don't break his heart just because Lucius broke yours."
Smirking, he replies, "I always wondered if you knew."
"Do give me a little credit for knowing what goes on in my own house."
"Indeed."
Another moment of silence passes. "I miss him," Narcissa says.
"I'm not doing this for Lucius," he says quietly.
She nods. "I know." I don't know who you are doing it for, but it's certainly not my husband.
Severus rubs at his temple and looks as if he wants to say something, but instead he gets up and makes for one of the myriad of doors that open into the main hallway. "I'd advise against it, but tell me if you wish to leave so that I can reset the wards behind you."
"Thank you." For everything.
He snorts. "Don't thank me, Narcissa. I only opened the door." He gestures toward a hallway that branches off to the right. "There are guest suites that way. Pick one." And in a swirl of black wool, he's gone.
Narcissa takes a deep breath and goes to choose a room. There have to be some decent robes around here somewhere; these are positively ruined.
She smiles when the first door opens into a parlor elegantly draped in green and gold.
~ ~ ~
Late that night, Narcissa's Mark heats suddenly, a sure sign that Draco's three days' grace has run out.
A black-robed Severus finds her curled up in a chair in her sitting room, dressed in a dove-grey brocade dressing gown, cornsilk hair streaming down her shoulders. She looks up from the book open in her lap at his knock, smiles briefly, and then turns back to her reading.
"Well, I suppose that answers that," he mutters, turning to go.
"Severus," she says, and he stops.
"What is it?"
"Be careful of Bella; she'll be out for blood, and I don't know whether she'd prefer yours or mine right now."
He smirks. "I have played this game a time or two, you know."
"Nobody is beyond reproach, not even you. Please be careful."
"Duly noted."
She turns a page. "Will you see Draco when you're through?"
"Almost certainly."
"Do tell him to stay out of trouble, won't you?"
He inclines his head politely and takes his leave.
Narcissa doesn't watch him go.
~ ~ ~
FEEEEEEEEDBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK.
I'm like a zombie, see, except instead of brains I crave sweet, sweet feedback.
BUT I COULD ALWAYS DECIDE LATER THAT BRAINS LOOK TASTIER AFTER ALL.
OH YEAH I WENT THERE.