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Narcissa Militant	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 17890 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am not making any money from this story.

Chapter List
- 11
- 12
- 13
Narcissa Rising
Part One
Narcissa stepped back from the Owlery’s window and watched the great grey bird she had chosen as her messenger soar away. It carried the potions recipe that she had promised to send Severus. It would enable him to subdue and control the Dark Mark.
She only hoped that he would brew it quickly. From the signs of it, the Dark Lord had already started trying to call his followers back to him. Lucius would have been suffering if not for her quick thinking.
But then, that applies to much more than just this particular facet of the war, Narcissa thought, heading downwards with a shake of her head. Sometimes it was a mystery to her how Lucius had survived until she entered his life.
Draco met her at the bottom of the steps. He was clutching the Daily Prophet. Narcissa sighed, knowing what this would be about. “Let’s have tea with honey in the small dining room.”
Draco opened his mouth as if he was going to argue, but she had already walked away, so he had to trail after her. He spread out the paper on the table with a thump the instant she sat down, though, and thumped his finger next to a photograph on the front page equally hard.
“What are you going to do about this?” he hissed.
Narcissa studied the photograph. It was a rather good rendition of the moment when she had knelt down to comfort Harry after he had been abducted by Portkey to the graveyard where the Death Eaters waited. His face was pale and his eyes were large, and he was looking at her from within the circle of her arms. Narcissa’s own face was hard and calm. No one could see under the surface from the look of it.
Only then did she pay attention to the headline, which was more likely the cause of Draco’s anguish. She smiled a little at the implication that Harry was lying, and looked up at Draco as the house-elves brought them their tea and honey. “Do about it? Why should I do something?”
“They all think Harry is lying for fame and attention!” Draco didn’t even pour the honey in. Narcissa modeled correct behavior, hoping that this wasn’t the beginning of a trend where Draco took after his father instead of her. “You don’t want to see him hurt, do you?”
“Oh, no.” Narcissa sipped the tea and sighed. “But killing a rumor is not as simple as killing a person.”
“Have you even started doing something about it?”
Narcissa smiled as she thought of the second potion brewing in her lab, next to the large, almost pure marble cauldron where the main medium of her vengeance steamed and billowed. “Yes, I have.”
Draco paused and sat back in his chair. “If we go back to Hogwarts and everyone believes this…”
“Some of them will,” Narcissa replied. “But in a way, this is useful. It enables Harry to sort his true friends from the ones who only pretended to accept him back or believe that he didn’t put his own name in the Goblet of Fire. When he hears that they believe the lies, he will turn his back on them forever.”
“He said Weasley believes him, not the paper.”
“Then we must account Weasley a true friend. No matter how much you hate him, Draco.”
Draco scowled into his teacup. Narcissa hid her smile and once again sipped at the tea. Yes, it was delicious and warm with just a tinge of sweetness. She would have to try a diluted form of the second potion on herself to be sure, but she was now sure the honey would mask the taste.
“How long does Harry have to suffer before you can silence them?” Draco whispered.
Narcissa reached out and gently squeezed his fingers. She kept up the hold until Draco relaxed and looked up at her. “Not long,” she said. “I am keeping him busy with his training. He doesn’t even read the papers now, only listens to your summaries, or mine, of what they say. He needs to remain aware of his enemies’ bitterness without allowing it to overwhelm his life.”
“Right.” Draco distractedly chewed his lip. “But—I want to do something right now.”
Yes, there is Lucius’s eager streak. Narcissa maintained her hold on his fingers, and Draco finally sat back with a little pout. “You have every reason to want to protect him,” Narcissa said softly. “I know how much you care for him. But you are only going to make things worse if you rush into this.”
“Vengeance that takes a long time is the Slytherin way?”
“I don’t know about the Slytherin way,” said Narcissa, searching the memories of her schooldays for a moment. “It’s my way.”
Draco smiled and seemed to relax completely for the first time since she and Harry had come back from the graveyard. “Thank you, Mother.” He stood up to kiss her cheek, and left most of his tea on the table in the cup as he marched out of the room, back straight.
Narcissa sipped her tea again. Yes, definitely strong enough.
*
“What is that?” Narcissa asked, nodding to the piece of parchment that Harry was crumpling in his hand. Even if he sometimes messed up the drawings that she asked him to do, of poisonous plants and the like, she didn’t want him to destroy his efforts. He could study his mistakes and find a use for them.
“Just a letter Seamus wrote me.”
Narcissa took her seat on the other side of the schoolroom table from Harry and closed her eyes. Memories leaped into her mind of the time almost three years ago when she had dressed as a stereotypical assassin to frighten the worthless children in Gryffindor Tower. “His name is Finnigan?”
“Yes. He says—he said he believes the Daily Prophet.” Harry stopped speaking abruptly again and stared mutinously at the parchment.
“It is unfortunate that he is so stupid,” Narcissa replied calmly. “But why are you distressed? You know stupidity is not catching.”
“He accused me of being mad.”
“You are not. It is his loss. And now you know who to sacrifice among the Gryffindors if you ever choose to do so.”
Harry stared at her. “What?”
“You could use him as bait instead of sacrificing him,” Narcissa offered. She understood that, although Harry was absorbing more and more of the discipline she had to teach, there were still certain things about the mindset that were foreign to him. “I understand that not everyone has the need for sacrificial blood rituals at all times. I only use them when I have something difficult and delicate that needs to be done quickly.”
Harry looked as if he was somewhere on the far side of laughter. He managed to clear his throat and said, “I won’t ever need to use someone in a sacrificial blood ritual.”
“You should not rule out a useful thing before you use it. What would happen if you needed a blood ritual to heal someone?”
“I can’t think of anyone I would sacrifice—”
“Not even for Draco?”
Harry closed his mouth the little bit he’d opened it. His cheeks were as red as a cut throat. Narcissa politely studied the tapestries on the other side of the room, which showed some of the most prominent family trees, until he regained his balance. Then Harry said, “I wouldn’t want to use it, but I would sacrifice Seamus for Draco.”
Narcissa turned back to him, pleased to see that his priorities were in the right order. “So would I,” she said, which made Harry laugh. “Now. What are you going to do about the immediate problem, which is that one of your roommates believes the Daily Prophet?”
Harry sat and thought it through. Narcissa remained in the room in case he had questions about what the discipline would require of him, but Summoned a book from the shelves and began to browse through it. It was too long since she had studied these particular interesting poisons.
“I’m going to write to him,” Harry finally said. “And I’m going to tell him what really happened, that I saw Voldemort return. Once. After that, if he wants to ignore me and believe what the idiots are saying, it’s his problem.”
Narcissa smiled at him. “That is the right answer. Both for the discipline, and for you.”
The way that Harry blossomed under her praise was incredible. It made Narcissa wonder if she had been remiss in not killing his relatives, but she had killed the Headmaster, who was the one who had ultimately facilitated Harry’s abuse.
Besides, she wanted to save his relatives to be Harry’s first victims.
*
“I think there’s only one answer.”
That was the only thing Sirius had said for half an hour. He appeared content to hold his cup of hot chocolate and stare tragically into it.
Narcissa was allergic to tragic stares. She waited until he had shivered and not looked up even when she cleared her throat. Then she flicked her wand and made the hot chocolate leap out of the cup in a shining spray and coat Sirius’s face with foam.
Sirius leaped to his feet, shouting. Of course, that made him drop the cup. Narcissa was also allergic to the house-elves cleaning up messes that they didn’t have to. She flicked her wand again, and the chocolate that had spilled on the floor flew back into the cup. Then the cup—and the chocolate—deposited themselves neatly on Sirius’s head.
There was shouting and dancing, for a while. Narcissa sipped and watched. Sirius finally stopped dancing, waved his own wand to clear away the mess, and sat back down, glaring at her. Narcissa stopped a drop that wanted to turn her white chair dark brown, and arched her eyebrows a little.
“What was that for?”
“Not telling the truth. You have told me there is only one answer as to what Harry’s curse scar is, but not what it is.” Narcissa leaned towards him and let a little of her true self look out from under her mask. “I want the answer.”
Sirius sank back into the chair, incredulous gaze fastened on her. “You are really fucking scary,” he breathed.
“Thank you. The answer?”
Sirius looked the other direction, which was another tribute, and finally said, “The only answer that makes sense—along with the dreams that you told me he has and the moments of random anger he’s had since Voldemort returned—is a Horcrux.”
Narcissa sat still and thought about that. She supposed it did make sense, especially in light of the diary. And the way that her Internal Inferno Curse had failed when she cast it at Nagini, which should not have happened. Yes, the Dark Lord would think of Horcruxes, and would think of the immortality he could gain instead of the costs associated with them.
Narcissa had never heard of anyone making multiple Horcruxes, although she had idly wondered about the consequences. She supposed she didn’t need to, now, not when she could see the living proof of the Dark Lord standing in front of her.
“Very well,” she said, when enough time had passed for Sirius to start staring tragically at the wall. “Then we must decide what we are going to do about it.”
“Do?” Sirius gave her a blank look. “We can’t do anything about it.”
“You haven’t convinced me of that yet,” Narcissa pointed out, watching him and wondering if he was still being affected by the Dementors. She had hoped that concentration on a way to help Harry would aid in curing him of that, but it didn’t seem to have helped so far.
“Well, of course there’s nothing we can do! There’s never been a living Horcrux before. I looked. The only way that you can destroy a Horcrux is to destroy the object it’s contained in, and that means—” Sirius choked and spread his hands. “Harry has to die.”
“That assumes we want to destroy the Horcrux.” Narcissa made her voice as gentle as possible. She didn’t want to scold Sirius. The delusions he was laboring under weren’t his fault. Azkaban had probably scrambled most of his faculties. “If we don’t assume we do, then of course we have more possibilities.”
“But—but we have to get rid of You-Know-Who!”
“Voldemort.”
Sirius flinched. Narcissa rolled her eyes. “You were never a Death Eater, Sirius. You never bore the Dark Mark.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Merely,” said Narcissa, with an arch of a brow that she knew was perfectly contemptuous, “that you should have no reason to fear saying his name. Your flinch is exaggerated and perhaps a result of your imprisonment. Pay attention, now.”
“But we have to get rid of Voldemort.” Sirius said it with an unnecessary amount of gritting teeth and sweat on his brow, but they could work on that, Narcissa thought. “We can’t just leave the Horcrux in Harry!”
“I never said that we would. I said we aren’t going to let him die.”
“I don’t like it either, Narcissa, but—”
“Do you care more about getting rid of Voldemort than you care about your godson?”
Sirius stared at her, and his fists clenched. “Of course not,” he said hollowly. “What I want most in the world is to spend time with Harry and see him grow up into—into the kind of man that I know he could be.”
“Then why did you turn immediately to killing him?” Narcissa waited, but Sirius said nothing. “It reminds me of a tactic that Dumbledore might have pursued. I think Dumbledore was on that path, trying to turn Harry into a weapon. He certainly sent him into danger in first year. I put a stop to that.”
“How—” Sirius’s face turned the color of whey, which was amusing, since it should have been that color already. “You killed him.”
“Yes.”
“But that—that’s not possible.”
Narcissa leaned in enough that Sirius could see into the depths of her eyes. “No one is beyond my reach when I’m protecting my own,” she said softly. “I’ve claimed Harry as one of mine, Sirius. You would be wise to put down any plans that you’ve made to profit from Harry’s death.”
Sirius shot to his feet and paced around the drawing room. “I would never—do something so outrageous—”
“Good.” Narcissa leaned back and smiled at her cousin. “Then we should have no trouble in working together to remove the Horcrux from Harry.”
“There’s no way—”
“And you have read all the books in the world, of course. All the books in the Malfoy library and the Library of Hogwarts and other collections that we have easy access to.”
Sirius spun around and pointed a finger at her. “No, but I’m the one who’s spent months studying curse scars. You should damn well believe me when I tell you that I don’t think a way exists.”
“And I think there does. I have never yet failed at something I set out to do when it came to saving the life of my children or my husband. Or you, for that matter. We are going to work together and get the Horcrux out of him.”
Sirius sank back into his chair, shuddering. Narcissa watched him and didn’t interrupt. This was something he had to work out on his own.
Finally, he sat up again and said, “I was acting like Albus. Unquestioning belief that someone had to pay the price to get rid of Voldemort. And treating Harry like he wasn’t as innocent as someone else. What am I?”
“Affected by the Dementors, dear cousin,” Narcissa said, standing and crossing the room to stroke his hair. “It throws you back on the memories of your youth, at least with other cases of innocence that I’ve studied. It’s not surprising that what you believed in your early twenties still has a strong hold on you. But we are going to find a different way.”
Sirius swallowed and nodded. Then he looked up and whispered, “Narcissa?”
She nodded in response.
“I’m really glad you’re here.”
*
SickPuppy: Thanks! Alas that Nagini could not stay a book. She'd probably make an interesting one.
Staar: Narcissa would never kill Lucius unless she had no choice. It would hurt Draco too much.
And right now, Snape is on his own side.
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Narcissa Militant