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Narcissa Militant	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 17885 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am not making any money from this story.

Chapter List
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Thank you for all the reviews!
Part Two
“It is unusual that you would contact me.”
Headmistress McGonagall frowned a little, but didn’t let her gaze waver from Narcissa’s face. Of course, that was easier through the flames of the Floo connection than it would be in person, but Narcissa would still give her credit for bravery. “We went through Aurora’s records to try and figure out what would prompt her to betray us. We found your real name listed beside the name of the Astronomy apprentice from two years ago.”
Narcissa tilted her head. “I suppose I should have known Aurora would keep records like that. She is foolish in so many ways.”
McGonagall shivered absently. “Can you come and teach Astronomy? We already have a new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, or I would have come and asked you for that.”
Narcissa listened to the tone in her voice and said, “I thought the Headmistress was in charge of hiring for all the positions.”
“I normally am, but—we found no candidate by a certain deadline, and the Ministry, in their infinite concern for the education of our children, took over.”
Narcissa listened to the words she spat, and the ones she didn’t. “And the name of this professor?”
“Dolores Umbridge.”
“She was the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister the last I knew. What does she know about teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts?”
“From the books I’ve seen? Nothing.” McGonagall’s face was flat. “But she does know a lot about teaching Ministry propaganda and encouraging exactly the sort of reactions to the news that You-Know-Who is back that the Minister wants.”
Narcissa made the decision. It was going to be hard enough for Harry at Hogwarts this year, with some of his friends disbelieving him. She couldn’t leave him alone to face Umbridge’s tender mercies. “Then I suppose I had best brush up on my Astronomy.”
*
“Mrs. Malfoy. It’s so wonderful to see you!” Umbridge gushed, holding out her hand. She was smiling in the way that meant she knew exactly how many Galleons Lucius had donated to Fudge’s re-election campaign, and also the way that meant she was going to say something nasty in a moment. Narcissa calmly shook her hand and waited for the next statement.
It came. Umbridge’s face wrinkled and she put her hand to her mouth as if she’d only now thought of a problem. “Only—are you sure that the foster mother of a student ought to be teaching a class he’s in? I could see some problems with fairness and objectivity. And the Ministry is very encouraging of fairness, you know.”
Narcissa laughed softly as she sat down next to Umbridge at the table, seeing the way that the students peered at her and tried to pretend that they weren’t peering. “I must admit I am surprised, Madam Umbridge. You doubt my ability to be fair to my foster son, but not my blood one?”
From the dull flush mounting Umbridge’s cheeks, she had indeed forgotten that Draco was also a student in the school. But she recovered quickly. “You’ve had Draco since he was a baby, and I’m sure he’ll be a credit to you. But the boy telling wild tales to the papers—”
“I can certainly show you his memories in a Pensieve,” said Narcissa. “If you doubt him that You-Know-Who has returned.”
“Tampered with, I have no doubt.” Umbridge gave her a pitying look. “A mother always wants to believe the best of her children—or so I’ve heard. I wouldn’t know.” She giggled girlishly. “But you have to admit the boy is powerful enough and enough of a traitor to good society to have forged those memories.”
“Tell me, my dear Dolores, what do you mean by ‘a traitor to good society’?”
The children were marching into the Great Hall now. Narcissa watched from the corner of her eye as Draco took his place at the Slytherin table, and saw Harry take the Gryffindor seat that was directly across from him. She had to smile. They might not announce they were dating for all to hear, but anyone who knew them had to see the exchanged glances and blushes and the occasional aborted gestures.
“I’m sure you’ve done your best with him.” Dolores lowered her voice and leaned closer, expression clear and sympathetic and gentle. “But we all know the truth. Raised by Muggles, I’ve heard. And that blood mother. He can’t help but be a traitor to society in all his blood, no matter what you’ve done with him in the last few years.”
Narcissa moved her wand beneath the table and cast a simple spell on Dolores. Then she shook her head and said, “You’re wrong,” before she turned back to observe the Sorting. The spell would take her vengeance for her.
And it did. After the Sorting had finished—with fewer Slytherin students than normal, Narcissa noted with a faint frown—and McGonagall had risen to introduce them, Dolores cleared her throat and stood. McGonagall looked furious at being interrupted, but she sat down. Dolores opened her mouth.
What came out was, “I believe Harry Potter that You-Know-Who is back.”
Dolores promptly clapped her hands over her mouth, while her eyes bulged. Some of the students murmured; others stared; some did both. Narcissa calmly scooped up a square of cheese and delicately nibbled it to hide her smile.
The Reverse Intentions Curse would make Dolores say the opposite of whatever she really intended. It wasn’t an easy curse to figure out or thwart, unless someone honestly managed to change their mind or beliefs. Dolores wouldn’t, and she was too stupid to figure out what the curse had been and remove it on her own.
“That is not what I meant to say!” Dolores snapped. For a second, she patted her throat as if she thought she could somehow corral the words that were about to emerge. “Hem, hem. I meant that of course You-Know-Who is back!”
Someone dropped a fork. Someone else shouted, but they were distant enough, at the far end of the Gryffindor table, that Narcissa couldn’t make out the words. She leaned back and said, loudly enough that her voice would reach some of the students, “Thank you for the support, Dolores. I am sure my foster son will thank you as well.”
“Harry Potter is telling the truth!”
Dolores’s face was almost purple. Narcissa nodded. “Oh, I knew that. But not everyone does. That’s the reason I wanted to thank you.”
“There is no room in our world for people who doubt him!”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” Narcissa said in a soft, thoughtful voice. “After all, we need so many people to make up the wizarding world that I don’t think it’s fair to say we’d ban them. But—”
“I interrupted this dinner for a good reason!” Dolores slammed one hand down amid the plates. “To say that Harry Potter is right!”
“I know, and we do appreciate it.” Narcissa caught Harry’s eye from where he was staring at the Gryffindor table and winked. “I’m sure Harry would be glad to come to your office later to say so.”
Dolores sat back down, her face the color of a boiled brick. Narcissa thoughtfully munched some more cheese.
*
“The Ministry won’t tolerate interference with the Defense Against the Dark Arts position.”
Narcissa blinked. She had thought a curious student, probably a Ravenclaw, would be the one tapping on her door, not the Headmistress. She stepped back and shrugged a little. “If you want to come in, Minerva, you can.”
Minerva not only did, she turned around and pointed an accusing finger at Narcissa. “I know that you cast a spell on Dolores.”
“Why? Certainly she interrupted the dinner for a good reason, you heard her. If she had—”
“She was telling me before you arrived that Harry was a liar and that she would never change her mind on that. And I know her. She’s adamant as a Ministry employee. She never would.” Minerva moved a step forwards. “I know that you want to protect your foster son. But interfering in the proper course of government—”
“I never knew you were this much of a stickler for the rules, Minerva. You were a Gryffindor, after all.”
“Don’t you see?” Minerva shouted at her, which was unexpected enough that Narcissa let her speak. “If the Ministry starts to suspect that someone did cast a spell on Dolores, then they’ll do even more to interfere in Hogwarts!”
“You’re concerned for the school.”
“Yes.” Minerva turned away and stared at the far wall, which had a window that showed an unchanging vision of the constellation Orion. Narcissa was studying the spells that would make it show the constellation Draco instead. “Of course I am.”
“And you’re willing to sacrifice Harry’s reputation and education so that you can save the education of the rest of the students. I see.”
“What? I never—”
“Yes, of course you would,” Narcissa said, and sighed when Minerva turned to give her what looked like a betrayed glance. “Come now, Minerva. You didn’t speak up to say anything when the papers and the Ministry began to slander Harry’s reputation. You would have kept silent if Dolores had been able to make her planned speech, which would have continued the slander. I can understand your fears for the school, but not your determination to sacrifice one student for the good of the others. Unless you really do follow Dumbledore’s ridiculous beliefs that he should have given up when he was a teenager.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh, so he indoctrinated you, but never told you? He was a friend of Gellert Grindelwald. He believed in ‘for the greater good.’ I think he still did when he died. Of course, he had decided that Harry was the one who should pay the price.”
Minerva’s face looked like whey now. “Albus would never have—never expected a child to pay that price—”
“He did.” Narcissa shrugged. “It is one reason that I decided to become my foster son’s guardian, actually. Harry needs so much more help and protection than most children. Even people on his own side want to sacrifice him.”
“I don’t.”
“No, not his life. Just his reputation.”
Minerva folded her arms and glanced away. “The Ministry is threatening to shut Hogwarts down,” she said in a low voice. “You—and your children—have a safe home to go to. You cannot imagine how exposed some of our students would be if they had to go back to their parents right now. Particularly since some of their parents are—” She choked.
Yes, do remember the Dark Mark on my husband’s arm. Not that Narcissa intended to tolerate its presence much longer. But Minerva was largely unconcerned with that side of the political battlefield and should remain so. “I still don’t intend to allow Harry to be a sacrifice.”
“But someone from the Ministry is going to notice the change in Dolores!”
Narcissa shook her head. “And what are they going to think, but that she changed her mind on her own? Perhaps that she’s even been secretly on Harry’s side and got them to give her the position here so she could proclaim it. The worst they’ll do is pull her and replace her with someone else. All the consequences will fall on her.”
“You cannot have cast an untraceable curse.”
“I can do many untraceable things.”
Minerva gave her a glance full of unease. “Perhaps I should be glad that you’re here to defend the students. But I would feel better if I knew that you wanted to protect someone other than Draco and Harry.”
“Well, you are protecting everyone other than Harry. I think that we balance each other out nicely,” Narcissa said, and smiled at her.
Minerva couldn’t leave her rooms fast enough after that. Narcissa would have changed the constellation in the enchanted window and gone to bed, but an owl winged through the door and landed at her feet with a soft thump. It was Electra, the small black owl who delivered messages for Harry when he didn’t want to use his distinctive Hedwig. Narcissa had got Electra for him as a gift on his fifteenth birthday.
The scroll was small. Narcissa unrolled it and read the single line written on it.
The Reverse Intentions Curse?
Narcissa smiled. She was so proud of Harry.
*
“Is it true that you can predict the future by the stars, Professor Malfoy?”
Narcissa tilted her head curiously. The question was one that hadn’t come up in her classes thus far. But then she remembered Harry saying something last year about how a few Gryffindor girls were far more interested in Divination than sensible fifteen-year-olds should be.
Then again, if they were sensible, they might not be in Gryffindor. Narcissa flicked a strand of hair behind her ear and paced slowly among her students—who were all reclining on top of the Astronomy Tower and searching out constellation patterns with the naked eye—until she reached the student who’d asked. “That is correct, Miss Patil. But it takes both a special gift and special training.”
“Professor Trelawney says I have the gift.” Patil was a pretty girl, but not when she looked that smug.
“Then perhaps you would not mind writing an essay for me on the patterns that you see when you look up at the stars during our class,” said Narcissa. The smugness burned up, but she kept her own face calm and genial. “Say, two feet, due next Wednesday.” Patil’s silence was suffocating, but Narcissa only nodded at her and turned to walk back towards the center of the Tower.
Harry’s shoulders were shaking in silent laughter. Narcissa nudged him gently in the center of the back with her boot as she passed by. She wanted to remind him not to get too smug himself. He had written a question mark after his sentence the other day.
*
Dolores Umbridge continued to proclaim her support of Harry whenever she could, and discuss how students needed to learn practical Defense skills in her class. Narcissa wanted to shake her head when she heard that. She’d seen the books that Draco and Harry had to buy, of course, but it was interesting that the Ministry really wanted no spells taught in Defense.
She would have to do something about the Minister soon. Even his sycophancy to Lucius was rapidly being outweighed by his other disadvantages.
She taught Astronomy, and smiled at Dolores when they met at meals, and calmly ignored the Howlers that started to show up with some frequency as Dolores struggled to control her mouth, and failed. Harry had asked if the Reverse Intentions Curse applied even to letters. Narcissa had looked at him calmly, until his face flushed and he realized how stupid he had been to ever question that she would cast a curse the victim could easily outwit.
But the curse did not control all of Dolores’s actions. And when Harry managed to get a detention with her for instructing someone else in his class on the Shield Charm—well.
Narcissa saw the way Harry averted his eyes from her face in the Great Hall the next day, and simply waited. The fifth-year Gryffindors had Astronomy again that night. And Harry could never lie to her.
Or conceal things from her. Like his hand when he walked slowly and awkwardly into the classroom and tried to slide it under his desk.
Narcissa cocked her head and sniffed delicately. Even if she hadn’t been sensitive to the uses of blood magic, she would have smelled the Murtlap Essence that Harry had spread on the wound.
“You can tell me, or I can drag it out of you,” she said to Harry in a normal-sounding, low voice as the other students began to arrive. “And then I can decide what I need to do about Dolores.”
Harry looked up at her. For a moment, his jaw clenched, and then he said only, “She made me use a blood quill.”
“Slow and painful, then,” Narcissa said calmly. She was boiling with rage, but she could hide that as always. She turned around to accept the two-foot essay on star divination from Patil. “Thank you, Miss Patil.”
“No.”
Narcissa turned her head slowly back around. She couldn’t even remember the last time Harry had disobeyed her. “What did you say to me, Harry?”
“I said that I want to take care of it,” Harry said. His back was straight, and now his hand—clumsily bandaged with cloth soaked in Murtlap Essence—was resting openly on the desk. “That’s the reason I hid it from you.”
Narcissa breathed out slowly. Given Harry’s innate kindness and friendliness, she had been sure that he wouldn’t be ready to make his first kill until next year. And then she had been sure it would be his abusive relatives. “You have the necessary drive?”
“I do.” Harry’s eyes were quiet, but not soft. Narcissa looked into them and guessed the reason before he spoke it. “Draco suffered the same way.”
And did not come to me?
Narcissa asked the question without words. Harry cocked his head a little to the side and looked pointedly at the Malfoy family crest that Narcissa wore, without fuss, over her heart.
The message was clear. You’re his mother. He was embarrassed to go to a professor who’s related to him.
But of course he wouldn’t have kept it from Harry. And now Narcissa had to wonder about the real cause of the detention that Harry had got. And why he had decided to accept it instead of coming to her.
Reconnaissance.
Narcissa carefully let loose the hold on her temper. She had to trust Harry at some point, the same way that her own teachers had needed to let her loose to fly in the embrace of the discipline. And she was nearby. If something did go wrong and Harry pulled his hand at the last moment, Narcissa would be there to give the finishing blow.
And with Draco as motivation—another’s suffering instead of his own—Narcissa doubted he would.
“Very well,” she said, and shooed the curious Patil back to her seat as she went up to the front of the room.
Part of her, watching from a distance, had to admit this would be an excellent test. If Harry couldn’t take care of Draco properly, Narcissa wanted to see the proof of that outside a battle situation.
And, of course, she would be nearby. Watching.
*
SP777: It's technically another story! But I didn't see the sense in posting it separately.
SickPuppy: Thank you! Narcissa is still working on the Horcrux, although she's distracted with other things right now.
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Narcissa Militant