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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.

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Part Four
“You don’t look as crushed as I thought you would at Dolores’s death.”
Narcissa smiled at Minerva over the top of her teacup. “Crushed? I never knew you could make such a pun in the name of gallows humor, Minerva. I’m impressed.”
Minerva’s hands tightened on the edges of her plate, but she couldn’t make the commotion that she obviously wanted to since they were at breakfast. She lowered her voice to a hiss instead. Narcissa considered, and then rejected, the notion of telling her that no hissing was impressive that someone who had heard Harry’s Parseltongue. “I want to know if you had something to do with it.”
Narcissa blinked. “Why would I? I didn’t like Dolores all that much as a person, but she did indeed support Harry when she didn’t have to do so. I thought it was brave of her to go against the Ministry the way she did.”
Minerva looked almost ready to pick up her breakfast plate and throw it. Narcissa thoughtfully gave her a few more sausages. Such outrage was sometimes caused by lack of protein.
“You are much more than I thought you were,” Minerva muttered. She had eaten a few of the sausages, so Narcissa thought that much was a success.
“More compassionate? More interesting? More intelligent? I hear such a qualifying word and I want more than the qualifications.” Narcissa caught Draco’s eye and lifted her cup in a small salute. Harry wasn’t at breakfast yet, “sleeping in” while the rest of the school buzzed over the death of Dolores.
“You are more dangerous.”
“Oh?”
“I know very well you had something to do with Dolores’s death,” Minerva said, leaning in to say it. Narcissa was grateful for that. It meant she didn’t have to kill Minerva right away and deprive the school of a Headmistress. “You are the only new professor in the school this term—”
“And that must mean that I’m capable of something like this? I’m hardly a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor with a record of publication fraud or an enemy attached to the back of my head, you know.”
Minerva frowned at her as if wondering how she had heard about those things. Narcissa was glad that she didn’t ask, because she would have had to respond in a tone so dry that it would mean she had to drink three more glasses of water.
“Very well,” Minerva conceded. “But I know you had something to do with it.”
“Why?”
“You look too smug.”
Narcissa shook her head. “If that is enough criteria to count, then you can look around and find three hundred other criminals in the Great Hall, Minerva. Do you know how many of these children endured her detentions with a blood quill?”
Minerva closed her eyes and looked ill. Then she said, “I didn’t know it had gone that far.”
Narcissa ate a tart berry and said nothing. The same way that Minerva had made a decision on behalf of the entire school to sacrifice Harry’s name and reputation, she should have known what was happening among the students. What use was it to sacrifice one for the good of the many if you didn’t pay attention to the many, either?
But Minerva was still better than Albus Dumbledore, who had actively endangered Harry’s safety. Narcissa saw no reason to strike and remove her from the position just yet.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Harry finally come into the Great Hall. She noticed that he was hurrying along the way he did when he was late for breakfast—she could not cure him of that habit even though he knew the house-elves at home would always hold food for him—and that he looked stressed, as he had every day this year. He dashed into his seat and began to dish out the porridge. Narcissa was pleased. Too much sulking or strutting would have attracted attention.
“The Ministry will send us someone else. Maybe someone worse,” Minerva went on, brooding the way that only Gryffindors could.
Narcissa shrugged. She would deal with that person if they were a threat, as well. In the meantime, she had classes to teach and boys to keep safe.
*
Narcissa was in the middle of praising Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil for the interesting essays on telling the future by the stars when she saw the first drops of blood well from Harry’s Horcrux scar.
She pretended that she hadn’t noticed, even when Harry reached up to rub his forehead and Granger shrieked. Then she turned around and came up to Harry, gently catching his wrist when he reached up to rub again. She gave him a calm look and glanced at Granger. “Is something wrong, Miss Granger?”
“Harry’s bleeding!” Granger pointed a shaking finger.
“I know,” said Narcissa. “He will need to go to the hospital wing at once, as there is no sign of a visible injury, and therefore it may be related to internal magical ones. Will you volunteer to accompany him, Miss Granger?”
As she had thought would happen, Harry’s friends calmed down once she gave them something to do. Granger and Weasley both went with him, which might seem excessive, but Harry could use the extra protection right now. Narcissa sent the others back to work, looking up at the sky with enchanted telescopes that could see through the clouds.
“Professor Malfoy?”
Narcissa didn’t immediately recognize this student’s voice, but when she turned around, she nodded. “Mr. Finnegan. Did you have a question?”
Seamus Finnegan stared at his desk, where an essay was spread out, but not more than half written. “Harry was telling the truth, wasn’t he? That he has some kind of connection to—that You-Know-Who is back?”
Narcissa found it amusing that the boy was more willing to name the Dark Lord’s return than the fact of Harry’s connection to him, but it honestly didn’t matter what he said as long as he could act like Harry’s friend again. She nodded. “He is, Mr. Finnegan. I saw him with my own eyes.”
“Yeah, but you’re his foster mother. You could have been lying.”
“A fascinating theory, Mr. Finnegan. I will remember that you find lying about Dark magic for those you care for an acceptable and normal thing when you begin to turn in more assignments.”
Finnegan started and stared at her. “You can’t be offended, Professor Malfoy! No one believed Harry—”
“And now they are beginning to recant.” The Ministry was officially still “investigating” Dolores’s death and hadn’t sent a new Defense professor yet. Narcissa peered mildly at Finnegan. “Do you think truth depends on how many people believe it?”
Finnegan turned bright crimson and went back to his work. Narcissa nodded a little. She did not think that Harry’s fellow Gryffindors were all bad influences, any more than all of Draco’s Slytherins were, but it did seem as though perhaps some of them might have gone into Gryffindor because of the lack of brains to be placed anywhere else.
*
“Are you alone, Narcissa?”
“Alone and with my quarters warded so that no one can try to listen in, as per your request.”
Sirius swallowed and nodded. Even through the necessarily green flames of the fireplace, his expression was sickly. “Okay. Okay. I know how to transfer the Horcrux out of Harry and into another being. Not a living one—that was what I thought at first, but then we would have the same problem of not wanting to kill someone.”
Perhaps you would. Narcissa let no sign of that thought cross her tranquil face. “So you came up with a different kind of being?”
“Semi-living. A portrait. I did think of an animal, but I think Voldemort’s magic would probably know the difference between a human being and an animal.”
“And it might resist. What a fascinating theory.” Narcissa began to smile. She could have come up with the solution on her own, perhaps, but she did enjoy it when others’ minds worked well. “Did you have a specific portrait in mind?”
“Mother’s. At Grimmauld Place.”
Narcissa laughed before she could stop herself. “Yes, that would be good practice,” she agreed. “And not one that you would mind destroying afterwards.”
“Of course not.” Sirius grinned at her. “Still, I want you to read over my notes. I’m still—sometimes my brain clouds over as if I’m still in Azkaban.” He frowned and rubbed his forehead. “I want you to make sure that I’m not overlooking something obvious that would make this a bad idea.”
“Of course we will wait,” Narcissa murmured. “And we will probably not want to perform the ritual until the end of the school year anyway.”
“You said Harry was bleeding from the forehead the other day!”
“Yes, but the Dark Lord does not seem able to do anything more than that. Even his prophetic dreams have stopped.” Narcissa frowned to herself. “I wonder if using my blood rather than Harry’s disrupted the control that the Dark Lord would have had over the Horcrux connection otherwise.”
“Look, if I can learn to call him Voldemort, so can you.”
Narcissa simply shrugged, neither confirming nor denying. “That would be something else you could research, you know. The ritual he used, and whether it would have all the effects without the blood of an enemy. Or without the blood of a particular enemy. There must be a reason that he chose Harry to use, when he could have gone through much less elaborate plans to capture someone else who opposed him.”
Sirius scowled. “I doubt he thought that far ahead. He probably just wanted to be seen as unafraid of Harry.”
“Research it anyway.”
“Yes, O mighty commander,” Sirius muttered, and disappeared into the flames before Narcissa could tell him he’d done well, something she knew was often essential when dealing with underlings.
She sighed. Well, she could owl him her congratulations and thanks after he’d owled her the notes he had so far on transferring a Horcrux from a living being into a portrait. After all, it might be that he was completely wrong.
*
“Everyone,” Minerva said through gritted teeth as she stood up and waved a hand at the man in fine Auror robes who had entered the Great Hall, “please welcome Professor John Dawlish, who will be taking over the position vacated by Professor Umbridge.”
Narcissa studied the man in front of her with interest as she rose and performed a small curtsey, which anyone remembering her social position would expect of her. His face was flushing an interesting combination of colors. She wondered if he was sensing Dark magic in the crowd of students, which would be possible from some of the Slytherins and Ravenclaws who weren’t careful enough with their research or were already Marked. Or perhaps that constipated look was his natural expression.
From Minerva’s look as she escorted him between the tables to his seat, he was someone loyal to the Ministry. Well, Narcissa could deal with that. She resumed her seat and smiled at Dawlish again as Minerva led him to the seat beside her.
“Mrs. Malfoy.” Dawlish sounded relieved to have someone he recognized. “Or should I say Professor Malfoy?”
“Either would be correct, but Professor more so in the confines of the school,” Narcissa murmured, giving him the sort of smile that always went far with Fudge. “But I would ask that you, in particular, call me Narcissa.”
Dawlish chattered with her for the rest of the meal, and even though he cut himself off with a nervous laugh and a shake of his head more than once, it was obvious he was here as much to investigate Dolores’s death as to teach classes. Narcissa wasn’t surprised. She nodded and made sympathetic noises when he described the furor that the loss of Dolores had caused the Ministry. She even listened with calmness to the unflattering way he talked about Harry.
Dawlish did stop at one point and laugh uneasily again. “I’m sorry, Narcissa. It must hurt to hear people talking about your foster son in this way.”
“Well. It’s no more or less flattering than what was printed in the papers for months, when many of the students thought he was out to cheat his way to glory in the Triwizard Tournament.” Narcissa shook her head and picked up a piece of apple, sucking daintily on it. She saw the way Dawlish stared at her mouth and carefully didn’t laugh. “I’m grateful that the Tournament never happened in the end.”
Dawlish narrowed his eyes. “Did Potter have anything to do with that?”
Narcissa widened her eyes. “If he could do magic like that, then why wouldn’t he have the magic to beat the challenges?”
“I’m sorry, you’re right. It’s stupid to think a fourteen-year-old boy would have power like that.”
Right. You don’t understand the power he wields. Narcissa finished sucking down the last moisture from the apple and saw Dawlish hastily averting his eyes again, ducking his head and shaking it as if he had flies in his ears. She smiled a private smile. She could use that.
“But who really knows how he defeated You-Know-Who,” Dawlish said suddenly. “He must have some kind of power we don’t know about if he could do that as a baby.”
Narcissa managed to keep her face calm and polite. As boorish as Dawlish was, he wasn’t a patch on Cornelius when he thought he was being witty. “I’m sure that I would have noticed if he was capable of leveling the place or killing a person, Auror Dawlish. I have lived with him for four years, after all.”
“Call me John.” Dawlish leaned forwards and smiled more at her teeth than anything else.
Narcissa restrained a sigh of vexation. She would have to wait and see what happened, whether it was worth killing Dawlish herself or not.
*
“I want you to meditate,” Narcissa said, and made her voice as lulling as possible so that both Harry and Draco would listen and stop peering at each other from the corners of their eyes. “Envision the drifting ocean I told you of. The waves, the colors, the foam as the waves break against the shore…”
She moved them slowly through the meditation, until they would envision themselves on a ship that sped through the waters or drifted through them, as they desired. Even when the fire snapped hard, they didn’t flinch. Narcissa nodded. That meant their Occlumency was getting stronger.
“And now, descend the ship as it comes into port,” she said, carefully guiding them back out of the visualization. Lucius had always insisted that coming out of it rapidly didn’t induce any ill effects, but then, Lucius had said the same thing about the Dark Mark. “Stretch your legs, stretch your arms, and open your eyes.”
They both opened their eyes at the same time, and grinned at each other. Then Draco leaned forwards to swipe one of the small sandwiches the Malfoy house-elves had made, and said, “There’s starting to be a murmur in the Slytherin common room.”
“About Voldemort?” Harry was alert instantly, as prepared as a snake, turning to face Draco.
Draco nodded, but, conscious of Narcissa’s disapproving eye, waited until he was finished chewing to speak. “Yes. There are some of the older students saying he’ll win the war and everyone needs to join him or die. They don’t threaten people that obviously, but that’s the undertone of their comments.”
“Those are the Marked ones?” Narcissa asked quietly.
Draco shook his head. “Not all of them. A few are like Amsart—I don’t think he’s Marked, but he wants to follow whoever the strongest leader is. And there’s a few who like to hint and seem mysterious. I doubt they’re in the Dark Lord’s ranks. They just want people to pay attention to them.”
“But that yearning for attention might extend to getting the Mark.”
“Yes, Mother.”
Narcissa sat and thought about that for a short time. Then she turned to Harry. “Your last heroic deed cannot be told,” she said quietly. “The one before that, not enough people believe happened. But I know that you can do something impressive in public, Harry. It’s time.”
Harry looked up and gave her a flat look. Narcissa studied the way his hands clenched on his knees. He would do what he had to do, and his devotion to her and the discipline kept him from complaining aloud, but it wasn’t like he really wanted to do it, either.
“Harry?”
“I don’t know what else I can do,” Harry said flatly. “It’s not like we can call Voldemort to a certain place so that we can fight him, and even if we did, I might lose. And there isn’t another enemy people would be impressed to see me dueling.”
“There is something you can do,” Narcissa said, quietly, surely. She had looked at the notes Sirius had sent her, and even though this wasn’t their focus, she was confident it would work. “The Horcrux that burns in you? It can be turned against Voldemort’s servants, if not Voldemort himself.”
Harry stared at her with widened eyes. Draco sat up. “The Marked students?”
“Yes.” Narcissa smiled at them. “We impress a potential audience, get rid of a problem that might threaten Draco in Slytherin, and show many people that Voldemort has returned all at once.”
“Oh.” Harry relaxed with a motion like a lazy dropping of a cobra’s coils. “If it’ll hurt the people who are threatening Draco, I’m all for it.”
Narcissa carefully did not roll her eyes. She would teach him to have a care for his own life at the last.
But now was not the last. And Harry looked more than satisfied with his reward of having Draco beam at him with softened eyes.
Narcissa’s teachers in the discipline had taught her that attachments were a weakness, and one should not have them. But she had come to accept that those beliefs had little to do with reality.
Love is a reason for both murder and self-defense. What other reason does one need?
*
Staar: Thank you!
BookDragon: Thanks! Iti s quite fun to write.
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Narcissa Militant