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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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Title: Narcissa Watchful
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Established Harry/Draco and Narcissa/Lucius
Rating: PG-13
Content Notes: Angst, violence, crack, AU
Summary: Narcissa will search out the Horcruxes. She will remove the Horcrux from her foster son’s head. She will give her cousin Sirius a purpose in life. She will free her husband from his ill-thought-out allegiance to the Dark Lord. She will do something else then, because that is not enough to fill her life.
Author’s Notes: Sixth in a series of stories where Narcissa is an in-demand spy and assassin and Harry’s foster mother. Don’t read this one without reading the others first, seriously.
Narcissa Watchful
Part One
“Are you sure we have everything we need?”
“Yes.”
“But what about the mirror?”
“Yes. I’m holding it, Sirius.”
“And the pure water?”
“It’s been taken from a spring and purified by five different kinds of magic. If it’s not pure now, it’s never going to be.”
“But what about—”
“An anxious godfather who keeps delaying the moment when we move the Horcrux out of his godson?” Narcissa cut in.
Sirius blushed, but then he stood up and started stalking around the drawing room, waving his hands dramatically in the air. “Excuse me for wanting to keep Harry safe! I thought we at least had an agreement that his safety matters most of all.”
“Of course his safety matters.” Narcissa watched her words fall in like calm grey rain on Sirius and put out the fire of his worry. If only she could settle all of it that easily. “I also want to make sure that the rest of us are safe, not rushing, and that we don’t do something we might regret because we’re looking over our shoulders until the last minute.”
“Right. Right.” Sirius sat down and breathed.
Harry caught her eye across the table. Narcissa refrained from shrugging. Sirius was angry and upset, still, that no one had caught the Horcrux in Harry earlier, and also that Dumbledore might have known and planned on sacrificing him in the name of ending the war. There was nothing that would help with that until the Horcrux was safely gone. Better to be patient and put up with Sirius’s antics.
“You’re sure about switching my Horcrux into the portrait of your mother?” Harry asked Sirius. His voice had a scratchy noise in the back of it. Narcissa knew it meant morals were coming up. But she didn’t move to forbid Harry to discuss the subject. Harry had been forbidden much too much in his life.
Someone who was an honorary Malfoy, and due to spend the rest of his life with one, should have whatever he wanted.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Sirius was gaping at Harry a little, as if he thought this was a trick of some sort.
“Because—because she was your mum. I can’t imagine ever wanting to do something like that to my mum.” Harry glanced at Narcissa.
Narcissa smiled back and said nothing.
Sirius laughed hard enough that his body quivered as if he was on the rack. “Not everyone’s parents are good parents, Harry. Not everyone’s parents help them or love them or hold them when they cry. To my mother, I was a disappointment, because I rebelled against my family and I didn’t think I was a lord of creation just because I was born a Black. She preferred my younger brother. And her portrait is worse than she was.”
“The portrait must be miserable,” Narcissa murmured then. “We would be doing a kindness by helping it to pass out of life.”
Sirius met her gaze. Narcissa only looked back. She would do what she could to ease Harry’s conscience about moving the Horcrux out of him and into another being. That Walburga’s portrait was the only remnant on earth of the woman was hardly enough to stop her.
And Harry had come to her only last night asking if they really needed to hurt someone else to get rid of the Horcrux. Narcissa was going to get rid of the guilt. Harry keeping the Horcrux for a time was not an option.
Sirius swallowed roughly and nodded, all Narcissa needed to know her message had been received. “Yeah. I mean, my mother was a miserable woman when she was alive, too, but now she’s all alone. My brother is dead, and my father is dead, and I’m the only person she ever sees come through that door. She hates me. She spends all her time screaming about how she wants me to go away and trying to summon our old house-elf to wipe me out of existence. I think she’s forgotten that I’m not a portrait like her, to be honest.”
Narcissa smiled at Sirius. He inclined his head a little.
“Okay. That sounds pretty horrible,” Harry muttered. His face was pale, but he had regained the firm hold on the arm of his chair that Narcissa knew meant they were marching ahead. “I just want to make sure she doesn’t suffer.”
“If my research is correct, pup, it’ll just erase her immediately. A living Horcrux can’t be put into something non-living without destroying them both.”
Harry still swallowed. Then he said, “Okay.”
“Are you okay, pup?” Sirius’s voice was soft. He leaned over to pat Harry’s arm. “We don’t have to talk about it anymore if you want. We just need to do it.”
Harry hesitated, then shrugged minutely and began to speak of something Narcissa knew he would never have said only a few months ago. “The Dursleys used to talk about me disappearing. They were always wistful about it. Hearing that this is going to erase your mum’s portrait is...not great.”
Sirius looked so angry for a moment that Narcissa thought she might have to restrain him. But slowly, he nodded, and his expression eased into thoughtfulness. “If it helps, remember that she’s just a shard of a woman herself, imprisoned in a canvas, the way the Horcrux is a shard of a complete soul imprisoned in you. She isn’t going to ever grow or experience anything else from now on. She’s repeating the same old hateful patterns without even having company to repeat them to. In a way, getting the Horcrux into her and destroying them both is a mercy.”
Harry didn’t look completely convinced. Narcissa, who knew more about magical portraits than her foster son did, was even less so. But when Harry touched his forehead and said, “Okay” again, she knew he was convinced enough to matter.
*
“MUDBLOODS! BLOOD TRAITORS! FILTH ON THE HOUSE OF BLACK!”
Narcissa shut the front door of Number Twelve behind her and quietly observed what remained of her Aunt Walburga. She had to admit that Sirius had been closer to the mark than she realized. There really wasn’t much left of the woman who once would have greeted them with an icy stare, not hysterical shrieking.
Or, if portraits really capture the primal essence of a person, perhaps this is what she was like all along, behind closed doors.
“Shut up, you old hag,” said Sirius, but without much force. He was too busy with setting up the bowl of water, the salt, the materials to make fire, and the mirror at exactly the right distance from the portrait. Narcissa was happy to let him. It took someone who had lived in the house for a long time to be sure the arrangements were correct.
In the meantime, Narcissa wandered over to a decaying tapestry on the wall. She shook her head. At least one house-elf was left, but Kreacher seemed to spend his time huddling in corners and muttering versions of the insults that his mistress shrieked, to hear Sirius tell it.
“Filthy blood traitors. Mudbloods in the house. Kreacher does not think Mistress would like it, no, she would not. Filthy Mudbloods make the house unclean...”
Harry stared at the elf who was standing near the bottom of the staircase in a dirty rag, looking a little sick. “He doesn’t look anything like Dobby or the others,” he observed to Narcissa in a quiet voice.
“No, he doesn’t,” Narcissa agreed. “This is what happens when an elf is left alone for many years, Harry. He would be alone still if Sirius hadn’t escaped from prison.”
“If I ever have a house-elf, I’ll never leave them alone.”
Narcissa smiled. “That is the proper way to take care of them.” She knew that one of Harry’s friends, Hermione Granger, had crusaded in the past to take away house-elves from the deserving. She was glad Harry had been infected by true kindness rather than Granger’s nonsense.
“FILTH!”
“Shut up, Mother.” Sirius took a step back from the mirror on the floor and took a deep breath, then nodded to Narcissa. Narcissa strode over to join him.
“I can light the fire as soon as we have Harry in position and the runes drawn on the floor. Be careful, though. Her shrieking is enough to distract anyone from rune-drawing.”
“I don’t intend to do the kind of drawing that will make me have to put up with distractions,” Narcissa said coolly, and drew her wand.
“Cissy—”
Narcissa ignored him and whipped her wand in several sharp circles that she had learned as a child. The parchment spread on the floor, which already bore the drawing of the runes they would have to use to complete the ritual, rose and began to glow blue. It turned in slow circles, corners gradually bending down.
“Mum?” Harry’s voice was a bit breathy, his eyes fixed on the parchment.
Narcissa didn’t turn her head fully, but did feel a burst of pride. Harry had come so far from the scared boy who could barely bring himself not to call her “Mrs. Malfoy.” “It’s all right, Harry. This looks more dramatic than it actually is.”
The parchment swung abruptly down and to the side. The runes drawn on it vanished. Instead, they hung in the air, made of light, replicated from the careful images that Narcissa had spent yesterday making.
“That’s pretty dramatic,” Sirius said weakly.
Even Aunt Walburga’s portrait had stopped shrieking, Narcissa noted, though the fact was distant to her. She spent more time directing the runes onto the floor in the right place than she had removing them from the parchment. Then she had to pace the length of the circle and even lie down on the floor to make sure all the distances between runes and the circle were right. At last, though, she looked up and nodded.
Sirius lingered for a moment before he lit the fire. “What are those made of?” he asked, a little hoarsely, nodding at the runes that still glowed blue.
Narcissa smiled. “Pure magic.”
Sirius stared at her, shook his head, and lit the fire as Narcissa called Harry forwards into position. He stood facing her, and the portrait and the mirror, across the circle. Sirius stepped behind him and rested his hands on his godson’s shoulders.
“I come here today to request freedom for my godson, Harry Potter,” Sirius began. His voice was strong and confident. Then again, that had always been his way when he committed to something fully. “He bears an unfair burden in the shard of the Dark Lord V-Voldemort’s soul that he carries in his forehead. He would shed it.”
“FILTH! You should be HONORED to carry my Lord’s soul!”
No one paid her any attention except for the slight flicker of Harry’s eyes. Narcissa took up the plea. “I come here today to add my voice to his. Harry Potter is my foster son, the companion of my blood son, and my apprentice in the ancient arts I know. This burden interferes with his ability to lead his life happily and learn his magic. I request that he be shed of it.”
The ritual Sirius had found demanded two parental figures, or Narcissa would have done it by herself. She looked straight into Harry’s eyes now and saw how he smiled at her. He had faith in them. Whether or not he should might be a different matter. But Narcissa knew she and Sirius would try their utmost to relieve him of this burden.
The fire flared. Sirius nodded to Harry. “You speak now,” he mouthed.
Harry didn’t forget the ritual words in the solemnity of the moment, either. His hands clenched tight, and he whispered, “I am Harry Potter. Sirius Black’s godson and Narcissa Malfoy’s foster son. I ask to be free of this unfair burden.”
The fire turned purple and gold. Narcissa blinked. She had read about that in the description of the ritual Sirius had found, but she had never realized it would be so bright. This looks like carved amethyst studied with pure gold dust.
“The fire hears us,” Sirius said. His voice was a soft chant now. He reached into the pocket of his robe and pulled out an ancient silver knife that he’d found “among the Black treasures.” Narcissa had decided she didn’t need to know more than that. Sirius reached down and sliced the back of his hand with the knife. He didn’t flinch. “And now, may the blood hear us.”
Sirius’s blood hissed like the fire itself as it struck the rune circle. Sirius scattered salt after it, and the blood and the salt clung together in tiny grains of glowing, sacrificial fire. “We will make the circle too pure for the shard of Dark magic. We will free my godson from his unfair burden.”
“We will,” said Narcissa, the required response, and picked up the bowl of purified water sitting next to her feet. She sprinkled it over the half of the circle nearest her. The runes absorbed it and shone like puddles lit by a distant sun. “May the water hear us. The elemental forces have greater strength than anything a single wizard does. We will make the circle too pure for the shard of Dark magic. We will free my foster son from his unfair burden.”
The glowing sparks of blood and salt rose into the air, followed by the whirling blue shapes of the water-infused runes. Harry was staring with his mouth open. Narcissa managed to catch his eye and move her head in a sharp nod.
Harry swallowed and nodded back. “I accept the purification,” he said, holding his arms out. “I accept the blessing of fire and water. I accept being freed from my unfair burden. Take it, please.”
Those last words weren’t technically part of the ritual, and for a moment Narcissa was afraid. But it seemed the magic gathered here didn’t notice them or actually liked them. All the light in the circle rushed into Harry, and he gasped as water ran down his face and sparks danced around his forehead.
Walburga Black shrieked again, but her scream was overridden by another sound, one far deeper and more primal.
Narcissa did not consider herself an evil person. She did what was necessary to protect her family and earn money that would let her protect them even better, and she disdained others who would try to impose moral judgments on her. Outside of those who threatened her chosen ones, she was not sure she would say evil existed.
But this was the pain of an evil thing, a shriek that welled up from the depths of a torn soul and made the house reverberate as few curses could have. Walburga shut her mouth under that cry, and Narcissa could only squint through eyes that watered with tears as she watched a boomerang-shaped piece of darkness fly out from Harry’s forehead and pinwheel through the air, slamming into the portrait.
There was a low boom that shook the house more than the shriek had. Narcissa found herself falling towards Harry, and flung out her arms to shield him from the fire.
Harry wrapped himself around her and toppled them the other way instead. Narcissa landed on the floor and rolled a little to absorb the impact of having her breath driven out of her. Exasperation made her mouth sting. Harry had acted this way because he wanted to protect her.
She sat up when she had made sure that Harry didn’t have any minor cuts or burns, and looked at Sirius. He was staring at the portrait. Next to him, the fire had gone out and there was no trace of the ritual circle on the floor. Narcissa turned her head to look with him.
The portrait was a long, jagged rip in canvas that dangled like torn parchment. The inside of the crack seeped with darkness for a moment, and made Narcissa want to look away. But she stared it down, and the darkness faded into ordinary damage to a painting.
“We did it.”
Sirius said the words softly, but there was nothing soft about the shriek he gave a minute later. He leaped to his feet and waved his arms around, dancing in place as he whooped and kicked up his legs and shouted, “Take that, mother! Who’s the filth now? Huh? Huh? Huh?”
Harry sat up and reached towards his forehead. Narcissa grabbed his hand before he could touch his scar. It looked inflamed.
“Gently,” she murmured. “How do you feel?”
“Lighter.” Harry said it as though he thought she wouldn’t believe him. Then he suddenly bent forwards and laughed, so hard and so long that Narcissa tipped his face up, fearing that he was becoming hysterical.
Harry simply beamed at her and flung his arms around her. Narcissa hugged him back, and reached out with her senses. Perhaps it was only hope or imagination, but she did think that she felt no Dark magic on him now, where before it had been a constant low hum.
One Horcrux destroyed. There may be others out there.
But my son is free.
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Narcissa Militant