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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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Chapter Three
“Thank you for agreeing to see me, Madam Bones.” Narcissa smoothed down her robes over her legs and darted a glance at the woman behind the desk before lowering her eyes.
Amelia Bones had pursued Narcissa more than once for crimes she’d committed. Narcissa knew her, well. Amelia would understand nervousness better than she would the quiet confidence Narcissa used in most other social situations as Mrs. Malfoy, and she believed that almost everyone had something on their consciences.
“You’re welcome, Mrs. Malfoy.” Amelia laced her fingers on the desk, as Narcissa could see when she peeked out from under her lashes. “Now, what is this about? It’s unusual that someone of your standing would want to see me in such privacy.”
“It is, but…” Narcissa swallowed. “I think when you hear what I’ve come to say, you’ll understand. It’s about my Cousin Sirius.”
Amelia’s face hardened. “You must understand that we have no choice about pursuing him. He broke out of Azkaban—”
“I know, but he’s still my cousin.” Narcissa bowed her head further, made her hands clasp tighter. “It’s hard to reconcile the boy I played with with the deranged fugitive in search of Harry Potter.”
“I’m sure it is. But you must understand that this happens all the time. The vast majority of criminals give warning signs that can only be understood in retrospect. Or we would catch most of them sooner.”
“I know that, Madam Bones,” Narcissa hastened to say. “I am trying to reconcile myself. But I wondered if it would be possible for me to see his trial transcript from immediately after the war? I’ve never read it, and I didn’t attend the trial as my son was sick and I was rather preoccupied with him at the time.”
“Hmmm.” Madam Bones was peering at her. Narcissa was sure she was remembering what else someone would expect to preoccupy the Malfoy family at that time, Lucius’s trial as a Death Eater, but Narcissa remained still and small. Amelia finally said, “And you think reading that would help you reconcile yourself?”
“Yes. He must have said such dreadful things in his trial. I know he did in the street after he killed Pettigrew and those Muggles. If I could see that, I think I could replace my image of him with the real one.”
“It’s a bit of an unusual request, of course, but it’s not sealed. I suppose there’s no reason not to let you see it. Wait here, and I’ll fetch it for you.”
“Thank you, Madam Bones. I do appreciate this.” Narcissa sighed. “With one sister of mine in prison, and the other estranged from me, Sirius and I are all that’s left of our generation of Blacks. I suppose I’m still seeking a way to reconnect with my past. But it’s better to overcome an attachment to the past than to preserve it.”
“When it’s like this, certainly.” Amelia stood up and left the room, shaking her head a little. “It was a shock to all of us when Sirius turned. I’d rather like to see it myself, now that you mention it. One moment.”
Narcissa didn’t let her meek expression falter while Amelia was gone. She wouldn’t put it past the woman to have observation spells in her office that would record the reaction of anyone who visited when she wasn’t there. But she did entertain herself with thoughts of what Amelia would say if she knew that the “Tolstone Butcher” and the “Black Butterfly” and the “Shadow over Hogsmeade” were all the same person, and waiting for her to come back with a trial record.
She made sure to flinch back in her chair with surprise when Amelia banged into the room, her expression forbidding and her stride long. “There is no trial record,” she announced, and sat down in the chair behind her desk so hard that she nearly rattled her monocle out of her eye.
“I don’t understand,” said Narcissa, blinking. “You mean it’s been mis-filed somehow?”
“No. I mean that it is gone.” Amelia’s hands writhed on the sides of the desk. “It doesn’t exist. Apparently Sirius Black never had a trial. When I couldn’t find the records, I got in contact with Bartemius Crouch, who was Head of the Department at the time, and that is what he told me.” She obviously fought for control, her nostrils and eyes both bulging for a moment. “How they could have sentenced a fellow Auror to trial without working out exactly how he had betrayed the Potter and what other secrets he might have compromised….”
“Excuse me.” Narcissa adopted the haughty expression that, in colder shades, worked to convince Lucius that he really didn’t want to do what he thought he wanted to do. “Do you mean to tell me that my cousin was simply thrown into Azkaban?”
“Crouch said that they assumed he was guilty because of his confession when the Aurors captured him.” Amelia snorted, a bitter sound Narcissa thought a gorgon might have been proud of. “All he said was, ‘I killed them.’ Yes, a confession indeed.” She turned to Narcissa. “You may rest assured that I am going to countermand the Minister’s order that Black be Kissed on sight. We have to know what is going on! We have to know that he’s actually guilty!”
Narcissa nodded. “I see. Thank you, Madam Bones.” She hesitated as she stood. “Perhaps some of the young cousin I knew still survives.”
“I don’t know if it would have survived Azkaban,” Amelia said shortly. “But you’re right that we need to look more clearly at our pasts.”
Narcissa nodded again and quietly left the room. She had known all along there was no trial record, of course. Sirius had told them that much—or told Harry that much, his head carefully pressed against the side of the cage so that he could look just at Harry and pretend she didn’t exist.
But she did so enjoy letting other people discover the truth for themselves.
*
“You’re not going to turn him to the Dark,” Sirius said, his gaze fixed on Narcissa.
“Oh, really?” Narcissa lifted her head. She was reading the Prophet that had the front-page story about the Ministry discovering Sirius had never had a trial, but other than a choking noise when she opened it, Sirius had said nothing about it. He was too busy staring at her and coming up with dark conspiracies she could use Harry for.
“No. You’re keeping him so that you can have him marry Draco and gain control of the Potter properties!”
Narcissa began to laugh, something she tried not to do in her dealings with Sirius, because it would put him off further. “You think Harry would simply sign his properties away to anyone?” she gasped, when she could breathe again.
“You would make him. And Draco would—make him.” Sirius sounded a little less certain about that, probably because he’d never met Draco. But he sat back in his cage and folded his arms and nodded about it.
“I am so flattered that you think my son that accomplished in seduction, Sirius,” Narcissa said dryly, making Sirius splutter. “But no. I want to make Harry’s life better. If you cannot believe that, it’s not my problem.” She folded the paper and held it out to him. “Amelia Bones is saying now that you deserve a proper trial. Wouldn’t that be easier if they had the actual culprit to use Veritaserum on?”
Sirius turned his back and scowled at the far side of the cage. Narcissa had made it bigger since he’d started spending more time in human form, but at the moment, he simply turned into a dog and thumped down, still from his head to his tail.
Narcissa shook her head. She would not succeed with Sirius with these tactics. She would have to talk to Harry.
*
“But what’s going to happen to Sirius over Christmas?” Harry asked her anxiously as they stepped into the Manor. Narcissa had offered to “escort Mr. Malfoy and Mr. Potter home,” since she supposedly knew the Malfoys in her guise as Lilith Smithson, and they’d just come through the fire. Narcissa dropped her glamour and reached out to touch Harry’s forehead with a smile before replying.
“I’ve brought his cage along. The house-elves will be taking care of him in a room upstairs. I’ll show you which one later, and you can visit him whenever you want.”
“All right!” Harry said, his face brightening. He raced off with Draco, who was already saying something about counting who had more gifts under the tree. Narcissa rolled her eyes. They had exactly equal numbers of gifts, of course, something Draco should have anticipated already.
“Narcissa.”
Her husband was hovering near the doorway of the sitting room, his face pale. Narcissa smiled at him. “Dear Lucius,” she said, and moved towards him. “You’ve behaved since the Howler I sent you, which mitigates your punishment. Somewhat.”
Lucius swallowed. His face was the color of the marble in the hearth behind them now, down to the slight tint of pink on his cheeks. “Really?”
Pettigrew will probably squeak much the same way when we move to take him, Narcissa thought, and smoothed her hand down his cheek. “Yes. But there still remains a debt to be paid. You still distressed Draco.” She leaned in to speak into his ear, not-so-incidentally letting her lips brush the lobe of his ear. “What kind of punishment do you think you deserve for that?”
His answer involved no chains, but it did involve indulgences that Narcissa was willing to grant him. She laughed and dragged him upstairs. He stumbled behind her, keeping his eyes on the flashing movement of her lean, strong legs under her robes that swayed and parted.
Narcissa had cast that glamour just for him. Never let it be said that she did nothing nice for her husband.
*
Harry had listened to her, and he was ready to start his persuasion on Sirius after the orgy of gift-unwrapping that was the typical Malfoy Christmas. Wrapped in the new robes that Narcissa had got him—with hidden pockets and slits so that he could hide and kick things unexpectedly—Harry entered the room that Narcissa had given Sirius.
She went with him, of course, and so did Draco. Draco had been told the truth when it became obvious that they would have to bring Sirius home with them. He was giving Sirius a highly unimpressed look from the doorway.
The black dog ignored them.
Harry sat down in the carpet between the guest bed that formed the centerpiece of the room and the cage, and began to talk. “Did you know that until I started getting new robes from Mrs. Malfoy for Christmas, I’d never got new clothes before? I just wore whatever my cousin did. They were the people Dumbledore put me with, the Muggles. I didn’t know that I was worthy of new clothes. I was so surprised when I saw the pile of presents just for me…”
And on it went. Narcissa managed to detach herself from the litany and listen. Draco was scowling from his position. Narcissa shot him a look.
Draco swallowed and wiped the expression from his face. Narcissa nodded gently at him. Yes, it was hard to listen to Harry recite the awful conditions he’d been subjected to. But reminding Sirius they were there would just get in the way of Harry, hopefully, talking her stubborn cousin into working with them.
By the time Harry had got to how he had to make worse marks in school than his cousin, the black dog was facing him. Harry paused to take a breath. The dog whined softly.
“Sorry, just my throat is dry,” Harry apologized, and he reached out a hand without looking. A house-elf appeared and handed him a glass of iced pumpkin juice. Harry took a swallow and went on. “And the one teacher who did think I could be smart, well, all that had to happen was she visited Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, and heard about how much trouble I caused, and she never…”
Sirius sat back further on his haunches as he listened. Narcissa did much the same thing, mind drifting tranquil and relaxed, although she would remember the pertinent details of what Harry said for later. Draco joined her on the bed and curled up next to her, and that seemed to soothe some of his agony.
Harry finally stood up and looked at Sirius and said simply, “Mrs. Malfoy took me away from all that. I know you don’t trust her, and maybe you have your reasons, but what I know is that she’s keeping me from being helpless. She always takes care of the problems that I ask her to, Sirius. She’s the one I want to live with.”
Narcissa wondered if that was a wise thing to say. Surely Sirius would want his godson to live with him, if his name was cleared. But Sirius’s eyes were huge and soft, and he only watched as Harry walked to the doorway instead of trying to call him back.
Or changing to human, but Narcissa suspected that would come in time.
Draco kept silent until they shut the door. Then he looked at Harry and said, “I thought you would keep talking until he understood you.”
“It has to be in stages,” Harry said calmly. “He’s too stubborn to be convinced right away. This way, I can talk him around and he’ll half-think that it’s his own idea before the end.”
Narcissa smiled. Harry had learned patience well.
“Okay.” Draco paused, shifted his shoulders, and then grabbed Harry and held him. Harry blinked, and his eyes shot to Narcissa. Narcissa spread her hands. If Harry thought there was a poison or strike that would get him out of this, he should have learned his lessons better. Patience was only one.
“I’m so sorry you had to go through that,” Draco whispered, his voice choked. “I know that you don’t really care about someone going and getting revenge on your relatives—”
And there is my son. It’s not that he doesn’t want vengeance, it’s that he wants to do something that will matter to Harry.
“But I want you to know that I’m going to remember it. And Mother isn’t the only one who’s going to try to make up for that, okay? Just the only one that you need to talk to Black about.”
“Er, all right,” Harry said, and his sharp blinking made the way Draco broke away from him with a firm nod and started steering him down the stairs all the funnier. Harry looked back at her with as eyes as big as moons.
Narcissa only followed with the cat-like smile that had driven Lucius crazy when he was courting her in school. She had envisioned, more than once, Harry as her replacement for Draco’s protector when she was gone. Now she thought they would be more likely to take care of each other.
Not that even an unbalanced relationship would be the same as hers and Lucius’s. For one thing, Draco was considerably smarter than Lucius.
For another, neither of them had yet demonstrated the taste for punishment that Lucius did.
*
“All right.”
Narcissa blinked and looked up. Sirius had been keeping her company in his cage, as was usual for this time of evening. For a moment, her mind hovered so much among the essays she was marking in her position as Sinistra’s assistant that she could not imagine what he was talking about.
Then she did, and smiled as she pulled back her chair from the desk. “Do you want me to fetch Harry?”
“I—yes. He deserves to be there to see Wormtail captured.” Sirius stared down at his clenched hands. “Just knowing that I could have been there to spare him a childhood with Vernon and Petunia if I’d only taken my responsibilities seriously….”
Ah. So it was the tale of what Harry had escaped from that had captured him, more than the tale of what he had escaped to. Narcissa refrained from shrugging. She could work with either. “Wait here, then.”
It was the work of twenty minutes to find Harry in the library, where he was studying with Draco, and lead him back to her rooms. Draco insisted on coming, too. Since Narcissa had no intention of depriving either of her children of a taste of triumph, if they wanted to share it, she let him.
Sirius looked raptly at Harry when he came in, but it was Narcissa he spoke to. “And you think Amelia Bones would really make sure I was given a trial?”
“She just said it again in the papers last week. She blames herself for never having realized you weren’t given one until now.”
“All right.” Sirius shut his eyes and melted into dog form. Narcissa opened the cage and conjured a leash and collar for him, and then led him, Harry, and Draco out of her offices and towards Gryffindor Tower.
“Do you know where Weasley’s going to be?” Draco asked Harry quietly.
“I do think it’s the Tower,” Harry muttered back. “He was in the library earlier, but he only stays there as long as Hermione and I make him.”
Last year, it would have been for as long as Granger alone made him, Narcissa thought, and smiled a private smile.
Sirius trotted beside them until they got to Gryffindor Tower. Then he pulled at the leash and growled. Narcissa reached down to smack his nose. He stared at her.
“By all means, keep up the noise if you want to warn Pettigrew that we’re coming,” Narcissa told him.
Sirius shrank down by her side and whimpered, which was nearly as exasperating as all the rest. But Narcissa merely rolled her eyes and waited while Harry gave the Gryffindor password.
The students turned to stare at them when they climbed through the portrait, making Narcissa grateful once again for her disguise. She maintained an icy expression on her face and asked, “Where is the youngest Mr. Weasley? Please tell him to come here at once. And to bring his rat.”
One of the boys Narcissa didn’t know shot up the stairs, while the other Gryffindors murmured excitedly among themselves. Probably assuming that Weasley had got into trouble by bringing his rat to class. Narcissa waited with a remote expression that kept the children from questioning her, and pulled Sirius’s leash slightly until he moved behind her. If Pettigrew ran because he saw a black dog, they would have to put in the effort of a tedious chase.
As it turned out, it didn’t matter. Weasley came down the stairs, staring at her apprehensively. The rat was in his hands. Sirius promptly went mad and lunged out from behind Narcissa, barking and snarling. Of course that snatched the leash from her hold, and the rat leaped from Weasley’s hands and dashed towards the open portrait hole as another student came in. Sirius ran straight after him, and Draco and Harry joined the chase.
Narcissa looked up at the ceiling in silent question as to why she was the only sane person in this world, and then followed.
Pettigrew wove a winding course, attempting to throw them off the trail, but Sirius, either because of his sense of smell or his hatred, stayed close behind. Pettigrew did make it down five staircases and past six or seven different doors before he ran under one of them. Sirius promptly scratched at the door and started yelping hysterically.
There was a crash, a splattering noise, and the sound of shocked cursing from behind the door. Narcissa frowned and looked at Draco. Draco panted at her, “This is Professor Lupin’s office.”
Narcissa spun back just as Lupin said in a strained voice, “If you could stay out…?” She cast a Tempus Charm and cursed softly as she watched the numbers form. Near moonrise.
“We really need that rat!” Harry yelled through the door. He had to raise his voice and yell twice to be heard over Sirius’s insane barks.
“I—fine, I’ll give it to you. But I need you to go to Professor Snape and tell him that I need more Wolfsbane, that my potion has been knocked over by the rat, all right?” They heard Lupin move what sounded like a piece of furniture, and then enraged squeaking. If the rat bit Lupin, there was no sound of his reaction.
“I promise,” Harry said eagerly.
With a sense of inevitability, Narcissa watched the door open and Lupin hold the rat out. His eyes widened at the sight of her, and still more at the sight of Sirius. “What—”
Pettigrew tried to leap from Lupin’s hands the way he had from Weasley’s, but Narcissa cast a Summoning Charm. She pulled the special cage she’d prepared from her robe pocket and tucked the rat into it.
As if in slow motion, she watched the fur bristling alongside Lupin’s face, his head arched back, his toes flexing out as his arms grew and turned into legs. Sirius’s bark of welcome turned into a yap of alarm, and he flung himself at the newly-turned werewolf. But Lupin threw him off with a single shrug and spun towards Draco and Harry, the light of madness in his eyes.
Narcissa sighed. Of course this would happen, because she was the only sane one here.
And of course she would have to use the one talent that would do any good in this situation. She twisted smoothly to bring her body between Lupin and her boys, and called on her magic.
The Animagus transformation flooded down from her mind and over her body, lighting silent fireworks of magic along her body. She could feel her skin breaking for the fur, her head lengthening and growing upwards, her teeth curving, her hands becoming almost all palm, her balance wavering as her center of mass shifted. The only blessing was that she didn’t have to feel a tail growing.
And before Lupin could finish his lunge, the enormous Kodiak grizzly she had become swatted the werewolf with one paw and watched him fly back through the door.
Sirius tried to pile into the room after Lupin, which made Narcissa wonder where one drew the line between stubborn and stupid. She snatched him back, spilling him rolling and wheezing into the corridor and the far wall. That didn’t matter. What mattered was the werewolf in front of her, nearly back out of his room.
Narcissa stuck her head down in front of him and roared as loudly as she could.
The power of the sound reverberated in the corridor and probably the stomachs of everyone in the castle, and certainly the werewolf’s skull. Lupin stumbled, from shock or pain. Narcissa didn’t care which. Again she swiped at him, and Lupin flew a good five meters, to the other side of his office. In the meantime, Narcissa seized the doorknob of the office in her teeth, pulled the door shut, and reverted to human form so that she could cast some powerful, and dubiously legal, locking charms on it.
Howls and clawing came from the other side. Narcissa turned around, cast Reparo on her robes, and said calmly to Draco, “If you would fetch the Headmistress, please?”
They got their wits back enough to do what she asked. Narcissa turned around to look at Sirius. He was limping and staring at her with huge eyes.
“That’s how you handle these things,” she told him. She checked to make sure that Pettigrew was still all right in his cage, and he cowered. Well, from what she knew of him, that was hardly surprising.
She could see how the future would unspool from here. The Headmistress would deal with Lupin, and probably find some excuse to retain him as a professor for next year. Acceptable, in light of certain things he would learn to understand. If necessary, they would report her Animagus form to Sinistra, who would say that of course her assistant was registered, but preferred to keep her form quiet. They would find an excuse for how the dog who had shown up and convinced Miss Smithson to feed him was really Sirius Black, and take the rat to the Ministry. Sirius would have his trial and be freed, and would remain part of Harry’s life.
It did not mean that he would take guardianship of Harry, of course. Anyone stupid enough to jump at a werewolf in dog form wasn’t worthy of that.
“Miss Smithson?”
Harry’s voice was low. Narcissa finished readjusting her robes and her glamour and turned to him with a smile. “Yes, Mr. Potter?”
“You—you said that your Animagus form wasn’t very useful.”
Narcissa let her smile broaden. “Not useful for stealth. I never said that it couldn’t be useful in other ways.”
“Oh.” Harry looked at the floor, and then back up at her.
His eyes shone with admiration. Narcissa patted his head.
Sirius would be there for Harry. But he could never come between them.
*
SickPuppy: Lucius regrets oh, so many things. But not marrying Narcissa!
SP777: Well, it is fun writing sarcasm...
BookDragon: Yes, I am currently updating these every Wednesday! And Lucius is kind of useless, but he and Narcissa have fun. So.
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Narcissa Militant