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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
- 6
- 7
- 8
This is the first part of the fourth piece of the series, the AU of Goblet of Fire.
Narcissa Tournamental
“What is it, Harry?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been having these disturbing dreams lately, where I can hear a hissing voice telling a snake to do something, and then everything fades to black. I don’t understand them. But they make my scar hurt.”
Narcissa moved swiftly across the dueling room and knelt down to slide her hand across Harry’s forehead. “Let me see.”
Harry did, although he winced as her hand glided across his forehead. Narcissa considered the scar, compared it to her memories of how the thing usually looked, and found cause for concern. This looked as if it was new-inflicted, with traces of a scab and dried blood on it. She nodded and glanced at Harry. “You told the house-elves not to tell me there was blood on your sheets, didn’t you?”
Harry flushed and looked as if he would squirm away from her for no good reason. But Narcissa was not someone who permitted things like that to happen. She went on staring, and Harry finally muttered, “I should have known I couldn’t hide things from you.”
“Yes. And usually you have better sense than to try. So I want to know what was different enough about this time to make you think you could.”
Harry looked at his feet instead of answering. Narcissa only waited. They were in the middle of their training room, which had gained more weapons and obstacles for Harry to practice on this summer. He could look nowhere that would not remind him of what he was aspiring to, or her greater prowess in his skills.
Harry finally sighed noisily and muttered, “You don’t—you’ll think it’s stupid.”
“When have I ever thought a complaint was stupid? Or a dream of yours?”
Harry looked harder at his hands, which were clenched together. “I didn’t tell you about the blood because that wasn’t the only thing on the sheets that night,” he said tightly.
Narcissa arched an eyebrow, then patted his shoulder. “And that is only a normal, ordinary part of growing up, Harry. You could still have told me about both. Embarrassment is not a good trait for an assassin to have. We might hesitate to do something that could save our lives or someone else’s life because of it.”
“Oh.” Harry hesitated. “I’m not really an assassin yet, am I?”
“Of course not. You’re not trained.”
Harry swallowed noisily. “But what if I just want to use my skills to protect the people I—my friends, and not kill people?”
Narcissa smiled. “You will find that sometimes you can only do that by killing someone. Or something. I have dispatched magical creatures, too, when they were threatening someone else and I was being paid.” Perhaps the diary would even count as a magical creature, although Narcissa preferred to think that was simply Riddle’s foulness.
Harry said nothing for some length of time. Narcissa settled back comfortably on her heels, and waited.
Finally, Harry said, “So what do you think I should do about the scar and the dreams?”
“Write to your godfather, first of all. If this is something he’s heard of, then I would like to know.” Sirius had vowed to research curse scars and see if he could learn anything about Harry’s. Now that he was officially free, after his trial in the Ministry, he could gain access to private collections of books and libraries more openly, including collections that Narcissa, as an accused Death Eater’s wife, would be turned away from.
“All right. If he hasn’t heard of it?”
“Then we start training you in Occlumency,” Narcissa said. “I was already considering that, but until now, building up your physical skills was more important. I think you are reaching the boundary of being able to handle yourself in a fight. Now we can defend your mind.”
Harry nodded, the stiff lines in his face smoothing out, to Narcissa’s relief. He already knew about Occlumency and Legilimency as concepts, although he hadn’t done any training with them yet.
“What’s the first step?”
“Look into my eyes, and do your best to clear your mind,” Narcissa said, and when Harry gave her a puzzled look, hid a smile. It was going to be a long training period, that was clear.
*
“What are you doing with that mask, Lucius?”
“No—nothing.”
Lucius tried to whisk the white mask behind his back, but Narcissa stepped easily towards him and took it out of his hands. She turned it over and looked at it curiously, but truly, she didn’t need much time to recognize it. It was the same mask he had worn when he played at being a Death Eater and acted as though his Mark was important compared to the wedding vows that bound him to her and Draco.
“Strange that you would have this with you when we’re getting ready to go to the Quidditch World Cup,” Narcissa remarked, and threw the mask back.
“I—you never know what might come up,” Lucius said feebly. “I mean, for example, I might see some of the other accused Death Eaters there.”
“Yes?”
“And we might want to reminisce about—old times.”
“I think,” Narcissa said, and made her smile sweet and sharp and strong, “any reminiscing that you do would best be done in private, with a drink, and absolutely no white masks and dark cloaks and walking around waving wands in the air.” She stepped towards Lucius and lowered her voice. “Do you understand me, Lucius?”
He squeaked and then nodded fervently. Narcissa had promised him once that he would lose both her and Draco if he tried to make too many moves in the service of the Dark Lord. It seemed that conversation still held sway in his memory.
Sometimes, I think he can learn, Narcissa thought, and patted his shoulder, and went to make sure that the two excited boys were fully dressed and ready to leave. They had seats in the top box, of course. Flashing the Minister a charming smile on occasion was worth it.
Never mind what thoughts lay behind the smile. Narcissa had a knife thirsty to taste Fudge’s blood, especially when his hands wandered. Unfortunately, Fudge was useful to Lucius, so the poor thing would just have to wait.
*
When the first screams erupted through the campsite, Narcissa immediately cast a spell that spread a shimmering silver net around Draco and Harry. Draco, who’d been about to bolt out of the tent, caught his breath and stared.
“What does this mean, Mother?” he asked, eyes shifting to her. Narcissa nodded. He could certainly have worse responses in this situation than curiosity.
“It means that someone has done something stupid,” Narcissa said, listening. There were screams of two different kinds, she thought. There were yells of pain and those of fear. The fearful ones were predominant. There were Death Eaters Muggle-baiting, as she had thought there would be from the moment she arrived at the campsite and found Muggles there, and there were those reacting to something else.
“I meant the spell, Mother.”
Narcissa gave a faint smile over her shoulder as she slipped out of the tent. “Figure it out. You should be able to, or at least Harry should be able to, from his studies.”
“What does the spell do, Harry?” Draco asked, and if he stumbled a little over Harry’s name, Narcissa thought that no bad thing, either.
She walked swiftly through the tents and into the woods, casting a spell that would make glances skim across her and think her only part of the shadows. She understood the screams of fear when she reached a gap in the trees and tilted her head back to see the Dark Mark floating above them.
Ah. Then there is someone more than the Muggle-baiting Death Eaters here. They would be stupid enough to begin with the baiting in the first place, but they would not do something that might call their old allegiances into question.
Narcissa closed her eyes and sank into her own magic, into the parts of her discipline that she rarely used. Most of the time, simpler spells and weapons could protect her and enable her to find her target. But someone who had done this would either have hidden or be hidden by someone else, most likely, and she would have to pierce stronger barriers than usual.
Her breath whistled out of her, fierce and cold. The lines of the magic around her cracked apart from the world and became visible. When Narcissa opened her eyes again, she was in the middle of a fierce black world crisscrossed with writhing nets of silver, like the one she had imprisoned Draco and Harry in.
She made her way calmly through the blackness, her own spell preventing others from seeing her or running into her, and found the transparent line threaded through with gold that meant an Invisibility Cloak was at work. Her first thought was Harry, but her confidence dismissed that. There was no way he could break through the spell she had used without understanding it first, and his training had not advanced that far.
It only took working her way through a few clumps of trees and past a half-collapsed tent for her to find the source of the tension. Fudge was arguing with a man it took Narcissa a moment to place: Bartemius Crouch, another Ministry flunky. Standing next to them was a house-elf, wringing her hands. On the ground in front of them was a wand that Narcissa recognized at a glance. Lucius’s.
So he was out here in the forest, reminiscing. Narcissa filed the thought away, and turned her head to trace the transparent cord only she could see.
There was a man there, hidden under an Invisibility Cloak. He was rigid and staring straight ahead. Imperius Curse, most likely, Narcissa thought, studying him. But he must have been free to use the wand. She knew there were limits to Lucius’s stupidity. He might have been Muggle-baiting, but he would never have relinquished his wand to anyone else willingly.
Good. Then he will yet live.
Both Fudge and Crouch were shouting—Fudge defending Lucius, his ally and bribemaster, Crouch insisting that all evidence pointed to Lucius casting the Dark Mark and his house-elf was innocent—but Crouch’s gaze went sideways more often. He knew about the man in the Cloak, then. And he knew that the man had cast the Dark Mark.
But he was blaming her husband.
Well, then. Narcissa descended once more into her training and dismissed the sight of the crawling cords of magic. It would only distract her when she took care of the problem. She knew where the man in the Invisibility Cloak stood by his disturbance in the leaves, and she did not need her eyes to aim.
She always carried powerful, virulent poison, and it was the work of a moment to coat her blades with it. Then she threw two knives at once, from slightly difference angles, with enough force to cut through a far stronger cloak. By the time the man gurgled and fell over, and Crouch and Fudge had only begun to turn to look, Narcissa had withdrawn behind the tree and used her own Disillusionment Charm.
She strolled calmly back to the tent, to listen in delight to Harry’s theoretical explanation of the silver net that had kept them caged. It was a more pleasant exercise than waiting for Lucius to return.
*
Of course, all good things must come to an end, and that end was Lucius stumbling through the tent flap looking as if he expected one of her poisoned blades to strike into his throat.
It would not happen, of course. Should she be forced to kill her husband, Narcissa would not make his death so traceable.
Harry and Draco were both asleep in the next room of the tent, which meant Narcissa cast a Silencing Charm on her husband right away and shook her head when he opened his mouth to explain. “I saw your wand lying on the ground between Crouch and Fudge,” she said. “Did you get it back?”
Lucius nodded.
“And you got out of the predicament without causing trouble for our family with the Ministry?”
Another nod. In truth, Narcissa would have been surprised if she had got any other response. Lucius was a genius in his limited arena.
What a pity that he so often steps outside it.
“What did you tell them?” she asked, and removed the Silencing Charm.
Lucius swallowed, and Narcissa ignored the flicker of his eyes to her hands. There were things more important than what Lucius found attractive right now. “That someone brushed by me in the crowd and took my wand, which is true. Crouch seemed—most anxious not to inquire further into the matter once I told him that.”
“Yes, I killed the man who took your wand,” Narcissa said, with a faint frown. It seemed that Crouch had been doing something he didn’t want found out, bringing that young man to the Quidditch World Cup and keeping him under an Invisibility Cloak, but she had no idea what he could have achieved with it. “Under the Imperius Curse and an Invisibility Cloak, facing the other way—but Crouch knew he was there.”
Lucius fell silent, his brow wrinkled as his brain worked. Narcissa let him do it. Lucius was useful when he was not swaggering on about his purity of blood.
“I wonder,” Lucius said, slowly, “if it could have been his son. Barty Crouch, Jr. A fanatical Death Eater, who supposedly died in Azkaban at about the same time as his wife died.”
“Easy enough to switch one body for another, one person for another,” Narcissa murmured, and nodded. “Did Crouch seem as if he was able to explain the body to Fudge’s satisfaction?”
“He expressed the same astonishment as Fudge did,” said Lucius, tilting his head. “Said that the man must have been the one who cast the Dark Mark and was hiding under the Cloak, listening to them in order to thwart whatever the Ministry chose to do next. The resemblance between him and the young man wasn’t very noticeable. I suspect that Fudge swallowed it whole. You know his paranoia.”
“And his pride,” Narcissa said softly. “He always assumes that if something happens near him, it must be targeted at him.”
Lucius went still and stared at her warily. He knew he was in trouble when she used that tone, although he obviously didn’t see how yet.
“Lucius, Lucius, Lucius.” Narcissa stepped up to him and gently rapped her dagger against his teeth. Lucius winced. “Your own pride is enormous. You thought I wouldn’t find out? Really?” It was disappointment and not wrath she felt, and she let that seep into her voice, and Lucius flinched more from that than the dagger. “What were you doing out in the woods?”
“I—it’s so frustrating, Narcissa,” Lucius burst out suddenly, sounding like someone purging a wound. “To watch the Muggles and the Mudbloods prancing around, acting like they’re mightier than us, as if purity of blood means nothing! I know you don’t like the Dark Lord, but he did promise to cleanse them, and it’s good to be back with like-minded people and release some of that energy….”
Narcissa stood back and let the purging go on, the venomous words flowing out of him, the way she would have listened to Draco complain about someone he didn’t like in Slytherin House. The difference was, Lucius wasn’t fourteen years old.
“Feel better?” Narcissa asked, when he was done.
Lucius nodded, and then his eyes glowed with apprehension. He had just remembered, from his expression, about his promised punishment.
“You may miss the Dark Lord all you like,” Narcissa said, and moved towards him. He didn’t try to shrink away, probably because he knew it would do no good. “You committed to following him when you were young and stupid—before you met me. I will not tolerate this stupidity now, Lucius.” Her voice was a hammer, and she watched the nails of her words striking him. “Any more than I would have tolerated you releasing that diary into Hogwarts. You must choose now who you wish to serve. Me and Draco, or your Dark Lord.”
Lucius found courage somewhere in the depths of his heart. “If I choose him?”
“Then you will not see me again,” Narcissa said flatly. “Or Draco.”
“You would leave—”
“Yes, we would. And you will not see me again, Lucius.” Narcissa smiled, and let him think about all the things she could do from out of sight.
Lucius shuddered and flung himself on her neck. “I choose you,” he mumbled frantically into her ear.
“A wise choice,” Narcissa said, and touched his hair for a moment before she turned and Transfigured the first whip for the second, and less agonizing, part of the punishment.
The expression of sheer gratitude on his face was part of the reason she had married him.
*
SickPuppy: Thank you! Lucius won't enjoy this one as much, but then, he shouldn't have done that.
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Narcissa Militant