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Narcissa Militant	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 17890 -:- 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 again for all the reviews!
Narcissa Tournamental, Part Two
“They are having the Triwizard Tournament at Hogwarts?” Narcissa had been gone the last few days on a mission that was well-deserved and well-paying, and she hadn’t had time to read the Daily Prophet. She tossed her hair—newly freed of the dye that had made it look black—over her shoulder and eyed Lucius.
Lucius nodded on the other side of the lunch table. “Apparently it’s some kind of attempt to harmonize relationships between the three schools.” He held out the paper.
Narcissa turned it around, and read the article with growing amusement. There was a short history on the second page of how many Champions had died in the last few Tournaments before they’d stopped having them. Narcissa shook her head. “There are many easier ways to kill themselves if they want to,” she murmured. “Be foolish enough and I would be happy to put a knife in their hearts.”
Lucius took the paper back and cautiously stirred up his soup. “Are you going to warn Draco and Harry about it?”
“Tell them about it. Not warn.” Narcissa shrugged and returned to her own plate. “They’re both smart enough not to risk trying to enter. I’m sure there will be an Age Line or similar precaution. And even if Sirius is reckless enough to try and put the idea in Harry’s head…”
“I’m sure he’s smarter than that.”
“Perhaps. Grown men aren’t, always.”
That made Lucius flush and keep his eyes on the soup for the rest of the meal.
*
“Be brave this year,” Narcissa said, her hands resting lightly on Harry’s shoulders. “Keep up with your training even though I’m not there.”
Harry blinked and stood straighter. “Of course.”
“And feel free to write to me about anything. Including any ridiculous plans your friends might try to involve you in, or the mad behavior of someone else.” Narcissa let her eyes flicker sideways for one instant, to where Draco was waving his arms around as he told Pansy Parkinson about their trip to Greece this summer.
This time, Harry had a smile for her. “Of course. Good-bye, Narcissa. Thank you.” For an instant, he leaned lightly against her, enough not to disturb either his hidden weapons or get pricked by hers. Then he moved back, and caught Weasley’s eye, and they were lost in a conversation about Quidditch that Narcissa could only follow because of that time she’d been undercover spying out the true allegiances of a player on multiple teams.
“Draco, darling.”
Draco stepped up to her and gave her a solemn look. Narcissa ran her fingers through his hair and smoothed it down again, then smiled at him. She wouldn’t tell him to watch out for Harry, because Harry was capable of doing that himself now, and more cautious to boot. He knew what would happen if he risked his life needlessly and she caught him.
But she did have something she wanted to say.
“I want you to remember that you have every right to be proud, Draco,” she said, and bent to kiss his forehead. “But you don’t need to remind others of it at every opportunity, or step on their toes in your desire to be proud. Do you understand?”
A soft pink flush ran up down Draco’s neck to his cheeks, and he hung his head. “You’re saying the way I bragged to Pansy was wrong.”
“Do you think she had the chance to go on holiday and see the naiads dancing in the waterfalls?”
Draco shook his head silently. Then he said, “But she liked hearing about it—I mean, what do I do if someone asks me the question? I can’t just lie and pretend I didn’t go on holiday or I’m not rich, right?”
“No. But think of the courtesy your father and I show at parties. Or with Ministry politicians who are hoping for some of our gold but don’t have it yet. What do you see us do? Answer every question in the same way?”
Draco stood, thinking deeply. Narcissa waited. She had deliberately brought them early so that the Hogwarts Express wouldn’t leave before she could have the conversations she needed to with her son and Harry.
Draco finally said, “No?” Narcissa raised an eyebrow, and he repeated it more firmly. “No, I mean. You don’t just answer honestly. You smile, and sometimes you hint about how much you enjoyed an event or a party or something someone did, and you might contribute to that enjoyment. Or you say that travel broadened your mind and made you able to see a new perspective.”
“Exactly.” Narcissa touched his shoulders this time, which had straightened from their slump. She was glad to see that. It was never her intention to chastise her child, only to correct him. “Be gentle, Draco. You don’t need to insult others. You don’t need to confront them. Those are certainly tactics, but only valuable in the proper context. Do your smiling and your courtesy to their faces, and if you need to laugh at them, do it later.”
“Is that even valuable with people like Pansy who want to help us or who can’t hurt our family?”
“Yes, of course. Remember that someone with an unreasonable sense of anger or entitlement can still hurt you. It might not be deeply—someone you insulted at Hogwarts might only spread a rumor about you instead of try to duel you—but I don’t want you hurt at all. Use your words and manners to defend yourself.”
“That’s not the sort of thing you’re teaching Harry.”
“Harry is naturally the kind of person who can depend on his weapons better than his words.”
Draco grinned, then, brighter than Narcissa thought she had seen since the World Cup. “Is that your way of saying that he has no tact?”
“Oh, he’ll learn the kind that keeps him from resorting to violence indiscriminately. But I do believe in letting you both play to your strengths, not forcing you into the same mold.”
Draco nodded, and then the train whistle blew so loudly that they wouldn’t have been able to continue their conversation much longer. Narcissa sighed and embraced her son one last time, which he might only have let her do because no one was watching. “Be safe, darling. Remember to owl me if you have any concerns.”
“Of course,” said Draco, and then he dashed away towards the train, yelling for Harry to come with him. Harry quickly made his excuses to his friends and caught up with Draco. For a moment, when they were balanced in the entrance to the compartment they’d chosen, Narcissa saw them share a swift private smile.
Like me and Lucius, Narcissa thought. Only better.
She Apparated home in a cheerful frame of mind.
*
The low growl in front of her made Narcissa crouch down. She shook her head. The perfume that she had bought in Knockturn Alley as a mask for her scent had not worked as advertised. She would need to visit the seller and…explain…her disappointment.
The werewolf took a long sniff and padded closer to the bracken. Narcissa waited until it had come close enough that she could make out the arch of the throat, and then she threw the knife.
It struck only glancingly, but it opened a scratch, and that was enough for the poison she’d coated the blade with. The beast kicked and thrashed and screamed. Narcissa stood up from the bracken she’d been hiding in and walked over, bending down to draw another knife and carve open the werewolf’s belly. The woman who had hired her had made her promise to do this, even though it would be her poison that killed the savage. Her client’s husband had died that way from the werewolf’s claws.
“This is for Bethelyn Graves,” said Narcissa, speaking to the werewolf, although she thought the pained howls probably drowned out her voice.
Finally, the werewolf lay still, and Narcissa shook her head again and cut off one paw as proof. She cast the spell that would burn the rest of the body and Apparated home. She had no blood on her, but the sweat of work was still thick enough to make her want a shower.
Lucius entered as she was binding her wet hair back. For once, his eyes didn’t linger on the waterdrops sliding down her shoulders, which made Narcissa frown at him. “What is it?”
“Draco wrote us this letter,” Lucius said quietly, and held it out.
Us. That was unusual. Most of the time, Draco either wanted his father’s praise or her confidence. Narcissa dried the outer strands of hair that might drip and sat down on the rose-colored couch just outside the bathroom, reading with a rapid gaze.
It said baldly, Harry’s name came out of the Goblet of Fire to compete in the Triwizard Tournament. I know he probably thinks he can survive since you’ve been training him, but it was still a stupid thing for him to do. And he didn’t tell me!
Narcissa spent a moment stroking the parchment, and cast a few spells that would identify whether the person writing these words was under an enchantment, such as the Imperius Curse, that compelled them to write certain things. But no result for that came back. Draco had written this letter.
It simply made no sense that Harry would have decided to risk entering the Tournament when he knew he would have to deal with her.
Or else, someone had done it for him.
Narcissa spent a moment mourning her loss of relaxing time, and cast the charm that would dry her hair completely. Then she Summoned one of the black robes that was slit up the sides and let her move most easily from the nearest hanger, and began to dress. “Don’t wait up for me, Lucius.”
“You’re going to Hogwarts?”
“Yes.”
“What about the wards—”
“As if I wouldn’t have planted workarounds in them when I was there last year,” said Narcissa, and looked at him until he bowed his head. He rubbed at his left arm, and Narcissa glanced at it briefly. It did seem that the last time she had seen the Dark Mark, it had looked blacker than it had all these years.
But that was a crisis for the future, and right now, she had more than enough to deal with.
She reached out to the workarounds in the Manor wards, the ones she didn’t use often because it might take as long as thirty seconds for the wards to repair themselves after they were used, and Apparated out.
*
Narcissa sighed and blinked, forcing the swirls of red away from her vision. As she had suspected, one of her most generally useful spells was useless at the moment. It was meant to detect hostile intent towards a specific person.
Right now, most of Hogwarts hated Harry.
Narcissa slipped into one of the passages that she had cut through the rock of the castle walls, branching off a passage that had been there already. This one brought her most of the way up the Astronomy Tower, near the quarters that had been hers when she was playing Astronomy apprentice last year. She walked quietly through the corridors, avoiding the groups of gossiping students as if she was really the shadow under the torches that they took her for.
That didn’t mean she couldn’t listen. And she picked up useful information as she moved.
“Potter must have done it, he always wants to be the center of attention—”
“He said someone else must have done it. Who would have done it for him? You know none of the older students would have wanted to give up their chance to be chosen!”
“Yeah, I think he’s lying. He did the same thing about why he was on the Quidditch team in first year, after all.”
Narcissa shook her head and passed into the shadows that surrounded the corridors outside Gryffindor Tower. That walk had told her what the other students thought, but, of course, little of what was really going on. They had not paid attention, or they would know that Harry hated his fame and would never have willingly competed in the Tournament.
She waited until she heard a large group of Gryffindors coming, and stepped off to the side so they wouldn’t slam into her as they went into the portrait. Their password was spoken loudly enough to echo off the walls, and Narcissa snorted soundlessly as she slipped in after them. “Truth.” Of course.
As if most of them would know the truth if it stabbed them in the stomach.
The common room was filled with tight knots of students. Narcissa toured around the shadowy corners, and found that they all seemed to be discussing different aspects of what they called the “Potter Problem.” Some of them wanted to prank Harry. Others wanted to simply give him the silent treatment and wait until he started acting “like a real Gryffindor” again. Some thought they should bargain with him until he revealed the secret of how he had got past the Age Line, and then prank him.
Narcissa sighed a little as she made her way up the stairs to the room that the fourth-year Gryffindor boys would be sharing. Unfortunately, Harry’s skills weren’t up yet to a sustained fight with so many opponents, or she would have encouraged him to take care of matters that way.
The curtains of his bed were drawn. Narcissa cast a spell that would tell her the life-forms in the room, and nodded. Harry was behind those curtains, and the only other living thing here right now was a small plant next to what was probably Neville Longbottom’s bed. Narcissa strode over and charmed the curtains open.
She approved of the speed with which he took a knife out, at least.
“You should have told me the instant someone entered you in the Tournament,” she said, and sat down in front of him, hands folded in her lap. “Why didn’t you?”
Harry stared at her, his eyes shadowed and his hand still clutching the knife. Then he laid it down and glanced aside.
“You know as well as I do that refusing to talk does not work with me,” Narcissa said, and settled herself in to wait. She watched as his cheeks flushed redder and redder. His eyes also kept darting to the door of the bedroom. He was probably imagining what would happen if one of the other boys came back and found his foster mother sitting on his bed.
Narcissa smiled, and waited.
Harry finally exhaled and said, “Draco—Draco doesn’t believe me when I say I didn’t put my name in the Goblet. I was afraid that you would side with him.”
Narcissa blinked, once, letting her eyelids rise and fall until her lashes brushed her cheek. She had to do that to acknowledge the shiver of anger that passed through her. Then she said, “Why is that?”
Harry stared at her as if she had gone mad and declared her intention to follow the Dark Lord. “Because he’s your son?”
“That does not mean I will always believe him, any more than I always believed his wild tales when he was a child.” Narcissa looked straight at Harry, and waited until he looked back. Harry was too direct a person not to do that after a certain point—another reason Narcissa had taught him to defend himself with knives and spells instead of lies. “I wish you had written to me. And told me what you think happened.”
“It has to be someone else who did it. Who put it in, probably in the name of a different school. There were supposed to be only three sets of papers, one for Beauxbatons and one for Durmstrang and one for Hogwarts.” Harry faced her with his trembling arms wrapped around his knees. “I didn’t do it. I didn’t.”
“I know you didn’t.”
Harry relaxed all at once, his head drooping forwards. “How did you know?”
“Because you would never have done such a thing when you knew you had to face me.”
Harry flushed like Draco had at the train station before they got on the Hogwarts Express, and nodded. “Well, that’s true. Um. I suppose that I should have told you—”
“Yes.”
“But it’s too late to change anything now, anyway. The Headmistress told me that there’s a magical contract binding people chosen by the Goblet to compete. That’s why they were so careful to restrict it to people who are of age, mostly. They’re going to be risking their lives if they’re chosen.”
“Which means you will be risking your life.”
“Yes.”
“Not for long.” Narcissa patted his shoulder and stood up. “Thank you for telling me the truth, Harry. While I wish you had done so at once, I also understand what held you back.”
“What are you going to do, though? Since you can’t keep me from competing in the Tournament.” Harry squinted at her.
“I’m going to make sure that you’re safe,” Narcissa said. “And not risking your life. I told you once that I will not have you doing that until you are an adult and no longer under my protection.”
“But no one knows what the Tasks are ahead of time. Are you going to find out and tell me?”
Narcissa chuckled a little. It heartened her that he recognized how much within her power that was. “No. Think about it, and you may understand in time.” She kissed Harry on the forehead, wrapped the shadows around herself again, and slipped out of the room.
It was time to call on her contacts from Beauxbatons, where she had once wanted to send Draco. There was a particular professor who would do much to avoid having her fetish for chicken feathers exposed.
And then Narcissa would do something to…take care of the problem.
*
SickPuppy: Thank you! And, well, Narcissa will have to deal with other people, but not Crouch, Jr.
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Narcissa Militant