Chapter Text
1981
Owls arrived every day with death threats. Narcissa screened the packages for hexes, curses and explosives; that part was simple enough. She didn’t dare allow a letter to go unopened, however. Any one of them might be be important; a warning from a contact in hiding. She had to be her husband’s eyes and ears while he was detained for questioning.
The ministry had a great many questions. Lucius had been gone for weeks.
Yesterday, one letter described the way the writer would rape and torture Narcissa when he caught her. Another one came with a picture of Lily Potter cuddling her baby, accompanied by threats to make an orphan of Draco too. “He’ll be better off,” it read.
Other letters were more sedate. “We know you and Lucius would never involve yourselves with such an unsavory extremist organization,” they simpered. “How outrageous that the ministry should harass him, after all that he’s been through with that Imperious!”
“Imperious indeed,” said another. “Lucius Malfoy is a traitor to our lord and a ministry bootlick! The Dark Lord shall rise once more! Your family will suffer for your disloyalty!”
That last one wasn’t a very Slytherin position to take, but that wouldn’t matter if witch or wizard who wrote it got past the property wards to the grand old house where Narcissa and her baby waited, all alone, day after day.
It was all a matter of perspective, according to Lucius. In his “guest quarters” at the ministry facility, Lucius was more restless each time Narcissa visited. He spoke faster and faster as the visiting hour ticked by.
“Threats are the world’s way of telling you that you’re important. You should keep them in a scrap book, darling. Do actually turn them in to the aurors, though…
“You must meet with Severus,” Lucius said, leaning forward. “I hear he’s an absolute wreck. It must feel like he’s lost everything and he’s trapped forever under Dumbledore’s thumb, but the truth is, he’s in the best possible position, no matter what happens next. Remind him that he has friends. Ask him if there’s… anything he needs.”
Lucius met her eyes and smirked.
“He’s always wanted you, Narcissa. We needn’t pretend we don’t know that.”
Narcissa smirked back and raised an eyebrow. What else could she do? Draco squirmed and babbled in her arms. Lucius, struggling to hide his irritation the baby, glanced away.
She wasn’t about to tell Lucius that she had sent several owls, to Hogwarts and to Spinners End, and had gotten no response.
She had first tried to reach Severus immediately after the Godric’s Hollow Massacre, but wasn’t surprised by his silence. The weeks after “Harry Potter Day” were chaos: There were auror raids on all of the old ancestral homes. Bellatrix was hauled off to Azkaban, crowing like a prima donna receiving a standing ovation. God, she was practically blowing kisses to the press.
Perhaps dear Bella could room with their cousin. Sirius had evidently blown up a crowd of muggles on behalf of the Dark Lord. An impressively Slytherin twist, if you ignored the fact that he was immediately captured.
Despite their legal team’s optimism, it looked like Lucius would spend Christmas here “under observation.” The Malfoy account was frozen. “Temporary inconveniences, my dear, I swear,” said Lucius, fiercely. “Just don’t recommend leaving the manor more than necessary.”
As Narcissa scooped up Draco and prepared to leave, Lucius called out, “Draco!”
Little Draco snapped to attention and stilled. His father blessed him with a genuine smile.
“You have a beautiful mummy who loves you,” Lucius said. “Not everyone does, now do they?”
Narcissa smiled back at him, repressing a deep and useless shudder.
“I trust you completely,” Lucius told her. They each kissed their palms and held them up.
“I know you do,” said Narcissa. They both meant it, she supposed, in their way.
For the first time in her life, Narcissa worried about food; the well-stocked pantry wouldn’t last forever. Neither would their medicinal potions. Her son seemed to outgrow or destroy a garment every day and transfiguration could only do so much.
She paced the mansion, surrounded by jewels and finery that could be seized at any moment. She herself could be seized at any moment, by the ministry, by vigilantes, or by rogue Death Eaters. She wouldn’t leave Draco sleeping in the nursery unless Dobby was standing watch.
She moved like a purposeful ghost. She inventoried the pantry, then the silent kitchen. Her heart pounded, but she pressed on. In the dark foyer she dared to stand in the single beam of light falling through the high windows to the center of the empty room. She took three slow, deliberate breaths while she stood in that light.
Feeling a point had been made, Narcissa went on to surveil the empty ballroom. This part was rather a treat. She liked listening to her high heels clip and clack on the marble floors, the echo all around her the only sound that mattered. It was one luxury you never heard people brag about; a big cold empty space to be alone in. Narcissa couldn’t imagine doing without it.
God, this ballroom, this exquisite barren planet…
Where, oh where, was Severus Snape? Here in this space, it was a song and not a worry. She slowed her pace to a stalk. Snape at Hogwarts, safe from both prosecution and retaliation under Dumbledore’s gaudy old wing. Impressive, that was how she would put it, if she could get face time with the elusive Half-Blood Prince.
How was Severus Snape? That was the question!
Did he, like Bellatrix, abide in certainty that the Dark Lord would return?
Perhaps he was heartbroken but grimly determined to man his post, the last task assigned to him by his fallen king.
Or maybe Severus wasn’t grieving Voldemort at all. Perhaps Severus was a was a twenty-one year-old in over his head. After all, hadn’t Lucius himself been… almost… in over his head?
It was entirely possible, Narcissa decided, that Severus, untouchable and victorious, had absolutely no idea what to do next.
Poor thing. Poor brilliant, precious thing.
Today’s Daily Prophet had been a sickening read. They were still running features on the Sainted Potters. Today on page two, Baby Harry gripped a lock of his mother’s her fiery red hair, jamming it into his mouth over and over again. Lily bent over him laughing, a little girl with a delightful new toy.
The feature had mentioned that Lily was born in Cokeworth. Wasn’t that where Severus was from? Narcissa briefly entertained the thought of paying a visit to his “hovel,” as Lucius called it. She quickly dismissed the idea as dangerous for her and potentially embarrassing for him. Embarrassing Severus was the last thing she wanted to do.
Unfortunately, asking if there was anything that they could do for him wasn’t working. Apparently Severus Snape didn’t need one damned thing from the Malfoys.
Now Narcissa wandered the library, sitting for a moment on a dragon-hide divan. The shelves were heavy with ancient texts that the rest of the world had to beg to look at. The stone walls were hung with tapestries. Her own pale reflection appraised her from the dark window and Narcissa reflexively sat up straiter. Severus had looked at her with wonder and not a little longing since he was eleven years old. Not desire, though. Not for her. For her world, maybe. It had always been about class with Severus.
She looked out the window, through her own image, upon the shadowed grounds. Empty manicured acres. More expensive nothingness. Perhaps… perhaps ‘nothing’ was something that Severus Snape might appreciate. Perhaps her desperation itself was something she could offer.
She could lure Severus back to this world, where he’d always wanted to belong. A triumphant return, now that privileged Lucius scrambling to avoid Azkaban while the working-class half-blood was the youngest potions master in the history of Hogwarts.
Let Severus come and see that for all their wealth and breeding they were helpless now. Lucius wouldn’t like it, but didn’t Lucius rather expect her to do something he wouldn’t like, if it came down to it?
Once more, Narcissa summoned the parchment with the family crest. With quill and ink, she gifted Severus her shame and laid herself bare: She told him that was tormented by the specter of poverty, of her own uselessness and helplessness. She told him that she had long ago lost faith in her husband’s machinations and that she would never again trust a member of her family, or any of their pureblood tribe.
She would never again trust her own judgement. She told him that too.
She had lived with dread of the Dark Lord for years, striving desperately like everyone else to anticipate his moods and whims and survive just a little while longer. There hadn’t been time to consider survival in a world without him. Now there were days she could feel her failure to protect her son, deep in her bones, and she wanted to die. All of this, she wrote to Severus Snape.
Please, she wrote. I believe our lives are in your hands. I am begging you for your counsel.
Once she had finished the letter, Narcissa looked down at what she had written. It burned her eyes just like all of the other letters she had looked at that day. She sent it quickly before she could change her mind.
On Christmas Day, the wards started buzzing while Draco was napping. Narcissa looked out from the nursery window to see a black wraith by the back gate casting a long thin shadow across a snowy flower bed. A peacock dropped from a bare tree, fanned its great white tail and screamed. The figure didn’t react. Narcissa flicked her wand to release the wards and open the gate. The figure and the black line of its shadow advanced slowly toward the house.