Chapter Text
Narcissa Black’s lips are painted dark red, matching her nails, and they arch into a smile when Lucius slides into the seat next to hers.
In front of her, Herbology notes in her neat handwriting are laid out, two unopened books.
"Are you going to help me study?", she asks, balancing her quill between her fingers.
She’s beyond pretty, easily the most beautiful girl in their grade, and she’s Lucius’.
"I doubt I could help you much in this", Lucius mutters. She’s better at Herbology than him. He’s never had a knack for plants and their care, not like she does.
She chuckles, a light, tingly sound. "You can just sit there and provide me with your valuable insight", she teases, and manages a quite accurate impression of Slughorn introducing his partner work exercises.
"Actually", Lucius drawls, resting his arm on Narcissa’s chair, "Actually, I wanted to ask you whether you’d like to join me in France for the holidays."
Narcissa’s eyes widen. "You want me to come to France for Christmas?"
"Only if you want to, of course, darling.”
She rolls her eyes and swats his arm. "Of course I want to." Her smile widens and her eyes take on a gleam Lucius knows all too well, "If you’ll have me, that is."
It’s blatant, even for her. "I’ll have you alright, Cissa", he replies and she laughs, relaxing into his side.
She takes up her quill again. "Is your father alright with it?"
The humour has vanished from her voice, and she sounds almost reluctant asking. The mention of his father is enough to dull his good mood, too.
"He’ll spend Christmas in America", Lucius mutters, "He’ll not bother us."
It’s not entirely true and Lucius should feel a lot worse for lying to Narcissa, but the truth is not a matter to be discussed in the Hogwarts library, nor is it a matter that Narcissa should be burdened with. She shouldn't be burdened with the fact that his father will likely kiss the Dark Lord's boots during the holidays.
He kisses the top of her head, catching a whiff of her sweet perfume. "I’ll stop bothering you now", he says, "See you at dinner."
She steals a kiss before he can get up, her lips pouty as he draws back. "Come to my room, after?"
Her eyes shine with mischief, and if Bellatrix could see how brazenly her sister displayed her affection for a male friend, she’d surely faint.
He also knows that she’d kill him if she knew how often he’d spent his nights in her bed recently and how her sister was so very good at-
"Malfoy?"
Someone’s voice saying his name tears him from his musings and he turns away from Narcissa with a start.
The girl standing there looks anxious and unfamiliar. She’s in Gryffindor robes, and she’s probably only third or fourth year. "You’re the Head Boy, aren’t you?", she asks and twists a lock of red hair behind her ear nervously.
He raises an eyebrow and nods, waiting for her to continue. Narcissa is peering curiously at the girl over her shoulder.
"I need your help", the girl says, "They’re fighting again."
She leads him from the library’s study area toward the section with the bookshelves. There’s shouting muffled by the silencing charms on the library hall, and the scene presented to them by one of the little study nooks between the shelves is indeed an unusual one.
There are four Gryffindor boys, all third or fourth year like the girl. One of them, a blond, slender boy, is hovering three feet in the air, upside down, his legs flailing around uselessly as he’s held aloft.
"Let me down, you fucking bastard", he’s shouting, the volume decreased significantly. His head is a bright red, flushed with blood.
One of the other three is clutching a shelf to hold himself upright, the other hand holding his bleeding nose. He’s the only one of the group that Lucius recognises - Sirius Black, Gryffindor’s most infamous member.
He starts yelling the moment he sees Lucius. "You’ve gotta let him down!"
Lucius ignores him in favour of taking in the rest of the scene - The Gryffindor with brown hair and a scar over his left brow is trying desperately to cast an Finite Incantatem on his floating friend that won’t work, and the fourth boy is standing uselessly to the side, watching with wide eyes.
"Who did this?", Lucius snaps at the girl who’d fetched him, who flinches slightly at the question.
Her eyes flicker over to the desk half-hidden behind the shelf and toward the boy bracing himself against it. Lucius had not noticed him there before.
Severus Snape’s scowl is still as vicious as it was at his Sorting ceremony two years ago.
"Me", Snape snarls, and steps forward. He’s holding his arm to his chest, and a trickle of blood also runs from his nose.
The girl - Lucius still hasn’t asked her name - shifts uncomfortably next to him. "Please let him down, Sev", she says, and the boy hanging upside down lets out a groan of rage.
Drawing his wand, Lucius tries his own Finite Incantatem on him that does nothing. Unusual, for a jinx or hex of this sort. "What spell is this?", Lucius asks sharply. It’s not a particularly common one, if anything.
Snape’s eyes narrow. "He started it." His voice is sharper than Lucius’, his accent harsh.
"I don’t care", Lucius snaps, "What is the spell?"
"It’s Levicorpus", Snape hisses, and his wand is in his hand lightning-fast, and he points it at the floating boy, "Liberacorpus."
The boy falls to the floor gracelessly, tumbling over himself.
His head is dark red when he manages to sit up, and he’s panting as if he’d run a marathon, rage on his features. "You’ll pay for this!", he wheezes at Snape who sneers right back.
"Silence, both of you", Lucius interrupts him before he can open his mouth, "What is going on here?"
"They attacked me", Snape snarls viciously before the boy can speak, "I was just reading and Potter thought it was funny to throw hexes at me."
"That’s not true", Sirius Black yells, voice muffled, "He-"
"Five points from Gryffindor for yelling at a Head Boy", Lucius snaps, and Black glares, resembling his awful mother quite a lot. "Is what he said true?"
He doesn’t look at Black or Potter on the ground and instead at the boy who’d displayed the most common sense of the four earlier when he’d at least tried Finite Incantatem. "It’s true", he mutters, and a blush graces his cheeks, "It was supposed to be a prank."
"There you have it", Snape sneers, "It’s not my fault that I had to defend myself."
And defend himself he did, Lucius thinks privately, considering the damage he did. "Ten points from Slytherin", he snaps nonetheless, despite agreeing with the boy’s reaction, "For using this hex."
Looking at Black, he says - with a certain amount of glee - "Fifteen points from Gryffindor for each of you, for attacking a classmate. And Potter, an additional twenty points from Gryffindor for breaking his arm. Also, I’ll see Professor McGonagall about this, and I’ll make sure that you’ll serve detention for this."
"Are you serious?", Potter explodes, his face still an unhealthy shade of red.
"Do you need to see Madam Pomfrey?", Lucius ignores his remark, "Mr Black, perhaps, for your nose?"
Black’s lips twist unpleasantly and Lucius once more wonders how Narcissa could be from the same family as him. "It’s not broken", he snaps and extends a hand to help Potter up.
Potter throws Snape a last withering glare before he looks at the girl, still lingering somewhere behind Lucius. "Come on, Lily", he says, voice back to normal.
The girl hesitates for a moment before ducking her head and following them.
It leaves Lucius alone with Snape, who stands there, staring at her retreating back, the expression on his face almost forlorn.
"Come", Lucius sighs, "I’ll see you to the Hospital Wing."
Snape’s eyes flicker up, and the startling realisation that they’re pitch-black, really like two tunnels, hits Lucius. "I don’t need a guide to find the Hospital Wing", he snaps but this time, there’s no bite to it.
He waves his wand and the books stown on the ground near the table pick themselves up and levitate into his bag on the chair, along with the parchment on the table and the quill.
It’s impressive magic for a third-year.
Looking at Snape, he’s actually not changed all too much in the last two years, since Lucius noticed him last. His black hair is still lank and greasy, his skin is still sallow and he’s still unhealthily thin, so thin that his cheekbones stand out harshly in his face.
His robes are old, too large on him, and they’re patched up in places.
At least, Lucius muses without humour, the boy has lost the layer of dirt clinging to him when Lucius had seen him first. At least, he doesn’t flinch anymore anytime someone near him moves.
Snape is silent while they make their way to the Grand Staircase, his bag slung over one shoulder. It’s as worn as his robes and shoes.
"What was that hex?", Lucius asks when they’re walking up the moving stairs.
Snape eyes him sideways, dark brows drawn together. "It’s my own", he mutters after a long beat of silence, "I’ve been experimenting with levitation charms and spells with specific counterspells. I s’pose I decided to combine the two."
Lucius feels his brows rise on their own accord. "You write spells?"
Snape shrugs. "I s’pose."
It’s an unusual, quite rare talent for a wizard to have, much less a Hogwarts third-year.
"What else do you do?" It’s genuine curiosity that prompts him to ask. He’s never heard of Snape’s talents from anyone, be it from teachers or other students, which is odd considering the hex he’d displayed earlier and its finesse.
"Why?", Snape retorts, eyes narrow in suspicion, "What’s it to you?"
"You’re part of my house", Lucius tells him as the staircase halts at the right exit, "Of course I’m interested in your talents."
"Potions. I like to correct the textbook." He says it with a note of amusement, like it’s some sort of private joke.
To Lucius, it sounds… not like something a thirteen year-old would say. "The textbook is wrong?"
Snape scoffs as if offended. "Not wrong, per se. The recipes work but they’re bad and overcomplicated. I try to improve them."
"Why aren’t you part of Slughorn’s little club?", Lucius asks.
Snape’s face morphs into an even worse sneer than before, his lip pulled back to expose crooked, yellow teeth. "As though I’d wanna be part of that. I’ve better use for my time than spend it at Slughorn’s parties."
"You declined Slughorn’s invite?" It’s just not something you do, especially if you are part of House Slytherin.
"He never invited me", Snape hisses scathingly, "I s’pose he can’t gain nothing from me. No connections and such."
"He can’t gain anything from you", Lucius corrects him automatically, absentmindedly.
It’s true that Slughorn’s club is full of students with rich parents and only moderate talent for the subject of Potionmaking. Lucius supposes it’s why he is part of it, too.
He doesn’t know Snape or his background, but he’s quite sure that it’s not one of wealth. The name Snape doesn’t carry any prestige in the Wizarding world. Lucius isn’t even sure whether it even is a Wizarding family’s name.
"What are you, my English teacher?", Snape hisses, glaring up at Lucius, "Why’re you even here? Don’t you got something other to do?"
The boy’s rudeness is also quite astonishing, delivered with a bluntness Lucius isn’t used to from the younger Slytherins who usually at least try to be polite.
"No", Lucius retorts and raises his eyebrows at the boy, "I don’t have anything else to do."
Snape falls silent, staring stubbornly ahead as they cross the long hallway to the Hospital Wing.
"How much does your arm hurt?", Lucius asks when they reach the stairs to the Hospital Wing.
Snape blinks, irritation on his face. "Dunno."
Lucius barely refrains from rolling his eyes. "You mean you don’t know."
"Stop that!"
"I mean it, Mr Snape. How much does it hurt?", Lucius insists.
The boy’s shoulders slump. "It’s fine. It’s been broken before."
What a strange statement from a child. He’s escorted other, older students with broken arms to the Hospital Wing before and most of them had whined the entire way as if their arm was falling off any moment.
"It’s not as bad as a broken leg. Or ribs", Snape adds as an afterthought.
Lucius feels his eyebrows rise on their own accord. "Do you make a sport out of breaking bones?"
Snape sniffs indignantly. "I tend to fall off trees."
It’s not often that he’s at a loss for words, but somehow, Snape manages to put him there. Everything about the boy is offputting, odd. His mannerisms, his language, his unusual interests.
"You tend to fall of trees and break your ribs?", Lucius echoes.
Snape scoffs. "I jus’ said that. You ain’t gotta repeat everything I say." The irritation to his words is nearly enough to make Lucius laugh, paired with the murderous scowl on his face.
Luckily, they reach the top of the stairs before Lucius has to find an answer.
"Ah, Mr Malfoy", Pomfrey greets them, "And Mr Snape. I’d hoped not to see you again so soon."
She sounds sad saying it, and Lucius looks down at the top of Snape’s greasy head. "You come here often?"
Snape sighs and arches a shoulder noncommittally. "Sometimes, I guess."
Pomfrey shakes her head. "What is it this time?"
"A group of Gryffindor boys decided to assault him in the library. He broke his arm", Lucius tells her, "I’ve already taken points and assigned detention."
"Of course you have", Pomfrey mutters, and bids Snape to sit down on a bench. "You may go, Mr Malfoy."
Lucius inclines his head, glancing at Snape clutching his broken arm to his chest and turns around to leave.
"Can he stay?", Snape asks quietly, sounding suddenly quite meek.
Lucius meets Pomfrey’s eyes. The matron looks as confused as he feels, but ultimately sighs and nods. "If you have some time?"
"Of course." He resigns himself to leaning against the doorframe as Pomfrey asks Snape to take off his robes and shirt, and it’s the strangest situation he’s been in in a while.
Snape’s earlier viciousness seems to have melted off of him like snow in the sun, leaving behind a skittish, jumpy boy who eyes the matron with obvious distrust as he takes off his shirt.
The sight of his chest makes Lucius’ stomach drop. He is so thin that his ribs show one by one through his skin. His skin, which is littered in an array of scars, some white, some still pinkish. Small, round scars that look like healed burn wounds, and long, thin slashes that Lucius can’t fathom the cause of.
Pomfrey’s lips are tight as she runs her detection spells on Snape’s broken arm. She’s obviously used to the horrific sight. Lucius wonders whether she knows what happened to Snape to scar him so. At thirteen, that is.
He averts his eyes, staring at his own shoes while Pomfrey casts spells on Snape’s arm and fixes it in a cast.
"Come back next week on Monday", she tells him, and offers him a vial of potion, "Take this every morning, afternoon and evening, five drops each."
As Snape dresses again, Pomfrey passes by Lucius at the door. She gives him a thin smile and disappears in the adjacent room.
From his bench, Snape glares at Lucius, his glower in place again as he throws on his robes.
"I’ll take you to dinner", Lucius tells him, to which Snape’s lips twist again in his scowl.
"‘m not hungry", he snaps, grabbing his bag.
"I didn’t see you at lunch, so you must be hungry." He isn’t even sure whether that’s true because he didn’t pay attention to whether Snape was there or not, but from the way Snape rolls his eyes, he must be correct.
"I wasn’t hungry then, either", he says sullenly.
"You’re going to dinner, whether you like it or not", Lucius says, and puts on his best authoritative tone. There’s a reason why Snape is so thin, and he suspects it’s because he rarely ever goes to the meals offered at the Great Hall, which would also explain why Lucius doesn’t ever see him around.
"But I’ve to study", Snape whines when they’re halfway to the Great Hall.
"You’ve studied enough for today", Lucius tells him, and Snape continues to sullenly trail after him.
The hallways are now more crowded than before, students all going to dinner together.
As they pass the stairs to the dungeons, Lucius turns around to give the boy a pointed glare. "No, you’re not going to sneak off."
Snape turns up his nose at him, gazing longingly at the staircase.
They reach the Great Hall just before dinner is being served, and it’s already packed full of people.
Narcissa waves at them from the Slytherin table, seated between two of her friends, toad-faced Eunice Bulstrode and Aurelia Nott who is, all things considered, quite plain. Between them, Narcissa looks like a polished diamond set in a ring made from fool’s gold.
He settles into the seat across from Narcissa, bidding Snape to sit next to him.
She eyes the boy curiously. "And who are you?"
Snape stares at his empty plate. "Severus Snape."
"Nice to meet you", Narcissa smiles and introduces first herself and then her two friends. Eunice just looks distantly curious but Aurelia eyes the boy with faint disdain on her plain face, her nose wrinkled.
Snape says nothing and makes no move to take anything from the platters of food appearing on the table.
There’s a variation of vegetables and apparently, the House Elves have settled for fish this evening.
"What do you want to eat?", Lucius asks him.
Snape pushes his plate away from himself. "I said I wasn’t hungry."
Lucius knows that tone all too well, the petulant tone the first-years use when he scolds them for lingering in the common room after their bedtime.
It’s irritating, just like that stubborn frown on Snape’s face.
"Stop that", Lucius says, sharply enough to make Snape’s dark eyes flash, "You aren’t five years old."
Narcissa, across the table, smiles at him beatifically. "The salmon is very good, Severus. You should try it."
Snape’s eyes narrow but he reaches out to grab the serving spoon for the platter of fish in front of them.
"Which year are you in, Severus?", Narcissa asks, putting a delicate amount of potatoes on her own plate.
"Third", Snape mutters and picks at his piece of salmon, "I s’pose you’re also in the seventh?"
Narcissa nods. She’s braided her hair since this afternoon in the library, with little gemstones woven into the plait. "Are you two friends now?" Her eyes flicker up to Lucius’.
Snape ducks his head and Lucius hums noncommittally. "I thought I’d take Severus along to dinner with me."
"I wasn’t hungry", Snape mutters and Narcissa laughs lightly. His frown deepens even more and he continues staring at his plate, not looking at her.
"Do you like the salmon?", she asks.
"‘s fine."
Narcissa’s grey eyes meet Lucius’, and she raises a delicately arched eyebrow in question.
He just smiles and shrugs lightly, watching Snape pick at his small portion of fish and vegetables, barely eating anything. Better than nothing, at least.
By the time the tables are getting cleared, he’s at least finished the small portion of food. Narcissa’s girlfriends are tittering about some Quidditich player or other, and Lucius is finding Narcissa’s account of her Charms class with James Travers, who had apparently accidentally cast a permanent shrinking charm on Adeline Wilkes, this morning quite entertaining.
For dessert, caramel fudge cake and strawberries dipped in chocolate appear on the table.
Unsurprisingly, Snape doesn’t even look at it.
Lucius cuts himself a piece of cake. "Do you want one?", he asks the boy who eyes the dessert with heated disdain.
"I don’t like sweets", he says with conviction, "Make my throat feel funny."
"Really", Lucius says, not even surprised. The boy’s oddities seem to extend even to food. "What do you like, then?"
Snape shrugs again, in that manner of his that conveys just enough disinterest to annoy Lucius. "I dunno." At the withering look Lucius gives him, he says grudgingly, "I don’t know."
"You must like something", Lucius says exasperatedly, "Everyone likes something."
Snape’s lips thin. "Liquorice, I s’pose. The black one."
Lucius can’t help but chuckle at the look on the boy’s face. "You don’t need to glare at me like that. It’s alright if you don’t want dessert. You don’t have to like all foods."
Snape relaxes visibly in his seat. Lucius hadn’t even noticed how tense the boy had been before, like he was poised to run any moment.
The caramel cake is delicious, though, and watching Narcissa’s red lips wrap around the chocolate covered strawberries is a nice visual addition.
Halfway through dessert, a group of Gryffindor girls walks past their table. Lucius wouldn’t have noticed them had one of them not been the girl from the library this afternoon, the one with the red hair.
She looks unsure for a moment, surrounded by her laughing friends, but ultimately, she does step out of the group to walk up to Snape.
"Uh, Sev?"
She’s nervously smoothing out her robes as he turns around to glance up at her. His face softens from its frown, lips quirking into a smile. "Hey, Lily."
"Hey", she says quietly, eyeing Narcissa and the two Slytherin girls uneasily, "I just wanted to ask if you were alright? Your arm, I mean."
Snape nods quickly. "It’s fine. Well, broken. But it’s okay."
The girl smiles tensely. "Do you want to come to the library with me? We didn’t finish studying earlier."
Lucius doesn’t miss the way Snape’s eyes flicker up to him as if he was asking for his approval. Odd, considering how little Snape seems to want his opinion of anything. He gives him a small smile and Snape picks up his bag, trailing after the girl and out of the Great Hall.
The moment he’s gone, Aurelia’s nose wrinkles up in disgust. "I didn’t know that you had a soft spot for Mudbloods, Malfoy", she hisses and gives him an accusing glare.
Narcissa sighs softly and takes a bite off her strawberry.
"I don’t know what you mean, Aurelia", Lucius retorts, and the girl leans back in her chair, flicking her long brown hair over her shoulder.
"That boy, Malfoy, is a Mudblood. Snape is a Muggle’s name and his mother", she lowers her voice conspiratorially, "She’s Eileen Prince. Does that ring a bell?"
Indeed it does. Eileen Prince’s story is well known even today, despite it being over ten years old.
"That doesn’t make him a Mudblood", Lucius sighs.
Aurelia huffs. "It makes his mother a bloodtraitor and him the son of a Muggle. A Mudblood, by my definition."
Lucius leans forward. "How lucky we are that I don’t share your definition on this."
"Oh, I’m sure that the Dark Lord does, though", she hisses.
Narcissa puts down her fork with a clang. "I think that’s enough, Aurelia." Her voice is still pleasant but there’s a hard edge to it.
Aurelia is clever enough to catch it, too and to shut her mouth.
Eunice, though, isn’t as wise, apparently. "Well", she says, lips tight, "My brother says that he’s strange. The only friend he has is this Gryffindor girl."
Lucius deigns not to answer and Narcissa gives a soft sigh. "I think I’m finished", she says and stands, smoothing her skirt out.
"Me too", Lucius adds, dropping his napkin on his plate.
Narcissa takes his hand as they saunter toward the hall’s exit together. "She isn’t the brightest", she mutters, "Mentioning these rumours like that not fifty metres away from Dumbledore."
She falls silent as they cross the hallway toward the staircase for the dungeons. And Lucius very much wishes that the Dark Lord’s name was just a rumour after all.
Downstairs, it’s considerably colder than upstairs, the everlasting chill of the dungeons even more prevalent in late November.
Their steps echo off of the walls in the nearly empty hallway. Slytherin students are the only ones to come here, except for Potions classes, and in the evening during dinner time, the dungeons are usually completely empty.
"Why did you bring him along?", Narcissa asks, worry creasing her brow, "Did something happen?"
Lucius sighs quietly. "He was being bullied by four Gryffindor boys." Narcissa snorts, quite unladylike. "I took him to Pomfrey because of his arm and he asked whether I could stay."
Narcissa’s eyebrows rise to her hairline. "Why that?"
"I don’t know, honestly. I didn’t find the right moment to ask him."
The brick wall in front of them shifts apart to admit them into the Slytherin common room that is completely deserted.
"He was covered in scars, Cissa. His whole chest, litte burn marks and slashes. I don’t know-" He trails off at the look in her eye.
She sinks down on one of the sofas by the hearth, shaking her head. "You should go to Slughorn, Lucius", she says, alarm in her voice.
"But Pomfrey saw", Lucius retorts, throwing more wood into the crackling fire, "She seemed to know him quite well. He said that he’d broken bones before. His leg and his ribs."
Narcissa’s eyes widen fractionally. "Lucius…"
He sits down next to her. "I don’t understand why he wanted me to stay. He doesn’t know me and I don’t know him. I’ve barely ever noticed him before today."
"He seems to trust you", Narcissa says quietly, putting a hand on his thigh, "You should ask him why, Lucius. Otherwise-"
The door opens to admit a group of sixth-year boys, laughing boisterously as they make their way over to the hearth.
Narcissa sighs softly. "Come", she mutters, "We can talk in my room."
It’s really her and Elizabeth Selwyn’s room but Elizabeth rather spends her nights in sixth-year Charles Seymour’s bed, or so Narcissa says.
And being Head Boy or Prefect comes with the great advantage of being able to enter the girls’ dorms despite the spell cast on them to prevent boys from doing so.
Also, Narcissa’s room is almost always empty, which is beyond convenient.
It also has a pretty view of the lake, a tall window that displays the currently dark water outside the dungeons.
Narcissa locks the door behind them and pulls the curtains close.
Lucius settles on her bed. "It’s not my problem, technically. He didn’t ask me for help."
Narcissa opens her braid, pulling off the little green ribbon holding it together, a thoughtful look on her face. "Perhaps asking you to stay was his version of asking for your help. He doesn’t seem very talkative."
Her hair spills around her shoulders, down her back in soft curls as she undoes the plaid. What she’s saying makes sense, like always. She somehow has a talent for right intuition, and for finding solutions to problems that Lucius would have never thought of.
"Is he really Eileen Prince’s son?", she asks, and unbuttons her blouse. She’s wearing a black lacy bra underneath that Lucius hasn’t seen before.
Lucius rests his head against the wall behind the bed. "I wouldn’t know. Aurelia seems to believe so."
Narcissa hums, pulling on a dark blue nightshirt, taking off her skirt to exchange it for matching sleeping shorts. "It would fit. His age, I mean, with the scandal."
The mattress dips as she sits down next to Lucius on the bed, her legs curled over the duvet. "Does it really matter?", Lucius sighs. Talk like this is making him weary. It’s too much like something his father would discuss, and he has no interest in any subject fitting that category.
Narcissa shakes her head, her expression sympathetic. She knows him all too well. "Are you staying the night?"
Grateful for the change of subject, Lucius nods. "Only if you’ll have me, of course ", he says and she laughs, that mischievous gleam flashing in her eyes.
"That depends", she says, voice dropping to a whisper, "on if you want me."
Cupping her cheek with his fingers, he draws her close. She settles in his lap, her tiny shorts riding up enough for him to run a finger along the seam of her lacy knickers underneath.
"Kiss me", she whispers.
Her lips taste sweet, sugary like the strawberries she had earlier, and she archs delicately against him, letting him sneak a hand under her shirt. Her skin is soft and warm, and she bites his lip, pulling away laughing when he tickles her in the spot below her ribs that is the most ticklish.
"Not fair", she gasps when he manoeuvres her on her back, kneeling between her legs.
"You don’t like fair, Cissa", he murmurs and kisses her again.
Later, when they’re laying together under Narcissa’s comforter against the chill in the room, thoroughly exhausted, he thinks of Snape again, unwittingly. Of his irritating oddness that Lucius can’t explain.
It’s likely unnecessary, Narcissa’s concern about the matter. Likely, there’s an entirely reasonable explanation for the scars and why Snape asked him to stay.
Likely, it’s nothing, and after the school year, he won’t ever see the boy again.
Still, his lingering unease remains, even as he extinguishes the lights and as he draws Narcissa close, her soft, even breathing slowly lulling him to sleep as well.