Archive of Our Own

Harry pushed the door open with his left hand, his right held aloft in front of him, braced for an attack. The Auror teams had split up, each team taking one of the entrances to the enormous Malfoy estate. They didn’t know what they were walking into, only that about half an hour ago reports of an enormous explosion from the ancient wizarding home had begun to filter into the Auror office.

Harry grimaced as he crossed the threshold. He wasn’t sure what was worse: the memories from the war and being held captive in the basement of this very building and hearing Hermione’s tortured screams, even muddled as they were through the thick layers of stone; or the thick, suffocating feeling of magic residue that hung in the air of the Manor. Harry knew better, but it felt as if it was emanating from the Manor itself, a caustic defence against the unworthy trespassers who dare broach the pure-blood sanctum of the grounds.

“What the hell d’ya suppose happened here?” Seamus asked from behind him, his Irish brogue just as thick as it was the day that Harry had met him on that first day at Hogwarts, despite having lived in Britain for over 10 years now.

Harry glanced up the wide marble staircase, his eyes registering the series of cracks and divots in the sturdy material that was a sure sign that something violent had happened here. Though, that was also obvious as they’d approached the looming three-storey structure by the fact that there was a gaping maw on the left side of the mansion, a sizeable chunk of the second and third-floor rooms missing.

“Nothing good,” Harry answered ominously as he scanned the cavernous entryway for any signs of danger. Nothing jumped out at him so he took a few more tentative steps into the space, giving Seamus room to slip in behind him.

“Merlin’s saggy stones, it looks like a family of trolls decided to play a game of tennis in here,” Seamus mused, letting out an impressed whistle as he kicked a chunk of rubble out of the way. Harry pursed his lips at Seamus’s exclamation; he still wasn’t used to his new partner’s colourful way with words, not for the first time wishing that he was still partners with Ron.

Which reminded him. Casting his wand, he summoned his stag Patronus and sent it off with instructions to inform Ron and Natsumi’s teams that they had entered through the front entryway and it appeared clear.

“Which way, boss?” Seamus asked.

Harry grit his teeth but refused to give Seamus the satisfaction of knowing that the nickname got to him—though he was sure Seamus already knew, which is why he loved to call him that.

“You go that way and I’ll go this way,” Harry said, tilting his head first to the right, towards what he thought was the dining room, before indicating the other direction, which he knew from personal experience led to the ballroom.

He had no desire to revisit that particular room, but as team leader, he wasn’t about to send Seamus in that direction given the state that side of the Manor appeared to be in from their approach. Besides, knowing Seamus, he would be liable to lean on a pillar and somehow bring the whole tattered heap down on top of himself. And then Harry would have to spend all night filling out a mountain of paperwork and Ginny would have discarded that lacy thing he liked that she promised to wear tonight in favour of her tattered joggers and that gloopy face mask that smelled like chalk.

They parted ways, wands held aloft in preparation as they were swallowed by the thick darkness that filled the massive rooms. Harry inched his way forward, but the darkness proved too much for his eyes to acclimate to and he cast a Lumos , the tip of his wand momentarily blinding him before his eyes readjusted.

The room had obviously been mostly empty, nothing but dust and rubble covering a large swathe of the patterned floor in front of him. A metallic groan came from beneath his feet and he looked down to see the reflection of his wand flashing back at him. Crouching down, he picked up the square tile, a gold filigree decoration which must have fallen down from the ceiling. Looking up, he squinted through the gloom to the high ceiling to see the spot where the tile must have come from.

Standing back up, he made his way down the room to find the only piece of furniture he’d encountered so far, an expensive-looking black grand piano, tipped on its side, sheets of music scattered around, some singed. Harry still hadn’t found any clues as to what had transpired here tonight, but whatever it was had been incredibly powerful and destructive.

Harry lifted his wand once more and continued making his way down the long room, which seemed to stretch on for miles. Slowly, Harry could just start to make out a looming shape in the distance, but he couldn’t make sense of what it could be. As he crept closer, more and more details started to come into focus, but his mind was still unable to piece what he was seeing together into an explanation that made any sense.

Starpoints of light ricocheted into the shadows as the light from his lit wand was captured and multiplied by the hundreds of crystals that were scattered over the floor and hanging from the enormous chandelier that was collapsed to the floor. He watched on in horror as the pieces of the scene finally coalesced into a whole image and he understood what he was looking at. A dark pool of liquid—no doubt blood—had bloomed out from the chandelier and he stopped at the edge of it, the tips of his boots just barely avoiding breaking the meniscus of the liquid.

A wet gurgling sound broke the silence of the room and Harry scanned the horror scene trying to find the source. Circling around the massive fixture, Harry spotted a prone body lying a few feet away from the detritus, a few crystals lying in a second pool of blood.

Harry rushed over and dropped to his knees. He could feel the cool wetness sink through the fabric of his pants as he ran his wand up and down the woman’s torso where he found an ornate silver-handled blade protruding from her abdomen.

“T-take th-them.” Harry whipped around to look at Narcissa Malfoy’s head, her long blonde hair spread around her, the strands clinging together thanks to the sticky red blood that had seeped up to engulf the tips. He was confused for a moment until she turned her head away from him and he saw the silver wisps of memories begin to slither out of her ear.

Thinking quick, Harry grabbed one of the crystals from the chandelier and quickly transmogrified it into a glass vial which he held below her ear, catching the first memory just before it slid free. He watched as several more of them slid free and pooled in the vial, their soft glow shifting as they swirled around the narrow glass container.

When he’d caught the last one, he sealed the vial closed and shoved it into the pocket of his robes. “Hang in there, Mrs Malfoy. I’ll get you help.”

He summoned another Patronus and sent it off to alert the other Auror teams to come to the ballroom and to summon a Healer team. The Patronus had just disappeared through the wall, its glow lighting up the elaborately carved wood panels that lined the walls of the room, when Narcissa let out another handful of choked words, “Tell … Draco … love … him.”

“You can tell him yourself,” he had just begun to say when a movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention and he turned his head in time to see Narcissa’s blood-stained hand clenched around the handle of the blade. He rushed to place his hands against the wound, trying to staunch the fresh flow of blood that was seeping out in rhythmic pumps that seemed to decrease in strength as time stretched out.

Narcissa let out a gurgling sound and took one last deep, shuddering breath before she stilled, her eyes open and staring, unseeing, at the gaping maw in the ceiling where the enormous light fixture used to be.

“Harry?”

Harry turned to see Seamus standing in the doorway that Harry had come in, his wand holding aloft a small pinprick of light.

“Yeah, I’m down here, Seamus,” he called back before turning back around and gently closing Narcissa’s eyelids. Harry stood up, the fabric clinging to his legs thanks to the sticky blood, as he heard Seamus make his way down the room to him.

“Blimey,” Seamus muttered, taking in the chaos of elegance. “What the hell happened here?”

As Seamus spoke, he nudged one of the arms of the chandelier, setting off a chorus of tinkling glass, followed by a low, drawn-out moan. Seamus wheeled back in surprise and Harry rushed over, circling around the far side of the chandelier to find Lucius Malfoy’s head emerging from the wreckage, a ruffle of fabric around his neck indicating that his body was hidden under an invisibility cloak.

“Is … she … dead?” he coughed out, blood spraying out in a mist of tiny droplets across the marble floor.

Harry probably should have lied, anything to give Lucius hope, strength enough to hang in there until the Healer team could arrive, but he didn’t. He told the truth, partly because after being lied to all his life, he swore he would never do the same to others, but he couldn’t deny that a sliver of motivation came from wanting to inflict pain on this man, who had gotten off far too easy for a life of cruelty.

“She’s gone,” he said, taking a knee so that he could hear the dying man better. “Your wife is dead.”

To Harry’s surprise, he didn’t get the reaction he was expecting as the corner of Lucius’s mouth tugged up into a satisfied rictus. “Good,” Lucius managed to get out before he choked, spluttering as he coughed out blood, his lips and teeth stained red with the colour. His head fell to the side and his pained wheezing stopped as Harry watched. Grimly, Harry transfigured another vial and collected the memories that were seeping out of Lucius Malfoy’s nose, unnerved by his dull grey eyes staring past him.

What the hell happened here? Harry wondered to himself.

🜋🜋🜋

Draco stiffened and sat up straighter as Harry entered the room, shifting on his chair and raising his nose in the air. Harry was tempted to roll his eyes at how quickly Draco slipped back into their old school dynamic, but now was not the time for that.

“Thanks for coming in, Mal—Mr Malfoy,” Harry said, catching his own slip just in time to correct himself.

Draco looked surprised and confused for a moment, but the simple offer of respect was sufficient enough to bring Draco’s pointy nose down a fraction.

“It’s hardly as if I had a choice, now did I?” Draco bit out, and Harry took a deep breath, trying to calm down the inner child inside him that wanted to antagonise the other man. This was going to be hard enough without he and Draco taking potshots at each other. He didn’t envy the task that Malfoy had in front of him; Harry had already reviewed the memories that he had collected last week at Malfoy Manor several times and even he found the images disturbing. For Malfoy, they were no doubt going to be devastating.

Marshalling some of the pity he was experiencing for the other man, Harry gave him a demure, gracious smile. “Still, I appreciate it.”

Draco’s thin, pale eyebrows drew together and he eyed Harry suspiciously, no doubt assuming that Harry must be trying to lure him into a trap. Old habits died hard and Harry and Draco, though they had managed to reach a level of civility when forced into each other’s company at various wizarding functions, had never managed to get over their distrust of each other.

Clearing his throat, Draco leaned over and picked up a rectangular leather bag that resembled an old-fashioned medical bag which tinkled when he set it down on the table in front of him. “I brought these.”

“What are they?” Harry asked, slipping into the seat across the table from Draco so this wouldn’t feel like he was interrogating the other man.

“The Ministry-appointed solicitor informed me that my mother had left me the contents of the Malfoy vault. I went to Gringotts yesterday and aside from a modest amount of Galleons, this was the only thing in there.” Draco nodded his head at the bag as he spoke, his hands crossed together on his lap. “It contains bottles of memories.”

“Memories of what?” Harry asked, curiosity taking hold. He may have known the details of what happened that fateful night at the Manor, but he was having trouble understanding how it had come about. The battle between Narcissa and Lucius had been exceedingly violent, and though the Malfoys had never exuded the aura of love that Molly and Arthur still did, even after all these years, they never seemed to hate each other as they did in those memories. Harry wanted to understand how you could be married to someone for that long when you despised them as much as they seemed to in those memories.

Draco levelled him with a cool look. “Pensieves don’t grow on trees, Potter. I have no idea what’s in them.”

“You’re telling me that the Malfoys don’t have one?” Harry asked suspiciously. He knew that they weren’t sold on every street corner, but he found it hard to believe that the Malfoys didn’t own one.

Draco bristled, his head turning to the side and looking out the window, which though the room they were in was buried several floors underground in the Ministry, was enchanted to show a clear, summer day, with brightly-coloured birds flying past at regular intervals. Harry watched the muscles bunch and shift in the other man’s jaw, unsure of what he had said that had evoked such an angry response from Draco.

“Obviously we did,” Draco began, the words said with slow concision as if he was working hard to control himself. “However, it was one of the many items that had to be sold in order to cover the restitution payments.”

“Oh...right, yeah,” Harry said awkwardly. He knew that in addition to the Azkaban sentence that Lucius had been given, the Malfoys had also been ordered to pay financially for their roles in the Second Wizarding War. He hadn’t given it much thought, however. At the time, he figured that Narcissa should count herself lucky that she had also avoided Azkaban—her lack of a Dark Mark and Harry’s testimony in her defence being the only things that prevented her from being sentenced to time in the prison with her husband. Since the trials had ended, Harry just tried to put the whole thing behind him and lead as normal of a life as he could hope for considering people were still prone to bowing and addressing him as ‘the Saviour’ when he walked past them on the street. He hadn’t really spared much thought for the Malfoys since the trials, and though he did see Draco occasionally at various functions, they both tried to keep their distance.

“Yeah,” Draco bit out. Taking a deep breath, Draco brought his head back around, his face carefully blank and oddly devoid of emotion aside from his eyes, which burned into Harry’s. “So if you’d be so kind ,” he spat the word, as if it tasted foul, “as to loan me the use of this Pensieve, I could enlighten you to what’s in them.”

Harry rankled, wanting nothing more than to tell the obnoxious git to lose the attitude, but he managed to get a rein on his irritation. “Go ahead,” he instructed, gesturing between the bag and the wide, shallow bowl that had been set up in this room especially for this meeting.

As Harry watched, Draco pulled out his wand and tapped it against the lock holding the bag closed, causing it to flip open. Reaching into the bag, Draco lifted up a couple of the bottles inside, inspecting the labels on each before setting them back inside. Finally, he seemed to settle on one and removed it, pulling out the cork sealing the bottle and pouring the liquid silver memories into the bowl.

Draco stood up and set his hands on the edge of the Pensieve, but stopped abruptly when Harry, too, stood up and made to enter the Pensieve.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Harry tilted his head up, shooting Draco an exasperated look. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

“These memories are private, Potter. I can’t believe you’re so arrogant as to think that I’d just—” Draco said, his voice rising in anger until Harry cut him off.

“Malfoy, this is a high-priority DMLE investigation. I need to know the whole story to write up my report.”

Draco scoffed. “I don’t see how a memory from over thirty years ago could possibly relate to your investigation.”

“You said yourself that you don’t know what’s in there, so there’s no way for you to know that,” Harry shot back.

Draco’s teeth clenched again, the muscle in his jaw twitching. “Fine. Then if anything I see in there happens to prove relevant to your investigation, I will be sure to inform you.”

Harry shook his head as Draco spoke. “There may be something that I find to be relevant that you don’t think is. Plus, it’s hardly as if your word carries much credibility around here.”

Draco’s eyebrows lowered in an increasingly severe glower. They engaged in a silent battle which somehow felt more fraught than it ever had when they’d duelled with wands in hand. Finally, Harry could take it no more.

“Look, Malfoy, I know it won’t mean much to you, but I swear that anything I see in there that isn’t pertinent to our investigation will stay private. I won’t mention any of it to anyone.”

Draco’s voice was frigid as he said, “You’re right about one thing: your promise means absolutely nothing to me, but I don’t suppose I have much choice but to comply with an Auror’s request.”

Harry didn’t say anything to that because it was true. He meant what he had said: he was only interested in anything in the memories that could be related to the case and he wouldn’t tell anyone about anything else he happened to discover, but he wasn’t willing to take Draco Malfoy’s word on it.

“After you,” Harry said, gesturing to the swirling surface of the Pensieve. After an annoyed huff and another menacing look, Draco’s hands gripped tightly on the edge of the Pensieve as he leaned forward and dropped his head into the memory.

Bracing himself for whatever nightmare of a memory he may be about to fall into, Harry leaned forward and joined Draco in the Pensieve.

🜋🜋🜋

“Brr, do you feel that?” a much younger Andromeda said, leaning over towards Narcissa where they were sitting under a large beech tree, the soft lapping sounds of the Black Lake as the giant squid hunted not far offshore the only sound other than the whisper of the wind through the trees. At Narcissa’s questioning look, Andromeda continued, “That chill in the air? The Ice King is coming our way.”

Narcissa looked around and visibly startled when she spotted the young student with a familiar head of nearly white hair striding purposefully in their direction. She shushed her sister and held the book she had been reading aloft, balancing it in one hand between her slender fingers, the nails coloured perfectly with a deep emerald polish.

“Narcissa, Andromeda,” Lucius Malfoy greeted the two girls as he came to stand looming above them. “It’s a fine day today.”

Andromeda let out an amused snort which she quickly stifled at the look her younger sister shot her.

“Yes, quite fine,” Narcissa agreed demurely, lowering the book to rest it in the lap of her stretched out legs, one finger marking her page.

“The finest of the fine,” Andromeda mocked, staring up at Lucius with a smug look on her face.

Harry watched as a familiar tic flared to life in Lucius Malfoy’s jaw, a trait which he evidently passed down to his only son. “I was hoping I could have a word with your sister alone,” Lucius said, his voice dripping with forced politeness.

“Anything you have to say to her, you can say to me,” Andromeda shot back, her smile more threat than friendliness.

“If I’m not mistaken, that … Mudblood ”—his face contorted as if merely acknowledging that such a thing existed was distasteful to him—“Tonks was looking for you.”

A flicker of apprehension flashed across Andromeda’s face and she dashed a glance over to her sister before returning her attention back to Lucius. The slip had obviously not been missed by the elder Malfoy, because the annoyed tension was gone and now he had the look of a cat that ate the canary.

“Funny, you two seem to spend quite a bit of time together. He must be truly helpless at Runes if he needs you to tutor him nearly every evening. Perhaps he should consider going back where he belongs and leave the magic to the true witches and wizards.”

Andromeda’s brows drew together as she glared at Malfoy. If looks could kill, Lucius would have dropped dead where he stood. “Thank you for your concern , Lucius, but it’s nothing you need to worry about.”

“‘Meda, why don’t you just go? I’ll be fine here,” Narcissa said in a low voice as she gave her sister a reassuring look.

“It’s fine, I can stay. I—”

“No, really, just go,” Narcissa cut in, her eyes flaring as she tried to impart some message on her sister. Andromeda studied her for a few seconds and then sighed before she pushed herself to her feet. Stepping over Narcissa’s legs, Andromeda intentionally slammed her shoulder into Lucius’s arm as she stormed past him and began up the hill to the castle.

“Tell Ted hello for me,” Lucius called after her, before adding, “You know, on second thought, don’t.”

Lucius turned away back towards Narcissa before he could see Andromeda turn around and flash him a rude signal with her hands. Narcissa shook her head in a minute rebuke at her sister before turning her attention back to Lucius, who dropped to take a seat beside her under the tree.

“What did you want to speak with me about?” Narcissa asked. Her voice was soft, but rather than looking up at Lucius through fluttering eyelashes like some coquette, she was staring him straight in the eyes, expectant.

“I’ve just received a letter from my father. He’s given his approval for me to begin courting you,” Lucius said.

“Oh, I see,” Narcissa replied, a small smile pulling at her lips.

“Yes, obviously he would have preferred if I had pursued the eldest daughter, as the heir to the Black fortune, but he has agreed that Bellatrix displays some...undesirable mental traits and would be wholly unsuitable for marriage. And obviously Andromeda’s out of the question; she seems far too approving of that filthy Mudblood Tonks.”

Lucius seemed oblivious to the reaction his words solicited as Narcissa’s other hand dropped down beside her and she grabbed a fistful of grass. Harry wasn’t sure whether it was the blitheness with which Lucius had disparaged her sisters or the fact that he’d effectively admitted that he had considered, even briefly, all of them as a spouse. Harry would never consider himself a Casanova—and his wife, Ginny, would be quick to agree with him—but even he knew that women weren’t keen on being told they’re interchangeable.

“I always imagined he was so suave, even then, but it’s a miracle my mother didn’t hex his balls off right then and there.”

Harry startled at the voice as Draco stepped up beside him. He’d actually forgotten that Draco was in here with him. “We are all pretty daft at that age,” Harry offered.

Draco didn’t say anything at that, his attention focused on his parents. Lucius seemed to have realised that he stuck his foot in his mouth because he leaned forward, reaching out to stroke Narcissa’s cheek with his fingertips. “Don’t misunderstand me: I never had any interest in your sisters. It was only my father that was pushing for me to pursue them—he’s reluctant to give up the old ways. Had I not been successful in convincing him that you were the perfect choice for me, I would have defied his wishes and run away with you, if need be.”

Narcissa’s anger seemed to retreat a little at Lucius’s words. She shook her head, sending her long platinum hair slipping over her shoulder. Lucius’s hand dropped, taking a strand of it between his fingers and playing with it.

“Well, lucky for you that your father came around. I don’t think either of us would be very happy living in a hovel.”

“Indeed,” Lucius chuckled. “And it makes me the luckiest man in the world because there’s no one else that could hold a candle to your beauty.”

“Beauty is fleeting,” she said, studying Lucius’s face.

“It’s not merely your flaxen hair or your cornflower blue eyes. Beauty illuminates you from inside.” After a rough start, Harry had to admit that Lucius now seemed to be hitting his stride. “I knew there was something special about you ever since third-year when Alastair Barton started that rumour that you snuck out of the Slytherin common room to snog him inside the greenhouses and you got revenge by slipping crushed up beetles into his shampoo so that the Bat Flower Vine would attack him during Herbology.”

Narcissa chuckled. “You remember that?”

Lucius grinned at her. “How could I forget? The vines were so sticky and got so entwined in his hair that they had to shave him bald. Which was most unfortunate for him since he has that birthmark on his scalp in the shape of male genitalia.”

“I wish I could take credit for that, but that was just good fortune,” Narcissa smirked.

“Regardless, only a woman as delightfully ruthless as you could ever ensnare my heart. So, ma belle fleur, would you do me the profound honour of entering into an official courtship with me?”

Narcissa paused for a moment, appearing to contemplate something, but then she nodded, a warm smile spreading across her face. “I accept.”

Lucius beamed at her and leaned in, wrapping his hand around her neck and pulling her forward into a soft kiss. After a few seconds, they pulled back, letting their foreheads rest together, the tips of their noses brushing together every so often.

“What do we do now?” Narcissa whispered.

Lucius pulled back, a thoughtful look on his face before a mischievous grin replaced it. “We could head over to the greenhouses if you’re feeling frisky?”

Narcissa’s mouth popped open in a look of surprise before she tossed her head back and laughed. Harry had never seen the Malfoys this carefree and … happy-looking before. It was almost as if he were watching two doppelgangers.

The memory faded away as Lucius and Narcissa playfully attacked each other, rolling around together on the crunching autumn leaves that scattered the ground.

Harry stood up, his head spinning a little as it often did after exiting the Pensieve. He studied Draco, who looked sad.

“Why do you suppose your mother left you that memory?” Harry asked. He had to admit that it was not at all what he had been expecting, and it had not provided any enlightenment on what happened at Malfoy Manor last week.

Draco didn’t answer right away, putting more focus than was necessary at pulling the memory out of the bowl and replacing it in the vial before carefully stoppering it again. He answered as he inspected the other vials in the case, “I think she wanted me to know that there were happy times.”

Harry nodded; that made sense. Draco hadn’t yet seen the Manor and the destruction that the Malfoys had wrought there, and he could see how Narcissa would want to bequeath something that would act as a balm for her son after she’d passed.

“Here’s the next one. According to the label, it’s from their wedding day.” Draco poured the second memory into the Pensieve and dropped into the memory without another word. Harry followed him.

🜋🜋🜋

This memory was more of a medley, the memory jumping from moment to moment over the course of the wedding day: Narcissa getting ready with the help of her sisters, admiring herself in the mirror as she lowered the veil over her face, Lucius’s look of pride as Narcissa walked down the aisle towards him. Lucius and Narcissa staring lovingly at each other with their hands clasped together as the officiant cast the Handfasting Vow, the glowing white thread weaving itself repeatedly around their joined hands.

The scene shifted again and they were standing in a bedroom. Harry took a moment to look around, squinting to get a look at the dark wood furniture with gold accents and the ornate fleur-de-lys covered upholstered walls in the darkness of the room. It wasn’t until he heard Draco gasp and saw him spin around, throwing his hands up to his ears, that he noticed the shifting movements of the silk bed linens and the gasping huffs emanating from beneath them that he realised what he was watching.

Following Draco’s lead, Harry spun around, offering the memory lovers a modicum of privacy. Speaking loudly, trying to drown out the panting sounds which were rising to a crescendo, he asked, “Why the hell would your mother leave you this memory?”

Despite his hands over his ears, it was obvious that Draco heard him based on the scathing look he shot Harry’s way. Before Draco could respond, there was a long moan and one last protracted groan from beneath the bed coverings and then the bodies parted, heads full of mussed hair emerging as pale arms pushed and folded down the edge of the linens.

Draco looked like he was about to say something, but then Lucius spoke, “That was definitely worth the wait.” Lucius threw one bent arm over his head, resting it against the pillow, as his chest heaved. Strands of his pale hair were stuck to the sides of his face as sweat glistened across his brow.

Narcissa licked her lips and nodded, brushing her hair back as she wiped the sweat off her own brow with her hand. “Bella told me about the mechanics, but she never mentioned how pleasurable it would be.”

Lucius snorted. “I’d be surprised if she and Rodolphus have even consummated their marriage. Rumour had it that Rodolphus’s…”—as he spoke, Lucius turned onto his side and propped his head up on his arm—“ cravings do not lie between the thighs of a beautiful woman.” With the other hand, he stroked between the mounds of her breasts, which were thankfully covered by the covers, down over her stomach and settled his fingers at the vee of her legs.

Harry felt supremely uncomfortable and was about to suggest they skip the rest of this memory—the last thing he needed was to witness Lucius’s second wind—when Lucius retraced his hand back to rest, fingers spread, over Narcissa’s stomach.

“Which means that, even now, you could be bearing the future of two noble lines.” Lucius looked down at his hand as he rubbed it in a small circle as if he was already trying to sense his future son inside.

Narcissa placed her hand on top of Lucius’s. “You know, sometimes it can take a while.”

Lucius shifted his gaze back to his new wife’s face and grinned. “We’ve got the rest of our lives to fill the Manor with our flaxen-haired children. We’ll need a whole army of house-elves just to take care of them all.”

Narcissa laughed and then shifted so that she was laying on her side, her posture a mirror of her husband’s. “It’s a good thing we’ll be taking a protracted honeymoon, travelling around Europe. From the sounds of it, we won’t have much time for travelling in our future.”

“I’ve spared no expense for our journey. You’re going to see so many wonderful and magical places that your travel bug will be satisfied for years to come. Speaking of which, our Portkey leaves at the break of dawn, so we should probably get some sleep.”

“We could ...” Narcissa purred, trailing one finger down behind Lucius’s jaw to traverse his neck and onto his chest. “Or we could spend the next few hours getting a start on that brood of Malfoys.”

An unrestrained grin spread across Lucius’s face before he pounced, rolling a laughing Narcissa onto her back and locking their mouths together as the memory slowly faded and he and Draco were left standing in a murky, smokey nothingness.

“They seemed like they were really in love,” Harry offered.

“Yeah, they were,” Draco said in a near whisper. Harry thought Draco’s eyes looked a little glassy, but he couldn’t blame him. Draco’s loss was still fresh and he was obviously grieving, even though he had put up a convincing facade of normalcy up to now. Harry still remembered how much it had meant to him when he had seen his own parents emerge from Voldemort’s wand during Priori Incantatem , those brief moments something he treasured to this day. These memories of his parents when they had been young and wildly in love must be a confusing mixture of solace and torment.

They were saved from any further conversation by the memory shifting once more. This time they were in a small room. Cupboards lined one wall, rows of potion bottles lined up on the shelves. Harry couldn’t make out most of the labels, but he saw the familiar macabre shape of the Skele-Gro bottle and he figured the rest were an assortment of healing potions and salves.

Narcissa was sitting on an examination table on the far wall, her legs crossed and her back ramrod straight. Lucius paced the short width of the room, his robes billowing out around him every time he spun around to retrace his steps in the other direction.

“Would you please stop that?” Narcissa bit out, shooting an annoyed look at her husband. Just in the time that they’d been in the memory, Lucius had already paced the room four times, and who knows how long he had been doing it prior to the memory starting. It was no wonder Narcissa sounded a bit snappy.

Lucius stumbled to a stop and then strode over to take a seat in the chair which was facing the door. He’d barely sat down when the door to the room swung open and Lucius was back up on his feet.

“It’s about time. We’ve been waiting here for ages. What did the tests show?” Lucius asked eagerly, his face lined with concern.

The Healer bristled at Lucius’s harsh rebuke and then turned her attention to Narcissa, addressing her rather than Lucius. “I’m very sorry, Mrs Malfoy, but you’ve suffered a miscarriage.”

Harry saw the cringing look on Narcissa’s face before she turned her head away, looking at the wall, and swiped at her eye with her thumb. It was obvious to Harry that the news was devastating to her, but she was obviously working hard to control her reaction.

“This … this can’t be happening again.” Harry pulled his attention from Narcissa to see that Lucius’s face was even paler than usual, a shell-shocked look smoothing his features. “Why does this keep happening?” He didn’t seem to expect an answer, the question addressed to the empty air, a thought unconsciously spoken aloud. “What is wrong with her?”

A devastating, gasping sob escaped Narcissa and she dropped her head, cradling her face in her hands. Lucius seemed to realise the cruelty of what he had just said and he rushed over to comfort Narcissa, wrapping his arm around her shoulder as he leaned against the bed beside her and pulled her into him.

Judging by the look on the Healer’s face, she wanted nothing more than to hex Lucius where he stood, but she regained control of herself and tried to reassure Narcissa. “These things happen sometimes. Not every pregnancy winds up being viable. There can be many factors that can result in a miscarriage.”

“But what if it is my fault?” Narcissa asked in a tiny voice, her eyes cast down to the floor.

“You took care of yourself, you ate healthy foods, you exercised, and you went to all of your Healer appointments. We tried all of the potions that we thought would help the pregnancy remain viable. You did everything you could do for this pregnancy. This was not your ‘fault.’ I know that it’s natural to want to assign blame and pinpoint one cause for something, but this is just not that simple.” As she spoke, the Healer walked over to where Harry was standing and he stepped out of the way. He knew that there was no harm in letting the memory figures pass through you, but it still unsettled him. The woman’s arms extended through the space where his torso had been moments before and she plucked three tissues from a box that was sitting on the counter.

Returning to the other side of the examination room, the Healer held the tissues out and Narcissa took them with a croaky, “Thank you.”

“You caught an unlucky break, but don’t lose hope. Miscarriages are far more common than you think, and many women suffer several of them before carrying a baby to term.”

“Really?” Narcissa asked hopefully, a tiny glimmer of hope shining out from her eyes beneath the tears.

“Absolutely,” the Healer assured her. “In fact, my first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage as well.”

“I’m so sorry,” Narcissa said.

“It was a long time ago.” The Healer appeared to get lost in her thoughts for a moment before she refocused and gave Narcissa a small, sad smile. “I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that the pain of your loss will disappear entirely, but its weight becomes easier to bear as time goes by.”

“Do you … have any children?” Narcissa paused, obviously worried that the question might be a painful one.

The Healer’s face warmed as her sadness melted away. “Two beautiful boys. So I speak from experience: Don’t lose hope.” The Healer made a note on Narcissa’s chart and then tapped it with her wand, sending it off to slip under the door and off to wherever they kept the records. “You two can take as much time as you need in here. There’s no rush. And I am always here if you have any questions.” Narcissa lifted her head and gave the Healer a small nod, which she returned with a kind smile.

The Healer had just put her hand on the door handle when Lucius spoke, “Don’t worry, darling. We’ll start trying again straight away.”

The Healer turned back around and said, “It might be best if you give yourselves time to grieve. You just went through something traumatic, and it can take some time to process all those feelings.”

Lucius’s spine went ramrod straight and he turned a look that could freeze the blood in your veins at the Healer who, to her credit, didn’t even flinch. “Thank you for your input ”—the way he said the word made it abundantly clear that he put very little stock in her opinion—“but we’d like some time alone now.”

The Healer nodded tightly and then let herself out of the room, closing the door behind her with a soft snick.

“I’m so sorry,” Narcissa moaned, a fresh round of tears slipping down her cheeks before she brushed them away with the crumpled tissues she was still holding.

“Me too.” Lucius pulled her close, kissing the top of her head before tucking it under his chin. “But I know that this is going to happen for us.”

“But … what if it doesn’t? This is the third baby we’ve lost.” Narcissa’s shoulders hitched with a sob and she didn’t speak for a few moments as she composed herself. “You said you wanted a house full of babies and … maybe I can’t give you that.”

“You know, I’ve been thinking about that, and a house full of babies seems ill-advised. We have countless family heirlooms and Dark Arts artifacts scattered around the Manor. All that is hardly compatible with little ones running around and wreaking havoc.”

Narcissa let out a small huff of laughter before pulling back and looking up at Lucius with a troubled look. “Lucius, I may not be able to give you an heir. We have to start thinking about what we’re going to do then.”

Lucius shook his head and then took both of Narcissa’s hands in his own. “I don’t want you to even worry about that. This will happen for us. I know it.”

“Do you really think so?” Narcissa asked uncertainly but with just a hint of hope colouring her expression.

“Absolutely,” Lucius nodded. “We only need for it to succeed once, mon amour.”

Narcissa seemed to take a modicum of consolation from Lucius’s surety, but then she nibbled on her lower lip as her brows drew together in thought. “Maybe we could wait a bit before we try again?” At the look on Lucius’s face, she rushed to add, “Just for a few months?”

Lucius looked like he wanted to argue, but then his head jerked forward in a quick, minute motion. “If that’s what you want.”

As Lucius reached up and rubbed away another tear that had escaped and made its way down over the curve of her cheek, Narcissa smiled gratefully. “Je t’aime.”

“I love you too, ma belle fleur.”

The memory faded away and Harry pulled out of the Pensieve moments before Draco followed him.

“When I was a child, my mother always called me her ‘beloved’. She told me that she had just been coming to terms with the idea that she wasn’t able to have children when I came along. Her and my father had been trying for over two years and she was ready to give up, and then there I was. Their own personal miracle.”

Draco summoned the memory and siphoned it back into the vial. He let out a small laugh. “She told me the pregnancy was a nightmare: she had all-day nausea,  and her feet grew two sizes. She actually had to have them professionally shrunk after I was born. But she was always quick to assure me that she didn’t regret a moment of it.”

“It looks like you were very wanted. It makes a lot of sense why you acted like you did back in Hogwarts,” Harry said.

Draco’s head shot up and he glared at Harry. “What do you mean by that?”

“Like you were Merlin’s gift to wizardkind,” Harry said. “It makes sense. You grew up being told basically that.”

Draco’s face became pinched and it looked like he wanted to argue, but instead, he just yanked another memory vial out of the case and poured it into the Pensieve.

“Let’s just get this over with.”

Draco dove into the Pensieve and Harry sighed. Draco may not be as much of a braggart anymore, but he still obviously had an overabundance of pride.

🜋🜋🜋

When Harry landed in the memory, he found himself inside a large dining room with a wide, wooden table that spanned the room. All of the chairs spaced around the table, twenty or so, were filled and the surface of the table was littered with a wide variety of china, silver, and crystalware. A low buzz of chatter filled the room from the various conversations the diners were having.

“To the Dark Lord,” Lucius said, holding up his crystal wine glass from where he was sitting down near the far end of the table.

Harry saw that Voldemort was seated in the place of honour—surely a misnomer in this case—at the head of the table, his army of lackeys all turning to look at him with varying degrees of adoration and fear as he gazed at them all with a patronising look as he exuded an air of entitlement. Harry recognised the room and that they were once again in one of the gilded rooms of Malfoy Manor, but Voldemort looked entirely comfortable sitting at the head of the table which was generally reserved for the host.

His features hadn’t transitioned into the snake-like nostrils and glowing red eyes that still haunted Harry’s nightmares yet, so he figured that this memory must be sometime before the height of the First Wizarding War. However, he didn’t have the look of the boy that had walked the halls of Hogwarts either, his skin already taking on a pallid chalky colour and his body much too gaunt to be considered handsome, so there was no doubt that he had already begun his pursuit of immortality and had definitely already squirrelled away several of his Horcruxes.

“We should all be grateful to him for allowing us to aid in his noble quest of purifying wizarding society,” Bellatrix said. She was sitting across from Lucius, immediately to Voldemort’s right. To Harry’s surprise, rather than sitting beside Lucius, Narcissa was sat at the far end of the table. She and Bellatrix were the only women seated at the table.

“Even those of us that prefer to keep their precious hands from getting dirty,” Bellatrix added with a mocking look in Lucius’s direction. Lucius bristled as Voldemort laughed, but he must have decided it was too precarious to say anything in response with Voldemort right there because he settled for a tight smile.

“Now now, we all have our parts to play, and we’re all friends here,” Voldemort said before taking a sip of the, no doubt expensive, red wine. “And I’d like to thank Lucius here for hosting us this evening and providing us with this sumptuous feast. Every war needs a coffer, after all.”

There was a round of guffaws from around the table and Harry watched as Narcissa took a drink of what looked like water from a crystal goblet. Her face was unreadable as she stared ahead over the shoulder of one of the Death Eaters that was sitting across from her, who kept giving her lurid looks.

Harry moved closer to that end of the table as he watched the Death Eater sitting beside her lean over to say something to her. Although he spoke in a low voice, he didn’t bother to whisper, obviously wanting what he said to be overheard by the other diners sitting around them.

“Since Lucy is being so generous and welcoming, I’m sure he would want you to do everything you can to ensure that your guests are satisfied, wouldn’t he?” Narcissa didn’t say anything but he saw her jaw tense as the men seated in their vicinity all let out wolfish laughs that made Harry’s skin crawl.

“I have a few other cravings that I’d love for you to help me out with. I bet you taste sweet, don’t you, love?” The Death Eater punctuated his words by slipping his hand over Narcissa’s thigh and down between her legs under the table.

She grabbed the man’s wrist and pushed it away from her legs. “I’m sure you remember that my husband was a master dueller at Hogwarts. Wasn’t your manhood shrunk to the size of a peanut for several days during a lost duel, Wilkes? Perhaps you should learn from your past mistakes.”

The other Death Eaters around them discarded any sense of loyalty and they all snickered at the target of Narcissa’s barbed tongue. The man began to flush and he glared at Narcissa.

“You frosty bitch. You think you’re so special, don’t you? Maybe that frosty cunt of yours is the reason you can’t even manage to accomplish the one thing you’re good for and give Lucius a little brat to stamp his name onto,” Wilkes spat. A malicious smirk replaced his embarrassed anger as he watched Narcissa react to his words.

Narcissa startled and pushed her chair back from the table, leaping to her feet. The rest of the dinner party conversations faded away and they all turned to look at the commotion at the end of the table.

“Is something amiss, Narcissa?” Voldemort’s silky voice asked, the innocuous-seeming question seeming to drip with peril.

“No, my Lord,” Narcissa stammered, straightening her shoulders and turning to address Voldemort across the long table. She was making a valiant effort to hide the emotion on her face, but it was obvious that something was wrong. “I’m merely tired. I think I may excuse myself, if that pleases you.”

Voldemort scrutinised her for a moment while it seemed like everyone in their room held their breath. It was obvious from their reaction that Voldemort’s mercurial streak had already begun to make itself known and they were all waiting to see whether Narcissa’s interruption would be interpreted as a slight.

“Of course, time seems to have run away with us. I think we should all retire to the drawing-room for Firewhiskys and cigars. Perhaps you could take care of that before you turn in for the night?”

“Of course,” Narcissa said, her head bowed as she bent at the knees in a small curtsey. She turned and made her way out of the dining room. Although she didn’t turn around, Harry was sure she must feel the lecherous stares of the Death Eaters on her retreating form, followed quickly by another sleazy round of guffaws as one of the cretins made a lewd comment.

Harry and Draco followed behind her as the dining room slowly dissolved away and they watched as she made her way up the grand staircase and locked herself inside her and Lucius’s bedroom. It was obvious by the way she first cast the Locking Charm and then tested the door as if she had to reassure herself that she was safe, that she felt anything but.

“How could that Wilkes have known about her miscarriages?” Harry asked.

Draco didn’t look at him, instead watching his mother with a pitying look. He kept reaching his hand up as if he wanted nothing more than to go over and take her in his arms and console her, and kept almost doing it before remembering that she wasn’t real. They watched as Narcissa paced the room, attempted to read, and began reorganising their walk-in closet, changing the organisation scheme from one that seemed to be based on colour to one based on length.

Suddenly, Draco disappeared and Harry followed him out of the Pensieve. Before Harry could repeat his question, Draco sagged into the chair and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and finger. “I could use a cup of tea.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. Wait here and I’ll bring you back one.” Harry took his time making the tea to give Draco a few minutes of reprieve. He wasn’t sure whether the other man took anything in his tea, so he arranged a slice of lemon and two cubes of sugar on a saucer along with a small cup of milk and carried the lot back to the Pensieve evidence room.

“Thank you,” Draco said, perhaps for the first time not sounding either exasperated or annoyed by something Harry had done. Harry watched as Draco squeezed the lemon wedge into the tea and stirred it several times before taking a sip. Draco’s eyes closed and he took a deep breath as a peacefulness washed over him. “That’s much better. Now, where were we?”

Harry thought back to the memory they’d just been viewing and repeated his question, “How would that Wilkes person have known that your mother had lost pregnancies?”

“Voldemort viewed everything as a weapon, and one of his favourite weapons was information. He would frequently disseminate painful secrets around to his followers,” Draco sighed.

“I thought Voldemort was notoriously secretive. Your father didn’t even know that the diary that Voldemort left in his care was a Horcrux. I’m sure he wouldn’t have been so cavalier about slipping it into Ginny’s cauldron if he knew a part of his precious Dark Lord’s soul occupied it.” Harry felt a flare of renewed anger at what Ginny had to go through back then. Her first year at Hogwarts should have been focused on making friends and learning exciting new magical spells, not fighting off possession.

“Obviously he guarded his own secrets very closely; that should go without needing to be said,” Draco sneered. “Like any good Slytherin, Voldemort knew well that information is power. He trusted no one with his own plans and secrets, but lording other people’s secrets over them was one way that he kept people loyal to him.”

Harry didn’t say anything, instead watching Draco as he spoke. His voice had turned flat and emotionless, and though Harry knew he must be speaking from personal experience, he was going out of his way not to appear dispassionate. Finally, he asked, “But then wouldn’t it make more sense for him to hoard all of that damaging information for himself? Why would he tell other people about it? Wouldn’t the more people that knew a secret just reduce its effectiveness?”

Draco shook his head and took another drink before answering, “Voldemort would often reveal compromising information about one of his followers to another, sowing the seeds of discord. He was always expecting trickery and deceit, and if he kept his followers attacking and distrustful of each other, they were less likely to unite against him.”

“But how would he have even known about your parents’ miscarriages?” Harry asked. “Surely that’s not something that they would have chosen to speak about around any of those people, and definitely not to Voldemort.”

“My parents weren’t always as skilled at Occlumency as they were by the end of the war. It’s possible he pulled the information directly from their minds,” Draco said. “But it’s also possible that my aunt told him.”

“Surely Bellatrix wouldn’t betray her own sister like that?” Harry said in surprise. He knew that the two sisters had broken off contact with Andromeda when she had married Ted, so he always assumed that they were fairly close.

“You met my aunt; she was unbalanced. It’s true that she got infinitely worse thanks to her stay in Azkaban, but she had a fanatical devotion to Voldemort. I’m sure, in her twisted way, she wouldn’t think that she would be doing anything wrong by revealing Narcissa’s past medical issues. She would have probably just thought it was a sign of her loyalty and trust in Voldemort.”

There was one more question that Harry wanted to ask about what they’d seen in the memory. “Why wasn’t your mother sitting next to your father?”

“Surely even you must have noticed that the Death Eater ranks contained very few women. Voldemort wasn’t particularly progressive in that regard and constructed his ranks to be a boys’ club. My aunt was really one of the only exceptions to that. I expect that my mother was only permitted to dine with them since the dinner was in her own home, but that courtesy wouldn’t have extended so far as to win her a prized seat among Voldemort’s inner circle.”

“And your father just—”

“My father,” Draco cut Harry off, “would do anything to ride Voldemort’s coattails into power. No price was too high. Even his own family.” Draco’s voice cracked and he turned away, his shoulders rising and falling as he took several deep breaths to steady himself.

Harry wanted to say something reassuring but he knew that any attempt he made would probably only provoke Draco’s ire, so he remained quiet and waited. After a minute or so, Draco spun back around and cleared his throat.

“Let’s get back to it.”

“We can take a break. Pick this up tomorrow, if you prefer?”

“I’d rather get this over with and go back to pretending you don’t exist, thanks.” Draco stepped back up to the Pensieve and, after taking a deep, fortifying breath, dipped his head down and Harry followed after him.

They dropped in just in time to see the memory shift again and they watched as Lucius stepped into the room and Narcissa stormed up to him.

“How dare you invite those … those … CRETINS into my home!”

“ Your home?” Lucius shouted back. “This is my home and it’s in our best interests to align ourselves with Lord Voldemort. I have no doubt that he will be leading the wizarding world in a few years, and if we play our cards right, I could be his second-in-command.”

Narcissa crossed her arms in front of her chest and drew her husband a disdainful look which he failed to see as he turned his back to his wife and began removing his robes. “And you’re willing to pay any price for that? I suppose I should just spread my legs for those disgusting beasts, is that it?”

Lucius spun around at that, confusion writ clearly across his face. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Wilkes. He—he grabbed me.” Narcissa’s anger cracked at that and her earlier fear re-emerged. Her entire posture shifted as she seemed to fold in on herself, her arms moving to wrap around herself as if trying to keep herself together. “And he knows about … about our babies.”

The look of horror and grief on Lucius’s face told Harry, clearly, that the information had not come from Lucius. He cast down the robe he was holding and rushed over to wrap his arms around his wife.

“Did you—did you tell him?” Narcissa asked between shaking sobs as she stood tensely in his embrace.

Lucius tilted her head up by the chin before saying solemnly, “I swear, I’ve not told a soul.”

Narcissa studied him for a moment, her eyes casting back and forth as she studied him, looking for signs of deception. Finally, she seemed satisfied and her body sagged against his, at last accepting his offer of comfort.

“It must have been that crazy bitch sister of yours,” Lucius snarled. “She has no sense of family loyalty. She’ll do or say anything to curry favour with the Dark Lord.”

Narcissa pulled away from him shaking her head. “Don’t call her that! And Bella wouldn’t hurt me like that.”

“Well I didn’t tell anyone else about the failed pregnancies, so who else could it have been? If it wasn’t you and it wasn’t me, then who else could it have been?” Lucius snapped.

Narcissa looked uncertain as she spun around and walked over and sat on the edge of their bed. Reaching out, she picked up a framed photograph from the bedside table and studied it, softly stroking the image with one finger. Harry circled around to the other side of the bed to get a better look at the photo to see that it was a picture of three young girls—a blonde and two brunettes, one with black hair and one with brown. The three girls were standing formally, the two brunettes were standing behind the blonde, each with a hand on one of her shoulders. As he watched, their sombre faces cracked and the girls dissolved into giggling laughter.

“I’m sure she must have let it slip by accident.” Narcissa carefully set the picture back down on the bedside and twisted on the bed towards Lucius, who had resumed undressing.

Lucius snorted. “She knows exactly what she’s doing. You saw how she undermined me down there. Family loyalty means nothing to her. She’d feed us to a ravenous lethifold if it won her even a few moments of the Dark Lord’s attention.”

She glared at her husband. “Oh, and you’re any better? You should see yourself around him; you’re a fawning sycophant. And you don’t even care that they threatened to rape me! What kind of a man are you?”

Lucius spun around, his hands halting midway up buttoning his nightshirt. “Wait, what did you just say?” To his credit, Lucius looked horrified as he studied his wife. “You just said he grabbed you.”

“He reached under the table and slid his hand between my legs.” Narcissa looked away, her eyes creeping over to the bedroom door.

“I’ll take care of it.” Lucius didn’t elaborate on what he had planned and Narcissa didn’t ask, so Harry made a note to check the case archives and find out whatever became of this Wilkes.

Narcissa stood up and made her way over to the door which led to the bathroom. She stopped before entering, one delicate hand coming to rest against the doorjamb. “And what about the next man that decides I’m there for his amusement? Are you going to ‘take care’ of all of them?”

She paused, looking up at her husband, whose nostrils were flaring as he tried to control his anger, though whether that anger was directed at that creep Death Eater who tried to take advantage of his wife, or what Narcissa was saying, was unclear.

“Aligning with him is not the only way to push for our ideals, Lucius.” She spoke softly, her next words strangely prophetic, “And one day he’s going to demand a price that we’re not willing to pay … and I’m terrified of what happens then.”

Before Lucius could respond, Narcissa stepped into the adjoining room and closed the door softly behind her.

🜋🜋🜋

When they dropped into the next memory, Harry braced himself for more heartbreak as a familiar office coalesced around them.

This time, Lucius was nowhere to be seen and Narcissa sat alone in the clinical room. At first glance, she looked at ease, bored even. However, the more he watched her, the more he could read the tension in her neck and shoulders and that she was straining to keep control of her nerves.

After what felt like an insufferable amount of time, the door to the room opened and Narcissa sucked in a quick breath and held it. The same Healer that Harry remembered from the last memory that took place in this office stepped in and she grinned at Narcissa.

“All the tests came back normal. The baby is perfectly healthy.”

It was only then that Narcissa let out the breath, a surprise burst of relieved laughter jolting her torso forward. Her hands shot up and she buried her face in her hands and started crying. “I’m sorry. I-I don’t know why I’m crying.”

The Healer’s eyes crinkled as she regarded Narcissa before grabbing the box of tissues and taking it over to her. “There’s no need to apologise; this is quite a common reaction. Just let it out.”

Narcissa plucked several of the tissues from the box and dabbed at her eyes as she gradually regained her composure. “I just … I thought for sure this would be just like the other times.”

“Spotting, especially during the first trimester, is quite common, but of course with your history it’s good that you came in.” The Healer seemed to hesitate for a moment and then asked, “Is your husband not with you today?”

“Oh, umm … no,” Narcissa said, looking guilty as she cast her eyes down to the floor. “He’s … um … been called out of town on business.”

The Healer looked suspicious at Narcissa’s evasive behaviour, but she didn’t pursue it. “Alright, well to be safe, I’d like to see you every two weeks, just so we can keep an eye on how the baby’s development is progressing.”

“Alright,” Narcissa agreed quickly. The nervousness she’d displayed at the question about where Lucius was had receded and she had a stunned look of relief on her face.

The Healer reached out and placed her hand on Narcissa’s shoulder and the two women exchanged a look of mutual understanding. “I know that it will be difficult, but try not to expect the worst. This pregnancy is going swimmingly, so make sure you take the time to enjoy these moments.”

Narcissa grinned at the other woman. She seemed to glow as she exclaimed, “I can’t believe this is finally happening!”

🜋🜋🜋

“I can’t believe this is happening again!” Narcissa groaned as she ran past them, pushing her way into the bathroom and dropping down to the floor, hunched over the porcelain basin of the toilet. Harry felt his stomach lurch at the heaving sounds and he had to turn away.

Either Lucius had a stronger stomach than Harry did, or he was just used to this by now—Draco had said that Narcissa had suffered from excessive nausea during her pregnancy with him—because he threw off the duvet and got out of bed. “I’ll bring you a cup of tea and some saltine crackers.”

Harry wondered why he didn’t just summon Dobby and have him gather the items. Draco, as if reading his mind, said, “My mum said the smell of the house-elves made her nauseous while she was pregnant.”

Harry bristled, feeling compelled to defend his lost friend. “I spent plenty of time with Dobby and he didn’t stink.”

Draco shrugged. “Perhaps it was the house-elf magic that she was sensitive to. Astoria experienced something similar when she was pregnant, only with mooncalves. Unfortunately, there is a herd of them that lives in the forest that edges our property. It got so bad during the full moon when they would emerge from their burrow that she had to go stay with her sister once a month.”

“Are you saying that pregnant women can smell magic?” Harry asked suspiciously. Ginny had never mentioned anything of the sort when she was pregnant, and as far as he knew, Hermione hadn’t either.

“Do I look like a Healer, Potter?” Draco asked, rolling his eyes. “All I’m saying is that it is not unheard of that pregnancy can make some witches more sensitive to certain kinds of magic.”

Their conversation was interrupted by a fresh round of retching sounds echoing from the porcelain bowl and Harry grimaced in sympathy. He heard a rattling sound and turned to see Lucius setting down a silver tray with the promised restoratives. Harry took a step back as Lucius entered the bathroom and soaked one of the freshly laundered washcloths.

Dropping down to his knees on the tiled bathroom floor, Lucius gathered up Narcissa’s hair and twisted it, holding it up and out of the way as he placed the wet washcloth on the back of her neck. Whether it was actually helping, or whether Narcissa had just run out of stomach contents to evacuate, her heaving began to wane and she pushed herself up, her head still hanging low. Lucius picked up the washcloth as Narcissa sank back, letting her body collapse against his and her head to rest on his shoulder. They sat together quietly as Lucius gently rubbed the washcloth over Narcissa’s forehead, cheeks, and down her throat.

“I think this baby must be an extremely finnicky eater, because he or she does not seem to want to let anything I eat stay down.” Narcissa groaned as her eyes remained closed. After she’d finished, she swallowed several times, possibly trying to fight back another wave of nausea.

“Let’s get you back into bed. I brought up some apple slices, fresh from the orchard. Let’s see if that is more to my son’s taste.” Lucius wrapped his arm around his wife and helped her to her feet.

“We don’t know it’s a boy,” Narcissa protested as they made their way back into the bedroom, much of her weight resting heavily against Lucius. Her free hand came to rest on the small bump that was just beginning to show.

“I have a good feeling about it being a boy,” Lucius said. He helped her into the bed, arranging three thick pillows behind her back so that she was propped up against the headboard before setting the tray carefully on her lap.

“Mmmm, this actually smells really good,” Narcissa said, taking a tentative sniff of the tray. She looked up at Lucius with relief.

Lucius bent down and placed a kiss on Narcissa’s forehead. “Then we shall turn the entire grounds into an orchard. My son shall have all the apples his little heart desires.”

Narcissa gave her husband an exasperated look. “The baby isn’t even born yet and already you’re spoiling them.”

“My son will never know what it means to want for something,” Lucius declared. Harry wanted to argue with Lucius, to point out that physical objects were no substitute for emotional support and security, but arguing with a memory was obviously fruitless.

“Something to say about that, Potter?” Draco sneered. Harry turned a startled look at the other man, wondering how he seemed to know what Harry had just been thinking. Draco rolled his eyes and said, “Oh please, you’re ridiculously easy to read. You look like you’re dying to take my father to task for turning me into an entitled, selfish brat.”

Harry cast Draco a dirty look as the other man turned back to his mother as she spoke, “And what about your daughter?”

Lucius was shaking his head slightly as he said, “I just know that we didn’t go through all of that pain and heartbreak to end up without an heir. You’re carrying my son, I just know it.” Lucius gazed fondly at Narcissa’s belly, missing the troubled look that his words evoked. By the time Lucius glanced up again at her, she had rearranged her features to look serene. “If you’re alright here by yourself for a bit, I’m going to go down to the study. I have some paperwork to review.”

“Of course,” Narcissa agreed, nodding and giving him a timid smile. After a brief kiss, Lucius breezed out of the room and the troubled expression returned to Narcissa’s face. She picked up one of the pieces of apples and took a bite, the crisp sound filling the room. She chewed absentmindedly for a few moments before looking down at her belly, stroking it with both hands.

“Boy or girl, I want you to know that you will be the most loved child in all of Britain,” she whispered.

“I wonder what your dad would have done if you had ended up being a girl after all,” Harry wondered after they’d both emerged from the Pensieve.

“My father is … was very traditional,” Draco said tightly. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, obviously feeling defensive. “I’m sure that if my mother had a girl rather than a boy, he would have loved that child as well, it’s just … there are a lot of Malfoy family traditions that are dependent on producing a male heir.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Harry scoffed. Sure, Ginny had given birth to a boy, but Harry knew for a fact that he would have been just as thrilled if she blessed him with a daughter.

“Just because it’s not something you value, doesn’t make it valueless,” Draco countered. “Traditions provide a lot of comfort and solace to people, and it can be really hard to break away from them.”

“So if you had a daughter you’d just, what? Give her up for adoption? Try again from scratch?”

“Fuck you, Potter! Saint Potter is always so sure that he’s right and that everyone else is wrong.” Draco pulled the last memory out of the Pensieve and stoppered up the vial, setting them all rattling as he shoved it back in the case before slamming the case closed.

“Where are you going? We’re not done!” Harry protested as he reached out and tried to grab hold of the case, but Draco yanked it out of his reach too quickly.

“I’m not going to sit here and have you pass judgment on me and my family. I don’t care what you put in your report—that’s your problem.” Draco moved toward the door and Harry rushed over to prevent him from leaving.

“Look, I’m sorry, alright?” he said, exasperated. At Draco’s frosty look, Harry took a deep breath and tried again. “I really am. I’m sorry. That was out of line and I never should have said it. It just—unwanted children is a bit of a trigger for me.”

Some of the anger seemed to fade away from Draco’s expression as he studied Harry. He didn’t make any move away from the door though.

“I really am. Sorry,” Harry said sincerely. “If you want to leave, then you’re free to. But I really would like it if you would stay and help me understand what happened between your parents.” Harry took a step back away from the door, giving Draco room to leave if that was his choice. “If you stay, I promise that I will try to keep a more open mind.”

“And a closed mouth, I hope?” Draco shot back.

Harry almost wanted to laugh; he had to admit that was a good one.

🜋🜋🜋

They went through the last few memories in Draco’s inheritance but found little of consequence. They watched as Narcissa gave birth to Draco—Harry made sure to orient himself at her head for that particular memory, which saved him all the graphic details, but cost him his hearing. Lucius was nowhere in sight during the actual childbirth, but he entered the room shortly after to gaze with adoration at the male heir that he had so clearly desired.

Narcissa looked exhausted, and rightly so, but supremely happy as she cradled the tiny infant in her arms. Harry thought that it was not possible to be louder than Narcissa was while she was doing all the hard work of pushing out a life, but Draco had obviously inherited his lung capacity from his mother, because his shrill cry started shortly after his emergence into the world and didn’t stop for the entire length of the memory.

The sound seemed to grate on Lucius and Harry didn’t miss the annoyed glance that the new father cast down at the squirming child moments before he excused himself to make Floo calls to alert people about Draco’s birth. Narcissa’s euphoria darkened momentarily as she watched her husband’s back disappear through the door, but it only lasted for a moment as her eyes returned to her son in her arms and unconditional love shone out from her.

Following the birth memory, there was an assortment of memories of Draco’s childhood. Although Narcissa preserved memories of some of Draco’s most formative moments—his first steps, his first burst of accidental magic, the day he got his Hogwarts letter—there was also quite a few of what seemed to be just everyday moments: Narcissa reading Draco to sleep as she stroked her hand over his forehead, Draco surrounded by a chaotic jumble of wrapping paper after opening presents on Christmas morning, Draco running after the famed white peacocks that roamed the grounds of Malfoy Manor as they squawked in fear and anger.

Draco laughed at some of the memories, explaining to Harry some funny aspect that gave the memory more context. During others, he became quiet, his grief written plainly across his face.

Although Narcissa had clearly taken special care to select happy moments for Draco to treasure, as the years crept past Harry couldn’t help but notice a trend: more and more of the memories were ones that just had Narcissa and Draco, Lucius increasingly absent. And in the memories he did make an appearance in, there was an uncomfortable tension that seemed to be building between the couple.

There were no more shared laughs, no more secret smiles, no more lingering gazes. In fact, Lucius and Narcissa exchanged very few words in these memories; both of them seemed to be pretending—or wishing—that the other was not there. The rigid, withdrawn couple that they had developed into was more along the lines of what Harry remembered them to be, rather than the happy, smitten people from the first memories they had viewed.

“I wonder when they started hating each other,” Draco wondered aloud to himself.

Harry cast around for something to say, finally settling on, “Marriage isn’t easy. Even the strongest couples can grow apart.”

“Spare the platitudes, Potter. I’m not in the market for reassurance from the likes of you.”

Just as Harry was beginning to feel compassion for Draco Malfoy, the git always reminded Harry of how obnoxious he was and that old irritation would return. Well, if Draco didn’t want his sympathy, Harry was happy to save it for someone more deserving of it.

“Is that the last of the memories your mum left you, then?” he asked in a calm, detached voice.

Draco replaced the last vial in the case and then fastidiously closed it once more, tracing his thumb over the golden clasp holding the bag closed. Sighing, he set the bag under the table near his feet and sat back up again.

“That’s all of them.”

Despite his vow to himself only moments ago, Harry felt sympathy for the man begin to creep back in. He was sure that Draco must have guessed that the memories that Harry managed to collect from his parents just before their deaths would not be nearly as pleasant as the ones they’d just finished, but there was no way that Draco could understand just how painful they were going to be.

“Listen … are you sure you want to watch the rest of the memories?” he asked. Harry had needed to view the memories in Draco’s possession to ensure that there was nothing missed in the report of the fatalities, but there was no reason that Draco needed to taint his memories of his parents with their final memories of each other.

“Of course I do,” Malfoy said. He looked sad, but resigned to what was about to happen.

“It’s just—” Harry persisted, but Malfoy cut him off.

“They’re my parents and I deserve to know the truth about them,” Malfoy said resolutely. His features were carefully neutral as he stared Harry down, daring him to argue the point.

Harry knew that if he were in Malfoy’s position, he would make the exact same choice. He still disliked the fact that his dad had been a bit of a bully back in Hogwarts, but Harry was still glad that he knew the truth about his family. Calling someone family meant that sometimes you needed to accept the bad with the good.

“Alright, then wait here. I’ll go get them.” Harry left the room, giving Draco a few minutes to brace himself for what was coming next.

🜋🜋🜋

“You’re too hard on him.” Narcissa was sitting primly on a soft leather banquette. Dobby was sitting at her feet, carefully painting her nails with a black polish. Before Lucius could respond, Narcissa turned her attention down to the elf and smacked the frightened creature on the top of his head. “Be careful, you oaf! You’re getting it all over the cuticle!”

Harry bent down over Dobby’s cowering form to inspect Narcissa’s hand, which she was once again holding aloft towards the poor servant—looking for all the world like a queen waiting for her subject to kiss her proffered ring—and aside from the tiniest speck of black on her index finger, the nails were pristine. Harry had felt bad for Narcissa at several points as they’d journeyed through these memories, but her treatment of Dobby after such a tiny mistake was a much-needed reminder that Narcissa was by no means innocent in all of this.

“Most sorry, Mistress! Dobby will fix it, he will!” Dobby carefully wiped away the offending polish and continued onto the next nail as Narcissa returned to her previous conversation with her husband.

“Draco is an excellent student and is working hard. Severus assures me that he is one of the top students, not just in his classroom, but in the entire school.”

“Not hard enough, obviously,” Lucius argued. He didn’t even look up from the copy of the Daily Prophet that he was reading, lounging in a tall wingback chair with his long legs crossed at the knees. Harry could see swirls of snow outside the window as a roaring fire burned in the tall marble fireplace in front of them. The effect was unsettling as memories never held the temperatures of the moment, the fireplace a source of light, but lacking the warmth one would expect to feel. “It’s frankly embarrassing; the heir of two of the most well-respected and powerful wizarding families, and he’s being bested by a Mudblood who didn’t even know magic existed a year ago. And a witch, nonetheless.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Narcissa asked coolly, glaring at Lucius’s profile as he continued to read the newspaper.

“Don’t start, ‘Cissy.” He sighed and dropped his arms, the paper stretching over his thigh as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Narcissa, however, had no intention of dropping it. “You know as well as I do that witches can be just as powerful as wizards.”

Lucius, at last, turned to address his wife. “And you know as well as I do that power is nothing without drive. Wizards are simply more focused and driven. They are more inclined to do what is necessary to achieve their goals, whereas witches are more inclined to strike a compromise and defer to someone else. Too bad for our son that he seems to have broken the mould and is defying expectations, and not in a good way.”

As Narcissa let out a deep growl of frustration, she grabbed her glass of wine that she had resting beside her on the end table and hurled it in the direction of her husband. Before he could pull out his wand to defend himself, the delicate glass made contact with his head and the stem broke off.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he shouted as he leapt to his feet, the dark red wine staining his hair as he brushed the soggy newspaper off of his legs.

“Nothing is ever good enough for you!” Narcissa screeched, jumping to her feet to square off against Lucius. Dobby made a mad scramble away from them and took cover behind a large floor globe, his large, floppy ears peeking out from around the muted colours of the sphere. “No matter what we do, you’re perpetually disappointed! Our son is one of the top students in his year, and all you care about is that he isn’t at the very top!

“Would you stop shrieking?” Lucius ordered as he pulled out his wand and siphoned away the spilled wine. After another swish of his wand, the red stain disappeared from his shirt and hair and he was just about to put his wand away when he seemed to notice for the first time that the broken glass had left a thin cut on his cheek just below his eye. He rubbed at the thin line of blood and inspected the red smear on his fingertips with incredulity. Holding out his hand facing Narcissa, he accused, “Look what you’ve done!”

Far from looking remorseful, Narcissa smirked with triumph at the sight of the blood. “At least you can’t be disappointed that I throw like a girl.” Lucius’s jaw worked as he tried to formulate a response, but before he settled on something, Narcissa turned and swept out of the room while calling out instructions to Dobby, “Meet me upstairs with a fresh glass of wine and you can finish my nails there. Oh, and make up the guest room for my husband. He’ll be needing it.”

Harry pulled out of the Pensieve and watched Draco with trepidation. During their school years, Harry had always had the impression that in the eyes of his parents, Draco could do no wrong, so he wasn’t sure how Draco would take this memory.

“Potter, stop watching me like you’re afraid I’m going to take out my wand and try to do myself in,” Draco said. He sounded remarkably normal and Harry couldn’t understand it. “If you think it comes as a surprise to me that my father thought my school performance was a disappointment, you’re sorely mistaken.”

“But …” Harry trailed off. The Malfoys had always portrayed such a unified front to the rest of the wizarding world, so it was strange to discover that it had apparently all been for show.

“It galled him that Granger always beat me—well, except in Potions class, but even I have to admit that Severus was inclined to grade me generously.” Draco paused for a moment, a soft look on his face as he journeyed back through his own memories for a moment. Shaking his head, he added, “His disappointment in me is hardly a new revelation.”

“Oh … okay,” Harry said, surprise leaving him with nothing better to say. Harry knew well what it felt like to always be made to feel like you weren’t living up to someone’s expectations—his aunt and uncle were never shy about informing him that he was a huge disappointment to them. It felt odd to realise that Draco’s and his childhoods hadn’t been entirely disparate. An awkward silence filled the room for a few moments before Harry made himself busy pulling out the memory and pouring a new one into the bowl. “Then let’s keep going.”

🜋🜋🜋

“This one was collected from your father,” Harry informed Draco as they both emerged into a crowded memory. In this one, an assortment of witches and wizards were milling around in the large, cavernous atrium of the Ministry. Strings of glowing orbs were stretched across the space from Floo chimney to Floo chimney. Harry kept his eyes averted this time after realising during his first viewing of this memory that the flickering lights were because each one contained a tiny fairy, the iridescent wings sending tiny rainbows of light down onto the head and shoulders of the party-goers.

People milled about in groups of two or three making idle chit-chat as the Ministry house-elves flitted between them, filling people’s glasses and offering an assortment of appetizers off of trays that they held aloft above their heads.

“I’d like to thank you again, Mr Malfoy, for your ongoing support during my campaign.” A witch to their left moved off to go speak to someone else, leaving Lucius and the former Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge, standing together. Cornelius stood grasping the lapels of his pinstripe robe as he looked out over the gathering, his chest puffed out with pride.

Lucius had one hand resting on the ornately carved head of his walking stick, the other holding a glass of what looked like red wine, but that was emitting smoke which formed a small vortex as he idly swirled the liquid around the edges of the glass.

“It is each of our civic duty to do everything in our power to ensure that qualified, capable men are chosen to lead our society.” Lucius paused to take a drink, his exhaled breath sending the smoke into a chaotic maelstrom inside the glass as he tipped it back.

“Sadly, being qualified and the best choice for Minister for Magic is not a guarantee of success in the election,” Cornelius said, shaking his head as if disheartened by the unfairness of the world. The concern melted away and he grinned as he reached out and took hold of Lucius’s shoulder. “That’s why I am extremely grateful for all of your support. Without your help, the wizarding populace very well may not have come to the correct conclusion and elected me into office.”

“I was happy to do it,” Lucius said. “And I’m sure you’ll remember, in future, who stood up to support you and help you achieve your goal.”

Cornelius’s pleased grin faltered and his hand slowly slid down as he eyed Lucius with a calculating look. Lucius smiled placidly back as the two men took the measure of each other.

“Yes, well,” Cornelius faltered. “I should make the rounds—lots of people wanting face time with the guest of honour.”

“Indeed. Congratulations once more on winning the election, Cornelius. I am confident that you will do everything within your power during your term to ensure that British wizarding society moves in the right direction.”

The newly-elected Minister for Magic reluctantly held his hand out to shake Lucius’s, a disturbed look on his face. Lucius, on the contrary, looked down upon the Minister with a confident air. Harry knew that Lucius Malfoy had wielded a great amount of influence at the Ministry before Voldemort had made his official reappearance, despite never having held a position within it. It was clear from this memory why: the Minister’s ear was purchased with the Galleons in the Malfoy vault.

The handshake went on, just a little too long to be considered normal. Cornelius pulled his arm back, trying to end it, but Malfoy held his hand tightly, staring him down. After several awkward seconds, Lucius finally relinquished his hold on the Minister’s hand and the other man rubbed his palm with his thumb, as if in pain.

“Fudge always looked like he was about to sully his pants whenever he was around my father,” Draco said. He looked more amused than disturbed by his father’s obvious intimidation of the former Minister. Harry gritted his teeth and forced himself to keep quiet. Malfoy may have kept his nose clean and stopped openly touting the superiority of pure-bloods, but that didn’t mean he was any less of a git.

“Cornelius, come over here and settle an argument for us!” a man called out from a few feet away and Cornelius turned away from Lucius, hastening away in a fluster after one last nervous glance back at the stony-faced blond.

“Canapé, sir?” a small squeaky voice asked and Lucius looked down at the elf that was holding a half-empty tray with appetizers on it.

“No,” Lucius said, dismissing the elf as he scanned the room, looking bored. He pivoted around and the muscles in his jaw clenched, his nostrils flaring as his gaze landed on Narcissa, who was standing with a tall man that Harry recognised instantly. Harry turned to watch Draco as he took in the moment, curious about whether this was already familiar to him.

Judging by his look of surprise, this would all be new information to him. “What is she doing talking with the likes of him?” he asked quietly. Harry got the impression that Draco wasn’t even aware he’d shared the thought out loud, but he answered him anyway.

“You didn’t know that your mother knew him, then?”

Lucius strode over to his wife and Harry and Draco followed behind him as Draco said, “They’re just talking. It’s a Ministry event and the wizarding world of Britain isn’t all that big. I’m sure she’s just … I don’t know ... being polite.”

“Right, because your parents were always so concerned about being polite,” Harry mumbled. Draco either didn’t hear him or chose to ignore him as Lucius stepped up to Narcissa and her companion.

“Cissy, dear. There you are.” Lucius’s eyes drilled into the side of Narcissa’s head as he completely ignored the other man.

She, on the other hand, refused to turn to look at Lucius as she addressed her husband, “Lucy,”—a muscle in Lucius’s jaw began to tic at the nickname— “you seemed quite content hobnobbing, so I was taking the opportunity to get reacquainted with an old school chum. You remember Xeno?”

Lucius gave Xenophilius Lovegood a scathing look, causing the other man to shift uncomfortably. “No, I don’t.”

“I was a few years below you,” Xenophilius said nervously. “Sorted Ravenclaw.”

“Xeno was quite brilliant, though perhaps a tad eccentric.” Narcissa chuckled, giving Xenophilius a conspiratorial look. His gaze bounced back and forth between Narcissa and her husband. He seemed to realise that he had inadvertently been thrust into some sort of tension between the couple.

“‘Brilliant’ is a bit of an exaggeration,” he said, shaking his head and looking around nervously, as if hoping that someone would swoop in and save him.

“Don’t be humble,” Narcissa chided. Reaching out, she rested her palm against Xenophilius’s lapel. If it had been anyone else, it could have easily been explained away as a casual gesture, but Harry was convinced that the action was premeditated on Narcissa’s part as Lucius’s hand turned even more white as his grip tightened on his walking stick.

Xenophilius didn’t look humble so much as petrified. He took a step back, letting Narcissa’s hand fall away, and then looked around the room desperately. “Ah, if you’ll excuse me, I just saw Barnabas walk by and I’ve been meaning to talk to him about some of his recent editorial choices—he’s refused to accept all the vibes I’ve sent him. It was lovely to see you again, Narcissa. Lucius.”

Lucius did nothing to acknowledge Xenophilius had spoken to him and merely stared after him as Xenophilius scuttled away, chasing after Barnabas Cuffe, the former editor of the Daily Prophet.

“What are you doing? Are you trying to humiliate me?” Lucius hissed. A few curious eavesdroppers turned to look at them and Lucius composed himself, smoothing out his face into a placid mask. Grabbing Narcissa by the arm, he began steering them through the milling crowds and towards the lift.

“Get your hand off of me,” Narcissa spat out the words in a staccato, emphasising each word when attempts to shake off his iron grip failed.

Disregarding her demand, Lucius pulled them through the outer perimeter of the crowd and hit the call button for the lift. It arrived quickly and Lucius and Narcissa stumbled inside the empty carriage with Draco and Harry following behind them just as the doors closed.

“How dare you fraternise with that … that … crackpot!” Lucius bellowed. Harry had already viewed the memory, so the outburst didn’t surprise him, but he noticed Draco jump a bit.

“So now I have to ask your permission to have a perfectly harmless conversation with an old school friend?” Narcissa asked, crossing her arms as she sneered disdainfully at her husband.

“Harmless?” Lucius asked before letting out a mirthless laugh. “Us being seen socialising with the likes of him most certainly could cause us harm. That magazine of his is an absurdity, and if anyone thought we shared any of his nutter ideas we’d be laughed out of reputable wizarding society.”

“That’s rich,” Narcissa snorted. “You claiming to know what’s in the best interests of the Malfoy family name. It was only the sizeable Malfoy and Black family vaults that managed us to buy back any semblance of credibility after the war.”

Lucius pointed an angry finger in Narcissa’s face as he leaned forward, crowding her space. “I have always done only what I thought was in this family’s best interests!”

“That just proves my point that your judgment is dubious,” Narcissa shot back, knocking Lucius’s hand away from her face. “Your terrible decisions almost got us thrown in Azkaban!”

The two of them stood there, toe-to-toe, crowding each other’s space. Their chests were almost close enough to graze against one another as they panted, staring each other down. The tension was so tightly strung in the elevator that it seemed inevitable that they would pull out their wands and duel right there—but Harry already knew that this memory ended differently.

Lucius pounced, grabbing Narcissa’s head and pulling her against him in an anger-fuelled kiss. Narcissa froze momentarily, but then she broke free and the sharp clap of her hand against Lucius’s cheek rang out in the small, enclosed lift. Harry watched Draco as he took in the scene, captivated, waiting to see what was about to happen. Draco squirmed uncomfortably when the slap, far from dampening the passions, ignited them, and Narcissa flung herself at Lucius, wrapping her arms around his neck as their mouths melded together.

“I think I’ve seen enough of this particular memory,” Draco said flatly before disappearing. Harry followed him out.

“Any thoughts?” Harry asked, subtly probing Draco to suss out whether he knew anything about what another memory they would soon be observing held.

“Unlike you, I have a multitude of thoughts. Would you care to elaborate on what particular aspect of that memory you found interesting?”

Harry brushed aside the casual insult. “I’d rather hear your thoughts first.”

Draco took a seat and stared intently at the wooden grain of the table for a few moments. Harry silently took a seat across from him and waited as the other man processed the meaning of the memory.

“This was one of my father’s memories, wasn’t it?” Draco asked as he looked up at last.

“It was,” Harry confirmed.

“I thought so,” Draco said, nodding. It is obvious my father was trying to insinuate that my mother was having an affair with Lovegood.”

“Why would he want to do that, though?” Harry asked. He had been trying to understand why Lucius would want to leave that record after his death. Lucius was obviously very concerned with appearances when he was alive, so it didn’t make sense that he would want his legacy to include a faithless wife.

“I’m sure it galled him to give you that memory, knowing that it made him appear less than entirely desirable, but he also was wont to insist that he was the victim. By preserving this memory, not only was he able to falsely paint my mother as unfaithful, but he chose to end the memory with a moment of passion to reiterate his desirability.”

“How do you know your mother wasn’t unfaithful?” Harry asked casually.

Draco snorted. “The idea that my mother would … demean herself with that kook is ridiculous.” He seemed completely convinced that an extramarital affair between his mother and Xenophilius Lovegood was nigh on impossible, and Harry wondered if he should have perhaps warned Draco of what was to come. That would have prevented him from observing Draco’s honest, unguarded reactions to the memories though, so Harry kept that information to himself.

🜋🜋🜋

“These next two memories are from the same night, but they each left their own memory of it,” Harry explained as he poured the first memory into the Pensieve. “This one is your mother’s.”

They popped into the memory to find Narcissa sitting in front of a large round mirror and applying makeup. She was just applying the deep red lipstick when there was a loud banging on the door. Narcissa jumped at the sound and a smear of lipstick broke the bounds of her lip. Throwing an annoyed look at the door, she yanked a tissue out of the ivory dispenser and began wiping away the errant lipstick.

“The Minister and his wife have been waiting downstairs for over twenty minutes,” Lucius chastised from the other side of the thick, wooden door.

“Then perhaps you should stop pestering me and allow me to finish getting ready,” Narcissa sneered.

The door handle rotated and the door had only opened a few inches when Narcissa grabbed up her wand from the dressing table and stabbed it towards the door, which slammed shut again eliciting a muffled yelp from the other side of the door.

“You bitch!” Lucius shouted, the epithet muffled, most likely because he had his hand over his mouth after having the door slammed in his face. There was some ruffling and some mumbled threats as Lucius walked away.

Narcissa grinned at herself in the mirror as she started applying her lipstick once more.

The memory swirled and disappeared and when it reformed, they were now standing in the elaborately appointed sitting room. Narcissa had just walked into the room and was walking over to greet their guests, who were being shown a large painting of some Malfoy ancestor that was hanging with pride of place above the fireplace.

“I’m terribly sorry for leaving you waiting,” Narcissa greeted the pair, giving first Cornelius and then his wife an air kiss to the side of their cheeks. “It was unconscionably rude of me.”

Narcissa gave Lucius a pleased look as he subconsciously lifted his hand to touch the bridge of his nose. It looked entirely natural and there was no sign of injury, but Harry was willing to bet that was thanks to the aid of an Episkey .

“Not to worry,” Cornelius boomed affably. “Your husband here was just telling us how his namesake”—Cornelius gestured up at the painting they had all just been admiring—”was once a potential suitor of Elizabeth I.”

“What I’m sure my father neglected to mention is that when she turned down his offer of marriage, he hexed her so that she would never be wed,” Draco said as he looked up at the painting, whose eyes seemed to be looking down at them with condescension. Rather than appalled, Draco sounded somewhat impressed, but before Harry could point out how cruel that was, Draco continued.

“That frame is enchanted.” Harry turned his attention to the baroque gold frame that encircled the malevolent-looking portrait, but he didn’t notice anything about it that looked out of place. “It frames every Malfoy patriarch going back over 400 years and you can select which one to display with a swish of a wand.” Malfoy chuckled. “I used to sit in here for hours getting them to tell me stories. There’s quite a competitive spirit among the portraits, each clamouring for display time. If you threatened that they were boring you and were about to be replaced with another one, they would desperately try to win your attention back with increasingly outrageous family legends.”

“Were they true stories?” Harry asked.

“I’m sure there was at least a grain of truth in all of them,” Draco answered. “Though, I’m also sure there was a considerable amount of embroidering on the truth. For instance, I doubt that my great-great-great-grandmother maintained her youthful glow by bathing in the blood of Muggle children.”

“They told you that story when you were a child ?” Harry asked, shooting Draco an appalled look as they followed the party through the tall wooden doors on one side of the room and entered the dining room.

“That one barely scratches the surface,” Draco said, shrugging and veering to the left to follow his mother. He wasn’t paying close enough attention and he came to a screeching halt moments before he would have walked straight through the phantom of his mother, who had come to a halt suddenly.

“What’s—” His question was cut off as he followed his mother’s line of sight to the centre of the table, where an arrangement of slender, graceful white flowers had been placed inside a sparkling, crystal vase. Draco evidently understood better the significance of the flowers because he gasped at the sight of them. He looked just about as startled to see them there as his mother did. “Those are my mother’s prized lilies.”

Harry examined the flowers and, though he would have admitted that they were quite pleasant to look at, he couldn’t see what was so special about them. “How do you know? Maybe they’re just regular ol’ lilies.”

“No, it’s obvious from her reaction that they’re her lilies. You can’t tell in the memory because of the absence of smells, but my mother spent years developing an enchanted varietal that gave off the soft scent of Tahitian vanilla. The proprietor of Hocus Crocus has been trying to acquire some of her lily seeds for years.”

Harry gave the flowers another appraising look. He wished he could smell them, but, like temperature, smells were not something that could be relived through memories.

While they’d been talking, Lucius, Cornelius, and Cornelius’s wife had been chatting amiably and had all taken their seats at the table.

“Oh dear, whatever is the matter?” Cornelius’s wife, Uli, asked when she looked up and caught sight of Narcissa’s upset expression.

Harry studied Narcissa’s face as a cascade of emotions seemed to sweep their way through her, but she finally turned to Uli and gave her a brittle smile. “Nothing’s the matter. I was just admiring the centrepiece.”

Uli appeared convinced by Narcissa’s performance and she turned to inspect the flowers to her left. “They really are quite lovely, and is that …” Leaning over, she brought her nose down to one of the slender, curved flowers and inhaled. “It is! They smell like vanilla!”

Narcissa opened her mouth to say something, but before she could get any words out, Lucius cut over her. “Have I never mentioned that my wife has quite the green thumb? Those are a strain of her own concoction. The only place they grow is here on the Manor grounds.”

Narcissa glared at Lucius, her hands balling into fists at her side, but their guests didn’t notice the anger painted clearly across her face as their attention was still on Lucius.

Lucius’s chin shot up a fraction as he eyed the bouquet with satisfaction. “She insisted that they must be used for the centrepiece tonight. Only the best for the Minister for Magic, isn’t that right, dear?”

It was clear that Lucius was goading his wife and she gritted her teeth as the spouses stared daggers at one another. Not oblivious to the tension strung between the two Malfoys, Cornelius and Uli exchanged confused, nervous looks with one another.

Narcissa broke the tense moment by turning her attention to Uli. Smiling, she said, “Of course. We’re very honoured that you agreed to dine with us this evening.”

Narcissa stepped up to the table and took her seat beside Lucius, who smiled smugly in her direction. He was obviously enjoying the fact that he had managed to surprise her with the bouquet, but Narcissa sat proudly, all of her focus on their guests. Lucius was apparently not the only one that was concerned with the impression the Malfoys gave off.

Narcissa had barely taken her seat before a house-elf appeared, floating a large silver soup tureen in front of him. Harry didn’t recognise the poor creature, who trembled with nerves as he ladled soup into each of the diner’s bowls in turn.

“I didn’t realise your family had more than one house-elf,” Harry said.

Draco nodded, watching the elf’s progress around the table. “At one point we had three. Netty here was gone by my fourth-year.”

“Gone? Aren’t house-elves bound to serve their families?”

“Yes, but even magical bonds don’t supercede the natural order of things.” At Harry’s confused look, Draco rolled his eyes and clarified, “Netty died, Potter.”

Harry’s brows raised in surprise at Draco’s words and he turned to inspect the elf. “He seems fine to me.”

“He was getting quite old, as you can see,” Draco waved his hand vaguely in Netty’s direction and Harry took another look at the elf. He did have some grey hairs protruding out from below his floppy ears, and he shuffled more than he walked, but neither characteristic was exclusive to elderly house-elves.

The elf had just finished spooning out the final serving and had disappeared back into what must be the kitchen when Narcissa gushed, “I just noticed what a lovely brooch you have on. Is that an authentic Erumpent cameo?”

“Oh yes! The Burkinabé Minister for Magic gifted it to me during his visit last year,” Uli gushed as she reached up to stroke the brooch, which had a profile of a witch holding a wand up in front of their face in front of a black background. The carving was encased in a gilded, silver setting.

“Those are incredibly rare,” Narcissa sighed. “It takes years for the artisans to learn how to carve these safely,” she explained as she studied the piece. “The Erumpent horns are extremely volatile and many a carver have lost extremities, or even their life while crafting one of these.”

“Would you like to see it?” Uli asked, already moving to undo the clasp of the brooch. “Just take care. Even now, it is still a bit touchy. One slip through the fingers and you could wind up losing a limb.

“I’ll be most careful. Thank you.” Narcissa reached across the table and carefully took the proffered jewellery from the Minister’s wife and sat back down, studying it. “It’s a wonder you’re brave enough to wear it!”

“The danger is part of the beauty,” Uli said conspiratorially.

“Indeed,” Narcissa agreed, sharing a knowing look with the other woman. “Such a fine gift. And to think, all we have to offer is some pretty-smelling flowers.”

Narcissa stood up and leaned over the table to offer the brooch back to the Minister’s wife, but as she extended her arm, it knocked into the glass of wine that was sitting in front of Uli’s setting and the goblet knocked over. Wine went flying, splashing wine onto Uli’s cream-coloured dress.

Everyone in the room gasped and held their breaths, eyes glued on the cameo for a moment, and when it was clear the brooch wasn’t going to explode, the memory erupted into chaos as the other three diners leapt to their feet and everyone’s attention turned toward the Minister’s wife. That is, almost everyone’s.

Harry had missed what happened next the first time he had watched the memory and had only caught it after walking through the memory a second time. Unlike Harry, Draco’s shrewd eyes were focused on his mother as Narcissa slid a small potion bottle out of her cleavage. Moving quickly, she pulled the stopper out of the bottle and poured the concoction into Lucius’s bowl. The soup turned a murky yellow for a moment before it returned back to the pale, creamy orange colour it was originally.

“You saw that right?” Harry asked, and Draco nodded. “Do you know what that potion was?”

Draco gave his father a pitying look as he answered Harry’s question, “ Colonia Crepitus . I slipped some to Crabbe once as a joke. It was disgusting. The boy’s lavatory in the Slytherin common room stank for days afterwards. My father is in for a rough couple of hours if he eats that soup.”

They turned back to watch as Lucius siphoned away all of the spilt wine from Uli’s dress, leaving it as spotless and impeccable as it was before. Narcissa apologised profusely to Uli for her supposed blunder and Uli waved her off, insisting that no harm was done.

Lucius glowered at his wife as he circled the end of the table to reclaim his spot, but all traces of his annoyance were wiped clear as soon as he was back in sight of the Minister for Magic. “Let’s tuck in, shall we? The recipe for this bisque has been a highly guarded Malfoy family secret since before our family emigrated to Britain.”

“It smells delightful,” Cornelius agreed as he took a deep inhale just above his bowl. “Is it a crab bisque?”

“Ah ah ah,” Lucius clucked as he pointed his spoon playfully at Cornelius. “You don’t really think it’s that easy to pry the family secret out of me, do you?”

Narcissa took a sip of her wine, the glass only partially hiding her eyeroll.

Harry watched Lucius nervously as the first few spoonfuls of soup were ingested. At first, Lucius showed no signs of distress, but then a loud borborygmus rumbled through the room and Lucius, Cornelius, and Uli froze with their soup spoons half-way to their mouths. Narcissa continued eating, completing her own spoonful with a placid look on her face.

A second loud rumbling came from Lucius’s bowels and a pained look bloomed on his face. He had gone even more pale than usual and a fine sheen of sweat had formed on his upper lip and forehead. Cornelius and Uli set down their spoons, inspecting their own bowls of soup with suspicion.

“Are you alright, dear?” Narcissa asked as she reached out and put a consoling hand on his shoulder. Lucius heaved and his cheeks bulged as he fought back a wave of nausea. “I think perhaps you should retire for the evening? I’ll have Netty bring you up a glass of ginger ale and some crackers to help settle your stomach.”

Lucius didn’t say anything as he pushed himself away from the table and, after waving vaguely across the table at his guests, he dashed out of the room. There were a few moments of silence before Narcissa cleared her throat and offered her apologies to Cornelius and Uli, saying she had to excuse herself for a few minutes to speak with their elves.

Cornelius and Uli agreed readily and told her to take her time. Harry couldn’t help but notice that neither of them made any move to resume their meal.

Harry and Draco followed Narcissa as she slipped through the same door that Netty went through a few minutes ago. They stepped into a large, pristine kitchen with an island in the middle covered in cutting boards filled with various chopped up vegetables and bowls full of assorted mixtures. The kitchen would be a dream for any chef, with the exception of the fact that everything was built to be elf-sized. The counters only came up to Harry’s knees and the bronze pot rack that was suspended from the ceiling above the island came down to Harry’s chest.

“Everything’s in miniature,” Harry observed. “I’m surprised your family would be considerate enough to build the kitchen out to elfish proportions.”

“We aren’t,” Draco scoffed. “It’s elf magic, Potter. They can reduce the proportions of a room to suit their purposes and it will go right back to normal as soon as they exit it.”

“Oh,” Harry said, surprised. He’d never had a house-elf of his own, so he didn’t have a firm idea of what the extent of their magical abilities is, though he knew from personal experience that they were quite magically powerful. “Kreacher never did anything like that when we lived together in Grimmauld Place.”

Draco guffawed before explaining, “I’ve no doubt that my great-aunt threatened to add Kreacher’s head to her wall prematurely if she caught sight of him being so presumptive as to make his life easier. He, no doubt, was used to doing a lot of things manually that could have much more easily been handled using elf-magic.”

Harry did remember Kreacher spending an inordinate amount of time polishing silver. He wished he could go back and make it clear to Kreacher that Walburga’s restrictive rules were no longer in place. He hadn’t seen Kreacher in years now, but he made a mental note to pop over to Hogwarts later and make sure Kreacher knew he was free to use his magic as much as he wanted now.

As Narcissa marched across the room and up to the island, the house-elf that was busy chopping carrots looked up and squeaked, the knife coming down erratically mid-chop and just barely missing its thin fingers. “Mistress, Sipsy did not see you there, she didn’t.”

Netty, who was standing at the stove, basting several pheasants that had just started to turn golden brown, turned abruptly and drippings went squirting across the floor. Netty began apologising profusely and cleaning up the mess he’d made as Narcissa addressed Sipsy.

“You. Go remove the soup course. Our guests have had enough.” Sipsy’s head bobbed with the vigorousness of her agreement and she edged her way around Narcissa towards the dining room. Netty was still busy wiping up the spilt drippings as Narcissa grabbed one of the tea towels and pulled out her wand. Handing it to the elf, she said, “Here.”

“Thank you, Mistress. Netty will have this cleaned up in no time,” the elf promised as he used it to wipe the floor clean. Once he was finished, he stood up and noticed for the first time what he was holding—a now-sullied white tee shirt.

“Your services here are no longer required. Leave. Now,” Narcissa instructed cooly before turning around and walking back to the dining room, giving no sign that she heard the wailing sobs coming from the grief-stricken elf.

The memory ended there and Draco and Harry stood up, back in the Ministry.

“Why would she do that?” Harry asked. He knew that house-elves were hard to come by and the pure-blood families viewed them as a status symbol. It didn’t make sense to him that Narcissa would voluntarily release one.

“Netty had been with my father since he was a child,” Draco said. He flopped down in the seat and ran his hands through his hair as he tipped his head back. He looked exhausted, and he must have been if he was letting his guard down enough to look this vulnerable in front of Harry. “She released Netty to strike at him.”

“No offence, Draco, but your father didn’t seem all that concerned about his house-elves.”

“It’s complicated. He thought of them as property, but Netty also knew all his preferences. He knew how my father liked his robes laundered and what his favourite foods were...hell, he was the only one that knew that bisque recipe. He told me that Netty died.”

“Yeah, I was wondering about that while we were in there. You sounded very sure that Netty had died. Why do you think your dad lied to you about that? It seemed from the memory that things were starting to get pretty...” Harry paused, searching for a word that wouldn’t be too inflammatory for Draco, “merciless between them. I’d think that he would jump at the chance to malign her.”

Draco sighed and his head dropped down to look in his lap for a moment before he dragged it up, the movement looking like it took a great deal of effort. “I know what you think about them. You think they were cruel, selfish monsters who only cared about themselves. And maybe, to each other, that’s what they became. But even when they were fighting with each other and were living in separate quarters and could barely stand to be in the same room with each other, they worked really hard to keep me out of it.”

“So you didn’t know any of this was going on?” Harry asked.

“I’m not a simpleton, Potter. I knew something was going on. They were always distant with each other whenever they were forced to be around each other. I knew they were fighting, but no, I didn’t know that it had gotten this bad between them.”

Draco leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table, rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands. Harry figured he could use a few minutes alone. “I could use a cuppa. Do you want one?”

“Yes,” Draco said, nodding once before tacking on, “please.”

Harry vanished their previous cups of abandoned, cold tea and then left Draco to regather himself.

🜋🜋🜋

“Narcissa, what are you doing here?” Xenophilius stuck his head outside and inspected the surroundings, but there was no one else standing outside.

“You didn’t respond to my last owl,” Narcissa said as she pulled one of the dirigible plums over from the bush that grew alongside the Lovegood’s front door. Inspecting the floating fruit, she yanked it up, pulling it free from the stem, which immediately dropped to hang limply against the bush’s leaves.

“Just … come inside. For a few minutes, mind you,” Xenophilius said as he hurriedly ushered his visitor inside. He closed the door too quickly for Draco and Harry to slip in behind Narcissa, so they both stepped through the wooden door.

Narcissa was wandering around the room, picking up and inspecting various bric-a-brac. “I don’t see why we need to put an end to our liaison.” Narcissa ran her finger over the glass eye of a taxidermied beast that Harry couldn’t identify—more than likely it was a Frankenstein conglomeration of several different beasts.

“I explained that in the letter I sent you,” Xenophilius said, turning and walking over to the kitchen area, where he filled a kettle full of water and heated it with a Charm.

“I … can’t believe this,” Draco said under his breath. He was inspecting his mother as if, like the stuffed beast whose fur his mother was now petting, she had also spouted a second head. “There’s no way that my mother—my beautiful, intelligent mother—was having sex with him !”

Harry’s instinct that Draco had no clue about his mother and Xenophilius Lovegood’s affair was as good as confirmed—Draco was nowhere near a skilled enough actor to pull off this level of shock.

Narcissa clucked her tongue and walked over to stand beside Xenophilius, who was nervously looking through a box of teabags. Draco hurried over to stand just behind his mother and Xenophilius, an intent look on his face. Leaning in and resting her hand on Xenophilius’s shoulder, Narcissa whispered, “My husband doesn’t know anything about us. I promise you that.”

“Then why did his cronies swing by here the other day, huh?” Xenophilius shot back, taking a step away from Narcissa and abandoning the busywork of brewing tea. “Two of those … those … Death Eaters came here and they … they threatened me.”

“What did they say?” Narcissa asked. Her voice was level, but her body was strung taut as she waited for Xenophilius’s answer.

“They told me I should be careful who I give my allegiance to—that they’re watching me.” Xenophilius walked over to the window and pushed aside the gauzy blue curtain the smallest amount, peering out at his front yard. He was obviously worried that someone could be watching them right this moment.

“Was it Lucius?” she asked. Xenophilius shook his head.

Narcissa seemed to chew on his words for a few moments and then her shoulders eased and she smiled, relieved. “I’m sure it’s nothing then. They probably just want to rattle you, try to get you under their thumb.”

Xenophilius collapsed back against the wall beside the window frame. Although he didn’t look nearly as bedraggled and strung out as he did when Hermione, Ron and Harry had gone to ask him what he knew about the Deathly Hallows, his hair looked lanky and the dark circles under his eyes were a sure sign that he hadn’t been sleeping well.

“I’m sorry, but I just can’t do this anymore. It’s not worth the risk.” At Narcissa’s hurt look, he rushed to add, “And besides, Luna will be home for the summer holidays soon. As will your boy. I’m sure, like me, you’ll want to spend as much time with him as you can.”

It was hard to tell what Narcissa was thinking, as skilled as she was at concealing her thoughts and emotions, but eventually, she nodded and walked slowly over to stand in front of him. “You’re right. It’s not like this could last forever. It’s probably best that we end this before anyone gets hurt.”

“Yes, exactly.” Xenophilius sighed with relief, but sucked in a soft gasp as Narcissa stepped closer, crowding him between the wall and her body.

“But since I’m here already, one more taste couldn’t hurt, surely?” Seductive eyes locked onto his, Narcissa lifted her right hand and took a bite of the plum which was still cradled in her grasp. As she bit into the plump fruit, a dribble of juice escaped and rolled over her lower lip and towards her chin. Not breaking eye contact, she lifted the other hand and wiped the errant liquid away with one smooth swipe of her index finger. Not a word was spoken when, with a methodical air, she held her finger up to Xenophilius’s lips, which parted to accept the sticky, sweet digit.

“Ugh, I think this is quite enough,” Draco said.

“Wait!” Harry called out, stopping Draco from exiting the memory prematurely. “There’s another related memory just after this one.”

Fortunately, their short exchange was enough to distract Draco from the passionate embrace that was the last thing in the memory before it dissolved away and a new memory reformed around them. Draco was either unable or unwilling to look at his mother as she walked past them, up the gravel drive of the Manor and up the stairs to the front door.

“I’m sure it was just a physical thing. She was scratching an itch. Getting one over on my father by getting a leg over that … that … knobhead,” Draco insisted almost angrily.

“If that were the case, why wouldn’t she rub your father’s nose in it?” Harry asked.

Draco’s only response was a scowl in Harry’s direction as they followed her inside and were assaulted by Lucius, who emerged from a room to the right the moment Narcissa stepped into the entrance.

“Where were you?” he demanded, eyeing her suspiciously.

“I was out doing some shopping, if you must know,” she snapped back.

“Is that so?” Lucius glanced down meaningfully at her hands. “It doesn’t look like your trip was very fruitful. I’m shocked; it’s unlike you to not jump at the opportunity to fritter away my Galleons.”

“As they are our Galleons, I will fritter away as many as I like.” She turned to smirk at her husband as she goaded him, “And don’t worry, dear, Twilfitt and Tattings will surely have a record year for sales. I’ve had them order in a custom toile design from France for my new set of robes.”

“A lily you are not—you can use all the gilding available to you,” Lucius said, sneering.

Narcissa shot him an unimpressed look as she swept past him and up the curving marble staircase to the second floor. They followed her up the stairs and down the long carpeted hallway and into the same master bedroom from earlier memories. Narcissa removed her robe and when she went to hang it up in the armoire, Harry could see that, unlike the previous memory, there was no sign of Lucius’s things. The couple had apparently moved to separate living quarters by this point in their marriage.

After hanging up her robe, Narcissa cast a nervous look at the door before pulling out her wand and sealing it with a Locking Charm. Satisfied that she was alone, she pulled a sealed letter and a small wrapped package out of the inside pocket of her robe before moving to take a seat at her dressing table.

Setting the small package aside for now, she broke the blue seal on the letter and unfolded it. Harry and Draco leaned over her from behind, one on each shoulder, as Narcissa read the letter:

Dear Narcissa,

As hard as it is for me, I must ask that you refrain from coming to see me again. I fear I am not strong enough to turn you away, though I know it must be done. I will cherish the memories of our time together for the rest of the days of my life. As spring rushes in and chases away the cold months of winter, so too did you rekindle the passions of my heart. But nothing can halt the march of time and spring, too, must give way to summer.

I purchased this small token for you several weeks ago and it has only just arrived. You should have it—it was made especially for you.

X.

Folding the letter up and setting it down on the dressing table, Narcissa picked up the small package. A tag hanging off of the string holding it closed boldly instructed her to “HANDLE WITH CARE!” She seemed to take that message seriously as she unwrapped the package with precise movements. As the wrapping fell away, she held up a brooch with a single daffodil carved into a cameo.

She stroked the flower with the softest of touch and the cameo shook, rattling in its setting. Pulling her finger away, the brooch settled once more and she stared at it for a bit. Draco and Harry watched her in silence. Harry didn’t know what Draco was thinking, but it seemed obvious enough to Harry that, whatever the liaison had been, it wasn’t entirely without emotions.

Finally, Narcissa looked up, her eyes shining with unshed tears, but a soft smile on her face. Watching her reflection in the mirror, Narcissa carefully pinned the brooch to her lapel as the memory faded away.

Stepping out of the Pensieve, before Harry could ask any questions, Draco said in a clipped voice, “I don’t want to talk about it. How many more of these things do we have left?”

“Only two, but we don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

“Set up the next one,” Draco insisted flatly.

🜋🜋🜋

They were almost at the end of the memories now, and it was immediately apparent that times were rough for the Malfoys. In this memory, Lucius and Narcissa were outside, striding across the long stretch of Malfoy lawn, heading toward a small pond a distance away. Harry turned around to see Malfoy Manor looming behind them, countless figures rising up from it and flying away on brooms.

Harry turned back around to study Draco, who was wan and shuffling stiffly after his parents. Draco knew when this particular memory had occurred.

Just then, Lucius and Narcissa whipped around in unison as the memory version of Draco came sprinting down the lawn, calling after them. If the current Draco looked a bit sick, this younger Draco, despite having the benefit of youth, looked a wreck. Draco’s eyes shimmered with tears and his face was contorted as he tried to suppress a sob.

“Draco, dearest, your father and I just need to discuss something alone for a few minutes,” Narcissa said tenderly, concern and fear clearly visible on her face.

“I don’t … don’t leave me alone up there … with him,” Draco pleaded in a tiny voice. He cast a nervous glance over his shoulder as if checking to see whether Voldemort had heard him, even this far away from the Manor.

“Stop crying, boy. We can’t afford to be seen as weak,” Lucius barked as he watched his son’s shoulders heave as he began to break down. Anger darkened her features at Lucius’s order and she stepped forward, taking Draco into her arms. The 17-year-old seemed to shrivel as he curled into his mother’s embrace.

Harry startled when the elder Draco spoke from just behind his shoulder, “This was just after Voldemort had killed the Muggle Studies professor in front of everyone.”

“That must have been really horrible to witness,” Harry offered.

Draco didn’t look at him, his eyes riveted to his younger self as he was consoled by his mother. Harry wondered if Draco was just realising that his mother would never be there to console him like this again.

“It’s … all … my … fault,” the younger Draco managed to get out through choked sobs.

“I thought that none of this would have happened if I’d simply managed to kill Dumbledore,” the elder Draco explained sadly.

“You’re not a killer, Draco. And that’s not something to feel guilty or ashamed about.”

“That may be true, but it also may be true that we never would have fallen from grace if I’d just managed to perform the duty that the Dark Lord charged me with.”

Harry wanted to continue to argue the point, but he refrained as Narcissa spoke, “We must be strong now. This is a dangerous time for our family. Do you understand?” Although the basic message was the same as Lucius’s, her delivery was much less hostile. Draco looked up into her eyes and the two had a silent communication for several moments as Draco slowly regained control of himself.

“That’s good, my strong boy,” Narcissa said approvingly, giving Draco a kind smile. “I really must speak alone with your father. Why don’t you take your broom and go flying for a bit? The fresh air will help you clear your mind. We’ll meet you back up at the house later.”

Lucius clucked his tongue, but Narcissa and Draco ignored him as Draco set off back towards the Manor in a reluctant trudge.

“You’re too soft on him. The boy doesn’t need any more of your mollycoddling. He needs to toughen up if he’s going to survive the Dark Lord’s rule.”

“And you don’t see anything wrong with that?” Narcissa hissed incredulously.

“You know as well as I do that certain sacrifices are required to secure our position in the new world order,” Lucius said.

“Maybe the reward doesn’t justify the cost, have you considered that?”

“What are you talking about?” Lucius protested. “The Dark Lord may be dissatisfied with us right now, but I know that we can earn back his trust and—”

“Lucius!” Narcissa shouted, cutting him off. Gesturing up towards the Manor she continued, “He’s practically declared himself the Master of the Manor, and you’ve just let him do it!”

“Be quiet!” Lucius hissed, casting a nervous look back at the Manor. He patted at his robes frantically before freezing, his body sagging in defeat. “A privacy charm is required.”

“Voldemort had just taken his wand,” Malfoy explained quietly. His colouring looked slightly better, the remembered fear from earlier having abated somewhat. Now, he looked pityingly at his father.

Harry found himself feeling bad for Draco. He could understand Draco’s need for an explanation about what happened to his parents and what led up to their demise, but surely it would be more soothing to be left with more comforting memories than these. He understood the impulse though; if it were him and someone he loved had died, Harry would want to have all of the information available to him, even if it was painful.

Harry was sure that if they hadn’t just emerged from such a brutal moment, Narcissa would have seized the opportunity to rub Lucius’s helplessness in his wounds; but instead, she pulled out her own wand and cast a Muffliato around them. Harry wasn’t sure whether the Charm would work against them in the memory, but they both stepped closer to Draco’s parents anyway.

“We’ll be exceedingly fortunate if we all manage to survive this,” Narcissa continued now that they were a modicum more protected, but the Charm seemed to knock loose the stranglehold she had on her panic and she was becoming more and more visibly upset as she spoke. “He’s a lunatic! He’ll bat us around, toying with us, before he consumes us. Like that fucking snake of his!”

“There’s no need for such hysterics,” Lucius said condescendingly.

“Are you kidding me?! There is a dead woman on our dining table right now!” Narcissa screamed as she threw her arms in the air and started pacing a tight route in front of him. “The man is unhinged!”

“Many visionaries have been accused of madness. It’s a sign of greatness,” Lucius said. Harry wasn’t sure whether Lucius still truly believed what he was saying, or whether Voldemort had just crushed his spirit to such a level that he daren’t put voice to any doubts he may have had. He certainly looked like a man whose spirit had been thoroughly squashed.

“And many good men have given their lives in service of madmen,” Narcissa countered. “I can’t take it anymore, Lucius.” She stopped her pacing and stepped up to Lucius, grabbing the lapels of his robe and looking up at him pleadingly. “Draco and I are living in constant fear and we can’t do it anymore. We need this to end .”

A softness entered Lucius’s face as he gazed down at his wife, the anger and resentment that had been ever-present in the last few years of memories whenever the two had spoken seemed to dissolve away and for the first time in many years of memories, Lucius looked at his wife with concern.

“We’re so close, ma belle fleur.” Narcissa stiffened and pulled away a fraction at his use of the old endearment. “It’s only a matter of time before the Dark Lord puts down that snivelling orphan brat.”

A surge of fresh hatred of the man rushed through Harry at the casualness with which Lucius took Harry’s death as a given. Being angry at a dead man was a waste of energy, however, so Harry just exhaled a long, calming breath as he let the resentment fade away.

“What makes you so sure that he’ll defeat the Potter boy,” Narcissa said softly, studying Lucius closely.

A wisp of doubt flitted across his features before he chased it away. “He’s barely legal and he was raised by Muggles. There’s no way that he’ll be able to defeat the most powerful wizard that ever lived.”

Narcissa let go her grip on his robes and took a step back, levelling him with a reproving stare. “He’s already defeated him, and that was when he was only a baby.”

“What do you expect me to do?” Lucius asked, frustrated. He combed his fingers roughly through his hair as he spoke, looking close to the end of his tether.

“We need to be looking for a way to extricate us from this whole thing,” she insisted. “Before it’s too late.”

“We can’t ,” he replied despondently. “There’s no way out.”

Narcissa shook her head as she studied her husband. As they watched, a steadiness grew inside her and she seemed to come to a much-awaited decision. “You’ve gotten us into this, but I will not let your pride and arrogance kill my son.”

“What are you going to do?” Lucius asked, brow furrowing with suspicion at her vow.

“That’s none of your concern anymore,” she said simply as she pulled out her wand and took down the Muffliato Charm . Turning her back to her husband, she began the trek back to the Manor as the memory dissolved away.

“I wonder if that’s the moment she decided she would deceive Voldemort if she got the opportunity,” Harry pondered as they both emerged from the Pensieve. “I’ve always wondered why she lied and told Voldemort I was dead in the forest that day. I know she was worried about you, but she could have turned me in and escaped with you after Voldemort went back to the school.”

“Escaped where?” Draco asked quietly.

“I don’t know … France maybe?” Harry ventured. He was pretty sure the Malfoys had family back in France.

“There was no escape from him. He didn’t let people just walk away. Are we almost done?” Draco looked exhausted and Harry found himself feeling sorry for his former rival again.

“There’s just one more. From that last night.” Harry didn’t miss the sharp inhale Draco took at his words. Draco didn’t say anything, but gestured toward the Pensieve, indicating Harry should get on with it.

🜋🜋🜋

In the last memory, Draco and Harry followed Lucius and Narcissa around the Manor as yet-another argument evolved into slung hexes and mounting peril.

“Why would they stay together?” Harry asked genuinely. Although the earliest memories they had watched together today had seemed to show genuine love between the couple, none of that was visible now. Every word that was shared between them now seemed to be carefully chosen to inflict the deepest possible wound.

“I honestly don’t know,” Draco said, sighing. He watched his parents screaming at each other with sadness. “Divorce is still quite taboo in the pure-blood community, but it’s not unheard of for spouses to be unofficially separated. When a witch or a wizard explains that their spouse is currently indulging in a few days rest at a holiday home, it is politely accepted at face value, even though everyone would know what that really means.”

“So then why would your parents continue to live together at the Manor. They both seem … miserable here,” Harry pressed.

Harry watched Draco as he turned slowly in a circle, looking around the memory of the Manor. Although it had an empty feeling to it because of the dearth of furniture—the Malfoys had been forced to liquidate some of their most valuable antiques after the war—the room still oozed with opulence.

“This is our home,” Draco said, gaze settling on Harry. “Neither of them would want to cede it to the other, so they both stayed, torturing not just the other, but also themselves.”

As if to prove his point, words had ceased to be the most effective weapons in Lucius and Narcissa’s argument and wands were now being drawn. Lucius dove out of the way as Narcissa shot a blasting hex at the floor where, only moments ago, he had stood, leaving a gaping hole in the floor.

Lucius stared at the spot looking flabbergasted for a moment before turning incredulously to his wife. “You could have killed me!”

Narcissa looked somewhat surprised at what she’d done for a moment, but then certainty chased away the surprise and she grinned maliciously at him as she started raising her arm again. “Next time, I won’t miss.”

She pulled her wand back to cast another hex at Lucius, but before she could complete it, Lucius had brandished his own wand and cast a protective shield around himself. Scrambling to his feet, the two spouses squared off against each other, a weirdly formal duelling stance—but this was no friendly duel. Bloodlust glinted in both of their eyes as they shrewdly observed their opponent, planning their next attack.

Even though Harry knew that they were safe from the memory magic, he found himself backing away and ducking as various curses went flying around the room. Lucius was the first to draw blood, as a blazing red curse whizzed by Narcissa, grazing her upper arm and searing away the fabric there.

Wisely, she didn’t let down her guard, gritting her teeth at the pain but keeping her steely gaze locked on her husband. A series of quick volleys sent Lucius hurtling back through the air to slam against the wall, sending the portraits into a cacophony of complaints. Narcissa seized the opportunity to turn and flee, running down the hallway and hurtling herself around the corner and down the curved marble staircase back down to the main floor.

“Get back here, you bitch!” Lucius snarled as a malicious green curse shot out of his wand and whizzed by Harry’s ear. Harry, running alongside Narcissa, felt the fear and panic of the chase and it felt as if he was in the heat of the battle alongside the couple.

Harry took a deep breath and reminded himself that it was just a memory. The urge to fight and defend himself pulling at him hard, but it was pointless. It helped when he saw Draco start trudging slowly down the stairs, a grim look on his face, but eerily calm.

Lucius started down the stairs after her but stopped as an idea came to him. Casting an Accio , he stood there for several seconds until a thick length of material came floating through the air toward him. Throwing the cloak over his shoulders, Lucius’s body disappeared. The invisibility cloak was nowhere near as powerful as his own, and as Lucius came down the stairs and got closer, Harry could see that his body was only partially transparent.

Draco and Harry followed after him as he slipped into the murky darkness of the ballroom. As they got closer to the arched doorway of the ballroom, Draco’s steps got shorter, as if trying to put off these final moments.

“You don’t have to see this last part, you know,” Harry said softly, offering Draco that last chance to save himself this grief.

Draco paused for a moment, as if considering Harry’s offer, but then determination washed over him and he squared his shoulders, gazing into the inky darkness of the ballroom.

“Yes. I do.”

Harry nodded and followed Draco into the ballroom. “I didn’t know your family owned an Invisibility Cloak,” Harry said, feeling like he needed to say something to fill the tense silence.

“I’m assuming we still do. Unless it was destroyed during…” Draco trailed off as he refocused back on his parents. Lucius was visible to them as an outline in the halo of light on the floor from the chandelier, but to Narcissa, he was probably not visible. She spun around, wand raised, waiting for an attack as they walked steadily closer.

They could hear Narcissa speaking, but couldn’t make out the words until they got closer. “And he fucked better than you, too!” Narcissa shouted, the sleight seeming to echo through the cavernous room. There was no doubt that she was rubbing her affair with Xenophilius in her husband’s face in these last moments.

Lucius laughed mirthlessly and Narcissa spun to face the source of his voice. “Did you just lay there lifeless for him too? It takes more than spreading your legs to be a decent shag, you know. Too bad your sister never taught you any of her tricks. She may be crazy as a bat, but at least she’s a firecracker in bed!”

Draco barely reacted to his father’s confession, but whether that was because Draco already knew about his father and his aunt, he thought Lucius was lying, or he was just too exhausted by this point to care, Harry couldn’t tell.

Whether the claim was true or not, Narcissa was enraged by it and with a growl of rage she launched a surging attack, volleying curses at the spot where her husband had last been. But Lucius had used her rage as a distraction and had already circled around behind her, his translucent body stepping up behind her, within arms reach.

Sensing his presence, Narcissa swung around, but it was too late and Lucius’s arm emerged from under the cloak, the diamond-encrusted end of the dagger catching the light and shining as the sharp dagger pierced her chest.

Narcissa’s eyes bulged in shock as the blade pierced her, looking down at it protruding from her chest with confusion as she stumbled back. Lucius watched her with victorious amusement as she coughed, droplets of blood spraying from her mouth, a sure sign that her lung was punctured. She grabbed at him, pulling the cloak loose and letting it slither to the floor at Lucius’s feet.

Lucius was too confident in his victory though, turning away from his foe to retrieve his cloak. His hubris caused him to miss his wife’s final move as she undid the clasp holding the cameo to her lapel. Throwing it into the air and towards the chandelier, she cast a Blasting Curse after it.

The Curse alone can pack quite a punch, but when it made contact with the volatile Erumpent horn cameo, the explosion was deafening. Harry and Draco threw up their hands, protecting their ears as Lucius and Narcissa were pushed to the ground with the force of the blast. Seconds later, an ominous snapping sound presaged the collapse of the chandelier and Lucius Malfoy could do nothing but look up in horror as the chandelier broke loose and fell towards him, crushing his body.

Narcissa, who had pushed herself up to watch, let out a wet laugh before coughing, her face crumpled in pain as she collapsed down on her back. The memory dissolved, the scene a near-perfect match to Harry’s own memory of that night.

🜋🜋🜋

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Harry offered lamely after they’d emerged from the final memory.

“I hate that you were witness to them at their worst,” Draco said, anger tinging his voice. Harry could understand how he felt though.

“I’ll make sure these are destroyed, if that helps,” Harry offered. “We won’t be able to do it until after the case is reviewed and finalised, but then I can make sure they’re destroyed. Unless … you want them?”

“Why would I want them?” Draco asked, but it appeared to be rhetorical as he continued. “No, destroy them.”

Harry had to ask, “Do you regret it? Watching the memories.”

Draco just stared at him for a while and Harry wondered if he was going to tell him to fuck off, but eventually, he answered, “No. I don’t regret it. I wanted to know, but now I just want to forget.”