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Love is stronger than justice…
--Sting
The room was windowless, bare, and chilly. There was a bed, and a chair, but that was the extent of the furniture. They called it a ‘detention room,’ but it was a cell. The door was heavily warded, so the lock couldn’t be lifted with magic from the inside. Anyone who was put in it was a prisoner. They weren’t fooling anyone.
Rather than sit on the thin, lumpy mattress of the bed or in the uncomfortable chair, she sat on the cold stone floor in the corner of the room, her knees drawn up and arms wrapped around them. Her back ached, her head ached, and her stomach felt empty except for the burning bile that churned in it. She’d been wearing the same gown since last night, when they had come, breaking into their home and dragging them away. The gown was thin, the cold seeping through it, and soiled from the way she had been manhandled. Narcissa Malfoy in a soiled gown—the very thought seemed beyond consideration, and yet here she was. Her carefully pieced-together life shattered and scattered to the wind.
They were coming again. She could hear footsteps in the corridor. She drew her knees up tighter to her chest and closed her eyes, praying they would pass by the door.
They didn’t. There was the sound of a key in the lock, and then the door swung open. She sighed heavily, opening her eyes.
Two men came in—a tall, older man with gray hair and fierce eyes, dressed in sweeping black robes. He was the one who had been questioning her earlier. The other was a shorter, younger man who looked slightly put off by this whole affair, even a bit nervous.
“Mrs. Malfoy…” the older man looked down at her, and she could see the disgust in his eyes. He was an Auror, and people of her ilk were his sworn enemies. Never mind that he didn’t understand what he was swearing when he joined that righteous cause. “It’s time. Come along.”
So soon? They certainly didn’t waste any time. But then, they never had.
She got to her feet—without his help, despite the fact that she was wobbly and weak. They hadn’t fed her, though they had at least given her water. Not that she could have eaten anyway.
She brushed as much of the dirt from her gown as she could and pushed her loose hair behind her ears, standing tall and proud. This seemed to make the younger man even more nervous. The other one just sneered a bit and directed her toward the door.
“Let’s go.”
She walked with them, through the dark, narrow corridors, none of them speaking as they went. Their footsteps were loud and echoing on the stone walls—the heavy and self-righteous clumping of the one in front of her, the small, almost inconspicuous tapping of the one behind her, and the soft scuffling of her own slippers. If she just focused on the sound—one step at a time—she could maintain her poise and dignity. She was Narcissa Malfoy, and she would keep her head held high no matter what.
Finally they came to a heavy oak door, and she could feel her heart pounding, cold sweat breaking out on her palms. She tilted her chin up defiantly, ignoring the renewed sneer on the face of the older man as he opened it.
She was ushered into a vast, round room with a high ceiling. Circling the walls were tiers of seats—long benches that ran the entire circumference of the room, going up in levels nearly to the top of it. These seats were filled with wizards and witches, the low drone of voices greeting her as she stepped in. Most of them fell silent when they saw her, all eyes turning to focus on her—some with contempt, others with curiosity, a few with pity.
Near silence descended as she was taken to a stand in the middle of the room. There was a chair sitting opposite it, an empty chair. Standing behind the podium, she was facing the side of the room directly opposite the door, where a great many important-looking wizards and witches sat in a group, just behind it.
She looked around the room, at the people staring at her, giving them the most defiant look she could muster. Some of them looked like they wanted to take out their wands and blast her right then and there. But none of them moved. They just stared.
Then, her eyes came to rest on someone sitting nearby, on the bottom level. Wide, frightened eyes gazed back at her from a face that instinctively spurred a protective urge within her. Her son’s lips trembled, and he was fighting tears. The sight of that was the first thing to truly shake her resolve.
Her attention was drawn back to the witches and wizards who sat in front of her. Some of them she recognized. Others were strangers to her, but she hated them at once, just as she hated the ones she knew.
One of them in the middle stood, clearing his throat. Cornelius Fudge. Beside him, sitting slumped and looking distinctly uncomfortable—maybe even a bit regretful—was a pale man with stringy dark hair that she recognized well.
Bastard.
“Mrs. Malfoy…” Fudge sounded all stern and official, his voice quieting the last of the whispers in the room. “You have been brought before us today to bear testimony against your husband Lucius Malfoy, a known Death Eater…”
Narcissa glanced over at her son again. He was sitting with his fists clenched in his lap, trembling, looking much younger than his seventeen years.
She looked back at Fudge, lifting her chin again, and said as clearly and strongly as she could, “I will do no such thing.”
A murmur went through the crowd, people leaning over to whisper to each other, a few sharp laughs. Fudge frowned, looking quite unhappy with her response. He held up his hand for silence, and everyone settled down again.
“Your husband is a known Death Eater, Mrs. Malfoy…irrefutable proof has been brought against him. There’s nothing to be done for him now—but your testimony may mean the difference between Azkaban and the Dementor’s Kiss.”
It was funny really, how he meant that. Everyone was expecting her to weep and rail and say what a horrible man Lucius was, so they would feel justified in giving him the Dementor’s Kiss. Because really, it didn’t matter what she said. They would not send him to Azkaban—they had already made their decision. This was merely a formality.
She snorted, fighting to maintain a cool, composed demeanor. “What would you have me say about him?”
Fudge sighed, then gave her a look that she supposed was meant to be comforting, but it just made her stomach churn more.
“Mrs. Malfoy…the days of intimidation and abuse at the hands of your husband are over. The world is ready to hear your story now.”
Her mouth fell open in shock, her eyes widening. She thought for a moment she had heard wrong, but knew she hadn’t. She shrieked in outrage. “He has never abused me! How DARE you!”
Fudge sighed again, the rest of the room once again murmuring and snickering, giving her doubtful, pointed looks. My God, what sort of people were they? What kind of outlandish rumors had been spread about them?
“Mrs. Malfoy…” Fudge spoke over the muttering and whispering, and it quieted down again. “Why don’t you tell us about your life with Lucius Malfoy? How you met him, when you were married…how he treated you and your son…”
Narcissa looked over at Draco again. He was sitting with his head in his hands.
“Our son…” she said pointedly. She drew herself up, struggling to regain her composure after her outburst. It was not easy, with hundreds of eyes boring into her, hundreds of people who either held her contempt or uncalled-for pity. She was on the stake, and they were holding the torches.
She cleared her throat, looking around at all of them, meeting as many eyes as she could, showing them she was not intimidated and not afraid. She stared darkly for a moment at the man sitting next to Fudge, and he flinched a bit. Silence fell like a thick fog over the room.
“How I met Lucius Malfoy…”
~*~*~
Narcissa was 16 when she met Lucius Malfoy. Her father had openly been a Death Eater for six years, even inviting them to hold some of their meetings and rituals on the grounds of their estate. If anyone was abusive to her, it was him. He was a proud, severe man who took any slight to his name as a deep personal affront. She was expected to conduct herself in a meticulously proper manner, to do certain things as he requested and keep her mouth shut. She did these things, for fear of his wrath if she didn’t. Her mother was no help to her—she was as much under his control as Narcissa was. Maybe even more so.
Lucius was 18, and his father was a Death Eater as well. Their families were close, especially once they joined Voldemort’s inner circle. Sometimes he came with his father to the meetings at her estate. Since he was not officially part of their group, he could not attend the meetings, so he sat on the back veranda and watched them in the distance. Narcissa would watch him from her bedroom window. When it was warm out, she would sit with the window open and brush her hair, humming softly. One night, he heard her humming and looked up.
Lucius was beautiful, intelligent, and powerful like his father. He was cunning and crafty, and he made her laugh. She saw the darkness around him, the things he was capable of, but she was used to darkness. It was not the same kind of darkness that surrounded her father. Lucius was like an angel, with blond hair and blue eyes. A fallen angel perhaps, but an angel nonetheless. He could even sing, and he would sing songs to her in all kinds of different languages.
He started coming to the estate a lot more on business with his father. Instead of watching the ceremonies from a distance, he started spending the nights of the meetings with her. They walked in the garden, and talked, and eventually kissed, and did other things. He was beautiful in moments of passion, the way he tossed his head back and whispered her name.
Shortly after her seventeenth birthday, her father declared that she must be married into a well-to-do family. At first she was terrified, but through some stroke of brilliant luck, he decided the Malfoy family was the best choice. She suspected Lucius had influenced his father to convince her father this was so, but however it had happened she was grateful. It was just as she would have it.
Their marriage was all but pre-arranged, but it was a good thing. Narcissa would later discover she was four weeks pregnant on their wedding day.
Unfortunately, her father discovered it as well—he was a shrewd and frighteningly intelligent man, and he figured it out when they announced it and she said the baby was due in August, a full month earlier than it should have been.
It was snowing the night he showed up at the estate she and Lucius had been given by his father upon their marriage. Lucius was not home. Her father called her a filthy whore and a disgrace. He beat her until she couldn’t stand up, and when Lucius found her she was clutching her stomach and bleeding and bleeding. There was no baby in August.
Lucius grew very sinister after that. He vowed he would make right what had been done to her. The first part of this promise was given when three months later she found she was pregnant again. The second part came when she was six months along. Her father turned up dead one morning, his throat slit ear to ear in his own bed. They claimed it was due to some sort of dissention among Voldemort’s inner circle, that another Death Eater had done it. They were right. Lucius had been a Death Eater for nearly a year at that point.
Draco was born in the winter, after a difficult and tenuous pregnancy. He had his father’s eyes and her nose. Lucius held him in his arms when he was just a few minutes old, and she had never seen a more beautiful sight.
Almost a year later, Lord Voldemort was defeated by a mere baby named Harry Potter, and the Death Eaters found themselves in a dire situation and scrambling for cover. Lucius was very careful to protect himself and his family, and nothing was ever officially brought against them.
The years passed, while they waited for his return. Life happened. Some of it was good and some of it was bad. Some of it hurt and some of it was wonderfully joyful.
Draco grew into a young man, fine and handsome, who adored and strove to follow in his father’s footsteps. He looked up to Lucius like a god, like the angel he was. Lucius continued to convene with the remaining Death Eaters in secret. She didn’t ask him what they did, what crimes they were responsible for. She knew, deep down in her heart. She didn’t care. She loved Lucius. He was not an evil man.
How could a man who patiently taught his son to read and write be an evil man? How could a man who surprised her with a string of rare pearls on her thirtieth birthday be an evil man? How could someone who walked in the garden with she and their son and picked flowers be an evil man? He who sung her to sleep at night, who held her and wept with her through two more failed pregnancies before they decided to give up because she was so broken by what her father had done to her. Who laid in bed with their son and read him stories when he was sick, or smiled and said he loved the paintings she did though she knew they were atrocious. He was not an evil man, no matter what he did when he was away from her. How could her Lucius, her angel, be evil?
People told her, as things slowly escalated, that she was blinded by her love for him. That she refused to see him for what he was. But they were the ones who didn’t see him for what he was. They were the ones who didn’t see the man he was at home, when he was with her and Draco.
Yes, she knew what he did. She knew that he took part in killing and torturing muggles. She knew that he was doing everything in his power to bring Lord Voldemort back. She knew that he could be spiteful, and twisted, and pull strings to hurt people. But that was a world separate from the one he shared with her. She could make herself easily believe that it had nothing to do with her, that it didn’t even exist.
He never lifted a hand to her, hardly ever even raised his voice. He begrudged her nothing, provided for her and Draco, and gave them everything they could ever want. All she had to do was look at something and he would get it for her. He took care of her when she was sick and shared the good times with her as well as the bad. He was a father and a husband and a loyal man, wherever he chose to place his loyalties.
They didn’t know. The whispered words and contemptuous looks, the flung suspicions and subtle threats. They didn’t know. They had never kissed him, or been in his arms, or gazed into his eyes when they were making love. He was honest, and pure, and sincere. He was not evil.
Then the world exploded. Again, that Potter child. Lord Voldemort had risen again, risen to full power and promised protection to all his loyal followers. And that child had taken him down again, this time for good, though to some consolation, Voldemort had taken him with him. Such a life to waste, at only seventeen. But she was secretly glad. That child had brought about the destruction of her life as well as Voldemort’s.
With Voldemort really and truly gone, the Ministry and its attack dog Aurors had moved in, exposing and plucking out every Death Eater they could find. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Lucius had been planning to get them all out of Great Britain, but before he could act it was too late. They were literally ambushed and pulled from their beds in the middle of the night—her son was even ripped out of school and brought here, held up as an object of ridicule. Apparently Lucius’s trial had been simple and swift, for now here she stood, ridiculed as well.
Her heart in her hands, bleeding.
~*~*~
The room was silent when she finished speaking. Her head was hung, for she could not hold it up anymore. She didn’t want them to see her tears.
“So…” Fudge finally broke the silence, his voice sounding more disdainful than ever, full of blackest contempt. “You knew what he was doing.”
“I am his wife…” her voice was choked. She wanted to make it strong and full of conviction, but she couldn’t. “Of course I knew.”
“And you condoned it?”
“It was not my place to condone or condemn it.”
“But as you say, you were his wife!”
“And that part of his world was not mine…” she trembled, wiping at her eyes, clearing them of tears before she looked up. “The world I shared with him was separate from that one.”
“Even so!” Fudge was glaring at her, as were many of the others. There was no more pity in the accusing eyes that fell on her. The man beside Fudge was looking down at his hands. “You are an accomplice to his crimes. Even if you can’t be brought to trial for it, you must live with that knowledge for the rest of your days!”
She snarled, her hands twisting on the podium. She wanted to cast an Unforgivable on him, right then and there. It would be worth the punishment to watch him writhe.
“Go to Hell! All of you!” She shouted.
There was murmuring, soft snickers. She was an object of laughter now. She could hear Draco weeping softly. Fudge glared at her, then his countenance softened, a smug smile coming to his face, making her blood boil.
“You first, Mrs. Malfoy…” he nodded to the men who had brought her in, who were standing by the door. “Bring him in.”
Narcissa turned, her heart leaping into her throat. There was a second door that led into the room, and the tall, older man opened it, speaking to someone inside. A moment later, two men emerged, dragging her husband between them.
He was obviously trying to look brave and collected, but she could see the fear in his eyes. He was dirty and disheveled like her, his blond hair mussed and falling over his shoulders. He looked like he had grown gaunt and hollow just in the short time they had been apart. The sight of him, and the knowledge of what they were about to do to him, broke the last tenuous grip she had on her composure.
“Lucius!” She shrieked, reaching for him. Two more men were on her at once, pulling her back from him as they drug him past, toward the chair. She screamed and fought, but they held her tight.
“Keep her under control!” Fudge barked. The people in the room were looking on with interest, an excited murmur going through the crowd.
“Narcissa!” Lucius tried to reach for her too as they pulled him toward the chair. His voice was choked.
“Daddy!” She heard Draco scream. Somebody grabbed him as well. Narcissa struggled bitterly, but the men held her tight, painfully tight, keeping her from going to either of them.
She no longer cared about dignity, control, or decorum. They fought Lucius into the chair, kicking and struggling, and bound him to it with magical restraints, lashing him firmly in place. He couldn’t even move his head. Narcissa was shrieking and reaching toward him, now oblivious to the crowd of onlookers. She could hear Draco sobbing.
“No! No!” She wept hysterically. “Not my Lucius! No!”
Lucius looked furious, trying to pull at his bonds, but his fury quickly faded, replaced by fear, and sorrow as he looked at her, struggled to wrench his head around enough to look at Draco.
She went limp, dissolving into sobs. There was no way out of this, no way to save him. And no mercy in Fudge’s eyes. No mercy in anyone’s eyes.
“Narcissa…” Lucius’s choked voice made her lift her head, staring at him in terror through her tear-filled eyes. “I love you…you and Draco…”
Suddenly, a terrible, frightening coldness descended upon the room. Her heart raced. She didn’t have to look to know what it was. The dark, horrible hooded figure seemed to bring shadow and doom into the room with it. Everyone appeared to unconsciously recoil, those closest to it pulling back.
“NO!” She screamed, struggling again. But it was no use. They had her by the arms, and they would break them to keep her in place if they had to. Draco was screaming as well.
“Please!” She beseeched Fudge, who was looking on the whole thing with a sort of cool detachment. “He’s my husband! He’s all I know! I love him! I need him! We have a son! We have a CHILD! ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?”
He wasn’t. He didn’t even look at her. He was watching the Dementor glide closer to Lucius, gray, rotted hand extending from beneath its robes.
Lucius’s eyes were wide with terror, staring up at it. Then his expression seemed to soften, as though resigning himself to his fate, and he looked over at her one last time.
Mouthed I love you.
Told her with a gaze to take care of Draco, to go on and somehow be strong. That he was sorry he had failed them, that he wished he could have done more. That he regretted his actions, because it had hurt them. That he wanted to take it all back for that reason. That she and their son were the world to him.
A single tear slipped down his cheek as gray, gnarled hands grasped his head, turning it up toward a hood being drawn back…
She screamed while it was done. She heard Draco screaming as well. She heard nothing else. All she felt was pain. Pain and pain and pain. She wished for death.
When it was over, they released her. They released Draco. They released Lucius. She and her son went to him and held his limp body, caressed his hair and face, stared into his mindless, unseeing eyes as Fudge read the official charges to the hushed and clearly shaken crowd. The broken, drained husk of what had once been her husband could not hear them.
“Implicated in the deaths of 47 muggles…10 wizards…consorting with the Dark Lord and his minions…causing chaos and upheaval on a grand scale…sabotage within the Ministry of Magic…conspiracy to bring down the Ministry of Magic…torture and inexcusable acts committed upon muggles and wizards alike…”
When he was done reading, the people began to disperse, quietly, casting the three of them timid and distressed looks. They were stunned. They wanted it, and yet they were stunned. She held her husband’s head against her chest and wept. Her son pressed his face to his father’s shoulder and wept as well.
She looked up, through tear-filled eyes, and saw the man who had been sitting next to Fudge, standing over them and staring down at them with a dead, hollow look in his eyes.
“You were his friend!” She wailed at him. “Damn you Severus Snape…damn you to Hell for all eternity…you led them to us!”
He said nothing. He just stared at them for another long moment, then turned and walked away, pushing through the crowd toward the door.
The list of accusations rang in her head, Fudge’s voice reciting them over and over. They were all true. All of them—as far as she knew. And that made him evil. An evil man with an evil agenda. They had called Lucius Malfoy evil.
Evil.
Narcissa lifted her husband’s cold hand from where it lay against his chest, her thumb tracing the gold band on his finger. It caught the light, gleaming. Perfect, pure, and simple. There was no evil in it. No evil in the tears his son wept, no evil in the aching of her heart. No evil in the silence that descended in the wake of the most thoughtless and malicious destruction she had ever witnessed.
She had seen evil. But the limp, destroyed, broken man in her arms…
He was not evil.
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