25: Narcissa's Request

                                    

                                          
Hermione
I dressed with care for dinner, for it was a solemn occasion, or so the healers explained to us when they were summoned. She had a month at the most, and that was a very generous estimate. Lucius looked down at his message from the house elf serving us at dinner, and I looked at mine.
"She wants us both there," I remarked. "Do you know why?"
He shrugged. "I haven't the foggiest clue. I just know that her end will feel very unsettling to me, but mostly to Draco. They were close when he was little."
I nodded. "I hope it is the same with me and my own son. I'd like to think we will be close. Mostly, I just wonder if he will look more like me or Severus."
Lucius grinned. "I'm just sure he will be a pleasant mixture of you both. Shall we?"
He held out his arm for me to take. I chuckled, "I'm pregnant, not helpless, you know. I can walk up and down a flight of stairs. I'm not Princess Victoria."
His grin was more sincere this time as I held his outright arm. "And yet I would be remiss if I wasn't protective of my cousin's unborn son and his wife in the same way."
"I'm sure. Alright, lead the way good kinsman in law."
We shared a smile at that and entered the master bedroom. Eileen Prince was sitting in the chair by the bed finishing up her Rosary prayers. "I didn't think you believed, Aunt Ellie."
Eileen eyed us almost sharply. "It never hurts to petition the Blessed Virgin for my niece in law to regain her health. Magic and science can only achieve so much. I will leave you to it, but do not tax her overly much. She needs to rest most of all."
"We will do our best," Lucius promised.
"I suppose that will have to be enough."
She left, and Lucius gently woke up his wife by kissing her forehead. They exchanged some words, and his eyes went wide with shock. "...Cissa, no. I couldn't. I love you, you know that."
Her laugh was bitter. "I'm not requiring it of you, but should your heart be stirred so, you have my blessing. I'm dead anyway." She noticed me and bid me to sit close.
She coughed into her handkerchief, and of course, it was bloody. She weakly reached for my hand and patted it lightly. "Let me see your hands."
I showed them to her, and she lightly touched my palms. "Lightly callused from wand and school work. Lovely. I would hate for Severus to be bonded to a witch who wasn't as driven as him intellectually." She coughed again, wiped at her mouth. "Enough pleasantries," my dad would say. I want you to take care of my wizards, Hermione. Arrange a match for my son as he wants, but ensure that it is to some advantage to the family."
"I will."
She eyed her husband, and he looked a bit shaken. "My passing will be hard to accept. We have been in each other's lives since long before Hogwarts. Before my cousin Sirius disgraced himself by being sorted into the rival school House, it was assumed that we would marry."
"Cissa, this...this old history doesn't matter," Lucius remarked dryly. "And he didn't even know about the match before he was sentenced to Azkaban without a trial."
Her eyes narrowed to blue chips of ice. "Oh, indeed it does, my darling. I want her to understand just how deeply Sirius's break with his family affected ours. I liked you always, Lucius, we were friends, but I never fancied you until we were married. You hurt me with your philandering. With your preference for lowly secretaries over me."
Lucius sighed heavily. "Forgive my bluntness, Hermione. I am about to say some very crass things regarding Severus."
"Oh gods, you love my husband, don't you? It's not just envy, is it?"
Narcissa chuckled bitterly. "Smart witch. Hell with it, I'm dying anyway. Yes, I've loved Severus for years. Oh, I don't hate you, witch. Never that. But he never gave me what I most wanted of him: his heart. How strange that he gives it first to some stupid red haired bitch who he came to me for once she got tired of stringing him along. Then he gives it to you due to how alike you two are."
"I resented being compared to him," Lucius said coldly. "You placed him up on this lofty pedestal I could never aspire to, and yet you never understood how much my heart broke after you struggled mentally after Draco was born. But sure, he can play your dirty Father Confessor, and you were more than willing to spread your legs for him. I hated the light in your eyes whenever you thought of him, and I wanted..." His voice broke as he began to cry, "No, I needed you to think of me in the same way. You're my wife, Narcissa. That means something to me, damn it!"
I couldn't believe how bitter she was then when she requested, "Did it? Clearly, your tender regard for me did not stop you from screwing anything that moved. But no matter. You two have my full blessing to seek comfort in one another once I pass. Now leave me, I need to rest. Think about what I have said."
We left the room, and Lucius raked a hand through his hair as he wiped at his eyes. "I need a drink. Will you talk with me in the study?"
"I... Sure."
"Good."
He led me to his study, and he poured himself a glass of whiskey, not Ogden's firewhiskey, but good old-fashioned Jack Daniel's. He fixed me a glass of ice water with a slice of lemon in it. 
"Thank you."
"I'm sorry for that bit of drama. How are you handling it?"
I sat in the nearest wing back chair close to the fireplace. He sat next to me in the opposite green leather chair, nursing his drink, taking occasional sips of it. 
"I had no idea she fancied Sirius." My cheeks flushed a bit as I remembered how fluttery I felt in my heart on occasion when his silvery eyes would glance at me in deep thought. What he could have been thinking I couldn't have imagined, but I had some faint idea of it now that I was married. 
Lucius's smirk was knowing. "It seems you fostered some tender regard for him yourself."
"I--Um, well, a bit. He was cute but far off limits to me. Harry would have blown his top if I even dared to voice that I even thought his godfather was attractive. Sometimes he'd look at me and um...yeah, I'm so not going there."
His laugh was hearty. "Was this before or after he looked like Rasputin?"
I laughed. "Oh my gods, after."
"Thought as much. Listen, about her crass request--"
"No, it's okay. I know that came from how in pain she's been from her cursed illness."
Lucius sipped his drink more, the single ice cube in it tinkling against the crystal glass. "I would be lying if I said I did not find you appealing, Hermione. The old version of myself would never entertain even the faintest thought, but I do see what is appealing about you. Draco saw it too in fourth year, only I berated him for his pureblood duties."
I stared at him, shocked. "Oh.. Oh,wow. I um...I probably would've thought he was pranking me if he asked me to the Yule Ball. He was very hostile to me and my friends until I punched him in the nose the year before."
"Yes, and while he felt embarrassed by a girl punching him in the nose, he later felt some respect for you."
"But you were mad about that."
"As a father yes, but not personally."
"Ah. But Azkaban humbled you."
Lucius tugged at the neckline of his dress shirt, and revealed some of his neck tattoos. "Unfortunately, yes. I have not even told my wife of half of what I went through."
"I can't imagine."
"I wouldn't want to either. Let's just say it was hell."
I nodded. "Fair enough." I yawned. "Well, I suppose that is enough introspection for one day."
"Goodnight, Hermione."
"You too, Lucius."
We shared a look that indicated we were going to slowly become friends, and that was fine indeed, no matter what Narcissa believed. I went to bed and prayed that my husband and friends were safe and in one piece. As the days passed, owl messages were filtered via my mother in law, and they all pointed to the fact that despite the serenity of Brighton, the rest of the wizarding world was at last at war with the death of the Minister of Magic himself...