Part One
“Hurt me with the truth but never comfort me with a lie. We all eat lies when our hearts are Hungry.”
When he first spots Narcissa he’s almost horrified by the drastic change in her appearance from the last time they had met nearly a full week ago. She’s grown paler, thinner, her face downcast with exhaustion. Her hair is shorter, to her shoulders now, and she has not tied it out of her face like she usually does. Her lips are bare of any kind of gloss and pressed thin.
He sits across from her and their usual waitress, a bright eyed girl named Emmeline, comes over to hand them their usual order. Narcissa’s peppermint tea with two chocolate biscuits and Regulus’s iced coffee with caramel and a banana nut Muffin. They don’t speak for a long time, sitting in not-so-comfortable silence. It’s never like this. The silence. The heavy weight of the air is filled with unspoken words and worries, and Regulus can feel himself bracing for whatever it is that Narcissa is planning on saying. They glance at one another through cautious eyes, waiting for the other to speak.
Shockingly, it’s Regulus who breaks first.
“Cissy?” He calls, his voice betraying the sharp tang of his own worry. She startles at the sudden sound, obviously not expecting him to speak, and he immediately looks her over. Aside from her thin, haggard appearance there are no bruises he can see and he’s temporarily relieved.
“Sorry I…” Narcissa swallows, folding her pristine hands in her lap and shifting in her seat. “I think Lucius is cheating.” She says it fast, a sentence pushed together, as if she can’t quite say it slowly yet. As if she doesn’t want it to be real. Of course she doesn’t want it to be real, she’d loved Lucius Malfoy for years. She had married him despite her family's reservations and stubborn forbidal. They had married lavishly and when she welcomed Draco into the world Regulus had seen first hand how in love Narcissa had been. Her husband and her baby. The picture perfect family she had always yearned for.
Somewhere along the lines that image had shattered, and Narcissa had shattered with it. Regulus had watched her happiness fade, and found himself at a loss for how to help her. He could tell her a million times, and he has, to leave him but Narcissa loved like all Black’s did. Devastatingly, destructively, maddeningly. Loyal to a definite fault. She had loved him and she had wanted..needed him to love her.
“Is there…I mean…” Regulus doesn’t know what to say, struggles to find words. “Have you gotten proof?”
Narcissa nods jerkily, like she had expected him to ask, and she slides her phone across the table, her black nails gleaming under the hanging light above as she holds the phone for a moment longer and draws back, stiffly waiting for him to look. Regulus picks the phone up and begins to filter through the photos.
Theres one of Lucius, tall and proud, his hair gleaming nearly white against the blue painted walls. He’s holding a woman who is decidedly not Narcissa in his arms, and she is smiling. Or rather smirking. She looks pleased to have caught his attention, not that it’s too much of a feat as Lucius Malfoy couldn’t keep it in his pants for longer than an hour if any woman, man, or dog gave him even the slightest of looks. Maybe Regulus was being dramatic, or maybe he just really fucking hated Lucius.
The pictures following grew even more intimate, one even catching them in a slightly open-mouthed kiss that Regulus found himself purely disgusted to see. It was like the woman was trying to actually devour Lucius’s face, and Lucius was holding her by the arms- He gagged and shook his head, shoving the phone back.
“Good…that’s…good.” he managed through the disgust. “I mean it’s not good Good, but it’s better because now you have a reason to leave. He’s always been a slimy Git, Cissy.”
“I know.” Narcissa says, but her voice is trembling and she looks like she might cry. Her dainty hands flutter nervously as she tries and nearly fails to blink her rising tears away. “It’s just…I really wanted to be wrong, Regulus.”
He thinks he can understand that. The wanting something so bad you become blind to everything else, not that he can ever say he’s been in love before. He reaches out and takes her hand, which isn’t always unusual but it’s rare enough that Narcissa immediately breaks down. He’s never seen her truly cry before, aside from when they had been little and she had been known for her bleeding heart and childish pain, so he reacts slowly. His limbs feel heavy as he pushes himself out of his chair and moves to his cousin’s side. She stands and he wraps her in a hug, squeezing her tightly to his chest. She feels so small, so tiny, which is saying something because Regulus had always been on the small side.
When she’s pulled herself together she gently steps back and glances around, but nobody is paying them any mind.
“Thank you.” She says quickly before seating herself again, immediately trying to act as if it hadn’t happened. Regulus copies this and tries to smile comfortingly when she takes his hand and squeezes it. She might need the contact to prepare herself, to keep herself grounded, and Regulus doesn’t care if it makes him feel slightly as if he’s walking through water, he’ll do whatever it takes to make Narcissa feel okay again.
“I’m going to confront him tonight, I think.” She says after a moment, staring at her untouched plate of food and her cooling drink. “Would it…I don’t mean to impose, but would it be alright if Draco and I stayed with you for a few days?”
“Of course.” Regulus says immediately. He owns his own home, despite spending most nights with his Brother and his Brother’s friends or with Pandora and his goddaughter, and he’s more than willing to offer his home and stay with Narcissa until she gets her feet on the floor. “I can have the room done up tonight, if you want to move in tomorrow?”
“I would appreciate that.” Narcissa tries for a smile but it looks hollow on her face, too sad to be real, and Regulus damns Lucius to hell then and there.
They stay for a little bit longer, Regulus listening raptly as Narcissa launches into a conversation about Draco and his fondness for colorful blocks. It soothes her to talk about her son, and Regulus has always liked the toddler. He was the one thing that kept Narcissa from going down a darker path, he kept her afloat when Lucius’s actions began to pull at her feet and drown her in uncharted waters. She practically lived for her son at this point, and Regulus would know. He had slept in her house enough times to know she often snuck from her room to watch Draco nap in his crib, her eyes soft and sad.
Then Lucius had put a stop to Regulus’s visits, and Narcissa had taken to visiting him at a cafe between their homes twice a week. Sometimes she’d bring Draco, but other times she’d come alone, bruised and sad.
No matter how much Regulus pried Narcissa refused to confess anything, even when she had arrived with a black eye and a split lip, nothing Regulus said could convince her to leave. His heart ached for his once loved cousin when those days came.
Finally she stood and found one of the women working to pay, smiling brightly and making small talk like she usually did before returning to Regulus with an exhausted set to her shoulders. Resolve, he found, was harder to face when it came to love. She would leave Lucius, but the heartbreak would never fully leave.
“Do you want me to come with you?” He asked suddenly as he walked her to her car. She frowned, shaking her head quickly.
“No..No this is something I have to do alone.” She unlocked the car and turned to Regulus, running a soft hand over his cheek. “I’ll text you when I get home.”
“Please do, And text me before you confront him.” Regulus said, still uneasy. There was a nagging feeling in his gut, like something was wrong but he didn’t really know what it was aside from the obvious.
“I will.” Narcissa said “Pinky Promise?” it’s an olive branch of sorts, her pale hand lifting up to expose her pinky. Regulus smiled fondly and curled his own pinky around it. A childish thing, really, but he had adored the idea of a secret like this when he was young and Narcissa had made it something that only they shared. Every pinky promise was a Promise always kept.
She’d never broken one to Regulus, and He’d never broken one to her.
“Pinky promise.” Regulus whispered, an odd sadness overtaking him. It’s not unusual, as the Black’s were known for their strange melancholic moods, so he forces it away. As he’s turning to leave he gets around three feet away before he pauses and turns to Narcissa, who’s tucking her hair behind her ears as the wind picks up. She looks softer here, warmer almost, like the Cissy he used to know. He’s suddenly hit with the urge to tell her how much she means to him.
“I love you, Cissy.” He says, startlingly soft. Narcissa’s eyes are soft as she smiles and flitters her hands, flustered and pleased.
“I love you too, Reggie.” She says, the nickname soft under her tongue. He nods and steps back as she gets in the car.
He watches her drive off until he can’t make out her license plate anymore, and a sharp pain settles in his gut.
Narcissa texts him when she gets home, and before she confronts Regulus, but after 8pm she stops replying.
Regulus feels a sharp pain in his chest, and he knows something is wrong
She’s not there for their next visit.
Lucius Malfoy reports his Wife missing three days later.