The Living Arrow

Narcissa Black Malfoy lay in bed, her head splitting as she battled two opposing forces in her body and soul.

On the one hand: purity. Blood purity. The sanctity of magical life, magical ability. A value so sacred, her sister had been struck from the family tree for defying it. 

On the other hand: her only child. His whole heart given over to a Muggleborn girl — the love of his life, apparently — over whom he had severed all ties with Narcissa three years ago. 

Narcissa rolled to the side as the throbbing ebbed and flowed. She was grateful for the darkness, and within it, she fought her last battle.

Did she not deserve her own opinion on how the world should be? An opinion on the people who surrounded her, who might join her family? The values they might hold dear, the traditions they might abandon or carry on? Was it so bad to demand basic respect for magic and for wizardry, for the knowledge and customs that mattered most?

Even as she thought about it, she knew she had no ground to stand on. Hermione Granger was one of the most talented witches in the world. She treasured her magic and knew more about its history and its mysteries than nearly anyone alive. Narcissa had not given Draco his ultimatum because of Hermione’s lack of love or respect for magic. 

Nor, if she was truthful with herself — silencing the long-dead voice of Lucius and others — was there anything inherently repulsive about Hermione’s Muggle origins. It was true the girl had no family money, but from what Narcissa had heard, she would not have blinked had Draco given up his entire fortune. And it was true she lived in Muggle London, but she also worked at St. Mungo’s and passed easily between Muggle and magical worlds. If anything, Narcissa sometimes felt curious about the girl’s life. 

Narcissa wished she'd been able to admit all this three years ago, during the exchange with Draco that had unlocked these near-constant headaches. 

But in the moment, her response to his news — that he and Hermione had fallen in love, were moving in together, and that Hermione wanted to build a relationship with her — had taken a tragic turn.

His cautious disclosure by letter, something he had clearly dreaded for months, ripped something loose in her, as uncontrollable as a rogue spell. In words she had never put to paper before, black with contempt and wrath, she raged about his ingratitude, his foolishness, his betrayal of all he came from. And then she wrote:

Choose her, and I am no longer your mother. — NBM

She was wrong, and she knew it as soon as the owl had flown. A part of her had even wanted to summon it back. But it was too late; by the afternoon, Circe had returned with Draco’s reply. One brutal sentence, exactly what she deserved, and she took to her bed: 

I choose her, and I am no longer your son. — DLM

The rupture was so sudden, so shocking, so complete that she could not function for weeks. The elves despaired. Even her initial self-defense, that Draco’s temper and rashness matched her own, wore away. 

She knew now: she was the parent, he was the child, and she had wronged him beyond measure. 

Now, she simply pined for her child. He did not send or respond to owls — not to the apologies she began to attempt after six months, not to her birthday wishes. All correspondence related to the estate went through their lawyer. Otherwise, silence. She considered reaching out to Hermione, but dared not lest she face the same stone wall of judgment.

She felt like she was going to die. With Lucius dead, Bellatrix dead, Andromeda also estranged, Draco was her last and only bond of the heart. Their bond had not merely been one of mother and son — as he grew, they were gloriously matched in intelligence, wit, irony, shrewdness and practicality, and they saw each other with devastating clarity. She did not dote mindlessly on him, nor did she conceal things from him; they were connected equally at the head and the heart. Since he was a child, her beloved chouchou, she had spoken to him frankly of money and status, of politics and world wizarding affairs, of art and literature and music and culture, and even of the troublesome feelings that might arise between a man and a woman. He listened, learned, and with age, he debated her as well, which both frustrated and thrilled her beyond measure. 

Even through the darkest years of the war, he was her peer, her equal, and her support as they navigated a morass of evil together. And since the war ended, she had dared to dream that they might once again find joy. 

Then he had defied her — or, as she understood now, simply dared to live his life. And since she knew him so well, she now doubted he would ever find his way back to her again. 

***

She was walking through her rose garden one morning, barely registering the colors or the fragrances, when Circe circled her and dropped a letter into her hand. 

It was from Draco’s friend, Theodore, and it was desperate. Draco was not well. He and Hermione had split up — it was terrible — he was beside himself — he was barely making it out the door to his alchemical job, and had otherwise shut himself away. He did not answer owls, and when his friends knocked at his door, he turned them away, boiling with rage if they so much as mentioned contacting Narcissa. 

They were at their wits’ end, afraid he would do something terrible. But one thing above all was clear — without Hermione, he was wasting away.

At first, Narcissa felt a bitter surge of validation. Of course the ill-fated relationship had run its course; Hermione and Draco were too different in origin, too different as people. Young people split up all the time, especially when they chose their partners instead of accepting their parents’ careful choices — an area where Draco and his mother had always clashed, even in his young years. 

A ribbon of hope threaded through her — maybe now she could open the conversation with Draco about marriage, about meeting someone…

But when Theodore came to the Manor for tea and a full accounting, she was left dumbfounded. Draco and Hermione were both painfully in love, not moving on, even after months of separation. Her cat still lived with him. She was trying to reconnect with him, had even reached out to his friends, but they could not help; he had shut her out exactly as he had shut out his mother. 

The fatal blow had been some kind of ultimatum from her — whether premeditated or rash, Theodore did not know — but it had caused another sudden, disastrous slamming shut of the heart that Narcissa knew all too well. 

What was the ultimatum, Narcissa pressed him. Was it marriage? Had Draco refused to marry her? No, Theodore said, wringing his hands, all Draco dreamed about was marrying her. Was it about her career? What could Hermione Granger possibly ask her son for that he would not give her? Narcissa downright interrogated the poor boy, pouring cup after cup of tea, and he did not know. 

All he said, again and again, was this: Mrs. Malfoy, it has something to do with you. 

***

Narcissa thought about inviting Hermione to Wiltshire. Instead, she offered to meet her in London. She enclosed the invitation with a short but heartfelt letter of apology and a request for a fresh start. 

They met at a tea shop — this reconciliation process appeared to be fueled by caffeine, sugar and milk — and Narcissa was unsure what to expect. She had seen the odd photograph of Hermione in her capacity as a war hero and a respected Healer, both magical and Muggle. But when Hermione walked into the shop, all Narcissa saw was a young lover in pain. 

She was trying to be strong for her patients. But her eyes were ringed, her mouth trembling with heartbreak. After a cup to catch up, she asked if Narcissa would come back to her flat — cozy, warm, and bohemian, not a Manor, yet not at all what Narcissa had expected. Narcissa sat in a soft armchair while Hermione made more tea for her. And then the young woman poured out her grief.

She had never supported Draco’s split with his mother, though she did share, in her honest way, that Narcissa had inflicted damage far beyond what she had thought possible. The mother covered her face as Hermione told her how the words Choose her, and I am no longer your mother had shattered her son’s heart. 

Even so, Hermione had urged him to work through it, not to accept Narcissa’s rejection as final — to accept, instead, the apologies, the olive branches, the desperate outreach from a mother who gradually owned and took responsibility for a tragic mistake.

“I’m sorry I never contacted you while I was with him,” said Hermione, wiping away tears, “but he was so adamant. He would have been so heartbroken if I’d reached out to you behind his back. I should have done it anyway.” 

So she had never been a stone wall to begin with. Narcissa’s heart quivered when she heard it. And it melted further as Hermione explained how the estrangement had loomed more bitterly over the relationship the more serious it became. The more deeply she and Draco fell in love, the more deeply Hermione felt the absence of Narcissa from his life — a black hole at his center. He was deeply depressed over it, grieving it. He would not seek Mind Healing over it. He would barely acknowledge it. Though he lavished Hermione with love, there was a ticking time bomb at his center.

And about three months ago, it had gone off.

The fight began with something utterly stupid and ended, as lovers' fights often did, in apocalypse. She had suggested seeing Les Misérables in the West End, and he rejected it abruptly in a tone she didn't like, that usually signaled an emotional landmine related to something else. She asked what was wrong and he deflected, pleading to see any other show she wanted. Already frazzled from a long week at work, she cut straight to the point — a quality Narcissa had been quietly admiring throughout the conversation — and asked if, when they were married, he planned to shut her out like this over the smallest things.

Please choose a show, he’d begged, trying to distract her by kissing her. She dug in her heels (Hermione did not mention to Narcissa how distracting Draco’s kisses could be) and said no. If they were each other’s person forever, she said a little too doggedly, they needed transparency. They needed to bring hurt into the light. Talk about pain and unravel it and face it. She would not be shut out while he festered over hidden things.

He finally managed to kiss her — long, tender, an appeal for peace — but his soft touch made her angrier. Sensing something fatally escalating but unable to stop herself, Hermione yelled that she would not raise children with him while he festered over aforementioned hidden things.

By now they were definitely going to miss the show, but the spectacle at home was just getting started. Crookshanks devoured it from his front row seat. Draco could match Hermione for yelling any day, and his eyes flared with pain when she mentioned mothering and not wanting to do it with him. He asked if there was someone else, and she said of course there wasn’t. He surprised her next by saying he didn’t need to have children, he was happy with whatever she chose. She fired back that she wanted to be a mother with him and only with him, but how could she parent with a person who couldn’t even bring himself to answer his own mother’s owls after three years of separation?

Draco hissed at her to back off and not stir up things that weren’t hers to understand. She scoffed that he was selfish: in a life together, there was no his or hers, just theirs. 

He screamed back, fighting dirty and desperate now, that that didn’t sound like the boundaries and the respect for individuality and the mutual independence she nattered on about, was she perhaps insincere in her commitment to them?

Hermione now saw that the pain of Narcissa’s rejection was still so fresh and unhealed that she should have stopped, taken a breath, taken him in her arms. But she liked to win, and she rampaged ahead. 

She said this had gone on long enough, that this déténte was dysfunctional and unhealthy, that she couldn’t watch him languish like this. And then, like the other woman who mattered most to him, she made her fatal mistake and threw down her gauntlet:   

Either he reconciled with his mother, or it was over between them.

Whenever Draco’s voice went cold and quiet, it was the most shattering. Now he was very quiet. And Hermione knew, with panic, that she had gone far, far too far. She should have mentioned Mind Healing first, not reconciliation. She should have chosen vulnerability, which always melted him to her will. 

She knew how a threat of withdrawn love, no matter how rash or unserious, devastated his soul, outraged his own sense of commitment, his own will to love deeply and permanently and without defense. She had seen it on the one or two occasions they'd fought so badly she'd mentioned breaking up. She knew this. And knowing this, she still chose the bluntest and crudest of instruments Muggle or magical: the ultimatum. 

Choose this path, and lose me forever.

Draco, in a voice of ice, responded that this was the best she was going to get. He was allowed to decide who he wanted and didn’t want in his life. It was his choice. And if these were the only two choices she gave him, he would make his selection — with no negotiations or further explanations. 

“I guess it’s over between us,” he shrugged. 

She watched in horror as he Occluded effortlessly, his face turning to stone. 

“Draco,” she pleaded. “I didn’t — ”

“Get out,” he muttered. It was his apartment. “I’ll find you another place. I’ll send all your things. Just fucking get out of here. Go find a better man. A better life. A healthier life.”

Turning from her, he added in a choked voice: “I don’t ever want to see you again.” 

And that was it.

Their beautiful, laughter-filled life full of mutual care, and fulfilling careers, and passionate, life-giving sex, and shameless cat ventriloquism, was over.

Just last week they had been holding court with friends, telling stories, roasting each other in front of the group. Visibly lovestruck, on air. And then, in one horrific evening ripped open by his wounds and her foolishness, everything blew apart. 

The cat sat between them, fat and complacent, impervious to all human folly. Even the relationship-ending type.

“You can have him,” said the devastated young lovers, each sensing the other needed him more.

Hermione cast a quick Pack Charm and went to Harry and Ginny’s. The next day, Draco sent everything else to her in one Extended suitcase, her books carefully wrapped and her clothes flawlessly folded. By his wand, since they had no elves.

She still had her key.

Draco still had Crookshanks.

And they had absolutely no idea how to move forward. 

That night, back in bed, Narcissa looked up at her darkened ceiling and let herself scream out loud. 

She had done this. She had set this in motion. And now it was up to her to set it right.

***

The next day, Narcissa owled Draco to let him know what was going to happen next.

Hermione also owled him, to let him know she knew what was going to happen next.

He responded to neither owl. 

And so, the next Monday afternoon, Narcissa stood in front of his door, Hermione’s key in hand, and opened the door to a life she had never seen. 

The first thing she saw was a huge, hideous orange cat. This must be Crookshanks. He padded past her and waved his tail curiously. No woman had been to the flat since Hermione had left.

Narcissa looked around. It wasn’t Malfoy Manor, of course, but it was very nice. It felt very personal, as though each piece had been chosen for pleasure and whimsy, not status or appearance. On top of the wooden coatrack perched a carven owl; Narcissa hung up her coat. The living room looked out on London through sheer, gauzy curtains tied back with grey ribbons. The kitchen was filled with Muggle implements, including several knives in a block (Narcissa wondered if they were for self-defense), and was tidy and sparkling. 

She saw that his shoes lived on a shoe rack and concluded that this was a shoeless house. Although it was deeply unfamiliar to her to do so, she removed hers.

Built-in bookshelves spanned an entire wall of the room, and were filled with works both wizarding and Muggle. A History of Alchemy stood comfortably next to Proust’s In Search of Lost Time Turners. Draco's later Hogwarts textbooks took up a full shelf, along with some titles she recognized as Latin American Muggle novels. She drew out a thin title, Wonder Woman, and flipped through pages of drawings that made no sense, though she found the woman’s costume incredibly modern.

The cat was rubbing against her skirt. Narcissa bent to pet him, and he immediately arched into her hand and purred with pleasure. “All right, you,” she said, feeling less adrift already. 

She peered into what appeared to be his bedroom. On the nightstand, still, stood a photo of him and Hermione. It wasn’t a typical couple photo of two maudlin lovebirds. They were clearly arguing with each other, each arching an eyebrow in extreme, comic disdain. But love and adoration shone in their eyes even as they prepared to cross swords. 

On his nightstand were books of Muggle poetry, and in the bed, a cuddly purple stuffed toy in the shape of a niffler. He had begged for it in childhood after seeing it in Diagon Alley. 

The closet held only his clothes, and the bathroom only a man’s toiletries. Only one side of the bed was rumpled: his. 

She walked into a second bedroom with a desk by the window, neat and clean. On the desk was another photo. When she saw it, she gasped. 

It was a photo of Narcissa and Draco at six years old, one of her favorites. He was in his pyjamas, nestled next to her as she turned the pages of the first long, adult novel she’d ever read out loud to him: Les Misérables.   

More photos were stacked next to it, all magical. He must have dug them up from the Manor during a visit before their estrangement. She leafed through them, her eyes watering. Birthdays. Photos of him as she carried him sleepily in her arms. As he grew, photos of her and Draco similar to the one with Hermione, testing each other’s wits. 

Narcissa returned to the kitchen and, not trusting herself with the Muggle implements, conjured herself a cup of tea. She sat at the dining table and took in all she had seen so far. 

No house elves. No rose garden.

No matter. She would adapt. 

It was time to learn his world.

She heard a key in the lock. The knob turned, the hinge creaked, and the door opened.

Draco was home.