Dancing with Fire

Logically he should feel annoyed. 

Draco’s spent the better part of the past four years annoyed, pulling on the emotion should feel easy by now. Being annoyed is like breathing for him, his go to, comforting, almost always constant annoyance. It’s in his nature to be irritated. So, why the fuck doesn’t he feel irritated now?

Lucius remains oblivious to him. Narcissa had him put in the first guest room on the East Wing, the side of the manor that rarely gets warm because no one has been there since before the first Wizarding War. Could be a blatant ‘fuck you’ if not for the millions of blankets in the room, or the warming charm he knows the doctors cast on the room, because his mother certainly didn’t do it. 

Draco has to admit that his father does look a little uncomfortably grey; intense eye bags, matted hair, a scar or two peeking out from under the mound of covers. 

Logically, he should at least feel annoyed.

The man in the bed stirs, they lock eyes. 

Draco turns around and walks out the door feeling nothing.

Narcissa had drug them all home after their talk, which really just felt like a threat to be on their best behavior after the mess of last year, and naturally when she said ‘Don’t go in the East Wing’ he had to immediately go and visit the stupid frigid place. Rookie mistake to go in wearing shorts, but curiosity has always been a downfall of his.

LuLu trails after him, trotting down the hall like she owns the damn place, which in all fairness he supposes she does. The house elves go out of their way to be nice to her. His mother loves her. He adores her. Lucius is terrified of her, and that’s really all she needs to win anyone over. 

Two days later, just as he’s coming inside from an afternoon of flying, he catches Snape leaving.

“Severus!” 

Beady black eyes look over a black clad shoulder, “Draco. How good to see you returned safely.”

“Care to take a walk with me before you leave?”

It’s not like he can say no.

They stroll through the gardens, quite at first until they reach the limit of the eavesdropping spells he knows are there after one fatal rant that was supposed to be between him and the stars and somehow ended with an awkward conversation between him, Lucius, and his mother.

“Tell me the truth, how bad it is?”

Snape sighs, “Well it’s not good, but there is still no signs saying he’s at large again. I know you’re worried about your family, however, I need to remind you that the safety of-”

“I know. He’s who I’m worried about, why I’m asking you if I should be concerned, or form a plan of action for when he inevitably gets into some sort of life threatening trouble, again.”

“If you will let me finish,” Snape glares, “I was going to say that his safety is still not one person’s responsibility alone. There is a team of us, not just you.”

Draco doesn’t reply. He stares out into the field of plants around him and prays to Merlin that Snape is right. That he won’t be the only one risking his life for fucking Harry damned Potter this year. Even if they are friends now, that only makes the headaches worse. 

“What did your mother say?” Snape asks after a while.

“When?”

“When she retrieved you and your friends from the island, she must have given you a talk if you’re worried about the Dark Lord-”

“Riddle. Call him Riddle, he’s less scary that way.”

Snape gives him a look, Draco shrugs.

“I’m not agreeing with him, but our little hero claims there’s no need to give into the fear of a name. His name is Tom Riddle, are we not supposed to call a man by his name?”

That gets him a nod, but Snape still doesn’t speak so Draco gives in and tells him all about their little beach trip that ended far too soon for his liking, there were still three weeks left of summer, and he had to spend all of them in this fucking house. Sure it’s big, but not big enough to put a sufficient distance between him and the man who he’s seriously debating on ‘accidentally’ freezing out. 

“Have you been taking your potions?” 

Not the question he’s expecting, but Draco nods regardless.

“You’re not going to like this, but you may want to ease off of them. A potential side effect of Calming Draughts is loss of emotions, don’t give me that look, it’ll be better for you in the long run. As much as the headmaster would disagree, I prefer my students to have their brains fully functioning.”

“Really? I thought you’d prefer if Longbottom stopped all together.”

Snape huffs, his version of a snort, “One must have a brain for it to function.”

They’ve reached the edge of the ground, so they circle back and turn to lighter subjects, like the World Cup coming up that Draco is almost excited about. Snape doesn’t care about sports, he never has really, but he manages to look somewhat interested before the two reach the front doors and he all but flees from the conversation, claiming bullshit about needing to get his classroom ready.

Which leaves Draco once again questioning whether he should let his wand slip and cast freezing charms in the room his father resides in. Now would be a perfect time, Narcissa is away for ‘business’ that Draco is quickly learning to take as ‘recruiting’, the doctor won’t visit for another week, and he can always swear the house elves to secrecy. They would probably applaud him, if they didn’t get blamed for it.

Speaking of house elves, there’s a rather loud commotion coming from the right stairway.

“Sir! Master! Mistress Narcissa says-”

Someone shushes them, Draco rolls his eyes. He walks a few feet until he can lean against the left banister and glare at the figure coming down marble steps.

“You’re supposed to be in bed.”

Lucius looks like a ghost slapped him on the ass, eyes wide, mouth hanging open. He has to use the cane to walk, even though it used to just be a beating stick. Draco revels in the misery of his father until the man starts walking to him and then Draco’s wand is pointing at his throat. 

“I only wanted to walk in the gardens,” the bastard says in a sickeningly horse voice.

“You can walk in the gardens when mother is home to watch you.”

He expects a fight, at least minor arguing before he has to impero the man, but his father sighs and says. “You have every right not to trust me, and I am so very sorry that I allowed the curse to use me to hurt you. I cannot take back what I’ve done to you, but know that I will live every day for the rest of my life in regret because of it.”

“Good.” Draco replies with no emotion, “But that isn’t enough for me. Sorry means nothing, not after what you’ve done. Malfoys are stronger than some curse, and I’m learning that you are a pathetic wizard who would allow a curse to harm his family. You do not deserve our name, and after what you’ve done, you do not, and will not get my forgiveness.”

Lucius opens his mouth, but Draco doesn’t want to hear it. Seeing the pain in his father’s eyes doesn’t even make him angry at this point, it makes him tired and sad.

“Get back to your room before I hex you. This is the last warning you’ll get from me.” He nods to the house elves, who grab his father by the hand and pull him back up the stairs. 

Draco turns and strides up to his room in the West Wing, locks the door, and takes out his ebony knife. 

“Are you sure this is a good idea”

“Shush up, love, you worry too much.”

In all reality, Remus has every reason to be worried as hell. After all, the house’s inhabitants may have died, but there was no guarantee that it was empty. The Black ancestral home was a steal when his parents died, it was all over the news, auctions, talks of taking it off the market. But Regulus had stepped in and called it all off, declaring that only a Black would get the house to bend to them, and since the Black line had nearly faded away, it was up to him to marry and carry it on. Granted, that was before Regulus died, and he’d been dead since ‘79. Sirius will never admit what that did to him. What it was like to fight against your baby brother who you taught bad words to. How it felt to find out that kid you once had prank wars with was dead. 

Sirius shakes his head, forcing himself to focus on the task at hand. The beaches in Newquay had been fun, sure, but he needed to be closer to Harry in case something went wrong- and when didn’t something go wrong? Remus had agreed and offered up a few places, but once Sirius mentioned coming back he already had a place in mind. A place only the Blacks knew existed, a place that had wards stronger than the Ministry of Magic buildings, a place that he knew every nook and cranny of. And so, here they were, a traitor and a werewolf, sneaking into the home he was kicked out of ages ago, praying to Godric Gryffindor that it fucking let him in.

He shouldn’t be surprised when the front door creaks open, the house let him see it, and a house couldn’t hold grudges for the person that once yelled at a house elf for being afraid to clean it. They sneak into the foyer as Sirius gently closes the door.

“Well, I guess that’s that-”

“FILTHY BLOOD TRAITORS!” 

Sirius jumps a good ten feet in the air, Remus nearly knocks a vase on the floor but manages to catch it at the last second while his lover scrambles to figure out where the hell his mother’s voice is coming from. Walburga Black has been dead for over a decade now, there’s no way in hell she survived except in-

“Oh will you shut up!” A new voice calls, highly irritated and quickly approaching them. Sirius grabs Remus by his robes and pulls him to the door. They grab their wands right as black hair comes into view and then Sirius’s breath catches.

Narcissa. In the flesh. 

She doesn’t notice them, too busy pointing her wand at a painting- Merlin, why didn’t he check the painting?- and throwing hexes at it while it screams at her. She looks so...grown. The last time Sirius saw her she was in the hallways of Hogwarts, standing by Lucius’s side and rolling her eyes at Bellatrix. But now….now she wears a forest green blouse tucked into high waisted slacks. Now her hair is up in a bun instead of falling over her shoulders like some sort of veil to keep her thoughts hidden from the world. Instead of hiding behind her husband she looks like a grown woman gathering intel. It hits him all over again how they’re not children anymore, and this Narcissa may not be as kind as she had been during the war. 

Her wand finally lowers with a huff and a familiar roll of her eyes, and then she’s turning and freezing to the spot.

No one moves, the wand that she had been lowering stays halfway in the air. Remus has his out and unsurprisingly pointed at her but Sirius….

He lets out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. 

“Sissy….”

Her wand falls to the floor, hands moving to cover her mouth. “Sirius? You-” She draws in a shuttering gasp, “I thought-You’re supposed to be on the run! What the hell are you doing here?!”

“Well, I figured they would’ve already checked it, and it’s not like just anyone can get past the wards, so ya know it’s safe and, well, um,” He scratches his head, “How are you?”

Narcissa stares at him with wide eyes for a second before she’s laughing. Bending at the waist and almost to the point of snorting, and then she moves forward, completely disregarding her wand and hugging him so hard he nearly suffocates. 

“You bloody idiot. Merlin, I thought you had gone mad, but you’ve been insane since birth, haven’t you? They put you away without a trial, I was so mad! But Lucius, the asshole, wouldn’t listen to me! Even after the war, when we thought you had been on his side, he said you deserved it. And when you escaped, I didn’t know what to think. I was so scared you were going to hurt Draco in revenge, but Severus told me that you saved him from a werewolf and I…..” His arms wrap around her waist, “I’ve missed you so much.”

Sirius chuckles into her hair, “So, you won’t turn me in, then?”

“Merlin, no.”

“Even when I tell you that the werewolf I saved Draco from is standing right next to us?”

 Narcissa pulls away from him so fast he wonders if he accidentally burned her. She’s across the hall, wand in her hand and pointing at Remus before he can blink and Remus, the idiot, just stands there.

“In my defense, I did tell them all to run and no one listened to me.”

“Well, we were kinda in the middle of questioning Peter, fucking rat. Listen, Sissy, put your wand down, Remus is harmless, the next full moon is three weeks away and we clearly have a lot to talk about.”

Narcissa looks between them, wand wavering slightly. And then she puts it in her pants pocket and sighs. “I’ll have Kreacher make some tea, you remember where the drawing room is?”

“Naturally.”

She sends a glare to Remus, “One toe out of line and your life is mine.”

Remus nods, her threat almost nothing compared to the thousands of letters he’s been receiving since someone let his condition slip to the Daily Prophet, and yes, Sirius does have a few guesses as to which asshole it was. 

Kreacher surprisingly doesn’t say anything to him, even though he’s fully expecting at least a curse or two from the elf. Instead the elf sulks in the corners, moving around under Narcissa’s watchful gaze. He almost thinks the elf isn’t angry anymore until he serves the two men cold tea, Sirius’s bitter and Remus’s sweet. A switch of cups and a warming spell later and the three are sat across each other in ugly uncomfortable chairs that were once his mother’s favorites. 

“Alright,” She begins, and by Godric’s name he’s forgotten how scary his little cousin can be, “You have your tea, I haven’t cursed you yet, so please, if you could…”

Oh, fuck, where does he begin? In his cell? The night all those years ago? Remus lays a hand on his thigh, giving it a comforting squeeze, and Narcissa is right there, watching their every movement but he doesn’t care. He takes the warm hand in his own, taking a long sip of tea that’s actually pretty fucking good and then meeting her eyes.

“Let me start by telling you the story of the cursed night that started this mess in the first place.”

He doesn’t plan on leaving out any details, but fuck he doesn’t mean to tell her everything. Like, the parts of the story he left out when he told Draco so the kid wouldn’t be scarred for life. Parts like him and Remus having the best sex ever and him deciding that Narcissa was right in her letter, and how he did want at least his brother to know about his happiness, because shit the night he had his stuff removed the kid had cried himself sick worrying about his older brother living off the streets. How at first his mother hadn’t recognized him, too gone to her sickness or madness or both, but Regulus did. All of the words his brother screamed at him stinging worse than his mother cluing in the second he got called a ‘traitor to the few people that loved him’. 

Sirius didn’t mean to tell her about leaving the house crying and needing to see his friends before going back to Remus because he’d been going to James for shit like this for so long it was a habit. He doesn’t mean to tell her about how he screamed and cried and saw Harry sitting there, not crying, just staring into nothing until he saw black bushy hair and started sobbing. How he picked up the boy and held him as he cried, and fuck did he cry. He emptied himself of every emotion and then it hit him. The only person who could’ve done it, the one person who was cowardly to betray their friends, and then he had put the sleeping baby down and sent a Patronus to Dumbledore before tearing after the man who once cleared their wounds after Quidditch games. 

Narcissa shakes her head when he gets to the part of Peter slinking into the sewers like the rat he is. “You don’t have to talk about Azkaban….I don’t think any of us can handle it…”

Sure enough, he’s squeezing Remus’s hand so hard it’s turning red in his hand, but Remus is squeezing back just as hard. Narcissa is on the verge of tears, so he skips over the worst parts, fast forwarding to the newspaper, the escape, knowing how close the children were to the enemy. Sneaking into the castle, and when that’s when Remus finally interrupts.

“I still want Dumbledore’s head for pulling that shit. I mean really, he knows how protective Harry is of his friends, and I don’t know what the hell the four of them were doing outside past curfew, but fuck he’s gotta get better about the security up there.”

“Four? Severus told me there were only three of them…”

Remus gives her a curious look, “There were four, how else would I have access to-”

Sirius slaps a hand over his mouth, but it’s too late. He can see Narcissa piecing the puzzle together. 

“Listen to me, and listen very carefully. Severus told me about that night when I drilled him about the claw marks on Draco’s back. He told me the three Gryffindors were poking around where they shouldn’t have been, that when he got to the base of the Whomping Willow, the two of you, Potter, Granger, and Weasley were there with Pettigrew in the middle. He told me Draco followed him down, and when he was taking the students back up a werewolf appeared and clawed my son’s back. If that is not the truth, what is? What happened that night?”

Sirius feels the pull and curses her, locking eyes with Remus before nodding.

He chooses his next words carefully, trying to keep the promise he made to Draco. Though, if he did say something it was the kid’s own fault for not forcing him to swear it.

“That night, the truth is that Peter was trying to escape. Ronald Weasley chased after him, and his friends followed. I tried to grab just Peter, but the boy wouldn’t let go so I dragged him down, the friends once again followed. In the shack, one of them exposed Peter for who he is and Snape came in. All three of our stories were told, and then Harry almost killed the slimy git on the spot, but was talked into letting the Dementors have him….then Remus began to change. He tried to talk all of us out of the room, but we didn’t make it time….”

“What does this have to do with my son?”

An easily avoidable question, Remus takes it in stride. “Well, he got attacked by a werewolf, did he not-”

“Was my son in the room?”

Oh fuck, here they go…. Sirius takes another sip of tea. “Which room?”

“The room where it happened.”

“Why, that could be any room, really. Was he in his common room? Yes, at some point I’m sure he was.”

“Sirius!” Narcissa snarls, pretty face contorting into something much more dangerous, “Who was the fourth person with Potter and his friends?”

“It was another friend of Harry’s.”

“And what is the name of Potter’s friend who was in the shack with you, Lupin, Severus, Pettigrew, Granger and the Weasley? There’s no one else you can say, who was it?!”

Sirius sighs, but Remus answers for him so at least he won’t be the one to betray Draco’s trust. 

“Who do you think it was? I attacked someone that night, Narcissa. I attacked them in the shack right after Peter’s fate was decided. You know who was with us, who was with Harry.”

Narcissa goes to pick up her tea, only to set it back down with shaky hands. She stands up to pace and for a long second no one says anything.

“How long?” Narcissa finally whispers.

“What?”

“How long has he been working with Potter?”

“I’m not sure….” Sirius replies, thanking everything that Draco never gave him a specific date. 

“How did he know to trust you? Draco rarely trusts people.”

“He had proof, I mean Pettigrew was standing there on the floor, plus he had already assumed.”

Narcissa doesn’t stop moving, constantly going back and forward. She stops in front of Remus, “And you? How did he know to trust you?”

Remus looks to him, Sirius nods. 

“I had been giving him lessons on how to fight Dementors, I know you may not believe me but-”

“The Dementor room in the dungeons…” Narcissa looks once again like she’s going to cry, “I saw, I figured it out, what Lucius had been doing to him...did you know?”

Remus shakes his head, “I didn’t know. I was just told to instruct him, and he’d always been such a good kid that I didn’t think something like that was going on until Sirius told me.”

“And how did you know?”

Sirius stands up, leaning forward to capture her in a hug again, “It doesn’t matter how I know. What matters is that it should have never happened in the first place…..tell me you killed the bastard when you found out.”

Narcissa laughs a little wetly against his chest, “It’s more complicated than that….Merlin everything is so much more complicated...I thought it was bad when we were kids.”

That gets the men chuckling with her, “I never thought I’d be wishing for the old days.”

“Fuck, the old days seem heavenly compared to this shit.”

Narcissa snorts at Remus’s words, pulling back and grasping Sirius’s hands, looking at both of them. 

“It’s worse, isn’t it? They’re so young…..that Harry Potter….he was just a baby. A fucking child and that monster….they’re children. They shouldn’t be fighting the wars of our parents. We shouldn’t be fighting the war of our parents.”

Sirius lightly squeezes her hands, “I’ll drink to that. I’d give anything to bundle them up, both of them, Harry and Draco and save them from this bloody mess.”

“You’d help save my son?”

Remus stands with them, putting a hand on Sirius’s shoulder. “With all due respect, Narcissa, I’ve met your son. I spent a year teaching him, countless hours coaching him, even had a few lunches with him. Draco is an amazing young man. He means something to so many people, and we may not know him like you do. But to me he is a cherished student, Sirius had to hold me back from killing your husband when he told me what was going on, and I had to hold Sirius back from kidnapping him so he could have a happy summer. That boy means the world to us, and if we could save him, and Harry, Hermione, Ron, the twins, Blaise, Pansy, any and every child that goes to Hogwarts we would.”

A single tear slides down her cheek as she reaches out for his freehand. The three of them stand still, all joined by those tiny, pale, shaking hands. And then she smiles, hopeful and scared but looking every bit like the girl he remembered sneaking into his room and calling Voldemort a ‘pigheaded coward’. 

“Will you help me, then?”

“Help you?”

Narcissa nods, “I have a plan. The Dark Lord is alive, and I have no clue how powerful he is, but I do know he’s getting stronger- Lucius, he...it’s a long story, but I’m trying to contact as many people as I can to question their loyalties. I want to gather an army, just encase.”

Sirius’s eyes widen, he can’t think to say anything but the letter he'd gotten from Harry a day ago, the one where he talked about his scar hurting.... “What?”

He’s met with determined eyes and an unbreakable desire, “I don’t know about you, but I have no intent of letting children fight in the war we should’ve finished a long time ago.”

Remus whistles, sliding his hand down Sirius’s back until it’s tightly around his waist. 

“Hell yeah we’re in.”