16

Chapter 16 - Red Roses

One week had passed, one long week filled with stares, whispered rumours, and soft consolations. Dumbledore had faced a lot of heat in the papers, parents sending an endless stream of owls, asking that the safety measures at Hogwarts be re-examined.

Which only added to the Marauders already drowning levels of guilt.

Their parents responses had been…

Padfoot, Prongs, and Moony were sitting in the common room sitting on the floor by the fire.

The cold had sunk into their bones as the end of autumn approached its end.

They sat in silence, a silence that had stretched for days but what felt like years.

Finally, Prongs moved, yanking their map out of his pocket, "He's dead because of me."

Moony shook his head, "No, I was supposed to be the voice of reason."

"We all killed him," Padfoot said, his tone flat. "We each played a part. It doesn't matter who's more guilty, he's dead."

Prongs said softly, "We called him Wormtail… even if he was a rat…" He stood shaking his head, "It's over, this has to end."

Padfoot didn't move, Moony curled in on himself and asked in a small voice, "We're over?"

Prongs shook his head again, "His name was Peter Pettigrew, he was not a rat, he was a boy." And then he ripped the map into four parts, he threw one in.

He handed two of the pieces to Moony and Padfoot, before throwing his piece into the fire. He said with finality, "James Potter."

Padfoot got to his feet, Moony scrambling to his too, both gripped their piece of the map, the symbol, the tool, of their friendship, their adventures, their misdeeds.

Padfoot flicked the scrap that he had helped charm for painstaking hours with what he had believed to be his forever friends, his true family. "Sirius Black."

Moony was shaking, the last piece of the map crumpling in his hand as he clung to it, but after a moment, that piece too met the flames, "Remus Lupin."

They hadn't erased their past, they just had acknowledged that there was no going back to who they had been. Some things were permanent, some mistakes can't be healed.

Magic could not solve everything.

James, Sirius, and Remus went to bed. They slept through the night for the first time since they had learned of Peter's death. They did not feel noticeably better when they woke, but though the past could not be changed, they could be.

"That isn't enough," Harry said to the class, "It isn't enough to say the words and to wave your wands. You must visualize what you want to happen."

He clapped his hands together and the desks lined up against the walls. He pulled some marbles from his pocket and threw them into the air, flicking his wand out, he transfigured them into decently sized glass bottles. Each was a different colour, with swirling patterns that mimicked the marbles they had been. They rested themselves atop the tables.

"Everyone line up."

His fifth years did so without argument, at this point, they had all learned to do as told and try their best to anticipate the crazy that would befall them.

But Professor Peverell had a fluency with crazy that might take several lifetimes of insanity to match.

"Turn away from the tables."

They did so, all of them, shoulder to shoulder, facing the windows.

"Now aim for the bottles without turning around to see them."

There was a quiet stillness, then Lily threw her arm back over her shoulder to try to hit one of the bottles. She got the spell off, but missed the bottle by a long shot.

"Aim for the bottles," Harry instructed.

"How are we supposed aim if we can't look at them!?" one Slytherin exclaimed.

"Do you know what the bottles look like?"

"Yes."

"Did you see where they were?"

"Yes."

"Do you want to hit them?"

"YES! But-"

"Then hit them," Harry said blandly.

Sirius was the first one to get it, he pointed his wand forward, it bounced off the windowpane and shattered one of the bottles behind him.

This hadn't been exactly what Harry had meant, and he watched in amusement, shield charm at the ready as students followed Sirius's example with the resulting chaos of ricocheting spells and broken windows, which denigrated into duelling. Duelling that Harry let them sort out themselves as no one was foolish enough to try anything that would cause real harm.

The class was over before anyone figured out an alternative to taking out the bottles.

"We will try again next week," he said as they left.

Teddy was with Hagrid, because this was their day. Harry shuffled the essays he had collected. Short response essays, so naturally Lily gave him double of what he asked for. He felt sort of bad for giving her a quarter of her grade just for that, but sometimes students needed to learn to follow instructions.

There was also strength in brevity.

Sighing, Harry locked the essays in his drawl. He would see what trouble Hagrid and Teddy were getting into, maybe join in until it was time for lunch.

But he did not get out of the castle before coming across a room that had flashes of light seeping under the door and muttered curses.

Curiosity, having always been his downfall, he knocked on the door.

Sound stopped, and when no response came, he opened the door.

Narcissa stood in the centre of room, glaring at him. Her blonde curls falling around her shoulders, her cheeks flushed, and even in the conservative healer garb, she was beautiful.

And her gaze was glacial.

"Are you alright?" he asked, hesitating in the doorway. He had owed her an apology for a while now but he barely saw her at meals and there just hadn't been a moment to…

"Why do you care?" she asked turning her back him and throwing a spell at the wall. The magic was wild, producing more light than damage.

He closed the door behind him, stepping into the room. "Without a wand," he offered, "You have to focus more on the goal than summoning of the magic. It will come if you want it to."

She ignored him, but as she didn't snap at him to leave, he approached cautiously. He summoned a small spark of his power then shot his palm forward obliterating a chair to ash.

Narcissa turned to glare at him, "How?"

He showed her again.

It took her a few tries before she almost blasted a hole in the wall, there was at least a sizable chunk of stone missing from the wall.

Half joking, half not, he asked, "Do you want to talk about it?"

She glared at him.

"I'm sorry."

"Why?" she asked drily, "you do not owe me anything, Professor."

He so deserved that, "I'm sorry about our date. I was disrespectful."

"No, you were distant and detached. I get that I was too forward the first time, but I will not be played with."

"It was… It was bad timing. I was an ass and that had nothing to do with you."

"Of course not," she said, raising her chin.

Damn him, he wanted to smile at her. But choosing self-preservation, "I don't have a good reason for my behaviour, my explanation isn't comforting."

"Try me."

He did. "You know I'm a widower."

She waited, looking at him expectantly.

His throat tightened, "I- I think I was suppressing memories of her. Naomi, that night I had dreams about her. I knew how she died, I'm the one who found her, but… God, this sounds stupid, but I remembered her. I remembered that day. It all caught up to me."

Narcissa's face softened but her gaze was still wary, "You could have told me, or you could have cancelled the date, and just said you weren't feeling well, I would have been disappointed but I wouldn't have been-" she cut herself off.

She wouldn't have been hurt.

He was a bastard. "I'm sorry," he said again.

"So why didn't you?" she asked, her voice harsh, telling him that he had indeed hurt her more than he had thought.

"Teddy wanted to go…"

"And you would do anything for him."

He took a breath, met her gaze and said the truth, "Yes, I would, and for me, Teddy is always going to come first."

Definitely a bastard.

But the ice in her gaze thawed, "I can respect that."

He blinked, "You do?"

She nodded, pulling her hair back into a ponytail. He had never seen Mrs. Malfoy in anything but a bun or updo. He liked it down. "My mother is horrid, and my father was more hands off than he ought to have been when my sisters and I were younger. I like how involved you are with your son. You could have given him to a nanny, put him in daycare, but you can hardly stand to be away from him for a few hours."

He winced, hearing it stated like that… "Some might call that unhealthy."

"For a man, perhaps some might say that, but it is the standard to which most women are held to." She shook her head, "Well, my mother would have called it coddling and considered it weakness, mother or father."

"She sounds like a bitch," he said before thinking.

Narcissa laughed, the sound clear and lovely.

He tried to keep his expression unmoved, but he must have failed because she sauntered forward.

She looked at him as if he were prey, but he didn't move away as she reached up to straighten the already straight folds of his robes at the collar.

"When I have children," she said in a voice that made Harry have to brace himself against lest his legs become unsteady, "I want to dote on my children. I want a true family."

He thought of the Malfoys, of Draco; an only child, lonely, selfish, and spoiled rotten, always reaching for the distant approval of a father and hiding behind his mother's skirts.

"Teddy is spoiled," he confessed, "but he knows boundaries. He knows he can't have everything he wants." Of course, Teddy didn't ask for much, and when he did Harry often accommodated, but there were still limits.

Draco hadn't known limits.

Narcissa flattened her palms over his chest, and he knew she must have felt his heart jackhammering to meet her touch.

"I want at least three children, it's hard to be spoiled rotten if you have to share your parents with others."

Carefully, he put his hands at her sides, "I've heard stories about your sisters."

She laughed again, his heart skipped as he watched her eyes shift to a fuller, darker blue. "Oh, Mr. Peverell, the stories do not compare."

Deliberately, she reached her hands up to his neck, to pull him to her. He went willingly, her lips as soft and lush as he remembered.

And before he was ready, she was gone. Releasing him and sweeping out of the room before he could register what had happened.

Harry was left standing in an empty room, the touch of her lips on his felt like an imprint on his very soul.

"I'm going to murder them," Bella said, "I'm going to murder them all."

Kingsley kissed her temple and she swatted him away, standing, she glared at her youngest sister, "You could have been killed."

Narcissa glared right back, "I killed two of them."

"They took your wand!"

"I know," she said quietly, "I just told you that."

"Have you found a substitute?" Andromeda asked, being the sanest person in the room.

Nymphadora came careening into the room at top speed, giggling madly, she tripped, slid under the dining room table and took out to unoccupied chairs.

Andromeda gave Bella a look.

"What?" she snapped.

"You are a terrible influence."

"No, I'm not!"

Ted came into the room at a run, "Dora! Give me back my wand!"

Giggles from under the tablecloth were all he received in reply.

"Nymphadora," Andromeda chided.

A small hand wrapped around wand popped out from beneath the table, and poked gently at Narcissa's side, "Here, Aunt Cissa, a new wand."

Narcissa flipped up the tablecloth to see her niece on her back, her hair a wild mass of indigo blue curls. She bent to pick her up into her lap. Hugging the small girl to her chest she took the proffered wand.

The immediate wrongness of it in her hand gave her chills. She passed it back to Ted without a word.

"Thank you," he said.

Nymphadora crossed her arms and pouted at them all.

"We didn't come here to talk about my wand troubles. I just that you should know," she said, and added mentally, or before Kingsley told them.

Andromeda pulled her wand, two large photo albums appeared. "Here's what we did for my wedding."

Bella looked suddenly nervous, "I don't want a large wedding."

"Really?" Narcissa asked, she did. She had been plotting her wedding for years.

"I didn't want to get married."

Kingsley wrapped his arms around her, pulling her down to him, "I'm so glad you changed your mind."

He said it low in her sister's ear, Narcissa felt a stab of jealousy. Why couldn't Rell be that forward?

Of course, she didn't really want their relationship to be… she looked at her eldest sister and the handsome Auror.

Okay, she wanted to be that happy, that secure, but she didn't want to be that dependant. Bella had issues that a lesser man than Kingsley wouldn't have been able to handle.

Narcissa didn't want to be handled, she wanted a partner.

Merlin, she was a fool. She had semi-fallen in love with the perfect man.

The problem with perfect men was that they weren't. Hadn't she learned her lesson with Lucius?

Rell was still hung up on his ex.

Okay, not his ex, his dead wife who had left him on his own with a son.

Yeah, that wasn't something he could just get over, it would always be a part of him, a part of Teddy, that loss, those scars.

But then, didn't she have her own scars?

She was a Black after all, and no matter who she became, she would always be a Black, be a part of this batshit crazy family.

She hugged her niece closer to her, wondering if she could make things work with Rell, wondering if she wanted to, wondering if he would accept her scars, if she could accept his.

She knew only that she still wanted to try, that the taste of his lips was, indeed, something she wanted.

He had been a bastard, but he had apologized, hadn't he?

Lucius would have died before apologizing to her.

"Earth to Narcissa," Andromeda called, waving a hand in front of her face.

She blinked up at her sister, "Yes?"

"Are you alright being in charge of the guest list?" she repeated her question.

Narcissa nodded, Bella would be involved in the decision making, but Andromeda and Narcissa were likely going to have to pull this thing together. Though being in charge of the guest list meant that she would take the heat for inviting 'blood traitors' and 'mudbloods' to the event. But sitting in this house, her niece held in her arms, she found that she didn't much care.

And among Kingsley many talents, wedding planning just wasn't among them.

"Here," Andromeda said, reaching for the second photo-album, the first having been more a scrapbook of ideas, swaths of materials, colours, and table toppers. "This is what my-"

Bella slammed the album shut.

Andromeda looked startled and a bit hurt, her face settling on impassive looking at their sometimes unstable sister.

But Bella just shook her head, her sleek dark hair sliding out of one of the many clips, "No," she flicked her eyes at Kingsley, "I want to wear your dress."

Andromeda's smile lit up the whole room.

And Narcissa grinned too, though Kingsley, who had gone to Andromeda's wedding, and therefore already knew what the dress looked like, hugged her tightly.

"I can't wait to see you in white," he said.

She scoffed, "It will be the first and last time, and I want the flowers to be red, blood red."

Nymphadora clapped her hands, her hair turning scarlet, "Red roses!"

Narcissa's niece liked flowers. At least now she knew what to get her for her birthday. Or partly, she knew she had a lot to make up for.