Fic: Interesting Times (Harry/Narcissa)
Jun. 17th, 2012 08:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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hp_rarefestTitle: Interesting Times
Author/Artist:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rose_stonewall
Prompt: Narcissa is the hired, underground HitWitch, Harry Potter is the hit. Harry's not a boy anymore.
Pairing(s): Harry Potter/Narcissa Malfoy
Word Count: 4179
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s): EWE, profanity
Disclaimer:Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: Enormous, enormous thanks to A, who beta read this fic on ridiculously short notice. You’re the best!
Summary: Narcissa, bored sick of her post-War life, starts working as a underground HitWitch. Everything goes to plan... right up until she agrees to assassinate Harry Potter.
Severus glared at Narcissa, attempting to instil fear into her heart. As he was a portrait and she a fully-fleshed witch, this tactic was not particularly successful. Narcissa merely smirked, enjoying the fact that, even seven years after his death, she was still able to drive her old classmate batty.
“What do you want?” he finally growled.
Narcissa smiled sweetly. “Merely a little potions advice.”
He folded his arms. “And why should I help you? I’ve been stuck alone in this dull little parlour ever since I died! I didn’t even give you permission to make this bloody portrait! Why the hell should I give you the slightest bit of assistance?”
“Boredom?”
He scowled.
Narcissa rolled her eyes. “All right, think of it this way: you can be a hero by saving others from the products of my boredom.”
Severus started. He, like most other Slytherins who’d attended Hogwarts at the same time as Narcissa, recalled her allergy to boredom, and the alarming things she did to ward off said allergy.
“What have you done?”
“I may have taken a few jobs as a HitWitch under an alternate name.”
He choked. “Are you mad?”
She pouted. “But I don’t have anything to do! Before the war I had Draco to look after and Lucius to badger and those awful society balls to arrange. Now Draco’s got a dreadfully bossy girl looking after him, Lucius’s got himself tossed into Azkaban, and none of the society ladies will so much as look at me for fear of scandal!”
“So you became a HitWitch.”
“Precisely.”
“A HitWitch.”
“Were you this obtuse when you were alive?”
Severus’ look of horrified disbelief morphed into a scowl. “Do you want my help or not?”
Narcissa sighed. “Unfortunately, I do need it.”
“What’s the problem?”
“I’ve been hired to kill a popular war hero. Pushing him off a cliff or something similar is out – there are always people around him – so I thought poison administered at the Ministry Charity Ball would be the way to go. I don’t want any collateral damage, though. I read a reference in a Potions text about a poison that will kill only the intended target, but there wasn’t a recipe. I was wondering...”
Severus smirked. “If I had found the recipe once and memorised it? Yes and yes.”
“And?”
He narrowed his eyes. “I want you to sneak me into the Ball.”
“What?”
He shrugged. “I want to see how things go, and it’s bloody boring in here.”
Narcissa nodded. “Deal.”
“Deal.”
The bargain made, they settled down to the serious business of poison.
Harry scowled. Tapped his fingers on the wall behind him. Scraped his foot along the gleaming parquetry.
Merlin, he hated these balls.
As the Golden Boy of Wizarding Britain, he had to attend; no excuse short of near-death would suffice. Kingsley had flat-out ordered him to be present. No mention had been made of being present visibly, however. Harry was presently lurking behind a large ornamental fern near the entrance, with a Disillusionment Charm for good measure.
He hadn’t decided yet whether or not to show himself to anyone. Well, anyone except Kingsley; he had to prove that he was actually at the Ball, after all. That meeting would necessitate standing in full view of the other guests for several minutes, so he’d probably have to hide again afterwards to allow the excitement to die down. After that... well, Hermione was all wrapped up in her new boyfriend (sometimes literally – they lip-locked more frequently than Lavender and Ron had in their heyday) and Ron was taking advantage of his war-hero status and position as the Cannons’ keeper to get girls. Harry hated the extra publicity the war had brought him; these parties, nothing more than an excuse for the fame-starved to rub shoulders with celebrities, put him in a foul mood. He wouldn’t exactly be good company.
Thoughts of celebrity reminded him of the war. Thoughts of the war reminded him of the dead. Thoughts of the dead were enough to put him into a black mood, so Harry jerked his eyes off the marks his shoes had left on the floor and gazed at the entering guests. People-watching could be good entertainment, he’d found.
There was Lavender in swirling low-cut robes, making a beeline for Ron with a determined expression. Hannah Abbot came in moments later on Neville’s arm. Theodore Nott followed them, making an effort to look charitable; Harry smirked, knowing how difficult a time Nott had hiding his usual expression of hauteur. Kingsley entered in a flurry of reporters, looking decidedly Ministerial in his formal robes. Harry sighed; he couldn’t sneak off to see him until those damned hounds cleared off. He watched idly as Percy and then George made their way into the ballroom. Ernie, Seamus, Cho... Crabbe, Zabini, Mrs Malfoy, Goyle.
He sighed and turned his eyes to the Ball. The dancing hadn’t started quite yet; people were still rubbing shoulders, making sure to get into good photographs for the Prophet’s society pages tomorrow. It was as if they didn’t remember the toll the war had taken – or, alternatively, were trying desperately to forget it. Harry couldn’t decide which he found more depressing. He really needed to find a better way of distracting himself.
He found it quite by accident. Glancing away from Hermione’s public display of affection with her boyfriend, he saw Mrs Malfoy slipping into one of the private rooms off the main ballroom. Guests sometimes retired into them later in the evening, talking in groups or enjoying themselves in couples. The only reason Narcissa Malfoy could have for entering one of them so early in the evening was a nefarious one.
He couldn’t let her get away with it.
Harry eased his way along the wall, hoping nobody would notice the slight shimmer of his Disillusionment Charm among the gleam and glitter of the well-dressed guests. They seemed engrossed in their hobnobbing, thank Merlin, and he was able to make his way to the other side of the ballroom relatively easily. Mrs Malfoy had left the door to her room slightly ajar; he slipped in, stepping as quietly as possible.
She stood on the other side of the room, facing away from him. Her arms were folded, and she appeared to be staring at something – he couldn’t tell what, as she stood between him and it. Harry removed his Disillusionment Charm with a slight smile.
“Now, for Merlin’s sake stop whining,” she said. “It’s not as if I can put you in the ballroom itself – someone would be sure to notice. You can move to other portraits, can’t you?”
“Of course!” said a vaguely familiar male voice.
“Then there’s no problem, is there? I’d better go make an appearance –” With that, she turned and saw Harry. Her blue eyes widened.
“Mrs Malfoy.”
“Mr Potter.”
“Might I ask what you’re doing in here?”
She smiled. “Merely pausing to rearrange my hair.”
“Who were you talking to?” Harry asked.
Her cheeks went pink and she sighed. “One of the old Malfoy portraits recently aided me with a little potions problem. I had to smuggle him in here in return.”
Harry moved to the side, glancing at the portrait behind her. Its inhabitant had moved already; there was no way to determine whether she was telling the truth.
“I wouldn’t have taken you for a potions aficionado,” he said.
“Oh, hardly an aficionado, Mr Potter. With my family gone, however, I’ve gone in search of hobbies to keep myself occupied. I’m sure you know how it is.”
Oh, he knew. The War had been awful – he’d constantly feared that he or his friends would die or be horribly maimed – but in its absence a terrible ennui had crept upon him. Perhaps the fools in the ballroom fought off boredom with banality? It wasn’t something he could bear to do, however, and he suspected Narcissa Malfoy thought the same way. If nobody would give her an interesting job, she’d find one. Brewing Dark potions? Reorganising the family’s poison cupboard? Perhaps she planned to knock off a few family enemies while she was here – there had been several ‘accidental’ deaths of such in the last few months.
There was no way of telling. He’d have to stay with her until he had some idea of what she was actually doing. Personally, he hoped it was the third; it’d make his evening a great deal more interesting.
“Are you going to return to the Ball?” Mrs Malfoy enquired.
Damn. He couldn’t enter with her.
“The publicity makes this kind of event a little uncomfortable,” he said, trying not to answer. How was he supposed to keep her in here?
She smiled, not quite kindly. “Try being the wife of a convicted Death Eater and see how you like it.”
“Then why come?”
She shrugged. “Somebody has to repair the family name – and the only thing more boring than being here is sitting at home not being here.”
“At least you had a choice in the matter.”
“I sense a tale of much woe in the offing.” She smiled again, this time with an answering smile in her eyes. “Would it go down better with a glass of wine?”
Aha. “Perhaps it would, Mrs Malfoy.”
Narcissa stepped into the ballroom, glancing around quickly. She noted that the dancing had started in her absence. Someone had left a tray of full wineglasses on a table nearby, and she snatched a couple. The tiny bottle eased out of her sleeve with a flick of her wrist; she dumped half of the special poison into her glass and half into his. It wouldn’t harm anyone but him, and this way she didn’t have to worry about which glass to give him.
The game was much more dangerous now. Her original plan had involved slipping the potion into a number of glasses near him and then spending the rest of the night on the other side of the ballroom. If someone knew she’d spent time with him early in the evening, and if someone realised his ‘accidental’ death was due to poison rather than an overdose of alcohol, and if those two someones met...
She’d already brewed the poison. There was no point getting daunted now, was there?
Narcissa re-entered the small room. As the door swung open, she realised two things: Potter had moved to stand in front of a still-life very near the door, and Potter was stepping away from it.
“Oh, bother!” she said, as the two glassfuls of wine soaked into her dress robes.
Potter stumbled backwards, eyes wide. “Mrs Malfoy! I didn’t hear you coming in... oh, I’m sorry. I’d help you fix your robes, but, well...”
“Men and cleaning spells rarely mix well,” she finished, placing the glasses on a nearby table. “Don’t apologise too much, Mr Potter – it’s not the first time I’ve had wine spilled on my robes. I can live with it.”
He stood there looking rather helpless as she siphoned the wine off her clothes. It reminded Narcissa of Draco, and she found herself taking pity on him. “Why don’t you fetch some more wine? There’s an entire tray out there.”
He nodded, smiling sheepishly, and dodged out of the room.
Narcissa sighed. Things had been going so well up until that point... if only she hadn’t put all the poison into the wine, she might have still been able to kill him tonight. Well, it looked like it was time to go back to the drawing board, as the Muggles said. She sank onto a couch.
Potter came back in, carefully balancing the two glasses. “Someone’s gone and put a Disillusionment Charm on the tray,” he said, eyes crinkling.
Narcissa smirked. “Feeling greedy, perhaps?”
“I can’t blame whoever did it – the Ministry’s doing a proper spread this year. I’m no connoisseur, but even I could tell the wine they had last year was sub-par.” He passed her a glass carefully and sat down opposite her.
Narcissa sipped the wine. “This is considerably better,” she agreed. “It tastes somewhat familiar, in fact. I wonder if there’s some of this in the Malfoy cellars...”
His eyes crinkled. “Given the reputed size of said cellars, I’d be surprised if there wasn’t.”
“But would I have drunk the wine, if the cellars are truly as deep as rumour has it?”
“How deep are they?”
Narcissa shrugged with a smile. “I have no idea, to be honest. I’ve never been all the way down. In any case, we’ve strayed off the topic – I believe you were about to tell me how you’d been coerced into attending the Charity Ball?”
Potter settled into his armchair comfortably and began speaking. Narcissa smiled and nodded at appropriate moments; since her initial attempt to kill him had been unsuccessful, she’d need to be able to approach him later in order to carry the job out, and that would be considerably easier if he saw her as more than a distant acquaintance.
Flirting with him was probably not essential, strictly speaking, but she was finding that subtle compliments and inviting glances were coming to her easily tonight. It had been a long time since she’d had a man to flirt with... and he certainly didn’t seem unreceptive. There was a gleam in his eye that suggested he didn’t mind the thought of intimacy with an older woman.
Not that there was going to be intimacy. Narcissa squashed the thought firmly, not sure where it had come from. He was her son’s age, for Merlin’s sake! She sipped her wine, trying to concentrate on Potter’s words and not his body.
He finished the story. They sat in silence for a few moments. Narcissa shifted in her seat, finding the room unexpectedly warm, and took another sip of wine.
“Might I ask...” Potter said, a trifle hesitantly.
“Feel free to ask your question. Keep in mind, however, that I might not answer.”
He turned his wineglass in his fingers, gazing at the dark red liquid with a strange expression on his face. “What do you think of all those people out there?”
“Personally?”
He shook his head. “Not the people – that wasn’t what I meant – the whole...”
“Charade?” she suggested.
He glanced up, meeting her eyes. “That’s an apt word. You obviously know what I’m talking about.”
“And now you know what I think of them.”
“How can they bear it? The banality of it all... They stand there, smiling, dancing, eating and drinking, as if none of it ever happened. As if there aren’t dozens of people who ought to be here with them and can’t ever be.”
“It’s not that it never happened,” Narcissa said slowly. “It’s that they can’t bear to think that it did. Most of the people out there were children when the war happened, and they’d never encountered something as dreadful before. They don’t have any way of dealing with the trauma, so they try to forget it – and if that means forgetting the lost, then so be it.”
“I suppose.” He sipped his wine, and Narcissa dragged her gaze from his throat, mentally shaking herself. Potter set the glass down on a table beside him. “Why do they have to distract themselves in such a boring way, though? I mean, honestly...”
“After the war, I expect boredom is welcome.”
Potter snorted. “I wish I knew what that was like.”
“At least you’re allowed to work. If it ever came out that I was working – hypothetically, I mean – fifteen generations of Malfoys would turn over in their graves.” Narcissa put her glass down. She’d obviously had too much to drink; suggesting that she had a secret job to Harry Potter was about as intelligent as providing an alphabetised list of her victims to the Auror Office. From what Draco had told her about Potter, he’d probably manage to toss her into Azkaban before the Head Auror had even signed a warrant for her arrest.
“I’m not really working,” Potter said with a bitter smile. “Merlin forbid Harry Potter get hurt on a mission – just think of the publicity – but we can’t give him desk work, that’s hardly suitable for a man of his status – same for training rookies... Some days I don’t know why I bother going into work.”
“Why not resign?”
“Ah, I can still help out a bit. Even if sometimes my ideas are so stupid I can’t even tell my boss...”
“Really?” Narcissa leaned forward. “Like what?”
He blushed suddenly and grabbed his wineglass. “Nothing.” Potter gulped the wine, eyes closed.
Narcissa leaned back again, puzzled. She picked up her own glass and glanced at it. Was he as tipsy as she was? Had a portrait behind her been making rude gestures? That thought reminded her of something. What could it be...
Oh, dear. She’d shown him rather a lot of cleavage when she’d leaned forwards, hadn’t she?
He didn’t strike her as the sort of fellow to go all bashful in this sort of situation – he’d certainly seen more blatant exhibitions after the War, given his status as its greatest hero – which suggested that he was embarrassed on her behalf, not his.
It was a valid reaction, since the display had been an accident. That didn’t make her any happier. All right, so she might have a son his age, but that didn’t make her any less eligible for a fling, did it?
Good Merlin, she really was drunk.
Narcissa forced herself to focus on what Potter was saying. He was mumbling something about the wine – trying to figure out the vintage, she supposed.
“I know I’ve tasted something like this before,” he said, scowling at the wine. “I’ve run through everything I can think of...”
“I didn’t realise you knew so much about wines,” she said with a smile.
“That wasn’t what I – ah, never mind.”
“I would have thought you’d be more familiar with prank potions,” Narcissa continued. “Draco’s told me quite a few stories about the Weasley twins’ exploits at Hogwarts...”
“That’s it!” he said, sitting up suddenly. “The funny aftertaste in the wine – the fruity tangy bit, you know? – it tastes almost exactly like a lust potion George was trialling a few months back.”
“A lust potion?” Narcissa said, alarmed. No wonder she was thinking such odd things...
“Oh, it didn’t work,” Potter said, waving a hand carelessly. “He never could figure out why. He’s been saying for months that he’s going to hire a Potions Master to help with the research and development side of the business, but he hasn’t come across one he trusts yet. He’s so bloody paranoid about people nicking his ideas these days...”
“So,” Narcissa said, throat tight, “do you think he’d work with a man who’s very good at keeping secrets and rarely sees the outside of the small room he lives in?”
“That sounds like the sort of guy George would hire, actually. You know someone like that who’s looking for a job?”
“Not exactly. I do, however, know someone like that who dislikes you and is rather irritated at me.”
Potter blinked. “Did you, by any chance, sneak him into the Ball in portrait form?”
“Yes.”
“Well.”
Potter tapped his fingers on his knee. Narcissa stared at her own knees, determined not to think about what lovely fingers they were.
Why shouldn’t she, though? If this lust potion acted like normal lust potions, eventually they’d be driven to distraction by longing. She’d end up in bed with him whether or not she let herself look at him.
It wasn’t as if there was some pressing reason for her to avoid sleeping with him. Lucius had issues with monogamy – and, in any case, he was in prison. Potter didn’t have a girlfriend, and what Draco didn’t know couldn’t make him Obliviate himself.
“Y’know, this isn’t what I expected to find in my drink tonight,” Potter said.
“You expected to find something in your drink?”
Potter opened and closed his mouth a few times. “I think your bastard of a Potions Master friend put some kind of truth serum in this as well,” he said, before going pink. “Excuse my French.”
“You are excused,” Narcissa said, waving a hand. “Now, what do you mean by that?”
“I have a sudden urge to tell you why I expected my wine to be doctored.”
“And that’s a problem?”
He scowled. “You know as well as I do what happens after two people drink a lust potion. I’d rather not anger a woman who’ll have me in a vulnerable position later tonight, thank you very much.”
“Oh, now you’re just making me curious,” Narcissa said, leaning forwards again. Potter shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and Narcissa noted that he hadn’t bothered to place a Concealment Charm over his nether regions before coming to the Ball.
Mmm. It would be nice to sleep with a man who actually wanted her – a man who hadn’t discovered a late-life passion for short, dark-haired, curvy women...
“I – um –” Potter cleared his throat. “Well, to be honest, I was expecting poison.”
Narcissa froze in place. “You were?” she said, fighting the truth serum-inspired urge to confess what she’d put in the first two glasses.
“Not from you! Well, actually, yes – you were on my list of suspects... damn truth potion.”
“Why?” Narcissa said, pressing her nails into her palms.
“There’s a HitWitch in town. I, uh... I may have put a contract in with her. On myself.”
Narcissa gaped.
“Look, I know it sounds stupid,” Potter said, reddening, “but the only way the HitWitch could kill me without getting caught would be poison, and as long as I knew it was coming I could take precautions.”
“I see,” Narcissa said, now fighting off both the urge to confess and the urge to break into a fit of hysterical laughter.
“I suppose I misjudged you,” Potter said with a sigh. “It’s just as well – screwing someone who’s been hired to kill me is probably a bad idea.”
“You’re desperately allergic to boredom, aren’t you?”
His eyebrows flew up, and then he grinned. “I’ve spent too much time talking about how much I hate boring things, haven’t I? I told Hermione about this idea too, in case the HitWitch was better at her job than I thought, and she just told me I was an idiot.”
“Mr Potter,” Narcissa said, a smile spreading across her face, “any man who puts a contract on his own life in order to find a killer who his superiors obviously don’t care about catching is a kindred spirit of mine.”
“Really?” He grinned broadly.
“Oh, yes. While we’re on the topic – do your superiors care about catching the mysterious HitWitch, or was I quite off-target?”
“No, you were right. She’s only bumped off real bastards so far – ex-Death Eaters who managed to slither out of long jail terms and some blood purists who’d offered a bit of material support in exchange for pretty Muggleborn prisoners. To be honest, I was only trying to find her for the challenge.”
“Really,” Narcissa breathed.
He frowned.
“The lust potion is starting to affect me rather badly,” she continued. “I’m not one to mix business and pleasure, and I know you dislike the thought of going to bed with someone who’s trying to kill you, Mr Potter, so shall we postpone our game until the morrow?”
His eyes gleamed. “It’s quite late now, you know. Any particular time tomorrow you’d like to resume trying to kill me?”
“Don’t expect anything too soon. I need to think of a clever way of killing you, after all.”
“I hope you realise that gives me time to think of an equally clever way to avoid your assassination.”
“Isn’t that half the fun?
He was grinning wider than ever; Narcissa suspected her face mirrored Potter’s excitement. Of course, her own expression would be more decorous, as befit a pureblood lady. “I suppose I’ll have to come up with new ways of protecting my house...”
“Oh, no, I shan’t try to kill you at home. It’s quite unsporting.”
“What about the Ministry?”
“Far too easy to get caught.”
“True... So you won’t enter my house at all?”
Narcissa glanced at him from beneath her eyelashes. “Not without an invitation. It isn’t ladylike.”
“And if you had an invitation?”
“One does not try to kill one’s host. It isn’t done. And, in any case, I would hope that I would have more interesting things to do than try to kill you if I were in your house.”
“Oh, I hope so too,” he said in a low tone that made Narcissa shiver. “Speaking of which...”
“Shall I meet you at the front entrance, Mr Potter?”
“We’re about to sleep together,” he said, smirking. “I think you can call me Harry.”
“In that case, I am Narcissa.”
“I have the feeling, Narcissa,” Harry said, “that our lives are about to become a great deal more interesting.”
“Oh,” she said, “I most certainly agree.”
Author/Artist:
rose_stonewallPrompt: Narcissa is the hired, underground HitWitch, Harry Potter is the hit. Harry's not a boy anymore.
Pairing(s): Harry Potter/Narcissa Malfoy
Word Count: 4179
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s): EWE, profanity
Disclaimer:Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: Enormous, enormous thanks to A, who beta read this fic on ridiculously short notice. You’re the best!
Summary: Narcissa, bored sick of her post-War life, starts working as a underground HitWitch. Everything goes to plan... right up until she agrees to assassinate Harry Potter.
Severus glared at Narcissa, attempting to instil fear into her heart. As he was a portrait and she a fully-fleshed witch, this tactic was not particularly successful. Narcissa merely smirked, enjoying the fact that, even seven years after his death, she was still able to drive her old classmate batty.
“What do you want?” he finally growled.
Narcissa smiled sweetly. “Merely a little potions advice.”
He folded his arms. “And why should I help you? I’ve been stuck alone in this dull little parlour ever since I died! I didn’t even give you permission to make this bloody portrait! Why the hell should I give you the slightest bit of assistance?”
“Boredom?”
He scowled.
Narcissa rolled her eyes. “All right, think of it this way: you can be a hero by saving others from the products of my boredom.”
Severus started. He, like most other Slytherins who’d attended Hogwarts at the same time as Narcissa, recalled her allergy to boredom, and the alarming things she did to ward off said allergy.
“What have you done?”
“I may have taken a few jobs as a HitWitch under an alternate name.”
He choked. “Are you mad?”
She pouted. “But I don’t have anything to do! Before the war I had Draco to look after and Lucius to badger and those awful society balls to arrange. Now Draco’s got a dreadfully bossy girl looking after him, Lucius’s got himself tossed into Azkaban, and none of the society ladies will so much as look at me for fear of scandal!”
“So you became a HitWitch.”
“Precisely.”
“A HitWitch.”
“Were you this obtuse when you were alive?”
Severus’ look of horrified disbelief morphed into a scowl. “Do you want my help or not?”
Narcissa sighed. “Unfortunately, I do need it.”
“What’s the problem?”
“I’ve been hired to kill a popular war hero. Pushing him off a cliff or something similar is out – there are always people around him – so I thought poison administered at the Ministry Charity Ball would be the way to go. I don’t want any collateral damage, though. I read a reference in a Potions text about a poison that will kill only the intended target, but there wasn’t a recipe. I was wondering...”
Severus smirked. “If I had found the recipe once and memorised it? Yes and yes.”
“And?”
He narrowed his eyes. “I want you to sneak me into the Ball.”
“What?”
He shrugged. “I want to see how things go, and it’s bloody boring in here.”
Narcissa nodded. “Deal.”
“Deal.”
The bargain made, they settled down to the serious business of poison.
Harry scowled. Tapped his fingers on the wall behind him. Scraped his foot along the gleaming parquetry.
Merlin, he hated these balls.
As the Golden Boy of Wizarding Britain, he had to attend; no excuse short of near-death would suffice. Kingsley had flat-out ordered him to be present. No mention had been made of being present visibly, however. Harry was presently lurking behind a large ornamental fern near the entrance, with a Disillusionment Charm for good measure.
He hadn’t decided yet whether or not to show himself to anyone. Well, anyone except Kingsley; he had to prove that he was actually at the Ball, after all. That meeting would necessitate standing in full view of the other guests for several minutes, so he’d probably have to hide again afterwards to allow the excitement to die down. After that... well, Hermione was all wrapped up in her new boyfriend (sometimes literally – they lip-locked more frequently than Lavender and Ron had in their heyday) and Ron was taking advantage of his war-hero status and position as the Cannons’ keeper to get girls. Harry hated the extra publicity the war had brought him; these parties, nothing more than an excuse for the fame-starved to rub shoulders with celebrities, put him in a foul mood. He wouldn’t exactly be good company.
Thoughts of celebrity reminded him of the war. Thoughts of the war reminded him of the dead. Thoughts of the dead were enough to put him into a black mood, so Harry jerked his eyes off the marks his shoes had left on the floor and gazed at the entering guests. People-watching could be good entertainment, he’d found.
There was Lavender in swirling low-cut robes, making a beeline for Ron with a determined expression. Hannah Abbot came in moments later on Neville’s arm. Theodore Nott followed them, making an effort to look charitable; Harry smirked, knowing how difficult a time Nott had hiding his usual expression of hauteur. Kingsley entered in a flurry of reporters, looking decidedly Ministerial in his formal robes. Harry sighed; he couldn’t sneak off to see him until those damned hounds cleared off. He watched idly as Percy and then George made their way into the ballroom. Ernie, Seamus, Cho... Crabbe, Zabini, Mrs Malfoy, Goyle.
He sighed and turned his eyes to the Ball. The dancing hadn’t started quite yet; people were still rubbing shoulders, making sure to get into good photographs for the Prophet’s society pages tomorrow. It was as if they didn’t remember the toll the war had taken – or, alternatively, were trying desperately to forget it. Harry couldn’t decide which he found more depressing. He really needed to find a better way of distracting himself.
He found it quite by accident. Glancing away from Hermione’s public display of affection with her boyfriend, he saw Mrs Malfoy slipping into one of the private rooms off the main ballroom. Guests sometimes retired into them later in the evening, talking in groups or enjoying themselves in couples. The only reason Narcissa Malfoy could have for entering one of them so early in the evening was a nefarious one.
He couldn’t let her get away with it.
Harry eased his way along the wall, hoping nobody would notice the slight shimmer of his Disillusionment Charm among the gleam and glitter of the well-dressed guests. They seemed engrossed in their hobnobbing, thank Merlin, and he was able to make his way to the other side of the ballroom relatively easily. Mrs Malfoy had left the door to her room slightly ajar; he slipped in, stepping as quietly as possible.
She stood on the other side of the room, facing away from him. Her arms were folded, and she appeared to be staring at something – he couldn’t tell what, as she stood between him and it. Harry removed his Disillusionment Charm with a slight smile.
“Now, for Merlin’s sake stop whining,” she said. “It’s not as if I can put you in the ballroom itself – someone would be sure to notice. You can move to other portraits, can’t you?”
“Of course!” said a vaguely familiar male voice.
“Then there’s no problem, is there? I’d better go make an appearance –” With that, she turned and saw Harry. Her blue eyes widened.
“Mrs Malfoy.”
“Mr Potter.”
“Might I ask what you’re doing in here?”
She smiled. “Merely pausing to rearrange my hair.”
“Who were you talking to?” Harry asked.
Her cheeks went pink and she sighed. “One of the old Malfoy portraits recently aided me with a little potions problem. I had to smuggle him in here in return.”
Harry moved to the side, glancing at the portrait behind her. Its inhabitant had moved already; there was no way to determine whether she was telling the truth.
“I wouldn’t have taken you for a potions aficionado,” he said.
“Oh, hardly an aficionado, Mr Potter. With my family gone, however, I’ve gone in search of hobbies to keep myself occupied. I’m sure you know how it is.”
Oh, he knew. The War had been awful – he’d constantly feared that he or his friends would die or be horribly maimed – but in its absence a terrible ennui had crept upon him. Perhaps the fools in the ballroom fought off boredom with banality? It wasn’t something he could bear to do, however, and he suspected Narcissa Malfoy thought the same way. If nobody would give her an interesting job, she’d find one. Brewing Dark potions? Reorganising the family’s poison cupboard? Perhaps she planned to knock off a few family enemies while she was here – there had been several ‘accidental’ deaths of such in the last few months.
There was no way of telling. He’d have to stay with her until he had some idea of what she was actually doing. Personally, he hoped it was the third; it’d make his evening a great deal more interesting.
“Are you going to return to the Ball?” Mrs Malfoy enquired.
Damn. He couldn’t enter with her.
“The publicity makes this kind of event a little uncomfortable,” he said, trying not to answer. How was he supposed to keep her in here?
She smiled, not quite kindly. “Try being the wife of a convicted Death Eater and see how you like it.”
“Then why come?”
She shrugged. “Somebody has to repair the family name – and the only thing more boring than being here is sitting at home not being here.”
“At least you had a choice in the matter.”
“I sense a tale of much woe in the offing.” She smiled again, this time with an answering smile in her eyes. “Would it go down better with a glass of wine?”
Aha. “Perhaps it would, Mrs Malfoy.”
Narcissa stepped into the ballroom, glancing around quickly. She noted that the dancing had started in her absence. Someone had left a tray of full wineglasses on a table nearby, and she snatched a couple. The tiny bottle eased out of her sleeve with a flick of her wrist; she dumped half of the special poison into her glass and half into his. It wouldn’t harm anyone but him, and this way she didn’t have to worry about which glass to give him.
The game was much more dangerous now. Her original plan had involved slipping the potion into a number of glasses near him and then spending the rest of the night on the other side of the ballroom. If someone knew she’d spent time with him early in the evening, and if someone realised his ‘accidental’ death was due to poison rather than an overdose of alcohol, and if those two someones met...
She’d already brewed the poison. There was no point getting daunted now, was there?
Narcissa re-entered the small room. As the door swung open, she realised two things: Potter had moved to stand in front of a still-life very near the door, and Potter was stepping away from it.
“Oh, bother!” she said, as the two glassfuls of wine soaked into her dress robes.
Potter stumbled backwards, eyes wide. “Mrs Malfoy! I didn’t hear you coming in... oh, I’m sorry. I’d help you fix your robes, but, well...”
“Men and cleaning spells rarely mix well,” she finished, placing the glasses on a nearby table. “Don’t apologise too much, Mr Potter – it’s not the first time I’ve had wine spilled on my robes. I can live with it.”
He stood there looking rather helpless as she siphoned the wine off her clothes. It reminded Narcissa of Draco, and she found herself taking pity on him. “Why don’t you fetch some more wine? There’s an entire tray out there.”
He nodded, smiling sheepishly, and dodged out of the room.
Narcissa sighed. Things had been going so well up until that point... if only she hadn’t put all the poison into the wine, she might have still been able to kill him tonight. Well, it looked like it was time to go back to the drawing board, as the Muggles said. She sank onto a couch.
Potter came back in, carefully balancing the two glasses. “Someone’s gone and put a Disillusionment Charm on the tray,” he said, eyes crinkling.
Narcissa smirked. “Feeling greedy, perhaps?”
“I can’t blame whoever did it – the Ministry’s doing a proper spread this year. I’m no connoisseur, but even I could tell the wine they had last year was sub-par.” He passed her a glass carefully and sat down opposite her.
Narcissa sipped the wine. “This is considerably better,” she agreed. “It tastes somewhat familiar, in fact. I wonder if there’s some of this in the Malfoy cellars...”
His eyes crinkled. “Given the reputed size of said cellars, I’d be surprised if there wasn’t.”
“But would I have drunk the wine, if the cellars are truly as deep as rumour has it?”
“How deep are they?”
Narcissa shrugged with a smile. “I have no idea, to be honest. I’ve never been all the way down. In any case, we’ve strayed off the topic – I believe you were about to tell me how you’d been coerced into attending the Charity Ball?”
Potter settled into his armchair comfortably and began speaking. Narcissa smiled and nodded at appropriate moments; since her initial attempt to kill him had been unsuccessful, she’d need to be able to approach him later in order to carry the job out, and that would be considerably easier if he saw her as more than a distant acquaintance.
Flirting with him was probably not essential, strictly speaking, but she was finding that subtle compliments and inviting glances were coming to her easily tonight. It had been a long time since she’d had a man to flirt with... and he certainly didn’t seem unreceptive. There was a gleam in his eye that suggested he didn’t mind the thought of intimacy with an older woman.
Not that there was going to be intimacy. Narcissa squashed the thought firmly, not sure where it had come from. He was her son’s age, for Merlin’s sake! She sipped her wine, trying to concentrate on Potter’s words and not his body.
He finished the story. They sat in silence for a few moments. Narcissa shifted in her seat, finding the room unexpectedly warm, and took another sip of wine.
“Might I ask...” Potter said, a trifle hesitantly.
“Feel free to ask your question. Keep in mind, however, that I might not answer.”
He turned his wineglass in his fingers, gazing at the dark red liquid with a strange expression on his face. “What do you think of all those people out there?”
“Personally?”
He shook his head. “Not the people – that wasn’t what I meant – the whole...”
“Charade?” she suggested.
He glanced up, meeting her eyes. “That’s an apt word. You obviously know what I’m talking about.”
“And now you know what I think of them.”
“How can they bear it? The banality of it all... They stand there, smiling, dancing, eating and drinking, as if none of it ever happened. As if there aren’t dozens of people who ought to be here with them and can’t ever be.”
“It’s not that it never happened,” Narcissa said slowly. “It’s that they can’t bear to think that it did. Most of the people out there were children when the war happened, and they’d never encountered something as dreadful before. They don’t have any way of dealing with the trauma, so they try to forget it – and if that means forgetting the lost, then so be it.”
“I suppose.” He sipped his wine, and Narcissa dragged her gaze from his throat, mentally shaking herself. Potter set the glass down on a table beside him. “Why do they have to distract themselves in such a boring way, though? I mean, honestly...”
“After the war, I expect boredom is welcome.”
Potter snorted. “I wish I knew what that was like.”
“At least you’re allowed to work. If it ever came out that I was working – hypothetically, I mean – fifteen generations of Malfoys would turn over in their graves.” Narcissa put her glass down. She’d obviously had too much to drink; suggesting that she had a secret job to Harry Potter was about as intelligent as providing an alphabetised list of her victims to the Auror Office. From what Draco had told her about Potter, he’d probably manage to toss her into Azkaban before the Head Auror had even signed a warrant for her arrest.
“I’m not really working,” Potter said with a bitter smile. “Merlin forbid Harry Potter get hurt on a mission – just think of the publicity – but we can’t give him desk work, that’s hardly suitable for a man of his status – same for training rookies... Some days I don’t know why I bother going into work.”
“Why not resign?”
“Ah, I can still help out a bit. Even if sometimes my ideas are so stupid I can’t even tell my boss...”
“Really?” Narcissa leaned forward. “Like what?”
He blushed suddenly and grabbed his wineglass. “Nothing.” Potter gulped the wine, eyes closed.
Narcissa leaned back again, puzzled. She picked up her own glass and glanced at it. Was he as tipsy as she was? Had a portrait behind her been making rude gestures? That thought reminded her of something. What could it be...
Oh, dear. She’d shown him rather a lot of cleavage when she’d leaned forwards, hadn’t she?
He didn’t strike her as the sort of fellow to go all bashful in this sort of situation – he’d certainly seen more blatant exhibitions after the War, given his status as its greatest hero – which suggested that he was embarrassed on her behalf, not his.
It was a valid reaction, since the display had been an accident. That didn’t make her any happier. All right, so she might have a son his age, but that didn’t make her any less eligible for a fling, did it?
Good Merlin, she really was drunk.
Narcissa forced herself to focus on what Potter was saying. He was mumbling something about the wine – trying to figure out the vintage, she supposed.
“I know I’ve tasted something like this before,” he said, scowling at the wine. “I’ve run through everything I can think of...”
“I didn’t realise you knew so much about wines,” she said with a smile.
“That wasn’t what I – ah, never mind.”
“I would have thought you’d be more familiar with prank potions,” Narcissa continued. “Draco’s told me quite a few stories about the Weasley twins’ exploits at Hogwarts...”
“That’s it!” he said, sitting up suddenly. “The funny aftertaste in the wine – the fruity tangy bit, you know? – it tastes almost exactly like a lust potion George was trialling a few months back.”
“A lust potion?” Narcissa said, alarmed. No wonder she was thinking such odd things...
“Oh, it didn’t work,” Potter said, waving a hand carelessly. “He never could figure out why. He’s been saying for months that he’s going to hire a Potions Master to help with the research and development side of the business, but he hasn’t come across one he trusts yet. He’s so bloody paranoid about people nicking his ideas these days...”
“So,” Narcissa said, throat tight, “do you think he’d work with a man who’s very good at keeping secrets and rarely sees the outside of the small room he lives in?”
“That sounds like the sort of guy George would hire, actually. You know someone like that who’s looking for a job?”
“Not exactly. I do, however, know someone like that who dislikes you and is rather irritated at me.”
Potter blinked. “Did you, by any chance, sneak him into the Ball in portrait form?”
“Yes.”
“Well.”
Potter tapped his fingers on his knee. Narcissa stared at her own knees, determined not to think about what lovely fingers they were.
Why shouldn’t she, though? If this lust potion acted like normal lust potions, eventually they’d be driven to distraction by longing. She’d end up in bed with him whether or not she let herself look at him.
It wasn’t as if there was some pressing reason for her to avoid sleeping with him. Lucius had issues with monogamy – and, in any case, he was in prison. Potter didn’t have a girlfriend, and what Draco didn’t know couldn’t make him Obliviate himself.
“Y’know, this isn’t what I expected to find in my drink tonight,” Potter said.
“You expected to find something in your drink?”
Potter opened and closed his mouth a few times. “I think your bastard of a Potions Master friend put some kind of truth serum in this as well,” he said, before going pink. “Excuse my French.”
“You are excused,” Narcissa said, waving a hand. “Now, what do you mean by that?”
“I have a sudden urge to tell you why I expected my wine to be doctored.”
“And that’s a problem?”
He scowled. “You know as well as I do what happens after two people drink a lust potion. I’d rather not anger a woman who’ll have me in a vulnerable position later tonight, thank you very much.”
“Oh, now you’re just making me curious,” Narcissa said, leaning forwards again. Potter shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and Narcissa noted that he hadn’t bothered to place a Concealment Charm over his nether regions before coming to the Ball.
Mmm. It would be nice to sleep with a man who actually wanted her – a man who hadn’t discovered a late-life passion for short, dark-haired, curvy women...
“I – um –” Potter cleared his throat. “Well, to be honest, I was expecting poison.”
Narcissa froze in place. “You were?” she said, fighting the truth serum-inspired urge to confess what she’d put in the first two glasses.
“Not from you! Well, actually, yes – you were on my list of suspects... damn truth potion.”
“Why?” Narcissa said, pressing her nails into her palms.
“There’s a HitWitch in town. I, uh... I may have put a contract in with her. On myself.”
Narcissa gaped.
“Look, I know it sounds stupid,” Potter said, reddening, “but the only way the HitWitch could kill me without getting caught would be poison, and as long as I knew it was coming I could take precautions.”
“I see,” Narcissa said, now fighting off both the urge to confess and the urge to break into a fit of hysterical laughter.
“I suppose I misjudged you,” Potter said with a sigh. “It’s just as well – screwing someone who’s been hired to kill me is probably a bad idea.”
“You’re desperately allergic to boredom, aren’t you?”
His eyebrows flew up, and then he grinned. “I’ve spent too much time talking about how much I hate boring things, haven’t I? I told Hermione about this idea too, in case the HitWitch was better at her job than I thought, and she just told me I was an idiot.”
“Mr Potter,” Narcissa said, a smile spreading across her face, “any man who puts a contract on his own life in order to find a killer who his superiors obviously don’t care about catching is a kindred spirit of mine.”
“Really?” He grinned broadly.
“Oh, yes. While we’re on the topic – do your superiors care about catching the mysterious HitWitch, or was I quite off-target?”
“No, you were right. She’s only bumped off real bastards so far – ex-Death Eaters who managed to slither out of long jail terms and some blood purists who’d offered a bit of material support in exchange for pretty Muggleborn prisoners. To be honest, I was only trying to find her for the challenge.”
“Really,” Narcissa breathed.
He frowned.
“The lust potion is starting to affect me rather badly,” she continued. “I’m not one to mix business and pleasure, and I know you dislike the thought of going to bed with someone who’s trying to kill you, Mr Potter, so shall we postpone our game until the morrow?”
His eyes gleamed. “It’s quite late now, you know. Any particular time tomorrow you’d like to resume trying to kill me?”
“Don’t expect anything too soon. I need to think of a clever way of killing you, after all.”
“I hope you realise that gives me time to think of an equally clever way to avoid your assassination.”
“Isn’t that half the fun?
He was grinning wider than ever; Narcissa suspected her face mirrored Potter’s excitement. Of course, her own expression would be more decorous, as befit a pureblood lady. “I suppose I’ll have to come up with new ways of protecting my house...”
“Oh, no, I shan’t try to kill you at home. It’s quite unsporting.”
“What about the Ministry?”
“Far too easy to get caught.”
“True... So you won’t enter my house at all?”
Narcissa glanced at him from beneath her eyelashes. “Not without an invitation. It isn’t ladylike.”
“And if you had an invitation?”
“One does not try to kill one’s host. It isn’t done. And, in any case, I would hope that I would have more interesting things to do than try to kill you if I were in your house.”
“Oh, I hope so too,” he said in a low tone that made Narcissa shiver. “Speaking of which...”
“Shall I meet you at the front entrance, Mr Potter?”
“We’re about to sleep together,” he said, smirking. “I think you can call me Harry.”
“In that case, I am Narcissa.”
“I have the feeling, Narcissa,” Harry said, “that our lives are about to become a great deal more interesting.”
“Oh,” she said, “I most certainly agree.”
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