previously: some insight into the malfoy marriage. 

              Lucius takes more than sixteen years to realize out that Draco isn’t his. He probably should've figured it out sooner, but some people only see what they want to see and Lucius didn’t want to believe himself a c.uck.old. So he let himself be convinced that Draco took after Narcissa’s side of the family, though he held those genetics against Draco too. 

Narcissa tells her son because she would rather Draco hear it from him than someone else. She tells Rabastan because it’s been so long and if Bella hasn’t let it slip yet, she wants him to hear it from her. She tells Rodolphus---or did he already know?---because he’s family and she needs him on their side. 

She fails to tell Lucius because it isn’t a priority to her---Draco and Rabastan are her priority. Besides, she doesn’t trust him not to cock it all up for the rest of them. Narcissa figures she’ll let him know after everything is all sorted out, a parting shot on her way out the door. 

Lucius has enough of his own shit to worry about in ‘95-’96 anyhow. Has to prove his loyalty to Voldemort, complete his mission to retrieve the prophecy, etc. He can’t even vent his stress by arguing with Narcissa. The Lestranges are back, are irrevocably on Narcissa’s side, and Lucius is uncomfortably outnumbered and outgunned. He finishes out the year in prison, none the wiser. 

But after his release, it doesn’t take him long to figure out. Between Bella’s taunts and Draco’s uncanny resemblance to Rabastan, he’d have to be dead not to see the truth. The suspicions eat at him in the midst of the rest of what’s going on---the Dark Lord’s disapproval, his loss of power and respect in his own home---until he manages to get Narcissa alone and confront her about it. 

Which isn’t easy. Though she isn’t a DE herself, Narcissa is rarely alone those days unless she’s in her room. So that’s where he corners her. He accuses her of i/nfidelity, of forcing him to raise another man’s child. She admits to it immediately; the cat’s out of the bag and she has nothing to lose. 

The following argument is as vicious as it is quiet. They used to hide their arguments first from Abraxas himself and later on Draco. Secrecy is even more important now that their house has been taken over. Lucius calls her every nasty thing he can think of---frigid, bitch, adulteress---and a bunch of slurs I won’t repeat. Narcissa picks at every crack and fissure in his ego, takes him apart the way only she can, because no one knows him the way that she does. 

I want to say that things got a little violent---or it had the potential to become that way. Because things got nasty to the point where it had to spill over: a rough grab, a push, a threat. There’s no way it wasn’t headed that way, and the only way for that to stop would be for there to be an interruption of some sort. 

Someone walked in when Lucius had Narcissa’s arm in a bruising grip, a half-step into her space---maybe his other hand raised---while she spit out that he was trash and that he’d die unloved, unmourned, and with nothing to show for his shitty life. 

            “We live in a society, Draco,” she chides, a ghost of a smile on her lips as she brushes some of his fringe from his forehead. “And it is precisely because we stand so highly in society that our reputation matters as it does. We are never without the envious gaze of the masses, and we must prove that there is a reason why we deserve our natural superiority.” 

Noblesse oblige, a concept that seemed to escape her dear---ha!---husband, but had been Narcissa’s guiding principle from childhood. Lucius carried himself with a haughty demeanor that grated on the nerves of anyone who had the displeasure of making his acquaintance. He was free to behave in whatever manner he chose, but Narcissa drew the line at her son emulating his bad behavior. 

She used to wonder, once. 

What might’ve happened if the circumstances were reversed? If she had been sent to Azkaban in her sister’s stead? If she hadn’t been left in charge of her nephew’s care? But she knows that wondering won’t bring Narcissa back, or Rabastan, much like how it didn’t bring her back. She’s the only one left anymore and she’s made use of all those years alone.

Her movements are slow, languidly making her way over to where he sits. Her footsteps are muted against the cool marble floor. “What do you think I want you to be?” Bellatrix questions quietly, in the silent space of the manor’s kitchen. Freed of pins, dark hair spills over one shoulder, framing her face, as she wraps her robe further around herself, a waterfall of crimson silk framing her body.

She draws close, looking down at him with dark eyes.

Over the years, he has become pretty, very pretty, with his face catching the light streaming through the window. There’s a use in terrorising and intimidating others, and Bellatrix has found that to be rather effective. But there’s also a power in pure devotion, in being the recipient of it; beyond games of reading in-between the lines and touching someone just the right way, it’s intoxicating.

She places her fingertips underneath his chin and tips his face upwards. “Do you know what you are?” Her voice is dangerously soft, a serpent waiting patiently amidst stalks of grass. And the way she holds him is as slow and as insidious as venom. There is a hard edge to her voice as she continues, leaning down towards him. “You are beautiful, Draco.”

Bellatrix’s gaze flickers down to his hands resting in his lap and then back up to his face. After a moment, her lips curl into a smirk, slow and wide. He is Narcissa’s blood, he is her blood, and therefore he is hers. Her fingers leave his chin and she cups his cheek instead, palm flat against his pale skin. And the thing that fills with her satisfaction is that she knows he knows it. Why else would he stare at her?