An Unexpected Visitor

They reached the top of the stairs and she down another series of hallways until they came to a set of large oak doors, and stopped in front of them. \"Do you have bags, Severus?\"

He nodded and patted the arm still linked through his.

\"I\'ll make sure they are sent up right away, and instruct the house elves to do as you command. They are disagreeable little creatures, but I have found they respond better to me since Lucius di...was killed.\"

She slipped her arm out of his and kissed him softly on his cheek. \"My rooms are next door, so if you should wish to speak to me, feel free.\" Now if you\'ll excuse me?\" My rooms, yes, but I haven\'t slept there in months. I usually pass out from utter exhaustion wherever I happen to be at the time. \"Breakfast will be served in the solarium, and dress is...\" Gods, were these words actually issuing forth from her mouth? This was Severus, not some colleague of Lucius\' she had to impress. She shook her head and began again. \"Would you care to join me in the solarium for breakfast, Severus?\"

He nodded and hugged her rather stiffly, the gesture something he had grown unused to doing to anyone, especially her. \"I would love to. I\'ll see you in the morning, then?\" He turned and opened the massive door, and without anther word he disappeared into the murky darkness of the rooms, and clicked the door shut behind him.

She sighed and turned back the way they had come, and eventually found herself back in the study. She watched the fire grow lower, and hissed when a house elf entered the room to build the flames higher, sending it scurrying out of the room. When the fire was nothing but embers, only then did she lie down on the settee and immediately a blanket was brought to her. The elves were by now used to the strange sight of their mistress sleeping there. She sighed and turned slightly away from the fire so she could watch out the window. The rain still came down, though by now it was nothing more then a drizzle, and eventually her eyes closed and her breath evened out.

As the dawn tinged the sky pink, Severus woke and dressed quickly, and made his way downstairs and to the solarium, and not finding Narcissa there, summoned a house elf and was told its mistress was in the study. With a frown etched on his face he made his way to her, and his frown grew deeper yet as he found her sleeping on the settee. Thankful it had not begun raining yet, although it threatened to, he sat softly on the edge of the settee and watched her for a minute, trying to decide whether to wake her.
She decided for him, however, when she moaned low in her throat as though in pain, and mumbled to herself, face pained, and obvious to the fact that he was sitting right there, she began to speak a bit clearer, her voice panicked and fearful. \"Lucius...please...let him stay. He needs me, he\'s just a boy.\" She flinched as though an invisible hand had struck her, and he swore silently, glad the man was dead, or he\'d have to kill him. Tears leaked from her eyes as she was caught in the thrall of her dream, and he fought the urge to sweep her in his arms and hold her...to try to protect her. Soon, she stilled, the dream fading from her, and she turned, pulling the blankets tighter around her as she slept.

He watched her for a few more moments, and then got up with his usual feline grace and walked from the room, mind turning over what he had just heard. A New Year had just begun a mere days ago, but it was obvious that she was still stuck in the painful memories of the past, and he swore silently he wouldn\'t leave her again. Damn the Ministry, and damn what Albus thought. Narcissa had been his friend for too long to let her waste away to a shell of the girl he had known in school. Known and loved, you fool, something she will never return, so ready yourself for it. Lucius had begun to make her a shell, but some small part of her essence had always remained, and it seemed to leak out whenever he saw her, and it brightened her. The same brightness he saw whenever she had been with Draco. And now it seemed Lucius had managed to take that way too. He, along with everyone else in the Ministry, had assumed Draco had been at that final battle to fight alongside his father. It never occurred to him he might have been forced to go. And died for his fathers idealism, when it might not have been his own.

He went quickly back to his rooms and penned a letter to Albus outlining his intentions to stay indefinitely at Malfoy Manor, and was relieved when he received a return owl back with Albus\' full permission to do as he saw fit. He\'d rather not quit, but if it came down to a choice between Narcissa and the Ministry, there was no question he would pick Narcissa. After receiving Albus\' owl, he locked it away in a desk drawer and went out on the balcony. The clouds had melted away with the coming dawn, and the sun shone strong and bright, warming the chilly air. He stood there for a long time, thinking over a plan of action, and after some time had passed he seemed to be satisfied, and summoned a house elf and instructed it to inform him as soon as its mistress awoke.