Call Me Psyche - Dramione

23

"Bella, stop!"

With the voice came a burst of light as a shield spell waved through the hall of Grimmauld Place, separating Draco Malfoy from his aunt's Cruciatus curse. Still sprawled on the glass-strewn carpet, he threw himself back, flinching as the curse broke against the shield cast by his mother.

Until that moment, he had never heard Narcissa swear. "Are you that mad, Bellatrix? Are you? Casting an unforgivable at your own nephew? At MY son? At the future of the House of Black –"

Bellatrix had just begun to say something for herself when Narcissa shouted her down again. "Oh, shut up! Whatever your reason is, it's indefensible."

She dropped the shield and took Draco's elbow, raising him to his feet. "Darling, Draco," she said, fawning, her palms caressing his face. "You are alive. I knew it. Are you harmed?"

Draco didn't dare take his eyes off his still-fuming aunt. "Yes, mother. I'm quite well. Never better, actually."

Narcissa threw her arms around his neck, sighing into his shoulder. "My boy."

Over her shoulder, Draco watched as Bellatrix mimed gagging.

"I'm sorry, Mother," he said, stepping back. "I never meant for you to mistake me for dead. The rumor hadn't reached me before tonight. I was going to come reassure you in the morning, but Aunt Bella thought it better not to wait, I suppose," he said with an uneasy nod in Bella's direction, both of them knowing he was fibbing about turning himself in.

Bellatrix scoffed, sickened as always by the tender politeness between her sister and her spoiled child. "He was holed up at Andromeda's. But of course you know that, don't you Cissie. You and Andromeda and your spawn – you're all in league against me. And against the Dark Lord."

Narcissa was the one scoffing now. "Ridiculous. Like you, Bella, I haven't spoken to Andromeda in decades. It wasn't her who told me where to find Draco just now. It was Aunt Walberga, come from her portrait to the one in my drawing room to warn me. Honestly, Bella, how mad must you be to have Walberga's portrait thinking you've gone too far?"

"Too far?" Bellatrix screeched, a hex slipping from the end of Hermione's old wand to scorch Walberga's now empty frame. Narcissa flinched but did not back down, blocking the line of fire between her son and Bellatrix.

Bella was screeching in words now. "Do you know what this filthy boy has done?"

Narcissa lifted her chin. "No, and I will not listen to another word from you about it while my child stands here bleeding thanks to you," Narciss said. As she bent to examine the cuts on Draco's hands, she gave him the tiniest wink, clucking her tongue as she worked Luna Lovegood's old wand over the wounds. "It's a shame I don't have my own wand to heal you, isn't it darling? But after Auntie Bella was robbed of hers, mine had to be sent away for safekeeping at Hogwarts."

"Stop it, Cissie," Bella said, pulling at her own hair. "We all know the boy has your wand concealed on his person somewhere. If you won't take it back from him, I will."

"Rubbish," Narcissa said. "You will calm down and you will never lay a hand on him in anger again." She had finished with Draco's hands and held them between her own. "Let's get you home to your father, Draco. He's suffered so, believing you dead."

"No!" Bella wailed as Narcissa brandished her wand as if to disapparate. "No, you can't take him back. If the Dark Lord knows Draco's alive, he will demand to know how he resisted the call."

"I was in Denmark –," Draco began.

"Shut up, you brat!" Bella shouted over him. "It's a lie. You united the Triad wands to refuse the call. If he knows the wands can do this, he will demand they be turned over to him. And once he learns none of them is in our possession, he will neutralize the wands by killing everyone on this tapestry who is not already dead. The House of Black will be at an end."