In Your Eyes

Chapter One

The Reason I Doubted You

In your eyes, I am insignificant.

If he had a sickle for every person who thought that he was insignificant, Lucius Malfoy would have precisely one sickle. It was perhaps the most infuriating and intriguing feeling that he had ever felt.

That was why he permitted the girl access to his home for so long, even when he began to suspect her. That was why he had ordered his betrothed Narcissa to befriend her, to an extremely limited degree, when she told him in a letter that the girl had waltzed into the Slytherin common room on the arm of that greasy halfblood.

Lucius Malfoy kept the girl in his life because she was the one who had taken the first nibble at his self-confidence, his unflinching pride. She was, he had determined long ago, therefore the only one who could break the spell. He had learned in the years that he had kept her on his radar and in the months that he had drawn her close, even in the few moments when he had tried to possess her, that she was no ordinary enemy. So he had watched carefully, to learn how to defeat her.

~~~

A blonde boy with cold blue eyes controlled Hogwarts during his seventh year. He ruled the school with an iron fist, and it turned on his every whim. In an atmosphere of fear and cruelty, he reached out one day to knock the books out of the hands of a first year. He had no particular reason for it beyond that she was smaller, weaker and a Mudblood with the audacity to look happy as she chatted with another redheaded Mudblood.

The little blonde girl did not shrink in fear or start crying as other victims had before. She did not apologize and quickly duck down to pick them up. She did not even stand up to him and demand that he apologized, as he half-hoped that someone would one of these days so that he could truly beat them down. She just gave him a quick glance, looking him up and down and seeming to size him up. Then she gave him a contemptuous look, as if she neither had any idea who he was nor cared, and bent down to pick up her books.

It had filled him with rage such as he had never felt before. Not because it had surprised him or even because she hadn't reacted to his cruelty. He had seen himself through her eyes for one infinitesimally short moment and it had been the most frightening moment in his dark life. He had seen himself as an insignificant, puffed up boy not worth even a reaction from her - her! A worthless Mudblood!

Lucius Malfoy did not like being frightened. It was his first experience with it, and he did not handle it well. He stood there, seething in deadly silence, until she had gathered all of her books again, chatting at the redhead who, like everyone else in the corridor, was mute and watching him. She couldn't be bothered. Lucius reached out and knocked her books from her arms again.

She granted him only another brief glance. Then she turned away from him with the same dismissive air and bent down to pick up the fallen items. He didn't know what came over him at that moment, but he kicked out at her and sent the small girl sprawling on the ground. He was not even rewarded with a cry as she hit the ground, and, judging from the sound when she hit the floor and the distance that her things went flying, she had hit it very hard.

"Leave her alone!" the redhead cried suddenly, pulling out her wand. She looked brave, but she was practically trembling as she stood up to the older boy. That was fine with Lucius Malfoy. She was no threat to him, and even she knew it, despite the determined look in her eyes. He could handle that. Things were back on his terms now.

But then the blonde intervened. From the floor, she just shook her head and said, "Don't bother, Lily." Earlier, her look had been contemptuous. Now, her tone was dismissive. "He's not worth it," she told her friend, turning her back on him and reaching to pick up her things. Even more than her words, the fact that she turned her back on him stung Lucius Malfoy. She didn't fear him. She didn't see him as a threat at all. She didn't even regard him as an adversary, much less a worthy one or a superior. A stupid little Mudblood!

He stood there frozen and dumb in sheer disbelief and unspeakable anger. Most of all, frozen with an unfamiliar sensation of raw fear that she was right. A tiny seed of doubt, no larger than a gnat, crept into his soul, but it was no less nagging than one buzzing in his ear. It would gnaw at him forever, sucking only a little blood at a time, but always a little bit more. Every so often, the gnat would have taken a little too much for him to do his job, for him to achieve his ends. The little gnat of self-doubt would buzz in his ear at just the wrong moment, and he wouldn't be able to think when he needed to most.

And the gnat would never buzz louder, would never suck so deeply, would never bite with such good aim, as when Lucius Malfoy had Lily Evans for his direct opponent. Eight years later, when the little redhead who thought to defend her friend proved better than him in his area of expertise, in his gift to the Dark Lord, that gnawing little gnat of self-doubt would take deep draughts from the veins of Lucius Malfoy's seemingly boundless confidence, from his unflinching pride. The biting, relentless little gnat of self doubt which her friend had spawned would inflame Lily Potter's every victory over him. But even though Lily Evans could beat him, even though she was a stupid Mudblood who could do more than he could, his rivalry with her would never break his certainty the way that her friend's casual dismissal had. A quick look, a back turned, and the little gnat was born.

It took its first taste of Lucius Malfoy as a tiny blonde girl calmly gathered her books, quills and ink from the floor of the corridor with her back turned to Lucius Malfoy. The other students in the corridor slowly bent down and started to help her. Lucius pushed his way through the crowd, sending other books flying as he went. The gnat, in the meantime, had decided that it liked the taste of this boy's perfectly pure but ultimately thin blood.

~~~

Lucius Malfoy did not think of her constantly. He did not even plot a revenge after he left that corridor. He did not think of the incident, except once or twice a year in the dead of night when he could not get to sleep. Then he would remember an aching feeling of unimportance, of insignificance, of inability to get what he wanted.

But his life went on. He continued his miniature reign of terror at Hogwarts as Head Boy and virtual king of the school. He graduated and started to take over the family responsibilities from his sometimes willing and sometimes unwilling father. He assumed his high place in Wizarding Society. If he turned back to the Castle, it was to keep his eye on a very different blonde: his betrothed Narcissa Black. He joined Lord Voldemort and began to build his place among the Dark Lord's followers, rising ever higher and higher because of what his exalted, respected position could obtain for the Dark Lord and his sheer brilliance and power in charms.

It was three years before he thought of that blonde first year again. He had forgotten almost completely the girl who had dismissed him as if he were insignificant.

Halfway through Narcissa's sixth year, their courtship ritual began in earnest. Once she came of age, he was expected to escort her to all necessary events, just as she was not to permit anyone else to perform the honor that belonged to her betrothed. They would be married the week after she graduated from Hogwarts. Some couples, even from the best families, had to wait these days. The Malfoys and the Blacks did not.

As Lucius sat with Narcissa in the Alumni box at the first Quidditch match of the spring semester, he was feeling supremely confident and proud of his place in the world. A useful and beautiful woman was on his arm, and he had achieved a high position in wizarding society, only three and a half years out of Hogwarts.

It gave him the start of his life when he saw the blonde girl in the Gryffindor stands. She was easy to spot. She was down on the lowest level leading the cheers that rose from the stands, and, of all the tacky members of her house who had draped themselves in their house colors with no regard to dignity, she was easily the most excessively dressed with the least consideration to taste.

The three years had aged her into something almost pretty - for a Mudblood's rustic charm. The escalating darkness of those three years had not tamed her audaciously happy demeanor. Everything that had made him feel compelled to lash out at her in the corridor had only grown stronger and more obvious. She was still small, still young, still pretty, and still ridiculously happy.

Seeing her made him remember that momentary glimpse of doubt. It made him wonder if he truly deserved his high place in society. Worse, it made him wonder if he had even truly assumed it or if the great men whom he thought he were befriending were merely condescending to him. It made him turn to look at Narcissa's ice cold hand on his arm and wonder if she was really pleased with the match their parents had chosen, if she really thought that she was marrying a great and powerful wizard. It made him wonder if she really did think of herself as the luckiest girl at Hogwarts as she had said only a little while ago as she ascended to the Alumni Box on his arm. It made him ask himself if she would have chosen him on her own.

But then Slytherin scored a goal, and he gladly devoted his attention to demonstrating a proper display of house spirit. Narcissa smiled broadly at him very winningly, and he nodded slightly at her. Was she truly a Quidditch enthusiast? Well, that could be useful if she kept it in check but highly annoying if she did not. He would have to find out which one she was before it was too late to control it. He did trust the good breeding of the Black family to have instilled much of the needed restraint in her, of course.

In direct contrast, it was almost sickening to see the little blonde girl go positively batty with excitement whenever the star Gryffindor Chaser was playing to the crowd. It was impossible to keep his eyes from finding her after every acrobatic display, after every goal scored. It was impossible to pretend that anything had changed - that she wouldn't cast the same appraising eye over him and waive him off as insignificant in the exact same way that she had three years ago.

Misunderstanding the reason for his stare (Lucius doubted that he was the only one whose eyes were drawn to the eccentric and ecstatic fan), Narcissa whispered to him that the blonde girl who would always catch his eye was, "Marissa Fletcher, a sad, silly little cheerleader who's completely obsessed with James Potter. It's sickening."

If he had not been Lucius Malfoy, here his rage might have overcome him. As it was, not even Narcissa noticed it. That was who she respected? Yes, he was at least a pureblood, but the Potters were practically blood traitors! She worshipped a pathetic show-off Chaser whose family neglected its responsibilities and scorned its proper place in society? Who sided with halfbloods, Mudbloods, and worse in the Ministry and in the War? It was almost unbearable.

Cold rage shown out of his eyes whenever his gaze involuntarily flicked to the girl practically dancing at the bottom of the Gryffindor stands for the rest of the match. She did not notice. She did not cast so much as a glance at the Alumni box, and Lucius Malfoy knew that, even if she had, her gaze would not have lingered on him. Her eyes would have slid right over him without ever bothering to see him at all. Yet she fixed her gaze on James Potter for the duration of the match!

When Lucius Malfoy was leading Narcissa down the stairs at the head of the crowd of Slytherins with great dignity and honor, he saw the very pretty fourteen-year-old girl running across the pitch and tackling Potter in her celebration, knocking the blustering braggart to the ground as she screamed in a most unnecessary manner. He shuddered and looked away, unable to deal with the idea that the girl with contempt for him gave admiration so freely to the likes of Potters. He was almost nauseated by her radiant smile as she danced around the Quidditch pitch with her precious Potter and their friends and their idiotic, foolhardy house.

After escorting Narcissa to the front steps of the Castle and receiving a polite, proper peck on the cheek from his classically, aristocratically lovely betrothed, Lucius Malfoy headed back toward the gates to the school. He had no desire to stay and eat in the Great Hall like many lowborn parents felt was so exciting. Whenever he dined with Narcissa, he received permission to bring her to a fine restaurant or one of his family estates. Dumbledore had not granted permission for her to leave the school tonight, however, even for a Governor's son.

As he was passing the Quidditch pitch again, he saw the pair that had embedded themselves in his mind three years ago standing outside the boys' locker room, waiting for Potter to emerge. He watched them for a moment, and it was indisputable that the two fourteen-year-old girls were as innocent and careless as four-year-olds. They were laughing in a way that he had never seen anyone laugh - freely, fully, and without any restraint or darkness clouding their countenance. Didn't they know that there was a War going on? Who were they to be immune to its ravages?

They were also beautiful, each in her own way, and not just with the bloom and blush of youth. The redhead was gorgeous and likely to grow more so. A few more years and she would be a stunning, heart-stopping beauty. The blonde girl looked positively ridiculous standing next to her. In a way, she could have been one of Narcissa's sisters, but then the looks of the Blacks oscillated in a very wide range. She had light blue eyes and long blonde hair - but while Narcissa's fell elegantly straight, the girl's was wild, wavy and haphazardly entwined with red and gold ribbons. Narcissa's removed, distant expression was the polar opposite of the alive, sparkling look of the girl's eyes. Most of all, while Narcissa's aristocratic, dainty features made her look like a queen, this Marissa Fletcher looked about as refined as her idiotic costume of ten Gryffindor scarves with innumerable buttons and red corsages stuck to every conceivable part of her clothing. She was not ugly, but her eyes were large, her nose unremarkable, her forehead too small, her chin undefined, and her lips large. She looked as folksy as any caricature of a Mudblood that he could have imagined.

Seized with something he did not understand and could not control, Lucius Malfoy walked toward them purposefully. When he was close enough to see that every one of what looked like hundreds of buttons displayed on her clothes was a picture of James Potter's winking face, an almost animal rage overcame him. He drew his wand.

"What are those boys doing in there? They know we're waiting for them," the redhead complained, shaking her head and oddly sounding amused more than annoyed by the stupid, inconsiderate boys' tardiness.

Lucius Malfoy could not bear to hear her silly little Mudblood voice. He silenced her. She started to speak again, grabbed her throat in surprise, and completely distracted both herself and the blonde in the process. Lucius used that opportunity to immobilize the redhead. Then the blonde turned around. Too late.

Not that it would have mattered, because her eyes seemed to once again slide over him like when Muggles tried to see the Leaky Cauldron. That was all she was, a Muggle. He grabbed her arm roughly and dragged her off behind the changing rooms, thinking that it would certainly look wrong if some idiot professor saw his freak attack.

Once there he threw her down on the ground. She looked up at him with her eyebrows raised not in fear or hate, but pure surprise. It was something. Then he got to work. He grabbed the first scarf that his hands found and yanked unceremoniously, the force of the pull raising her to her feet. He threw down his wand. She thought that he was beneath her? Well, she didn't deserve the courtesy of him using magic on the likes of her.

He held her fast with a viselike grip on her arm, digging his nails into her skin right through her robe and blouse and drawing her insignificant, dirty blood as he tore the stupid winking buttons off of her. They seemed to be multiplying despite all of his efforts, however frantically he tore at them and her clothes. Instead, he seemed to get more and more wrapped up in her scarves the more he tried to get them off of her.

In the meantime, she was struggling to pull herself away, but he held her by her arm and did not let her escape. Finally, growing frustrated with his inability to completely rid her of the horrendous buttons, he pulled her to him and grabbed the robe, forcing it off of her shoulders roughly.

The girl used this opportunity. She grabbed his shoulders and used his forward momentum to nudge him forward as she brought her knee up violently in the direction of a very sensitive area. Lucius Malfoy had not seen ten thousand Muggle movies where women did a similar maneuver. Few, in fact, had ever dared stand up to him in any way in his life.

When Lucius found himself reduced to brawling with the likes of Arthur Weasley in public, he would remember this first time that an enemy had dared physically attack him. He would not realize that much of what made him regard Weasley as an adversary rather than just dismiss him would be the result of the deadly disease with which the gnat had infected him years ago.

He fell to his knees, reeling in shock, as the girl started to dart away. But there was far more pain involved in simply attending Death Eater meetings, not to mention the initiation. Such a small pain could not daunt Lucius Malfoy for long. He dove forward and caught her ankle, bringing her down to the ground with a flop. Again, she kicked out and hit him squarely in the jaw. Again, he could not be fazed by something so relatively painless as the well-aimed kick of fourteen-year-old girl.

He yanked her back to him, sliding her along the ground until she was practically under him and he held her down with the weight of his body, ripping more of her clothes now not from a desire to rid the reminders of Potter from her but to leave her as naked and exposed as he felt under her gaze. Such was his frenzy that he did not hear the footsteps over the scuffles of the fight. He did not anticipate the redhead being able to muster a defense of her friend.

But a great shout rose from her and slammed him back and away from the blonde. The cry sounded like that of an Amazon, and the redhead certainly looked that part as she stood with her wand pointed at him as three of the four boys behind her (who must have released her from his Bind) rushed to pin him to the ground. The fourth knelt down next to the blonde and helped her pull her robe back over herself.

They stood frozen there like that for a long moment: the redhead training her wand on him and not daring to move her eyes away, looking far more formidable than any fourteen-year-old Mudblood had a right to look to a fully grown, prominent pureblood wizard. Three boys physically held him on the ground, and the blonde hurriedly buttoned what was left of the buttons on her blouse while the boy with light brown hair cautiously draped her robe over her shoulders.

Then the blonde rose to her feet and the three boys yanked him up. The redhead used the same spell that he had used to subdue her on him, transfixing him utterly in a way that few fully grown wizards ever had. "You'll pay for that," she said in her most menacing voice. In that moment, Lucius Malfoy almost believed that this girl could do it. After all, she had immobilized him with a spell of his invention which she couldn't possibly have known before he cast it on her. She had immobilized him on her first attempt casting a spell that had taken him a full year to create and master.

Then he recovered himself, roughly dismissing the fear that the little redhead had suddenly inspired. However, it shattered his confidence again when the blonde spoke up even as she made final adjustments to what was left of her clothes. She did not look at him and her voice was almost indifferent. "Don't bother, Lily." It was as if she knew, as if she had studied her whole life to find the words that would have most enraged Lucius Malfoy at that moment.

"Riss!" Lily cried in shock and protest, turning around to look at her in disbelief.

"I won't give him the satisfaction of buying his way out of it," she said, squaring her shoulders with surprising dignity. "Besides," she continued, walking forward until she was very close to him, "I feel sorry for him." She cast one look at him which was completely devoid of disgust or the pity that she had just expressed, then she walked right past him. "And it's not nice to pick on people weaker than you, Lils," she called behind her.

Lucius Malfoy was blind with rage but unable to break the Mudblood's curse and lash out at Marissa Fletcher - unable to force her to see him as terrifying and powerful and threatening and something. He was so beside himself with almost uncontrollable fury that he barely saw her pull her friend's wand arm down to her side and lead her five still protesting friends back up toward the Castle where she would go on as outrageously happy and carefree and innocent and beautiful and contemptuous as she would have been if she had never had this encounter with him at all.

A few minutes later, the redhead's voice wafted toward him. "Hagrid, is there anything that you've ever wanted to do or say to Lucius Malfoy but been too afraid to? Well, he's behind the changing rooms, and believe me, he won't say a word about anything that happened tonight."

Lucius Malfoy waited for the blonde to stop her friend's proxy retribution through that monster masquerading as a wizard. She said nothing. That was when Lucius Malfoy realized the fundamental truth about Marissa Fletcher: she did not care about him enough to do anything with, for or against him.

~~~

Mrs. Lucius Malfoy and Mrs. Marissa Lupin were not friends. They had never been friends, and they almost certainly would never be friends. So of course, they had tea every Sunday afternoon.

"I am sorry that we don't have cakes, but bread and butter will have to do," Mrs. Malfoy said politely. That was certainly one thing that they were both capable of: utter politeness.

"My stomach does not tolerate too much sugar these days anyway, bread and butter will do just fine, I thank you," Mrs. Lupin replied politely. It was a strange acquaintanceship that had turned more than a few heads. However, looked at in the proper light, it was inevitable. After all, in Hogwarts the then Narcissa Black had been among the first Slytherins to grudgingly accept the then Marissa Fletcher's presence and status as Severus Snape's girlfriend. Her own worth had recommended her to most of Snape's housemates and the best among the Slytherins had eventually accepted her even before Snape leaked the information about her mother's high rank in wizarding society.

They had never been close so their continued relationship had never interfered with either's loyalties in the War. They would certainly not have betrayed their cause for each other's sake. They had always talked to each other in a studied, careful and always deliberate manner. They extended courtesy without familiarity and companionship without camaraderie. Both sides wanted someone who was close to the other side, just to keep an eye on things. Mrs. Malfoy and Mrs. Lupin, with their crisp, polite, unattached relationship, were perfect candidates for both the Order and the Death Eaters, although of course neither of them belonged to either group.

"How are you faring?" Mrs. Malfoy asked out of sheer politeness. Mrs. Lupin's illness was not what she considered a proper teatime topic. She did, however, want to stay well-informed. She wished that she possessed Marissa Lupin's talent for extracting information without ever asking direct questions about what she obviously wanted to know. Actually, Narcissa Malfoy would settle for Marissa Lupin not having that talent.

"Tolerably, Narcissa," she said with a small smile and slight nod. "Obviously not particularly well, but I am getting by fairly well."

"I am glad to hear it, Marissa," Mrs. Malfoy replied and found that she meant it. Narcissa Malfoy had not thought about Marissa Fletcher much until the arrogant girl had waltzed into the Slytherin Common Room on the arm of its least popular member as if she owned the place - as if she had every right in the world to be there. She knew - everyone knew - that she was a Potter groupie, of course. As she watched the brazen hussy set up court in the Slytherin dungeon like she undoubtedly did in the Gryffindor Common Room where at least she had a right to be, Narcissa wondered what it was about Marissa Fletcher that made people give her their loyalty so freely.

She inspired trust in people who should know better. She made people like her, love her, swear that she was someone to be trusted. Narcissa wondered, after years of being Marissa's not-so-distant acquaintance, if the source of her strange power over people was the trust that she extended, without qualification, to others. The thing that most surprised her about the extent of Marissa Lupin's power over people was not that she won Narcissa over. It was Lucius.

Long before Narcissa became convinced - somehow - to appreciate Marissa Lupin's company, Lucius had asked her to befriend the girl. He was the one who insisted that Narcissa begin the weekly ritual of Sunday teatime. He took more interest in the woman's steadily deteriorating health than even the friends Marissa had once been closest to did these days. He had donated a great deal of money to the projects that Marissa's husband tried to launch to find a cure for her Muggle disease.

Lucius never interfered with her social calls, except with Marissa Lupin. He came when she visited. He was sitting in the next room, behind the door, listening to their conversation this afternoon. What Narcissa could barely understand about their relationship was that all of their interactions were colder than Marissa Lupin acted with anyone else. She was as warm and funny and familiar as the other person could tolerate with each and every person that she met, except Lucius.

Not that Narcissa's own interactions with her were relaxing these days. Sometimes, at school, she would find herself almost letting down her guard around the silly little Gryffindor. Now, however, the parlor was thick with all the things that they could not say. All of the games that they were playing wove circles around them. All of the secrets for which they probed and prodded each other hung in a mass between them. It had been building for some time, this thick, active and heavy parlor, but today was different. Narcissa knew the reason, and though she didn't doubt that Marissa Lupin sensed it, Narcissa was almost entirely sure that she didn't know why. She said "almost entirely" because Marissa Lupin had surprised her many times with what she could decipher from seemingly non-existent clues. But even Marissa Lupin would almost certainly be unaware that Lucius was listening in the next room.

Narcissa did not like being a variable in her husband's experiments, but she agreed because he had always acted in the best interests of their son and his inheritance both financially and as an honored member of the Dark Lord's Inner Circle. So the three of them sat in relative silence with all of the things that they had left unspoken too long whirling around them in erratic spirals.

And as if the parlor were not crowded enough, Severus Snape entered it a moment later. "Severus," Mrs. Lupin cried in mild surprise. "I didn't know that you would be joining us."

"It is nice to see you in such fine health, Mrs. Lupin," he nodded to her politely, crossing the room and, at a gesture from Mrs. Malfoy, taking a seat across from Mrs. Lupin. "How do you do, Mrs. Malfoy," he bowed in greeting. Unlike the two women, however, he spoke the language of diplomacy with a thick, gruff accent. They were natives, or at least flawlessly fluent, and he would always be an uncomfortable foreigner in that tongue.

"Very well, though I must say that it certainly seems strange to hear you call Marissa by her husband's name," Mrs. Malfoy remarked, using one of her more genuinely pleasant voices. "I never thought that I would see the two of you so formal."

"Do you call Lestrange 'Rodolphus' in public then?" Snape retaliated with a mild drawl.

Narcissa's eyes hardened into a look of cold fury for a moment as she regarded him. "My sister's husband and I were never involved," she told him in a truly glacial tone of voice.

"And yet you do not refer to him informally any longer," Snape returned, "and that from only the false rumor of a relationship. Imagine when Mrs. Lupin and I were, in fact, once involved."

"Is that what we were?" Mrs. Lupin asked, a very out-of-place smirk gracing her face briefly, which she hid behind a teacup.

"What did he call you before you married Lupin? 'Miss Fletcher?'" Narcissa asked, now sounding incredibly curious about the minute details of their relationship. "Apparently not simply 'Marissa' then."

It was Mrs. Lupin who answered. "Severus never called me 'Marissa' in his life. Never 'Miss Fletcher' either for that matter." She smiled at him as if sharing a private joke, but only she seemed to be part of it. Snape did not join in her amusement. "He hasn't called me by my given name since we started dating."

"You were just 'Fletcher' to me before that," Snape said, sounding as if he thought that this topic of conversation would be over more quickly if he cooperated rather than obstructed it.

"If I did that well," Marissa said, the once ever-present laugh in her voice prominent now. "But he hasn't called me that since the first time that he kissed me."

"And while you were dating you had that ridiculous little pseudonym," Narcissa picked up the narration. "For awhile, I thought that it was some misguided attempt to separate her from the Gryffindor prefect we all knew when you had her among Slytherins. I thought that you were under the impression that by calling her a new name you could convince us that your girlfriend was a different person entirely from the acting President of the James Potter Fan Club." Narcissa took a moment to sip her tea and observe the sudden spike in the awkwardness of the situation at the mention of James Potter. "But then I overheard you calling her 'my Fran' when you thought that no one was around. I've always wondered about that since then."

Mrs. Lupin's old, wide and unrestrained smile came to her lips. However, she cast a quick look at Snape before she explained, "Since you finally asked outright, which no one in all of these years has done, I will risk telling you that it was after Francesca de Rimini."

"The Inferno seems a little dark for you, Marissa," Mrs. Malfoy remarked in mild surprise, "but also very fitting for your relationship."

"You know Dante's Divine Comedy?" Mrs. Lupin asked, raising one eyebrow daintily. "That seems a little Muggle for you, Narcissa."

"Please," Narcissa replied quietly. "Did you never, then, make the connection between the Guelfs and the Ghibellines? Did you think pure Muggle politics tore apart the city of Florence? Think which side would want Papal power, say the side that envies the special power of others? And an unusually low level of both recruiting and crossover between parties usually indicates wizard and Muggle interaction, especially from that era."

Marissa Lupin was smiling in amusement, "The Ghibellines were wizards." She shook her head. "The conflict has certainly gone on too long then. Almost seven centuries..."

"Wake up, darling," Mrs. Malfoy replied, "it has been going on much longer than that." Here the awkwardness settled heavily on all of the parties again. Mrs. Lupin seemed to be mentally berating herself for highlighting her anti-purity beliefs. Snape was silent, but then that was not really a change.

All three of them knew that Mrs. Malfoy would have to be the one to break the silence. Being an impeccable hostess, she soon fulfilled her duty, "I do have one more uncomfortable question to ask before we move on." They both glanced up at her politely. She continued with great innocence, "Why not Beatrice?"

"It is a relief to hear someone pronounce it correctly instead of calling her 'Bee-uh-tris,'" Mrs. Lupin said by way of answer. "The Italian 'Bee-ah-tree-chay' is so beautiful, but Severus and I felt that it would be inappropriate. I was not on a heavenly mission to save him from himself."

"No, rather she was casting herself into hell for the sake of passion," Snape deadpanned.

Mrs. Lupin met his eyes for a moment before he looked away. Her eyes seemed to express her sadness and disapproval of his characterization of their relationship. "That is not precisely what we meant to express with our chosen pet name," she said in a tone of slight rebuke.

"Passion?" Mrs. Malfoy asked with one eyebrow raised.

"How are the Lestranges?" Mrs. Lupin asked in a mild tone of voice.

"Very well," Mrs. Malfoy said, punctuating her displeasure at this attack by setting her teacup down on the saucer a little too hard. "And your husband?"

"Getting along just fine," Mrs. Lupin replied politely, deliberately setting down her teacup with the utmost delicacy.

"He gets back tomorrow, does he not?" Mrs. Malfoy inquired.

"At the latest, yes," Mrs. Lupin replied. "I tried to convince him to Floo back tonight, but he was afraid of waking me. I swear, even with the time difference, he must think that I go to sleep at nine o'clock. I don't see how his interview could possibly go much longer than that."

"He has had distinct trouble finding a job here, I understand," Mrs. Malfoy clucked sympathetically. "Pity, he was certainly very bright at school."

"He still is," Mrs. Lupin added. "Most who would have employed him were concerned that he is preoccupied with my care. They are afraid he will have to leave work soon to take over nursing me full time should my condition deteriorate further."

"Does that occurrence seem imminent?" Snape asked, hiding any concern that he might have felt well.

"The doctors are not entirely optimistic," Mrs. Lupin said seriously, meeting his eyes and successfully holding them for the first time during the awkward meeting.

"I do wish that you would see our Healers," Mrs. Malfoy told her.

Mrs. Lupin smiled slightly. "I doubt that they would tell me any differently than the other Healers that I have seen. It is not a magical disease and well out of their range of expertise. Even witches and wizards must go to the Muggle medical world for cancer treatment I fear."

"Unfortunately it is not a common disease in the magical world," Snape said.

"Among purebloods, of course," Mrs. Malfoy added.

"Of course," Mrs. Lupin responded mildly. "When does Lucius return, Narcissa? He and Bella have both been gone for quite some time. Or have they simply been hiding from their social duties?"

"Lucius will be back sometime next week," Narcissa replied. "Bella is already back. Whether or not she is hiding is not mine to say. She certainly has no reason to, that I know of, of course."

"Of course," Mrs. Lupin replied with a slight nod.

~~~

Narcissa Black Malfoy found it distinctly degrading to be listening at the window to the conversation between Severus Snape and Marissa Lupin. However, Lucius wanted her opinion. Intellectually, she saw the reason for his doubt. She also knew why Lucius needed more than his own opinion to make this decision. Marissa Lupin had, had always had, an almost hypnotic effect on those whose confidence she wished to inspire. Even now, having seen in the past half hour the veiled probing questions and the silent communication with Snape, Narcissa wanted to disbelieve with everything in her that Marissa Lupin could be Dumbledore's spy.

A less skilled woman, perhaps any woman other than Marissa Lupin, would have been discovered long ago if she had had the audacity to walk brazenly into Malfoy Manor once a week to gather intelligence for the Order. But Marissa Lupin inspired trust, however grudgingly given. And if her effect on Narcissa was hypnotic, on Lucius it was spellbinding. Her husband was positively obsessed with Marissa Lupin and had been as long as Narcissa could remember her being in their lives. He was the one who had requested that she befriend her, that she influence the other Slytherins to accept her presence in the Slytherin common room. Now, however, he was the first to break the spell and realize the obvious: that Marissa Lupin was working for Dumbledore.

Snape's interaction with her only confirmed it. He held her arm as he escorted her to the car waiting for her, but he stopped her just before they reached the door. "Do you know what you're doing, Mrs. Lupin?" he asked her mildly.

"I have some idea, Severus," she replied mildly.

Narcissa could almost see his grip on her arm tighten. "Do you? Do you know whom you are trying to play? Whom you think you can deceive?"

"I am walking to my car, how is that deceptive?" Mrs. Lupin asked with something like a laugh in her voice. "Unless you are about to suggest that Remus would not appreciate me allowing you to escort me, I am afraid that I cannot fathom what you mean."

"Just," the word seemed to burst unwillingly from Snape, "promise me that you will be careful."

Marissa Lupin smiled slightly. "I am not going to die from stepping into a car, I promise," she replied, opening the door. He helped her inside and watched her drive away with a worried look on his face before he Apparated away.

Only then did Lucius turn to her. "Well that was obvious enough," was all that he said. So much for wanting her input.

"Obvious that Snape is not part of it," Narcissa replied, mostly to be contrary but also partially because he had convinced her.

"At the very least he's warning her, trying to warn a spy of Dumbledore not to be caught," Lucius replied.

"Loyalty to an old flame might extend that far, but he wouldn't betray the Dark Lord for her, not really," Narcissa told her husband.

"So would you extend that much courtesy to Rodolphus?" Lucius asked.

If the look that Narcissa had given Snape had been icy, the one that she gave her husband would make the polar icecaps shiver. "It is one thing for ignorant halfbloods to babble on about things that they do not understand. It is quite another for you to do so," she told him, moving away from the window.

"Very well, my darling," Lucius replied, turning to face her. "I will trust your judgment for the present, but I do hope that you will not be insulted if I ask the man with the old flame to be a member of the party?"

"Will you want me along to help you judge his reaction there as well?" Narcissa asked with something approaching annoyance in her voice.

"You shrink from doing your duty to the Dark Lord, my love?" Lucius asked, approaching her from behind and gently gathering her pale blonde hair into his hands.

She turned around, facing her husband with his hand still holding her by her hair. "I have turned on a friend for you today. I wonder that you expect asking me to study Severus Snape's reaction to her capture to make me cringe?"

"He did save the Goring girl," Lucius reminded her. "I never did figure that one out."

Narcissa reached up and smoothed her husband's brow. "I think that you have been plotting too long, love," she told him in a hushed whisper.

Her husband did not seem to hear her. "The Lupins were the ones who took her in, weren't they? Distant relatives? What if she asked Snape to save the girl?"

Narcissa wanted to snap at her husband that not everything was tied up in Marissa Lupin. Sometimes, however, Narcissa wondered if, for her husband, everything did begin and end with the young blonde woman. He had been obsessed with her as far back as Narcissa could remember her being a topic of conversation between them.

She wanted to snap back at him that the Lupins most certainly had not adopted the girl, though they had tried, and they had only discovered the blood connection after her rescue. She further wanted to scream at him that not everyone centered their lives around Marissa Lupin. Severus Snape could have had ten thousand motives for his rescue mission, each of which had nothing to do with Marissa bloody Lupin.

Instead of even sighing to vent her frustration, however, she simply said, "I will watch Snape tonight so that you can focus on Mrs. Lupin."

Then she moved away from her husband and his plotting and went to see her baby.

~~~

"I'm home, Riss," came from the foyer, following quickly by the sound of the door shutting.

"Remus!" Marissa caroled happily down to him. "I'm upstairs!" She popped up and ripped her hospital-issue smock off as she dove into her wardrobe to extract different clothing. There was little point, really, in trying to disguise her rapidly declining health from her husband, but it would make their night much better if they didn't have to be reminded by her clothing.

"Can you be more specific?" his voice called, sounding all together too close for her hasty operation.

"In the bedroom!" she called, throwing on the first nightgown that her frantic hands found and kicking the hospital-wear under the bureau as quickly as possible. She was just straightening the long, white silk nightgown when she saw him walk into the room and lean against the doorframe looking a little tired and very pleased to see her.

"Hello, darling," she said with a genuine, warm smile. "But you do know that we're going to have a fight, right?"

"Why?" he demanded with false innocence.

"I told you to always tell me the real time that you expected to be home," she said, doing her best to look stern and, as usual with Remus, failing abysmally. She was a fabulous actress, except when her husband was her audience. Then she failed utterly. "How many times have I asked you not to give me false estimates?"

"Come here and I'll make it up to you," he said, reaching out a hand for her.

Twisting her mouth into a sly smile, she walked forward towards him. The moment that she placed her hand lightly in his, he yanked her to him with surprising force and crushed her to him with his other arm. That was the first moment that she began to feel cold.

She shook it off and merely raised an eyebrow at him as she said, "Miss me, Remus?"

"Dreadfully," he replied, bending down and covering her mouth with his.

The moment that he did, she knew. She did not need to feel his hands running over her or feel him start to drag her to the bed to know that it was not her husband who had walked so brazenly into her home. She was enraged at the gall of the imposter for only a moment. Soon she was just amazed at his stupidity for thinking that she wouldn't know her husband's kisses, much less his caresses, from another's.

When he broke the kiss, she simply replied with as much of a smile as she could muster, "I see you have missed me." He gave a hollow laugh and started kissing her neck. Marissa tried not to recoil or even shudder in her disgust. "Well," she almost laughed, proving her considerable talents as an actress, "if that's where your mind is, you should really go get - you know - out of the bathroom."

The man who was most definitely not her husband looked up at her in slight confusion. She sighed and feigned annoyance. "Really, Remus! We've discussed this! The doctors say we shouldn't take any chances. Stop fooling around."

The man obediently moved toward the door to the bathroom as she lay there with her arms folded. "That's better. Don't come back until you have one."

"Yes, dear," the man replied with a grin surprisingly like her husband's. Marissa tried not to vomit. The moment that he was out of sight in the bathroom, she sprang up from the bed and rushed to her vanity. She pulled out one of her cosmetics cases and grabbed a handful of the floury white powder.

She had never been more glad to have a fire going in the fireplace in her bedroom. She threw the floo powder on it and stepped into the flames. Unfortunately, she had grabbed too much powder and most of it seemed to have taken up residence in her throat. As she tried to cry out her destination, she started to cough violently. "G-godr-"

"Malfoy Manor!" the man's voice yelled from the doorway, a fire of rage such as she had never seen in her real husband's eyes smoldering as the imposter saw her attempted flight.

"No!" Marissa cried as she was whirling through the warm green flames.

She landed sprawled out on the cold marble of a fireplace in the Malfoy Manor where she had had tea with Narcissa Malfoy and Severus Snape only that afternoon as an invited guest. A thin, pale hand grabbed her own and helped her to her feet. Winded from the trip and her splat onto the hard marble, it took a moment for the world to stop spinning. "Don't try to run, Marissa," Narcissa told her, dropping her hand.

"Will you keep your promise about Gus?" Marissa demanded, catching and forcing Narcissa Malfoy to hold her gaze. "You said that you would make sure that he was all right if anything ever happened to me and Remus. Will you keep your promise?"

"You never actually accepted my promise," Narcissa told her coldly. "You merely said that it was a lovely offer. You didn't want it at the time, so I'm afraid the promise is non-binding." Then Narcissa Malfoy stepped away from Marissa Lupin and joined the circle of hooded figures who were closing around her.

She took an involuntary step back towards the fire, her only exit not blocked by a menacing attacker. Or so she thought. She backed straight into the man who had just arrived through the fireplace. He grabbed her shoulders with his hands and whirled her around to face the man who was not her husband.

Before her very eyes, Remus's features melted into those of Lucius Malfoy, who regarded her with cold, hard eyes.

This was the moment for which Lucius Malfoy had waited for years. Ever since she had casually waved him off in the corridors of Hogwarts, he had been thirsting for this moment when into her eyes would explode everything that he had ever wanted to see there. Now, when he had her in his power, she could surely no longer dismiss him.

"I know that you need your medication," he told her. "Tell me where the Potters are and I promise that you'll have it."

Marissa Lupin did not say anything. She simply regarded him for a moment, then spit in his face.

The cold liquid hit his nose and clung. "I've wanted to do that for seven years," she said.

"Why didn't you?" he demanded, crushing her arms in his grip and pulling her farther forward. If she had reviled and hated him for seven years, then his demons could have been quelled long ago.

"Because there are more important things than you in my life," she spat with contempt, and this hit Lucius Malfoy harder than the spit had a moment ago. He flung her to the ground and stood over her.

In your eyes, I wanted to see fear. I wanted you to look me in the eyes and quail as you thought, 'what great power, what terrible danger is in this man.' That would be victory for me. But it wasn't there, and that round - even that round - went to you.

"Tell us where the Potters are!" another Death Eater demanded, advancing on the fallen young woman.

"Don't bother," Lucius waved the man away. "I doubt she even knows who they chose for their Secret Keeper." He stood over her, leaning down so that he could see the hurt on her face as he spoke his next words. "Ironically, they were the first ones to stop trusting you. So you have no one now, little gnat."

"If this is going to go on for a while, I'm going to need a glass of water," Marissa said, her voice laced with disdain. "Do you think that you can oblige?"

"Why don't you quake in fear?" Lucius roared down at her. "Your little friends aren't here to save you now! You are mine!"

Marissa Lupin gave a little laugh. "Who are you?"

He grabbed her and yanked her to her feet, "I am Lucius Malfoy! Heir to one of the Seven Old Families, Governor of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry! On the board of every major wizarding institution! Honored servant of the Dark Lord!"

"Well, there's the difference between us," Marissa Lupin interrupted his speech in a mild voice. "You see, I'm my own woman. I am no slave to a madman. I am free."

"Not anymore," he hissed at her, flinging her into the arms of Severus Snape who caught her as roughly as he seemed to dare. "Anton, take her below!"

Lucius Malfoy nearly exploded with rage when he saw the look of pain and sorrow which Marissa Lupin turned on Severus Snape. Even as she was ripped out of his grip by Anton Dolohov, her eyes followed Severus Snape, full of some deep emotion made of equal parts pain and disappointment.

She looked at a stupid halfblood the way that she had never looked at Lucius Malfoy. At that moment, Lucius could have committed murder, and not the cold, calculated kind that he could commit every day of the week and twice on Sundays. Lucius Malfoy had never been guilty of a crime of passion, but he was dangerously close to one now as he saw Marissa Lupin looking tortured by Severus Snape's betrayal. Snape, for his part, was regarding her coldly and indifferently. Idiot. Didn't he know what such a look meant? What Lucius Malfoy would have given to have it directed at him?

"Get her out of my sight!" he roared again, watching as Anton dragged her out of the room and down to the dungeons under his family home. When she was gone he stood there huffing like a winded rhinoceros, red in the face with his long bleached blonde hair wild around him. He had never looked more like an injured lion. That was what that stupid little Gryffindor was supposed to look like when this was over. Instead, as always, he was the one rendered powerless and frustrated.

~~~

Narcissa stayed in the room with him long after the rest of the Death Eaters had left. Such a large number were not necessary and would not have been provided unless Lily, James and Harry Potter had suddenly, only half an hour before Marissa Lupin's capture, disappeared from the notice of their assigned tail.

"I have only one question for you," Narcissa told him as she coldly observed the somewhat sunken version of her powerful and supremely confident husband. "Your obsession with Marissa Lupin, is it over now?"

Lucius Malfoy said nothing. He did not even look at his wife. "I see," she said in a deathly quiet whisper. "Then I have only one more thing to say to you tonight. If you attempt to complete the action which you began when she was fourteen, and I suspect again tonight in her husband's image, remember that Draco and I are visiting my mother's in a week. You have already given your permission for a visit of indefinite duration. You would have no magical or legal recourse."

With that, his wife walked out of the room. Lucius knew that her threat was not empty. A male heir produced, many marriages took the path that she had outlined. If she thought that he had so much as touched Marissa Lupin, she would not return from her visit to her mother's. Draco would be raised by the Blacks, and, though Narcissa would never officially end their marriage, she would never return to Malfoy Manor.

She needed not have bothered with the threat.

Lucius Malfoy knew now that he could never have forced respect from Marissa Lupin. All of his efforts over the years had resulted only in seeing her change from a silly little first year who had ignorantly dismissed him to a wily, wise woman of the world who had nothing but contempt for him, even when he had her in his power. He could not win, because even when he had mastered her in every way, Lucius knew that Marissa Lupin's opinion of him would never change.

If what she saw as an attempted rape had not imprinted him in her mind at the tender age of fourteen, he would not beat her by raping a full-grown married woman. He had never really had any interest in sleeping with her. He had wanted to strip her bare at fourteen to expose her to the same shame he felt in her presence. He had been intoxicated with the look of importance shining out of her eyes in the moments before she realized that he was not her precious Remus Lupin. But it was never her body or even her love that he had wanted. He had wanted her fear and her hate. He knew now that she would never grant him that.

He resolved in that moment to move on, to never think of her again, to let her rot in the dungeon and die and fade away without even a blip on the radar of the wizarding world to mark her passing. But in that moment, when he sat on the cold marble fireplace in something approaching despair, he knew that he would never forget the look of cold dismissal she had given him. He would never be able to forget how she refused even then to see him as even a worthy opponent, much less a victor. He knew what Marissa Lupin would always think of him, and he would never be able to recover from it completely.

Lucius took a swig from a bottle of whiskey and drank to the death of Marissa Lupin, the only adversary that he had faced that had reduced him to this.

He had thought that continual sparring with her, testing her, doing battle to force her to prove she was a spy would compel her to fear and respect him. He had thought that provoking, at long last, a reaction from her would free him from her indifference. But nothing could break the spell that she had cast on him. All that she did, every encounter that they had had, only made him realize the truth.

In your eyes, I am nothing.

And the truly terrifying thought followed that one. Maybe he was nothing.