Chapter Twenty-One: Those Seven Minutes
Lily stood in the lavish parlor, feeling extraordinarily uncomfortable and out of place. The grandeur of the Malfoy Manor presented a stark contrast to the life she had been living for the past seven years. It was one more reminder, she reflected with a slight bitterness, of how she and Narcissa had taken very different paths.
The other witch stood opposite her. She was a little surprised that Narcissa had agreed to speak to her at all given how much animosity the blonde aristocrat still harbored for her. But Narcissa had agreed, and she was now standing here, feeling so much more unsure than she had at any point since that night seven years ago.
She had always prided herself on being strong-willed and stubborn. They weren’t often considered particularly good traits by everyone else, but it at least meant that she had a set of morals and she stuck to them, no matter what. But somehow, since meeting James, everything had changed, and she could not stop the combination of admiration and pity that filled her chest as she gazed at her former friend.
Shouldn’t she feel anger? Shouldn’t she want revenge? For everything Narcissa had done to her… why didn’t she feel those things anymore?
It was Narcissa who broke the silence. “Do you have anything to say, Evans, or have you just come to muck up my respectable house with your presence?”
“I keep thinking about that night,” Lily answered quietly. She pushed a few strands of red hair out of her eyes and let out a long breath. “I keep thinking about what you did. About what we did. I don’t think I ever really appreciated just how much you hated them.”
Narcissa frowned slightly, lines appearing on her otherwise perfect skin. “You have no idea what you are talking about,” she said, her tone cold.
“Don’t I?” Lily countered. She shook her head, looked away briefly. “Why did you do it, then?”
Narcissa’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you care?” she asked sharply.
Lily sighed. She didn’t want to have to elaborate. She didn’t want to be forced to spell out her questions when she knew perfectly well that Narcissa was aware of the reason for her visit. The blonde was intelligent and perceptive, far more than most people gave her credit for. She knew what had happened that night, just like she knew why Remus had died.
The redhead sighed again. She just wanted to know why her best friend had been killed. She had a general idea, but the specifics… she needed Narcissa’s answers for that.
But to get the answers, that meant she had to go back seven years and address that first question.
“Why did you do it?” she said again.
Narcissa considered her for a long moment, then said, “Wait here.” She walked stiffly from the room, without sparing Lily another glance.
Lily almost sagged in relief. She took a few steps to the nearest armchair and sank into it. Narcissa had not invited her to sit down when she first entered the Manor, and part of her wanted to stay standing, just to prove that she could do it. If Narcissa was not going to be gracious enough to offer even the barest civility, Lily certainly didn’t want to show her own weakness by asking for it.
But now she was too tired to stand. Azkaban had worn away at her strength, just as conversations with James had worn away at her stubbornness. And Remus’ death…
That, it seemed, was wearing away at her soul.
She just needed the truth.
Narcissa reentered the room. She was carrying a bundled blue shawl in her hands, and she stared at it for a brief moment before looking at Lily.
“Seven years… I kept it. It was foolish, I know. I meant to destroy it at the first possible opportunity, but…” She trailed off with a shrug. “My husband and the father of my son had just been killed. I guess I was not thinking clearly.”
Lily extended her arms shakily towards the shawl. Narcissa reached out and dropped the cloth into her waiting hands.
“I took it home. I snapped it into pieces and wrapped it in a shawl Lucius had given me for a recent birthday. I hid it away in a trunk where I knew no one would ever look.”
Lily unwrapped the shawl slowly, feeling the feather-light fabric slide through her fingers. She held it on her lap, carefully pulling away the pieces until she revealed the object hidden within.
The fragmented pieces of her original wand.
She wanders aimlessly, exhausted and scared from the events of the past few days. Malfoy knows what Remus is, and that terrifies her more than anything. She doesn’t know how he’s learned the truth, but it doesn’t really matter. She knows what he plans to do with it, and the very thought of it makes her sick.
But she doesn’t know what to do. Does she tell Remus? How can she do that to him, how can she worry him with this? There is nothing either of them can do, so can she really bring herself to add yet another burden to his too-thin shoulders? And yet, it is his life, and he has a right to know that Malfoy knows.
She continues to wander. She cannot face Remus now, which was why she was at the pub by herself. But Malfoy was there, and his presence had only made things worse.
She knows, intellectually, that she should be cold. The night air is chilly, and a strong wind rushes through the branches of the trees. But the faint haze of alcohol-induced stupor had fallen over her, and she can only smile, numb. The alcohol has given her a brief respite from her fears, and maybe for these few minutes, she’ll have peace of mind.
She knows it is close to midnight, and she has been walking for nearly an hour. She should go home, go to sleep. Face these problems tomorrow.
But then she hears the footsteps on the ground behind her, and turns, surprised. The pleasant humming in her mind is gone abruptly, replaced by a vicious, all-consuming hatred for the man who appears before her, moonlight glistening off his white-blonde hair. He pauses when he looks at her, surprise widening his eyes, and then a sneer twists his lips.
“Evans,” he spits.
And then, before she can react, he is closing the space between them, looming over her. She shrinks back quickly, then tries to summon her courage. But she’s still dizzy, and the world is fuzzy and moving in slow motion.
“You went to Narcissa,” Malfoy growls, shoving her backwards. She stumbles but stays upright and easily side-steps his next attempt to push her to the ground.
“Malfoy, what you talking about?” she asks sharply, trying frantically to clear her head, but she can’t think, can’t understand anything. Why is he here? Why is standing so close to her, close enough that she can smell the alcohol on his breath.
Is he drunk, too?
“You spoke to Narcissa. You told her what I was doing. She asked me about it, she wanted… she listened to you. To you! You’re nothing. Trash. Mudblood. And she… she listened…”
He grabs her wrist and she pulls backwards, tripping over herself. She is willing her body to move, but it won’t obey her commands, and the rush of oxygen that suddenly leaves her lungs only serves to heighten her panic. She feels the hot burning in her eyes again, and more pain as his grip on her wrist tightens, wrenching her arm the wrong way.
She fumbles for her wand with her free hand, relief flooding through her as her fingers close around the slim wood. She brings the wand up quickly, fiercely, but the red light that bursts from the tip does nothing to stop Malfoy. He does not even seem to notice the blood on the side of his face.
“You filth,” he snarls. “You’re always acting like you’re better than everyone else, but you’re not. You’re nothing, nothing at all.”
She sucks in a breath and tries to pull away from him again, but his body is pressed against hers, his warm breath on her face and neck. The hand holding her wrist moves, and her arm is brought up in front of her, pressed against her chest. His other hand rests on her shoulder, and then slides down towards her stomach, and…
And suddenly she is completely sober.
She can’t form a single coherent thought save for the overwhelming need to get away from him. Need to get away from this place, from his hands on her skin, from the smell of smoke that lingers in the air and brings up bile in her throat.
She kicks him, hard. He groans and releases her, and she brings her wand up again, ready to attack, ready to protect herself, ready to do whatever is necessary to get away from him.
The clock on the distant tower strikes midnight.
He backhands her and she starts falling…
But steadies herself. He is moving towards her again, eyes wide, pupils dilated, and the inhuman malice in his eyes scares her. She can’t help but wonder if he is even aware of what he is doing, if he is aware of anything at all.
“Please stop,” she begs, but she knows it won’t make a difference.
“Trash,” he says again, his words slurred. “Filth. Muck.”
Then his lips are on hers, forceful and demanding, and his fingers curl into her robes, going places she desperately does not want them to go, and the world is spinning in front of her, blackness encroaching on her vision. This can’t be happening, it has to be some sort of nightmare, a bad dream, and she’ll wake up…
But she doesn’t. She’s trapped and crying now, or trying to, but his lips are cutting off every sounds she could make and she is pushing, clawing at him, nails scraping into his skin, but he doesn’t notice, doesn’t care, and he’s too strong, she can’t get free.
“Lucius?”
He stops, frozen at the sound of Narcissa’ voice. Over his shoulder, Lily can see the blonde witch standing there, her features illuminated by the faint yellow glow of street light. Her eyes are wide and shocked, her mouth is open ever so slightly, as though she wants to say something but can’t think of the words.
One of Lucius’ arms drops to his side and the other comes up to Lily’s throat. “Cissy,” he says, even as his fingers bite into Lily’s skin, twisting painfully into the loose strands of hair that fall over her shoulders. “It’s not what you think.”
His words are no longer slurred, but he is not letting go of Lily, and instead the rage in his eyes is growing, his lips pressing into a thin line, his fingers closing tightly, so tightly that Lily can’t breath…
And she reacts, lifting her wand and gasping out the spell, numb with horror and disbelief, not entirely aware of what she is doing. She just wants it to end, and the flash of green lights up the air, lights up Narcissa’s bewildered expression, lights up Malfoy’s blank stare. Everything is washed in green, and then Malfoy is falling.
And the street is silent.
But only for a moment.
“Murderer!” Narcissa screams, launching herself forward and raking her nails over Lily’s face, apparently forgetting about magic, about her own wand. “You killed him. You killed him!”
She pushes Narcissa away. “Cissy, please,” she whispers. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t have a choice. Didn’t you see what he was doing?”
But Narcissa isn’t listening. She grabs Lily by the hair and yanks her forward. “I love him,” she spits. “But you could not stand that, could you? You kept baiting him, mocking him. You couldn’t even try… and now you killed him? How could you? How could you?”
She is crying, great big tears sliding from her eyes and falling down her cheeks, and all Lily can think is that Narcissa doesn’t get to be the victim, not now. Not after what has just happened, what Malfoy has tried to do. What he almost succeeded in doing.
She slaps Narcissa. Hard.
Narcissa reels back, lifting one hand to her face. Delicate fingers run over the skin that will show a bruise tomorrow, and her tear-filled eyes seem to lose their hatred. For just a moment, she stares almost sympathetically at Lily.
“You saw,” Lily says again. “You saw what he was doing, what he tried to do. How can you pretend not to know what kind of person he was? How can you…?”
Narcissa shakes her head. “Rudolphus will have your soul for this,” she says bluntly, her eyes on Malfoy. “He’ll ruin you and everything you hold dear. Remus, Frank, Alice...” She lets out a long breath. “I loved him,” she says. “Don’t you understand that? I loved him.”
Lily is silent. She cannot deny the truth in Narcissa’s words, Lestrange will destroy her if he can prove that she has done this. It doesn’t matter that it was in self-defense, doesn’t matter that Malfoy had been trying to rape and maybe even kill her. It just matters that he is dead now, and Lily is a worthless Muggleborn who deserves to suffer.
He will feed her soul to the Dementors, and just to torment her even more, he will make sure she knows that he is going to destroy her friends as well. Narcissa is right.
“Oh, God... no...” she breathes, horrified.
Narcissa says nothing, just stares at her coldly.
Lily meets Narcissa’s gaze, fear and anger warring for control in her chest. “Cissy,” she says again, then stops and looks away. “You know what he is,” she says, and it is a simple statement of fact. “You know what he’s done. You know what he plans to do.”
Narcissa nods. “Yes.” She hesitates, then, “Give me your wand.”
Lily gapes blankly.
“You will be the first suspect, and if you run, it will only be a sign of your guilt. And there is nowhere you can go where Rodolphus won’t find you. Where the Dark Lord won’t find you. Come up with an alibi if you can. But give me your wand. It is the main evidence that can link you to this. I will get rid of it.”
“Why are you helping me?” Lily whispered. “If they find out that you’ve done this… Bellatrix or the others… you know what they’ll do to you. Why would you help me?”
Narcissa rushes forward, fury in her eyes. Caught by surprise, Lily falls, Narcissa’s weight slamming into her. Her wrist moves beneath her, twisting painfully, and she hears the breaking glass as her watch shatters.
It is seven minutes past midnight.
Naricissa blinks once, looks down at the fallen redhead. “I hate you,” she says, her words laced with a venom beyond anything Lily has ever heard from her before. “I hope you rot in hell. I hope you spend the rest of your life alone. I hate you.” She snatches Lily’s wand away from the surprised redhead and adds, “But the Dark Lord won’t win, either. I won’t let him.”
And Lily understands, and she flees.
The things James had questioned “ the scratches on her face, the missing wand, the watch broken at seven minutes past midnight “ could so easily be answered, if only she had given him the truth. But she hadn’t been able to. She hadn’t been able to admit to what had really happened that night, because it wasn’t just her secret.
It was hers and Narcissa’s, and all this time, she had clung to the belief that no matter how much Narcissa hated her, some part of her had still cared enough to protect her.
But now, looking down at the broken wand, she wondered if that was true. If Narcissa had really cared at all about her, why would she have held on to the one piece of evidence that could condemn her? Unless…
“You held onto it. In case you ever needed to get back at me. In case all your attempts to ruin my life didn’t work,” Lily said, trying to keep her tone level as she picked up the thin pieces of wood. It was the wand that had taken her through Hogwarts, it was the wand with which she had cast her very first spell.
It was the wand that had saved her life… and taken another.
“It could easily… turn up somewhere. They would find it, figure out it was mine, perform Priori Incantatem … and they would see the killing curse,” Lily continued. She lifted accusing green eyes to Narcissa. “It was your insurance policy. In case I beat you somehow.”
“Do you really believe you could have ever beaten me?” Narcissa asked with a chuckle.
Lily exhaled sharply. “I might have,” she said defiantly.
Narcissa gave her a bemused look, the type one might bestow on a child. “Revenge is much sweeter if it is personal. What good would it do me to send you to Azkaban if it meant you were out of my reach? It is more satisfying to cause pain myself.”
“That’s why, seven years ago, you let slip about the Lestrange threatening me,” Lily surmised. “And that’s why, this time around, you testified to the Wizengamot that the prosecutor of the case already had a reason for wanting me to suffer. So they would be suspicious of his motives and more likely to let me go… so that you could torment me yourself.”
“Perhaps.”
She lifted the ends of the shawl and wrapped them around the wand once more, then handed the bundle to Narcissa. She knew it was probably foolish to hand such evidence back to someone who would have no hesitation in using it against her, but she did not want to keep it. And she didn’t really believe that Narcissa would do such a thing. Not now. Not with the war starting.
The blonde took the cloth in her hands and held it tightly. She settled herself on the sofa opposite Lily and continued to stare at her with a completely unreadable expression.
“The past seven years was revenge against me for the role I had played in killing your husband. But what you did these past couple weeks, that was revenge against him,” Lily said. “That was revenge for the role he played in your husband’s death.”
Narcissa considered this carefully, her lips pursed together. Lily thought she might not answer the implied question, but, after a few moments of silence, she said, “Imagine my surprise to find out from my sister that Lupin was dead.”
“Bellatrix told you why he had been killed,” Lily surmised.
“Of course,” Narcissa said dismissively. “Why wouldn’t she? We both knew what he was doing with those werwolves. What he was looking for.”
“And what he found,” Lily added.
Narcissa did not confirm that. Instead, she said, “A war is coming. He wants power, and he will do anything necessary to take it. The last seven years, he was just biding his time. Waiting until he could raise a large enough army, until he had enough support. Ever since you, Evans, thwarted his plans…”
“I didn’t know Malfoy was supposed to become Minister of Magic,” Lily snapped irritably.
“Didn’t you?” Narcissa countered with a cool smile. “Tell me about that last argument you had with my husband at St. Mungo’s. Tell me what happened then.” And there was a definite challenge in her voice.
Lily looked away. “It was seven years ago. I don’t… I don’t remember…”
“Really?” Narcissa asked sardonically. “Well, perhaps you did not know all the details. But you knew enough.” Lily said nothing, just stared at Narcissa in stubborn silence, and the blonde shook her head, and then sighed. “I begged Lucius not to do this. Not to become one of them.”
“A Death Eater,” Lily said, and it was the first time either of them had admitted to that aloud. They both knew what Lucius was, what he had believed in, who he had served, but…
“Yes,” Narcissa said, biting off the word. “The Dark Lord had great plans, I don’t deny that. But I could see what Lucius could not “ that he had no regard for his followers. We were expendable, and I did not want Lucius to take such a role. Let someone else become a puppet Minister, let someone else lead the war on our society. He had a wife and a son to think of… I begged, I pleaded… but it made no difference.” Her eyes were hard, her tone flat, as she finished, “You might have killed him, Evans, but it was the Dark Lord who put him in mortal danger.”
“And you were afraid of him,” Lily added, studying Narcissa carefully. She had had a long time to think over this detail, and she was almost positive that she was correct in her assumptions. She’d never had a chance to ask Narcissa about it before, but now…
Now she had to confirm the truth.
“You were afraid of Lucius. Of the person he was becoming. He was always cruel and arrogant, but he was changing. He was becoming more callous, more vicious… more indifferent to you and your son. He wasn’t the man you married anymore, was he? Your precious Dark Lord saw to that.”
Narcissa did not reply.
“Just like he had taken the rest of your family from you, too. Your sister might have always been crazy, and maybe her husband was always evil, but they were changing, too. And you were afraid of them. You were afraid of Bellatrix, because you were certain she would betray you without any hesitation if her Lord asked her to. She stopped carrying about you, and Lucius was already following in her footsteps…”
“You couldn’t leave us alone,” Narcissa interrupted angrily. “Do you really think he didn’t know what you said to me all those times you tried to convince me to leave him? Do you think I didn’t tell him?” She laughed softly, darkly. “Do you remember those conversations? Do you remember all the times you told me he would be a lousy father? He would turn my son into a killer? You never accused him of being a Death Eater, not outright, but… you knew.”
“And so did you,” Lily murmured. “We both knew what he was, even if neither of us said it. And you knew I was right. You loved him, I understand that. And you could not help but want to be with him forever. And yet… you knew the person he had become, and that night… when you saw what he tried to do to me, when you heard the words he was yelling… You were afraid. You were afraid that one day he would try to do the same to you… or he would hurt Draco. And when you saw that flash of green light, part of you felt relief.”
Two small circles of red had appeared on Narcissa’s cheeks. Her hands clenched tightly around the shawl, her knuckles going white. Her lips were pressed into a single thin line, and her pale eyes were filled with stormy fury, but she said nothing.
“You’re smart, Narcissa,” Lily continued. “Smart enough to know that your sister and brother-in-law will drag you and your son into this war. And you don’t want that. You don’t want Draco to get hurt, and you don’t want him to become his father. And you blame the Dark Lord for doing this to you. You want to stop him. You want him to lose this war. But you can’t admit that to anyone, not without putting yourself and your son in danger. So you’ve been quiet about your actions. You’ve been subtle, cautious… but you still succeeded, didn’t you?”
And for one brief moment, Narcissa allowed a triumphant smile to play across her features.
“It was Bellatrix who attacked Frank at Remus’ house, wasn’t it? Bellatrix, who loves fire-magic and who is mad enough to use Fiendfyre with no regard for the consequences. Bellatrix, who would throw a fit when she did not find what she was looking for, Bellatrix who would tear the sheets apart and smash the mirror solely because she was livid and wanted to be destructive.”
Lily paused, considering her options, and then decided to press onwards. She could have waited, could have opted to see if Narcissa would admit to the truth on her own, but it was far easier “ and probably far quicker “ to offer her own guesses and see what the other witch said.
“Bellatrix came back and told you that she couldn’t find what she was looking for at Remus’ apartment. And you knew from Lestrange that I had been the one to find Remus’ body. You knew I hadn’t killed him “ you knew I would never kill him “ which meant you guessed that I was there because he was trying to get my help.”
“He loved you,” Narcissa said softly. She leaned back against the cushions on the sofa and tucked a few loose strands of hair behind one ear. “It was obvious that he had always been in love with you, ever since the first moment you two met. No amount of fighting, and no amount of time apart, could change that. He was always a remarkable fool. And when Bellatrix came back and said she hadn’t found what she was looking for, she hadn’t found what Lupin had stolen…”
“You guessed that it was at my flat. You guessed that Remus was smart enough not to keep it at his own home, and that one way or another, he had hidden it at my flat. Because I was the only friend he had left, because he trusted me, because he loved me.”
“Not that it helped him any in the end,” Narcissa interjected pointedly.
Lily forced herself not to think about that comment, not to remember Remus lying lifelessly on the floor, his broken body covered in blood. She pressed on, “But you also knew he wouldn’t tell me, because he was afraid that someone would find out I knew and would come after me. So you assumed that, since I didn’t know where it was, I would not have had a chance to tell James. And he would not have had a chance to find it. You knew that it was still where Remus had left it…”
“Because if Potter had known, he would have told Black right away, and no doubt we would have heard about it. That darling cousin of mine was never particularly good at keeping his mouth shut,” Narcissa said smugly.
“And so you went to my flat and you searched the place. You found it, Narcissa. You’re the one who took it.”
It wasn’t a question, and Narcissa didn’t answer. She simply gazed at Lily.
“Give it to me,” Lily ordered tersely.
“Why would I?” Narcissa scoffed in disbelief.
“Because you know as well as I do that Dumbledore is the only one who can win this war,” Lily answered. “Whatever it was that Remus stole, whatever it was that got him killed… it needs to go to Dumbledore. It needs to. And I can give it to him. I can give it to him, I can say I had it all along, and no one ever needs to know that you were the one who took it. No one needs to know that you acted against Lord Voldemort.”
Narcissa shuddered at the name. But there was a calculating look in her eyes, as though she was assessing Lily’s words, weighing her options and determining how to best proceed.
“Come on, Cissy,” Lily pressed. “You want revenge for your husband’s death. So finish what you started, Cissy. Get your revenge against Voldemort.”
She still thought about that night. She’d thought about it a lot over the past seven years, and despite all of her dislike for Narcissa, despite her bitter anger over what the other witch had done, despite her grief over her ruined life, one thought lingered in her mind.
Malfoy had been drunk and filled with rage and his words had been incoherent at best, but he had said…
“You spoke to Narcissa. You told her what I was doing. She asked me about it, she wanted… she listened to you. To you! You’re nothing. Trash. Mudblood. And she… she listened…”
What did that mean?
She listened.
She hadn’t always listened. Lily had spent years trying to convince Narcissa that she didn’t need to be blinded by her family’s prejudice, that she was strong enough and independent enough to know the difference between wrong and right. And Narcissa did not heed anything she said.
Until she told Narcissa that Malfoy was involved in Voldemort’s plans. She never said the words Death Eater aloud, but Narcissa had known what she was implying, what the consequences of it would be for all of them.
It was odd to think about it, but it was something she could not ignore. Something she had not mentioned to Narcissa, something she would never mention to anyone. Whatever else Narcissa had said or done in the past, when Lily had come to her with accusations of Malfoy heading down a very, very dangerous road…
She had listened.
That night had changed everything, for all of them. But when Lily thought about it, she did not spend much time thinking of the flash of green light or the feel of Malfoy’s fingers on her throat. She thought instead about Malfoy’s statement, about Narcissa’s subsequent actions. Whatever the blonde witch might say about her own motives and reasons, it did not change the fact that she had taken Lily’s wand and Lily’s secret, and she had not told a soul.
That night, she had saved Lily’s life.
Lily left Malfoy Manor with the object hidden within the folds of her traveling cloak. She would hand it over to Dumbledore, tell him that she had found it before she went to Remus’ the night he had died, and she had hidden it, just in case. That she had lied to them all because she was worried that someone was spying on her, and she didn’t want the wrong people to hear its location.
The blonde aristocratic witch had kept her confidence once, and now she would return the favor.
Narcissa’s secret would be safe.