Fic: "The Claiming of (and by) Sleeping Beauty," Tonks/Narcissa, NC-17 Title: The Claiming of (and by) Sleeping Beauty Author:green_amber Rating: NC-17 Wordcount: 3391 Pairings/characters: Tonks/Narcissa, implied Lucius/Severus, implied Everyone in the Black Family/Everyone Else in the Black Family Summary: In the aftermath of the war, Narcissa and Andromeda come to a truce, which leads to unexpected feelings between Narcissa and Tonks. Warnings: incest, spanking, AU Author's notes: Written for misfit_ragdoll at harry_holidays 2007.
This fic is an AU. There are two significant differences between this reality and the one in Deathly Hallows. The first difference is that, in this story, Remus and Tonks never married or had a child. The second difference will become clear in the first scene.
"Take Draco home," Narcissa said. "I need to see to my sister."
Lucius nodded. Narcissa embraced them both. The feel of her husband and son alive, warm, safe, brought tears of joy and relief to her eyes. She had never dared expect that all three of them would be walking away from this, unharmed in body if not in spirit.
As for Bella...
Narcissa steeled herself and slipped back into the chaos of the crowd. The Great Hall was bursting at the seams with witches and wizards, some celebrating, some mourning, some still desperately calling names into the din. Somewhere in this throng lay Bella's body. In the end Narcissa had hated her, but blood was still blood, and Narcissa was never one to shirk responsibility.
For a moment she thought she saw her, lying motionless at one side of the room next to a graying man in tattered robes. Her first thought was that death had smoothed the lines from Bella's face, given her back the beauty Azkaban had stolen from her. Her next thought was that the woman wasn't Bellatrix at all. The face bore an uncanny resemblance, but the hair was all wrong, brown instead of black, and the robes displayed no Death Eater insignia. Which meant there was only one person this could be.
Poor Andie. The thought came unbidden, surfacing in Narcissa's mind before she could think blood traitor, half-blood, abomination. Narcissa had nearly lost Draco tonight. No matter what Andromeda's sins might have been, Narcissa knew Andromeda would be broken by this, and couldn't muster up any of the old fury at the girl's very existence.
I have to see her, thought Narcissa, crossing the room to kneel at the woman's side. She felt she owed Andromeda's child at least that much, after everything she'd done--first gladly, then unwillingly--to aid the rise of the monster who'd caused Nymphadora's death. Narcissa bent close and touched one pale cheek.
It was warm.
Narcissa fumbled in her pockets, pulling out a small mirror. Somehow, even in the midst of the battle, it had remained unscathed. Of all the stupid, pointless things... She held it close to the girl's lips. A moment later, the mirror went white with mist.
***
Tonks opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was Mum's face, pale, shadowed under the eyes, but transformed by a sudden smile.
"Dora," said Mum, and then Tonks was wrapped tight in her arms.
There was something familiar about the room. Not her old room; far too tidy for that. The walls were stark white and there was a whiff of potions in the air. St. Mungo's, then, and the reason the room looked familiar was because she'd spent time here after the battle two years ago.
Another woman was sitting next to Mum. Tonks blinked once, then twice. Surely she couldn't be--
"Your Aunt Narcissa is here," said Mum. "She was the one who found you in the Great Hall and realized you were alive."
Narcissa brushed away the praise. "McGonagall would have figured it out, if she'd found her first."
"Nonetheless, it was you who found her," said Mum to Narcissa in that tone she had that meant there's no use arguing with me about this.
"Were they able to determine what curse it was? Or who cast it?"
"It's called Soporo," said Mum. "And it was Bella."
Tonks nodded. The last thing she remembered before everything went black was Bellatrix Lestrange's laughing face, and a jet of blue light. "It was her."
"But how did you know that?" asked Narcissa. "Before Nymphadora woke up, I mean?"
Mum pressed her lips into a thin line. "She used it once on you. When we were little." A look passed between Mum and Narcissa that Tonks couldn't read.
"And Remus?"
Mum stroked Tonks's hand. "He was hit by the Killing Curse, honey. I'm sorry. Were you and he..."
"No, we were just good friends. We went out a couple of times last year, but..."
But whatever is supposed to be there, wasn't. It was my last-ditch shot at being normal. I used him, and I never even realized it.
I'm sorry, Remus.
"I don't get it, though. Why would Bellatrix hit me with a sleeping curse? I thought she wanted me dead..."
"She didn't expect to lose," said Narcissa, grey eyes shadowed.
"What?"
"It never occurred to Bella that the Dark Lord might fall. She thought she'd have her pick of the prisoners after the battle. She must have had other plans for you. Be thankful you'll never know what they might have been."
Tonks shuddered.
***
Call me Tonks, Nymphadora had said. Narcissa hated it.
Not just because it was a constant reminder of the girl's father and of the old family quarrel, but because it was such an ugly name. Common. All clanks and harsh angles. "Dora," now there was a nice nickname, a pretty name. You almost had to form a kiss with your lips to say it. Narcissa wondered why she'd rejected it, and decided it must be the way it echoed old Black names. Tonks wanted no part of that history.
And, Narcissa had to admit, the graceless cacophony of the name suited the girl. It was of a piece with her appalling clumsiness (she'd already spilled tea down herself once this afternoon) and the sharp glaring spikes of her hair. Dora just didn't sound right for a woman who sprawled in her chair like a man, one combat-booted foot hooked over the chair rung, one pale knee sticking out of a hole in her jeans. No, not right at all.
"What will you do now?" asked Andromeda. Andie's hands--so like Narcissa's own--clutched the teacup tight, and Narcissa could see the murky liquid rippling.
"We may go abroad," said Narcissa. "Draco will, to be sure. He'll finish school at Beauxbatons, and hopefully..."
The Malfoys had all got off with a few fines here, a few fines there. Narcissa was practical enough that she hadn't protested the unexpected reprieve, but something about it sat wrong in her gut. We were horrors. Monsters, all of us.
Tonks was silent. Narcissa wasn't sure she wanted to know what she was thinking. Tonks was an Auror, after all, charged with protecting people from...from what she and Lucius had become, and from what Draco very nearly became. Tonks's tea was shaking, too, held in hands shaped as much like the sisters' as though they'd been cast from the same mold, but for the ragged, broken nails.
"I'm sorry," said Narcissa simply. It wasn't enough. It never was.
"Excuse me," said Andromeda. "I've got some wine downstairs. I think we need it."
"I'm sorry," said Narcissa again when Andromeda was gone. "We were wrong."
Tonks went beet-red in the face and stumbled to her feet, her cup and chair crashing to the floor. "You're sorry, are you?"
Narcissa rose to her feet instinctively and stepped back, then stopped. Whatever Tonks was about to do to her, she was sure she deserved it.
"You want some kind of...of absolution from me? Is that it?" Her hands scrabbled at the table, upsetting Narcissa's cup, finally settling on the breadboard. Before Narcissa could react, Tonks had grabbed a hank of Narcissa's long hair and twisted, holding her fast. The breadboard fell with a mighty thwack against Narcissa's arse.
She cried out, gasping as Tonks hit her again, then again. The pain sluiced through Narcissa's veins like cleansing fire. She felt guilt and fear and anxiety burn away. Tonks released her hold on Narcissa's hair, and Narcissa crumpled to her knees, breathing hard.
The breadboard clattered to the floor. "Fuck," Tonks said.
Narcissa rose to unsteady feet, unsure what had just happened. In the simply physical sense, she knew. Tonks had spanked her with a breadboard. On another level, though, she was confused; the pain had made her other troubles seem almost bearable, and she wasn't sure why, and there was something else nagging at her as well, something she hadn't quite put her finger on and maybe didn't want to. Her face felt hot and she knew she'd gone red.
Don't think of it, she told herself.
Andromeda returned then with the wine. "I leave for five minutes, and I come back and the room's a mess and you two are circling each other like angry cats. May I ask what's going on?"
"Nothing," said Tonks.
"We just had an argument," said Narcissa.
Andromeda rolled her eyes. "Be civil, will you? Both of you."
Later that night an owl arrived at Malfoy Manor. I have my own place, it read, followed by an address. Come see me. I want to talk. Tonks.
***
"Sorry it's such a mess," Tonks said as she let Narcissa into her apartment. "I used to give Mum fits when I lived at home. She's such a neat freak."
Narcissa smiled. "I do recall that, yes."
Tonks sat down on the shabby couch and patted the cushion next to her, though she had the sudden feeling that it wasn't quite right to make Narcissa Malfoy sit on threadbare cushions with stuffing poking out. It was a weird thought. When she'd imagined this meeting, she'd been sure she would relish Narcissa's discomfort in her plebeian surroundings.
Stranger still was that Narcissa didn't seem uncomfortable at all. Good manners, maybe, and good acting.
Tonks poured two shots of whisky. "I thought about tea, but I decided we needed something stronger for this conversation. What do you think?"
Narcissa smiled again. "I think that will be fine. Thank you." She accepted the shot glass graciously, but Tonks noticed she sipped from it rather than knocking it back.
Tonks gulped hers, feeling gauche and unladylike, but finally deciding she didn't care. She was who she was, and no sense wishing she was someone else. The warmth of the drink spread through her and bolstered her courage. "Right," she said. "I asked you here because I want to apologize."
"What for?"
"For hitting you, for Merlin's sake. I shouldn't have done that."
"I deserved it." Narcissa shrugged, making even that look graceful and polished. "I'm rather surprised you didn't curse me instead."
"But I heard you helped the good guys, at the end. And besides, I feel like we ought to get along, for Mum's sake if nothing else. Because we're--"
"All she has now," finished Narcissa.
"Yeah. And then there's this other thing. It's kind of weird. Kind of fucked up, actually. I..." Tonks twisted her hands in her lap, not wanting to finish the sentence, tempted to pour herself another shot and drink it to stall for time. "I started hitting you because I was pissed off, but...well, by the end I was doing it because I liked it. I don't know if it makes me some kind of--of pervert, but apparently I like to hit people. I kind of, well, get off on it."
Tonks felt her cheeks burn. She closed her eyes and concentrated until a heavy curtain of long hair grew from her scalp to veil her face.
Cool fingers smoothed the hair back. Narcissa lifted Tonks's chin so that their eyes met. "Tonks, there are a lot of people like that. It's not sick, it's just the way some people are."
"People like Bellatrix."
"Bellatrix is...Bellatrix was an extreme case. You aren't like her. You don't like to hurt people who don't like to be hurt. Look at you, you're all torn up about hitting me, and you didn't even hurt me all that much, and besides, I liked it."
"Nobody likes getting hurt."
"There are people who like getting hurt just like there are people who like causing pain. When you hit me, I realized I was one of those."
"But...why?"
Narcissa shrugged again. "I think it's partly because it made me feel less guilty about the things I've done, and partly because it was relaxing in some strange way, and partly because I...well, I find you quite attractive, Tonks. I can't take my eyes off you, though it took me a damned long time to admit to myself why that was."
Tonks felt her heart do flip-flops in her chest. "What?"
"Come now, put your hair back the way it was. I think I like it all short and boyish."
Tonks obeyed, though she wasn't quite sure why. "So you liked it."
"The hair or the spanking?"
"The spanking."
"Yes."
Tonks set down the shot glass. "So if I did it again, you'd probably like it again."
"I think so, yes."
Except this time Tonks kissed Narcissa instead of shouting at her, and this time Narcissa slid knowing hands over Tonks's body, caressing here, lightly scratching there, until Tonks finally felt confident enough to let her own hands wander. She lingered over Narcissa's full soft breasts, loving the way the weight of them in her hands and the way the nipples grew hard at her touch, feeling drunk on the delicious sounds Narcissa made when Tonks pinched one nipple hard, her other hand tangled in Narcissa's hair.
Yes, she likes it, and I bloody fucking love the fact that she likes it.
Tonks pulled Narcissa down over her lap, then, and pushed Narcissa's robes up to her waist, revealing green satin panties. "Slytherin knickers, even, she teased. "I ought to spank you for that alone."
"Do it," whispered Narcissa, and Tonks nearly moaned aloud just from the ragged edge in Narcissa's voice.
The slap of her palm against Narcissa's arse was even better, and when she slipped her hand along the crotch of Narcissa's panties and felt the slick wetness of the satin and the hard nub of Narcissa's clit, that was even better.
***
It was finally starting to feel like their house again. A week after the Dark Lord's fall, Narcissa had seized every chair he'd ever enthroned himself in, every table he'd ever rested his pallid hands upon, and every glass he'd ever drunk from, and burned them all in a great bonfire on the back lawn. The flames had been joyous, leaping, but the memories were not so easily devoured. Narcissa had, for a long time, looked over her shoulder constantly as if he might emerge from the shadows. You thought I was gone?
It had been months now, and Narcissa realized with a start that she hadn't looked over her shoulder for some time. Draco was gone now, to Beauxbatons, and Narcissa had seen hope in his eyes when he boarded the ship. "It's a new start for you," Narcissa had whispered, and he'd nodded.
Lucius was more relaxed now, too, though tonight he was melancholy as he sipped his brandy before the fire. Narcissa was almost pleased he was strong enough to be melancholy, rather than hollow, as he'd been in that last year. If he could look back and reflect upon the hell he'd been through, it meant he wasn't still in it.
Narcissa poured a glass of wine and sat down in the other high-backed chair. "Are you thinking about him?"
"Severus? Yes. Such a waste. He was so young, so brilliant."
"The Dark Lord was always careless of his treasures."
"Yes."
They were silent for a long moment, wrapped in memories of all the lives Voldemort had squandered.
"Yet I'm glad we had the time we did have," said Lucius quietly.
"You were good for each other."
"I always hoped you'd find something like what we had. I wouldn't have minded, you know."
"I know." It was a shame she and Lucius had never truly desired one another, Narcissa thought, and not for the first time. What lovers they could have been. As it was, they were the best of friends. "I'm beginning to think...I think I might have found someone, actually. Maybe."
Lucius's smile was broad, generous. "That's wonderful, Cissy."
"It's still early yet. But I have hopes." Narcissa stretched her toes before the fire, feeling like a cat in the sun at that moment, basking in the deep steady affection of her husband and the bright dancing sparks of something entirely new.
***
The saleswitch looked Tonks up and down and sniffed. Tonks shrugged and grinned. She knew she wasn't quite the usual customer for this place, but if the woman had a problem with that, well, that was her damage.
"May I help you?" said the witch, her tone indicating that she wanted to help Tonks all right--to the door.
"I'm looking for something pretty," Tonks said. Something Narcissa will wear only for me. Something in a color other than that awful green.
Something that suits her, sets off that Snow Queen coloring of hers. "A corset. Midnight blue, I think."
"I'm not sure how that'll go with your...your hair, miss."
"Oh, it's not for me."
"Oh, a gift," said the witch, suddenly warmer as she guided Tonks through the sea of bras and panties and bathrobes. Tonks had never seen so much lace in her life.
"How about this one?" The witch held up a satin confection, and Tonks grinned. It was perfect.
"I'll take it," she said, grasping at the garment.
"Her size, miss?"
"Oh. Right. She's built about like me, except..." Tonks focused, grinned wider at the twinge of pain that told her it had worked, and watched the saleswitch's eyes go wide as saucers at the sight of Tonks's new bust size.
***
Andromeda rapped at Dora's door. There was no answer, but she heard a moan from inside. Worried now, Andromeda let herself in with her own key.
At first her mind refused to encompass the sight that greeted her. She closed her eyes, opened them again, and saw the same horrific sight: Dora and Narcissa locked in an embrace, their hands wandering places Andromeda didn't want to look. Dora in nothing but black underwear and her heavy boots, Narcissa all trussed up in a blue satin corset.
Both of them turned to look at Andromeda, scarlet spreading across their cheeks. Andromeda looked from her sister to her daughter and back again. She drew in three hissed breaths through her teeth. When she could speak again, she spat, "I can't decide which of you to hex into next month. Cissy! How could you seduce my innocent daughter--"
"Innocent?" Dora shouted.
"And you! What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Um...Mum, did I tell you I think I'm gay?" That sheepish smile, the one Andromeda remembered from a hundred cookie-jar transgressions.
"Gay! Do you think that's what bothers me about this? Why don't you just go march in a parade or something? You don't have to...to fuck your aunt. I got out of that sick perverted family so no child of mine would have to do that kind of thing--"
Dora shook her head. "What do you mean?" Narcissa went an even deeper red.
"Some families play backgammon," said Andromeda, sighing. "The Blacks go to bed with each other. It was everybody with everybody else, no scruples, no qualms, just...just a big twisted mess."
Dora looked at Andromeda, then at Narcissa. "If you two had some kind of thing, I don't think I want to know."
Andromeda looked down at her shoes and took several more deep breaths. "Look, Dora, you're an adult and I can't stop you from doing this. And Cissy, I've known you since you were born and I know you mean well, deep down, and I don't think you did this just to spite me or to take advantage of Dora. I think both of you actually mean it--though I think you're both stark mad--and so I won't try to stop you. I'll just...I'll just do my best to ignore it, and hope you come to your senses one of these days."
Defeat settled over Andromeda like a fog. "I came to invite you out for lunch, by the way. I'll be back in an hour. Please, for the love of God, have some clothes on." The door slammed behind her.
Narcissa curled up at Tonks's feet and nuzzled her cheek against the soft leather of Tonks's boot. "I think that went considerably better than it might have, don't you?"