Stages of Grief

Detailed Description:

Narcissa Malfoy considered Lucius the great love of her life, the only man she could ever want, half of her entire world (the other half being her beloved son) so when the fallout from the war takes him from her, she can't imagine going on. As she slips deeper into depression, desperate Draco calls upon Severus Snape for help, figuring if anyone knows what it is to grieve the only one you've ever loved, it's him. But when confused, broken Narcissa begins to transfer her feelings for her husband to the lonely, retired Potions Master, Draco fears he's made a terrible mistake.

Can Draco's Ministry appointed mentor, Hermione Granger, convince him otherwise?

Or, with Lucius gone and without Severus around, will Narcissa fall completely apart?

And what if Draco begins to feel for his mentor as his mother might for Severus...?

Primary Ships:

Narcissa/Lucius, Draco/Hermione, Narcissa/Snape, Bellatrix/Voldemort, Harry/Ginny

Other Canon Characters:

Lily Potter, Harry Potter, Andromeda Tonks, Cygnus Black, Druella Black, Ron Weasley

Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood, Teddy Lupin, Ginny Weasley, Minerva McGonagall

Blaise Zabini, Pansy Parkinson, Gregory Goyle, Hestia Jones, & Kingsley Shacklebolt

Rated/Genre:

M (updated from T mid-fic)

Hurt/Comfort, Friendship/Romance

Yes, there are lemons in later chapters

Note:

Severus Snape has survived Nagini's bite

Lucius has been arrested and imprisoned

Hermione has broken up with Ron Weasley

Otherwise, all reasonable attempts are made to keep both canon/DH-compliant (not epilogue/CC)

STAGES OF GRIEF

CHAPTER ONE:

DENIAL

"Mother?" Draco rapped his knuckles on the wall outside her bedroom. She had refused to accompany him to the Ministry that morning, to receive his father's belongings and wand, to make a public statement, and to sign the acknowledgement papers. "Mother, please let me in."

"I'd rather be alone, Draco."

He sighed and leaned forward, pressing his forehead to the cool oak of her heavy bedroom door. She hardly ever left the room. She'd only been out of the Manor twice since his father's arrest. Once, to testify on his behalf, and once more, to say goodbye after his sentence was handed down.

"Mother, please open the door. Will you open the door?"

No answer.

"If you won't open the door, I'll break down the wards and open it myself."

No answer.

"I'm going to count to three, Mother, then I'm coming in."

No answer.

"Have it your way! One. Two..." He drew his wand, touching the tip to the doorknob, and closed his eyes. He was not ready to be the man of the Malfoy Manor. He was not capable of parenting his own mother. Nothing in his privileged childhood could have prepared him for all that had happened since the Dark Lord returned to power and destroyed his perfect life, and while everyone else in the wizarding world seemed to be picking up the pieces and moving on, the inhabitants of Malfoy Manor seemed to be getting steadily worse. "Three!"

He had gotten used to dismantling the protective wards around his mother's room, starting with Alohomora and ending with a blasting spell to force the wardrobe away from the door it was barricading. He wondered why his mother bothered to do this every damn day. She was able to make the wards stronger, to keep him out if she wanted to, but she chose only to make it difficult enough to inconvenience him.

She was sprawled out on her back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, wearing a long black nightdress, with her unwashed, tangled blonde hair spread out over the pillow. The candles in the sconces on the wall were all out; he wondered how long she'd been in the dark. The thick stench of liquor and potions and house-elf made meals she hadn't eaten permeated the room. He waved his wand to open the windows, letting sunlight in and stale air out.

"Mother, it is done."

"I can't hear you, Draco."

"Mother," he raised his voice, though he knew that was a lie. "It is done."

"It's not," she said simply. She gaze remained fixed on the ceiling above. "It's a mistake. He'll be home soon."

"He won't."

"I testified for him. I told them he wasn't a bad man. I told them he did only what he had to. I told them..."

"I was there, Mother. I know what you told them."

"They wouldn't take him away from me. To do so would be unnecessarily cruel. We've been together since I was fifteen. Fifteen, Draco. I've loved him all that time."

"I know, Mother."

"Our first kiss was on our wedding day. I loved him all that time, but we were never allowed alone together for long enough, not until we were married. Pureblood families are careful that way. Both the parents of the bride and the parents of the groom wish to protect their investment – their child being the investment – thus the rules are very strict."

"Mother, come down to the kitchen. Let a house-elf make you a meal."

"I'm not hungry."

"You need to eat."

"Leave me."

"Mother." Draco sat on the edge of her bed. She did not look at him, but she did slide from the center to the left side of the bed, formerly his father's side, and didn't pull away when he took her small, trembling hand between his. "We have to talk about what happened today."

"I loved him for three years before he married me, Draco. Three. We used to have dinner here, together, every Sunday night during our one year of post-Hogwarts courtship. My parents, his parents, him, and me. Sometimes my sister Bella and her husband would come along, but most of the time, it was just the six of us. After dinner, the adults – they made it clear they were the adults and we, at eighteen and nineteen, were the children – would have a drink in the drawing room and we'd be permitted to walk the grounds or sit outside by the lake and watch the peacocks. He used to hold my hand and sniff my hair and whisper all the very grownup things we'd do together once we..." She trailed off, seemingly remembering that her audience consisted of her son. "I'm sorry. You don't need to know that."

"I know you loved him Mother."

"Love him."

"Love him."

"He's coming back. We're going to grow old together. We promised each other on our wedding night. Women have thrown themselves at him our entire marriage but I never felt threatened, I never truly worried one would steal him away."

While she talked, Draco began subtly Vanishing liquor bottles, potion vials, and plates of barely nibbled food down to the kitchen to be handled by the house-elves.

"There was one, when you were about six months old, who was so persistent I contemplated confronting her. She was on the Hogwarts Board of Govorners. I told him I didn't like the way she looked at him, the way she was always brushing against his arm or laughing too hard when he said something mildly witty. He told me he liked seeing me jealous. I informed him that I was not jealous; I was annoyed. No woman disrespects me by flirting with my husband, that's what I told him. But I was jealous. I gained so much weight when I had you, Draco. I felt sick and exhausted and unattractive and fat. We bumped into her in Hogsmeade about a week after I told him I wanted her to stay away. She made eyes at him, even though I was standing right there. And do you know what he did, Draco?"

"No, Mother. What did he do?"

"He kissed me. Right there in Hogsmeade, right in front of her. Not a little peck on the cheek, but a real kiss, better than our wedding day kiss. Someone snapped a picture. It made the gossip column of the Daily Prophet. He apparated us home and we made love and he assured me having his baby only made me more beautiful, that she could never compare, not even on her best day when held up to my worst."

Draco nodded and squeezed her hand, but he was only half-listening. He knew she wasn't sharing this because he needed to know, but because she wanted to remember it, to make it more real. Since she didn't seem to be paying him any mind, he turned his attention to the liquor bottles that still had whiskey and wine in them and Vanished those, too. She was drinking too much. Drinking, taking potions, ignoring food, and, he suspected, purposely hurting herself. There were markings that looked like burns along her inner left arm.

"When you were seven, Draco, we got pregnant again."

He knew this. He remembered. Mostly he remembered feeling furious over the notion of having to share his parents' affections with some horrible, smelly, nappy-wearing spit-up factory, and then he remembered feeling guilty after they lost the baby, as he wondered if wishing it away had killed it, thus making his mother's pain his fault.

"The midwife departed after confirming the miscarriage; I couldn't stop apologizing to your father for failing him. But he held me and he let me cry and he cried too and he never made me feel broken for my inability to give him more children. They made him sound like a monster at his trial. But a monster wouldn't have cried with his wife – he didn't just cry for the baby, he cried for me. Because I was hurting and he couldn't stand to see me hurt. That's what he said. Does that sound like a monster to you? Does it?"

"No, Mother, it doesn't."

"Go tell them, Draco. Go tell them about how he cried when we lost the baby. Tell them he isn't a monster."

"It's too late for that, Mother."

She wrenched her hand away as if he'd burnt her skin. She held it with her other hand, massaging her palm with her thumb, and closed her eyes.

"He's gone, Mother."

"He's not, Draco."

"He is, Mother."

"Draco, why are you trying to hurt me? Your father wouldn't try to hurt me. Don't you want to be like your father? When you were little, you wanted to be his spitting image, his shadow, him in miniature."

"I want you to eat." He knelt beside her on the bed and tried to make her move, but she suddenly felt heavier than a hippogriff, despite having wasted away from naturally slender to an unhealthy slim. Would it be unfair to simply side-along apparate her to the kitchen and use the Imperius Curse to force food into her mouth? "You've filled your belly with nothing but liquor and Dreamless Sleep for weeks."

"What does that matter? What does anything matter?"

"I'm still here. Doesn't that matter?"

She finally tore her eyes from the ceiling, meeting his gaze. Her eyes were sapphire blue, her mother's eyes. His were cobalt gray, same as his father's.

"Draco, please, tell me they didn't go through with it. Please tell me he was issued a stay. Please tell me this is a nightmare from which I'll wake up to find your father in bed beside me, where he should be, exonerated, not labeled a criminal, not imprisoned, but here and healthy and happy to be free from the Dark Lord's tyranny."

"I'm not going to lie to you." With one hand on her back and the other on her right arm, he urged her into a seated position. "I need you to get up. I need you to shower. I need you to stop drinking. I need you to take care of yourself. I need you to eat."

"Why?" She sniffled and the tears started. Each one felt like a knife in Draco's heart. He understood why seeing his mother cry had made his father cry all those years ago. She was a beautiful crier, a heartbreaking sight, so dignified and yet so broken. "Why eat? Why shower? Why not drink until I forget how to feel?"

"Why?" asked Draco, trying not to get angry with her, trying not to resent the fact that he was entirely unable to process and grieve as long as he had to care for her the way she couldn't for herself. "Why, Mother? Because I don't want to end up with two dead parents."