Oh very well done! You’re impressively adept at making me care about the thoughts & feelings of characters I disliked a great deal in the main cannon. This seems very true to character, and makes me want to read the larger story it’s based in...i think I’ll go do that while I wait for The Bureaucratic Error updates.
Thanks!
~Caroline

I like this because...even monsters usually have someone, somewhere, who loves them.
What would Riddle have been if he'd been born into a loving family? Granted, he's written as a true psychopath, so it may well have affected nothing. Psychopaths are born.

Lucius, Narcissa and Draco, however, aren't born monsters so much as MADE monsters, but like racists anywhere, their sociopathic tendencies are the results of a damaging up-bringing.
Like Hitler, they would probably have been alright if they'd had someone to teach them (ease it into their head with patient persistence if needed) that all people are fellow travelers who are worthy of respect and love.

Lovely, nuanced character piece. I particularly like their musings on the fates of Voldemort's three favourites. Nice work.

It's beautiful. I absolutely love it :)
I agree with your point that Lucius may have thought Voldemort loved Bellatrix back, and I also agree that he likely didn't. I think the Dark Lord saw Bella as 'his last, best lieutenant', and I think she was her favorite out of all the Death Eaters. His shout of outrage was anger that his best and favorite Death Eater had been killed. But maybe, just maybe, it had a bit of loss and grief mixed in it, for the last person he had ever been attached to. Maybe.
Beautiful oneshot. I like your portrayal of Narcissa and Lucius' relationship. Thanks for sharing!

I'd Like To Think That Canon ,Narcissa ,Would Act Like This Too ,Still Unmoved In The Fact About Her Prejudices. Realistically Well Done!

I loved this. One of my favorite things about the books is that good guys can be jerks (Snape, Sirius, James) and that bad guys can love their families (the Malfoys).

You did an excellent job of showing the softer side of Lucius and Narcissa without changing their inherent... Malfoyness.

You know, I'm sure the Order of the Phoenix didn't kill children, UNLIKE the deatheaters i.e. but then this is Narcissa's PoV we're dealing with. It was so infuriating to see Molly being blamed for Bellatrix's death after all that she had done, but then, there you are.

Most of the story made me very angry, but it was realistically written.

By the way, you think the Ministry would have problems with snake-shaped bedstands? I mean, after all it is the symbol of Slytherin house, and they haven't done away with Slytherin n 19 years later, so why should snakes be a problem?

Reading this made me grind my teeth together. Not because the story has problems; it's actually really well written. No, it's the characters I hate. And I hate that I was reminded of JKR's report of how the Malfoy family avoided prison after the war. I'm still mad even as I write this. Lucius Malfoy, a top-level Death Eater, the scum that gave the diary to Ginny, who has ALREADY been sentenced to Azkaban and escaped, is forgiven because he changes sides in order to save his son.

I shouldn't even say he changed sides. He didn't fight against Voldemort and the Death Eaters. He just stopped fighting.

Bah. I hate when this happens in stories. I'm reminded of another villain, one who killed and tortured people, and even exterminated Billions (with a capital "B") of people when he ordered a whole planet destroyed. But he gets completely forgiven when, at the end, he changes sides to keep his son from being killed. I'm speaking, of course, of Darth Vader, who is not only forgiven at the end, he's actually glorified. Makes me sick.

Sorry about the rant. Very good story. The characters are (obviously) well written in order to pull this much emotion out of me. I'll be reading another one of your stories late this week. Look for the review.

I really like this, Are you writing about when they actually met up? Well done good job.

I LOVED IT! So well written. Very in character. I have nothing bad to say at all for this story. Great job!

I really enjoyed this story. You wrote the Malfoys very well.

Lucius' comment about Voldemort loving Bella depends on what you're definition of love is. Voldemort didn't love Bella, if you define love as caring about someone more than you care about yourself. He wouldn't have sacrificed his life for her, like she would have for him, but judging from his reaction when he died, I think he probably cared about her more than he was able to care about anyone else. As Lucius said, it was still quite a feat that she was able to 'pull human emotion out of a wizard who hadn't been human for decades', even if it what he felt wasn’t love the way JKR might define it. On a similar note, that part about the goblets shaped like Bellatrix’s breasts was revolting, yet somehow still a heartwarming demonstration of affection for a Dark Lord, the key part of that being ‘for a dark lord’. From anyone else, it would just be creepy; not to say that it isn’t still creepy, but everything he does is slightly creepy, so that would be as heartwarming as he got…well, I hope you know what I mean. Come to think of it, what exactly is Voldemort, if not human? Just a monster, I suppose, though he reminds me of a Dementor more than any other monster in the HP universe. His Horcruxes work a lot like Dementors.

I liked their admiration for Severus, even if he technically helped them lose the war. He also helped them survive it, though, and I have a feeling that that will always be a higher priority for the Malfoys than winning; at least, survival is their definition of winning, as Narcissa’s words to Lucius implied. They are a very good match, that way.

It surprised me how close they appeared to be in book seven; perhaps the fact that they are such cold people in general made it hard for me to imagine them acting differently towards anyone, but then, we always see them from Harry’s perspective, and they would treat people they think of as enemies or inferiors like that. The way Lucius looked to her for instructions first when Voldemort ordered him to give him his wand was an understated but powerful demonstration of that closeness. I’m glad he realizes how lucky he is to have her, as he and Draco probably wouldn’t have survived without her. Narcissa, despite her disgusting beliefs, earned my admiration several times over during the seventh book, and together with Molly Weasley, is now on my list of awesome female HP characters. There aren’t enough of those, in my opinion. On the subject of Narcissa’s courage, most of the Blacks are a prime example of the fact that being in Slytherin doesn’t necessarily mean a lack of courage, just a lack of some morals (“Those cunning folk will use any means to achieve their ends” HPSS). Sorry; now I’m off topic. But I thought this was a very well thought out story, so I wanted to comment on all of the interesting points.

touching and compelling!

I enjoyed it very much!

I really liked this. Very clever characterisation of Narcissa in particular.

lucius and narcissa aredef. not my favorite couple

but i like their personalities in this story

it is really compatible to that in the hp series

but the intimacy between them and their actions has been written really well