Prelude

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[Author's Note: Before getting into the story, I'd like to take a moment to thank two people. My brilliant beta, Jamie, for peppering her wonderful feedback with cheers of encouragement, and the always-lovely Zan, for actually making me love Narcissa. Thanks!]

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Sing me no songs of daylight,

For the sun is the enemy of lovers.

Sing instead of shadows and darkness,

And memories of midnight.

-Sappho

[June 6th, 1980]

Birds sang their herald to the rising sun in the distance, notes light yet somehow sharp and discordant by the time they bounded across the grounds and through the open balcony doors. The wind, cold and fresh, carried the scent of freshly trimmed grass, flowers just beginning to open in the early morning light, and death.

She told herself it was her mind that played games with the shadows until tendrils of darkness reached for the sheets tangled at her feet. She told herself it was the fever that sent such shaking chills up her spine and through her sweat covered limbs. She told herself it was all simply her imagination, but the shadows still tarried at the edges of her vision, her body still shook with each breath, and there was no mistaking the scent of decay and ancient secrets drifting in with the breeze.

How she knew, she couldn't say, but Narcissa had seen those stone doors parting with her slumbering eye, and she knew the truth. The crypts had been opened. And the slow scrape of stone against stone, the sudden rush of long dead air from those rarely used passages, could not be ignored.

'They've awakened...' she may have whispered in those few precious moments before her mind began to drift once again. The room was empty and the words, if they came, were no more than a dry whisper. The masters of old gazed from their tombs, open eyes caked with cobwebs and the dust of the ages, and they saw the ruin.

Narcissa closed her eyes, if they had indeed been open (darkness... heavier than before at least), and slept. She dreamed and she saw those visions of tarnished blood. She saw herself.

~~~~~

[June 7th, 1980]

Floating, drifting... falling. Her world was alive with brilliant shades of gray – a world of dancing shadows without light to cast them. Somewhere far in the distance she heard voices, familiar and yet impossible to place.

"... is she?"

"Fever broke a few hours ago, but we've a ways to go yet. Best to let her sleep."

A hollow sigh. "And the child?" The question echoed through her mind and momentarily pierced the darkness. The child... The child... She reached out towards the question and the light the answer held, but it slipped through her fingers leaving only shadow.

~~~~~

[June 8th, 1980]

"M'Lady?"

A warm hand on her brow, a gentle touch. Narcissa groaned and opened her eyes. She was struck at once by how dark the room had become, dawn having been replaced by dusk endless times since she last braved a look. A few candles fought against the oddly cold night that tarried just outside the windows, aided by the recently fed fire roaring under the hearth, but ultimately all failed.

"That's a girl. Go on, drink." A smiling face, lined from the years and the poorly hidden worry that all but screamed from dull brown eyes. Cercei...

The midwife brought a cup to her lips, and Narcissa let the warm liquid spill down her throat, errant drops trickling from the corners of her mouth. Cercei wiped them clean with a bit of cloth.

"Lucius?" Narcissa asked, her own voice startling her as it croaked from her lips. Cercei glanced away. "Where..."

"Shhh, now. I'll go fetch him but you rest." Without looking back, Cercei left the room. If she returned, Narcissa didn't know. The potion in her belly quickly warmed her limbs and sleep was impossible to resist.

~~~~~

[June 9th, 1980]

Another hand, another touch, cold where it should have been warm. Gentle but hesitant and so light as to almost go unnoticed. She would have opened her eyes if they had only cooperated. Instead, Narcissa turned towards the touch to let her cheek be cradled by that familiar hand. Its thumb brushed her lips and her mind spoke of blood.

"Why isn't she awake?" A voice asked, as cold as the fingers that slowly ran along the line of her neck. "What have you done?" She knew he was trying to stay quiet, keep his temper, but even on the edges of sleep, Narcissa could hear those hard-pressed restraints begin to give way.

"There's nothing to be done, M'lord," came the equally cold reply, voice so hard that she barely thought it to be Cercei's any longer. "She sleeps until she sees fit to wake."

Silence. The hand had moved to her hair, petting those sleep and sweat spoiled locks absently. Finally, the first voice responded. One word, no more, and yet it spoke volumes. She almost cried for the desperation she heard there. "Out." Hushed footsteps told of the midwife's departure and the hand disappeared.

She heard motion by the fire, flames beginning to crackle and break as more wood was added. A creak of leather broke through the gently warming air. The clink of ice in a glass. The shutting of a wooden door. Time passed though she couldn't say how much or how quickly. Soon enough, she found strength to open her eyes. To search the room for her husband.

His shape was shrouded in shadow as he sat in the corner, chair turned away from her and towards the fire. Though his head rested against the back of the chair, she knew he wasn't asleep. Those familiar fingers toyed with the rim of the glass at his side and occasionally he would take a sip. Save his subtle movements and the fire, the room was in silence.

"Luciu-" she tried to squeak out, only to find herself overcome with a brief coughing spell. The coughs were unproductive, more dry heaves that rubbed harshly against her sore throat. She opened her eyes again, and he was at her side.

A specter. A wraith of the man she'd last seen as he kissed her cheek and bid her farewell for the day. By the gods, that seemed a lifetime ago. His pale hair held none of its former sheen, though that could have easily been the dim light of the room. But no... No, his face was changed as well. Small lines ran where the skin had before been smooth, and his complexion held a hint of gray. His eyes... His eyes were as before, a cold gray that once flickered with white flame, but there was no life there. Only that bleak color that reminded her so much of her own plaguing shadows that Narcissa looked away.

"No. Don't go back to sleep... Don't..." His hand found hers and gave it a small squeeze. "Cissa, look at me." He finally touched her chin, tilting her face back towards his. "You're a mother. Did they tell you that? A son. You've given me a son but there is no one to mind him. Don't..." Why was his voice so cold and yet so raw?

"A boy?"

"Yes, pet. Draco. We named him Draco, remember?" It was his turn to look away, eyes moving back to the fire. Even then, with the red and orange flames reflected there, she saw very little in his eyes.

Narcissa had to force herself to think back, to try and recall anything, past the shadows. Past the purposeful darkness dominating her mind. Images came slowly at first, only colors to start. Crystal blue and deep purple and red of a such a brilliant hue that she first mistook it for liquid ruby. Blood certainly couldn't be so vibrant, so bright. But perhaps it was another trick of the mind, another game of memory. Pale hands, thick blood and her own screaming before darkness.

Only the tears that ran down her cheeks let her know that she was crying, and when Lucius turned to wipe them clean, she pushed away his hand with more strength than she truly possessed. She'd expected to find him shocked or at the very least angry, but his face was blank, melted into that damned mask she'd seen him don for so many others before her. He hid.

"Where is Abraxas?" she whispered, watching his eyes all the while, hoping against the truth she could feel clutching at her heart.

Only then did something come to dead man's eyes. Only then, as his fingers wrapped instinctively around his father's cane, did she see something move behind pools of gray. He needn't answer and he didn't.

"Bring me my son. And then leave."