Fathers Daughter

Part 1: Chapter 7

Narcissa Visits

Narcissa reclined on her bed, thinking and thinking until she nearly drove herself crazy. Ever since she'd seen the little girl in Diagon Alley who looked so much like her big sister had as a child, in the company of her other sister, she had been beside herself trying to find out who the child was. She obviously couldn't ask her...other sister. But what were the odds that a child who looked almost identical to a young Bella would be in the company of Andromeda if there wasn't some connection? It certainly wasn't Andromeda's child. So who was she?

And it made no sense to Narcissa anyway: Bella had been dead for nearly twenty years now! How could she possibly have an eleven year old daughter? She kept going over and over it in her mind, and could never get any closer to a rational explanation. Some relative of...of her other sister? No, impossible. Her only child was dead, at the hands of Bella herself, and her only other relative was the grandson who had just graduated from Hogwarts. And yet...there was no way on earth that there could be a child who looked so much like Bella who was not related to the Family of Black. But Rodolphus had never mentioned Bella being pregnant. Then, what....

Out of nowhere, a thought came to Narcissa's mind, and she sat up straighter on her bed. The idea of the child being Bella's and yet appearing to be so young had set her to wild pondering, and she had just remembered something from her childhood, something so obscure, so wild, that just maybe...

As Narcissa had grown up and interacted with her cousin, Eleanor, and Eleanor's husband Augustus whenever they arrived for family gatherings...no matter when she saw them, no matter how many years had passed between their visits, they never looked older. THEY. NEVER. LOOKED. OLDER!

Suddenly, the thought of Bella having a young daughter didn't seem quite so impossible. Suddenly, it all started to make sense. And suddenly, she knew. Oh, Narcissa knew. Well, she didn't know the details, but she knew who was behind it. Narcissa jumped off the bed, hissing, "Eleanor!"

Somehow, Eleanor and Augustus were behind this. She knew it. Who else could it be? Who else in the family was that powerful? But how? It still seemed so impossible to her, yet the child in Diagon Alley had been real enough. She flung the door of her bedroom open, hurrying along the hallway, down the staircase, and into the library. She had work to do....

She easily found the issue of the "Daily Prophet" that she was looking for—it was in the family archives section. Reading again about the night the War ended, she found the pertinent section:

"Not long after this, another group of Aurors, who were also tracking rogue Deatheaters who had escaped capture, encountered the same group that the Aurors in Yorkshire were tracking. They say that the Deatheaters were under the leadership of 'a tall, beautiful, elegantly dressed woman'. This woman also attacked the Aurors, killing four and severely injuring another two. She appeared to be holding a small child, and was very protective of her. The woman was heard screaming, 'How dare you lay your hands on her, you mudblood filth!' at an Auror who tried to save the child. The woman then severed the man's arms at the elbows. He was rushed to St. Mungo's where he is still undergoing treatment."

Narcissa re-read one particular part over again several times: "She appeared to be holding a small child, and was very protective of her. The woman was heard screaming, 'How dare you lay your hands on her, you mudblood filth!' at an Auror who tried to save the child..."

Narcissa set the paper down and sighed. "Eleanor, what have you done?"

Tracking down her cousin Eleanor was not easy. She and Augustus had covered their tracks well. But Narcissa specialized in some rather obscure branches of magic. One of which was how to find a person or thing that had been missing for a very long time. It still took Narcissa several weeks to discover where they were, but she had finally done it. She apparated in several steps so as to through off anyone who might still be keeping an eye on the Malfoys. For several years after the war, Aurors had "discreetly" followed her and Lucius any time they left the manor, but either they had given up or else had grown much more sneaky in how they monitored the Malfoys. She hoped it was the former.