Gryffindor Colors

or

Redheaded Stepfather

A Harry Potter crackfuck

By

EvilFuzzy9

Rating: M

Genre: Humor/Parody

Characters/Pairings: Narcissa M., Ron W., Dumbledore; [Roncissa crack]

Summary: The reasoning of pureblood fanatics is incomprehensible to anyone halfway normal, and even Harry Potter is close enough to ordinary to find himself at a loss for how on earth Narcissa Malfoy so suddenly became Mrs. Ronald Weasley. [crackship, crackfic, crack premise; Roncissa, lemon-scented]

WARNING: This fanfic depicts activities of an adult nature between fictional characters. The author of this fic strongly discourages minors from reading this, and also from participating in any and all such activities until they are at the age of majority/consent as defined in the laws or customs of their state or principality.

(family troubles yaay)

Draco was immensely surly when he appeared on the doorstep of the Burrow alongside his former head of house. Snape, for his part, seemed equally unhappy. Both looked at the house with some degree of distaste, Snape for who lived here, and Draco for the house itself. The latter indeed was appalled to be in the very presence of such a ramshackle and eccentric construction.

There was something disgustingly vulgar and common about the Burrow. It had no prestige, no dignity, no SPACE! How could anyone actually stand to live in such a place, let alone a family as large as the Weasleys? It really was disgraceful. Only blood traitors with no proper wizarding pride would let themselves live in anything so slipshod. The whole thing looked ready to collapse.

Perhaps the only redeeming quality of the Burrow was the obvious magic in its construction. Muggles could not produce such a building as this. They needed huge stone bricks or beams of steel just to hold up anything more than a few stories high. But the Weasley's family home was clearly held up by decent charmwork, even if its overall appearance was still revoltingly undignified.

"Is my mother really here?" Draco muttered incredulously, looking around.

Snape did not look at Draco, who was under a disillusionment charm.

"Not so loudly," he hissed out of the corner of his mouth.

An affronted noise greeted this low pronouncement, but silence followed soon after. If Draco were presently visible, Snape imagined he would have been able to see a mulish expression on the boy's face.

For his part Snape did not look at all comfortable as he raised a hand to knock on the door. It took a few moments for the door to open, and the time seemed to stretch interminably. A faint tapping of shoes on the doorstep betrayed the impatience of his charge. But finally someone answered the knock.

"Ah, Snape," came the voice of the eldest of Molly and Arthur's spawn. The tall, lean form of Bill Weasley appeared, front door swinging open. "What brings you here?"

"Hogwarts business," Snape smoothly lied. This prevarication was not strictly necessary, since the Weasleys had expected him to come, and the wards that had been erected around the Burrow were unlikely to let in any spies or eavesdroppers, but caution was a good habit.

Bill cocked his head infinitesimally, and he squinted at the seemingly empty space beside Snape. He apparently saw a slight ripple in the air, because then he nodded and gestured for them to come in.

"Dinner's already started," Bill said, moving out of the way.

A curt, unpleasant nod was the only acknowledgement this statement got. Snape entered, and Draco came after him. Once the door was shut Snape tapped Draco with his wand and lifted the disillusionment charm. The blond looked a little peevish when he melted into visibility.

Bill led them to the kitchen.

Draco sat at a far too crowded table in a far too cramped dining room, looking around at a gaggle of far too many redheads. He'd always made jokes, following the example of his father, about how the Weasleys were so disgustingly prolific, but it was only now that he got a real sense of just how big the family was.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven... plus Snape, himself, and his mother, and that French bird from the Triwizard tournament. That was eleven people around a table that seemed like it should seat only half that number, and not all of the Weasleys were even here. God, how could they handle this?

Draco looked around. Compared to how meals used to be in Malfoy manor with his mother and father, it felt so cramped and noisy and hectic. It was like the great hall at Hogwarts in miniature!

Plates and bowls were being passed along every few minutes, changing hands this way or that around the table. He'd blinked in confusion when a bowl of string beans was first shoved in front of him, staring blankly until one of the twins finally lost patience and summoned it, giving him an almost scornful look. It was only after subsequently observing the table for a few minutes that Draco realized he'd been expected to pass the bowl along. By hand. Like he was a muggle.

It was noisy, too. Not deafening perhaps, but a cacophony all the same, with at least three or four independent streams of conversation being carried out simultaneously. The Weasleys talked and chatted and jabbered as they ate, some of them even while their mouths were full. Ron was a semifrequent offender on that front, though he usually stopped himself with a sheepish expression when he looked at his mom.

Draco looked at his own mother, who was talking to the French girl as she ate. That girl was part-veela, Draco remembered hearing, and she certainly looked it. He couldn't help staring briefly at the cut of the young witch's robes, which showed just enough pale skin below her neck to tease at a suggestion of cleavage.

Only with some difficulty was he able to tear his eyes away, and then only because he felt a sharp look from the eldest Weasley brother. Not that he was intimidated by the guy, Merlin forbid. Of course not. He wasn't scared of Weasleys.

He just... er...

Draco distracted himself from an inability to justify his cowing to his own pride with a mouthful of food. Somewhat reluctantly, he inwardly had to admit that this, at least, was not objectionable. Not fancy, perhaps, but still appetizing. The fare was hot and satisfying in the belly, hearty and savory in the mouth, and plentiful and varied on the plate. The food was honestly very good, even if relatively plain and simple.

He could enjoy the meal, even if he felt uncomfortable and out of place dining with the Weasleys. It somewhat satisfied him to see that Snape appeared likewise uncomfortable.

Why did you bother bringing me here? he thought, looking at the potions professor and feeling entirely disappointed. I shouldn't be here. Neither should mother.

At least in the Black family's old house he'd felt a sense of belonging. That was the home of his mother's ancestors, after all. The Blacks were a long line of proper, sensible Slytherins, a family of which he and his mother were the last blood descendants.

That aren't disowned, at least, a voice whispered in the back of Draco's mind.

He paused, but then shrugged this off. Who cared about some mudblood-lover and her halfblood brat?

That mudblood-lover is your aunt, and her brat is older than you are.

Again, Draco dismissed these thoughts without ceremony. His mother at least had had the sense to marry a pureblood like father. So had Aunt Bella, of course, but sadly she'd never had a child, and now she was dead.

This thought was less upsetting to Draco than it probably should have been. Of course, he'd never really known his aunt...

Aunts, he corrected himself.

Aunt, the rest of him insisted, the majority fraction of Draco which yet took pride in being pureblood and still believed wholeheartedly in all the things he'd been taught growing up. Blood traitors are no family of mine.

Another thought popped into his head almost as soon as he thought this, while scooping up a partial mouthful's worth of mashed potatoes.

What does that make mother, then?

Draco grimaced at this thought. He looked over the table, past Snape who was sourly staring at the contents of his plate as if daring them to even try and get in his mouth, past the she-weasel who was chattering with twin one and twin two opposite her, and past that bastard of a literal motherfucker, to his mum. She was looking from the French twat to the motherfucker—no, Draco would not dignify Weasley with such a title.

If only because he didn't want to think about his mother and Weasley doing—doing THAT. But even as he shook his head, Draco watched his mother smile at Ron, at the bloody weasel-king. Draco looked on with a sort of numb horror at the brightness and intensity of his mother's eyes, and the way Weasley looked her in return, at the smile he gave her and how he stroked her hand.

He shuddered, feeling revulsion at the sight.

His mother was married to a blood traitor. Even worse, to the best friend of bloody Harry "The Boy-Who-Lived" Potter. He still couldn't wrap his head around it. She told him she'd done it for his sake, to get in on the good side of Dumbledore and his cronies, but somehow those words seemed like a mere excuse when he looked at his mother and saw how she squeezed Weasley's hand.

He didn't understand it. It seemed as if his mother was genuinely...fond of Weasley. Certainly she behaved with him in a way that Draco could not ever remember her acting with his father. It seemed especially galling and frustrating when he thought about the still-recent news of his father's death, a wound yet fresh in his belly. And here was his mother, the man's WIFE, already consorting and cavorting with another.

And a Weasley, at that. Draco couldn't swallow it. This seemed appalling, unbearable, disgraceful. He loved his mother, but he could not bring himself to accept this. Not so soon. Not ever, a part of him thought bitterly. I won't accept Weasley. I refuse. He is not my father. He has no right to be mother's...

Draco cut this thought off ere he dwelt any further upon it. He didn't want to think about it, about THEM, together, as a couple, as husband and wife. His mother was married to a blood traitor, and she had personally turned on the Death Eaters, betrayed the Dark Lord and his cause. She said it was to protect him, but Draco still resented it, however glad a tiny, fearful part of him secretly was.

It seemed... dishonest, to him. He felt foolish and wicked for thinking even in part that maybe it was good to get away from the Dark Lord. He'd been raised to believe all the things Lord Voldemort had preached and worked for, but he couldn't ignore how relieved his mother was to be away from it all. Nor could he put out of mind the suggestion he had heard more than once when the news of his father's death first came out, that the Dark Lord had ordered it personally.

A part of him clung to this. A part of him brooded on this and nursed a slowly growing hatred for the Dark Lord, a vague and even wistful hope for vengeance.

His father was dead, murdered in a prison riot at Azkaban, perhaps on the Dark Lord's orders. That made sense, however much it horrified Draco to think it.

His mother had married Weasley, Ron Weasley, consummate blood traitor and best friend of Harry Potter, supposedly to endear herself and him to Dumbledore's side. That was not unbelievable.

Draco's world had been upended in so very many ways in a terribly short frame of time. Things he'd long taken for granted were gone or forsaken, and a cause he'd been taught from the cradle to scorn was now probably the only thing protecting himself and his mother from a messy, painful death. He wasn't sure what to think, what to believe.

In an unfamiliar environment he clung still to the beliefs he'd been raised with, but it was a tenuous grip, less firm and sure than he would have expected. He was so far outside his comfort zone that he barely knew what to say or do about anything. He'd spent the past couple days brooding and darkly obsessing, but eventually he'd run out of things to think and was now just ruminating, going through the same thoughts time and again with nothing new to add or gain.

Draco felt very lonely. There was no one he could turn to except his mother and Snape. He didn't want to talk to his mother about these things, he still felt upset with her and conflicted over her choices. He rarely COULD talk to Snape, the man having his own life and obligations and little time for the worries of a student, even the son of an old friend.

Nor was he sure how much he could trust Snape. He'd always believed the man was the same as his father, a supporter of the Dark Lord through and through. All this year he'd felt certain that Snape was on the side of the Death Eaters and just spying on Dumbledore for the Dark Lord. Now his mother told him that wasn't the case—probably.

Draco didn't think he trusted her on that. Admittedly, Snape had not yet tried to do him or his mother in as traitors, but that didn't mean much. If he was a spy for the Death Eaters then obviously he had a cover to maintain, and getting intel on Dumbledore and the Order of the Pheonix was probably more important to the Dark Lord than finishing off a couple of traitors. Not that this would protect him forever. When... if You-Know-Who won, then it would go poorly for himself and his mother.

It was difficult for Draco to get used to the idea that the Dark Lord was the enemy now, even if that was what his mother had told him, even if she had explained at length all the ways in which, clearly, Voldemort was truthfully the ENEMY of purebloods and not their champion. This was hard to swallow. At best, he had managed to accept that the Dark Lord would kill or torture them if given the chance.

Or order one of the Death Eaters to do it, more likely. Draco had no illusions that he and his mother were really important enough to warrant Voldemort's personal attention, not if even his father hadn't. His father...

Draco was no blood traitor. Quite frankly he still very much despised just about everything Dumbledore and his following stood for. But the Order of the Pheonix, at least, didn't seem to want him dead. And if by siding with them he could somehow get a measure of vengeance for his father's murder, well, then Draco would do whatever he could. Whatever he had to.

When he thought about it that way, he could almost understand his mother's actions—at least as long as he told himself that she had married Weasley solely for leverage and convenience. The more he thought about it, the more he found himself wishing for revenge on the Dark Lord. The more he thought about it, the more he believed he really would do anything to have that revenge, even if only by surviving the war while Voldemort did not.

Even if it meant having to—to breed with Granger or some other, equally insufferable mudblood. Survival mattered more than pride. The family mattered more than its blood. Malfoys were opportunists, not ideologues. This he had been taught quietly by his parents, like it was a dirty but necessary fact of life, yet in a way it was a point of pride.

Malfoys were always on the winning side.

Always.

Ron stepped out of the fireplace into Number Twelve. His trunk emerged from the emerald flames behind him a moment later, sliding out over the hearth and into the back of his leg; it nearly bowled him over, and he had to step smartly to keep from falling down.

Ron hissed a nearly inaudible curse and stepped further away from the hearth right before the form of Narcissa came spinning out of the fire. Draco appeared only a moment after that. Ron saw the other boy give him a baleful look.

This was understandable; were their positions reversed, Ron would have been just as unwilling to accept Draco as a stepfather. Still it irked him regardless of reason to be given such a look from an old enemy like him, and regardless of any vague sympathy Ron ignored Draco's glower, affecting a newfound air of indifference. He didn't care what Malfoy thought about him anymore, not really.

"Kreacher, would you bring Ron's trunk to our room?" Narcissa spoke to the air, breaking the silence and reminding the two young men that she was there while billowing emerald flames sank and turned orange.

Kreacher elf did not appear, even after a several expectant moments.

Ron frowned. "Er... did he hear you?" he asked uncertainly, speaking to Narcissa.

She nodded.

"A house elf always hears it when their name is called," she said offhandedly. "It's part of their magic. But they can ignore a summons if the one calling is not their proper master."

"Or if they punish themselves?" Ron half guessed and half suggested, remembering Dobby and what Harry had said about him. He also remembered, somewhat unhappily, how Dobby had called his old masters bad wizards and how he had tried to punish himself almost immediately after that.

Ron tried hard not to think about the fact that it was the Malfoys who had been Dobby's old masters. He must have slipped, though, because Narcissa clearly caught something in his expression and gave him a long, slow, thoughtful look.

"It's more complicated than that," she said after a moment's pause, speaking quietly. "But I suppose it's possible, depending on the elf. In Kreacher's case, however, I think the answer is... rather simpler."

Draco huffed.

"He should be ours," he muttered. "He was willing to obey you before, wasn't he? Back when—"

He stopped himself short, seeing the look on his mother's face. Her expression was pained, with a good deal of something not unlike regret, and she glanced at Draco so sharply that he flinched almost as one menaced with a blow. Grey eyes flicked to Ron and darkened, seeing the comprehension and discomfiture on the redhead's face. A part of Draco was clearly tempted to continue, just to further spite Ron. But he didn't.

"Yes, Kreacher did, once," said Narcissa, and her voice was perceptibly strained. Her hands worked themselves into tight, knotted fists then slowly, tensely uncurled. "But that was before, back... back when I was married to your father."

Ron looked terribly uncomfortable at this. He bit his lip and averted his eyes from Narcissa, staring at a far corner of the floor. Somewhere in the house there was a distant shuffling noise.

Narcissa reached out to touch Ron's hand, perhaps to reassure him. He grimaced minutely at the contact but did not pull away, and after a moment he seemed to uncoil a tad, and his hand clasped hers. He looked at her again, but still didn't quite meet her eyes.

"I regret it every minute. You know that, don't you?" Narcissa whispered.

There was a sound as of feather-light footsteps coming up the hall.

"What?" Ron said, sounding a little defensive. "Marrying me?"

Narcissa sighed. It was only natural that some drama would start to emerge—honeymoons couldn't last forever. Still, this was a bit soon for marital stress to appear, and it bothered Narcissa to see how quick Ron could be to self-doubt and mistrust. They would need to work on that.

"No, not that," she said slowly, stroking Ron's hand. "Not you. I don't regret a single thing about our marriage. It's..."

"Sirius," Ron said, seeming at once to deflate and grow all the more uncomfortable. This was an intricately knotted matter of contradictory emotions and slow, subtle politic, the sort of thing he was absolutely the worst at dealing with. He looked at Narcissa with an unreadable, conflicted expression. "Right?"

They'd not yet addressed this topic, not yet. It was the elephant in the room, something neither of them wanted to discuss, no matter how much both knew on some level that they would need to work it out sooner or later. Up until now they'd ignored it, but...

A floorboard creaked just outside the door.

"He shouldn't have had to die," Narcissa said. "I regret everything about my part in that affair. Every day I wish I hadn't done it. I all but sent Sirius to his death; worse still I sent Harry, your friends, you."

Draco glanced from one to the other, looking nearly as discomfited as Ron and Narcissa.

Ron squeezed his wife's hand.

"We all do things we regret," he said. It was a feeble attempt to comfort her, and they both knew it. Still, there was truth in his words, however clumsily he expressed it.

"Some of us do more and worse than others, though..." Narcissa sighed. For a moment she looked at Ron and wished that they hadn't brought this matter up at all. She longed for their relationship to be simple, straightforward, and physical. A part of her wished that she and Ron could go to their room and fuck and forget all about all of this.

Hell, she was almost tempted to do exactly that, right before the door opened to reveal a young woman in her early twenties with a lank mop of somber, mousy brown where usually there lay a shock of bubblegum pink.

Draco spun around, both startled and grateful for an interruption. Narcissa looked up into the face of what seemed might possibly be her savior.

Ron turned his head.

"Tonks?"

The young woman in question did not seem to register the redhead's words. Instead she was staring directly at Narcissa, her expression cool and a little strained.

"Ah," said Tonks awkwardly, not quite meeting Cissa's eyes. "Is that you, then, Aunty?"

Narcissa winced. Tonks also seemed to cringe at her own words and tone.

"You're Andy's daughter, aren't you?" said Narcissa. "Nymphadora."

Tonks gave Narcissa a long, unreadable look. She seemed tired and a bit off-color, and not just in the follicular sense. Her face had an ashen gray, sickly sort of tint and her eyes looked dull and dark. Then Tonks turned her gaze to Ron, seeming oddly rueful.

"How is it, being married to a woman old enough to be your mum?"

She asked this out of the blue in a tone that suggested incongruous earnestness. Her entire being seemed to sharpen a touch, suddenly alert and attentive from out of the midst of a gloomy malaise.

Ron blinked, not sure how to take the question. He might have assumed it to be some kind of insult, if not for the way Tonks said it, and the way she stared into her eyes. It was oddly hopeful, a little fearful, anxious and eager and tense under the gray, lifeless melancholy which still enshrouded the woman.

After a long moment, feeling his face warm as he thought of how his and Narcissa's married life had gone so far, Ron shrugged and gave the most honest answer he could. Maybe a bit too honest.

"The sex is good."

Draco made a ghastly sort of sputtering, choking, whimpering noise at this statement. Narcissa's fingers twitched, and her hand felt a little less cool in Ron's.

Tonks blinked. She still looked bleary, but her focus remained as she considered the answer, and her eyes seemed to light with something like amusement.

"That's the first thing you think of, huh," she said, smiling lopsidedly. "Well, I'm glad for you if that's the case. But I was hoping for something a little more, er..."

She shook her head, looking sheepish.

"Oh, that was a stupid thing to ask," she muttered. "Forget I said anything, okay? I suppose it's not really the same, here... at least, he'd say it's different, because she's got money and..."

Tonks trailed off, and it was clear that these words were meant for herself and not anyone else. Draco still looked nauseous and angry at Ron.

She turned and made to leave.

"If you see Lupin," Tonks said, "tell him I think he's full of crap. And, er, maybe don't bring up that talk about killing Sirius? I don't think he'd like that."

Narcissa smiled weakly as Tonks left. Then she looked at Ron, who appeared vaguely confused.

"'The sex is good,' huh?" she parroted with a hint of restored humor, both pleased and amused by how Ron had answered her niece's question.

Draco sputtered and bolted out of the room nearly as fast as his legs could carry him, his cheeks tinged a sickly green.

Ron's face reddened. "It's the truth," he said sheepishly. "Isn't it?"

"Certainly," Narcissa said, her voice deliberately low and throaty. "It's not a bad thing to say about our marriage. Probably even the truest answer you could've given, this early in."

She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.

"Is that a bad thing?" Ron wondered.

"Only if you want it to be," said Narcissa.

Both were glad for this change of topic, and neither felt any hurry to return to their previous discussion. So Narcissa absentmindedly performed a locomotor charm on Ron's things before they both made for their new, shared bedroom.

It wasn't the worst thing to base a relationship on, really. Not the best, certainly, but not the worst either.

They were who they were.

A/N: "[...]So had Aunt Bella, of course, but sadly she'd never had a child, and now she was dead." I wrote this line well before ever getting and reading the script of Cursed Child, but in hindsight... haha, wow. Talk about a coincidence that is really not that significant at all and in fact only mildly amusing. But I think it's funny, at least.

Also, wow it took me a while to complete this chapter. Honestly I've been busy with successive smut commissions since I started my Patron page, and it was only by taking time from working on those that I was able to do this chapter at all. Writing for fun is great, but being able to write for money is nice in other ways.

Updated: 8-15-16

TTFN and R&R!

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