Narcissa Malfoy rifled through her bureaus and cabinets, tossing their unsought-for contents aside. Behind her scampered a tiny and squeaking house elf, who was feverishly trying to return the rejected items to their places. The two had already perpetuated this routine for roughly an hour, and Narcissa showed no signs of ending it; even though the house elf was ready to collapse from exhaustion. She marched on without complaint, however, following Narcissa in her obsessive search. The master expected the matron to play hostess to the Notts that night, and she would play it perfectly. Narcissa had long since perfected the craft of playing hostess. She absolutely would have the perfect jewels, the perfect gown, the perfect accessories, and the perfect poise. She knew if any part was lacking, the whole would fail.

The flaxen-haired matron overturned another drawer and tore through its contents. Her husband probably re-arranged everything again, as none of the house elves knew where to look. He was the lord of his castle, and if he needed space for anything, he would get it. Not satisfied with this latest drawer, Narcissa tossed it aside and moved to a long-neglected cabinet in the wall. She had to jostle the handle a bit before it would open, and once it did she peered inside with the hopes of a prophetess gazing into the inky depths of her all-knowing pool. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim light and register exactly what was stacked on the shelves. Once they did, her eyes widened with the shock that came with this particular recognition.

"Great Morgana le Fay…" she muttered half-audibly. Stacked in the cabinet, shelf upon shelf, were colourful cardboard boxes of a prescription drug for erectile dysfunction. She glanced back over her shoulder to ascertain that the house elf had not seen what the old cabinet held. After assuring herself that the elf had indeed been carefully picking up and folding the matron's dainties the entire time, she quickly shut the door.

Why would Lucius have this? And in such abundance? He doesn't need it. Or, at least, I haven't noticed anything. No, he certainly doesn't have a problem with that. Narcissa brought her dainty fingers to her chin, and tapped it with her long manicured fingernails. Perhaps… that is, I've heard stories… could it be Draco? For parties or something? She shook her head quickly, straining to banish the thought. No, not my little Draco. He's such a perfect little boy. He would never. But I wouldn't put it past Lucius to use it for such purposes. She sighed and leaned against the jambs of the door, holding her head with both hands. She always had to work so hard to conceal her husband's behaviour and keep his reputation polished. That was the image she needed to maintain. A perfect lord and his perfect lady.

She remained like this for what seemed an eternity. Ultimately, however, she propped herself back up, blinked the wetness from her eyes, and continued on her quest to prepare herself for the Notts' arrival. If nothing else, this was something she had learned to be absolutely necessary for survival over the years: putting up a front.

A loud crash followed by the sounds of yelping interrupted her thoughts and brought her back to the present. Shortly afterwards, a tentative voice rang out. "Mother! I need help!" It was Narcissa's son, Draco.

Narcissa rushed down the stairs, her silken skirts rippling about her feet. "Coming, Darling!"

Lucius barely winced upon hearing the sound of something expensive shattering downstairs, followed by the pathetic whining of his son. Rolling his eyes and cursing Draco inwardly, he turned to face his guest. "Don't mind that. I'm sure it's nothing the house elves can't handle."

Severus Snape nodded his agreement. The commotion certainly sounded routine enough to him. "Of course I don't mind. I'm still thankful that you could see me on such short notice."

"Oh, anytime."

"I'm honoured. Now, I know that you'll be having the Notts over tonight so I'll try not to keep you." Snape lowered his voice. "What I need to talk to you about is the blood test we had last week."

Lucius raised a delicate eyebrow. "Yes?"

Snape leaned closer to Lucius. "How were you able to beat it?"

"Oh, ho! You presume much about me. But I'll confess I've presumed much about you. Correct or no, one thing is for sure: it's a good thing your alignment is so obfuscated that it even confuses you."

"Tell me about it. But you? You sounded absolutely sure, even with the veritaserum! How is it that… or, don't tell me that you… No, I know I'm right about you."

Lucius gave a wicked grin, allowing his head to tilt back slightly, and chuckled viciously. "But suppose I intuited you before you read me, so I had time to put up a front, making you reveal yourself to me."

Snape raised an eyebrow and gave a hideous grin. "Ahh, but perhaps I intuited you before you read me, prompting me to put up my own front! Now I have elicited out enough information to warrant your death."

"Touché. But let us entertain the possibility that I preempted this very behaviour of yours, and therefore only pretended to put up a front such that you would put up your own front, and I would play along in order to gain enough information on you." Lucius gave a finishing gesture, and reclined in his chair.

"OK, now I'm confused again."

"I must confess, this time I am as well."

Snape shook his head in half-annoyance. "Well, back to business! I know you've found a way to beat the veritaserum test. Friend or foe, the Great Lucius Malfoy would never allow his brain laid bare for anybody to read with such little hesitation. His pride would never allow it. All I ask is that you fill me in here. How did you do it?"

"I have made a crucial discovery, my old friend. Now, we won't be able to share it with anybody else. By design, only masters of occlumens can know about it if it's to help anybody. Tell one weak link, and the whole thing's blown sky high."

Snape rubbed his palms together and leaned forward eagerly. "Yes! Yes! I understand!"

"Well, using NMR and mass spectrometry, I have been able to determine the structure of the active ingredient in veritaserum. After extensive searching, many episodes of trial and error, and long nights pouring over chemical databases, I finally found what I needed. None of the known veritaserum antidotes would do, as they're too easily detectable. But this, ah, nobody would suspect it. That's what made it perfect.

"Apparently, the active ingredient in a popular drug used to treat erectile dysfunction has a side-effect. It also binds to the same receptors that are targeted by veritaserum, thus changing its conformation. In this conformation, veritaserum cannot bind to it, and so it never enters the conformation which promotes the release of the chemicals responsible for making you unconditionally tell the truth. And what's more, just two pills is a full order of magnitude greater than what you need to ensure that the number of receptors in your body acts as the limiting factor!"

Snape stared at Lucius with his mouth open as though he were a mad man.

Lucius grinned apologetically. "OK, I'll try and clarify. What I'm basically saying is that the prescription drug which treats erectile dysfunction also doubles as a veritaserum antidote! And I've been taking it every time something comes up, just in case." Lucius held up a box of this miracle antidote for Snape to see.

"I know what you said! But since when did you know anything about hormone chemistry? Where on earth did you get the NMR and mass spec machines?"

"Oh, Malfoy Industries owns a biotech company."

"You're kidding."

"Well, OK, it doesn't quite own it. More like it's a sister company, but Malfoy Industries does own all the rights to…"

"Why on earth did you buy a biotech company? Weren't both of your parents purebloods?"

"Yea, So? A few years back my broker told me the time was right to invest in biotech, so I went out and bought a biotech company. And what a good decision that turned out to be! We're at the forefront of potions development! That has made Malfoy Industries so much money over the years… of course, most of it was poured right back into the company again, which ultimately made it grow to the size it's at now."

Snape again stared at Lucius blankly. "Your… broker…"

"OK, let me explain. When you're investing in a company, there's a few different things you can do with your…"

"I understand what you said! I just… it just seems strange hearing it from you. To be associated with such a muggle-concept, I would never…"

"Muggle? Oh, no. This company is run entirely by wizards. I made sure of that before I bought it. It took a while to find one that was, let me tell you. But you know how crucial Malfoy Industries' image is to its success. Though I hear many of them are mudbloods. That is why Malfoy Biotech requires security clearance. I'm not really scared that anybody will steal anything, it's just to keep the public from knowing about the mudbloods. It would hurt the company if they knew I employed that lot."

Snape could only shake his head in disbelief. Breaking the silence, Narcissa stepped lightly into the doorway. "Darling, might I have a word with you?"

"Of course, Dear!" Lucius gave Severus a grin, bowed his head slightly, and moved to meet his wife at the doorway. "I'll only be a moment, Severus!" Snape nodded, and moved to half-inspect the various paintings on the walls while his host was away, pausing in front of a particularly lovely portrait titled 'Livia Malfoy.'

In the other room, Narcissa held up one of the boxes she found in the old cabinet. "Lucius, would you mind explaining this to me?"

Lucius almost sighed with relief as he saw the box. It was actually amongst the lesser of his incriminating objects that she could have found. "Oh, Cissy. I'm getting up there in years. I wanted to tell you, but I could never bring myself to do it. You know my pride and how I let it rule me."

Narcissa scrutinized her husband, considering his every movement and mannerism. She hesitated for only an instant to compose herself before she spoke again. When she did, her voice was silken ribbons binding a delicate knife in its velveteen sheath. "Oh yes, my Lucius and his pride. But this is not good for you, my sweet. It will make you go blind."

"Oh, no need to worry. Why can't I just cast a spell to give myself new eyes?"

Narcissa's calm broke. She put one of her pretty little hands on her hip, and her voice bordered on shouting. "Why can't you just cast a spell to get it up?"

Lucius had been struck by the emotions that seemed to rise out of nowhere. The knife in her voice was no longer concealed. Flabbergasted by this sudden outburst, he could only stare at his wife with his mouth agape. It is always the tiniest and most beautiful of serpents that delivers the most venomous strike. Just as he was struggling for an answer, a familiar voice echoed through the halls.

"Well I know he didn't get that from my side of the family!"

Lucius rolled his eyes. "Stay out of this, Aurelius."

The portrait of Lucius' great grandfather ignored him, and continued to address Narcissa. "I kid you not! My youngest child was born when I was ninety-five years old! Ninety-five!"

Narcissa was also somewhat annoyed at the intrusion, but much less visibly so. "Well, that's very nice, Aurelius."

Lucius groaned. He had heard the stupid youngest-child story almost every time he had the misfortune of walking through this room. "Yea, well don't tell me that you never really noticed how very little Germanicus actually resembled you."

Aurelius Malfoy puffed out his chest, and sniffed indignantly. "What is this now, insolent whelp? If you have something to say, come out and say it!"

Lucius shrugged and made a face of mock-puzzlement. "I don't think I'm the right one to ask about that."

Aurelius scoffed at this, but immediately ran through the portraits of the house, his shouts of "Livia! Livia get out here!" fading down the corridors as he went.

Narcissa watched Aurelius leave and waited until the portrait was out of sight before turning back to her husband. "Did Germanicus Malfoy really look all that different from the others?"

"Ha! No. He was a spitting image of Aurelius, that old coot." Lucius began to laugh, but it was twisted into a distorted and inhuman sound as a searing pain rushed up his left forearm. He kept himself from crying out, but his right hand immediately flew to clutch at it.

"Lucius!" Casting everything aside, Narcissa rushed to embrace her husband. She was well aware of what his pain meant. Moments later, Severus burst into the room and ran to Lucius.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, my lady! Lucius, we gotta go now." Lucius nodded, and selected four pills from the box that Narcissa had dropped, and handed two to Snape.

"Here, take these now!" The two men hastily downed the pills, almost sending Narcissa into shock. "I'll be back tonight, Cissy!"

"W-What shall I do if Mr. Nott and his family arrive before you get back?"

"He won't, trust me!" With these as his parting words, Lucius and Snape disapparated to heed the call of their lord. Narcissa continued to stare at the empty space where her husband had been only moments ago, trying not to think about what she had just witnessed. Certainly she had expected to be kept in the dark when it came to Lucius' dealing with the Deatheaters, but this…

"Mother, when are we gonna have dinner?" Completely oblivious to what had been happening in the room, Draco had wandered in looking for his mother. It was at this time that he found her standing there, a horrorstricken look painted over her features.

"Oh my baby!" Narcissa drew Draco into a tight embrace, and held him against her bosom. "I worry about your father!"