Pairing: Narcissa/Molly.

Rating: R. THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS SEXUAL CONTENT.

Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended. Characters owned by J.K. Rowling.

Summary: It's hard to be a good Hufflepuff when you know in your heart of hearts that you were born to be a Slytherin. A young Narcissa hovers on the brink; a seemingly hopeless love may pull her into the light, or push her further into the bitter darkness. Precanon Molly Weasley/Narcissa Malfoy femmeslash.

Note: This particular chapter is set in Narcissa's home, during her school holidays.

:part three - steps towards darkness:

Narcissa set her knife and fork on her plate, taking great care to ensure they were completely parallel, an oasis of silver perfection in the ruins of her meal. She received some pleasure from the act. Her life might be falling to pieces, but she could still keep things refined, elegant, and… nice. Not nice in the Hufflepuff sense, though.

She leveled one of her piercing stares at the young man opposite her. It was a *good* piercing stare. She'd copied it from one of her Slytherin friends, a girl who cultivated a ghoulishly wasted look, and who could make first year Ravenclaws faint with one glance of her heavily made-up eyes. Not that Narcissa would do anything as crass as apply black eyeliner and white face powder with a trowel in order to look exotic and evil, but she had worked hard on imitating the stare.

This young man, to do him credit, didn't seem at all intimidated. He smiled back, rather admiringly.

"I'm surprised I don't remember you from school, Narcissa," he said, with obviously practiced gallantry. "I thought I noticed all the most beautiful girls."

Narcissa forbore to point out that she had been twelve when Lucius graduated, noticing her in that way would have constituted some kind of child molestation. Instead she said, smoothly, "Perhaps you did not think Hufflepuff girls worthy of your consideration."

There was some pleasure in seeing his smooth face dissolve into shock. "You're a Hufflepuff?" Disdain dripped like rotted liquid candy from the last word.

Narcissa's mother hastened to intervene. "We believe there was some… problem… with the Sorting Hat. Narcissa obviously does not belong with those Hufflepuff sluggards. Of course, you know there is such prejudice against the old wizarding families these days, especially those traditionally belonging to Slytherin…" Her voice trailed off meaningfully.

Lucius nodded, apparently reassured. "It is almost a disadvantage to be of pure blood in these dark days," he said, his cold voice running along the words with the ease of long familiarity. "However, when things change, these Muggle-lovers will begin to realise that…"

Narcissa tuned out. So many of her mother's conversations seemed to end up running on the theme of Mud-bloods and the presumed persecution of the old wizarding family. Narcissa bore no malice, but she was slightly bored. She supposed her mother was right, but the constant repetition was mind-numbing.

The image drifted across her mind, soap-slippery, of Molly's outraged disgust if she could overhear the conversation. Her rounded face would flush blotchy red with fury, her eyes shift from comforting warmth to blazing fire. For all Molly's kindness, she lost her temper easily when she thought people were being mistreated, and her sympathy for Muggles was well known.

It might have been that thought that made Narcissa interrupt, abruptly, saying, "You think loyal wizards should not associate with Muggle bo – with Mudbloods?"

Lucius turned his pale gaze on her. "A certain amount of interaction is necessary, of course," he said, as if speaking to an adorable child. "We must be practical. But it does not do to taint ourselves too much by constant association. We should keep our distance."

"And, of course, it is important to keep the blood of the old families pure," her mother said, meaningfully.

Narcissa nodded, and considered Lucius again. She had no illusions about why Lucius had been invited to stay for the holidays. There would be nothing so crude as an arranged marriage. But Narcissa's mother had already started to introduce Narcissa to an assortment of wealthy, pure-blooded, unwed men. Narcissa understood her inevitable duty.

And, after all, the Mater had not done a bad job with this one. He was young, and extremely handsome in a cold, thin way, rather like Narcissa herself. He was intelligent and charming, and he had the same glamour of restrained wickedness that the girl so carefully cultivated in herself. Lucius was very attractive… if you liked that kind of thing. If your dreams weren't haunted by luscious female flesh, memories of satin-soft female lips…

Narcissa was suddenly aware she'd been asked a question, and pulled herself to blushing attention. "I'm sorry. My mind was elsewhere," she said smoothly.

"I quite understand," her mother said, beaming, and exchanging a glance with Lucius. Narcissa realised that she had been staring unfocussedly at Lucius while her mind slipped back to her shared kisses with Molly, and that she had in all probability had shown all her lovesick longing on her face. Of course they thought it was for him… She blushed more deeply still, and Lucius smiled, with satisfaction that slicked Narcissa's soul like frozen oil.

"If you will excuse me," she said, and left the table, hardly caring that she was being rude.

She needed to be alone with her thoughts. She had a decision to make, although there she could only make one choice. Molly would never be hers, after all. And what else was there after school for her but marriage? Her perfect grades and impeccable family would translate, at best, to some dull drudgery in the Ministry of Magic. Marrying someone like Malfoy would open another possibility, working to perfect, not a job or skills, but… herself… Narcissa saw herself in her mind's eye, a rich man's wife, a flawless artwork, sculptured body in exquisite clothes and unimpeachable manners, smoothly perfect… The detached watching Narcissa finally integrated with her feeling living self, so that pain and chaos could no longer touch her. Escape, of a kind.

It might as well be Malfoy as anyone else. And an engagement would be such a thoughtful Christmas gift for her mother.

Still, if she was supposed to feign love for Lucius Malfoy or one of his kind, she needed a little time.

* * *

Three o'clock. The hour of the death of the soul…

Narcissa lay still, staring at her ceiling, trying to ride out the one hour when illusions melted away and only pain was there, raw and throbbing. Why do I love her? – why can't she love me? – eternal, clichéd questions that still sliced into her heart. If the detached part of herself laughed at her emotions for being so commonplace, so derivative, it did nothing to ease the ache in her heart or her core.

Molly… Surrendering, Narcissa gave herself over to thinking of her. So soft, everything about her, from the expression in her eyes to her glowing red hair to the full feminine curves of her body. And so warm… warm heart, warm eyes, warm skin, warm hair… And so delightfully, sinfully female. How could anyone, after loving that, resign herself to Lucius' cold hardness?

Narcissa parted her lips in the darkness and arched her neck back, moistening her lips, as though Molly's remembered kiss could meet hers, as if her tongue could slip into the other girl's offered mouth. Long months of communal living, with only brief hurried moments in the toilets to release the long aching tension of living so close to the object of her desires, at last built up into unbearable need.

She slid her nightgown off hastily, kicked her knickers to the foot of the bed. The cool air failed to soothe her heat, instead caressing her body and raising tiny hairs to tingling pinpricks. Her hands followed the air, brushing the sides of her breasts – not the cold-hardening nipples yet – and down along sensitive ribs, the slender curve of waist and hips, just brushing her buttocks, until her arms were full extended and her hands rested on her thighs.

"Molly…" she whispered, her mind doubling her body in desire, the hands on her body belonging to her beloved even as she imagined her hands were travelling over a smaller body with richer curves. "Sweet Molly." She let her fingers drift, with agonising slowness, upwards again, and then inwards, stroking over her stomach with shivery desire. Narcissa's mind replayed, over and over, the few shared kisses, the feel of the girl in her arms.

"Touch me," she whispered to the dark, and slid her hands up to cup her high small breasts, feverishly imagining them to be fuller and heavier, caressing and kneading and moving to work the peaks. But if it was Molly's lightly freckled breasts, Narcissa would have moved to take them in her mouth right now, ply them with gentle wet kisses and sharp bites and deep, hard, longing sucking… She moaned and dropped one hand to her sex, unbearably wet at the thought.

She spread her legs wide, bending her knees and drawing them up, her fingertips burrowing between her nether lips. She had only ever touched her clitoris before, masturbating out of simple need and as quickly as possible, but tonight Narcissa was obsessed by the thought of what Molly would feel like. The hidden secrets of her body… Narcissa breathed in hard, plucked at one nipple and began to press her index finger home.

Her internal muscles pulled back at her finger as she slowly slid it home, ignoring the burning pain. Long hours of broomstick lessons had ensured that there was no barrier to be passed, but she was tight, so tight she feared she could not penetrate herself even with one finger. But her body accommodated and her pain faded, leaving only sweet pressure and the wonder of her finger in a female body, even it was her own.

She had imagined something smooth and featureless – a hole or a tunnel, as crude phraseology put it. Instead, her core was complex and pulsing and alive… Did Molly feel like this, this delicious heat, this intense awareness of life? Narcissa explored cautiously, her mind filled with the same doubling. This is her finger inside me, this is her body I'm exploring, she told herself, hearing her own strangled gasps as her other hand moved to work her clit.

For one frantic moment she saw Lucius, entering her with uncaring passion, an alien male presence inside her female body, but the image mercifully melted away into images of Molly, so beautifully feminine, with her wide hips and rounded stomach and gentleness. She eased another finger into herself, gasping with mingled pain and pleasure as she stretched tight, caressing her clitoris to temper the burning sensation with sweet pleasure. After all, she would be lovingly considerate with Molly, and it was not in Molly's nature to be anything less than gentle with her… She began to work her fingers faster and harder, scissoring and flexing them, forgetting to be quiet, her soft cries torn out of her heart. Molly's fingers buried in Narcissa, Narcissa's in Molly… One woman in pleasure…

She was already dancing inwardly, eyes squeezed shut so that she could only see the images imprinted on her eyelids, when one of her questing fingers brushed against a slight roughness inside of her. Stars exploded inside her head, and her fingers began to rhythmically work the spot, her hips thrusting upwards without her conscious control, her other hand almost bruising her clit as it rubbed and pinched the sensitive bud.

She screamed as the first orgasm reached her, not the simple release of tension she had known before but something that melded into the pleasure rocking her body, the longing in her soul. Narcissa could see nothing but Molly, leaning above her and smiling as she fucked her with those childlike plump fingers, and somehow at the same time beneath Narcissa, her back arched in helpless pleasure, her breasts shaken by her own thrusts, her head thrown back to expose her throat to Narcissa's mouth. So beautiful…

Narcissa came one last time, shuddering, her moans loud in her own ears. She let her fingers slip from herself, feeling her core still convulsing helplessly, her clit painfully tender now that the pleasure was ebbing. And there was no woman to take into her arms and cling to, no sweet loving mouth to soothe her with kisses and soft words. The phantom Molly slipped from Narcissa's mind, and there was nothing but a thin blonde girl on the verge of true adulthood, lying alone on her bed and stifling her sobs in her pillow.

* * *

It was only much later, as she met Lucius' amused gaze across the dinner table, that she remembered that he had been stationed in the room next to hers, and would have heard her cries – and associated them with him. For a moment, her face burned with something like degradation… that night had been sacred to love, if unrequited love, and this smug bastard had no place in it.

But then, it would make everything easier if he thought so. And, after all, unrequited love was no true love at all, just a confused mess of longing and tenderness and obsession. And she was going to stop it, damn it. She was gong to become the woman she had always meant to be, not a whingeing, sentimental girl enslaved to her own hormones. And the first step was… Lucius Malfoy.

A few nights later, when Lucius asked her a certain question with calm confidence, the buried part of her that was unkillably Hufflepuff screamed in terror. For one long moment she almost saw clearly what she was committing to, the long slide into darkness, the slow murder of her own soul. But the watching Narcissa was firmly in control, at least for the moment. She allowed her mouth to be kissed, and Lucius' mouth was cold and hard, and her heart wept for another, gentler kiss from someone else entirely.

Well, such is life…

She lifted blank, uncaring eyes, produced the exactly suitable gracious smile, and said yes.