“What made you change your mind?”, Lyra asked her mother.

“It didn’t happen all at once”, Narcissa admitted. “The pureblood ideology was in my family for centuries before the Dark Lord. It was something that was just … true. But I think, when I saw the Dark Lord murder that poor, innocent woman that taught muggle studies at Hogwarts, Charity Burbage, and he did it in our home, in our drawing room, with all those gleeful monsters watching him feed her body to that accursed snake of his, something in me changed.”

“That was a terrible sight”, a shiver passed through Harry’s body. Narcissa looked at him, surprised. “You watched?”

“To my great misfortune, yes. I had visions through my scar. Terrible nightmares. This was one of them. I woke up in cold sweat with a terrible headache”, he reminisced.

“I woke up in cold sweat with terrible headache many following mornings, thanks to that memory”, she shivered. “This was such a terrible crime, that nothing could justify it. And it was done in such a terribly inhuman way, and the reactions of the monsters present were so vile and cruel, that a full realisation dawned upon me: we invited this horror into our home, and the only way for us to have any chance for a future of any kind is for the other side to win decisively”.

“But that’s merely the obvious part, the part about the Dark Lord”, Lucius interjected. “If only for that, we would be likely still espousing the same pureblood beliefs, because it was obvious that the Dark Lord espoused those beliefs only to deceive us and recruit us for his cause. But no – we saw again and again how the supposed purebloods acted as the vilest beasts without honour, grace, manners, dignity, purity or love in their hearts. I know you must have thought of us as cold, arrogant aristocrats, Harry, but beneath that public mask we loved our family dearly, and it terrified us that neither Voldemort nor his followers seemed to care about love in any way. They were only about murder, fear and service to the Dark Lord, and I am not sure they would ever have stopped killing and torturing people had you not ended it, for which we shall forever be in your debt”, Lucius looked at Harry with complete sincerity in his silver eyes, that were so much like Lyra’s.

Narcissa nodded. “We would look at each other, and try to imagine the end goal of all that, and all we could think of was a frightening, cold, evil nightmare with no end. And those supposed purebloods all felt like scum, villains, murderers and were barely human, if at all. When we compared them with that kind, good woman they murdered in our home, we understood that we would rather have her in our home than them, any time. We watched the people from the Order of Phoenix here and there, and it would break our hearts to see their love and kindness towards each other, something we haven’t properly felt since the Dark Lord took residence in our home and made it into a den of most the despicable villainy. We saw Harry and Lady Hermione, and they felt like proper people, not empty husks filled with dark evil, such as we kept seeing in our home. And somewhere, I don’t even know when exactly, it dawned upon us that purity of blood isn’t something you inherit; it must be something you manifest and live”, the lady sighed.

“And it helped when our daughter denounced us as blood traitors for having only one child, and then exposing her to those horrors and putting her life in danger. I never felt such shame in my life as when I watched her speak, and it was good for me because it woke me from my stupor and I couldn’t find anything untrue in it. I betrayed my blood and my heritage, as well as blood and heritage of my wife’s family, by preaching pureblood supremacy while not having more pureblood children to actually put my actions in alignment with my words, and I sided with a monster who considered gifting my daughter to some vile scum who served him the best in his evil. I was horrified at myself, and as I listened to my daughter’s words, I saw that everything she is saying is true”, Lucius looked at Lyra, who blushed.

“And when we saw how you and Harry honoured our family name and heritage, how wonderfully and respectfully your treated my childhood home, we decided to put our entire weight behind you without reservations. Not only have Harry and Hermione saved us all, but they also embraced our daughter as an equal and jointly formulated post-war policy with her, in such a balanced and reasonable way, that we would never have dared to hope for it. Where we feared you would tear down tradition, you preserved it, and only removed things that seem to have caused all this mischief in the first place”, Narcissa smiled at them.

“Did it not offend you that people like myself are now considered purebloods?”, Hermione asked shyly.

“Not at all”, Lucius was adamant. “Seeing you in our home, when you were brought in as prisoners, in contrast with the vile creatures that imprisoned us in our own home, made us revise everything we thought we knew about purity. I don’t know whether our daughter told you what we taught her?”, he looked at Harry and Hermione.

“I have a pretty good idea; we talked a lot, at school. She told me that to her, purity is a state of character – truthfulness, dignity, knowledge of tradition and history, respect for your ancestry, love for your parents, love for other pureblood wizards, strength of the community, and so on. I was very much surprised, because her beliefs seemed unique. Other Slytherins seemed to think it’s only about your parentage”, Harry nodded.

“Yes”, Lucius nodded. “That’s what we taught her and that’s how we acted within the confines of our home. So, when we saw you and Lady Hermione, you both looked like the embodiments of the principles of pureblood wizardry that we believed in, while the Dark Lord and his followers looked, to be honest, exactly like we imagined the mudbloods would look – no class, no honour, no love, no dignity, no respect, no love for their fellow wizards. So, accepting Lady Hermione as a pureblood witch was not just easy; it was the most natural conclusion of everything we saw. And seeing how wonderfully you arranged your household: preserving the tradition while removing the darkness, loving and respecting each other, bringing magic to hitherto unseen heights, increasing family wealth, supporting the community while dealing with threats decisively, we feel that our family heritage is in the right hands”, he bowed to all three of them. “Also, Arthur and Molly Weasley visited us this morning, and I honestly never believed I would witness anything of the sort. They sincerely apologised to us for judging us harshly and not taking our advice when it would have benefited them greatly. We were wordless, I admit. Truly, I believe you are ushering in a new era, and you are doing it both decisively and with tact and wisdom”.

“May I see Kreacher?”, Narcissa looked at Lyra, pleading, and her daughter smiled and nodded. Crack.

“Yes, Young Mistress? Mistress Cissa?”, he was surprised. “Kreacher is very happy to see you”, he bowed.

“Hello Kreacher”, Narcissa smiled softly. “Are you doing well?”

“Kreacher is very happy, happier than he had ever been in his long life”, he croaked. “Kreacher is family”.

Narcissa wiped a tear from her cheek. “I am sorry we didn’t treat you better before”, she sobbed. “I didn’t know better”.

“Mistress Cissa was always kind to old Kreacher. She has nothing to apologise for”, he touched her hand respectfully and disapparated, as Narcissa was struggling with tears.

“You took our family tradition, poured love and respect into it, and transformed it into something that makes me so proud of you”, she whispered.

“We buried the heads of the deceased house elves in the Black family crypt with full honours due to the members of the family”, Harry spoke. “And the portrait of the old Mistress as well, so she can now yell insults at her fellow dead”, he smiled.

“Truly, the place is improved by it immensely”, Narcissa smiled at him through her tears. “And I’m sorry I thought of you as an insolent boy before. You are wise, reasonable, balanced and respectful. Our previous discord was fully my own fault”.

“I understand”, he nodded. “And most, if not all, of any wisdom that I may possess, is due to your daughter’s beneficial influence”, he smiled at both her and Lyra, who squirmed with embarrassment.

“Liar”, she whispered.