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"What in the good green Merlin is going on here? Are the portraits rioting?" Narcissa Malfoy muttered to herself. She had just tucked Draco into bed in the secret dungeons below the manor where she was hiding him. She hadn't enjoyed ascending two hundred twenty two steps to come into this cacophony.

"You will stop that now," she said in her loudest non-shouting voice. Malfoys, of course, didn't shout or pluck their own nosehairs or pick up sickles lying on the street. Nothing as common as that.

"I demand to know who is causing this chaos," she said as she halted in the main hall. All of the portraits seemed to be grumbling. Narcissa turned on her heels are surveyed the room. Every portrait was awake and most were muttering in murderous tones.

"Well? Who can tell me why you're all up and…" The words failed here. She didn't know what the portraits were doing exactly. Some were pouting. Some were wringing their hands. And some had just walked out of their frames entirely.

"She's not a Malfoy," the portrait of old uncle Cottery muttered.

"What," Narcissa said.

"She's not a Malfoy," several portraits shouted back.

"She might be your aunt," Cottery Malfoy huffed, "but she's not a Malfoy."

"Aunt," Narcissa said, utterly confused. "What does that barmy woman have to do with the price of murtlaps in the springtime?"

"I heard that," a fierce shout rained down from the upper regions of the room. "Narcissa, you were always a disappointment. A Malfoy really? They're purebloods, it's true, but they're not our kind of purebloods you know. Not dark enough by half. And they don't whip their house elves into submission when they're babies. Leads to bad manners later on. Oh, the things I did to Kreacher to make him comply, the whimpering. How I loved the screams of pain in the morning."

Narcissa looked up and saw the horrid portrait on the third row above the floor. Her face blanched. She knew that portrait, the one from the Black home. How the hell did it get into her house.

Narcissa turned and ran down the hallway.

"I'm not through speaking with you, young woman. You need to supervise your elves far better. And you haven't kept up with your studies. I doubt you could even summon a demon if you tried, Narcissa." The crazy woman from the main hall was following behind Narcissa, leaping from painting to painting. Narcissa opened the door to a small broom closet and threw herself inside. There were no portraits inside.

"That's okay," her aunt shouted. "I can wait for you, Narcissa. You should listen to my advice, you know. Respect your elders."

Even through the door it sounded like a dozen harpies were laying siege to Narcissa's home.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3464833/4/