Chapter Text
Lucius stared at the latest issue of The Daily Prophet without seeing a word on the pages. He found himself distracted by the shameless flirting transpiring on the sofa across from him between Walden Macnair and Lenore Brown, which Augustus Rookwood was attempting to put a stop to by pelting the two periodically with Bertie Bott’s beans from the chair next to Lucius.
“I’m going to strangle the lot of you if you don’t knock it off.” Lucius gave in at last and folded the newspaper, setting it on the table beside him as he watched Walden play with Lenore’s long, red hair. It was somewhat jarring to watch Walden so completely taken with one person; he’d been one of Lucius’s closest friends since their first year at Hogwarts, and in that time, he’d burned through more relationships than Lucius had realized there were women in the castle. Walden had never been one to commit to someone for longer than a month, and even that was optimistic. That had changed, though, with the appearance of a mark in the shape of a fox on the back of Walden’s right hand. Lucius caught sight of it as Walden deftly deflected a bean that had been on a collision course with Lenore’s face.
“Why all of us?” Walden asked Lucius before shooting a glare in Augustus’s direction. “He’s the one who’s being an arse.”
“And you two are being sickening,” said Augustus, inspecting the bean he’d plucked from the box, apparently deciding it wasn’t worth wasting as ammunition, and eating it.
“I have to agree with that.” Lucius sighed. “Just remember, Rookwood, you’re picking the beans up eventually. It’s hard enough to persuade Father to let you come over when you aren’t making a mess of the lounge.”
“Your mother seems to like us, at least,” said Lenore. “She complimented my dress, earlier.”
“You do look lovely in it,” said Walden.
Augustus wretched. “Give it a rest, Macnair.”
“Mother likes you, at least,” said Lucius to Lenore, ignoring the others to the best of his ability. “You didn’t set her curtains on fire the last time you were over.” He shot a pointed look at Walden, who shrugged.
“I apologized thoroughly and offered to mend them.”
“And the last time you tried to mend anything, I ended up in the Hospital Wing,” said Lucius, rolling his eyes. “I should’ve settled for torn robes. Skele-Gro sucks, you know.”
Lenore watched Walden with wide eyes. “How do you mess up that badly?”
“We’ve been asking him that for years,” said Augustus, tossing a bean squarely into Walden’s forehead.
“Why’re you ganging up on me?” Walden protested. “I thought we were supposed to gang up on whoever was dumb enough to host us.”
“I can just as easily toss you out,” said Lucius with a shrug.
“You’d miss us.”
“Try me, Walden.” Still, Lucius couldn’t completely fight off a smile. Yes, his friends were nearly always infuriating, but they were also entertaining. He couldn’t imagine handling school without them.
“Lucius.”
Closing his eyes, Lucius sighed. He’d hoped his friends could manage not to draw the attention of his father, but he’d known that was about as likely as them staying out of trouble altogether. He pushed himself to his feet and turned to find Abraxas standing in the lounge’s doorway, his cloak draped over his arm.
“Yes, Father?” asked Lucius, starting toward the elder Malfoy cautiously. Abraxas beckoned his son into the corridor, and Lucius followed, rolling his shoulders back and bracing himself for the reprimand he was certain was soon to come.
The pair walked in silence apart from the echo of their footsteps on the polished floor, and for a moment, Lucius was left to his thoughts. He’d left his trunk upstairs, half-packed and awaiting the moment he resigned himself to the idea of returning to Hogwarts for his final year and finished sorting his belongings to determine what to bring. He was more than ready to be away from the Manor, currently, and he intended to make his last Quidditch season a memorable one by wiping the floor with the other teams, but he wasn’t entirely prepared for the change in the group dynamic, now that Walden had encountered his soulmate.
Abraxas turned a corner and came to a halt, turning to face Lucius with his mouth pressed into a thin line.
“I’ve been called away.”
Lucius tensed slightly, and he only hoped his father hadn’t noticed. He knew exactly what Abraxas meant without further elaboration: he had been summoned on a task for the Dark Lord, and he wasn’t likely to say when he would return. Even though Lucius was in training to serve the Dark Lord himself, he was told very little about missions in which he wasn’t involved, and his father was in the Death Eaters’ inner circle. Abraxas had stated years earlier that his work was too important to chance spoiling it, if someone were to slip up and reveal more than they’d intended. Lucius tried not to take it personally. Still, that was much easier said than done.
“If I don’t return before you leave for school…” Abraxas paused and let out a sigh. “Stay out of trouble.”
“I’m Head Boy, Father. What do you imagine I’ll do?” Lucius regretted the words as soon as he’d spoken them. He rarely spoke out-of-turn to his father, as he didn’t particularly care for Abraxas’s temper, but the warning had irked him. Was he really deserving of such little faith? Yes, he’d been involved in a number of pranks and the like over the course of his schooling, but most had never been able to be traced back to him, and given his academic success and leadership capabilities, Dumbledore had still trusted him enough to promote him from Prefect starting this term.
Abraxas’s jaw clenched, but Lucius stood his ground, refusing to lower his gaze from his father’s.
“I imagine you’ll let those fools get away with a lot more than they should,” said Abraxas, pointing over his son’s shoulder toward the lounge. “You already have, tonight. If the mess isn’t cleaned up after they’ve gone—”
“It will be,” Lucius insisted. “I give you my word. And this year will be fine. I won’t disappoint you, you know.”
Abraxas reached out to lay a hand on Lucius’s shoulder. He opened his mouth as though he planned to speak, shut it again, and attempted it once more a moment later. “I know,” he said at last. He removed his hand and began to pull on his cloak. When he spoke again, whatever warmth he had come close to allowing himself to show had dissipated as quickly as it had come, and Lucius bit back a sigh at the predictability of the change. He didn’t know what he’d expected. “Still, there are more productive ways you could be spending your last night at home than watching your friends throw sweets at one another. Have you been reading up on the spells you were supposed to learn?”
“Of course. I’m not going to disappoint the Dark Lord either.”
Abraxas’s grey eyes narrowed, and he raised a finger to his lips. Lucius struggled to keep the exasperation from his tone when he continued.
“Augustus and Walden are in training as well, and Lenore is fully aware of that. We don’t need to worry about them, Father.”
“Don’t we?” Abraxas raised a brow. “You know, the last person who let something slip to the Ministry was one of ours, too, and it was supposedly by accident. You know what the Dark Lord did to him?”
Lucius said nothing.
“Let’s just say they never found the entirety of his body. Son, I just want you to be careful. You think you can trust people, but they’re never who you think they are.”
Lucius nodded, hoping to placate his father enough to bring the speech to an end. He wasn’t certain what exactly had jaded Abraxas badly enough to leave him with such little trust in others, but he believed it had taken place long before the dismembering of the unfortunate man who had let out one of the Dark Lord’s secrets.
“Be safe,” said Lucius. Abraxas nodded and turned away, starting down the corridor.
Lucius returned to the lounge in considerably lower spirits than he had left it, which did not go unnoticed by the others.
“I hope we haven’t gotten you in trouble,” said Lenore, frowning from where she leaned on Walden’s shoulder.
“No, no.” Lucius shook his head and sank into his chair again, propping his elbow on its arm and resting his chin on his fist. “He just wanted to make sure I knew not to make an idiot of myself when we go back, tomorrow.”
“Hope you told him that ship had already sailed,” said Augustus, leaning over to offer Lucius the box of Bertie Bott’s.
“Remind me why I put up with any of you.” Lucius grinned, fishing in the box for a bean that wouldn’t ruin the remainder of his evening.
“We keep your life interesting?” offered Walden, raising a glass he must’ve procured from the bar while Lucius had been out of the room.
“Yes, that’s the word for it.”
Lucius watched as Walden took a drink from the glass, trying to ignore the urge to wonder what his friend had stolen from the bar and the notion that he himself would probably be blamed for it, when his father noticed it was missing. Instead, Lucius focused on the silver mark on the back of Walden’s hand, and he found himself wondering when he would find himself affected by the same magic. Whose soul would he one day find reflected somewhere on his person? His friends, at least, had been lucky; Walden and Lenore appeared to be a good match. Their public displays, at times, but Lucius attempted to refrain from passing judgment on that matter. He didn’t know, after all, how he would react if and when he found his own match.
He only hoped it would be soon. After one more year at Hogwarts, he had the feeling his life would be so consumed by his duties that beginning a relationship would be incredibly dangerous for all involved. If he met her beforehand, though, he would hopefully be able to convince her not to run in terror from what he was expected to become.