Laughter Much Louder
-1-Minerva and the Malfoys-1-
Rating: T (this was originally a K+ until I wrote the Malfoy scene :P )
Pairings: Multiple, doesn't really have a set one just yet.
Warnings: Kissing scene with the Malfoys, but not anything too drastic.
Disclaimer: Everything you recognise belongs to J.K. Rowling. The poem extract below is from 'Imitation' by Edgar Allan Poe.
Beta: Myself (which is why there are probably so many mistakes)
A/N This story is going to take more of, I suppose you could call it, humorous approach. As in, it won't be as serious (if you can call my other fics that) as previous and upcoming stories. Also with this fic, I'm just writing it as it comes with only a general idea in my head.
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A dark unfathomed tide
Of interminable pride--
A mystery, and a dream,
Should my early life seem.
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Dumbledore hummed softly to himself as he rifled through the somehow orderly mess of papers that littered his desk. Dipping his phoenix feather quill in an ornate, black pot of green ink, resembling a miniature cauldron, he reached with his left hand across the desk and pulled out a small envelope from a stack on the far side. The pile appeared to wobble slightly, but surprisingly didn't topple. His thin lips still buzzing together in an insistent version of 'We Wish You A Merry Christmas' he began to elegantly move his quill across the thick parchment on the face of the letter in dips and curls forming the words of an address.
'Miss L. Bowers
Room 3112
Fiesta Hotel
Eivissa'
"Oh, how lovely," he mused to himself aloud, not seeming at all phased by the fact that he had just written out an address with no previous knowledge of its whereabouts. "Must be on holiday."
And with that he continued snatching apparently random envelopes from around his oversized desk, inscribing addresses and stacking them in an increasingly precarious pile to his left. At indiscriminate intervals he would break off his humming and comment on the address or name of the recipient or make a remark about the coming year to the pre-teen Fawkes perched behind him.
Reaching for yet another letter he began the ritual of writing the name of the addressee when he paused, slightly puzzled by what he had just printed. Shaking his head slightly he continued, though at a slower pace, eyeing the paper deliberately, as if he were trying to solve some inexplicable mystery.
"You must remind me to thank Minerva for writing out these letters," he pronounced to Fawkes dazedly over his shoulder, still staring intently at the now labelled envelope. With a further shake of his head, he set the letter to his right, on the opposite ledge to the teetering pile of other completed Hogwarts letters and resumed his previous pace.
In the next 45 minutes the old wizard stopped a total of 9 more times in what appeared to be confusion at the addresses printed on 9 individual Hogwarts letters. Each time placing them, instead of to his left on the mounting tower nearly reaching 2 metres in height, to his right, where by the end of his hour and a half long session stood a neat pile of 10 thick envelopes.
Picking up the unexpectedly hefty mass of parchment, he flicked through the letters; reading the name and destination of each one, the expression of puzzlement permanently fixed to his craggy features. Rifling through them one last time as if to check something he sighed wearily and began to search for his wand in the billowing folds of his robe sleeve. Finding it amongst the golden embroidered material at the hem he withdrew it and holding it between his thumb and middle finger he muttered,
"Expecto Patronem."
A large silvery-white bird soared gracefully out of the tip to hover several inches above the now slightly less cluttered desk and turn to face the one who summoned it. Fawkes gave an indignant call as Dumbledore began to dictate to the translucent phoenix before him. Then, with a further flick of his wand, the patronus spread its wings and vanished in a whirl of hoary mist.
Dumbledore leaned back in his ornately carved chair, his elbows resting on the arms and his fingers steepled in front of his chest. He allowed his gaze to wander around his spherical room before his eyes rested on his large oak door as the sound of footsteps became clearer. Surely enough, a few seconds later three knocks resounded through the room and Dumbledore called for the person to enter.
Minerva McGonagall, the deputy headmistress of Hogwarts School, goaded open the heavy door with the brass iron ring and crossed the threshold into the room, turning to close it behind her- all the while wondering why the headmaster would ask to see her. Admittedly she had only been a few floors below in her own office and it hadn't been too much trouble, but she did have a few things to sort out today, the beginning of the school term being so close, and had been rushing around all morning, striving to get them done. She turned back to face the interior of the room and the wizard who had asked for her expecting to see those twinkling blue eyes peering at her over those famous half-moon spectacles and a welcoming smile.
A loud thud echoed through the silence of the room that Minerva hadn't realised had accumulated as Dumbledore dropped the mass of parchment he had begun to neaten to the desk in shock.
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Narcissa Black ran screaming from the lake, her blonde hair slowly becoming unclasped from the tortishell grip and streaming across her face in the brisk wind, but she couldn't care less as she scrambled up the rock strewn incline towards the castle.
Heavy foot falls behind her only spurred her to go faster as the spire of the Astronomy tower loomed over the top of the hill. But in her endeavour to reach the peak she slipped on a moss ridden rock, tumbling down the damp grass hill-side and into the still mobile legs of her pursuer. The sudden blow sent the boy head first into the ground, covering the two in yellow-ish grass stains as they continued to roll down the rise.
Eventually the two came to an abrupt halt in a soiled dip on the otherwise smooth lawn. The boy, taking up his chance leaped, as one can on all fours, toward the blonde haired girl causing her to erupt in further shrieks as she made a failed attempt to escape. But she couldn't keep it up for long and the screams soon dissolved into high giggles as she collapsed in peals of laughter under the merciless tickling of her boyfriend.
"Stop. Please stop," she gasped out between fits, writhing on the floor in tickled agony.
"Make me," Lucius Malfoy responded, a characteristic smirk gracing his lips from his position above her; though he gradually relented his attack.
"Hew…" Narcissa faux grimaced, wrinkling her nose before balancing herself on her elbows and kissing the corner of Lucius' mouth and just as swiftly wriggling out from underneath him and scampering back up the ascent.
Lucius, still on all fours and an expression of disbelief plastered across his aristocratic features, watched his girlfriend as she ran non to gracefully up the hill, only pulling himself out of his reverie when she turned giggling into her hand.
"Hey," he yelled after her in mock annoyance clambering to his feet, but once again the girl ahead of him let out a yelp of humoured terror and continued to scuttle up the hill, using her already dirtied hands to haul herself over the mounds.
The whip of blonde hair disappeared over the edge of the hill as Lucius gave chase, his long legs making little work of the knolls and at a much faster pace he was able to reach the base of the entrance hall steps just as that same splay of golden hair rounded the edge of the large double doors. Sprinting up the steps two at a time, he too rounded the corner to turn down the corridor that led to the library off the main hallway. Following the hushed giggles he made his way down the corridor and towards the distant archway that led into Madame Cookes', the resident librarian's, domain.
Edging his way into the library he noted that no one was at the front desk and he let out a breath he didn't even realise he was holding. But the next second he nearly jumped out of his skin as he felt a slender finger ghost up his spine and he reeled around.
"Didn't scare you, did I?" Narcissa asked in the most seductive voice the 17-year-old could muster.
"Of course not," Lucius lied, his tone just as suggestive in those few simple words.
Narcissa huffed, all countenance dropped in a flash and Lucius couldn't deny how utterly cute she seemed. He took her hand in his and kissed the palm softly, the action sending shivers through Narcissa.
A loud and abrupt cough startled them from each other and they both whipped around to meet the stern gaze of Madame Cookes, her arms folded across her thin stomach, behind the main desk.
Lucius made a contemptible growling noise in the back of his throat,
"And I thought she wouldn't be here."
Narcissa simply made a face at him and dragged him off to the far side of the library. It was darker down this far, and only got progressively so as they neared the restricted section. Still holding Lucius hand in a vice like grip from when she had forced him to walk she stopped suddenly and pointed at a book laying half-on-half-off the edge of a table just outside the forbidden aisles. The book seemed ancient and the leather bound cover was frayed and tattered and at least two thick set, gold studs were missing from the elaborate corners. A lithe chain drooped from underneath the back cover of the book down onto the chair beside it where it was gathered in a bundle of rusted metal.
"It must be from the restricted section," Lucius muttered, following Narcissa's outstretched arm, "come on lets go."
But Narcissa refused to move as Lucius tugged on the hand in his.
"No, I want to see what it is," and she moved towards the round table, "why do you think it was left out?"
"To be honest, I don't particularly care," but he allowed the blonde to steer him forwards.
Narcissa reached the book and gathered the chain up off the grey cushioned chair before taking its place. Lucius took the seat beside her and dragged it closer across the wooden floor. Narcissa continued working on the chain, unravelling it between her slim fingers and levering up the book so as to fully disentangle it. She was surprised at how much the book seemed to weigh considering the thickness of it. Placing the unlocked chain in a neat spiral to the right of the book she proceeded to push the book onto the table where her task was taken over by Lucius as he moved the book to the centre between them. He ran his finger down the spine, then used his other hand to locate a point a few pages in and slip his finger twixt the leaves to open the book. The thick front cover of the book landed on the table with a dulled thud and the smell of dust and rotting parchment seeped from the parted pages.
Coughing slightly Narcissa linked her arm through her boyfriends and ran her finger down the short list of names of the books previous owners.
'Minerva McGonagall
Tom Riddle
Poppy Pomfrey
Molly Prewitt
Rodolphus Lestrange
Antonin Dolohov'
Lucius appeared to mull them over for a second before speaking,
"Hey, I recognise some of those names."
"Well, you'd be denser than I thought if you didn't," Narcissa said exasperatedly. She nodded down at the brittle parchment, "Rodolphus is my sister, Bella's, boyfriend. And that's that Prewitt girl that she always complained about, I was just as annoyed with her as she was by graduation the amount of times Bella stormed up to me fuming about 'that red-haired, Gryffindor bint'. Dolohov… that rings a bell too, but I'm not sure…"
"He was in your sister's group," remarked Lucius, eyeing the page as if the letters would leap up at any second and attack him. Narcissa nodded,
"Oh yeah…"
"'you'd be denser than I thought if you didn't'," muttered Lucius under his breath in a high-pitched, whiny imitation turning a couple of pages further into the book with a flick of his hand. Narcissa stopped him from mindlessly turning another page when she caught sight of a long-winded spell on the leaf across from her. Glancing up, she noticed that the top corner of the page had been folded over.
"Oooh, Cookes wouldn't be too happy about that," cooed Lucius, "and on a restricted book no less."
With a snigger at his last comment he shook his right arm, just managing to grab the hilt of his wand as it tumbled from his sleeve.
"Still need to work on that one," smirked Narcissa having observed Lucius' ungraceful display of retrieving his wand. Lucius shot her smile heavily laced with sarcasm before asking,
"How about it then, you going to do it with me?"
Narcissa collapsed into a peal of giggles muffled behind her hand. Barely containing a snort she slapped her boyfriend playfully around the arm, tutting and wagging her index finger before his face. Lucius sighed and gave her an incensed look.
"Get your mind out the gutter," he retorted then nodded at the book, "the spell," indicating the calligraphy paragraph headered ' Lusum' as Narcissa wiped her streaming eyes with her school robe and tucked a stray lock of flaxen hair behind her ear. She shrugged,
"M'kay then."
She pulled the book closer to her as they both recited, Lucius holding his wand aloft,
"verba volant, scripta manet,
memento vivere.
mors ultima linea rerum est,
sed tibi,
qua ortus ero vestri ruina in huic suggestio viti.
pede poena claudo
et ubi astrologi bene mentiuntur de astris
novus ordo saeculorum incipit.
quaque annum quinon proficit deficit.
facilis descensvs averno,
sed lunctis viribus versoscala naturae sic erat in fatis."
A feeble splutter of sparks fizzed from the tip of Lucius' wand, vanishing before they reached the solid wood of the table.
"Well, that was exciting," sniffed Narcissa staring pointedly at Lucius from under her brows.
"I wasn't the one who wanted to see what the book was," Lucius replied defensively letting a puff of air escape his lips to toy with the strand of hair hovering in front of his eye.
"So it's my fault we're sitting h-" but she was cut off when Lucius' lips smashed into her own in a desperate kiss. She moaned against his mouth as her hands found the thin stream of his pony-tail…
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In the present day Narcissa Malfoy awoke blearily with that memory fresh in her dream-hazed mind. She ghosted a pale finger over her lips smiling slightly in remembrance. Turing on her side in the lavish silked bed she shared with her husband she propped her head up with her hand, her elbow nestled in the soft pillow, and watched said man sleeping. His face looked calm and youthful and his hair seemed shorter as it fanned across his own opposing pillow. She curled her finger through the blonde locks, recollecting how it had looked in the dream, tied back in a low pony tail. She sighed contentedly as her husband shifted position and cracked an eye open to gaze back at her.
Then all of a sudden, Lucius paled further than should be humanely possible and shot backwards, toppling over the edge of the king-sized bed with an uncharacteristic cry of surprise. Narcissa crawled forwards on her stomach till she could see her husband recuperating himself on the carpeted floor. Surely her morning breath wasn't that bad.
"Lucius?" She inquired tentatively.
"Sorry, I… well…" Lucius straightened up and brushed imaginary dust from his pyjama pants. Now Narcissa looked closer in the light that seemed to pour through the crack in the curtains she noted that he did appear to look younger and his hair was definitely shorter than before, it now hung around his shoulders and the nape of his neck instead of reaching to the middle of his back and chest. Thinking possible she was still dreaming, she nipped the skin on her upper arm with her index finger and thumb. The shot of pain was enough to warn her this was no dream.
"Darling?" It was Lucius turn to be curious as he studied Narcissa's actions.
"Hmmm?" She asked languidly.
"Maybe you ought to see for yourself," he gestured towards the full length mirror. Confused, Narcissa pushed herself from the bed and made her way over to the shimmering panel. Lucius followed close behind her.
Twin gasps filled the room as the two Malfoys stepped in front of the mirror.
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Latin: The Latin in this chapter is really just a bunch of phrases as I couldn't be bothered to string coherent sentences together - an overload of Latin coursework can do that to a person. Please don't try to translate it as it is a riddle which I even have trouble understanding and will probably just succeed in confusing the hell out of you.
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A/N This is my first ever fanfic in which the Malfoys feature, and I hope I portrayed them and their relationship alright, bearing in mind most of it is set when they're 17- I must have written Luscious instead of Lucius so many times -snorts-.
This is the longest chapter I've every written for a fic, the Malfoy dream scene ended up being way longer than I ever expected it to.
Please, please, please review! Reviews will get me to update faster and I'd love to know what you guys think of it so far, even though it may seem a bit confusing. Also with this fic any suggestions concerning plot would be cool, I'll consider everything, or a pairing you want to see happen- just pm me or leave it in you review.
Ciao