Slightly more than a decade of the Dark Lord being "dead" had caused Lucius to almost forget how much he had hated being a Death Eater. Oh, he had not minded beating the Muggles in Monopoly (Malfoys, after all, were all about taking money from everyone else). He had minded, however, how he had always been forced to babysit the other Death Eaters and to save them from being captured.
Lucius remembered that he had special difficulty with keeping Bellatrix in line.
Everyone thought that Bellatrix was obsessed with the Dark Lord, but they were wrong about that. There was something that Bellatrix was even more obsessed with than the Dark Lord, and that was pretty colors.
And making sparks coming out of her wand had not been enough to satisfy Bellatrix's appetite for pretty colors. No, she just had to have fireworks. And she just had to steal them, despite the numerous times that Lucius had told her that she had more than enough money to buy some fireworks.
"But we're Death Eaters, Lucius," Bellatrix had always protested. "We're supposed to be evil, and no evil person worth being called evil goes around doing something as decent as actually paying for something. Every single thing that we do has to be evil."
"I know that we're supposed to be evil," Lucius had sighed in annoyance, "but we have to appear respectable on the surface if we don't want to be caught and thrown into Azkaban. We can't continue our evil ways if we're in Azkaban."
"But I've heard that Azkaban holds the most marvelous parties," Bellatrix had replied in a slightly crazed voice. "The dementors bake cakes and they dress up in bright pink robes. And they allow prisoners to play instruments."
Lucius preferred pies over cakes, he absolutely hated the color pink, and Bellatrix made horrible sounds whenever she tried to play any instrument. All of these were reasons for him to avoid Azkaban at all costs.
"Oh, look, Lucius," Bellatrix had said on one particular night, "a firework stand."
And before Lucius could say or do anything to stop Bellatrix, she had ran towards her favorite source for making pretty colors.
Unfortunately for Bellatrix, however, the person selling the fireworks had not been some helpless, timid Muggle. No, the person had been a witch from the Order of the Phoenix working undercover, as she had heard that the Death Eaters seemed to really love stealing fireworks.
Then, moments later, Lucius and Bellatrix found themselves completely surrounded by other Order members.
Bellatrix had wanted to try to fight them all off, but Lucius had known that two against twenty never ended well for the two. Or had it been two against twenty-five? Whatever. The exact number had not really mattered. The important thing to remember was that there had been a lot more Order members than Death Eaters.
It was during situations like the one that Lucius and Bellatrix had found themselves in that made Lucius seriously wonder if the Order member were secretly rabbits in the disguise of people. Honestly, it sometimes seemed as if Order members were lying at wait at every single corner.
Lucius and Bellatrix had only managed to escape capture because Lucius had done something that none of the Order members had been expecting. He had hot-wired a car, and several "sick" moves later, he and Bellatrix had lost the Order members without any damage being done to them. Okay, so the car had ended up with a few dents in it. But that was only because Bellatrix had started to sing-along to a song on the radio, and she had sounded like a banshee.
Later that night, Lucius had sent Severus both a fruit basket and a thank you note for teaching him how to hot-wire a car and for allowing him to play his racing video game. Contrary to popular belief, Lucius had no problem whatsoever with Half-Bloods, just as long as they were useful to him.
Bellatrix had been bad enough. But she had not been the only Death Eater that Lucius had constantly found himself having to save from capture.
Dolohov, for instance, had liked to bring candy with him whenever he went on a mission. And one night, he had come up with the "brilliant" idea of making the Dark Mark out of candy wrappers instead of doing the "boring" routine of sending the Dark Mark into the sky via his wand.
Dolohov, however, had done this in front of a house that had several Order members living in it (they just had to be rabbits). And he had been laying out the wrappers very slowly (it was so much more "fun" to do it with his actual hands instead of with his wand). He would have been caught if Lucius had not insisted on bringing Air Force Voldemort (which flew faster than any broomstick) with them that night.
Honestly, all the Death Eaters (with perhaps the exception of Severus) would have been captured if not for Lucius's quick thinking and resourcefulness.
It was safe to say, therefore, that Lucius was rather relieved when the Dark Lord fell for the first time.
But alas, good things never lasted for long.
Things especially got bad when both Bellatrix and Dolohov escaped from Azkaban. Bellatrix immediately wanted Lucius to take her to the nearest firework stand, and Dolohov wanted to start a new collection of candy wrapper Dark Marks. Apparently, Azkaban parties were not as "marvelous" as both Death Eaters had once thought.
There was no way, however, that Lucius was going to go through all that nonsense again. He was an older man now, and he also had a lot less patience. He blamed his decreased levels of patience on Draco's annoying habit of stealing Air Force Voldemort (Lucius had forged the Dark Lord's handwriting after his fall to make it look like that the Dark Lord had left the airplane to his "most loyal servant" in his will, take that, Bellatrix) and taking it for joy rides. Apparently, Air Force Voldemort was even faster than Potter's Firebolt, and Draco just had to be better than Potter.
Lucius, therefore, made the decision to confront the Dark Lord directly on this matter of great importance.
From the beginning, though, it was a lost cause. First of all, the Dark Lord had failed to mention that he was naked in the bathtub when he had told Lucius that he could enter the room.
It took Lucius several moments to compose himself.
"My Lord," he then finally said, "I have an important matter which I wish to discuss with you. It's about the other Death Eaters, but mostly Bellatrix and Dolohov. I am done with babysitting them. I am tired of always saving them from the Order. I refuse to go on any more missions with them."
"I have no problem with granting you your wish, Lucius," the Dark Lord replied, "but I would lose my reputation for being evil and heartless if I didn't at least make you give me something in return. I can't be generous without a price. I'm sure you can understand that."
"What do you wish for me to do for you, my Lord?" Lucius responded with perfect grace and dignity.
"I would like for you to give me a massage and to clip my toenails," the Dark Lord answered.
"I would love to do that for you, my Lord," Lucius spoke as he slowly backed away, "but I'm afraid that's going to have to wait for a little while. I think I hear Narcissa calling for me."
"Are you saying that your wife comes before your lord and master?" the Dark Lord hissed.
"I mean no offense, my Lord," Lucius responded, "but you don't know how scary Narcissa can get when she's kept waiting. The last time I kept her waiting, she handcuffed me to our bed and she gave me a haircut. Then, she Transfigured the snake-head on my cane to a cute kitten."
"Well, I wouldn't want you to lose your long, beautiful hair," the Dark Lord sighed dreamily, "and I can't have my chief lieutenant bearing a cane with a kitten on it. So, I will excuse you for the moment. But I expect you to be back as soon as you are done with your wife."
The Dark Lord lifted up one of his legs just enough for Lucius to see his uneven, hideous toenails.
"Of course, my Lord," Lucius gulped.
He then retreated from the room as quickly as he dared without raising suspicion.
Lucius took Air Force Voldemort (the Ministry still thought that the Dark Lord was dead, so the plane was still technically Lucius's; besides, who really cared that the will had been forged?), and he made his way to Hogwarts.
In his distress, Lucius crashed the plane through one of the walls of Dumbledore's office.
"I can help you to defeat the Dark Lord for good this time," Lucius yelled to Dumbledore before he had even gotten off the plane.
"I am pleased to hear this news, Lucius," Dumbledore replied calmly, as if there was not a giant plane bearing Voldemort's name in his office, "but I have to know why you are so eager to help me out like this."
Dumbledore wasn't able to understand most of what Lucius said to him, but he was able to make out the words "pretty colors," "fireworks," "candy wrappers," and "Dark Marks." Lucius also mentioned something about a massage and about clipping toenails, along with something about the Dark Lord being naked in a bathtub.
"There, there, Lucius," Dumbledore said, gently patting the other man on his shoulder, "it's going to be okay."
"Oh, no," Lucius cried suddenly, "I forgot to bring Narcissa with me."
His eyes then went really wide. "And I also forgot to bring my cane. I left it in my bedroom with Narcissa before I went to speak with the Dark Lord."
Dumbledore had to spend several hours consoling Lucius before he was able to get anything else coherent from the blond-haired wizard.