Title: Of A Feather
Rating: K
Characters: Mainly Lucius Malfoy, brief appearances of his other family members.
Disclaimer: I own zippo.
A/N: I wrote this for Rickmanlover24601, who has been sending me messages for the last month or so saying "Lucy, Peacocks".
Lucius Malfoy had always appreciated the finer things in life.
He was born to wealth and privilege, and as a child, he had never wanted for anything.
He had always dressed in the finest clothes.
He had always dined on the finest foods.
He had always possessed the best toys, weeks before the rest of the world even had access to them.
Yes, all in all, he'd had a fine childhood.
When he was six, Lucius learned what it was to covet.
~LM~
He'd snuck away from his governess (again) and crept down to see the guests who'd attended one of the holiday galas his parents had been hosting at Malfoy Manor.
As usual, it was the event of the year, and anyone who was anyone was in attendance. And as usual, though they were all trying to outdo one another, Lucius's mother was the star of the evening.
That night, she'd been dressed in a dazzling gown, plush green velvet trimmed in with ermine dyed to match.
It wasn't the dress that had Lucius captivated, though.
No, his mother had the most fascinating feathers arranged into her hair. They were mostly green, to match her dress, but at the center of each was a bronze patch surrounding the bluest blue he'd ever seen.
Blue was his favorite.
And he wanted a feather.
Late that night, after the household was abed, Lucius crept into his mother's wardrobe, found the beautiful feather, and took it.
~LM~
The feather remained hidden amongst his possessions for years.
As young man, Lucius still appreciated the finer things in life.
He was wealthy beyond measure.
He still wore the finest clothes, and dined on the finest foods.
Only now the Manor was his own, and it was his darling fiancé Narcissa Black that was the star of the holiday gala.
Trying to uphold his image, he had little time for frivolity, and shed his childish tendencies as quickly as possible.
All except one.
He'd learned, not long after that gala over a decade ago, that the source of those lovely feathers was a bird called a peacock.
His first act as the new Lord of the Malfoy estate was to locate (quietly) and purchase (surreptitiously) a dozen of them for his gardens.
As they matured and eventually went through molts, the beautiful feathers were collected and added to his collection.
~LM~
He grew to love those birds, and enjoyed the challenges involved in breeding them. Eventually, pure white peacocks were introduced to the estate, and despite their lack of colorful plumage, their simple elegance quickly made them his favorites.
His wife humored him, using excess feathers in her floral arrangements around the Manor to please her husband.
And while there was much to criticize about his parenting skills, one thing he did do with his son was to try to pass along his appreciation for the magnificent peacocks that freely roamed the grounds.
It never worked, though, and Father and Son grew further and further apart as the years went on.
~LM~
After the war, when the dead on both sides were buried, Draco Malfoy, newest Lord of Malfoy Manor, placed a single peacock feather on his father's grave.