Disclaimer: None of these characters, etc. belong to me.

Chapter 1

Maybe he was tempting fate; drinking himself into oblivion like this. The Dark

Lord was bound to call one of these nights, and you definitely wanted to have you wits

about you when speaking, well groveling to the Dark lord.

Lucius shuddered at the thought of being anything but 100% in the presence of his

Master.

He stared contemplatively at his 4th shot of firewhiskey for a moment and then

downed it and poured another. What on earth was wrong with him? He had never been

prone to excess drinking, even in his youth. But now..

The self preservation instinct which was normally just about the only factor in his

decision making was screaming frantically at him to stop. But Lucius was operating on

autopilot, and, if he had had the faintest idea what autopilot was, he certainly would have

made the same analogy. But, being that Malfoys did not hold with such muggle

nonsense, he felt more like he was under the imperious curse, watching desperately as he

performed acts against his will. Unable to control..

Lucius yanked his thoughts abruptly from THAT road. He didn't think about he

past and he didn't look back. So, with nothing better to do, as he downed several more

shots, he wondered again what in Merlin's name he was doing??!

'I must be loosing it, he thought to himself.

No, no that wasn't it, although the Malfoys did have quite a history of insanity.

He saw the signs in his young son Draco.

'Damn Draco and his blind devotion to the Dark Lord!'

Hold on! Where had THAT thought come from? Hadn't he always wanted his

weakling son to follow in his fathers footsteps? Wow, he must have had WAY more to

drink than he thought.

Lucius watched idly as his unsteady hand topped off another glass. Whatever. At

least his hair was still pretty. Lucius giggled slightly at this thought and then clapped a

hand over his mouth. Malfoys did NOT giggle! But those damn giggles just kept

escaping through his fingers. Lucius grabbed his shot glass, desperate to drown the

giggles. He had not, however, accounted for his current lack of balance.

It was several moments before he made the connection between being on the floor

and falling off his chair.

'I'm on the floor'

'I was in my chair'

'I am on the floor?'

'Wasn't I in the chair?'

'Floor'

'Chair'

'Floor..'

'I fell out of the chair!'

This was NOT helping his giggle problem. The rational portion of his mind

realized he must be quite a sight; obviously drunk and laughing his head off on the floor.

But the irrational and currently quite dominant part of his mind continued to find the

situation, and quite anything, hilariously giggle worthy.

And this was how Narcissa Malfoy found her husband 15 minutes later.