AN: WARNING: This is an AU/AT story. This means that it does not exactly follow canon (the original Harry Potter series), an example of this is that (in this story) Molly Weasley is 4 years younger than she is allegedly in canon (I have de-aged her).
This story idea was given to me by my aunt, who wondered why Lucius had such a hate for Arthur Weasley. This is based on her theory (even though all us fanatics know the canon reason), and it sounded interesting to me, so I decided to write it.
DISCLAIMER: All rights belong to J.K ROWLING for her lovely characters and world. I'm just playing around with them. Thank you, J.K, for sharing your imagination with us.
Thanks for reading, have a lovely day.
Cold air pulled into his nose while he stood, waiting for his grandson— the first he'll have seen of the boy since he had been sent off to Hogwarts months ago. His wife, son, and daughter-in-law were nearby, talking to their friends. Lucius had none of his own. The ones he used to have were long gone, either dead or locked away in Azkaban, serving lifelong terms for their dastardly deeds.
He was lucky he wasn't there himself. Very lucky. Really, he was extremely lucky.
He sniffed, his nose red and wet from the wintery weather, and Lucius rubbed the length of his arms with his gloved hands, contemplating on whether to cast a warming spell on himself or not.
He didn't get a chance to decide either way as something filled his nostrils, making them flare out. It wasn't caused by the cold, instead, by a smell.
A fruity smell.
He looked up, his stomach lurching after he heard an all-too-familiar voice talking to a group of redheads surrounding her, all there to pick up their own children and grandchildren.
Classical music played inside his head right then, and Lucius forgot about the cold, lost in a happy memory. He actually smiled, but it faded away soon after when he remembered that those happy memories were only just that: long gone, joyous moments with a friend that he had lost so many years before.
He would never get her back. It had been too late then, and it was much too late now.
His wife of nearly forty years stuck her hand into his, squeezing it. Lucius cleared his throat and looked away from the family of redheads— specifically one of them. He envied them, and always had.
"Still grieving over your mistakes?"
"It is a thing that will always stick with me, even after almost half a century; I'll never forgive myself— nor… him."
"I highly doubt he did anything on purpose—"
"It doesn't matter."
"Obviously, it does to you, since you have constantly thought about it for the last forty-seven years now."
It truly amazed Lucius that Narcissa was not the jealous type. She had every right to be, but she had never shown even the tiniest bit of jealousy— and she had known how Lucius had felt for many years: since before they were even married. She didn't understand him, but she did support him.
She had been a wonderful wife and friend all these years to him, and he repaid her by moping around from time to time, pitying himself for his rotten luck.
"You're staring again," Narcissa advised. "She's going to think you're cursing her or something."
He could tell she was half-joking, but he looked away just the same: it was positively rude to stare.
Lucius closed his eyes, a tiny smile tugging to the corner of his mouth. A unique tune to Antonio Vivaldi's "Winter" played in his mind again.
It was the only thing that had kept him sane after all these years. That, and the memory of her smiling at him.
Of her laughing at him.
Of her shining, kind eyes looking at him.
Of her hopes and dreams, in which she had shared exclusively with him.
Of her delicious, yet deadly, hand-made fudge.
Of her completely.
What had she seen in Arthur-bloody-Weasley anyway?
*/*
September, 1965
Though taught to contain his excitement through years of his father's strict upbringing, young, eleven-year-old Lucius Malfoy couldn't help himself by pointing out the Hogwarts Express when it came chugging into his view.
The Malfoys were prompt and never late, thus, they had arrived forty-five minutes before the train itself had. Mr. Malfoy had explained to Mrs. Malfoy and Lucius his reasonings for this:
The important one was that the Muggles were few and far between at the hour that the family arrived at Kings Cross (the less mingling he had to do with them, the better). As time neared to the arriving trains that the Muggles took of their own, their numbers increased dramatically— not at all unlike some of the close-to-tardy wizard families who had no idea what organization meant.
Mr. Malfoy didn't like Muggles. They were simple-minded folk, who couldn't cast magic— too ignorant to even believe in magic! They overlooked everything, blind to the magnificent happenings around them, and most only cared about their immediate selves. There were more worlds than the one Muggles lived in, but they refused to acknowledge any of them except for the one that they were physically a part of.
The second reason for being among the first to Platform 9 ¾ was to claim the best compartment in the best carriage.
"The one at the very end," Lucius's father explained, "is the one that gets the least amount of attention from any of the authority figures. Even the most hard working prefects neglect that specific carriage because it's a long walk back up to the one where they have to report to the Heads. Then there's the fact that since the Hogwarts Express has over one hundred carriages— it's a time consuming activity to check up on everyone."
"And some are just flat lazy," Mrs. Malfoy added, causing her husband to give a stiff nod. "They do not take the position very seriously."
"Indeed," he agreed.
"When I'm a prefect, I'll take it extremely seriously," Lucius told his parents. Both of them had been Slytherin prefects when they were students at Hogwarts, it was only natural for him to be one himself.
"And we would expect no different from you, son," Mr. Malfoy said, squeezing the boy's shoulder affectionately.
Mrs. Malfoy then gave Lucius an enormous hug and earned a chastise from her husband when she kissed Lucius on the cheek.
"Don't embarrass the boy, Araminta."
Lucius uneasily cleared his throat when his mother pulled away from him. He couldn't bring himself to look around him, unwilling to see how many of his peers saw that slight loss of control his mother had just shown to the public.
"Sorry, dear," she told Lucius sincerely. "I'm just going to miss you so much!"
"I'll write as often as I can," Lucius promised his teary-eyed mother. He was an only child, and so he understood that she was going to go through a tough time in these next few months.
Not that he wasn't going to miss her also, but he was growing up now, and it was time for him to act like it.
"I suppose we'll see each other next at Christmas then," he announced quietly, uncomfortable from hearing his mother sniff a third time since her kissing of him.
Both his parents nodded in acknowledgement.
"Off you go then, Lucius," his father prompted. "And try to remember all that I taught you."
And that was that. The boy took in an excited, yet emotionally, massive-sized breath, and turned from the two people who had been around practically every day of his life.
He did not look back; not until he was in the 'special' compartment that his father had boasted about. His chest ached a little at the sight of them through the window, each standing there with an arm elegantly raised, waving at him. He waved back at them, matching their controlled, calm-and-collected gesture, and then he sat down, afraid that if he saw them for one more fraction of a second, he would lose control.
Lucius's eyes stung. They were irritated by his efforts of keeping his tears from creeping out. With a shaky breath, he quickly blotted a handkerchief to them, focusing his mind on something else— he didn't want people to think that he was a ninny boy who couldn't handle being away from his home.
He could do this. It'd be no trouble at all.
Lucius no sooner pocketed his damp handkerchief when the compartment door slid open. Two boys, looking to be a couple years older than him and very much similar in appearance, stepped in, too busy with a third person to even give Lucius any notice at all.
"Just get in here, Molly!" one of the boys said exasperatedly.
"Yes, we promised Father that we would look after you—"
"But this is so far from where the other children are sitting!" a voice, belonging to a girl, complained.
She stepped into view, hands clasping to each side of compartment's door jam, reluctant of stepping in. The boys had seated themselves across from Lucius and were unloading their shoulders of identical carry-on bags, piling them up between the two of them.
"It's really not a good idea to mingle too much with the others until you've been sorted anyway," one boy said, his eyes connecting with Lucius's, finally noticing him for the first time.
"He's right; you wouldn't want to be seen conversing with someone not-so-suitable for you," the other added, also looking at Lucius— but only after the first boy nudged him in the arm, alerting him that they had someone accompanying them.
"First year?" the second boy questioned Lucius, momentarily forgetting about the girl named Molly.
"Oh, of course he is!" Molly said with some excitement, deciding that it was now okay to come inside. "Just look how nervous he is!" She smiled with shining, bright, brown eyes and closed the compartment door behind her, taking no time to sit next to Lucius. He noted how she flattened her dress down at the back end before doing so, not unlike what the Black girls did, indicating that she had come from proper upbringing.
Lucius had not been around many girls in his past. There was the exception of the Black girls, but they were all practically family (and the youngest ones were at least two years junior to himself). None of them smelled as good as this one did either.
Molly smelled… fruity… and… something else. Something familiar. He couldn't figure out what it was.
She had long glittery, curly, red hair that was pulled back into two, dainty pigtails tied off with royal blue ribbons. On a quick glance, Lucius discovered the twinkling of her hair was due to the effect of a spell.
She was still smiling at him, all too pleased to see him, as if they were the best of friends, though, they had never met before.
Maybe she had never seen a boy before—
No, of course she had seen a boy before! These two in front of him were obviously close to her.
But they were her brothers, most probably, and brothers were different than other boys, weren't they? Lucius didn't know this for sure, but he assumed so. Most of the boys he had met had no other siblings. One did have a sister, but Lucius had never met her, and the boys never talked about her: girls weren't at all interesting in the slightest, they were either very quiet or very loud. Lucius didn't even know Stephano Zabini's sister's name.
"Aren't you the Malfoy heir?" one of the boys asked with a curious tilt of his head.
The other snapped his fingers in realization. "That's him! I'll bet you so! Lucius; right?"
Lucius gave a single nod.
"We're the Prewetts twins: Fabian and Gideon— we're not identical, of course. And that's our sister, Molly, " the second boy introduced. "Our fathers work together—"
"Well, sometimes," Molly cut him off. "Only for very important missions. Our father's the Head Auror. And your father—" she said with emphasis, "—is the Head Curse Breaker."
Lucius gave her a pleased smile, happy that she held great value in his father. "And I'm going to be just like him."
"It's a very dangerous job," the girl warned him with wide, concerned eyes. "Your father's very brave— and so are you, for wanting to be a Curse Breaker too."
"It's not that dangerous— not if you know what you're doing— and my family has been doing it for years. My father will teach me, just like my grandfather taught him."
"Good," Molly approved with a pointed nod. "That's probably why your father's so good at it— my father says so!"
Lucius wondered why he hadn't met this family before, remembering his father had mentioned Mr. Prewett a couple of times in the past, speaking in high regards of the man. Perhaps it was because the Head Auror was a busy career. Head Curse Breaker was too, but Lucius's father always made sure he had plenty of time to spend with his family.
"By the way, Lucius, I really love your hair—"
Lucius hastily leaned to the side, far away from Molly, seeing her hand rise up to touch his abnormally long hair. "That's just dandy, Miss Prewett," he said, shielding his hair with his arms. "But I would prefer you to not touch it! I literally spent over an hour perfecting it this morning, and I'd rather it remain that way!"
Molly let out a small giggle. "Wow, really? That long? You have a lot of patience then, but it paid off! It's incredible!"
Her brothers laughed at the reaction Lucius had on his hair, but Lucius ignored them, sighing in relief when Molly's hands retreated to her lap.
"I apologize; I only wish I had such silky hair and wondered if it felt as soft as it looked."
Lucius sat back up, stiff as a post, slightly embarrassed. "It is, Miss Prewett," he answered.
"Oh, you can call me Molly, can't you? We don't have to be that formal at Hogwarts, do we?"
"I suppose not," Lucius agreed.
"See, you already made yourself a friend, Moll," Fabian told her. "Probably a future housemate too."
"We're all expecting her to be Slytherin," Gideon explained to Lucius.
"Like us—"
"It's tradition!"
"Malfoys are traditionally always sorted into Slytherin too."
"Yes, I will be Slytherin for sure," Lucius said, confirming the rumour Fabian mentioned. All true, respectful wizards were Slytherins.
"Prewetts do have a few Ravenclaws in our bloodline though," Fabian noted.
"And Gryffindors," Molly added.
"But most are Slytherins," Gideon said.
"Especially the girls." Here, Fabian laughed. "Moll's a little nervous with the outcome of her sorting."
"They all sound good," Molly said, suddenly quiet.
"Mother wants her to be Ravenclaw," Fabian explained Molly's nervousness. "We haven't had one since our great-grandmother, Audie, and Grandma Audie just passed last year…"
The room went painfully silent as the three Prewetts took that moment to reminisce over whatever memories they had had of their mother's grandmother. Lucius refrained from shifting his feet, unsure of what to say.
"And naturally, Father wants her to be Slytherin," Fabian said, breaking off the silence, as if it hadn't happened at all. "Gideon and I have a bet going on just for laughs—"
"I'm betting Molly's going to be a Gryffindor—"
"No, she has to be a Hufflepuff!" Fabian argued with his brother. "We've never had a Hufflepuff before!"
"Oh, just stop it!" Molly wailed at her teasing brothers. "I'm anxious enough without you two involved in on it!"
"We would love to have you in Slytherin with us though, sis," Gideon told her, all joking aside.
Lucius saw that Molly was nibbling on her lip. "You'll be placed wherever you are suited best for," Lucius assured her, feeling a little bad for Molly. It appeared that her family hadn't really considered her feelings on this subject at all.
Though, Lucius did secretly hope that she would be sorted into Slytherin. She had a big nose, but Molly Prewett was a nice girl— much more pleasant to be around than Bellatrix was. And she smelled good too.
But most of all, he liked that Molly had noticed his hair and valued the time he that had invested into it to make it look amazing.
AN: I will respond to all reviews, but if this story/plot is not your cup of tea, then I request that you find another story to read, as I don't intend to 'feed the trolls'. You can look for review responses at the end of every chapter.
Do remember that this is fanFICTION; many things that will happen in this story are not real, nor based off anything that is real. I am not putting my life directly into this. I am not condoning anything that goes on in this story whether it's bigotry, sexism, dark themes, relationships, hardships, religion or/and bad luck. This is not a biography of any sort, nor a guide to follow in life. Nothing in this story is based off anything that I personally support or have experienced. This is strictly FICTION and written for pure ENTERTAINMENT.