Morning at Malfoy Manor
Bang, bang, bang!
"Hey! Who the hell's in my bathroom?"
Bang, bang, bang!
"Open up!"
A low, gruff voice muffled by the door sounded from behind it, followed by the guttural sounds of a toilet flushing and water running freely from the tap.
Draco Malfoy let out a groan and ran the hand that had been pounding on the bathroom door through his hair. This was not happening right now. First, he had been awoken by Dolohov and Rowle's snores from the other room in the middle of the night and now Rookwood was using his bathroom – again. A person could only tell someone so many times not to use it, for heaven's sake.
"Rookwood, I swear, if you stink up my bathroom again, I'll hex you so hard your future heirs will be in peril," Draco declared, pointing a thin finger at the door, thoroughly irritated. "I'm of age now, you know, I can easily do it when you aren't looking."
A barking laugh answered him from inside the bathroom. Draco scowled at the door and reached for the handle, thinking he could use his fists with no time to get his wand, but thought better of it. He wouldn't want to barge in there in case it reeked like a thousand skunks, and plus Rookwood was a full grown Death Eater and could easily curse him into oblivion. Deciding he would rather walk away than get cursed, Draco withdrew his hand from the door.
"Just… make sure you at least turn the fan on, for Merlin's sake…"
Draco absolutely despised the idea of Voldemort and his Death Eaters using their Manor as base, but he didn't want to say anything in fear of Voldemort humiliating his family again or doing something worse. Also, if it hadn't been for Auntie Bellatrix, Voldemort and his crew wouldn't have gained the confidence from her and the Malfoys to stay here at all…
When Draco reached the end of the hall, he knocked on a second door, the door to his parents' bedroom. He rapped gently on the wood this time, and before he could open his mouth to speak, his mother's voice answered him, high and nervous.
There was the sound of scuffling. "Go away, I'm not decent! I'm… er… putting on my panty-hose!"
"Mother! Mother, it's me, your son!" Draco said.
There was a pause. "Draco?" Narcissa Malfoy finally said in an uncertain voice.
"Yes. How many other sons do you have?"
The sound of light feet crossing the room grew louder, and Narcissa's pale, anxious face appeared through a wide crack in the door. Her blue eyes searched his face, and she let out a sigh.
"Oh, thank goodness it's you, Draco… I thought perhaps…. Never mind, what is it?"
"Rookwood's using my bathroom. Again," Draco told her, completely exasperated. "Can I use yours? I need to take a shower…"
Narcissa's eyes darted to a point over Draco's head, and then back to him. "Yes, all right, your father's just finishing up, now…" And she opened the door a little wider so he could slip through. She was still wearing her nightgown, and her long blonde hair was held up in multicolored curlers. She anxiously shut the door behind him and led him into their bathroom.
: : : :
"I mean, honestly," Draco was saying as he stood at his parents' long counter in their big and ornate bathroom, staring at himself in the mirror as he combed his wet hair neatly to the side. "I would kick the whole lot of them out of our Manor myself if someone like You-Know-Who wasn't in charge of it all. They're a bunch of buffoons, they are. I feel myself losing brain cells every time I look at them… soon I'll be as dense as the whole lot…"
"Now, Draco, I agree they're a bunch of shitheads, but – what, Narcissa? He's seventeen…" Lucius Malfoy added quickly when his wife shot him a piercing look at his use of language; Draco sniggered. "Anyway, you know we can't go saying anything now, the Dark Lord is still infuriated with our family. We'd be setting a death sentence for ourselves if we did that…"
"I know," Draco murmured, chewing on his lower lip as he looked at his father's reflection in the mirror, watching as he tied back his long hair with a ribbon. "But besides the fact that they're a little terrifying, they are downright stupid! Like I said, I feel myself losing brain cells every time they talk…"
Narcissa chuckled at her son's words, taking the curlers out of her hair. The curls bounced off her shoulders and hung down her back like thick, spiralled Christmas tinsel.
When Lucius finished doing the clasps on his robes, and Draco was done getting dressed, Narcissa regarded the both of them with a very serious tone, wringing her hands and playing with the ring on her middle finger anxiously. "So… I was thinking that we should all go down to breakfast together," she said, and when Draco and Lucius merely exchanged inquiring looks, she went on breathlessly, "Oh, I just don't want to go down by myself again! Every time I descend the stairs in my dress robes they whistle and jeer at me… I need two men to do my bidding!"
"They've been doing that?" Lucius asked stonily, grabbing his wand which was sitting idly on the bathroom counter. "Good thing I found out about this new curse from Dolohov, I'm itching to try it out…" He flexed his wand in which he assumed was an intimidating manner.
"No, Lucius, don't go picking fights with them," Narcissa pleaded. "Let's just go, now. Are we ready?"
They nodded.
"Okay, boys, just smile big… but not too big… or else we'd look like bigoted dunderheads…" Narcissa said in a low voice, pushing open the door with her long-nailed fingers. "Hurry up, maybe we'll be the first ones into the kitchen."
All three of them descended the stairs, broad smiles stretching their faces twice their normal width. When they entered the kitchen, they found that they were not indeed the first ones to come down to breakfast; what they saw made them double up with low groaning fits and their forced smiles slid off their faces.
Over by the stove, it was chaos as Rookwood and Goyle Sr. tried to balance a tower of plates with a Hovering Charm and sort out the properties of the oven at the same time. Goyle Sr. was distracted with one of the buttons and one delicate plate slid off the top of the tower and shattered onto the floor.
"Not my china!" Narcissa cried shrilly, hurrying over to sort out the mess, brandishing her wand.
On one side of the kitchen Yaxley was chasing a pure white peacock around the counter, attempting to hit it with a spatula.
"No! Leave Frankie alone!" Lucius roared at Yaxley.
"He stole the butter knife, Lucius – "
Draco wrenched his eyes away from his father as he attempted to restrain Yaxley, and instead resided on watching the goings-on at the head of the large dining table. He saw an interesting yet slightly disturbing sight. Lord Voldemort was sitting next to Bellatrix, who seemed to be spooning porridge into his lipless mouth, a loving smirk set upon her haughty features. Draco watched, wrinkling his nose, as she dabbed at his chin with a napkin.
"Ah, thank you, Bellatrix," Voldemort said in his high, cold voice, and to Draco it was very odd to hear him almost croon to the woman who was spoon-feeding him like a child.
"Anything, my Lord, anything," Bellatrix murmured in a low, affectionate voice. "Can I get you anything else?"
"A glass of milk would be nice, Bellatrix, and do make sure it isn't too cold…"
Draco, who was feeling strangely amused and disturbed at the same time, decided to get his own breakfast, and walking into the kitchen he opened the breadbox, only to be greeted by a horrible sight.
"Where are my croissants?!"
Narcissa looked around in shock at her son's outburst. "What, honey?"
Draco picked up an empty bag full of crumbs and shook it in his mother's face. "My croissants! Mine! Who ate them all?" he demanded sharply, now looking around at the Death Eaters congregated in the kitchen.
Avery sunk lower in his seat as he attempted to stuff the rest of something into his mouth.
Unfortunately, Draco saw him, his pale gray eyes narrowing dangerously. He bore down upon the Death Eater, shaking the empty croissant bag in his face, causing crumbs to fall like rain onto Avery's lap. "You ate them!"
"Aye, I did," Avery said thickly, looking quite satisfied as he chewed greedily. He sucked his fingers, a mocking smile on his face at the sight of Draco's expression. "And they were d-e-licious!"
"I helped," piped up Dolohov, who was holding up a finger. "Didn't know they was yours, kid, but even if I did, I woulda eaten thems anyway."
Draco's scream of frustration never left him, for the oven immediately exploded in flames and he heard his mother's shriek of terror fill the room. He whipped around; Rookwood and Goyle Sr. threw themselves aside with loud yelps, causing the rest of the plates to crash to the floor.
Draco ran at his mother to push her away from the fire now spitting dangerously in the oven, but before he could do so she whipped out her wand, pointed it at the flames and shouted, "Aguamenti!" A jet of water shot from her wand and caused the fire to die out quickly, so all that was left was a half-melted oven and tendrils of smoke issuing from the place where it had been born.
Narcissa shook with fury.
"We're sorrys, ma'am," Goyle Sr, muttered, looking at her uncertainly, stupidly. "We forgots to take out the bacon."
Narcissa slowly turned to look at him, her face even paler than usual. "And when, exactly, did you put the bacon in?" she asked in a deadly whisper.
Goyle Sr. took a moment to count on his thick fingers. He looked up after several long moments, his gorilla-like face looking uneasy. "Abouts an hour ago, ma'am."
Before Narcissa could berate him for his forgetfulness, Lucius hurried into the kitchen, carrying Frankie the albino peacock against his chest, stroking its head with a surprisingly gentle finger.
"What happened?" he asked nervously, looking from Narcissa to Draco to the melted oven. His eyes widened in shock and he groaned. "Is it time to get another oven? Come on, it's not like we're made of money!"
Lucius looked stumped at his own exclamation. Scratching his chin thoughtfully with a forefinger, he looked around his giant Manor house. "Oh, wait…"
"Lucius!" Narcissa shouted at her husband, turning on her heel so fast it looked like she could have easily wiped out. She looked absolutely infuriated, her pupils dilated in anger."This is not the time to be making jokes!"
"But I just – "
"Sorry, Lucius," said Yaxley, approaching the two with a drunken smile on his face. "But you're wife looks like a spicy fajita when she's angry! Oh, I would so tap tha – "
"Stop having sexual fantasies about my wife, Yaxley!" Lucius screamed at him as Yaxley's eyes roved over the curve of Narcissa's backside. In the background, Draco pretended to vomit into his cereal (which he had reluctantly gotten after coming to terms with the fact that he wouldn't be eating croissants that day, and to the fact that he was hungry).
But Narcissa was far too flustered to pay attention to Yaxley's croons. She threw up her hands in exasperaton, growling in the base of her throat and looking up at the ceiling as if there was something positively disgusting on it. "If anyone needs me, I'll be in my room!" she hollered to the heavens.
"Wait, Cissa – "
"No! As long as they're around – " she motioned to the Death Eaters – " I won't be!"
And with that, she stormed out of the kitchen and up the stairs. They could hear the loud click-clacking of her heels until she slammed her bedroom door, muffling the sounds instantly.
Lucius turned to Yaxley with a quelling look at him. "Yaxley, you're freaking my wife out. Just, please, stop."
"But I was only – "
"Yeah," Draco piped up from between Avery and Dolohov, who he was squashed uncomfortably between. "please don't call my mother a 'spicy fajita' again, it's quite disturbing."
The other Death Eaters roared with laughter as they saw Yaxley blush under the washed-out light of the kitchen. "What?" he said innocently. "What? I'm not allowed a little fun here? Not when all the other women I've been with were ugly toads?"
Draco looked momentarily horrified. "Are you saying you've dated Umbridge?" he gasped.
Yaxley blinked. "I hate you lot," he muttered, his face growing redder as he stumped over to the kitchen table, slumped in his seat, and didn't say another word.
A/N: There have been good things I've written, there's been bad things I've written, and there's this. I really only wrote this to amuse my readers and because this idea has been pounding on my brain for a long time, and I had to see it in action. Because, really, we've all been wondering what went on at the Malfoy house while Voldemort and his Death Eaters reigned there for a while. This is supposed to be really bad, just sayin'. It's supposed to be, but it's supposed to be amusing too. I also wasn't quite sure on how to end it, and I kept writing and writing, not knowing when to stop, so sorry if the jokes are lame and it's a bit dragged out. The Malfoys are my friggin life, though, and how could I not write about them?
I hope you enjoyed it (?) Feedback would be great, and I'm willing to accept criticising! Thank you so much!