Disclaimer: I don't own the HP universe, the only thing I own in this story are Ann and Rose. Yay!
A/N: Written for a contest at the awesome-site-that-you-should-go-to-and-is-called-Third-Floor-Corridor (check my profile for the link). The prompt was: In order to create more understanding between Muggles and Wizards after the war, the pure bloods are required to learn about muggle activities by actually doing them without magic. Could be a sport, housework, any everyday activity that muggleborns would take for granted. Requirements: Must be between 500 and 5000 words, and keep it clean.
The Driving Lesson
"Alright! If everyone would follow me, please? This day is going to be so much fun!"
Lucius stared at the supervisor of his group of four, disgusted by her cheerfulness. Ann Labros. The name would be returning in his nightmares.
He stroked his long hair out of his face, and followed Labros, the whole while thinking about what an idiots worked at the Ministry. A forced course for pure bloods to make them understand Muggles, what a ridiculous idea. Muggles – and Muggle-borns, of course - would always be filth. He sighed, longing to the time where he had been feared by people, the time where he could cast the Cruciatus on random people.
The daydreams had probably been showing on his face, because when he returned to Earth, Labros was smiling at him, causing him to shiver.
"Wow, Lucius, I didn't realise that you'd dare to smile here," she laughed.
"I was thinking about two years ago, Ann," he sneered. Having to call each other by their first names had been another oh-so-brilliant idea of the Ministry.
It was as if Labros hadn't listened to him, because she just babbled on.
"Oh, good. Okay, everyone, listen!" she yelled. "This is the first day of the course and I know you all are pretty excited, so let's get started, shall we? Today you are going to learn, or at least try to learn, how to drive!"
As if on cue – which probably was so – four cars came in sight, stopping next to the pureblood group, who were all sneering.
"Everyone will have one car, and will first be driven to another spot. This is so you know how a person should be driving in a car, and so you all are separated when you drive for the first time. You all bumping into each other wouldn't be very dignified, now would it?" she said, laughing at the mental image, but quickly sobering up when she saw four angry ex-Death Eaters looking at her.
"Let's get in the cars, shall we?" she quickly added, and before Lucius realised what was happening, he was pushed into a yellow car and someone locked him in with two… ropes? He looked next to him and saw a grinning girl looking at him.
'Are all Muggle-borns cheerful?' he asked himself mentally.
"Alriiiiiiiight," the girl said, before bursting out in laughter, making Lucius want to knock his head against the large thing that was in front of him.
"Sorry, Lauren Cooper," she said with a grin. "Anyway, my name's Rose. You're Lucius, right?"
Lucius nodded curtly.
"Awesome! I'm just going to drive to this place Ann assigned me. If you watch how I do everything and get an image on how things work in a car, everything will go much faster later on, alright?"
Lucius gave her a "Hmhm", indicating that he had heard her.
"Awesome!" the girl said again, before starting the car and swiftly driving to somewhere out of the town they were in.
Even though the driving car scared the hell out of Lucius, he kept his Blank Face Mask on.
'What is this thing?!' he asked himself mentally, even though he already knew that he was sitting in a car.
Lucius couldn't help but be a bit mesmerized by how Rose moved the car around. He looked at everything she did, before becoming bored and he looked outside, watching the town flashing by.
Suddenly they stopped very abruptly, and he looked at Rose, quite angry because of the abrupt stop that had caused him to slam against the hard thing in front of him.
"Sorry!" she said, smiling apologetically. "See that thing there?" She pointed at a black… thing hovering above the street with a red light. "That's a traffic light. The red light means that you have to stop, because other cars can drive now. They have a green light right now, and we'll have that in a couple of minutes, too."
For a moment Lucius thought she was a Seer when everything that she said became true. He ignored that thought, though. Of course.
A while later, Rose stopped in the middle of nowhere, on a big place where all kinds of rectangular blocks were marked off with white.
"Your turn now!"
One minute later, Lucius was sitting on the drivers place. Very cool, he looked at all the lights, buttons, numbers and other stuff. He almost sighed, knowing that this would be a disaster.
"Awesome!" Rose yelled in his ear. "Let's start! Okay, the motor's still on. You place one foot there, and the other foot there," she said, pointing. "That one makes you move, this one makes you stop, and the last one is just annoying. Good, now you place your hands on this wheel – awesome!"
Lucius moved around a bit, trying to ignore the new feeling of feeling uncomfortable and stupid. How he longed to the grand chair he used to have in his castle, how he longed to…
"Now don't start day dreaming! This thing here," she said, while pointing at a stick sticking out of the car with numbers and lines on it, "is a gear stick. You go to the higher numbers when you speed up, and to the lower numbers when you slow down. That's my philosophy, at least," she said, laughing again. "You press the annoying pedal in when you move the gear stick around. Alright, go ahead!"
Lucius stared at her as if she was nutters. "Now? Everyone could be watching!"
"Oh, don't be silly. Just go!"
Lucius silently took a deep breath, after he had removed his hand from the place where his wand used to be, before realising that his wand had been taken from him.
He slowly pressed his foot on the pedal-that-would-make-him-move. He gasped when indeed, he was moving! He shook his head to clear it from annoying thoughts, and pressed the pedal again. He kept pressing harder and harder, until suddenly Rose yelled "STOP!!"
Lucius looked up from the pedal he was pressing in, and saw that he was suddenly very close to a wall of the building that stood there.
"THE SLOW-DOWN-PEDAL!" Rose yelled, and Lucius hurriedly let go of the moving-pedal and pressed a random pedal in, thinking about the 50/50 percent chance. Of course, it was the wrong one, and they crashed into the wall.
A deadly silence followed the crash, until Rose broke the silence with an "Awesome!"
After that, it went slightly better with Lucius and the car. Lucius even started to have fun, until he realised that and went moody. Rose couldn't stop laughing the whole time, especially after the accident where Lucius had met a tailgater. Lucius had noticed the tailgater after Rose had, and Lucius had tried to ignore him, which was of course not working. Because the driver couldn't pass him, and Lucius wasn't that fast, the driver started hooting, setting Lucius off into a mood which would have killed dozens of Muggles two years ago. Instead, now he hit the brakes, making the tailgater crash into him, and got out of the car, stalking towards the shocked driver.
"If you don't get that car of yours, if you can even call that a car, at least 500 metres away from me right now, I'll make sure that you'll never dare to go out in public again," he had hissed into the driver's ear, with Rose next to him, laughing hard, before pulling Lucius away from the poor driver.
Three crashes and five annoying traffic lights later, Lucius arrived at the place of destination.
He sighed, glad that he had survived this day.
"I have to say, I'm impressed," Rose smiled at him.
"Of course – I'm a Malfoy," he replied haughtily.
Rose shook her head, grinning.
"Awesome! Let's get out of this car, shall we?"
And the moment of farewell with Rose had arrived.
Lucius, a pureblood who had learned manners that were playing up, decided that he would make an exception for this Muggle-born, and he bent down and kissed her hand, making Rose – the young woman – blush.
"Um… yeah. Well, bye!" Rose said, and she got into her car and drove away.
Lucius threw his hair over his shoulder, after this rather embarrassing farewell. He sneered and said to Avery, who was standing next to him, "Muggle-borns. Filth, just like Muggles."
He tactically ignored the little voice in his head.
The End
A/N: …yeah. I didn't want that ending – trust me! – but it just went automatically. Hehe… anyway, hope you enjoyed!
