The Malfoy Mafia
Notes:
Usually I am a hardcore Drarry and Wolfstar fan, but my dear WtheB declared we were doing this challenge, yes or yes, so here we are. This story is for the Scratch-that-niche event, and we both had lots of fun writing it. Hope you enjoy!
For the Scratch-that-niche event.
Rare pairing Lucius/Luna
Prompt 16: Get a grip
He remained where he was, hidden behind the storeroom door.
"Get yourself under control, man," he muttered under his breath, then gritted his teeth. When this was over, he was going to murder Hermione, and dance on her grave for this indignity. Never trust a witch, his father used to say, and even though the man was a raving lunatic, about this specific bit of wisdom, he had been unmistakably right.
*** Two hours earlier ***
"Pumpkin," came Hermione's voice somewhere above him. The ridiculous term of endearment was enough to snap Severus out of his methodical cauldron stirring and consequently botch the whole damn thing up. He blinked at the potion, now spitting disturbing yellow sparks all around, and turned his gaze up to frown at his wife.
"We had a discussion about unacceptable pet names," he said, scowling a bit. "I am sure any kind of pastry was deemed off-limits."
Hermione, with just her head poking through around the stairs that led to his potion's lab, (or the Cellar of Doom, as Minerva had taken to calling it) gave him a big grin.
"Technically, a pumpkin is just a type of squash. The fact we make pastries from it shouldn't be taken into account."
"Hermione," he growled out of gritted teeth, "I will not be called your muffin, nor your apple pie, and most certainly not-"
"Your robes are on fire," Hermione pointed out, and Severus turned around with a curse, because indeed, the back of his robes were slowly but surely turning into an inferno. Grumbling to himself and pointing his wand at the growing flames, he more or less tuned out whatever else Hermione was saying.
"... and so they are upstairs and we should be back by six, okay?"
The flames had also crept up to his bookshelves, and were getting dangerously close to setting the whole bloody room on fire.
"Severus? Okay?"
"Yes, fine," he'd mumbled, sending an aguamenti in the direction of the impending calamity.
***Now***
Kill her. Slowly and painfully, like that she-devil deserved. Severus took a deep breath, trying to argue with himself that he'd survived worse. He could do this. Four children had nothing on the Dark Lord, certainly. Surely.
Tiny fists, which he had been trying to ignore, kept on banging on the door to the cupboard.
"Uncle Sev! You're missing it!"
Four children. None of them pledged to the dark side. That he knew of, anyway. He could do this. Severus took one more moment to mournfully regret the fact he couldn't put them all in detention. It was, after all, summer break, and even he had a bit of heart. He opened the door. A redheaded 9 year old with huge green eyes beamed at him and passed him a pink, sparkly tiara.
"Come on uncle Sev! It's a tea party!"
Unmitigated misery and chaos. Severus watched, bewildered, as the kids ran around the room in various ridiculous outfits and made an ungodly amount of noise.
"Scorpius!" He hissed sharply at the twelve year old, interrupting his attempt to grab a bottle of silver nail polish from one of the girls. The blond grumbled and crossed his arms in a fashion eerily resembling Draco in a strop.
"It's a Slytherin colour," he pouted. Severus rolled his eyes. He was about to say something else when a loud crash made him whirl in his tiny, uncomfortable, chair. A plastic unicorn had met its demise and multicoloured glitter was splashed everywhere.
"Erigone! Berenice! Sit down this instant!"
Identical sets of blue eyes turned to him innocently. Severus wasn't remotely fooled.
The wizarding world had gone mad after the war. Breakups and hook-ups abounded. The Granger-Snape dalliance made for shocking news when their romance became public. Forced cohabitation due to shortage of potion supplies had been the simple explanation for those strange bedfellows. Of course, innuendos and suspicions had featured in numerous press coverages.
Severus hadn't received that many howlers since his days as Headmaster. Several came for Hermione as well, in Molly's shrill voice. She was still smarting over her son's rejection at that point.
However, regardless of how much the public - or the Weasleys - had raged about Severus making an honest woman out of Hermione, the uproar accompanying the Malfoy-Lovegood pairing had been unparalleled.
The surprise wasn't so much that a Malfoy realised before anyone else the superb value of Luna Lovegood's pedigree, what with her war hero status, pureblood line and even being a heiress to a press empire to boost. No, it was more the fact that the patriarch of the Malfoy line was the one doing the falling in love for the deliciously oblivious witch.
Malicious comments a-plenty were whispered over what exactly had gone down on those Malfoy's dungeons during the war, but the couple had proceeded to marry anyway. At Draco's insistence, Narcissa did try to quell some of Luna's most whimsical ideas for the ceremony. In some instances, the ex-Malfoy lady had even managed to be successful. Luna had still walked her way to Lucius in a wedding dress made of white squealing balloons.
"It's the age, Draco, darling," Narcissa had whispered quietly to her distraught son. "Some men buy new brooms. Your father has always been creative, however."
Erigone and Berenice were the by-products of the union. Twin by-products, who exhibited an unsettling mix of Lucius' evil inclinations and Luna's otherworldliness. Between them, they could bring about an unbelievable amount of chaos. Eri and Berry. Lucius was still fuming about the unceremonious shortening of what he had chosen as dignified, appropriate constellation names.
From the beginning, Scorpius had naturally made an unofficial third to his little aunts' duo. A dizzying turn of events had seen the addition of one Lily Luna Potter to the group's dark machinations and so was born the Malfoy Mafia. From then on, finding one without the other - or finding a moment's peace if you were an adult, really - had been nigh impossible. It was almost as if Scorpius didn't realise that he was a full three years older than the girls.
Since his entering Hogwarts that year, they'd taken to owling each other constantly, sharing all minutiae of their days ad nauseum in a four-way whirlwind of letters. The Malfoy manor had to have its owlery staff expanded for that purpose alone, and everyone knew how difficult it was to find good elf help these days - thanks to minister Granger's latest campaign.
The two girls sat primly by his side, tutu skirts so fluffy they threatened to drown them both in their folds. Snape frowned at Eri, who had a small cylinder hanging around her neck.
"Are those lemon scraps-" he started to ask, bemused. Then, thinking better of it: "Never mind."
The children finally settled down around the little table, and Severus took a moment to look them over. Surreptitiously going so far as checking them for weapons with a flick of his wand. Eri and Berry were on each of his sides. Next to Berry, Scorpius was still sulking. Lily Potter was last, very focused on trying to convince Crookshanks that he had to sit down too. And wear his bowtie.
"Uncle Sev, you're a man, right?" Severus turned to frown at Erigone.
"Obviously," he answered dryly. The twins exchanged a significant look, and:
"Then can you tell us about boys and girls? Only, Scorp told us that Maggie Bones was kissing a boy behind a tapestry on the fourth floor!" she looked expectantly up to him, eyes huge on her round face. "Do you think the Wrackspurts made them do it?"
"Ask your mother," Severus snapped immediately, even as part of him puzzled. From what he remembered, there wasn't much room for manoeuvres behind that particular tapestry. In fact, one's arse always seemed to end up peeking out. Although he supposed a pair of first years would be just tiny enough to make the fit. And precocious enough, apparently.
"Mother says boys and girls should make merry," said Erigone, little lines wrinkling her forehead.
"It's rather vague," agreed Berenice, bobbing her head solemnly.
"Then ask your father," Severus said, exasperated.
"Father says we have no business gossiping about the likes of Maggie Bones."
"She's a Hufflepuff," Scorpius supplied helpfully.
"Then ask again when you're older." All the Malfoy offspring, be them Draco's or Lucius', gasped and glared at him in furious indignation.
"That's what mommy says every time I ask her about daddy's glass necklace," said Lilly distractedly, crushing crayons in a little plate.
"Potter's... what? And what are you doing?"
"Making tea, silly," the little girl answered, giving him a smile. She passed the red dust into a teacup and presented it to him. "It's strawberry, see?"
"Why does your father have a glass necklace?" Asked Scorpius while Severus stared at the offered cup in bemusement.
"It's really pretty!" Lilly exclaimed, leaning forward on her elbows. "It has these little balls, bigger and bigger, and they're different colours too. I thought it was mommy's, but mommy laughed and laughed and said it's daddy's and he'll explain when I'm older. And that I shouldn't tell people about it."
Lilly bit her lips, chagrined. "Oops."
"Hm," said Severus, vanishing the contents of the cup. And then bolted upright, as the child's ramblings finally filtered through his brain. Anal beads? Fucking Harry Potter leaving fucking anal beads lying around in the house. Of all the stupid, idiotic things to be messy about, of course the damned son of James Potter would-
"Tea time!" He announced abruptly, and promptly left the room in search of a kettle. Maybe he could bang it on his own head and be done with this afternoon.
The concussion plan, as it were, failed. The children infiltrated the kitchen after him in cheerful disorder, and he soon found himself arguing that they could not, in fact, get into a two meter radius of the stove if they had billowing flammables for clothes, and that no matter what Bao Ling had said - A Ravenclaw, Scorpius dutifully reported - crickets were not appropriate snacks for a tea party. Not even if they fried it.
Lilly had gently scolded him, declaring that this wasn't very inclusive behaviour on his part. He could see Hermione's political effervescence catching on that one. It made him worry a little. Then again, Severus had heard that it made Potter worry a lot, so he figured all was well.
Severus made them march back upstairs in a line, hands behind their backs lest they touch some other common household item and perish. As had almost happened when Scorpius decided he simply had to investigate the makings of a lightbulb and had come very close indeed to electrocuting himself.
"But we don't have those at the Manor!" He'd protested when Severus growled at him to step away from the light and dry his hands, for Salazar's fucking sake.
He briefly hoped tea would make them sleepy enough to give Severus some respite, but alas, a beauty pageant was still in the list of afternoon delights. Severus found himself as both ceremonial judge of the contest and ultimate prince replacement for the ensuing dance, when Scorpius decided the girl's robes were more stylish, and that he wanted to try his hand at being a princess too. Sometimes, Severus wondered about that boy.
Some terribly long hours later, the children having been returned to their rightful owners, and the house once more blissfully silent, Severus endeavoured to express the full extent of his recriminations to his wife:
"Never again, do you hear me? And don't think I didn't catch on to the fact that you started that fire on purpose."
Hermione smiled from her seat next to him.
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Severus scowled at her.
"Those evil little leprechauns had me transfigure socks into glittering robes and I have come this close to having to explain s-e-x to-"
"You know that if they're not here, you can actually say the word, right?"
"Hermione Granger, I will call a magical exterminator next time I see a child prancing around this house." Hermione patted his hand comfortingly.
"I'm pregnant."
Severus blinked at her, then sighed.
"That's it. You're resigning." Hermione raised her eyebrow.
"You heard, I'm sure, that it is possible nowadays to be a mother and have a career, right? There's a pamphlet, if you want."
"We are moving to Australia."
"But Severus…"
"No buts, no child of mine will ever join the Malfoy Mafia, that's final."
"You're being completely ridi-" Hermione started to say, then paused.
Crookshanks was trying to jump on her lap, meowing furiously. Gone was his fine orange fur. Someone (s) had shaved the whole cat and affixed long strands of multi-coloured pearls to his ears.
"You're a terrible authority figure," she stated dryly.
"It was either him or me."