Lucius swore as he ducked behind a bush to avoid being seen. He was on the grounds of Malfoy Manor pretending to take a walk to avoid his wife Narcissa, who was trying to convince him into letting her plan a Christmas party with her social friends. There was no way Lucius was going to allow this to happen willingly.
For Lucius, Christmas parties were the bane of his existence. He hated them more than doing his own laundry, not brushing his teeth for more than 2 days, and the Weasleys combined. To him, they represented a bunch of 30- year-old parents getting wasted and trading spouses for the remainder of the night. They represented all those times he walked into his bedroom and found his wife shagging the first consenting penis she could find. They represented Hell.
But this party is going to be different, Lucius thought, imitating his wife's simpering tones. We're not going to invite the same old people to this one. We're going to invite important people from the ministry. "Yeah, right" Lucius muttered. "And you'll just end up shagging them."
So, as an attempt to prepare for the inevitable, he invited Severus. "She was right," thought Lucius. "This party was going to be different..." Lucius walked back to the house to tell his wife to go ahead and plan the party: he and Severus were going to make it much better than last year's...
To be continued...