Chapter 35

Around three hours later, I stepped back into the Evans' home, exhausted. All right, all right, that might have been a bit of an overstatement. Physically, I was fine. Emotionally. . . well, that was a whole other level. I'd been forced (convinced, really,) to eat muggle burgers (which turned out to be a slab of beef sandwiched between two slices of round bread; couldn't muggles just call them beef sandwiches? Pathetic little creatures with complex little minds, weren't they?), to drink muggle coke (not as horrible as the word seemed to suggest), and to watch muggle pictures.

It had been quite a shock, really, when Lily told me. Had muggles finally managed to smuggle disturbingly large wizard pictures into theatre houses?

"It's a film, Lucius." Lily had tried to explain. She went on and on, whispering all the while, about projectors and light, and, the film.

"Wizard camera film?" I'd asked. She'd been exasperated, and so had I. So much for understanding muggles.

"Today wasn't that horrible, was it? Muggles aren't that bad." Lily was saying (for the umpteenth time), as we entered the kitchen.

"They're. . . tolerable. There. That's the closest thing to a compliment I'll ever give." Her brow furrowed in annoyance, but my answer seemed to satisfy her. . . for the time being.

Now it was my turn to ask questions.

"Lily. . . I noticed a certain. . . resemblance between you and. . . Madeleine. Are you two. . . oh, I don't know, twins, or something?" I'd wanted to know this for a while now, but I'd forgotten it in the shock of muggle culture.

She laughed. The laugh that was brighter than a hundred of her smiles. It took her a full ten seconds to recover. Hell, it took me an hour.

"Everyone says that. We're related, see, Mother's father—my grandfather—is her grandfather's twin, and the rest is quite confusing, but it results in us looking very much like each other. Does it bother you? To see someone who looks so much like me, but acts so differently?" she was joking, of course, but I felt I had to answer.

"Bother me? No. . . not necessarily. . . I just find it odd. It's like seeing your evil twin, you know? I haven't gotten used to it, is all." She raised an eyebrow.

"Evil?" I smirked at the expression on her face.

"Just call her your eccentric counterpart." I leaned closer to her and smirked.

"And I'm not eccentric? I thought I was the witch," she teased.

"Well, maybe you are eccentric. Just a little." I leaned even closer. Dived in for the kill, you might say.

Unfortunately, as I forgot, this was not Hogwarts. And, unlike Hogwarts, every part of this small house seemed to be within reach of the dreaded Adult Supervision. Very unfortunate.

You know what happened, don't you?

Lily's mother came in, just as I was a mere centimeter away from her daughter's lips. Dammit.

"Oh dear, hope you two aren't up to anything," she said, bustling around the kitchen. "And you have to change out of those clothes! Petunia's young man is coming to visit for dinner. Vernon Dursley, wonderful man, really. Not that you aren't, Lucius," she added quickly, turning to me. "You're wonderful too, in your own way."

How embarrassing, to be compared to a muggle. And, as I learned later, an obese muggle at that.

As always, Lily managed to pull me out of embarrassment.

"We'd better be going then, bye mum." She grabbed my hand and led me out of the kitchen. 

In the hall, she shook her head. "Vernon? This is going to be disastrous," she muttered continuously.

"Why? What's so disastrous about him?" We'd entered my room, and I began the slow, tedious task of picking my clothes. I decided to go with the black; black was much more. . . forbidding.

And you know how I love looking forbidding in front of muggles. 

"He's. . . well, he's been going. . .er. . . steady with Petunia for a while now, and he's her fiancé. . . and. . .she. . . well, you know, she. . .I mean, you see, she. . ." around this time, I'd gotten tired with Lily's stalling. I put my hands, as gently as I could, on her shoulders, and looked her straight in the eye. She looked away. Haha, I knew it.

"What? Just say it. Don't draw it out."

"Shetoldhimaboutus." My eyebrows rose. What was so wrong about this 'Vernon' creature knowing about Lily and me?

"So?"

She stomped her foot in obvious frustration.

"No, not us us, Us." The way she'd said it made it sound like the word 'us' with a capital U.

"Ah, Us." I paused. "Us, meaning?" I still hadn't gotten the point.

"Our world." She whispered. Then, I understood.

"And?"

"He didn't like it one bit. He looks at me like I've got a disease, and he treats me like. . . like trash, or something, and that hurts. . . not the way he treats me. . .but the fact that Petunia. . . allows it. . . I think she even encourages it. They don't like Us at all. So. . . just be prepared. Dinner won't be. . . pleasant."

My gentle hold on her shoulders tightened.

"Lily. You're a witch. Muggle born, but who cares? And I'm a wizard. I told you, we should be the ones looking down on them--" she interrupted me. If anyone but Lily had done that, they would have been hexed into the next century.

"No, see, Lucius, that's my point. Why all this discrimination? It's not. . . right. We're all equal. Muggles do things Wizards don't even dream about, and vice versa. We're all special, and different, in our own way. And isn't difference good? Isn't diversity good?"

I shrugged. My turn.

"That's all very well, but wizards were here before muggles were; they're invading our territory, now we have to hide from them? They should know, they should fear, and they should be the ones that hide from us--"

She sighed.

"Lucius, muggles came from Squibs, right? That's what Professor Binns said? And, over the course of time, they forgot about us, except that time in the dark ages and all the useless witch-hunts, but, whatever, this isn't a history lesson. My point is muggles are practically Squibs."

"Well, yes, I treat muggles and Squibs pretty much the same way, thank you." Like dirt, of course, but I didn't add that part. 

"Like trash." Dammit, had she read my mind again? "And Iole? You treated her like trash?"

I let go of her.

"She was my sister. That was different."

"No it wasn't! Does that mean you only treat people 'specially' because you care for them? So, what, you'll start calling me Mudblood again, when you stop caring?"

I glared at her.

"I won't."

"Start calling me a mudblood? Or stop caring?"

"Both."

She hugged me, so small against my frame, she seemed like a child. She was too thin. I made a mental note to shovel more food into her.

 Her voice was also childlike, as were her questions, when she spoke, muffled against my sweater.

"Really?"

"Really."

She looked up at me, her eyes penetrating so deeply, I almost looked away. I didn't want her to know the dark secrets I kept. If she did--

"So you'll stop discriminating muggles then?" Bugger this. She was asking me to change myself? Hell no. But I didn't say that. In my opinion, there were much too many things I kept myself from saying.

"I'll. . . try." This was the closest I could get to not lying.

"You'll try?" She pulled away. "What's so hard about it?"

"Lily, you're asking me to forsake everything I've learned since I was a child? You're asking me to defy the very rules that make me a Malfoy? I'm defying enough for you as it is, with this relationship!"

" 'If it's not good, spit it all out.'," she quoted solemnly. "If you've got worms in your apples," (I really had to teach her better metaphors, hers were much too brash), "you don't pick out the worms and eat the apple, do you? You just throw the thing away! Well, unless you're really desperate, but you know what I mean, Lucius. If everything you learned is bad, spit it out. If.. . ." she took a deep breath, "if you think this relationship isn't good, then you can spit it out too." 

"I think it's fine." A thought came into my head, and I looked at her suspiciously. "Do you?"

"I do." Ah, well, as much as I would have wanted our little argument to end there, it didn't. I wouldn't let her off the hook that easily.

"And everything I've learned; what makes you think it's bad? An expert on Morality now, are we?" She glared; this was quite a day for glares.

"NO, but anything that has to do with harming people isn't good."

"So, putting the Avada on death row criminals in Azkaban isn't good? Because it hurts people? Isn't there a greater good?"

"There's a greater good, and there's a greater bad! What's so hard to see? Hurting people like that, and using the 'greater good' theory, it's just an excuse! Lucius, you, I mean, I can't believe. . . and how could. . . Argh!" she threw her hands up in the air, at a loss for words. She eyed my black jumper with great distain, and growled (yes, she actually growled at me), "wear the white."

And that was the end of our argument. Don't get the wrong idea; this was, by no means, truly over. We were just having a temporary, truce.

"So, Miss Lily, do I get to choose what you wear later? Because that little black number you have in your closet--" She gasped.

"How did you--"

I shrugged. "Research, my dear; but it would look a bit more decent if you wore something over it; wouldn't want that Vernon creature ogling at you all dinner. A knit, maybe. Anything, as long as you look good, which you probably will; we're going to dazzle the bejesus out of those wizard-hating fools."

She smiled (somewhat evilly, I noticed; almost a smirk).

"That we are."

An hour later, the entire household, myself included, were sitting in the living room. Petunia was dressed all in pink, and she looked. . . glowing was the word, really.

Then again, it could just as well have been the make up.

In fact, it probably was the make up.

Besides, Lily was more beautiful. She's taken my. . . advice. And, as always, Malfoy advice was priceless. She looked evil enough, in the black, but innocent as well. She always looked that way.

Her innocence was something that stayed with her until the day she died.

I'm getting ahead of myself, let me continue the story.

Petunia was simpering to her parents, gushing on and on about this 'Vernon' fellow.

"Oh mum, isn't it wonderful how Vern's always on time?"

"His sister is goodness incarnated! All those poor orphan dogs she takes care of!"

"Did you know he just got promoted in this company? Oh, you've heard of it, haven't you? The drill company?"

Lily and I gave each other nearly identical smirks (mine was better, of course, what were you thinking?). Petunia was so. . . awestruck.

Sure enough, by seven o'clock sharp, the doorbell rang.

"See? Always on time." She wouldn't have been so amazed at his punctuality if she'd sat where I had, where it was rather obvious he'd been standing at the door for a full five minutes, checking his watch (which was, no doubt, synchronized with the one inside) until it was just the right time. If he hadn't been a muggle, I would have felt sorry for it—him, I mean. He lived to impress people. 

"Vern, darling!" Lily's mother opened the door, and gave the said Vernon (who happened to be the size of a whale, might I add) not-touching cheek kisses.

"Hello there, Miss Evans," he boomed. "How's Mr. Evans?"

"Vernon, haven't seen you in a while, Petunia's just been telling us, got into Grunnings, have you?"

"Yes, I have, best darn company they have here, in Surrey."

"I'm sure it is."

"I smell something wonderful, is that turkey?" The bastard. He hadn't even greeted Lily! Or acknowledged her existence. And I knew for a fact, that, unless this man's olfactory senses were superhuman, he smelled nothing. Petunia must have tipped him off, that little she-dog—

"Why, it is! How ever did you know?" Lily's mother had fallen for the trap.

The Vernon creature (emphasis on the creature) shrugged this all off, basking in what he thought was glory. Fool.

"Well, smells delicious; then again, everything here always smells delicious."

Mrs. Evans giggled. "Really Vernon, you flatter me too much." I was very tempted to tell her that flattery was always the best policy; especially to the mother of the girl you were snogging.

This brought up the very disturbing image of this Dursley fellow on top of Petunia. Very disturbing.

Merlin, it was disgusting.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Lucius' Notes:

Miss me? I know you did. I hope (translation: I'm SURE) you liked this chapter. I'm quite disappointed in the minimal amount of reviews I've received, however, for the last chapter. Then again, it must have been the muggle girls' fault, as it took her so long to update. On my honor (as both a Slytherin and a Malfoy), I shall (or *shudder* we shall) update at least once a week.

Thank Yous:

REMEMBER, ALL THANK YOUS ARE MADE MY YOURS TRULY, Mr. MALFOY *smirk*

Sarah—Disgusting; school's started? Well, at least there are more muggle teachers to hex. Would you like me to hex some of yours? Of course, that depends on Cornelius' present gullibility rate. . . the man loves believing in me; I know he does. . . it's just that old fool of a headmaster that keeps getting in my bloody way! As for Madeleine, and why she looks like Lily. . . well, you'll see soon enough J

Addy—You can always blame the muggle girl-writer if this took too long; she's been off enjoying her week long vacation. *tsks evilly* As for the two reasons you gave? *bwahahaha* One of them is true. One of them. *smirks* *is smug* Wouldn't tell you which, though. Just keep both reasons 'under wraps', as you muggles like to say. I wouldn't want anything to get out prematurely, now would I? *bwahahaha*

Briana Marie—Ah, Briana. *bows in an evil-yet-hot way* I've read your story. Congratulations, you've really kept me in character. This chapter shows how much I dislike squibs, and all manner or muggle/semi-muggle filth. *shudder* Not that Lily's filth, you understand. . . Your thoughts on Lily's possibly non-muggle parentage are quite interesting. I'd never know though, her parents seemed muggle enough when I met them, but that could just as well have been a ruse. *shrugs* I'm glad you liked my. . . er. . . reactions to muggle food and drink. As previously said, they weren't that horrible. . . just. . . odd. *shakes head (evilly!! Don't forget EVILLY)*