Early Retirement
After threatening to forbid Luce from spending time with Severus, the boy drastically modified his vocabulary. Draco explained to his son that if he was going to use the clever quips that he had picked up from the people around him he would have to learn the appropriate times to use them. He made sure to mention that the middle of class was not the right time. Things for the Malfoy family went rather smoothly after Lucius was removed from Excelsior. Draco and Artemis hired a live-in tutor to educate their son. His new instructor, Professor Archibald Aldridge was an old wizard who used to teach at Durmstrang. Much to everyone surprise, Professor Aldridge was not the authoritarian they had expected him to be. He and Lucius got on very well, though their opinions on Potions differed from time to time. So much so, Lucius insisted on Severus' coming by the house to explain to his tutor the proper technique for dicing Potions ingredients. This little demonstration ended with Severus and Professor Aldridge's wands aimed at one another's faces, as both were sure they were correct but the other refused to admit it. FYI: Severus was correct and Little Luce made sure that Professor Aldridge never forgot it.
Not only did Archibald teach Lucius, he also began working with the twins very early on. At just three years old, Ophelia Rose and Cadence Hero were two of the cleverest little witches anyone would ever meet. The problem was that just like Luce, they used their intellect to cause mischief. Nearly a year ago they figured out that their father had the hardest time telling them apart, so they took it upon themselves to see to it that they confused him even further. It was so bad that Draco finally broke down and demanded that they wear name tags. The only problem with this request was that they would just switch their tags. Finally he gave up and decided that he would just play along with their little game. After scrutinizing ever single aspect of each of his daughters appearance Draco was finally able to distinguish at least one identifying characteristic that would help him to determine which was which, so now he was able to address them properly around seventy-five percent of the time.
The girls weren't the only ones who were astonishingly intelligent. Luce, who had always been rather clever for his age, had proven to be vastly more intelligent than they had given him credit for. He had an innate ability to remember everything that he read and heard and he was even able to understand the information. Severus Snape was perhaps the most excited about this feat, he would spend nearly every weekend with his Godson's son going over the proper techniques of Potions making and the ingredients of every Potion he could think of. It was as if he was grooming the seven year old prodigy to become a great Potions Master. This did not go unnoticed. Draco was terribly distraught that Lucius' interests lay in something other than Quidditch. For years he had tried to peak the boys interest but every time he would take him out to the pitch, Luce would find some way of getting out of it. He had even made use of a box of the Weasley Wizarding Wheezes so that he had to stop "learning the ropes" due to an explosive nose bleed. Draco had even recruited the help of fellow Quidditch lovers, Ron Weasley and Harry Potter, but still Lucius remained disinterested. Out of desperation, Draco had tried to get the girls into Quidditch but they couldn't have been any less interested. They would simply ignore him and go back to playing with their stupid dolls. Finally the young father gave up his plight and accepted the fact that no matter how many times Potter, Weasley and himself took Luce out onto the pitch he just wouldn't love the sport the way that they did. On the upside, he could just keep having children until he had one who did. With his wife being pregnant with their fourth child he knew that his hopes didn't have to die.
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"Lucius, there's an article in the Prophet about you and Draco," said Narcissa, as she and her husband enjoyed their breakfast in the dining room just as they did every morning.
"What's it about?" he asked, as he added sugar to his tea.
"Your retirement," she exclaimed, astonished that they had found out about it. Three months ago Lucius informed his son that he would be retiring from heading Malfoy Enterprises soon, and that he would be passing the proverbial torch to him. Draco had been thrilled but also understood that he needed to keep quiet about it until Lucius was ready to make his decision public. Typically wizards don't retire until they are around the age of one hundred and thirty, as their life expectancy is nearly one hundred and eighty years, but Lucius decided that at sixty two he was ready to leave the business world. Much of this decision was due to the way he had seen his son live his life, thus far. Draco had made the center of his world his family, while Lucius had made work his priority. The most eye opening thing was that Draco's professional life had not suffered due to his family man status, in fact it had flourished. Malfoy Enterprises' revenue and production had increased many times over ever since the young man had taken over the advertising department. After thinking things over for a few weeks Lucius decided that he was done being Lucius Malfoy, head of Malfoy Enterprises and he was ready to start being Lucius Malfoy, wonderful husband and doting father. The only hitch to his plan was that his son was grown with children, quite a few children, of his own.
"Someone must have been listening in on my talk with Draco. I asked him to keep things quiet and I know that he wouldn't go against my wishes," grumbled Lucius, opening his copy of the Prophet. As much as he loved his wife they had never been able to share a copy of the Prophet. She always managed to wrinkle the pages and she loved to doodle in the margins, a habit that her son had picked up on. For years he had been trying to get Draco to stop drawing his cartoons in the margins of his reports and presentation sheets but he had gotten nowhere with it. To this day, he had to endure the snickers of the board members while his son was going through his slideshow, because there was a ridiculous picture drawn on the edge of the slide sheet. The only time he ever enjoyed his son's behavior was when he drew his grandson zapping Harry Potter with a hex. Those were always fun to watch.
"Big surprise, it's Rita Skeeter. She's says that in two weeks time the current head of Malfoy Enterprises will step down, relinquishing authority to his twenty-seven year old son, Draco Malfoy who is the current head of the advertising sector and is also responsible for the companies boom in business," Narcissa read, her tone softening after discovering that the article was not meant to defame her son or husband but rather to highlight their accomplishments. "Draco Malfoy will have a lot to handle when he takes over the head position of the Enterprise. It will be interesting to see if he will be able to handle this work load on top of being a father to seven year old Lucius Severus, and three year old twin daughters Ophelia Rose and Cadence Hero. And let us not forget that he has his hands full with his twenty-six year old wife, Artemis who is currently five and a half months pregnant with their fourth child."
"Leave it to Skeeter to compliment and insult the same person in one breath," Lucius muttered, as his wife continued to read the article to him.
"One must also note that the reason for Lucius Malfoy's astoundingly early retirement is due to his desire to spend more time with his beautiful, amazing and incredibly young looking wife, Narcissa Malfoy and their unborn child."
"Does it really say that?" laughed Lucius, unable to believe the adjectives he just heard were really written by Rita Skeeter. "How in the hell would she know that we were planning on having another baby?" Lucius began skimming through his copy of the article in search of the passage that his wife had just read.
"One must also note that the reason for Lucius Malfoy's astoundingly early retirement is due to his desire to spend more time with his family," Lucius read. "It doesn't say any of the stuff you said."
"You Malfoy men are really very quick on the uptake, aren't you," laughed Narcissa, referring to her son's nearly ignoring Artemis when she first told him that she was pregnant for the second time. "I added all of that."
"..."
"Ughh," she huffed, before further explaining things to her clueless husband. "I hope you were serious when you said that you wanted to have another baby because I'm pregnant."
"Really?" he asked, a massive grin on his handsome face. Narcissa nodded enthusiastically. "Damn, I'm good. We weren't even trying!"
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"Another boy," declared Severus, as he joined Artemis and Draco in his office. Just as they did after every trip to the medi-witch, the young couple stopped by Hogwarts to see Severus and fill him in on their news.
"Yep," Draco said, still stroking his wife's sizeable bump. Luckily, this time it wasn't twins. Draco didn't think he would be able to stand another couple of months trying not to laugh as his enormously large wife waddled around the house. "And you are not allowed to do what you did to Luce."
"What are you talking about?" laughed Severus, settling down into his armchair.
"You know, you made him all smart and potiony. The boy hates Quidditch. Who hates Quidditch!" shouted the exasperated father.
"Lucius does, but I most certainly didn't have anything to do with it," Severus argued. "You just want someone to blame."
"Enough, children," joked Artemis, laughing at the men's bickering. "Luce doesn't like Quidditch Draco, get over it. You've got every opportunity to poison this one's mind with that ridiculous sport."
"Fine, but keep the Potion mumbo-jumbo to a minimum," Draco requested.
"Fine, you big baby," laughed Snape, before shooing the expanding family out of his office so that he could prepare for his advanced Potions class.
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"So Draco," asked Harry, as he wiped the ice cream off of his son's hands. Draco had the fantastic idea of taking the kids to Diagon Alley for ice cream, little did any of the unsuspecting father's know taking children out for ice cream always ended in a sticky mess. "How many more kids are you and Artemis going to have?"
"Don't know, after this one we'll probably have a couple more before Artemis calls it quits. I figure eventually she'll get sick of squeezing them out but until then I plan on taking full advantage of her," replied Draco, as he too tried to help Luce clean the massive amount of chocolate ice cream from between his tiny fingers. "How did you manage to get more ice cream on you than in you?"
"My Travis is a good boy," gloated Ron, gesturing at the extremely large toddlers practically clean facade.
"That's because he didn't want to miss a drop," laughed Lucius. Harry couldn't help but laugh at the accuracy of the boys statement. "What are you laughing at, idiot?"
"Hey!" shouted Draco, his hand shooting out and grasping Lucius' face by the chin and forcing the child to look him in the eye. "You don't talk to adult's like that, certainly not my friends. We've talked about this." The look on Lucius' face was one of absolute shock, his father had never really acted like this before. He insulted people all of the time and his father never made anything of it. "Now apologize to Potter."
"Sorry for being rude," Luce muttered, looking down at his hands that rested in his lap.
"No problem," said Harry, taken aback by Draco's behavior. "Friends, huh?"
"Yes, friends. Got a problem with that?" Draco asked, his trademark grin in place.
"No, not me," said Harry, glad that Draco finally stopped denying they're being friends, even though it took several years of spending most of their weekends together to get it out of him.
"Me either," Ron interjected. Draco turned to the red haired wizard to his left, his grin being replaced by a deadpan expression.
"I don't recall saying we were friends."
"Come off it Draco! We're totally friends," Ron argued, his face turning bright red.
"I'm just joking Weasley," laughed Draco, getting a real kick out of the man's bartering. "Geesh, have heart attack why don't you."
"Any ideas on what you're going to name the new baby?" asked Harry, changing the subject.
"Yes, we named Luce after my father and my godfather so we'll name this one after Artemis dad and her grandfather. His name will be Perseus Jeremiah Malfoy."
"I like that," said Ron, reaching out to stall his son's attempts at getting his hands on Harry's remaining ice cream sundae.
"It's ok Ron, he can have it," laughed Harry, pushing the bowl over to the straining little boy who began shoveling the frozen treat into his mouth. Harry just smiled. "So, Ginny says that her mother told her that your mum is pregnant."
"Merlin, please don't mention that while I'm trying to eat," grumbled Draco, closing his eyes and trying to ward off the images of his future brother or sisters conception. "But yes, she's going to have another baby."
"Aren't you excited?' asked Ron, recalling his own excitement when he found out that he was going to have a baby sister.
"Of course, it's just that I know how baby's are conceived and I don't like to picture my parents in that sort of situation. My imagination causes some problems, that's all," he explained.
"Ohhh," Ron and Harry replied in unison, both understanding what he meant.
"Well it looks like there are going to be quite a few baby's born within the next few months. Turns out Ginny's pregnant with number two," Harry revealed, trying not to make a big fuss about it.
"What?" exclaimed Ron.
"That's awesome," Draco congratulated, knowing full well just how excited Harry had to be.
"Yes, it's pretty awesome isn't it. I don't think life could get any better," Harry assured, leaning back in the chair and hauling his son onto his lap. Suddenly Ron began bundling his son up and packing away their things.
"Where are you going?" Draco and Harry asked, both surprised at his frantic actions.
"Home. Mione and I are behind and we need to catch up," he huffed, out of breath thanks to his rushing about.
"Good luck with that Ron," laughed Harry, already knowing that Hermione had no intentions of having another baby anytime soon.
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