Chapter 12
It was early afternoon on a Wednesday. Lucius had just started a new painting when Narcissa came into the drawing room.
He dipped his brush into the yellow paint and flicked it against the paper, getting splotches of yellow all over himself in the process.
"Lucius," Narcissa said as she looked up from the mail she was perusing and took in the child's attire. "Is that one of the good pillowcases?"
The boy tensed as he looked down at the large pillowcase that he had fashioned into a painter's smock by cutting out head and arm holes. Strictly speaking, he wasn't allowed to use scissors without supervision, and this had definitely been done without supervision.
"Um, I guess so." He said, biting his lip.
The witch crossed her arms over her chest, the mail still clutched in her right hand. "Just what did you think you were doing? You know you're not allowed -"
"Draco said I could." Lucius interrupted, the lie tumbling out before he could stop himself.
Narcissa raised an eyebrow. "He did?"
"Mmhm." The boy said before barreling forward with the lie, embellishing as he went. "I told him I wanted something to cover up with when painting and he said to use a pillowcase."
The woman pursed her lips in a gesture that Lucius had come to associate with her being displeased.
"Did he now?" She said, though she seemed to be talking mostly to herself. At that moment, a garden elf popped into the room, needing her attention, and Lucius let out a sigh of relief at the distraction. She followed the elf out of the room, leaving him alone to paint.
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A while later, Draco came into the room, having just returned from his office at the Ministry. Lucius raced over to his guardian as the wizard took a seat on one of the sofas, and showed off his newest painting.
"Very nice, little one." Draco said, "The brushstrokes in this area in particular are very skillful."
The boy beamed at the praise.
"What's this?" The man asked, tugging at the end of the makeshift painter's smock. "Mother will have your hide if you ruined one of her good pillowcases." He said, raising an eyebrow.
"She told me I could do it!" Once again, Lucius found the lies tumbling out of his mouth of their own accord.
Draco's brow creased. "Really? Well, I suppose if she said it was alright -" He trailed off before refocusing his attention on the child's painting. "What's this supposed to be here?"
His charge was more than happy to answer that question, and the next few that his guardian posed to him before the man declared that he needed to check on some things and left the boy to his artwork.
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The youngest Malfoy finished painting for the day and stashed his makeshift smock with his other painting supplies. He was just returning from tracking down Artie and giving him a treat when he stumbled across a discussion about him. He paused in the entryway of the drawing room, listening to the two adults converse in the middle of the room.
"Really, Draco," Narcissa was saying as she sat perched on the edge of one of the armchairs. "I don't mind you allowing Lucius to have some creative license, but the next time he decides to fashion a painter's smock out of household items could you at least make sure he uses one of the old pillowcases? I'm going to have to go to Portugal to replace that one he ruined."
Draco looked up from the Prophet article he was reading, his forehead creased. "What are you talking about, Mother? I didn't give him permission to do that. He told me you did."
Narcissa raised an eyebrow. "Well, he told me that you gave him permission."
Lucius visibly gulped as two sets of stern eyes turned in his direction. And then, he did the only reasonable thing he could at that moment - he fled.
Someone called his name as he was already racing up the stairs. He then heard footsteps behind him, but he didn't stop to see who they belonged to. Topping the landing, he ran down the hall and turned into the side corridor that led to his bedroom. At the last second, he darted into the guest bedroom across the hall and closed himself inside the attached bathroom. He latched the door and, upon spotting a chair resting against the wall, pushed the chair under the doorknob to secure it.
A moment later he saw the knob rattle.
"Lucius Malfoy, you open this door this instant." Came Draco's voice from the other side of the entryway.
The boy backed away from the door. "No, you're going to smack me!" He cried, wringing his small hands in front of him.
The man gave a distinct scoff. "You're going to have a lot more to worry about than a single smacking if you don't open this door right now."
"No!" Lucius said, though it came out as more of a whine.
Draco's voice was stern. "You have until the count of three to come out of there, or else. One."
The child's eyes widened. His mother used to count, and it had never worked out well for him. "Don't count!" He whined.
"Two."
Lucius gave an anxious little jump. "Stop!"
"Three." There was a pause, and then the boy watched as the chair lifted away from the door on its own and the door unlatched. The younger Malfoy didn't really think it was fair that Draco was able to use magic to get to him, but he had bigger problems at the moment. A second later the doorknob turned, and Lucius found himself face-to-face his guardian.
Draco didn't say a word at first; he just grasped the boy by the wrist and led him out of the bathroom, landing a hard swat to the child's backside as he did so.
"You are in So. Much. Trouble." He said as he directed the child through the guest bedroom, giving the boy a smack on each of the last three words.
"Ow!" Lucius complained as the swats propelled him forward. He tried to pull away, but he was quickly led through the hall and then into his own bedroom. Once inside the room, Draco picked him up and sat him on the bed, placing one hand on either side of the child – effectively caging him in.
"Let us review, shall we?" The man began, his voice calm but with an edge of steel. "Earlier today you decided that you needed a painter's smock, so you fashioned one out of a pillowcase. I'm assuming that you used scissors to accomplish that. Am I correct so far?"
The boy nodded glumly but remained silent.
Draco continued, his eyes stormy. "Then, when you were confronted about the pillowcase, you lied, both to myself and to Mother. And when you were found out for that, you ran away and locked yourself in a bathroom, and refused to come out, even when ordered to do so. Does that about sum it up?"
Lucius bit his lip. He didn't like where this was going.
His guardian did not wait for an answer, though. Instead, he tipped the boy's chin up so that they were eye to eye. "Are you allowed to use scissors without supervision?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.
"No." The boy said.
His response was met with a sharp swat to his outer thigh. "No, what?" The man demanded.
"No, sir!" The child cried.
"Are you allowed to cut anything other than parchment without permission?"
Lucius shook his head. "No, sir."
His guardian's visage became even sterner. "Are you allowed to lie to cover up naughtiness?"
The boy's lip began to tremble. "No, Draco."
"And what about running away from me, and locking yourself in a bathroom and refusing to come out, are you allowed to do that?" As he spoke, the man used his thumb to brush away a single tear that had escaped down the boy's cheek. His touch was gentle despite his ire.
Lucius shook his head in response to his guardian's question. "No, sir." He said quietly.
Draco gave a single nod as if deciding on a course of action. "Right." He said as he lifted the boy and placed him back on the floor. "I think a lesson in obedience is in order. Bring me your quill from your desk."
The younger Malfoy creased his forehead in confusion but did as directed. As soon as he returned and handed the quill to his guardian, the man transfigured it into a wooden ruler.
"No!" Lucius protested, taking several steps back.
Draco reached forward and grasped the child's hand, pulling him back toward the bed. "Oh, yes. You are getting three swats with this at the end of your smacking to match the count I gave you moments ago. Perhaps next time you'll think twice before being so defiant and refusing to do as you are told."
Lucius wasn't ready to give in just yet. "Please, no, I'm sorry." He tried as his eyes watered.
But his guardian wasn't to be moved. "You know," the man said as he sat on the bed and pulled the boy to his side. "If you had just come clean when you were caught, you would have likely just received a stern scolding. It was your lying and defiance afterwards that helped you end up here." And with that, he tipped the child over his lap.
The younger Malfoy was already crying before the smacking even began. Draco, though, had no intentions of going easy on the child. As far as he was concerned, there had been far too much naughtiness on the boy's part that afternoon, and he intended to leave a suitable impression. Steeling his heart against his charge's cries, he began the punishment.
Lucius was sobbing by the time Draco reached for the ruler several moments later to apply the final three swats. His backside felt like it was on fire, and he had already resolved to never, ever lie to Draco or Narcissa again.
The boy yelped as the first smack with the wooden implement was applied even though the elder Malfoy had not swatted him very hard. The man didn't need to. He knew that the fact that he had used the instrument at all would have an effect in and of itself.
As soon as the third stroke was applied, Draco laid the ruler down and then rubbed the boy's back. "Alright, it's finished." He said.
At those words, Lucius slid off the man's lap. Grasping both sides of his guardian's suit jacket, he buried his face in the man's middle, sobbing hard.
The boy's cries immediately shattered Draco's resolve. The elder Malfoy quickly scooped up the child and laid back on the bed, lying flat on his back with his charge resting on his stomach. He wrapped his arms tightly around the boy and murmured soft comforts into his ear.
"Shh, Lucius. Deep breaths. In and out." The man said when the child's cries failed to lessen. "In and out."
After a moment or two of deep breathing, the boy became visibly calmer. "I'm sorry." He hiccoughed, rubbing his cheek against his guardian's chest.
Draco sat up, bringing Lucius with him. He gently tilted the child's chin up to look him in the face. "Apology accepted, Love. You are very much forgiven." He pushed a stray strand of platinum blond hair behind the boy's ear. "You know that I love you, right?"
Lucius went to nod, but then paused. "Even when you're cross?" He questioned.
The elder Malfoy nodded. "Yes, even when I'm cross." He echoed the child's wording. "And so does Mother," he added, before raising an eyebrow "though you can likely expect quite a lecture from her for ruining the pillowcase and then lying about it."
The boy's expression turned glum as Draco placed him on the ground. He didn't like the idea of Narcissa being upset with him.
"Go get your scolding." The older wizard said, placing a directing hand on the child's back and steering him toward the door. "Then come find me. We'll sneak into the kitchen and see if we can filch some custard creams from under Rosenbabble's nose."
Lucius gave the man a curious look. "But you're the master of the house. You could just order her to let us have custard creams."
"Yes," Draco said as he leaned down and spoke into the boy's ear, "but where's the fun in that?"
