Evening Meet-Ups

29 May 1971

Lucius was glad that his father was not around to see his horrid study habits of the past few days. "Don't do something later if you can do it now." "No time like the present to accomplish something." At first appearance it seemed that those sayings disagreed horribly with Lucius's staying up until 2 AM every night and then dozing off during classes. It wasn't that he was procrastinating on his homework, per se, as much as he needed a reason to stay awake, and forgotten or incomplete assignments were the least suspicious way to consistently stay awake long past the normal bedtime.

His carefully thought out plan did not reap its intended reward until the fourth night after its installation, though, when the quiet sound of bare feet padding down a hallway and into the Slytherin common room greeted his ears. It was Carrow, he was sure. Only Carrow would have the impropriety to walk around bare-footed.

Without a word, the Slytherin boy took a seat opposite from the blond-haired boy. Lucius dared a glance in Carrow's direction who was reading some textbook or other that was splayed open on his lap. A cringe of annoyance appeared on Lucius's face. No greeting? No word to him? What on earth were Carrow's intentions, then, coming down to the Common Room at this time of night? Surely his sole reason was not to read his textbook at 1 AM while still in his nightclothes?

After all, Lucius was also reading his textbook, and that was certainly not the complete explanation for why he was in the Common Room at 1 AM. The complete explanation continued to elude even himself, but he had no qualms about that; he only felt a slight sense of satisfaction that Carrow had finally appeared.

Still, was Carrow not to say anything? Or do anything? Another glance. No, Carrow seemed comfortably seated, his bare feet now propped against the coffee table between the two couches.

Damn it, Lucius had not sleep-deprived himself for four consecutive nights in a row for—for nothing! He abruptly stood up, crossed to Carrow's location and sat directly next to him. Carrow gave him a leisurely glance out of the corner of his eye. Lucius opened his mouth, expecting to say something, when it suddenly struck him he had not planned this far ahead.

"Evenin', Lucius," Carrow finally greeted him, that smirk, that mischievous, devilish slant of a grin splitting his face.

"Technically it's morning," Lucius pointedly spoke the first words that came to his mind.

"So it is." At this point, the boy had abandoned all pretense of reading his textbook, and hd instead turned towards the blond-haired Slytherin. "How's your girlfriend?"

"Narcissa's doing well. Affectionate as always," he curtly replied, the taunt of 'At least I'm normal,' implied in his tone of voice. "How's yours?"

The dark-haired boy's answer was spoken in a similarly taunting tone, "I don't have a girlfriend."

"No, you wouldn't, would you?" Lucius lashed out, frustrated by the failure of his taunt. Carrow seemed unperturbed by the second attempt at a would-be insult; if anything, his grin grew slightly wider. An abrupt idea occurred to Lucius and without hesitation he dove into a new subject with a carefully crafted skeptical, disinterested tone, "A few days ago, you said you 'knew what I was.' Pray tell, under your poorly-formed understanding of my human being, what am I?"

The response came confidently, almost suavely, if it was possible for someone like Carrow to be suave. "You're the type of boy that you didn't mind when I kissed you. You're like me, and that's not a poorly-formed idea, that's a fact."

Him? Similar in any way to someone with an upbringing like Carrow? "I'm not like you, Carrow. And that's also a fact."

The confident, knowing grin remained immovably plastered on the other boy's face, accompanied by a slight shake of the head. "Carrow? Always so stiffly formal, Lucius, tsk tsk."

The comeback rolled easily off of his tongue. "At least I have manners."

A pause on Lucius's part. A slight frown, a slight fading of the grin on Carrow's part. A reciprocal frown on Lucius's part.

"Er—Amycus."

"What?"

"I said: at least I have manners, Amycus." A new grin on Carrow's—Amycus's part, sly and pleased and secretive at understanding the inside joke, and now Amycus had inched slightly closer and, after a moment's hesitation, placed a light kiss on Lucius's temple. His smile took on a knowing air and extended all the way to the slight crinkles at the corners of his eyes, extended so far that it reached all the way to Lucius's face, so that he felt the corners of his lips turning up quite against their will. How could you see such a handsome specimen of smile and not grin?

20 June 1971

"You look awful, Lucius."

"You say the nicest things, Rabastan."

"No, really, I mean it."

"As do I," Lucius rolled his eyes. His friend was currently sitting adjacent to the high-backed chair Lucius was occupying in the Slytherin common room; surrounding them was the general chatter and bustling of all of the other Slytherins who had also decided that occupying the Common Room in the evening was a splendid idea.

"Have you even been sleeping? And don't lie and say you have, because the dark circles underneath your eyes will testify against you." Lucius snapped his mouth shut. He had been about to say just that. "And every once in a while, you'll just break into a maniacal grin for no apparent reason, and whenever I ask why, you say it's nothing. I swear, the sleep deprivation must be driving you towards the brink of insanity."

"It is nothing," he smoothly lied. "And I've just had a lot of work the past few weeks. Once we get through finals I'll be able to relax again."

"Geez, turning into a Ravenclaw, are we? 'I can't sleep, I have to work.'" Lucius had to stifle a laugh at how far from the truth Rabastan was. If anything, he had been completing less work than normal; it would seem that staying up into the late hours of the night waiting for the sound of Amycus's feet was not the best for one's studying or sleeping habits.

Contrary to Rabastan's belief, though, it was not taking a toll on Lucius's sanity—or, if it was, then such a loss of sanity was perfectly okay, desired, even. Each and every day seemed to be a long, slow trudge towards the evening when he could finally see Amycus again; just the thought was enough for his joy to spill over in the form of an unstoppable, endlessly elated grin, one which always earned a confused, wondering look from Rabastan. Lucius had never felt such elation before, and if this was incompatible with sanity, he wanted nothing to do with sanity. He was on top of the world and nothing, nothing, felt more important than the invincible, timeless bond he had with Amycus. Whoever had said that all things will eventually fade with time had never seen the strength of his love for Amycus, stronger than any stone statue that Ozymandias could have ever built.

"Speaking of work, it's almost eleven at night. I should start my Prefect rounds," Lucius drawled, vacating his seat and passing into the dungeon corridors directly outside of the common room.

He had barely turned the corner when he heard the echoing, familiar sound of rumbling stones, indicating that the door to the Slytherin common room had just been opened. A slight line creased his forehead. Who would be idiotic enough to violate curfew so blatantly? The answer wasn't long for waiting, as the squat figure of Amycus Carrow shortly turned the corner. As he headed straight for Lucius, his face broke into an inconspicuous, hidden smile, the corner of his lips slightly pulled up to reveal a sliver of his white teeth.

Almost as though he was a marionette, his strings controlled solely at Amycus's whim, the corners of Lucius's lips turned up in an exact replica of Amycus's smile.

"Evenin', Lucius."

Lucius stepped a bit closer and, with a nervous glance down the hallway, murmured, "What are you doing here, Amycus?" Despite their meeting almost daily in the Common Room, the Malfoy had still publically kept his distance from the other Slytherin boy.

Amycus's grin took on a confident, stubborn, plotting air. "Thought I'd go for a evening stroll. What a coincidence seeing you here, Lucius."

" 'An evening stroll'? It's past curfew."

"Exactly. And I heard you complaining just yesterday about how horrendously boring your prefect patrols are because there's never anyone out and about. So. You can't exactly say that having a fellow Slytherin along would distract you from your duties." Lucius cast another hesitating glance up and down the silent, cold stone hallway. "We won't get in trouble, 'cause no one'll see us," he continued in an almost sing-song tone.

"Alright, fine," the prefect grudgingly snapped, unable to remain in a sour mood for more than a few seconds at seeing Amycus's grin spread even wider.

"So how d'you like the potion's essay Slughorn assigned?" Despite the perfectly conversational tone, his grin expressed the teasing inherent in his question.

"That wretched excuse for—for a legitimate, reasonable assignment?" Lucius's face darkened before he attempted a joking tone, "If I had known that was going to be your first topic of conversation I would have said you couldn't accompany me."

"Now, now, no need for that. I was just wondering if you had progressed since your—ah—little outburst last night."

"Outburst? What outburst?" Lucius continued in a sarcastic teasing voice, one for which he had precious little use with the more 'cultured' crowd, but one which he had found to quite enjoy using. "I only ripped my draft in half."

"I would have said multiple pieces."

"Fine, maybe I tore it into multiple pieces."

"And then you set it on fire."

"Fine, maybe I set it on fire, too. I was being thorough."

"I've no doubt." Amycus gave a small laugh, one that only made his grin seem to practically sparkle.

"Being in the Slug Club, and the fact that my father knows Professor Slughorn, means that I have to be absolutely perfect in that bloody course," Lucius gave an aggravated sigh. Grossly violating social conventions with such a lack of emotional restraint would have been mortifyingly embarrassing in front of anyone except Amycus, who seemed to be unaware what those social conventions were in the first place. "I mean, I'm sure your father would be also displeased if you received unsatisfactory marks on a potions essay, but it's not quite the same."

The beautiful specimen of a smile inhabiting Amycus's face faded a bit. "I suppose. I wouldn't know. I kinda doubt it, actually."

"Er—does your father not believe in the importance of succeeding in the educational system?" Lucius awkwardly ventured, silently thinking that considering the Carrows' social class, that was not particularly surprising.

The Carrow boy shrugged. "I don't know my father. I don't care. I don't want to meet him. My step-father isn't particularly big on academics, though. Good thing, or he would've gone berserk when he saw some of my OWLs." The last part was added in an undertone, almost as an aside, and Lucius couldn't help but think how terribly annoying, and yet how terribly endearing it was that Amycus was so open to him.

"What, uh, happened to him? Your father, I mean," Lucius blurt out, his curiosity getting the better of him. He had never being acquainted with someone from such an abnormal family situation, for anything but the idyllic husband, wife and heir was considered socially unacceptable in the upper tiers of pureblood culture. Two seconds later, though, his sense of properness defeated his sense of curiosity for control, and he wished that he could time travel back the two seconds necessary to prevent uttering those words; he was sure that such a question would violate even Amycus's idea of proper social interactions.

Surprisingly, after a slight dropping of the face and a slight crease of the forehead, Amycus opened his mouth and answered the question, "I don't know. I just know his last name was Carrow and he was a pureblood—" (Lucius mentally corrected him: 'pure of blood.' 'Pureblood' implied a certain social standing that he was sure any Carrow lacked.) "He disappeared when I was about three—which would have been right around the time Alecto was born. I don't if he died or if he just up and left. But, well, I mean, I don't really care." Amycus's tone lightened with the last sentence, and a semblance of his former grin reappeared on his face as he looked at Lucius.

Lucius was so focused on absorbing, memorizing every little detail about Amycus's grin that he didn't notice the other set of footsteps walking down the hallway until a bellowing voice accompanied them. "My dear Lucius! What a pleasure to run into my star prefect performing his duties."

If not for his years of social training, Lucius was sure his eyes would have just about popped out of his head at suddenly being addressed by Professor Slughorn. Amycus's earlier reassurance that nobody would see them suddenly seemed naïve beyond words.

"And—Mr.—er—Mr. Carrow! Yes, I remember a Miss Carrow blowing up a cauldron in my class last week. Really cannot be too careful about adding the Grindylow scales slowly enough," Slughorn shook his head as though doing so would remove the tangent from their conversation. "Anyways. Lucius, did you catch Carrow here violating curfew?"

Lucius nearly gaped, unsure what to say. Amycus would undoubtedly receive punishment if Slughorn believed that Lucius had found him violating curfew. On the other hand, it would reflect poorly on Lucius's record if he was found willfully helping another student disobey school rules, and his father would certainly hear about it.

In the time Lucius spent hesitating, it seemed that the other boy had taken it upon himself to answer. "Actually, not quite, Professor Slughorn. You see—"

"YesIfoundhimviolatingcurfew," Lucius quickly blurt out, earning a proud look from the professor, and a shocked one from Amycus.

"Ah, excellent job performing your prefect duties," Slughorn beamed at the blond-haired boy, before turning towards the dark-haired boy with a severe expression on his face. "Carrow, I am quite disappointed to find a member of my house breaking the school rules in such a blatant, intentional, and disrespectful manner. Ah—Lucius? You can continue patrolling. I'll finish handing out the punishment."

"Uh, yes, professor." Without another glance at the betrayed look on Amycus's face, Lucius hastily turned around and continued walking.

...

A/N: I think I'm going to raise the rating to teen, because I've been planning out some of the later chapters and there's going to eventually be minor violence. (Also, psst. reviews are greatly appreciated!)