Title: Peace Offering
The Houses Competition
Round: 2
House: Ravenclaw
Class: Additional Submission
Category: Drabble
Prompts: [dialogue] "You cannot do that!"
Hogwarts Assignment: Arthimancy, task 1
Prompt: Write about someone brokering peace
Alphabetti Spaghetti: spell out your favourite family – L
Prompt: Lucius Malfoy
Flower Power: list 2, carnation
Prompt: [restriction] only male-identifying characters
Just Friends: alphabet bead, 4
Prompt: [dialogue] "I know you're keeping something from me."
Writing club: would you rather, number 9
Prompt: Lucius Malfoy;
Gather Your Party: monk, number 9
Prompt: [plot point] an apology
Word count: 855
Betas: Rose, Dora
Warnings/Trigger warnings: None
A/N Cake! It fixes everything. Or at least that's what Lucius thinks.
Lucius was in the kitchen of Malfoy Manor in a very bad mood. He had stormed into the kitchen earlier and shouted at the house-elves to get out of his way, before furiously pulling out mixing bowls and ingredients. He was now stirring the mixture in his bowl as though it had grievously offended him in some way and muttering furiously to himself. Normally, he liked at least one house-elf in the kitchen with him to fetch things and clean up as he baked—after all, why have a dog and bark yourself—but not today. As little regard as he had for their feelings, he didn't think it was fair to take his self-inflicted bad mood out on them. At any rate, Harry and Draco wouldn't approve of such behaviour. He might still be the Master of the Manor but he just couldn't listen to any more of their 'you cannot do that! You need to be kind to the house elves' spiel. In fact, they should be grateful that he was currently being kind to them by shouting at them to 'get the hell out of his kitchen'.
"Stupid, stubborn, old goat! I was just telling him how everyone else sees it!" Lucius fumed, cracking an egg too hard and dropping little bits of shell into the bowl. Grumbling, he pulled out his wand and extracted all the bits of broken shell. He had just removed the last bit of shell when Draco stormed into the kitchen, causing Lucius to upset the bowl, sending flour and egg everywhere. Including his hair!
"What, in the name of Salazar Slytherin, did you say to Uncle Sev?" Draco fumed as Lucius tried to siphon off egg and flour from his hair.
"I just…"
"I've just spent the last hour—hour!—listening to him rant on and on about you and how you have no idea what you're talking about and how he has never been so insulted in his life."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Lucius said, resuming making his cake mixture.
"I know you're keeping something from me." Draco glared at his father. "What. Did. You. Do?"
"…"
"Fine! I'll go and ask Mot—"
"You cannot do that!" Lucius said, panicked.
"Why not?"
"Because she'll be angrier than you."
"What did you do?"
"I might…might…have told Severus that he should stop dancing around and just take Sirius out on a date already."
"You what?" Draco goggled at his father.
"Well it's ridiculous, the way they are always arguing. They're like an old married couple."
Draco closed his eyes and rubbed his temples.
"Please tell me you're pulling my leg and did not actually say that to him?"
Lucius opened his mouth to speak when Draco interrupted him.
"You know what? Never mind. I know from the way Uncle Sev was ranting that you did tell him that. Have you lost what's left of your mind? They hate each other!"
"In my defence…" Lucius began.
"In your defence?" Draco said incredulously. "You actually think you have some justification for that?"
"Yes, I do," Lucius said, haughtily. "In my defence, they act exactly like you and Pot—Harry did and now look at what I have to put up with!"
"You owe him an apology," Draco said, choosing to ignore his father's little dig at how loved up he and Harry were.
"Why do you think I'm trying to bake a cake?" Lucius snapped.
Draco burst out laughing. Trust his father to think that cake would solve his problem. He had, after all, tried to bribe Harry into breaking up with Draco with cake.
"Go away! Get out of my kitchen!" Lucius said irritably as Draco continued to laugh.
"Where is he?" Harry shouted, bursting into the kitchen, causing Lucius to upset the bowl once more. "There you are!" Harry pointed an accusatory finger at Lucius. "How could you?"
"How could I what?"
"Say what you said? How could you? They hate each other!"
"Have you spent the last hour with Severus too, then?"
"With Sev… did you say it to him as well?" Harry shouted. "I've just spent the last hour listening to Sirius rant on about how much he hates Snivellus."
"Oh, Father! Don't tell me you said it to Sirius as well?"
"In my defence, they act just like you two did!" Lucius said, heatedly.
Harry just stood there looking flabbergasted.
"Fine!" Lucius snapped, pulling out a second bowl. "I'll make Sirius an apology cake as well!"
"You're trying to fix this with cake?" Harry said, incredulously. "You can't do that! You can't fix this with cake. You need something more, but of course, you think cake can fix it. You think cake solves everything! It's going to take more than cake to make this go away." Harry ranted.
"Fine! Shortbread for you both as well."
"Unbelievable!" Harry muttered, storming from the room. "Absolutely unbelievable."
"Father…"
"Oh, go away and leave me to my apologising!" Lucius snapped, as he plonked a third bowl onto the counter.
"I give up!" Draco said, shaking his head and following Harry out of the kitchen, leaving Lucius to his baking.