Summary: What if Lucius Malfoy was in Ravenclaw instead of Slytherin?
Written for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments)
Horology Task 6: Write about someone going to a different house
Word Count: 1,882
This bird you cannot change
"Ravenclaw!"
The hat was pulled off his head but Lucius wasn't ready to get off the chair. There was a ringing in his ears, the cheering in the Great Hall was muffled. He looked up at Professor Dumbledore, who gave him an encouraging nod, a look in his bright blue eyes that suggested he understood what he was thinking in that moment.
Lucius took a shaky breath, stood up and made his way to the Ravenclaw table. He glanced at the Slytherin table, where his friends were. Gideon Goyle shrugged with a small smile.
X
Lucius sat at the dining table, moving his peas around on the plate with his fork. He'd been dreading his return from Hogwarts for Christmas.
"Our reputation could be ruined!" his father said loudly. He never shouted. He declared at a loud volume. "A Malfoy a Ravenclaw! Have you heard such a thing?"
"Darling, might I remind you that you married a Ravenclaw," his mother said in a tone she used rarely. A tone that said his father would not win the argument if he continued on.
Abraxas looked at Esther, words already dying on his lips. She raised an eyebrow. Then he decided it was worth the risk. "Lucius was not born an Evans, he was born a Malfoy and all Malfoys are Slytherins."
"Now they're not," she said dangerously.
"Master Lucius?" Wispy, the family house-elf whispered by his side while his parents continued to 'talk'. She held her hand out to him, which Lucius took and the little elf whisked him off to his bedroom before the arguing got worse.
It wasn't that his parents didn't love each other, but when they argued, it was like a hurricane whirled through the Manor and it would make him feel useless.
X
The next morning, Lucius found his mother in the gardens, tending to some of her evergreens. He smiled at the oxford blue cloak she as wearing; it wasn't often she wore anything other than green or black. When she spotted him, she held her hand to him. "Come help me arrange some flowers for the decorations."
He went willingly. Watching her tend to her flowers and the art she could make out of them always calmed him. She shook his hand as they entered the greenhouse. "There's no need to cry over spilled milk, Lucius. Your father is stubborn, but he loves you very much. You understand?"
Wispy was already in there, bouncing on a shovel that didn't want to go through the soil laid out in a wooden container.
"Wispy! Are you magical or not!" Esther said sharply, not asking a question.
Wispy squeaked as she bowed low enough for her nose to touch the soil. Esther had already lead Lucius down to the other end before he could see exactly what she was trying to do with the soil bed.
Lucius jumped up on the table she liked to work at, a number of flowers and pots of poinsettias already laid out for her. Esther pulled her wand out to lazily wave it around, the roses and lilies and oxeye daisies and so many other flowers Lucius had forgotten the names of began arranging themselves in vases. He knew enough to know they shouldn't be in bloom in December, but Esther didn't care for the laws of seasons when it came to her flowers.
"I know you will feel isolated, my darling, I did too when I was sorted into Ravenclaw, but you must always remember that you are intelligent… knowledge is power. It always will be." She never took her eyes off the task at hand.
"I know." He'd heard her say it so often, had even repeated it to himself when he'd answered the riddles to gain entry to Ravenclaw tower. "I didn't want to disappoint him."
Esther paused the downward swoop of her wand, the flowers hovered in mid-air. "The only time you should be afraid of disappointment is in yourself. A person's opinion of you is none of your business. Much like your opinion of them is none of their business. Keep it that way."
He didn't understand but he nodded. He was sure he would one day.
She smiled, seeing the confusion in his eyes. "It never hurts to keep looking for sunshine." She continued arranging the flowers. "Remember that for now and we'll come back to the subject of opinions when you're a little older."
X
Lucius cheered with the rest of the Ravenclaws when his distant cousin Patrick Greengrass was sorted into Ravenclaw. He made a space between himself and the second-year sat by him, signalling for Patrick to join him. He sank down with a grown. "Dad's going to kill me."
"You're a rebel, like me."
"Your dad boasts about you being a Ravenclaw now. My dad will actually kill me."
"Never thought the day would come I'd hear Lucius Malfoy call himself a rebel," Dominic Corner, his fellow fifth-year and good friend, cheered.
Lucius raised an eyebrow, a trait he'd learned over the years from his mother, and quite effectively too. Dominic shifted his gaze to the next sorting, acting like he hadn't seen it. Lucius returned his attention back to Patrick putting an arm around him.
"Listen, you might feel like fate is being capricious—"
"Being what?"
"Lucius is at it again with the words!" Josephine Clearwater said in exasperation. She leant across the table to whisper loudly to Patrick. "You'll find he tries to out-Ravenclaw the Ravenclaws at all times." Lucius put a hand in her face and pushed her back in her seat. "He's also not very gentlemanly to his best friend." She gave him her most angelic smile.
"Ignore her, she'll come in your room and move things," Lucius said pointedly.
"I moved one book I was asking to borrow and then didn't put back in the right place. Excuse me for not being Lucius Malfoy neat." Josephine reached over and moved his knife so it wasn't straight anymore. "I dare you to leave it… Rebel."
Patrick looked at the knife then at Lucius, who had a twitching eyelid. He quickly put it back for him.
"Oh Patrick, you have much to learn about how to push Lucius' buttons yet. You are still young," Josephine said with a smirk aimed a Lucius.
X
"Don't worry, Patrick." Lucius pulled the blanket up over both of them. "I'll send a letter to Mother in the morning, she'll help deal with your father."
Patrick looked around the dormitory as the other fifth-year boys were getting ready for bed. They had clothes and other items already scattered across their beds and open trunks, with various sweet treats on their bedside tables. Then he looked at Lucius' things, already neatly stacked and put away tidily.
"I don't want to hear it," Lucius said through terse lips, "or you'll go back to your own dormitory tonight."
Patrick nodded then said, "Thanks, Lucius… I like Ravenclaw Lucius. He seems happy."
Lucius paused his settling down into his bed to look at Patrick, surprise at his comment bloomed in his chest. "You were seven when you last saw me, what would you know about happy?" Lucius asked with an awkward laugh.
Patrick shrugged. "No one forgets when their eleven year old cousin tells them they're pathetic when they're crying after breaking a bone."
Lucius opened his mouth as the memory from the summer before he came to Hogwarts floated to the front of his brain. "I did say that."
"I bet if we'd been in Slytherin you wouldn't have let me stay in your bed with you."
"No. I don't suppose I would have," he said quietly as he settled down, thinking about the boy he might have been if he'd been placed in Slytherin, like he thought he should've been.
X
"With immediate effect, I'm not doing a thing all summer that involves anything that isn't being lazy or reading a book for pleasure," Josephine declared loudly, her head on Lucius' lap, her long, blonde hair sprawling over it. "That's as long as Mum and Dad have given me before I'm to apply for a job, which is fair." She poked at Lucius' side. "What about you?"
"Other than entertain you and Dominic, nothing much," he said idly, watching the countryside whizz by, his brain still full of facts he'd been shoving in it for his final year of exams.
"No Patrick this year?" she asked.
"No, his father would like him to stay at home. I think he's actually trying now," Lucius explained. He pulled his gaze from the pass views to look at Josephine, half-dozing, and Dominic across the way, reading a book. "I might need you to do some work with me, though."
Josephine sat up immediately, so did Dominic on the other side of the compartment, the book placed to one side. They saw the worry in his eyes. "I'm worried that Father isn't quite severing his ties with… him. I think he was still optimistic I would join his followers after I'd finished Hogwarts."
"What does your mother say about it all?" Dominic asked.
"She's warned him he's on a fool's mission, but he won't listen. Home is… cool to say the least. I'll understand if you end up wanting to go home early." He gave them a wry grin at his comment.
"Pfft," Josephine said indignantly. "There's enough rooms and grounds in your house to hide if we need to. Or you'll come to us, that is always an option."
Lucius sniggered. They'd been trying to get Lucius to stay at their homes over summer since they'd become friends in their first year. "Please. Like your homes are big enough."
That got him a hard punch in the bicep off Josephine as Narcissa walked into the compartment. "What's he said now?"
Josephine moved over to make room for her. "Being a snob, nothing new."
Narcissa gave him a punch in the exact same spot as she sat down and did it with a graceful smile. Lucius shot them both a dirty look as he rubbed at the area.
"Are you sure you can't come to stay this summer?" Josephine begged.
Narcissa sighed, straighten her shoulders and sat demurely before saying in a prim voice, "It is not proper for a lady of the Noble Black house to be spending time at a male house that isn't family or a husband."
"You Pure-bloods," Dominic muttered.
"And now you're caught up in our politics too, that'll teach you to become friends with a Malfoy," Lucius said smugly.
"The hat made a mistake. You should've been in Slytherin," Josephine grumbled.
Narcissa sidled up to Josephine, Lucius rolled his eyes as she placed her face directly against hers. "However would I have met my love if I hadn't been matched with Lucius, though."
"Yes, yes. We're all helping each other. Get another compartment please," Lucius muttered.
A heavy silence settled over them at his words. Dominic looked at them all before saying to Lucius, "So we find the things your father is hiding for him and go from there?"
"That sums it up," Lucius confirmed.
"Excellent summer plans," Josephine said, snuggling into Narcissa's side. "Just the precise lazy ones I'd announced not minutes ago."
Yearly
- 365 - 49. (word) Capricious
- Musical - 70's - Free Bird/Lynyrd Skynyrd: I'm as free as a bird now
- Insane - 891. (trope) Different House
Quarterly
Bakewell Tart
- (relationship type) Cousins (4)