from Time to Time | Lucius Malfoy

Lucius. Lucius Malfoy, my name.

His steps were quick, mine were getting slower and slower. The closer we got to the big front door, the bigger became the knot in my stomach. Sweat stood on my forehead. Finally we were there. The door opened by itself and a little blond boy stood in front of us. "Uncle!" he exclaimed happily.

It can't be...? No... Lucius? No, that can't be... I searched for Severus' eyes but he didn't look at me and went straight to the boy, patted his head and said: "Well, well, Draco! You always greet the lady first, remember?" The boy looked at me. White-blonde hair, steel grey eyes, the spitting image of his father. He probably didn't look that much like his mother after all... "Welcome to Malfoy manor, miss.", the boy said well mannered and shook my hand. Like father like son I'd say...

We entered the house. Everything looked the same as it did last year, as it did 30 years ago I thought and looked around the hallway. The walls were decorated with numerous portraits of past owners. Above the fireplace, where another picture of a deceased Malfoy used to hang, now the portrait of Abraxas was placed. The corners of my mouth turned down, the man in the picture looked at me and arched an eyebrow. Too bad you can't talk, old bastard, huh? Your own magic is about to doom you...

I can still vividly remember the day when Abraxas Malfoy was fed up with the babble of voices in the house and stripped the pictures of their words, jinxed them so they couldn't 'babble on and on' as he put it. What would he say now? I stuck my tongue out at him, promptly earning my future husband's elbow in the ribs. "What? Just let me be..." I mumbled and looked at the floor. Severus rolled his eyes but I kept grinning to myself.

Quiet voices came from the drawing room next to us. A woman was busy talking to a man how he should finally put The Daily Prophet aside, Severus and his companion had arrived already. I heard footsteps echoing through the premises, the hard pounding of metal on the aged but well-kept wooden floor. A walking stick. No... no, that can't be? I was panicking, Abraxas died last year, Severus said so himself... The voices and footsteps grew closer and closer.

Then he stepped through the parlor door, followed closely by his wife. She was dressed in a dark green velvet dress with black lace, he wore a black brocade suit, erect posture, elegantly holding his father's cane in his left hand.

My heartbeat stopped for a moment. Maybe even two.

A timid smile, as I knew it from years ago, flitted across his thin lips. His eyes looked at me, almost piercing me. He wore his blond hair in a low ponytail at the nape of his neck. Nothing was left of the once so sweet and happy boy. The man in front of me was tough, overbearing, confident and obviously very much in love with himself. The spitting image of his father...

"Lucius. Lucius Malfoy, my name. You must be Severus' lovely fiancée then?", his velvety husky voice rang through the room. I winced at the sound of it, reminding me a lot of his father's. "Yes, I guess I am then..", I replied quietly. He raised his eyebrow, glanced in Severus' direction and dryly murmured, "Not very talkative, suits you."

Severus rolled his eyes again. At that moment Narcissa, the woman at Lucius' side, intervened. "Welcome, we are happy that you are finally our guest. We have heard a lot about you, would you like to join us on the terrace for tea?", she muttered lightly in an angelic voice. She was a little younger than Lucius, just under a year, maybe two, as far as I could remember. A pretty, petite woman, almost a head shorter than her husband and also blonde. Severus nodded and we followed the couple onto the terrace and tea was served soon after.

The conversations revolved around all sorts of current events, nothing that particularly was of my interest. Narcissa babbled happily, Severus kept agreeing with her and nodded eagerly. However, my eyes and ears were only on Lucius. I kept looking at him. What a handsome man my little boy had become! And the cherry on top of all that was his sugar-sweet offspring and the pretty wife... he had a perfect family sitting there in front of me.

In my head I was admonishing myself for my thoughts, it wasn't my place at all to call him MY boy. Lucius' head snapped towards me. He stared at me. Did he ask me something? I should have listened better. "Excuse me?" he asked in his raspy voice. I looked at him with big doe eyes. "Excuse me, I wasn't listening, what did you say?" I asked with a sweet smile on my lips. Narcissa and Severus were now looking at me as well.

"I didn't say anything at all. Your thoughts were just... really loud, miss." He answered dryly, without taking his eyes off of me. "W-what?" I blurted out. Severus interjected, "My friend Lucius is very skilled in the art of legilimency and loves nothing more than reading the minds of his guests without asking them for permission in advance, isn't that right, Lucius?" I could feel the blood in my cheeks turning my skin pink. Like father like son... Surely he didn't hear what I thought about him, did he?

"I haven't been a boy for a long time, miss," he said dryly, raising his head and looking down at me in a very malfoyish fashion. "I do apologize, sir. My thoughts are not always... in order..." I replied sheepishly.

Lucius' head rattled. What were those strange thoughts Severus' fiancée was having? There was something familiar about this woman. She was pretty, yet he couldn't remember ever having anything to do with her. He has cheated at his wife before but she has forgiven him every time. However, he can remember every single of the ladies very well. Except for the two at his bachelor party, he was way too drunk back then. Anyways, he knew the woman sitting in front of him and sipping from her tea from elsewhere...

"What was your name again, miss?" he finally spoke, ignoring his wife who was obviously embarrassed by her husband's question. "Oh, uhm...Sterling. Cait Sterling," I answered. That's it, I thought to myself. Sterling is a common name, but who goes by the name of Cait? Caitriona? Well, surely a 7-year-old won't remember the name of his nanny for 30 years?

"Hm.",  he hummed and got up, left the table and went to his study. "You'll have to excuse my husband, he's a bit upset sometimes. Merlin knows why." I heard Narcissa's voice far, far away.

My mind was elsewhere...