Enchanted Royalty

Chapter 26

Draco- 

"You're lying," Michael whispered, his fingers curling so tightly around the arms of his chair that his knuckles turned white. "It's one of your manipulation tactics. You always used to do this!" Lucian's chains rattled as he shook his head, still somehow composed as ever, but somehow there was something different, something I've never seen in him before-less poised, more worn.

"I'm not lying." His voice was quieter now, rough around the edges. "I wouldn't lie about being with a..." He trailed off, pursing his lips in distaste, as if the word itself was a disgusting taste in his mouth. 

Then barley above a whisper. "A mudblood."
Michael sucked in a sharp breath. "Do not say that word." I hissed before he could.

Lucius let out a dry chuckle, but there was no amusement in it. "Do you two want me to tell the story or not?" 

Michael's glare sharpened. His body language screamed distrust, but curiosity flickered in his expression. He folded his arms. "Tell us, and maybe we'll believe you." 

Lucius signed and leaned back, his eyes flickering past us and to the heavy door behind my head. When he spoke, his voice carried a weight I had never heard before.

"There's a Muggle two not far from Malfoy Manor. 'The Dolley Ripe.' A small, insignificant place. My father never paid it any mind-why would he? He saw them as filth, beneath him. Beneath us." His lips sneered like he was disgusted just thinking about it. "But I was a boy then. A boy with too much curiosity and too little fear."

His lips twitched, the ghost of an old, long-buried memory. "I used to sneak out of the manor when I was young. I liked to watch them, the muggles. Their lives fascinated me. How could they be so...free? How can they be so happy without any magic or servants or anything? But in that town I met Lucy Carver, the daughter of a baker-an only child, just like me, though her life was nothing like mine."

"The first time I saw her, she was behind the counter of the bakery, covered in flour. I walked in and tried to buy something...a scone? A muffin? I can't remember. I handed her a galleon, and she just...stared at me."

I curled my fingers against my knees, as wistful expression passing over Lucian's face. 

"Then she laughed! She laughed at me! Called me a 'funny rich boy,' and she took the coin anyway!" I swear I felt like he was trying to hold back the softness in his voice. "The next time I came to the shop, she was wearing it around her neck." 

Ther flickering torchlight caught the lines on his face as he continued. "We met in secret for years. From eleven to seventeen. We were only children at first, playing in the fields, stealing bread from her fathers shop. But as we grew, so did something else. Something I learned now was unnatural." 

His hands tightened into fists. "She loved my hair." He said, almost absently. "She used to call me a prince from one of those muggle story books she loved, the nobleman in disguise. It was foolish childish, but I let her believe it. Because when I was with her, I wasn't a Malfoy.  I wasn't my father's heir. I was just Lucius."

The name sounded foreign in his own mouth, as if it belonged to a ghost.

"We had our first everything together."  His voice was hollow now. "Our first kiss, our first fight, she used to tell me about a dream of our future together that I knew was never going to exist."

Michael scoffed, shifting in his seat. But he wasn't sneering anymore. He was just listening.

Lucius exhaled slowly. "One night, I went to meet her by the lake near her house. Our place." His eyes darkened, "But she wasn't alone."