The Kidnapping of Lucius Malfoy

"Are you ready?"

Looking into his dresser's mirror, Lucius finished buttoning his shirt and then rolled the sleeves up to his elbows before turning his gaze back to the flickering flames of his personal fireplace. Straightening his collar last, he said, "Yes, I'm nearly ready. Now let me make sure with Father that it's okay I go out today."

The face smoldering in the flames, still easily identifiable thanks to its squareness, couldn't hold back a glower. "Merlin! Really? We've been writing back and forth about this all week and you haven't even asked yet?"

Lucius scowled at the other. "Forgive me, Anthony, but unlike your father, mine is quite busy! This is the first time he has been home while I was awake since Tuesday!"

The face twisted and muttered, "Well, just hurry, would you? Wilkes and Vanity are talking about skipping out on us altogether over going to Bulstrode's for tea!"

Another face popped into the flames then, "Anthony's not exaggerating, either, Lucius!" Ethan complained, his small eyes squinted into little more than dashes due to his vexation.

"Alright, alright," the blond huffed as he ran a hand through his hair. "I'll be quick, tell the girls to not get their knickers in a bunch and that I'll pay for lunch if they wait!"

Anthony and Ethan grinned at him. "How kind of you Lucius, they might just start to think you actually like them..."

"You know, Ethan, if you did the same once in a while Emma might actually catch on."

The teenager gave Lucius a mortified look. "Belt up! Right now, you tosser!"

Snickering, Lucius waved goodbye to their faces as he headed for his bedroom door. "I'll be back soon!"

Walking through the Malfoy Manor's halls, Lucius waved at several portraits as he passed them and hoped that when he got to his father's office, he'd let him in. Father was known to sometimes put a silencing charm on the door and not take it off until he was done with whatever it was that demanded all his attention so fully. After Mother died when he was little, sometimes his Father would put one on his office door just so he could wallow all alone in there.

Though once he started to realize Lucius was stubborn enough to sit outside his door for hours and hours just to see him, he stopped that practice. That was when he started coming out in time for dinner to make sure Lucius didn't waste away from refusing to move like he did in those days.

However, over the last couple years his father had started to get back in to his bad habit of being absent, though. This time he wasn't hiding in his study any longer. Now days, Lucius's father disappeared to places unknown and left the teenager to guess on when he'd come home or if he was at Hogwarts, wondering when he'd get a letter from him.

Stopping in front of the dark brown door, Lucius hesitated, but with a sharp knock, he twisted the doorknob and stepped into the room.

"What is it, Lucius?" Abraxas demanded.

Staring at the hard-lined face of his father, the blond was made to question if the wrinkles had always been there or if they'd just recently begun to make themselves known. Maybe they were just more surprising to him because most of the year he was away at school and not at home to experience their slow burrowing into his father's fair skin.

Stone grey eyes snapping to the teenager, Lucius's father demanded again, "What is it?"

"Ah, I was wondering if it would be fine with you if I went out with a few mates instead of staying here today..."

Snorting Abraxas dipped his quill in a bottle of ink and wagged the feather-end at his son. "Come now, Lucius, you'll be fifteen this year! You needn't ask me every time you want to go out for permission. You're old enough to decide what's a good idea and a bad one, if you want to go out, do so! If you'd rather stay home, do so!

"Don't bother me again about such petty things, understand? Now, if that's all, you may leave. I am quite busy right now," he told his son.

Gaping at his father for a moment, Lucius, oddly hurt by the rebuff and the obvious disinterest his father had in what he did, snapped, "Fine! I will make all my own decisions from now on! In fact, when I run off to join the circus instead of going back to Hogwarts at the end of the summer, you can hear it second-hand from the Burkes or someone!"

Turning heel then, the teenager stomped off and slammed the door behind him on his way out.

Abraxas gave a snort after his son's departure and murmured to himself, "A carnival? He's not a very original lad, I must say..."

-v-v-v-v-v-

There were mothers dragging their young children up and down the alley, Ministry officials going to lunch, Peddlers shouting and waving their products in the air and just like them, other groups of teenagers roving from shop to shop, talking loudly and laughing as they go. It was unusually busy, Lucius thought as Emma and Theresa shrieked at something Ethan had said. Thinking on why that could be as he unstuck hair from his face, the blond paused in his action. That was probably why - today was oddly warm and people must be out attempting to enjoy it.

"Oh! Oh! Look at that pig!" Theresa giggled.

Lucius looked with the rest of the group, under the awning of the Junk Shop was a large middle-aged woman. Her face was shiny with sweat and she looked like she wanted to sit down, but when Lucius looked to the sign grasped in her fat fingers, he knew she would not - or at least not on her own.

Anthony gave a sneer. "Ugh. I hate those stupid squib rights supporters. Why should they get an education on Magic? It's not like they're ever going to use it!"

"Hear, hear!" Emma giggled. "Do you think she's a witch or squib?"

Lucius didn't even need to consider his answer before he said, "She's definitely a squib, I mean, if she were a witch she'd have cast a cooling charm on herself by now!"

Ethan grinned wickedly at his friends. "Hey, want to have a good laugh?

Seeing the dimples that usually appeared in Ethan's cheeks when he was about to cause trouble, Lucius questioned, "How?"

"I was thinking I could steal her sign and run off with it," the boy replied with an excited rise in pitch to his unrefined voice.

Emma covered her mouth in an attempt to cover her glee at the idea. "No! That'd be too mean!" she half-giggled as she scolded him.

"No it wouldn't!" Theresa disagreed. "I mean, look at her, a good run would do her and her big bum some good!" she declared with a haughty flip of her black curls.

Anthony dove into the discussion then, hooking one arm around Ethan's neck and using the other to bring the closest girl - Emma - near, he said, "You know what'll be even better? If you get that sign, Ethan, we can play some keep away. What do you lot think of that, eh?"

The conspiratorial glint in his brown eyes would have undoubtedly done Albus Dumbledore himself proud.

However, Lucius wouldn't notice as he had trashed the idea almost a whole minute ago. Instead, the blond was plotting how he could work his way over to the familiar girl who'd just stepped out of the sweet shop with her sister a few storefronts down while still being casual about it. After all, it wouldn't do for him to make a fool of himself by hurrying over to where Narcissa was chatting with her sister; she'd think he was desperate then.

And if there was anything Lucius knew, it was Malfoys weren't supposed to ever look desperate.

"-so Lucius?"

He blinked, "Hm...?" he murmured.

Following the blond's gaze, Ethan rolled his eyes. "Oh, it's Narcissa."

Theresa crossed her arms and pouted. "I don't know what you see in her, Lucius, she's just a big tart, if you ask me!"

"Oh really? Are you sure about that, Theresa? Or is it because you fancy a certain someone?" Emma teased.

The darker haired girl gave a shrill squeak and hissed, "Oh, you! Don't say such silly things like that aloud!" Turning big eyes on Lucius she pleaded, "Don't mind her, she's just teasing."

"Sure," Lucius agreed diplomatically. Yes, Theresa was rather pretty. Yes, her family was a good one. Yes, he thought she was witty. But...she could not hold a candle to the perfection that was Narcissa Black.

"So, mate? You in or are you out?" Anthony demanded impatiently as he and Ethan began to restlessly sway from anticipation of what they were about to do.

Lucius waved them off. "No, sorry. I think I'll just meet up with you all at Rosa Lee's in a half hour..."

Shrugging, Ethan gave a smirk. "Your loss, Lucius!" And with that, he dashed off toward the fat woman with Anthony not far behind.

Looking to the girls, he asked, "Are you two going to join in?"

Emma shook her head, "I still think it's too mean."

"Besides, this will be a lot more fun to watch," Theresa chirped with a wide smile.

A squalling began across the street. The fat woman was screaming at Ethan and Anthony, they had used their youth and speed against her by keeping the squib's right sign just out of reach as they made her run after them for she'd lost it already to their antics.

Squeezing Emma's arm, Lucius said, "See you."

"Bye!" the girls chorused before they break into laughter as the squib-woman falls to the ground as she made a grab for the back of Anthony's robes.

Not able to hide a smirk of his own, Lucius allowed himself a quick snort before schooling his features into something casual as he stuck his hands in his pockets. Keeping his eye on Narcissa as she gabbed with her older sister, Andromeda, Lucius turned his gait into something akin to a quick saunter as he made his way over to the pretty girl.

-v-v-v-v-v-

Garrick Ollivander didn't have a lot of time as he watched Abraxas Malfoy's child separate from his friends. Reaching for his Protean charmed quill, Garrick activated it and prayed to every higher power that Carl Max was paying attention. Following the boy with his eyes, Garrick watched the blond. He looked as cool and confidant as his father, but unlike Abraxas Malfoy, the boy couldn't hide the eager lean of his body. It was obvious he was heading toward something that interested him.

It was also probably why he wasn't helping those nasty boys with tormenting poor Claire a few shops down.

Tensing as Lucius stepped in front of the alleyway where Carl was hiding, Garrick sucked in a breath.

"No..." he whispered as he watched Malfoy's son abruptly raise his hand up as if to call out to someone when Carl came swooped out of the adjacent shadows.

Heart thudding wildly in his chest, he saw the boy struggle briefly before both he and Carl were gone. Releasing a deep sigh then, Garrick cast a furtive eye down the street and hoped that whoever the blond had been calling out to hadn't heard him in the day's busy din.

So...thoughts? Have you seen anything like this before? Are you interested?

Anyway, this will probably be the only chapter for a while. I want to finish up a couple other fics before I work fully on this one, Andromeda Lestrange has at least one, possible two more chapter to go and then I want to get close to finishing up Bygone before I further this fic here.

I hoped you enjoyed this fic!

Thanks for reading and pretty please review!