Shared Sweets
LOCATION: Diagon Alley DATE: Oct 5, 1986 @marlsmckinncn
Lucius had come prepared for a festival -- dressed to the absolute nines (although when was he ever not, really?) in violet velvet robes that hung to his knees, polished dragonhide boots that nearly reached their embroidered hem, a black-and-silver jacket that tapered at the waist and flared-out over his hips and shoulders in an arrow-cut capelet with wide black bell-sleeves -- the pockets of which were stuffed full of gold, of course, but that went without saying. Lucius’s pockets were always full of gold, even when there wasn’t a festival at which to spend it.
He handed a drizzle of sickles over to the sweating, smiling street vendor in exchange for his steaming cinnamon pumpkin rolls, turned around, and swore mildly. He had absent-mindedly purchased two sweets, forgetting that Narcissa was off with Draco at the other end of the street and wasn’t around to share the snack with him. Not interested in gorging himself on both pastries, large and dripping with icing as they were, but feeling that striding straight to the nearest rubbish bin to dispose of the spare would not only make him look a bit foolish but also likely offend the vendor, Lucius looked around for a familiar face.
He found plenty, but one of them stood out against the others: Marlene McKinnon, the tragic lone survivor of a Death Eater massacre -- and thus someone whom Lucius had taken special care to cozy up to upon conceiving of his “rehabilitated image” scheme. Combined with the fact that she was both less filthy and more clever than many of the blood-traitors and mudbloods to whom he paid court, that made her one of his favorites of his “new friends,” and so he walked up to the lonely witch with a bright smile that soon shifted to a pouting plea.
“Marlene, my dear witch! Pray tell me you’re free to be the salvation of my latest mistake?” he asked, voice plaintive. “When I purchased these silly things, I wasn’t thinking about the fact that Cissy being off with dear Draco--” Lucius still often found himself emphasizing his son’s new name when he spoke to people, so proud of the boy was he “--means she isn’t here to eat the one I got for her. Please, say that you’ll take it off my hands so that I don’t have to risk looking a fool -- or worse, rude! -- by walking directly from cart to rubbish bin?”