Childhood Fancies

Part 1

Lucius Malfoy stood on a crowded train platform at King's Cross, in his own company as his wife was unable to attend the collection of her only son for summer holiday, as the rumble of the other awaiting parents surged at the sound of the train's whistle in the distance. He leaned against his walking stick. The pressure off his joints eased his aches.

Times incessant march onward only ate away at his body. It pained him to stand so long on pavement.

He remained tall as he awaited the unloading of the passenger car. A top of brilliant blonde hair exited in the distance. The only in his year to stand so tall.

The Malfoy elder waited in silence. He did not share a conversational glance at others he knew or give the slightest acknowledgment toward close acquaintances as they collected their own children from the platform.

His son. It was the only one who mattered.

The Malfoy heir was dressed out of his school uniform, still in all black, but much cleaner. The sharp cut of his outline through the warm summer colors of the others attracted the eye to the black. He caught gazes as he walked, hand tucked in his pocket, a small leather satchel in his hand.

Grey eyes paused on his father's face when he noticed the absence of a noted family member.

Lucius gave a soft squint to his eye as he beheld the first year in front of him. "She's gone off with your Nan. She's sorry she couldn't make it."

The boy nodded.

"She wanted to be here," he offered again.

Draco Malfoy was an only child, deeply connected to both his parents, but there was a divide, unspoken, between the boy and his mother. It was impossible to riddle out. Lucius spent many a night with the young infant in his arms as his wife overlooked with desperate eyes.

Of course, the nipper days passed. His son loved his mother. He respected what came from her mouth and never gave a show of resistance in pleasing her.

Only, Lucius noticed it. Deep down, he felt the divide in his son. It did not grow to his wife like it had him.

The duo made their way to collect Draco's trunk from the storage compartment. He went along and fetched it himself as Lucius stood back and watched.

How much it made him hate the passage of time. His son was grown. He barely struggled against the heavy wooden trunk. Not like he had when he was first given it as a gift for the upcoming school year. Now, the boy that returned to him, was a grown child.

Lucius heart pounded sadly in his chest. He kept the emotion from showing in his eyes. He gave a slim twitch of his lips at the sudden gaze of his son's grey eyes.

Something in the young wizard was keen to others. He examined people with a very trained eye, too trained for his short years. It read the depths of everyone around him. He knew a lie. The slightest slip of an expression changed the wizard's demeanor, as if he sensed whatever lurked below a trained face.

However, it was Lucius' many years that kept him a stoic man. Out of necessity did he develop such a task as to shield a face from any emotion.

Done under the presence of dark wizards and desperate dark times...

"Father?" A young voice asked.

Lucius blinked away the black of the past. The dark times were over.

"Off we pop." Lucius waved his son forward.

"Can't stand that Granger," his son muttered. "Did you see the way she grabbed her trunk before I did? Who does she think she is?"