#Side note: naming HP OCs is fun. You get to add weird-ass Classical first names to normal British/Irish surnames.

[joemerl]

Writer's Month 2024, Day 23: "Lost"

Fandom: Harry Potter Status/Word count: An incomplete bit that I'll expand on later. 302 words.

"The Malfoys never lose."

It was something that Lucius heard ever since he was a child. The first time that he could remember was when he was about six, and learned that his father had quit his job as an advisor to the Minister for Magic.

"But why?" he asked. "I thought it was really important."

"Because Ignatius Tuft is an idiot," Abraxas said baldly. "Doesn't have half of his mother's brains, and soon he'll only have a quarter of her popularity. Mark my words, Lucius," he said, leaning forward and shaking his finger. "If Tuft gets reelected, I'll eat my hat."

Sure enough, the Minister was forced out of office before his term was even finished. "And not just him," his father noted at the breakfast table, folding his issue of the Daily Prophet. "Half of his cabinet members are disgraced as well. Look at Tullia McPherson. If you had asked anyone a few years ago, they would have said that she was an obvious choice to become the next Minister for Magic. But she decided to back up all of Tuft's fool ideas, and now she couldn't get elected if she Confunded half the voters. Meanwhile, I can step right back into politics and get cozy with Tuft's replacement. Let this be a lesson, Lucius," Abraxas continued, leaning down to his son once again. "Do you know why the Malfoys have been so successful for nearly a thousand years?"

Lucius shook his head. 

"Because we do not aim for the top spot—that is the easiest place to fall from. And when we see someone else falling, we get out of the way, rather than trying to catch them. And that is why," he straightened up, dark eyes twinkling, "no matter what happens to anyone else, the Malfoys never lose."