Narcissa smiled at the idyllic sight of her husband playing with their eleven-month-old son. It was a quiet Sunday afternoon, and Lucius had decided the moment was right for some quality time with little Draco (who, coincidentally, happened to be uncharacteristically cheerful just then.) Lucius had the baby seated on his lap, facing him, and was attempting to teach him words.
"Say, 'Mum'," he instructed the little boy.
"Oh!" said Draco, wide-eyed.
Lucius smiled fondly. "No, that's not quite it. Try again. 'Mum'."
Draco looked away and didn't say anything at all.
"No, no, no. Over here. Look at Dad. Come on," coaxed Lucius.
The baby looked up at him and giggled.
"Say, 'Mum'," Lucius instructed again.
"Ep," said Draco, looking decidedly disinterested.
"All right, we'll try something else. How about 'Dad'? Can you say 'Dad'?"
Draco blew a raspberry at his father. Narcissa, watching from the doorway to the sitting room, stifled laughter, and Lucius looked disconcerted. "That's not nice," he told the child on his lap chidingly. "Say 'Dad'."
"Bah!" exclaimed the little boy scornfully, then let out another gleeful chortle.
Lucius frowned, but his eyes were laughing. "That's a fine way to treat your father, Draco! Come now, say it. Say 'Dad'."
The baby lunged and tried to crawl off his father's lap onto the sofa.
"And just where do you think you're going, little one?" inquired Lucius with mock haughtiness, fetching him back and settling him again.
The little boy laughed and grabbed at Lucius' voluminous sleeve.
"What are you doing?" asked Lucius.
Draco reached again, and this time his little fist reappeared wrapped around his father's wand. "Ah!" he announced proudly, holding it up and waving it in Lucius' face.
Lucius smiled indulgently and pushed it away, then gently pried it out of his son's grip . "Yes, that's my wand. It's very important. We use wands to do magic."
Draco let out a shriek of delight.
"Someday, you will have a wand, too. Can you say 'wand', Draco?"
"Mggrklll," replied the boy, beginning to lose interest again.
"You can do it. Say 'wand'."
Draco thought he had a better idea. He leaned forward and pulled the end of the wand into his mouth. Lucius hurriedly pulled it away, but not before the baby coughed and choked on it. Narcissa came running as Lucius patted him lightly on the back. "Are you all right, little one? That is why we do not put wands in our mouths."
"Gk!" said the baby, an aggrieved and mightily confused expression on his little face. Narcissa breathed a sigh of relief. No harm done, it seemed.
Lucius looked with distaste at his saliva-covered wand. "I had thought when he grabbed it that he might have a natural inclination for wandwork, but I can see I was wrong," he chuckled ruefully.
"Gk,' repeated his son, who still looked decidedly discomfited. "Gk!"
"Oh, have you got the hiccups?" crooned Lucius. "Another reason not to suck on wands."
"Gk," said the baby, and spit up on his father's lap.
"Gah!" said Lucius in surprise. Narcissa resisted the urge to laugh at the way a little half-digested milk reduced her husband's speech capabilities to the level of their infant son's. Instead, she took out her own wand and Scourgified her husband's robe, then summoned a house elf to bring a polishing cloth for Lucius' wand.
"Well, now we know what happens when one tries to lick one's wand," she said amusedly.
"Actually, I think 'swallow' might be a more appropriate word," said Lucius. "Stuck it down your throat, didn't you, Draco?" he continued, frowning at his son as if he might explode again at any moment.
But Draco himself was perfectly cheerful again, having gotten that out of the way. "Agah!" he shouted joyfully.
"Again?" said Lucius. "No, I don't think so."
"Na, na, na, na, na," singsonged the baby, beginning to play with his fingers.
"Oh, are you going to sing now?" asked Lucius, still holding his spittle-covered wand out of the his son's reach. "Cissa, what's keeping that elf?"
"I'll go and find out," she said, taking off in the direction of the kitchen, where most of them would be at that hour.
She found them working industriously at preparing dinner. "Where is the polishing cloth I asked for?" she demanded imperiously. Each elf cowered where it stood, and one of them began hitting itself in the head with the large pot it had been washing. "Stop that noise!" she commanded, annoyed. The elf looked woeful, but obeyed.
"Eggy is bringing the cloth, Mistress," said another elf fearfully. "Eggy leaves already, but is not back yet."
"Very well," she said. "All of you, punish yourselves for stopping work. And tell Eggy when he returned to punish himself triply for being so slow and lazy." She stalked off back toward the sitting room which held her husband and child. One really did have to be firm with these house elves. Some called in cruelty, but they could be so laggard sometimes. It wasn't as if they had any purpose other than servitude.
She returned to the sitting room to find Draco babbling merrily and Lucius wearing an excited grin.
"He did it!" announced the proud father. "He said a word - his first, I believe!"
Narcissa's own heart swelled with pride. "Really?" she squealed. "Already? And he's not even a year old! Do you think he'll do it again?"
"Draco, tell Mum your new word!" urged Lucius. "Say, 'Crucio'!"
And before Narcissa had time to react, their darling, dimpled, blond baby happily exclaimed, "Coosio!"
Narcissa felt her jaw drop.
"That's right!" answered her husband delightedly. "Very good, Draco!"
"Coosio, coosio!" repeated the infant, bouncing enthusiastically on his father's lap.
Narcissa recovered enough to give Lucius a prolonged, outraged glare. His smile faltered as he realized that he was in serious trouble.
"He wouldn't say anything else," he said sheepishly, trying to defend himself. "I tried all the unusual things, and then I just started saying whatever I could think of, hoping something would take. I didn't think he'd actually say them..."
"His first word," said Narcissa in disbelief. "You taught our son an Unforgivable curse..."
Draco decided that his mum wasn't paying enough attention to him. "Adda Ka-dava!" he declared proudly, with an adorable grin that showed his two teeth.
"Two Unforgivable curses!" groaned Narcissa.
"It's just the words, Cissa," Lucius tried to appease her. "I didn't teach him to cast them, it's not as if he knows the wand pattern or the thought process behind them..." he trailed off weakly.
"You taught our one-year-old son Unforgivable curses!" she screamed at him.
"Look at it this way, darling, he'll need them someday. He'll have a head start on his peers -"
"HE'S A BABY!" Narcissa exploded. "First you Imperius him -"
"Only once, and that was eight months ago!" objected Lucius.
" - and now you're teaching him Unforgivable curses! What are you going to do tomorrow, induct him as a Death Eater? Do let me know, so I won't be surprised when I see the Mark on his poor little arm! And of course I'll know to expect him to be shipped off to Azkaban for life before his first birthday because some Ministry idiot hears him using 'Avada Kedavra' as a greeting!"
"Now, Cissa, don't be absurd, you're overreacting..." said Lucius futilely.
"Come, Draco, it's time for your supper and a nap," said Narcissa, ignoring her husband and snatching the baby up of his lap.
Lucius watched her storm off toward the nursery with the child, and sighed.
Back to the guest room it was, then.