First off: No, this is not the apocalypse. This is me, actually updating this story. With a real chapter. Not an author's note. Yes, I'm in as much shock as you are.

Second: I'm so sorry. There's no excuse for why this hasn't been updated in three years. I just, honestly, had no motivation. However, with the last Harry Potter movie out, my decision to re-read the books, and my rediscovered love for Lucius Malfoy, I've decided that now is the time!

I really really adore the Malfoy family and Bella. And I'm about to embark upon a 2nd-person, Narcissa-centric oneshot, so I wanted to write this before the angst bunnies came and took over.

Agh, so, three years later, here we are! I thank those of you that have stuck with this story and I welcome those who are just now discovering it! I'm sorry if this is not the off-the-wall shenanigans that you guys expect. I'm a little out of my comedy-groove and I'd like to hope that my writing has improved in the past three years.

Anyway, here we are! Wal-Mart Kills People, Part 2. Enjoy! It features a special guest...*wink wink*

Ooh, slight disclaimer: Though this story is K+, there is a mild use of the word "damn" in this chapter.

The "OOOOOOOO" are line breaks.

Reviews are great, constructive criticism is better!

This. Was. Ridiculous.

He was Lucius Malfoy. Lucius Malfoy. And Lucius Malfoy did not cower in a rack of muggle women's sweaters.

And yet, there he was, cowering in a rack of muggle women's sweaters.

Oh, sure, he had tried to escape the never-ending racks of brightly colored clothing. However, the moment he had stepped out into an open area of the store, he heard a shriek of "How's your wife?" and had decided that laying low might be the best option for the time being.

The hollow spaces in the middle of the clothing racks made remarkable hiding spots…

And yet, Lucius knew he couldn't very well spend the rest of his life hiding in-between sweaters. All he had to show for this shopping trip-a shopping trip which, he concluded, was turning out to be as enjoyable as grinding his face against asphalt-was a measly pack of bubble gum.

And he would be damned if he let Bellatrix show him up.

OOOOOOOO

Bellatrix, for her part, was on a desperate hunt for her brother-in-law, eager to share her conspiracy theories with him. She had searched high and low, weaving through row upon row of food, greeting cards, toiletries, children's' toys, and a number of other things.

Nowhere in the ragtag mob of people in the store did she spot an overdressed man with long blonde hair.

Oh, there were plenty of underdressed people, shuffling along in their pajamas. And there were plenty of people with long hair of every color.

But no Lucius.

Bellatrix sighed exasperatedly as she made her way past the clothing racks. The basket in her hand, weighed down with carrots, potatoes, and a chicken, was getting much too heavy and she was one wrong turn away from giving up and going to the missing child desk to report Lucius when she heard a most suspicious whisper.

"Bella…"

Bellatrix whirled around, searching madly for the source of the whisper. There were people around, but they were all occupied in their tasks, no one paying any attention to the mad woman standing in the middle of the clothing.

"Bella…!" That whisper again! And it almost sounded like…Lucius…? But no, Bellatrix determined, as her eyes scanned the surrounding area. Lucius wasn't anywhere to be found.

"Bella!" The whisper, a third time, sounded much more insistent. And it was definitely Lucius' voice. Bellatrix looked with delight at the sweater rack where she had finally determined the voice was coming from.

Oh, Lucius would be so excited when she told him! A rack of clothing that could talk! And it had his voice! Maybe Muggles really did have some magical inventions!

"Talking clothing racks…heh…," Bellatrix laughed to herself as she set off in search of the customer service desk, determined to put out a missing child call for Lucius. He had to be found, if nothing more that so she could show him the talking clothing rack.

However, as she walked past said clothing rack, a hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. Before she could even comprehend what was happening, she was pulled into the depths of the sweaters and met with a very amusing sight…

…her brother-in-law, hiding in the middle of the clothes.

"Luci!" Bellatrix shrieked loudly and Lucius could swear he felt his eardrums crack. He slapped a hand over her mouth, putting the index finger of his free hand to his lips.

"Shh…Bella, we need to-" He was cut off by a very unpleasant wet sensation on the palm of his hand.

She had licked his hand. Lucius shuddered, removing his hand from her mouth as quick as if he'd been burned. Glaring at her, he snatched the sleeve of a nearby sweater to rid his palm of the offending spit.

Pity the poor muggle who picked the sweater with the damp, spitty sleeve…

"Really, Bellatrix? Isn't that the sort of stuff that little children do?"

She merely grinned back at him, shifting to allow herself a little more room in the cramped space. "And why, exactly, are you in here? Shouldn't you be shopping?" She cast a critical glance at the lone pack of bubble gum in his hands and raised her eyebrows.

"It's a…long story." Lucius had no desire to relive the kickboxing mom, the goth boy, the shrieking lady, the darting to and fro between aisles…

Bellatrix nodded expectantly. "Yes…and?"

"I really don't think we have the time…"

"We've been in this store for God knows how long. I'm sure the Dark Lord has dropped any and all expectations that we'll be back in a reasonable amount of time."

Lucius considered for a moment. That was probably true. Given the fact that they had very nearly drowned him in a bathtub, Voldemort was probably relishing the time alone.

And so, Lucius ended up relating the whole sordid tale back to Bellatrix, trying to ignore the way her lips quirked further up into a smirk with every detail he revealed. By the time he finally got the part where he had resolved to hide in the clothing rack, she was howling with laughter so loudly that he slapped his hand over her mouth once more, knowing what the consequences might be.

She quieted immediately, but the look in her eyes told him she was very seriously considering licking his hand again.

"Do it, Bella, and I swear I will crucio you."

Satisfied that she was finally quiet, he removed his hand. "We need to get out of this rack." He gestured down to the pack of bubble gum. "Obviously, I still have a…few things I need to get."

Bellatrix snorted. "A few? That's rich, Luci. All you've managed to do is grab some bubble gum and be threatened by half the store. I got the carrots, potatoes, chicken, and the DVD!"

With the mention of the DVD, Bellatrix suddenly remembered her conspiracy theory.

"Lucius!" She lunged forward, grabbing onto the collar of his jacket. "You've got to hear this! I went and got the DVD, yes?" She paused, waiting until he nodded. "Well, as I was over there…"

She told him of the video, of seeing the two people on the screen who looked just like the two of them, of passing out on the floor. "Don't you get it, Lucius? It's a conspiracy theory! They're filming us! We're…being…watched!" With every word, she shook him back and forth, stopping only when she saw his eyes rolling back in his head.

"Whoops!" She released him, watching as he shook his head dizzily. "Anyway, isn't that weird? We're being filmed!"

Lucius sighed. They were stuck in clothing rack in the middle of a muggle store. There was a kickboxing teacher and a lady insistent on Bella being his wife who were probably looking for him now. At this moment, he really didn't care about any conspiracy theory. He told Bellatrix so, not feeling any remorse whatsoever as her smile slid off her face, upset at having her conspiracy theory written off.

"We need a plan…now, how do we get out of this clothing rack, get the rest of the items, and get out of the store without being seen by those women? Maybe-"

His thought was interrupted as some of the sweaters slid apart. The alarmed face of a woman peered down at them; she obviously was not expecting two grown people to be sitting in the middle of the rack.

"Do you mind?" Lucius snapped, and the woman squeaked in fear and slid the sweaters back in place. He turned back to Bellatrix…but he wished she hadn't.

The way her face lit up told him she had an idea. And the smile playing across her mouth told him that it probably wasn't a very good idea.

"Whatever you're thinking…no."

She rolled her eyes. "C'mon, Luci. We need a plan, I have a plan. What's the problem?"

Lucius sighed, again. "Fine, fine, what's your plan?" After the "Put-Voldemort-In-A-Bath-Of-Ice-Water-And-Give-Him-Hypothermia" idea, he reasoned that her plans really couldn't get any worse.

"You'll see…"

And with that, she slipped out of the clothing rack, calling "I'll be right back!" as she walked away.

OOOOOOOO

Oh no, this plan was definitely a billion times worse than "Put-Voldemort-In-A-Bath-Of-Ice-Water-And-Give-Him-Hypothermia".

This was plan "Hide-Lucius-In-A-Shopping-Cart". And Bellatrix had insisted that it really was a "fool proof idea."

Except for one tiny detail which Bella had overlooked…

Shopping carts were meant for food. And small children.

Not fully grown men.

Yet, despite this, Lucius Malfoy, a fully grown man, was now sitting in the basket of a shopping cart, wishing desperately that he could melt into the ground…or crucio Bella.

Maybe both.

People were staring. Everywhere he looked, someone was watching…or pointing…or laughing. Several employees in the process of stocking shelves fell off their ladders as they beheld the man in the shopping cart.

"Here's the plan," Bella had whispered, after she had returned with the cart. "You climb in, I push you, and we look completely natural. We finish shopping and we leave. You can hide with all the food and stuff we put in the cart. No one will notice!"

"No one will notice…" He mumbled savagely under his breath. Yeah, well, if "no one" meant "the entire store", then Bellatrix was definitely correct. No one was noticing.

Lucius sighed as a roll of paper towels, a box of tissues, and a pair of earplugs were flung unceremoniously onto his lap. This cart was tiny and with every turn and bump, his knees banged against the sides of it.

"Why did I agree to this, why did I agree to this…? Damn this store, damn this shopping list, damn my stupid sister-in-law…"

"What's that, brother dearest?" Bellatrix called from behind him. "I hear you talking to yourself. You better be saying, 'Oh thank you, Bella, you are ever so clever for thinking of this spot on idea.'"

Lucius snorted. "For me to be saying that, it would have to be true."

"Yeah, well…," Bellatrix huffed from behind him, pushing the cart laboriously down the aisle. "This really isn't a picnic for me either, Luci. Maybe I should tell Cissy to cut down on the amount she feeds you. …you could stand to lose a few pounds."

She cackled from behind him, breathing heavily as she did so, and the cart continued to grind down the aisle.

"Bella," He pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing deeply. "This really is not a good idea." He was jolted suddenly as the cart came to a halt.

"Oh look, pudding!" Bellatrix shrieked from somewhere behind him, and he turned around just in time for ten boxes of pudding to smack him in the face. The smile on Bellatrix's face as she walked around to the front of the cart suggested that she had intentionally thrown them.

"Not a good idea?" She leaned against the side of the cart.

"No. Not at all. I thought, since you were so quick to think of a plan, that it might be…oh, I don't know…a good one?"

Bellatrix gave a noncommittal shrug. "I really don't see what the problem is."

Lucius felt his eye twitch. He had his mouth open to tell her off when she continued.

"Besides, this is just Plan A. I have a Plan B."

He sighed, deciding that he wasn't even going to ask exactly what Plan B was. If this was Plan A, then it was obviously the best idea she had. Plan B would, undoubtedly be much, much worse and Lucius didn't really want to know if he didn't have to.

"Fine, fine." He sighed once more and waved his hand impatiently, indicating that it was time to get a move on. Bellatrix resumed her position pushing the cart laboriously down the aisle.

Slogging down the cereal aisle (why they were even in this aisle was a mystery to Lucius), they passed a muggle woman pushing a little boy in a cart. He pointed at the pair of them, shrieking an excited, "Look, mommy! That's a big kid!"

His mother shot them a look of contempt before answering her son. "No, honey. That's what we call a 'pedophile'." She sped away down the aisle, muttering, "Honestly, a grown man sitting in cart…"

"Bellatrix," Lucius called back to her, jolting as the cart screeched to a sudden halt. She walked around to the face him, her arms folded across her chest.

"Yes, Luci?"

"That little muggle boy just called me a pedophile."

"So?"

"That generally not a positive thing to be called."

She snorted. "Oh well, boo hoo. Kid needs to learn that not everyone in the world is sweet and kind." She waved her hand dismissively. "We did him a favor! Now he knows to stay away the next time he sees a man sitting in a shopping cart."

"Yes, but, wasn't this escape plan supposed to be…subtle?"

Bellatrix shrugged dramatically. "Gosh, Lucius, I don't know. Maybe if you hadn't gone and-" She cut herself off, listening as loud stomping footsteps sounded in the distance.

"C'mon, Mommy!" A little kid squealed. "We need to find the scary man and teach him a lesson."

Lucius' eyes widened in fright. He knew, without a doubt, that it was the little boy and his kickboxing mom. He turned, horrified, to Bellatrix. Her eyes darted around madly before she hissed, "Duck!" He did so, trying to sink down in the cart as much as possible, watching as Bellatrix swiped her arm across a shelf and feeling a barrage of cereal boxes rain down upon him.

Bellatrix, having buried Lucius alive in boxes of Captain Crunch, leaned casually against the cart, examining her fingernails. When the huge, hulking lady came around, she quirked an eyebrow at the mound of cereal, but went on her stomping way, none the wiser.

She had to credit Lucius; when he said that her biceps had been the size of semi-trucks, he wasn't kidding.

After a safe amount of time had passed, Bellatrix scooped some of the cereal boxes off of Lucius, throwing them down on the floor, rather than putting them back. She shrugged it off. "Eh, the employees need something to do, right?"

Lucius nodded, exhaling sharply, certain that his life had almost ended mere moments ago.

"Let's go get that self-help book and get out of here, Bella."

OOOOOOOO

'Almost to the books, almost to the books, just stay calm.'

Lucius had, in the last few days, developed a habit of giving himself silent pep talks to ignore the burning impulse he often had to strangle his sister-in-law.

He had decided that it was safest for him to put his head down and ignore the stares of the muggles as the shopping cart careened by them. He knew, if they could just get to the book section, they were as good as free and would hopefully never have to come to this infernal store again.

'Get the book, don't kill Bellatrix, get the book, don't kill Bellatrix.'

He heard Bellatrix whisper, "Almost there, Luci!" before the cart grinded to a sudden halt.

"Well, well, well, fancy seeing you two here." A voice spoke from somewhere in front of the shopping cart. A voice Lucius knew. A voice which made Lucius want to bury himself in the contents of the cart and asphyxiate on Captain Crunch.

"Snape." Bellatrix's cold greeting only confirmed his horrible suspicion.

'Maybe he won't notice me if I just keep my head down.'

"Evening, Lucius."

Evening? Really? He and Bellatrix had arrived at the store mid-morning. Had they really been here that long?

He raised his head up, finding himself staring up at Severus Snape.

"Evening, Severus," Lucius muttered, with all the dignity that a grown man being pushed in a shopping cart by his sister-in-law could muster.

And then, he froze. Why was Snape at Wal-Mart…? A smirk twitched at the corner of his mouth. Surely Severus had some embarrassing reason for being here, some reason that would make him feel better about his current predicament.

Bellatrix obviously had a similar thought, for he could hear the joyful malice in her voice as she asked, "What brings you here, Snape?"

The man in question eyed the two of them coolly. "I was in need of some hair product." He gestured to the basket in his hand. "I'm afraid nothing in the wizarding world can treat my hair quite like some of these muggle goods."

Lucius raised an eyebrow, glancing back at Bellatrix to see if she thought this as odd as he did. Instead, she was nodding sagely, as if this was a perfectly logical thing.

Unbelievable. A basket of shampoo accidentally falls into his basket at Walgreens and she torments and sits on him.

Snape, however, openly admits to buying hair product and Bellatrix acts like this is the most fascinatingly brilliant thing in the world.

Lord, the inhumanity.

Lucius cleared his throat, trying to send silent signals to Bellatrix that they needed to be moving on. She ignored him, enraptured as Snape elaborated on the hair products he used.

He tried to clear his throat louder and more insistently. She turned to him, frowning. He coughed again. She nodded and he breathed a sigh of relief. That is, until she reached into her pockets a pulled out five little bags.

"Cough drop, Luci? Grape, cherry, lemon, mint, or orange?"

She had done it. She had called him 'Luci' in front of Snape.

He almost wished that the kickboxing mom would come and smash his face into the ground, only so he wouldn't have to sit here in a shopping cart while Snape talked about hair products and Bellatrix obliviously offered him cough drops.

Snape, thankfully, appeared to be wrapping up. "Well, I must be going." He strode away, calling, "Hope you feel better, Lucius."

Lucius was clenching his teeth so hard that he could only speak in one-word sentences. "Bella. Book. Now. Go."

OOOOOOOO

This shopping trip had carved about 20 years off of his life, Lucius was convinced.

They had finally gotten their hands on the sinisterly titled "How to Kill your Death Eaters While Still Making Them Feel Needed: A Self-Help Book". It had been easily spotted among the romance novels, a black book with a skull on the cover and a red sticker proclaiming "New Edition! 5 Easy Steps! Kill your failures with ease!"

Lucius once again felt himself break out in that cold sweat, but he shrugged it off. They were home free. All they needed to do was get to the check out, Imperio the cashier into giving them everything for free, and then they'd be on their way.

He had just opened his mouth to ask Bellatrix what she thought the Dark Lord needed the self-help book for when he heard a shriek.

To the left, in between the aisles, an unwelcome sight had appeared. It was the lady in the sweater, and she was pointing at the two of them, shrieking a nonsensical string of words, out of which Lucius caught the words "wife" and "counseling".

Bellatrix sighed. "Ick, not her again."

"It doesn't matter, just go the other way."

There was a pause. "…I don't think that's such a good idea."

He turned to the right to see what the problem was and gave an involuntary squeal of fear.

The kickboxing mom, her son standing next to her.

Lucius weighed his options.

Go left, be forced into some sort of involuntary counseling with Bellatrix, his "wife".

Go right, have his skull bashed in by someone whose hands were the size of dinner plates.

Neither one was too appealing.

"Bella, what do we do?"

Bellatrix had a look of concentration on her face. After a beat, she said, "Out of the cart, Lucius."

These were the words he had been waiting for since he first got in the cart, but nevertheless, he couldn't help but feel that getting out of the cart would make him an easier target.

"Are you sure that-?"

"Just get out of the cart!"

He did so, watching warily as Bellatrix pulled out her wand. "What exactly is this supposed to accomplish?"

She held up a finger to silence him. "Plan A has obviously failed. We're moving on to…Plan B!" She gave a crazed little laugh, pointed her wand at the shrieking lady from Walgreens, and cried, "Avada Kedavra!"

Lucius exhaled sharply. "Okay, great, fantastic, that takes care of her. How about the one that's actually capable of inflicting physical damage?" He jerked his head towards the approaching kick boxer, watching as Bellatrix pointed the wand at her. Another flash of green light and kickboxing mom was down for the count.

OOOOOOOO

"Nice work, if I do say so myself." Bellatrix glanced around the aisles, pleased with her plan.

Everyone around them, every last employee and patron of Wal-Mart, was either dead or stunned. The stunned ones had their memories obliviated; they would remember nothing of the two crazy people dressed in black who had run by, shooting them in the chest with a jet of red light.

"So, Bellatrix, let me understand something…this was Plan B?"

"Yes."

"But this was so much easier that Plan A! Why not make this Plan A?"

"Well, we already had a Plan A."

"Well, that could've been Plan B."

"We already had a Plan B."

"If you had made Plan B Plan A, then you could have made Plan A Plan B."

"…huh?"

"All I'm saying is, usually the better plan is Plan A."

"Oh, I just named them in the order I thought of them."

"You could have switched them. Realized that Plan B was clearly the superior one and made it Plan A."

"Why would I need two Plan A's? That doesn't make any sense."

"You wouldn't have two Plan A's, you would have a Plan A and a Plan B."

"Right, which we did."

"But what I'm saying is…you know what, never mind. I feel my IQ dropping with every moment I spend trying to explain something to you. Let's just go home, Bella."

Like it? Love it? Hate it? Well, press that rather large and imposing "Review this Chapter" button and tell me, please!

I really hope you all enjoyed this chapter. I look forward to hearing from you all again and I promise to be better at future updates!

Next Chapter: "Muggle Soup", because every sick person needs soup. Bella and Luci, in an attempt to impress, decide to make their favorite Dark Lord some soup...without the use of magic. Lucky Voldemort.

Until next time!