Lucius felt his lips twitching in a smile. "The first thing you must do is eliminate 'please' from your vocabulary. There are times when it can be used to smooth the scales of progress, but in this situation, it will mark you as a beggar. Someone who is coming as a supplicant, and desperate." He ruthlessly pushed back the memory of cravenly pleading to his master, 'please' falling from his lips as if it were the only word he knew. He took a slow breath and straightened up, lifting his chin. "You are not slinking into a queue with a bundle of forms you hope will be approved. You are walking through every door as though it does not exist, because your demands are so far above the queue that only the top can deal with them."
He cocked his head, thinking of a harmless situation they had both encountered. There was little to choose from, and he picked the one that seemed least offensive to him. "The hippogriff in your third year," he said. "Do you think I asked permission to come to Hogwarts? Do you think I waited for approval from the rest of the Board before I called a meeting and a vote?"