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The Heirloom	By : soldiersgirl0709 Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Lucius/Hermione Views: 18477 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction. I do not own anything related to Harry Potter or the Harry Potter Universe. All things recognizable belong to JKR and WB. No money is made from the sharing of this fic, only friends and smiles.

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                                                                             CHAPTER TWELVE

                Hermione stood in the center of the empty parlor and wondered at the nature of people. A short list of people had come to the memorial service to mourn the passing of Ariadne Malfoy, but a large number of people appeared in his home following. Some who had small children could be forgiven, but others who were there just to eat the food and to socialize with the wealthier witches and wizards were deserving of a curse or three. Somehow Hermione found herself playing ‘lady of the house’. The serving staff was looking to her for direction despite the fact that she had been in his home only a few times. It didn’t seem to matter to them that she wasn’t really his wife.

“The last of the guests have gone, Madame,” Arthur said as he appeared beside her. Hermione sighed in relief.

“I’m not sure how many are guests and how many were just opportunistic vultures,” she said.

“There are many within the wealthy ranks that have no shame, Madame. Some genuinely grieve for Master Malfoy’s loss. Some hope that his vulnerable state of grief can be manipulated for their benefit,” Arthur said. He smiled slightly; he liked the young woman and her sense of right and wrong.

“It is disgusting,” she said.

“It is the way of things, Madame, always has been and always will be. Human nature has its dark side as well as its light, just as everything does,” he said. “Master Lucius has gone to his study.”

“Is he alright?” she asked. Her voice was softened with concern.

“He is quiet,” Arthur said. “Lady Ariadne was very important to Master Lucius. Some might say that she is the reason that he wasn’t completely lost to the darkness.”

“I assumed his parents were the root of his prejiduce,” Hermione said.

“Lord Abraxus was not a kind or tolerant man. Nor was Lord Orphaeus before him. But, Lady Ariadne was a kind woman and she loved her son, devoted herself to him in fact. Master Lucius is not a bad man, Madame. He is intelligent and stubborn and for a time he was blinded by those he trusted, but deep inside he is a good man.”

“He is very lucky to have a valet that is so loyal to him, Arthur,” Hermione said softly.

“Thank you, Madame,” he said, “Shall I dispose of this now?” He gestured to the tables lined with food and drink.

“Yes, I will go find Lucius and say goodnight,” she said, smiling. She turned and headed towards the corridor, but Arthur stopped her.

“Madame!”

“Yes, Arthur?” she asked, turning in the doorway.

“Thank you for coming, I am aware of your arrangement with Master Lucius, I know that you did not have to be here,” he said.

“You’re welcome.” She stood for another moment and watched as a dozen small house elves appeared and the room that had been disordered from the crowd began to quickly right itself. She found her way through the halls to the back of the house and let memory guide her towards the room that she knew would be lined with windows where Lucius spent most of his days.

                When she stepped into the room she found it warm despite all the windows. The fire in the hearth was warm and inviting and the only source of light other than the moonlight shining through the glass windowpanes. Lucius stood in front of the hearth staring into the fire. Hermione was overwhelmed with sadness for him. In her memory he was a vicious, dangerous bigot that wanted to kill her. But in this moment he was a sad little boy that had lost his mother and her heart ached for him.

“Lucius,” she called gently. He turned towards her, his eyes glazed with dark circles beneath them. He was wearing only his shirt and trousers, his jacket and tie discarded over a nearby chair. In his hand he held an old silver brush.

“Yes?” he queried, turning the brush over and over absent mindedly in his hands.

“Everyone has gone,” she said, moving slowly towards him.

“Oh…I apologize, I was rude,” he said, glancing at the clock above the mantle. “It’s late.”

“Arthur is cleaning up and Draco was called home, I just wanted to see how you were before I left,” she said, moving in closer to where he stood.

“My grandson has a cold, Draco is a fretful first-time father,” he said with the saddest smile she had ever seen. “Thank you, Hermione, for coming today…for staying…for playing hostess to all of those people. I apologize for not helping you, I just…”

“It’s okay, Lucius.” She laid her hand on his arm and smiled up at him. “It’s really okay.” She glanced down at the silver handled brush clutched in his hand. “What is that?”

“It’s my mother’s….was,” he said softly. “Did you know that I had three sisters?”

“No, I didn’t,” Hermione said.

“Two of them were born sleeping before I came along,” he said. “When I was six my sister, Athena, was born. I had never seen a baby before her.” As he closed his eyes and explored his memories Hermione sank onto the blue and white striped sofa and listened curiously to his tale. “She was so tiny and pink with chubby little dimpled cheeks and dark, dark hair like my father. I would lean over her cradle and talk to her and she would smile and reach out, her fat little fingers wrapping around mine and I adored her. She was six months old when she just didn’t wake up. No reason, she went to sleep and just died. A perfectly healthy, beautiful little baby girl just gone.” He shook his head, still confused by the unfairness of it. “Mother was devastated as you might imagine. Of four children only one had managed to survive. She never let a day go by that she didn’t make sure to tell me how much she loved and cherished me. How important I was to her, how I was the most important thing she had ever done.”

“She loved you, very much, as a mother should love her son,” Hermione said.

“My father was hard on me...as his father was on him…as I was on Draco,” he said. “At the end of a long day with harsh tutors and my father’s demands, she would call me to her room. I would sit at her feet, tell her all about my day and she would brush my hair. So many nights I fell asleep like that.” The wistful smile that lifted his lips broke her heart. Hermione reached out and gently took the brush from his hand, then tugged him downward until he curled his legs beneath him and sat at her feet.

Tears welled in his eyes on the first stroke of the soft bristles through his hair.

“Continue,” she said softly as she dragged the brush through his long locks.

“My father saw my love for my mother as a sign of weakness, he wanted me to be a strong heir and to be capable of managing the family fortune without vulnerabilities,” Lucius said, his eyes drifting shut as the soothing strokes relaxed him. “So I pretended to be what he wanted in a son, the face that I put on for the world was one of a Malfoy heir. I was arrogant, confident, cold and calculating, set on increasing and guarding the family legacy at all costs. He died shortly before the first rise of the Dark Lord.”

Hermione couldn’t help but notice the way he rubbed at his forearm, at the mark she knew was hidden beneath the expensive cotton of his shirt.

He continued, “He believed that Tom was the answer. That his vision would change the wizarding world for the better. That pure blooded witches and wizards would once again dominate the world that was theirs by right and eradicate the interlopers, outlaw the acting of ‘outbreeding’,” he scoffed. “And I bought in to it, partially driven by the desire for my father’s approval and partially driven by fear. By the time things began to get ugly I had a pregnant wife and a widowed mother that needed my protection. I thought that I was choosing correctly by siding with the strongest side. I was wrong,” he said.

“How did your mother feel about your activities with the deatheaters?” Hermione asked.

“I moved mother to the country, to a dowager house inherited through her family,” Lucius answered. “I thought she would be safe there, out of earshot of the social gossip. But I mis-judged my mother’s ability to know everything that I did and everything that was associated with me.” He laughed softly, that laughter that comes from realizing something foolish done in your past. “She always told me that I needed to be careful of people. That more often than not, what I saw was a mask and that I would not like what was underneath. As usual, she was right but by the second rise it was too late. I had a young son, a family and I was afraid. More afraid than at any other time in my life. With good reason, too, because he nearly destroyed everything. Me, my wife, my son…my fortune.”

“How did your mother come to live in the residential center?” Hermione wanted to change the subject. Even after all these years she still couldn’t bear to speak of Voldemort, it made her uneasy.

“I began getting messages from the staff at the dowager house,” he said. “Mother had gone to take the air and had gotten lost on the grounds. For brief moments she wouldn’t recognize the lady’s maids that had attended to her for decades. Then she began casting spells without realizing it, or remembering it. Dangerous spells. She burned down a storage shed near the greenhouse, caused a flood with a garden fountain…and then she got angry with a young maid, insisted that the girl was a stranger and stealing from her. The girl’s job was to tend to mother’s clothing, she had worked for my mother for over fifteen years and her family had been in service to the Malfoy family for over a century…mother cast a cruciatus. House elves came from the kitchens and intervened and sent for me. The healers said that she was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s Disease and that not even magic could turn back the clock. I was forced to take her wand and then arranged for her to have the best medical care possible.”

“You did the right thing, “ Hermione said. “Any child in your position would have to do the same.”

“I hated taking her wand. It felt wrong to take a witch’s wand. But it was for her own wellbeing. I visited her every day for a few hours,” he said. “She drifted in and out of knowing in the last few years but of late had been doing quite well. She knew about you.”

“The paper?” she queried.

“Yes, same as everyone else…blasted paper, nothing but a glorified tabloid,” he muttered. “She found it amusing I think, asked if she was getting any new grandbabies.”

“I’m not sure that I am mother material,” Hermione replied.

“I don’t know about that.” Lucius turned his head and tilted it to look up at her. “You are a very kind woman, Hermione. I did not expect you to treat me with such tenderness, especially given my behavior towards you in the past. You surprised me.”

Hermione reached out and smoothed her hand over his hair, her expression soft. Lucius was not the man that she thought. She hated to acknowledge the fact that she had always judged him on the surface, on the mask that he wore. She had never considered that perhaps, underneath that arrogant, evil image, that there might be something more lurking, driving him to behave as he had. Never in a million years would she have considered that there was a scared little boy lurking inside him, desperate for acceptance and peace.

“I am very sorry about your Mum, Lucius. It sounds like she was an extraordinary woman who loved you very, very much.” Lucius looked away, as if he were ashamed of the tears that glistened in his eyes. Hermione said nothing; she simply resumed the brushing of his hair.

“She is at peace now. Her memories are clear and unchallenged,” he said, as if he were trying to convince himself more than Hermione. “It felt good to place her wand back in her hand.”

“In time it will hurt less.”

Lucius reached up and wrapped his fingers around her wrist, stilling the gentle strokes of the brush. He didn’t say anything, he just removed the brush and laid it carefully on the floor beside him. Hermione watched him, well aware of the fact that her pulse was picking up beneath his grasping fingers. He surprised her when he pressed his lips to her hand, his silver-blue eyes looking up at her.

“Thank you, I cannot say it enough.”

“It was nothing…”

“It was not nothing,” he said, laying her palm against his cheek. “Will you stay with me tonight? I know you might find it laughable…but I don’t wish to sleep alone.”

“I’m not sure…”

“Please,” he whispered, his fingers now sliding up her arm eliciting a shiver. “Don’t go.”

“Okay…”
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The Heirloom