Title: Trash Polaroïd

Genre: Angst/Romance x UA x Dramione

Disclaimer: Everything belongs to JKR; this story has been written by I-AM-CHUCK-BASS, who gave me the authorization to translate it. It can be found here in French : u/2233274/I-AM-CHUCK-BASS

Summary: What's your interest in here, little girl? Hypocrisy has a caviar taste, Chanel n`5 is debauchery's perfume and rich people's kids drown their mediocrity in coke rails'. Your virtue is almost lame in this golden hell. So what's your interest in here, really?

Note: This fan fiction originally is written in French by I-AM-CHUCK-BASS – I can only but redirect you to her profile if you can read French, as it's a golden mine. It's one of my favorite ever, and I could only translate it to English for you all to read it and appreciate it, I hope, as much as I did. It's still ongoing, and has 16 chapters by July 22, 2014. I thank once again IACB for her authorization and, more than that, for all the time she puts in her writing, that are always beyond expectation. I hope you'll like this fan fiction, and that my translation is alright. (English is not my first language, but I think I'm fluent enough for you to appreciate this reading).

So, without any more talk, chapter 1!

Hermione Granger tapped her foot to the beat of the jazz music that was in the elevator. Her movement was more unconsciously nervous than anything, to be true. The music was sliding through an ear to escape by the other and, during that time, her body had to be occupied by following the measure. Her mind also had to dwell itself by concentrating on the little architectural details that decorated the luxurious habitat. But all of these could not attenuate the apprehension that was growing in her as she approached from the twentieth floor.

I'm going to meet Lucius Malfoy.

Hermione held herself at the helm in the back of the room, taken by the same vertigo that took her each time she told herself these five little words. It was to pinch her arm every thirty second as it sounded so much unrealistic, too beautiful to be true. And somehow, it was. She had really won that national photography contest, beating a billion of Britannic candidates. She had really received that trophy, at little gold argentic on a base where her name was engraved. And she really had a meeting with Lucius Malfoy, this living photography legend, to work on an original project with him. Bloody hell, bloody hell, bloody hell! If all of this was a hallucination or a living dream, then Providence was a bitch.

… fifteenth floor, sixteenth floor, seventeenth floor…

It was Harry who had pushed her to participate to this contest. Pushed her, I'm saying? Begged her, harassed her, forced her to subscribe. Seeing that she was still not convinced, he had finally choose some of her photography without her knowing and sent them before the due date. The quarrel that followed this decision had been the most dramatic the two best friends had ever had in their seven years of friendship. However, Harry had been the first person Hermione thanked when she received her prize.

… eighteenth floor, nineteenth floor, twentieth floor. Terminus.

The brunette took a deep breath and then step into the hallway, the sound made by the footsteps of her black Docs Martens eased by the grey thick carpet. Her amber eyes were glaring everywhere around her with the amazed look of a new-born, looking attentively at the big photos that were on the corridor's wall. Hermione already knew each one of them by heart but she couldn't help being stunned in front of the photographs. The angle of view, the lights and shadows game, the grain of the image, the respect of details; everything was worked until perfection was reached. It was such a perfection that the young high school girl only felt like crying seeing how much she wasn't on the same level.

The hallway was leading to a big round room with marble ground. Hermione moved forward timidly, the stress ball growing up in her stomach.

"And you are?"

The brunette jumped. She hadn't seen the office that was at her right. A blonde woman, wearing a low necked blouse, her lips painted in a provoking red, was looking at her with a condescending glare.

"I, er, in fact I'm Hermione Grang…"

"Ah, it's you," interrupted the secretary before pointing nonchalantly at the leather armchairs next to the hallway. "Sit down; I'm calling Mr. Malfoy to tell him you've arrived."

Hermione nodded and then headed toward the chairs to install herself. And she waited. A minute, five minutes, fifteen, thirty. Or maybe was it only ten minutes. Her stress was expanding time so much that, when the young woman of the reception told her that her boss was ready to see her, Hermione felt as if she had stayed sat for an entire day. The secretary made a sign to follow her and got into another colossally big hallway leading to a big oak tree door. During the short time of the route, the brunette tried to regularize her breathing while keeping her eyes on the vertiginous high heels of her hostess. Her fingers were literally putting down the shoulder strap of her bag and she never felt that nauseous.

And what if he'd change his mind and find her art horrible? And what if they had mistaken the winner? And what if he found her work too amateur? The three knocks the secretary stroked at the office's door took the young lady out of her spiral of worries and she raised her head while swallowing.

"Enter."

The secretary moved aside and made a sign to Hermione, telling her to go in the room. She had just entered when she heard the door slam behind her.

That was it.

The brunette moved of small little timid steps while looking around her. The office itself was half the size of her apartments. The furniture were little and in black and white, as where the photography on the wall. Victorians' glasses were at least two meters high and the ground was of black carpet. Leaning on a big ebony desk, Lucius Malfoy was turning his back to her and talking in his mobile phone. Hermione then waited awkwardly on the door's landing for the photographer to finish his conversation, which lasted exactly eight minutes. Hermione had had her eyes straight on the clock of the room. Lucius then took his mobile phone of his ear and started writing something on it – which took one minute and a half – before putting it into his pocket to, finally, turn toward her.

His eyes evaluated her rapidly before taking the chair behind his desk and sitting on it.

"Sit down," he finally said, pointing the black velvet ottoman facing his table.

Hermione did as she was told in a robotic demarche but stayed perfectly straight on her chair. Then, she suddenly remembered what she was transporting in her bag and dug into it to find a carnet she handed him. He raised an eyebrow.

"What is it?"

"My book. I listed every photo that are, err, the one I think I executed the best."

The student looked at him turning the pages with an anxious glare. She had always been really timid about her passion, and people who had seen her work could be counted on a single hand. Having her work being evaluated by the Master of the 8th art was beating everything. Lucius eyes' were slowly looking at the photo, only skimming through some, glaring more attentively at others, skipping pages. He finished by closing the book without even seeing everything.

"How old are you?" he asked, crossing his hands on the book.

"Seventeen and a half."

"Hmm." He cracks his articulations. "Year 12?"

Hermione nodded but felt like she needed to be more precise:

"I did the admission process for a Beaux-Arts faculty next year."

"Which one?"

"Beauxbâtons."

"It won't match with you," he answered immediately.

Hermione stood a few seconds without really knowing what to reply.

"Well…" she started, her eyes hurting her seriously. "It's true that eh required level is really high and I…"

"That's not it," he interrupted her, "You're too talented for a school like Beauxbâtons".

There, the high school student had to hold the sofa's arm for not to fall back. Did he just say that she was too talented to go to…? No way. That was not possible. She must have dreamt.

"What are you doing in the coming weeks?" asked Lucius while sitting back in his leather chair.

"I…err… nothing special", blurted out Hermione, still dazed. "I'm in vacation during two weeks and then, I'll go back to class."

Lucius nodded and then played with his finger on his desk.

"I saw the photographs you sent for the prize. The theme were really… interesting."

Hermione kept for herself that Harry had taken them totally randomly in her photo lab before sending them.

"Since when do you practice?"

"Since… well, a long time. I had my first camera at ten."

"Do you have a particular model?"

Hermione crossed her eyebrows, not sure what he meant by that.

"Which photographers inspire you?" then reformulates Lucius.

"Oh," finally understood Hermione before thinking about it. "Well… There are pretty much, to say the truth… I really like Doisneau. Henri Certier-Bresson, too. And…"

"Are you French?" he guessed.

The young high school student let out a nervous laugh.

"Yes," she admitted.

Lucius had a smirk that gave Hermione the vague impression that he was mocking her.

"And I? Don't I inspire you?"

And there were the rumors about him confirmed. He was talented but had an incorrigible egocentrism.

"Yes! Yes, of course!" immediately rectified Hermione. "I really admire your work, and I find your technique unique. I know almost all of your photos by heart and I have a big version of Narcissa printed out. It's at the top of my bed," couldn't help but add the young girl.

This time, she was sure that the beginning of the smile that was showing on his lips was all but mockery.

Narcissa was extracted from a series of photographs of the same name that were presenting Lucius Malfoy's wife. This photo shoot had been made in the 90's, when the two of them had just gotten married, and the legend said that this piece made eternal the cult that Lucius had always felt for his spouse. Narcissa was one of this masterpiece made a bit randomly that signed the entry of a photograph in the legend. Hermione couldn't get enough of reading again and again the art magazine where she saw it for the first time, hoping to find out the mystery ingredient that made this series that hypnotic.

Lucius opened the book of the young lady sitting before him randomly and stroked the pages without really paying attention to them.

"I have a project I've been thinking about for a couple of years now."

Hermione listened carefully while her interlocutor played with the side of her book.

"But it's a personal project. Well, at the same time personal and public, I may say."

The brown-haired girl chewed her upper lip, waiting for him to say what he actually wanted to.

"To make this project, I need someone that is a total outsider of my personal environment but who can enter it and see how things change."

"I can do it," had to say Hermione.

"That's why you're here," answered Lucius. "Do you know why your photos made an impression on me?"

"… no?"

"You have a way to take things à vif, in a raw way that may seem to be amateur-like at first view but that happens to be, when we look at it twice, totally worked on. Some of your work are gentle, some don't have any pity. And that's what I'm searching. No pity."

Hermione nodded deeply. But what then…?

"Are you leaving for holidays?" he asked suddenly, dropping off the precedent subject.

"I had to go to Spain with my parents the first weekend of the holidays but that was before I received the letter from the prize. They left without me."

"So you're not leaving", he resumed.

Hermione nodded again then risked herself at asking:

"Why?"

"I want you to come live at mine during this two weeks," said bluntly the photographer.

The high school student raised her eyebrows, stunned. Did she just get invited to stay over at Lucius Malefoy's? She discretely pinched herself for the fortieth time of the day. But no. All of this was totally real.

"To… To live at… at yours?"

"Yes. And from tonight. That's my project." He announced, solemnly crossing his hands. "I want a family album. But not any family album that would take the dust in one of the living room's shelf. I want an album where each photos would give out the personality of someone, his soul. I want raw. I don't want any gift. Not even with me. I want that each portraits, each life-scene, each feelings, each pose are authentic. That we can tell ourselves when closing the book that this is how the Malfoy's are.

Hermione could not stand on her chair. What she just heard sounded like pure melody to her ears. That was the opportunity of her life. That was paradise on a plate. Entering the Malfoy's life, putting herself in their skins, living their lives… it was beyond imagination.

"So… You mean that I would live with you and…"

"You'll leave us each day during the two next weeks. You'll follow me, you'll follow Narcissa, and you'll also follow my son, Draco. You'll take all the photos you need to and, by the end of your stay, you'll give me the final product."

"And are you sure that I won't disturb your family by following them permanently?"

"I doubt that," mocked Lucius, "They love having attention on them."

Hermione nodded, thinking of other questions she could ask.

"And… And what if the final work don't please you?"

"I doubt that," he answered before getting up, "We say goodbye until tonight, then?"

The brown-haired mimicked him and shacked his hand for the first time.

"Yes. See you to… oh, what is your address?"

"You'll see all of this with my secretary, Rebecca."

"Alright."

She took her book but Lucius pulled it towards him before she could take it off the table.

"I'm keeping it," he said with a small smile.

"Oh. Alright."

She started walking towards the door but changed her mind and turned back to Lucius.

"You'll… When are you going to give it back?"

But Lucius was already in another discussion throughout his phone. Hermione then disappeared from the office.

"Seriously?" almost strangled herself Ginny at the phone, once her best friend had finished telling her all about the meeting. "And you have his address?"

"Malfoy Manor, 106 Slytherin Road, London," recited by heart Hermione while throwing a pair of jean in her travel's bag.

"Oh my God!" shouted Ginny. "That's totally crazy! And you're going to go? What time? You'll tell me how it is? Oh my G… Hey! Harry, bloody hell, stop it. B…"

"Hermione, don't tell me you're going!" then said Harry's voice.

The brown-haired girl choose a pair of Converse in her dressing that took the same direction than her jean.

"What? You don't want me to go?"

"Of course I don't want you to!" shouted the brown-haired guy. "You don't know what you're getting into. What tells you that this guy won't, I don't know, sequestrate you?"

"Well yes, of course!" laughed Ginny in his back.

"Harry, you were the first one to tell me to participate to this prize. Now that I have this opportunity, you want me to back off? That's a bit of a bipolar attitude."

"I don't want you to back off, only to be careful. Can't you go in the morning and go back home at night instead of staying over?"

"I could, but I already said yes, so I'm going to go. And he's not living alone, he has a wife and a child."

Harry had a mocking laugh.

"Oh right, that changes everything."

"Harry, Lucius Malfoy is not a killer or a pervert."

"And how could you know? You said he's living in a Manor, no? Who tells you he's not hiding slaves in his c…"

"Alriiight, give me this mobile phone," said Ginny. "Don't listen to him, Mione. He has his paranoiac stage once a day. It happened on you today."

Hermione laughed while closing her bag with a single hand.

"Tell him I'll be careful if that can put him at peace." She putted the bag on her should, pouting at the weight of it. "And, honestly, I don't think I'm the most careless of us two. Who did to himself a pretty bad scar on his forehead while trying motorbike without permit? Hmm?"

Harry protested in the back ground –it was not a motorbike anyway, it was a quad!

Hermione verified that all the lights were shut down, cut the power in the house, locked the windows and assured herself that her bag contained all her photography material, then closed the door. Arrived down, she commanded a taxi and gave her the Manor's address. Sitting at the back of the vehicle, Hermione looked at the end-of-the-day urban scenery by the window. A ballet of color where melted signal fire, shops' ensign and cars' light. Everything where her eyes stopped seemed to be beautiful thanks to her amazing great mood.

Her taxi got into an impasse with loads of luxurious residences and ending with a gigantic portal that made it impossible to see what was behind it.

"This is where you're living?" asked the chauffeur, impressed.

Hermione nodded slowly as a smile slowly grew on her lips.

"Yes. It's here."

She paid the bill and got her things out. She headed towards the interphone, took a deep breath and pressed the unique button. The high school girl waited, ready to present herself into the microphone, but saw the portal open itself for her the second later.

A gigantic castle was facing her, that gigantesque Hermione almost was terrified. She stepped one step forward and walked up the alley, not having enough eye to admire the manor and the perfectly cut garden. The brown-haired girl stepped on the rocked stairs guiding her through the porch, where she pulled down the doorknob to find herself in an entry hall all built in mosaic and glass, a stair built in oak in the middle of the room. Statues in bronze and marble were on the walls, and a big chandelier in crystal was covering the faraway ceiling.

"Damn!" couldn't help but mutter Hermione while dropping off her bags.

Her glare was going from a thing to another, not getting tired of what she was seeing. If the entry hall was already putting her in such a state, what would the other room do to her? Her eyes raised while following the majestic emerald tapestry that decorated the stairs and felt down on a shadow that was going down. A young man, to say it all. Blond, chemise, jean with holes, he was putting on his vest when his eyes stopped on Hermione. Judging by the resemblance with Lucius, the young girl deduced she was dealing with his son, Draco.

He continued to step down the stairs but slowly, his ashes-like eyes not leaving once her stare. And it was an aggressive glare, threatening. He supposedly did not like her presence here. Or maybe was it his way to look at people. In all cases, Hermione really didn't feel safe. She however stood her head up, not shivering when he arrived at the ground level, cigarette between her lips, and heading towards her while lilting it on. He stopped near her, took a long and first sniff of the nicotine bar he had between her fingers, then breathed out insolently the integrality of the air stocked in his lungs at Hermione's face. The young girl helped herself from coughing but started drifting back, even more when Draco bent toward her to mutter:

"Try following me, and I kill you."

I hope this first chapter pleased you. I expect to post the second one in about two or three weeks, it will be more focused on Draco! Don't forget to leave a review, it will be transmitted to the writer!