Lucius Malfoy/Hermione Granger. Post-war. Mature themes.
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Father in Law Issues
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She knows it isn't right.
Draco is her husband. Lucius is just a man who happens to be his father. They're family by law and name only. Grudgingly, too, they barely get along.
They're barely relations, they have nothing in common—with the exception of Draco. They both love Draco.
Hermione and Lucius both put up with each other for the young blonde's sake. Draco wants them all to be a happy family together. Draco insists on having the man he loves best and the woman he loves best both by his side.
Hermione pretends. Lucius pretends even more, but that doesn't stop the grimace on the older man's face whenever Hermione walks into a room. Hermione still knows the older wizard considers her beneath him. It shows in every drippingly mocking reply and comment he makes to her. Sometimes Hermione just wants to storm out of the room.
"I indulge Draco so much." Really, she should've told Draco to take his racist father where the sun doesn't shine; that she didn't care to share the same breath with Lucius Malfoy, let alone attend dinners or family get togethers with the man.
Lucius is everything Hermione hates.
She loathes his very being.
Except that isn't completely true.
~o~
There is more to Lucius Malfoy than meets the eye.
It isn't just the vast wealth he has accumulated or the stern eye he has for keeping ahead of everyone else politically and financially. Lucius is intelligent. He's as charming as can be when he wants to be and when he's not in a foul mood, he's almost pleasant.
He's also terribly funny.
The impressions he makes. The little snide jokes.
She has to cover her mouth and pretend to hate him to not laugh too hard at times.
It isn't right to rub shoulders with a blood supremacist and share jokes with him.
Especially that time, Lucius did a perfect impression of Wally Warbeck, the famous singer's tone-deaf son. He kept looking over at her as if expecting to make her laugh, sensing she held something back.
She needs to keep pretending she hates him.
Except she doesn't anymore, does she?
They say familiarity breeds contempt. Hermione shakes her head: it's just the opposite.
All her life she hated Lucius Malfoy from a distance. Now that she knows him: it gets harder to hold onto the resentment she used to carry for so long towards him.
Of course, Lucius is still detestable in some ways that will never change. Malfoy Senior's treatment of house-elves is something she'll never get over and makes her want to smack her father-in-law on the backside of his head...
...still, Lucius is not completely detestable in all ways. When you get to know him, he has some good qualities and characteristics.
And Hermione has gotten to know him. She has come to know Lucius intimately over all these family dinners and luncheons and recitals.
A little too well perhaps.
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She knows many of the Malfoy family secrets, now that she is part of it.
The history of the Malfoys is a long and twisted dynasty that somehow ends with her, a muggleborn, mysteriously in the picture. The same people they looked down upon is now one of their family members.
She isn't complicit in their crimes, much of their history is questionable. Yet she does not take credit for any of their glories either. The Malfoy dynasty has had a long, good run and it wasn't by sheer luck. Draco's ancestors had some clever qualities that kept them from going amuck or squandering the family fortune.
Hermione thinks with a grim smile just how much further Lucius Malfoy has pushed the dynasty to increase and multiply their family's wealth.
It's almost admirable. Almost.
Yet she hates the man.
Hates.
And admires.
Just a bit.
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Still she can't help but notice the resemblance between Draco and Lucius.
They look alike.
There are similarities, more than just physically.
They even think alike, except Draco is much more modern and open-minded whereas his father is stuck in his ways.
It almost sends a chill down her spine, however, when Lucius glances over at her and for a moment she isn't sure whether its Draco's eyes or his.
They are so similar.
She bites her lip. A thought occurs to her.
Draco has a hidden vulnerable side. Does that mean Lucius has one too, deep down? She thinks carelessly she would give almost anything to find that man's weakness.
It's almost disturbing to think of Lucius as vulnerable. Almost impossible to imagine.
He is the most invulnerable man she had yet to meet. Stern and cold to his core.
She wonders if he even closes his eyes to sleep.
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She keeps thinking of his icy eyes as she lays down next to Draco.
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Later, as Draco's hands slide over her leg and up under her dress, she's shocked by herself when she realizes she's still thinking of Lucius's face.
Specifically, his eyes, as she comes undone by Draco's touch.
It's a disturbing combination and she sinks her head in shame for days afterwards.
How could she fantasize as such?
It's wrong. It's so very, very wrong.
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And somehow he knows.
Not Draco, but his father.
He senses the change in her, almost as if by his superiority he can breathe in her vulnerability, detect it, assess it, and realize she has the hots for him.
It's embarrassingly simple in a way.
Why did she deny it for so long?
Lucius Malfoy, whatever else she thought of him or his morals, was undeniably a gloriously attractive man. An imposing, strong man with thick arms and beautiful hair. Who also happened to look so much like the man she was in love with.
That was it. A mild attraction existed to Lucius because he looked so much like Draco.
Hermione shakes away her doubts: if Lucius didn't resemble Draco so much, she wouldn't even have spared him a second glance.
It's just the resemblance, she thinks, just the resemblance.
No more, no less.
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Yet that isn't the whole truth.
Everyday she finds herself fantasizing about him more and more.
More and more while she is with her husband, she is dreaming in her head of Lucius Malfoy doing the same things that Draco Malfoy does to her.
She covets it.
She doesn't even understand why she must fantasize, but she must.
Fantasizing of Lucius Malfoy as she makes love to his son has become a habit for her.
A very, very bad habit. It's like cigarettes to her, or drinking to an alcoholic. Hermione Malfoy has to think of other people while she is with her own husband. What has become of her moral compass?
She should be ashamed, but she comes so hard every time that she can't help herself. The pattern repeats.
And she looks forward to more family dinners and meetings with the in-laws so she can pretend to completely hate and be indifferent to Lucius Malfoy, her father in law.
She can convince almost everyone, including herself.
But she does not fool the man himself.
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He speaks over her shoulder one night while they are staying over at Malfoy Manor and Draco has slipped off early to bed. Her hands are in the sink, washing her dinner plate the muggle way, while Lucius Malfoy stands so close behind her she almost fears they will touch.
Her heartbeat is loud like drums in her own ears.
"I've noticed, Hermione," he drawls her name coolly. "That you've taken a liking to staring at me whenever we meet with my son. Pray, do you have anything to tell me, or are you that infatuated lately with my countenance that you can't stop looking?"
She wonders how she could ever lie to herself so deeply in this moment.
How she could miss something so obvious?
Nevertheless, Lucius Malfoy, has not missed anything. He's too observant and competitive to let anything go by unnoticed or unclaimed.
His hand presses into her lower back and her breathing nearly stops.
"Thank you, for informing me of this mishap," she lies to both herself and him. "I assure you it will stop from now on."
She is startled to hear Lucius Malfoy chuckle. It's the first time he has done anything so mundane in her presence and its highlighted by the fact that his powerful hand is still pressing hot onto her back. She gulps.
"What if I don't want it to stop, Miss Granger?"
His hand lowers from her back to her waist and presses the flesh firmly there.
She nearly chokes on her own breath.
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a/n: please review and share your thoughts, thanks
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