This story is dedicated to Makani, because it is entirely her fault that I now adore the Malfoys and also find them unutterably hilarious. Really, everything I write in Potter-verse ought to be dedicated to her, because her art took my love of the books to a whole new level. But this story, especially, is her fault; it was inspired by (and the title shamelessly lifted from) one particular drawing of hers, which can be seen at her Potter Art website, Accio Brain, found at acciobrain dot ligermagic dot com (look for "square" under Fanart100). Thanks, Makani!

Reasonable Romances
Being a Record of the Romantic Entanglements of the Malfoy Family
~

It was a dirty, not-so-secret fact of the Pureblood world that the perfection expected of their children was sometimes encouraged with more than words alone. Punishments for a daughter or especially for a son proving to be "only human" were often dealt out as physical or magical reprimands, sometimes quite vigorously. Failing to live up to the ideal of the perfect child was unacceptable.

Lucius Malfoy strove constantly for perfection but it wasn't to please his father.

It was to spite him.

Lucius lived his whole life to goad his father. On the surface he appeared the perfect, dutiful son, but he and Abraxas both knew that every smile was laced with scorn and every acquiescence was given with a secret sneer. Even knowing the often violent consequences, Lucius reveled in baiting his father.

He did not resort to the common tactic of outright rebellion; he didn't frequent Muggle establishments, or slum in the company of Mudbloods, or engage in any other sort of deplorable, disgraceful behavior for the sole purpose of embarrassing and infuriating his elders. He saw no reason to sacrifice his own reputation and future simply to annoy his father.

Abraxas wasn't worth it.

So Lucius played the proper young Pureblood, because he was one. Lucius was always polite—to those who deserved it—and scornful to those who didn't. He knew who he was better than, and that was quite nearly everyone. Lucius genuinely abhorred the Muggle-born filth that polluted the wizarding world, he never had to fake sincerity when insulting blood traitors, and he knew for a fact that as far as wizarding families went his was better—and older, and purer—than most. But he was a gentleman about it, more or less. There was, after all, nothing quite so rude as perfect politeness if one did it right.

Lucius excelled in his classes and made all the right friends. He swaggered through Slytherin like he owned it, and he may as well have. He was Prefect and, to all extents and purposes, king of the green and silver. He got in with the right people and, when he graduated, he made that one particularly advantageous alliance—

But that was later.

At school, he soared on the Quidditch pitch; the gorgeous young athlete winning points and glory for himself and his House. He might not have been the absolute best Quidditch player at Hogwarts, perhaps, that was arguable, but he was certainly very, very good, and he played it with the most flair. He ranked in the top handful, to be sure, and he made sure that his skills were noticed. Everyone said that he could have played professionally, if Malfoys had needed to work, or simply as a professional hobby since they didn't, if he'd wanted to—and if it hadn't been for that other, more important something that he became so busy with after school, that precluded him engaging in frivolities like sports, no matter how good he looked on a broom or how many teams would have liked the chance to put him on their pitch.

He flirted just enough—well, maybe a little more than that—with all the right witches, teasingly dangling the possibility of full courtship in front of the more impressive prospects; he was a Malfoy, and he would inevitably make an advantageous marriage, and in the meantime he played the game with breathtaking eloquence that had proper young ladies falling all over themselves for the chance to dance with dear Lucius. Perhaps he flirted just a little more than was strictly necessary, but he did enjoy it so.

(Then he met Narcissa, or more accurately he suddenly noticed her because he'd known her all along but one day she was there and then the flirting was only fun if she was watching, and looked jealous. And then it was only fun when he was flirting with her. But that was later, too.)

Lucius was, in short, exactly what he was expected to be. He excelled at his role of the perfect Pureblood son and heir but he also excelled at rubbing it in his father's face. Everything he did was in spite of his father, never because of, and he made certain that Abraxas knew it. Lucius never obeyed; he occasionally chose to, coincidentally, do the very thing that his father had desired, but it was never because Abraxas wished it. Lucius would go out of his way to foil his father, but always ever so subtly. No one but Abraxas himself could ever make note of Lucius's disobedience. He was very careful about that. In public, he played the dutiful son, but he took care to make certain that his father knew he always did it with a sneer.

There was neither love nor respect between the two Malfoys. If Abraxas was proud of having such a properly perfect—albeit mortally annoying—son, he never said. The occasional gruff, off-hand, "well done," was all the praise Lucius's efforts ever received, and little annoyed the younger Malfoy more than the very few occasions when it sounded like his father actually meant it.

As for Lucius, if he had ever looked up to his father, those days had ended when he was very young. By the time he walked through the doors of Hogwarts, Lucius had already established the habit of baiting his father to blind rage. Abraxas knew how little regard Lucius held him in; Lucius always made that expressly clear. And nothing annoyed Abraxas Malfoy more than disrespect which was, of course, why his son worked so hard to convey his.

It was a good thing Lucius was so fond of Quidditch, because the rough and risky sport made an excellent excuse for all manner of bruises, cuts, and other, less benign injuries.

Abraxas's innocence was questioned, just once, by one of Lucius's teachers who was concerned about his son's physical state. Minerva McGonagall, the Transfiguration professor, confronted the boy about his father's temper after Lucius returned from a brilliantly infuriating Christmas holiday his second year, before he was playing Quidditch and could use that as an excuse, because even the most adept healing spell can't fully eliminate the fading yellow traces of heavy bruising. Lucius was a particularly eloquent twelve-year-old, though, and smoothly talked his father out of any trouble.

Then he sent home a gloating letter detailing how his father was in his debt for how deftly Lucius had deflected McGonagall's inquiry. He was always good at talking his way out of trouble, was Lucius, and he was smugly pleased at the chance to be able to help his father out and rub it in Abraxas's face whenever anyone accused him of doing what everyone knew he was.

Pureblood society, of course, knew better than to ask those sorts of questions.

Eventually Lucius grew too big to beat, and then too clever to hex, but that didn't mean Abraxas stopped trying. On the contrary, the older Lucius grew, the more he seemed to enjoy infuriating his father to the brink of violence and beyond. He would let the old man get a few good blows or curses in, and then smirk through his bloody lips so that Abraxas knew that Lucius could have stopped him if he'd wanted to.

Lucius allowed his father to have his little temper tantrums, and that of course only made Abraxas madder. That superior feeling Lucius had when he saw the enraged realization dawn in his father's cold eyes was delightfully sweet, and well worth the pain.

The charismatic Lucius Malfoy was very good at getting people to like him. But he was very, very good at getting people to hate him.

He'd been practicing with his father all his life.

Friends, fans, teachers, and sycophants all doted on him. Lucius Malfoy: Quidditch star, Slytherin Prefect, elite member of the Slug Club, and, eventually, favored servant of the Dark Lord. There was really nothing he could do that wasn't perfect in the (admittedly distorted) eyes of his grand society. Life was a game, and he was the undisputed winner.

And then suddenly there was Narcissa Black, and the game got harder and infinitely more important than it had ever been before.