History of Magic, Assignment 6: Write about finding hope in an unlikely situation. Alternatively, write about escaping something.

Payday: Prompts - Lucius/Hermione, fortify

There was something satisfying about watching the girl writhe on the floor with her mouth opened in a scream Lucius could no longer hear, but there was something horrific about it too.

The satisfaction was familiar. The horror was not.

"MUDBLOOD!" spat his step-sister, Bella, her face red with anger. "Where'd you get the sword? Where did you get it, you filth-!"

"I don't - I don't - I don't know! Please, I don't-"

"YOU LIE! CRUCIO!"

Lucius blinked hard and forced himself to still stare at the Mudblood Hermione Granger on the floor. His ears had long since tuned out her high-pitched screams of a girl not yet twenty, but somehow her pleads remained clearer than the pain etched on her dirty face. He squinted, daring himself to focus on her without letting his mind escape his bleak hold on reality.

He remembered her now clearly. How many times had she been Draco's pathetic excuse for coming second in the class? The cleverest witch in her year… but what a shame for her that cleverness was not taken into consideration when her blood status was the lowest of the low. The cleverest witch of her year now lay on the floor under another clever witch's relentless wand.

"Where did you find it?!" screamed Bella again. It was very unapparent to Lucius what Bella appeared to be so frightened about, but it must have been something extremely important and pertinent to the Dark Lord, because never in months had Bella been this angry.

He stiffened and waited for the Mudblood's broken voice to pierce the room.

She obliged. "No, please! We found it, I don't know, please-"

Out of the corner of his eye, Lucius saw Draco fully flinch. Perhaps it was a misfortune that it happened to be the holidays. If Bella managed to tear her attention from her pray and see Draco's pale, sickly face, surely she would put in a bad word with the Lord…

"Crucio, crucio, crucio!"

Nothing to fear, he thought. Bella would be occupied for a while.

It was when he allowed his eyes to relax and waver from the Mudblood's crumpled form that he heard her screams with clarity, and realized that the girl was saying something as she screamed, gaining momentum and fortifying herself with each lash of Bellatrix's words. She was screaming words just barely noticeable for her screams of pain, but the more Lucius directed his attention to her mouth and yells, the more he could decipher.

"Never."

Of all the stupid things, thought Lucius. Of all the naïve, stupid things the Mudblood could waste her energy on.

He almost forgot that he was not allowed to scoff.

He felt a light touch at his elbow and Narcissa's lilac perfume surrounded him. He sniffed it delicately, then invitingly. The smell of flowers was preferable to the smell of pain and torture.

Narcissa's lips parted and he expected that she had also figured out the Mudblood was screaming what it probably thought was a brave Gryffindor battle cry.

His wife just barely whispered the words, "She's only Draco's age."

A parental instinct that even the Dark Lord could not wring out of Lucius made him, and Narcissa, turn slightly to their son. Draco stood against the walls, his face as impressively impassive as Lucius's, but it didn't take more than a glance to see that he was utterly stiff. His face was tense and any minute now, he would begin to clench his fists.

Lucius closed his eyes. Only eighteen. His son was just eighteen.

His breaths became shorter, faster, and Lucius found himself staring at the wall just above Bellatrix instead of the ground. Draco hadn't been at the top of his year, but he was brought up well and managed to do something the Dark Lord had never been able to accomplish. Draco hadn't been been an entirely obedient child, but he had restored a shred of the Malfoys' dignity when Lucius was in no position to do so. Draco hadn't been the best son, but he had been his son.

And he was only eighteen.

"The goblin! Get the goblin!" snarled Bellatrix, turning on the family with a fierce glint in her eyes. Lucius was suddenly thankful that he wasn't the person under her wand at the time, and for the first time, wondered why Mudblood Hermione Granger hadn't broken into pieces yet. How she could still lay there, screaming and alive.

"Go, Draco," he heard Narcissa whisper, and the slight jangle of keys made Lucius turn. Draco was slipping out of the room in a quick stride, as if desperate to escape the scene. Only eighteen.

Lucius turned away from his son and once more stared at the Mudblood on the floor. Her hair was in her eyes, in her mouth, an unruly mess that only highlighted her dirty status.

But two hours later after the Mudblood and Potter and their friends had escaped, when Lucius returned to the drawing room after bearing the Dark Lord's anger, he stared at the very same spot that the Mudblood had lay, unable to escape the haunting image of the chandelier (now broken) casting lights over her pale face. He wondered if the Mudblood would always remember the feel of the stone tiles beneath her fragile form. She'd escaped the Manor, but could she escape the way she had been on the floor, her body shaking with pain and the vibrations of her screams? This was where the Mudblood had lay.

No, he corrected himself. Where Hermione Granger, who was just months older than Draco, had lay.

Lucius sighed and relented. No. Not the Mudblood, and her name was irrelevant.

Where the girl had lay.

To explain the usage of my HoM prompts - Lucius's thoughts represent hope for change in his mindset towards Muggleborns even though it was unlikely that he would ever change his mind.