A Mysterious Portrait
The first days of term were always filled with a hum of activity—students scurrying through the halls, the murmur of lessons beginning, the familiar sound of quills scratching parchment. Hermione found herself slipping seamlessly into the role of professor, though the weight of her past still lingered like a shadow at the edge of her thoughts. Her Transfiguration classes kept her occupied, her mind engaged in the complexities of magic, but even amid the focus, there was one thought she couldn’t shake.
Lucian Malfoy.
The image of his portrait haunted her. Every time she passed through the hallways, her eyes were drawn to it. Something about him—about the way his eyes seemed to hold secrets—stirred a strange curiosity within her. Hermione couldn’t understand why she felt this pull toward him, toward understanding the man whose existence she had barely registered when he had been alive.
It wasn’t like her to be so consumed by something she couldn’t explain, but there was something deeply unsettling in not knowing. Why had Lucian, a Malfoy, been memorialized here at Hogwarts? And why had his involvement in the war been such a well-kept secret?
Her curiosity only deepened as the days passed.
After class one afternoon, Hermione found herself lingering in front of the portrait again, her eyes tracing the fine details of the painting. His expression seemed so calm, so unlike the cold indifference she had always associated with Draco. There was an intensity in Lucian’s gaze, a hidden layer beneath the surface.
“Why you?” she murmured softly, almost to herself.
There was no answer, only the soft flicker of light through the corridor. Lucian’s painted form remained still, as though the secrets he held would not be given up so easily.
The question stayed with her as she returned to her quarters that evening, her mind buzzing with half-formed thoughts. She had always believed herself to be done with the Malfoy family—after the war, she had made peace with Draco in her own way, but she had never spared much thought for his brother. The Malfoy name had been tainted by darkness for so long, yet here was a member of that family honored in a way that contradicted everything she thought she knew.
Hermione’s curiosity soon turned to research. If there was one thing she knew how to do well, it was finding answers.
In the quiet sanctuary of the Hogwarts library, Hermione spent hours pouring over records of the war. She pulled dusty volumes from the Restricted Section, pored through newspaper articles, and scanned through Ministry documents that had been declassified after Voldemort’s defeat.
But to her surprise, Lucian Malfoy’s name rarely appeared. There were a few mentions—brief, obscure references to his time as a student at Hogwarts, his family connections, and a vague note about his death during the final battle. Yet nothing of substance. It was as though he had slipped through the cracks of history, a footnote in a much larger story.
Frustrated, Hermione leaned back in her chair, rubbing her temples. How could someone who had been given a portrait in the castle have left so little trace behind? There was something more, something she wasn’t seeing.
It wasn’t until she stumbled upon an old Order of the Phoenix ledger, tucked away in a forgotten corner of the library, that her search finally yielded something of note.
Flipping through the pages, she came across the names of those who had been secretly involved with the Order during the war—members and informants who had helped behind the scenes. Most of the names were familiar to her—Mundungus Fletcher, Aberforth Dumbledore, Kingsley Shacklebolt—but then, on one of the later pages, her eyes landed on a name she had never expected to see.
Lucian Malfoy.
Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at the letters, her heart beating a little faster. He had been part of the Order? How had she not known this? How had no one known this?
She read on, her eyes widening as she learned more about his role. Lucian had been a covert informant, working behind the scenes, passing along crucial information to the Order. Unlike Draco, who had been entangled in the Dark Lord’s circle, Lucian had chosen a different path, one that had clearly cost him his life.
Her mind raced with the implications. Had he worked alongside her, Harry, and Ron without their knowledge? Had he been risking everything in secret while they had been fighting in the open?
There was a note in the margin of the page, written in the familiar, slanted hand of Aberforth Dumbledore:
"A quiet hero is often the most valuable. L.M. paid the highest price for his loyalty. May we remember his sacrifice, though he wished for no glory."
Hermione’s hands trembled slightly as she closed the ledger, her thoughts swirling. A quiet hero. How had Lucian, a Malfoy of all people, gone unnoticed as one of the Order’s informants? And why had he kept his involvement hidden?
The more she learned, the more the pieces of Lucian’s life seemed to fall into place. His portrait wasn’t just some token of honor—it was a tribute to a man who had made a choice that went against everything his family stood for. A man who had helped tip the balance in favor of the Light, all while remaining in the shadows.
The question that gnawed at her now wasn’t just why he had helped, but how. How had Lucian managed to straddle the line between his family’s dark legacy and his secret allegiance to the Order? And what had driven him to make that choice?
Her curiosity became something deeper, more personal. She felt drawn to him, to his story, in a way she couldn’t quite explain. Maybe it was because, like her, Lucian had been forced to make impossible choices. Or maybe it was because he had carried the weight of those choices alone, much like she had.
That night, as she lay in bed, the castle quiet around her, Hermione couldn’t stop thinking about him. About his portrait. About the way he had been painted, with that faint, almost knowing smile.
There was more to Lucian Malfoy than she had ever realized, and somehow, she knew that understanding him would change something in her. The world had painted the Malfoys with one broad stroke, but Lucian’s story was different.
And she was determined to uncover it.
As her eyes drifted shut, she thought of Lucian’s painted eyes following her through the corridors, a silent reminder that sometimes, history kept its most intriguing secrets hidden in plain sight.