In Defense of Lumione
As this blog is strictly Lucius Malfoy/Hermione Granger, I thought I would offer my two cents on why this particular ship drew me in.
Firstly, before I delve into Lumione, if any interested parties are willing to spare some time, there is an excellent deconstruction of this pairing by chthonya on the blog ship-manifesto at dreamwidth.
Please, please read it! It’s outstanding. It breaks down pretty much every aspect of the pairing so hopefully people who do not actively ship them can at least understand what draws people in.
Onto my analysis, which will unfortunately not be as detailed as theirs, but I’ll try my best.
Why on Earth do people pair them up romantically? First and foremost, it’s the “enemies to lovers” and “opposites attract” tropes exemplified: Lucius Malfoy is a bad guy, and Hermione Granger is a good girl. He’s older, she’s younger (25 year age difference). He’s Pureblood, she’s Muggleborn. He’s rich, she’s modest. They’re on opposing sides of a war.
He is, as described by the wonderful Jason Isaacs, a racist, elitist, absurdly wealthy coward of a man who is obsessed with status and eliminating the world of Muggles because he’s afraid of them and what the world is evolving into, a.k.a., a much more progressive one where Muggleborns are accepted into wizarding schools and taking positions of high office, as well as Muggles being protected rather than condemned. That means that the old establishment of Purebloods, which his family has been a part of for over a thousand years, is being swept away to make room for the new. Already, he has an agenda against people like Hermione and her parents, and has the means to front the attack on them, from influencing school and Ministry politics (his father, Abraxus Malfoy, was behind the resignation of the first Muggleborn Minister for Magic), to actively terrorizing Muggle families as a Death Eater and right-hand man for Voldemort.
Honestly, he’s quite despicable and in canon, hates Hermione purely for existing. Draco’s behavior toward her at school is entirely modeled after his father, and Jason Isaacs played his role with the intention of making even Draco look good by comparison. So it’s safe to assume that were Lucius and Hermione left alone in a room together, it would get pretty ugly, pretty fast.
Hermione, on the other hand, is a driven young woman and a wizarding prodigy born to Muggle parents who has had to carve a path of success for herself because of people like the Malfoys, even going to the point of welcoming the derogatory term “Mudblood” with pride because she isn’t afraid of who she is. She cares about equality and fairness, and possesses courage, compassion, and a desire to protect and understand those who are disenfranchised (e.g. her involvement in defending Buckbeak from wrongful execution and founding S.P.E.W. to give house-elves the same rights as wizardkind). Hermione is exceptionally skilled yet not conceited, and is also not afraid to throw herself in the line of fire for her friends. She is the antithesis of Lucius Malfoy.
When you have two individuals on each end of the moral spectrum, it instantly creates the potential for them to meet in the middle. What that journey looks like, who knows? It certainly won’t be easy, enjoyable, or even guaranteed to be successful. They will fight, tooth-and-nail, every step of the way. There’s a lot of angst and confrontation to be had in this ship. Is this desirable in reality? No! That’s why fandoms and fanfiction exist, though, so that people can entertain these dark yet fascinatingly complex relationships and see what it would take to make them fall for each other, or at least develop into better characters.
With Lucius and Hermione (and by association, Draco and Hermione, or Tom Riddle and Hermione), you have a conservative bigot and a bleeding-heart progressive. Both are fighting for survival in a world that can only accommodate one zeitgeist.
(I know that term for left-leaning people is often thrown around as an insult, but being very liberal myself, I think of it as a compliment. I’m sorry if it offends anyone.)
The conjunction of such opposing identities is rare, but not impossible. So automatically, it’s very interesting to think of scenarios that bring some grey into such black-and-white thinking. Since both Hermione and Lucius are quite stuck in their ways, this usually pans out as Lucius being knocked down a peg or two, or a hundred, to get him to start realizing that hey, maybe Muggles and Muggleborns are people too. That’s more common than Hermione turning evil, though those fics do exist as well. Hermione is imperative in facilitating this change of heart in Lucius, and it’s up to the writers to decide how this happens. Some common routes in fanfic are: Hermione becomes Lucius’ prisoner, they are forced to work together Post-War, Lucius turns defector for whatever reason, accidental love-potion antics, they’re soulmates bound by fate, time travel adventures, etc. The routes to take are numerous. Each one is unique but more or less, the dynamics between them are ~usually~ the same.
What about the age difference? An inciting incident happens that brings these two disparate characters together. Hermione winds up falling for a man twenty-five years her senior, and Lucius equally becomes involved with a very young female, who may also still be a student. Whether that starts while she’s underage or as an adult is again, up to the writer’s discretion. Lumione fanfiction can’t be categorized as just one thing, and shouldn’t be vilified as a whole because of one author’s interpretation (or any!). Age difference in ships is not everyone’s cup of tea, which is a totally acceptable reason to be put off. Entirely “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat”. If you don’t like it, don’t read it. For some people however, it’s a fantasy, perhaps a kink, maybe it simply intrigues them, or it doesn’t matter too much one way or the other.
Lucius in fanfics can range from a predatory abusive villain to a loving consensual life partner, so the reasons he would approach Hermione are just as varied. Do I personally think he would be straight-up p*doph*lic? Not in canon, no. I think he would certainly wait until Hermione was of age to consent, which in the U.K. is sixteen. Still very young, squicky to some, but not illegal. If people want to write him otherwise, then that’s their prerogative. Reading or writing fanfiction with contentious tropes like the above mentioned does not mean you condone the activity in real life. On the other hand, Lumione has a very sizable majority of fics where Hermione is an adult, and so the age difference (and consequently, the power dynamics) is less impactful.
What would make Lucius fall for Hermione? She’s beautiful, brilliant, driven, resilient, feminine, and much more. Not unlike Narcissa, his wife, in those aspects. And that’s an important plot point, maneuvering around his marriage. There’s no evidence to show that his marriage is unhappy, but there’s also no overtly loving displays of affection exchanged between any of the Malfoys, apart from Narcissa’s devotion to Draco. So it’s common for writers to create some distance between Lucius and Narcissa. Would Lucius falling for Hermione be in line with a midlife-crisis-esque involvement with “the younger woman” and total revamp of his personality? Totally. Is it despicable? Yes, if context dictates and monogamy is important to you. It’s also common enough in real life that the option to have an affair with her, at least, is not off the table. I’m sure that were Lucius and Narcissa to have secretly had an open relationship (just for argument’s sake), neither would be choked up to start sleeping with other people. As for being with Hermione, Lucius would have to get over his aversion to her “kind” through denial, redemption, matters of circumstance, a retconning plot device, or maybe by just having a thing for her.
What would make Hermione fall for Lucius? Well, there could be a lengthy discussion on Freudian theory, but it can be condensed to her being attracted to a figure of authority, an older man with sexual experience, who has the means to provide her with lavish gifts and attention she’s otherwise not used to receiving. He’s also a moral foil, and the perfect contender for her to stage a battle of wits and willpower against. Lucius was a prefect and often obsesses over how Hermione consistently beats Draco academically, so they are both passionate when it comes to education. They are both very devoted to their families/close friends, and are stubbornly set in their ways. Hermione is also not entirely against breaking the rules and lying to achieve certain results, just like Lucius. He’s also conventionally attractive, meticulous, and “unattainable”. There is canon evidence that Hermione is not opposed to feeling infatuation for an older man, as she does for Gilderoy Lockhart in Chamber of Secrets. In Goblet of Fire, there is a passage where Lucius looks directly at Hermione, more than once, and she blushes while holding eye contact. So, the potential for attraction is definitely there in subtext.
In conclusion? This is a Death Eater paired with a Muggleborn, to him, a “Mudblood”. The pressing issues are that, for them to embark upon a relationship together, they have to:
Be put in contact with each other through some means.
Address the disparity between their ages & their socioeconomic, political, and moral positions.
Establish the power dynamics between them, the consensuality of the liaison, and navigate complex emotions with potentially deadly ramifications.
Do all fanfics have to follow canon? Of course not. Artistic freedom is one of the finer things in life, so if retconning canon, creating AUs or divergences is what you want to do, then do it! If writing within the universe JKR intended, then there’s some work to be done. Have fun with it. That’s the great thing about fanfiction and fandom as a whole. Each person can decide who they ship together and how they want to ship them. Lumione to me is an incredible pairing, full of angst, intrigue, danger, longing, that I can tailor to my heart’s desire.
We have a wonderful fanbase of dedicated content creators and it’s hard to find a nicer group than Lumione fans (Lumioneans? Lumionites?). There are new fics added and updated constantly, ten years after the last film came out! Judging by the size of Lumione groups just on Facebook and VK alone, there are thousands of fellow Lucius/Hermione shippers. That’s seriously impressive for such an underrated pairing. So don’t be ashamed to bring a little Lumione into someone’s life—they just might like it.
I hope you all enjoyed my Lumione Ted Talk. I’m an avid writer and this ship is very much a creative muse of mine. I’d love to discuss other people’s thoughts on this analysis.
~ Dvati
