Two queens stand before me. Ladies, this is your last chance to impress me and save yourself from elimination. The time has come for you to lip sync for your life. Good luck and DON’T fuck it up.
Redeeming Draco in fics is easy (he was an impressionable kid, he was taught bigotry by his family)
and redeeming Lucius in fics is just plain funny. Way harder to do but funny as fuck. Like. He's a war criminal. He's a father-in-law to Harry Potter against his will. He's old and he cares about his wife and his son and his hair and that's IT.