ITA with your main point in this post- that the ‘Lucius factor’ is something all H/D writers are essentially obligated to incorporate in their fics, if they want to pick up the story from the end of OOTP and keep it IC. And of course that is much harder to pull off than when writers could simply focus on Harry and Draco—and to think that it used to be considered a tough job to rid their relationship of such “interferences” as Ron, Hermione and Pansy :P!

But I am rather delighted to read all the conflicting ideas about how to write H/D “appropriately” post-OOTP. Haven’t seen vibrant discussions about this ship for a long time. I don’t believe there is One True Way to write post-OOTP H/D, be it Draco shocked into thinking/acting, Draco shocked into mute/doing nothing... as long as it is explored well as a non-producing pure consumer in this fandom (as ishitar termed it) I am eager to read any take!