Breaking The Habit
Saturday, 26 June 2004
Draco sat in the study, waiting on Blaise Zabini. He had sent Zabini an owl the day before, requesting a meeting at the earliest convenience. The meeting was supposed to have started fifteen minutes ago, but Zabini was nowhere to be seen. A house-elf had led him to the study the second he had stepped out of the floo. Just when he was about to leave, Zabini finally showed up.
The two became friends first year, though they didn’t hang out publically. His father would not have been happy to hear that Draco was friends with a half-blood, so he kept it hidden. Draco knew this had always bothered Zabini, so the two were not particularly close, but they knew where their loyalties lay, and that was with each other.
“Malfoy, can’t say it's a pleasure to see you.” His friend drawled, taking a seat in the oversized armchair across from him.
“I could say the same.” After some silence, Zabini asks why Draco is there.
“I need a marriage contract drawn up, and delivered. Today.” Zabini raises an eyebrow but nods and summons some parchment and a quill. The two go over the basics, and Draco makes sure to include both Granger’s and his stipulations in the contract.
“This is quite generous. You gain nothing, and this woman gains everything. You don’t even have a fidelity clause. Though I don’t understand the point in putting in the ‘must reside in Malfoy manor’ and ‘no alcohol consumption,’ but it is your marriage, so it’s not like I have to understand it.” Zabini said, gathering together all the documents. “I can have all this written up before lunch, and deliver it afterwards.” The two shook hands, and Draco left quickly.
~
Hermione didn’t normally work on Saturdays, the beauty of being able to dictate her hours, for the most part. While she helped in the emergency department when needed, Hermione’s main job was research. She had started the training to be a healer shortly after Ron and she had broken up, encouraged by Theo. It took her two years to finish the training, instead of the normal one year. It had upset her greatly, and she had lost a lot of sleep over it. She had worked exclusively in the emergency department with Theo, but when the head of the research department approached her about a position six months ago, she jumped at the chance.
A month before the transfer, Hermione had broken down, experiencing paranoia and reckless behavior due to the lack of sleep. She hadn’t been able to, having developed a dependency on calming draughts and dreamless sleep potions, that no longer worked on her. She took it occasionally now, only on nights she was desperate, even if it wore off quickly. The night a few weeks ago was the first time in five months she had taken any.
Hermione was painfully aware that the reason she was offered the position was due to her health, and not that she was wanted there. Her new supervisor did not like her, which was evident in the workload she was given. Any task that he deemed below him, was passed to Hermione. However, she was given the opportunity to lead a project and had her first meeting to pitch the idea to him at the end of July. With a month left to perfect it, she was putting in extra hours, which is the reason why Blaise Zabini found her hunched over her desk, flipping through her paperwork.
Hermione looked up when there was a knock on her open office door. Blaise stood there, hands tucked into the pockets of his dress pants, leaning against the door jam. “What can I do for you, Blaise?” She hadn’t even known he was back in the country, seeing as he left for a wedding involving a long-distance cousin of his two weeks ago, and wasn’t due back for another week.
He walks towards her desk, tossing a packet onto it. “I would like for you to explain why Draco Malfoy is having me bring you a marriage contract.”
“Oh. You can just leave those here. I’ll look at them later.” She fidgets slightly, shuffling the papers again, despite them already being organized. She doesn’t want him to ask questions, but she knows he is going to push until he gets answers. It was one of the main reasons they got along so well.
If you asked any of the “snakes,” as Ginny repeatedly referred to them as, they would tell you that Hermione and Blaise were close. Hermione was probably closer to Blaise than she was Pansy, and Hermione didn’t see a problem with that. When Pansy got her to join them for Saturday night drinks, she found herself spending most of the night talking to Blaise, even after the others had gone to bed.
Anytime one of them needed to talk about anything serious, the other was readily available. If she was being honest with herself, she was avoiding talking to him. She knew that she was bound to start crying if he looked at her like he could read every thought behind her eyes.
“This is about what happened at your flat.” It wasn’t a question. She didn’t feel the need to answer him. He reaches over and takes the folders out of her hands, setting them down.“Why?”
“Oh. Um, he has the resources available to me that I need, so I asked him. It was Pansy’s idea.” She forces herself to look at him. Blaise nods. She yawned, her eyes watering as she did so. She was beginning to develop a headache and wanted to work in silence.
“Are you getting any sleep?” His voice was full of concern, and she waved it off, stating that she had just gotten up early. “I was told not to leave here without a signed copy of them, but if it is any consolation, I think you should sign them.”
Her head snaps up, making eye contact. “Why?” That was not what she was expecting him to say to her. She had thought he would react negatively, and for some reason hoped that he would convince her that it was a crazy idea. Blaise fidgeted with some of the things on her desk before sighing.
“Because you are right. He has the resources you need. The Manor’s wards are the oldest around, and can protect against the death eaters and werewolves hunting you. He can provide the funds for your research. Not only that, he is giving you everything you could ever want. Unrestricted access to both the Black and Malfoy vaults and estates. He doesn’t want blood bonds or children, so those requirements were removed from a traditional contract, as well as the lack of a fidelity clause. Everything in that folder is for your benefit. He asks for nothing, except that you reside at Malfoy Manor. That’s the only thing he requests, and anyone else would have made this much worse for you. And I think you know that. As much as I don’t like him, and I definitely don’t like him, it works for you. He is… trying to grow, it seems. He even put in writing that he would stop drinking anything stronger than a butterbeer, something you wanted, I assume.”
Hermione nods, not trusting herself to speak. She pulls the papers out of the packet he had brought and reads through them quickly. Blaise didn’t lie, everything was in her favor. He only wanted one thing, but it was the one thing she was struggling to agree to.
“He also has expressed that you can do whatever you want to the manor. You can change anything and everything. He won’t stop you.”
She nodded again. She did know this. This was her best option. With shaky hands, she grabbed a muggle pen and signed her name. “Here, before I change my mind.” She shoved them back towards him. Without looking back, she left her office.
~
She was back. Draco was walking around the gardens when he saw her. She looked much more put together than the previous visits, now dressed in a long-sleeved blouse and a dark pencil skirt. Her hair was the only thing that broke the illusion, with her frizzy curls unbound behind her.
He now stood in front of her, and she met his eyes. He waited for her to speak, and it was a long while before she did.
“The full moon is in six days, and I can’t be at Harry’s then.” Granger tapped her fingers against her thigh again, shifting on her feet. “Do you- Could we… I need us to be married before then. Um… Tomorrow? Morning?”
Draco felt himself nod, not entirely in control of himself. “That works for me. Are you staying here tonight?” She asked if he wanted her to. Draco shrugged, he couldn't care less. She met his question with a soft yes, and he felt himself nod again.
He cleared his throat and motioned towards the pathway leading into the house. They walked in silence, a considerable amount of space between them. He ran his hand over the Mark, focusing on the raised lines. The walk seemed to last forever as they passed the crumbling and dying yard. A small gazebo sat on one side, the roof caving in. Bird baths littered the ground, some crushed, some falling over, and some filled with dust instead of water. Draco felt that it resembled an abandoned graveyard, the number of ghosts that seemed to reside in the home not helping the feeling. As they reached the porch, Granger stopped. He looks down at her, and he notices that she has her hand wrapped around her left forearm.
“That room is boarded up. I haven’t been in there since…” He avoids looking at her, choosing instead to open the front door. “You can go wherever you want, and use as many rooms as you desire. I will meet you back here in the morning.” He quickly made his way to the bedroom, not looking back to see if she even made it inside.
~
Hermione paced on the porch for hours before she finally felt brave enough to enter the Manor. Every time she tried, she would stand in the doorway for a few minutes before backing up and resuming pacing. She kept asking herself what she was doing. She was crazy for doing this. It wasn’t too late to back away, to leave. She could find something else, right?
Wrong, the little voice in her head told her. The Manor’s wards had never fallen, they were as old as magic itself. There was little that could breach them, and she suspected that werewolves and death eaters wouldn’t be able to. Stepping into the Manor, she ignored the door on the left, looking anywhere but there. She counted each step through the place, finding the kitchen, the library, and multiple sitting rooms along the bottom floor. A section in the back was blocked off, the entrance destroyed and crumbling, covered in wards. It was the same on all three floors.
The second floor was mainly studies and hobby rooms, and she didn’t enter any of them past the initial look-in. Each looked untouched, thick layers of dust coating everything. She chose a less dirty study, waving her wand around to have the magic do light cleaning. She would use this one as her own, if she were going to be here, she was going to do her best to ease her discomfort.
The third floor was bedrooms. She had gone into some of these rooms, and one looked to be a child's room, with constellations scattering the ceiling. One wall had children's drawings pinned up, and upon further inspection, she saw that they were signed in wobbly writing as if he had just been learning to write his name.
Draco.
A second room screamed that it belonged to a teenage boy. Quidditch posters were on the wall, signed memorabilia on shelves. The desk contained several things, ranging from letters to art supplies, and uneaten candy. A stuffed bookshelf contained both magical books and muggle ones. Hermione found this interesting, tucking the information into the back of her mind. Though covered in a thick layer of dust and crowded, the room lacked mess. She had spent enough time at the Burrow to know that the boys were constantly leaving behind a trail of something. Even years after moving out, their bedrooms at the Burrow remained filled and messy. It was obvious that Malfoy once stayed there, but no longer did.
Down the hall from the two bedrooms, Hermione heard movement in another. She assumes this is where Malfoy currently sleeps. She chose a bedroom somewhere between the two.
After using her wand to do some light cleaning, she sat down on the edge of the queen-sized bed. The room was somewhat larger, with a fireplace and chairs on one side and the bed on the other. A vanity sat in one corner, next to the walk-in closet. Dark blue curtains hung in the windows, and she made a mental note to buy some different ones. A bathroom was attached, with another door to the closet.
Later that night, as Hermione drifted off to sleep, she concluded that Malfoy Manor was a tomb dedicated to a childhood lost and a future unlived.