Fuck

Theo’s words rang through his mind like a siren. Stop living life for your mother, start living it for you. He thought about it and thought about it, beating himself up. It was a joke. He was a joke.

Any man his age still living life for their mother wasn’t a man. At least not fully. He got to thinking, maybe Theo was right after all. Maybe what Draco really needed was a plain old drink with a woman. with Lena Periwinkle. He didn’t even know her and the lust he had for her was through the roof. At least that could be said about Lena, with Astoria everything else was still so uncertain and foreboding and imminent.

He started working out a list of pros and cons, as childish as it seemed. First he started with astoria: pros; she was pretty, she came from a credible family; cons; he didn’t know anything about the girl, her sister was Daphne, she was basically a walking clone of Narcissa Malfoy. Now onto Lena: pros; she was sexy, beautiful, filled with flaws that still made him crazy, she was smart in the sort of way that made him excited to actually talk to her, and she was funny, too, the woman was a mystery; cons, the woman and everything else about her was a mystery.

It dawned on him that marrying a woman he didn’t know or want to marry was so archaic, so bizarre, so outdated and wrong, he didn’t want to do it.

Later, at his parents house he was reading the latest essay written by a brilliant American potioneer, ever since he met Lena his attraction to Americans grew.

“Darling, what on earth are you reading that junk for? Put it away now, dinner is being served and we’ll be having a guest join us.”

“A guest?” He asked monotonously.

“Yes,” she said strictly, “don’t give me that look, she’s your wife—“

“No, not yet she isn’t. Why would you invite her over for dinner? We’ve got tea scheduled for tomorrow morning. I haven’t been back for long enough to even eat a meal.”

“I simply do not care, Draco! Figure it out, get ready, and meet me in the damn dining room.”

He made his way to the dining room, a glass of his fathers choice of brandy in hand, coming in prepared. There at the head of the table sat his father, the other head her father. His mother sat next to his father, an open space opposite of her for him, she sat across from her mother, next to his open seat. It was all a fucking joke.

“How nice of you to finally join us,” Lucius uttered glaring at him, “and to have already started the evening off.”

“Learned from the best.” Draco muttered and took a seat at the table. “Devon, Carrigan, astoria. Nice to see you all again.”

They all muttered polite ‘hello’s’ and averted eye contact. The Greengrass’ were prim and proper, but not like the Malfoy’s. His family would broadcast their difference of opinions, smack down anyone they decided beneath them, belittle in the face of competitors. Her family would not, they were the kind to do it behind closed doors, to spread vicious rumors and gossip for the fuck of it. So this could get interesting quickly.

“Draco, how’s Hogwarts going? I’ve heard there’s been quite a recession of students attending.” Her father, Devon asked snidely.

“Actually, our numbers have gone up since the war, unlike others.” He glanced across the table at his father, hoping to sting him a bit, too, but the man was like a brick wall; impenetrable.

“Speaking of numbers,” His mother chimed in, desperate to change the subject, “I heard there was a surge in dragon pox, is that true astoria?”

—

The night ended with no broken glasses, no voices raised, no slight glances. Narcissa snuck Carrigan away to the drawing room to accompany their husbands, leaving a vast and vile space to fill for Draco and astoria.

“So,” she began awkwardly, looking around the room, anywhere but his eyes. Strike one, he thought to himself spitefully. “Should we—“

“—how about I show you the garden.”

“It’s the middle of winter.”

“And mother has a way with her fir’s.”

They made their way silently out to the greenhouse where Narcissa Malfoy put all her pride and joy into Christmas fir’s white roses, and many more ornamental flowers. The house-elves wouldn’t be able to sneak around them there.

“I’m not dumb,” she began once he shut the door, “I know why we came out here.”

“do you—“ He stared at the repulsive smirk she was sporting and scrunched up his face in disgust, “do you honestly think I brought you out here to fuck you?”

Her cheeks turned a deep red. Draco paced around for a bit before continuing on, not really giving her any space to respond. “Look, I can’t do this… I don’t know you. I don’t—“

“—like me?”

He laughed, a hysterical absolutely-fucked sort of laugh, rubbing his chin nervously, “merlin, fuck, Astoria! It’s not that simple, we do not know each other. They want us to spend the rest of our lives together. What if you hate my dog or I hate your friends? What if we just don’t fucking work?!”

The girl stood still for a moment and with a deep breath gave Draco a piece of her mind, “see now, I do know you. you just don’t know me. I look at you and I see the same old cocky, arrogant, bastard who is so full of himself he has almost completely lost touch of the world outside of his own—“

“—and when I see you I see the same scared little girl who used to hide in the trees from her sister!—“

“—well, news flash, satan! I’m not a child anymore!”

“You’re still scared, though. Otherwise you wouldn’t be—“

“—I wouldn’t what?” she shouted, and for the first time ever he saw a woman. A pissed off woman. “Don't act like you’re not scared of them, too! Like you’re not doing the same thing I am.”

He crossed his arms over his chest defeated. “You realize we have to meet for supervised tea tomorrow, right?”

“Fuck that,” she scoffed brushing past him, “and fuck you, too.”

Draco smiled as the image of an utter disaster played in his mind, sort of pleased with how things went. but there was one thing, that was the most they’ve ever talked before.

—

Tea time was awkward at best. His mother and her mother filled the void with senseless talk about style and locations and opinions on eggshell and ivory. After the first hour he decided he couldn’t take anymore and made up an excuse to leave.

Not even twenty minutes later he sat inside The Leaky Cauldron drinking his sorrows away. Attempting to distract himself from well, himself.

Shockingly enough his mother had picked a highly exclusive restaurant situated right on the corner of Knockturn and Diagon Alley. He had a feeling that a specific location would be incorporated into their plans.

Astoria was something else entirely. not quite a mind-fuck, not quite an open-book. And yet, he didn’t care about understanding her at all.

Just then someone tapped him on his shoulder, pulling him out of his depressive thoughts. Theo stood behind him dressed in a very eclectic way. But still, he welcomed his best friend with a shrug and an open seat.

“I take it,” Theo began taking out his pocket watch to eye the time, “tea didn’t go accordingly?”

“How scotch?” Draco asked, sucking in air through his tightly pressed lips, skipping over Theo’s spot on speculation.

“Sounds perfect.” Theo groaned, grabbing the glass in front of Draco.

“My dog?”

“Oh, yeah, that one. We’re doing fine. i got you a television, your house is too quiet—“

“I remember explicitly asking you not to do anything drastic. Which includes: moving things, changing things, and buying things.”

“Oh fuck off,” Theo shoo’d away Draco's defiance. “What happened with astoria?”

“The better question is: what didn’t happen?”

“No, no, no, tell me you didn’t plow her?”
Draco groaned irrationally, “how do you sound? Plow?”

“So, that’s a yes then?”

“That’s a hell fucking no.”

“Pfft, don’t say it like that.”

“I’m serious.” Draco sighed heavily. “Even if we would’ve fucked, I still don’t want to. It would’ve been uneventful at best. We honestly just screamed at each other for a solid ten minutes then went our separate ways.”

“That’s a start, yeah?”

“I suppose so, but I really just can’t… I can’t stop thinking about Lena. Or comparing the two of them and I know, I know, how shitty that is of me, Theo, but I cannot help it. I just don’t know how I’ll be able to marry her.”

“Let me ask you this,” Theo began, “had Lena not arrived at the time she did, had she not even come at all, would it be any different?”

Draco thought long and hard about that, he wanted to say yes, but he knew it wasn’t true. He knew that deep down he’d never wanted to do this. He showed up one day to his parents house for dinner and the next thing he knew he was betrothed to Astoria Greengrass. It was a business agreement. A financial deal for two secretively failing families. There was no love or attraction from the start and he knew there never would be.

Theo and Draco sat in the leaky cauldron for a little longer than they should’ve, ending up entirely plastered by dinnertime.

His father caught him sneaking into the house, trying to tiptoe quietly to his room was hard when you’d just downed a pint of scotch no more than an hour earlier. “You’ve made your mother sick, you should be ashamed. I didn’t raise you to be like this.”

“I am ashamed,” Draco mused. “I’m ashamed, father, but not of myself.”

He stared blankly back at his son, cold and hard and unnerving, “well, Draco, nobody said you had to do this. If it's so damned hard you can leave. But I promise you, we will not be waiting with open arms.”

“Oh wow! I have options, do I?! on one hand I could marry a complete fucking stranger, and on the other I could tear my family apart?”

“Stop acting like that—“

“—like what?”

“Like a senseless child!” His voice boomed thunderously through the hallway. Sending a wave of finality through his chest.

Draco tasted the scotch and cigarettes on his tongue, the blood boiling in him, the emotions pent up from years of never having stood up to him. “You know what, Lucius? I’ve a house of my own, be it small and quaint but it’s been more of a home to me then this hellhole ever has.”

With that Draco was back in his childhood bedroom, perhaps for the last time in his life. He felt no sense of sadness leaving the cold hard manor. He felt no shame leaving his father high and dry with a proposal ended. He was happy, hoping it would cause some embarrassment for Lucius.

“Darling?” He heard his mothers voice on the other side of the door. Quiet, fragile, warm, as she always tried to be. “You missed dinner, we were worried. I was worried.”

When he didn’t answer she entered, he could see her red tinted cheeks grow even darker, her face contorting and filling with emotion. Tears began falling, not for the first time that evening he was sure.

“I’m not marrying Astoria, I’m going home, I’m sorry.” Was all he could manage. His bags had already been packed, having not even been opened yet. It pained him to make matters much worse than they could’ve been. To be the reason for everything falling to shit all the time. But it felt wrong, it all felt so very very wrong.

Narcissa’s tears fell graceful from her pale blue eyes. The image of his mothers heartbreaking etched into his mind forever.