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Immured as he was in France, he never thought to hear her name again.
He’d made sure of that, put insurmountable obstacles and miles of ocean and formidable walls of occlumency between them. Left no room for error, for weakness or temptation. He had excised her from his life. He had no choice.
It was for the best.
Or so he told himself. It helped him sleep on those rare nights when the nightmares didn’t tear him awake, drenched and screaming.
He would applaud himself for doing one selfless act in a predominantly selfish life. Like that meant something, made him more than what he truly was. A coward and a fool.
But with time and distance and structure, as well as copious amounts of alcohol, he was able to keep her at bay. Keep those memories locked down tight. Enough to get up, get dressed, and function in the life he had imposed upon himself. Do things like eat. Breathe.
It was a finely tuned balancing act that required constant vigilance. It allowed for no mistakes. No missteps.
Certainly not the excited yammerings of his wife before he had even taken his first bite of breakfast.
It had actually been a good start to the day. He’d slept without a dream, a solid five hours, and was feeling rather rested. Enough that he was able to shower and dress and not feel like a walking corpse. Enough that he was actually able to greet his wife and not scowl.
He should have known. When things were too good, it was a precursor for disaster.
His first clue should have been that Astoria had the newspaper. It was usually waiting by his steaming cup, folded primly in half by the ever attentive Wimsy. The elf was particularly mindful of his needs, probably because he treated her with a modicum of respect and dignity.
A result of the hours being lectured by a certain curly haired witch. She had trained him well.
The second clue should have been that she was actually reading said paper. And curiously engaged. Enough so that she greeted him with a distracted, “Good morning,” and an immediate return to whatever had captured her attention.
He was reaching for his toast, Wimsy hovering near his elbow spooning eggs into his plate as if she were his bloody mother when Astoria made a surprisingly undignified noise that sounded quite a bit like a snort.
He cocked an eye brow at her. He couldn’t imagine what had captured her attention so thoroughly.
“And what Is so riveting this morning?” He finally found the energy to ask. She looked up, and her cheeks were flushed pink. She actually smiled at him, an odd, rather smug smile. Like a cat that got the cream kind of smile.
“This is just so romantic!” She gestured at what she was reading.
And it was then he noticed. The current issue of La Gazette du Sorcier was right there, laid beside his plate. His head snapped up in horror, as he realized what Astoria held.
He’d forbidden the Daily Prophet in his home. He wanted no news of England. It was a necessary sacrifice, part of the rigid structure he had arranged for his life.
“Astoria.” He cleared his throat. “Where did you get that?”
As testament to her uncharacteristic excitement, she waved her hand at him in dismissal. “Pansy sent it.”
Pansy, who had been vociferously opposed to him running away. Pansy, his one time best friend who had taken the side of the broken hearted witch he had so callously left behind, had become a casualty in his self preservation war.
And he knew. Pansy was nothing if not deliberate. Whatever was printed on that parchment was not meant for Astoria. It was meant for him. And he knew, without a doubt, that it was about her.
He knew he shouldn’t ask. Should just pick up La Gazette, drink his tea and go about his day. Yet there was a part of him, a deeply rooted masochism, that couldn’t resist. It was a moment of madness, he would later admit, because he was a weak, weak man. He was also a starving man, who could not resist stealing what crumbs he could when they fell into his plate.
“Are you going to share?” He tried to keep his voice monotone, uninterested.
She couldn’t get the words out fast enough. “Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley are getting
married! Isn’t that wonderful?”
And with those words, years of meticulously, fiercely built walls crumbled into a fiery ruin.
For one wrenching moment, everything completely stopped. His hand on his tea cup. The breath in his lungs. The beating of his heart. Just. Stopped.
Only to lurch back into motion with a pain so sharp, he thought he might actually be dying.
Astoria was watching him carefully. Her face was blank; she was nearly as good at it as he was, that feigned indifference. He brought his features back into line, schooled them into haughty disdain.
“Isn’t that wonderful, Draco?” Sinister little bitch, she actually smirked.
He returned the gesture, the tiniest of smiles, all the while desperately wishing he could set the table on fire.
“Good for them, I suppose.” His heart hadn’t returned to a normal rhythm, it was still racing wildly around his chest.
“Hmm,” she murmured in agreement, before gesturing to the parchment. “It’s rather lovely. All those years apart and yet they managed to find their way back together. They were destined for each other, wouldn’t you agree?”
No. He absolutely did not agree. She was most certainly not destined for the Weasel. She was destined for…for more than that. For someone else, a someone who had justified abandoning her under the pretense of protecting her when he was just so fucking scared.
He forced himself to relax the grip on his cup. It was a testament to his strength of will that he was able to bring it to his lips with only the slightest of tremors.
“Yes. A match made in bourgeois heaven.” His lips felt numb.
She brought her own cup to her lips, sipped daintily. “They are planning a winter wedding. I had wanted one, and you absolutely refused!”
Hell fucking yes he had refused. That had been Hermione’s dream. So instead he married Astoria in July, at the height of summer when it had been unbearably hot and miserable.
“It’s surprising, I suppose I’d never really looked at her. She’s rather beautiful, wouldn’t you say? Draco?”
The tea turned to acid in his mouth, and only years of aristocratic training stopped him from spitting out the mouthful.
Did he find her beautiful? How did you even define that word? Physically, aesthetically? She possessed a combination of delicate features in a framework of unruly hair, her petite body a collection of soft places and tempting curves, her creamy skin dotted with freckles like a treasure map to her secret places. He used to follow those trails with his fingers, his teeth, his tongue.
So yes, she was arguably attractive.
Not conventionally beautiful, though, not like his ice princess of a wife. Astoria was picture perfect, tall, parchment thin, refined by generations of cultured breeding. Hermione though. Hermione…
She was an untamed force of nature. Fiery. Passionate. Whip smart and brave. But was she beautiful?
“Yes,” he admitted with a sigh of defeat. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. In his eyes, she was beyond compare.
Astoria had gone deathly still. “She was there with you, during eighth year. Wasn’t she.” He didn’t bother dignifying that with an answer, the woman damn well knew. When he didn’t respond, she placed the paper down. “She and Ron Weasley had apparently broken up not long after the start of that year. A mystery, wouldn’t you say? When they had been so committed up until then.”
The invisible hippogriff in the room stretched its wings, ready to be acknowledged at last. “What is your point, Astoria?”
She met his glare head on, a feat not for the faint of heart. He could give her credit for that, she was always unflinching in the face of his disdain. “No point, Draco. I just find it rather…odd.”
He didn’t find it odd, not really. But of course, he’d been the catalyst after all.
Things were different, they were different when they had gone back to school for eighth year. He and Hermione had always been opposing forces. But the war had changed a lot of things, wreaking mental havoc and destroying innocence and such. It was impossible not to be transformed after fighting in a war as a fucking child. Reshaped, some of their edges softened while others sharpened and those discordant pieces of an improbable puzzle had somehow, finally, miraculously, fit.
It had shocked them as much as anyone.
He shrugged at his wife, such an undignified gesture, but he was shockingly at a loss for words. And that was as telling a reaction as if he’d jumped up on the table and shouted out his affection.
Astoria was lifting the paper his way, her beautiful face contorted into something malicious and ugly. “Would you like to see her, Draco?” And before he could even register the question, he lifted his eyes and
There she was. Hermione.
The photographer had caught her mid laugh, her curls tossed about her in joyous abandon, so free and so full of life. And he could almost hear it, her laughter. He desperately wanted to hear it. His eyes watered and his heart ached with the desperate need to hear her laughter and her voice once more.
And there went all the work, the hard fought battles with himself, the sacrifices, the years. All of that gone, in the span of one moment to the next.
He hadn’t forgotten her, not really. Not at all actually, since his mind would never truly let her go. She would escape out of that place he had locked her in, set free at night to stalk his dreams, an ongoing never ending reminder of exactly what he had lost when he picked up his life and ran away.
Sometimes, when he wanted to really torture himself, or he’d had just the right excess of drink, he would allow his thoughts to slip behind his walls. He would find her there, would trace the curve of her jaw with his mind, feel the softness of her body beneath him, recall the sounds she had made, the breathy exhales, the way she called his name, her taste in his mouth, on his tongue.
He missed her. He just missed her so fucking much.
There had been so many things, small things, great things, moments of quiet or passion, that had made up his brief life with her. It hadn’t been enough, not nearly enough, but then, forever wouldn’t have been. He hadn’t thought himself capable of such depth of feeling, but here he was.
And in the space between swallowing his tea and placing the cup back in the saucer, he mourned. Grieved for a life that had been tantalizingly close and just within reach.
She had loved to lay atop him, she could never be close enough, and he would complain about personal space or her hair or a dozen other things that had become silly, intimate jokes between them. She would, of course, ignore him, and cling tighter yet, and he would listen to her spin tales of their future, of a home with an extravagant library and curly haired children, of laughter and joy, and so much fucking love. He had held her close and allowed himself to dream with her, falling asleep to the cadence of her voice, feeling safe and truly loved for the first time in his life. And it was all gone now.
He’d wanted it desperately, that life.
The cup hit the saucer with a soft clink, as loud as a bombarda in the quiet room.
Astoria’s eyes narrowed in triumph. His closed briefly as he hastily rebuilt the fortress around his memories, locking them down tight. When he opened them, they were dull and defeated but he was in control once more.
“How does it feel, Draco.” Her voice could be shockingly cold, a thing she’d probably learned from him. “Knowing the woman you love is marrying another man.”
It didn’t feel good at all. The pain honestly surprised him. So few things did feel like anything, anymore.
“Why do you care.” He couldn’t even summon the strength to berate her for this little rebellion.
“I have to find what pleasure I can, living in this empty marriage with a man who bears no affection for me. And this,” she gestured at Hermione’s beautiful, smiling face, “this brings me great pleasure, Draco.”
So her claws had come out after all. “What more do you want from me, Astoria.”
“All I want is a piece of you, one small piece of your heart.” Her eyes, normally dead and blank, had shockingly filled with tears.
And so she became yet another casualty in his bloody war of self preservation.
He looked at her, and not for the first time wished he had made better choices. A part of him even wished he could have some shred of feeling for her, because he was just so tired of being alone. But, there was nothing left inside of him. He couldn’t give her something that was no longer his to give.
He had left for Hermione’s sake. Mostly so, at least. There was a stench surrounding him after the war, people didn’t really forgive or forget that whole Death Eater stigma easily. And she was burning so bright, her future was all there before her, with so much potential to do such good, bring about such change.
Had he stayed, she would have refused to let him go. She had loved him foolishly, with every bit of herself, and would have placed herself as a perpetual sacrifice on the altar of his redemption, public opinion and her reputation be damned. But his shadow was far reaching. Even the Golden Girl couldn’t overcome the stain on her life that he would always be.
She had of course fought him, raged against him, begged him not to do it. She was courageous and strong, so much stronger than him, and in the end, he did the only thing he could think of.
He left her. Moved away, agreed to that bloody contract and married Astoria. Knowing that would break her heart, but it would also be the absolute end of them. The end of anything good in his life and all the things he’d dreamed of as well, but he could rest knowing she was safe from him.
But in his heart, he knew. He’d been scared. That depth of feeling was just too much for a coward such as he.
He rubbed a hand over his face. He was just so tired.
“I’ve given you enough. My name, my vaults. An extravagant life.” She had known all of this going in. It had been negotiated by their parents, for fucks sake. “But I have nothing else to give you.”
She actually looked surprised at his words. He’d never said them out loud, not really.
Seeing Hermione’s happy face in that photo, knowing she’d actually gone back to Weasley…what else had he expected. This wasn’t him losing her now. He’d lost her years before, when he’d picked up and left her sleeping in that bed. When she’d woken up alone and he was gone.
“But I’m your wife!” The word stung with its truth, but it was meaningless now. In another life, had he not run away, had he been brave and grabbed all the gifts he had been given like the selfish bastard he was, if he had accepted Hermione, and taken the chance at happiness, true and real…
“You are. And she had wanted to be. I denied her that, to my great regret.” In another life, a happier one, a different pair of eyes would be meeting his across this table. “I can't give her that, not anymore. The…Weasley can.” The words made him sick but he plowed on. “All I have, I’ve given you. Everything but that one thing. That one thing remains, and she laid claim to it long ago. I couldn’t give it to you if I wanted to. It’s hers. It will always be hers.” He took a breath. A headache was brewing and he could take no more. “So just let it be, Astoria.”
It took all of her training, the years she had prepared for a life such as this, not to curse him or throw her cup at his head. He knew she wanted to. He almost wished she would. But in the end she merely set it down silently, perfectly, and resumed her role in this luxurious, empty excuse for a life.
He picked up his paper, put away all those things that could have been and proceeded to start his day.