D E C E M B E R 1 9 9 9
d r a c o
six hours before
Malfoy Manor looked the same as when Draco had left it eighteen months prior, and as every time he had visited it since then. Which was, he thought, just as it had looked for his entire childhood. An unchanging, soulless house, that he had once called home but had never felt like it.
He had no doubt that the paintings that lined the walls now had hung in their same positions a hundred years before. His ancestors stared at him as he passed through the hallway; their fair hair and pale skin similar to Draco's but constructed through oil paint; wealthy and successful in their time but forgotten in his. The idea that his own portrait might one day hang on the same wall; that he might hold the same grandeur, had once been exciting to him.
Now, he could think of few things worse than to have his face hang alongside the faces of these bleak men.
He didn't like to even visit the Manor, now. Hated it, actually: hated being reminded of the prisoners that had once resided in its basement, the tension-filled meetings, the fear that had seized his body every time Voldemort had entered a room. The house he had grown up in became a torture chamber; his own aunt interrogating streams of prisoners in the same rooms he had once done schoolwork in. He hated to remember the way he had sat in his bedroom and been too afraid to do or even say anything about any of it. It filled him with nausea.
Worst of all, the Manor reminded him of Belly; of sitting with her on the fountain, of curling up in the guest bedroom, of bringing her breakfast and kissing her goodnight. Belly and the Manor had used to exist in two separate worlds - dark and light. He had been stupid; laughably irresponsible and naïve to mix them.
In a recent shift in the way that Belly haunted him, Draco had begun to see her. Her face had always frequented his mind, of course, but now she appeared in his world; a dainty phantom, emerging out of thin air. He would often be deep in his own thoughts, as he walked or stared out of his apartment window - that he wouldn't quite realise when he was looking into her big, dark eyes. He would blink once, refocus, and she would be gone.
He never saw her here, at the Manor. He always felt alone here, when he visited for dinner or afternoon tea. Always alone, even under the watchful gaze of his parents.
The silence around the table was thick, intermittently punctuated by clinks of porcelain tableware. Draco didn't much prefer to go out in public, but it felt it was more tolerable than this repeated, painful ritual.
"Astoria's mum has a dress picked out," said Narcissa cordially; as if announcing a pleasant piece of neighbourhood gossip. "It's being imported from Switzerland."
Draco had been inspecting the bottom of his cup. He looked up. "What?"
Narcissa gave him an exasperated look. "Astoria's dress, sweetheart. For the wedding."
"I heard you," said Draco. "I didn't know there were actual plans being made for the wedding. At least without the bride and groom being consulted first. Or, you know, getting engaged."
Lucius gave a pointed sigh and looked away. Narcissa frowned. "Darling. We've been making plans for months."
Draco stared at them. He had been, to his own surprise, fairly tolerant about the entire affair; had met Astoria when he was instructed to, had befriended her and hadn't complained often. He had known that his and Astoria's parents wanted them to get married, but hadn't considered that they might actually be planning it all, actively. "Do you have a date for it, then?" he asked. "The wedding?"
