Ending The Sacred Twenty-Eight (Dramione)

Draco

Back to May 2003

The morning after the Ministry Ball, Draco woke up with the sunlight right on his face.

“What the fuck?” He groaned, trying to move to protect himself from the offending light, but all he managed was to feel pain. “Close the damn curtains, love. It’s Saturday.” He mumbled, his head seeming to weigh a ton and his whole body protesting his sleeping arrangements.

He cracked one eye open to see why Hermione hadn’t closed the curtains and found himself lying on the couch at his flat – his very uncomfortable, bought-just-for-the-aesthetics couch.

It took Draco a minute to remember why he was at his flat and not at the sweet home he shared with his girlfriend.

“Fuck.” He exhaled as he remembered: ex-girlfriend.

The previous night’s events slowly came to his mind: the pictures for the Prophet, the announcement of his engagement, getting ready for the Ball under his mother’s disapproving gaze, the Ball and finally going home just to have Hermione kick him out of her life.

Shit.

He hadn’t thought she’d do that; he indeed had hoped she would stay by his side – even as he paraded the obnoxious Miss Greengrass around and married her.

He grimaced, looking back on that he could clearly see the chances of Hermione truly doing it were slim, he had hoped she would understand he had no way out of that marriage contract without losing at least three of the Malfoy properties to the Greengrasses due to breach of contract.

Rich, pureblood fathers knew how to draw profitable wedding contracts for their daughters.

Lucius Malfoy, on the other hand, sucked at it.

Luckily I don’t have a sister. Girl would be doomed, if she existed.

Draco sat up slowly, starting to remove his white dress shirt, finding one cufflink gone and not giving a fuck – those were his father’s gold cufflinks, he hadn't even wanted to wear them in the first place.

He threw the shirt on the floor and heard the sound of a mug landing softly on the coffee table and looked up.

“Not a bleached bitch’s coffee” was written on the mug and he didn’t know if he smiled or cried.

Hermione had teased him a lot about the time it took him to shower; she used to say he took his time because he was bleaching his roots – such accusation had him needing to defend himself that he was a natural blond and not a bleached bitch.

Hence the mug's saying – a present from her for their two-year anniversary.

He grabbed the mug and drank the hot sweet coffee.

Few times in his life had Draco wished he weren’t who he was – he was proud of his family's history and had been raised to respect that.

But when he was sixteen and was forced to take the Dark Mark, that had been the first time he thought it would be better to be somebody else.

When the Dark Lord decided to live in Wiltshire, in his family home, Draco once more wished he belonged to any other family but the Malfoy family.

And now, when he had had to choose duty to said family over the woman he loved, he wished with all his heart he wasn’t the next Lord Malfoy.

He finished his coffee, remembering the many times he had whispered in Hermione’s ear that he was going to marry her – his heart’s deepest desire.

Even though his mind had always known it could never be.

He recalled a conversation he had had with Theo Nott the day he decided to move into Hermione’s house.