The World and Her Stars: One Shots

R&D Alternate Reunion

(I wrote an alternate version of Rose and Draco's post-six-month-seperation reunion; this is how their reunion would have gone if Draco was the one taken to the bunker by The Order with Leo instead, and Rose stayed at Malfoy Manor with Blaise; Rose would have been ordered to marry Theo by Voldemort; this takes place on the day of Rose & Theo's wedding)

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ROSE POV

I looked at my reflection in the mirror, not recognizing any bit of myself, and not trying to. If anything, I was looking through myself. I had been looking through just about everyone and everything in front of me since the day he left. The day he died. 

My stomach and my chest panged, and I immediately ripped my eyes away from my reflection; not being able to bear seeing myself in a big white dress that I hated, getting ready to marry a man that I feared because it was the only option I had.

Marry Nott or die a death that would surely be slow and painful. Get to making heirs as soon as possible, or be labeled as a traitor, and be killed off without a second thought, because if I wasn't compliant, I was useless. Be a doting wife and never mention the man that truly owned my heart. The man that died protecting me. The only man that I love and will ever love.

Tears bubbled in my eyes as they seemed to do constantly now, and the hole in my chest was ripped open again, leaving my heart exposed to the sharp knife of brutal reality.

Draco's dead. And I wish I was too.

"Fifteen minutes." Someone informed, popping their head into the makeshift bridal suite my "bridal party" and I had been silently getting ready in all day. I don't think I had spoken more than three times since being woken up this morning.

My stomach knotted even tighter.

Fifteen minutes.

Fifteen minutes before I trade in the limited freedom and autonomy I have as Rose Eros for the complete lack of freedom and autonomy I'll have as Rose Nott.

Fifteen minutes before I marry a man that I'm scared of. One that is nothing like the boy I once knew. The boy I met in the Great Hall with the kind brown eyes and the laugh that made everyone else laugh. This Theodore is nothing like the one from before the war. This Theodore, the one I was being forced to wed today, had no warmth within him. No soul. No humanity. He lead with fear and intimidation, just like his father. He didn't look at me like his friend anymore, he looked at me like I was a piece of meat. A womb for continuing a family line and a pretty face to have on his arm whenever he needed to flaunt me like a trophy.

I'd throw up again if I even had anything in my stomach to begin with. Last night, the last of the bile within me made it up my throat, leaving my throat raw and my head light.

Pansy stepped up onto the small platform I was standing on in front of the mirrors, dabbing at my eyes with a tissue before the tears fell and left streaks across my face. Something she had been doing all day while holding back tears of her own.

I kept my eyes forward but unfocused on the mirrors. I just stared into the air, barely able to make out the outline of the shell of myself in the reflection.

My bridesmaids, Pansy, Millicent, and Daphne, all sat around the room in their matching black dresses and cloaks, moving silently as they tending to me like a wilting plant. I didn't think that there would be a traditional, full-blown wedding given we were in the middle of a fucking war, but then again, it appears Nott will do anything to make me more miserable as I am forced right into his clutches.