Chapter Text
A summer storm raged outside. As rain lashed the manor walls, and thunder seemed to shake its very foundations, Draco couldn't help but compare it to his inner turmoil and torment. The wall to ceiling windows of his father's study reflected darkened skies in sync with his own fatalistic mood.
And yet, Lucius Malfoy, who was currently cradling a cup of fine Darjeeling, seemed unbothered. "It is the only way," he casually stated, as if discussing weather events or quidditch scores.
"Forgive me father, if I refuse to believe you," snapped Draco, mouth twisted into a sneer. "I hardly think turning me into a sex slave is the only way to end this thrice damned war."
Lucius rolled his eyes, callously disregarding Draco's anguish. "Must you be so crass? I have warned you not to use such language in front of your mother. No one is proposing to turn you into a sex slave," he jeered. "Your mother and I are married. She's my wife. Do you think that makes her a ... how did you put it?"
Draco felt desperate and frustrated and would have screamed if he wasn't sure of being ignored. "Don't be condescending. I'm not a child that can be fooled. I know what you and mother have is a real marriage. I'm not so naive as to believe that's what I will be getting into. They will insist on conditions."
"Oh, will they?" said Lucius flippantly. Draco would have let it go if it weren't for the accompanying smirk on his face. He shot up from the chair, and leaned forward, hands on his father's desk. "I am your son," he yelled, so loudly that he could feel his neck muscles straining. "Your only son! That you would just sell me like chattel."
Lucius Malfoy slammed down the book he had been pretending to read. "I know you're my only son. And perhaps it's my fault that you are a spoiled brat who can't see beyond his own selfish comfort."
"That's not fair," said Draco, trying hard to keep his voice from breaking. It was never productive to reveal weakness in front of his father.
"It's been three years , Draco. Three years of dying and killing. So many are gone. Young people, your friends. Cut down by slicing curses, burnt by fiendfyre, blasted away ..."
"Stop!"
"Your mother and I kept you safe. We never let you go fighting in the front lines, even though there were those who insisted. Think about Mrs. Crabbe, she lost everyone. Think about the Avery boys. Don't you want it to stop?"
"I do but ..."
"Then you will do as we say," Lucius yelled. "You think I want to lose my only heir? This is the last option. We will try to negotiate for an equal partnership but seeing how our side is at a disadvantageous position, they will likely insist on a traditional marriage bond requiring subservience. So hear me Draco. You will marry the Potter boy. You will behave as expected. You will be pleasing and modest and keep your eyes lowered. You will serve your husband and bear him heirs without protest. And you will call it by its proper name. A marriage."
Draco all but ran back to his room, unable to keep his tears away. He was allowed a few moments to compose himself, and then his mother softly knocked on his door.
He stared glumly out of the window, refusing to look at her.
"Draco. Darling." She put her hand on his shoulder, only for him to shirk it off.
"Did you know?"
Her silence gave him the answer. He could have expected this cold-hearted decision from his father, but from his mother the betrayal felt like a knife to the heart.
"You do not love me," he declared.
Narcissa Malfoy tutted. "On the contrary, my dove, we're doing this because we love you very, very much."
"Hah!"
"No, really!" She held Draco's hand and guided him to sit down beside her. "What do you think would happen if the war were to drag on? We are losing. There is no denying it. The dark lord is gone. At this rate, the rest of us are just fighting to save our own skin, to stay away from Azkaban, to keep our estates. We could drag this on for maybe two more years. In that time more young people would be called to the battlefield. You would have to go. Your father and I couldn't protect you forever."
"I could fight," he sulked.
Narcissa chuckled, "Draco. You have no stomach for violence and torture. My son is not made for that sort of battlefield." She smiled sadly, brushing a stray lock of his hair behind his ears, "you wouldn't last, and then we wouldn't last either. I would die from heartbreak."
He sniffed in indignation, "Don't be dramatic, mother. All that talk of heartbreak, yet you're perfectly fine with selling me off to a life of subservience and slavery!"
"A marriage is not subservience and slavery. Do you think I'm your father's slave?"
Draco made a face. "Ew! Why do you two keep saying that?" He sighed and pinched his nose. "Yours is a normal marriage. Mine would be a bargain attempt by a losing side to seek a ceasefire. They would insist on one of those ancient outdated marriage bonds."
Draco turned to look at her. "Did you know, they bind the spouse's magic to the estate, the subservient partner can't take a step out of their Lord's house. Is that what you want me to be, a prisoner for the rest of my life?"
A vessel to accept another person's lust and fury? He wanted to say, but it wouldn't do to utter such things in front of his mother, frustrating as it was to leave his fears unspoken.
"Goodness! Where did you hear such things?"
"I found a book in the library."
"Draco, I entreat you not to jump to conclusions based on things you read in a book. There are different kinds of traditionally binding marriage bonds. The most restrictive or extreme are shrouded in dark magic. The light side would never insist on one of those. It goes against everything they believe in."
"Killing and torturing also goes against what they supposedly believe in but I don't see them stopping."
"Harry Potter wouldn't stand for it. He wouldn't enslave someone."
"That's a lot riding on your assumptions about Scarhead's sense of morality, mother."
"There are milder bonds where your magic won't be bound. It's just some legalities that will mark you as your husband's ward and some symbolic gestures that you might have to undertake in ceremonial situations."
Draco turned away from her, though their hands were still linked, a support he couldn't let go of even as he tried to convey his inner desolation. "You do not love me," he declared again, not because he believed it but because they were the only words that could voice his sense of betrayal.
Narcissa Malfoy hesitated before speaking, "Draco. I read your diary."
It took him a moment to grasp the sheer invasion of privacy. Uncomprehending, he stared at her open-mouthed, the way a bobufish being eaten alive by a mermaid stares at it in shock.
"Considering everything, this really is the best way forward."
"Mother!"
"Have you thought what your life would be otherwise? If there wasn't a war, you would be compelled to marry a pure-blood woman and produce heirs the traditional way. Any indiscretions you would have to keep on the side, forever hidden. I've known people who've lived like that, Draco. It's not a happy life."
"Mother!"
"Alternatively, we could have fixed your marriage with some other influential member of the light side. Kingsley Shacklebolt, or Alastor Moody perhaps."
"Mother!" he sputtered, "they're ancient."
Narcissa nodded in agreement. "Instead, it's someone you have fancied for a long time."
"Mother!" Draco could feel his ears burning with embarrassment. He wanted to deny it, it was unthinkable to have his hidden secret ramblings acknowledged in the open.
"How could you go through my diary? That's a breach of trust and privacy."
"Oh please, Draco," she scoffed. "I'm not going to apologise. I was grasping at straws. You don't think we'd have carted you off to someone you felt repelled by. You've obsessed over Harry Potter for years."
"That doesn't mean anything," he cried, pulling at his hair in frustration. "First, I am not obsessed with him. That was just a passing fancy from when I was very young. And second, even if hypothetically there was a scenario where ... he doesn't care about me at all. He hates me! You're sending me off to a man who hates me."
Narcissa scoffed. "Sometimes, I think it's a wonder that you were sorted into Slytherin. Not everything gets handed on a platter, Draco. Sometimes you have to create what you want in life. Perhaps you should have been sorted into Gryffindor."
"Gryffindor!" he baulked. "I'm not a dunderhead."
"Yet your behaviour is terribly impulsive, darling. A Slytherin would see this arrangement for the brilliant opportunity that it is."
"I won't be subservient to Potter," he sulked.
Narcissa held his face, "You wouldn't be, my dragon. Don't you see, there is a difference between what's on paper and what actually is. The battlefield with blood and curses is not for us. For us Slytherins our true battlefields are drawing rooms, boardrooms and soirees. So don't say your father and I are selling you off. If you must, say that you are being called to battle, one where you can play to your advantage. I have no doubt in my mind that you will thrive. You will thrive my son, as long as you keep sight of the long game. Sometimes you have to lose, or at least pretend to lose the little battles to win the war."
"Well ..."
"Plus, after a lifetime spent with snakes, Gryffindors should be easy to manipulate," she smirked.
Draco wanted to refute his mother's words, but he couldn't deny that they did affect him. Perhaps he really could thrive. He may not have been the most skilled duellist or suited to kill and torture, but he could do what a Slytherin does best. Still, it was a bitter pill to have to swallow his pride, that too in front of Potter.
"But he's a savage," he blurted, a last half-hearted attempt at protest.
Narcissa looked confused and concerned. Typical that out of all the things he'd said, what finally triggered her apprehension, was the risk of social impropriety.
She stopped halfway to the door, turning back with a frown. "A savage? This hasn't been brought to my attention. In what ways is he a savage?"
"His ... his hair!"
Narcissa rolled her eyes. "We'll add a conditioning potion to your dowry," she quipped as she exited the room, leaving him sputtering.
Draco decided to wallow in self-pity for the rest of the day. He cried for a while imagining his cruel fate at the hands of the brute that Potter had surely become by now. He had been bad enough, the last time Draco saw him three years ago at the battle of Hogwarts that had resulted in a stalemate. Potter had looked wild, toughened from months spent hiding in the forest. There was a cruel intensity in his eyes as he shot curses at Death Eaters.
Draco had been a Death Eater, at least he had the mark. He wondered what Potter would do to him, given free rein. Surely he would try to extract revenge, and Draco would be unable to resist. Maybe he would keep him tied up all day, or whip him ...
*Pop*
A house elf appeared. "Mistress wants young master to come down for lunch. If ... Oh! Oh! Mipsy is so sorry. Mipsy should have knocked," she ran out the door.
"Mipsy come back," Draco shouted after her, "it's not what you think. I was only scratching myself. Mipsy!"
Mipsy did not come back.
Draco sighed and flopped back on his bed. He had given himself swollen eyes and a headache with all the crying and yet his parents hadn't bothered to show even an iota of sympathy.
He decided to write to Pansy, wanting to be around someone who was capable of showing appropriate commiseration as demanded by the grave situation.
Dear Pansy,
I hope you are well. My life as I know it has come to an end.
This wretched war has gone on for too long and we have suffered from insurmountable losses. If the purebloods are to survive this ordeal and emerge with our way of life and bank balances intact, drastic action must be taken.
Alas, the yoke to end this war has fallen on my shoulders and I must bear the burden, the best I can. I am to sacrifice my personhood and freedom at the altar of peace.
Come keep me company before the commencement of my imprisonment. I need the support of my friends to build the fortitude needed to endure this trial.
Yours in suffering,
Draco