Title: Who You Are
Disclaimer: Draco is not mine, nor is his world, I'm just playing there for a while.
Rating: M
Warnings: Mild smut
Summary: Draco's life is going perfectly well now he's divorced Astoria. That is until he meets a strange Muggle woman who has him rethinking his entire life.
Author's Notes: This is partly epilogue compliant in that Draco has Scorpius and was in the past married to Astoria (they're divorced now). Neither Scoprius nor Astoria feature very much in the story though. It was quite fun to explore how Draco would interact with the Muggle world and with a Muggle woman. I hope you enjoy reading it :)
Chapter 1: Meeting
"Daddy, watch me, daddy!"
Draco tilted his head back and grinned up at his son's excited face as he hovered overhead on his new broomstick, resisting the urge to tell him to slow down as Scorpius grinned back and then immediately sped off across the lawns. The broomstick couldn't go high enough to be really dangerous and Draco had cast every cushioning charm he knew across the flying area, but he still couldn't help the rush of love and protectiveness that he felt as he watched him.
It wasn't something Draco had ever expected to feel for anyone and he certainly didn't think anyone else had expected it of him either, but it had hit him in one great big, completely insane moment the second Scorpius had been placed in his arms when he was just a few minutes old, and it had been there ever since.
Tomorrow Scorpius would be leaving again and it would kill Draco inside to let him go, in the same way it did every time he had part from him. Not that he wasn't grateful for the amount of time he did get to spend with Scorpius. After the divorce from Astoria the arrangement had worked out mostly in his favour. One weekend with Astoria, one with his parents, one with hers, one with him on top of each and every weekday with Draco because the Manor had been Scorpius' home ever since he'd been born and as far as Draco was concerned that was the way it was going to stay.
Of course the price he paid for that and for the fact that he'd finally lost patience with Astoria and insisted they divorced was the three out of every four Fridays he had to send his son away and resign himself to not seeing him again until Sunday afternoon. It was a price Draco only just considered worth paying and then only because it meant he had some much needed time in the company of adults.
The fact that he spent most of that time drinking in Muggle bars and sleeping with Muggle women was not something he was entirely proud of, but equally was not something he was about to give up.
It was the same routine every weekend, Scorpius would leave, Draco would mooch around the house until the evening and then go off to visit his friends. One of the two nights that would be as far as it would go – dinner or drinks with the few friends he'd managed to keep hold of after the war. They always stayed in; even eight years on there were far too many places the children of Voldemort's ex-supporters were not welcome, and even more people who wanted to make trouble for them. All in all they just found it easier to stay in now than subject themselves to the stares and the comments.
Whichever night they didn't Draco would indulge in something which he had never expected he would ever have considered doing even a few years ago. It was all Blaise's fault really. He had lured Draco to the Muggle bar the first time with tempting promises of anonymity and women who didn't care whether you had money or power or a past, and who could probably be persuaded to come to bed if he turned on that famous Malfoy charm.
By that point Draco hadn't had sex for nearly a year, and he hadn't had good sex for even longer. He'd have been willing to try anything.
Surprisingly it worked. Draco had found the Muggle bar more entertaining than he had thought he would, though the music was odd and Muggles dressed in some seriously strange clothes and the money had taken quite some getting used to. Still, Blaise had been there to make sure he didn't do anything stupid and Draco had gone back to a flat belonging to a woman whose name he could no longer remember, in one of those strange contraptions they called taxis and he'd discovered that Blaise was right about a lot of things.
It had quickly become a routine. One that neither of them would ever have revealed to anyone else. They went out, got drunk and took whatever decent looking women would have them back to bed. Draco had ended up renting an apartment in the middle of Muggle London just to have somewhere to take them to. It was by no means a perfect arrangement. In his more introspective moments Draco could still acknowledge to himself that perfect involved another marriage and someone he could respect and care for and maybe even love, but that was just a fantasy and this was a substitute that was not without its advantages.
This particular Saturday night he found himself standing in a bar in Muggle London – always one of the classier ones, sipping on a glass of whisky that was nowhere near as good as Firewhisky, but was at least acceptable and watching Blaise flirt outrageously with a tall blonde woman near the door. Draco suspected it wouldn't be long before he had his tongue down her throat, something which Draco very much did not like doing in public.
"Looks like your friend's having fun."
Draco turned to look at the woman who'd appeared next to him. It still surprised him when Muggle women did that. He was too used to witches who knew his name and his reputation and who'd giggled coyly and twisted their hair around their fingers and waited for him to approach them. At least that was how it had worked before his reputation had become so tainted that he'd been pushed into marrying Astoria simply because she was one of the few women who seemed willing to have him after the war.
With Muggles though it was different. They didn't know who he was, to them he was just an anonymous, well-dressed man in the crowd and they often felt no compunction in approaching him.
He'd seen this woman earlier – just a flash of her auburn hair as she laughed with her friends. He hadn't felt inclined to approach her, but now she was here, standing right next to him, he wondered why not. Her hair was rich, long and luxurious, enough to make Draco wonder what it would be like to run his fingers through it. Her eyes were amber, flecked with gold, intense and unwavering as she looked at him and allowed her lips to twitch into a teasing smile when she realised he was simply staring and not even attempting to answer.
He realised at almost the same time and jerked his gaze back towards Blaise. "Yes." He actually wished he could think of something else to say, but his brain seemed to have wandered away – probably from all the alcohol he'd consumed.
"I'm Ria," she said, not seeming to be put off by his lack of reaction. She was holding her hand out as if she expected him to shake it, which Draco knew was not normal Muggle etiquette in a situation like this. All the same he took the hand and enjoyed the feel of her soft skin against his.
"Draco," he said. He hadn't bothered with a fake name ever since he'd realised that some Muggles had pretty strange names as well. Women sometimes commented on its uniqueness, but usually to tell him they liked it. "What's Ria short for?" he asked, simply for something to say because she hadn't actually let go of his hand and it was making him slightly uncomfortable, if only in the region of his crotch, which was completely ridiculous because he was not some sex-starved teenage boy.
"Oh Draco, I can't tell you that," she purred, "It would ruin all the mystery." To his surprise she suddenly tugged on the hand she held, forcing him to lean closer. She was quite tall and only had to tilt her head a little to press her lips against his ear. "Since your friend has disappeared and left you all alone, how about you buy me a drink Draco?"
Bloody hell he was more than willing to buy her a drink. Her closeness had started his blood pounding in his ears and his heart thudding in his chest and it wasn't often a Muggle woman could do that to him. He smirked his consent – because it wouldn't do to look too eager and accompanied her to the bar.
He did buy her a drink, and then another one, and then he invited her back to his flat and had to try and hide his irritation that they had to get a Muggle taxi there, which was a stupid way to travel as far as Draco was concerned, especially when it meant he had to wait fifteen minutes longer to find out exactly how Ria's lips would feel against his.
He couldn't be too cross though because she had gazed at him and smiled at him and sometimes fluttered her hand over his thigh and his arm in the taxi and even though his clothes were in the way that had sent little tingles of anticipation running through his skin so that by the time they reached his door and he had unlocked it with a key and discretely released the wards with his wand he was practically breathless with desire anyway.
Then Ria was gliding through the door as if she owned the place, looking around at the furniture speculatively and running her hand along the walls until she came to a stop in the middle of the sitting area and turned her amber eyes on him with a mischievous grin on her face.
"Well, Draco, I never had you down as someone who lived in a place like this."
"I don't live here all the time." He wasn't sure what had compelled him to such honesty, and he cursed the fact that his voice sounded thick and gravely as if he had something stuck in his throat. He coughed and said, "Where did you imagine I lived?" just to buy himself some time to get his brain back in gear. Her bare legs, covered only to the knee by the floaty skirt of her green dress looked incredible in her heels. They even looked good a moment later when she eased the shoes off her feet and tossed them to one side. Draco eyed her appreciatively as she took a step towards him.
"Oh you know," she said lightly, "You look like you belong in a country mansion somewhere. Probably one with a lake I'd imagine."
The odd choking noise he made in his throat at that was not at all dignified, but it was so damn close to the truth that Draco just couldn't help himself. Why had she said that? He opened his mouth to ask the question, but she cut him off because somehow she had closed the distance between them without him noticing and now she was winding her arms around his neck. The brief thought flicked through his brain that he didn't usually let women take control like this before she tugged his head down and brought their lips together in a kiss filled with heat and passion and enough longing that Draco had to swallow back a moan of desire.
Merlin, he needed to get a grip.
He did. He gripped her hips with one hand and tangled the other in her hair, but it turned out that it was as soft and silky as it looked and the realisation really did make him moan into her mouth. He forced himself to pull away then, if only because his head was swirling in a way that had nothing to do with alcohol.
Ria looked at him speculatively as he pushed her away a little. "I bet you've got a four poster bed too Draco," she purred, with another of those seductive smiles she'd been flashing at him all evening, "Are you going to show it to me?"
"Oh yes." The slight pause had given him back some of his sense and some of his control and he was trying desperately to ignore the smile that threatened to take it all away again. Instead he scooped her up in his arms, which made her give a surprised squeak and wrap those long legs around his waist which was exactly the reaction he had wanted. After that it wasn't hard to carry her through to the bedroom and peel off that pretty green dress to see exactly what was hiding below it.
It turned out to be physical perfection, at least as far as Draco was concerned. She was all long slender lines and lean curves, just enough to make her feminine but not enough that he couldn't nip and suck at her delicate collarbones and scrap his teeth over her hip bones and elicit enchanting little noises from her that he couldn't have named if he'd tried.
Not that she was passive. She met him with kisses and licks of her own, with soft fingers and sharp nails and just the right amount of pressure with her teeth when she bit down on his neck in exactly the right spot to make him hiss and arch his back involuntarily. He was lost in a haze of pleasure even before he buried himself inside her and after that he was completely lost as his mind spiralled into white-hot oblivion and crashed dizzily back to earth in what seemed like endless, glorious moments of ecstasy.
He wrapped himself around her afterwards and fell asleep, which wasn't something he always did but he did it often enough that it certainly wasn't unusual and he didn't give the action a second thought.
When he awoke the next morning he was still wrapped around Ria, which actually was unusual because most of the time he moved in his sleep. Apparently he hadn't last night. It was novel enough that he relished the warmth and the softness of her skin for long, lazy minutes before he resigned himself to getting up and beginning the delicate dance that accompanied the morning after.
Some women were happy just to leave straight away; some women were happy to leave only after he'd given them false promises to call them on those Muggle devices they used; and some women – the ones he tried to identify and avoid before things got this far – refused to believe that he would call and were enough trouble that he'd considered the possibilities of obliviating their memories more than once. He never had, his charm had usually won through.
Thankfully he managed to extract himself from the bed without waking Ria and he pulled on a pair of black pyjama pants before he went through to the kitchen. He had learnt how to make tea the Muggle way simply because he hated not being able to drink a cup first thing in the morning and it was too risky to use any magic when a Muggle woman could walk in any moment.
"I don't like coffee."
Draco came very close to giving an undignified jump at that, but he managed to steady himself and risked glancing over his shoulder at Ria. He was glad he'd only given a glance because she'd pulled her dress back on and was standing leaning against the kitchen door frame with her arms folded and her hair mussed in a way that honestly looked like she'd done it deliberately and the whole effect was rather charming. Draco really hoped she hadn't seen the slight tremor in his hand as he opened the cupboard and pulled out some teabags.
He did make her a cup of tea, simply because she'd been so blatantly expecting one that he felt it would be rude not to. He'd done this before for women, though actually Muggle women seemed to drink coffee in the morning, which he had learnt to tolerate the smell of only after several tries. It still made him feel nauseous if he was honest, but at least it didn't actually make him wretch anymore.
Ria accepted the cup of tea, narrowed her eyes at him as if she was suspicious of his motives for giving it to her, despite the fact that she'd practically asked for it, and then to his surprise wandered away to look out of the window. Then again, why shouldn't she? True not many women noticed the view, but the floor to ceiling windows of his penthouse apartment did give an impressive panorama of the London skyline. Draco had not skimped on luxury for himself even in the Muggle world, though Blaise told him it was why some of the Muggle women were so reluctant to leave. He hoped Ria wasn't going to be one of them.
Since she didn't seem inclined to say anything Draco took his own tea and sat down on one of the couches in the living area. He didn't actually sit on them very often, since he didn't usually hang around in the morning beyond a quick shower or the occasional persuasive argument he had to use to get a woman to leave.
"It's very impressive."
Ria was looking at him now over the rim of her cup, regarding him with that penetrating amber stare that Draco was starting to believe could read all the thoughts on the inside of his head. He really hoped it couldn't.
"What is?" he asked, because he had a feeling she wasn't just talking about the view. Sure enough she swept her arm around in a wide arc that took in not just the windows, but the entire apartment. Then she raised her eyebrows and went through to the bedroom. He heard her moving around in there, but right now he didn't think he was in any fit state to go and see what she was doing. He really needed a hangover potion he though, and perhaps even a sobriety charm. There had to be some reason he still felt as drunk as he did.
He was seriously considering whether he should risk digging out his wand and performing one whilst she wasn't in the room when she came back. She had her shoes on now and Draco found himself rising to his feet without really thinking about it.
"Thank for the tea," she said and he found that he had taken the cup off her when she had offered it. "See you around Draco." She kissed his cheek and then was gone, sauntering out the door as if this was perfectly normal.
Well, he though, as he went to place the cups in the kitchen where he would send a house-elf to clean them up later, some women did leave just like that. He really should be grateful that Ria was one of them. Screaming and shouting and tears were really so undignified.
With that thought firmly in mind he headed back to the bedroom, summoned his clothes into his arms and Apparated home. Scorpius would be back later and he was very much looking forward to seeing him.