Title: Seven Sins
Summary: Sloth, Greed, Lust, Gluttony, Envy, Wrath, Pride. It only takes seven steps to destroy a marriage. Draco and Ginny didn't last, so neither do Draco and Astoria.
Rating: M
Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JKR.
Step 1: Sloth
Lying in the midst of their rubble, he can find nothing salvageable.
They were two broken pieces whose collision created a miraculous whole: a cathedral, a castle in the air, and the only things outside the stars and atmosphere. But that high up there's nothing left to breathe, and by the time they'd fallen, they'd already hit the ground.
Now what they built is nothing but debris, and she's left him less than she found him. And that's saying something.
There's no remedy in the remains, no relief in the wreckage. So he just shuts his eyes.
When he opens them again, he is lying in his (empty, cold) bed, and Zabini is leaning against the bedpost, arms folded and a scornful look on his face.
"You're a fucking mess," he says. "Get up."
"Fuck off," he replies.
"So what if she picked him? She was always going to, wasn't she?"
Anger, fast burning. It's better than emptiness and cold. "I said: Fuck. Off."
Zabini does, and when he returns twelve hours later, he finds his best friend washed, shaven, and sitting in his office with a quill in his hand.
There is an envelope at the edge of the desk, balanced so precariously that the barest nudge will send it fluttering to the wastebin. "Take it," he says, without looking up. "I never want to see it again."
Step 2: Greed
The funny thing is, she doesn't even marry him for love.
A year into the aftermath – of the war, for her, and for him, of an entirely different battle – they each need something. She, a man with wealth. He, a woman with an unblemished forearm and an untarnished name. (She doesn't know then that he already found one but lost her.)
And so, it isn't love. It's a business transaction: coins for credibility, resources for reputation, and there are no lovely lies between them.
Step 3: Lust
On their wedding night, he thinks he could maybe love her, this girl who isn't her. She's beautiful, blonde instead of red, cool blue instead of warm brown. Yes, he could love her, he determines. Instead of.
He kisses her. His tongue traces her bottom lip and his fingers thread through her hair, and then he guides her to his bed (not empty or cold, never again). He knows she's never done this before, so he runs feverish hands across her skin until she's gasping for breath and keening toward him, and then he's gentle, gentler than he thought he could be, and he looks down at her face, flushed by firelight, and Gods, she's gorgeous, and he really could love her. Instead of.
But it's nothing so easy as that. He's an addict (had he forgotten?), and the placebo is nothing like the drug, so when ecstasy floods his veins, he sees another face entirely. And the name he murmurs is not his wife's.
As she breaks beneath him, she thinks she's fallen in love. But then he whispers, "Ginny," and he's gone and broken something else too.
Step 4: Gluttony
Six months later, she sends him a fucking wedding invitation.
He drinks until he can't read the words.
She finds it in the wastebin. She doesn't have the whole story, and because she's a glutton for punishment, she takes it to someone who does.
Step 5: Envy
She slides the invitation (engraved, eggshell, matte-finish – beautiful, wedding-of-the-decade beautiful) across the glass table.
"You didn't know?" Pansy, who has always envied her, says, eyes sparkling with mirth. "I thought everyone knew."
"I didn't," she replies impatiently.
Pansy stands, moves to her husband's desk, draws out an envelope. "He loved her," she says.
Unnecessarily, as it turns out, because inside is a photograph of them (in his bed at school – she recognizes the hangings – and he is kissing her hairline and smiling, and she's never seen that smile before) and a diamond ring.
"Still does," she whispers. And Pansy laughs.
She feels two things: jealousy, because this other woman chose Potter over Malfoy, the hero over the villain, and still got both, and despair, because you can't compete with someone who doesn't want the prize.
These two are followed swiftly by a third: hatred, because though she made her a replacement, an imitation bulb when fire wouldn't catch, her husband has made her something even less.
She feels her light burn out.
Step 6: Wrath
It is the day of the wedding, and they are sitting in the drawing room.
She crosses the space between them, takes his hand, presses the photograph and the ring into his palm, feels cruel and revels in it.
He stills, stiffens, meets her eyes in shock. Then the gray hardens and he springs up, grabs her wrist hard and pushes her back to the wall. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he demands.
He reminds her of marble, then, of a statue, solid above her. But she knows he's crumbling inside, breaking down and hollowing out, and all he needs is a little tap.
"You're pathetic," she hisses, snaking from his grasp.
And as she walks away, she knows he's falling to pieces in her wake.
Step 7: Pride
He could have loved her, once, could maybe love her still. He thinks about telling her everything, about leveling the flimsy structure he's assembled and letting her build him back up on stronger foundations. He thinks about laying himself bare. He thinks, but never tells.
She never asks.
And they both know that pride comes before, and they could fall together.
But instead they just fall apart.
Author's Note: I've had this idea mulling around for a while and finally sat down and wrote. Let me know what you think!