A/N: Written for the Houses Competition, as a stand-in for Prefect 2. Thanks to CP and Holly for the amazing betas. AU!
House: Ravenclaw
Category: Drabble
Prompt: Stemless Wine Glass
Word Count: 365
Sighing, Draco heaves himself from the overstuffed couch in the living room. The house is too still, too quiet, and the empty picture frames on the mantelpiece ache with unfulfilled promise. If he doesn't keep moving, walking from one room to the next, he thinks the broken vows hanging in the air might crush him.
He passes the library, and the smell of freshly bound leather and parchment is too much. It smells like her.
Draco pulls the door shut, and the heavy slam sounds like an ending, sudden and fina;. Quickly, he walks on, down the crimson-carpeted hallway and into the kitchen.
An open recipe book is lying on the kitchen countertop, flipped to the page of a meal that was never made. The ingredients sit next to it, unused and still in their packaging. Draco can't bring himself to throw them away, even though they are long out of date. It's been a long time, and still, he can't bring himself to do anything.
They never even had a funeral. Draco doesn't think she'd have wanted one, anyhow.
Just the thought, just imagining her in the kitchen with him, laughing and smearing flour across his nose, makes him feels so empty inside, so utterly alone. It's like she was the blood running through his veins, and without her, his heart has stopped beating.
He needs the pain to stop, needs to just forget, and so Draco does what he has done every night for the past ten years.
With the familiarity that only years can bring, he grabs a bottle of red wine from the wine rack and pours it into a stemless wine glass, the same glass he uses every night, the one that she gave him, his hands shaking uncontrollably.
Tonight, Draco hopes, everything will be better.
Instead, he drinks glass after glass, until he falls asleep, passed out on the overstuffed couch. The beautiful wine glass drops from his grasp, and shatters on the mahogany floor.
Draco goes to sleep that night, and nothing is better. The pain is still there, as strong and steady as her heartbeat once was. The memories linger, and he dreams only of her.
Hermione.