Written for the QLFC Round 10

Prompts - Chaser 1 - Write about a death at a wedding, birthday party or other similarly happy occasion.

[Quote] "If he's dead I'll kill him."

[Quote] "Yes, I've had three wives. One cheated on me, one didn't make it past the reception and one shot me."

[Object] Television

Rating - T

Word Count - 1751

Slight plot twist - Draco works at the Ministry of Magic.

Warning - It's a slight M, not major.

Betaing Credits - Ca (moonrainer), Audrey (halcyon epochs) and Aliena (Pachamama9)

"Yes, I've had three wives. One cheated on me, one didn't make it past the reception and one shot me," he explained.

All of the doctors in the room looked astonished. There were at least five of them and none had ever heard a story like this before. They had heard stories about many profound injuries, but never a story about a wife shooting her husband.

"Wait, I thought you said that you were about to get married?" asked a doctor with long black hair tied in a perfect bun while loading the injection needles. "That would mean you had two wives."

"It's a long story," he informed them, moaning as his ribs hurt when he moved around on the hospital bed.

"Well, we have all the time in the world. We have to wait until enough blood from the machine transfers to your body, so your heart won't fail," a surgeon said. (The patient looked like he was going to faint when he heard this.) "So, do tell us."

"Fine," the patient groaned, giving in to them. "What happened to my first two wives is pretty self-explanatory. One cheated on me and one just simply left me and never bothered to come to the reception as we were leaving."

All five doctors leaned in closer as he went on.

"I was getting ready for the big day. I was so excited; this was my third, and I wanted it to be perfect. She had told me a few nights before how she wanted everything to be amazing and that she was going to love me for the rest of her life. I remember picking her up and spinning her around. I was so happy that night, I would never have thought that she would do what she did. I thought she loved me.

A few days passed and nothing alarming occurred. They were just normal days for us. Cleaning and work, you know, that kind of stuff. She never acted weird, or differently.

But, I remember, one night I had to work a night shift at the Ministry of Magic. I left her on her own. She said that she was going out with her friends, so I knew if she got drunk someone would be there to drive her home, safely.

After my shift had ended- I had just parked out the front of our house and I was about to unlock the door - I heard a voice.

It definitely belonged to a man-it was masculine and low-pitched. He said things. And I mean things that would usually scare the crap out of me. But, for some reason, I was intrigued, and I don't know why. He said lots of things that never made sense to me, but the one thing, the most important thing I can remember was: "If he's dead, I'll kill him."

I felt really perplexed for some reason. I understood the words, but I just didn't understand what he meant. Who was he going to kill? Who was dead? It made no sense to me.

Looking back on it makes me feel stupid. I just shrugged it off and went into my house. My girlfriend was sitting on the sofa binge-watching a show on the television. She always insisted on having something muggle-like in our house. I don't know why, I guess she got a bit jealous that muggles didn't have to deal with magical stress, like her.

She looked at me weirdly, like she wanted to punch me in the face. I thought she was going to, but then she said something that surprised me even more.

"What're you looking at?" she inquired. I wasn't surprised. She usually had an attitude when she got drunk or had just returned from a night out with her friends.

"Nothing," I replied. I went to go and make myself a coffee, as I hadn't had a drink since I'd left for my night shift.

A couple of minutes later, I went upstairs to bed. I figured my wife would have dozed off already. I trusted that she wouldn't do anything stupid. But boy, I didn't know how wrong I was.

I woke up the next morning, dressed and ready to go to work. When I got downstairs I received the shock of my life. She was sprawled out on the sofa with crisp packets and chocolate bar wrappers scattered around her. Her hair was dishevelled, plastered on her face. She had one arm hanging off the sofa and her left leg was resting upon the arm on the other side. I laughed a little because this was definitely not like her. I thought it was just the alcohol.

If this happened a lot, I would be extremely worried. But, my fiancée rarely got drunk, so I just let it slide, just this once. "Lucky, you don't have work today." I chuckled at my sleeping girlfriend while placing a blanket over her body.

I left for work. When I arrived there, it seemed that there wasn't much for me to do, just paperwork.

When I came home I looked through the window. I expected my wife to still be asleep or downing a packet of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. To my surprise, the room was empty. And by empty, I don't just mean she wasn't in the room. I mean it was empty, literally empty. No sofa, no table, no television, no chairs. There was absolutely nothing in the room.

Immediately, I rushed into the house and burst through the living room doors. Just like I had seen, it was empty.

"I decided we should change things up a bit," a voice from behind me said. I turned; it was my girlfriend. She was leaning against the wall between the kitchen and the living room. "The room looked like someone from the fifties lived here," she complained.

"But my parents did. They lived in the fifties," I told her. It wasn't like her to do things without asking me first. It concerned me. She was acting strangely.

"Oh, they did, didn't they," she replied. She sounded like she had forgotten. I was worried about her, she never forgot such important things about my family.

"Are you okay?" I asked her, stroking her arm and trying to sound comforting. "You don't seem like yourself."

"Yes, I'm fine!" she exclaimed, pushing me off her. "I'm going to bed, now."

"Okay," I replied, waving her off, while she walked up the stairs.

I really wanted to go after her, but I knew she was just going to push me away, as she did before, so I decided to go and make myself dinner. Once, I got into the kitchen I was horrified. There were open bottles of champagne, wine glasses and half full bottles of whiskey, all over the place."This explains what all that was about," I muttered to myself. I spent the next hour cleaning up the mess my wife had made. I didn't mind cleaning it up, but I couldn't help but think that she wasn't alone today and that she had been drinking with somebody.

Days went by until finally it was the day we were supposed to get married. I was really excited, but I just for some reason kept thinking that my wife-to-be wasn't. I couldn't stop thinking that she wasn't happy and she didn't want to be with me. I kept saying to myself, 'stop being stupid, Draco. She wouldn't be marrying you if she didn't want to be with you'.

"Mr. Malfoy, we need you at the altar," a woman (who I assumed worked here) told me. She directed me to the front of the chapel, and I stood waiting for Astoria to walk down the aisle.

I couldn't really figure out what I was feeling at that moment in time. I was nervous, happy, worried. Basically, I was every emotion you can feel before you get married, and may I add, for the third time.

All of a sudden, the all-so-familiar music started playing, and my beautiful girlfriend walked down the aisle. Butterflies started to form in my stomach, and I just couldn't get that I was about to be married to the most beautiful woman, in my head.

I don't want to go into detail, but from when she walked down the aisle until the kiss everything was going perfectly. We both said the most beautiful vows and we traded the most stunning rings, that I had ever seen.

Then it was time. It was time for me to kiss her. It was time for everything to go wrong. I lent in and cupped her face in my hands. I was about to close the gap between our two faces when…

Bang!

Everyone in the chapel gasped. The expression on my wife's face was blank, but she was staring at something behind me. My face had the urge to look at where she was. There was a figure, dressed in black, his face was hidden behind a mask with only two holes for his eyes and was holding a gun. I looked at my wife. I knew what had happened. I knew that she was acting weird because she wasn't in love with me. She was in love with him. She was in love with this man. She was in love with the man who shot me.

I lost both consciousnesses in my legs. I fell and everything went black. That's the last thing I can remember.

All of the doctors' expressions were blank. It reminded Draco too much of his wife. He couldn't cope with all this. He couldn't cope with having three wives. He couldn't cope with any of it.

"I'm sorry," he told them.

"What for?" they all replied, puzzled.

Draco hesitated for a second. He jumped out of the bed and tried to balance himself upright. "Mr. Malfoy, please stay in the bed!" the woman with the black hair insisted.

Draco stared at her but continued. He picked up the scissors that the doctor was using to cut up the bandages. "I can't live like this anymore!" he announced, stabbing the scissors at his chest.

Blood poured from his chest and he collapsed to the floor. Draco never wanted his life to end this way, but he felt like he had no other choice, like it had to be done. Which led to the conclusion of why Astoria did what she did.

Draco would never know.