Picture perfect – 7/50 for the Pairing Diversity Boot Camp Challenge.

Also written for week nine of the 52 Weeks of Writing 2013 Competition with the prompts: Heartbreak, "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't?", Alcohol, Breathless, Nightmare, Twenty-Four.

Draco pulled away from Astoria sharply, wavering from the alcohol that was muddling his brain. He'd just come back from a late night out with his co-workers, celebrating a recent breakthrough in an investigation. But that which he had come back to had utterly ruined his good mood. Probably forever. It was about five in the morning, he was tired and drunk, and he had never been so angry. His hands clenched tightly around the dark curtains behind him. He tried to breathe deeply before he spoke, so as not to lunge and strangle her instead.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't leave you right now," he half-muttered, half-whispered, as though each word clawed at his throat on the way out.

Astoria had her hands clutched to her chest and there were tears streaming down her face. In any other circumstance, Draco would have her in his arms in seconds, trying to comfort her.

As it was, the farther he was from her, the better.

"D-don't go! It's all a misunderstanding!" Her wailing sounded more pathetic than ever before, and, for the first time in their five years of marriage, Draco had the most distressing urge to strike her across the face. His ears and head rang with her shouts. "We weren't doing anything wrong!"

Draco's nightmare continued, no matter how many times he closed his eyes and counted to ten. He was going to take the higher road, he wasn't going to get mad. Or so he told himself, at least. Breathing hard through a burst of firewhiskey-induced dizziness, he managed to say, "I don't think there is any way that finding you, naked, with Blaise in our bed can be misconstrued, Astoria."

"Draco!" A single tear fell from the tip of her pointed nose, and Draco followed it with his eyes as it splashed onto the floor. He cringed. In his next breath, she lurched forward, hands grabbing at his grey robes. Once, he would have smiled at the invitation, smirked at her eagerness, and wrapped her in his arms. He might have allowed himself to be held, caressed, kissed by the beautiful woman that was his wife.

But everything had changed, had broken apart a mere twenty-four minutes earlier, and he had been breathless ever since. Breathless and heartbroken.

Not that anyone believed Draco Malfoy had a heart.

Not even his wife, apparently.

He backed away from her, watching various emotions flicker over her face. He could honestly have said, right then, that he didn't care about the pain that lit up her eyes. Tears began to sting at his own as he looked over their bedroom one last time. It was picture perfect, virtually spotless, and then his eyes landed once again on the mess of a bed and the still body under the covers. He felt bile rise in his throat and said, coldly, "I hope you're happy!"

Though the room was wavering and swirling around him, Draco was sure that Blaise flinched under the white covers.

Turning from Astoria with a sigh that sounded dreadfully final, even to him, Draco grabbed his wand, turned on his heel, and apparated away.