Character: Draco Malfoy

Kidnapped right after Harry saved him in the 7th book

Scenario # 1:

Your character is madly but secretly in love with someone close to him or her, but that person is involved seriously with someone else. A crisis point approaches (a wedding, betrothal, etc.).

Truly Madly Deeply Do

She looked beautiful. Not that she didn't always look beautiful, but today she was positively glowing. Her bushy brown hair was pulled back in an elegant French braid, a small white flower was intertwined in the braid just above her ear. Her brown eyes were searching.

She was looking for someone, standing in the door way, white sun dress fanning around her knees. It made his heart race despite the knowledge that she would never look for him with such hope in her eyes. He was her sworn enemy. If she wasn't the type of girl to set morals and stick with them she probably would have killed him by now. As it was she muttered over and over again that he wasn't worth it. To her he wasn't even good enough to brutally slaughter.

There was no way she was looking for him. Not with that tentative smile, that spark of necessity in her eyes. He knew it wasn't possible and yet it was what he desired most. He felt his face flush at his own thoughts, ashamed and embarrassed as though everyone in the Leaky Cauldron could hear his thoughts.

She was a Mudblood. What would his father think? Watching her over his Butter Beer he had to ask himself moments later, what did it matter?

She was beautiful. She was bloody intelligent and she was brave; braver than he could ever be. If she had to choose between her life and that of her family's, she would sacrifice her own. She was selfless.

He couldn't believe he was even thinking about her. He should just forget about her. She was beneath him. He could do better. But could he?

He thought about calling out to her. Saying her name, just thinking about it sent his heart into overdrive. His palms became slick with sweat and his stomach flip-flopped, his voice died in his throat. He wasn't planning on doing it anyway. She was a Mudblood. She would taint him.

All throughout their Hogwarts years he'd told himself that he had to be mean to her. To be nice would mean he was going against his father's rules, against his own beliefs. To be nice to her would have meant that she would have gotten close. That she would have contaminated his Pure-Blood stature.

Not that he really needed to worry about it now. If he were to go about boasting his linage, people would assume he was trying to bring the Death Eaters back into existence. Blood status had been eradicated by Potter. It was no longer proper or important. People were just people. He couldn't wrap his head around it. It was like believing the world was round all of your life and waking up one day to people hounding you about how it was actually square. You didn't want to believe it, you wanted proof, and you found every excuse you could come up with to ignore or degrade the evidence supplied. But when nobody was looking, you had to take a second glance and admit to yourself that maybe, just maybe the world really was square. Not that you would ever admit it publicly, or explicitly remember telling yourself so.

He had too much pride to admit that he had been so wrong. He had too much pride in his family name, too much pride in himself, too much pride in the old way of going about things to let the world see him as a changed man. He had too much to lose. Not that there was much left of his confidence. To even be seen talking to her – if she would even talk to him civilly- it would cost him the rest of his dignity.

He couldn't do it, wouldn't do it. Telling himself that it wasn't because he couldn't, but because he didn't want to, didn't have to. He was above her. He could do better.

She stepped further into the Pub and continued to look around, walking slowly toward the bar where he sat. He suddenly couldn't breathe. Was she going to talk to him? Had she really been looking for him?

As she drew closer, her tentative smile growing more confident, he prepared himself to say one word. He prepared himself to say her name, to acknowledge her existence for the first time in his life in a civil manner.

He smiled back feebly, worrying about whether or not he had a Butter Beer mustache. He ran his hand around the corners of his mouth nervously, repeating her name to himself so as to not mangle it.

She drew closer, he took a deep breath, "Her-"

"Ronald!" She exhaled, suddenly rushing toward the man of her dreams, toward the man who wasn't Draco, wasn't anything like him, wasn't anything Hermione deserved.

She could do better, so much better, Draco told himself, her name dying on his lips, his nervousness turning to hatred and his unconscious hope shattered, confidence ruined as she excitedly rambled, "Of course I'll marry you! But you really shouldn't have sent the ring by Post. It could have gotten lost or stolen. God only knows what would have happened if I had said no…"

Draco stood up quickly, leaving a galleon tip on the table, hoping to avoid a public meltdown, wanting to get as far away from his private rejection as possible. The world really was circular. Mudbloods really were below him. He could do so much better than Granger. He didn't love her. He would never love her, never had.

Draco buried all of his feelings deep into his subconscious as he walked as collectedly as possible from the dark depths of the Leaky Cauldron, never to be dredged up until he saw her again, or his thoughts strayed to what could have been.