This is a sequel to my one-shot Forbidden. Please read tha tone before you read this, it will make more sense. Danke.

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When I dream, I'm a princess in a fairy tale. The charming prince comes to take me away, and we live happily ever after. Through it all, no matter what changes, there's always a wide smile on my face.

Then I wake up.

Never trust my smile, Draco Malfoy. You have no idea how easy it is to smile at you. You've always assumed that you were the one with the perfect mask, that I was the one whose emotions were transparent. Funny how the tables turned, isn't it?

That first night when you told me why you loved me, I smiled at you, and you thought that everything was all right. You were so wrong. I knew at that very moment that I had bought into the wrong fairy tale. My prince charming was nothing but the selfish bastard who couldn't stand to see anyone else get the first prize. I was nothing but a prize.

You don't know what love is, do you? We're both twenty-four, but you are still that arrogant sixteen year old who has no clue what the world is like, who remains within his naïve illusion. You think you love me. You don't love me. You want me. Rather, you wanted me. A Malfoy always wants what he doesn't have, doesn't he?

And here I am.

Your perfect picture, isn't it? You own Malfoy Manor, the largest estate in the wizarding world by now with all those added rooms. You enlarged the house to twice the original size. You have a beautiful woman who could be out there just as successful as you, but instead she's barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen with three children running around underfoot. Somehow, that's never how I pictured my fairy tale.

You think you're on top of everything, don't you? I know you do. I can see it in those eyes, the same way I've always been able to look past your mask into your eyes and see what's really going on. You come home from work, sometimes five hours late, and ask me how my day was. It's all I can do not to scream in your face that I'm just fine, sitting at home and thinking of you, probably screwing your gorgeous secretary. Some fairy tale.

I don't really think that. I entertain the idea once in a while, but for all your discrepancies, I believe you are faithful to me. I'd be able to tell if you weren't. You may be arrogant, you may think you're able to do no wrong, but you know it's wrong to cheat on the wife whom you profess to love. Which leads us back to the simple truth. You don't know what love is. You certainly don't love me.

Do I love you? I really thought I did, for a long time. I had the biggest crush on your since the fourth year, but you never realized it. I never allowed myself to do more than dream anyways. I knew it would never happen between us. Imagine my surprise when you came courting me in my new home in Italy one year out of school. Imagine my shock when you kept at it for a full two years, until you finally asked the question. I accepted. At that moment, I really did think I was in love. I thought my fairy tale had finally come true.

Maybe I'm deceiving myself to think I know anything more about love than you do. I'm not sure what it is, but I certainly know what it's not. It's not this. It's not what we have. I realized that on our wedding night. Isn't that so ironic? It was supposed to be the most romantic night of my life. Instead, I realized that I was marrying a man who didn't love me. I couldn't return a feeling that wasn't there.

Yet I smiled, Draco. I smiled, and the façade began. The supposedly happy life that continued through the years. I smiled as I rose to a high social standing at the side of Draco Malfoy, though inside I couldn't get over how fake it was. I smiled as I bore your children, though inside I was devastated that I would never have my own career, my own success. I smiled as your business became a leader in the wizarding economy, though inside I was disappointed that I would never come out of my husband's shadow. The façade continued. I doubt that it's stopped yet.

I doubt that it will ever stop.

You come home now, Draco, and I look at the clock. It's ten thirty, yet you don't seem to realize that you should have been home three hours ago, in time to eat dinner with me. In time to bring me flowers, diamonds, candy, anything. You don't realize anything.

You don't remember that it's our anniversary. After five years, you can't seem to remember anything that has to do with me. It doesn't really matter anymore, does it? Even our five-year anniversary.

You come in and kiss me on the cheek, and ask me, as you always do, how my day was. I smile blandly, and you accept, as you always do, that this means everything is just peachy. You don't realize how it is to sit at home and know inside that the one who is supposed to love you will not remember something so important as this. You don't know what it's like to sit and brood over the fact that there is no love in your life.

You tell me that you have had a long day, and you're going up to bed. I watch you go up the stairs. Don't you know me? Aren't we husband and wife? After five years, you still are the same man. The same man, who doesn't care about me at all, except to make sure his trophy still remains.

And here I am.

I used to believe in fairy tales, Draco. The charming prince comes to rescue the beautiful princess, locked up in the tower of a castle. Tell me, Draco, did you ever notice the princess's smile? She never once stopped smiling, did she?

Do you think I'm the only one who saw that her smile was fake, too?

You loved me because you didn't have me. It looks as though your love stopped when you realized you had me. I can tell you this, you never should have stopped loving me, or at least pretending to love me.

Because you still don't have me.

I doubt you ever will.