Draco isn't a fool.
He has made bad decisions- he has made mistakes, God only knows- but he isn't a fool.
He can hear the whispers.
They were the worst right after the war- although back then they weren't so much whispers as shouts, yells, cries for him and his family to die for the sins they had committed.
They've faded out over the years. Now they're mostly silences when he enters a pub, or muttering when he walks by.
Draco isn't a fool.
There are many things he regrets, so many that he cannot list them because whenever he tries, whenever he puts quill to parchment he cannot move the feather and the ink dries up in one large black blot that covers half the page. And on the rare occasion that he tries to speak, his words die in his throat, half-formed syllables that never got a chance to breathe.
And anyway, there is nobody to listen to him, nobody to read his list were he to ever make one, nobody who cares because his father is now stiff, wearing his Malfoy pride like a thin coat against the battering wind, while his mother is shattered and listless, both of them shells of who they used to be.
Again, Draco is no fool.
When he meets Astoria, he barely glances at her.
She is pretty enough, with high cheekbones and a crooked, curving mouth, but she is nothing special (and even if she were, he wouldn't care).
It is only when she bluntly asks him where he's been the past three years since the war that he notices her, blank in his shock.
(Because they all know where he was- hiding in the Manor, venturing out rarely if ever.)
He mutters some excuse and dodges the question, eyeing her half in annoyance and half in grudging admiration- and then she smiles and it lights up her face and changes it, and she isn't pretty, she's fucking beautiful, and Draco knows he's lost.
They are married six months later.
It's a small ceremony- just his parents and her sister (her parents refused to attend. They care about his past, even if she doesn't.) and the officiating wizard. It's seaside in sunny France, a favorite vacation spot of hers, and the ring she slips on his finger is clearly Muggle made.
It is nothing like what he had expected of his wedding, years before.
Back then, on the rare occasion that he imagined it, Draco expected his wedding to be like most Pureblood marriages- large and stately, with hundreds of guests and a dusky sunset view, gold and platinum and silver dripping off of chandeliers and walls. He had expected thousands of galleons worth of presents, tightly smiling women congratulating him, and his parents, beaming at the view of their perfect, Pureblood son marrying someone worthy of them.
Of this image, the only thing that has carried through is the smiles on his parents' faces.
However, he knows that their smiles are not quite what they would have been- these smiles are more an expression of happiness that he was able to marry at all- but he knows that his parents love him, that they sacrificed much for him in the war, even if it is not quite in a way that anyone else would appreciate.
Again, Draco is not a fool.
He is terrified when he learns that Astoria is pregnant five years later.
His mind whirls with images of his son or daughter being mocked, being bullied, growing with the knowledge of who his father is and the shame of being Malfoy.
He wants a girl. He tells Astoria it's because he wants a daughter like her (but they both know it's because he's hoping that a pretty girl-child will have an easier life than a son).
Of course, it's a boy.
Draco figures that it's partly heaven's retribution, living with and seeing his child being tormented for being who he is.
(He can appreciate the irony. Draco is no fool).
But things turn out better than expected and Scorpius manages to make a name for himself separate from Draco- and Draco is proud, very proud.
(He still has that arrogance- that inherent, if buried, belief that Malfoys are better.)
And eventually, the years pass and the next generation forgets.
They forget about the war, about those who died for them, they forget about the blood that was shed in the halls of Hogwarts and the soil of Britain, they forget about honor and dishonor and all the rest of it, and they forget about the tarnished green and silver that is the Malfoy name.
And one day, when Draco steps into the Leaky Cauldron on business, the barmaid nods in his direction, wiping down the bar with a heavy cloth.
And though it's far from what he had been used to, years ago, it is something, and Draco won't forget it because yes, it has been years, but the first steps are long gone and he thinks he can learn to be live now.
He truly does.
Hello everyone :) While James and Lily are definitely my favorite pairing, Draco/Astoria does push in with a close second. I hope you enjoyed this- if you did (or didn't) please feel free to review!
Thanks so much,
-BC