Prompt: 'request'
Title: Proposals
Word Count: 685
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Draco sat down opposite his mother and father at the shining mahogany dining table that sat in the centre of the Manor's breakfast room and folded his hands in his lap, biting his lip nervously. As he sucked in and sharply released a gulp of air, his parents' eyes met briefly, amusedly, before returning to his, expectant expressions adorning their shadowy faces. The baroque candelabra that hung from the high ceiling cast dark shapes across the cavernous room, throwing his mother and father's facial features into relief. What with the gloom of Malfoy Manor's breakfast room and the subject matter he knew he could simply not avoid any longer, Draco had never been more terrified of his parents at any point during his entire twenty-two-year-long life. The deafening silence was painful against his ear drums, so he sighed and opened his mouth to speak.
"Draco," his mother said softly, cutting across him. "We know what this is about."
"Do you?" Draco asked in surprise, requiring confirmation. Realising his mouth was hanging open, he made a conscious effort to grit his teeth and straightened up in his seat. He cleared his throat. "Ah, well. That's excellent. It's settled, then."
"Not necessarily, Draco," began his father icily, his silver-blonde eyebrows shooting up. "There is much we need to discuss before your mother and I make our decision. As you've probably guessed, we are not happy about this."
"What do you mean, you're 'not happy about it'? It's only a ring! I thought you'd want it to be passed down through the generations as a Malfoy family heirloom." He frowned, his grey eyes wide with disbelief.
His mother turned her head dutifully to face Lucius, whose jaw had fallen slack in response to his son's last admittance.
"What on earth are you talking about? What ring?" his father demanded curtly, leaning across the sleek table toward Draco. "We thought you'd called us here to ask whether or not we'd permit you to marry that Granger girl you've become ridiculously infatuated with." He spat Hermione's name as though it were a dirty word.
"Permission?" Draco seethed, incensed. "Oh, no, Father. I had no intention of asking your permission to marry anybody."
Narcissa gasped, her dark eyes wide.
Lucius blanched. "But what... I don't quite understand..."
"I didn't ask you to come here so that I could ask for your blessing. In fact, I don't care for your opinion at all on the matter. Hermione Granger makes me happier than anyone ever has before, and she and I are getting married next summer. She is going to be my wife, and I'm afraid that issue isn't subject to negotiation."
His father's chair shot back from the table and Lucius stood up, his face reddening with anger.
"There is no way on this Earth that my grandson... the Malfoy heir... will be the product of a ludicrous teenage romance with a... a... a Mudblood!" He slammed his fist down on the table. "Your relationship with that girl has gone far enough." He wheeled around, his long hair falling over his shoulder. "We'll discuss this later," he muttered, before hurling himself from the room and slamming the heavy door behind him.
With his father safely out of earshot, Draco sighed, reached across the table and held on tightly to his mother's trembling hand. "I don't know how you put up with him, Mother, I really don't."
"Nor do I, sometimes," she responded gently, rubbing circles soothingly into the side of Draco's hand with her thumb. They sat in silence for a moment, their breathing falling into perfect rhythm, before Narcissa drew her hand back into her lap underneath the table. She laughed once and placed her hand back on top of the wood a minute later. Draco's brow furrowed as he noticed his mother now lacked the multi-faceted majorite engagement ring that had previously adorned her finger.
"Mother, what..."
"Make her happy, Draco," his mother told him, a false note of sternness in her voice, as she pushed the delicate, magnificent ring across the table toward him. "Make her dreams come true."
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