A/N: No action yet – I know the setup is slightly excessive, but I feel it's necessary. Something will happen in the next chapter I promise! I'm contemplating extending this beyond what I originally planned, we'll see how motivated I am. Thanks for the reviews/favourites/story alerts!
Draco paced around his hotel room in muggle London. He had left the Manor a month ago, because no matter what he did, no matter how many times his mother redecorated the house, it still pushed in upon him as the place where evil had taken hold of him. The walls felt like they had been pushing in on him, and he just had to leave. His mother would be looking for him, but bugger it.
He had been drifting aimlessly though life since the final battle, trying to forget what had happened, unable to commit to any training program that would lead to a job, spending money on frivolous magical items until he had filled up three rooms in his wing of the Manor with his junk. He was trying to forget, to start over.
His parents still expected him to marry some perfect pureblooded girl and raise a perfect family of Malfoy descendents, preferably sooner rather than later. So far he had resisted being set up with any of the girls his mother paraded in front of him. She meant well, but he just wasn't interested yet. He didn't have a purpose in life, let alone a job or even a house of his own. He could very easily have used some of the money his parents made available to him, but it somehow didn't feel right to him. He wanted to be independent, but he just hadn't found a way to do that yet. He had never felt like this before, but since Hogwarts he had had this annoying desire to prove himself.
Draco wanted to be somewhere people didn't know who he was, what he had done, and what was expected of him. He wanted a place to be himself, to be able to forget. His family and the Manor had been daily reminders of everything he had done, and he didn't want that. He needed to be away, and had settled on this hotel. It was a very nice hotel, no expenses spared, in the heart of the London nightlife scene. That wasn't what Draco had intended when he picked it, but it had turned into a good distraction. It was much easier to throw himself into the nightlife than to try and come to terms with what he had done, who he was.
Over the past month, Draco had attempted to blend into muggle society, a task that was harder than he thought. He had spent a few nights observing the crowds from his balcony, and had transfigured several of his robes into more appropriate muggle wear. His Dark Mark had disappeared with the vanquishing of the Dark Lord, which he was thankful for. Looking at that tangible reminder of what he had been would have been painful – much easier just to move on. He didn't want to take chances with anyone recognizing him, especially if his parents came looking for him, so he had taken to disguising himself with Appearance-Altering charms, changing his hair colour to a darker blonde, and giving himself a tan, against which his grey eyes popped out even more.
Apparently his new appearance was irresistible to muggle girls – especially drunk ones. The past month had been a blur of drinking muggle alcohol late into the night, picking up girls, sleeping in and then repeating the whole process. Mindless sex was something that he had never been able to enjoy in the wizarding world. All of the girls knew who he was and seemed to have these ridiculous expectations of him and his wealth and looking after him. After that insane situation of Millicent taking fertility potions and trying to get pregnant with his child to hopefully bind him to her for life, he had sworn off casual sex with witches. It just wasn't worth it. Muggles were much easier to control, to use as distractions until he could figure out some direction in his life. It would come to him, he was sure. In the meantime, he could use the distraction.
Draco picked up the contraption that muggles called a 'telephone' – which had taken him a day and a half to figure out how to work – and ordered food to his room. It was slightly more inconvenient than having house elves to do his every bidding, but the muggles who worked at this hotel performed basically the same functions, although the maid who came in to clean every morning had an annoying habit of chatting to him about her three children and unemployed husband. He had figured out how to tune her out, after using her to help him perfect his muggle conversation skills. It was a good thing he had learned the obliviate spell early on – some of his blunders had been quite memorable, but he was a quick learner.
His dinner arrived twenty minutes later (another issue with this whole room service over house elves thing), and he set in with gusto. He had spent the night before with a very attractive brunette, who had quite adventurous tastes. Draco most definitely hadn't minded, and they had a very pleasant night together. He had made sure she was gone by the time that maid came in, though – the last thing he needed was another lecture like the one she had given when she had caught a girl in his bed for the first time when Draco had forgotten about that stupid sign that he was supposed to post on the door if he didn't want someone to come in. The next day when he had put it on, the room didn't get cleaned, so he had taken to getting the girls out before eleven.
Draco quickly finished the tray of food and left it out in the hall to be collected. He had had a late dinner, so only had about an hour to kill before the clubs really started getting good (he had made the mistake of being too early the first night he went out and had sworn to never show up to an empty bar again). He pulled the out the Quibbler that his owl had delivered that morning and began to read. After he had finished with the magazine, he took a shower and refreshed his appearance-altering charms – they had a nasty habit of wearing off every twelve hours. Draco pulled on a black dress shirt and jeans and wandered out of his room, wondering what bar to go to that night.