Sitting at the breakfast table, being handed my tea by a house elf, I heard Blaise's deep voice echo slightly through the hallway, "You're losing your cool Draco, chill out."
"No," my husband growled, obvious annoyance was flooding his voice. "This is shit that was my past, and yet it keeps coming up. I try to change and they don't like that either. I can't win in this damn world."
"The past is always with us," I heard Blaise say something pretty wise, which was always a nice, but scary, change from his normal joking attitude.
"Will my past never stop haunting me?" I heard the sound made of flesh hitting a wall.
The wall was fixed with magic, making a popping noise."It haunts us all, we all manage. This is no different."
An undignified sound came from him, "This is my job, my livelihood, it's not a game for whoever this is."
A deep sigh came from Draco's best friend."It also has the Malfoy name attached to it. The business was engrained with dark magic, and you took that away from it."
"You're not sticking up for these lunatics are you?"
"Of course not. I'm not justifying their actions, just trying to explain some possible reasoning."
"Hmm"
"No reason for the pity party. So stop."
Another growl, "you're right, my bad."
"And then there's your thing with Granger..." Oh? What thing?
"It's not a thing, we're friends," my husband responded in a thin voice.
"Right," I could practically hear Blaise roll his eyes.
"Yes, right. I wouldn't do that to Astoria," the low voice of my husband trailed off.
Then Blaise asked a question eerily similar to what I had recently asked Granger herself. "What if you weren't married to her?"
A pause.
"Irrelevant."
Though this was an answer that held no real value, it still made me feel a little twang in my gut.
"It's kind of a thing."
"Shut up, Blaise."
Time to start the war.
"I overheard you and Blaise talking this morning," I stated carefully as I got ready for bed, crawling under the plush duvet.
He stiffened slightly and turned his head to look at me, his back still to me as he removed his shirt. "What did you hear?"
I decided to stick with the most prominent subject of their earlier conversation. "Someone is attacking the business?" Well...way to just throw it out there.
He sighed deeply, I wasn't sure if it was out of annoyance, exasperation, or relief. "You know we don't talk about work..."
"Well can we?" I looked at him hopefully, I just wanted answers, "just this once?"
"No," he growled, already done with this conversation.
I reached out for him to come closer but he ignored me completely, standing at the foot of the bed glowering down at me, "Draco, please?"
"No."
"Why not?"
He looked at me like I was incapable of rational thought, "It doesn't concern you."
"It affects me too, Draco." It did, this business was a large part of my life as well as his. Though what was more important to me was his own welfare. I knew he wouldn't look out for himself. Instead, he would do whatever it took to make sure the business went unharmed, he wouldn't care what would happen to him. That truly frightened me, because I cared deeply.
"No, it doesn't. We're fine."
I could tell by his look that he wouldn't be discussing it. The fire that was burning in me to discover what he was hiding, what he was fearing, was burning brightly, but I allowed him to simmer it for the night. "Fine."
And that was the end of it for the night.
But sometimes a girl has to do what a girl has to do. The next morning Draco told me that he would be gone for most of the day. For once I was happy to have the distraction of Granger. I was assuming that he had brought her into this, even though it wasn't something he would talk to me about, so I figured that was the reason he went to meet her somewhere instead of her here like normal.
I had never been in his office without him being in there, it wasn't a place I had ever had any interest in. Yet I found myself sneaking into the large room, constantly on the surveillance for his reappearance or some warning to escape before being caught. But there was none. I was in the clear, he was gone.
Quietly I walked over to his desk, noticing that it was uncharacteristically messy for his work. When I would find him working late, there would be papers scattered like this, but it was always cleaned up straight after he had finished or retired for the night. Draco just wasn't a messy person, he was much too meticulous about things like that. The paper seemed to be haphazardly hidden under others, like he was trying to move them out of sight quickly before someone could see them. Had someone been here this morning?
I tried to move the papers carefully after attempting to memorize their exact positioning. I would later try to put them all back the way I had found them, never letting Draco know I had been there in the first place.
I saw scrabbled notes. Then I found the letters, the wax seals broken.
Written in beautiful writing, old writing, were threats to the business. But not only the business, but to him. This shocked me completely. Who would threaten Draco? He has been nothing but wonderful the past few years, maybe even a little too wonderful as of late.
Then as I read on I understood, him being a better person is what these were about.
Letter after letter said the same thing just using different words, and some in different handwriting.
"Disgrace to the Malfoy name."
"Your father must be rolling in his grave."
"Traitor."
"Give up the business."
"You don't deserve the business."
"Plenty of worthy people to run it."
"Your mother must be disappointed."
"Almost as vile as they." They, I assumed, meant people of unpure blood. This made my own blood boil, no way was Draco unpure. He was after all, part of one of the few families that were still pureblood.
Those were tame compared to some of the things they described would happen to him, or what they themselves would do to him.
The letters were disgusting to read. Whoever these people were clearly didn't know him that well, and they clearly wanted the Malfoy business. I scanned my brain to try and think of anyone who would do such an awful thing but it came up blank. And it only stalled on Pansy's name for a fraction of a second, I knew she wouldn't do this.
Who wanted the business? Well actually...who didn't? It was increasingly successful every day, and whoever owned it also got all of the perks, bells, and whistles that came along with it. And the money, so much money. Enough money to make desperate people do desperate things.
This is the only way I could make sense of why someone who do something so cruel like this.
I continued reading, even though there were many times where I wanted to slink away and pretend like I had never seen any of this. It certainly was tempting.
"Hey, kid," I heard a familiar voice speak from directly behind me, "What are you doing?"
I jumped, causing papers to scatter from the desk, floating onto the floor. "Nothing!"
"Right," he looked me up and down, then rolled his eyes over to scan the mess I had just caused. A quick upward flick of his wand and the papers picked themselves up and placed themselves back onto the desk in neat piles. Too neat, he would know I was there still. But from what I had found it wouldn't mater anyway, I was going to have a talk with him about all of this. I needed to.
"What are you doing here?" I tried to act innocent, even though I had been caught red-handed.
He chuckled softly, "Draco asked me earlier to come check on you."
"Why?"
"A few reasons," he stiffened for a second but then regained his normal blasé posture, "he must have figured that you would do something like this."
"What? I would never...usually."
A shrug, "I think he knows you better than you think he does. He knew you were suspicious about what was going on. "
"What is going on?"
He waved a hand at me, "Sorry kid, that's a discussion for you and Draco. And uh...good luck with that."
"Thanks..." I decided to change the topic, bringing up an age old "argument" between Blaise and I. "Will you ever stop calling me that? I'm an adult. A two year difference is hardly enough to make me a kid."
This received another deep chuckle, "now you should know the answer to this. No it won't. You'll always be 'kid'."
Though I did pretend to hate the nickname - and well sometimes I kinda did actually hate it - I also found it endearing in a way. Blaise and I got along, it was just his she-devil of his wife that got to me.
"I need to talk to him."
"You do. He'll be back late tonight, he'll have had a rough day...so go easy on him." Blaise tried to look out for his friend. Too bad I had much different plans for my husband.
When Draco did get back I cornered him. He looked worn out, like he had been fighting his own war all day, yet here I was to finish the one started last night. "Draco we need to talk about this."
He groaned loudly,"No we don't".
"Yes."
"I'm not in the mood to do this right now." His eyes flashed, cool gray spearing me.
"I snuck into your office. I saw the papers. I'm not stupid Draco, though right now I could really use to be educated on the situation."
"You did what?" He was pissed, but hey so was I. Maybe I was in the wrong to do that, but he was in the wrong as well.
"Damn it, I am you wife! You need to tell me about things that are going to affect not just me, but you too. Things that will affect us."
He looked beaten, which wasn't a look that I had ever seen him have, "Just stop worrying about it, it won't affect the Malfoy fortune."
My eyes narrowed at his implication, "what are you saying?"
"Nothing."
No, I was pissed now. "That I'm only with you for the money?" How could he possibly think that?
He squirmed uneasily, not wanting to look me in the eye as he confided my accusation."Well...that's usually why someone would want to marry into the Malfoy family."
I huffed out an angry breath, "Well, you're wrong."
"Am I?" A blonde eyebrow arched in disbelief. Really, why was this so hard to believe?
"Yes."
He looked at me, as if seeing me for the first time. "Why are you with me?" He knew that my family had gone through a hard time when my sister did what she did. He probably figured that I was married to him simply for the money and to save face. If only that was true.
I shrugged, not knowing what else to say I told him the truth, "Because I love you."
