It was a while before I could see Draco again.
I met up with more people from Hogwarts, from all sorts of different grades. People wanted me to be present at functions or major events - they simply wanted the presence of someone from a wealthy socialite Sacred 27 family. I couldn't say no because I needed the connections as well. I needed people to think I had an interest in them otherwise my reputation would fall. One of the reasons why this image or aura of pureblooded socialite family's worked so well was that others believed we cared for them, looked out for those with less than us, wanted to use our wealth to invest in them and help them grow, that we were genteel in a way, and it was because of this goodwill they believed we had, we were even able to do as well as we could in this society.
No wealthy socialite family wanted to unnecessarily cut connections, or remove a part of what was making them profit in life, and so we found ourselves forced to keep it up.
I was popular, always, throughout all the years of my life. But popularity came at a price, and for me, it was the price of loneliness, and of being the only person who felt like they knew what it was like to be me in this world. To live my life. It was a reason why I was so close to my family at times and Draco Malfoy - because they would understand. They could understand. And it had always been them that could.
I also had to return more mail politely. I get mail from businesses, company's, and also people around my age, asking me to invest in them, outlining their ideas for a new business or anything that needed funding. They believed I was in control of a portion of the Parkinson fortune and that I had the power to invest in them, and they promised me a little bit of return but most of their business ideas were full of crap and rubbish, or the few that were profitable gave me such low profits it wasn't worth my while to invest in them at all. No, I picked my investments carefully.
I got them on the regular. A constant lowgrade trickle. I was constantly finding polite ways to turn them down, but every so often, I had to invest in a couple to avoid suspicion that I wasn't 'being a good wealthy socialite'. Usually they were my mother's pick's because I hadn't developed any real taste for investing yet. I didn't enjoy it much, just wanted to do the bare minimum to avoid suspicion.
I also saw my family members a few more times throughout the next few months. It was full of one-upping, turning our noses up at the family's who were below us, and a general mess of pain because we all tried to outdo each other with our stories and whatnot, but also a sense of camaraderie. They were the only people who understood what it was like to be wealthy, courted by the media, having people bug us endlessly for investments and to attend social gatherings, carrying a name upon our shoulders, to be one of us. It was like a hidden bond that clung around us all that only we had.
After going through all of that, and feeling like I'd spent the majority of my time around people I had no interest in, I finally got a breath of fresh air when I saw Draco again.
As promised, he lead me around the lands of his home on horseback, pointing out a couple new landmarks. A boulder that had fallen and revealed a small cave he didn't know existed before, a tree that had fallen and so changed the pathways around the forests a bit, now requiring one to travel through a new bit of wood we hadn't crossed before which revealed more picturesque sights, bringing me to old places and views that he loved. Draco had a bit of a good taste, I had to admit, somewhere between his father's and his mother's, so his sense of what looked like a beautiful landscape was enough to bring me joy and happiness as well.
His father's taste was in dramatic and dangerous items. Powerful ones. Expensive items that looked expensive to the sight. He picked things to show a point, represent things, but didn't care for the smaller details. Draco's mothers was fairly girly from all the times I'd been there, it looked like she'd tried to bring s much feminine, normal, mundane, expensive luxury items, furniture, trinkets, whatever, into the Manor despite all the dark artefacts and gothic architecture there was to it. Her taste reminded me of normal wealthy women's and she seemed to have a bit of an eye for decor. Colours that matched, shapes and patterns that were pleasing to the eye, little trinkets or accent pieces in the room that caught one's eye for the best reasons.
I liked her sense of decor. Draco's was in between. He had some sense of beauty and what looked good, but he wasn't drawn to dark objects as much as his father's. Though he didn't quite care for all the small detail's like his mother's. In between, but pleasant all the same.
"It feels like such a long time since I last saw you. I can't believe it's almost Christmas. What have you been up to lately?" he asked me casually whilst we sat beneath some trees and ate lunch together. A nice view of a small cliff drop in front of us, only a few yards, but with a soft clearing of fields after, and small wildflowers and weeds dotting the distance. Quite a beautiful site if I had to be honest. A picnic basket and hamper were spread all around us. The horses had been allowed to wonder of about ten or fifteen yards away and were busy nibbling grass and whatever they could find in this place.
"The usual," I said, but then Draco and I had barely talked of 'the usual' that I had to give more of an explanation, "declining requests from tabloids and media. Declining requests from people asking for me to invest in them which won't work, except of course the bare minimum to not ruin connections. Attending family gatherings and gatherings with the rest of the girls from Slytherin and Hogwarts. Helping my mother clean the Parkinson Manor and lawns," I laughed, "just when you think magic would invent a mass-scale cleaning spell. Or some arithmetic rune or ward that would take care of that, it doesn't."
At Hogwarts I'd been too afraid to broach conversations about home or hobbies or anything more personal with him for I didn't know what he liked or disliked to talk about with others. I could easily see his disinterest, his irritation, his boredom, at any topics, so I was too afraid to bring up many things of my life I could've talked about with him back then. Instead I had carefully tried to mimic the sort of things he talked about, which was mostly making fun of the trio, and make that my thing too, what I talked about, what I said. I'd carefully talked to him only on topics I'd heard him talk about before, or on school matters as it was all around us, giving me more reason to talk about it with him, and having less risk of him finding me out of place or annoying.
During Hogwarts we had mostly talked about school things - subjects, classes, assignments, magic, schedules, the trio, wealthy socialite superiority, basically me backing him up with everything and him sometimes throwing me the bone that he thought me superior as well, and I'd never mentioned some of the things I did at home though I assumed he knew like most wealthy socialites knew of the other wealthy socialite family's.
He'd responded to those topics well, scarcely believing I actually had some sort of frequent and regular connection with him, regular conversation with him, I stuck to only those topics and we'd a working friendship discussing them at Hogwarts, but very little otherwise.
Draco smirked, "I didn't think you'd receive any less than ours and it seems you don't handle it any worse than we do. I'd promise to help out sometimes, if we were to ever be more involved with each other in the future."
My heart skipped a beat. My father did help out mother with the cleaning sometimes, mostly with the outdoors as my mother also wasn't fond of exercise like me and didn't want to travel that far out physically to cast magical spells to fix or clean things for long periods of time, or sometimes have to get involved physically with the work. It wasn't unusual to think of Draco's dad helping out sometimes with those sort of enchantments, generally they took a little more magic and energy to do, and of Draco sometimes offering, but I wasn't used to thinking of us as a couple or anything, even though all our interactions since Hogwarts finished had been meandering and tip-toeing too close to the line and around it for my liking.
My heart was aching.
I just wanted it to all end and give me a final answer.
"Have you thought much about dating or marriage?" I asked hesitantly, as lightly and casually as I could. I ate some more of my sandwiches then. Glad for the food and drink to give me something else to do besides flounder around in this awkward conversation with Draco.
I still remember the reason he gave me for our break-up back in fourth year.
He said that although he felt I liked him enough, and that I had proven my loyalty and worth to him all these years, and he was sure I did like him genuinely, in a real way, or at least compared to some other girls he knew. He wasn't sure if I really truly liked him enough, that he didn't feel like I was sure I knew what I wanted in a guy. And that he did not want to date anybody who didn't have their mind set. He said perhaps I didn't even know what I'd wanted in a guy, and I didn't even know that I didn't know what I wanted, but he could sense it, and he didn't want a girl like that. He said we couldn't go on dating because I wasn't sure of my mind.
Then I was dumped. With the closing remark of taking some time to myself to figure out what I'd wanted.
After that we didn't talk about the relationship much at all. We didn't talk or do anything remotely romantic together. Though I questioned many things between fourth and seventh year.
I felt bad because the reason was me. Not him. That it was over. Or at least, that was the reason at the time, and the confusing way I thought of it after, tried to make sense of our break-up after; that it was something to do with me, and not him. And it still gave me confusion til this day.
Was I still right for Draco? To find true love and not merely a marriage of convenience? Did I truly love Draco for himself, his personality, who he was, or ... was I more unsure of what I wanted in a guy than I even knew myself?
That was another strobe of doubt I added to the very complicated relationship I'd had with Draco Malfoy. I still wasn't sure what to make of it even now.
"Marriage? No. There are far too many things I'd have to wrap up in any contract for me to consider it lightly. I am not a man without a target on my back when it comes to writing the right marriage contract. Courtship? I've always thought I'd be the person to make a decision on who to get engaged with first, have a long engagement, to which I'll spend more time working out the right marriage contract that I expect any female worth my salt to be satisfied with, so I suppose I'm more concerned about the courtship first and finding the right one to get engaged with," he said matter-of-factly, in a way that sounded like he was running through some sort of list.
That was Draco, cool and...almost emotionless at times. It was something I'd picked up about him throughout the years at Hogwarts. Always felt it was there.
It sounded like a speech he was prepared to give to any girl in his social circles that was worthy of marriage, so I didn't take it to mean he was revealing anything particularly intimate to me.
Disappointment and sorrow plagued my insides. Why was life so harsh and cruel? Why was love so complicated? Why wasn't it easy for Draco Malfoy to love me and for me to feel in love with Draco Malfoy? Everytime I looked at him I felt a mixture of feelings - happiness for sure, but also some degree of sadness and somberness. He was not black and white, but a man who gave me the greyest mixed feelings.
"What would make you want to get engaged with someone?" I asked as lightly as possible.
"I don't know," he said, "I haven't exactly spent a lot of time around any women much. Three short weeks and a few days in fourth year and that's the only official relationship I've ever had. I'd have to spend a lot more time with someone, and preferably out of the confines of Hogwarts, to even know what would make me want to get engaged with someone, let alone how well someone meets those criteria. What do you say about the next two or three years being in regular contact with each other? I could get more of a sense of...you in general, and everything."
I frowned. So it's like I expected. Two, three, maybe more, years of just simply being in more frequent and regular contact with Draco Malfoy, going to events together. But not actually dating. Not actually girlfriend or boyfriend. Not actually in an engagement or courtship. Then after those years Draco would decide what factors he apparently liked in a girl and made him want to get engaged with her, and what? Start from scratch with me again? Seeing if I particularly met those factors? Testing me in a way he hadn't before? Revying up the relationship to more serious levels? Did I really have to put up with several more years of this before any sign of exclusivity from him? Were all the years before then just us...being closer than average friends? Or the pre-dating phase?
My head was swimming with all these ideas. I felt a little suffocated. This was reminding me too much of fourth year, and fifth, sixth, seventh, at Hogwarts all over again. I'm not sure if I wanted to waste any more time with him but yet again...
This is what you've wanted for practically your whole life.
Would you be able to forgive yourself if you let this chance go?
Would you be able to move on with zero regrets?
Isn't this what you did everything for in the first place, this time around?
"Well it would be imprudent of me to say no," I said, "you're the number one bachelor any girl could hope to date and there has been nothing so absolutely scandalous or horrendous between us that we could not possibly date at all in the future. It is also in line with what everyone else is doing for pureblood traditions - coupling up and testing things out. We have some time before there is immense marriage pressure and we have to take it more seriously. Again, it would be imprudent of me to say no."
He looked at me like he was remembering the last intimate conversation we had. Which was probably the break-up before now. I wondered if he was running it through his mind what he'd said to me then, weighing up the difference, seeing if I'd changed. Had I?
Dark thoughts were now clouding at me. Ever since Draco said that to me, there was one particular line of thought I had every time about it, but I didn't like to think of it often. Now, it was troubling me again, and it felt all too much, for this little piece of time right there, right then, that I didn't even want to think about it.
I didn't know what I wanted in a guy.
The horrible thing was, when Draco told me that in fourth year, it felt true. So so true. Like a part of it just rang true.
That was why I could not forget it, why it added to my troublesome thoughts for the remainder of my years at Hogwarts, just...
A part of it was true, which was why it haunted me til this day.
"That sounds in order," said Draco, and then he told me at great length about the horse racing event he wanted to organise after Christmas, just when the new year's was going to begin, and began talking about the special seat I'd have to watch it all, how he'll buy me something pretty to wear, all of that. As if we had no such major discussion today. I wasn't sure if it was major or not, but it certainly felt bigger than anything before.
When the day was over and I was soaking in my spa at night, reflecting on the day's events, all that came to mind was bittersweet.
It felt like I took two steps forward, one step back.
I got just enough of what I'd wanted to give me hope, but yet I still felt stuck in the same position as before.
I was neither happy nor unhappy, but the same bag of mixed feelings I always was.
Bittersweet.