I own nobody and nothing. Wish I did, I've got tuition bills to pay off...not to mention the rent.
Traces of her presence seemed to linger in the room, despite the fact that it had been months since she had last set foot there. He half-sprawled on a couch near the fire, training keeping him from letting go entirely. Rain poured down on the mansion's roof, the pounding keeping some edge of sanity to his thoughts, preventing him from wandering entirely from reality to memory. His seventeenth birthday was still a month away, but he held a nearly empty glass of firewhiskey in his hand.
In the morning, he would rise and Floo over to the Welshire mansion to begin the procedures that would eventually end with him asking for Kerri Welshire's hand. It was a smart match, her family was powerful and pureblooded for as far back as one cared to trace. As his father had pointed out only that evening, an alliance with them would bring much more than the earlier proposed one with the Parkinsons.
And yet, as Draco sat in that dark room with the firewhiskey in his hand, it wasn't Kerri's face he kept seeing in the shadows and flickerings of the fire, it was Pansy Parkinson's. Most of the time, she wore that quick smile that had captivated him in the first place. But as the evening progressed, newer memories kept drifting to the surface.
Draco saw the pain on Pansy's face as she walked into the room where he was cuddling with the Kerri, something that had been happening more and more lately. Yet when she spoke, it was as if he was the only one in the room. "Draco, I need to speak with you about something."
And his sarcastic answer, "You need to speak with me still yet again. You know, this is getting pretty boring." Kerri had giggled, the sound harsh with triumph as she somehow managed to scoot still closer to him. "Tell you what, Pansy, why don't you just go away? Can't you see I'm busy?"
Harsh words, but far from the first time he'd said some variation on them in the last couple years. And yet, he and Pansy always made up again. Once he'd gotten sick of whatever girl he'd been playing around with that time, he always came to Pansy. She knew that, and she let him come back, though only she knew just how deep the hurt from his betrayals was.
And yet, that day, as she had turned to walk out, he had felt a strange urge to run after her.
There was contempt on Theodore Nott's face as the two boys had faced one another in their dorm. "She was pregnant, you idiot."
He remembered the shock that had run through him. "Pansy...Pansy's pregnant?" Without even thinking, he had turned towards the door, a half realized thought telling him to go to her, to apologize for what he had said, for what he had done. But Nott had stepped in front of him.
"It's a little late for that."
Half-realized fears stirred in the back of his mind. "She didn't..." No, he would have heard if she'd tried to suicide.
"She's fine. But the two of you are through."
"We've made up before. I admit I did something really stupid this time, but..."
No, she's done with you. She had a really good chance to think things over after you rejected her yet again. And she came to the realization that she didn't want to live the rest of her life like that, always wondering what girl was catching your eye now. So when I asked her to marry me, she agreed."
No words were possible. All Draco could do was stare at Nott.
"I've watched her since first year, but gave it up as a bad job when it became evident that she was taken. But then in fifth year, your eye started wandering. And I was there to comfort her when she needed to cry. Nothing more than that, mind, she was loyal even when you weren't. But there were times when she needed the support of someone else, someone she knew wasn't going to use it to blackmail her. And all that time, I was there. Like I said, this last time she had a really good chance to think things over.
"We're going to be married in another week, with the official story being that Pansy and I got together when you and Kerri did. And, of course, the two of us had a little accident necessitating our sudden marriage. You don't need to worry, with the child acknowledged as Pansy's and mine, he or she won't be darkening your reputation.
"And now you can feel free to find your lifemate without Pansy being there to hold you back, as you seem to have been feeling." There was a sudden anger evident on Nott's face, something he seemed to have been holding in the entire speech. "Good luck with your search, Malfoy." Nott turned on his heel and walked out.
Nott had told nothing but the truth. Only days later, teachers had started calling Pansy 'Mrs. Nott' in class. Never once had she as much as acknowledged Draco's existence. Rumors had indeed flown around, and Pansy and Theodore had come in for a hard time when her condition was discovered.
Draco took another gulp out of his glass.
Theodore Nott was no fool. Draco was willing to bet that Nott had started placing Permanent Glamour Charms on the developing infant as soon as he and Pansy had been married. No one would ever know the true father of the child.
Draco cursed. He would never get to hold up the laughing infant and laugh back at him or her. He would never get to watch Pansy holding their child and smiling up at him. Never would he be able to lie awake in the middle of the night and listen to the infant's soft breathing mingling with the slightly heavier breaths of his beloved. Never. And he had no one but himself to blame.
The fire flared up briefly as Draco hurled his glass into the midst of the flames.