Chapter Text
“Mother please, you can’t be serious!” Your hands shook and your wide eyes were trained on your mother in complete shock. She sighed and crossed her hands in her lap.
“Dear, please sit down and be reasonable. There is nothing you, nor I, nor your father can do about it. We are incredibly fortunate that they would even agree to this arrangement.”
“Don’t talk to me about reasonable, you’ve effectively sold me into slavery!” You shrieked, mind reeling. Your parents had always been fairly awful to you, but this was a new low.
“It’s an arranged marriage, not slavery. You’re overreacting. Besides, the Malfoy family is the oldest and richest wizarding family in the country. There are worse fates than to live in a mansion with a handsome man.” Your mother reached for her teacup and took a sip calmly.
“This is because of the debts, isn’t it?” You said evenly. Your tone was cold, your eyes dark. The shock had worn off to anger. Your mother’s eyes met yours over the rim of her teacup. She did not respond. Your eyes filled with tears, and you turned on your heel and stormed out of the room before they could fall. Your fate was sealed, and tomorrow you would be ripped from the life you knew and loved and forced to marry the despicable, entitled, pompous, Draco Malfoy. All because of your father’s debts.
Your family was already on thin ice among the pure blood lines, with rumors of squibs and half bloods tangled in the roots of your family tree. Your parents constantly tried to get on the good side of the Malfoys and other pure blood families, but it just made them laughingstocks. The large house with a cook and a maid made no difference to anyone. Then your father’s gambling debts to Lucius Malfoy landed him in hot water. You weren’t sure how much he owed, but you had overheard him groveling and begging the long haired man for more time one night when you couldn’t sleep. You had walked by the library and seen the light under the door. Curiosity had gotten the better of you, and you had pressed your ear against the door. You had run back to your room after hearing the crack of Lucius Malfoy’s cane against your father’s back. And now that man was to be your father in law? This was not a marriage, no matter what your parents said. There was no way Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy would let their precious son marry someone with questionable blood lineage like yourself. They weren’t daft enough to believe your parent’s insistence that your great great aunt Hilda was shipped off to some special wizarding school in the Andes and that she wasn’t a squib. Or that old uncle Henrique died a bachelor and never married a lovely muggle woman named Cassandra and had two half blood children. “What a terrible coincidence those dirty half bloods have the same family name. No relation at all, of course. Our line is pure and proud!” You could almost hear your father say, laughing over another lost hand of cards.
By this time your feet had carried you to your bedroom, and you slammed the door behind you. The sight of your pale pink curtains, your window box filled with flowers, your bed, your desk with your journal, your bookshelf filled with your favorite books, made your eyes burn and your throat close. Tomorrow, all of it would be gone. You would be a prisoner in the dark, cold, Malfoy Manor. You slowly walked around the room, taking in as much as you could and putting it all to memory. The black scorch mark on the carpet from when you tried to invent a new spell that chose the perfect outfit for you. The teeth marks on your bedpost from that dangerous care of magical creatures book that tried to take your hand off. The pictures of The Weird Sisters you cut out of magazines and charmed to stick on your walls. You felt weak and exhausted, completely burned out from the emotion of the day. You lay in your bed, only meaning to close your eyes for a moment, but soon fell into a deep yet fitful sleep.