Disclaimer: Don't own any of it, but it I did I swear I wouldn't act like a rich snob.
There are ways for a heart to break that aren't visible to the outside world. Downcast eyes and long periods of silence. Her hands braced together to prevent herself from clawing at her skin. The way she sees him looking, sees him staring at her in pain and all she can do is look blankly away. The floor is pale and dusty. At night his heart seeps to the bottom of his chest, relishing itself in stomach acid and bile. Her life is vacant, an empty room with no windows or doors. He believes nothing will enter his soul again. His smell is apples. She never knew why he smelled like apples, never asked him why he tasted of them when she pressed her lips to his.
Life continues. She goes her own way and he goes his. Hearts continue to break. He fills his time with meaningless encounters hoping each time it will ebb away the pain in this chest. People talking of his latest acquisition like gossip of the moment, the fire of current entertainment. She stammers to leave the conversation. Then there's the men. Ones that look at her with lust and she closes her eyes and imagines it's him. The first few months where he held her hand when no one was watching, the secrets they kept to themselves. Some tasted of bourbon, cigarettes, and foulness. She never found one that tasted like apples.
This is how it goes from one week to the next. Gossip of him, her hiding in someone else's arms.
The wedding was supposed to be the one of the century, one of high social class and expense. It was gossip again. Ginny knew she had to see him, see the man that destroyed her heart, before he became irrevocable apart of someone else's.
Twitching, nervous, she knocked. Quiet place, flat in London. He opened the door half dressed, flannel pants hung low on sharp muscled hips. Stunned by his beauty she couldn't speak, lashings she planed to inflict with her tongue held captive by her awe. He took her hand and pulled her in, kissing her. He tasted like apples.
So this is how it went for a while. Desperation drove both parties to smile to their families and lie to their friends. At night, in the afternoon, in bathrooms of restaurants they held each other tight. You're supposed to put pressure on a open wound, a broken heart is no different. He kissed her down her neck, her chest, her stomach, her thighs… and back up. She pulled him into her to feel what it was like to be whole again, even if her again is stealing someone else's.
Wedding rehearsal. Stiff crowd and champagne around. No one noticed a slip of a red haired girl grab the groom to be by the hand and take him out the hall. It was two hours before the guest and even the bride to be noticed his absence, and three before he tore himself away from the woman under him screaming his name in completion.
Draco tried to break away. A heart can only take so much hope before it collapses and he didn't want to destroy her like that. She would find him anyway. The night before his wedding, before the people crowded him and congratulated him, he spent with her. Her kisses cleared his mind and her skin was the sent of what was missing in his soul. Leaving at dawn he noted the paleness of her complexion and the thinness of her skin. Knowing it was the last time he would see her this way, possible see her at all, he kissed her and let the words seep from his lips that her never dared to tell her except when she slept.
The I love you was lost on her, so low was his voice when he said it.
* * *
Pansy was dressed in white, a lie to all who knew her. Parents and planning and bloodlines as they were and such.. here she was. Standing next to Draco, a promise spoken between them and their fate was sealed. He shook hands with his father, with his mother he exchanged a kiss. With her he merely nodded. She was aware the a missive had arrived by Owl Post an hour before the wedding for him by a small white owl with strange red dots. She saw it now sticking out from the pocket of his dress robes. As soon as he could acceptability disappear Pansy watched him flee their reception. She followed.
Draco sat in his study, paper crumbled in his had. She knew the expression on his face. It was the some one he had as a child when his pet hawk died.
"Pansy, why did you marry me?"
"Our bloodlines, our money, it just made sense. Also, it's not like our parents gave either of us a choice. I was under the impression that you were just as against this as I used to be."
"What changed for you? What made you accept it?"
Draco focused his steel eyes on her. It was the first time he had looked her in the eye all night and the lack of emotion there made her blood run cold.
"I realized that you could provide me with things I wanted. Independence from my family, security of your name. You used to preach often enough of the Malfoy name and what it represents. We've known each other since we were children, we get along well enough. You've been like a brother to me at times. I came to believe that it would be amendable for me."
Draco took a while to absorb this in silence. Pansy rocked back and forth on her heels in boredom. Her wedding reception was going on out there and she was missing it.
"There are things that have to be done to make this marriage official. It won't be considered real until it's consummated. In the Malfoy family it's not considered permanent until you produce an heir. In all your mussing about us being sibling-like, did you consider that?"
"I figured we could do that, at least until we get the desired result."
"How would you act if I said I wanted to do it now?"
Pansy looked down to the soft wrinkless satin of her dress and grimaced.
"Can I take my dress off so that it doesn't wrinkle? It was my mother's."
Draco shrugged his shoulders.
"Whatever you want. Would you mind a conception charm so that we only have to do this once?"
"My mom did one on me this morning that is good for three months. She knew me and you aren't exactly-"
"In love?"
"Fucking was her way of putting it."
Both began to mechanically undress in silence. Pansy liked what she saw and figured if they had to do it more than once she could become accommodating.
"Once this is done you'll have what you want, independence from your family and my name for prestige. My father will have what he wants, an heir. You can live a separate life if you so please."
"What do you want? What do you get out of this?"
Her nakedness was starting to make her feel self-conscious. No man had ever just stood there looking at her with such a lack of anything in his eyes.
"Release from my family duty. Release to do as I please. Do you want me to kiss you?"
"Yes."
"Where do I start?"
* * *
Pansy replaced her dress on her body, smoothing the satin over the curve of her stomach. Her mother would be ecstatic to know that in nine months she would be a grandmother. Draco was already dressed and sitting at the desk, the same crumpled paper from earlier in his hand. She watched as he smoothed out the paper and began to read again. She cleared her throat and wait for him to acknowledge her.
"Yes?"
"Will you be joining me outside?"
"No, I have something I have to attend to tonight. Did the charm work?"
"Yes. My vision went blue for a few seconds. We're having a boy."
Draco smirked.
"Won't father be pleased. You may leave now."
Feeling put off, but at the same time not quite caring, Pansy left to join the festivities in the ballroom of Malfoy Manor. When she turned down drinks people looked at her oddly. Pansy just smiled.
* * *
The night continued as a celebration. Every now and again a guest would ask the bride where the groom disappeared to. She replied that he had something to attend to tonight. It was common knowledge that the youngest Malfoy was work obsessed so no one thought to ask more.
The next day Lucius discovered where his son had been off to all night. On his morning walk of the Manor grounds he found Draco. His body was impaled on the gate fence after apparently jumping from the study. Black wrought iron spears that Narcissa had thought decorative for her garden pierced the chest and neck of their only child. His robes seemed to be a darker shade of black, the red of his blood only visible on his neck and Narcissa's white roses. His fade was unmarred by any stray splattering. He appeared to be sleeping so peaceful and content was his face. Arms limp and angled towards the ground Lucius saw in his son's hand a letter that looked like it had been through much stress. Removing it from Draco's hand he unfolded it to read:
I wanted to welcome you
into my soul like a god,
lost and road weary
to hear you call this
home.
I wanted to restrict
the nightingale to but one
garden. And keep his free
songs for me
alone.
I wanted you jailed
in my breast as part
of the flow of my blood,
the sway of my
bones.
I wanted when I died
my name to be carved
on the hardest of monuments
your heart of
stone.
The handwriting was not his son's. It was decidedly more flared and feminine. It was not a last statement from his son. The ink used was also an odd sort of rust colored red. Draco always used black.
A/N:
The poem is by Shushanig Gourghenian and it is titled Desire. It can be found in an anthology called "Love Poems by Women"