Save Yourself

Save Yourself, Chapter Eight

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Needless to say, Draco kept his promise to me – the next day, he did everything in his power to make sure Blaise was ridiculed and humiliated for sleeping with Seamus. There wasn’t a soul who didn’t know by the time the sun set on December 26th, and I’m sure it was made even worse by the fact the boy she lusted after – Draco – was the one doing the talking.

After that, she was an absolute disgrace to the Slytherin house. No longer was she the dominant girl in our dorm, I had taken up that position.

God, how she hated me.

She didn’t dare do anything about it, however, with the knowledge I had a Malfoy on my side; even by the Slytherins, the Malfoys were feared. No one knew I was betrothed to Draco, but it was common knowledge we had a certain… relationship… that didn’t include the traditional methods of dating.

Call it friends with benefits, if you must – except, to be honest, we weren’t that great of friends. We talked, of course, but it was mostly an issue of becoming physical; I had never told him I had heard him the night of the Yule Ball and he had never asked, nor had he ever said it again. I didn’t want to take the chance he had simply said it to try and get me to sleep with him – the fact he said it while he believed me to be asleep and how he never said it again worked against that theory, though, and I was almost ready to admit perhaps he had truly meant it.

With the ending of the Triwizard tournament and the death of Cedric Diggory, our fourth year came to an end. It wasn’t the death of the Hufflepuff champion Draco and I concentrated, it was the circulating rumors Voldemort had indeed risen again. Neither Draco nor I were sure if our parents were Death Eaters; we both had our suspicions, however. I had never seen the Dark Mark on my father’s arm fully, but I had seen an inch or so of it time to time. I hadn’t thought much of it until Draco pointed out that was the sign of a true Death Eater; he was almost positive his own father was.

The train ride home was hell; Draco had insisted on seeing Potter for one last word after we pulled out, and I fear he spent the rest of the train ride cursed in a heap with Crabbe and Goyle. I’m sure he deserved it, he was a Malfoy after all. When I found him after the train had pulled into the station, I didn’t bother reviving him; instead, I sent for Lucius, who rather reluctantly revived his son and threatened him with all sorts of torture we both know never happened. Draco was a spoiled brat; his father didn’t dare lay a hand on his heir.

My nanny, a French girl by the name of Helena, picked me up from King’s Cross and used the family auto to bring my trunk and I back to the Parkinson Estate, which lie in the country outside of London. I wasn’t eager to face my mother, knowing she’d scrutinize me in every way possible, but I was eager to see my father. Even when I was home, I rarely received the chance to spend time with him. Instead, he made it up to me by buying me everything I wanted – as long as it had my mother’s approval. I didn’t own a single thing Mother didn’t know about, she made sure of that.

It was perhaps three weeks into holiday when Mother insisted throwing one of her bi-monthly extravaganzas in honor of – well, to be honest, I had no idea why she threw them. It was a whim of hers, one that often cost Father a great deal of money. He just smiled and went along with it, however, sometimes even bothering to make an appearance.

It started out as every other party Mother had thrown; aristocrat guests came streaming through the door, many attempting to be fashionably late but just ending up arriving with many others. I recognized many of the faces there; the Notts, the Flints, even the Crabbes and Goyles decided to come, in all their stupid and ugly glory. I didn’t think it was possible to be any stupider than those two families, an opinion I still hold in spite of everything. Both Crabbe and Goyle Jrs. had blonde girls on their arms, Crabbe's I recognized as a - in the school year to come - Fifth Year Ravenclaw by the name of Collette and the other I knew as a Fourth Year Slytherin by the name of Elizabeth, both of whom I hadn't gotten around to being acquainted with.

It was common knowledge the Malfoys were to come; however, they had never brought their son. If they had, I wouldn’t have bothered daydreaming about my wedding for the first eleven years of my life. I would have known exactly how it was going to be the moment I set eyes on Draco; cruel, short, and impossibly unromantic.

This time, however, Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy seemed to have remembered they did in fact have a son, who was perfectly able to hold his own in public. I didn’t bother looked up as the Malfoys were announced, quite positive there was no way they would have changed after fifteen years of Draco’s absence. Obviously, I was wrong.

Draco found me perhaps twenty minutes after they had arrived, his black dress robes much more formal and regal-looking than the ones he had worn to the Yule Ball. I was standing in a circle of women perhaps five years older than me who were all speaking about the latest gossip, such as how one of their own hadn’t given her husband an heir yet – after three girls. Privately, I was rather disgusted at how the ladies spoke of their companion, as if it was truly her fault for producing three girls in a row. If she hadn’t been disposed of yet by her husband, they truly had nothing to worry about; he was obviously happy, or at least content, with the results.

I felt a tentative touch in the small of my back as Draco laid his palm there, the casual contact sending shivers up my spine. I hated to admit it, but I was already extremely taken with the blonde I was promised to; ever since he had said those three small words to me, I saw him in a new light. No longer was he the cruel, self-centered Malfoy I had always seen before; he was a boy with more power than he could handle, completely void of any emotion he thought he wasn’t allowed to have. He later confessed to me he felt throughout his childhood he wasn’t allowed to be happy – therefore, he constantly withdrew himself from actions that would truly, in all senses of the word, make him happy.

I spun around, my eyes wide with surprise as to how someone dared to touch me so… intimately was the only would I could come up with at the time – in public. When I saw the face I so often touched come into view, I let out a sigh of relief, glad to know it was him.

”Draco!” I exclaimed, “I didn’t think you had come tonight.”

”Neither did I,” he admitted, “But Mother talked Father into letting me out in public for once – you would think they were ashamed of me, they way they keep me pent up half the time.”

He let out a half-hearted laugh and nodded towards an empty corner of the room we were in, “Would you like to go talk over there? These… ladies… are a bit too chatty for my taste.”

I smirked, knowing full well the ladies he spoke of had heard every word of our conversation and were probably extremely insulted that a mere boy – Malfoy or no – would dare question and even insult them in public.

”I have an even better idea,” I purred, taking him by the arm and leading him out of the room and down one of the many halls, “Would you like to see my bedroom?”

His eyes widened, “Pansy… I know it’s going to happen soon enough and all, but I’d rather like to live to marry you.”

”And what’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, still striding down the halls with Draco at my side.

”If your father… or mother… catches us…” He began, looking around nervously.

I laughed lightly, “I never thought I’d see the day you’d be nervous, Draco. What are you so worried about?”

”Getting caught.” He announced rather bluntly.

”There’s no one to catch us,” I smirked, “Besides, we’re not going to fuck, don’t worry about it. I just want to show you my kitten.”

”Your… kitten?” Draco raised an eyebrow, “You have a kitten?”

”Of course,” I answered, raising my eyebrows, “Don’t you?”