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When it was first announced that I was to marry Draco Malfoy, I was astounded. Aghast. Ecstatic, even. From the first time I had ever seen Draco, in our first year at Hogwarts, sitting coldly at the back end of the Slytherin table, I was smitten. I followed him around like a good little lapdog and clung to his every word, not to mention his arm, for five years.

Then it was announced that I was to be his bride. I was in hog heaven - I rather looked like a hog back then, as well. My nose has thinned out some since my school days; I no longer resemble a pug. I envy sometimes Draco and his family for being at the peak of their beauty all through their lives. It's some rule of nature, though, that Malfoys have to be perfectly flawless. So scant years before the wedding, unbelievable as it may seem, my nose underwent an evolution. I still think it absurd.

Pulling things back on track, I'll say this: I didn't know much back then. A few weeks after the announcement was made, I was carted off to Malfoy Manor over spring break to "learn what it means to be a Malfoy". I thought this was a ridiculous prospect. Even when I was a Malfoy, I decided, I would still be Pansy. Only I would wear long black dresses and fancy jewelry and sleep with Draco instead of my teddy bear.

When I arrived at the door of Malfoy Manor and rung the ornately decorated doorbell, I was surprised at who answered. It was Draco, but it certainly wasn't the Draco I knew. He was cold, calculating - not at all like he was in the Slytherin common room. And he regarded me almost as if he was looking down upon Harry Potter: with something very near disgust. I couldn't believe it. What had happened to the Draco I knew and loved?

I was even more surprised by the way his parents acted. When I first saw them I thought: Oh, how quaint - statues of the ancestors in the doorway. I was startled when Draco's mother extended a hand, an offering of courtesy more than anything else. I got the impression then that they flat out hated me, though I knew it couldn't be all true, since they had picked me for their son's wife. I took Mrs. Malfoy's hand graciously, smiling like an idiot. She gave me only the most miniscule of smiles, and led me into a room where she taught me the "basics" of being a proper lady.

She taught me how to pour tea, how to sit, how to stand, how to apply makeup properly, how to dress - she was a walking encyclopedia. She knew absolutely everything about appearing beautiful feminine and pleasing your husband. She even taught me how to respond should I be asked to conceive an heir. Little did I know how hypocritical this last advice really was. I drank it all in like a potion, and absorbed it into the caverns of my growing mind. After that, after I was taught how to be cool and composed and exactly how to act and what to do, I thought I then knew what it "meant" to be a Malfoy.

I didn't.

After my lesson, Narcissa smiled sweetly and shooed me from the room, telling me I should be alone with Draco, and why don't we go out into the gardens and have a little walk around? A seemingly innocent request, I now look back on it as the turning point of my "career" as Draco Malfoy's wife. Perhaps if not for that I would have thought of the Malfoys as perpetually unloving beings.

Draco and my walk was lovely. We walked around aimlessly hand in hand, we stopped to admire, if not smell, the flowers, and we talked about anything and everything, from the weather to domestic abuse, all with the disposition of being innocent teenagers that were in no kind of relationship other than a chaste one, ultimately owed each other nothing, and were definitely not getting married in three years, oh no, not at all.

After that we sat down on the swing, the wood hot from the blazing sun, our legs touching but only just, and proceeded to talk some more. I couldn't help looking over at the two figures sprawled languidly next to each other on the plush carpet inside the Manor, clearly visible through the glass of the double door. Lucius and Narcissa.

Narcissa ran her foot over her husband's lazily. He smiled at her. We were quite close to the door in question, and I nudged Draco and instructed him to look. Narcissa and Lucius diverted their attention from each other and regarded us as well.

"Look at them, Lucius," Narcissa murmured sleepily. "They're so innocent and pure. Not a care in the world..." She looked up, her cobalt eyes intrigued.

"Doesn't it just make you horny?" she inquired of her husband. "Doesn't it just turn you on?" She breathed this last part out heavily, moving closer still to her husband and threading her slender arms around his pale neck.

He responded by rolling over on top of her and kissing her softly on the mouth. She responded with a ravenous hunger surprising for someone of her demure facade. I was shocked. This was most certainly not "Why, I think I would enjoy that very much." Then why, I wondered, had she taught me that?

As their kisses deepened, Narcissa pushed Lucius' head farther down onto her neck and throat, where he planted a rain of butterfly kisses. "Do I make you horny, Lucius?" she gasped. "Do I turn you on? Do you want me?"

"Oh, yes--" he groaned against her neck in response.

"Lucius..." She choked out the last three words in between fierce kisses -

"Let's. Make. Love."

At dinnertime, Draco's parents acted as cold as could be, as if their afternoon lovemaking had never even happened at all. But I knew better. Draco, who was none the wiser, didn't notice Lucius and Narcissa holding hands under the table, didn't notice that one section of Lucius' hair that just wouldn't go back into place, didn't notice the slight change in their skin color, and most definitely didn't notice the sparkle in both of their normally listless eyes. I picked up on all these little signs as they sat quietly at the dinner table with not so much as a smile for each other, eating quietly their food, oblivious to the irritating clinking of Draco's fork against his plate. Draco, I noted, was cold again, quiet. Perhaps he did notice the difference in his parents and simply wasn't making a large deal out of it. Perhaps this was a regular for the Malfoys...? My parents certainly never made love.

And then I learned why Draco was acting that way, and why Lucius and Narcissa looked like statues. It was because of me. I was Company, and in the presence of Company one must be perpetually Cool and Composed. It was only a public image!

I felt like throwing my head back and laughing then - a raucous laugh, one that I knew would set the whole Malfoy family into an uproar of commotion about how disgustingly barbaric I was. I didn't give a damn! I wanted to laugh, because I had cracked it! I had solved the mystery! I had found the key!

But I didn't. I remained seated calmly, poking at the sprig of parsley on the side of my plate with my fork like a proper lady, content with the knowledge that, just like my image of perfection, the Malfoys' coldness was just that:

An image.