Faking It

~~~

When all is said and done and dead

Does he love you the way that I do

Breathing in lightening tonight’s fighting

I feel the hurt so physical

Think twice before you touch my girl

Come around I’ll let you feel the burn

Think twice before you touch my girl

Come around come around no more

~Think Twice~ Eve 6~ 

~~~

            “Be prepared for light to moderate traffic on and around M95.”

            Draco Malfoy rolled down the window of his sleek silver Jaguar, a muggle car of the highest class you expected to see racing through a James Bond movie not sitting burning useless gas in rush hour traffic. He rested an elbow on the window frame, his fingers curling around the roof as he examined the motionless line of cars stretching in front of him.

            “Moderate my ass,” he muttered, switching off the radio with an irritated snap. The region had been experiencing a bout of uncharacteristically hot weather and still clad in his constricting tie and dress suit the 80 degrees felt like 100.

            Traffic inched forward before coming to a complete halt and Draco loosened the tie, rolling his sleeves up past his elbows. As of late his father had been increasingly interested in maintaining a friendly relationship with the muggle community. With Voldemort officially MIA Lucius Malfoy was forced to turn to more reputable devices. Of course he dragged his son, fresh from the university, in as a young neutral face when he realized that muggles did, indeed, have marketable skills. At 23 Draco was attending meeting after meeting, arranging possible alliances and agreements, dressing in the muggle fashion as to put his hosts at ease. But a Malfoy is a Malfoy and their sudden friendliness was all in the name of business, they’re previous contempt and biases all festering just below the surface waiting until the muggles had exhausted their usefulness.

            Traffic started again and Draco was forced to slam on the brakes as another car shot out in front of him.

            “Shit!” he cried, pounding the steering wheel in frustration, “shit, shit, shit!”

            Traffic continued at it’s same sluggish pace for a good couple of miles and Draco let out a relieved sigh when he reached his exit, turning onto a road of neatly manicured lawns and stately houses, impressive if only in their proportions.

            Draco pulled into his driveway, bringing the car to a stop but remaining in the seat several minutes. He was home, but to what?

            To a spotless house, anonymous in it’s decoration, like a high class Ikea ad. To his farce of a marriage to a wife he couldn’t stand. Sure she was a decent fuck, and not unattractive in the conventional sense of the word but she couldn’t form a coherent sentence if her life depended on it and she had the emotional capacity of a senile dog, blindly loyal, with a smothering devotion. Affection born through circumstance rather than a mutual respect.

            His closet revealed him as the fake he was, a powerful young wizard posing as a muggle business man. One side of his wardrobe was his robes and spell books, the other suits and ties and the occasional odd pair of jeans for casual Friday. His passion lay with the wizarding half, but he lived from the other out of necessity. He did whatever Daddy-dearest instructed even if it was to flash his winning smile and land him business deals and powerful allies.

            It was that winning smile that he pasted on now as he approached the house, his joke of an existence. Draco Malfoy was handsome, Draco Malfoy was charming, Draco Malfoy was living his own version of hell.

            He entered the house, noticing immediately that most of the house sat in darkness, the florescent lights of the kitchen the only illumination.

            “Jools?” he called hesitantly, waiting for his “wife” to come flouncing down the stairs, perfectly coifed hair, make-up a painted mask, reeking of some expensive perfume.

            “Jools, luv? I’m ho....” his voice trailed off when he reached the kitchen, bile rising at the back of his throat.

            Throat slashed, skirt around her ankles, panties torn, sightless blue eyes trained on the ceiling, Jools Malfoy was as pretty in death as she was in life. Her blood sprayed from the neck wound in obscene patterns across the sterile kitchen.

            Draco stepped back, one hand catching himself with the counter. “Oh shit.”