harry potter imagines

The Arrangement (Draco Malfoy)

Summary - Draco Malfoy is forced into an arranged marriage by his parents after the war, will he ever be able to love her or will they forever be pretending.

Warning - Mentions of sex and affairs. Draco's an arse to begin with. Not been proofread yet.

Word count - 6,997

Reading time - 25 mins

***

Draco had always known that he would marry young, and furthermore that this marriage would be within very little of his control. It felt as though his parents had written out his betrothal before he was even born, actually, he knew this was most likely true.

A pureblood marriage was expected of him, and his parents wouldn't risk that he threw away their family name on someone not worth it. So they had written up an agreement with one of Narcissa's close friends from school before their children had even been born.

Though the L/n family were only half Slytherin's, their name and bloodline were respectable enough that this didn't matter. Y/n L/n had known Draco her entire life, though she never particularly liked him. She had actually assumed that her betrothal was to Theodore Nott, so the news had come as quite the shock.

After the war, most weddings were postponed, and very few couples were getting engaged, deciding to prioritise healing from the traumatic few years everyone had just fought through rather than tying themselves down on paper. The Malfoy family however decided to do quite the opposite. Their name had lost almost all the respect it had before the war, and though the family had avoided imprisonment, their lives had been all but destroyed in the aftermath.

They decided, alongside the L/n family who wished to help their old friends, that now would be the time to unite their two children. The L/ns had been famously neutral in the war, and the Malfoys knew that this stance would make them look good now everything was over.

"I want you to know that I don't want this" Draco whispered in her ear one evening when the families had come together to have a meal at the Malfoy home. "I don't want you"

That night set the precedent for the beginning of their marriage. They were married within 2 months of finishing their retaken last year at Hogwarts, and only a year and a half after the war ended. It was a nice wedding by all definitions, the late summer air made for a comfortable heat and the money the pair had between them ensured it was beautiful, the only fault was that they didn't love one another. The pair moved into Malfoy's manor and his parents moved into one of their many other houses. Y/n had hoped that Draco would perhaps be a bit more friendly towards her after the wedding. She had been more wrong than she could ever have known.

The house was large enough that she barely saw him. They didn't sleep in the same room, in fact, she didn't even know which room he did sleep in. She was sure this was exactly how he liked it. She knew where she wasn't wanted, but she also knew that she couldn't leave. So she simply did the best she could to be neither seen nor heard.

***

After a few months at Malfoy's manor little had changed, Draco would put on a facade when their parents would visit, only to drop it all as soon as they were left alone yet again. His attitude towards her had only gotten colder. She had quickly come to realise that before her there had been someone else, someone she was sure he still loved. And she started to accept that this was the way it was going to be. They would barely see one another and when they did he would treat her with contempt, but she could ignore it.

"Mother and father are having a Christmas ball here next week, I've told them it'll be no problem and that we'll prepare the house for it," he told her one evening over dinner, the first they had shared in months. She had looked up at him, the pair sitting on opposite ends of the very long table. Swallowing her food she nodded slowly.