The Best Mistake

Chapter Five | What Happened after the Wedding?

"Isn't it obvious, darling? I want to have a betrothal contract drawn up between you and Miss Hermione Granger."

Draco heard his mother's words repeat several times in his head, echoing as he tried to make sense of them. It had to be a joke. Odd, sure, but his mother had always had an odd sense of humor. He coughed a laugh hesitantly. "You can't be serious, Mother."

He waited for her to start laughing, too. She didn't, just smiled at him like she had a secret.

"Wait, you're actually serious?" Draco fully laughed now and stood, pacing alongside the breakfast table while his mother watched his every move. "Me and Granger? Married? That's rich, Mother. Truly, you've out done yourself."

With a tilt of her head, Narcissa narrowed her sharp blue eyes. "I would never joke about your future, darling. Never."

"But..." Draco couldn't understand where this was coming from all of a sudden. It couldn't just be the fact that he brought her home? There had to be something else. "Why now? Why her? Just because I brought her home for a casual fuck—"

"Language, Draco!"

"—It's abso-fucking-lutely ridiculous. Laughably ridiculous."

"And why is that?"

"Because! It's not...It's not like that." He couldn't look at her anymore, only the floor as he marched back and forth, gesticulating wildly. "We got pissed at her ex's tacky wedding and had sex. Who the fuck cares? It's 2004, Mother. It's not like a drunken one-night stand will ruin her reputation as a lady or something bloody st—"

"Draco Lucius Malfoy," Narcissa interrupted, her low, dangerous tone sending a chill over him. He shook out his arms then ran them through his hair. "I will have none of this disgusting, vulgar language at my breakfast table. I should think I had raised you better than that, but you have proven time and time again that you have no sense of tact or decorum."

Draco growled in frustration and turned to face her. "Oh, please, spare me the etiquette lesson, Mother. This is hardly the time."

She scoffed. "It's always the time when you insist on acting as if you were brought up in a cave by mountain trolls. Don't ever discuss your—bedroom business outside of the bedroom again, especially not with me, your mother. Do you understand me? Now sit down and listen."

He did as she commanded, taking his seat, careful to keep his posture straight, lest he have to hear about his slouching as well.

His mother raised a long, thin brow as she took another sip of her tea. She set her cup down with pursed lips, picked up her copy of The Daily Prophet, and handed it to him with a sigh. "I suppose you should read this first. Page Seven."

Draco flipped through the Sunday paper to his mother's favorite section, the only section she cared to read nowadays. The gossip column parading as society pages never interested Draco, so he generally avoided the section altogether. His mother, however, in her determination to bring the Malfoy name back into society's good graces, scoured the pages for any information she could use to their advantage at every chance.

Reaching the page with the gothic number 7 at the bottom, he shook the paper out to straighten it. His heart stopped as the large photograph at the top of the page caught his eye. There, he and Granger sat alone at their table last night. She smiled coyly up at him as he bent down to whisper something in her ear. The action played on a loop—his eyes trailing over her red dress and up to her face like he wanted to devour her. He supposed he did.

"Oh, fuck," he said, scanning the page, looking for the article that surely accompanied the photograph. "She's going to be fucking livid."

Narcissa scoffed. "Language! This is your final warning, Draco."