The Fearsome Name of Riddle

PART 2 - Wedding On A White Cliff

With the war long over, trials and pardons given, Draco Malfoy sat in front of the fireplace in Malfoy manor. A gentle heat emanated from the crackling flames, providing an orange glow to the room. He held a book in his hands, black and leather bound. His back pressed against the faded black, Chesterfield sofa, he ran his long fingers over the old paper pages. The dried ink was older than he or his father. Draco had spent most of his life conflicted about his family but he found his Grandmother's journals quite interesting. Victoria Malfoy was ambitious and she listened to only those she trusted, often writing harshly of those she didn't like. She had a strength he admired, a strength he wished he'd possessed before. 

"Draco." Astoria Greengrass's voice pulled him sharply out of his reading. She had softness that he wasn't used to, this girl that loved him despite everything she knew he had done. "Your mother's made tea, do you want some?" 

"Yes, please." Draco smiled, reaching up to his shoulder where her hand lay gently, comforting him. "Thank you." 

Of course, he knew how he had met Astoria. He was four and she was two, it was in the Manor, a play date designed by their parents. But, how that kind hearted woman had come to love him after all the pain of the war, he had no idea. 

"How is it?" She asked him, sitting down on the arm of the sofa, "the book." 

"It's- It's my Grandmother's journal," Draco told her, turning it over in his hands. The dust seemed fused with it after living up in the attic with a nasty looking ghoul and a box that rattled with the strength of a boggart. "I wanted to learn more about her, who she was, what she was like. She's an interesting woman. She lived in Knockturn Alley for a while, disobeyed her father and married- she- she married Tom Riddle." 

"You are not your blood, Draco." Astoria spoke softly but firmly as an arm held around his shoulders. "The people you grow up around will influence and guide you but once you're away from that, and you make your own choices, you get to decide who you are. And you made that choice at the battle of Hogwarts, when you chose good and hope even when it looked like we'd all lost. You made your choice that day to be a good man, and that's the man I love."

Draco smiled. He lowered his head, unable to look her in the eye. "I don't deserve you." 

"No, but someone had to love you." Astoria smiled, wrapping both her arms around him and holding him tight. "And if I'm honest, I find it to be easy work." 

#####

1947

A soft thumb brushed across the full lips of her fiancé's mouth as Victoria Malfoy's other hand wrapped around the handle of a straight razor. A pale beige wallpaper clung to the magically expanded walls of their bedroom. She used his lap like a chair as the smell of his saving foam filled the air between them. Each stroke of the razor glided over Tom's skin smoothly, cutting the bristles from his jaw and maintaining Victoria's favourite version of his face. She preferred him the way she liked everything else, clean cut and neatly tailored. 

A lantern hung on the wall opposite their bed, providing a warm, flickering glow to the room. Technically, the landlord forbade the use of expansion charms on his properties but Victoria could only withstand so much. The whole house had been altered with illegal magic, subtly enough that the landlord could be gaslit into believing it had just been well decorated. Even down to the chair she and her fiancé were sharing. An ornate piece, stolen from a Belgian carpenter and transfigured to Victoria's taste. 

"You're testing my limits woman," Tom mumbled as he lifted his hips, his hands holding firmly onto hers so that she wouldn't move too much. 

"Stop talking," Victoria smirked, wiping her blade on the towel draped over his shoulder.