Against the Odds

Chapter 1

They had been married for three agonizing weeks. Three weeks of silence, bitterness, and the slow, crushing realization that their lives had become something unrecognizable. It was an abomination, this forced union, a cruel game orchestrated by the Ministry in the aftermath of the war—a desperate bid to ensure the continued "purity" and survival of the wizarding world through forced alliances. Sacrificial lambs, that's what they were, thrown into this cursed institution with no thought for their pasts, their desires, or their futures.

Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy, bound in marriage, the first test subjects in what had become a twisted social experiment. Patient Zero. And it was a disaster.

The initial shock had given way to seething resentment. How could they—two people who had spent years on opposite sides of a bloody war—be forced into something as intimate and sacred as marriage? The idea was laughable, if it wasn't so utterly devastating. They had never spoken more than a few civil words to one another before this; their history was tangled with loathing, accusations, and violence. But now, here they were—Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy.

The days passed in a haze of awkwardness and stifling silence. Malfoy Manor, once opulent and filled with life during Draco's childhood, now felt more like a tomb. The grand halls and lavish rooms echoed with emptiness, making the tension between them almost unbearable. The house, too large for two unwilling residents, felt like a prison neither could escape from.

He had seen his so-called wife a grand total of two times in those three weeks. The first time, she had hurried past him in the hallway, eyes fixed on something far beyond him, her hair wild and untamed, as if she couldn't bear to be in the same air as him for longer than necessary. The second time, they had nearly crossed paths at the entrance of the library—his mother's old sanctuary—and she had exited without so much as a glance in his direction. It was like he didn't exist to her, like he was a ghost haunting the manor rather than the man she had been forcibly bound to.

She didn't look at him. She didn't speak to him. And, somehow, that was worse than the screaming matches he'd envisioned. Silence gnawed at him in a way insults and curses never could. It left him hollow.

He was bored. And more than that—he was miserable. Trapped in his own ancestral home, a place that had once been a symbol of power and pride, now a cage where he felt more alone than he had ever felt in his life. It was suffocating. And Hermione's deliberate avoidance of him only deepened the wound.

He spent his days wandering the manor, trying to fill the long hours with anything to keep his mind off the pit that had formed in his stomach. He roamed the corridors, poked through ancient relics in forgotten rooms, and spent far too many hours staring at the fire in his father's old study, lost in thought. Anything to stave off the gnawing sense of failure, of emptiness, of loss.

He was an orphan now—barely nineteen and already an orphan. The war had taken everything from him. His parents were gone, swept away in the storm of Voldemort's defeat. The once-powerful Malfoy family had crumbled, and he was left to pick up the pieces of a legacy he no longer knew what to do with.

Orphaned, but not alone. Not technically. No, he had a wife now. Hermione Granger, the golden girl of the Order, the witch who had saved countless lives and fought for justice, was his wife. But it didn't feel real. It felt like a cruel cosmic joke.

She had made it clear, without ever uttering a word, that she wanted nothing to do with him. Her absence was as palpable as a slap to the face. And Draco... he was too proud, too wounded, to try to bridge the gap.

What could he say to her, anyway? "Sorry about all those years of torment and bloodshed. Fancy a cup of tea?" The very thought was ridiculous. No, he would let her keep her distance, let her retreat into the one place in the manor that wasn't stained by his family's dark history—the library.