Tainted Love

February Wedding

DRACO

Though it was a bit of a shock to Draco and the rest of the general public that Pansy was finally following through on an engagement, it wasn't surprising that she and Blaise were getting married on Valentine's Day.

Pansy kept a safe distance from emotion as a rule, but she relied on that vein of drippy romanticism, the drama of it, to stop her life from dipping into the mundane. Getting married on Valentine's Day gave people something to comment on, and Pansy needed to, at all times, feel worthy of a comment.

Though the wedding was worth far more than a comment, as far as the Prophet was concerned -- they were devoting next week's entire Sunday Style section to the Zabini wedding.

A wedding that Draco had been cursed to experience firsthand, invited to stay in the castle with the intimate guests for reasons unknown to him. Unknown to the masses, really -- he didn't miss the looks the photographers, waitstaffers, and old schoolmates gave him when he passed them in the hallways.

Draco was rarely prone to fantasy, but lately he had been daydreaming about those devices that Potter and Granger played with in third year, the ones that let them dip through time. Draco would use them to go back and RSVP no, Narcissa's complaints be damned.

Actually, he'd go back and change quite a bit more than that. But it was stupid. He didn't have a Time Turner, didn't understand how they even worked. He doubted Potter ever had either, though that was petty and besides the point.

The present timeline, which was the only true one, had him sleeping in a badly insulated, high-ceilinged room on the third floor of a castle that had been in the Zabini family for centuries. It was made of stone and dark wood, reminiscent of a dungeon or one of the guest bedrooms in the Manor.

A draft snuck through the window while Draco put on a suit, cast a couple of charms on it to iron it out. There was no mirror in the room, so there was no way of knowing what he looked like besides instinct.

The welcome banquet, as it was called on the invitations, included all the intimate guests and stretched the term 'intimate' to its extreme. There must have been upwards of 100 people in the room, though Draco guessed some of them were plus ones or well-dressed photographers who blended into the crowd.

He chose a table at the back, trying to disguise himself with irrelevant people so that he could avoid the cameras. Then he felt vain -- what did they care about him? He sat and ate salmon and listened to people who he vaguely recognized make long-winded speeches about Pansy and Blaise and love and memories from school and childhood and last winter at the cabin -- a cabin which he assumed was twice the size of his house -- and all the while nobody, photographer or not, seemed to take any notice of him.

They were more focused on the plates and napkins, all with the new couple's initials, stately Z's everywhere; the flowers in full bloom, tasteful, uncolorful, the way the forks were arranged and the charms they had put on everything in the room to give it a subtle glow.

The only glances he got were the people first noticing his presence, a quick eyebrow raise or a nudge to the person beside them, then it was over; they shared in their surprise that Draco was socially relevant enough to be there then promptly forgot about him. They didn't care.

Draco drank water instead of champagne, took deep breaths through his nose, zoned out during most of the chatter, and retired back to his room as soon as he could leave without causing an obvious scene.

There, he lay in bed and looked at the ceiling far above him until his eyes unfocused and the stones became a mass of gray. If he fell asleep early, he would wake up early and have nothing to do, alone in a square of sunlight on Pansy's wedding day. But there was no better option than to sleep, so he shut his eyes.