Before All Else

I

Tension hung in the air, thick and heavy as if an invisible noose had been tied around Draco's throat. Sweat pooled around his collar and beaded in his furrowed brow.

He swallowed, despite his throat being dry. His glass of scotch had been long forgotten, appearing to be more water as the ice cubes melted, leaving a water ring on the antique oak table,sitting between him and his father.

Draco's grey eyes, almost pale in contrast to the dim light of his fathers drawing room.

"I'm sorry Father. I'm not entirely sure I understand you correctly." Draco croaked, his throat becoming impossibly dryer and the dense air constricting his windpipe further. "What exactly is it you're asking?" He speaks as calmly as his current state of panic will allow. His heart racing faster as he looks his father in the eye, immediately feeling cold under his watch.

Lucius smirks, a half smirk, his thin lips curling up on one side. Nothing about him would suggest he were being effected by the same suffocating force Draco was being consumed by.

Lucius sipped his own drink, "What's not to understand?" He questioned, his demeanor calm, collected. A trait Draco once admired as a child, now however, under his fathers scrutinizing gaze he felt no more an equal than one of the many House Elves at work here. "Make the Mudblood disappear. Or you abdicate your rights to the family vault and you'll lose more then a few just the money, you can be sure of that." Lucius spoke with authority, his threat sounding more menacing the longer it hung in the air.

"Don't you dare call her that name! I love her" Draco defended his Girlfriend.

"Love?" Lucius barked, as if it were the most disgusting and somehow most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard.

"Yes. Love. Her blood may not be pure, but she is more pure than either you or I!" Draco hissed through tightly clenched teeth.

Lucius remain unaffected by Draco's outburst. Sipping at his Scotch calmly, "That's your decision then? That creature?"

Draco looked up, eyes wide. His throat constricting again. Fighting off the light-headed feeling and standing abruptly, "Hermione." He corrected his father pointedly "And I don't know" He answered, jaw still clenched causing his teeth to hurt.

Draco knows it shouldn't be a hard decision. He should just tell his father right now that he chooses Hermione. He loves Hermione, he has for a long time. But he can't. After the war, his family fortune is all he has. His family name now a symbol of embarrassment. Money is the only thing keeping his family above the Lovegoods and Weasleys of the wizarding world. He cannot lose it. Unfortunately Draco also knew his father would never let him walk away easily. Even he wasn't that reasonable.