For Better, For Worse

Chapter One

songs for this chapter:
hate you - ingrid michaelson

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A wealthy wizarding family giving birth to a male heir spreads like a wildfire throughout the pure-blood families. It's like a mating call to all the couples bearing daughters, inviting them to take a look at their newest possession.

The Malfoy family was no different.

Upon the birth of their first-and-only son, expectant mothers flocked to their door. Parkinson, Greengrass, Carrow— even Bulstrode. All of the families with daughters surrounding the young boy's age. They all wanted a chance to get a foot in the door, to sprinkle the idea into the new parent's minds that their little girl could one day become their future daughter-in-law.

The merging of two powerful wizarding families. It's an enticing prospect to anyone.

Including my own lovely parents.

I think they were the third to visit the Malfoy's, right after the Parkinsons. My mother was still pregnant, dragging me along to pointless dinners long before I could give my consent.

Maybe that's where my hatred of Malfoy Manor stems from. The first time I visited, I couldn't even say no.

My parents were respected, still are, and that pleased the Malfoy's. They were well educated, well-endowed, and most importantly: well-bred. Lord knows how, or why, my parents seemed better suitors than the rest, but for some, rather unfortunate, reason, the Malfoy's liked my parents, and by extension— me.

We would visit the Malfoy home every year, usually around holidays and special occasions. Mother and Father always seemed to enjoy themselves, drinking merrily around the fireplace with Lucius and Narcissa.

I didn't enjoy myself nearly as much.

The house was cold, unwelcoming, and made of dark materials that excellently reflected the views of the family it belonged to. It felt more like a prison than a home.

And the Malfoy son— the one I'm supposedly supposed to fall for from all of these forced interactions— was, and still is, absolutely awful. He's a rude, stuck-up, obnoxious, selfish, spoiled, apathetic, conceited, thoughtless, unpleasant know-it-all, who I absolutely couldn't stand, even from a young age.

I think I was supposed to like him. All of the other girls did. During the classes I took throughout my youth, centered around table manners and other frivolous things, every single girl talked about him under their breath. The Malfoy heir. "He'll be worth billions of galleon's one day— And he's not too sore on the eyes either— I hear he already knows how to do charms, isn't that brilliant?!"

Maybe if any of them had been forced to spend Christmas Eve at his dinner table ten years in a row, they wouldn't be so infatuated with the idea of him they'd drawn up in their heads. If they knew the real him, they would be running for the hills.

At the age of eight, I was presented into a pure-blood society at Cotillion. The years prior at the Manor had ensured that Malfoy was my escort.

His company at Cotillion made our parents' intentions clear— it was rare that a young girl did not marry her cotillion escort in the future.

I was less than pleased to learn we would both be attending Hogwarts at age eleven. There was a glimmer of hope for a moment, between the months of September and December during my tenth year, that he would be sent off to Durmstrang, up in Bulgaria. You can imagine my dismay when I found out that Lucius had agreed to send his son to Hogwarts, rather than the institution of his choice.