Dramione: WANTED

CHAPTER 2: IT'S NOT CALLED KIDNAPPING, IT'S BORROWING AGAINST THEIR WILL

CHAPTER 2: IT'S NOT CALLED KIDNAPPING, IT'S BORROWING AGAINST THEIR WILL

Walking around in the middle of the night had become a habit of Draco's since his parents had both died and left the Manor to his name.

It was bad enough that his father's will entailed that he was expecting him to maintain the ancestral home, but to have to look after and prosper the few companies that the Ministry hadn't taken over as part of their "cleanse the Death-Eaters" project, was irritating and the only thing that helped was taking long walks outside to clear his head.

His father would never have approved of his new habit at all, it was unseemly for a Malfoy to walk around with no purpose, so he enjoyed his nightly walks very much. The freedom that came along with being an orphan was nice, he didn't miss them at all, and even if he did, he had their portraits, painted before they died, in his office at the Manor. They had the freedom to visit him in the living room or the office and various other rooms if they pleased, but he ignored most of the things they told him anyway.

Dead people had no right to interfere in the lives of the living.

Besides, the house was lonely and cold and far too large for someone to live alone in. The first thing he'd done, after the funeral of his parents, was get all the house elves to take down every single wizarding painting in the house. All his ancestors, uncles and aunts and grandparents and other relatives, all of whom enjoyed yelling foul things at anyone who decided to visit him. He'd been tempted, for a moment, to burn them all, but he already had enough people cursing his existence without dead relatives added to the mix.

So he'd trapped them in their frames, and replaced the bare walls with muggle paintings of stoic, calm nature and scenery.

And then, he'd dismissed all the house elves, they hadn't liked him, even though he'd tried to be nicer to them, offering them pay and days off only seemed to make things worse, and they made it obvious that they didn't really consider him their master by burning all his food and never washing his clothes, or the dishes.

It was very unlike house elves to behave as such, but he didn't give much thought to it, and released them from their contract, liking the silence that came with it.

And then, he'd broken up with his so-called fiancé-Pansy Parkinson.

How was he supposed to enjoy the silence of the Manor if she was trailing after him, calling him "Drakie-poo," and acting all clingy and jealous if they ever decided to go out to eat?

He'd only asked for her hand in marriage because that's what had been expected of him by his parents once he'd reached a certain age, but now that they weren't around to enforce the rules, he didn't want to be stuck in a relationship with a woman who cared not for him.

She hadn't exactly taken it well. Pansy had run out of the Manor yelling at him about revenge and how he would be hers no matter what she had to do. A few days later, her dead body had been found somewhere in a muggle building, her body was scarred, like she been hit with decapitation spells.

As an ex-fiancé, he should have felt some sort of emotion at her death, but all he'd really felt was relief.

The Minister of Magic, Longbottom, had fed the newspapers a story that it was the work of the ex-Auror Hermione Granger.

Longbottom becoming Minister of Magic had been enough to make him choke on his morning tea, but Granger becoming a murderer?

When he'd heard that Gryffindor's Good-Girl-Granger, had gone bad, Draco had had some trouble believing it at first, especially since she'd been even nicer to everyone after the second war had been over.