After Everything (Dramione)

Draco's Story

Draco's Story:

When I left Hogwarts, I didn't know what I was doing with my life. I had no ambition, no plans and, you must forgive me Hermione, I had no intention on living for much longer. I just couldn't see the point in it. For a few weeks I stayed at home with my mother and we both just sat there worrying. Worrying about my father, worrying about our position, our wealth.
It all seems so materialistic and shallow, now that I look back, but I was an empty shell. And that's how she found me. Astoria Greengrass. You remember Daphne Greengrass? She was in our year. Well, Astoria was her younger sister and our families had been good friends for centuries. Growing up, she always had a crush on me, she was very pretty and I admit I enjoyed the attention. And when she showed up out of the blue when I was feeling at my worst, any distraction would have done. I can expect you can imagine what followed.
After about a month of being whatever it was we were to each other, Astoria fell pregnant. Being who we were and both descended from ancient wizarding bloodlines, we decided to get married so that the child would be legitimate. I should tell you now Hermione, that I never felt any love towards her. None at all. In fact, any feelings I had toward her turned to loathing not to soon after our wedding. But I will get to that later.
We moved to a tiny village in the countryside. A village very much populated by muggles and only muggles. We both hated it there. To this day, I still have no idea how we came to live there; Astoria found it. There we were married, in the local church with no one but a local farmer to be the witness. I could sense, at that point that something was changing in Astoria, something deep.
Not two weeks after the wedding, she lost the baby. At first she was distraught, theatrically so. But it was not long before her tears had dried up and something else replaced them. Pure evil.
She would practice the Cruciatus curse on me whenever she felt like it, just to release her pent-up anger at the world. I never tried to stop her, because I was still hopelessly broken. She would kidnap muggle children from the village and torture them in the basement just to hear their screams of agony. It was not long before she started on the adults as well and the whole village was wiped out. I can still remember the acrid smell of their burning flesh as she cooked them alive. I don't think it was the miscarriage that led to it though. She had a plan right from the beginning, a plan that involved me. She needed me to assist with her evil plots. She admitted to me later that she was never pregnant. It was a hoax to get me to marry her, the wedding also being fake as she couldn't bear the thought of being tied down to someone in that way, especially not me. She wanted to bring back the Dark Lord from the dead, and still believed me to be one of his most loyal followers. Of course I didn't argue. I was far too afraid of her and the power she wielded. I felt the agonising lashes of her curses far too often to do anything other than do her bidding. I would round up muggles, wizards, anyone she wanted me to bring to her, for reasons I cannot fathom, and would be forced to watch while she tortured them. And then a day came when I had recovered strength enough to make a stand against her.
I remember shouting, thought not what I said. I remember crying and I remember her crying, she told me she loved me and how dare I confront her in this way?! That was the final straw for me. I took out my wand and said it. I used those two words which I had sworn to never, ever use in my life again. Not after Voldemort. But she was so evil, so malicious, so soulless that I had to do it. As the green light crackled her direction and she fell to the floor, I only felt relief and freedom. I fled to London where I spent three years recovering and turning my life around. And then, when I was strong enough I found a job at the Ministry. I met you, and I believed my life could not get any better. For years, I have believed her to be dead. That is, until today.