welcome to my blog! i mostly write fluff, angst, enemies to lovers, marriage of convenience (and more to come). i'm open for requests but cannot promise that i will follow through on a request. trigger warnings will be included wherever necessary. please feel free to skip any content that might be triggering for you, your mental health always comes first.
Reader who has a real job and actual bills. Reader who prioritizes her own peace over his feelings. Reader who has hobbies that don’t revolve around a man. Reader who actually has a life outside of him. Reader who says “no” and means it. Reader who isn't easily impressed. Reader who’s petty. Reader who has trust issues. Reader who chooses her girls every single time. Reader who has a body count and isn't ashamed of it. Reader who is exhausted by male fragility. Reader who holds grudges. Reader who’s a mess. Reader who’s mentally ill. Reader who makes mistakes. Reader who’s manipulative. Reader who’s selfish. Reader who’s morally gray. Reader who’s awful. Reader who genuinely doesn’t give a fuck.
I miss when ads were a single click and then they’re gone. Now every ad has a minimum of three phases where you watch a video, exit the still frame of fake gameplay, and then exit the app download. That doesn’t even touch on the ones that forcibly take you to another app after opening a tab in safari without you ever touching the screen.
I hate advertising. I hate that you can’t do anything without companies jumping down your throat with mostly bullshit ads. I hate that billboards exist. I hate that every company unanimously decided to make their ads longer and longer. I hate that ad blockers try to charge you money and there are in app purchases to remove ads. I hate that my attention has become commodified. I hate that there’s nothing I can do about it.
unfortunate truth of reality is that oftentimes 15 year olds will say/do/believe some stupid bullshit because they are 15 but telling them that they believe that because they are 15 is probably the most counterproductive thing in the entire universe
tropes: enemies to lovers, forced marriage, forced proximity, only one bed.
warnings: mentions of torture, abuse and coercion.
Read part (i) here!
She remembers the first time she’d fought back against him.
The day was a stifling one, the air heavy with humidity and a deep sense of foreboding. Fear pooled low in her gut as she mechanically went about her classes. Her mind was lost somewhere far out the window when a parchment discreetly slid over her books, the words scrawled in a neat, sharp hand. 11 PM. Room of Requirement. She’d turned around abruptly to catch a fleeting glimpse of Draco’s retreating figure as he left the room.
He seemed as flighty as she felt that day, perhaps also feeling the somber premonition that lingered in the air. A small part of her felt even relieved at his summons; maybe his cruel game of cat and mouse would ground her, the pain could serve as her fuel. It kept her alert and sharpened her focus, the burn of her wounds.
Draco never let their vicious dance settle into a routine. The only thing stationary about her debt was the time and location of payment. Sometimes he’d let her grow a false sense of security with the mundane tasks he asked of her: submitting his assignments, subbing for him at Quidditch, taking notes for him in lectures. And then, the calm before the storm would evaporate, thunder clouds rolling in with a ferocity that left her stunned as she lay, cheek pressed against the cold floor of the Room of Requirement, agony and adrenaline racing through her body. Other times he’d schedule seemingly endless weeks of torture for her, jinxes and hexes blending together in an angry red haze that fogged over her vision. He was nauseatingly precise in his sadism, the healing enchantment cast over her when her resolve could push itself no further and her voice threatened to escape in pained whimpers, sealing the scars just before her body could collapse at his feet. Then he’d begin again, offering her no respite to indulge in the briefest of relief the healing spell brought her. The merciless cycle would break on an unsuspecting day of the week, when she’d await him with frayed nerves and a constant ache in her body but only the mundane would arrive at her desk, in the form of his overdue assignments.
But that day was different. There had been no assignments or quidditch matches leading up to it nor had he kept her in a brutal loop of dark arts target practice. In fact, she hadn’t seen Draco in almost two weeks. She slipped out of the Ravenclaw dorms at quarter to eleven, sticking to the shadows in the long hallways, away from the eyes of roaming prefects. Draco was a prefect himself and she used him as a convenient shield when chanced upon by a questioning professor or another prefect doing rounds. The Room of Requirement was on the third floor that night, Draco’s cronies guarding outside the door. They stepped aside for her to enter without sparing her a glance.
The room was cloaked in darkness, save for a lone ray of the moon that filtered in through the ceiling vent and found a straight line path down the middle of the room. She saw his reflection in the large wall mirror to his right before she saw him. His back was faced towards her, his hair an unkempt mop of spun silver atop his head, the blond turning to a lustrous white in the moonlight, his Prefect robes wrinkled–quiet an unusual occurrence for the well-dressed, immaculate student he was during the day. His hand was curled around his wand in a white-knucked grip, his breathing oddly ragged and heavy in the silence.
Draco had been spiraling ever since their sixth year began. He seemed to work desperately for some arduous task, his behaviour growing more erratic as the year went by. His flinty grey eyes were red-rimmed, the skin beneath etched with dark circles. There was a mania to him that seemed to consume all his time, drawing him away from his favourite pastimes–the Draco from before would have never skipped Quidditch or given up the opportunity to abuse his Prefect authority. Then there was the Dark Mark that lay with heavy pride on his forearm. She’d seen it a handful of times when his sleeve rode up during their “sessions”.
There was feverish energy vibrating around him that day. He seemed strangely…pleased. They locked eyes in the mirror and his face broke into a smile–a real, crooked half-smile that punctured a dimple in his left cheek. Her eyes widened, throat bobbing in confusion; Draco never smiled at her. Hell, he hardly bothered to spare her a glance. But the silver haired boy did not let her shock register for long. He moved swiftly, turning around to point his wand towards her.
“Crucio!”
The scream that tore from her throat was guttural. Intense, white-hot pain coursed through her body; burning, scalding, prickling as if molten metal had been poured all over her skin. She crumbled to the ground, a fog settling over her vision, her ears ringing as a terrible screech filled them, echoing across the empty room and creating a deafening resonance. It’s my own yelling, the piercing sounds, she realized belatedly.
Through the agony, she barely caught the last of his sentence. “...no use any longer….ends today.”
She spent a few heartbeats sprawled still on the floor. Her arms crossed across her torso, cradling her frame while her legs were bent at an unnatural angle. She drew her knees upwards, crouching into a fetal position. Draco waited, watching, always watching. Her blood always pooling at his feet, her body always broken and twisted beneath him.
And then came the rage.
Anger rose, clawing out through the cage she’d long built and buried within her till it drowned out the pain, the humiliation, the helplessness. Anger could not save the mudblood in her, anger could not save the humiliated witch at Draco’s mercy, anger could not summon a stronger curse for her tormentor but anger, oh dear anger; anger had raised the muggle in her. In the countless fights at the desolate orphanage, in the dusty streets when she ran away at thirteen, in all the days when hunger and poverty tore her world apart; rage had been both her astute parent and her shrewd teacher. And that day, rage also became her unforeseen saviour.
His rules did not permit her to use her magic. Well then, she’d take him down the muggle way.
She lunged for his wand, catching him by surprise as it clattered across the room into a darkened corner. She gave him no time to recover, tackling him to the ground with a heavy, satisfying fist to the face. Then she was on him, landing punch after punch, scratching red lines down his stupid, perfect face. He tried to push her off of him, managing to shovel her to the side. She rolled over into a sitting position, her legs stretched out before her, resting them on his ribs. She dug her heels into his ribcage, his breath turned ragged, and finally, finally she looked down at him in both pity and satisfaction.
Slowly, the adrenaline faded and the absurdity of her outburst settled in. A sudden, hysterical fit of laughter took hold of her and she doubled over to the side till her eyes watered. Draco was still on the floor, his body angled towards her, her feet still rested on his chest. His eyes wide with shock, outrage and…was that a hint of admiration, perhaps? His nose was bleeding, there was blood smeared on his cracked lips too. He ran his tongue over the fresh wound, testing its shape, its sting, the metallic tang of his own blood.
He moved with uncharacteristic gentleness, catching one ankle and moving it off of his body, then settling the other one down beside it. A bruise was blooming along his jaw, scrapes from her fingernails darkening on his pale skin. He pushed himself upright, folding his knees beneath his body, resting his weight on his thighs and bent down to reach her feet again.
Her breath lodged in her throat. His lips found her ankle-bone, his tongue was soft, warm, leaving a trail of red along her skin. She felt the light scrape of his teeth before he bit down, hard. She yelped at the sudden pain (hating her reaction for it broke the sacred silence she’d always upheld) and he grinned up at her, his front teeth stained with blood. The moonlight illuminated only half of his sharp, angular face with the other half veiled by the dark. Right there, kneeling before her, bathed in light and darkness, Draco looked both terrible and divine, both angel and devil.
“You’ll be sorry for that someday, mudblood.”
…
The Malfoy Manor is the grand ancestral home of the wealthy Malfoy family, a large estate sprawling over prime, fertile land in Wiltshire, England. Of late, the luxurious mansion serves as Voldemort’s prime headquarters so the newlyweds were given the countryside villa where the family sometimes vacationed. They drive in carriage to their new home, the ride quiet, her mind lost somewhere far away as she stares out the window while Draco leans back against the leather seats, his eyes closed.
The carriage comes to an abrupt stop, jolting her to the present. She looks out the opposite window to find a scenic house spread over a generous area with a wrap-around porch and a garden blooming with winter roses. The villa is simply beautiful; arched columns, white painted walls, a sloping red-tiled roof with bougainvillea flowers spread all over. It has two floors, as Draco once mentioned. The bottom floor has a large living room and a big kitchen while there are two bedrooms and an office on the floor above. The backyard has a patio that looks over a small pond. Upstairs, the master bedroom leads out to a small terrace.
The house is secluded, a three-hour train ride away from bustling London. There are gently sloping hills in the distance, covered with a light layer of snow and the cold evening draft has arrived before them. The tip of her nose tingles in the chill as she hurries down from the carriage. Draco has already reached the front door before her.
There are no staff to welcome them, Draco insisted on privacy as they settled into married life. The house is biting cold and she draws her clothes tighter across her body. He lights up the fireplace with a flick of his wand as he hunkers down over the plush sofa. The living room is flooded by a warm, orange glow. His ankles are crossed in front of him, his legs stretched out as he burrows himself deeper into the couch and fixes her with an expectant look.
“Why me, Malfoy? Why go through all this trouble and marry a mudblood to erase your father’s sins? What happens to your family when the lie falls apart?”
His smile is sinister. “You’re a Ravenclaw. You were also one of the smartest witches in our year, right beside that annoying granger. I presume you’ve already figured it out.”
Her suspicions cement into dread in her stomach, the unease making her curl her fists in anger. “You’re setting up ‘my’ Travers family and by that extent me, as its last living member, to be a scapegoat for the Malfoy’s failures. Celine Travers, my dear ‘aunt’ is half dead at St Mungo’s but her fortune is vast enough to fund the majority of Death Eater activities, fortune that is now in your hands through me. Your father has barely begun improving his standing with the dark Lord but if he fails to please, you could reveal the muggle-born impersonating as a Travers heiress, seize the family’s wealth for being blood traitors and earn another laurel from your master. His wrath gets redirected from your incompetent oaf of a father to the Travers, to me. I bet there’s enough gold in the bank to buy the Ministry of Magic twice over, is it not?”
Draco’s voice is patronising, grating on her nerves, “Still the same clever thing, aren’t you? Worry not, for now, you just have to play at being the perfect wife and your little friends will remain safe. You’re not my sacrificial lamb…yet.”
She scoffs, “Wonder how long that will last with Lucuis–”
He bares his teeth at her, “Do not speak about my father, mudblood.”
She swallows the sudden urge to snap at him and instead shuffles over wearily to a chair in the corner, “What now then?”
He gets up from the sofa, the fire in the hearth dims as he moves across the room. He pauses by the staircase, his voice amused. “Now we head to bed, wife.”
He doesn’t wait for her reply.
…
Upstairs, another storm brews.
“What do you bloody mean by there being only one room fit for sleeping, Malfoy?”
“Well, there is another room but it's been repurposed into a store room. And you are neither welcome nor allowed in my office so if you don’t want to be here, you can go ahead and sleep on broken furniture and cobwebbed cardboard boxes.”
The urge to punch him is growing stronger. Fuming, she takes in the minimalistic bedroom—pastel walls, soft yellow lighting, a his and her closet in one corner, a small vanity, a double bed in the centre and two abstract art paintings on the wall above the desk in another corner. Draco is in the ensuite, getting ready for the night.
“You’re also not permitted to sleep on the couch, so close to the main door. I can’t have you escaping and reneging on our deal.”
“Deal? You foul creature, you threatened me! Do not pretend you haven’t charmed the door already”
His only response is a low chuckle from the bathroom.
She moves towards the vanity, loosening her heavy braids and working her fingers through her hair, the dull ache of her scalp slowly easing. Her wedding dress is another battle she must face before the day ends. The bodice’s strings are criss-crossed behind her back, pulled tight across her ribs. She’s still struggling with the laces, when Draco emerges from the bathroom. Their eyes meet in the mirror and he takes in her tussle with the dress, all red-faced and frustrated.
He sighs, mutters a spell and the satin gives way. Part of their sordid ‘deal’ includes her forfeiting her magic in his presence. The relief that washes over her as her clothes loosen is impalpable. He tosses a clean shirt in her direction.
“Your clothes will be here soon. Wear this for now.”
Wordlessly, she takes the shirt and heads into the bathroom. When she returns after a while, Draco is already in bed, the covers pulled all the way over his head. His voice is muffled as he speaks, “Don’t even think about crawling over to my side in the night. I will push you off of the bed. Heck, I might even hex you.”
She turns off the lamp on her bedside stand and night falls over the room. It is strangely peaceful now, the mattress plush and comforting after a long day, the covers fluffed and warm, the world around her silent save for the gentle rustle of the window curtains as the night breeze brushes past them.
She settles in and turns her back to him, “And you better not presume to touch me, Malfoy unless you wish to wake up to the Entrail-Expelling curse.”
She hears the smile in his voice, “I wouldn’t dream of it, mudblood.”
Draco Malfoy had been her tormentor during their school days. He’s her husband now.
She sees very little difference between the two, though.
warning: mentions of physical abuse, torture and coercion.
read part (ii) here!
Winter was a rot. The earth stagnant beneath layers of unyielding ice and snow, the biting chill freezing the tips of her fingers, the world around her falling into a bottomless silence, a punishing ache settling into her bones and, perhaps worst of all, it was a rot because it reminded her of him–the silver-blonde of his hair, the gloomy grey of his eyes, those glacial sharp features, the violence of his wand against her skin.
Winter is incensed this year, returning with a livid vengeance. Old pains flaring up in long-healed scars on her body, the same punishing ache nestling in her bones, the same echoing quiet blanketing the world around her. And with winter, once again, came Draco. He’s facing away from her, his robes ironed and pristine, his proud back held straight. He doesn’t look at her when she arrives next to him. The officiant begins in a low voice and the guests around them fall silent. It is an odd wedding, she thinks: the bride is an imposter carrying a dead girl’s name, the guests are all masked Death Eaters playing at civility and the groom tiptoes into dangerous conformity, his allegiances dragging him down a dark path of no return.
He's fighting for composure, she’s certain of it, now that she stands beside him (perhaps she’s even the only one in the room who can tell). His calm is slowly unfurling in small tells she has spent years learning: the way his fingers curl into a loose fist every now and then, hiding the slight tremor that runs through them. The unruly hair strand that sticks to the light sheen of sweat on his brow, the faintest bob of his Adam's apple, the unnatural pallour on his face and the way he angles his neck away ever so slightly from his tight, scuffed up collar. It’s suffocating him, she realises with faint humour.
Through the open window, the early morning sun weaved a rebellious trail over the cold tiles and sliced across her face in an unforgiving arc. The light also ushered in the cold morning draft, a frigid tongue-lick of a salt path down over her fresh wounds. The waves of pain have receded by now, only lingering in sudden, sharp crests that rise with the smallest of movements. The spell was shocking in its brutality, her back slashed open as if maimed by a sword, her blood pooling beneath her. Draco watched her bleed out, his lips twisting in frightening glee. He himself was sickly pale that day, rumours of a bathroom skirmish with Potter floating around the school were perhaps true after all. She’d dared to hope for a respite from their “arrangement” but he’d summoned her to the Room of Requirement at the exact time he did everyday. The bastard was annoyingly punctual about her torture.
His eyes were frenzied, thunderstorms rolling in the grey skies of his irises. He’d let her bleed out till her own eyes struggled to remain open and hauntingly fixed on him. Then he’d sealed the wound with a flick of his wand and told her to mop her blood off of the floor. She was not permitted to use magic before him–a reminder of her tainted blood, of the muggle in her. She never looked away from him during the entire ordeal, kneeling at his feet with her blood coating his shoes and he watched in silence, his face shadowed in a mask of pure ice.
The officiant is another masked Death Eater. He gestures for her arm, sliding her sleeve back to reveal her inner forearm. She wore a plain black dress robes to her wedding, a silent rebellion, perhaps even an omen of a terrible marriage. Narcissa was displeased at her unorthodox choice but she pressed her lips into a tight smile. The Malfoys desperately needed the stigma around Lucius’ time from Azkaban to be forgotten and what better way to go about it than a union between two children from old, pureblood families–their dark Lord certainly was very pleased and had sent several gifts along, though, he thankfully was unable to attend himself.
The deceit was almost comical. The pureblood heiress is, in truth, an orphaned mudblood. And if it was discovered that Draco Malfoy had implanted false memories of a niece into the mind of a dying pure blooded witch with a vast fortune, the very same “niece” he was marrying today, death would be the kindest outcome the Malfoys could hope for. He’d hunted her down to her little cottage where she and a few other friends were slipping information out to the Order. She’d left Hogwarts before her seventh year began as tensions rose and the muggle-born students grew more afraid, taking several friends with her. And then Draco found her, confronting her with the strange offer of a marriage and the threat of killing her “pathetic mudblood gang” if she didn’t comply. She’d been careful enough to conceal her correspondence with the resistance from him, the letters had been long burned, her wand switched with that of her closest friend and reluctantly complied with his wishes, fearing for her friends’ lives. Draco had her group move into a “safe” house, somewhere secluded and abroad–a perfect threat to hold over her head.
The first time they met, he’d saved her life. She was in a darkened alley when a werewolf found her. The creature was close to killing her when Draco intervened. She’d woken up in a hospital, groggy, in pain and indebted to a blonde tyrant she’d despised all through her Hogwarts years. Repaying her life debt was a peculiar torment. There was no method to his madness, no routine to his cruelty. Sometimes, if she was lucky enough, he only required her to finish and turn in his assignments. These mundane tasks brought her hope on trembling hands. But other times he’d spent hours honing his spells on her, advanced dark magic he’d begun learning from his aunt, and those trembling hands became phantom fists choking the air out of her lungs in fear. She was not allowed to block his magic to protect herself. He owned her life after saving it, he’d said, he decided what happened to her and there would be no shielding against it.
He had a strong aversion to touching her, spells being the customary tools he used for her torture. Touch, she’d come to realize, was a strange intimacy for him. He wouldn’t indulge in it, even if it was to torment a lowly mudblood. He didn’t speak much either, save for when he had orders for her. The silence between them was sacred. A two-way mirror that sanctified his rage and her agony. The silence was his own suffering reflected before him, in her. So, she obliged, swallowing even whimpers of pain that threatened to rise from her as his spells grew in their ruthlessness. And he thrived in the quiet, watching her with hollow eyes as she struggled to her feet against the pain.
The officiant digs his wand into her skin. There’s a sharp, burning sensation as the Dark Mark paints itself across her forearm. She closes her eyes, catching her breath for a few heartbeats as soft applause fills the room. Draco is now facing her, his palm held out before him. She slips her hand in his, his skin surprisingly warm–not the ice-cold she had imagined it to be all along–and her heart picks up. Dazedly, she realizes it’s the first time his hold on her is devoid of pain, of violence. A white band is tied around their clasped hands. Touch. Touch. Touch. A strange intimacy, indeed.
The words are soft, but she hears them in her head before he speaks.
“Till death do us part.”
She vows to make those words a prophecy.
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