Hello, my lovely readers! it has been a long time since I have posted a new story. I have been working on this one for about a month now and I decided it was time to post the first chapter. I was originally going to wait until I completed it, but I got impatient. Plus, since it's past midnight, it means it's my birthday, so this is a gift to you all from me!

I want to give a huge shout out to my alpha, Sweet Little Bullet and my beta, ravenslight.

Disclaimer for entire fic: I do not own Harry Potter; I write for enjoyment and that is all.

Draco Malfoy woke with a start, covered in sweat and, to his humiliation, tears. He had been having a night terror, which was common most nights, though he had hoped he would get a reprieve since it was his birthday.

Glancing at the clock, he realized that it was still the early hours of the morning and the sun had yet to even begin to rise. Shivering from his wet clothes, he decided that 3am was an acceptable time to take a hot shower and hoped that once he was warm and dry, he would be able to convince his body to get a few more hours of sleep.

He padded his way to the large, adjoining bathroom, and with the moon shining brightly through the open skylight, he decided to forgo even turning on the lights.

He turned on the tap and stripped his wet pyjamas from his body as the water rose to his preferred temperature. Leaving the clothes on the floor, he looked up to see himself in the mirror.

He was still incredibly thin but was starting to gain back the weight he lost due to the stress of having a megalomaniac live in his home the past year. His eyes had a dark hue under them that illustrated he was still getting next to no sleep at night; it was hard to come by, seeing as how nightmares plagued him nightly since the war ended nearly two months ago.

The steam from the shower was starting to fog the mirror, which was his signal that it was time to get in.

He hissed as the hot water cascaded down his body, relieving some of the aches and stiff muscles. His body was pink from the scalding water, and he lathered up soap to wash the sweat away. He always started with his arms, hoping day he would be able to be rid of the ugly monstrosity that was the Dark Mark on his left forearm. He kept his eyes away from the offending tattoo while he washed it, not wanting to be reminded of what it meant that he was. He looked down as he washed his right arm and he noticed something peculiar on the inside of his wrist. Squinting, he brought his hand closer to his face to see what it was.

It consisted of three small letters, each about a half a centimetre tall.

HJG

Confused, he closed his eyes and shook his head slightly, hoping it was all in his head from lack of sleep. When he opened them again, however, the letters were still there. He rubbed at them, but they wouldn't go away. Frustrated, he began to scratch at them as well, breaking skin, but they were still persistently there.

Turning off the water, Draco quickly got out and toweled off. He went to his room to grab his wand, muttering out a Lumos to get a better look at his wrist.

Still not believing what he was seeing, he rummaged through his dresser drawers and found a pair of sweatpants and t-shirt to toss on.

"Mother!" his voice bellowed, not caring that it was the middle of the night.

Narcissa Malfoy currently sat on the other side of the small French chateau. She, too, was plagued with nightmares and had taken a cup of chamomile tea with her to the sunroom. She sat there quietly, sipping her tea while she surrounded herself with the scent of flowers and the light of the moon shining all around her. She closed her eyes and attempted to relax her body, but Draco's shrill voice shattered the calm she tried to instill within herself.

"Draco?" she called back, confused as to why he was seeking her out at this time of night.

She set down her tea on a nearby table and quickly walked over to the entrance of the sunroom just as Draco came rounding the corner.

"What's wrong, my dragon?" she asked, noting that something was clearly troubling him. "Did you have a nightmare? I can warm you up a spot of chamomile tea—"

"Do you know what this is?" her son asked, stretching out his arm so that his wrist was face up and right under her nose. She glanced down, and her breath hitched, her pale, slim fingers moving to her lips in surprise.

Draco watched his mother's reaction closely. His own lips pressed together in a thin line. "I take it this is father's doing?"

Narcissa simply nodded. "Yes, I… I completely forgot about the spell…"

"Spell? What spell?" Draco asked hesitantly.

Narcissa held her sons wrist and ran her cool fingers over the letters.

HJG

"Just tell me what the letters mean, Mother," he pleaded quietly.

She looked up at him then, their eyes locked as she said, "They are the initials of your soulmate."

Draco felt like he had been punched in the gut. His knees gave out and either his mother conjured up a chair or he was already near one, but he landed with a thud and sat there in shock while his mother explained.

According to her, the use of a soulmate spell was used among many of the pure-blood families, especially in the olden days. The spell was usually cast within the first year of the child's life and went into effect seventeen years later on their eighteenth birthday, when they became an adult within the Wizarding society. The Malfoy matriarch had been debating if she wanted to cast such a spell on her little boy, and she and Lucius had argued over it for a year. Most of her pure-blood friends had done away with it, but Lucius was set in his ways and since it "worked for them, it would work for their son." She ended up conceding, as she wanted to ensure that her son would be able to live a happy life with a loving marriage.

With the hectic year that they had had, Narcissa had forgotten that the spell would go into effect when he turned eighteen. The letters on his wrist were those of his soulmate.

"May I see them again?" his mother asked gently.

He nodded slowly, lifting his arm towards her.

"Hm… H… J… G. I wonder who that is?" She sat next to him and frowned slightly in thought, flicking her wand as her cup of tea floated to her. "Well, there are the Greengrass's, but they don't have any daughters that have a first name that starts with H. What about your friend Gregory? Does he have a sister?"

Draco shook his head. "No… he's an only child."

Narcissa pursed her lips. "Well, maybe it's not someone you know yet. It could be anyone that you meet in your life."

"Why would he do this?" he asked quietly, staring at the letters. "Now someone will be bound to me forever. Me. A Death Eater." He snarled the last words, tearing his eyes away from his arm.

"Darling, you must realize that he—I mean we—had your best interest at heart. We wanted you to be happy with someone rather than just arranging a marriage for you. With this spell, it is guaranteed you will love the person and want to spend the rest of your life with them, rather than being in a loveless relationship."

Draco felt sick to his stomach. "Does the spell…" He closed his eyes and grit his teeth. "Does it make us love each other?"

"No. It does not make you or your soulmate love each other," she said simply.

Draco quirked a brow. "But?"

His mother sighed. "But it will make anyone else undesirable."

Draco's eyes widened.

"Don't give me that look, Draco. It doesn't force desire on some unsuspecting witch like that of a love potion. All the spell does is match your magical cores to someone who is the same as yours. This usually happens with magical folk anyways, a natural attraction in a way, but with this spell, it helps you find them sooner."

"What if the woman is with someone at the moment? Are they going to start finding them repulsive? Won't that ruin her—their—life?"

Narcissa waved him off. "It wouldn't have worked out, so it would just be a matter of time before they ended things anyway."

Draco gave her a skeptical look.

Narcissa smiled and reached over, placing her hand on top of his. "You're her soulmate, and she yours. It doesn't matter if she doesn't love you now, or if you even like her when you first meet. Eventually, you will fall in love, and you'll be… happy."

"I don't deserve to be happy," he muttered, pulling his hand away from hers.

"Draco—"

"I don't, Mother. It's true, and no matter what you say, it won't change anything." He pulled the sleeve on his left arm up all the way. "I'm branded. I brought in fucking Death Eaters into the one place that was supposed to be safe for over hundreds of children. "

"You had no choice, my dragon, no choice—"

"There's always a choice. I could have—should have—gone to Dumbledore, or even Snape, sooner. Gotten us the hell out of that mess. But instead, I wanted to 'prove' myself. And to who? My sadistic monster of a father? The nearly soulless, evil, vile man who resided here and tortured us over and over for someone else's mistakes? I make myself sick, and I have a feeling this person who is my soulmate, as you say, is going to feel the exact same way."

Narcissa's eyes glistened with tears, but she held strong. "If anything, you deserve happiness because of all that. You were put in an awful position, and I, for one, am very proud of you. Your soulmate can, and will, forgive you. I know she will."

"And if she doesn't? If she doesn't accept me?"

"But she will; that's what this means. It means there is someone out there who will love you, no matter what. That's what a soulmate is for: to accept you unconditionally."

Draco gave an indifferent shrug. "I guess we'll see."

Draco knew his mother was trying to make him feel better, but he still didn't like the whole ordeal. "You said that the Malfoys all used this spell… does it only work on pure-bloods? Does it only match you with another pure-blood?"

"Generally, yes, though there have been cases in which it matched someone with a lesser quality bloodline." Narcissa sniffed, picking up her forgotten tea and taking a sip.

Draco narrowed his eyes. "You still don't believe all that nonsense do you, Mother? After everything that happened this past year, please don't tell me you still believe that pure-bloods are better than a half-blood or even a Muggle-born."

"While I don't agree with how things transpired, I do believe someone with a more pure blood lineage is preferable, yes."

"Unbelievable," Draco muttered, shaking his head. "And if my soulmate isn't deemed pure-blood enough for you, what will you do?"

Narcissa shrugged her narrow shoulders. "Nothing. We will deal with that should circumstances come to it. Though I don't think you have anything to worry about, darling. All Malfoys have been matched with a pure-blood. It's how it always was, so I don't see why it would change with you."

"So that means you and Father… he had the spell done on him too?"

Narcissa nodded. "Yes."

"Did you know? I mean, when you woke up one morning and saw his initials on your wrist, did you know what it meant?"

"I did, yes. My parents had told my sisters and I about it as we neared our seventh year and that we might be affected if we were matched with someone. I wasn't worried though; I grew up with all the young pure-blood boys, and I knew exactly who those initials belong to. When I saw Lucius again, he showed me his wrist, and they matched my name. NVB."

Narcissa Violetta Black, Draco thought to himself. He glanced at his mothers wrist and noticed the lack of letters.

"They go away then?"

"They do when your soul is bound through marriage and they are finally united."

Draco sat quietly in contemplation while his mother drank the last of her tea.

"Is there anything else I should know?" he asked as she vanished the tea tray back to the kitchen. "Am I going to know the moment I see her? Or am I going to have to ask every girl whose name starts with H to show me their wrist?"

She smiled at her son as she stood. He followed suit, offering his arm as they walked out of the sunroom.

"I'm really not sure. Your father and I… we had already begun to fall in love before this happened. We got lucky in that regard. My sister, Bella, however—"

"I really don't want to talk to Aunt Bellatrix," Draco said stiffly as they walked up the stairs to the second floor.

"I only meant to say that she never had any initials appear, so our family and the Lestranges arranged for her and Rudolphus to marry, seeing as how no initials appeared for him either, even though he had already passed his seventeenth birthday."

"No surprise there," Draco muttered bitterly. They stopped when they approached his mother's bedroom doors.

Narcissa unlinked her arm from her son's and waved her wand. A vial appeared in her other hand, and she handed it to Draco. He knew it was Dreamless Sleep without having to look at the contents, knowing that his mother kept a supply of it in the basement.

"Take it and get some rest, my dragon," she said, cupping his cheek with one hand and kissing the other. "And happy birthday."

Thank you for reading! I don't have an update schedule as of yet, but I am hoping to post weekly for a while, and maybe more from there, depending on how much I am able to write.

Thank you!
HufflepuffMommy