The First Cut is the Deepest by Luvscharlie

I suppose there comes a point when we all lose our innocence. No, not that kind of innocence. I lost that a long time ago… and good riddance. Virginity was a hindrance a girl really could do without. Thus, I had parted ways with mine a good while back.

No, to what I am referring is when you lose that childlike dream of finding Mr. Right, rather than Mr. Right Now. When you start to wonder if love, which you always had at least a vague hope existed, seems little more than wishful thinking, a fairytale of sorts that mothers tell their daughters in hopes that their children might find something better than they themselves have found.

Of course, my mother was never one for fairytales or unattainable dreams. Hermione Granger-Weasley was a bit too practical for that sort of nonsense. Oh, my parents love one another, or at least they seem to. But that wasn't the kind of love I wanted. They were sweetly domestic and sometimes a bit touchy-feely, but certainly not the sweep you off your feet kind of romance that every girl dreams to find for her very own.

I wanted the kind of love I read about in those trashy romance novels we passed around the Gryffindor dormitories. The kind of tale filled with well-muscled men that made your heart beat in double time and kissed you until you were breathless. I wanted a star-crossed love with a swoon-worthy man who made my knees weak just by the way he looked at me.

Then, I met Scorpius Malfoy's father. Perhaps I'm making myself sound a bit too important or special here. I mean, we all met him when he came to Hogwarts to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts during my final year at school. Whew! The tangent my father had gone off on when he had heard about that. He said McGonagall had clearly lost her grip on sanity if she found Draco Malfoy a suitable teacher for any class, particularly that one.

Perhaps my father's severe disapproval was what made Professor Malfoy all the more irresistible. I'm not certain. It did, however, peak my interest, and regardless of what it was that drew me to him, I soon found myself looking ever so forward to attending that that particular class. I studied harder than I ever had to make sure I knew the answers he sought, and before he came to teach at Hogwarts I could have cared less about Defence Against the Dark Arts. I was, for lack of a better word, smitten… with my professor.

Then came that day. The one where he asked me to stay and speak with him after class. It was a day I would never forget. He pushed me against his desk and kissed me…once, twice, thrice. My world changed that day; my vision tunnelled and he was all I saw.

Prince Charming did exist. I was certain of it. After all, I had found mine.

Or, so I had thought….

Our after class kisses progressed to touching, which ultimately led to my sneaking out of my dormitory to go to his suite of rooms at night. The way he touched me, kissed me—well, it was everything those novels had described and more. My experiences up to that point had been with boys my own age, and their fumbling hands, sloppy kisses and shags that lasted upwards of ten seconds (if that long) had left me wanting something more.

This was different. Draco Malfoy's touches were slow and deliberate. The last way I would ever describe them was "fumbling." When Draco touched me, my body responded in ways it never had before; ways that I had previously believed only existed in my books. When Draco kissed me, I knew for the first time what it meant to "be kissed breathless." And, it was divine.

I wanted this feeling to last my lifetime over… and longer.

And then, just as quickly as it had begun, it ended. He simply refused to answer when I knocked on his door at night. When I hung back and waited after class to speak to him, he would brush past me quickly and then be gone.

It was only then that I discovered how severely lacking those trashy novels and fairytale stories had been in educating me. For nowhere in any of those tales did I discover the answer to the most important question of all.

What happens when you find your soulmate, only to discover that you are not theirs?

One could not find the answer to that question in a book or a fairytale story. It came through living it. The answer: you die a bit inside with each and every rejection.

~Fin.~

A/N: Advent Drabble 20/31