Inspired by Lost Together by FestiveFerret.

I do not have a beta reader for this story. This is inspired by the fic, "Lost Together." I highly encourage you to read it as it is a unique take on the soulmate trope. I took that idea and applied it to Dramione for this story.

He must be dreaming.

Draco Malfoy had woken up every day of the past ten years with the Dark Mark branded on his left forearm. It was painful to look at; a reminder of everything he had done and the person he no longer wanted to be.

It was also gone.

Draco's friends had plied him with Firewhisky the night before to celebrate his twenty-sixth birthday. He took more shots than he could count on one hand, but there was no alcohol in the world strong enough to make Draco forget losing the Mark. He thought back to the previous evening and the first thing he remembered was a cake in the shape of a Snitch. Pansy did far too many shots and Theo took her home. Blaise made a joke about house-elves and goblins that Draco couldn't remember, but was fairly certain he laughed at. There was nothing about the Mark.

Draco rubbed the pads of his fingers across skin he hadn't seen in nearly a decade. It was smooth, no longer binding him to a long-dead master. Draco grabbed his wand off the nightstand and muttered, "Revelio." Nothing. He tried every counter-curse he knew, but his arm remained blank. He closed his eyes and counted backward from ten. Nothing. He pinched his right arm then whacked himself in the face with a pillow. All of it felt very real. In a last-ditch attempt to prove he was dreaming, Draco launched himself out of his bedroom window …

And landed with a loud thud in the bushes one floor below.

Draco did not wake up. He was not dreaming and the Mark was gone. Any magic powerful enough to remove a blood bond, let alone one that powerful, was something to be feared. Draco groaned and sank further into the bushes, wondering what fresh hell the day would bring. But other than a bruised ass and curiously normal arm, Draco was completely fine. There were plenty of people who wanted to curse him, but why only take this small part of Draco that he didn't even want? Draco ruminated on those questions until he heard footsteps.

"Son, I know you are not excited by the thought of this morning's meeting at the Ministry, but this is a touch dramatic even by your standards."

After twenty-six years of life with Lucius Malfoy, Draco loved his father in some ways and hated him in many others. Draco looked at his father and saw himself; the same white-blond hair and grey eyes of every Malfoy dating back seven centuries. The similarities ended there, as Draco saw none of his own pain and regret reflected in his father's face. Draco's father offered his left arm and Draco stared at it. On his forearm where the Dark Mark should have been, Narcissa was written in black ink that shone purple where the light bounced off the edges.

"Your Mark is gone," Draco observed.

His father glanced down and said, "Of course it is gone, it has been gone. Just because you chose to hide your soulmate's name from the world does not mean we should all be so ashamed. Now, you need to get ready."

Draco allowed himself to be helped out of the bushes. He brushed off some leaves and sped inside before his father could say another word. He knew his father still had the Mark the night before. Lucius Malfoy was the sort to reach for a book and "accidentally" allow his sleeve to pool in the crook of his elbow. While it was no longer polite to bare the Mark outside of Azkaban, Draco's father still took pride in it.

"I fought for the world I want to live in," he would say.

Draco was doing the same; fighting against a world trying to punish his friends for crimes their parents committed. Crimes their parents were not ashamed of, leaving their children to carry that burden—present company included.

Draco slowly trudged to the dining room, thinking of how much he once enjoyed June. The clouds parted to allow just the right amount of sunlight for Quidditch. The warm air was a light blanket against his skin, not heavy like it was in July or August. After the war, however, June became just like any other month of the year: something the rest of the Wizarding world did not believe he deserved to experience.

Draco saw his mother at the table and said good morning. She looked up from her copy of Spella Weekly and he could not shake the feeling that something was very, very wrong. At least, things felt different from when he had fallen asleep the night before.

His mother asked, "Draco, darling, why did you toss yourself into the garden this morning?"

"Bad dream," Draco answered. It was mostly true. He grabbed a glass of orange juice from the table.

"Are they getting worse?"

"No, this one was ..." He paused as the light pulled his focus to his mother's left forearm. Three thin black letters peeked out from the edge of her sleeve: ius. "Different. This dream is different." Draco took a long swig from his glass.

"Well if you revealed your soulmate, perhaps—"

"What is this soulmate rubbish?!" Draco shouted.

His mother frowned.

"Are you feeling well? Did you hit your head on the way out the window?"

"God, I go out for one evening and you and father start making stupid decisions like it's 1979 again."

"I think you need to lie down," Draco's mother insisted, concerned.

Draco rolled his eyes and made for the door.

"I am going to work. Merlin knows I need to get out of this bloody house!"

.oOo.

Draco Flooed to the Ministry since he would rather throw himself out of another window than step into a public toilet. Everything inside was blessedly normal. He received all the usual glares and a middle finger or two. They were all secretly terrified of him. On top of bearing the Dark Mark, Draco put Seamus Finnegan in St. Mungo's for a month in 2002. He made the mistake of calling Draco a "ferret" to his face and hexing him had felt, oh, so good.

Draco stepped into the lift and saw someone had already pressed two. The old codger next to him reached over to press the five and his sleeve fell down to reveal letters in the same purple-tinted black ink Draco had seen on his parents' arms. His heart began to beat in double-time as he caught glimpses of letters on every left forearm he could see. If this was not a dream, something had gone wrong.

Draco took a deep breath and focused on the task at hand. The names on everyone's arms obviously had something to do with the soulmate nonsense his parents had spouted that morning, but that problem could be dealt with later. He moved to the side of the lift, closed his eyes, and listened to each of the six dings as the lift made its way up to the second level. This meeting would be the first of many and he needed it to go well. The doors opened and he nearly jumped out of the lift. Down the hall, second door on the left. He opened it to reveal all nine members of the Wizengamot Legislative Committee.

"You're late," Finch-Fletchley said.

"Try not to sneer, Justin, that is my thing," Draco quipped. "I am not late, you said 10:30."

"We changed it to 10:15," MacMillan chimed in.

"When was that decision made?" Draco asked.

"9:45."

Draco shrugged and sat at the only available chair, furthest from the door. No doubt by design.

"No matter, we can skip the introduction—"

"Malfoy, here, is a representative of CODE," Finch-Fletchley interrupted. He coated his words with as much vitriol as he could muster. "They are here to discuss WB8725."

If they were going to be dickish from the off, Draco could work with that. He straightened in his chair and put on his "Lucius face." Pansy often said it was so good he could frighten off his own father. The dumbass duo backed down immediately.

"Not a representative, Justin, you bloody twit." Draco glared at Ernie then returned his attention to Finch-Fletchley. "I am Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Children of Death Eaters alliance, otherwise known as CODE. I am here to talk about Wizengamot Bill 8725, otherwise known as the Marriage Ban. Keep trying to reduce me and my friends to a jumble of letters and numbers, Justin, and you will come to regret it."

"Are you threatening me?" Justin challenged.

"This bill threatens me!" Draco countered. "And my friends!"

"Can we start from the beginning, perhaps?" Rowan Khanna asked. Draco scrutinized him. Studious, half-blood, already had copious notes spread out in front of him. Logical. He just might flip.

Ernie said, "WB8725, otherwise known as the Matrimony Reclassification Act—"

"Marriage ban," Draco interjected.

"—has been proposed by some—"

"Anonymous assholes."

"—to not recognize marriages involving Death Eaters or their children."

Angelica Cole asked, "Sorry, are we truly entertaining this proposal? I thought this died last year."

The conversation devolved from there into the bill's specifications. Draco's brain threatened to bleed out his ears every time Percy Weasley opened his mouth. He surveyed everyone's reactions, trying to figure out which would be easiest to flip. Of the nine committee members he needed to flip five to no, and Angelica Cole was already there. Four to go with Khanna in the likely column.

Justin and Ernie were solid yes votes, championing it just to spite Draco. Penny Haywood appeared to lean no while Percy Weasley was leaning yes. Chiara Lobosca was completely silent. One of the two oldest members, Draco was not quite sure what to make of her. Gabriel Truman, Badeea Ali each seemed to have no preconceived opinions. He only needed to flip three of the five holdouts.

"Right, listen," Draco said. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Obviously we have four more of these meetings scheduled. Today is only meant to be a discussion, but I would like to request an olive branch."

"We don't—"

"Stuff it, Weasley, the adults are talking."

"I was going to say we don't usually do that, but due to the sensitivity of the legislation we should consider it," Percy amended. He muttered something under his breath that sounded like, "Prick."

Draco shrugged off his robe, revealing the green Slytherin Quidditch t-shirt underneath. It pooled in the back of his chair as he leaned forward.

"I want you to guarantee that no matter the outcome, you will not dissolve any marriages already recognized by the Ministry."

"Why?" Ernie asked.

"Because you cannot grant a right then take it away! None of us have committed a crime!" Draco insisted.

"Except for aiding and abetting You-Know-Who in attempting to take over the entire Wizarding world! And God only knows what after that," Justin quipped.

"I did that alone," Draco insisted. He pointed to Justin and said, "Do not make my friends suffer for the terrible shit I did. I represent more than a thousand—"

Percy Weasley fell backward out of his chair and hugged the wall. He pointed a shaky finger at Draco's arm and said,

"He doesn't have a name!"

All eight other pairs of eyes simultaneously glanced down at Draco's conspicuously blank forearm. There was about a half-second where time seemed suspended as everyone processed this information. Then they all hopped away from the table as if controlled by a hive mind, wands drawn. Angelica Cole blocked the door and Draco couldn't see another way out. If he so much as reached for his wand he would be Stunned, or worse. He raised his hands in the air, exposing his left forearm and that only seemed to make things worse.

"I can explain," he lied.

"Get some Aurors," Ernie said. His wand hand trembled. That fear Draco had taken pride in seeing only a half hour earlier was no longer so amusing. "Have them take him to the detention hold to be assessed."

"Assessed?" Draco spat. "What the hell—"

A dark purple jinx hit him in the chest and everything went black.