Chapter Text
Draco pensively stood on the pristine stone white terrace of his ancestral chateau in the Loire Valley of France, gazing out at his luscious property, a glass of Sauvignon Blanc in his hand. His stormy grey eyes flitted over the physical embodiment of everything he had accomplished in the last ten years: the renovation and modernization of his family’s 12th century verifiable castle; the revitalization of the 100+ acres including the two fully working vineyards. He had brought them back from nothing, now producing the most expensive, highly sought-after wines from the Touraine region: his baby, the Sauvignon Blanc; the Chardonnay; the Pinot Noir; and the Cabernet Sauvignon. Each one necessary for different dishes, different events, different clientele; each one making his revitalized family business more lucrative than ever before. And it had all been his doing, his hard work, his ambition.
His face was on every niche wine magazine in Europe. He rarely gave personal interviews, shying away from questions regarding his past in England. He boldly would move the questions along unless they revolved around his wines, his vineyards, his business. The Malfoy family? No. Malfoy Manor? Next. The Second Wizarding War? Absolutely not. The Former Dark Lord? Hell no. Death Eaters? Fuck no. Harry Potter or any of his golden friends? Fuck right off. Women? The classic Malfoy sneer would suffice. He knew why they asked: he was young, rich, attractive, brooding, and still single. But women were the furthest thing from his mind.
This place had become his saving grace. He was able to focus entirely on revamping himself, his family name, his dark history. He was able to infuse all that late teenage angst, all the fear, all the doubt, all the hesitancy into something productive, something that brought him immense pride because he had done it all himself, by himself. His parents had stayed behind at the Manor, and though he had originally tried to convince them to come stay at Chateau Beauserpent in Tours with him, they had declined.
Draco smirked, remembering the conversation. Lucius had had no faith in his son bringing the chateau back from the dead. The damn place had needed a lot of work. Not to mention, Narcissa was accustomed to living a certain way and the chateau, at the time, would not have met her standards. But still, Draco was determined to see it through. And here he stood, ten years later, arrogantly proud of all he’d accomplished, ready for his next move.
Unfortunately for him, his next move was terrifying.
Leaving his sprawling, successful vineyards in the capable hands of his property manager, Jean-Luc, Draco was heading home. After ten years of avoiding the Manor, avoiding London, avoiding England like the plague, he was cautiously, tentatively setting his feet back on his homeland. He was anxious as fuck. He’d seen his parents, of course, who regularly came to visit him and stay at the chateau when they needed to escape the suffocating fog of still being social pariahs thanks to their roles in the war. He’d seen his friends periodically: Blaise, Theo, Astoria, and Pansy had all come to stay with him multiple times each year when they needed a break from their own lives. But aside from them, he’d seen no one else. His parents would occasionally forward him copies of the Daily Prophet when any former classmates from Hogwarts were mentioned, but more often than not, he tossed them right in the fire without a glance. He didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to get sucked back into that world if he could avoid it.
And here he was, going right back to the heart of it. But it was the right move. Vins Dragonnoir (Black Dragon Wines) was ready to expand, and Draco was determined to see it through. He already sold and distributed his wines all over Europe: his wines were present at every gala, every ball, every high-end event. Now he needed to bring it to the UK, and the best place to do that from was London.
His plan was simple. He’d already engaged his mother, who had in turn involved real estate extraordinaire, Daphne Greengrass. Together, they had found Black Dragon Wines the perfect business space in the heart of the city. Draco had jumped without even seeing the property, trusting in his mother’s judgement and his memories of the refined, elegant girl Daphne had been over ten years ago at school. Somehow, he was sure the space would radiate those same qualities if she had found it.
As soon as he landed in London, he’d reach out to his friends. He wanted no one else but them involved in this endeavor. He wanted no one else to work for him but them. They’d never steer him wrong; they’d be honest with him; they’d want him to succeed, naturally; they'd knock him down a peg or two when he needed it; and they’d be hellbent and determined to make Black Dragon Wines profitable in the UK too, if not for his vaults, for their own.
Not to mention, he trusted no one else.
After everything that had happened ten years ago, after his arrest, Lucius’ arrest, Narcissa’s arrest, after their individual trials, Draco didn’t care if he never saw any of the people who had sat in that courtroom again. He’d watched Harry Potter defend his mother so angelically, tugging on everyone’s heartstrings, that all Narcissa had gotten was a sentence of house arrest for one year. Lucius, on the other hand, had gotten five years in Azkaban. Draco could still hear the gasps of shock and outrage at what most had considered a lenient sentence; the memory still made him bitterly uneasy. His father was a complete tosser, there was no question. He had had his arse handed back to him by Tom Riddle seventeen different ways in the last year of the war alone; he had been emasculated, had lost his wand, had been slapped, had lost his home when the Manor had become Death Eater headquarters, had lost his son when Draco had been forced to take the Dark Mark. Had Tom Riddle not had Narcissa’s sister, Bellatrix, hell, he might’ve even attempted to take Narcissa for himself, too. Draco grimaced at the thought.
But what Draco understood about Lucius was what no one else understood: Lucius didn’t give a shit who was in power. Lucius would always choose whichever side would keep his vaults full of gold, his Manor full of old magic and dark ancestral artifacts, his wife elegantly dressed and coiffed, his son well-educated, his descendants equally wealthy. Whichever side benefitted his pockets was the winning side.
What was most shocking of all though, Draco remembered vividly, his hand absently swirling the wine in his glass, was when the entire Golden Trio had come to his trial and fought for his freedom. He had never hated them more than in that moment: fucking Harry Potter, fucking Weaselbee, fucking Granger, taking him on like some pity case, like some charity. He didn’t fucking need any of them. He had sneered maliciously at each one of them, looking them dead in the eyes as they spoke on his behalf. He’d never asked them to do such a thing, never wanted them to do such a thing. Saint Potter, coming to the damn rescue again, spouting off all the wonderful things he’d done to save them, protect them, when Potter had known damn well that he’d only done those things for self-preservation out of fear. Because he'd been a coward, not a hero. And yet, their words had been bought, and Draco had been absolved and released.
The day after he went home a free 18 year old, he’d left for France on a self-imposed exile, so bitterly disgusted with the Ministry, with the war, with Tom Riddle, with his father, with Potter, with Weaselbee, with Granger, with himself, that he was sure he’d never set foot in England again. Maybe he’d find his true self, the person he was without his parents' puppet strings, in France. Maybe he'd find who he was meant to be if he walked the same corridors, the same land as his French ancestors.
And in some ways, he thought he had.
And because he was confident in who he had become, who he had found deep within himself, and what he had done to bring life and luxury back to Chateau Beauserpent, Draco Malfoy was stepping back onto English soil a new man. Still an arrogant, sneering prick of a man, but determined to leave behind the spineless, terrified, cowardly boy in his past where he belonged.