A/N – So, I have been spring-cleaning my fanfic closet in the hopes of jumpstarting more quality output. This little ficlet has been lurking for some years now - I've decided to finally allow it to see the light of day. Warnings for possibly unnecessary cryptic-ness.

Purebred
Summary: Three (non-linear, non-related) meditations on Draco, Pansy and Ginny.
Disclaimer – I don't own Draco, Ginny or Pansy, or anything HP. Don't sue.

1.

Long, long ago, she'd watched her mother turn a blind eye to her father's endless indiscretions, her indifference rewarded by expensive holidays and shopping sprees. It had been a pointed lesson in marital politics, and Pansy had always learned the important things extremely quickly: money and position first, her mother told her over and over again, and then love – and remember, it need not be with your husband.

And so when she married Draco Malfoy, both of them just eighteen, it had been because they both knew the score, both understood exactly what they wanted of the other. The Malfoy Heir made his appearance a full year later, and a second son two years after, exactly on schedule.

By then, they had absolutely nothing in common, their breakfast conversation consisting of trivial inanities and remarks on the state of the weather.

2.

"What does she have that I don't?" Pansy asked, conscious, even as she spoke, that she sounded like a jealous shrew – something that she'd always sworn she would never do. Not after her mother's sterling example.

"A heart?" Draco returned, his eyes laughing. Her heart turned over as she watched him, Draco Malfoy, gifted at birth with every one of life's blessings. He was so beautiful, so confident in his wealth and power, and sometimes she wanted to kill him because of it.

"Come on, Pans," he said, more serious now. "No one knows me like you do. You're the only one who's been there since the beginning –"

Yes, she knew him. She had stood by him and guided him through the very worst days the Slytherins and the pureblood aristocracy had ever faced – and she knew he loved her, trusted her, relied on her. She just wished he thought of her as more than a trusted companion and confidante.

She wished that he thought she had a heart.

3.

"You don't want her," Lucius drawled. "Why marry her?"

Draco looked through the thick cell bars, into the dark mirror of his father's face. "She stood by me –"

Lucius threw back his head and laughed. "I had a dog, once, my faithful companion for ten years. I did not," he said pointedly, "marry it."

Draco recoiled. He began to retort, stopped; Lucius was capable of the worst hypocrisy, but never in private conversation.

Instead, he revealed his deepest, most closely kept secret. "The Weasley girl."

"Potter's wife?"

And there it was: the unbearable truth.