What Money Can Buy

I think it sad how many people say the Hogwarts years are the happiest of their lives. You get to eighteen and it’s all downhill from there. It was for me.

I dated Lucius Malfoy after I left and though I knew he wouldn’t marry me, it brought me into circles of wealthy men, including Edgar Parkinson. I was a clumsy, naive eighteen-year-old. I knew I had to get married and soon. Heaven knows it was the only thing Mum had impressed upon me before she died.

My parents were poor. I didn’t like being poor. No-one does, but I liked expensive things, which made it worse. That’s my excuse and as awful as it seems, it’s the only one I have. I needed gold and I hated begging my uncles for it so, instead, I got married.

Which, in hindsight, was a bad decision. Not necessarily marrying, but marrying him. Edgar Parkinson. He was quite a bit older than me, maybe in his late forties, but he was understandably uncomfortable about his specific age. He had been married once before, but she’d run away with a Mudblood.

When he first started courting me, I thought she must have been the stupidest woman in the world. He was rich. He bought me pretty things, and took me to Paris and Rome and I thought that this was the life I wanted.

Then he proposed. We still hadn’t slept together. He’d been romantic up until that point, but when he proposed, it was hard. He said bluntly that he wanted me, I wanted his cash; it was a business arrangement, albeit a permanent one, and that was all.

So I slept with him. It was horrible, but I managed to forget what I was doing and he didn’t expect�“�“participation. When it was over and done with, he fell asleep. I had a long bath then went home.

Don’t judge me. Please, please don’t judge me. It takes someone stronger than me to get a job and I hated the idea of working. When we got engaged, Edgar was all right. Then he became�“�“or rather he didn’t. He always was cruel, I was just too stupid to realise, or else he had hidden it too well. The first time he hit me was because I was smiling at Rabastan Lestrange. Smiling, that was all. Edgar and I were in a cafe and he walked past and I smiled and said, “There’s Rabastan.” It wasn’t as if I was trying to hide it.

Edgar paid the bill and we went to his house and then he hit me. Hard, smacked me across the face, and my cheek exploded with pain. His eyes had widened in anger and were bloodshot as he told me never to look at another man. I whimpered and apologised and swore never to do so again, and he believed me, though, just to make sure he was understood, he pressed me against the wall and fucked me so hard I bled.

The sensible thing to do would have been to relax and endure and accept that for the price of any material thing I wanted, I had to belong to him, to do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. But I couldn’t accept that and so instead of my mind becoming dull, and it was very dull, I sharpened it.

He wanted a son, of course, hence marrying someone as young as me, and he was terrified that it would be someone else’s. So I could do two things. Firstly, avoid having children. He’d work it out after a few years, but I could see how long I could keep that up. And secondly, screw as many other men as I could, without getting caught. I didn’t want to get hit, but he was raping me often enough. Oh, you could call it prostitution if you want. After all, I did choose it, but I couldn’t choose to stop it.

Maybe I could have. I could have run away. I could have not gone through with the wedding. But then I would have been poor. And I couldn’t bear being poor. I could bear this as long as every time he hurt me I thought of someone else touching me.

Of course I’d never had to be secret before and I didn’t really know how to go about it but I knew I didn’t want to get caught. Edgar had to go to New York once, whilst we were still engaged. I knew it was a test and I wasn’t so stupid as to fail, so decided to stay with my aunt.

It just so happened that Rabastan Lestrange came round for afternoon tea. My aunt and I thought he had left. I went up to my bedroom and nearly screamed when I saw him there, but Rabastan clamped a hand upon my mouth preventing it. He released me then and I closed the door and hissed, “What are you doing here?”

He didn’t reply and just kissed me. I pushed him away, frowning. “If Edgar found out�“�“”

But this had been what I wanted. An affair. And Rabastan�“�“well, he wasn’t the most handsome man, but compared to Edgar, he was an Adonis.

“If you want me to go,” he said, eyes boring into mine, “I will. But we’ve known each other a long time.”

He was right. He was a few years older than me and though the Lestranges were several rungs higher than my family on the social ladder, his mother and my mother had been friends at Hogwarts and so we were friends. Hence me smiling at him in the cafe.

“And you’re not happy.”

“Then you should have proposed to me,” I said bitterly, and surprised myself. I’d chosen this, I couldn’t blame anyone, but I was now blaming him and I punched his chest. “Why didn’t you? Instead of chasing that Mudblood whore why�“�“”

“I’m not happy either, you know,” he growled, and then kissed me before saying. “If you really want me to leave�“�“”

He didn’t finish the sentence because I kissed him back hungrily and he did give me a good time. It was stupid getting pregnant, though. I didn’t make that mistake again and it was lucky that Rabastan knew Vivien LaMotte could get me an abortion. She was as poor as me, but resolutely refusing to get married or, maybe, just no-one was interested enough.

Edgar didn’t know, otherwise he wouldn’t have married me. Maybe it would have been better if he had found out.

And so for years it went on like that. It was more difficult to keep it secret, but it was also more fun. I liked the challenge. It became more enjoyable.

He found out once.

It took me an hour to sufficiently cover the bruises on my arms and face. But it was worth it, just to know how angry it made him and to know how much angrier he would be if he knew how many men I’d had.

So I suppose that was lucky, considering how easy he was to upset. I learned to please him and after the first few years, aside from the one time he found out, he rarely beat me.

Until he found out I was still taking the contraceptive potion. We’d been married six years, which was longer than I expected to get away with it.

He broke one arm and two ribs. It always surprised me that he had never tortured me magically, until I realised he wasn’t that powerful. All he had was brute strength, rather than magical prowess. I was “ill” for two weeks because Edgar wouldn’t call a Healer, even though he could afford to pay for silence.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned since I was eighteen, it’s that money can buy anything. Well, nearly anything.