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liiilyevans · 10 months

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No cameras catch my pageant smile I counted days, I counted miles To see you there, to see you there It's been a long time coming, but

Or, Draco has a desire to learn more about Astoria when he sees her again.

Note: I really struggled with this song! I started this fic in Astoria's POV and scrapped the whole thing about half way through and started writing from Draco's POV, which I find quite funny at certain points in this fic. Anyways, I chose to focus on a few lines from the song such as, 'no cameras catch my pageant smile,' 'you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes,' 'no cameras catch my muffled cries,' 'and I don't want you to (go), I don't really wanna (fight),' and of course, the title lyric 'voted most likely to run away with you.' I hope you enjoy! Thank you to the @cruelsummer-ficfest mods for the challenge of this one!

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His parents were upset. Since he was a baby, he’d spent every Christmas with them. The only one he’d missed was in fourth year when he went to the Yule Ball. Now, he was abandoning them to globe trot with his friends for five days. At least, that was what his mother said. Her glare had been so icy when he’d walked out the front door that he thought shards would be embedded into his jacket. Theo met him at the gate of Malfoy Manor and then they were Apparating to the Portkey site.

When Theo had asked Draco to come to Athens, he’d been surprised then suspicious. Pansy and Blaise were the ones who invited him to social events. Theo was quiet and kept to himself, but he and Draco had a pleasant enough relationship over the years. When they were in school, Theo had been the only roommate who Draco could stand. Crabbe and Goyle were both loud sleepers and dead to the world once they were asleep. Blaise had been entitled and pushy. Theo was quiet and took up little space. Most times, Draco barely noticed he was there. Besides, Athens would be a good way to get his mind off of Astoria Greengrass dancing all over his heart on the Zabini’s dancefloor.

Since the Zabini wedding at the beginning of summer, Draco had been steadily avoiding her, only giving her clipped responses when she approached him at any pureblood soirées and more often than not, making excuses not to talk to her altogether. By the end of the summer, Astoria seemed to finally take the hint. She hadn’t spoken to him since.

Which was for the best. Someone as clean as Astoria Greengrass didn’t deserve to be tainted by his reputation.

Or him with his tainted hands and battered soul.

When they arrived at the suite, Theo pushed the door open. Draco stepped into what looked like a sitting room levitating his luggage behind him. It was pristine with a white couch and two armchairs gathered around a table. The kitchen was right next to it, marble countertops gleaming from the light over the sink. There were four doors, two on each wall, leading to what Draco assumed were bedrooms and a beautiful balcony overlooking the city.

Daphne was seated on the couch, her legs tucked underneath her, and her blonde hair pulled into a high ponytail. Across from her sat Marcus Flint, which shocked Draco to the core. He was still as broad as ever, dwarfing Daphne. He was clean shaven and was eying Draco with a look of surprise and confusion. Theo hadn’t told Daphne that he was coming then.

Draco nodded to the older man. “Flint.”

“Malfoy,” he said pleasantly enough. Off the pitch, Flint wasn’t so bad to be around, a bit rough around the edges though.

Daphne’s brow furrowed. “I didn’t realize you were bringing company, Theo.”

Theo shrugged. “I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“I don’t,” she said. “Draco, you knew Marcus was my cousin, didn’t you?”

Draco shook his head. He’d never really paid attention to the Greengrass family tree.

“Well, now you do,” she said. “He’ll be vacationing with us.”

Draco didn’t know why she felt the need to state the obvious.

“In here,” Theo said, nodding to one of the rooms.

Rolling his eyes, he stepped into the room Theo was staying in and let his luggage drop to the floor. He hadn’t expected the twin beds, and Theo was steadily avoiding eye contact with him.

“Why are we sharing a room?” Draco said lowly.

“What? You don’t fancy bonding with me?” Theo said with a quirk of his eyebrow.

“I had enough bonding with you when we shared a dorm at Hogwarts,” he said. Merlin, that had been an adjustment. Until that point, Draco was used to being an only child and that meant having a whole manor to himself, dozens and dozens of dust covered rooms to explore. Having to share a room with six different boys had been a nightmare.

Turning on his heel, Draco marched back into the sitting room to demand that someone switch rooms with him only to be met with the rich brown eyes of Astoria Greengrass. The Greengrasses were clearly in the middle of a reunion, Astoria still in Flint’s arms and Daphne grinning broadly at both of them. There was shock in her eyes as she watched him, and Draco felt the urge to turn back around and spend the rest of this vacation locked in that bedroom with Theo, as unpleasant as that would be.

He wasn’t afforded that opportunity though.

“We should all go out to celebrate,” Daphne said, clapping her hands. “We haven’t seen Marcus in ages, and I know where we can get the best wine in the city.”

As it turned out, Daphne didn’t end up getting any kind of wine. Instead, she downed four margaritas in such a quick succession that she was ten times more talkative than usual. Lucky for Draco, she sat next to Theo. His evening was filled with watching Theo squirm as Daphne prattled on, only barely letting him get two words in edge wise. Draco thought it served Theo right for tricking him into coming on this trip.

If there was one word that summed up Theodore Nott, it was observant. He was sure to have noticed that Draco had avoided Astoria after the Zabini wedding. For some morbid reason, he seemed to find Draco’s discomfort amusing. Little did anyone know, he’d been ready to bare his soul to Astoria when she’d stranded him on that dance floor. It was truly a blessing that she left when she did. It saved him the trouble of picking up the pieces of his shattered heart later on when he was more invested in . . . whatever it was they had been dancing around.

Draco rolled over for the fourth time. This bed was small and terribly uncomfortable — much too firm compared to what he was used to. As he glanced over at his roommate, Theo seemed quite content. He was facing the opposite wall, his breathing even. Rolling his eyes, Draco climbed out of bed and grabbed his wand — a habit Aunt Bella had instilled in him. Fresh air would clear his head and hopefully zap some of the energy out of him.

Gently, he opened his bedroom door and slipped into the sitting room. The moonlight was streaming in from the balcony, casting a soft glow on the room. The door to the balcony was cracked. Palming his wand, Draco slowly slipped over to the edge of the door, careful to keep himself out of sight. When he glanced outside, he saw Astoria and Flint sitting in the lounge chairs, their backs toward him. Astoria’s hair was loose and curling around her shoulders. It reminded him of the night she’d let it down on the dock before Pansy’s wedding. She had looked beautiful with those brown eyes high from the joint they’d been smoking. He had no doubt that she looked just as beautiful now, though he couldn’t see her face. However, he did spot another cigarette hanging between her fingertips.

“I didn’t realize you were on a first name basis with Malfoy,” he heard Flint say.

Astoria didn’t say anything for a moment. “What gave you that impression?”

“Earlier when I asked if you knew that he and Nott were going to be here, you said, ‘Daphne only told me Theo was coming, not Draco.’”

“We’ve talked before,” Astoria admitted, and Draco felt a spark of outrage. If she dared to say one thing about the time they’d spent together — dared to tell Flint that she’d touched his Mark — he would burst onto that balcony now and obliviate them both. He didn’t care if it was illegal.

“He’d be bad for you.” Flint’s voice pulled Draco from his anger. “He’s entitled and selfish. He only looks out for himself. You could do better.”

Flint was right. Astoria could do much better than him with her witty remarks and her stunning smile. Merlin, even Potter talked to her if the rumors from the Ministry were anything to go by. And Draco was bitterly jealous because all he could think of was that night on the dock when she’d touched his Mark. It felt like someone had really seen him for the first time in a very long time. And just as he’d been ready to share his darkest moments with her, she’d left him on that dancefloor.

Astoria scoffed. “I didn’t see you complaining about his entitlement when you got a Nimbus 2001 out of it.”

“This isn’t Quidditch, Astoria,” Flint said, and Draco could hear his eye roll. Flint didn’t say anything else for a moment. Just as Draco thought their conversation was over, Flint spoke again. “How much of that do you take now?”

From where he was standing, Draco could see Flint nod to the joint between his cousin’s fingers. Astoria simply lifted the cigarette to her mouth and took a long drag. Draco had never wanted to be an inanimate object more.

“Enough,” she said. “Why are you so concerned?”

“I’m always concerned about you, Astoria.” It was the first time Draco had heard Flint sound honestly sincere. Even though he couldn’t see the older man’s face, Draco could tell that he was staring at Astoria intently. Almost as intently as she was avoiding his gaze.

“Well, stop worrying about me,” she said finally. “It’s bad for your blood pressure.”

There was an undertone to their words. Though they seemed like simple questions, Draco got the feeling that they were talking in some kind of code. Flint wasn’t talking about her drug intake, at least not entirely. Draco leaned toward the glass door unconsciously. He was beginning to realize this is what Astoria did to him — made him want to learn more about her and store each golden nugget of information away for later use. His knee loudly knocked the table in front of him, and he quickly grabbed it to keep it from toppling over. Angry footsteps sounded on the balcony. He was going to die.

Quickly, Draco cast a disillusionment charm and pressed his back against the wall.

Flint yanked the glass door all the way open, and Draco flinched at the rage that covered his face. He scanned the room slowly, his eyes narrowed. Glancing down, Draco noticed his wand was in his left hand and his sleeves were rolled up, his Dark Mark on full display. When Draco’s gaze returned to the older man’s face, he was looking directly at Draco, squinting slightly. Fear slithered up his stomach and into his throat. Flint was going to hex him, possibly kill him.

“Quit being paranoid, Marcus,” Astoria called. She hadn’t even bothered to turn around from what Draco could see. “It was probably just the wind.”

Marcus glanced around the room once more before firmly shutting the glass door.

Draco let out the breath he’d been holding. After waiting a few moments and sneaking a few glances out of the glass door to make sure Astoria and Flint weren’t suspicious, Draco hurried back to his room and promptly closed the door.

Theo was still sleeping. The bastard.

The only good thing about shopping in Athens was that he couldn’t go wrong with whatever he decided to buy his mother. The mink stoles were just to her taste, the feather hats just the right mix of delicate and sophisticated, the pearl bracelets just expensive enough without being gaudy. Draco knew he couldn’t come back empty handed if he wanted to spend the next few months without her silent glares of judgement. His father was the tricky one. While his mother liked expensive things, his father liked rare things — things that he could drag out once a year to show his friends. Draco would find nothing like that here.

“That has to be the ugliest hat I’ve ever seen.”

Draco’s head snapped to the right as Astoria came to stand beside him. She was as stunning as usual in her dark red lipstick, long sleeved green dress, and green beret. It should have been ridiculous — especially since they were in Athens, not Paris — but Astoria pulled it off beautifully. Draco thought she could pull off a potato sack. She fixed her dark brown eyes on him, a smile starting to curve at the corners of her mouth.

“I don’t think you could pull it off,” she said, nodding to the red and black monstrosity he’d been examining.

Draco sputtered. “It’s not for me.”

“Oh.” She turned back to the hat. “Well, that’s good because it wouldn’t suit your complexion at all.”

Rolling his eyes, Draco turned back to the display of hats. If he ignored her, she would get bored and leave, or Flint would pull her attention away from him. Then he could go on about his day trying to forget that she smelled like jasmine or the soft feel of her back against his fingertips or the gentle way she’d run her fingertips over his Mark. Yes, it was best to forget all about those things before she made him do something that was likely to get him hexed by Flint.

“You really shouldn’t eavesdrop on people, you know,” she said casually. “Your mother would find it obscene.”

Draco froze, the silk brim of a hat still between his fingers. With his heart beating rapidly, he tried to think of a moment during the previous night that Astoria might have caught a glimpse of him. However, she’d had her back turned to the glass door the whole time. There was no way she would have seen him.

“I didn’t-” Before he could even finish his lie, Astoria roughly pinched his bicep.

Draco yelped and stepped away from her.

“You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes,” she said, never taking her eyes off the display in front of her. Anger surged up inside him like a tidal wave. Who did she think she was? Stomping all over his newfound hope one minute and physically abusing him in public the next? Draco would not stand for this.

“You have no idea-”

“You could just talk to me, you know,” she said, turning to him suddenly and stepping forward. As she invaded Draco’s personal space, his mouth went dry and any harsh words he was going to say before were now drifting from his mind like a soft breeze. Astoria’s eyes were beautiful, especially when he could make out the different shades of brown in them — the light caramel, the deep umber, the rich coffee. They held sincerity and an earnestness that Draco wanted to believe in so bad. Yet he couldn’t forget the last time he’d let himself believe that anyone might be willing to look past the picture that was painted of him after the war — couldn’t forget the way his heart had shattered when she’d turned and practically run away from him.

“I have nothing to say to you,” he whispered lowly. He couldn’t even manage a decent glare, only a slight narrowing of his eyes.

“Right,” she muttered, looking down. “Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

Draco swore that he wasn’t going to go out on the balcony that night. Even if Theo was as silent as the dead in his bed, Draco was positive he could hear him breathing. That was the reason he was climbing out of bed, not because he hoped to see a certain brunette in the moonlight again. It was more than any sane person could be expected to bear. His father would never have stood for it. As Draco softly closed his bedroom door, he glanced toward the balcony. He wasn’t going out there. He was just going to sit on the couch; maybe sleep there since he knew that he wouldn’t be able to sleep in that room with Theo. Without even realizing it, he was already standing in front of the cracked sliding door.

Astoria was just as beautiful as she had been the night before, the moonlight casting an ethereal glow on her. Her hair was pulled back into a slick ponytail this time, and Draco could make out the sides of her face — her delicate nose that she shared with her sister, the dark lipstick she hadn’t taken off yet, the high arch of her eyebrow. There was weariness there, too — in her pale skin, the faint dark circles under her eyes, the slight droop of her shoulders. She was never so vulnerable in the day with those pageant smiles and barbed words that she wore like armor. Yet here in the dark, she seemed to have shed them like a snakeskin.

Draco silently pushed the door open.

When he took a seat next to her, she didn’t seem surprised, didn’t even bother to spare him a second glance. Nerves settled in the bottom of Draco’s stomach. Perhaps, he should have stayed in the sitting room. The couch was far more comfortable than this chair anyway. But curiosity overtook him.

“How’d you know it was me last night?”

When she finally looked over at him, Astoria was grinning. “Because Daphne would have come outside, and Theo wouldn’t have gotten caught.”

Draco sputtered as his cheeks bloomed red. This was obviously a horrible idea. After all, Astoria only ever insulted him or used him to cure her morbid fascination with the Dark Lord and his followers. But she started to laugh at the look on his face, and Draco flopped back in his chair pouting. How was he ever supposed to leave her be when her laugh sounded that lovely?

“Do you enjoy inadvertently insulting people?” he asked, crossing his arms.

“Only you,” she crooned, and Draco thought he could live with that.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her reach into a small plastic bag and begin to roll a joint. So, she rolled them herself. Fascinating. When she had finished, she pressed the cigarette between her lips and lit it with her wand. After she took a drag, she offered it to Draco. Silently, he snatched the cigarette from her fingers and inhaled.

“Where do you get this?” he demanded when he handed the joint back to her. “It doesn’t feel like back-alley shit.”

She laughed. “Do you think I’d buy back-alley shit?”

He shrugged. “Who’s your dealer?”

Astoria took a drag. “That’s none of your business.”

Draco didn’t bother to dignify that with a response. If she wanted to be evasive, let her. He could be evasive, too.

“So, are we going to talk about Venice?” she asked.

She was looking directly at him now, but Draco avoided her gaze. They’d done enough talking in Venice, and he was not about to open himself up to her again. So, silence would do. Besides, he was too intoxicated by the scent of jasmine to form a coherent thought anyway.

Astoria swung her legs over the lounge chair to face him. “Let’s play a game.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “What kind of game?”

“A questions game,” she said. “I ask you a question and you have to answer honestly. Then you ask me a question. And so on.” Draco glared at her. He was not born yesterday, and he was not playing that game. “You can go first.”

It was tempting. Learning about Astoria was like trying to break into a vault at Gringotts. All Draco really knew about her was that she was Daphne’s sister, she stood strongly against the Dark Lord, and she currently worked in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. She’d never shared anything deeply personal with him, but now she was offering.

“Who’s your dealer?”

“Pass,” she said. When Draco tried to protest, she shook her head. “We both get one pass. Ask something else.”

“Why is Flint so protective of you?”

A soft smile fell over Astoria’s face. “Marcus has always been that way. He’s like my older brother.” He’d never seen her this soft before. Her eyes weren’t as guarded, instead open; her body wasn’t tense, just relaxed. Draco wondered if that was due to the marijuana. “When we were kids, he’d get us out of trouble or cover up for us. For me really, because I was the one who dragged Daphne into trouble.” Draco snorted, which earned him a smile. “And if he’s harsh, it’s because the world has been incredibly unkind to him.”

Draco rather thought that it was the other way around. Marcus Flint had a reputation among the Death Eaters. He was ruthless. Whenever the Dark Lord had needed someone to disappear or needed information out of someone, there were a select few Death Eaters that were called on. Flint had been one of them. None of those on trial had mentioned his name because they were terrified of what he would do to them. According to rumors, he had a long reach, possibly even from inside Azkaban since the Ministry did away with the Dementors. His reputation contrasted starkly with the man who was currently on vacation with them.

“Who were you looking at that hat for?” she asked.

“My mother,” Draco said. That was easy enough.

Astoria raised her eyebrows. “Your mother?”

“Yes, my mother. She was upset when she found out I wouldn’t be spending the holidays with her and Father.”

“Why aren’t you spending the holiday with them?”

“It’s not your turn,” Draco said. Astoria rolled her eyes as if the rules were stupid, and she hadn’t come up with them herself. “When did you start disagreeing with what our society says about Mud- erm, Muggleborns?”

That hard look was back in Astoria’s eyes. She leaned back on her hands before she answered him. “I’ve never agreed with it. My father taught me to use my brain and to think critically before making any kind of decision. The idea of ‘pure blood’ always seemed ludicrous to me. It makes absolutely no sense. But if you’re asking when it solidified for me, it was my first year.” Astoria bit her lip, and Draco was transfixed. “The first person I met after the sorting was a boy named Lucas. We were really good friends, just one of those instant connections. He was a Slytherin and a Muggleborn. So, his life wasn’t easy. I couldn’t do much. Snape wasn’t much help. I was eleven, but I told Daphne to make sure he was safe and left alone, and I always stood up for him when I saw the older kids bully him. But that wasn’t enough. I don’t know who did it, but someone went into his dorm and painted the word ‘Mudblood’ over his bed, left his sheets in ribbons, and tore through his truck. He cried about it for weeks, which only made everyone tease him more. None of the Slytherins wanted anything to do with him and the other houses were wary of him because of the colors he wore. I’m sure it was a living hell. I found him trying to sleep on the couch in the common room one night, and I stayed with him. I’m pretty sure he cried himself to sleep. His parents pulled him out of Hogwarts two weeks later.”

Astoria was looking away from him, and Draco felt sorry for his school actions for the first time. While he hadn’t been the one who painted that boy’s bed, he was sure he could have easily figured out who did it. He’d never really thought of his actions’ effect on other people, only the immediate high he’d get after he said something mildly clever, and his friends laughed. In his mind, the people he bullied never had feelings, and there were never any lasting effects to his hateful remarks. He was beginning to realize how wrong he was.

“I didn’t . . . I didn’t know about that,” he muttered.

“Probably because you were too busy milking that hippogriff injury and trying to get Hagrid fired,” she said bluntly.

Draco winced. Perhaps not his finest moment.

Astoria stood then, stretching her arms above her head. Draco followed the movement, up her legs, past the strip of skin showing where her shirt had ridden up, onto the arch of her back and her breasts, until he reached her dark eyes. They were cloudy again, hiding the world’s secrets for all he knew. Suddenly, she seemed wiser than him. And closed off, he realized, because she was done revealing things about herself. A chill ran through him.

“As fun as this has been, my sister has a full itinerary planned for tomorrow, so I need some sleep.”

Draco stood quickly as she started to step past him and grabbed her upper arm. Her name slipped from his lips without his permission, and horror suddenly flooded him. He had absolutely no words for her, but she was looking up at him expectantly.

He cleared his throat. “Will you . . . will you be here tomorrow night?”

She smiled brilliantly. “I may be persuaded. Good night, Draco.”

“What do you think?” Daphne asked, holding up two tops that looked exactly the same, but in two different colors. How they’d ended up alone in the shop was a mystery to Draco, but Daphne had insisted she needed a second opinion, and since Astoria had disappeared with Flint and Theo, Draco would have to step in.

He’d never been particularly close with Daphne during their time at Hogwarts. She had flirted with Blaise all through their sixth year and started to date him in their seventh. At the time, Blaise had gotten on his nerves, too entitled and removed from the war for Draco to find him anything other than annoying and childish. There was also Pansy. Draco never found out what was between them, but Pansy was always passive aggressive with Daphne, like she posed some kind of secret threat. Because he hadn’t wanted to deal with one of Pansy’s tantrums, he had left Daphne alone and only spoke to her when necessary.

“I think the gold is more flashy, but the silver goes better with your undertones.” Something he would not have known if he hadn’t been dragged on shopping spree after shopping spree with his mother and forced to listen to her and her seamstress talk about undertones and matching jewelry and clothes together.

Daphne held the gold up to herself in the mirror then the silver. “Fuck, you’re right.”

Draco rolled his eyes.

“Your mother’s influence, I assume,” she said as she spun around to examine several skirts on the rack.

“Well, it certainly wasn’t my father’s.”

“No? He seems the type to know his undertone.”

Draco snorted, and Daphne flashed him a brilliant smile.

She was funny, he was realizing. There was a brightness to her that the world should have dimmed with its cruelness, but Daphne seemed determined to outshine that cruelty. Over the last hour, he’d heard about how Daphne’s grandmother and her father didn’t get along and how she didn’t know if she wanted to go to Rio in the New Year or Costa Rica. Daphne was an open book.

The difference between her and Astoria was like dawn and dusk. Daphne was always bright and chatty, while Astoria was standoffish. While Daphne seemed to care what others thought of her, Astoria couldn’t give a flying hippogriff what anyone said. Despite their differences, they seemed to get along splendidly from what Draco had seen, giggling together at lunch and teasing each other easily. It made Draco wonder what having a sibling would be like — what the ease and camaraderie would feel like.

“So, you’re avoiding my sister.”

Draco’s head snapped toward Daphne, but she was still examining the rack of skirts.

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“You wouldn’t? You seem determined to ignore her at the past few social events, and you’ve barely spoken to her on this trip.” Daphne glanced at him over her shoulder, blonde hair falling around her face. There was no judgement in her eyes, just curiosity. Yet another marked difference between her and her sister.

“Your sister is perplexing,” Draco said instead of answering her question.

And that was the truth of it. Astoria had so many layers to her that Draco never thought he’d make it to the center of who she truly was. Then there was Venice. Even after their conversation last night and the promise of another conversation tonight, Draco still couldn’t make himself let go of what had happened. He wasn’t a forgiving person by nature, and this was no exception.

Daphne hummed. “She is . . . special. Too good for this world.” Too good for him, he thought she meant. “I would not want to see her hurt.”

“I don’t think your sister would give anyone the power to hurt her.”

Daphne only laughed in response.

That night, Draco and Astoria established their routine. He would go to bed, toss and turn until he couldn’t stand Theo’s unnatural stillness, and then make his way out to the balcony where he would find Astoria, with a cigarette in hand. They ended up sitting on the edges of their seats facing each other with their knees brushing. Draco could smell the Mary Jane every time she exhaled above them.

“Why’d you start smoking?” he asked. They continued the game. Though Draco had been reluctant to answer her questions, he was curious about her, trying to get to the center of what made her tick. And she never asked anything that made him pass on a question; always things about him, like where he liked to vacation most, what his favorite dessert was, why he’d been such an asshole in school. That last one had been tongue in cheek.

But there were barbs in his words. Pansy and Blaise’s wedding had been brought up at dinner earlier. Very innocent really. Flint had asked about the wedding, and Daphne had started talking about it in minute detail with several sarcastic remarks from Astoria. During the whole conversation, Astoria’s eyes had kept sliding towards him, like she was trying to figure out what was going through his mind. Draco had left a bored expression on his face. If living with Death Eaters had taught him anything, it was how to wear a mask.

Astoria took a long drag before answering. “I was in . . . a very bad place after the war. It was hard for me to function sometimes. So, I got weed. It helped a little. At least I could function and if I needed a boost.” She put the cigarette to her lips and inhaled. “That’s all there was to it.”

Draco nodded.

“Why’d you take the Mark?”

Draco thought about passing, about brushing off the brutalness of the question and trying for something lighthearted. Astoria might let him, judging by her kind eyes and the gentle turn of her lips.

“I wanted to,” he said simply. “I wanted to make my father proud. My aunt as well. It was everything I’d grown up with.” Everything that he’d always been taught would bring him greatness. “I thought if my father was in Azkaban and my family’s reputation was in shambles then taking the Mark would be the first step to fixing it. I thought . . . I thought I could show the Dark Lord how valuable I was.” Instead, he’d been left with a shattered heart and a manor full of ghosts.

Astoria glanced away from him, her lip caught between her teeth. This was the part where she told him he should have known better, should have been smarter, should have seen that it was all a set up from the beginning. He braced himself for it, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the edge of his lounge chair.

“I’m sorry,” she said. It was the same thing she’d said when they had talked at the Goyle ball eons ago. No one had ever apologized for what he’d gone through; most people thought he brought it on himself.

Draco relaxed his grip slightly. If she was going to ask hard hitting questions like that, then he would do the same. Fair was fair, after all.

“Why’d you leave the Zabini wedding early?”

He could see her stiffen instantly. It was like he found her Pandora’s box, the one thing he wanted to desperately open, but she kept under lock and key. They’d been at the game for an hour or so, and she hadn’t used a pass yet. Draco thought she might use it now.

Then, “I was sick. Dizzy. Lightheaded. That’s all.”

It seemed too simple an answer, too calculated.

“Dizzy?” he said. “That seems a bit anticlimactic for how quickly you ran away.”

She returned her gaze to him then, outrage clearly painted on her face. “Well, I’m sorry my bout of dizziness wasn’t climatic enough for you. Next time, I’ll let myself faint in your arms, would that make you happy?” Her eyes were blazing now as she swung her legs over the edge of the lounge chair. “Then you can be the charming gentleman who caused the delicate lady to swoon?”

Anger eddied through him, causing his grip on the chair to tighten again. She was being condescending, and perhaps with good reason. However, she had started this game, and she had chosen to answer the question. If she didn’t like being pressed, then she should never have answered the question.

“No,” he snapped. “I would like to know why you left me after I offered you a goldmine of information on the Dark Lord to feed your morbid fascination with him.”

Hurt shot across her face before it was quickly washed away.

“I was never fascinated with him,” she said. Then her question hit him like a hex. “Why don’t you say his name? Are you still that scared of him?”

Draco leaned away from her like she stung him. She spoke as if it were easy, forgetting all the terror that the Dark Lord had instilled in his followers. Even his most loyal Death Eaters were not safe. He’d seen Aunt Bella come home with her eyes dull and bruises forming on her pale skin after a rough night. While the Dark Lord might be gone, the scars he left remained.

“I can’t just . . . say his name,” Draco said, his gaze on the sky suddenly as Astoria siphoned the truth out of him. She was brave and clever; she would think less of him for his reasoning. “He was . . . more brutal than you could imagine. I’d prefer to forget he even existed.”

“But you can’t let him have that power over you,” Astoria said fiercely. As she leaned toward him, jasmine filled his senses, and Draco dropped his eyes back to hers. “If you refuse to say his name out of fear or anger, you give him power, even from the grave. Voldemort is gone, and he is not coming back.”

Draco flinched when she said his name. There was nothing else for it. In time, he might be able to hear it and not bat an eyelash, but he didn’t think he’d ever be able to say it. Instead of answering, Draco turned his face toward the stars. He could spot Orion’s Belt and Cassiopeia. The stars seemed so far removed from all their worries, like they were too busy shining brightly to really have any problems. If Draco were a star, he imagined his problems would be miniscule as well.

Astoria sighed loudly, pulling Draco’s attention back to her. “I can’t figure you out.”

Draco laughed bitterly. “Well, I can’t figure you out either.”

She smiled at him and leaned forward like she might tell him a secret. “Perhaps we are both far more complicated than either of us imagined.”

“Perhaps.”

Astoria’s eyes were glittering with mischief now, casting a youthful glow over her face. Even the dark circles couldn’t take away from that. It was that mischief that had Draco leaning forward and pressing his lips to hers. They were soft and full against his own, and she tasted like weed. A high set into Draco’s veins, almost like the effects of the weed were transferred from her to him. Only Draco realized she wasn’t kissing him back.

His whole body went cold. Quickly, he pushed himself away from her, an apology already forming on his lips along with a cutting insult. Astoria caught the collar of his shirt, holding him within an inch of herself. Her breath danced across his lips, a teasing reminder of the kiss he had just given her. When their eyes meant, Draco was tempted to press his lips back to hers, just so he could have one last taste of her.

“I-”

“Don’t,” she interrupted. Then she softly kissed him. It wasn’t rushed or forceful like his had been. It was simple, honest. When she pulled away from him, she let his collar go and stood up. Draco was too stunned to stop her. “I’ll see you in the morning, Draco.”

Then she was gone, disappearing through the sliding door.

When Draco and his family came to Athens, they always stopped by Antoni’s, a fabulous restaurant with some of the best cuisine and wine in town. After mentioning it to Daphne, she had insisted that they stop there for supper. It was as phenomenal as always. Theo was delighted to see that they had moussaka with lamb, and Astoria insisted on trying the loukoumades, fried dough topped with honey and nuts. The group topped off their meal with a red blend from Crete that had notes of cinnamon and allspice.

Draco was listening to Daphne and Theo discuss who would be the next in their group to get married when he felt something brush against his calf. It felt like a foot. Astoria was sitting across from him, wine glass in hand, talking with Flint about Quidditch. When she noticed him examining her, her lips quirked upwards, and she took a sip of her wine.

They hadn’t discussed the kiss from the previous night, and Draco didn’t want it to ruin their last night together. That kiss stayed with him all through the night and today, though. He was unable to forget how warm she had been against him. It had been a fluke, he had reminded himself to keep from going insane. When she’d kissed him again, Astoria was merely being nice because she was a kind person. After this trip, he would go back to being miserable in Malfoy Manor, and she would continue to rise in the Ministry. There was no place in her life for someone like Draco.

“Astoria, come help me with a touchup?” Daphne asked as she stood up. Astoria quickly followed her.

“I’m going to run to the loo as well,” Theo said.

Then it was just Flint, Draco, and awkward silence. Wonderful. The only time Flint had been cordial with Draco was in his second year when he was handing him a Nimbus 2001. During practice, Flint was brutal, pushing his team to do their worst in order to win the Quidditch Cup. He’d been standoffish outside the pitch, much like he had been this whole vacation. Coldly friendly. Draco wished he’d gone to the bathroom with Theo; anything to be away from Flint’s stormy eyes.

“You need to stay away from Astoria,” he finally said.

Draco was so shocked his head snapped toward the older man. “Excuse me?”

“Stay away from her,” Flint repeated. “You can’t handle being with someone like her.”

He wasn’t surprised, especially after what he heard on the balcony, but it peeved him that Flint would discuss this topic so openly. They were in a restaurant, for fuck’s sake. Theo or the girls could easily walk back to the table and overhear their conversation.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Draco demanded.

“Just what I said,” he replied. “You couldn’t handle it. Besides, Astoria wants a career in politics, and she can’t have dead weight like you dragging her down.”

Draco’s temper flared. “And you aren’t dead weight?”

Flint smirked. “I’m only her cousin, and quite out of the public eye except for my Quidditch coaching career. And no one pays attention to the coaches. People pay attention to romantic entanglements though.”

Romantic entanglements. Draco had never thought of them in that context. At least not until last night.

“I don’t need you meddling in my business, Flint,” he snapped.

“And I don’t need you fucking around my baby cousin’s feelings.”

“Marcus, we just saw the most delicious looking baklava being served to another table,” Daphne said as she returned to the table. “We have to try it.”

“It’s just food, Daph,” Astoria laughed. “Calm down.”

Draco’s temper was flaring in his chest, but instead of offering a snide remark, he grabbed his glass of wine and downed it. Only Flint noticed, his eyes fixed on Draco the whole time.

That night Draco made it out to the balcony before Astoria. It was only slightly chilly out, and he threw on an old button down and black trousers, not bothering to wait until Theo was soundly asleep. Draco had been subjected to enough of his sleep habits to last a lifetime. As he heard the glass door slide open, he looked over his shoulder to see Astoria closing it. She was wearing a pair of dark sleep pants and a tank top, both of which were silk. When she spun around, Draco caught a glimpse of her face. He noticed her eyes first. They were focused on him and slightly narrowed, determination shining there. Her mouth was slightly pinched into a frown. That frown sent a chill down his spine.

As Draco opened his mouth to ask her what was wrong, she strode toward him quickly. Her warm hands found his shoulders, and she used them to steady herself as she positioned her knees on either side of his thighs. Shock rippled through him. Astoria was going to sit in his lap, he realized. Automatically, his hands found her waist, her skin solid under the soft fabric of her shirt.

“What are you doing?” he hissed.

“I want to ask you something, and I thought you’d be more honest this way,” she said as she shimmied around to get comfortable. Draco sincerely hoped that she didn’t brush against anything unseemly. “How many people have you kissed?”

It was an odd question, which Draco might not have answered if her lips were not within inches from his own. She smelled sweet and spicy and everything about her was intoxicating. He had the urge to freeze this moment so he could feel her warmth against him, know what it was like to have her breath fanning against his face, memorize the curiosity painted in her irises.

“Enough,” he answered roughly, his voice dropping an octave.

“Good,” she said.

Then her lips were pressing against his own, more insistent than the night before. Though he knew it was coming, surprise still snaked through him, his hands blindly clinging to her shirt. Astoria was fine wine, rich and tart and revealing more flavors to him the more he tasted of her. Unsure of what she would allow him to do, he put all his energy into pressing his mouth against her own. Her lips were soft but urgent, and he tried his best to keep up, but he felt like he was drowning in her. Astoria was consuming him with her pretty gasps, her sweet smell, and her soft lips.

She asked him how many people he’d kissed, and now Draco was wondering how many people she’d kissed. It was clear she’d done this before by the way she was pressing herself against him in all the right ways. Draco had only kissed a handful of girls — Pansy, Tracey Davis, and some other Slytherins. He’d been intimate with even fewer of them.

She detached her lips from his mouth and started a trail of sucking kisses down his neck.

Draco had to force himself not to let out the most obscene moan.

“Why haven’t we been doing this the whole trip?” Astoria asked breathlessly.

Draco groaned and tugged her closer to him. He could have had four nights of this endless bliss. Instead of responding, he pressed his lips against her neck, delighted at the feel of delicate skin. Dropping her head back, Astoria gasped and clutched at his shoulders. This was the only way he could stop her smart mouth apparently, and he was not in the least bit upset about that.

Sliding his hand between her shoulder blades, Draco held her firmly while his lips continued downward. Gently, he swept his lips down to her collarbone, found the skin between her collarbone and shoulder, and bit down lightly. The smooth tips of her hair brushed against his hands, and Draco had to fight the urge to tangle his fingers in it. His other kisses had never felt like this. He had been attracted to the other girls, of course, but it was always physical. It was more about what he wanted and what those girls could offer him. With Astoria, it was more intense, more emotional. He wanted to please her, not just himself.

Astoria dunked her head and caught his lips again. This time, Draco was unable to hold back his moan, his hands grasping the nape of her neck. She turned gentle slowly, pressing her swollen lips tenderly against his own until they settled into a languid rhythm. Finally, she rested her forehead against his own, sharing the same breath as him.

This was what peace felt like, he realized. Quiet, Astoria’s fingers desperately clutching the collar of his shirt, his fingers brushing the edges of her jawline. Even before the war, he had never felt like this – had never been so content to sit in silence, sharing the same breath as another human being, and soaking in the glow of their presence. Draco thought he might like to live in this moment forever.

“Are you going to spend the New Year with your parents?” she asked finally.

Draco meant her eyes and saw calm there for the first time. He thought maybe this was his favorite version of her.

“Yes,” he said.

“I see.” Astoria tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “Shame we won’t be doing more of this.”

“We won’t?” Disappointment colored his question.

She traced her fingertip over the top button of his shirt. “I don’t think so. You’ll go back to your manor and your self-imposed exile, and I’ll return to work and people who highly dislike you.”

Draco’s eyes narrowed. “Who?”

“Harry strongly warned me against coming on this trip if you were going to be here,” Astoria said with a grin. “He said you can’t be trusted.”

Draco scuffed. “Potter is a shithead with no taste. You shouldn’t listen to him.”

She laughed then. “That still leaves your self-imposed exile from society.”

Draco looked up at the sky, highly annoyed that she was right. Though he ventured into Diagon occasionally, he stayed on the manor grounds for the most part. It was far easier to come to foreign countries where very few people knew him and his reputation. Then he could be just another member of wizarding society and not a former Death Eater.

“You go back to work after the New Year?”

Astoria hummed.

“That’s a week away.”

“I know.”

“The French Alps are beautiful this time of year.”

“Are they? Daphne chose Athens. It’s more of a summer vacation spot. She’s terrible at planning vacations.” There was a pause. “I think I’d like to see the French Alps.”

“As would I.”

Quick as a flash, Astoria was climbing out of his lap, and Draco was following her into the flat. Gently, he closed the door behind him and slipped into his shared room. Theo was sleeping, his back facing the door. Draco rolled his eyes. If he had to share a room again, he would sleep on the floor in the living room. A quick spell had all his clothes flying into his luggage. After he tugged on a black coat, he reached for the door to his room.

“Where are you going?”

Draco spun around to see Theo staring at him, his elbows pressed into the bed. The bastard chose now to wake up?

“My mother-”

“Don’t lie, Draco,” Theo said, and he had never wanted to strangle a person more.

“To the French Alps,” he ground out.

Theo nodded before rolling back over. “Tell Astoria not to break her neck if she goes skiing.”

Draco ground his teeth and cursed his bad luck. Then he stepped out into the living room. Astoria was closing the door to her room, her own suitcase floating behind her. She’d changed out of the sleep clothes she had on previously. Now she was wearing a pair of high-waisted black trousers and a fuzzy green jumper. Her hands were wrapped in black gloves, sporting little gold buttons on the ends. Her hair was still slightly messy from earlier, but her eyes were bright with excitement.

“The French Alps?”

Draco nodded. “Yes, I know a place.”

He slid his hand into hers and then they were gone.

#draco malfoy #astoria greengrass #drastoria #daphne greengrass #cruel summer series #hp #my writing

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