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Chapter Text

24th July 1993

Astoria sits on a high-backed chair in the hallway, her feet swinging three inches above the ground in a new pair of patent leather shoes. She’s not sure why she’s here, but her parents are arguing. Loudly.

She can hear their muffled shouts and curses through the closed library doors, and though this isn’t an unusual occurrence in the Greengrass household, she has a disconcerting feeling that this time it might just be her fault.

For Astoria is almost eleven, it is July, and she has not received any post. 

12th April 2003

It’s raining. Again.
Astoria stares out the taxi window, watching the torrent of raindrops blur her view of South Kensington. The world is grey today and it rather matches her mood. She never does like coming home.

Daphne is engaged. Her only sister, engaged to a man with more cheekbones than substance and a silly name.

Blaise Zabini, she snorts out loud. The driver looks at her oddly in his rear view mirror. From the little she knows of her sister’s fiance, she finds vanity to be his least offensive attribute, still, no accounting for taste she supposes. Her mother will be delighted, naturally. Their father won’t care.

They turn onto her street. “Sorry, love, did you say number 27?”

“Here is fine.” She smiles tiredly, fishing in her purse for fare as they pull up beside 26 and 28 Cottesmore Gardens. She jostles her umbrella and a congratulatory bouquet between slender arms and steps out onto the pavement, waiting for the cab to turn out of sight before stepping up to the door.

Number 27 emerges amidst the row of grand town houses. Tall bay windows, elegant white brickwork; a pity none of the neighbours can actually see it.

The door is wrenched open before she’s even had chance to knock. Daphne is aglow in emerald green.

“You’re late,” she snipes, snatching at the flowers (hydrangeas and yellow tulips; the perfect way to say ‘your fiancé is intolerable’) “And you reek of cigarettes.”

Astoria bites down her reply and settles for a dry smile.

“Come through the drawing room so it looks like you used the floo.” She fobs the bouquet off on the attending House Elf, disappearing back into the party before Astoria has even made it over the threshold

Welcome home.

She slips out of her jacket and turns to hang it, but the coat stand is littered with the usual furs and fancy shawls, so she tosses it over the banister with a sigh.

The house feels the same as ever. Expensively decorated, carefully put together; rather like the people that live in it. She can smell wood polish, roasting pheasant and a cacophony of perfumes from the guests that have already passed this way. Her reflection grimaces at her from the hall mirror as flecked green eyes survey themselves. She runs her fingers through her long, dark hair. No time to do anything with it now.

She looks tired, she is tired, she does not want to be here and she needs a cigarette.

“Darling! I thought I told you to wear the blue dress? Oh, never mind, come say hello to Cecilia, Pansy’s mother. You remember Pansy don’t you? Daphne’s friend from school; lovely girl.”

Astoria does not remember Pansy and certainly has no burgeoning desire to meet her mother, yet as soon as she emerges through the drawing room doors her own mother commandeers her into the running for Best in Show. She is to be trotted out for appraisal, it seems.

She manages to acquire a glass of something sparkly, however, so things are looking up.

By half-eight they are seated. The wedding party is together at the head of the magically extended table. Daphne is blooming under all the attention, Blaise looks indifferent. The Maid of Honour, whom Astoria assumes is the infamous Pansy, is animatedly exclaiming how lucky it is that Astoria and herself are of the same complexion; ‘how helpful that will be when choosing the bridesmaid dresses!’

Astoria steals a glance at the girl. She is not sure she appreciates the comparison.

There is a chime of glass on glass; Daphne has knocked her drink over with the hulk of a diamond trying to disguise itself as an engagement ring on her finger.

Blaise curses under his breath. “Sweet Circe, Daphne. If I’d have known you were going to wave that blasted thing about like a toy, then I would never have given it to you.”

Daphne’s bottom lip quivers suspiciously.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t talk aloud anymore, Blaise,” Astoria cuts in, smiling sweetly. “I think you just managed to lower the IQ of the whole room.”

“Astoria!” Daphne hisses while Blaise glares and Pansy looks disapproving. Astoria calmly folds her napkin.

“The girl’s right, Zabini,” a smooth voice drawls from across the table, “I trust your wedding vows will be a touch more poetic?”

Astoria stares. The man is sat beside Blaise, apparently indifferent to the likelihood that he is about to be punched square in the face. (Astoria mentally chalks up bad tempered to the list of reasons she will never care for her future brother-in-law.) Instead he reaches for another glass of wine, meeting her gaze across the table, steel grey on dappled green, and Astoria instantly knows that this man will be her lifeline tonight.

The meal continues with little event. Somebody asks an awkward question over dessert: ‘Where did you say you went to school, Astoria?’ But Daphne, adept after all these years of dodging such social mine fields, handles the situation deftly (‘Mummy sent Astoria abroad. Less sibling rivalry that way,’) and the moment passes.

It is not till much later in the evening that he approaches her. He snakes up behind her as she stands in the open library doorway, watching her sister force Blaise into a rather public display of affection.

“So what do we reckon,” he mutters, handing her a glass of champagne and watching the couple over her shoulder with amusement. “A marriage of true minds or another society divorce for Skeeter to sink her teeth into?”

Astoria appraises him from behind dark lashes. Sharp features, expensive robes, pale blonde hair that falls just above those disarming crystal eyes. He is smirking. On anyone else, it would look unattractive, smug even, but she is surprised to find she rather likes it on him.

“Oh, I daresay they deserve one another. It’s the inevitable offspring I’m most concerned for.”

His smirk widens. It’s almost a grin. “Smoke?”

“Like a chimney.”

He takes her hand as if it were his to hold and pulls her through the throng of people. She can’t fail to notice that this isn’t much of a challenge; the crowds part in front of him as though he is the wrong end of a magnet, everyone managing to keep their distance even in the confined space. It is unnerving and impressive all at once.

Nor is she oblivious to the attention the two of them seem to have warranted. Her mother cannot take her eyes off of Astoria’s hand, buried in his. She fights the urge to hold it tighter.

They step out onto the terrace, and it is as if they have broken free. Their audible sighs of relief are testimony, and they glance at each other curiously, each wondering what the other was so keen to escape.

“I don’t think we’ve been formerly introduced,” the blond starts, pulling out a well-thumbed pack of Marlboro Lights and offering them across to her. “Draco Malfoy. Best Man and professional awkward dinner guest.”

She laughs and takes a cigarette, relaxing in the familiarity of it between her fingers, ““Astoria Greengrass, bridesmaid and embarrassing younger sister. Delighted to meet you.”

He smiles conspiratorially, “Likewise,” and frowns suddenly, hands wedged in pockets. “Don’t suppose you’ve got your wand on you, do you?”

She’s one step ahead, pulling a silver lighter from her purse.

“It’s smaller,” she justifies, for he is eyeing her inquisitively, slipping it back into her tiny clutch bag once lit to emphasise the point.

They spend a moment in silence, each of them enjoying the chill of the evening and a nicotine rush. The rain has dispersed the usual low-hanging London clouds, and the night is clear and sharp. Astoria admires the garden, perhaps the one part of the house she has missed. The endless pathways, lined by tall hedgerows and bay trees in colossal terracotta pots; the perfect place for a child to lose themselves. She knows it well.

“You know,” Draco says at last, flicking his cigarette so that the ash tumbles down over the wrought iron railings like blackened flakes of snow, “Blaise never mentioned Daphne had a sister.”

Astoria smiles wryly. “No? Well, Blaise never mentioned he had any friends either. I must say I was rather surprised.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t quite say we were friends. For a brief period at school, I believe we were actually mortal enemies.”

“I’m not sure people in real life have mortal enemies,” she mumbles, exhaling deeply and watching the smoke spiral off into the darkness. 

“Really?” he grazes his chin thoughtfully, “Sounds rather dull. I had several.”

“Had?”

“Changed man.” He has that smirk of his again which suggests otherwise. “So, studying abroad, were you? How very European.”

“I try my best,” she sips at her champagne. It’s not strictly a lie after all (she has indeed spent most of her teenage years tucked away in a far Northern corner of France), but still uncomfortable territory.

Draco surveys her as she stubs out her half-finished cigarette. He’s no fool; his ability to read other people has drastically improved these past few years (it had to, no one would speak to him directly) and he knows this is something she does not want to talk about. His old drive to press, to force her hand is strong, but he curbs the urge. This is no time to push his luck.

He knows she is probably more trouble than she’s worth and that any second someone will come to seek her out, to claim her back from him and this illusion of normality will be shattered. He cannot help himself though, and it isn’t because she is pretty, (although she is, stunning actually, or at least she would be if she wasn’t so damn nonchalant) but because she doesn’t stare at him as though any moment he is going to morph into some beast, because she is willing to go beyond that all-too-polite level of conversation without seeming to care that her own social reputation is being stained with every second she spends out here alone with him. Because she hasn’t once yet glanced none too subtly at his left forearm.

All too soon she is turning, (‘I should probably go inform my mother my virtues still intact,’) and his hand is on her wrist and he almost shudders at the warmth of contact. They both know where this is heading, and neither understands why or how they reached this point so quickly.

She looks up at him with ill-disguised curiosity. “But you hardly even know me.”

Draco’s voice is gravely with need. “Isn’t that the point?”

Tomorrow Astoria will blame it on the champagne and the nicotine and will endeavour to forget his name and slip back out of this world. And tomorrow Draco will cling to this moment and this memory to remind himself that he can still be more than a battle scar that refuses to fade.

But right now they are out on the terrace and it is dark and they are standing too close for mere acquaintances. They have gone nought to sixty in zero seconds, and there is really only one thing left to be done.

So they kiss.

Chapter Text

27th September, 2003

The waitress hovers over Astoria’s table. This is the fifth time she’s been asked if she’s ready to order and the fifth time she has replied politely (through gritted teeth), that she’ll need a few more minutes yet. She can see the pity in the young woman’s eyes, hear it in the way she asks if she’d like another glass of wine, and it makes her jaw ache.

The waitress thinks she’s been stood up. Astoria supposes in a way she has been, although not in the traditional sense. Her father arranged this lunch meeting- the obligatory bi-annual refresher on his youngest daughter’s life- and it is her father who has abandoned her, sitting in Harrod’s tea rooms for almost an hour looking and feeling the fool.

The waitress edges closer again and Astoria orders a cream scone and an espresso to save face. ‘Daddy issues’ really do nothing for the waist-line.

She is halfway done when she sees him, strolling up to the counter, shaking the rain from his platinum hair. There is a large black umbrella tucked beneath his arm and her first thought is what possessed him not to use it (for it is positively torrential out there), her second is to hide.

She snatches up a menu and stares hard at the extensive selection of herbal teas - she isn’t sure how comfortable she would feel drinking something called Oolong but perhaps now isn’t the time for such concerns - before chancing another look. Draco is pointing at something on the sweet trolley, barking orders at the once-smug waitress.

Perhaps she could make a run for it, leave some money on the table and slip out before he sees her? But, with a curse, she realises he is directly between her and the door and all she’s got is a twenty which she’s bloody well not leaving behind for the smarmy bint’s tip.

And besides, she hasn’t finished her scone.

She glances up again. He is staring right at her. Bugger.
For a second he does not move. The waitress is trying to ask him something but it is as if he cannot hear. Astoria can literally see the thought process etched all over his face and she imagines he is reading hers right back. She’s not sure what he sees but he misinterprets because he starts towards her (bugger, bugger, bugger), his order now standing forgotten at the counter as he makes his way over to her table. 

She doesn’t quite manage a smile as he slips into the seat opposite without waiting for an invitation.

“What on Earth are you doing here?” It comes out much more harshly than she had meant it.

Draco simply raises an eyebrow, amused. “A pleasure to see you, too, Astoria. If you must know, I am on my lunch break.”

“You work?” she asks, disbelieving.

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“Where?”

He is chuckling openly now. “Gringott’s. I’m a financial consultant. Apparently if you have enough money of your own, it entitles you to tell other people how poor they are at managing theirs.”

She feels the corner of her lips twitching to a smile and fights to suppress it.

The waitress arrives with Draco’s forgotten food order and, glancing between him and Astoria, flashes her a knowing smile; they are friends now, it seems. Astoria glares her off.

“So, am I to be extended the same courtesy?”

Astoria frowns, distracted. “Pardon?”

“Well, don’t I get to know why you are here?”

“I like it here,” she mutters, deciding quickly that he definitely doesn’t need to know about her absent father; in fact the less he know about her in general, the better. “They have a very good range of herbal teas,” she attempts to justify.

“If you say so.” He fails to suppress a smirk and eyes her espresso which she knocks back in one gulp.

She looks different than he remembers somehow. (Her hair is lighter, dark roots evidence of a fading dye. Perhaps a darker lipstick too?) Then again, he supposes, it has been five months, perhaps his memory of that night is fading.Worn out, more likely, for Draco finds himself thinking of that terrace more often than is necessarily healthy.

“Have dinner with me,” he says at last. “Tonight.”

She stares at him incredulously, before shaking her head. He scowls; he hardly thinks it the most unreasonable of suggestions.

“I’m afraid I’ve rather been warned against you,”

“Ah.” His scowl darkens, “May I ask by whom?”

She snorts, somewhat unattractively, “My mother, sister and everyone else who saw us at the party and likes to throw around advice where it isn’t wanted.”

“So you didn’t like them telling you to stay away from me?”

She shoots him a wry smile. “I’m not having dinner with you.”

“No, perhaps not tonight.”

“Malfoy,” her tone is warning and he smirks, holding up his hands in mock defeat.

She surveys him as she finishes her scone. He is overly confident for a man with a reputation as black as tar, oh yes she’s been well (and rather loudly) informed since last April about his turbulent past, not to mention how little he knows of her (and best to keep it that way). Although, she concedes, feeling a familiar kind of heat creeping down the back of her neck, that didn’t stop him the last time they met.

She suddenly feels restless and toys with her empty cup, steadfastly ignoring his lingering gaze. It is unnerving, and a little ridiculous, just how easily one memory asserts itself in her mind at any given moment. After all, she tells herself, it was really nothing more than a silly, drunken kiss on an evening where there was little better to do and she needed the excitement.

But that is not true.

She steals a glance at the man sitting opposite her. He is still watching her, eyes cool and gaze suggestive. The heat creeps down to her navel. 

She wanted him then, she still wants him now and she could not and cannot explain the force, the gravitational pull that has her literally inching towards the edge of her seat. She barely even remembers the kiss, except for the way it had made her nerves catch on fire; an ice cold fire that had burnt its way along sending shivers as it went. He had held her tightly at the wrist, almost to the point of pain. Her whole world tethered to that one point: the heat of his hand, the strength of his grip. And oh God, his tongue-

The waitress cuts between them to retrieve Astoria’s empty cup, and the memory is instantly pulled from focus. Taking a deep breath, she brushes her fingers through her hair, fumbling in her bag for the cigarettes she’s sure are in there before looking up at Draco to hurry her goodbye.

Without a word he leans forward and for a startling second she thinks he’s going to kiss her again, right here in the middle of some over-priced Muggle cafe. Her blood freezes, red hot in her veins. Instead, he smoothes a slender finger over her bottom lip. His touch is cold and she gasps inaudibly.

She opens her eyes, not knowing when she had closed them, to find him watching her in amusement.

“There was cream,” he says simply, “on your face.”

Astoria stares at him dumbly for half a second before bursting into peals of girlish laughter. Part in amusement, part in embarrassment and part because she is struck by how very fast her pulse is racing and she has only now begun to realise the extent of her own insanity.

“I have to go.” She manages to calm herself long enough to slip on her old camel Mac, reaching for her purse with her cigarettes in one hand.

Draco reaches out a hand to stop her, his fingers brushing hers, and Astoria feels that wave of heat push inappropriately south. She needs to leave.

“Let me get this.” Ever the gentleman.

“Fine.” She snatches up her bag and sets off for the door, “it can count as dinner.”

She throws him a brazen smile as she steps out onto the pavement, hand already signalling for a taxi by the time he has caught up. They stand in the pouring rain, he makes no move to offer the black umbrella (perhaps not quite the gentleman after all) and the traffic is dense.

“Let me Apparate you somewhere,” he shouts above the roar of a number 54 bus.

Astoria visibly blanches. She’d been the unsuspecting victim of a side-along appa-whatsits once after Daphne had passed her test. Her eyebrows had taken a leave of absence to Leicester for three weeks following.

“Not after I’ve just eaten,” she leans out into the road, hand held high. The taxi speeds past her.

Draco frowns. “Fine. Let me walk you to the nearest Floo point?”

“Too far.” She keeps her eyes on the road, gritting her teeth, and tries to swipe away the hair now plastered to her face.

He’s taking her negativity as a rebuff, and growls out in frustration, “At least get the buggering Knight Bus, this weather is relentless!”

She clenches her fist (will he not just give up?), and turns on him aggressively. Grasping his rain washed face between small hands, she crushes her mouth against his. It isn’t the same. There is no expectation, no strange unease. It is a means to an end and now he has stopped asking questions. 

But there is still that heat, frothing up inside of her as his hands sink into her hair and his lips stake their claim on hers, bruising and asphyxiating and it is all she can do to tear herself away without meeting his eye as a taxi finally pulls up beside them.

“Notting Hill, Westbourne Grove,” she instructs, swinging the door shut behind her. She does not dare glance back at the man left reeling on the pavement, who is staring after her in confusion and frustration. Nor does she dare pay attention to her own pulse, deafening in her ears, or the strange light headedness that makes her lean against the window in the back of the cab.

Because this is trouble; worse, this is dangerous, and not just because he is Draco sodding Malfoy. She does not exist, cannot exist, for him for she is nothing but a ghost in his world, there in shell but not in spirit and he can never know. No one can know.

And, fuck, she needs a cigarette.

Chapter Text

23rd June 2004

The garden is awash with colour- bright purple buddleias, pink bursts of amaranths, and Astoria, radiant in the heat in a bright yellow sundress.

She is home once more, the wedding rehearsal looms ahead, scheduled for the evening, but right now she is left to her own devices. It is quiet in the garden, the sun warming her face as she lies on her back, hair splayed out above her in a fan of ebony silk. Her fingers lace into the grass, and she is at once ten years old again, taking lemonade on the lawn and being regaled by Daphne with tales of magic from a school that beckons, just around the corner, only one more year...

Astoria frowns; a cloud has covered the splendid sun, and sits up to reclaim her book from the wrought iron bench where it has fluttered open in the breeze.

Her father is here, which is a marvel in itself. What is even more of a miracle perhaps is that her mother has not yet descended into the gin cabinet (her usual refuge when the Greengrass patriarch returns to the family nest). Astoria has often wondered at her parents' lives; seemingly out of orbit and yet forever entwined. Divorce was never on the cards, she supposes it simply wasn't done those days, and yet for all intents and purposes they are wholly separate entities. Her mother here in Kensington, father in the city, 'and never the twain shall meet'.

She doesn't like to think of the hand she has played in the implosion that was their marriage- what daughter would? And besides, such trips down memory lane are counter-productive at best. (Then again, what is it they say? 'Everything can be killed but nostalgia'. How very right they are.)

A distinct chill has cooled the air and Astoria heads back toward the house, wrapping her arms around herself. The rest of the wedding party will be arriving soon, and she doubts the grass stains now hemming her dress will be much appreciated.

She is almost at the terrace- only one row of box hedge to pass- when she hears the pantry door slam back against the wall of the house, a clatter of heels following heavy footsteps.

"Blaise, please!"

She recognises the tearful voice; it is Daphne.
Astoria hesitates. She has learnt from experience (such lovers tiffs have been a penny a dozen this past year) that it is best to keep one's head not so much down as completely removed from the immediate area when the lovebirds are waging war.

"Please, let me explain!"

"Explain?" Zabini is snarling, sounding more unpleasant than Astoria has ever heard him. "There is nothing to explain. It's quite clear that you and your wretched mother have trapped me into this sham of a marriage under false pretence!"

Astoria edges closer to the hedgerow for cover. This is not their usual fight. Blaise is not throwing out jaded, cruel puns just because he can; this time he is livid. She can only imagine what Daphne must have done or said. The first spots of rain glance off her bare arms.

"That is not true! That...that has nothing to do with me!" Daphne's scream is shrill, she is becoming hysterical. "You've known me for over ten years, Blaise, you know perfectly well how capable I am."

"That's irrelevant and you damn well know it! There's something rotten in your family and I'm not exactly ecstatic at the thought of it watering down my blood line."

"How dare you!" her sister curses darkly. "We are just as much a pure-blooded family as any!"

Blaise begins to laugh, cruelly. "Oh, I see, and one of you just decided to go to some Mudblood boarding school for seven years for fun, did she?"

"I understand that you are upset, Blaise." He manages something between a snort and a curse. "But I have had to cope with this for over ten years! And now you're going to have to live with it just like the rest of us have."

"Do you really think I'm going to take you now?" he yells. Daphne is silent. "What did you think I would do? Tell you it wasn't an issue and cross my fingers our first born didn't come out a dirty sq-?"

Astoria hears the crack of skin on skin. Daphne has slapped him.

Astoria is frozen to the spot, pressing herself into the hedge. She is vaguely aware that it has begun to rain in earnest now and that she is cold, her dress sticking around her knees, her hair clinging to her neck in black tendrils. But none of that really matters because he knows.

Of all the people in all of the world, Daphne has told him her darkest secret, her only secret. The secret Astoria herself has never told a soul. The secret she was never allowed to tell for it would ruin them all. And now Blaise fucking Zabini knows.

She is at once deaf and blind to her surroundings, silently begging for the garden to engulf her entirely, to let her sink into the green folds until she is no more. Her sister is still shouting but it is muffled now, the words unintelligible, and the rain is beating her shoulders with a relentless determination that she cannot feel. Her pulse is echoing in her ears making her temples throb, her stomach is twisting into knots, her mouth dry.

She lurches forward, the hedge scraping her hands, as she pushes herself towards the house, blinded by the rain and the furious shame now burning up like bile in her throat. She stumbles up the garden steps, emerging onto the terrace, where her sister and Blaise stare at her, aghast. The look of horror on his face is almost as bad as the guilt emanating from Daphne, and so Astoria ploughs on, her sandals sliding on the tiles as she wrenches open the pantry door and trips into the hallway.

Her feet leave muddy prints in her wake, and water is running from the hem of her dress onto the carpet as she tears through the house. Her sister is behind her- she can hear her screeching her name- but she pays no heed, until she is grabbed by the wrist and swung against a wall.

Daphne is suddenly above her, face ablaze and equally sodden. "I had to 'Stori! He's going to be a part of this family; he'd have found out soon enough!"

But Astoria can only shake her head, eyes wide in wild panic. Her mother appears from a side door, empty gin glass in hand ('Why in Merlin's name is everybody so wet?') and she takes the chance to wrench herself from her sister's grasp, sprinting down the hall like a rat on a doomed submarine, desperate for an exit.

She bursts through double doors into the entrance hall, hair swinging wildly around her shoulders. There are people here, guests, chattering aimlessly as they all file in through the front door ('Weather like this, and it's supposed to be Summer!') and they all turn to stare as Astoria lurches towards them, a rag doll in distress.

The front door is opening once more, and Astoria falls into the arms of a familiar stranger. He holds her upright on the top step, slate grey eyes sharpening at the sight of her struggling against him, till he feels her go limp against his chest.

"Take me home, Draco," she murmurs, her voice hoarse, and at once he is turning, holding her tightly against him as he takes her away from the house, away from the prying eyes of these countless guests she barely knows, and away from her family who have kept her secret for so long and have finally betrayed her.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

3rd July 2004, 5:00PM

'Blaise Zabini announced the end of his yearlong engagement to Miss Daphne Greengrass last night, citing familial differences. Since Mrs. Zabini is known to have been residing in Austria since she was widowed for the seventh time two years ago, the problem it seems must lie with the relations of the jilted bride. One can only wonder what could possibly have gone wrong for this young couple, a match seemingly made in heaven, (cont on page 5) -R. Skeeter.'

It takes a week for the gossip columns to get their teeth into the very public break-up of two of societies most bright and beautiful, another two days before the rumour mill really starts to grind.

The paper lies open on Draco's desk next to an owl from the man himself, asking to meet for drinks later. Zabini isn't usually one for sharing but Draco supposes recent events call for special measures. And after all, perhaps it will do him some good to listen to a rant about the shortcomings of the Greengrass family. Merlin knows he could do with a little perspective on that front right now.

There is no mention of Astoria in the article but he knows this is about her, somehow, because isn't everything? At least it certainly seems that way to him these days. He's taken to buying the same brand of cigarettes he knows she likes, drinking the same wine as he saw in her fridge that night (which incidentally tastes like vinegar and leaves you feeling as rough as a Hippogriff's arse the next morning) and frequenting various shops in Notting Hill he has no reason to go to.

He has become a man obsessed.

He has tried to see her, even turned up at her flat heavily inebriated one night. Luckily she wasn't home and was therefore unable to witness his reckless apparition which sent him stumbling backwards down her front steps till his chin smacked the pavement. Nor is she at her parents' house, which he knows courtesy of Daphne's rather brusque reply to his multitude of owls telling him, in no uncertain terms that no, she hasn't seen her fool of a sister and to bugger off and leave her family alone.

It would seem, for all intents and purposes, that Astoria has gone underground. Either that or simply vanished off the face of the Earth and Draco is struck once again by just how very little he knows about her. He has no idea where she may have gone or who she may be with or, indeed, why she would choose to simply disappear at a time such as this. He would hazard a guess that neither does her family. The girl is a shadow, impossible to hold on to.

Glancing at his watch, Draco grabs for his coat and the black umbrella and heads down the hallway to the lift. Two young women join him at the second floor, interns from the Trading department, clutching a copy of this morning's Daily Prophet between them.

"You know they say it's something to do with the younger sister," one of them whispers excitedly.

"I didn't even know there was a younger sister,"

"Well exactly! They sent her abroad years ago, it's all very suspicious."

The lift doors open with a musical chime and they rush out, leaving Draco to stare after them, stricken.

Someone calls the lift from a floor above and he must rouse himself quickly, slipping out through the doors before they close around him. He shakes his head, this is too much. His reflection agrees, looking back at him from the glass plate in front of the cashier desks, sallow and thin and badly in need of a shave.

This drink cannot come soon enough.

He meets Blaise two hours later in a muggle bar on Clapham High Street. It is dark and the air is thick with cigarette smoke. The place is borderline seedy actually and he struggles to imagine why his friend would ever have wanted to meet here. But then again, he supposes, if it were his marital disaster splashed all over the wizarding news, he doubts he'd be going anywhere near the Three Broomsticks right now either.

They sit in a booth by the back wall, nursing two glasses full of something dark and undoubtedly toxic. Blaise, it seems, did not ask Draco here to unburden himself but rather as a distraction, the topics of conversation ranging from work to old school companions to Quidditch. But there is a proverbial troll in the room, the one thing that Draco is so desperate to hear about and the one thing that Blaise is so reluctant to discuss.

They are halfway through a debate about the Wimborne Wasps new away strip when their illusion of normalcy is finally shattered. Zabini abruptly falls silent, staring aghast over Draco's shoulder, the colour draining from his face as his hand clenches around his glass. It takes Draco half a second to understand why.

A small crowd is piling in through the doorway, laughing and chatting animatedly with one another as they make their collective way over to the bar. For the briefest second, the group parts and she is there: Astoria. In all her splendour.

Her hair is wild, falling in cascades down the back of her blood red dress that sits a little too high on the leg. Her face is flushed (she has had one too many perhaps) and she is laughing- head tilting back and eyes bright.

One of her friends spots the two men staring from a corner and gestures toward them. Astoria turns and it is as if someone has snuffed out her light. She freezes, laughter dying instantly in her throat, until her expression matches Zabini's look of horror. The next second she is moving, grabbing one of her friends and pulling them back outside.

Draco is practically on his feet, sights set on the door she has just disappeared through, when Zabini slams his drink down on the table.

"Stupid bint," he snarls. Draco whips round, fist almost raised, but Blaise's expression stops him dead in his tracks.

"You know, Daphne didn't even tell me about her until the night of the fucking rehearsal." His lip is curling, he looks positively disgusted. "Thought I wouldn't even care, if you can believe that. That whole family is a disgrace."

Draco sinks back into his chair.

"Although," Blaise smirks bitterly, "you have to give them some credit I suppose. Keeping something like that covered up for all these years must take an awful lot of effort."

"I don't understand," Draco's voice is gravelly, his mouth suddenly and inexplicably dry.

Blaise looks up, incredulous, and barks out a cruel laugh. "You mean you haven't figured it out yet?"

3rd July 2004, 11:00PM

Astoria sits in darkness at the kitchen table. She is staring at her hands, wringing them tightly together as she waits in silence. It won't be long now.

She has spent the past two weeks in hiding, staying with friends and visiting little-known bars each night until she can't remember why her life is ending. (She's also discovered she has a taste for the dramatic.) And it had been working until tonight.

There is a sharp crack from outside. Astoria sits up, eyes wide and alert. She can feel her heart thundering beneath her ribs and knows that, even though the alcohol has numbed the sensation, she is afraid.

Then comes the hammering on the front door. She stays rooted in her chair, staring out down the hallway to the door which is visibly shaking in its frame. Her blood begins to rush to her head- she isn't ready yet.

"Damn it, Greengrass!"

She hears his voice and suddenly she is on two feet, fumbling with the keys in the lock. The door is flung wide open and he is upon her. He grabs her by the throat and slams her back against the wall, furious steel grey eyes burning with every bit of fury she can feel in his tight grip.

"Is it true?" Draco shouts, pushing against her till she is completely pinned beneath him. She says nothing but attempts to raise her chin defiantly. Her efforts do not go unnoticed and he tightens his grasp.

"Is it true?" he roars again, pale blonde hair shaken loose over his forehead, "I swear, woman, if you don't tell me-,"

"Yes. It's true," she manages, voice strained, and immediately he buckles as if struck with an electrical charge. Astoria seizes her chance and pushes against him, breaking free. She steps back behind the table, putting distance between them, as he stands in the dark hallway- still reeling.

"That's why I'd never heard of you," he sounds dazed now, as if his whole perspective is readjusting and he has to give it time to do so.

Astoria grips the back of the chair to stop her hands from shaking. "No one had heard of me," she mutters.

"Well, they fucking have done now!" Suddenly he snaps back to life and lashes out in frustration, kicking a hole in the plaster wall.

"Draco!"

"No!" he shouts, turning on her and storming into the kitchen. "You don't get to speak. Not anymore."

And so she was right, as she knew she would be. Now everything will be different. She stares at him; he does not meet her gaze.

"You are a liar," he says at last, his voice calmer but full of the same contempt.

"I never lied."

He scoffs angrily. "You certainly didn't tell the truth."

"And when would you have liked for me to tell you, Draco? In the middle of my sister's engagement party? Or maybe when we were fucking on this very table?"

"Oh, I'm so terribly sorry I never gave you an obvious opportunity to admit your dirty little secret!" he snarls.

Astoria's fear is rapidly diffusing into an all out fury. "Well, at least if I'd ever had a wand, I know I would have been able to keep it in one piece."

Draco visibly blanches at her words and a highly charged silence falls over the room. Both their chests are heaving with an intoxicating mixture of anger and adrenaline. A car alarm begins to blare somewhere out in the street and it keeps time with the ringing in their ears.

"And what would you know about that?" he says after a moment, the ferocity gone, replaced instead by an ice-cold indifference. "After all, you're nothing more than a filthy Squib."

She swallows, thickly. "And you're just a Death Eater. With nothing to show for it but an ugly tattoo."

The house watches them, holds its breath whilst they take each other's words and enslave them to memory, because this moment will never come again.

Draco's lip is curling but he does not speak. He is on the brink of coming undone. The shock, the rage and the desperation are like nothing he has ever felt before and he has been exposed to more of each in his few years than many will feel in a lifetime.

And then there is Astoria, who is staring at him with a contempt that makes him sick to his stomach - Is he not the wronged one here? And, as ever, she is glorious in her fury, cheeks flushed and eyes blazing, and he is revolted by the reactions that she can still invoke in him. Because there is no denying he still wants her, even though every inch of his upbringing cannot bear such a notion.

A Malfoy and a Squib; the thought leaves him with a wretched aftertaste. And yet the thought is there none the less.

He turns without a word and walks back through the hall. She catches him at the door and he hesitates a moment before he pulls free of her grasp.

"Will you tell anyone?" she asks simply and without emotion.

He knows the answer already, knew it the instant Blaise had told him the truth about her.

"And be shamed by association? Not bloody likely."

Except that is not true. He will keep her secret but not for selfish reasons. He will keep her secret to protect her and he thinks, from the look on her face, that she knows this.

And so when he returns to her flat in the early hours of the morning, worse for wear for all the soul-searching liquor, she will let him in without a word. And when he tells her that he loathes her before smothering her in a violent kiss, as if trying to force the magic out of her, she will thread her fingers through his and lead him upstairs.

Because they both know there is no escaping this, their unfathomable need for one another. They know the very worst thing about each other and still they cannot keep their distance. It will be the death and the making of them both.

2nd January 2005

'The Greengrass family were the subject of further scandal today when Draco Malfoy, former Death Eater and known member of Lord Voldemort's inner circle, announced he and the younger Miss Greengrass had married in secret over the weekend, somewhere in the Scottish highlands. Mrs Astoria Malfoy (nee Greengrass), who herself caused a stir last summer when she was implicated in the disintegration of her elder sister's engagement to Mr Blaise Zabini, declined to make an official comment but added that we were all welcome to "mind our own b*****ing business for once." This reporter is sure that the pair will be very happy together – R. Skeeter.'