Court This Disaster

>Asteria settled onto the bed beside Malfoy, pulling a sheet up to cover her breasts and watching as he used his wand to light a cigarette. “What do you do?”

“What do I do?” he repeated, furrowing his brow.

“Yes. When not going to the workplace of random witches to proposition them for sex until one of them finally agrees,” Malfoy snorted at this, “what do you do?”

He was quiet for a moment and she wondered if this was a sore subject for him. Surely, if he'd had a job he liked, he would have bragged about it at some point. “I'm saving up money for a Potions' apprenticeship. I have an Aunt – my father's Aunt Aurelia – who knows a few of the great Potion Masters on the continent and she's already talked to a few of them on my behalf. She reckons I could find a spot with Fyodor Dobrolubsky,” Malfoy finished with a glance to her.

If he thought she'd be impressed, he was right. “That's incredible - Dobrolubsky's one of the best Potioneers in Europe!”

“The Parisian Potioneer's Periodical ranked him as the best,” said Malfoy, a satisfied little smile on his lips as he took a drag of his cigarette.

Asteria, however, hadn't forgotten her question. “So, what do you do now?”

“Jesus, Greengrass,” he huffed. “I work at the Green Dragon, satisfied?”

“Ah.” The Green Dragon was a tavern with an inn attached to it, like the Leaky Cauldron; however, that was where the similarities between the two ended. From what she had heard about the general ambiance and clientèle at the Green Dragon, it made the Hog's Head look like a friendly family establishment in comparison. As for the inn, Asteria had first heard the term “no-tell motel” when someone had tried to describe it.

“Well, that's...” Asteria tried to find something that was both honest and encouraging. Malfoy looked at her, eyebrow arched as he waited for her to finish the sentence. “Well, it's wretched to be honest but at least it's temporary?”

“Thank God for that,” Malfoy muttered sourly.

Several moments passed without either of them speaking. A quick look at her watch told her it was a little after nine. They'd had dinner together – two shepherd's pies she had picked up from the Leaky on her way home – and talked about the Australian Team's chances against Mexico. It had been a tad awkward at first and even now she couldn't quite pinpoint what this was between them.

“What are we doing?”

He blinked at her. “Right now I'm enjoying a cigarette while you try to start a game of twenty questions.”

“I mean this,” she said, gesturing to the two of them. “We're not dating and this wasn't a one-off --”

“I said I didn't want a relationship.”

“I wasn't asking,” she said crisply, not entirely sure what she wanted from Malfoy. “But you can't just show up at my work unannounced.”

He narrowed his eyes, looking affronted at this remark. Asteria folded her arms over her breasts. “I work at the hospital. I'm not going to be able to drop what I'm doing whenever you feel like waltzing in without even Flooing beforehand--”

“I can't. Not if I don't want the entire Ministry knowing my personal business.”

“They're monitoring your Floo?”

“And our letters. We're not allowed to have our own owls, we have to go through the post,” he blew out a puff of smoke with those final words, his cigarette now half its original size. Malfoy inclined his head towards her but didn't meet her gaze. “Would you, by chance, be interested in meeting regularly?”

“What, every Saturday and Wednesday?”

“Something like that, but not Saturday – I have to work then. Wednesdays and Thursdays would be fine.”

Part of her wanted to laugh that they were actually discussing when to meet-up to have sex and part of her wondered if this was just how it was done. Somehow, she didn't think Witch Weekly would have any helpful guides to negotiating friends-with-benefits relationships between its articles on wizarding celebrities and the latest trends in weddings. It certainly would have made an interesting counterpart to the previous issue's article on “Witches Who Waited” about three (pure-blood, of course) witches who waited so they could snag the best husband, she thought with a snort.

Malfoy gave her an odd look. “Something wrong?”

“No, no. Though Wednesdays won't do. I have to do research on Mondays and Wednesdays so I never know when I'll get home. Tuesdays and Thursdays, would be fine, however. We're not exclusive, right?”

She knew the answer, she just wanted to be sure. As strange as this arrangement seemed to her, Asteria liked its practicality. Dating wouldn't be an option until she was done with her training, given that the little social life that she had, she preferred to spend with her friends. And she wasn't holding out hope that a young, attractive wizard who wasn't married and wasn't a nutter would begin working at St. Mungo's.

“No, we're not exclusive. We'll continue meeting here in the evenings?”

“Unless you want to meet at the manor, but that would be a bit awkward for your parents, don't you think?” Asteria grinned at him but he didn't return the gesture. Rather, he turned a pale shade of pink and frowned.

“It doesn't make any sense to rent when I'm trying to save money and it's not like anyone would rent to me--”

“I was just taking the mickey!”

“Right,” he muttered, looking like an overgrown sulky child as he frowned around his cigarette.

“Most wizards live at home until they're married. Some live with their parents after they get married,” she began with a roll of her eyes, “I mean, Kalli and Roger will move in with my parents when they return, and Daphne's staying at home till she gets married then she's moving in with Ernie's family. There's nothing wrong with living at home.”

“I didn't say there was.” He didn't look at her, instead focusing on his cigarette as he ashed it into the ashtray he had Transfigured out of a Knut. “So why don't you?”

“Because then I'd have to live at home.” The first thing Asteria had done upon leaving Hogwarts was look for a place of her own. “I love my parents, but I find that the distance greatly improves my relationship with them.”

Living at home would have meant her dad questioning her career choice and her friends and her mum constantly trying to set her up and fretting every time she went out for a flight. She was certain she would have gone mad within the first year.

“I take it they're very protective of their baby girl.”

“To put it mildly.” Her parents likely would have had heart failure if she had suggested traipsing around the continent on her own like Malfoy had. They hadn't even wanted her to play Quidditch. “Do you have another fag?”

“No.” He handed her his cigarette, a gleam in his eyes. “You can have this one.”

Asteria took it, taking a drag, the taste of smoke and ash filling her mouth. Malfoy's eyes stayed on her as she exhaled.

“A tad hypocritical for a Healer, isn't it?”

“I usually only bother when I go out with my friends,” she said, the cigarette almost gone. “A hold-over from Hogwarts.”

“Greengrass, are you telling me you used to sneak around, smoking in the girl's toilets?” Malfoy chuckled, looking thoroughly amused. “Next you'll be telling me you used to skiv off lessons to snog your boyfriend.”

With a flick of her wand, she banished the cigarette butt. “No, but I did sneak out after curfew to go drinking.”

Twice, and she'd been so nervous about being caught both times that she hadn't had more than a few sips.

“You little hellion.”

Her mouth dry, Asteria licked her lips. “What about you?”

“No, I was a model Hogwarts student,” he drawled, eyes on her mouth.

“I meant, when did you start smoking?”

Frowning, Malfoy twirled his wand, the pale wood turning orange in the candlelight. “During my seventh year. It was relaxing.”

Same time she had started.

“And after it was just something to do.” A lonely image came to mind of Malfoy sitting in the corner of the some cavernous room in his manor, looking out the window as he smoked a cigarette and counted the days till his house arrest was over.

Asteria settled down into the pillows with a sigh.

“Tired?” Malfoy asked, brushing his knuckles against her arm.

“Not really.” Physically, yes, but her mind was still running at full steam as she thought about what she would have to do tomorrow and the next time she'd be able to see her friends.

She suppressed a smile as Malfoy's fingers slid under the sheet and traced over a rising nipple. He kissed her shoulder as he lay down beside her, his arm snaking around her waist as she turned towards him. “Good.”

***

Wednesday had crawled by at an agonizing pace. As usual, she had divided her time between the Hogwarts' Library and the one in St. Mungo's, surrounded by books and two years' worth of notes. Though it wouldn't be due till the final year of her training, Asteria had wanted to get a head start on her dissertation. Lycanthropy had seemed a natural choice for a subject, having been an interest of hers since her first year at Hogwarts. After a year of research, her ideas were finally coming together into something she could write about, something could stand up and defend.

Her work kept her busy enough that she didn't have time to let her mind wander and when it did, she mostly fantasized about her dissertation. Asteria would imagine what the finished product would look like when she finally filled ten feet of parchment with her analysis. How good it would feel to be done and have it ready to present. She thought about how McFinley would react to whatever information she brought up in their advising sessions and how she would argue certain points. On a normal day, she'd be so completely focused on her work that little could distract her.

Wednesday, however, she had found herself reading and re-reading the same page, the words barely making an impression on her. Instead of thinking about what she would say to McFinley at their next meeting, her mind replayed the night before. She couldn't stop thinking about how it had felt to have Malfoy buried inside her as she straddled him, their bodies rocking together. Asteria had reveled in the memory of how he hissed when she had tugged on his nipple with her teeth, the way his tongue had peeked out his mouth and slid across her thumb as it rested on his lips, and the hungry look he'd had in his eyes as he watched her.

Later that night, lying alone in bed, she had slipped her hand between her thighs and pretended he was beside her.

***

Grabbing a handful of the green powder, Asteria called out the name of her building as she stepped into the Floo. It wasn't until she arrived in the entrance hall that she remembered she had nothing to eat. Standing there, looking back and forth between the Floo and the stairs that lead to her flat, she decided she didn't care. She was already late enough as it was. If Malfoy had left already then she would go to sleep early. And, if by chance he wasn't – well, it wasn't as if he were some stray Kneazle that only came around for the food.

The sight of him sitting on the next flight of stairs up, arm resting on his knee as he idly twirled his wand, caused her to slow her steps. Even though Malfoy looked like he was in a bad mood, she enjoyed this chance to watch him unnoticed.

Her eyes flickered down to his hand, his wand entwined between his long fingers. It looked different, longer, and the wood was a darker color than she remembered.

He glanced over, arching a brow as he spotted her. “You're late.”

“I know,” she muttered, walking up to the door and undoing the Locking Charms with a flick of her wand. “Are you hungry?”

She didn't even know why she asked. The only thing she had was an almost-empty jar of pickles. It was just easier to pick up a pastry on the way to work, eat in the cafeteria, and then stop at the Leaky Cauldron for dinner than it was to shop.

“No. Fortunately I'd had something for dinner before I settled in for a nice long sit in your corridor.”

Pulling open her Healer's robes – and trying not to smirk at the way Malfoy's eyes widened ever-so-slightly at this gesture – she looked over the clock as she shrugged them off. It was half-past. She couldn't believe he waited that long.

“Your wand is different.”

“I got a new one,” he said lazily. “The old one was rubbish.”

“It was rubbish?” Asteria stared at him. Still pulling the bobby pins out of her hair, she shook her hair out of the tight French twist she had worn to work. “Did something happen to it?”

She couldn't imagine replacing the wand she'd had as a girl. It would be like trying to replace an arm or leg; her wand was a part of her.

“It never worked.” Before she could ask how that was even possible, he continued, “It was a replacement for my first wand which – before you ask and I know you will – was confiscated by the Ministry and snapped.”

“Why?”

Malfoy sighed and she shrugged in response.

“You didn't go to Azkaban. You weren't declared mentally incompetent. You weren't kicked out of Hogwarts. On what grounds did they snap your wand?”

“You really can't figure it out?” he asked, bitterness woven into the question. “Potter and Kingsley tried to feed some dragonshit about there being a connection between the Dark Lord's wand and mine.”

“And you think the reason was something else?”

Malfoy scoffed. “Obviously. They just wanted to punish my family more, to leave us all defenseless as a bunch of Squibs. So they invented a reason that would allow them to take my wand without having to explain it or go through the Wizengamot. Can't imagine why, it's not like there would have been any resistance.”

As much as part of her wanted to doubt this she remembered the outcry when it was revealed that the two Malfoy men would only be sentenced to house-arrest and Draco for only a year at that. Coupled with the new wand in his hand and what she knew of the Ministry's often-shady way of dealing with things, his explanation made sense.

Merlin. Thinking of all this made her even more tired than she already was. Rubbing her forehead, she let out a little sigh.

“Are you all right?”

“Fine. It's just been a long day.” Along with the usual magical mishaps and injuries, today had seen a toddler who had swallowed a potion that their parents couldn't identify (McFinley had been the one to figure out that a Girding Potion was responsible), a teenager who had suffered a nasty fall from her broom while playing Quodpot, and finally, two MLE officers who had been in a duel with a suspect they'd been chasing.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he said the words slowly as if it were a struggle to do so. From the look on his face and knowing that he had waited nearly a half-hour for her to arrive, it probably was. Yet, for a moment, she was tempted to say yes just to see his reaction.

She smirked. “I'm as interested in talking about it as you are in hearing it.”

“Thank God.” Coming closer, he wrapped his arms around her waist, body pressed tight against hers as he stood behind her. All the tension she'd been carrying around in her shoulders seemed to slide lower when Malfoy pushed aside her hair to kiss her neck, his hands palming her breasts through her blouse. Undoing the buttons of her shirt, he whispered, “I can't stop thinking about how you looked riding me, those fantastic tits of yours bounc-- Greengrass, did you dress up for me?”

His hands on her cupping her breasts, he rested his chin on his shoulder as he looked down. Unlike the plain white bra she'd worn last time, today she was wearing a lacy pink number that had itched like hell but had delivered on its promise to “separate and lift”. She'd had to do a few tailoring charms on her shirt to keep the buttons from straining.

“There was a sale yesterday at Madam Malkin's.” Which was true but really, although she would never admit it, she had dressed up for him.

“What fortuitous timing,” he said in an indulgent tone, slipping the straps of her bra down. Her annoyance flared up only to dissipate into desire when he undid her bra, thumbs brushing against her hardened nipples as his hands replaced the lacy fabric. Sucking an earlobe into his mouth, Malfoy used his teeth and tongue to leave bruises down her throat, stopping right where it met her shoulder. His hands had moved down to her plaid skirt, sliding around her waist till they found the zip. “I can't wait to see what the knickers look like.”

Skirt unzipped, he pushed it past her hips, letting it slid to the floor. Asteria stepped out of it, kicking off her sensible flats at the same time. Malfoy made a funny noise and, face hot, she looked over her shoulder. The matching “knickers” were actually a thong. She hadn't wanted to buy it, rightly suspecting it would make her bum look huge but they were a set. From this angle, she couldn't make out the look on his face but it didn't look like he was laughing.

Still, she wished it weren't so bloody bright in her living room. The French doors faced West and the thin curtains over them did nothing to hide the light from the setting sun.

“They're very nice,” he murmured, lightly patting her arse and making her squirm. Wrapping one arm around her waist again, he pulled her close to him until his very obvious erection was pressed against the small of her back. His other hand covered hers, keeping it on top of the back of her couch, as he bent her over it. Looking up she saw her own reflection in the mirror over the corner table, right next to the door. She rolled her eyes, wondering if he'd been planning on this location or had decided to improvise once they entered her flat.
“Pity you won't be wearing them for much longer,” Malfoy finished as he hooked his fingers into the waistband of knickers, pulling them down with him as he sunk to the floor.

Surprised, she looked over shoulder again, the question dying on her lips he began kissing his way up her left thigh while he ran his knuckles over the inside of her right thigh. It was silly for so many logical reasons but this felt far more intimate and obscene than anything they'd done before. She was strongly tempted to close her legs but found she couldn't move, her desire overcoming her fear.

Asteria managed to whisper a half-hearted “Don't,” just as his tongue slid over her clit, making her knees tremble and fingers dig into the back of couch when he did it again. Spreading her legs and bending over further, she panted as he began teasing her with his mouth. He licked and sucked her until she was on the edge, needing more, needing his fingers or his cock.

“Mmm-” she bit her lip, stifling her cry. The part of her brain that could still function stopped her from calling him by his last name. Then he sucked on her clit, tongue flicking over it, and all coherent thought disappeared as her climax washed over her. “Draco, please, please, don't stop.”

He didn't, not until she had stopped trembling and moaning. When he pulled away, she slowly straightened up, hands still resting on the back of the couch for the support. She leaned against him when he stood up behind her, one arm encircling his waist as he kissed her shoulder.

“I suppose you'll want to be called 'Asteria' now?”

“If we're going to keep doing this, yes,” she said breezily, tilting her head to look up at him. Draco kissed her fiercely and she whimpered as his tongue slid against hers. Reaching behind her back, she moved her hand up his thigh until she was cupping him through his trousers. He pulled away slightly, his lips still close to hers as groaned. Not for the first time, the idea of dropping to her knees and taking his cock into her mouth came to mind. She couldn't stop wondering what it would feel like, how he would look right then, if she would feel powerful or subjugated or both.

But the moment passed. Draco grabbed her wrist, pulling her hand away as he rasped in her ear, “I need to fuck you.”

She nodded, that earlier desire to be filled by him coming back. At the sound of him unbuckling his trousers, Asteria leaned over the couch again, her arse almost pressed against him as she did. An impatient grunt and she heard his trousers hit the floor, one hand then gripping her hip as the other guided his cock inside. Her toes curled as he slowly slid in and she pushed back with a low sigh. Loving how every thrust from him felt deeper at this angle, she slipped a hand between her thighs.

His strokes came faster and faster until he was fucking her hard, hands on her hips to keep her steady. She looked up in the mirror to find him watching as his cock slid in and out of her, his thrusts growing more unsteady as he did. Draco glanced at her in time to catch her eye, and the intense look she found left her breathless.

Removing his hand from her hip, he grabbed her chin and kissed her again. She shuddered, grinding against him as the tension in her built until she came with a soft cry. Draco followed seconds later, arms wrapped around her as he breathed lewd endearments against her shoulder.