The Beauty of Grey: The Bitterness Inside

Chapter 6 – Tear Myself Up

“I was almost there
Just a moment away from becoming unclear
Ever get the feeling you’re gone?
I’ll show you the way, the way I’m going”
- ‘Capricorn (A Brand New Name)’ – Thirty Seconds To Mars


The Hogsmeade weekend finally arrived, and Draco was glad to get out of the castle for a while. He and Blaise had planned to go do some shopping, drink something at the Three Broomsticks, and then head back to school. Draco made sure he was dressed warmly for the walk up to Hogsmeade.

As Draco and Blaise was walking out of the Hogwarts gates, their breaths visible in the cold air, Draco wondered about the security, and what was going to happen in Hogsmeade. Nothing prepared him for the view he caught of the small town as they got closer. Although it looked the same, with snow covering the rooftops of the buildings and with owls flying around, there was not a soul walking around in the cobblestone street.

Usually there where loads of shoppers walking around, making the town feel alive. To Draco it seemed awfully depressing.

As they entered the town, Blaise pointed a huge poster out to him. It was a black and white poster with the faces of the ten Death Eaters that had escaped. All over the town these posters were up, along with advice, news and steps to being safer, even a thousand Galleon reward for anyone with information. Chills ran down his spine that was not all cold weather, when he saw the mad eyes of Bellatrix staring from the door of a shop.

The rest of the students stopped to look at the poster, and read the information provided. Some of them seemed really scared, others seemed less concerned.

Draco and Blaise went shopping, restocking their supplies, both bought some clothes and then they headed for Honeyduke’s. Inside it felt familiar. The atmosphere was warm and inviting, and there were many students inside, gathering their favourite treats. Draco bought peanut brittle, some Fizzing Whizzbees, liquorice and a big bag of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans. He spotted Astoria and Kim in the back, going through the ‘Odd Taste’ section where she was pulling a face at the blood flavoured sweets. Astoria and Kim paid and left the store before Blaise finally decided on all the treats he wished to purchase.

They left the store and headed for the Three Broomsticks, so that they could get a nice Butterbeer to warm up before it was back to the castle, and to get out of the rain that was beginning to fall.

It was busy in the pub too, most of the tables taken by the students. Draco saw that Astoria and Kim was sitting in the back at a small table.

‘Blaise?’ he asked.

‘Mmm,’ Blaise hummed as he was looking in the paper bag filled with his sweets.

‘Do me a favour?’ Draco whispered.

‘What?’ Blaise asked, looking up from the bag.

‘Come sit with me at that table,’ Draco said, pointing at them. ‘Please?’

‘Oh, Draco,’ Blaise sighed. ‘You are hopeless.’

‘I know, okay?’ Draco smiled at his friend.

‘Fine, but then you pay,’ Blaise said shrugging.

Draco led the way over to their table. He felt suddenly very hot inside, and started taking his scarf off.
‘Morning,’ he said in a charming way.

Astoria, who was sitting not facing that way, turned around and smiled when she saw who it was. ‘Morning,’ she said.

‘Do you mind if we join you?’ he asked politely.

‘Of course not,’ she said, as both she and Kim started moving their shopping bags from the chairs so that they could sit.

‘Thanks,’ Draco smiled, sitting down next to Astoria. ‘This is Blaise Zabini,’ he introduced his friend, ‘and this is Astoria Greengrass and Kim Turpin.’

‘Very nice to meet you ladies,’ Blaise gave a handsome smile to them both. ‘Draco, why don’t you treat the ladies to some butterbeer, huh?’ Blaise said smooth and ever.

Draco was very jealous of Blaise’s way of dealing with situations such as these. He was always cool and collected. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Anything other than butterbeer for you?’ he asked.

‘Butterbeer is fine,’ Astoria said quietly.

Draco quickly walked to the bar, and asked Madam Rosmerta for four butterbeers. They came quickly and he paid. As he was walking back to their table in the back of the pub, he saw that Potter was sitting with Granger, Weasel, a blonde Ravenclaw with a dreamy expression and the journalist from the Daily Prophet that he told nasty stories to about Hagrid. Her name was Rita Skeeter, or something. He wondered what brilliant plan Potter was busy with now.

He placed the butterbeers on the table and each grabbed theirs.

‘What is that blonde girl’s name in our year that is in Ravenclaw?’ he asked Astoria.

‘Luna Lovegood?’ she asked.

‘Yes, that’s her,’ he said.

‘Why?’ Kim asked.

‘Just saw her sitting with Potter, and couldn’t remember her name,’ he explained.

‘Everyone calls her Loony, though,’ Astoria said almost whispering. ‘But she’s actually really smart, and really nice, just a little different.’

Draco smiled at her as he could hardly believe that someone so honestly kind existed. He felt proud of her, if that made any sense whatsoever.

Everyone stared at their butterbeers for a few awkward moments.

‘The breakout is awful, isn’t it?’ Kim asked, pulling a face to show her disgust.

Astoria, Blaise and Draco mumbled in agreement.

‘I mean, have you seen that woman called Bellatrix? She’s absolutely frightening! Clearly not completely sane anymore,’ Kim went on.

‘Yes, crazy eyes,’ Blaise said, shrugging.

Draco grinned briefly at Blaise’s joke. He was not ignorant to the fact that his aunt was insane.
‘Merlin, can you believe that Sirius Black is at it again?’ Kim said.

‘No, Kim, it’s horrible okay? Anyway,’ Astoria said, emphasising her last word. ‘Is that Rita Skeeter sitting with Harry Potter?’

‘Yes it is,’ Draco said, turning around to look and in the process moving closer to Astoria, so close that he could smell the nice smell of her hair again.

‘I wonder what that is about?’ she said softly.

‘Me too,’ he said. They saw how Rita was there writing down something. Clearly Potter was giving an interview. Probably about how everyone thought he was nuts for saying the Dark Lord is back. He didn’t tell Astoria his suspicions though.

When they turned around, Kim was talking to Blaise about her theory on what the Death Eater’s plan was. Blaise was listening, with a small, almost invisible, smile on his mouth. He nodded enthusiastically, fuelling the fire.

Astoria seemed horrified by that fact. ‘Merlin, when she has something on her mind, everyone has to know about it,’ she said softly, leaning into Draco so that only he would hear. She seemed apologetic.

‘Don’t worry, Blaise seems to be enjoying it,’ he said equally as soft.

‘So,’ she said, changing the subject. ‘Are we still on for Wednesday night?’

‘Yeah, of course,’ he said.

‘Good,’ she said simply. She turned around subtly, and looked at Potter and Skeeter. ‘I have feeling that things are going to change.’

Draco didn’t know what she meant. ‘About the assignment?’ he asked, frowning.

‘No,’ she said. ‘About that,’ she nodded at Potter. She kept looking at them, and it was almost like he could see her mind working to figure out what was going on. He wished he could warn her about it and tell her to go another country until this was finished.

As he looked with her, he could hear the excited voice of Kim behind him, and Blaise’s low chuckle. Blaise was such a charmer.

‘I thought that Potter had a date today,’ she whispered.

‘Potter? With who?’ he asked.

‘I heard he was taking Cho Chang out today because it is Valentine’s Day. All the Sixth Year girls were talking about it this morning in the common room,’ she explained.

‘I forgot that it was Valentine’s Day,’ he said.

She gave a breath of laughter. ‘It’s a silly tradition. Just a gimmick for shops to make money. I don’t fall for it for a second.’

Draco was surprised that he was a little shocked. ‘I wonder what happened to date then?’ he asked.

She lifted her shoulders. ‘Don’t know. Yet.’

He lifted his eyebrows in question.

‘Oh, the entire girl’s dormitories will probably be aflame with the gossip,’ she smiled. ‘I personally don’t think that Cho is over Cedric.’

‘So you figure she’s after Potter for his fame?’ Draco almost grinned.

‘Well, no,’ she said. ‘She’s after Potter because he was there when Cedric died, he saw it happen.’

‘You believe Potter then? About what happened at the end of the Tri-Wizard’s Tournament?’ Draco asked, very cautiously.

‘Yes, I believe him,’ she said simply.

‘Good, that makes two of us,’ he admitted, knowing, somehow, that she would never repeat what he had said.
Draco was impressed. She was very aware of what was going on around her, without being a gossip, like Kim seemed to be. She just noticed things that no one else would notice.

‘More butterbeer for you?’ Blaise asked loudly, suddenly interrupted their whispered conversation.

‘Oh, no thanks,’ she said a little flustered.

‘No, Blaise,’ Draco said.

Blaise got up to get some more for him, and Kim was walking with him, still carrying on, talking a mile a minute.

Astoria looked at them leaving. ‘She can be relentless,’ Astoria said.

‘She’s just fired up, that’s all,’ Draco said smiling.

‘That’s one way of looking at it,’ Astoria sighed.

Draco could see that she was thinking about a lot of things but not of Kim’s talkative ways. She was just looking for something to say, while she tried to figure out what was going on. After Blaise and Kim had returned, Blaise started talking about Puddlemere United to Kim, who, surprisingly, had an opinion about that too. She supported the Magpies was not shy about telling Blaise what she thought about Puddlemere. Astoria giggled every now and then, when Blaise would have a shocked expression on his face because of something her friend said.

Altogether, the meeting at the Three Broomsticks was a pleasant one.

‘Dude,’ Blaise sighed, as they were walking through the front gates. ‘Kim is hot.’

Draco laughed. ‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah! She talks quite a lot, but I like it,’ Blaise said, looking puzzled by that fact.

‘I guess,’ Draco said, smiling at his friend. ‘What did you think of Astoria?’

‘She was nice,’ Blaise said simply. ‘She seemed to like you well enough,’ he pointed out.

‘Really?’ Draco asked eagerly.

‘Yeah, you two were all looking at something behind you, all close, talking softly,’ Blaise jabbed Draco in the ribs with his elbow.

‘We were looking at Potter,’ Draco said.

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. Because he was talking to Skeeter,’ Draco explained.

‘Oh right, he was,’ Blaise said. ‘What do you suppose that was about?’

‘Not sure. Astoria believes that the Dark Lord has returned, though. She believes Potter,’ Draco said quietly.

‘Really?’

Draco nodded. ‘She is just guessing, but her guesses are freakily accurate.’

‘Fuck.’

‘I’ll say,’ Draco sighed.

‘We had better keep an eye on the Daily Prophet then.’

‘Skeeter hasn’t been writing for the Daily Prophet for almost a year, what boggles me is why that Luna girl was there with them.’

‘Well, Draco, that one is obvious,’ Blaise popped a Fizzing Whizbee into his mouth.

‘What is obvious?’ Draco asked, wondering what it was that he missed.

‘Her daddy’s the editor of the Quibbler,’ Blaise said around the sweet.

‘Fuck,’ Draco breathed.

‘Don’t worry, no one takes that rag seriously.’

‘Blaise, you are forgetting one little thing here,’ Draco whispered.

‘What is that?’ Blaise asked.

‘That was Harry bloody Potter sitting there with them,’ Draco said, feeling the weight of the new developments coming to rest on his shoulders.


Draco worked hard over the weekend to get his homework up to date. Even he, who was usually always on top of all his homework had to stay up later and work harder over the weekends. The teachers were clearly worried about the OWLs. He only put his quill down and stopped working on his star-chart for Astronomy on Saturday when it was time for the Quidditch match.

He was wondering how this game was going to turn out. It was Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff. Where he usually wouldn’t even consider the fact that Hufflepuff could win, today there was a definite possibility. With Potter and the Weasley twins off the team, there was no way that it would go as smoothly as usual for Gryffindor. He watched from the stands, along with all the other Slytherins. It was cringe worthy. Weasley was pathetic. He missed the Quaffle so many times that Draco lost count. He actually felt sorry for him. Gryffindor only lost by ten points, and that was because Ginny Weasley caugh the Snitch. Altogether it was rather horrible. When the game was over, all of the Slytherins burst into a verse of ‘Weasley is our King’, feeling very positive that this year they would win the Quidditch cup back.

That very Monday by lunch, the Great Hall was alive with chatter as The Quibbler was read, passed around and read aloud. Draco saw Astoria and Kim leaning close together reading the magazine, just like the rest of the students. It was less noisy around the Slytherin table, but even a few of them was sitting with the magazine in front of them, reading intently. It took him mere minutes to get a copy in his hands.

But not before Educational Decree number twenty-seven was passed, that stated that anyone caught with a Quibbler would be expelled. Naturally that awakened curiosity and a copy that was spelled to look different, or whatever, was what Draco was holding.


HARRY POTTER SPEAKS OUT AT LAST
THE TRUTH ABOUT HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED
AND THE NIGHT I SAW HIM RETURN


Draco read in a complete stupor the interview that Potter gave while he was sitting in the Three Broomsticks. The way he was transported to the graveyard by the Tri-Wizard cup. The way he was tied to a tombstone, cut on, and made to witness the return of the Dark Lord. Draco actually had chills when he read about what it took and what it looked like. Potter must have been terrified. He told about the unceremonious death of Diggory and how all the Death Eaters appeared from nowhere. He gave names – Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Nott among them. Draco felt his stomach come alive with nerves. This was bad. He read further about the duel and how their wands reacted on each other and how he managed to escape and bring Diggory’s body back.

Draco felt that Potter was exceedingly lucky. To survive that was a miracle.

Draco sat with Crabbe, Goyle and Nott in the Library over lunch, doing homework, while they read the article. They were furious. To make it worse, the Golden Trio were sitting right there in the Library also, sneaking peeks at them. All that Draco could keep thinking about was that if Astoria didn’t suspect his father of being a Death Eater already, she definitely was going to now.

Needless to say that Draco was very nervous as he sat in the Library on Wednesday night, almost half an hour too early for his meeting with Astoria to continue their assignment. They had met two times since the Christmas holidays and only had another two names each to finish. Draco took his half-finished History of Magic essay out and went on with that, trying not to think about what might happen next.

Draco jumped in his seat when a rather large textbook was slapped down in front of him forty minutes later. He looked up with a look of shock on his face. There Astoria stood, her short hair standing at odd angles on some places, like she ran her fingers through it many, many times. She looked tired.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said in a sigh.

‘No worries, I didn’t even notice,’ Draco said. ‘I’ve been doing my History of Magic essay.’ He lifted his hands above his head and stretched out.

‘Merlin’ she said, as she sat down. ‘I have so much homework, I’m never going to be able to do it all.’
She seemed on the verge of tears. But Draco knew what she meant. The OWL year was stressing every single Fifth Year out. There was hardly any time for anything but schoolwork. Draco had been doing homework even at the breakfast table.

‘I know,’ he said, eyeing her cautiously. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to get my History of Magic essay done before tomorrow. Luckily I’m almost done with the Charms one.’

‘Oh shit,’ she said. ‘I forgot about the Charms essay.’ She frantically started taking out books.
Draco watched her for a moment, and she seemed like she was losing it. He grabbed both her hands in his, and held them tight. She looked at him in utter shock.

‘What?’ she asked, in a frantic whisper.

‘Calm down,’ he said, looking her in the eye. ‘It’s never that bad.’ He smiled.

She stared a moment longer and then started to nod her head slowly.

‘We’re going to do our Arithmancy, and then we will stay here and finish all our homework for tomorrow, okay? I’ll help you.’ He spoke in calm voice.

‘Okay,’ she whispered again.

‘It’s going to be alright,’ he said.

She nodded again, and took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m just spread a little thin at the moment. And I don’t even have Prefect duty or Quidditch practice like you. How do you do it?’
‘Well,’ he said. ‘I don’t have Ancient Runes – I heard you have a ridiculous amount of work.’ He had heard it from Blaise.

‘Yes, loads.’

‘Don’t worry, okay?’ he said, smiling at her.

She smiled back tentatively. ‘Okay.’

‘Right,’ he said, dropping her hands, and rummaging through his papers until he found the list of witches and wizards that needed to be finished tonight. ‘You do Carlotta Pinkstone and Flavius Belby, then I’ll do Jocunda Sykes and Roland Kegg.’

She scribbled her names down on her piece of parchment, and immediately started with her calculations. Draco followed suit, doing it as fast as he could, forgetting about his father being a Death Eater mentioned in a magazine.

After fifteen minutes both were done, and had exchanged their answers. A record time.

Draco quickly pushed the Charms book, the one he had used for his essay, over towards her. ‘There are markers everywhere with relevant information,’ he said simply.

‘Oh, thank you,’ she smiled at him, and quickly picked her quill up and started to write the caption of her new essay on a clean roll of parchment.

Draco continued with his History of Magic essay, he was about half-way. He glanced up every now and again, he couldn’t help himself. She had a large frown on her face while she was writing, squinting her eyes, talking under her breath as she wrote down all the information. Draco noticed that she wasn’t writing as neatly as she normally did, but then he understood why.

Draco finished with his essay for Binns about half an hour later. He didn’t have anything in particular to go on with, but he obviously didn’t want to leave Astoria there on her own. So he got up and went to fetch a large heavy volume, Witches and Wizards: What they were famous for, and decided to look up as much information as he could for their Arithmancy assignment.

He took a fresh piece of parchment, wrote down all the names of the witches and wizards that they had worked with, twenty in all. Underneath each name, he neatly wrote down the character, heart and social number that they had calculated. Then he started at the top and looked for each in his book.

The book had little information on some, for example: “Greta Catchlove (b. 1960) was a witch who wrote the original edition of Charm Your Own Cheese.”

And a lot on others, for example half a page on Grogan Stump . He simply wrote down: “(1770-1884), Minister for Magic 1811-1819”.

He was halfway through the list, writing down important information he could find next to the names, when Astoria put her quill down and sighed in relief. ‘Done,’ she said.

‘Great,’ he said, looking up briefly and smiling at her.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

‘I’m going on with the Arithmancy,’ he said as he finished off writing down, “Daisy Dodderidge - (1467 - 1555) was a witch who built the Leaky Cauldron in a successful attempt to create a gateway between the Muggle and Wizarding worlds. She was the original landlady of the pub, and the Leaky Cauldron soon became the primary entrance into Diagon Alley”.

‘Why didn’t you say?’ she asked. ‘I would have helped you first.’

‘You have more homework than me, so I just thought I’d carry on,’ he shrugged. ‘I can’t find Kirley Duke in this book anywhere.’

‘Kirley Duke is the guitarist for the Weird Sisters,’ she said.

‘Right, of course,’ he said, quickly adding the information next to the name.

‘Draco, you’re almost through all the names,’ she said, looking like she was going into a panic again. ‘Let me do the rest,’ she held out her hands for the book Draco was holding.

‘It’s alright, we can finish the last ones together. You done with the rest of your homework?’ he asked.
‘Well, no, I still have to do some translations for Ancient Runes, but I can do that later, let me help you,’ she said.

‘Finish the Ancient Runes, I’m fine,’ he said, looking up Magenta Comstock already.

‘No, you can’t do all the work,’ she said standing up. ‘You did more than half of that already, let me finish it.’

‘Astoria,’ he said. ‘Sit down.’ She sagged back in her chair. ‘I’ll finish this, it’s alright.’

‘But-‘

‘No!’ he said a little loudly.

She picked her quill up and looked at Draco warily. ‘Professor Vector said if one does all the work it must be reported,’ she said it quietly.

Draco let out a breath of laughter. ‘I’m not going to tell on you.’

‘Thanks,’ she said with an appreciative smile, then she promptly took out her Ancient Runes chart and ran her fingers down the lines, and blocks, finding the symbols she was looking for.

Draco smiled as he finished the list for Arithmancy. He closed Witches and Wizards: What they were famous for, and took the book back to its place in the Library bookcases. He saw that there were hardly any students left in the Library and most that were, were Fifth Years. Madam Pince was blowing out candles and he knew that was a sign that the Library wasn’t going to stay open much longer. He sat back down on his chair, and saw that Astoria was rolling her piece of parchment up neatly.

‘I’m finished,’ she said.

‘I’m glad,’ he said.

‘Goodness,’ she said, wiping her hair away from her forehead. ‘Thank you so much for helping me out. You saved my life,’ she said seriously.

‘Anytime,’ he said. ‘Glad I could help.’

She glanced at the huge clock above the fireplace. ‘It’s not even that late,’ she said, seeing that it was quarter to nine.

‘Curfew in fifteen minutes,’ he said.

‘Yep,’ she said, getting a mischievous look in her eye.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘I think I might go outside and look at the stars for a while. I need to relax for a little bit.’

‘Oh,’ Draco said, not sure what he was supposed to say.

‘You can come with?’ she said. ‘Maybe we could go get something from the kitchens before, like some hot chocolate,’ she was packing all her books away already. ‘So what do you say?’

‘Yeah, sure, why not?’ he said, also packing away, suddenly the fear from earlier crept back inside of him.
‘Great,’ she said, slinging her bag over her shoulder and leading the way, covertly, towards the kitchens.

The house-elves came running and she politely asked for two hot chocolates, which she got very quickly. She made him carry the hot beverages, and then hid her and Draco’s bags in one of the broom closets. In silence they snuck out of the Entrance Hall onto the Hogwarts ground without anyone knowing or seeing anything.

Being halfway through February, the weather was getting considerably warmer, it wasn’t snowing anymore but there was often rain pelting down on the castle. The snow was melted on the grounds, but the ground was wet with the rain. When they reached her favourite spot, she placed a Dry Spell on the ground and she sat down.
He handed her her hot chocolate, and she took it. They didn’t lie down like before, they sat at the top of the sloping hill and looked at the stars that were showing amongst the clouds that were there too. She took a deep breath and released it slowly.

‘I can’t even imagine what Seventh Year must be like. NEWTs must be a complete impossibility if this is how OWLs are going,’ she said, taking a big gulp of her hot chocolate.

‘Must be pretty bad, yeah, but I’m sure we’ll cope,’ Draco said encouragingly.

‘Probably. Mr. Blott always says that things are never quite as bad as they may seem,’ she said, looking a little unsure whether that was true. ‘He says it’s the thing when you’re young. Everything seems like the end of the world, but it hardly ever is. He says with age you gain perspective.’

‘Some very wise words,’ Draco said.

‘The stars remind me,’ she went on. ‘Gives me perspective.’

Draco just nodded. He understood what she meant. After a few minutes of silence, Draco spoke. ‘Mr. Blott seems to mean a lot to you.’

‘He does,’ she smiled. She also waited a few moments before she spoke again. ‘After my mother died, my father had a hard time keeping track of all the things that he had to do. He was still working and had to look after two, very small, girls. When I was seven, he forgot me in Flourish & Blott’s once. I was very calm, apparently, asking everyone if they’d seen my father. Finally Mr. Blott took me, and placed me at a small table by the children’s books, and he gave some books to look at while he went to look for my father. My father felt horrible. Ever since then, I loved visiting him in the bookstore.’

‘Your dad forgot you?’ Draco laughed.

‘Hmm. I’ve been working there since before Hogwarts. It was more like visits, I’d just hang out, help out here and there and then he’d pay me.’

‘Sounds nice,’ Draco said.

‘It was. It’s just that my father was hardly ever home. He works for the Ministry in the International Magical Trading Standards Body, so he’s overseas very often. And my sister and I don’t really get along at all, so Flourish & Blott’s was like my hiding place.’

‘You and Daphne don’t get along?’ he asked, curious to find out more about their relationship.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I know that she’s friends with Pansy and that you and Pansy are close, so I mean no offense, but she’s just not someone I like very much even. I know she’s my sister, but our views about almost everything are so astronomically different that I sometimes wonder how we could be related.’

‘I’m not really that close with Pansy,’ Draco said almost too quickly.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean anything, I just sort of assumed...’

‘Assumed what?’

‘You two were together,’ she said unsurely.

He shook his head. ‘No, we’re not.’

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry if...’

‘Pansy and I...’ he tried to explain. ‘It’s complicated. But we’re not together.’

‘Right,’ she said frowning.

‘And I don’t even know Daphne, so...’ he said.

She just nodded.

Well that didn’t happen very smoothly, Draco thought.

‘What do you mean it’s complicated? You’re either together or not, right?’ she asked after a moment, still looking confused.

Draco felt like he was choking. ‘Um, we’re kind of supposed to get married after school,’ he said truthfully, feeling suddenly very cornered. He hoped he didn’t just make the biggest mistake of his life, and actually crossed his fingers.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked, the frown deepening.

‘Arranged marriage, is what I mean,’ Draco said very softly, almost hoping she wouldn’t hear it.
She had a look of complete consternation on her face. ‘Arranged marriage? But that’s ridiculous,’ she said in a voice that was just above a whisper.

‘Oh,’ Draco laughed despite himself. ‘I know, believe me.’

‘You mean that your parents told you to marry her?’ she asked, seemingly trying to figure it out.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘My parents are very... concerned that I will not end up with someone they approve of. Their beliefs are very... They think they’re doing what’s best for me.’

‘I didn’t even know that people still arranged marriages,’ she said flabbergasted.

‘Our family is very...’ Draco hesitated saying anything about pureblood. ‘...Old, and our customs must be honoured, and whatever.’

‘You mean you have to marry someone from pureblood line,’ she said, not dancing around it at all.
‘Well, yes,’ he said, hanging his head.

‘And?’ she asked. ‘How do you feel about that?’

Draco glanced up at her. ‘I don’t like it at all. I feel I’m smart enough to be able to choose someone that’s right for me.’ He kept looking at her, trying to get the message across to her without admitting his feelings like a fool. ‘Plus, I can’t really think of a worse fate than having to marry Pansy.’

‘I can,’ she said. ‘Marrying Millicent Bullstrode.’

Draco cringed. ‘Yes, that might be worse, but only a little.’

‘So what are you going to do?’ she asked him seriously, the frown gone now that she understood.

‘The thought that keeps me sane is that I still have about two and half years to worm myself out of that particular situation. I won’t go through with it, I can’t. But Pansy cannot know that.’

‘My lips are sealed, for what it’s worth,’ she said.

‘It’s worth a lot,’ he smiled at her. ‘Thanks.’

‘It sucks, though’ she said. ‘What does Pansy have to say?’

‘She’s rather excited about it, actually, that’s why she can’t know that I have no intention of marrying her, she’d tell her parents, that would in turn tell my parents, and I’ll be in a heap of trouble.’

She looked sympathetic, ‘Don’t worry, you still have time.’

‘Yeah, I guess.’

Draco’s hot chocolate cup was long empty, so was Astoria’s. He felt his eyelids were quite heavy. But he didn’t want to leave, he had to stay, he felt like he had more explaining to do.

‘Sorry, I acted a little nosy,’ she apologised.

Draco just chuckled. ‘You weren’t nosy, I see it more as interest.’

‘We’d better get back to the castle,’ she said already getting up.

They walked back to front doors is silence, each thinking about what they had spoken about. Draco walked her to the foot of the steps leading to the Ravenclaw Tower, before he sneakily headed downwards towards the dungeons.