They’d been pardoned. Pardoned because Draco had been too weak and his mother had been too grateful. Pardoned because Harry Potter pitied them, forgave them and spoke for them. Draco had never been more furious and ashamed.

  “It’s her sister,” she explained. “Somehow, the little twit got herself a connection in the prisons. If I fuss over Daphne in front of her, I might get a chance to see my mum and dad.”
    “Astoria Greengrass?” Draco said, bemused. The chill of Pansy’s flat started to get to him, and he began pulling his own clothing back on. “Isn’t she about twelve?”

"I need your help," she said quietly. "Please. I won't waste your time, I promise. I just didn't know how to ask."

He loathed her for being young and pretty, for growing better instead of worse. Her self-confidence infuriated him, especially now that he knew she hadn’t always possessed it. The idea of bringing her back down to her proper level, even for a moment, was too tempting to pass up. 

He watched Astoria with both hands clenched into fists in his cloak. She was so stupidly excited about the evening, her cheeks flushed and her chest rising and falling with sighs of impatience and enthusiasm. He knew that she was under the impression that something about the evening would be under her control, and he scorned her for having such a foolish illusion in her mind.

The most beautiful, endearing aspect of Astoria was her ignorance. She had never been lovely and would never know that she had grown into it. Daphne had seen the world and hidden from it—Astoria had watched evil unfolding in front of her and remained untouched by it.