Chapter 1

The torrential rain continued to pour from the dark gray clouds in the sky. The chill in the wind seeped so deeply into her body she could not tell whether she was alive or dead. Her heart felt as if it had stopped beating, and it seemed the rest of her body had decided to die along with it. It was pitch black outside, and she could see nothing in the area surrounding her. She knew that it was the night time, and yet she could not tell exactly what time it was; she had stopped caring about the time over three days ago.

She lay in the grass, staring at the cloud-filled sky above her. There were no stars visible in the sky, no lights in the darkness, no hope in all of her despair. She closed her eyes with the vain hope that the somber image would be blocked from her mind; it was still there. It was permanently a part of her being, and she knew there was only one thing, one person, who could make her come back to life.

A solitary tear leaked from her eye as his face flashed into her mind. After three days of constantly avoiding his memory, her wall crumbled and he blazed back into her thoughts, stronger than ever. Her heart broke again when she realized that he was gone, and he was never coming back, just like all of the other people she had ever cared about.

Astoria Greengrass opened her eyes slowly and stared at the green hangings surrounding her four poster bed at Hogwarts. She breathed deeply and tried to memorize the feeling of her sheets and the smell of the air in her dormitory. Last night was the last night that she would ever sleep in her bed, and the last night she would ever spend at Hogwarts. Tomorrow she would take the train home and she would never return.

The battle against Voldemort had taken place just a week ago, but to Astoria it felt like it had been much longer since that fateful day. After the battle, the course of her life had changed completely. Astoria's parents had been arrested and taken to Azkaban, and this was something that completely shocked Astoria. Maybe it was completely naïve of her to believe that her pureblooded parents were not involved with the darker side of things, but she had not noticed anything that would have intimated their association with the Dark Lord.

In one week, she had gone from being a girl with friends, family, and a future, to a lost girl with no one left to depend on. Most of her housemates had not returned after the battle, and she had only returned to Hogwarts because her parents had been arrested. She didn't even have her sister to comfort her after all of the recent happenings in the wizarding world; Daphne had been whisked off to another country in the middle of the year, and Astoria was sure she would not see her again anytime soon. She had found the perfect pureblooded husband, and she had deserted Astoria as soon as he asked for her hand in marriage.

Astoria slipped out from under her warm blankets so that she could finish packing her things. As the cold draft circulated through the room, she began to think of what was going to happen to her. She was to be picked up by some distant relatives at King's Cross, and she had a gut feeling that they were not the kindest bunch of wizards she had ever met. Because they lived up in the north, she would be attending Durmstrang Institute in the fall.

After all of her things were packed, she locked her trunk and sunk back onto her bed. She let out a shaky breath and rubbed her temples. She had been worrying about everything lately, especially the uncertainty of her future, and it was giving her a serious migraine. Her reverie was broken when there was a knock on her door.

"Miss Greengrass, are you here?" It was Professor McGonagall. Astoria sat up on her bed.

"I'm here Professor." She replied languidly.

"Please gather up your things and head down to the carriages. They are set to leave for the train in about 15 minutes." Professor McGonagall gave Astoria a fleeting smile as Astoria nodded her head in understanding. The professor closed the door and Astoria let out a heavy sigh. She slowly pushed herself off of her bed and took one last, long look around the dorm that had been her place of rest for the past five years. The faces of the four other girls who had shared the room with her flashed into her mind. They were now only a memory crammed into her mind that she was desperately trying to hold onto.

Astoria took her wand from her pocket and pointed it at her trunk and said, "Locomotor trunk." She had decided that it was time for her to leave. She walked slowly through the halls, trying to get one last good look at everything she could. There was a small line of students, less than 50, headed out to the carriages that would take them away from Hogwarts. She walked behind them all, breathing deeply and smelling the fresh air of the Hogwarts grounds. She looked out over the Black Lake, to Hagrid's hut, and even at the Forbidden forest, trying her hardest to burn their images into her memory.

She abruptly stopped walking once she had reached the gates that would lead her out of Hogwarts and into the real world. She turned around slowly to take one last, good look at the castle that had been her home for the past 5 years. She stood there for as long as she possibly could, but she could not linger for she would miss the carriages. She closed her eyes as a tear trailed down her cheek, and she turned to leave Hogwarts; to leave her home, and head out into the vast unknown that was the rest of her life.

A/N: This is going to be my version of how Draco and Astoria got together. It's loosely based on Jane Eyre. Updates won't be very regular on this story... one word, school. I'm sorry, but I hope you enjoy it! If the plot seems a little slow, I promise, it picks up later :]

Reviews are appreciated!