Title: Snatching Love
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: T for the moment
Pairing: Canon Ginny/Harry, Draco/Astoria, future Ginny/Astoria
A/N: Currently canon and epilogue compliant, though that may change, and the timeline might be a little messed up
Summary: On the same day as a fall puts paid to Ginny Potter's burgeoning Quidditch career, she meets the woman who will shape the rest of her life- for better or for worse. Het canon pairings, and future femmeslash. Ginny and Astoria.
"Annnnnd it's Crater to Potter, passing the Quaffle with a lovely display of skill there, while Seekers Smith and Holly are watching each other's closest moves. Potter uses a classic Irina manoeuvre and passes the Quaffle to Salmon...."
Ginny smiled in satisfaction as Ivy Salmon her teammate caught the Quaffle in one hand gracefully, and putting on a burst of speed scored. After three years at the Holyhead Harpies, the three Chasers worked smoothly together and Ginny had learnt a lot of things including letting others make the vital shot when you knew they had a better chance. The sound of cheers echoed up from the stadium, and she smiled and waved to the crowd who responded enthusiastically to the woman who was not only the star Chaser of the Harpies, but also Harry Potter's wife. The game had been going on for two hours, and in the interests of keeping the crowds interested, it was common for the Snitch to momentarily chime two or three times and give the Seekers a hint. Both Sadie Smith the Holyhead Harpies Seeker, and Adolf Holly the Blackberries star had one eye glued on each other, and the other constantly scanning the pitch.
Since the Quaffle was back in play though, she had work to do, rather than muse on the team's positions, and she threw herself back into the game, dodging around a Bludger and heading straight for the opposing Chaser who had his eyes narrowed. The broom sped up at her mental urging, and she arrowed straight towards him, hoping to intimidate him into passing the Quaffle or even dropping it. Ivy rose beside her, sensing her intention and throwing her a savage grin. They were going to win this game. As they hurtled towards the Chaser though, Ginny heard a choke from beside her, though it was instantly whipped away by the wind. She turned, and saw to her horror that Ivy was stark white, and her seat on the broom was wobbly. Deciding the Quaffle meant less than guiding her team-mate safely to the ground, she slowed the broom, and blocked Ivy's path forcing her to halt. Taking her wand from her emergency pocket she used it carefully in the charm every Holyhead player knew that overrode the team's broom's controls and returned it carefully to the ground.
The broom drifted away, and she turned back to the game, ready to signal the ref that something was wrong with the player, and at that moment she heard a terrified shout and saw Mark Forster, the opposing Chaser hurtling towards her, fingers outstretched as though to push her away from something. As her finely honed Quidditch senses came into play, she turned and saw the Bludger racing towards her. Instinctively she used the tactic most common against Bludgers- grip as tightly to your broom as possible, curl up to present as small and strong a target as you can, and command your broom to race. It would probably have worked if she hadn't been clutching her wand, and not able to hold her broom as tightly as she should. The ingrained instinct of the magical, never to drop your wand kicked in, and her overriding sense of fair play refused to let her even attempt to charm the Bludgers.
When she fell, it was almost peaceful.
Though the sky was rushing past, and the ground seemed to be coming towards her at an alarming rate, she didn't feel much of anything- not even fear. And when she hit the ground with a crunch that bordered sickening, she still couldn't feel anything. The last thing she saw before the pain hit, and unconsciousness mercifully took her was a blonde woman silently shouting.
She learnt afterwards that she had been unlucky. The Bromwell Blackberries were a poor team, and they hadn't won a premier match in six months. The maintenance charms on their pitch were wearing thin, and they'd made a conscious decision that they'd leave it until the end of the season before devoting the funds to having specialist wizards repair it. She'd hit the weakest part, and the charms that were meant to soften her fall, and have her bounce slightly, enough to break her fall had failed badly. She'd hit the ground at full speed, and broken so many bones in her body that if it hadn't been for the Stasis Charm a spectator had cast, she wouldn't have even made it to St Mungos alive.
She listened of course from inside the casts that helped keep her bones straight while they healed. She listened numbly and hollowly, and the words meant nothing to her. She didn't care why this had happened. All she wanted to know and they refused to tell her, was, was she going to get better? They'd told her that they'd managed to minimise the spinal damage, and there was no risk of paralysation, yet they tiptoed around the subject of what was wrong.
It was an older Healer who told her finally. He held her hand and told her that she probably couldn't fly again, and certainly never again at the speed needed to play Quidditch professionally. Some of her bones had snapped in multiple places, and he pointed out that though they could be healed easily enough, that it left weakness in parts of the bone that could be exploited easily. It was professional, very neatly done, and she lay and stared at the ceiling afterwards, willing the tears to come. Yet not one fell despite the pulsing agony in her chest.
After a bit of time Harry came to see her. He pressed her hand in the same way the Healer had done, and she managed to vacantly smile at him, as he mumbled reassurances about her being all better soon, and that was so much else she could do. His words soon blurred into a meaningless stream of placatory comments, and she drifted away, shaking her head minutely when he asked if she wanted to see anyone else. A nurse tapped him on the shoulder after half an hour and told him visiting time was over, and he willingly, she couldn't help noticing rather bitterly went. But that was for the best. If he said one more time how the Blackberries should be punished, she was going to scream.
The next morning she was awake early, and watched impassively as efficient medi-wizards removed her cast and gave her some hospital robes to wear. Her skin and her bones felt soft and sore and tender, and she couldn't help wincing even at the touch of the light cotton robes. Arranging herself back on the bed, she lay back and waited for the ordeal to come. Harry and her parents were first naturally, Harry rushing forward, happiness apparent in his eyes that stirred no responding emotion in her. Her mother hugged her before anyone could warn her, and Ginny screamed in pain at feeling her still fragile body constricted. Her mother let go as though burned and stepped back. There was really little to say, and Arthur, Molly and Harry kept up the conversation through light pleasantries that were meaningless and pointless. Eventually Hermione, Ron, George, Bill and various other members of her far too large family filled the room, all of them stricken by the same awkward urge to babble as though to compensate for the fact that the centre of all the attention had her gaze firmly fixed in the distance.
In the middle of George nervously expounding on some theory he had on Bone-Strengthening potion, she finally broke. "May I have a bit of time alone?" she asked, and her voice was soft and quiet and dull, and nobody in the room had ever heard it sound quite like that before, and that might have been the reason there were only nominal protests made. Harry was the last to leave of course, his face unreadable, Ron and Hermione on either side of him as always, and when they'd finally left she turned her face to the wall, careful of her still fragile skin and tried to force the tears to come.
In the silence of the room she distinctly heard the soft swish of robes. "Please Harry, just let me be for a bit," she said passively, hoping he would simply leave.
A rich, very non-male voice answered. "I'm not your husband I'm afraid."
Ginny carefully turned to face the witch, wincing as the memory of that face cut through her. It was the woman from the Quidditch match, and even more than that it seemed ineffably familiar as though she had once known her vaguely. She was tall, but not as tall as she seemed, and the wheaten blond hair gathered up on her head in a elegant bun added to the general impression of height and power. Her dress-robes perfectly matched her eye colour, a deep vibrant blue that also set off her white skin to perfection. Ginny was instantly aware of how very small she seemed even in the narrow hospital bed, of how her hair desperately needed a wash, how the robes though functional also gave her the appearance of a mental patient and also that she should know this woman. "Why do you want to speak to me?" she asked quietly.
The woman smiled at her. "I cast the Stasis Charm on you," she replied. "I wanted to see how you are."
Blood rushed to Ginny's face as she thought of how rude she must have sounded, indeed how ungrateful, and she stumbled to try to rectify the matter. "Thank you so much," she said, hating how the words sounded weak and thin. She smiled at the woman, "they say I would have died if you hadn't been so fast."
A faint tinge of a blush stained the other woman's white skin. "You're welcome," she said simply. "I'm sorry, I have to go now, a meeting, but it was lovely to meet you." She turned to leave, and suddenly, irrationally interested in the self possessed woman, Ginny spoke.
"I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."
The other woman's back straightened, and she was silent for a second, then she replied. "Astoria." She didn't give a last name.
Once she was certain that she was well away from the room, Astoria stopped her brisk walk and leant against a wall, feeling the hot flush on her face. What on earth had caused her to blush as though she was a thirteen year on a first date? She was the one who had done Ginny Potter a favour not the other way round. Annoyed, she brushed at her robes, smoothing the cuffs, and drew her dairy from her inner pocket. Lunch with Draco. She nodded briskly to herself, and carefully charmed the robes which were suitable for a morning visit to a hospital, to ones that were stylishly trimmed for entry at the exclusive Circe's Reach. When she'd told Draco yesterday who she had saved from near certain death, his reaction had not been one that she expected. He'd congratulated her, but the near feverish calculation that would have gripped his mind before the war even under that cold mask he wore, was notably absent at least to her experienced eyes.
Having Apparated to the entrance of Circe's Reach, she let the obsequious waiter divest her of her cloak, and escort her to where her supposedly adoring husband sat in obvious boredom. She smiled when she saw him. A love match it might not be, but in the two years since their marriage they had learnt how to be happy with each other, and while it wasn't what she had dreamed of, it was mutually beneficial to both of them. Draco was still rich, and money was still a commodity prized by purebloods (it was so useful for getting your own way,) while as one of the only pure blooded witches in Slytherin house whose family had no links to Voldemort, she had become a marriageable prize for wizards as tainted as Malfoy with the Dark. She blessed her family's comparative poverty once again, as she had many times before this. While it had meant she could not have the latest broom on her birthday every year in her childhood, it also meant that Voldemort hadn't bothered to seek them out and have them join him. The Greengrasses were an old and respected family, but with no money and few politically advantageous connections they had been left mostly alone, and that had reaped its reward after the war.
Even Zabini with his long standing connection with Pansy Parkinson and her family had made overtures of courtship- anything for the pureblood without the ignominy attached. She had chosen Draco quite sensibly. Malfoy's never had more than one child if they could help it, and Astoria certainly didn't plan on getting pregnant more than once. Draco was good-looking, he had no shameful secret liaisons (and if he did, they were kept well hidden enough that she really didn't care,) and he'd been the only one who'd been honest to her, that he didn't love her, but that he liked her a great deal. In the end that had been good enough. Or certainly the best deal offered anyway. As she wended her way through the tables and thought on her marriage, a frown wrinkled her smooth forehead. The Potters had, had a love match, the entire wizarding world knew that, how could anyone ignore it- their wedding had been food for gossip for weeks. Yet when Ginny Potter had mistaken her for Harry Potter her husband, there had been nothing but tiredness in her voice as she asked him to leave her alone.
She narrowed her eyes impatiently as she sat down opposite Draco. Why was she thinking so much about the other young woman? There was nothing special about Ginny Potter, had been nothing special at Hogwarts, when she'd been plain old Ginny Weasley and Astoria had shared Potions classes with her. And now she was simply the wife of Harry Potter. She turned to the menu, barely needing to scan it. She was still on her diet after all, and with little deliberation she went for one of the smaller salads, casting a disdainful eye at the Dover sole on Draco's plate. He noticed, and gave her a smile. "Did you visit the hospital?" he asked casually, as he cut up the perfectly steamed vegetables. She nodded, and he smoothly moved onto another subject of conversation until her salad arrived. Then he went straight for the jugular. "You seem a little distracted dear," he smiled at her. "Did something go wrong on your mission of mercy? My little ministering angel seems to be someplace far from here."
She scowled at him without moving a feature, an impressive trick she knew, and one that always amused him. "Nothing is wrong," she grumbled, and moved aside the fettuccini impatiently. Looking up she caught his smirk, and glared until he dropped it. "I just thought something that shocked me."
He leaned forward, interested now she could tell. Nothing much shocked a Slytherin. "Tell me," he whispered. Another trait Slytherins shared was a tendency to want to know. Not for knowledge's sake like a Ravenclaw, just for the pure pleasure of knowing something others didn't , and being able to use it in a myriad of amusing ways. Of course, some people just thought they were terrible gossips.
She tapped her silver fork thoughtfully on the side of the bone china plate, then took pity on his pleading expression. "I got the merest feeling, the slightest sensation that not everything is well in the Potter marriage."
Draco settled back thoughtfully. "Not to seem rude my darling, but why would that bother you?"
"It doesn't," she protested uncomfortably, then because he was her husband, and a good friend after two years of having his corners and edges whittled away by a much harsher world, she explained. "It's not meant to happen to people like the Potters. They're meant to get married and love each other, and have children with stupid names. That's their reward isn't it?" She was uneasily aware of how much like a Hufflepuff she must have sounded, babbling on about true love, but Draco's face was not judging her, it seemed far away in fact.
"You're right," he said quietly at last. "That is meant to be their reward. But would it make either of them happy. I knew Potter as well as anyone during Hogwarts, even if it was while being an absolute prat." His face twisted when he said it, Astoria knew how hard it was for him still to face who he had been when he was younger, the guilt and the shame roiling together, along with the stomach churning upset that he had been that foolish and that weak, and she squeezed his hand tightly. He smiled at her, and carried on "Potter still doesn't seem to want more than he wanted in school, some adventure, his friends and safety at the end of the day, while your new friend Mrs Potter is a more complex being than that I would guess. Because the pair of them have been given what everyone assumed would be their ideal reward- true love and marriage at age nineteen, which is a typically Gryffindor way to look at things. Us Slytherins have it right I think." He sipped his wine, and there was a strange melancholia in his eyes, as though he didn't entirely believe what he was saying.
First chapter completed. Hope you enjoyed, and CC is of course always welcome