Applause filled the room. Zabini smiled, cock-sure and insincere. It had been everything a best man's speech should be: funny, embarrassing and most of all not true. It was a moment of magic without a wand.

"And now something from the maid of honour," Zabini announces as everyone returned to their seats. "Daphne Greengrass."

Every eye turns. No amount of preparation could make me ready for this. Numbly aware of getting to my feet I look, not at the room or the countless people watching, but the only person who truly counted. My sister.

"I remember the night that Draco and Astoria first met," I begin. Where could it go? It couldn't be the truth. That had gone unsaid for years. It had to be a lie. Tell the story they want to hear. The truth? That was, well, complicated. I remember that night since it happened, somehow I think I always will, but not for the reasons she thinks.

It had been a night of frivolity and fakery, the annual Ministry ball to memorialise the war. A war that had torn apart countless lives, destroyed homes and families. Every year money was raised to help repair the muggle world, support the widows and generally help ease the conscience of those who had stood by and done nothing as Voldemort had rampaged across Britain. It had changed the world. So many things are said to have done, but this really had. Even from the sidelines it was easy to see the scar it had left in its wake.

For one thing a new order had risen. Purebloods who had refused to fight for the Dark Lord were suddenly in favour and half-bloods who saw an opportunity to fill the gaps left by the old guard. Even muggleborns were having some success, Granger mainly.

"You could at least look like you're having a good time," Astoria had said to me. She loved all this, the balls, the dresses, the beauty of it all. She saw it as life carrying on in the face of adversity and that darkness never truly won.

I knew better. Father had no sons, so it had been my job to schmooze and climb the social ladder. The Greengrasses hadn't fought for Voldemort, partly from principle but mainly because we weren't important enough. If we'd had been we'd have either been forced to join in or murdered on the spot.

After the war, we couldn't be lost in the background. You'd have thought we were martyrs to some great cause the way everyone carried on. Look at the Greengrasses, they didn't go round killing muggles and becoming Death Eaters. How noble. What a sacrifice. Funny, what knowing nothing about someone will make people say.

From one of the crowds I could see a thin, annoyingly good looking man leering at me. Our gaze met, he didn't even have the self-respect to pretend he hadn't been caught.

"I'd rather not feel like a phoenix up for sale."

"It's not like that," Astoria insisted. She always had a way of seeing the world for what it wasn't. "I'm going to get a drink, do you want anything?"

"No," Merlin forbid I actually tell someone what I think of them.

She disappeared into the throng of people, swallowed up the laughing and small talk. The young man had sensed an opportunity. He hadn't been alone. Two others had started to move, practically falling over themselves to try make their case. I remember my skin crawling, wanting nothing more than an excuse to be anywhere but there.

That's when he'd appeared. He'd been thin, thinner than I'd ever seen him. We'd barely spoken at school, Parkinson had latched her claws in too early for any other girl to get near. Creeping little bitch.

They all stopped as he moved. Some wary, others hiding their sniggers. The traitor and the coward, that's what they called him. It was impossible not to know what he'd done. The Prophet had gone to town on the only Malfoy to escape punishment.

"Miss Greengrass."

Grey eyes had caught mine. Just for a second.

"Malfoy."

"Didn't expect to see you here."

"I could say the same for you."

"There's a difference between not being wanted somewhere and not wanting to come at all."

"Who says I don't want to be?"

I could hardly deny it, but that hadn't stopped me trying. He'd smirked and suddenly the old Malfoy was there. A ghost trapped in a desolate shell.

"I'd say there's a lot you don't want to do." The onlookers were still watching. A glance from side of someone's eye here, a muttered prompt there. So much for the Malfoy name. "In fact, I'd say you were a woman who has never been satisfied."

"You forget yourself."

I'd wanted to walk away, but his next words pinned me to the spot. They were fragile, something I'd never seen him be before. "We have more in common than you think. I have never been satisfied"

"How so?"

"People like to think they know who we are, my parents, yours. So busy living everyone else's dreams we forget to have our own. There's a million things we haven't done. A million we can't do and a million we want to do."

"And what do you want?"

Talented eyes locked on mine, grey and stormy, gilled with regret and something else I'd seen in most of the men in this ballroom. Somehow it was different. They just wanted my name, my money. Him. It felt like he wanted something else. The first person who did. The only one who ever did.

"The same thing as you," he'd said simply. We both knew it was true. It was one of those rare moments where you're aware of everything. The smallest sound. Your heart beating. The laughter at the other side of a ballroom filled with people you despise. "To be something we're not."

"Is that it?"

"It's a start." He was still in there. The Malfoy we all knew. Ambitious. Confident. Only difference was his ambitions were actually his own and no longer his father's.

"And where would it end?"

"Wherever you want."

I had turned away to look at the band and the dancers, if only so that he couldn't see my face. There was a small lull, a beat of uncertainty masked by politeness. The problem with being disappointed so many times is that it makes times like these so hard to take. Every fibre of my body wanted to carry on this little game. Laugh, smile, trade comments and see where it goes. But I couldn't shift that small voice that said he might be just like the others only slicker, smarter. He had no real name, no money, no standing. The Greengrass family could give him all that back. Influence and clout, everything he had always wanted.

"You always were forward."

"Nothing wrong with forward," Malfoy noted, sipping at his drink.

"That so?"

"I'm the only one talking to you." The smallest nod towards the hidden crowd watching us. "And you could have your pick."

"Shame I don't want to."

It was at that point Astoria had started to pick her way back through the band, our drinks in hand and happiness plastered all over the face. He'd turned to see what I was looking at, perhaps scared it was another of his competitors, only to see my sister staring back at him. She stopped, slightly buffeted and bounced. Helpless. He'd turned back but she hadn't stopped gaping.

What was I meant to do? I could see it all over her face: the very feelings that I was trying to bury. Every word with him had opened up avenues of possibility, forking off to worlds that I had long since accepted had been closed. It was my job to marry well, find a good name and improve our family. Malfoy was the exact opposite of that, but Astoria. She could have a chance. I had imagined their faces, mother and father, trying to pretend not to be disappointed. They wanted 'better' for me. That didn't wait for Astoria, she could be happy. I couldn't stand in the way of that.

To this day I still remember taking his arm and leading him over, how flustered she had become.

"Astoria, this is Draco Malfoy," I'd said, knowing that these few words could seal my fate, "Draco, Astoria Greengrass. My sister."

The rest had been a blur of pleasantries and excitement from my sister. There had been confusion in his eyes, but as I'd walked away he hadn't followed.

Now Astoria was his wife and I was standing beside them, dragging a smile on my face and trying to find some words. Any words. Preferably not the truth. Right now the truth wouldn't be good. 'I'm happy for you, but I've been in love with your husband for years'. Even now. Past her beaming glow I could see that face, expectant and curious.

"Before that night I'd never believed in love at first sight," I started, "afterwards, it was impossible to imagine a world without it."

Our eyes met. He knew. He'd always known. To anyone else his hand moving to hers would have just been a nice gesture of newly promised love, to me? He'd made his choice, just as I'd made mine. So why didn't he look away?

"I don't know anyone else like Astoria. She is the kindest, most selfless person I know and I don't know what I'd do without you. So to you," I raise a glass, everyone else following suit. It wasn't the best speech in the world, but there was nothing else I could say. "And to Draco. May you will always make each other happy, may you always be satisfied."

A smattering of toasting filled the room, followed by some hesitant clapping. Not that it mattered. She was all that mattered, all that will ever matter, even if he was right. I will never be satisfied.

As some of you will know this is inspired by Hamilton's 'Satisfied'. Listening to this song made me think how it would great to tell a different story of Daphne and a nice post-Hogwarts one-shot. Hopefully you'll agree.