The first time she sees him, she is nine years old. She has received her first toy broomstick and her tutor (the fifth, the others were such bores) takes her into the meadows at their summer estate to identify the different plants. She loves flowers and weaves them into her tangled, dark hair like a crown.

Her sister brings home some friends she has made at school. In her first year at Hogwarts, Daphne has grown taller, and more slender. Her cheekbones are emerging, and she looks more and more like Mama every day. She makes clever, cutting remarks, and Astoria has been shy around her since she came home. She seems more like a grown-up stranger than her older sister.

There is a pug-nosed girl name Pansy, a catlike girl named Regina with slanted eyes, a tall, dark boy named Blaise, and then there is him.

"This is Draco," Daphne introduces him in the new clipped tone she has adopted. "And this is my little sister. She can be quite amusing sometimes."

The boy – pale and graceful like one of her porcelain dolls – gives her a bored look. "She looks scared."

The others laugh and Daphne pats Astoria on the head condescendingly. "Oh she's quite the crybaby, aren't you, Tori? She was frightened to death the other day when I told her that dragons sometimes roam the countryside."

She flushes and backs away, tiptoeing out of the room after the attention has shifted back to the others. From the hallway, she can hear Daphne's high, mocking voice, "Oooh, Pansy, why are you staring at Draco so much anyway? Do you fancy him or something?"

When he leaves at the end of the day with the other children, he doesn't say goodbye to her. She watches him stride into the waning light though, before touching the portkey hidden amongst the weeds and disappearing like a mirage.

She sees him periodically at school; they even sit at the same table, though he sits at the other end with her sister and all of their older friends. When he laughs, she finds herself staring at him.

A year, then two, then three pass. She mostly grows into her gangly legs, makes friends – both within her house and with some Ravenclaws with whom she studies. She's hopelessly ill-equipped for sports, but she discovers that she is quite good at Herbology, and also has a memory for History of Magic.

All the other students find Professor Binns as dull as, well, the dead. But she doesn't mind him and often comes to him with questions she has that weren't addressed in class. What happened to all the displaced goblins after the rebellion of 1834, for example? And was Mogwarth the Great really in love with his own mother?

He answers all her questions in his usual, and she can see in his transparent face a flicker of loneliness. She's glad that in these moments, she can help to keep him occupied. Days and nights must seem interminable when you're left floating around for an eternity.

In her third year, she notices that Draco seems different. When she sees him at the dining table, he laughs less when with his friends. Often, he skips meals altogether. His eyes take on a haunted, trapped look.

One day, she asks Daphne about it.

Her sister has grown into her looks and sometimes, when Astoria catches a glimpse of her from the corner of her eyes, she thinks for a moment that she is their mother. They have the same refined features, the same dark hair – smooth and sleek like a horse's mane.

"Is something wrong with Draco?" she asks in one of the rare moments when she and Daphne spend time alone.

More and more frequently, Daphne is surrounded by friends. They go to Hogsmeade together, giggling as they link their arms and pull their knee socks down and their skirts up to tease the boys. Sometimes, though, Daphne will feel sentimental and ask Astoria if she'd like to let her test out some hair and beauty spells on her, or if she'd like to eat breakfast with her. Astoria never refuses.

When Astoria asks Daphne this question – as Daphne tightly braids her hair into a fishtail dangling down her back – Daphne pauses for a moment. Something flickers in her eyes before she shrugs. "There's a lot going on right now," she says cryptically. "It's best you don't ask too many questions, Tori."

Then, in a rare moment of sisterly affection, Daphne pulls her close and whispers in her ear, "Be careful, okay?"

Astoria remembers these words of warning whenever she finds herself watching Draco, his mouth set in a grim line as he stalks down the halls on his way to class. When he catches her looking at him, he stares back until she looks away, and she can't help but wonder what he is thinking.