Draco Malfoy was respected by the Slytherins when he returned to Hogwarts for his seventh year. Of course, he was always respected. He was Lucius Malfoy's son. Not that that meant much nowadays; Lucius was not in the Dark Lord's good books lately. But everyone had heard what Draco did last summer. Being a Death Eater earned him a new level of respect.
The respect on the one hand meant that he could get the best seats by the fire, get annoying little first-years to run errands for him, have people constantly trying to suck up to him. But on the other hand, Draco could sense the fear behind the respect. Fear that he would attack them if they made a single wrong move. Fear of those he was associated with. Fear of what he could do to them. As a result, Draco felt like he was treated more like a god than a human. He didn't like it at all.
For that reason, he avoided the common room at busy times of day by pretending to study in the library. Sometimes a bewildered Madam Pince had to ask him to leave so she could lock up. Draco had never really been the most conscientious student before, although he had never exactly been stupid, but these days he tended to spend the hours after dinner sat in a corner by himself accompanied by a pile of books. He never actually read the books; they were just an excuse not to be around people.
On one such night, Madam Pince announced that it was closing time, and the usual smattering of disappointed-looking Ravenclaws traipsed out and set off back to their common room. Draco set off down towards the dungeons, unaware that he had company.
"Draco?"
He looked round swiftly. It was Daphne Greengrass's little sister. Astoria, he recalled. They had barely ever spoken two words to each other before. Draco wondered why she wanted to talk to him.
"Sorry," she said quickly, seeing his alarm. "I didn't mean to startle you. I just thought, as we're going to the same place, you might want some company."
"Oh... okay," he said distractedly. If he was honest, he would much rather be alone, but he didn't want to be rude. He cast around for conversation. "So... why aren't you in the common room?"
"I just fancied a walk," she told him. Draco made noise of assent; he didn't really care. He'd just wanted to break the silence. She laughed. "You don't care, do you?"
"Not really, no," Draco admitted.
She laughed again. "So why aren't you?"
"Sorry, what?" Draco asked; he hadn't been paying attention.
"Why aren't you in the common room?" she asked, rolling her eyes.
"Oh. I was - er - in the library. Studying," he said, embarrassed.
Astoria nodded. "I've seen you in there a lot lately," she observed. "I'm sure you never used to go in there. You always preferred to sit in the common room and get Crabbe and Goyle to bring you everything you needed."
Draco sighed. Things had changed. He had now seen the light about what stupid buffoons those two were. He tried to spend as little time with them as possible nowadays. "Yeah, well... er... it's NEWT year, isn't it. I have to start making an effort," he lied.
Astoria smirked, seeing right through him. "You really think the Dark Lord will care about your NEWT grades?"
Draco hesitated. "Okay, well the common room is a bit... stifling. I like the quiet in the library. I can just sit there and think, without any interruptions." The words surprised Draco as they came out of his own mouth. He hadn't really opened up to anyone like this in a long time.
"Yes," Astoria agreed, nodding, "I can understand how you might feel like that. All this hero treatment - you must finally know how Potter feels."
Draco snorted. He was sure that Potter never felt anything like this. "I wish they wouldn't," he admitted. "I wish things could just go back to how they were. I wish I could go back to how I was."
"And how is that?" Astoria enquired. They had reached the entrance to the common room, but neither wanted to go in just yet.
"Well, everything was just so simple," Draco confessed. Once he had started, he couldn't stop. "There were the Mudbloods, and there was us. We were superior, and they were just worthless filth. I mocked them or stayed away from them. That was it. But now..."
"Go on," she encouraged.
"Now, the people I'm forced to torture and hurt... they don't seem too different from us. I do it because I know that if I don't, the same thing will happen to me and my family. I'm not a hero. There's nothing glamorous about being a Death Eater. I've done some terrible things. And I never wanted this. Not since I was told I had to kill Dumbledore. I hated him, of course, but I didn't want to kill him. And he offered me a way out. I could have protected myself and my family. He said so, before he died." There was a pause. "But I hesitated. That one moment could have changed everything. And I threw it away." He ran his hands through his hair in his agitation.
Astoria didn't say anything for a moment, but placed a tentative hand on his shoulder. "I think you're a hero, Draco," she said unexpectedly.
His head jerked up to look at her in shock. "Sorry?"
"You have done some terrible things, I can't deny that," she began. "But you've done them for the right reasons. To protect your family. What else can anyone expect you to do? You're not exactly going to go along and fight with the Order, are you? You're a Malfoy, for Merlin's sake! You could never stoop that low! So you have a choice between fighting, or dying."
Draco was taken aback by this little speech. He was so relieved that somebody really understood him. The weird thing was that it was somebody he barely even knew. He looked down at Astoria and suddenly noticed how pretty she was. He hadn't had much experience with girls; he had never cared much about them, really. He had had a brief relationship with Pansy Parkinson in his sixth year, but broke it off quickly, irritated by how clingy and ignorant she was. She wasn't even that good-looking, anyway.
But Astoria had beautiful, glossy dark hair and dark brown eyes that had a beautiful depth to them. And unlike Pansy, even though they had just met, she really understood him. He had to resist the urge to kiss her right there and then. That would have been a bit weird. She was younger, and anyway, they had hardly ever spoken to each other. You can't be in love with someone you've only met once, Draco reasoned with himself.
Instead, he gave the password to the common room and gave her the closest thing to a smile he could manage - he was still Draco Malfoy, after all.
"If you ever need to talk, you know where I am," she said quietly, as she walked into the common room before him.
"Thanks... Astoria," he told her.
That was the first time he ever said her name.
A/N: Apologies in advance for the super long A/N :S
So I decided to go a bit outside of my comfort zone for this one; I've been on this site for seven months and I've always shied away from writing Draco. Buuut... I decided to go for it! This arose because of two things. One: I always wondered who Astoria was. And two: I've always had two different interpretations of Draco - this fic portrays one of them, and the other is that he's just a complete coward, but I think I talked myself out of that by writing this :)
This was written for the Diversity Competition and the When Love First Grows Competition, both on HPFC.
A massive thank you goes to my beta, kci47 - you're a star!
Disclaimer: J K Rowling owns everything you see here.
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