I don't really know how I got to the point where I was sobbing and alone in my brother's basement with a Death Eater, but there it is.

Well, that's not quite true. He was here because he was one of my only friends, and because we'd recently started kissing each other sometimes, and besides, he'd told me in no uncertain terms that if we were going to be kissing each other, he wanted me to stop calling him a Death Eater.

Which was fair enough, really, since it wasn't quite accurate.

The afternoon leading up to it was nerve-wracking, though. I'd only ever been to his flat, but having him at mine seemed like it was probably the thing to do at this point, even if it was just a flat in my brother's basement that didn't have a proper kitchen or anything. At the same time, I didn't really want him to judge me for how messy it was. (If he was going to judge me for living in my brother's basement, well, there was nothing I could do about that, and he knew that about me, anyway. He worked with my brother, and my brother was most of why he'd started talking to me in the first place.)

So I spent half the afternoon cleaning my flat. Magic was only so useful when you didn't really know where you wanted to keep half of your belongings - they hadn't invented a spell that could figure that out yet - and that was most of why it was so messy. I did leave myself enough time to try, discard, and have to refold ten different outfits after deciding on a black skirt, leggings, a deep red shirt (with long sleeves, it was always long sleeves, even in the summer, and not just because it hid the sheath I kept my wand in for easy access), and a sweater (since it was winter, after all). I even managed to put on makeup. The end result was both me and my flat looking vaguely pulled together, which was really nothing short of a miracle.

And as it happened, I probably hadn't needed to worry. As soon as Draco stepped through the door, he looked around and said, "There's too much red in this flat. You're right, Astoria, you are half Gryffindor."

"And you really have hit rock bottom." I closed the door behind him, waved my wand, and shoved the deadbolt back into place. I heard him unzip his jacket behind me and toss it onto the chair next to my door that generally served as my coatrack.

When I turned around, he was leaning on the wall just to the left of the door. I hoped he'd stay out of the line of vision of my mirror; he was dangerously close to it right now, and while I didn't care if it insulted him, I'd prefer that he not know how much time I'd spent cleaning the flat and checking myself in the mirror. With my luck, that's probably what the mirror would focus on.

Especially since there really wasn't much about him to insult today. He was wearing long sleeves, too (it was always long sleeves with him, too, though for different reasons), and the green suited him. His hair was slightly windswept in a way that looked good rather than just messy, and it didn't seem like he'd shaved since the last time I'd seen him.

And his smile really had grown on me.

"So what are we today?" he asked, and my heart started to speed up.

It was a valid question. In the past couple months, he'd sat by my bed while I tried to fall back asleep after one of my nightmares, and we'd kissed on six separate occasions. We'd also seen each other and reverted back to our pre-kissing dynamic several times, and had a few other strangely in-between encounters where we weren't kissing but there was much more physical contact than I usually had with people. There wasn't even a clear progression or a reason why sometimes we pretended we'd never kissed. It was just a lurching series of steps with no defined destination.

"We're kissing today." There were butterflies in the pit of my stomach, which was strange, because I still wasn't used to having butterflies in my stomach over anyone, let alone a Death Eater.

Which I really had promised to stop calling him, and thus far, he'd refused to kiss me if I did, so I kept that comment to myself.

He shoved himself off the wall, closed the distance between us in two steps, and leaned down to kiss me. He was very good at it, which didn't help my butterflies.

When we parted, he glanced toward the couch. "Er - shall we?"

"It's red," I pointed out as I followed him across the room. "You'll be kissing a blood traitor half-Gryffindor on a red couch. That's below rock bottom."

He shrugged and collapsed onto it. "Kissing a pretty girl is never rock bottom, and you did end up in Ravenclaw in the end." He reached out and grabbed my hand, and I let him pull me onto the couch. "I missed you," he said into my neck as he wrapped his arm around me.

He smelled good, and his shirt was unexpectedly soft. "Yeah. I missed you, too."

He snorted and pulled away. "With that tone, I believe it." I elbowed him. He started playing with my hair.

Whatever my relationship with Draco Malfoy was, it was definitely a little dysfunctional. He seemed to like me anyway, though, and internal conflict aside, I really did genuinely like him, and it felt like that was probably what mattered.

I twisted around and pulled his head toward mine. "You taste good," he murmured when I broke the kiss to climb on top of him. "You taste like vanilla."

"I don't know why."

He grinned. "Sure you don't."

This seemed like a conversation that could only embarrass me, so I kissed him again. He clearly wasn't very invested in teasing me, because he immediately slid his tongue out to brush against mine, and one of his hands started to slide up my back.

He tasted good, too - like peppermint. He'd clearly been hoping that today was going to be a kissing day.

I pulled away, and he grunted a protest. When I yanked at the bottom of his shirt, though, his lips curled upwards into a grin, and he pulled it over his head and tossed it to the side.

Judging by the deep blue sleeve covering his left forearm, he'd been hoping for this, too. I leaned back in to kiss his neck rather than comment on it, and I felt him give a sigh of relief. Reformed or not, that mark had been a source of contention since he'd first stumbled across me in the Three Broomsticks months ago. Even knowing how much information he'd passed to my brother since the war and how much the blood purity assholes wanted him dead because of it, it still bothered me that he'd ever let the mark be put on him - and that he'd even bragged about it, once upon a time.

"Kiss me," he said softly, and I did.

Then the door at the top of the stairs opened. "Astoria, are you eating with us?" my brother called down.

Draco jerked back, and his face went white. "I - no," I called back, scooting backward to let him stumble off the couch and start searching frantically for his shirt. "I'm not hungry."

Something in my tone must have sounded off, because there were footsteps on the stairs, and then my brother's face appeared over the bannister. "Are you okay?" Then he caught sight of Draco. I didn't turn around to look at him, but from the look on Brendon's face, Draco had not succeeded in finding his shirt. "Ah. Are you sure? You're both welcome to join us."

I glanced over at Draco. He was, indeed, still shirtless. "Maybe," I said.

Brendon shrugged. "Dinner's in ten." He looked past me. "We do try to be fully clothed when we eat, though," he said mildly. "I can't think how your shirt ended up over there."

As soon as he closed the door, Draco whirled toward me. "No!" he hissed. "No! I am not eating with them!"

"It'll be fun," I said. I was starting to genuinely warm to the idea. He started shaking his head, and as he circled around the couch to grab his shirt off the floor, I grabbed his hand. "Oh, come on. You like my brother. You keep saying so."

"Yeah, at the Ministry," he snapped, though sank onto the couch next to me rather than grab it. "When I'm working with him. Not at his kitchen table right after he's caught me making out with his sister."

"He didn't see us making out."

"Right. I was just hanging out without a shirt on because that's what I do with all my friends." I opened my mouth to ask whether he had any other friends, and he held up a hand to cut me off. "Don't say it."

I inched closer to him. "Please?" I said. Somewhere along the way, I'd realized that Draco was invested enough in our friendship that he was fairly pliable when I pushed an issue, and that tendency had become significantly more pronounced since he started kissing me - comments on Death Eaters aside, anyway, which he did reliably put his foot down on these days. I trailed my fingers up his right arm, and he made a face.

"Astoria, I'm serious."

I leaned in to press my lips against his chest, and he twitched. "Please?" I repeated. "I'll -"

He cut me off. "If you're about to try to bribe me, don't."

"Okay," I said, a little surprised by his vehemence. "But - please?"

He let his head fall back, and he stared up at the ceiling. "How much do you actually want me to, and how much of this is just you having way too much fun making me feel awkward?"

I considered that. "At least half."

He made a face. "Astoria, this is going to be really awkward."

I pulled my sweater over my head. From the look on his face, he wasn't expecting my shirt to be quite so low-cut.

"This is also bribery," he pointed out, though his objection to the principle didn't seem to be enough for him to tear his eyes away from my chest.

I leaned in to kiss him again, and he groaned.

"I just want to point out that doing this and then expecting me to go make nice with your family is fucked up. How am I supposed to think about anything else?" I opened my mouth again, and he made a face. "Fine. But you're a pain. I mean, you're worth it," he added quickly when I hugged him. "But you're still a pain."

He wasn't totally wrong about dinner - it was a little awkward. My brother managed to make a couple pointed comments that had Draco nearly as red as my shirt, and while my sister-in-law avoided making similar comments of her own, the curve of her mouth when my brother did told me that she was in no way inclined to intervene. The respite only came when my three year old niece Johanna started insisting that she hated broccoli, despite having declared it her favorite food ever the night before. After that, Brendon had his hands full - once she really got going, he was usually the only person she'd even sort of listen to.

Draco hovered after he was done just long enough to thank them and offer to help clean up. When he was waved off, he beat a hasty retreat back down the stairs. I was about to follow him when my sister-in-law stopped me.

"I know Brendon says that he's changed." Addison kept her voice low enough that neither Brendon, who was clearing the table, nor Johanna and son Alec, who were now arguing loudly about what the best Quidditch position was, could hear. "I just want to check that you're sure about this - and that you're being safe."

From anyone else, that would have made me blush, but the look in Addison's deep brown eyes was pure and good-hearted concern - and I also knew that the kind of "safe" she was talking about wasn't just about sex.

"I am," I said. "I promise."

She smiled. "If you want to talk about it, just let me know. Brendon isn't always the most subtle person in the room." That made me smile, too, and she jerked her head toward the door. "Go on, then."

Draco's face had faded to an pale pink by the time I got downstairs. "Oh, come on," I said from the foot of them. "It wasn't that bad."

He made a face. "Yeah, no, your brother asking me what our plans for the night were and where I got my shirt from in front of his kids wasn't awkward at all."

I made my way across the room to join him. "Well, thank you," I said, settling back onto the couch and leaning against him.

"Mm-hmm."

Something occurred to me, and I twisted around to look at him. "Why didn't you want me to bribe you?"

It took him a minute to remember what I was talking about. When he did, he sighed. "Because I want you to want to do whatever we're doing, not use what you think I want as a bargaining chip. You're my girlfriend, not some prize." My eyebrows shot up, and he groaned. "That's not - oh, fuck off."

"That's not very nice," I teased. "You should be nicer to your girlfriend."

"Fuck off," he repeated. "And I know you're not stupid, so don't start acting like it now. What would you call this?"

I shrugged. "I dunno. I mean, we don't always kiss." He rolled his eyes, and I sighed. "I dunno," I said again. "I didn't really think about it. I just know that I like you, even though - you know."

"Even though I used to be a Death Eater?" I made a face, and he sighed. "Yeah. I know."

"They keep trying to kill you, so I feel like it's probably okay for me to like you anyway."

"Only you would see assassination attempts as a good thing." There was a smile in his voice. Before I could respond, his lips were on mine again.

He wasn't pushy - he never was - but he'd also started to figure out what I was comfortable with and how to make me squirm. When he ran a hand up my side, I whimpered into him and pulled at the bottom of his shirt.

"Your door is locked this time, right?" he whispered as I pulled it over his head.

I nodded and started running my hands up his bare chest. He groaned, crashed his lips to mine again, and started to trail his right hand up the inside of my thigh. He stopped a hands-length from where my legs met.

The way he kept rubbing my leg made me wish that he hadn't. My hips, which had started to move without my being aware of it, seemed to concur.

This was significantly more involved than we'd ever been before. It was also the first time I'd ever been remotely this involved with anyone - the only other person who had ever had their hands where his were was me.

That was probably why I took leave of my senses. When I pulled my sweater over my head, my shirt came with it.

He let out a deep groan, and his mouth immediately went from my neck to my chest. While I hadn't exactly planned on getting quite this undressed, I was glad that I'd worn a new bra anyway. His hand started to creep up my thigh again, and I whimpered.

Then his hand stilled. "Fuck, it got dark fast," he said, fumbling for his wand, which was laying on the table in front of the couch. Before I could stop him, he pointed it at the orb along the far wall.

The light didn't flare, exactly, but it provided enough light to be a problem, because when he turned back to me, he caught sight of my arms.

My arms have been a scarred mess since that awful, awful year at Hogwarts. It was harder to see the extent of the scarring in the very dim light, and his focus hadn't really been on my arms in the first place.

It wasn't very dim anymore.

"Astoria, what happened?" His voice shook on the last word. I was already scrambling off of him and groping for my shirt, but he caught hold of my wrists. "Stop," he said. His grip was loose enough and his voice was gentle enough that some of the blind panic quelled, just a little. "I'm not - I'm just asking."

"The Carrows happened," I snapped. This was exactly why I avoided short sleeves in front of anyone, even Brendon. "If you kept your arms crossed in front of you, it was harder for them to slash your chest or your stomach when they cursed you, and you didn't have to sit through class with - with everything showing. Since you were still bleeding, they didn't much mind. That's what your side did." I spat the last sentence at him. Anger was replacing the panic now, which was just as well. Anger was easier to deal with.

He let go of my wrists. I tried to read his face, and was disconcerted to find that I couldn't. "That was a few years ago," he said, and I realized that he'd seen the inside of my arms, too. Even with my wand strapped to my arm, enough of the scars and scabs and cuts were visible. Objectively, they'd caused much less damage; that they were self-inflicted was disturbing enough to most people that the objective extent of the injuries didn't mean shit. "Some of those look new."

I could have lied and told him that curses didn't always heal properly. He might have even believed me. I settled for defensive honesty anyway. "Those are none of your business."

He studied my face for a minute. Just as I was about to break the silence, he said, "I'm sorry." His voice cracked at the end. "I really, really am. I wish I could take it back."

"Did you do that to anyone?" It hadn't occurred to me to wonder that before now - everyone had known Draco Malfoy was an actual Death Eater, and that had been reason enough for us to give him a wide berth without hearing anything specific - but something about his tone made me think twice.

"No!" I must have looked a little taken aback by his vehemence, because he sighed. "No. I - by the time that was a thing that people were doing, I was done with hurting people just to hurt them. I'm not saying I never hurt anyone - I did - but I didn't slash them up for fun." He looked down at my arms again. This time, he didn't stop me when I drew them back toward my body. "But I didn't stop the people who did, and I probably could have - and I was on their side. So I'm sorry."

I was glad he didn't say that he'd been young. He'd tried to use that excuse before, and I'd pointed out that he'd been older than I was when I'd fought in the Battle of Hogwarts on the right side. He hadn't had a response to that, and he hadn't used that justification since then.

He'd focused on my face for a moment, but now his gaze had gone back to my arms. Even pressed against my body, the angry red scars criss-crossing my outer arms were apparent. I didn't need to look down now to know that. He swallowed hard. "I - I wouldn't let anyone do that to you." His voice was halting. "Again, I mean. I promise."

I jerked away from him, and he flinched. "I don't regret it," I snapped. "I don't need protecting. If I had to do it all again, I'd go through it all every time."

"Jesus. You really are half-Gryffindor." I didn't respond to that. I'd come to realize that he was right about that - and more importantly, that I was proud of it. "Astoria, you were fifteen."

"The Carrows didn't want to kill purebloods," I spat. "I could get away with it. And you weren't stepping up to do it - you were too busy helping them."

He looked away from me. "Yeah, I was." His voice was so soft I could barely hear it. "I've been trying to make it right for years, and I'm sorry. There's not really anything else I can say." After a moment, he took a deep breath. "Should I go?"

The words were forced, and it couldn't been clearer that he didn't want to. I considered it, and then I shook my head. "No."

"Should I stop calling you my girlfriend?"

Those words were also forced. I could see him swallow, but other than that, he was still. I couldn't even see him breathing. I gave it significantly more thought, but eventually, I shook my head again. "No," I repeated. I heard a sigh of relief, and after a moment, he reached out to close his fingers around my shirt. I dropped it and let him toss it behind me, and we sat there for a minute.

"I'm sorry, Astoria." Now he was looking at my face. "I don't have the words to tell you how sorry I am."

I took a deep, shaky breath; my vision was starting to blur. "I know," I said. "You wouldn't be here if I didn't."

He gently put an arm around me, and I let him pull me toward him. The feeling of his bare chest against my back felt stifling and comforting and strangely intimate all at once, and I wasn't sure how to feel about any of it, other than that I was pretty sure that I didn't want him to let me go. "Is this okay?" he whispered, and I nodded.

"Would you do it again?"

He sighed, but he didn't try to play dumb or dodge the question. "No," he said after a moment. It was long enough that I knew he'd genuinely thought about it, but not too long to piss me off all over again because it wasn't a question that should require much deliberation. "I'm not a prat anymore. I would still want to protect the people I care about, but I'd find another way."

"Your father is a terrible person. He doesn't deserve to be protected."

I heard him swallow, and his grip on me got tighter. "I know. But it's not really about what people deserve, and I'd still do the right thing." He buried his face in my hair. "I think I'm about to start crying," he said after a moment. "I'm not looking for sympathy. I just can't help it."

"Don't get snot in my hair," I said automatically, and he managed a half-hearted chuckle. "Draco, I know you're sorry, so stop saying it. I wouldn't be talking to you in the first place if I didn't, let alone have you here."

"I don't know what else to say."

"Well, figure it out," I shot back.

He thought about it for a minute. "I care about you," he said. "A lot. And I won't react like that again. I just - I didn't realize how much they hurt you." He hesitated. "And if you - if you need to talk, instead of - you know - you can talk to me."

"Instead of cutting myself?" I supplied. His body stiffened, and I felt a perverse sense of victory. "I usually don't anymore. Nights are just still hard sometimes."

"The nightmares?"

He'd seen me after the nightmares once. It hadn't been pretty - though it had indirectly let to us kissing for the first time, so there was that. "Usually."

He sighed. "I mean it. Even if it's the middle of the night." He hesitated. "And I promise I won't judge you or - or get angry, or anything - if you don't. I just - I'm there if you need me." He squeezed me. "Is that better than an apology?"

"Yeah," I whispered. The tears were starting to sting my eyes again. "That's better."

"Good, because I mean it." He sighed. "I really do care, Astoria. You're one of my favorite people."

"You have terrible taste in people."

"So do you."

That broke through the mood enough to make me laugh, and after a moment, so did he. We probably laughed harder than was warranted, but when we finally stopped, everything felt a little less awful.

"It's getting late," he said. "Should I-"

"No. Stay." I turned around to look at him. He hadn't been lying about crying - his face was still wet. "But not - like, not in a sex way. Like, maybe in a kissing way, later, but not a sex way."

"Astoria, I'm going to assume it's not in a sex way unless you tell me otherwise. You can stop saying it."

His voice was so dry and exasperated that it made me giggle again. "What you were doing before was fine, though. I'm not in the mood anymore, but - but that was fine. When I am."

He didn't need to think about what I meant by that. "Just fine?" he asked. The look in his eyes and the slight curve to his mouth made me shiver. "If it was just fine, I won't -"

"No! You - you should."

He grinned. "So I haven't completely wrecked my chances with you?" I shook my head, and he kissed me. His lips were soft, and he didn't linger. It was a comforting kind of kiss, not a sexual kind of kiss, and I'd discovered I liked them both. "Good," he said softly. "I really do care about you.

"Stop saying that. I heard you the first ten times."

A/N: If you enjoyed this, please check out my other Drastoria fics (which are prequels and probably eventually sequels to this - I've been doing a lot of Drastoria for NaNo). They're somewhere on this page, or you can find them in an organized series at the HPFanficTalk archive under the series (Sidenote: Greengrass stories) under the the same author name. :)

Reviews and favorites are appreciated!