Disclaimer: I don't own this, you idiot. If I did there would be a LOT of changes (glares at tonks/remus shippers pointedly)

Rated T for mild swearing, but not too bad. A bit of violence, but not to worry. You will come out of it relatively unscarred.

With Me or Against Me?

"C-Crabbe… C-Crabbe…" Draco said weakly, panting and struggling to stay conscious.

"He's dead," said Weasley, showing no pity in his voice or expression. Draco heard the others talking as though they were far away and they became blurry as they left him. Everything went dark and he felt himself hit the cool, stone floor, good against his burnt skin.

***

As he started to wake up, Draco heard faint crashing noises, a scream somewhere in the distance, and the shouted incantation for a shield charm coming from very nearby. He opened his eyes and looked up, squinting. From his distinctly undignified place on the floor, he could see a cloak sweeping past his face, and the long black hair of its wearer. She looked back at him, hair whipping around her face, and green eyes made contact with his, briefly. She looked around and gave her attention to the attacking deatheater once more, putting him in a strong full-body bind.

"You're awake," she said, finally, out of breath and still checking the corridors to be sure they were empty. Then she turned to him and smiled a brilliant smile, despite the blood dripping onto her face from an unseen wound in her mess of hair. "I'm so glad! I've been fighting them off for around fifteen minutes, and I couldn't check if you were still breathing or not," as she was saying this, Draco recognized the frozen, unmasked deatheater as Crabbe's father. Crabbe… "And they just kept coming so I couldn't even check your pulse," she continued, as Draco rose from the floor and started pacing in front if the wall. "So I didn't know if you were even alive. For all I knew, I could've been defending your corpse, right?" she laughed a bit and then hushed when she looked at him and saw tears welling in his eyes. 'I have to find Crabbe, I have to find Crabbe, I have to find Crabbe,' he thought as he kept pacing. "Sorry, I guess it wasn't funny. I shouldn't have- STUPIFY!" she shouted turning around suddenly at the sounds of footsteps. Draco stopped moving momentarily and looked in awe as a masked figure that was almost all the way on the other side of the hall, was knocked into a suit of armor with amazing accuracy.

"Whew," she said, leaning against the wall. "I was only 50% sure that was a death eater and I don't need anymore unconscious people to guard on my hands." She smiled again, which seemed distinctly odd considering her particular condition. She looked extremely disheveled from the battle, with her hair a mess and oozing blood, a slight limp from an injury on her leg, and a giant tear that covered the length of her right sleeve, revealing a matching gash through her actual skin just beneath it. All in all, she was a complete mess and looked as though she needed immediate medical attention. When she walked towards him, Draco noticed a faint cracking sound when she put weight on her injured leg, and her wand looked foreign in her left hand, as though it was asking to be returned to its mangled home in her right. All this would be mildly disturbing to Draco if it had not been for the angelic smile she cast his way. It was almost as if she was impervious to the wounds that were splattered across her petite body.

Without warning, Draco collapsed onto the wall, crying. Her smile faded. She sat down with him, putting her bloody arm around his shoulder, and then thinking better of it, and removing it. She cast a wordless shield charm around them, the force of which made Draco look up in surprise, revealing his tearstained face. The girl, his savior, looked completely baffled as to what to do. She just looked around awkwardly trying to think of how to comfort him without getting blood all over him. "Crabbe… was in… that room…" he said, jerking his head back at the blank wall he was leaning against. "And Goyle was here… here t-too. He collapsed… next to m-me…" His tears were slowing now, and he was starting to feel like a fool. He had needed this girls protection and now was crying to her like a little baby to its mother.

"He's safe," she said, soothingly. Then her voice changed to a matter-of-fact tone that didn't make him feel any better. "Or at least he was when he ran off. As soon as he woke up he started shouting 'I need a place they won't kill me' over and over at the wall and then he must've run off. I'm not sure because this guy attacked at that point." She pointed her thumb backwards at Crabbe, who seemed to be regaining movement. His pinky twitched, and again, with phenomenal precision, the girl spun around and hit him squarely in the chest with a wordless stunning spell.

Down the corridor, another horde of masked deatheaters came at them swiftly, brandishing their wands that had already killed dozens of innocent lives just that night. The girl stood up and got into a battle stance, but Draco knew better.

"Run," he said, tugging her bloodstained sleeve urgently.

"No!"

"Run!" shouted Draco again, this time not waiting for her. He ran away as fast as his legs could carry him, looking back to see her following him, and at least 5 hexes and spells hitting the place they had just vacated with brutal force. This, luckily for them, caused a slight cave in which gave them more time, but they didn't slow down. They ran down three flights of stairs, Draco in the lead while the girl slowed steadily, wincing at the strain being put on her badly injured leg. Neither of them had ever learned first aid spells of any kind, which, looking back, seemed to be a large oversight for two people who had recently come of age and were participating in a war.

A moment later, Draco was pinned against the balcony, out of saving range from the girl.

"I'm Draco Malfoy! I'm on your side!" Draco pleaded with the hooded figure in front of him that had him cornered. Suddenly, a voice came from the flight of stairs and stupefied the deatheater. He looked around, expecting to see the girl right behind him, holding out her wand that had just saved him, but instead received a punch in the face from Potter, who was, no doubt, hiding in his stupid cloak.

Moments later, the girl arrived and helped him up, glaring at him in disgust.

"On their side!?" she said furiously as they took a turn and ran down an empty hall.

"Of course I'm on their side! I'm a Mal-"

"I know who you are and guess what. I recently became the only living member of my family courtesy of your best friends parents, Crabbe and Goyle, and my best friend was dueling your father last time I saw her and for all I know, she could be dead too!" she looked at him with a fury he had not expected to see in those lighthearted eyes. "But I saved you anyway and you know why!?" At this point he honestly had no idea, thinking that he would've left himself to die. "Because they were attacking you too, you moron. And just then, two minutes ago, they were attacking you again. When my friends are abandoning me to die, and my fellow deatheaters have no reservations about killing me while I'm unconscious… well, I don't know about you, but that's when I start to consider changing sides." That shut him up. They ran for several moments with just the sounds of their footsteps and their loved ones dying in the distance.

"You need to rest," he said, through the shock of being addressed like a normal person. She nodded, panting, and made a sharp turn into the empty transfiguration classroom. When Draco closed the door, she muttered "colloportus," and then, as an afterthought, cast a shield charm just incase.

"So what's it gonna be," she said faintly after a minute or two of silence. She looked at him gravely from her seat on the opposite side of the room and refused to break eye contact.

When he continued to show no emotion and give no reply, she got frustrated. "You're such a wimp. You know, when I was little I used to idolize you. I always wished I could be like you and make my family proud. And I had a ridiculous crush on you. You know what you said to me when I tried to talk to you? You called me a blood-traitor. You said I had disgrace my slytherin family by being placed in hufflepuff. I was 12! All I wanted was a friend! To the slytherins, even my sister, I was the little blood-traitor! To the hufflepuffs I was the voldemort supporter that didn't fit in with them because that's how my family raised me! To everyone else I was the naïve, carefree, dumb, annoying girl who nobody cared about enough to like or hate. I'm practically in the same situation as you as far as my family. They were on their side too and now I'm an orphan. My only friend in the world might be dead. They don't give a damn about you and I thought you might actually get that. They will kill you! I've always thought you could change; Maybe be a good person. But after all the times I tried to talk to you because I wanted to be a slytherin or even just have a friend, you just treated me like dirt. What pisses me off the most is that, even after all the hell you put me through, you don't even have the common decency to remember my name. To you I'm just a girl who you vaguely recognize but don't care about at all. I'm fed up with you being such a wimp and it's about time you had the courage to stand up for something. Anything! Just make a choice now. It's your chance to redeem yourself for how awful you've been you whole life. Are you with me or against me!?"

By this point she had risen and was holding out her right hand to him, while her wand was positioned for attack in her left. He looked her in the eye and took her hand. She smiled brilliantly, as though, in that moment, he had already made up for the evils of himself and his family combined. It made him feel good.

"I can't fight without a wand…" he said.

"And I can't walk with my leg like this," she replied. "Here!" she jumped onto his back with surprising strength. He staggered a bit, but caught her and steadied himself. "Now we can fight!" He laughed a bit in spite of himself. As they walked toward the battle, she said, "It's Astoria, by the way."

"Hm?"

"It's my name. Astoria Greengrass."

"Nice to meet you."

With that, they ran off together into the fight that would determine the future of the world.

(A/N So that was my quick DM/AG fic. It was fun to write :) I always picture her with a carefree, cheery personality, but that's hard to convey in a story that's in the middle of a war. I think even her little jokes are over the top in this setting, but whatevs… thanks for reading PLZ REVIEEEEEWWWWW!!!!!!!!! I love people who review! They make me so haaaaappppppppppyyyyyy!!!!!!!!)

Ok, I finished this months ago, but it came to my attention that people were wondering why Astoria would be so carefree and joking and such when her parents had just died. The answer is that by "recently," I meant a few weeks or months ago, not just then. Also, her nature is just sort of to be optimistic and cheerful to get through hard times like, for instance, this battle, so that would also contribute to people thinking she was to carefree and stupid. Hope that clears things up. :)