DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter or anything associated with it except for the plot of this story.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: So here goes the second part of this. I do hope you enjoy this. And, yeah, reviews will be very much appreciated *blushes*. :] And faella, thanks for the review (well... technically, it is a review) and, oh, I almost forgot. The girl in the story is not Pansy, she's actually an OC by the name Alcyone. I hope it's clear now. :]

Hopeless Cause


"First day of school," shouted a black-haired girl with gray eyes alight with joy and lips pulled at the corners to reveal pearly teeth as she descended the stairs to meet her parents and her brother.

The day had come – first of September – and the whole mansion was bathed in all the glory of the morning sun and the excitement brought about by the first day of school. There was no trace of the gloom that enveloped her spirit last night as she caught glimpse of her children, robes draped on their little shoulders and were very eager to start school.

"Please be quiet, Maia!" Hissed Cadmus as he closed his trunks, finally done with checking his things, and placed the cage where Chowder, his fat brown owl, was in above the closed truck. The hiss earned him an antic from his twin sister. Unfortunately, or rather fortunately for Cadmus, Alcyone caught the girl red-handed – tongue stuck out, fingers dug in her cheeks, distorting her face.

"Maia! A lady musn't do that," she gasped before rushing to the other side of the living room to reprimand the eleven-year old who was already twiddling the hem of her robes in fear of her mother.

"Now, now, darling let her be," a voice came from behind Alcyone, the person walked past her and proceeded to the girl before lifting Maia in the air. "I do not think reprimanding her before she leaves will be good. Remember, honey, tah tour prince and princess will be away for quite a while," he said as he put down his daughter and embraced his son.

The whole room was carefully wrapped in a sentimental bleakness that was, however, but short by a popping sound amidst the heavy silence.

"Tross is very sorry for interrupting, Master buts the carriage are readies, Master," Tross squeaked with his high-pitched voice as the four turned their eyes on the pillow-case clad elf with ears flattened in fear of his mater's fury.

As as for his answer, the house elf received a nod from his master's blonde head and a heavily-constrained, "very well."

"Now, remember to owl us every once in a while. And Cadmus, my son, remember to take care of Maia. Ad for you little lady, make sure he has his fun, alright?" she reminded as she kneeled to their level.

Alcyone's voice rang with much love and concern but her heart was bursting with anxiety with the reason aside from her childrens' welfare and her heart was almost ready to break free from her body due to her worry. And for this, she was very ashamed of herself.

Last night, as she lay locked in Theo's arms, she made a promise to let go of him and of her unrequited love for him but her she was anxiously waiting for him instead of making her children feel they were loved. She ought to be ashamed of herself, really. For almost fourteen years, she loved a man who was not her husband.

Alcyone was swallowed up by her anxiety that she was only dimly aware of what was happening around her. But when one name fell from her husband's lips, she was abruptly brown back to the harsh reality that had been waiting for her.

"Draco Malfor."

Alcyone froze.

For what seemed to her an eternity, she remained glues to her spot, still and unmoving, very much like a statue carved out from the most precious marble. However, her mind was racing and her heart was pounding incessantly.

She stood up quickly but gracefully still as thought trying to fit a dance in the simplest of actions but before she could think of anything else to do, her eyes swept upwards from his spotless shoes, robes, shoulder-length platinum hair, pointed chin, lips curled in a small smile, sharp nose, until her eyes came to a top and stayed fixated at his eyes- anxious gray ones met unfazed, warm and gray eyes.

"A pleasure, Theodore Nott and dear Alcyone," his said with a rich baritone, it reached Alcyone and his voice rang in her ears a lot longer than what was polite and necessary.

"We feel the same way, Draco," Theodore replied with a small smile of his own, " and of course, Astoria, and little Scorpius, we are very pleased to meet you."

To this, Alcyone forced a smile on her lips before gesturing to her young ones, "this is Maia," she started as she rested her hand on the girl's shoulder. "And this is Cadmus," she added, resting her other hand on the boy's mop of black hair.

For the past few minutes, Alcyone had desperately kept her eyes on anything and anyone but the three (after she stared at Draco) knowing full well that all too familiar but unwelcome emotions would engulf her the moment she lay eyes on the. And whatever sense of control she had had over her emotions would be totally lost. However, when a few words escaped Astoria's – Astoria Malfoy's, she reminded herself – lips, she knew she had too look up and see her – the woman who meant his world. She would have to look at Astoria – the lucky girl who had won her love's heart.

Blithe smile, lithe limb

She who's winsome, she wins him

Gold hair with the gentle curl

That's the girl he chose

And heaver knows,

I'm not that girl…

A great surge of bitterness came upon her ash she drowned Astoria with her stormy gray gaze. Her heart that was so erratically beating moments before seemed to have died, even after her gaze was lifted to the train boarded by hundreds of students, its steam slowly leaving the train just like how hope had deserted her but a few seconds previously.

Now that she had seen her, his wife, she was all too convinced that the yearning she had in her heart and in the deepest abysses of her mind was indeed hopeless.

Alcyone's spirit was shattered – almost beyond repair – but she had known long before that this was how it would be. In the end, after everything Draco and she had been through, she was just a friend, and that was all she would ever be to him. And Alcyone knew there was nothing that could change fate and make her the one fated to melt the ice around his heart.

Don't wish, don't start

Wishing only wounds the heart

I wasn't born for the rose and the pearl

There's a girl I know, he loves her so

I'm not that girl…

Distantly, the train whistled and everyone including Scorpius, Cadmus and Maia boarded the train bound to Horgwarts after bidding their parents goodbye and Draco and his wife walked away to proceed to their normal lives.

Tears filled her vision as Draco turned his back to her as though it would be the final time they would ever see each other. It was as if he was calling for a closure that would hopefully spell an end to the bitterness slowly eating away at her from the inside. That was the closure for the deep friendship they had shared – the deep friendship that blinded Alcyone into thinking that it was something more than what it really was.

A soft hand went to touch her cheek and wipe the tears that fell from her gray eyes. She lifted her then lowered head to look at Theodore's smiling face. He had always been there for her; he had always loved her and for this Alcyone treasured him so much. But she had not loved him, no, not really, for she only saw Draco. Now though, she had started to see someone else – someone who loved her when she couldn't even love herself, someone who held her together when all she knew how was to break apart, someone who lived for her and because of her when she was blinded by somebody else.

With this in mind, she brought her lips to her husband's mouth and kissed him with passion and tenderness keeping in mind the closure that she had shared with the man she loved of her life.

He was a hopeless cause. She had been a hopeless cause. But the life waiting for Theodore, Alcyone and their children was nothing remotely close to hopeless. And she would make sure of it.

Draco, I'm not that girl…

AUTHOR'S NOTE: It's done! :]