This is an Astoria character study! Because we don't get much (technically we get nothing) about her in the books, I had to do something to get a handle on her character as I was writing it for this fic. So, this is a first-person narrative account detailing her perspective on events mentioned in Chapters 18-20.

I didn't even know what love was. Sure, I'd read the books, seen the couples at the park and by the beach, in the halls, but they don't tell you anything valuable.

I saw him in the shop that day, and Father told me it was love, that swooping feeling in my chest, that fluttering. Of course, he said this only after the boy- man, really- told me his name and I relayed the information back. Before then he just scowled in displeasure as I talked.

Father knows best, so it had to be love... didn't it? Why would he lie? Later, I'd realize that "lying" and "exaggerating" are entirely different things, and the latter doesn't bother your conscience nearly as much.

So, when you loved someone, you married them. That's what the books say, anyway. And what Father said, and who was I to question? I'm just a young girl, eighteen, fresh out of school, and he was my father. So I got married.

He cried during the ceremony. Draco did, I mean, not my father. Father doesn't believe in crying. But Draco had a steady stream of tears pouring out of his eyes, eyes that were dull and grey, not the flashing, dancing silver of happiness I'd been so enthralled by in the shop. There was less light, somehow.

I wondered if perhaps he didn't love me like I loved him. Maybe there was someone else? But he wouldn't marry me if that was the case. You married the one you loved... right?

I thought, briefly, that maybe he did love someone else, some other girl, but then he turned to me and smiled, and his eyes were the glowing, swirling silver of that first day, not the dull dead grey. It was a beautiful smile, light and happy.

I saw it again years later, when he looked at our son, a tiny baby wrapped in soft blue sheets. That beautific smile, and a flash of that old spark. Scorpius would heal him, Scorpius would make him happy. I may not have known what love was, yet, but I could recognize happiness, and my husband didn't have it.

Why was he unhappy? I tried to do everything I was supposed to- laugh at his jokes, caress his cheeks, kiss his tears away. And it worked sometimes, I guess. For a while, at least. But it was odd; he disliked his birthday and Christmas and the entire month of February. And somedays I swore he hated our anniversary.

Scorpius helped, I suppose. Most days, anyway. But July 31 was never a good day, ever; he was always miserable that day, that glorious summer day. Mother warned me that some people never recover from war. She thinks Draco is one of those people. Yet I knew I saw him happy, once, two whole years after the final battle.

One day, he dropped his newspaper abruptly and stood up, rigid, and stalked from the room. "Astoria," his soft voice called, and I crossed to the den to stand by his side.

He pulled me into a hug, nice and tight. I felt his ribs shudder against mine as he silently sobbed, "I'm sorry," he whispered over and over again, stroking my long brown hair. "I'm so sorry."

So was I.