He blinked slowly and watched as she conjured a glass of water and drank from it, still looking slightly miffed at the tea.

"Honestly, I have no idea how you can live with an Elf that makes tea like that," she added, still not looking at him.

It must be morning. Though that still didn't explain why she was sitting comfortably on the carpet, her dark green robes looking a bit more casual than the clothes he had seen her in before, leaning her head nonchalantly against the armrest of the sofa behind her.

As he shifted his head slightly to take a better, albeit slow, look at his surroundings, he felt the base of the sofa against the top of his head. He was only lying about half a foot away from Astoria and he felt strangely out of place lying sluggishly on the floor beside his barrister, who shouldn't even be there in the first place.

"It's not the same one," he said, his voice sounding raspy and slow.

If she noticed the rawness of his throat she ignored it, frowning slightly as she set the glass down beside her, her eyes still fixed on some distant point ahead. "What?"

Taking a breath seemed to require great effort. He forced the words out. "I said it's not the same one. The House-Elf. Not the one I grew up with." He took another deep breath and it felt like his lungs were being pulled violently apart. "It's only been here for a year or so."

"Oh, well, that explains it," she answered.

Too tired to look anywhere else, he examined the dark lines under her eyes, which seemed to have deepened even more as of late. She looked very much like a person who has woken up too early after not sleeping enough, though her clothing and the always impeccable waves of her hair spoke of someone who was orderly and well put together. Beyond her, he saw dark shoes on the floor, which had to belong to her. Was she barefoot? The whole situation was unsettling, but he had no energy to try and make sense of it.

He took another deep, painful breath and gathered the energy to push himself up, moving his arms upwards to hold his weight.

Agonizing pain shot through his arm and he let out a gasp of anguish as he fell heavily onto the ground again, knocking his head against the hard wood of the base of the furniture behind him. He cursed in a strained voice.

"Yeah, it's best you stay still," Astoria said sedately, turning to look at him for the first time. "You lost a lot of blood."

Breathing deeply to try and help the pain fade, he was able to glance around him and noticed the striking absence of blood and dirt on the carpet. He was vaguely aware that it should be absolutely covered with grime and the large quantities of blood with which he dimly remembered soaking the carpet.

His eyes moved to Astoria once more and he looked at her in silence, feeling slightly unsettled.

She merely stared back calmly.

"What are you doing here?" he finally asked, his words sounding slow and slurred. "I thought you weren't coming until tomorrow."

"Your mother's trial is tomorrow," Astoria said. "I need to speak to her before that."

His mother's glassy eyes as she ignored his pleads for help, the heart-shattering pain of knowing that she truly wouldn't even care if he died right in front of her... Draco banished the thought from his mind, forcing himself to take on the relaxed, careless attitude he had held regarding her silence. It's certainly more pleasant than her constant nagging.

"Yeah, good luck with that."

The words still sounded wrong, even fake, as they left his mouth.

Astoria didn't say anything in reply to his sarcasm. He felt uneasy under her sharp stare and shifted.

"What time is it?"

"Eight a.m."

Surprise dismissed his discomfort and he shot her an odd look. "That's awfully early for a business call."

Astoria looked uncomfortable and averted her gaze, nudging her bare foot into the carpet. Hesitating, she glanced at him quickly before speaking. "I... to be honest, I came for something else." She took a breath and paused before continuing. "I wanted to apologize for the way I behaved at the trial yesterday. It wasn't right, and it wasn't professional. I'm sorry."

Draco just stared at her. An odd silence fell over the room, and she held her hands folded in her lap almost awkwardly, still looking at that point ahead of her. He was overcome with a strange feeling he couldn't quite identify, and he wasn't really sure what to say in reply to her apology. He knew, after all, that she was probably quite justified in her actions and in the way she had spoken to him the day before.

An eternity seemed to pass before he broke the silence.

"Well, it could have waited until evening."

Maybe she recognized the hidden humor in his words, because she didn't look offended though she shot him a glare. Her lips had curved into a small smile that dissolved almost as quickly as it had appeared. "You're lucky I came when I did," she said quietly.

He looked away.

"Your House-Elf was going mad when I arrived," Astoria continued in the same quiet tone that wasn't as businesslike as the one she had used with him before. Her voice sounded surprisingly gentle all of a sudden, deprived of the sharp, professional ring that had characterized it during their previous interactions. He was suddenly seized with the realization that she was only eighteen years old; she had only just left Hogwarts. Glancing at her, there was suddenly something almost anxious in the way she held her hands, a rather overwhelmed look in her eyes as she spoke. "It didn't know what to do. Apparently the Manor Rules state that an Elf can't use its magic on its Master." She shot him a look. "I suggest you change that. If I hadn't arrived when I did, you would be dead by now."

Draco said nothing.

"Your mother was in bed-"

She must have noticed the startled confusion that blanched in his face abruptly, because she paused. Draco hadn't been able to control his expression. How long had he been lying unconscious on the carpet before Astoria arrived? Narcissa must left as soon as he had blacked out... she must have walked out of the room, without so much as a blink towards her only son who lay dying on the floor at her back...

Astoria couldn't possibly have read the explanation in his eyes, and he couldn't understand the expression that passed over her face. He didn't say anything, and she continued.

"The Elf led me here and thankfully I was able to fix you up and clear the mess."

She was still staring at him with that look that wasn't quite reprimanding, but that somehow made him want to explain himself.

"It was an accident," he stated. The words seemed like a ridiculous lie, and he hesitated, grappling for the correct words. "I mean- I didn't..." he sighed, staring up at the ceiling. "I didn't mean it. I didn't know the spell to heal it."

"You're lucky I did," she murmured. "As it was, I almost took you to St. Mungo's. I thought..." she pressed her lips shut and her jaw tightened before she spoke again, turning to him with a less grim expression. "I still did a pretty terrible job of it. It scarred horribly. I might have been able to find dittany to make it better, but given the circumstances..."

Given the circumstances I thought you might prefer it this way. The words hung unsaid between them. He sighed and with some pained effort managed to lift his arm up so he could inspect the damage. The movement made his flesh throbb painfully but he ignored it, forcing himself to focus on the skull and the snake, now inert and colorless, no red eyes or writhing serpent, no words, no noise, nothing... only an ugly tattoo burned onto his forearm that was now parted in half by a long, jagged white line.

Somewhere in his mind, a strange, bitter child within him found humor in the irony of his having such a prominent scar.

He stared at it for a while, trying to find the right thing to say. The obvious ones were there, but they sounded so foreign in his mind that he couldn't even begin to translate them to his lips. Instead, he calmly traced the white line and wondered if it had somehow become something of a statement.

When she spoke quietly, it simultaneously felt like she did so from miles away and as if her voice was sounding in his own head.

"It doesn't mean anything, you know. Not anymore."

He whipped his head sideways and looked at her in a sort of furious astonishment. "What?"

She wasn't leaning against the couch anymore. She had drawn her legs up to her chest and was staring at him slightly sidways as she leaned her head on her knees.

"It doesn't mean anything," she stated. "The Dark Mark."

"Don't be stupid," he said, with more vehemence than he had intended to use. "Of course it does. It means more now than it ever did; it's a bloody mark on my bloody flesh-"

"He can't control you anymore, Draco. It's just a drawing now."

"I'm a fucking Death Eater, Greengrass."

"Death Eaters don't exist anymore."

The firmness with which she spoke shocked him into silence. He stared at her in confused disbelief, and she didn't even seem shaken by the agression in his words. Her blue eyes gazed at him, wide and calm, as he struggled to find words with which to answer.

"The War's over," she continued in the same quiet, firm tone. "People everywhere have scars from it, whether it's from fighting in the Order of the Phoenix, or for the Death Eaters, or just running for their lives... Everyone did horrible things in the War, and if they're lucky they can just hide it all under a pile of victories, but they'll always remember."

Her fingers were tracing the carpet beneath them and her tone was almost furious, as if she had been holding back from giving this speech for a very long time. They surged from her in a belligerent but quiet stream.

"The truth of this trial, of all of it..." She sighed with frustration. "The Wizengamot can examine your intentions all it wants, but none if it is going to erase what you did, or what anyone did. It all happened, and if anyone wants to get through their lives in peace then they just have to accept that hating ourselves for what we did and hating others for the things they did to us is not going to help anyone. The very nature of being human means our perception of life is limited and we're going to make infinite mistakes. And that's fine." Her back straightened, and she looked at him directly now. "Screw history, screw titles and Dark Marks... nobody who lives after us will understand what the War was really like, and nobody who didn't live through what you lived is going to understand what that was like. And we can try to justify you for the trial, and embellish points, and try to make a diagram explaining your motivations and who you are... but the trial is nothing, Draco. It's nothing if you can't live with yourself once it's done.

"Voldemort is dead. The Death Eaters are dead. What's printed on your skin has no more meaning than blood status or Death Eater ranks do nowadays. It's all gone. It doesn't matter what people think; they're not the ones that have to look at it every day. What matters is the meaning you give it, and if you don't give it any, then it's nothing."

He stared at her without saying anything as she fell silent, digging her fingers into the carpet. He wanted to sit up. Desperately, he forced his body to conjure up the strength to lift itself.

As it was, he almost fell over, and his eyes were tightly shut with anguish as pain shot through his arm and the bruises Nott had left on him. Astoria's legs dropped from her chest and she moved forwards to stop him from falling as he finally set his back against the sofa, grunting with pain.

When he opened his eyes, she was staring at his face with some concern, the insistence of her previous words gone. "Something happened to your nose."

Without meaning to, he sniffed, almost having forgotten the violent punch Dennis Creevey had aimed at it that time at the Ministry. It still stung sometimes, but he had hardly noticed it.

"And you have bruises on your neck."

Maybe it hadn't been such a good idea to sit up, after all.

Astoria was looking at him with alarm, one hand still on his shoulder, steadying him. "What's been happening to you, Draco? You couldn't possibly have done that to yourself."

"You underestimate me and my self-mutilating talents," he drawled sarcastically.

She ignored him, raising an eyebrow in expectance.

Draco ground his teeth together and gave her a biting smile. "In the end it's not your intentions that people remember. It's what you actually did."

"Who did this to you?"

He leaned back against the sofa, ignoring her vexation. His body hurt too much. "Does it matter at this point?" he remarked bitterly.

"Of course it does! The Ministry won't-"

"The Ministry doesn't matter, Astoria," he snapped, his eyes closed. "You said it yourself. They can do trials and whatever the hell they want but it doesn't make people forget. People aren't going to just realize that hating me isn't helping them. In their eyes, I'm alive while the people they loved are dead, and that doesn't seem very fair to them. And it isn't, is it?" He opened his eyes and turned to look at her, eyes burning. "I should be dead."

"Nobody should be dead."

He snorted. "I told you you were naïve. What's the point of a trial, anyway? What's the point of being free, of forgiving myself or any of that, when every single person in the Wizarding World wants me dead?" And he couldn't help it; he couldn't help the faint wetness of tears rising in his eyes, though it might be slight enough for her not to see them. "What's the bloody point? I don't want to live like this.

"I don't want to win the case."

The confession escaped almost without him noticing it, but he didn't really care. He was, after all, in a highly unusual situation and after the night he had had he didn't really give a damn about what happened anymore.

"Is that why you're hiding things from me?"

He shrugged, though the movement caused him more pain and he grimaced. "I don't even know," he said tiredly. "All I know is that by the looks of it, I'm better off in Azkaban than I am in my own house."

"So you'd rather just lose... give up, spend twenty years locked up in a cell before you come back to the real world?"

"It's probably still not enough for people to forget. Lifetime imprisonment might be better."

"There's no way they'll lock you up for life; they'd have no excuse for that, even if they all hated you. And you're being ridiculous," she added. "You're running away. You still have a house, a mother-"

He laughed mirthlessly, his eyes still closed, his head thrown back onto the couch. "Oh yes, my wonderful, caring mother. She's probably better off in Azkaban too." He let out a sigh of frustration and opened his eyes, turning to her again. "But I don't know, Greengrass, okay? I don't know anything. Nothing seems like a good enough option right now. Honestly, it would be simpler for everyone if the Malfoy name just disappeared, I think. What kind of a life could I build from here? It doesn't seem like it's worth it."

She let go of his arm and turned her back to the couch once more, bringing her legs up to her chest again. Her expression was calm; she didn't look quite as chagrined about what he had said as he expected her to. Instead, her eyebrows were drawn together slightly, still mulling over what he had said.

Again, he felt oddly out of place, as if there were words he should be saying that he wasn't.

When he did speak, however, they weren't the words he expected.

"Were you in the battle?"

Astoria snapped out of her reverie. "What?"

"The battle. Of Hogwarts. At the end." The sentance was disconnected, but she understood what he meant.

A strange expression came over her face. "No," she said after a moment. "I wasn't. I got Mumblemumps halfway through the year, just before the Carrows started getting brave enough to torture students... then Mother wouldn't let me go back to school. I don't even know if that was the reason she wouldn't." She hesitated before continuing. "The truth is... I don't know what I wish would have happened. I think I'd like to think that I would have stayed to fight... but..."

She didn't have to explain it to him. He knew what she meant. During the War nobody knew who was on what side, even among the purebloods, and the idea of facing your family or your friends in battle was not one that appealed to anyone. Never pick a side was not a phrase that only Lucius Malfoy used. Especially when it came to a battle like the one at Hogwarts, which had seemed doomed to Death Eater victory.

"It's funny how simple it all seems now," Astoria murmured. "It's obvious now, what was the right choice to make. But in the moment it was so confusing."

She looked so frail, curled up where she sat, her eyes wide, her pale skin accenting the dark lines from lack of sleep. Draco curled his fingers into the carpet just as she had done before and tried to shake the feeling that he should say something to comfort her. But what could he say? What could anyone say?

The War was over.

They had done what they had done, and there was no taking it back.

"Why did you become a barrister?" he asked.

Astoria reached to her side and finished the water in the glass before she spoke. "I'm not really sure," she said wryly. "I don't think it was for some altruistic motive. My father always wanted me to take over the company for him."

"Wouldn't Daphne be the first choice?"

She grinned all of a sudden. "Have you met Daphne?"

He smirked. "Fair enough."

"As soon as I got my OWLS, Father began to put together plans of me working for him." She shrugged. "I suppose it might have been some sort of rebellious streak in me, but I don't think that was all it was. I can't work in manufacturing textiles." Astoria frowned. "And it's not like Father doesn't have associates that could do a much better job than I ever will. He has people who actually enjoy it. But no, a Greengrass must manage it. And I understand, I really do... but I simply can't see myself working in that field."

He eyed her quizzicaly. "So you went into Magical Law, because that's much more enjoyable?"

Astoria looked amused at his sarcasm. "Yeah," she said, drawing out the word. "I know it doesn't make much sense. But I do genuinely enjoy it. Especially when I believe in the cause I'm defending. And somehow, my family simply can't understand that. I spent the past three years arguing with my parents about it. I've been told so many times that I'll never be able to make it on my own; pureblood daughters simply weren't meant for a solitary flat life, darling." She wrinkled her nose with disgust. "In the end, Father seems to have accepted it, though he still seems disappointed every time we meet. But Mother..." she sighed, and then suddenly seemed to realize to whom she was speaking. With a start, she rearranged her expression, looking rather apologetic. "I'm sorry. I- I didn't mean to go on a rant like that."

"No," he answered quickly. "It's fine. I-"

Maybe he wanted to say I understand? He wasn't entirely sure, so he fell silent. But he still seems disappointed every time we meet seemed to ring in his head.

They fell into silence. Draco finally looked around properly. The logs in the fire had crumbled into grey ashes, no longer holding any flame or warmth. The curtains of the windows had been pulled open entirely, exposing the dirty glass that was still wet from the chill of the morning dew. He wondered if the open curtains were her doing; they brought an odd sort of life back into the room, though he could now see the clumps of dust where the furniture that was no longer there used to sit.

The effect was oddly soothing. For some reason it was more comforting to see the empty spaces than to keep them lurking in the shadows.

Then Astoria broke the silence suddenly, turning to him with eyes that were only barely glistening.

"I need to win this case, Draco."

He sighed and rubbed his eyes with his right hand.

Astoria was looking at him with earnest intensity, leaning over the space between them until he couldn't avoid looking at her.

"Which one?" he asked, almost involuntarily.

"Whichever."

"Win my mother's then."

She let out a short laugh of disbelief. "This isn't a negotiation, Malfoy," she exclaimed. "Merlin knows if I can win both, I will. But I need you to actually help me."

He threw his head back on the couch and rubbed his eyes again, maybe merely as an excuse to keep them closed. "What does that even mean?" he snapped. "I have helped. You've asked, I've answered. I'm sorry about the Dumbledore thing. I... I don't know. Whatever." He mentally chided himself for being so pathetic. "But what exactly do you want?"

When he opened his eyes, she was the same woman he had seen before, in the trials and in their interviews. Her gaze was piercing. "Help me win your mother's case. Come with me and help me interrogate her; maybe that'll help somehow. Tell me everything you might percieve could be useful. And stop hiding things from me."

Draco sneered. "Mother doesn't care, Greengrass. It doesn't matter if it's you, me or the damn House-Elf. She's not talking."

Maybe she caught the bitterness in his tone, because her eyes slid down to his arm before snapping back to his face.

"It's worth a try anyway."

"You're desperate."

"Of course I am," she hissed. "Maybe you don't care about what happens to you, but I've invested way too much in these cases to see them crash because you're not sure of what you want in life."

They held each others' gaze for a long moment, his grey against her blue. He wondered if his eyes looked as tired as hers did; they certainly couldn't look as fierce as hers did.

"Fine," he muttered finally.

Astoria seemed to sigh and fell back into the position she had been in before. She didn't look as relieved as he had, subconsciously, hoped she would. Instead, she eyed him with something akin to reproach. The barrister thawed slightly and gave way to the young woman.

"You can't hide their name forever, Draco."

She was looking at his neck and arms. He couldn't bring himself to be angry at her.

"I won't pick sides," he replied wearily, but with finality, his father's words still echoing in his head.

Again, silence fell between them, and in the distance, somewhere out in the fields of Wiltshire, a rooster crowed. The particles of dust in the room floated leisurely in midair, reflecting the sunlight from the dirty windows, and he felt oddly as if he were viewing the room through a filter.

It was a strange morning.

When he looked back at Astoria, he saw that she was leaning sideways against the couch now, her body facing his, legs slightly bent beneath her. The position looked terribly uncomfortable, but she was relaxed, her blue eyes flitting leisurely over the carpet. He had never realized how small she was compared to him.

"I'm sure she's awake by now," he said, rather halfheartedly.

"It's still early," Astoria said in a low voice, closing her eyes tiredly. "Do you mind if we wait a bit?"

He didn't answer, but leaned back against the couch and closed his eyes as well.

A/N: I've been waiting to write this chapter since... I don't know... since I started the story. So it's such a relief to have it written!

I might take about a month, probably a bit more, to post Chapter 11. I'll be participating in the Narnia Fic Exchange, so I'll be working full time on that for a while. But once that's over I promise I'll be back! There are so many more exciting things that are yet to happen...

Thank you all so much for your wonderful reviews; they've made me so happy, you have no idea. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and please review!