Chapter Twenty: Heartache

He was insane.

She supposed she had always known, but she had passed it off as cleverness combined with his obsession with her. But at some point it had snapped, becoming so much darker than she had ever believed it to be. Believed being the key word, because she had known. It was one of the things that she continually denied to herself.

There was a long silence as they stood there on the roof, the wind whipping around them.

Then Draco said quietly, "She's not yours, Theodore. She's free to do as she wishes."

"I know," said Nott. "But she is still mine. Always mine. Forever mine." The olive-green sought her, found her. There was excitement in those eyes, a greedy, childish excitement.

"You can't decide that for her," said Draco.

"Oh, but I'm not," said Nott. He grinned. "She will choose me, in the end. My Astoria."

That was what broke the horrible stupor. Story whipped out her wand.

"You have no right to come here," she said. "I will never choose you, Nott. Never."

"Daphne's dead."

For a moment she couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't think. Then she snarled, "Prove it."

"I killed her myself," said Nott. He was still smiling. "Useless bitch, if she's not strong enough to bear my children."

"That's not proof. Damn you." Story squeezed her eyes shut and thought of Draco, the last good thing in this world, and sent a silver mouse out and away across the woods of Wiltshire.

"They will be too late," said Nott. "I probably ought not to have let you send that, though. Expelliar-"

"Protego!" she screamed, flinging her wand arm outwards in a spell that bounced the Disarming Spell almost directly back at him. He dodged it easily, then sent several spells flicking towards her and Draco.

"Magen!"

Nott's spells halted where they were, then faded to nothing. Draco's wand was still outstretched. His face was fierce.

Nott's became carefully blank. "Hebrew," he said thoughtfully. "A nice touch. I suppose your wand wasn't up your ass the whole time you were in Europe. God knows it was when we were in school."

"I'm not the one who has to resort to murder to get a girl's attention," shot back Draco.

"Stop it," said Story. "Both of you."

Draco stared at her. Nott took the opportunity to cast another spell, the incantation lost to the wind. Story shot an Impediment Jinx at Nott as both she and Draco dove out of the way in opposite directions. They stood in a triangle on the roof. The most twisted love triangle she knew.

"Look," said Nott, looking at her, and he held up his free hand. She choked at the sight of it, dripping in blood that was not his. "This is your sister's blood- your blood. Blood that will flow in the veins of our children, paired with mine. Blood mixed with blood."

She sat down.

Draco darted forwards to help her but Nott cast a series of spells between them that formed some sort of barrier. Then he walked towards her, his face shining, that horrible bloody hand stretched towards her.

"Come," he said, his face arranged in a beatific smile. "We have waited long enough."

He was going to touch her. If he touched her she would die. She absolutely knew it. And yet she could do nothing, not trapped by a spell as Draco was, but by her own frozen horror that Daphne was- Daphne was-

-that Daphne was gone, supplied her mind.

The hand was so close now.

She pointed her wand at herself and whispered, "Garsenus."

She fell through the roof and down into the attic of Malfoy Manor. As she hit the floor she regained a tiny bit of control for just a moment, and with that control shoved Daphne to the back of her mind. Draco could take care of himself for a few moments, but Nott would grow impatient with her absence soon. She had to get Draco away, where he would be safe. She had to bring down Nott, by herself. If she didn't, he would hurt other people, people she loved.

She tiptoed quietly around the attic for a few seconds, making herself solid once more so that her feet wouldn't sink through the floorboards. Then she estimated where Draco would be, moved one foot to the left, and jumped back through the roof.

She had guess correctly. Both men jumped, wands facing each other.

"Love, I thought you had died for a moment," murmured Draco.

"Let's not talk about dying, please," she said crisply, and for one moment a thought of a girl with golden-brown hair, in a white gown, laughing in jubilation, filled her eyes. She stomped resolutely on the thought.

"I'll make you a deal," she spat at Nott.

His head cocked sideways. "Interesting. I've always been fond of a gamble. And your wager is?"

"We duel," she said. "Me versus you. Draco doesn't get involved."

"Love-" began Draco.

She stepped on his foot, just hard enough to silence him, her eyes fixed on Nott but not looking at his eyes. "We duel. If I win- well, there won't be a lot of you left, if I win."

She could feel Draco's gentle grip on her arm tighten.

"And if I win?" said Nott eagerly.

She closed her eyes. She had to do it. She would do it, if it came down to it.

"I will go with you."

"No!" shouted Draco, and he spun her around and practically crushed her in his arms. "No! I forbid you. I absolutely forbid you."

"I have to," she told him quietly, so that Nott wouldn't hear. "If I don't go, then all that's left of you and your parents probably won't even be enough to fit in a ceramic jar, let alone a coffin." She tried to smile at him, but failed miserably. "Remember when we went down to see the crypt? I loved it there, even though it was cold. I saw your grandmother was buried with your grandfather, and I looked down two spaces where your name was, and I thought of me being buried with you."

His arms tightened around her. "And you will be," he promised. "There's a ring on your finger that says so."

She glanced down at it, then slid it off and gave it to him. He stared at her.

"Some other woman's dust will mingle with yours, in the years to come," she said softly. "I've got practically no hope against Nott. He's two years older and knows Dark magic."

"So do I," said Draco fiercely. "Let me fight him."

She shook her head. "He won't be aiming to kill, with me," she said. "That gives me an edge."

He released her suddenly. The grey eyes did not cry. They gazed at her steadily. But there was something broken in them, something that she was not sure was not reflected back in her own eyes.

"I love you more than anything else in the world, Story," he said softly, so that Nott would not hear her name. "You are day and night."

"I try," she said. "It's not enough, though. I'll just be this sunset." She gestured out at the sky, which flamed red and orange and golden and pink under the blue-tinged clouds.

He didn't look at it. His eyes were still fixed on her. And then, slowly, a defeated look appeared on his face, and he took one step forwards and kissed her forehead gently.

That was good-bye, she knew, in case she did not survive, or in case she were to go with Nott, when all was said and done.

She turned. Nott was gazing at them, with fury and pain and desire in his face. She raised her wand, waiting.

"Damn you," spat Nott suddenly, and Story saw that he was looking past her at Draco. She turned to see.

He had pushed up the right sleeve, his wand arm, and pressed his wand hard into the black mark that lay there. It burned scarlet.

She turned back to look at Nott. He was rubbing his arm in the same place, but then, without warning, he flicked his wand, and a rope of fire snaked from the end, meaning to wrap around her. She countered it with ice, then sent shards of crystal, like daggers at him. He threw up a Shield Charm. She blasted him with sand and metal, hoping to erode the shield. It didn't work, so she pulled all the sand back into one force, then struck in the very center of the shield. It shattered, and Nott fell, rolling. He nearly rolled off the edge of the roof but stopped just in time, scrambling to his feet and facing her once more, a gleeful smile on his face.

Furnunculus. She cast the spell and he blocked it. Langlock. Densaugeo. Incarcerous. Levicorpus. Incendio. Locomotor Wibbly. Petrificus Totalus.

Spell after spell. He blocked them all, laughing.

"Umiradth!"

The spell roared past her and hit Nott squarely. He barely blocked it in time, staggering.

"I told you to stay out of it!" she screamed at Draco.

"Like hell I'll stand here and watch him laugh at you!" he shouted, flinging more spells at Nott. "You said yes, love! We do this together or not at all!"

She stared at him for a moment, her wand falling limply to her side. Draco stopped casting spells, too, turning to look at her. And even Nott hesitated, his maniacal laughter fading into the windy rooftop silence.

And like that she realized that he was right. You loved someone, and you let them share your burdens and you shared theirs. She had already been worrying about him, while he's been in Europe, and that burden of his she had been shouldering for a long time. She had wanted to help him since Hogwarts- had been hurting for him, aching for him to be happy, since she was a little girl.

Sometimes being alone was hard, because you had to carry yourself and everyone who came by and added more. Draco had been one of the first people to want to help her lighten her own load. She could not say no to that.

"Bombarda!"

Nott's spell blasted them both apart and took a lot of the roof with them.. Draco was flung backwards and slid off the roof.

"DRACO!"

The cry that tore from her lips was less than human, but the wind had been knocked from her lungs. She lay lower than she had remembered, gasping for air long after she could breathe, as the roof crumbled into the attics.

And then a shadow loomed over her.

"You're mine," it crooned. Unfamiliar hands crept under her back and scooped her up. Her neck swung back like a rag doll, her wand loose in her hands. "Mine, mine, mine. How pretty you'll be in my house, how pretty our children, how perfect we shall be, how perfect we always have been."

For a moment she gave up.

Then she could see the shadow getting closer to her face, and all she could think was that he must not kiss her, if he kissed her she would die-

She clenched her wand and slammed it into his chest so hard that the tip began to splinter. She could see the pale green line of dragon heartstring, beginning to unravel in the soft air.

He gasped for breath, his hand coming up blindly to paw at his chest, dropping her. She rolled away and scrambled to her feet. She could feel blood running down her face. The tip of her wand was bloody, and his shirt was stained with the blood where she had pierced him.

"That's vampires you kill by staking them, Astoria," he said mockingly.

She brought her wand straight up to point at his face before he could speak.

"Drop your wand, you filthy son of a bitch."

Her voice was steady. There was something whole about it, something reassuring. She ought to have been breaking and crying, because Daphne was dead and she didn't know if Draco had fallen to his death or if he was still alive and Nott had almost won for a moment there. But she was steady, and she was calm and cool and there was something in her that had detached the rest of her from what she was about to do.

He stared at her, his face still amused. "Come, Astoria. I've won. Surely you can't still be fighting."

"I will always fight," she said levelly.

"He fell off the roof," said Nott, cracking the insane smile once more. "His bones will rot on the grounds where he played as a child. He will be cold and still, and he will lay there and his parents will mourn him, but not you, because you will grace my bed tonight."

"Not this night, nor any other," she said quietly. "You've never learned how to say no to yourself, Theodore. Self-denial's never been your strong suit."

"And it has been yours?" he sneered.

"I've been in love with one man for ten years," said Story. "And I can assure you that that man was not yourself."

He froze. "Hogwarts..."

"The Yule Ball," she said. "He saved me. You and your empty words, you did nothing. He chose to act."

"But this is a schoolgirl fantasy!" he laughed. "You've learned to give up childish dreams, Astoria. Give them up now. They are a broken body in the gardens where I watched you walk."

"I'm not the one with the schoolgirl fantasy," said Story. "You're the one who kept a picture of me on your bedside table for seven years."

"I must worship at your shrine," he breathed, his eyes growing wider. "Let me take you home, Astoria. You are mine."

He raised his wand.

That detached part of herself uttered two words she thought she would never say in her entire life. It was as though she heard herself say it, with no emotion, not even loudly enough to be heard by someone ten feet away.

"Avada Kedavra."

Theodore Nott dropped his wand, his face surprised and still maniacal as he fell backwards and hit the attic floor with a dull noise.

She turned away from the corpse and looked around the wrecked attic, open to the now-night sky. It was shadowy, and the stars were beginning to emerge.

She jumped into the air and grabbed a beam, then pulled herself up onto the roof.

"Draco," someone said. She didn't look around for the voice. It might have been hers. She might have been crying. Or screaming. She didn't know.

He was not on the roof. Most of the roof had fallen into the attic, as it was.

"Astoria!"

She jumped.

People were climbing onto the roof, running towards her. She couldn't see anybody distinctly through the thickness of tears before her eyes. Neither did she want to.

A pounding ache was forming in her gut. Someone seized her around the shoulders, trying to help her, but she pulled from their grasp and knelt, then retched onto the surface before her.

"Oh, God. God. Astoria."

They were all wrong. None of them were calling her by the right name. She couldn't see, couldn't hear. The pain in her gut stayed, even though her stomach was empty. And then it seemed to spread to her chest, and it was like being blasted with that spell again, over and over, the Blasting Curse, because she couldn't breathe with that punch to the lungs, to the left lung, but not quite to the left, more in the center- but still leftward. And somewhere there there was a hole, a deep, raw hole, and she was alone, all alone, just as all had been right it had gone wrong.

She never should have let herself love him in the first place. If she hadn't done that maybe this wouldn't hurt so badly.

His voice echoed in her mind. We live in the real world, where villains don't always get what they deserve in the end, where heroes die, and princesses cry.

She knew now why they called it heartache.

"Shhh, shhh, you're all right. You're fine, Astoria. Come on."

She let the gentler of the hands lead her. She didn't think it was her mother, but it was her mother, at the same time. Or at least, there was something motherly about them.

"Draco," she sobbed. "Oh, my God. Draco."

"Where is he? Can you help us find him? We have people looking, but nobody's found him."

"The bastard killed him," she whispered. "Nott. Draco fell."

There was a pause, and then the voice said, "We don't know whether that's confirmed or not, Astoria. Be patient. We will find him, if he fell."

"Oh, God. Oh, my God."

"Shhh."

She had to climb down the ladder by herself. She had forgotten she was wearing a skirt. The heels had been abandoned somewhere in the battle. Her feet were sore and bruised and full of splinters from having a roof crash under her. She was bruised all over. She knew she was bleeding.

And then she was inside, the arms still guiding her.

"Sit here," said the voice.

And then someone else burst into the room. "They found Malfoy!"

"Oh, God," said the first voice, and Story leaped at the second person.

"Tell me! Where is he? Where is he?"

"He's outside, come on!"

She ran down the stairs past them. Someone yelled for her to stop, she'd break her neck on the damned marble stairs, but she didn't care. All she could think of was him.

And then she was outside, and she wiped her eyes to see clearly so she could look, and yes, there was a group of people gathered around something by the bushes.

"Draco!" she screamed.

"Miss, you can't come near, we're doing a medical examination-"

"Get out of my way or I'll hex you!" she shrieked. "That is my fiance and you will let me the hell through!"

They parted. She knelt by his side.

He lay still, unconscious. There were cuts and scrapes on his face. His eyes were closed, his mouth open. There was no sign of breath.

She lifted his head gently and cradled it in her lap. "Draco. My darling. Please, please..." She bent over him and kissed his forehead.

There were embarrassed murmurs around her, of the uncomfortable medics.

"Oh, my God." There was the voice. She recognized it now as Narcissa. And the second person was Lucius, stumbling over after her with his cane.

"My boy, please wake," said Narcissa. She was weeping. "Please."

Lucius said nothing. He just gripped Draco's hand.

Story closed her eyes and breathed slowly. He wasn't moving. Then, ever so gently, she leaned forwards and kissed him on the lips, softer than any time they had ever kissed before. This one was her good-bye now. He had gotten his out to her. She was glad.

But then there was warmth, as she kissed him, and then she knew he was alive, because suddenly hands seized around her face, holding her in place, locking her there.

She opened her eyes and pulled away. His eyes, tired, wary, wanting, found hers. Silver gray ice.

"You are the most wonderful person in the world," he said, and his voice was a tired, coarse cough.

She burst into tears all over again. "Oh, my God. Draco."

"Story, my love, have I mentioned I love it every time you speak? Your voice sounds like someone singing, but without a song to sing," he said. "Like an angel without a chorus."

The aching hole in her heart vanished, like that. She could still feel the seams around the edges, but they would fade a little in time. Never completely, but mostly.

"Did you get him?" he whispered.

"Who?"

"That filthy son-of-a-bitch bastard who wanted to kill me."

"He killed Daphne," said Story quietly, and then that thought, in the back of her mind, returned forwards.

"He could have been lying."

"He wasn't," said Story. "If there's anything he never did, it was break a promise. He didn't attack her until something happened that made him believe she was sort of breaking a promise."

"And that was?"

"Not being able to have children," she said quietly.

He stared at her, then smiled tiredly. "Still, love, you killed him, and now he will never hurt anybody ever again."

She shook her head. "It will still be there, though. He will always have killed Eogan and Daphne."

"'I held it truth, with him who sings to one clear harp in divers tones, that men may rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things,'"he whispered, his eyes beginning to close.

"Stay with me," she pleaded.

"I will always stay with you. I just have to sleep," he answered.

"What was that thing you said?"

"Tennyson," said Draco. His eyes were fluttering closed. "Smart fellow, Tennyson... funny Squib, like a lot of the poets and musicians. But he could... write..." And then his eyes closed, and he was breathing deeply.

She let the healers take over, healing his injuries. She wandered away, over to the steps.

A limping step joined her, and Lucius settled on the marble next to her with a groan. "I'm rather old to be sitting here," he said.

"You don't need to," she said softly. "I wrecked your house just now."

"The house is replaceable," he replied. "My son is not. May I heal your injuries?"

"If you want to."

He raised his wand and tapped places on her forehead and face and neck, then waved his wand up and down her torso. She could feel bruises fading, cuts sealing, and one strained rib popping into place with a painful jerk.

"Sorry," he apologized. "It's been a long while since this wand healed."

She nodded. They sat there in silence for a moment, and then he said, "I never really wanted a daughter. We Malfoys have borne sons, usually only children, for long ages now. I was an only child. Draco is an only child. Someday he may have a son, or a daughter, or both, or more than that. I don't know. What I do know- what I'm trying to say, I suppose, is that your company has become more than that of a friend. I've seen you with my son. I raised him, Narcissa and I. You may not think that he loves you, but rest assured that he does. I've never seen him so tender with anyone before. And you've become like a daughter to Narcissa and I. So whatever happens..."

"He proposed, before Nott came," said Story, understanding. "I said yes. I still say yes. So you are my fiance's father."

"Good," said Lucius. "It's about time I had a grandson to distract myself with. Or a grandaughter," he added hastily.

"Either is fine by me," said Story. "Daphne couldn't have children, though. What if I can't have children, either?"

"I don't care," he said. "Let it not be said that I'm going to curse you and all of your family if you don't have children. You care about my son, and that is enough."

She sat closer to him and leaned her head on his shoulder. It was something she did with Virgil sometimes, when she was younger. She felt Lucius stiffen, but then he relaxed.

It was over, finally over, the nightmares and pain that had plagued her for sixteen months. She was freer than she had ever been. But it was at the cost of two lives, and she would not forget that.

It was a perfect morning at the end of November. Story had turned twenty-one four days before. She didn't have a party or anything. It was still too soon, too awful, for a party.

They had found Daphne in her home. She had not been brutally killed, as Eogan had, as Draco probably would have been. She lay quietly, as though sleeping, a pale peace to her in death. They had also found Mrs. Nott, also dead. She had been sprawled at the bottom of the stairs, broken but not bleeding.

"She tried to stop him," said Draco. "I guess there's one good thing about her."

"She liked Daphne," said Story. "I can't hate her anymore."

They walked through the graveyard. It was one of many near Oxford, surprisingly sunny for November, with warm sun shining down and a brisk breeze. She wore a long coat over a sweater dress, tights, and boots. Draco wore his usual, all in black and somewhat Victorian. They held hands.

There were three graves, but only two were important. Mrs. Nott had her grave, added underneath that of her husband's. She had been cremated, as had all Death Eater-affiliated persons, to prevent the use of their corpses for Inferi. This had been a newer decree. Draco told her in private that the Malfoys were now exempt from this, and that his parents' house arrest had been lifted, for the most part.

The second grave read Sacred to the memory of Daphne Octavia Greengrass (Nott), beloved daughter, and sister. 23 April 1980 - 19 September 2003.

Story leaned on Draco. "Do you think that she's happier now?" she asked him.

"Yeah," he said companionably. "Because life sucks, and then you die."

"Don't."

"I'm sorry, that was horrible," he said. "I just- the rat bastard's burnt and buried in there with her. I know he's not marked on the grave, which from your parents is probably the worst insult devisable, but it makes me think they're together, in heaven or wherever it is you go when you die."

Story shook her head. "They aren't together," she said simply. "They don't belong together. I think Daphne is with Eogan."

They looked over at the grave next to Daphne's. Sacred to the memory of Eogan Conley Southers, friend and son. 14 June 1982 - 21 May 2002.

"I remember thinking something odd, when he was killed," said Story. "I thought that there were three really important men in my life, and that you were like the Three Brothers. And now that Nott is dead, you really are more like the three brothers. Nott was the first brother. He didn't want love, really. He wanted power, over me, over Daph, over anybody he could bully around. Eogan was the second brother. He had his time, and then Death brought him back. He died for love- because of my love and his love. And you're the third brother. You wouldn't do either of what they did. You would have picked the Cloak and we would have hid under it forever, until we were so old that we didn't mind Death taking us, but we would go together, hand in hand."

He was staring at her, and she flushed. "Well, to be fair, I was pretty messed up in the head at the time."

"We should leave the graveyard," he said soberly, "because I know I want to kiss you until we're both dizzy, but it might be considered rather inappropriate for us to start making out over the graves of your sister and former boyfriend. I simply cannot get over the fact that your mind is this brilliant beautiful thing that makes these connections and is unafraid enough of itself to say them out loud. And that brilliant, beautiful brain is encased in a rather stunning vessel."

"And in two weeks you get to keep that vessel and brain for the rest of our natural lives and beyond."

"I, Draco Malfoy, a married man. If you'd told me that five years ago, I would have laughed."

"I, Story Greengrass, a married woman, and married to Draco Malfoy at that. I would have screamed and cried and gone wildly crazy, dancing around Hogwarts with utter joy and abandon."

"And now I'd like to see you do those things, too, but again, we should probably not be in a graveyard for it."

Story smiled at Draco. She pulled her wand from her pocket and conjured two wreaths of flowers. Daphne had laurels, and Eogan had lilies. Then she took Draco's offered arm and they left the graveyard.