Chapter 16

In his eagerness to show gratitude, Draco had neglected one rather important detail involving his plan of inviting Astoria for dinner. He had no idea how to cook.

"Dibly!" he called out in despair, hoping that his recent change of address hadn't resulted in losing the elf's obedience.

To his relief, the house-elf appeared mere seconds later with a loud plop, smiling broadly at her master. "Young Master Malfoy!" she exclaimed happily. "Dibly is so glad to see Master looking well! Master's parents have been very worried!"

Draco wasn't entirely sure whether he was happy to see the elf's relief or annoyed that his parents still seemed anxious about his current state of mind. Whatever it was, he was glad that Dibly still listened to him because he desperately needed her help right now. But first, there was something else he needed to take care of.

He walked over to the kitchen counter and retrieved a little parcel that he had placed right next to Astoria's plant and then proceeded to approach Dibly with it.

"I just want to make it clear that this isn't clothes, okay? You're not being set free, but I thought I'd give you something nice. You saved my life, after all. Twice," Draco said and handed the package over to the flabbergasted, reluctant elf.

Dibly stared at him, wide-eyed and her mouth agape, unable to say anything. Draco noticed a couple of tears forming in her eyes, but before she had a chance to start crying in earnest, he decided to go on.

"Also, I kind of need your help. Again," Draco admitted. "I invited Astoria Greengrass over for dinner and, well, I can't really cook. Can you make us something nice?"

The elf's eyes grew even wider at the mention of the name. "Of course, Master Malfoy! Dibly can help! Dibly can cook whatever Master wants!" she answered excitedly and instantly shuffled towards the kitchen. Once she had arrived at the stove, however, Dibly stopped and glanced at Draco. "Ms Greengrass is very nice. She was kind to Dibly when she brought Master Malfoy to the hospital."

Draco smiled. "Yeah, that sounds like her."

Astoria had chosen a dark green dress for the occasion and Draco thought the Slytherin colours suited her better than anything else as she stood in his flat, looking around as if she had expected it to have changed since the previous day, but obviously couldn't find anything new other than the table and chairs he had added.

"I'm glad you could come," Draco said with a smile.

There was a hint of suspicion in Astoria's glance even though she smiled back at him. "Well, your manners have improved somewhat. And you added appropriate furniture. Very nice."

Draco rolled his eyes. "I also made dinner which is going to get cold, so," he replied and gestured towards the table that was already set, the table that Dibly had set before Disapparating back home.

Astoria stepped closer, but the suspicious expression never lifted even as she stepped closer to the served meal. Then, she spun around and smiled at him. "And will your house-elf come back to do the dishes, too, or is that something you can actually take care of by yourself?"

In response, Draco opened his mouth to deny it, but seeing the look of amusement on Astoria's face and realising the fact that she had caught him, he couldn't actually find a suitable excuse. He had merely tried to do something nice and he had failed horribly at even such a simple task.

"I'm a menace in the kitchen, too," Astoria admitted with a shrug. "And we don't even have a house-elf. My mother does the cooking, my father helps, occasionally. But whenever she tried to teach me, I almost set the stove on fire."

Draco granted her a sheepish smile in return. "I mean, I was going to cook, but then I realised it would probably not be much of a thank you if I did. So I asked Dibly for help. The elf likes you, by the way, so I'm fairly sure she did her best with the food."

"Good to know. Shall we eat, then?"

The food was excellent and for a moment, Draco thought the gift he had given to Dibly hadn't nearly been enough, because the meal was by far the best his house-elf had ever served. He wasn't entirely sure whether it just tasted better in freedom and good company, or whether Dibly had really made a special effort in preparing it. Over dinner, they talked about anything and everything. It felt strange, getting to know each other after deciding to have a go at being friends and not the other way around, but Astoria made it a little easier. Eventually, the meal was finished and they retreated back to the pillows on the carpet in front of a fireplace that now held a blazing fire.

"Snape never liked me," Astoria admitted, continuing their reminiscences about Hogwarts. "I set fire to my friend's cauldron during the very first week."

"What?!" Draco asked, laughing. "How in Merlin's name did you manage that? The first-year potions are harmless."

She huffed. "They are, unless you are as bad at potions as you are at cooking. I have no idea what I did, but nothing could put out the fire. Snape had to resort to some seriously complicated magic."

"That's almost impressive. Impressively bad."

"I got the hang of basic potion-making when I started my training as a healer, but I wouldn't trust me anywhere near something complicated."

Draco leaned back and tried to picture a young Astoria setting the dungeons on fire. It was an amusing image inside his head.

"I wasn't bad at potions, so I was lucky. Being in Snape's bad books is… not something I'd wish on anyone. Except maybe Potter."

Astoria's head shot around and she looked at him intently. One side of her face was illuminated by the flames, the other lay in the shadows, but Draco could still make out the inquisitive look in her eyes. He hadn't really paid attention to it at first, but the longer he spent in Astoria's presence, the harder it was to deny that she had grown into a very beautiful woman. Not that she had been ugly during their Hogwarts years, but the difference of two years had somehow prevented him from paying a lot of attention to her.

"What is it with your animosity towards Harry Potter?" Astoria wanted to know. Her voice sounded neither judgmental nor reproachful. There was nothing but plain curiosity in it.

Draco looked back at her and, for a moment, he couldn't even say. "I don't know," he admitted eventually. "As I've said, I tried to befriend him. That was before I even knew who he was. I was just an eleven-year-old boy trying to make a friend and failing at that. When he decided to hang out with Weasley and Granger instead-"

"It wounded your pride?"

"I suppose it did. I was a prick at school," Draco said. It was no longer hard to admit anything in front of Astoria, especially because that was something she already knew. "I guess I wanted to make him pay for not being my friend. And then I wanted to make him pay for being the centre of everyone's attention all the time. All the crap he got away with just because he was Harry Potter, that really pissed me off."

To his surprise, Astoria laughed. "I bet it pissed off a lot of people. I heard a rumour that he and his friends brewed Polyjuice Potion in their second year and it went badly wrong and Hermione Granger got stuck as a cat for a week. They never got in trouble for that."

Draco thought about it for a moment. The rumour was news to him, but he remembered a time in their second year, long before Hermione Granger had been attacked by the Basilisk, that she had spent some time in the hospital wing. Coincidentally, it was around the same time that Crabbe and Goyle had acted quite strangely, unable to remember a rather important conversation they had had.

"The little gits!" Draco spat when the realisation hit him. "Of course, they used Polyjuice Potion. They turned into Crabbe and Goyle to interrogate me!"

"They did what?

"Yes! They thought I knew who the Heir of Slytherin was, back when someone had opened that bloody Chamber of Secrets."

Astoria continued to laugh, but the humour had left Draco at last. He felt angry that even after so many years, Harry Potter could still get the better of him. The next time he saw him, he vowed to give him a belated punch in the face for that stupid prank.

"Don't you think it's time to bury the hatchet?" she asked eventually as if she had read his thoughts again. Damn, Astoria already knew him too well.

Draco opened his mouth to reply, but Astoria cut him off before he even got the chance to say anything.

"No, hear me out," she said in earnest. "I think forgiving Harry and his friends could be a big step in the right direction for you. You may never be friends, but you could stop being enemies. All that resentment you're still carrying around is only weighing you down and it's another reminder of what happened between you during the war. Maybe, if you stopped thinking about Harry Potter with so much loathing, it would be easier for you to let go of the past."

He considered her words and, as always, Astoria seemed a little too wise for her age. She must have learned a lot during her training and while he sort of hated being on the receiving end of her attempts to trick him into being nicer, he had also made the decision to trust her. After all, as soon as he had started to listen to her advice, things had only gotten better for him.

"Fine," Draco hissed eventually. "I'll try not to jinx Harry and his friends the next time I run into them, but only if they do the same."

In response, Astoria smiled at him. "That's a start."

A sudden thought shot through his mind. Draco wasn't sure where it had come from. Maybe it was the connection of Harry Potter's new job as an Auror and Draco's past, but wherever it had come from, it appeared with a start and it brought a gentle wave of nausea with it. How could he have forgotten about it until now?

"Astoria," he began carefully, not even realising that he had called her by her name for the very first time, "I think I messed up."

Sensing that their conversation had just taken another turn, Astoria sat up straight and looked at him.

"What do you mean?"

Unsure where to begin with this rather long, rather complicated story, Draco decided to tell it from the beginning. He opened his mouth, but the words wouldn't come over his lips so easily. Looking at Astoria, Draco gathered his thoughts and inhaled deeply. He trusted her. It was going to be fine. "When you said there was a spell to remove the Dark Mark, I went looking for it," he confessed.

"Going against my explicit instructions," she added casually.

"I figured out that there was a group who still dealt with Dark Magic. They hide themselves, never meeting in the same spot twice, communicating thought enchanted coins. I tracked them down and asked them for the spell."

Astoria said nothing, she merely cocked her eyebrows at him, waiting to hear him finish his story.

"The woman in charge said she would only trade it for a book from my father's secret library. I made that deal. I gave it to her," Draco admitted, feeling the nausea grow inside him. Back then, it had only felt wrong. Now, in hindsight, it seemed like a massive mistake.

"What was in that book?" she enquired carefully.

Draco shook his head. "I don't know. I didn't want to know. I just gave it to them in exchange for the spell. That was the only thing I cared about at that point."

Astoria considered her answer for a while and he could see the same thoughts he was having reflecting in her eyes. She, too, was calculating the magnitude of the damage he might have inflicted by giving away the book. She considered what could have been in it and the conclusion she came to was not a good one.

"We have to get it back," Astoria announced eventually. "Or tell someone what's going on so they can stop it."

Draco scoffed. "And admit I made a deal with them? Admit that my father kept books about the Dark Arts? We'll all be carted off to Azkaban before we can finish the sentence."

"It's the first option, then. We'll get the book back before they can use it for anything bad."

When Draco looked at her, he noticed a strange glimmer of joy in her eyes and it made him a little wary. "Greengrass, you're not excited about this, are you?"

"Maybe a little," she replied, sounding defensive, "but how would you feel if everyone around you is constantly having adventures and you're always the one being left out?!"

"In my experience, adventure is rarely something good. When I was sixteen, I thought joining the Death Eaters was an adventure until they threatened to murder me and my entire family if I failed to murder my teacher."

"This is different," Astoria argued. "This time, we're doing something good and decent by stealing from the bad guys. Plus, I've never had an adventure, so I'd rather gather my own experiences than live off second-hand ones."

Draco groaned and rolled his eyes, utterly lost as to how the conversation had gone to where it was now. He had only confessed a mistake and, one moment later, he was in the middle of planning to steal from a group of very dangerous people.

"This is a really bad idea," he reminded her. "Besides, the woman took my coin when she gave me that spell. I have no way of finding them now. This is not only dangerous, but also a lost cause."

To his great annoyance, Astoria smiled at him. "Luckily, I'm an expert in dealing with lost causes. And I think this will be very beneficial for you. You can finally do some good. No redemption arc is complete without a good deed."

"Until that good deed gets you killed," Draco growled. Somehow, he would have to convince Astoria to let it go. But then again, he didn't really know of another way he could get rid of his guilty conscience.