Book 2: Astoria Greengrass and the Haunt of Azkaban
Song rec: "Finding Me" by Vertical Horizon
Note: This is Draco's début as a POV, so every once in a while we will get to see things from his perspective from now on.

Draco simply handed the letter to his friends to read, for that was the easiest way. There would not be any questions if they saw each word his mother had written. It would let Theodore know that both of their fathers had been arrested. Theodore was only guessing the worst, since he had no other family to write him and hadn't read the paper.

Draco would know the moment Theodore saw that part because Theodore was going to lose it. That would be a real sight, but Draco was going to curse the shit out of anyone who wanted to say something about it. There wouldn't be anything to lose.

Theodore derailed in less than a minute, and Pansy had to wrench the letter from his hands as he slouched over his knees uselessly. She gasped aggressively and threw her arms over Draco.

Finally, some support.

Draco rested his chin on Pansy's shoulder. She smelt sweet, like the perfume he had bought her. With Pansy holding on to him, it was easier not to cry. But he felt so dead.

If anybody was under the impression that this was a surprise for Draco, they were mistaken. He had, like his mother, anticipated his father's arrest ever since the Little Hangleton fiasco. Draco owed it all to Fudge's stupidity that he had had his father for the past year. But the more momentum the Dark Lord gained, the harder it had been for Draco's father to keep up appearances. The Malfoys had been wrought with paranoia. Something was bound to be exposed eventually. Thanks to Harry Potter, it was quite a bit. And Draco wouldn't be welcomed home by his father next week. He wouldn't be with his father over the summer. He would go home to a traumatised mother, a dying grandfather, and whatever this "your aunt" business was going to be.

Theodore, the only Nott who was both living and not incarcerated, would be coming with him, according to the letter. Who knew how that would go. Draco wanted to talk to Theodore about many things before they boarded the Hogwarts Express. For one, Draco was positively terrified of the possibility of meeting Bellatrix Lestrange, a meeting which he had come to know to be inevitable ever since the Azkaban breakout. Perhaps it was the fact that his mother would never take him to visit this relative that told him she was nasty. It only reminded him that the crime for which she was convicted sent shivers down his spine. More likely, though, he was anxious about meeting her because she was the closest person to the Dark Lord himself.

Draco wanted to ask Theodore how long he thought it would be before the two of them would see the Dark Lord face-to-face. The amount of power one sensed in the Dark Lord was only matched by the fear one felt in his presence. The Dark Lord had killed his followers on whims. He had existed in hideous states of being that could hardly be imagined. There was a rumour amongst the lower Death Eaters that he was actually part beast, a snake in every sense. He knew everything. To top it all off, he probably was insane.

Draco assumed there would be a long, exhausting discussion in the dormitory later. Draco, Theodore, Vince, and Greg, whose fathers had all been arrested, would surely be excused from these unnecessary, end-of-year classes. Blaise would show up later feeling pleased that he had no loved ones rotting in a prison cell surrounded by dementors. Vince would probably be pleased anyway. He would think it was an honour that his father "had the guts" to be arrested; that was how he looked at things. But Greg, like Draco, had a mother to worry about and was going to need to give his friend, Vince, a place to stay.

There was one thing that Draco did not want brought up even though he knew it was true. His father was suffering terribly. He was being detained at the Ministry, the very place where he had worked for so many years. He was powerless. He was watching his wife cry. He was awaiting a hopeless trial. He would be thrown into that hellhole to be drained of everything.

But the Dark Lord would get him out, certainly. If he had bothered in January with people of whom Draco had never heard, he would have to free Draco's father… But how long would that take? How much would he and the family have to suffer before the Dark Lord came to full power? Their image was ruined. Draco's main source of pride would be thrown in a filthy prison cell as a public enemy. And one thing that had refused to leave the back of Draco's mind since he read the letter was that he hadn't a clue what his dad had done to attract Potter's attention. It was terrible.

Theodore was still crying by the time Draco was tired of thinking alone and wanted to talk. He lifted his head and looked at Pansy's shining eyes. She sensed it.

"I'm so sorry, Draco. I-I don't know what to say…"

He shrugged gratefully.

"When is… well, when is the trial going to be?"

"Er."

Draco thought it was a bit too soon to be asked that. He didn't even know the answer. It didn't really matter when anyway, but Pansy was at a loss for things to say.

"If there's anything I can do to make you feel better… I mean anything at all…"

"I'll let you know, Pansy. Thank you."

How she could be in the mood for a snog right then, Draco did not know. She must have thought it would take his mind off of the disaster. Evidently she didn't understand that people aren't usually up for snogging when their fathers are arrested and exposed as Death Eaters. Maybe she did not consider it as serious of an issue as Draco did. She must have looked at it with the knowledge that the Dark Lord would free the Death Eaters soon enough. Plus, resembling Vince, Pansy thought that Death Eaters were cool. Draco did not deny the flair, but there seemed to be a great deal of pain and stress that came with being "cool." And how impressive could they be when they were struggling to hold their own in Azkaban? Pansy would have had much more to say if the same thing happened to her father. She instead looked at it as a new development; if the Dark Lord was active enough to have his Death Eaters revealed, then the pure-bloods' share of power must be soon to come. Draco tried to look at it that way, and it was one of his few comforts. But his dad was still gone.

By lunch, the whole school knew. Everyone in Draco's dorm apart from Blaise acquired their meals by taking plates from the table and retreating back to the common room. They had talked until their throats were dry, but the talk was distant and unhelpful. Then they drifted. Blaise took Vince and Greg for a walk when Theodore requested privacy in the dorm. Draco had been sitting alone at a desk by the common room bookshelves for what felt like ages; Pansy, for once in her life, had determined that he needed space. People came and went in the common room, but the only people who talked to him were Death Eaters' relatives, namely Lofthouse and Stretton, asking him questions to which he had no answer. Most others only glanced over like he was a museum exhibit. It enraged him that when people came back from dinner, he could hear them gathering in the dormitory halls instead of near him to chatter about the arrests, the Dark Lord, and Potter's stupid interview from months ago. Yeah, it was all true. Those who weren't involved didn't need to pat themselves on the back for believing it in the first place. The noise eventually diminished as the evening drew on. Greg, Vince, and Blaise returned and asked Draco if he was coming to the dorm. He said no. He needed to write to his mother without their hovering. But his parchment had been blank for a long time.

There was some unpleasant noise erupting to the left. A door thumped shut not too deep in the corridor of the girls' dormitories. Somebody that Draco did not want to see was standing at the foot of the stairs in an instant. Her eyes were wide and her lips pursed resolutely. It was obvious that she had had a fight with her lot. Draco watched her as she tried to Levitate a chair. She was too upset to succeed. She picked it up ineptly and slogged all the way over to Draco. She set it down next to him. Too close. She moved it back a bit and parked herself in it. She couldn't figure out how to sit. She folded her hands in her lap and sighed. Draco and Astoria stared in each other's faces for half a minute.

"I am terribly sorry," she ultimately said.

"That's surprising," Draco responded instantly. "Go read the papers some more. You'll change your mind. Just don't bitch at me before you decide not to speak to me again. I don't need to hear it, you understand?"

She shuffled.

"I read all the papers, and I'm not sorry for your father's sake."

"Thanks," Draco spat.

"It's you I care about."

"Yeah, right, thanks."

"Believe it or not, I didn't come down here to bother you."

"You're doing a fine job!"

Astoria gulped and picked at her fingers. Draco looked the other way, hoping she'd leave. This could have been something short and forgettable if she would have left without any more words. That way, Draco's last memory of her would be of her smiling at him after the Astronomy O.W.L. and not of her tearing him to bits before renouncing him aloud. But she was going to do things her way, as usual.

"You know me; you know how I see things. Regardless of what your father did, though, he is still a father to you. You are here alone in all of this, which you don't deserve to be. If it was my father, I'd hardly be able to sit up. I'd expect somebody to be at my side. I'd be in too much pain. That is why if you need to talk, I am here to listen. I hate seeing you alone."

"I don't want to talk to you," Draco made known. "You happen to be one of the last people I want to talk to right now. I need to be alone. Get it? Alone, like I was, for a reason."

Astoria looked crushed. Poor, poor Astoria — she wasn't used to people not wanting her. Well, Draco was used to it; he was quite familiar. He had received the same treatment from her plenty of times. The "go away" treatment. That always felt great.

"…That's fine, too…" Astoria choked.

It wasn't fine; it was a nasty sound to hear her quaver like that. Her quiet, careful footsteps in the other direction seemed to become louder the further she walked away. An empty chair was now Draco's company. He knew he wanted to talk then; his ideal companion was simply not Astoria Greengrass. Truthfully, the only person he could comfortably imagine being in that empty chair was Theodore, but Theodore was in too bad a state to offer any sturdy support. Unlike Theodore, Astoria was an outsider, somebody who couldn't empathise, and somebody who might not even sympathise. But she had at least tried to reach out. Draco knew she wasn't going to take the issue lightly like Vince, Pansy, or Blaise had. She understood its gravity. She wasn't going to agree with Draco on very much, but it had felt nice when she said that she hated to see him alone.

Astoria had already gone up the stairs. It was too late to accept her help. Draco put his head down. His letter home was still empty, and he had absolutely no idea what to write. He often said the wrong thing accidentally as a consequence of all the times he had said the wrong thing on purpose.

Sniff!

Draco remembered that Astoria's roommates weren't inclined to take her in at the moment. It was probably because she wanted to come see him. He took it as a compliment that her decision to talk to him had left her on her own in the corridor at the top of the girls' stairs. If Draco could hear her, that meant she would hear him. He walked to the stairs.

"Astoria."

The sniffling slowly diminished. She came back to the common room without a word, already looking Draco square in the eye and expecting him to talk.

"That was, er… That was a lie. Of course, it was partially true, but... it was somewhat a lie."

He was really in a predicament once he was facing her, once he had brought her back. He glanced back at his seat, considering the ridiculous decision he had made there that had brought him over to the stairs. He turned back, hoping that Astoria would say something first — something nice, though, like when she told him she cared about him. But she said nothing with words. She stepped down and hugged him.

For a moment, Draco was quite full of himself, as she was the second girl to hug him in less than twelve hours. But he knew exactly who was hugging him, and the act gained much more meaning. This was the girl who had always stuck her nose up at him. This was Astoria Greengrass, probably one of the worst blood-traitors there was, embracing someone whose father was a Death Eater because she, at last, considered that someone her friend. She had plenty of closer, better friends, but for the night, she subtracted herself from them to help the one who needed her most. She must have known that Draco's closer friends weren't that much closer at all.

Draco never imagined that he would get so physically close to Astoria. He had thought the same thing when they were doing the favour of dancing with each other over Christmas. This was even closer. If Blaise saw Draco dance with Astoria at Christmas, he would have shaken his head disgustedly, but if he saw Draco allowing her to embrace him like this, he never would speak to Draco again. Draco remembered how offended the Greengrasses were at Christmas when he danced with Astoria. He remembered how he felt like he had swallowed a rock when Astoria told him she didn't care what her family thought of it. He couldn't imagine a world in which he wouldn't care what his family thought. If that world did exist somewhere, it existed here. It existed right here with Astoria's arms over his shoulders.

He moved to hug her back, but she thought he was trying to escape, so she let go. They decided it was best not to dwell on it.

"I don't know what to say to my mother," Draco forced out of his dry mouth. "I don't know what to say for the life of me, and she's probably falling apart right now, and—"

"I'll help," Astoria said gently.

She walked back to the desk, so Draco followed her. Her eyes stared at his inkwell and quill until he understood to get them ready.

"Dear Mother," Astoria said once she saw that the parchment was entirely empty.

"Big help," Draco said.

"Are you open when you speak with your mother?" Astoria asked peculiarly.

"…I guess?"

"Then, you should feel free to say something like, 'This report is very painful for me, though I am sure it has devastated you. I regret that I cannot be with you right now. We should be taking this news together.'"

That would work perfectly. Draco attempted to copy it word-for-word.

"So, erm, you could say that you wish you knew a way to help her. Let her know you will be home next week."

"All right… She already knows I'll be home next week."

"She's your mother; she needs to know it again," Astoria said sagaciously.

Draco let his mother know again.

"You intend to write to your father, correct?"

An emotional pang.

"…Yes," Draco said. "I haven't thought of how to write that, either, honestly. I think I'd better write to him along with Mother."

"Then tell her so."

"Tell her so?"

"Tell her you want to write to your father with her once you get home."

"All right."

"She's probably going to see him before you do," Astoria said hesitantly. "So tell her that if she sees him, you want her to tell him you love him. He needs to hear that more than anything."

"Right, right," Draco nodded and continued writing.

"And tell her that you love her."

"Just did."

"Sign your name."

"That's it?"

"Do you think any more is appropriate?"

Draco read the letter. Astoria was right; this was probably enough. By the time his mother would get it, there would only be a few days until his arrival. It would make more sense to talk to his mother instead of writing a longer letter. Draco folded the parchment and, by instinct, wrote "INSPECTED AND PASSED — D.M." on it.

"Umbridge is in the Hospital Wing," Astoria said, "and you are a prefect and member of her squadron. Use that power to go to the Owlery, and send that letter tonight. Your mother has already spent one whole day without one, and she must have written the letter to you at a ridiculous hour last night."

"Come with me," Draco said, leaving his seat.

"Come with you?"

She followed when Draco left the common room. Though neither of them said anything for the whole trip, he did not regret his request. Astoria watched his owl fly away with him from the parapet, looked at the sky, and sighed when she saw it was cloudy. Draco took the lantern she was carrying from her hands only to shine it in her face and watch her squint. She tried to take it back from him, and he wouldn't let her. When they passed the second floor, Draco looked back and forth with suspicion to try to make her nervous. It didn't work. The very last flight of stairs changed on them, and they had to go through a first-floor corridor to reach the stairs to the Entrance Hall. Draco started walking faster, and Astoria did the same. By the time they reached the Entrance Hall, they were running. Astoria suppressed a smile when she realised they had run only for the hell of it. When they came back to the common room, and the adrenaline of sneaking about died, they weren't sure what to make of themselves. The reality of his father's arrest came back to Draco. Reality in general came back to Draco. He and Astoria sat at the table where they had studied with Theodore. He started talking because she had told him she would listen.

"I don't understand how you're best friends with Clarke, and yet you've just written a letter of comfort to my mother after my father… was arrested for, you know…" Draco said, trying to pry the answer out of Astoria. "I don't understand how you talk to Clarke and then talk to me. Does it make sense to you? Is it logical to you? Is it… Is it just natural or something for you?"

"It must make enough sense to me, Draco; I've been extradited from my dormitory to you. I won't pretend that it's easy to have two friends who abhor each other. Despite what either of you may think, I don't consider it paradoxical to be friends with both of you any longer. I thought about it plenty. I thought that as you were becoming a man, you were realising that the idea of blood supremacism is too immature for you. I found it easier to talk to you this year because of that… It didn't feel wrong to me because you hadn't made it feel wrong."

That little speech had nearly left Draco's mind exhausted.

"That was why I was so upset when you laughed about the M-word, remember?"

He remembered.

"Erm, the thing is, I had a chat with Theodore… And, well."

Astoria's voice was cracking and becoming softer as though it was an extinguishing candle.

"What'd Theodore tell you?" Draco lit the flame again.

"He told me you were worried about me because I am friends with Rhiannon, and You-Know-Who… well…"

"I am worried about you," Draco verified. He did not want to bring up this other stressor at the moment, but it seemed there was no escaping it.

"You think I ought to abandon my friend still," Astoria said. "You told me last year."

"I do think that, but I didn't bother to tell you again because I'm not stupid enough to think that you'll take my advice. Clearly, you care about your friends if you care about me."

"What bothers me is that you call it 'advice.' You must understand that one doesn't give up a best friend like she means nothing."

"I get it. I don't have to like it," Draco retorted.

"I don't have to like how you would put Rhiannon in danger in exchange for me," Astoria returned. "I don't have to like the feeling I get when I think you measure my value based on my money and blood."

"See, this is why I didn't want to talk to you!" Draco snorted. "Did you forget my father's going to prison, and I've got more things to worry about than your yelling at me? Isn't it clear to you that I don't value you based on that now?"

"'Now?' It's been more of a comforting daydream, honestly," Astoria blubbered. "I've never valued you based on those things."

"So I've noticed," Draco said, his voice still angry from the residue of the clash.

That's why you stand apart.

Crabbe and Goyle liked the feeling that they were important when they were with Draco. Nobody regarded them elsewise. Draco's purpose to them was to embody power. Blaise was so anal that he did not have very many people to speak to. That was hard for him considering that he had an inclination toward extraversion. Draco, at least, was near his level. Draco's purpose to Blaise was to be an ear. The Quidditch team wanted Draco's flying skill. Draco's purpose was to win the game, though he felt like he rarely did.

Pansy adored Draco. That was undeniable. But why did she adore him? She liked his money, she liked his influence, she liked his looks, and she loved his snogging. Draco had to admit those were all very good qualities of his. In fact, he never noticed there was a problem with any of these people until someone came round who did not like him for any of these reasons.

Astoria had money. Her family was powerful. She was even a prevailing figure in the House of Slytherin in her own goofy right. She was pure-blood, and she didn't care. So the question remained.

"What do you value about me, then?" Draco challenged.

The fact that it wasn't a challenge for Astoria caught him off-guard.

"You've a great sense of humour — that is, when your humour is actually humour and not hostile, not like the stuff your cronies laugh at. You're one of the most intelligent people in your year, so your conversation isn't dull. Anyway… you've shown that you're willing to help me when I ask, whether it's with casting Charms or with Potions homework. You help me when I don't ask, like when you picked me up after Parkinson tripped me that first day, or when you informed that journalist about my band last year, or when you helped me at Christmas. You know, Draco, you were a real hero at Christmas… Er… I don't know. I usually enjoy being round you. See, that's another thing; I can say 'usually' now, can't I?"

"No one's stopping you," Draco smirked.

"The point is that you aren't stopping me," Astoria said.

The truth that Astoria did not know was that the nature of their first encounter was nothing she should praise him for. She was introduced to him as Daphne's sister — a Greengrass. Draco's connections with Daphne were very weak; Daphne had distaste for him ever since Pansy started paying more attention to him than to her. A new Greengrass meant a new opportunity to ingratiate himself to a member of, arguably, the most powerful Wizarding family in England. He had helped Astoria that first day to make himself look good, to make the name of Malfoy mean something to a Greengrass. Instead, they clashed immediately. He would have to try again.

That young Greengrass had needed a date for the Yule Ball, and he had pondered being that date. If he went with Pansy, no one would be surprised. No one would find that respectable. But a Greengrass on the arm at that dance would have been like a crown on the head. A Beauxbatons student took that crown. He was only able to wear one temporarily when he danced with a desperate Daphne by Pansy's suggestion.

The article about Pariah was a ditch effort. He had been acknowledged as a friend by the young Greengrass, but it was not a public announcement. With their clashing beliefs, Draco would not be able to brag about his connections with a Greengrass; he hardly had any. So he connected his name publicly with hers in an article about her band which he had had Skeeter write. It did not matter if Astoria did not like him; there were their names connected in a newspaper publication. Success. Or so he had thought.

That same night he saw the dead body of a seventeen-year-old being brought back from the hands of the Dark Lord. Draco did not know Cedric Diggory, and since he was a friend of Potter's, it was hard to think of him with regards, but others certainly did. Cedric was a good kid according to most people. Cedric was their friend. He was their dead friend.

When he had seen Cedric's body, Draco remembered that Astoria was in a nearly empty castle spending her time with Slytherin's Blot. The reality of the Dark Lord was cold and glassy-eyed, a teenager named Cedric lying lifeless in the dew-dappled grass. The reality of the Dark Lord was murder, and Draco imagined that the Dark Lord would take great pride in murdering a member of such a powerful, blood-traitorous family, for the Dark Lord would not have anyone be greater than he, and he would not have stains in the House of Slytherin.

If that was Astoria getting her cold eyelids closed with a warmer hand, if those were Astoria's lips turning grey, if that was Astoria who had been killed by the Dark Lord, Draco would have lost the only person whose smiles at him were real. Each time Astoria talked to Draco, he was reminded that she had everything already and was not looking for the same things in him that he was looking for in her. She was looking for the person who had grabbed her hand on the train. That person wasn't real until Draco decided that he ought to be.

Showing off the fact that he was dancing with a Greengrass at the Christmas banquet was not nearly as great as Draco thought it would be. Sure, he made his parents happy, but the events surrounding that unlikely dance made everything about Astoria's "image" and "influence" fade. She was not so much a Greengrass then as she was a girl whose boyfriend left her because he was only seeking the idea of her. Draco did not want to seek the idea of her anymore; he sought the friend he knew she was. He wanted there to be reasons why she had called him a gentleman that night. What she called a "gentleman" that night, she called a "hero" tonight, and what he had called a "Greengrass" last year, he called a "good friend" now. Who knew what they could call each other next…

"I suppose you think it's your turn," Draco accused, trying to hide with a caustic voice that futile, warm feeling he had just buried in his chest.

"My turn?"

"You aren't fake. You're true to yourself," Draco pronounced. "You're clever — crafty and ornery, actually. But you're still respectable; you know what you're doing in life. And those girls in your band don't give you enough credit for your talent with the piano. I like your compositions, believe it or not. I'd cut them out and keep you."

Astoria was blushing wildly.

"Oh, Draco, I don't… I didn't come down here looking for compliments…"

"That's another thing," Draco said. "You came down here for me. I remember Pansy telling you that you should be in Hufflepuff as an insult. You're too mordant for that, and you're too pig-headed. But if I told you that you could pass for a Hufflepuff, it's because you're a loyal friend even at a time like this, even to me. You know, Astoria, I'd cut plenty of fake people out of this school and just keep you."

Draco didn't think it was possible to get her to blush any more, and if he wasn't careful, his face would match hers. Watching her shift in her seat at his words was a good distraction from the calamity in his head. Astoria had managed to soothe some of it already, and that was what he needed most.