I Love(d) You (Once)
Chapter Fifteen: Wolf Like Me
Long ago, there was a girl named Astoria, fresh into Hogwarts and excited for the things to come. A year before that, she was absolutely convinced she would become the bride of one Draco Malfoy, for she was the prettiest of all purebloods and he was the most handsome of them all.
She quickly realised that was not to be. Without his father, Draco Malfoy was loud, obnoxious and his behaviour made his looks mean nothing to Astoria. Instead, she began to fall in love with Theodore Nott. He was clever, charming, honest and would do anything to bring a smile to her face. On rainy days in the corner of abandoned stairwells he would sing softly for her. When Astoria listened to his soft voice and saw him completely red-faced, unable to look at her, she knew there was something special about him.
She thought, for most of her year in Hogwarts subsequent, they would be together—until at the night of the Hogwarts battle. Astoria remembered the night clearly. As did most of the students trapped in battle could. Even after five years, she recalled the night was still but laced with the explosions and cries of the wounded.
And blood. The air reeked with the stench of blood.
Fri 2130
To: Astoria
From: Draco
.
.
Just wondering if you got home all right.
-MESSAGE END-
Fri 2204
To: Astoria
From: Draco
.
.
Don't know if you're not replying because you're already asleep. Text me in the morning. Good night.
-MESSAGE END-
(On Friday at 9:15pm…)
Astoria could have Floo'd or Apparated, but since she started dating Draco she had to watch her figure. She had two bowls of syrupy shaved ice on their date. Two whole bowls.
Since Draco had figured out how much she liked trying new places to dine, they were going out more often—which was either an effective strategy to guarantee a successful date or a passive-aggressive way to throw away her current wardrobe. Travelling to places without magical help no longer became a past-time, and more about necessity. She would not take Pansy's jeering too kindly if the woman decided to comment on the extra pounds Astoria gained.
Though the night dulled her vision, it honed her sense of smell and hearing. She inhaled the cold and wet winter air, and white tendrils of breath escaped her mouth. Astoria could hear faint howling of the wind—she could…Astoria stopped in her tracks. She should have Floo'd home. Perhaps the dim lighting of the street lamps was waking her imagination but shadows were stirring into silhouettes. Or perhaps, someone, something was approaching her. Trying to keep her expression indifferent, she reached into her purse to touch her wand.
Determination, destination, deliberation—
She transported herself so spontaneously, she'd lost balance and fell onto her knees in the middle living room. The house was pitch-black as she'd forgotten to open the curtains before she left for work today. Astoria let out a sigh of relief.
"Tea, no, I need something stronger than that, maybe—" She reached behind her to turn on the lamp beside her couch and it lit up the room with a soft glow—"and AAAHHHHH!"
Astoria counted to ten under her breath. Yup, still there. "I thought we've made peace already. So why—" and she grimaced at the updated version of her imaginary Theo. In the few days she hadn't seen him, he had aged. No longer was a reminiscent of the awful, fateful night, this new Theo the same age as what he might've been, had he lived and he wore… "What are you wearing?" she asked him.
A thin smile stretched across his gaunt face. "I had only expected this question to come after 'what happened to your hair'."
Merlin, did Draco put something in the shaved ice during dinner? Why else would he have hair that reached his waist? It looked as though he hadn't cut it for years and years. "No never mind. You don't exist, you're not here. My imagination just had an update and made him even more insufferable than before."
"What?"
"You are dead, to me. To everyone." Astoria covered her ears and closed her eyes, turning away from the man. "I know you're not there, you're not there, you're not here!"
"Astoria, I..."
Wishing proved to be ineffective to banishing his existence and so she shot a glare at Theo. "I just don't understand why you'd come back now. I'm trying to be happy!"
Theo sat himself on the couch and he rested his elbows on his thighs. He took his time to speak, contemplating each word. "I know… and you have the right to be mad at me, but just know that my feelings for you haven't changed one bit. I still love you as I did."
"Yeah," she scoffed. "Because you hadn't disappeared and left me alone for all these years. Imagine me, having to see you every day! Oh, the horror." She hated arguing with him—herself. It was frustrating and usually when that happened it meant she would have to take a trip down to St Mungo.
"I wasn't expecting much," he said to her. "I know it's hard to accept that I'm back all a sudden. But I promise when you're ready to hear it, you'll have all the answers you want. And if you'll have me again, then,"—his voice broke—"that'd be all I ever wanted."
"You. Are. Dead. You. Don't. Exist!" Astoria spat each word with force and chanted this in her head again and again. Maybe if she said it enough, Theo would disappear again. She was with Draco now, and for the first time in years, she knew what was real and what wasn't, she felt happy, she felt—
"Sorry, I tried to think of a better way to do things but—"
"One more word from you and I'll hex you, except I wouldn't hurt you as much as my couch." she said and inched away from Theo. She wasn't comfortable with this Theo; the old one never acknowledged That Night happened. Maybe it was because she herself was finally coming to terms with it…
Theo couldn't help but smirk at what she said; she'd always made him laugh. "All right. But I need my wand. I had a feeling you might have kept it. You wouldn't have thrown it away."
Astoria's eyes grew wide and felt a gnawing sensation in her heart. "Why would you need a wand to disappear? You never needed one."
His eye's softened. "I had a person to help me disappear."
"Okay, there was definitely something in the shaved ice. This is getting creepy and you're way different than before. I can't be alone right now. Dammit Draco, I'm going over to hex him. This is not funny at all." She leaned forward to grab her purse and her hand knocked hard against Theo's knee. "Ouch!" she cried, rubbing her hand. "What the hell is your knee made of?"
Theo pulled her hand into his. "Funny you should ask, it's a combination of wood and metal. When I lost my leg, I had to get a new one."
His brown eyes gleamed in the soft light and Astoria noticed he had laced his fingers into hers. He was so close. She scooted closer to run her hands through his hair. Her fingers brushed past his temples, ears, neck and rested on his shoulders. Theo nuzzled her hand and kissed it. As his cold cheeks pressed against her palms, she knew this was different to the other times. He could only be this cold if he had waited for her, outside, for a long time.
Astoria looped her arms around his neck. Brought his head close to hers until their foreheads touched. She closed her eyes and they stayed this way; they replenished themselves, got to know each other again with their hands, as one would trace their fingertips along a map to familiarise themselves with a route.
"You're real." There was no uncertainty in her statement, for no matter what she did, how hopeless she was after Theo had disappeared on the night of the Hogwart's battle, he never appeared to her in this manner. And the guilt, reproduced from her memories, was a pale imitation of his true self.
Because when Theo was next to her, the feelings were undeniable and inevitable. For a brief moment, she felt sorry for Draco but there was never—never a choice.
Astoria pressed her lips onto his. She felt as though her heart swelled and burst. Theo deepened their kiss and she shuddered as he planted a trail of kisses down her neck. They got off the couch; Astoria's feet leading them to the next room. Theo's hip clipped the cabinet beside the door and the vase with a bouquet of gaudy roses tipped and smashed onto the floor.
In the morning, Theo didn't ask her what the buzzing noise from the small device was. When she'd woken up, Astoria had found him sitting on the window ledge with one leg bare, covered in skin. The other was made of wood and plastic. They had not exchanged a single word between them since last night.
But it was time.
Time for an explanation. Astoria's eyes strayed down to Theo's fake limb and blinked back the tears threatening to surface. He moved off the ledge and he sat beside her on the bed. "Do you remember what happened that night?"
"Of course, I do. We were running." She could picture the scene in her head. A cold and dark night, punctuated with explosions and screams of the dying. "Daphne, she suddenly fell behind us, was pulled behind a corner and I ran. Never looked back. When I stopped, you weren't there."
"And what did you know about Daphne's death?"
"Mother said a creature mauled her to death. Horrifically. It was so gruesome she didn't let me see her body. Some kind of beast had done her in. Oh Merlin." She placed her hands over her mouth as though she might be sick. "It took off your leg, didn't it?"
Theo nodded. "When I came to, the only reason why I knew I wasn't dead was because of the pain. And when I found out what happened to me, I didn't think I had a good chance of surviving. You see, a werewolf bit me."
"A werewolf?" Astoria repeated in dumb shock. "So you're… you're…"
"You knew how I was back at school. I couldn't accept being something inferior. Much less permit myself to associate with you again. That would've been unthinkable. I wanted to die. And I was going to, too—I couldn't live with myself. But someone was sympathetic to my plight and gave me a way out."
"A way out..."
"Have you ever heard of the nomadic tribes that had great affinity with animal familiars and spirits?"
"Yes." An uncomfortable feeling set within her stomach.
"Someone who was sympathetic to my plight."
She had a good idea who Someone was. She had a husband who was a rights activist in the indigenous magical population of Britain. He who fought on behalf of the people, had ultimately sacrificed his life for them…
"There is more than one soul living within each of us. Especially my kind. There is Dark and the Light." Theo raised his hands, miming scales. "To live is to understand these sides and let them play its part in our lives. So the head shaman bestowed onto me, a spell before my first transformation."
"A blessing or a curse?" Astoria asked.
"Depends on your perspective. You see, the shaman placed a spell on me so that I would be stuck in my werewolf transformation for more than one night of the full moon."
Sat 0833
To: Astoria
From: Draco
.
.
Are you all right?
-MESSAGE END-
"Magic is impartial. It neither favors nor disfavors. If you're supposed to spend six years of your life as a wolf, you will. There is no way around it. But here's the trick: instead of becoming a wolf once every full moon, you can spend it all in one go."
"There's the risk of death if you don't survive the curse, death if you die during your wolfish pursuits and the risk of never being able to regain your human form. Only those truly desperate would even consider it. And of course, a shaman has to risk their lives to exact the spell. You would need a blood debt. Yet, by a miracle, I bet the odds and came back."
"That's why I couldn't find you," said Astoria. "I spent Daphne's entire trust fund looking for you. Across Europe, China, Japan, America. The private investigators, they were looking for a boy, then a man. Oh Merlin."
The tribe owed her father their existence and his death extended a ghostly hand to his 'could've been' son-in-law.
"My mother should have told me," Astoria said. "I would have waited forever, waited for you to come back."
Sat 0901
To: Astoria
From: Draco
.
.
Sorry for all those messages, but I haven't heard back from you since last night. My gentleman conscience needs to know you're safe and you haven't been devoured by a big bad wolf or something.
-MESSAGE END-
"You know, having spent six years on the other spectrum of our beliefs, I think I've converted. I don't think I'm an inferior being anymore and I believe I'm entitled to love just like everybody else," Theo said conversationally, but he had planned his words with care. "I want to be with you. I can tell you still feel something for me."
"I do," Astoria admitted. "But it's easy to fall into old habits."
"A habit? You think what you're feeling is a force of habit?"
"Yes, no, maybe. I don't know." Astoria buried her face in her hands.
"You want some space," said Theo. "To clear your thoughts."
"Yes," she said. "Thank you."
That too was a habit. Astoria liked to think things through herself. He gave her space; and it was a consideration he never lent towards other people.
Theo got up to leave and just before he shut the front door behind him, she called out. "You forgot your cane."
"I know," he said, and he swung the door shut.
A few minutes later, she took his cane and placed it on the side of the entrance, so that the next time he came knocking, she could return it to him.
And before then, she would piece together, exactly what had happened, what was happening, and what would happen in the future.
Sat 0956
To: Draco
From: Astoria
.
.
I'm fine. I need space.
-MESSAGE END-
(A few days after Astoria makes her mind)
"Here's your cane," Astoria said.
Theo leaned against the doorframe to the entrance of her apartment. "Thank you for keeping it safe. How can I repay you?"
"Well… if you put it that way, for old time's sake." It's just talking, Astoria berated herself. A harmless conversation. He'd just come back and probably had no one else to talk to. She owed their relationship that much.
"Thanks, my dear." He slipped through the doors and made his way to the living room.
"Would you like tea?" she asked. Take things slow. Things change within five years. You've changed yourself. And... you should talk to Draco first.
"Yes please."
"Two sugars?"
"You remembered."
She made the tea and they sat on the couch, not too far, not too close, a viable distance away from each other. "Where are you living?" Astoria couldn't help ask.
"Around. I have gold to sustain me a while. I'm not too worried, I'm just lucky to be alive. To be able to see you here."
Astoria poured tea into separate cups and watched the steam rise and dissipate in the air.
"No one realised I've returned," he said after a long silence.
"It's the hair," she said. Her fingertips slid against his long tresses he'd secured into a ponytail and he raised an eyebrow. He'd always been rather sensitive about entrusting a stranger with a sharp object and leaving his head defenseless. Too many contingencies, he once told her, he couldn't let anyone near his head. And so she took it upon herself as his girlfriend to cut his hair.
"It doesn't look too bad, right?"
"No it doesn't," she said, spreading her fingers through his hair. "But it'd be hard to maintain. Tell you what, for old time's sake I'll cut it for you."
"I'm glad you offered. I spend too much on shampoo." Theo smiled.
"It'll take a minute," she said, as though she needed to convince him. "Let's go to the bathroom." She slipped her hand into Theo's and she waved her wand so a chair followed them in.
"How do you want it?" she asked, trying to maintain as professional as possible. But who was she kidding (about going slow); this was probably the second most intimate activity they shared.
"What's looking good these days?"
"You," she replied. "Something short." She bent down and reached under her sink to pull out a box.
"You kept the scissors for cutting hair," Theo said, shaking his hair out of its ponytail. "You always had a problem letting things go."
"It's working to your advantage."