Summary: Draco thought he knew what he wanted to do with the rest of his life; be with her. But she had other plans for them both.

Rated: K+

Genre: Hurt/Comfort; Angst

Warning Tag: Breakup

Competition/Challenge Block:
Written for/Stacked with: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Term 14); Monthly Challenges for All (Year 4); Quidditch League (Season 9)

Quidditch: Caerphilly Catapults Beater 1 [Reserve]: One half of your OTP needs to focus on their own life. / [Dialogue] "It's for the best." / "Yeah? Best for who?" / [Word] Irreversible
Hogwarts: Ravenclaw; A1 - Forestry #3: Write about someone showing their support to another person(s). / [Theme] Second Chances; [Color] Blush Pink; [Food] Cauldron Cake

MC4A: Shipping War [Purple; Assumed Relationship; Ring; Chocolate; Jewelry]; Hunt [SE Asian; At Night; Cake];

Word Count: 1,823

Beta: S L Blake, VanillaAshes, HeceteA

A Life Worth Living

Draco reacquainted himself with Astoria when he returned to Hogwarts to repeat his seventh year. Somehow, he completely forgot that she was a Ravenclaw and noticed that she preferred to blend into the background and keep her head down. It was easy to overlook her, he had done just that in all of his previous years at school. He wouldn't have even known that she existed if he didn't know her sister. Daphne was Pansy's acquaintance, so he spent a fair amount of time with her out of courtesy, more than anything. What he did know was that the sisters were polar opposites.

One thing that stuck out was that she was rather kind and receptive to him when he found himself sitting by her in the library one day. The place was unusually crowded, and there wasn't anyone else he wanted to sit next to and no one else wanted him to sit by them, for that matter. That was something Daphne was good at; keeping unwanted people away from her.

Astoria simply smiled at him and moved her book bag to give him more space as they fell into a pleasant silence.

"It's a quarter-turn clockwise and three-quarters anti-clockwise," she said suddenly, snuffing out the silence between them.

Draco looked up from his Potions essay, raising a brow at her uninvited comment. She wasn't even looking his way, instead just writing whatever she was working on, and for a moment, if it hadn't been because he had just written out a very similar set of words seconds ago, he thought maybe she was speaking out loud to herself. Her hand paused briefly to tilt her quill in his direction.

"I noticed you switched your wording around, so I thought I'd point it out," she said, shrugging.

Looking down at his piece of parchment, he had in fact written it down wrong. "Thank you."

"I would've wanted someone to point it out to me, too," Astoria said, smiling up at him.

The other library inhabitants slowly started to dissipate around them as afternoon crept into night, making the quiet murmur vanish entirely. Astoria started to pack up then, and Draco's curiosity got the best of him.

"How'd you know about that potion?" he prompted, helping her stack up her books. "It's NEWT level."

"I helped my sister study over the summer," she said, rolling up her piece of parchment. "She also forgot that minor detail when I quizzed her."

Draco raised his brows at this, surprised. She had just flat out told him this about her sister so freely. Daphne wouldn't be happy if she heard that her sister had told him that. She looked around them before slipping him a chocolate cauldron cake as a bribe.

"Don't tell her I told you that, though. I rather like my hair the way it is," Astoria added, combing her fingers through her dark, honey-blonde hair. "I hope you have a good night, Draco. Thank you for the company."

He bid her goodnight and wished he had offered to walk her back to her dorm before realizing that hers was on the opposite side of the castle to an extreme extent. Draco stifled a chuckle at the sheer irony of it as he started to gather his things to turn in for the night.

Perhaps next time he would offer, despite the extra walk it would entail.

"You'll be graduating next week," Astoria said, sitting beside Draco on the banks of the Black Lake. "Any plans for what you'll do after?"

He shrugged, keeping his eyes on the sparkling evening waters in front of him. "I have to be properly transferred onto all of my family's estates and assets, so, that will be quite a nightmare. Otherwise, not really."

"Sounds like a lot of responsibility."

"All that stuff practically runs itself these days," he informed her. "It's just that the bank, brokers, and solicitors aren't too keen on the fact that the one who is currently in charge of it all is behind bars."

Draco's tone turned bitter, and Astoria gently wrapped her arm around his, grabbing his hand, and leaning into him to offer a comforting contact.

"I think I'll study architecture. I was always fascinated by how intricate structures could get," she said, and he saw her glancing over her shoulder to the castle that stood tall behind her. "It is a family tradition on my mother's side. All of my uncles and grandfathers were architects. Thankfully, one of my uncles is more open-minded about women being in the workplace, so he has offered to mentor me for a few years in China, after I graduate."

"Fascinating," Draco murmured, drawing lines in the pebbled sand with his fingers. "Mother has been getting into antiques lately. The process of preserving and restoring them is actually pretty cool. It's a really delicate process."

"That sounds like a fun hobby. You seem like you've taken an interest in it, too," she said, smiling brightly at him when their eyes met. "If you do, I can't wait to see your first restored piece."

Draco gave a subtle nod to her encouragement, a small smile gracing his lips. He did seem to have a fascination with broken and damaged things. Maybe fixing physical things would help him fix himself, after all.

Draco knelt down on one knee, ring case open and held out in his hand. This was her favorite part of the property at Malfoy Manor, it was out of the way, a little overgrown and unkept, and by the large pond. He thought it would be the perfect place to ask her to spend the rest of her life with him. Even the cool, early evening spring air wasn't giving him cold feet. He looked up at her, eager for her to accept, his question hanging in the air between them like a billowing leaf stuck in a whirling wind.

Astoria took in a deep breath, her soft smile never faltering from her lips as she gazed down at him. "Draco, you know that I love you unconditionally, right?"

He tilted his head ever so slightly, confused, but tried to not show it. "Yes."

"And I know that you, too, love me unconditionally," she continued, reaching for the ring and his hand. "So you will understand why I am doing this."

Her hand shut the box in his before guiding his fingers to curl around it. Taking his hand in both of hers, then, she clasped the ring box alongside his. "I'm going to be graduating in a couple of months and I will be going to China to study. Don't you think it is time that we start to live our own lives now that we are able to finally be free?"

Tears stung the back of his eyes as his gaze dropped to their hands. He didn't try to stand, instead, he just stared at the little purple box hidden under their fingers. The burning in his throat was preventing him from speaking at that moment, so he just bit at his bottom lip, trying to gather his courage. He felt himself completely crumble to the ground, legs giving out underneath him after stiffly kneeling for so long, and his arms dropped limply beside him, ring box tumbling away, nearby.

"I— I thought we would spend it together..."

"Draco," she half-whispered, the breeze taking his name away with it. "Please understand. It is for the best."

"Yeah? Best for who?" he stammered.

"Best for us, for you, at least for now," she responded gently. "This isn't irreversible, just another path we can and should take in our own lives, for the time being."

His head hung between his shoulders, feeling his world starting to crack and shatter around him. He had been extremely sure that he knew what her answer was going to be. He had known that she'd say yes. They had been together for nine months. But here he was, resting on one knee, unsure of what to do now. The soft shifting in front of him was unheard, and he almost jumped when Astoria's hands cupped his face and tilted it up so he would meet her gaze. She had knelt down in front of him, uncaring of the dirt and grime building up on her blush pink and purple accented robes.

"You spent your entire childhood with someone, telling you what life was going to be like when you were older, and when that time came, you were being told how to follow that mindset, you were raised to think and behave or suffer the consequences." Draco stiffened at this, and Astoria's hand gently rested on that part of his arm that he wished he could forget about. "Now you want to focus on living your life alongside someone else rather than finding out what it is like to be free of another person telling you how your life should be led."

She pulled him into a hug then, and he shuttered a sob into her shoulder. "I think it's time for you to finally see what is out there for you, without me, for the time being."

Draco closed his eyes, focusing on the slender fingers that carded through his hair. "I'm going to China in a couple of months."

"I'll come with you…" he muttered between heavy intakes of breath.

"No, Draco," she said, pulling back slightly to look at him. "I'm going to be studying architecture there. I'll be learning my mother's side of the family's trade, remember? I'll be experiencing and fulfilling what I want to do in my life, and I want you to do the same with yours."

He was silent, turning his head to keep himself from looking at her and focused on the swishing grass nearby.

"This isn't a goodbye, nor is it forever. I can promise you that," Astoria said after a beat of silence, and he felt her soft lips touch his temple; his eyes fluttered closed. "Maybe after a few years we can return to each other and this meeting will be different."

A hard object was then pressed against his chest, and he opened his eyes and looked down to investigate. Astoria was pressing the ring box into him, and with shaky hands, Draco reluctantly accepted it.

"Hold onto this for now, and promise me that you will start living your life for yourself, okay?" she asked, watching him with the grace and patience of an angel.

It felt like ages before he found his voice again, before he was able to animate himself to suck in a frost-laden breath and nod his head. Though, he wasn't sure if this could get fixed, maybe it would be irreversible. Perhaps they weren't really meant to be after all, but he decided to appease her for now, and the words stung his tongue as they came out.

"I promise."