Chapter Forty One
Lilacs and Ribbons
0o0
A cruel, icy cold descended over the castle during the next few days. No fresh snow fell, and the old layer quickly became encrusted with ice. There wasn't a cloud to be seen for a hundred miles during the day and by night, the stars blazed so brightly in the expansive, moonlit darkness that Astoria was nearly able to read magazines by their twinkling light in her bed at the top of Gryffindor tower.
The Yule Ball was rapidly approaching, and Astoria had made no more headway in picking out a dress than she had in procuring a date. What Astoria had done however, was begin to press scraps of paper into the spines of various fashion periodicals, marking particular styles and designs that she found pleasing. By Tuesday evening, Astoria had accumulated so many paper bookmarks that the whole exercise began to feel a bit like planning her own wedding without a groom and she resolved to show the lot of them to Tracey the following morning.
Because they did not share a common room and because Astoria couldn't stand the idea of having to try on dresses in the freezing cold fifth floor bathroom again, they decided to meet in the study nook on the third floor. Properly deserted, barren of any students with last minute homework, it suited their needs nicely.
"I like this one," said Tracey, fingering the earthy brown fabric of a strapless shift that Astoria had brought along for Tracey examine. "It's not really orange or bronze, though..."
"I know," Astoria lamented, "but I thought it looked a bit metallic in my dormitory."
"I suppose I'll try it on and see how it fits," mused Tracey, still testing the fabric's thin, fluttery consistency. "It's the thought that counts, right?"
"That's the rule with gifts," Astoria reminded her. Smiling, she turned away so Tracey could pull the dress down over her head and wriggle out of her skirt.
"Well it's close to bronze," admitted Tracey, opening the cabinet that Maudlin had rifled through about a week ago, exposing a small mirror that hung on left side of the door. "What if I wore a sparkly headdress or something?"
"I wouldn't," Astoria cautioned, trying to hide the horror that this image conjured.
"A headband or something, then," Tracey clarified dismissively. "You know what I mean. I wouldn't wear a fruit hat."
Astoria smirked and flipped open one of her magazines. "Look at this," she said, pointing to a gown on one of its glossy pages. "This one is bronze."
"Yeah, and it only costs about a thousand galleons," remarked Tracey sarcastically, consulting the shopping directory that ran along the side of the article. "Are you mad? You really couldn't find anything else?"
"Nope," Astoria sighed, letting the thick magazine fall shut with a liquid grace. "I've got the brown strapless dress you're wearing and—" Astoria neatly shifted the stack of outfits until she found what she was looking for, "—this beaded one, but it's definitely gold."
The rest were all white; a sacrifice to the Eastern Star on Astoria's part so that Tracey would no longer have to wear the mini-dress to meetings.
"Oh!" jolted a familiar and surprised voice near the doorway. "Astoria. What are you doing in here?"
Astoria turned around in her seat to watch Maudlin and Alec amble down the nearby stairs, presumably on the return leg of a mid-day adventure toward the owlery.
"Playing dress up, of course," smirked Alec suggestively, guessing the answer to Maudlin's question. "Ball gowns?"
Astoria raised a single eyebrow, not particularly anxious for Maudlin's company while she and Tracey discussed the details of the forthcoming dance.
"What are you planning to wear?" asked Maudlin nosily, his eyes sliding onto the pile of dresses stacked on the table.
"Those are for Tracey," said Astoria pointedly, "and at some point soon, she might want to re-dress herself."
Either because he had missed the hint or because he was deliberately choosing to ignore it, Maudlin strode forward and began to inspect the various fabrics that were now splayed across the wood.
"I don't stand by any of these, frankly," he commented idly. "I'd send your measurements off to one of my father's tailors, if you'd stop being so stubborn about things."
"Those are all for me," said Tracey flatly, just perceptibly affronted. "Tell you what, send my measurements off to your dad's tailor and I'll curse Astoria into going with you."
Tracey had meant this as a joke but for the swiftest of seconds, Astoria perceived that Maudlin was genuinely considering the offer.
"Enough," said Astoria shortly, reminded somewhat shamefully of Fred and George's idea of extorting money from Maudlin through false dress purchasing funds. "Maudlin, don't you have some other place to be?"
"I'm on vacation," argued Maudlin. "Where would I have to be?"
"We told Draco we would meet him in the entrance hall," said Alec mindfully.
Suddenly afraid that their party would expand to include Draco as well, Astoria actually got up from her seat, prepared to corral both boys out of the room.
"Oh, that's right!" said Maudlin, remembering himself just in time to prevent Astoria from resorting violence. He consulted his watch. "Well, we'll leave you to it, Ria."
When they had both continued down the hall and turned the corner, Astoria let out a huff of pent up breath. She turned to stare out the long windows; there was a cardinal perched in one of the bushes below, working on snow-buried seeds. Astoria's eyes followed the bird's light, jittery motions as it hoped from branch to branch.
"I'd never actually curse you for a dress, you know," said Tracey carefully, perhaps a little concerned by Astoria's distant body language.
"I know," Astoria reassured her, continuing to watch the bird.
In truth, Astoria was not thinking of Tracey's at all. She was suffering from a queer pang of irrational anger with herself. Christmas Eve was less than a week away and a tiny, loathsome, little voice in her brain was beginning to make her wonder if it wouldn't just be easiest to go with Maudlin, after all.
This was a cowardly attitude to take at the eleventh hour, not to mention most unlike herself. Astoria had never been one to feel as though she needed a date in order to make it through a social event with grace. She was quite witty and pleasant enough on her own to make up for the absence of an appropriate partner, but still...
The type of eager anticipation surrounding the Yule Ball was something new to her. The power it seemed to have in splitting the population into so many neat little twosomes was disarming. If Astoria was being totally honest with herself, she knew that she was beginning to feel left out. A school dance, (infinitely more so than a staid family occasion) seemed to be something that was best enjoyed as a duo.
If Maudlin could manage to think of some way of asking Astoria to go with him that did not feel like an obvious bribe, she was prepared to consider the matter. After all, the idea of having Draco and Pansy on one side of her, and Maudlin and his last minute date on the other was practically repugnant to live through in imagination alone. A situation to be avoided at all costs.
"This is pretty," said Tracey, picking up a dress that had fallen off the table and slunk onto the floor between the legs of a nearby chair.
"Oh!" Astoria jumped, tearing he eyes off of the chilly yard with a jolt as she recognized the dress in Tracey's hands. "That one was from my pile. I don't know how it ended up in there—"
The dress that Tracey had just discovered on the carpet was, incredibly enough, the outfit Astoria was planning to wear herself if she ended up having to go to the ball in her own colors. Amazed that she could have been careless with something so precious, Astoria moved away from the window in order to take the dress back and stow it away safely in her bag.
"This is loads better than anything you brought along for me," complained Tracey, tugging the fabric out of reach, eager to have a better look.
"I don't know what made you think I was the authority on citrus colored formal wear," muttered Astoria defensively, resenting the way that Tracey had just yanked her own clothing away from her.
"Yeah," agreed Tracey, acknowledge the fact that there was some fairness to this statement. With a twitch, she unfolded the dress and held it up to the light for proper inspection.
Wine-red jewels picked out in crimson satin sparked like a condensation of fresh blood in the last rays of sunset. The dress itself had been ordered and purchased by Belladonna the moment she had spotted the demand for dress robes on Astoria's school list, and the quality of the piece showed in everything from the soft fabric, to the weight of its many glowing adornments.
"Try this on," commanded Tracey, looking just as excited she might have been if the dress had been her own. "I bet it's gorgeous."
"I know what it looks like," said Astoria evasively, not particularly wanting to strip down in the raw chill or draw any more attention to the stark difference between Tracey's dress and her own. "My aunt had it made. I'm sure the measurements are spot on."
Tracey pressed the garment at Astoria anyway. The feel of the buttery fabric beneath her fingers was the only persuasion Astoria needed to yank her shirt off and slide the dress down in its place.
"See?" Astoria insisted, kicking her skirt toward her school bag. "It fits."
But it did more than just fit. Even in the pale, wintery morning light, the dress really was something to behold. Everything about the cut screamed of Belladonna's hand; evenly fitting and well tailored, intentionally complimentary to Astoria's skin tone without bearing any further trace of desperation. The bead-work begged to be looked at, and no more advertisement seemed to be required. Just the weight of the dress on Astoria's body seemed imbue a certain feeling of casual opulence, and Astoria could feel herself shifting her posture in order to hold herself differently in it as a result.
Astoria peered at her reflection in the dusty mirror, both surprised and privately pleased by the sight that met her there. A slip underneath the heavily beaded fabric ended just above her knees but several feet of sheer, wildly sparkling material cascaded all the way down to her feet like sunlit water. Two thin strands of ribbon hung from both sides of Astoria's body near her elbows. Assuming that these were intended to pull in the loose fabric in at her waist to give her figure a proper shape, Astoria hastily tried to make both ends meet behind her back. Tracey batted Astoria's awkward fingers away and tied the ribbon herself.
"Who needs a date?" remarked Tracey almost caustically. "I wish your aunt would do my shopping."
"What are you two doing?" demanded a drawling voice. It was Draco this time, on the prowl after having been made to wait in the entrance hall for who knew how long.
"Trying on dresses," answered Astoria, continuing to gaze at herself in the mirror while subtly peering at Draco in the glass behind her. "If you're looking for Alec and Maudlin, they've just set off to find you."
"Let them find me," Draco sneered. "I waited for them for more than an hour. Crabbe and Goyle defected to the Great Hall—probably for the best. When Crabbe stands in one position for that long I start to worry he might calcify."
Draco slung himself into one of the seats at the long table and stared at them both expectantly, clearly hoping that they might fill the void of boredom that Maudlin had created with his tardiness.
"Does this look bronze to you, Draco?" asked Tracey hopefully, turning about so that he might have a better look at her.
"No," sneered Draco carelessly, making a swift assessment of Tracey's dress.
His eyes flicked back toward Astoria. "You are going by yourself, then?" he asked, noting the obvious lack of purple in Astoria's outfit with a touch of poorly concealed smugness.
"I'm not sure," breezed Astoria, sounding much less invested in the matter than she actually felt.
"You've already got a dress," Draco persisted, shifting slightly, no longer meeting her eye in the mirror. "Why bother changing it now?"
For all of the many times Astoria had seen Draco try to be goading on purpose, she was capable of recognizing that this was not one of those moments—a fact that did not entirely prevent his words from rubbing her the wrong way. It was all fine and well for Draco to be so thoughtless about the matter: he had a date, even if she was insufferable...
"What's Pansy wearing?" asked Astoria archly. "The last I knew, she was all of a dither."
"How should I know?" sneered Draco, looking faintly uncomfortable and eager to distance himself from Pansy's last minute (and highly annoying) fretting about ball gowns. "It's not my job to dress her..."
"She made it sound as though you were picking her color scheme for her," said Astoria carefully, taking great care to guard her voice from the unreasonable resentment that was suddenly governing her. "I thought it was something you two were doing together."
Tracey cackled gleefully but Draco, for his part, had gone slightly pink.
"I'm not dress hunting," he insisted, looking more than a little embarrassed by the idea that Astoria thought of him as Pansy's fashion toady.
"Oh," Astoria lightly. "That's too bad. I was looking forward to seeing what you both would come up with."
Draco leaned back in his seat, visibly shamefaced. After a moment, his pale eyes narrowed suspiciously, perhaps trying to work out what he had done to cause Astoria to take such a pointless stab at him.
Astoria opened her mouth to backpedal, not wanting to give Draco any reason to dig too deeply into the matter when she was distracted by the sound of another rapidly approaching voices in the hallway. Turning away from the mirror at last, Astoria half-expected to find that Alec and Maudlin had come back in search of Draco again.
"Stupid feathery git!" stormed a highly irritated voice that Astoria recognized as belonging to Ron Weasley. "You bring letters to the addressee!" Ron Weasley himself appeared on the other side of the doorway amidst a unexplainable maelstrom of feathers. "You don't hang around showing off!"
He made a cartoonish strangling motion with his fist, drawing Astoria's attention to the head of a tiny owl protruding over the tops of his fingers. The bird hooted gleefully in response, so Ron shook it a bit harder, looking very much the part of a ill-contented mad-man.
"Let me have the letter, Ron!" called Harry, catching up with his friend. He eyed the toy-sized animal in Ron's hand with an expression of great pity.
"Is that your owl, Weasley?" drawled Malfoy, his voice dripping with condescending delight.
Ron glanced toward Draco, already clearly toeing the edge of wrath and ready to turn nasty at the drop of a pin.
"Forget it, Ron!" said Harry quickly, anticipating Ron's reaction by seizing his arm before he could storm forward and punch Malfoy with his bird-fist.
"Do you own anything that actually works, Weasley?" inquired Draco cruelly. "Or do you just like everything around you to be trash?"
"Leave him alone, Malfoy," said Harry, maintaining a tight grip on Ron's sleeve. His eyes swept the study lounge, where they came to a nervous rest on Astoria. "Let's get back back to the common room. I want to read the letter. Are you alright, Astoria?"
Harry had meant this inquiry chivalrously, but Astoria could tell it would do nothing to defuse the brewing sense of confrontation.
"What's that supposed to mean?" snapped Draco before Astoria could respond, curiously livid.
"You can come with us, you know," said Harry, pointedly ignoring Draco in order to provide Astoria with an escape route, incorrectly assuming that she was in an uncomfortable position.
"Why would she go anywhere with you?" sneered Draco, his expression icy.
"Come on, Harry," scoffed Ron, giving up the gun. "Let's go."
When Astoria made no indication of distress, Harry's shoulders loosened and he followed Ron up the steps that spiraled along the North Tower.
"Is Potter just following you around now?" demanded Draco hotly, overcome with annoyance. "That makes the third time in two days he's stopped to have a look at you. What's with the new fixation?"
This was utter nonsense. Surely, if Harry had ever actually spent any time following Astoria, he would have known enough to avoid being surprised by her present company; Tracey was one of Astoria's closest friends and Draco tended to cast an almost constant shadow over most of her doings.
"That's ridiculous," said Astoria dismissively, leaning across the table to reorganize the stack of dresses, feeling it was high time to leave the third floor. "Harry can't help walking places, can he?"
"Yeah, walking directly past places you are," sneered Draco doubtfully. "Or have you not noticed?"
"We share a common room," said Astoria dully. "I think it's safe to say that he's in the same place that I am often enough without having to go out of his way to look for me."
Astoria made to straighten back up but was met with a gentile resistance. Assuming that one of the ribbons on her dress had come loose and snagged in a crack on the table, Astoria glanced down and was surprised to find that Draco was the culprit. Softly fiddling with one of the crimson strands, he did not seem to have realized that the ribbon was attached to Astoria's body. The moment he understood why the fabric had gone tense, he dropped the ribbon from his grasp like a fiery coal.
"That owl, though!" trilled Tracey.
Draco scoffed, his eyes going back to the last place that Harry had been standing, and there was an apprehensive flickering in his features that threatened to overrun his distaste.
0o0
Despite the cutting temperatures and the inhospitable nature of the grounds in general, Cassandra insisted that the Sisters of the Eastern Star meet near the greenhouses on Thursday morning in order to go over flower arrangements for the Yule Ball.
Beyond the point of questioning the absurdity of meeting up on a frozen tundra to go over bouquet baskets, Astoria took great care to dress warmly. She did not own any white hats or scarves but she did manage to find an ivory toned pair of gloves. Thinking that any hostility on Cassandra's part over something so necessary would constitute full-on madness, Astoria drew the hood of her cloak as close to her face as she could and set off toward greenhouse four.
She was the last girl to arrive, a fact that she was sure did not slip past Cassandra's all-seeing eye. It was an unexpected relief, therefore, when Cassandra did not take the time to chastise Astoria outside in the snow.
"About time," snapped Cassandra impatiently, producing a key from her pocket in order to let them all in to the glass room that housed the majority of the school's decorative flora. Katherine MacDougal shot Astoria a particularly accusatory look before cutting her off to scuttle into the miraculously tropical warmth first.
Stepping over the stone doorframe was a bit like crossing through a portal in time. The sounds of steadily trickling water and the smells of wet, balmy earth were like a song of summer in the middle of winter.
At once, Astoria's fingers began to scrabble at the neck of her cloak in order to unfasten it, thankful that she had remembered to wear white underneath.
"Now," said Cassandra, entirely too preoccupied with the task at hand to appreciate the gift of unseasonable humidity, "Professor Dumbledore wants an arrangement on each table. Madame Maxime, however, thinks it would be more appropriate to focus on the champion and staff tables. I say we split the difference by creating more than one design."
"The one for the staff table could be bigger?" suggested Katherine, shooting for the obvious.
"Good idea, Kitty," returned Cassandra dryly, her eyes on a clipboard that she had brought along. "You're the first to think of that, I'm sure."
"What are good winter colors?" began Flora. "Do all the tables have to be matching?"
"The only color we'll be using is white," said Cassandra rigidly, forcefully suppressing any attempt at imaginative decorating before it could grow legs. "Calla lilies for the staff table, I think. Peace roses for the champions, and I don't know what for the rest—aster maybe?"
It was obvious by the way that Cassandra was speaking only to herself that she had already gone through most of the trouble of planning for them. All she required from the rest of the Sisters now was enthusiastic agreement.
Torn between the desire to be difficult and wanting for this thankless task to be out of the way as soon as possible, Astoria leaned against the nearest planter and inhaled the faint scent of a cluster of hydrangeas.
A sharp rap on the foggy glass caused Astoria to jump so badly that she almost put her hand into the dirt to balance herself.
"What was that?" demanded Pansy dramatically.
Just visible though the misty greenhouse walls, Astoria could make out a cluster of boys standing in the snow. At the front appeared to be Luc Millefeuille, smirking and pointing at them like a cartoon jester.
Astoria chanced a glance at Cassandra, unsurprised to find that her eyelashes were fluttering punishingly behind her clipboard.
"Well, if nobody has anything else to add," Cassandra went on acidly, "the meeting is adjourned."
Nobody did and pretty soon, most of the girls had redone their cloaks and stumbled back out into the chilly yard. Knowing that Maudlin was likely among the pack of spectators on the other side of the glass and suspecting that she would be waylaid if she tried to make an escape, Astoria did not bother moving away from the pleasant warmth of the hydrangea bushes.
"All right, Cassandra?" asked Luc eagerly, stumbling over the doorframe and shaking ice from his hair.
"Not really," said Cassandra coldly. "You interrupted my meeting and now you've got snow on my shoes."
Astoria did not manage to hear Luc's response because Maudlin, Alec and Draco had all pushed in behind him.
"Well, this is pleasant," said Maudlin, surveying the nearby flower beds approvingly, no doubt immensely preferring the sweet smelling humidity of the greenhouse over the frozen wasteland he had just abandoned.
"You never could stand the cold," drawled Alec lazily, as unaffected by the joys of false summer as Cassandra had been.
"Draco!" squealed Pansy, pausing near the doorway in order to ambush him.
Astoria snorted when Draco reflexively startled away from Pansy, turning back toward the hydrangeas to hide her triumph.
"Father sent me a letter this morning," said Maudlin, sidling away from Alec toward Astoria. "He's with the Trefle-Picques in Monte Carlo for the holiday."
If Maudlin was hoping to appeal to Astoria's sentimental nature by discussing his father, he would have done better not to mention the Trefle-Picques, who were the key reason that he had stood Astoria up in the first place.
"Is that so?" said Astoria archly. "I suppose they're having a politically conscious Christmas together, are they?"
"He told me to send his love, in any case," said Maudlin, wisely backing away from the subject altogether. "I didn't bother mentioning what a selfish terror you're being."
"I should think not," returned Astoria serenely, plucking a low budding glowers and smirking. "You wouldn't want him to ask why, would you?"
"Are we going in for lunch or not?" asked Luc, breaking away from what appeared to have been a painfully scolding conversation with Cassandra. "What's Maudlin doing?"
"Tying to bribe Astoria with a dozen roses, no doubt," sneered Malfoy, glancing mutinously in their direction.
"Well," said Cassandra unpleasantly, "Maudlin might want to be very clear with his florist, otherwise his bouquet will probably come with a card addressed to Emilie."
Pansy, perhaps disliking the bitterness with which Draco had suggested the idea in the first place, laughed loudly.
"It would be a moot point, Cassandra," said Maudlin in a raised voice, not even bothering to turn around as he spoke to her. "Astoria doesn't like roses. Her favorites are all wild and I can't think of anyone who sells lilacs in mid-winter, anyway."
Cassandra blinked, as taken aback by his outright defiance as she was displeased by it. For a moment, Astoria herself was disarmed, although for entirely different reasons. It had never occurred to her before that lilacs were her favorite flower, but now that it had been said, she knew that it was quite true. She could not think how Maudlin, in his state of almost permanent self-involvement, had come to observe this fact before she had.
"I want lunch," complained Luc. "It's too hot in here."
There was a hasty discussion that ended with a general agreement to head toward the Great Hall. All of the boys were still dressed for the weather and they were several feet ahead with Pansy in tow when Cassandra moved to block Astoria's way out of the greenhouse.
The movement was more serpentine than Cassandra's fox-like features might have suggested possible, resulting in a kind of soft torso touching that most girls would have shied away from as being faintly sexual. Cassandra, on the other hand, leaned into it excitedly in the hopes of being all the more intimidating.
"Wait for me," she commanded, and Astoria was not fool enough to think that she had meant this as a request.
Moving back several inches, Astoria waited for Cassandra to carefully fasten her cloak. When it was properly buttoned, Astoria started toward the door again only to have Cassandra block her a second time; this time roughly. A Cheshire grin seemed to express Cassandra's sense of great triumph when Astoria winced.
"So," Cassandra purred, "you don't want to go to the dance with Maudlin?"
A thrill of adrenaline hit Astoria's legs and prevented her from slipping out into the snow.
"I suppose you think you're playing hard to get?" continued Cassandra, tilting her head to the side patronizingly. "Think it's funny to make him work for it?"
"Not really," said Astoria carefully, feeling that, unlike Pansy, Cassandra was something of a worthy nemesis and not to be crossed lightly. "I thought I was saving us all the trouble by turning him down."
Astoria had been hoping to express solidarity, but the words tumbled out of her mouth like a challenge.
"Oh, yeah?" snapped Cassandra snidely, her thin lips pressing into irritated line. "Taking one for the team, are you?"
"Yes," Astoria returned stoutly, meeting Cassandra's displeased brown gaze.
"Well," Cassandra went on, swiftly changing tactics, "if you really don't like him, why don't you go with someone else?"
"There is no one else," Astoria sneered. "Everyone already has a date."
"Prove it," said Cassandra, sounding much more like a bratty schoolgirl than the well organized chapter president that Astoria had come to know.
"Prove what?" snapped Astoria.
"Prove that you don't like him," explained Cassandra, eyes sparkling with baited cruelly. "If you're not interested in Maudlin, than you won't mind kissing someone else to prove it."
"I'm not just going to kiss someone because you're feeling insecure," said Astoria roughly, genuinely surprised by the spoiled eight year old that seemed to dwell within Cassandra's spirit.
"I told you when you joined my club that I expected every girl to prove herself before the year was over," Cassandra reminded her, not backing down. "I've already told some of the other girls what I want from them—now I'm telling you what I want."
"You want me to kiss someone?" repeated Astoria stupidly.
"How about Draco?" suggested Cassandra keenly. "He doesn't seem to like Maudlin's pathetic attempts at wooing you, either. I'm sure he'll do you the favor."
"Draco is going to the ball with Pansy," said Astoria slowly, becoming more suspicious of Cassandra by the second. "I don't suppose she would appreciate me making out with her date, would she? Or you for asking me to, for that matter."
"I won't tell if you don't," laughed Cassandra, making a crossing motion over her heart, face continuing to promise cold murder. "I can keep a secret."
"And if I won't do it?" Astoria sneered, knowing in her heart of hearts that spontaneously kissing any part of Draco would probably result in some kind of tragic upheaval.
"Then I'll slap the silly shit out of you and tell Maudlin that you did it anyway," leered Cassandra joyfully. "You can spend the rest of the year as a junior Sister and a pariah, if you want. See if I care."
"Are you seriously be so afraid that I'll try to steal your friend's boyfriend?" Astoria wondered in amazement.
"Afraid?" asked Cassandra sharply, her eyes as hard as steal as she bit back a laugh. "That is a word I never use."
Without so much as a backward glance, Cassandra pushed out into the wintry yard, taking long strides to catch up with Pansy, leaving Astoria alone with her jumbled and highly aggravated thoughts.
Astoria blinked awkwardly in the blazing afternoon light, trying to understand where she stood after receiving a percussive blow.
It wasn't as though Cassandra had challenged Astoria to murder anyone. In theory, simply being made to kiss someone over the holiday was probably getting off easy as far as Cassandra's homemade tasks were concerned. No, it was the motive behind the whole thing that was so deucedly awkward. Surely there was no way that Astoria would ever be able to get away with snogging Draco without Draco wondering why she had done so? It did not seem any more likely that Draco would be willing to help her if Astoria explained her motive to him first, either.
Cassandra had clearly left her with two options: Astoria could lie in order to succeed (and very likely hurt someone's feelings along the way), or else tell the truth and be denied—for why would Draco willingly kiss her, if he knew that Astoria only wanted him to do so in order to settle a debt with his cousin?
It was a well crafted plan on Cassandra's part; one that, if allowed to reach fruition, granted Cassandra the power to police Astoria's life from afar by holding Maudlin hostage in a web of ignorance while Astoria ran about the castle awkwardly begging Draco to molest her.
Unacceptable, thought Astoria sternly, coming to the firm decision that she would never stoop so low in pursuit of Cassandra's good graces. Let Cassandra tell Maudlin whatever she likes, Astoria fumed, trudging out into the snow alone. I'll tell him that she's lying. Her plan won't work.
This new threat would not entirely leave her thoughts, however, and Astoria caught herself brooding over it periodically throughout the day. What had seemed like such a spur of the moment piece of cruelty soon began to seem much less spontaneous, the more she thought about it. Could Cassandra have been planning such a maneuver for days? Had she perhaps been waiting for an opportunity to spring a trap since the the Welcoming Mixer?
Yes, in fact, this seemed more than likely. Clearly Cassandra wanted Astoria as far away from Maudlin as possible, to the point that she was actually willing to sacrifice both Pansy's friendship and—potentially—Draco's loyalty in order to do so.
It was an almost ludicrous state of affairs. Astoria did not genuinely believe herself to be a threat of any sort to Emilie, nor did she wish to present herself as one. All Cassandra was doing by pushing so hard was make Astoria want to push back even harder. It was a game no one would win, and between Astoria's stubborn nature and Cassandra's clever turn of mind, it would likely result in a disaster.
Feeling very tried and decidedly awkward, Astoria went to bed early that night. She slept in for so long the next morning that she woke up stiff and more exhausted than she had been the night before.
0o0
"Coffee?" offered Theodore.
It was nearly one o'clock and the library, once a bustling hubbub of activity, was now deserted for the holidays. With the exception of several first years in the next room, Astoria and Theodore had the run of the place. It was a welcome change to be able to talk at a normal level without being hushed by Madam Pince.
"Thanks," said Astoria gratefully, taking his thermos and drinking directly from the mouth without bothering to pour out a measure into the tin lid.
Theodore watched Astoria swallow, her eyes watering from the unexpected heat of the coffee. He turned away politely when she spluttered.
"Have your ball gown all picked out, yet?" Theodore asked, crossing one spindly leg at the knee, revealing the pattern of his socks.
"I suppose," said Astoria, thinking it was highly odd for Theodore to bring up the ball at all in such a civil tone, much less welcome a conversation involving the details of her party dress. "Have you decided to go, after all?"
"I don't know," said Theo, coloring slightly as he shrugged. "Millie asked me to go with her. I'm not sure if she'll go alone, so I figured I might as well take her."
"Oh," remarked Astoria, as surprised as she was burned by this announcement. Astoria was forever asking Theodore to accompany her places and Theodore was forever turning her down. "That's nice."
"I guess," shrugged Theodore. "I probably won't stay very long."
"No," Astoria sighed, feeling as though even Millicent Bulstrode had managed to one-up her. "I probably won't either."
"Why not?" asked Theodore, looking genuinely surprised. "Formal dress-up occasions are kind of your scene, aren't they?"
Astoria had no idea what would have given Theodore this impression, but correcting him seemed like it would require more effort than it was worth.
"Between Maudlin and the Sisters of the Eastern Star, I'm starting to wish I had just gone home for break," Astoria admitted, deciding her tongue had recovered from its burns and reaching for the thermos again.
"You'd prefer Belladonna over a ball?" asked Theodore flatly, clearly under the impression that Astoria was being overly dramatic. "Since when?"
"Everything is such a tangled mess," Astoria lamented bitterly. "I never should have told Maudlin I would go with him when he asked—that was the catalyst. After that, Draco asked Pansy to go with him and then Pansy went to Cassandra ratted out Maudlin for asking me."
"What?" scoffed Theodore, faintly annoyed and unable to keep up.
"Yeah," Astoria spat. "So then, Cassandra made Maudlin take Emilie. Only Cassandra met Roland bloody Yaxley at a mixer later in the week and had take it back so that Emilie could be her date again, because she doesn't want Roland to somehow get the impression she's a floozy."
"So just go with Mendel," said Theodore flatly, clearly finding little about this complicated log of events to be enjoyable storytelling. "Wait, your cousin Roland Yaxley? Your potential betrothed?"
"Who's betrothed?" came a drawling voice from just behind them.
Astoria, who had been seconds away from spilling the beans about Cassandra's mad request to see Astoria throw herself at Draco, jumped heartily.
Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle must have wandered in while Astoria was ranting, because she had not even heard Goyle's lumbering footsteps creeping up on her.
Feeling guilty and blessedly thankful that she had not continued speaking, (for she highly doubted Draco would have known what to do with the gossip she was secretly sitting on) Astoria fought very hard not to look as startled as she felt.
"Astoria is ," answered Theodore sarcastically. "She's going to marry Roland Yaxley. Didn't you know?"
"Still can't find a date for the ball, then?" asked Draco lazily. "Or are you just sitting around and plotting ways to make Cassandra hate you more?"
"Oh!" shocked Theodore, the gears of his mind shifting just enough in order for him to finally grasp. Roland and Cassandra! his dancing eyes seemed to laugh. Your nemesis and the man who would marry you for an inheritance!
"What?" asked Draco waspishly, sensing correctly that he was missing something and resenting them both for it.
"Nothing," insisted Theodore, backtracking at once, knowing better than to start a discussion about Astoria's family battle with the Yaxleys in front of Draco.
Draco glanced between Theodore's sorry looking expression to Astoria's embarrassed one, narrowing his eyes.
The muffled sound of a book hitting the rug several feet away distracted him before he could say anything rude. Between two shelves on practical charms, Harry Potter had just dropped a manuel of sailboat enhancements.
For a long second, Astoria could do nothing but blink. She had not heard Harry Potter enter the library either, and she was moderately surprised that he could have been so close at hand without somehow thinking to announce himself.
Draco froze in place, leaving Astoria with the terrible feeling that, if Harry tried to wave to her again, Draco might finally sic Goyle on him.
Thankfully, Harry seemed to realize that he was an intruder. He quickly scooped up his book about boats and shifted away toward the librarian's desk.
Draco rounded on Astoria accusingly, as though he thought it was somehow her fault that Harry had taken up an interest in aquatic vessels.
"Four times," he sneered. "This is getting ridiculous!"
"What's ridiculous?" asked Theodore, trapped in a spiral of confusion that did not seem to want to spit him out.
"Potter has been following Astoria around like a lost puppy all break," Malfoy snapped, giving vent to an idea that clearly bothered him more than he knew how to admit.
"Really?" demanded Theodore skeptically. "I hadn't noticed."
"You wouldn't," Draco sneered. "That would require putting your book down long enough to blink."
"Do you think he's trying to ask you to the ball?" asked Theodore, shifting toward Astoria and smirking. "He tried asking Chang, but she turned him down. I'm pretty sure he's still single."
Astoria blinked at Theodore, mildly surprise. Theo was almost never a font of gossip and this was an odd topic for him to be so knowledgeable about.
"I heard some Ravenclaws talking," Theo clarified, not quite meeting Astoria's gaze, perhaps because it had been Padma Patil who had mentioned Harry's romantic woes and he did not want to be forced to mention her name.
"I doubt it," said Astoria in clear, level voice, afraid to even look at Draco. "We hardly ever talk. I don't know why he would ask me out."
"Because there are so many other good looking girls loafing about his common room without a date only two days before the ball?" snapped Draco, clearly believing that Theodore was right and fighting an uphill battle to stay composed as the idea sank in.
Astoria shrugged, oddly preoccupied with the fact that Draco had just insinuated that she was attractive, as she did not think she had ever heard him come out and say it before.
"You wouldn't actually go with him?" demanded Draco tremulously. Astoria startled as she realized that he had not moved as much as an inch since Harry had disappeared.
"No," sang Astoria sarcastically. "I'd run away from him howling bloody murder and then never, ever talk to him again."
Theodore laughed but Draco did not seem to be content with sarcasm.
"I'm going to take a nap," said Astoria quickly, knowing the conversation at hand had potential to implode.
"You slept in until noon," said Theodore who, despite being one of the most slothful people Astoria knew, still seemed to find her sleep patterns excessive.
"Well, it wasn't enough," shot Astoria truthfully, longing for her bed and the blissful solitude of her curtains.
She hadn't even made it to the fourth floor when she heard footsteps approaching behind her. Suspecting that it was not Theodore, Astoria did not bother to slow down, hoping more than anything to avoid a another confrontation with Draco about Harry Potter.
"You think the idea is funny, do you?" Malfoy sneered, catching up with her. "You'd be a laughingstock if you went anywhere with him, you know."
"Why's that?" Astoria fired back, knowing it would be better to hold her tongue but feeling as though she had had more than enough of other people telling her what to do lately. "Because he's an actual famous person and a champion? Laugh away—"
Draco cut in front of her, preventing her from continuing up the stairs. "If you go to the ball with Potter, I'll never speak to you again," he spat.
"Are you kidding me?" asked Astoria slowly, hating the way that Draco was impeding her ability to escape.
"No," Draco snarled. "Do what you want, Greengrass, but I won't be caught dead hanging about with Potter's prissy little girlfriend!"
It would have been hilarious if only Astoria had not felt so cornered. Harry had never asked her out and, moreover, she suspected that he never would. Still, Astoria was beginning to feel like a trapped animal and the stain of Cassandra's last attempt at sabotage had not yet managed to rinse itself from her psyche.
"If you don't get out of my way, I really am going to scream bloody murder," Astoria promised hotly.
"Yeah?" Draco sneered. "Go ahead. Maybe Saint Potter will swoop in to rescue you. He's all about saving people, isn't he?"
"What are you on about?" Astoria snapped, slipping under his elbow only to immediately regret asking a question at the same moment she managed to wriggle free.
"You think anyone would want anything to do with you after?" Draco continued nastily. "You think any of your pals would stick around if you went out with Potter?"
"You're acting like a crazy person," Astoria snapped, summoning as much lofty dignity as she could muster. Surely that would annoy Draco far more than her anger ever could?
"He's an actual famous person and a champion?" Draco exploded hatefully, parroting Astoria's words back at her. "What are you? Some desperate, fame obsessed groupie?"
Draco's livid sneer remained the same but his eyelashes stuttered rapidly, a tell-tale sign that he knew he had gone too far.
"Nice!" Astoria bit back. "Really nice!"
Draco twitched a hand through his hair, fighting for a way to express himself that would not come out as a defensive mess before Astoria managed to get away.
"Just tell me that you won't go with him!" said Draco sharply, a caress of desperation creeping into his tone.
"Why should I?" Astoria snapped. "Harry hasn't asked me to go to the ball! And even if he had, why should I have to say no to him on principal alone? You're going with Pansy and I don't like her. You don't see me threatening to never speak to you again!"
"That's different," Draco snapped at once.
"Not the way I see it!" Astoria sneered.
"Potter's nothing more than some jumped-up usurper who's obviously trying to get on top of you!" spat Draco, positively choking on his own hatred. "Why are we even playing this game right now? You must know what you would say if he asked you to be his date. Why won't you just tell me that you would turn him down?"
Draco had moved again, blocking her path in a way that was only slightly less claustrophobic.
"Do you want me to take you?"
"What?" Astoria snapped, positive that she had misheard him.
"Do you want me to take you?" Draco repeated, sneering half-heartedly, not entirely joking but more than willing to play the offer off as a snide joke at the first sign of rejection. "I'd rather deal with ditching Pansy than have you go with that scar faced moron!"
More than Cedric's cowardly attempt to procure a dance partner, or even Maudlin's infuriating way of treating Astoria like a back-up plan, this had to be the offer that was the most trying to Astoria's good nature.
Perhaps it was because Draco did not want to admit that he was actually asking her? Or perhaps it was because Draco already had a loathsome date and there was no pleasant outcome possible? Either way, Astoria deeply resented him for even trying and for a long moment, her irritation literally silenced her.
"You can't be serious," Astoria managed coldly, clinging to her anger in order to prevent any regret from surfacing. "You've already got a date! Are you stupid or are you just mean?"
Draco blanched and it was gone immediately. The tiny window of vulnerability that Draco had left open slammed shut.
"I guess I'd rather take the piss for going with you than have to doge Potter all night," Draco spat reflexively, scrambling to save face. "What do you think Alec will make of Potter? Quick work, I'd wager."
"Probably," Astoria agreed, becoming desperate to escape the conversation without somehow doing any real damage, fearing that she had already crossed the line by roughly silencing whatever weird attempt at swapping Astoria for Pansy might have just been attempted. "It doesn't matter! I'm going alone, anyway!"
0o0
Unlike Cedric's attempt to ask her out, Astoria received virtually no joy from Draco's poorly executed and brutally rebuffed stab. If anything, the entire experience left her with a ball of dread in her gut that was only growing heavier.
There was no possible way that Astoria could have said yes. Surely Draco must have known that? She couldn't imagine what Draco could have been thinking to even bring it up in the first place.
From her point of view, going with Draco seemed very much like declaring to the word that she didn't care about what an insufferable, bigoted bully he was. Did she want the rest of the school to think that she didn't mind pushing other girls out of the ring just to get to him?
Theodore would have had a fit. Pansy would have strangled her in the loos. Astoria could not bring herself to imagine such a world, no matter how much of a relief it would be to just have a sodding date lined up.
Astoria muttered the password to the Fat Lady, trying to get the bitter taste out of her mouth. The best case scenario was that Draco would simply believe that Astoria had never perceived that he had probably been making a poorly concealed, real offer.
"Astoria!" hissed an excited voice.
A pair of hands grabbed her by the shoulders, startling her out of her state of deep and fretful distraction.
"What?" Astoria muttered, taking in Fred and George's eager faces with a thrill of terror.
"How did you do it?" whispered Fred intently. "We just found out!"
"Found out what?" Astoria asked, thinking that if another thing had gone wrong, she really might just have a mental breakdown.
"You know!" pressed George.
Astoria's eyes slipped down to George's hands and she was very surprised to see that he was clutching the notebook of Tournament bets. The last thing Astoria knew, Ragnuk the goblin had been holding this book hostage until further notice, and she could not fathom how the twins had come by it.
"How did you get that?" Astoria whispered back alertly.
"What are you talking about?" asked George with a frown. "You paid off our debt. Ragnuk sent us the book back with his formal respects about an hour ago and Hodrod as good as sent us a receipt!"
"I didn't pay off any debt," Astoria insisted, trying to spot a trap in this very peculiar behavior but failing to see it.
"Are you serious?" demanded Fred in wonder. "Why would they send the book back, then? You must have paid..."
"And what? I just forgot about it?" Astoria demanded doubtfully.
"Maybe the book isn't real and someone's messing with us?" guessed George, failing to spot the logic in this and shrugging.
"Let me see," said Astoria.
She took the notebook and flipped it open, half expecting to discover a letter of blackmail from an unidentified fourth party tucked under the cover. Instead of anything so ominous, there was nothing but a flower pressed between the front pages.
"That's weird," commented Fred. "Did you put that in there?"
Astoria was relatively certain that she had not. The book had been taken from them in late November, when nothing in the regular gardens had been in bloom. Furthermore, Astoria could not remember having ever pressed a flower in her life, and she was relatively certain that she would not have started the habit between the pages of such an important and official journal.
Astoria gingerly lifted the flower and held it up toward the windows to catch the light. I was a single lilac branch.
Astoria's mind rapidly spun back to her last Hogsmeade visit, recalling the way that two goblins in velvet pants had swooped down on Maudlin in order to interrogate him in the middle of the Three Broomsticks.
Was it possible that, by sending Fred and George alone to meet with Hodrod to assert strength, Astoria had roused enough curiosity for Hodrod to begin making inquiries about her? If that was the case, surely Maudlin would have been one of the first people on his list. Maudlin was rich, of legal age and had known Astoria for her entire life. Could it be that the seal around the cracks of Astoria's plan had begun to leak and Maudlin had somehow caught wind of it?
"What do we do?" asked Fred, beginning to look worried. "Do you want me to write to Hodrod and try to question him without being obvious about it?"
"No," said Astoria, still staring at the flower and thinking of what Maudlin had said about Astoria preferring lilacs over roses. "Don't do anything. I know who paid him."
Astoria had to hand it to him, the fact that Maudlin had not included a smarmy letter along with the notebook was a mark of great restraint...
"Who?" asked George, flabbergasted.
"Maudlin," Astoria admitted.
"What? You finally told him?" asked Fred.
"No," said Astoria absently, twiddling with the lilac branch. "I told him to wow me."
She was 'wowed', and not by the fact that Maudlin had paid her off, either. In theory, Maudlin had so much money that gold meant very little to him. No, what Astoria was moved by the most was the fact that he had not brought the matter up at all in front of Alec or Draco, nor had he used it as an opportunity for shaming her. Astoria sighed and tucked the flower back into the notebook. Perhaps she did own something in purple, after all...
0o0
Right off the bat, I'm super-duper sorry that this took so long to get posted! I promise not to go a whole week without an update again for quite some time if I can help it. Again, sorry for the wait! This chapter probably still needs a bit of an edit, so I'll come back and do that tomorrow. I hate to post something that hasn't been hard-edited but I had two weddings to attend this weekend and I've been starting to feel massively guilty about the lack of updates!
Reviews are always a joy! Next chapter is the Yule Ball (I think it will end up split into a two-parter, btw) and I plan to have that up on Wednesday. I've got the whole week off, so posting should be speedy and pleasant!