Chapter Fifty One
Ferns and Ruins Part One
0o0
Thump. Clunk. Screech.
Astoria awoke the next morning to a symphony of confusing sounds. Although the noise itself seemed to be reaching her ears from a very great distance, Astoria soon found herself annoyed and unable to sleep through it in peace.
A soft and very grey light was beginning to grow outside her windows, tapered by the low cloud cover and every few minutes, a chilly draft of atmospherically-charged air seemed to caress her face like a whisper. It was going to rain again, Astoria decided, smelling the storm on the wind.
Thump. Mumble.
Startled by the sound of actual voices now, Astoria finally fought her way up onto her hands, trying to free her ears from her blankets and the muffling pressure of Draco's right arm. At some point during the night they must have shifted because Draco was now lying on his back and Astoria appeared to have been using his body as a pillow.
Beneath her, Draco's eyelids twitched as he tensed uncomfortably. "Ow," he grumbled.
Realizing that she had been leaning all of her weight onto the softest part of his torso, Astoria quickly moved her hand. Painfully conscious of the fact that there might be intruders in her house at the very same moment that she happened to be straddling Lucius Malfoy's son, Astoria fought to get her bearings, feeling hung-over and disoriented.
"Oh," Astoria muttered groggily, recognizing one of the voices as Belladonna's before collapsing again. "My aunt is home."
"Are you serious?" asked Draco, who did not seem to find this prospect nearly as comforting as Astoria did. He shifted cautiously, coming out of his sleepy daze. "Is she going to call you for breakfast?"
Astoria snorted, trying to recall if she had ever seen Belladonna eat a meal before noon. Unless brunch cocktails counted (and she had a feeling that they didn't), Astoria decided she had not and the idea of Belladonna marching up to her bedroom to wake her for eggs now was so foreign that it was very nearly confusing.
"No," Astoria mumbled stupidly, her thoughts thick with sleep. "My aunt doesn't eat..."
"She doesn't eat?" drawled Draco doubtfully, delighted by the suggestion that Belladonna somehow survived without sustenance like a mythological monster.
Astoria scoffed and rolled away from him, disliking movement almost as much as conversation.
"Forget it," Draco muttered almost regretfully, curling his arm upward in an attempt to reclaim her.
Astoria pulled her hair away from her face and dropped her head against his chest again, keeping one ear free in order to listen for any sounds on the attic stairs. The rhythm of Draco's breathing was strangely soothing but awareness of his vulnerable proximity to her aunt was slowly starting to make Astoria feel sweaty and warm.
The more she thought about it, now that Belladonna was home, it really would be better for Draco to go. In any case, wasn't he supposed to be traveling to Italy? Surely Lucius had noticed by now that his son had not returned the night before and would soon begin making inquiries if Draco did not reappear soon with a probable excuse?
Before she could organize this idea and bring herself to say anything however, the softly mortal thumping of Draco's pulse had already started to pull her back toward a heavy slumber.
"Who is she talking to, anyway?" asked Malfoy nosily, perhaps more aware of the threat that Belladonna posed than Astoria had given him credit for.
"Bonky," Astoria mumbled, hazarding a guess. Her thoughts flashed somewhat nervously to the mess that she had left on both the terrace and around the living room bar…
Astoria swore and shot upright again.
"Ing!" grunted Malfoy in annoyance, flinching as Astoria put her weight on his stomach a second time. "What?"
"I left Luc downstairs!" Astoria gasped, scrambling to get out of bed, knocking a book onto the floor with her knee as she did so.
"Oh yeah," said Malfoy, absorbing this slowly.
Astoria pushed her rumpled skirt down, too panicked to be embarrassed by the fact that Draco had just gotten a mighty eyeful of knickers behind her. The rope of pearls she had been wearing at the party was now murderously tangled around her neck, as heavy and tight as a hangman's noose. Astoria yanked her jewelry off, trying to pat her hair back down into submission.
"Flee while you still can," she shot over her shoulder, bending to glance at her face in her vanity mirror before physically recoiling from the sight that met her there. "I'm sure my aunt will be on the warpath."
"Why?" Draco sneered, struggling to his feet, his hand moving to straighten his tie distractedly. "It serves her right, if you ask me. I've lost a tie clip…"
"I'll find it," said Astoria tensely, stumbling over the book she had kicked off her bed in her desperation to push Draco out onto the landing.
When they reached the stairwell, Draco pivoted, awkwardly attempting to lean against the banister. "Father thinks we'll be back from Italy by—" Astoria nearly ran straight into him in her haste to reach the front hall.
"Shh!" she hissed, clapping a hand over his mouth, all too aware of the mutinous acoustics in her stairway.
Astoria could tell at once that Draco was offended, so she dropped her hand to brush invisible lint off his shirt, hoping to soften the brutality of his dismissal before pointing toward the third floor storeroom and gesturing mutely.
A door clunked open downstairs so loudly that it could just as easily have been ten feet away.
"Kill all the gypsies!" cried Belladonna's strangely delighted voice, somehow managing to carry all the way up to the third floor on a cloud of perverse excitement.
Mouthing expletives at this unprecedented and very embarrassing outburst, Astoria ducked past Draco, whose face had lit up with gleeful wonder, and continued down the stairs. When she heard the floo flicker and then die again behind her, she counted Draco's escape as a minor blessing. One down, she counted, almost shamefully relived to have been spared the weird doorstep moment on the landing. One to go.
Yanking hard on her dress so that seam was no longer running sloppily down the front of her body, Astoria came to a skittering halt in the foyer, trying to decide what to do next. Belladonna's voice was coming from the direction of the dining room now, which meant that Astoria was being afforded a choice, but it was one that she would have to make quickly.
Sensing that she was bartering precious time for this moment of logic, Astoria ruled out checking the living room. After all, perhaps it was wiser to proceed straight to her aunt on the off chance that a real gypsy's life actually hung in the balance?
At that moment, the door to the dining room flew open, robbing Astoria of her chance to strike first. Belladonna backed out into the hall, clutching two glasses of sherry from the sideboard and laughing merrily. Following close behind was not Luc at all, but Professor Vector.
Astoria paused, blinking in astonishment at this turn of events.
"Astoria!" cried Vector in surprise, spotting her first and having the good grace to look a little abashed. It was clear from the tone of his voice that he had not expected Astoria to be home, or at very least, that Belladonna had not troubled herself to warn him that she might be.
Alerted to Astoria's presence, Belladonna shot a wayward glance over her shoulder at her niece. Her head snapped around again, taking in the deplorable state of Astoria's hair. "Good lord," she sneered, "was the house sacked as well?"
Astoria crossed her arms over her chest, too disoriented to bother with a front of false dignity. "What time is it?" she croaked.
"Noon," answered Belladonna, all cold displeasure, entirely too worldly to miss the signs of a person so obviously hung-over and guilty when they were standing right beneath her nose.
"Professor Vector!" said Astoria, switching to an offensive tactic immediately. "How nice to see you outside of school. Do the staff always travel over holidays?"
"Oh, yes!" agreed Vector in a rush, eager to please. Astoria missed the rest of what he said because she was busy craning her head to have a better look into the living room.
The chair that Luc had fallen asleep in was rumpled but mercifully empty. Luc, it seemed, had woken up and left before her aunt had returned to the house.
"You know where the sitting room is, Septimus," said Belladonna curtly, cutting Vector off before he became tiresome, her sharp eyes retracing the path of Astoria's interest toward the living room.
"And you," added Belladonna, stopping at the bottom of the stairs to shoot Astoria a low, warning aside, "have a bath."
"Sorry," scoffed Astoria defensively. "You woke me, after all."
"For heaven's sake, run a brush through your hair!" Belladonna hissed quietly. "I'll deal with you later."
Realizing that Belladonna had not meant this as a suggestion and that she was being dismissed, Astoria turned on her heel and beat a hasty path back to her bedroom. Her sense of relief began to mix with annoyance the minute the door shut behind her with a snap.
What could Belladonna possibly be doing with Professor Vector? Astoria pondered the matter savagely, unzipping and wriggling out of her dress. Had the woman finally lost her mind? Surely she didn't think it was worth her while to waste time preying on a man who lived off of a teacher's salary? Or was there another, cleverer trick in it?
Astoria kicked her dress toward the hamper, wincing as her toes made painful contact with the same book that she had knocked off her bedspread earlier. Dropping to her knees in order to feel about under the dust ruffle—for she had kicked it quite hard—Astoria managed to retrieve the tatty leather volume.
Angling the cover toward the windows, Astoria discovered that it was the biography of Ug the Unclean that Theodore had been so keen to make a fuss over the night before. Unsure if Theodore would bother to come back for it or not, Astoria slid it onto her desk with a snort.
The door to the bathroom seemed to yawn expectantly behind her, waiting for her touch to draw forth steam and scent. Instead of turning toward it, however, Astoria remained where she was, staring hard at the cover of Theo's book.
The memory of Theodore standing in her fireplace and glancing over his shoulder at her before the floo spun him away was still terribly sharp in Astoria's mind. The funny part was, Astoria could have sworn that the very book she was touching had been tucked safely under one of Theo's elbows before he had disappeared.
Astoria drummed her fingers against the binding warily, not liking where this idea led. Was it possible that Astoria could have somehow acquired two copies of an obscure sixteenth century goblin biography without ever realizing it? Her stomach had already begun to curdle before her thoughts could entirely catch up with her.
No, she decided. There had only been one copy and she was looking at it now. Astoria closed her eyes, allowing a mortifying realization to wash over her: Theodore could have brought the book back while she was still sleeping.
After all, she had slept in so late that there was really no way of knowing for sure and Theodore was a natural morning person, who had probably never truly wanted his stupid book back in the first place. Waiting for the sun to come up and charging back over for a grumpy apology over coffee was exactly the sort of troublesome thing that Theo might do, but he never would have stayed if he had arrived to find Astoria half obscured by Draco's sleeping limbs.
Slowly, almost robotically, Astoria went through the motions of drawing a bath, trying and failing to convince herself that she was being silly. She scrubbed her skin thoroughly, insulated from the chilly, wet day by a cloud of artificial humidity. By the time the bathwater had become cold and her hair had started to dry off against her neck, she was still no closer to feeling any better about things.
Why was it that every time Astoria went anywhere, something bad always seemed to happen? Astoria ought to have just endured her aunt's absence alone without complicating things by inviting Draco into the mix. Surely there was a learning curve for this sort of thing? Perhaps it was time that Astoria accepted the fact that she belonged in isolation, as it was much harder to be misleading or disappointing to anyone that way.
At long last, Astoria pulled the plug and toweled off, no longer sure if she was being perceptive or if she was simply the victim of her own over-active imagination. The best test she could think of was to wait until evening and use that as her barometer. If Theodore still had not presented himself to complain before dinner, Astoria would know that something was wrong and she would devise her strategy from there.
Clean and carefully dressed, Astoria descended the stairs for the second time that morning to find Belladonna already waiting for her in the sitting room. Curlicues of steam rose from a pot of tea on the tray in front of her and nothing but the melodious tap-tapping of rain against the glass punctuated the cozy silence.
"Well," said Belladonna, giving forth the strange and orderly impression that she had actually been expecting Astoria, and it was only by chance that she had happened to arrive on time, "you do clean up well, I'll give you that." Belladonna poured Astoria a cup of tea, balanced it on a delicate saucer and extended her arm. "A bit lean, I suppose, but you wear clothing very elegantly."
Ignoring this double sided compliment, Astoria took her tea and promptly put it down, feeling thick-handed and liable to break things.
"You've had company, I presume?" Belladonna went on, lacking some of her usual, disarming fire. "I've told you before how I feel about letting your little friends into the scotch. Have you any idea what a bottle of the fifty year private stock costs?"
"None whatsoever," Astoria sighed, testing the end of a chalky biscuit. The cookie was so dry that Astoria actually raised a hand to her mouth in order to prevent herself from spitting it out again.
Seeing her discomfort, Belladonna's eyelashes fluttered witheringly. Instead of barking, she simply reached across the table and gave Astoria's teacup a sharp twist, positioning the handle between her hands. Astoria dropped her biscuit and took the hint, hating the mouthfuls of hot tea only slightly less than she had imagined.
Dimly, between sips, it began to occur to Astoria that her aunt really ought to be angrier than she was. Astoria had come downstairs entirely prepared to face the fury of a thousand scorching suns but all Belladonna seemed to be channeling was the humidity of a late summer's day.
"How was your trip?" Astoria ventured politely, resisting the urge to rub her neck.
"Stimulating," sniffed Belladonna scornfully.
Thinking only of Professor Vector, Astoria shot her aunt a disgusted sneer over the top of her teacup.
"Don't be crass," snapped Belladonna coldly. "Septimus has done our family a great favor. You are as much in his debt as I am."
"If you told me why you were with him in the first place, I might manage to see it that way!" Astoria shot back.
"Enough," commanded Belladonna sharply, rubbing her temples with her hands. "I'm exhausted. I don't know why you always feel the need to be so shrill—you inherited that charming little trait from your father, I'm afraid."
"He is my father after all," Astoria insisted nastily. "You'll be lucky if shrillness was all I inherited!"
"Truly," agreed Belladonna distractedly. "It certainly was a windy day when the apple fell from that tree, wasn't it?"
Belladonna continued to gaze warily out of the windows, avoiding Astoria's eyes. Why was she being this way? Astoria wasn't even shrill and she had a feeling that Belladonna had only said so in order to change the subject. Obvious evasiveness did not suit her aunt at all. When Belladonna wanted a secret kept, she kept it. Astoria had never known her to beat around the bush over tea and stale biscuits.
She wants to tell you, Astoria realized in a moment of rare clarity, observing her aunt through the eyes of an impartial stranger, she wants to confess something, but she's afraid.
Suddenly violently disinterested in her aunt's secret, Astoria shrank back into her chair, terrified of what Belladonna might say if she continued to provoke her.
"I'm sorry I was such a fright this morning," Astoria mumbled, willingly submissive once more. "I thought you would be alone."
"How flattering," Belladonna snorted.
0o0
Astoria continued to hold out hope that she might see Theodore again until long after dinner was over. Afraid that she would miss his visit if she allowed herself to nap, Astoria intentionally resisted the urge to crawl into bed. Instead, she lay on top of her blankets for hours, brooding through a headache. All the while, rain continued to fall down the side of the house and collect in the bushes below, lending her psyche a morose atmosphere in which to contemplate.
Bonky had finally called off his domestic strike while Astoria had been at tea. Her bed was made for the first time all week, but the stiff, uniform feel of fresh sheets against her skin seemed slightly foreign and un-soothing to her. Twice she caught herself pressing her nose into her pillows, subconsciously trying to see if she could detect something of the smell of Draco's hair still lingering there, and twice she was disappointed.
Draco had escaped the rain by leaving the country that morning, Astoria mused silently, picturing him on a hot, wind-swept seacoast hundreds of miles away. This visual seemed to reduce Draco's presence to nothing more than a mirage belonging to a foreign land and, as a result, Astoria's annoyance with the whole situation only grew.
On some level, Astoria could not help but feel that Theodore was being ridiculous. It was not his place to decide who Astoria was allowed to be friends with or when she was allowed to see them. On top of this, the more Astoria thought about things, the more the way that Theodore had left the book on her bed began to seem like a passive-aggressive attack on her dignity.
If Theodore had wanted to say something so badly, surely it would have been more mature for him to have just come over and actually said it? Instead, he was acting like a petulant child. The longer he stayed away, the more Theodore's actions began to seem incredibly overwrought and stupid. Before long, Astoria found herself vowing to ignore him until he finally managed to bring the subject up himself like a reasonable human being.
Soon, however, dinner was over. Alone in her room once again, Astoria's determination began to erode. At length, she resolved to write to him.
Theo,
You forgot your book. My aunt is back. Come over tomorrow.
Astoria
Feeling that this was a very reasonable note and that she had taken the highroad by not calling him out for his book-placing antics, Astoria sent the letter off into the damp night and climbed into her starchy bed to wait until morning.
0o0
"You have post, darling," Belladonna informed her the next afternoon, eyeing Astoria absently over the top of a tall pile of bills.
"Where is it?" asked Astoria eagerly, putting down her magazine. Belladonna shuffled through the mail until she produced a stiff, gold envelope. It appeared to have already been slit open with a letter knife by someone in a foul mood.
Astoria, who been thinking only of Theodore, felt her hopes plummet at the sight of the gilded letter.
"Did you read this?" Astoria demanded indignantly, snatching the envelope out of Belladonna's hands and feeling the torn edge at the top with her thumb.
"It was an accident, darling," Belladonna murmured, turning her attention back toward the long column of numbers in front of her, pausing only to flick beads across her abacus with sharp, hostile twitches. "My milliner in London is an absolute vampire…" Belladonna muttered under her breath. "I may have to find another—and in spring, too!"
"Well, great tragedy though that may be, this was addressed to me," Astoria insisted, holding her letter aloft. Astoria knew that she was being a little unreasonable, but transferring her disappointment onto this minor offense did wonders for her inner frustration.
Belladonna looked up, a trifle offended by the accusation. "Yes, darling, but as it's from Mrs. Rowle, I suppose you'll understand why I assumed it was meant for me."
"Mrs. Rowle?" Astoria frowned, glancing at the return address. Try as she might, Astoria could think of no reason for Cassandra's grandmother to send her a note on expensive, formal stationary.
"Mhmm, your initiation ceremony is this week," Belladonna returned absently, flicking two red beads before discarding her crooked milliner's bill with a prod of her wand.
"Excuse me?" laughed Astoria, assuming this was the start of a very promising and twisted joke.
"For the Sisters of the Eastern Star," supplied Belladonna with a tiny smirk, raising her eyebrows heavenward to protest Astoria's stupidity. "You'll be receiving your full membership pin on Thursday."
"What?" Astoria hiccupped, the foolish smile sliding right off of her face.
Astoria dedicated very little time to thinking about the inner tiers of her sorority. With the exception of Cassandra's promise that none of the girls would be given full membership until they each had done her a personal favor, the threat of being promoted had never even occurred to her. "You're not serious?"
"Of course I am," sighed Belladonna, sensing the potential for a fight.
"I don't see why I should have to go," Astoria tried, yanking the card out of its pre-opened flap, determined to find some kind of fault with it before Belladonna could insist that she attend. "Haven't I been a member for a year already?"
"A junior member," Belladonna snorted. "Of course you'll go. All of your new friends will be there getting their pins—to say nothing of the community of women you'll be insulting if you stay home. Half of the charities in the country are run by Sisters who were once junior members themselves. Surely you are too smart to blacklist yourself?"
"There isn't even a dress code!" Astoria declared with a triumphant flourish of the invitation, hoping that this detail might work against her aunt's sense of vanity and perhaps provoke her into a state of reasonable disdain. "I'm sure I can just have the pin mailed."
"For heaven's sake! It's a party, Astoria, not a punishment!" Belladonna snapped, causing her mountain of bills and receipts to shake. "To see your face, you'd think I was sending you off to be chased by a mob carrying torches and pitchforks!"
Wishing that she had waited to read her mail until after Belladonna had satisfied all of her seasonal debt collectors, Astoria slumped down in her seat, utterly dejected. Not only was Theodore ignoring her, but she had just netted an unwanted evening in the company of Cassandra's family.
"Junior members wear a traditional sorority uniform to the pin ceremony," continued Belladonna waspishly, perhaps deliberately determined to prove that things could, in fact, be worse. "That is why you were not provided with a dress code."
"Now I know you're kidding," Astoria sneered, trying to imagine what sort of ceremonial costume the sisterhood might be partial to and responding with a shiver.
Belladonna opened her silver cigarette case with a flick, not even bothering to dignify Astoria's statement with a response.
0o0
The next morning, Astoria awoke to find that not only had Theodore still not written to her, but a suspiciously garment-shaped package had been delivered into the hall while she had been sleeping. Deciding that things had gone far enough and it was time to get her affairs in order, Astoria found a pair of rain boots, determined to set off into the damp morning without returning until Theodore had been forced to see reason.
Giving the new dress box a wide berth, Astoria eased down the hall toward the kitchen, glancing over her shoulder fearfully until the package was no longer in view. It was bad enough for Theodore to carry on mulishly ignoring her letters, Astoria mused, but at least something could be done about that. The promise of required bad taste, like an invisible enemy, was another matter entirely...
Theodore's living room was dark and shrouded in dust when Astoria stepped out of the fireplace. Brushing soot off of her shoulders, she headed straight for the backdoor, hoping to find Theodore in the sunken garden and forgo the pleasure of startling Mr. Nott, who had been denied his Augurey hunting license and was assuredly in a very bad mood.
To Astoria's relief, she was soon able to make out Theodore's crumpled form leaning against the shattered old well. Her relief quickly turned to anxiety, however. Nervous in a way that she had not expected, Astoria forced herself to continue walking past the untamed rhododendrons and into view.
"Afternoon," she muttered, throwing a dull shadow over the book in Theodore's lap.
Theodore jumped, utterly surprised. Upon recognizing her, a black anger flashed across his face.
"What are you doing out here? I've written to you," Astoria plowed on desperately, trying to ignore her sudden clamminess. "What's your problem, anyway? You could have least told me that you didn't want to see me!"
"That would defeat the purpose of ignoring you, wouldn't it?" Theo sneered, taking an irritable looking drag off of a hand-rolled cigarette before exhaling rudely back in her direction. "Didn't want to disturb you, after all."
"What kind of rubbish is that?" Astoria snapped. "I wrote to you in the first place, you stubborn ass!"
For a long moment, neither of them said a word, preferring to fill the moment with hateful silence.
"Stop it, Theodore!" Astoria finally snarled. "You're acting like a bigger brat than Malfoy!"
"Yeah?" sneered Theodore, provoked at last by the mention of Draco's name. "Are you going to try to shag me too, now?"
Before she even knew what she was doing, Astoria scooped up a soft patch of moss from the top of the rock wall and chucked it at him. The ball of spongey plant and porous root hit his shoulder with an explosion of pebbly soil that showered the pages of his book and fell down the back of his shirt.
Reminded irresistibly of the time she had thrown a balled up pamphlet at Draco after the Second Task, Astoria took a full step backward, trying to get a hold of herself. Unlike the time she had thrown a balled up pamphlet at Draco after the Second Task, however, Theodore did not seem inclined take her assault sitting down. Swearing wildly, Theodore sprung to his feet and Astoria found herself half-distracted by the funny notion that this was quite literally what 'hopping mad' must look like.
"Isn't this just brilliant!" Theodore hollered, trying and failing to shake dirt out of his sleeve while Astoria looked on in wonder. "Come over to my house and hit me, why don't you! That'll make a great story for your snotty boyfriend to enjoy later! I'm sure he'll reenact the whole thing again and again, if you ask him to! Anything for his precious Astoria—"
"What are you on about, Theodore?" Astoria moaned, her anger officially spent now that she had thrown something. "Draco's not my boyfriend! He fell asleep after Kitty's party. Nothing happened! You're just being a paranoid twit!"
Theo blinked very fast and almost gratefully as he processed this information but he did not seem to be done ranting. "You sure looked cozy enough to me!" he roared.
"Don't be stupid, I was unconscious!" Astoria countered, trying very hard not to blush, knowing she would be condemning herself if she did.
Theodore's fury had flat-lined but the look on his face was still exceedingly ugly. "This time," he sneered. "What about the next time. That cowardly little wank has been knocking on your door for years! You're always saying how much you don't like him! Why bother?"
"I don't—" Astoria stuttered.
"Spare me!" snapped Theodore, bending over to retrieve his dirt-smudged novel, unamused in the extreme.
"This is stupid!" Astoria exhaled. "I just fell asleep! Luc stayed over in the living room, too. You were the only one who left."
"Because I didn't suck down a bottle of liquor!" Theodore snapped. "Why didn't you just kick him out if you really didn't want him there?"
"Because I was exhausted!" Astoria pressed, searching for the kink in Theodore's armor. "You know how pushy Malfoy can be. It was easier to just let him sleep it off…"
Astoria turned toward the distant woods, staring blindly at the palate of budding green branches and dripping firs there, suddenly understanding the unlikableness of what she was about to do next.
She was lying and she knew it. Astoria had outright asked Draco to stay, but admitting this to Theo would be friendship suicide. Instead, Astoria could feel herself reacting to Theodore's body language, calculating her words very carefully to reflect exactly what it was that she knew he wanted to hear, because this was also conveniently what he would believe.
Draco was pushy and he probably had lingered in order to have a better shot at Astoria alone. This gave her a certain measure of power now, because it was entirely feasible that Astoria could have simply tired of dealing with him and fallen asleep by accident. With a little wriggling and a dash of righteous indignation, Theodore would allow her to dig her way out of this mess, and that was exactly what Astoria wanted more than anything in the world. If throwing Draco under the bus was what it took to talk Theo off the ledge, Astoria was going to do it, no matter how unfair it was.
"He's nothing but noise!" Theodore choked before Astoria could continue, finally admitting defeat. "All he does is talk and talk—he's not even good at anything, Astoria! He's just a self-righteous smudge of vindictive selfishness. He can't even manage to join a quidditch team without his father's help! You're so much smarter than that!"
"I know," Astoria agreed feebly, feeling curiously sick to her stomach. "I am. You're totally blowing this out of proportion."
"He gets everything handed to him because he's rich and because his family feels like the world belongs to them!" Theodore continued, disgust rendering his face unrecognizable. "They're bad people! I know it and you know it! My dad might be half-mad, but he's got nothing on old Lucius Malfoy! Don't turn into another Malfoy goon—another Pansy!"
"That's never going to happen!" Astoria yelled, wishing the world would just open up and swallow her whole. Whether he had meant to or not, Theodore had just shamed Astoria more thoroughly than she could even bear. "We've been over this before," Astoria continued, angry with herself. "It was nothing, Theodore. You're being ridiculous!"
Theodore grimaced, scuffing the ground with his shoe. "Nothing happened?" he mumbled, avoiding eye contact as studiously as Astoria was.
"Of course not," Astoria scoffed, by now so committed to this answer that nothing short of torture could have forced her to claim otherwise. It was even technically true, after all. Nothing had happened. Deep down, however, even Astoria knew that it was misleading to act as though Theodore's suspicious were so wild and off the mark.
"I suppose you thought it was terribly funny to leave me that book?" she continued, trying to outrun her cringing conscience.
"I knew that was stupid the minute I did it," Theodore mumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry—honestly. I was just surprised. Do you have any idea how annoying it was to spend the night attempting to forget watching Draco's pathetic attempt to chase you around only to find him in your bed the next morning?"
Astoria distracted herself by brushing dirt off Theo's face, wishing he would stop talking because his apologies were only making her feel worse.
"You can make it up to me," said Astoria with forced brightness, almost shaking with relief after such a near brush with calamity. "I even have an idea how!"
"What's that?" asked Theodore hopefully, endeavoring to lighten the mood.
"I have a sorority dinner on Thursday," Astoria announced with a smirk. "Come with me! You can keep me sane!"
Theodore stopped laughing at once, growing more and more horrified as Astoria laid out the detail of a celebration with Cassandra's grandparents. It took hours of wheedling and reminding him of the fact that he had been ignoring her for days before Astoria managed to work her magic and win him over.
Rubbing grass off the palms of his hands, Theodore got up to walk her back to the house when it was time for her to leave, appearing to be just as relived by the end of their cold war as Astoria felt.
0o0
Thursday afternoon found Astoria standing in front of her bedroom mirror, wondering what she had ever done to deserve such a stroke of cosmic punishment.
The damp lid of rain clouds that had been hovering in the sky for a week had finally unsealed. Outside, fresh, radiant sunshine was busy trying to bake the sodden law. Inside, Astoria was wearing her Sister's of the Eastern Star uniform and wondering if the storm hadn't just pulled up its roots and claimed a new residency inside her soul.
The dress was as bad as she had imagined it would be: perhaps even worse, for it was twice as Victorian, starting near her neck and descending all the way to her feet in loose, white layers of cotton. No matter how much fabric Astoria attempted to pull or tuck, she was still the walking embodiment of a character on her way to play lawn tennis in an Edith Wharton novel.
A knock on the bedroom door startled Astoria out of her miserable chain of thoughts.
"Come in!" Astoria called out, unable to tear her eyes off of the reflection of her lacy collar. Tracey entered behind her, yanking on her own full-length sleeves and looking haggard.
"Dear God!" Tracey cried, recoiling in horror at the sight of Astoria. "It even looks bad on you!"
"Yeah," Astoria sighed by way of a greeting, trying out a different pair of earrings. "Come try to accessorize it. I'm not having any luck."
"Is your father here yet?" asked Tracey, moving closer to examine Astoria's open jewelry box.
"No," Astoria admitted, thinking the same thing that she had thought when her aunt had first announced that George would be taking her to the party in the first place. "He's always late, so we'll probably be the last to arrive."
"That's good!" cried Tracey hopefully, holding up a gold pin for examination. "Everyone will have already seen the dresses on Flora and Pansy—Ack!" Tracey broke off with a jump, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror. "Can't you throw a sheet over that thing?"
Astoria smiled ruefully and stood up, sweeping back the side of Tracey's bangs and fastening them with a sparkling clip.
"Is Theo still coming?" asked Tracey, crouching so low in front of Astoria's vanity that the only part of her body still reflected in the mirror was her hair.
"He's meeting us there," said Astoria, tossing down her make-up brush in defeat.
"Ha!" chirped Tracey, lighting up with wicked delight. "He's going to have to wait about with Kitty while your dad takes his merry time getting here, won't he? Can't your aunt drop us off?"
"No," groaned Astoria, praying that Theodore would not attempt to claw his way out of the Rowle's guest bathroom window before they had even reached the party. "She says that she's in London for the day."
"Who can blame her?" Tracey scoffed. "If I could get away with running away, I would too. Although, the party is at the Rowle's townhouse, you know, which is technically in London. She could have at least taken us there."
When George finally did arrive, he was running his typical forty five minutes late. Painfully aware of the fact that she and Tracey were now almost an hour tardy to an event that was partially being held in their honor, Astoria was the first into the floo.
She come out on the other side into a tall, narrow room with black and white checkered floors. Although it was still early, all of the wall sconces had been lit to keep the darkness at bay, and their tiny flames flickered against the crimson silk wallpaper like bewitched orbs. Tinkling wafts of string music coming from the second floor seemed to be competing with the muffled sounds of street traffic.
"I'll take your cloaks, girls," said George, perhaps feeling a little badly about the delay he had caused. "Run along and find your friends!"
This was much easier said than done however, as no one remained near the entrance to greet them or tell them where to go. All around, various options seemed to present themselves. On the left, a staircase of dark oak led to an upstairs living room. Nearer at hand, and partially obscured by several potted ferns of Jurassic proportions, was the entrance to a small library
"If anyone important asks," Astoria whispered to Tracey, pulling her toward the library, "don't say that we were late. Tell them that we've been here the whole time."
"Astoria!" choked Theodore the second they had crossed the threshold into the library, leaping frantically from behind a giant potted fern. "Where have you been?"
"Right here!" cried Tracey rather stupidly, thinking of what Astoria had said but panicking under pressure.
"We were late," Astoria admitted, shooting Tracey a sharp look.
"Late!?" Theo croaked, clawing at the front of his shirt to loosen his tie. "I've been making small talk with Flora! You didn't tell me that Padma Patil was going to be here! I haven't been able to move more than six inches—"
"Stop it, Theo!" Astoria begged, trying to snatch his scrabbling fingers away from the Windsor knot at his throat before anyone saw them. "Why are you so sweaty?"
"Ugh!" Theodore let out a strangled moan and tried to dive behind the fern again.
"Get a hold of yourself!" Astoria hissed, holding him upright. Her task suddenly became surprisingly easy when Theodore stiffened into his best imitation an ice sculpture and stopped wriggling.
"Excuse me, Astoria?" asked Padma Patil politely. "Can I get by you? You're in front of the punch bowl."
Theodore cast Astoria a look of such desperate terror that she immediately began shuffling, maneuvering herself so that Theodore was obliged to follow her.
"Look," said Tracey, peering across the library. "Blaise is over there with the Malfoys and the Parkinsons. It looks like they're getting ready to go upstairs! Come on, I want to run interception!"
A sick swoop of nervousness that had nothing to do with Blaise turned a fast somersault in Astoria's stomach.
"Why didn't tell me that she was going to be here!" Theodore panted the moment Padma had tottered back over to Anthony. "I'm in a dress shirt! I look like a tit!"
"You've never looked better in your whole life!" Astoria observed, bristling with annoyance. "This is the first time I've seen you in public without holes in your sleeves! Can't you stop yanking on me?"
"The worst people are here!" he groaned twitchily. Theodore had finally let go of Astoria's arms but his eyes continued to dart left and right at random. "That drunken hooligan, Royden Pike from the Spirit Division is already drooling! He tried to get MacLaggen to sing a carol with him about an hour ago because he thinks it's Christmas!"
"What's with Malfoy?" scoffed Tracey. "Did you do something to him, Theo? He's really staring at us."
"Probably because you two are dressed up like May Welland and the Countess Olesnki!" Theodore hissed snidely. "Are you off to perform Community Theater after this? What are you wearing?"
"They're uniforms!" Astoria snapped, already self-conscious enough. "All of the Sisters have to wear them."
"No they don't!" Theodore sneered. "Flora's not even in white!"
Astoria stiffened, taking stock of the room at long last. Flora and Pansy were both near an oak paneled book shelf behind the Malfoys, sans flowing Victorian skirts, and looking positively merry in pastel gowns.
"Son of a bitch!" Tracey swore loudly, causing a little old lady near the drinks to turn and tut at them disapprovingly.
Astoria's ability to be properly angry was checked when she spotted Anthony Goldstein. He was standing next to Padma Patil, looking pompous as ever, but a long glance proved that he was gesturing very quietly toward Kitty over his girlfriend's shoulder. Suddenly realizing that it was very probable that Anthony and Kitty where having an affair of some kind and that it was her fault for trying to set them up in the first place, Astoria stiffened.
Not only was everyone involved in the same room, Astoria reflected feverishly, but they were also in the presence of Kitty's instigating Easter Star friends. Astoria's motive for meddling with Padma's love life had only been to help Theodore, but she had never, ever intended him to actually find out about it. Especially not now, so soon after they had reconciled from one fight, and while Astoria was still skating on thin ice.
This high possibility of an explosive or dramatic revelation was enough to make Astoria's vision go wobbly. She began to grope about for Tracey's shoulder, feeling faint.
"Ok, seriously, what?" Tracey whispered, hardly paying any attention to Astoria's fingers. "He's barely even blinking. Take a peek—it's worth it to see Pansy giggle girlishly at everything Mr. Malfoy says!"
"Who is looking at us?" Astoria choked, beginning to sound a bit like Theodore himself.
"Malfoy!" Tracey hissed back.
"Which one?" Astoria faltered, mentally plotting ways to keep Theodore from both Kitty and Anthony at all costs.
"Well it was just Draco," said Tracey, "but both of them are looking now. Are the dresses really that bad?"
"I have. To get out. Of this room," said Astoria, her voice surprisingly calm for a person who was close to having a panic attack. "Tracey, bathroom. Now."
"What?" demanded Theodore shrilly. "Don't leave me here alone!"
"We'll be back," Astoria ground out through her teeth, whipping Tracey toward the door.
"Have you lost your mind?" Tracey squealed, nearly tripping over herself when they reached the black and white checkered foyer. "We just arrived! I thought you didn't want people to think we were late!"
"What happened at Kitty's party after I left?" Astoria demanded, wasting no time.
"We played backgammon," shot Tracey incredulously. "What are you on about?"
"Did Anthony stay over?" Astoria pressed. "He and Kitty seemed like they were hitting it off."
"He left around midnight!" Tracey cackled. "You should have seen them together! Kitty had her tongue in his ear—"
Astoria stomped her foot and gesticulated back through the library doors.
"Oh!" Tracey moaned, horror finally creeping into her features. "Padma is here and so is Theodore!"
"I had actually figured that out already!" Astoria snapped shrilly. "What do we do?"
"We're going to have to keep them apart," said Tracey, her eyes widening almost comically.
"Obviously!" Astoria yelled, catching herself just in time to smile serenely at Cormac Maclaggen's mother, who was ascending the staircase sideways because her skirt was so tight. "You need to stick to Theodore. Make sure he doesn't hear anything from the other girls. I'll take Padma."
Astoria face twisted into a grimace again mid-thought when, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted her father dashing up the stairs after Mrs. Maclaggen.
"That's not fair! Why do you get Padma?" Tracey demanded hotly. "She's not sweating all over everything, is she?"
"Just do it!" Astoria snapped. "It's nothing to do with sweat! I know Padma's sister, so it'll look less conspicuous if I'm following her. Do you want Theodore to find out?"
"Great. I'll just spend the evening be-dewed by Theodore's nervous musk, then, shall I?" Tracey complained. "I'm sure Blaise will love that! It's not like Theodore wouldn't forgive us eventually, anyway!"
But Astoria was not sure of this, especially after the fight she and Theodore had had only days before. It had been their first real row since their second month of knowing each other (ironically both involving Draco), and she was not willing to take any chances.
"Please, Tracey!" Astoria begged. "Just keep him busy!"
Astoria slipped back into the library by herself, giving the potted plants a very wide berth in case either of them should happen to contain Theodore. Looking about, she soon spotted Padma and Anthony in the halo of a nearby lamp, but before Astoria could reach them, Cassandra swooped in like a hawk.
"Astoria!" she cried with a repressed smirk, taking in the several ghastly yards of fabric attached to her waist. "Good Lord, I see you didn't get my note!"
"Safe bet says no," returned Astoria unkindly.
"How unfortunate," Cassandra cooed. "This party is traditionally a brunch, as I'm sure you must know. Unfortunately, my grandmother is so busy with her charities this time of year that I decided to organize it in the afternoon. I did send out notes changing the dress code to evening wear."
"The owl must have gotten lost," Astoria responded crisply, hating the look of vindictive amusement on Cassandra's face, particularly because she was making absolutely no effort to hide it. Sent out notes, Astoria repeated in her head bitterly. Yes, Astoria was sure she had, coincidentally to everyone except herself and Tracey.
"Your pin is upstairs," Cassandra went on lazily, savoring her triumph. "This way."
Fearful of leaving Padma and Kitty unattended but seeing no way to get out of collecting her pin, Astoria followed Cassandra through the hall and up the stairs, hoping to be as quick as possible. It was hard work to avoid tripping over her long skirt in the curiously warm, red of the light of the stairway, but Cassandra did not let up. By the time they reached the second floor, Astoria hands smelled faintly of furniture polish from clutching the wooden banister so hard.
There were even more people in the living room upstairs than there had been in the library. The crimson and silk motif of the hall and front room continued here, stretched out in the form of oriental carpeting and dangling in the thick folds of painfully expensive looking drapes. At the end of the room, a fire was burning in a hearth that was nearly twice as long as Astoria's body. Here and there, trays of appetizers and drinks winked at her in the candlelight, supported by the heads of small, limber house elves as they whizzed by.
Cassandra made quick work of cutting through a cluster of brandy sipping men in evening jackets before coming to a halt next to a heavy oak table. A display of old bronze shields bearing the name of every Sister of the Eastern Star past and present had been erected here. Next to it sat four shiny new membership pins.
Cassandra plucked up one of these and tossed to Astoria carelessly. "Here," she said. "I'm sure your aunt has a better one for you, but put that on for now so that you'll be wearing a badge in the photos."
It was a long standing tradition that Sisters were permitted to wear their relative's antique pins—the older, the more prestigious—right back to the pin bearing the year that the first woman in the family had joined the sorority. In this sense, it was slightly bad form to wear a badge that was not at least three generations old, making Cassandra's duty to give Astoria her own membership pin something of a useless formality.
"Or better yet, save it for Davis when she loses hers," Cassandra continued cruelly. "Lord knows she doesn't have any spares!"
Astoria stuck the pin to the front of her dress, hating Cassandra so much that she was afraid to speak.
0o0
Alright, three things:
1. Sorry for the long wait. My broken MacBook is my only excuse. I finally did order a new computer and I got in the mail today, so no more borrowing.
2. I'm sorry this became a two part chapter. Generally speaking, my idea of an ideal post is a self-contained mini story of a length that matches the other chapters around it. (I tend to dislike when stories have some chapters that are 500 words and others that are 5000. I like regularity in presentation.) My average posts tend to fall somewhere between 8000 and 9000 words (which is already running pretty long for those who don't read quickly or happen to have an abundance of time to spend on this site). This chapter was nearing something like 14,000 when I made the decision to do some reorganizing, so I hope you'll understand.
3. There is good news! I wrote pretty much the whole event chapter before splitting it into two chunks, so the second half is pretty much done and should be up within the next twenty four hours. (By the way, it also contains almost all of Draco's dialogue, if you were wondering where he's been hiding.) Hopefully that helps make up for the delay since the last update! [EDIT] I somehow managed to destroy half of the second part of this chapter while I was transferring files from my friend's computer onto my new one. Sorry for the wait after a 24 hour promise. It'll be up soon!
Reviews are always a wonderful, rewarding treat!