Chapter Fifty Nine

The Departed

0o0

The question of whether or not classes would recommence on Monday remained a hot-topic issue all throughout Sunday and into the night. Some, like Theodore, were certain that they would absolutely be expected to finish up the term on schedule. For her own part, however, Astoria clung to the hope of an early dismissal.

"Just because Cedric's dead doesn't mean the teachers are going to let us roam the grounds like cattle!" Theo sniffed. Poised in an armchair by the window in the divination tower nook, he looked every bit the scholar. "There's still a whole week left and, I mean—" he hesitated, perhaps aware that he didn't really know what he was talking about, his normally stoic face flushing pink, "—people die. That's what they do..."

Fatalistic or not, in the end, he turned out to be quite right. When no notice had been issued and the sun showed signs of rising on Monday morning, Astoria crawled out of bed to claim the showers before anyone—even Hermione, who timed her alarm clock like a bomb—had begun to stir.

Blissfully alone, Astoria cranked the faucet until the water was running as hot as it would go. Waiting for steam to fill the room, she paced the tiled floor with her bare feet, listening to the sound of birds fill the air from the garden below. On any other day, she might have been able to admire this moment for its tranquility, but her ability to appreciate subtle pleasures had been greatly diminished since her night outside the maze.

There was soap in her hair when Astoria heard the bathroom door creak open to admit company.

Closing her eyes into the stream of water, Astoria listened, following the progress of foreign sounds: the shuffling of robes, the bang of the stall door next to her and then—finally—a second shower spray.

Parvati Patil began to hum an off-key jingle, leaving Astoria to ponder how anyone could be so lousy at carrying a tune in such a wide, echoey space.

"Astoria, is that you?" called Parvati merrily, making enough noise for ten people as she dropped soaps and kicked over bottles.

"Mhmm," Astoria returned, running her fingers through her hair vigorously, trying to speed along the process of shampoo extraction.

"Do you have an extra facecloth? I've forgotten mine," Parvati called back.

Astoria eyed her washcloth hesitantly. She was willing to share her space if she had to, but not necessarily her shower tools—especially the ones that had already touched her skin.

"Oh, it doesn't matter!" Parvati mused, prattling on before Astoria even had a chance to respond. "Hey, my sister is playing chess with that friend of yours today! That weird—I mean, quiet—Slytherin boy?" she amended, catching herself at the very last second.

"Oh yeah?" Astoria returned curiously. This came as news to her: she had spent the entirety of Sunday in Theodore's company but he had not mentioned Padma even once. "Does Padma like chess?"

"Chess?" mused Parvati distractedly. "I dunno, I guess. Seems weird to me, those two hanging out. He's not creepy, is he? I can never tell—but then, you seem to spend lot of time around him, so he can't be that bad, right?"

Astoria blinked through a layer of soap, fighting to summon enough curiosity to overcome the insulting nature of the question.

"Oh, of course he's not!" breathed Parvati, perhaps sensing her own rudeness and backtracking. "Honestly, after her last boyfriend, it'll probably do Padma some good to pal around with a bloke. They really are quicker at spotting jerks, aren't they? Maybe he can help her."

"You don't think maybe she's just interested in Theodore?" Astoria tested slyly.

"Oh Lord, I shouldn't think so!" Parvati snorted. "But then, I suppose she's never really said how she feels about him one way or the other."

Astoria mulled this over, trying to decide if the doubtful prejudice she was hearing against Theodore belonged to Padma or Parvati.

"It's not as though you're dating him, right?" Parvati pressed, jumping up an octave in nosiness. "That Theodore boy, I mean. It's just—well, I'm sure if Padma did fancy him, she might think it was a bit strange that he follows you around so much."

"No," Astoria quickly scoffed, trying not to be bothered by the vague insinuation that Padma might not like Theodore if she felt that he already had too many female friends. "Theo's single—but he's shy. If Padma likes him, she should say something."

"I'm sure I wouldn't know either way," Parvati snorted happily. "Padma really does do the strangest things sometimes, though. Who knows?"

0o0

Clean but not altogether refreshed, Astoria beat a weary track down to breakfast. Outside, spring was in the fullest bloom possible; so intoxicating and ripe that it was very nearly rotten, hinting deeply at the onset of summer. The sky in the Great Hall continued to reflect the theme of heady luster. A beautiful, deep blue expanse stretched out overhead, un-rumpled by so much as a single patch of clouds.

Burning with a desire for freer air, Astoria snatched up a pastry and quickly made her way toward the doors. Distracted by the bread in her hands and eager to reach the courtyard, she was more than half-way across the hall before she spotted Tracey sitting on the front steps.

Blonde head bent in concentration, Tracey appeared to be doodling patterns in the rock dust with a long stick. Even from a distance, the affectionate sight of Tracey's child-like hunch hit Astoria with the force of an open-handed slap, somehow wielding more power than the memory of their fight ever could. Summoning her bravery, she continued toward the doors without stopping, heart fluttering nervously in her chest.

"Hey," Astoria muttered, ripping her croissant in half. "You're up early too?" .

"Oh!" Tracey jolted squeakily, her tone so high-pitched and curiously false that it was all Astoria could do to stop herself from cringing. "I—"

"Here," Astoria insisted stoutly, extending the bigger piece of pastry toward Tracey as a peace offering. "It's early, all the rolls are fresh."

Tracey took the croissant and raised it hesitantly toward her mouth; the crust touched her lips but she could not seem to bring herself to take a bite. Confused and unsure what to do, Tracey finally decided to fake an awkward chewing motion, letting the bread fall down onto the step untouched.

"Saturday was a mess, wasn't it?" Astoria pressed on, frowning at Tracey's bizarre feint with the roll. "I hear Amos Diggory's trying to keep it out of the papers..."

Truthfully, Astoria had no idea if this was actually a fact or not, but she was willing to spin her own suspicions into gossip if it meant that Tracey would talk to her.

"Uhuh," murmured Tracey absently, eyeing the croissant almost fearfully.

"Ok, listen," Astoria lowered her voice, sensing it would be better to just cut to the chase. "Its fine if you're mad at me. I was wrong to snap at you the other day—you were just trying to enjoy the Task and I was really wound up."

Tracey's eyes flicked toward Astoria almost guiltily, darting between her face and the far-off fountain, unwilling to fix themselves on any point in particular. It was clear that she did not want to be having the conversation at all, but Astoria would not be able to relax until the matter was settled.

"It's your business who you hang around with!" Astoria continued desperately, trying to inject her apology with as much earnestness as possible. "It's not my place to go about telling you what to do. I won't ever say a word about Zabini again, I promise! Can we just put the whole thing behind us?"

"Yeah," murmured Tracey, still frightfully distracted. "We hooked up you know. Blaise and I. Kind of, at least. On Saturday night..."

"Eugh," Astoria grimaced instinctually, somehow managing to break her promise in less than a minute. "You didn't shag Zabini?"

"No!" answered Tracey, sharpening up at once, curiously ferocious to clarify. "It wasn't that bad..."

Having just sworn a oath toward positivity, Astoria found herself struggling to ignore Tracey's suspicious use of the word 'bad'.

"I mean, I definitely saw it," admitted Tracey wryly, angling her head to the side and squinting in a way that left very little doubt in Astoria's mind as to what she meant by 'it'.

"Don't you dare!" Astoria protested, premeditating the vivid description that would surely come next. "Tracey, if any of those adjectives you're dying to spew aren't 'tiny' or 'misshapen', I don't want to hear a single one!"

"Huh?" The look of confusion fell away from Tracey's features with a startling swiftness, replaced almost at once by one of annoyance. "What, you mean like one of those Greek statues with the creepy baby parts? No, he doesn't have an imp dick, Astoria!"

Overcome by an inappropriate desire to laugh, Astoria hastily blew hair out of her face and coaxed her treacherously-dancing eyes up toward the eaves, fighting to control herself. Stop it.

"No, he wouldn't, I suppose," Astoria finally admitted, still pursing her quivering lips. "Pity, that."

"Quit laughing!" shot Tracey, her voice breaking from the effort of digging her stick further into the dirt. "It's not even funny!"

"No, I know!" Astoria agreed hastily, unable to ignore Tracey's distress. "You're right, it's not funny."

Mumbling downwards, Tracey continued to stab her stick into the ground: "It doesn't matter..."

"What do you mean?" Astoria frowned, searching for a way to placate without sounding like a liar. "You're sad it happened right before summer?"

Tracey let out a weird, shivery noise.

"It's not like you won't see him," Astoria continued cautiously, a little alarmed by Tracey's unbroken fixation on the dirt. "You hunted his mother down last year. How hard can it be to talk Blaise into meeting you in London?"

"Yeah, right," snapped Tracey, suddenly leaping to her feet. "Come on, let's get to class."

Taken aback, Astoria turned to follow her inside, careful to step over the forlorn bit of croissant that Tracey had spurned.

0o0

Never, in all of Astoria's time at Hogwarts, had a day of schooling been quite so disorganized.

Already half wild with gossip about the terror at the Task, so much sunshine only served to promote hooliganism amongst the students. Nobody seemed very keen to bother with scheduling, preferring instead to loiter in the halls, hollering and roughhousing. Largely unchecked by the teachers, who were all too busy reporting to the staff room during breaks, the day seemed destined to fall into chaos and nearly every class started late as a result.

To make matters worse, delegations from both Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, having finished up with their final examinations, were now allowed to lay about on the lawn or wander freely during class hours. Infuriatingly visible from almost every classroom window, these visitors were soon the subject of much bitter muttering by those who were trapped indoors; a source of constant jealousy.

By the time lunch was over and Astoria had begun the hike up toward the sixth floor for Arithmancy, she had never been more tempted to strip off her clothes and run screaming into the wild.

"Look at them," Theodore sneered as Astoria joined the queue, poking his nose out over the sill of a high-set window. "Laying about tanning while we're all stuck up here..."

Astoria blinked, unsure how to even respond. Theodore had never willingly allowed so much as his forehead to brown before, making the knowledge that even he was keen for a beach seem a bit less relatable and a bit more like the sign of an oncoming apocalypse.

"We're almost finised," Astoria reminded him, casting Tracey—who had been abnormally quiet all morning—a sidelong glance. "Four more days..."

"Not a moment too soon, if you ask me," drawled Draco, cresting the stairs at a lazy stride.

Stripped of Crabbe and Goyle as he always was during third period, he looked only a fraction less menacing than he had been the last time she had seen him. Prickling in his presence—she had studiously avoided him all weekend—Astoria tried not to look visibly shaken. The fact that she had spent the majority of the Third Task either molesting him or hiding behind his limbs to avoid assault was not something she was eager to explain to anyone and she was fearful of him mentioning either.

"What about you, Davis?" continued Draco with an odd little smirk. "You must be itching to escape."

Tracey grunted and turned away, leaving Astoria to squint at the both of them suspiciously. Did Draco often single out Tracey? She did not think so. Dangerously close to realizing that the diversion of Draco's attention secretly bothered her, however, she soon let the matter drop unquestioned.

"You should have heard Cassandra at breakfast," continued Malfoy, filling the space Tracey had made by shrinking away from him. "You'd think she was looking forward to a chain-gang, moaning and wailing about how difficult it was to get out of bed this morning."

"Yeah? Sticky lock on her crypt?" Astoria scoffed. The line began to move forward through the doors, so Astoria seized another opportunity to covertly peer at Tracey.

Draco snorted, never entirely above mocking Cassandra when she was not around to hear him.

The class had arrived before Professor Vector. Somehow certain that he was on the second floor conferencing with the rest of the staff, Astoria slung herself into a seat without bothering to take out her books or a quill.

"God, I need to get out of here," muttered Theodore, surprising Astoria again by prioritizing his lust for freedom over the silent drone of academia. "I feel like I'm about to lose my mind..."

Alarmed by the sheen of sweat on Theodore's lip, Astoria's eyes moved toward Tracey, who still appeared lifeless and wan. Feeling dangerously out of touch with both of her best friends mental states, Astoria shifted her sights onto Draco, hoping for a reprieve.

A mistake, as it turned out, because he was no longer blinking vacantly in the direction of windows; he was staring at Tracey with an expression of repressed, chilly delight.

"What?" Astoria finally snapped, resisting the urge to twist Draco's arm until he settled back into his chair and looked somewhere more proper.

"Nothing!" Tracey answered for him immediately, strangely eager to avoid Astoria's eye.

"Well, I was laughing at Davis's botched attempt to boff Zabini," drawled Draco, dragging his cruel eyes off the side of Tracey's face at long last. "Or maybe you haven't heard?"

Theodore's head snapped toward Draco. A crease of annoyance furrowed his brow.

"If you're trying to make sure Astoria knows that I hooked up with someone she hates, you can save your breath!" countered Tracey with shaking savagery. "I've already beat you to it! Although I'm sure you've been simply quivering to squeal to her all weekend!"

Draco's smug expression flickered slightly but it was Theodore's dispassionate grunt that stole Astoria's attention: "Ugh."

"And you can shove it!" Tracey sneered, directing the full blow of her gathering fury onto Theodore now. "As if I need your advice! It's not that big of a deal, anyway—I don't know why we're even talking about it!"

"It's fine, Trace," Astoria muttered weakly, disliking the turn of their conversation immensely. While it was true that Astoria had certainly never made her dislike for Blaise a secret, she was by no means willing to sacrifice Tracey's newly-regained goodwill for the sake of a laugh.

"Oh, please!" sneered Tracey, beginning to sound frighteningly nasal. "What was your initial reaction? A gagging sound?"

"I didn't mean it like that," fumbled Astoria feebly, appalled to find that her treacherous lips were beginning to quiver with amusement again of their own accord.

"No, you're right!" agreed Tracey dangerously. "You recomposed yourself just long enough to ask me if his junk was tiny!"

Draco let out a delighted hoot of surprised laughter. He dropped his arm heavily onto the desk, quite literally moved to actual tears of mirth.

"I was just kidding!" Astoria floundered, throughly blind-sighted by this recount of her own accidental awfulness, seeing it afresh now that it was being showcased in such a brutal light. "Run around with him all summer, if you want—I don't care!"

"Fat chance of that!" jeered Draco carelessly, disregarding the painful shade of red Tracey was turning. "He chucked her the next day—"

"I—what?" Astoria cracked, distraction replacing shame as her most overwhelming emotion.

"No. He. Didn't!" hissed Tracey through gritted teeth, desperate to hold onto some semblance of dignity even though she was now roughly the same hue as a ripe tomato. "He told me I was coming on too strong—there's a difference! We never agreed to anything—"

"Oh, please, Draco sneered, "he told you to stop following him around because he thinks it's creepy."

"Shut up!" Astoria flared, suddenly seized by such a powerful desire to rip out every strand of Draco's hair that she hardly knew what to do with herself.

Draco's smug expression flickered, finally registering the arctic shift in Astoria's attitude. Smart enough to know that pursuing the topic would be taking things too far, he let out a smug scoff and slouched back into his chair.

Astoria opened her mouth to address Tracey but she was interrupted before she could begin.

"It's fine!" Tracey insisted, positively trembling with self-loathing. "You didn't know. Just forget it!"

But Astoria could not forget it, not when she had behaved so idiotically all morning long. Why hadn't she noticed that Tracey was upset instead of excited? Surely her behavior had been strange enough to hint at it?

No, Astoria realized, it was even worse than that—she had noticed and had simply assumed that Tracey's awkwardness had been to do with herself...

Painfully desperate to apologize but unsure how, Astoria was prevented from doing anything at all when Professor Vector entered the room wearing a rumpled jacket and last night's facial hair. Tired and grumpy, Vector soon put an end to all discussion by assigning multiple chapters worth of dull silent reading.

0o0

The next several days slipped by in blur of frustrated agony. The desire for term to end became almost unbearable; something Astoria looked forward to with the same sort of baited, cringing breath as when she fell asleep on her arm the wrong way and awoke having to wait for the painful tingling to pass.

Tracey remained aloof; Theodore tense and distracted. In an attempt to respect their states of heightened tension, Astoria soon gave up on any plan to interrogate either of them.

Tracey's unhappiness, as Astoria readily comprehended it, was something she was keen to keep private. An unexpected embarrassment, dealt like a swift blow to the gut; the less time spent talking about it, the happier she appeared.

Contrary to the way Astoria had assumed she would feel on the night of the Third Task, Draco's brutal outing of Tracey's rejection had so throughly robbed her of any desire to say 'I told you so' that it was all she could do to meet Tracey's eye without experiencing a resurgence of guilt. Unsure what else to do, she made no mention of Blaise at meals and began to avoid him in the halls even more carefully than she had before.

Theodore's irritability was less easily understood, but Astoria imagined it had something to do with the barrage of letters he had begun receiving from home on a daily basis.

Almost shamefully thankful that he had not bared the terrifying contents of these notes to her in full, Astoria did her best to step lightly, her own grief held at bay by the more present—and therefore urgent—grievances of those surrounding her.

0o0

The night of the Leaving Feast finally arrived. Consoled only by the fact that it was the last thing she would have to face before boarding the Hogwarts Express in the morning, Astoria forced herself downstairs for dinner. It was obvious the moment she entered the hall, however, that the meal would not be painless.

Everything, from the trimmings on the house tables to the Inter-House Championship winner's banners, had been refurbished in black. Realizing that the evening was going be a funeral rather than a feast, Astoria sunk down onto the Gryffindor bench, wilting under the weight of the mourning shrouds strewn from the rafters.

Dumbledore's words were both short and sweet, but nothing could overshadow the palpable dismay of those sitting at the Hufflepuff table. Astoria did her best to listen, uncomfortable and restless in her own skin.

When the headmaster asked them all to stand and raise their glasses to Cedric, Astoria complied robotically. Tipping her goblet to her mouth, she spilled a substantial amount of juice down her front because her hands were shaking so badly. It was as though a hundred feet of water separated her from the nearest human being like an impenetrable wall. Well, almost impenetrable:

"Cedric Diggory was murdered by Lord Voldemort!"

Astoria jolted, her full attention once again compelled toward the podium.

An unsettling hiss began to fill the hall like the drone of a hundred angry bees. Left and right, people were glancing at each other, their expressions flashing anywhere between fright and disbelief.

Astoria supposed she did not blame them. Not everybody had been assaulted by Moody, she reminded herself. Astoria had been one of only four students to see the angry welt on Karkaroff's arm and most people did not have Death Eaters for parents. In all likelihood, the bulk of the student-body had not known the full extent of the horror that had occurred in the maze until tonight.

"The Ministry does not wish me to tell you this," Dumbledore went on. "It is possible that some of your parents will be horrified that I have done so—either because they will not believe Lord Voldemort has returned or because they think I should not tell you."

Astoria's ears prickled, disliking the insinuation that the Ministry did not have plans for a wide-spread information campaign. Surely Fudge wouldn't be so foolish as to remain silent?

Dumbledore went on, but by the time he had reached the topic of Harry's unfaltering heroism, Astoria could no longer resist the urge to glance toward the Slytherin table.

There appeared to be a sort of unrestrained muttered going on in that sector, with very few students paying close attention to the headmaster's words. Astoria sought out Draco's pale head and found it without effort. Bent toward Crabbe and Goyle, he was muttering under his breath and gesturing excitedly.

Cold all over and somehow unable to shake off the feeling that she herself was guilty (although of what, she could not have said), Astoria rose to her feet a second time to toast Harry. She kept her eyes on Dumbledore as she swallowed, depressingly unmotivated to check if Draco would be civil enough to stand; she already knew that he wasn't.

"Remember Cedric," finished Dumbledore, surveying each and every face in the hall with his intense but somber blue eyes. "If the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort."

Shivering violently, Astoria finished her pumpkin juice and went to bed without bidding anyone goodnight.

Alone in her dormitory with her half-packed trunk, Astoria knew that this was the last evening she would spend allowing herself to dwell on the topic of Lord Voldemort and the unknown. There was simply no point in worrying; the worst had already happened. The most she could do was make the best out of the months in front of her: perhaps leaving the country was not such a curse after all?

0o0

"Pity it had to be Diggory," mused Tracey, huffing and puffing under the weight of her trunk as she heaved it down the aisle between train cars. "With a face like that, he'll be causing an uproar from the grave until we're fifty."

"Well, he's from an old family," Astoria returned hesitantly, "and the Diggorys have Ministry roots. You can't really blame people for being angry—a boy died."

"Yeah, but the funny thing is, if it had happened to someone else—like my brother Roger, say—everyone would totally forget about his tragic demise the moment a new scandal hit the papers," Tracey shoved open an empty compartment door, still trying to catch her breath. "Ugh, I'm starting to sound like Theodore."

"Where is Theodore, anyway?" Astoria wondered, claiming two seats for her own and leaving the other row to Tracey.

The Hogwarts Express had been underway for less than half of an hour; steadily chugging through pine forests on its meandering path around the lakes. Theodore had slept through breakfast—a not altogether uncommon occurrence—but he had not managed to meet up with them in time to catch the carriages and Astoria was half inclined to assemble a search party.

"No idea," Tracey shrugged. "Maybe Padma walked by and forced him to hide in the luggage compartment?"

The cruelest thing about this sentence was that it had in no way been meant as a joke. Astoria smiled anyway, twisting a thin silver ring on one of her fingers back and forth with her thumb thoughtfully. "I think he sees more of her than he lets on, you know."

"Who—Padma?" Tracey snorted. "Finally bought himself a set binoculars, has he?"

"No," Astoria smirked. "I think she meets up with him in the library. Parvati mentioned something about the two of them playing chess together a week ago."

"You're kidding!" Tracey burst. "God, if he ends up being the only one of us with someone to date this summer, I'll kill myself!"

Astoria's hand flitted toward her face to smother a wry smile, the cold band of her ring resting against her lips like an ice chip. "I wonder why Theo hasn't mentioned it," she mused.

"Probably because we're a pair of meddling bitches?" snorted Tracey. "I swear, Theo thinks we have sleepovers just to talk about him. I'm sure in his mind, we sit around a giant black pot all night long, just stirring away and cackling..."

Astoria laughed though her fingers, unable to resist Tracey's provoking grin.

"It's probably just as well, you know," Astoria continued in an offhand voice. "I've got a hunch that Padma thinks I'm a simpleton and you're a vapid bloodhound."

"Really?" demanded Tracey brightly, perking right up.

"Mhmm," Astoria murmured dryly, knowing she was playing with fire but charging ahead anyway. "She talks down to me every time I see her. Haven't you ever noticed?"

"No!" Tracey leered excitedly.

"Yeah. Of course, it doesn't help that my only class with her is Arithmancy—" Tracey let out a howl of appreciative mirth, "—but I swear, she thinks I'm so stupid that she has to talk like a cave-man for me to keep up."

They continued to laugh gleefully all morning, the passage of time slowly transporting them into the afternoon. Fields and houses began to replace the forests and lochs outside, their roofs and chimneys whizzing by under a blanket of cheerful sunshine.

Prepared to search of the lunch trolley, (and Theo, if it could be managed) Astoria and Tracey finally bumped their way back out into the rolling train aisle around noon.

"Theo's probably sitting with her!" Tracey hissed conspiratorially, repeating her suspicion for perhaps the hundredth time. "We've been replaced!"

"Pfft," Astoria hushed. If she was being honest with herself, Astoria knew that she was already secretly inclined to somewhat dislike Padma, and she was rather wary of allowing further provocation to take root in her mind. Now tasked with the job of reigning Tracey in, she was beginning to regret having said anything about her at all.

"We should find them and barge in!" Tracy giggled. "We could both pretend to be Pansy. Lord, Theodore would just kill us!"

"Probably," Astoria readily agreed. "Remember what happened the last time we meddled? Lets try to start off the holiday without the hysterics, shall we?"

"Draco!" Tracey yelled, breaking off at the sight of a silvery blonde head. Double checking to make sure that he was not standing with Blaise, Tracey hollered again. "Draco!"

The carriages were growing progressively louder and the aisle busier. Spotting them, Draco snapped his fingers at Crabbe and Goyle to indicate that they should wait while Astoria and Tracey stumbled their way past a clique of Gryffindor first years, leaning heavily against the walls to counteract the awkward lurch of the train.

"Have you seen Theodore?" Tracey burst, finally shoving her way through.

"No," Malfoy scoffed. "His weepy Ravenclaw came through about a minute ago, though."

Astoria kept her eyes trained carefully on Tracey. A night's worth of rest had not been enough to purge her of the memory of Draco muttering his way through Cedric's memorial and she had a feeling that, if she opened her mouth, any manner of unreasonable things might come tumbling out.

"Hah! I forgot you made Padma cry!" Tracey cried provokingly, elbowing Astoria in the ribs. "The irony—she thinks you're too stupid to plot!"

"I didn't make her cry!" Astoria argued. "Goldstein did—"

"Did you see what compartment she went into?" pressed Tracey, eyes gleaming wickedly.

Draco raised a dubious eyebrow but indicated a door several feet behind Crabbe.

Cackling like a banshee, Tracey danced her way around Crabbe's considerable bulk, intent on spying.

"What is she on about?" sneered Draco, following Tracey's progress down the aisle. "She's not gunning for Nott now?"

Tracey pressed her face against the half shuttered glass of Padma's compartment. A second later, she let out snorting cackle and turned to wave Astoria onward, grinning sinisterly.

Swearing under her breath, Astoria hastily darted forward, eager to pry Tracey away before Theodore caught them both with their noses pressed against the glass.

To her faint annoyance, Malfoy hesitated and then followed, provoking Crabbe and Goyle to do the same.

"Look!" Tracey whispered excitedly, grabbing hold of Astoria's sleeve, "he is in there with her. Who's that other girl?"

"Lisa Turpin," Astoria hissed, incensed. "Come on, Theo will have a fit if he sees us!"

"It's mad out there!" cried Padma cheerfully from inside the compartment, clearing magazines off her seat to make room. "Quite a bit of your lot out there, Teddy! Lunch is almost here."

Realizing that by 'Teddy', Padma almost certainly meant Theodore, Astoria was only just quick enough to grab Tracey before she bumped into the door and gave them all away with her snickering.

"Oh-ho-ho!" simpered Tracey ecstatically, legs bent inward as though she was about to wet herself.

"Slytherins you mean?" asked Theodore mildly, bending over to pick up the stack of magazines that Padma had just thrust aside. Astoria immediately wished he wouldn't—she didn't like the idea of him trailing around behind anyone with a dust bin.

"That Malfoy boy was there," Padma returned. "He's in our year, isn't he?"

"Oh," returned Theodore flatly, pausing at his tidying up, blatantly unenthused, "him. Yeah, he's in our year."

Hearing this, Draco let out a soft, unpleasant chuckle and raised his hand to brace himself against the wall, effective blocking Astoria's only means of escape.

"What? You're not keen on him?" Padma pressed. "He does seem a bit unpleasant, but then, so do most of the people in your house."

"You don't know the half of it." Theodore finished straightening up the stack of Witch Weekly fliers and reclaimed his seat. He shifted awkwardly, clearly unsure how to compose him limbs without touching Padma's legs by accident. "I'm telling you, Malfoy's just about the most insufferable git that anyone could have the misfortune of knowing."

"Don't you hang around with him, though?" returned Padma somewhat skeptically.

"That's only because most Slytherins have known each other for forever," explained Theodore. "If the others didn't put up with him, I'd hardly ever have to see Draco. He probably likes me just about as much as I like him."

Draco snorted, his nose close enough to stir Astoria's hair.

"Who are the 'others'?" shot Padma, picking up on this detail with chilling speed. "Astoria, you mean? She really is your best friend—all you ever do is talk about her."

Lisa Turpin dared a glance over the top of her own magazine, smirking knowingly.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah," answered Theodore densely, missing the obvious note of acidity in Padma's tone, "and Tracey, too."

"Aw!" clucked Tracey quietly.

"She's the shrill one, is she?" Padma wondered wryly.

"Tracey?" mused Theodore fairly, so affected by Padma's presence that he seemed to have forgotten to watch his tongue. "Yeah, I suppose she is bit peaky."

"Little traitor!" amended Tracey gleefully, her voice, quite ironically, almost squeaky enough to commune with bats.

Inside the compartment, Theodore was still shifting restlessly, his brow furrowed.

"Do you think he's good-looking?" asked Theodore repressively, apologetically even. "Malfoy, I mean?"

Draco's soft laughter became slightly crueler. As far as he was concerned, Theodore displaying insecurity—especially when he appeared to be comparing himself against Malfoy—was just about as good as having Christmas arrive early.

"Not really," Padma shrugged, forcing Astoria to suppress a fat, cheshire grin. "Well, no, I suppose he's perfectly fine looking. He just always seems to be in a nasty mood, doesn't he?"

"That's because he is," muttered Theodore under his breath, appearing somewhat unsatisfied with Padma's answer.

"Why do you ask?" countered Padma. "I suppose it bothers you that all your girlfriends like him?"

If being told that he fell somewhere on the spectrum between offensive and notably attractive had bothered Draco, then this last comment was enough to restore his smugness to its former level and beyond.

Astoria chanced a glance at Tracey, unsurprised to find that the effort of holding in laughter was now very close to strangling her.

"What?" Theodore stuttered. "No. I mean, Astoria maybe tolerates him the best—but she can put up with anything. He's really rude to Tracey."

Tracey shot Malfoy a sly, satisfied grin. Astoria, meanwhile, was bizarrely fixated on Theo. It was a strange thing to see Theodore speaking so openly in front of company that she did not know, and even stranger still to see him struggling so hard to be pleasing. She was conscious of the fact that she ought not to be eavesdropping, but it was hard to tear herself away with Padma so keen to keep egging him on, trying to make him say things that he did not fully mean.

"Well, that tracks doesn't it?" snorted Padma. "Silly, pretty girls always go for the rich boy, no matter how big of an ass he is. And Astoria's about as silly and pretty as they come. Isn't that why she's dating that Beauxbatons seventh year?"

"What?" gulped Theodore. "Astoria isn't dating any French boys."

"If you say so," returned Padma skeptically, rearranging her skirt with maddeningly prissy flick. "If you ask me, Astoria's a bit like that Aphrodite in the book you lent me—beautiful, frivolous, irrationally vain, mean—" her eyes wandered onto Theodore, who was entirely too uncomfortable to fully appreciate the attention, " —weirdly fixated on controlling her son..."

Even through a wall of glass and a set of blinds, Padma's opinion could not have been clearer: Astoria was the cold, distant minx and Theodore her foolish, babied pet.

"Astoria doesn't have a son," returned Theodore almost bemusedly. "And really, as far as I know, she's not off gold-digging with foreigners."

"Would you care if she was?" Padma challenged, faking neutrality but very poorly.

"No!" Theodore floundered, perhaps unsure as to why he was being asked to defend himself. "Well, maybe, if it was Mendel, but that's only because he's ridiculous! I had to help him open condiment bottles once—he told me he'd never used ketchup that wasn't served in a ramekin before!"

Astoria couldn't help it: she let out a horrified laugh, this time too loudly.

Quickly seizing control before they were spotted, Tracey leaned forward and rapped on the glass with her knuckles.

All three heads turned toward them in surprise, but Theodore jolted the hardest, entirely busted at his loose-lipped prattling. Tracey dropped the compartment a swift, sassy salute, grabbed Astoria and yanked.

"What a harpy!" Tracey cried, nearly tripping over Goyle's massive feet. "Oh, she's going to have to go!"

Privately, Astoria could not agree more, but it didn't seem like a good idea to say so. Tracey was clearly in a volatile mood and her last experience with meddling in Theodore's private life had been so nearly disastrous that it had thoroughly sapped her of a taste for it.

"Theodore will sort it out," Astoria insisted stonily, conscious of the fact that her cheeks were still stinging. Silly, pretty girls always go for the rich boy...

"Please!" Tracey bristled. "The nerve of her! We made that friendship and we can bloody well end it—shrill indeed!"

"Yeah, well, I'd say you got off pretty lucky with shrill!" Astoria spat, unable to shake off the taint left behind by Padma's sly tirade.

"Oh, yeah," snorted Tracey sarcastically, "because you only got to be the Greek Goddess—how horrific! What was that bit she said about you being Theodore's mommy, though?"

It was a strange thing. In the entire week that had elapsed since the Third Task, Astoria had not managed to shed a single tear, not even in the privacy of her own bed. But now, incredibly, she could almost feel herself threatening to mist over, tears pricking at the backs of her eyes like needles.

This was not because she felt that Theodore hadn't done his part to stand up for her—in her rational mind, she knew that he had offered up counterarguments for every bit of bile that Padma had spewed—but judging by Padma's level of comfort in speaking her mind, she also knew that this could not have been the first time that Theodore had heard Padma speak badly of her.

Perhaps that was even why Theodore had gone to such great lengths to hide his new friendship? It was not because he didn't trust Astoria and Tracey to behave themselves, after all—Padma simply thought that they were scum.

Distantly though, even though she understand this, Astoria also knew that things kept hidden had an uncanny habit of taking on greater meaning than they deserved; of feeling more profound or true than the rest of the daily drivel. Perhaps Theo secretly enjoyed hearing his best friends be degraded for sport? They certainly were almost unbearably catty with him at times...

"Dunno," Astoria returned thickly, blinking rapidly in the hopes that it might dismiss her spontaneously urge to cry.

"Who cares?" Draco scoffed, the least scorned by Padma's speech and therefore the quickest to dismiss it. "Did you hear her call him 'Teddy'?"

Once acquired, Draco proved almost maddeningly difficult to lose. Armed with an exceptionally amusing topic to make fun of, he followed them all the way back to their compartment, hardly pausing for breath. It was hard not to wonder if there wasn't someone else who might appreciate his humor more, but for the first time in a long while, he and Tracey seemed be entirely on the same page. Indeed, their wit ran long even without Astoria's participation, no matter how many times they glanced her questioningly.

When the train finally began to slow down for the approach to Kings Cross station, Draco rounded up Crabbe and Goyle to depart. Privately suspecting that he wanted a last sneer at Harry Potter, Astoria let out a breath she had not known she had been holding and finally gave herself over to peaceful promise of night in her own home with no one there to trouble her.

0o0

For those of you wondering how Astoria managed not to scald herself in that shower with the hot water cranked up to maximum, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and flat-out assume that the plumbing at Hogwarts is really third rate. I mean, come on, the pipes are wide enough for a dragon sized serpent to hang out in... and I'm not even going to get started on Moaning Myrtle. Also, side note: I'm beginning to understand why J.K. threw so many magical quirks into her bathrooms. Old plumbing is creaky and scary and I'm starting to think that it ALL might be haunted (ever heard a bathroom radiator hiss?).

On a more relevant note, I know this chapter was kind of chat-heavy (Realistic title? Gossip: A Drama in Five Scenes.). I think it tied up where everyone stands in the plot before summer, though, so at least there's that. Also, for Draco's sake, I think we can all agree that he needs to be removed from Hogwarts before he bullies his way into everyone's bad books.

And sorry about the penis jokes. The greek statues of old were some refined pieces of artwork, guys. If that's what your manhood actually looks like in real life and you're secretly wishing me dead right now for poking fun, just remember how gorgeous you are (and that it is never my intent to offend).

Hopefully I'll have the next chapter up within a week as well, but if it turns out to be two because of term finishing up, my apologies in advance!

Reviews never fail to make me smile!