Chapter Sixty Two
Drive
0o0
Astoria sighed and stared at her feet, letting the richly papered wall of Aston Mendel's fourth floor hallway cradle her sagging head. It was nearly sunset and wide rays of light were blazing in through the windows over the landing, reaching toward her face like an unexpected kiss.
There had been no time to nap. Already, the witching hour between day and dusk was upon them; the moon half-up, the sun half-down. It was an eerie sight, the moon in a pale blue sky. It gave the disorienting impression that time was at a standstill.
Meanwhile, behind her, Maudlin's voice continued to rumble like a truck stuck in mud as he argued with his house-elf.
"Fine. Yes—whatever! This is boring. You're boring."
Alec had only just managed to talk Maudlin into attending the ball a half an hour before they were set to depart for it. Then, having fulfilled his obligation as a friend, he had faded away into his guest-room like a ghost. Draco wandered off next—presumably to find his father and dress himself—leaving Astoria behind to change and dither about without purpose.
"Not those cufflinks!" Maudlin snapped, causing a great deal of internal ruckus in the chamber behind her. "For merlin's sake—take your shitty pins and go back to the kitchen!"
The door flew open and an elf scampered out, head down, ears drooping. Astoria stepped aside to avoid being charged and then moved forward, sick to death of waiting.
"Are you decent?" she asked, leaning against the doorjamb.
"Define decent," Maudlin sneered back, but he yanked the door open to admit her anyway.
It took Astoria's eyes a moment to adjust to the hazy half-lighting inside. Maudlin was standing by his closet door, fixing his tie in a full length mirror. Perhaps to reflect his dark mood, however, all of his window-hangings had been pulled shut, casting his otherwise handsome face into irritable shadow. Only his hands remained clearly visible, fluttering clumsily against his plum-colored neck-tie in the gloom.
"You look nice," observed Astoria.
Her eyes came to a disapproving, last-minute rest on his velvet dinner slippers, but she knew better than to correct herself.
"Uhuh," grunted Maudlin, still struggling to pull an even knot at his throat.
"Let me," murmured Astoria, swatting his fingers away. She worked at his collar in silence, attempting to gauge his sobriety without being overly obvious. "How much wine did you drink today?"
"Not nearly enough," muttered Maudlin bitterly.
"Well, it's time to sharpen up," Astoria sighed, yanking his tangled tie loose with an intolerant, zippy hiss of silk against cotton. "Aston will be furious if he sees you stumbling around in public."
"I know," countered Maudlin irritably. "Enough."
"What's gotten into you, anyway?" Astoria whispered, kneading the tussled fabric between her fingers. "It's like you've come unhinged..."
"Nothing," sneered Maudlin. "Don't nag. I'm fine—what is that?"
He gestured toward his tie with a hostile shoulder jerk.
"A half windsor," declared Astoria defiantly, stepping back to have a look at her lousy handiwork.
The knot was not particularly even or straight, but it was the best that she could do in the dark. As a child, George had taught her the clumsy process of tying a tie, but it had been so many years since anyone had asked for her help that, in all probability, Astoria's nine year old self might have done a better job.
"It's crooked," sneered Maudlin thanklessly.
"Yes. But it's tied," Astoria snapped back, meeting his eye.
A weird charge of expectation and guilt seemed to linger in their exchanged glance. For the first time in Astoria's memory, Maudlin appeared strange and unreadable—even dangerous—enough to make her want to recoil. Without thinking, she removed her hands from his shirtfront. Maudlin's eyes followed the sight of her retreating fingers and then—perhaps because they were standing unusually close in such a poorly lit place—they darted toward her mouth.
Before Astoria could even process this unexpected awkwardness, Maudlin twitched back reflexively, looking extremely uncomfortable with himself.
"Alec's probably dressed," Astoria guessed, happy to leave the moment unmentioned. "Are you ready?"
"Yeah," Maudlin huffed, collecting himself. His hand subconsciously flicked up toward his crooked tie again, but he did not undo or adjust it. Instead, he strode off toward his bureau, ready to regain a sense of purpose.
While Maudlin rummaged about in his drawers, Astoria studied her own outfit in the newly vacated mirror. The red dress that she had originally intended for the Yule Ball glistened back at her; heavy, elegant and dramatically well draped.
Thankfully, it was an outfit made to be worn by a careless owner. Its craftsmanship demanded very little fussing to appear flawless, and at the moment, the idea of casual perfection suited Astoria right down to the ground. In twenty four hours time, she would be on the coast of Monaco and out of harm's way—plenty of time to experiment with fashion then. For now, her primary goal was to get through the eleventh hour without calling down Cassandra's eagle-eyed attention. And to do that, every detail merited careful consideration.
Caught in a whirlwind between feistiness and fear, Astoria had done everything in her power to stick to her own Lestrange family colors. As a result of this over-precaution, not a single speck of Mendel purple or Malfoy silver glittered anywhere on her body save the metalwork of her aunt's heirloom necklace.
Astoria nodded at her own reflection appreciatively. The visual of her decorated head nodded back at her, satisfied. She was going to at least make it look like she was having a good time that evening if it killed her.
"Do you need a mask?" called Maudlin, still rattling about.
"Mhmm," Astoria admitted distractedly, picking a stray bit of lint from the strap of her exposed slip.
She had almost forgotten that she would need to don a mask and Maudlin's reminder did nothing but further reinforce her determination and good humor. Having her face hidden behind a screen would make it that much harder to come across as accidentally displeasing or rude. Another rare point in Astoria's favor.
"Silk, tulle or—" Maudlin fumbled into the back of the drawer, "—rawhide? Merlin..."
Maudlin tossed the third mask into the rubbish bin. He gave her dress a decisive once-over and passed her a bit of sheer fabric. Astoria inspected the lining of the mask carefully, privately certain that Maudlin's mother had probably purchased it a decade ago.
"Is Aston meeting us there?" she asked, fixing the fabric over her eyes.
The tulle was conveniently off-black, almost burgundy—a perfect match.
"Yes," muttered Maudlin, yanking the remaining silk mask down over his own head so carelessly that his well-groomed hair poked up around his ears.
Astoria hesitated, afraid of provoking him further. "And your mother...?"
"At a retreat in Iceland," clipped Maudlin, sounding rehearsed and slightly clinical. "An annual facial."
"What should I say if anyone asks about her?" Astoria wondered, keeping her eyes locked safely on the mirror.
Maudlin's mother was a tricky subject. He loved her dearly, that much was certain, but her regular absences meant that even the the most passing of conversations about her whereabouts could potentially set off an emotional explosion.
"I don't know," hissed Maudlin evasively. "Tell them she's being massaged by gnomes for all I care—or better yet, tell them to go fu—"
"We're officially late," interrupted Alec, undulating in the doorway like smoke. "Your father just sent round for us. We've missed the first call."
Astoria turned to stare, momentarily shocked into silence by the audacity of his strangely villainous suit. Dressed all in powdery blue, Alec had clearly spared the theme of 'a disguise' no idle expense. Complete with a victorian cape pinned back by a diamond brooch, it looked as though he had borrowed his style influence directly from Oscar Wilde's Halloween fever dreams.
"Yes, yes!" hissed Maudlin, immediately returning to his state of harassed petulance. He slammed his rarely used drawers—now empty save a few spare sickles and a mothball—shut. "We're going!"
0o0
The Minister's ball, ironically enough, was not held in the house of the French Ministry at all, but in the museum that disguised it. Astoria understood the reasoning behind this choice the moment Maudlin hustled them all through his fireplace. Just like the British, the French government was located underground. But, on the other side of the grate, a surprisingly golden entrance hall blazed up to meet them: an opulent, well-ventilated atrium that bore no resemblance to a dungeon.
Next moment, before Astoria even had a chance to adjust, a wave of light and sound sent her clawing for the front of her mask, subconsciously hoping to dislodge it.
There were people everywhere—a disorienting cacophony of silk and velvet. Two hundred heads and shoulders blazed into greater illumination every time the sickening flash-pop! of a camera bulb went off. Two hundred heads and shoulders fought for space to breathe and laugh on a single navy carpet.
Thankfully, this vast crowd did not seem to be idle. People were clamoring away from the paunchy photographers by the open front doors, funneling in toward a set of magnificent steps that dominated the middle of the room like a giant, tilting walkway.
Harassed by the lack of space and afraid of being trod on, Astoria cast about for Maudlin, but Maudlin was already doing his best to vanish. Despite the fact that no one was really hurrying him, he was fighting his way through a throng of elderly witches like his life depended on it, hell-bent on reaching the stairs.
Appalled, Astoria tossed herself forward, desperate to avoid getting lost. She was not a native, after all—and this party probably hadn't seen a Lestrange pin in attendance since before the war. What if one of the decidedly militaristic looking guards standing near the street entrances did not recognize her house insignia and attempted to toss her out?
She tripped her way up the lushly carpeted steps two at a time and only just managed to catch Maudlin by the elbow before he hustled off down one of the vaulted galleries that lay ahead. Maudlin shot her a look of surprise over his shoulder. 'Oh. That's right', his confused thought bubble seemed to read. 'Sorry.'
"This way," he muttered, purposefully steering Astoria down the left hallway.
The top tier that they had ascended to soon proved to be laid out in a very unusual way—a long, wide hallway that looped around in the shape of a giant, open square. All along the outside walls, picture galleries glimmered warmly. And on the inside, a vast railing guarded against a brilliantly lit drop down into the glittering ballroom below.
"Where are we going?" Astoria demanded, privately thankful for the carpeting underfoot, as it prevented her from thundering about in her heels at top speed.
"The bar," explained Maudlin sourly.
The words had barely left his mouth before Aston appeared around the next corner. Panicking, Maudlin forced them both to pivot, queerly anxious to avoid his father's line of sight.
By the time they had retreated and trudged about the long way, Astoria was starting to sweat. She leaned against the railing as Maudlin ordered drinks, studying the nearby ice sculptures enviously. If it weren't for her makeup, she wouldn't have been able to stop herself from pressing her face against one of their glistening surfaces.
"Is that for me?" asked Astoria, reverting her eyes back onto Maudlin's hasty transaction.
Rows of liquor bottles glittered seductively on shelves behind the hired bartender—deceptively pretty, poisonous jewels. Every substance Astoria knew how to recognize seemed to be there, along with several others that she, and probably most of the other teenagers at the party, were too young to have heard of.
"I—what?" exclaimed Maudlin distractedly, clutching his two drinks like twin grenades. "Er. Yes..."
He passed Astoria a flute of champagne, knocked his own back in a single pull, and then motioned for another.
"Fucking merlin," Astoria muttered sanctimoniously.
"Sorry?"
"Nothing," she huffed, already resenting the idea of having to spend her evening corralling him like a cattle-herder. Maudlin was clearly in a resentful mood and desperate to run rogue. There was simply no point in supervising him, not if he was going to thwart her every step of the way.
Whatever Maudlin's retort was, Astoria ignored it, momentarily distracted by a very pretty and radically displeased face in the crowd.
It was Élise—the savage Veela from her father's hotel room—standing less than ten feet away, fully recognizable through her mask by her blonde hair, liquid physique and the way that she was actively swearing at an attendant in rapid french.
"I thought we might find you here!" roared Luc, pushing his way up the line to thump Maudlin on the back. Then, either because he had followed Astoria's gaze or because Élise was simply too stunning not to notice, Luc gestured across the room. "Who's the girl?"
It was on Astoria's mind to introduce her as a foul-mouthed harlot, but Maudlin cleared his throat and surprised her by doing the job himself.
"Oh, you've seen her in the papers—that's Élise Bernard. She's absolute dirt, Luc. Walks for all the fashion lines. I don't even think she's technically a witch."
Astoria forced herself not to laugh awkwardly, checked by the fact that she and Élise had been introduced less than ten feet away from her father's bedside.
"I'm sure I don't care about any of that," muttered Luc, entranced past the point of common decency. "She's gorgeous."
"When have you ever cared about anything that you couldn't eat, Luc?" called Alec jauntily, working his way through the throng with Draco in tow.
"Right now!" Luc protested. "I care about that girl—Élise Bernard. Does anyone know her?"
"I know of her," admitted Alec slyly. "Isn't she forever running amok in the tabloids?"
"Of course she is," sneered Maudlin, "she's actual trash. Part Veela, part countryside hillbilly—her manager couldn't even get her into Beuxbatons. She's not human enough."
"Magic is magic," argued Luc half-heartedly, unable to tear his eyes away. "I suppose she can do her own sort of witchcraft."
"What type would that be?" snorted Draco sarcastically, quick to take Maudlin's hard view of things.
"No one knows her?" demanded Luc, ignoring the scorn. "Really? How can she make the papers every week without one of you ever meeting her?"
"Because she's a gold-digging whore," pronounced Maudlin cruelly. "I don't want to meet her."
Several feet away, George Greengrass was in the process of joining the line for drinks. And beside him, clutching his arm and murmuring in a dignified sort of way, stood Mafalda Hopkirk. Astoria's entire body went still at the sight. An invisible sheen of perspiration broke out across her skin. This was a scene she had seen play out before: two mistresses, one room.
Only this time, it was Mafalda being wronged and the new prize—Élise—was no Lady MacLaggen: she was prettier, angrier and louder. Unlike her monied contemporaries, Élise struck Astoria as the type who would require very little provocation to make a scene. Indeed, if the poor, blushing attendant that she was currently swearing at counted as an indicator, making scenes appeared to be what she did best.
"Ah!" Idle and unaware of himself as always, George made a polite gesture of acknowledgment toward Maudlin across the bar. Then, fooled by Astoria's disguise, his eyes skimmed right over his daughter and landed on Draco with an approving nod.
Rage. Rage such as she had never experience—repressed by the rules of public decorum and imprisoned behind a mask—washed over Astoria like a wave of hot water. In an instant, the protective chrysalis she had created to shield herself against her father's stupidity shattered. Emerging on the other side of this transformation, Astoria found that she had been scrubbed clean of everything but a trembling fury.
She seized Maudlin's third drink straight out of his hands and downed it. Fine, her mind reeled, if it's a mess he wants, let him have one.
Her vision seemed to flicker—not reproachfully, but violently. Or better yet, her thoughts insisted, why don't you make sure he gets the mess that he really deserves?
Guided by a blind, murderous instinct, Astoria turned back toward Élise. The girl was no longer screaming. Instead, she appeared to be studying George and Mafalda from afar. There was lightning in her expression; a vivid hostility just waiting for a chance to strike.
But Astoria was burning a hole into her face—one that was impossible to ignore—and Élise's chilly gaze soon snapped toward the source. They stared at each other. Filled with a tingling thrill of madness, Astoria held her eye—an experience not all together dissimilar from the act of standing in the path of an oncoming storm.
"Astoria!" cried Élise warmly, coming to some kind of decision. Her persona transformed immediately with her shift in attitude; lacking the banshee-like glower of her former suspiciousness, she positively glowed.
Astoria reciprocated the smile carefully, determined not to be fooled by the sudden turn-around. When she had met Élise earlier, Astoria had looked like an unexplained intruder—perhaps even a threat. But now, situated between Alec and Maudlin, she was an access point to a veritable social buffet. Of course Élise was going to play nice—she wanted nothing more than to draw George's notice by talking loudly to important people. Or, failing that, to find a new boyfriend who could be described as a member of the landed gentry. Either would do.
But Astoria? Astoria simply wanted to make her father's skin crawl, and that was a far less ambitious goal.
Élise swept forward and kissed both of Astoria's cheeks with the familiarity of a very old friend, going so far as to extend one of her willowy limbs to test the texture of Astoria's hair.
"Ow 'ar you?" she trilled, exposing her poor English with a breathy chuckle. "And 'ere I was theenking I would not know anyone 'ere! I see your father is already getting on very nicely."
"Her father?" scoffed Draco, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.
"Have you met my friends?" Astoria quickly pressed on, switching over to French, hoping to prevent Maudlin from commenting on Élise's clumsy accent and limit Draco's ability to eavesdrop in one fell swoop.
Élise's attentive eyes swept onto the collection of very surprised boys behind her and quickened. Her focus lingered on Alec's family sigil a bit longer than was strictly polite, but then, perhaps because he was not quite good looking enough for her, she switched targets. For a horrible and obvious moment, her icy gaze flickered excitedly between Draco and Maudlin, unable to choose. Both of their family crests were associated with vast wealth and family influence, both boys were younger than sixty...
Astoria let out a nervous breath and tried not to notice, suddenly painfully re-aware of how perfect Élise's hair and teeth were.
She had just introduced a social climbing temptress—a girl who had likely slept with her own father—to a pack of wealthy boys, two of whom she might legitimately feel compelled to defend, should it come to it. The rashness of such an act was quickly forcing a new thought to become obvious: both Draco and Maudlin claimed that Élise was beneath them. But how long could any prejudice against half-breeds—no matter how deep-rooted—stand up against such a murderously lovely face?
Thankfully, her wait was at an end. Maudlin, the oldest of Élise two best choices, and perhaps the handsomer, soon won the silent battle to become her prize. She fixed her full attention on him and Astoria could not help but feel somewhat relieved.
He's in a foul mood and he's been drinking. He'll make an ass out of himself. It's no matter.
"'Av we met?" Élise breathed, stubbornly persisting in her use of English. "I am Élise Bernard."
"Mhm," grunted Maudlin, somehow too drunk and hostile to allow for the ego-boost of being singled out by someone of such other-worldly radiance, no matter how classless the source.
A rarely encouraged part of Astoria might have triumphed over this, but George was watching now, and she couldn't afford to be careless.
"This is Luc Millefeuille," Astoria continued, trying to pry Élise's avid trajectory off of Maudlin in order to introduce the only person present who was truly willing to receive her.
Luc's hand shot out immediately, but it was no use.
"I met your father, once," Élise continued, still trying to pull Maudlin into a conversation. "'At a dinner—'ee was very charming."
"Eh?" Maudlin raised an insultingly disengaged eyebrow. "Oh, of course. People tend to find him so, yes."
Cassandra and Emilie were not far away. Choosing their moment as only they could, they had finally noticed Maudlin and were beginning their approach.
"Should we walk the gallery?" Maudlin jolted, giving Alec a hearty push away from his rapidly advancing girlfriend.
Élise's eyelashes fluttered angrily, aware that she was being slighted. In an instant, it became clear that she might be woman seeking a fortune, she was not the type to willingly take an insult. Her surprising sense of self-worth was not particularly helpful to Astoria's cause, but she couldn't help liking Élise a bit more for knowing it.
"Wait," Astoria murmured, carefully extending a hand to stop her from moving away as the group broke up.
Alec, Maudlin and Draco were shuffling down the hall. Luc, still hopeful, lingered a little way behind, but he was soon out of earshot.
Élise turned on Astoria. With all false pretension stripped away, she was once again the raging bitch of the afternoon.
"For what?" she snapped in French. "To watch your father hang on an old hag! What does he mean by it—is he hoping for important introductions? Ha! What a joke!"
"He's as vain as you are," ventured Astoria slyly, egged on by the fact that her father was beginning to shuffle his feet nervously, watching the two of them out of the corner of his eye. Apparently, his trouble noticing his own daughter did not stretch far enough to effectively block out her interactions with his mistress...
"What is that supposed to mean?" Élise flared.
"It's fine for him to turn up at an event with someone respectable," Astoria reasoned, displaying a startling level of disassociation for her father's well being. "It makes him look good. Only, deep down, he likes to think of himself as a Don Juan. In his mind, it's perfectly acceptable for him to slight you—but if you were to look smitten with someone younger than him... well, I think that would break the spell, if you know what I mean."
For a moment, Élise said nothing. Then, just when Astoria thought she might wind up with her eyes clawed out, Élise threw her head back and laughed a grand laugh.
"Oh, precious!" she cried coldly, amused in the extreme. "He is insecure? He cannot tolerate competition?"
"He's nearly forty," Astoria explained, thinking of her father's passing comments about age in the chip shop that afternoon. "He's used to being the most handsome man in the room. Give him a run for his money. He'll come back to you."
The most incredible thing about this plan was not even the fact that Astoria had made it up on the spot—it was the fact that it would very likely work. Even if George had no interest in Élise beyond her magnificent looks, he would not appreciate having to watch a former tryst run off with someone else under his nose. Particularly if that someone else was half his age.
"That is very clever," mused Élise appreciatively, angling her head, seeing Astoria in a new light. "But why are you helping me? We do not even know each other. I've always known that George has a wife—"
"The woman he came here with tonight isn't his wife. She's a British ministry official," Astoria clarified, hoping to hide her true motive—resentment. "It's sloppy of him. She knows people in his wife's circle. In any case, I'm convinced she's not his taste."
Élise let out another mercenary chuckle and leaned in until they were only an inch or two apart. "Are we going to be friends, then?"
"Stay close to Luc," Astoria advised, sidestepping this question entirely. "And me," she added at the last moment, almost uncomfortably, "stay close to me."
0o0
It was both the best and the worst plan that Astoria had ever dreamed up. Nerve-janglingly reckless, her theory began to prove itself in under fifteen minutes. Luc needed no encouragement to fawn all over Élise and it was apparent that, for his own part, George could not keep from turning to watch every time she let him.
The first real hangup—if it could even be called a hangup—was Cassandra's reaction. A born snob, there was only thing that she was less likely to tolerate than Astoria's unlikely usurpation of her best friend's boyfriend—and that was a low-rent hanger-on.
"What is it that you do, exactly?" Cassandra soon asked Élise, employing a tone that could have made flowers shrivel.
"She models, Cassandra," explained Luc tersely, scoffing in a way that seemed to suggest that this should have been obvious. "She wears clothes."
"Yes," allowed Cassandra flatly, pursing her lips. "Don't we all?"
Maudlin alone seemed to be resisting the urge to confront the things that he found unpleasant, (this being Cassandra, Emilie and Élise, he was soon effectively mute) but his stiffness was beginning to matter less, because the party itself was loosening.
All around, women were letting out cries of laughter and bouncing flirtatiously off of their dates'—or, in some cases, their friends' dates'—shoulders. Men clapped each other on the back and thrust arms through crowded corridors to encourages handshakes. Deals and engagements were made and then regretted. Introductions evoked wild enthusiasm for faces and names that were forgotten twice as fast as they were given.
All the while, a strange exhilaration was thundering through Astoria's veins, made only more potent by the climate around her.
It had been a very long time since Astoria had found herself in charge of anything. The rapid escalation of her aunt's fight with Lucius (followed by her father's legal involvement) had rendered her largely useless in almost all of her domestic affairs. Theodore's growing interest in a girl who loathed her hadn't helped matters. The sensation of taking control of something—of anything, really—was very nearly intoxicating.
And she had taken control, hadn't she? True, Astoria might be in a foreign country on her aunt's orders, and George might still be shunting her off onto Aston Mendel so that he could cavort about more freely, but Astoria was no longer laying idly by while it happened. And if it took a pseudo-sexual manipulation involving her own father to achieve this? Well, then, so what? Astoria no longer cared. As far as she was concerned, she had outwitted a fully grown adult and the resulting effect was something closer to startling smugness than one of guilt or regret.
Her talk grew freer, more goading. If she did not watch her mouth, she was likely to miss her own mark—a very Draco-like mistake. Still, the temptation to luxuriate in her own cleverness was a powerful one, and she could not entirely prevent herself from doing so.
"Which designers do you work with?" asked Astoria, going out of her way to provide Élise with yet another excuse to speak.
Élise rattled off a list, stopping to giggle when Luc grabbed her waist from behind.
At the other end of the picture gallery, George lost track of his conversation with the German Minister of Magic in order to watch this sloppy embrace with strained eyes. The monster in Astoria's chest purred correspondingly.
"Giambattista Valli?" inquired Luc, who had been paying much better attention to what Élise was actually saying than Astoria. "My mother adores him! Isn't he your first choice too, Cassandra?"
"Not anymore," dismissed Cassandra with comical coldness.
"And no wonder!" agreed Élise, taking her subtle revenge. "You are too short! Ze wrong silhouette!"
The offended look on Cassandra's face alone was enough to make all of Astoria's work seem merited.
Emilie hissed under her breath and pinched Maudlin's arm, displaying more gall than Astoria had assumed she was capable of. "Are you going to let that awful girl talk to my best friend like that?" she demanded.
"Wyeh wyeh wyeh wyeh!?" mocked Maudlin in a high-pitched voice, forgetting that he was among company.
A silence fell. In all fairness, Astoria was certain that Maudlin's level of intoxication meant that he had essentially been speaking only to himself, but this was still so shitty of him that no one seemed to know how to respond.
Emilie jerked back a step as if she had been struck and even Astoria was reduced to wide-eyed wonder. Cassandra, on the other hand, went straight from surprise to ludicrous anger in the blink of an eye and it was plainly time to start searching for the escape hatch.
Only there was nowhere to go—the square hallway simply connected back around again in an infinity lap. Could she slip away toward the ballroom without being called back?
"To the loo," declared Élise contentedly, threading her arm through Astoria's.
They made it as far as the corner before Élise dropped Astoria's wrist and began to cackle freely, causing several old ladies to move away from them.
On the wall behind her, the glass of a giant portrait reflected both of their faces with cruel accuracy. Perhaps it was only because Élise was so striking, or perhaps it was simply the effect of a good dress, but they seemed to impress a similarly disarming picture: one blonde, the other dark, both fickle and dangerous. Normally, Astoria might have have shied away from her own warped image, but the concept of thoughtless dominance was very seductive, and it was easy to accidentally think of the feeling as empowering rather than cruel.
"God, what a wretched bitch!" exclaimed Élise. "The both of them!"
Astoria smiled tightly, wary of being taken-in by the passing rush of a toxic new friendship. Especially since, if given the chance, Élise seemed capable of cheerfully burning Astoria alive for even the slightest gain.
"There you are!" called Luc, turning the corner himself. "Unpleasant scene, that!"
Assuming that Luc was simply making an effort to keep Élise in sight, Astoria was little surprised to see that Draco and Alec were not far behind him.
"He's just told her that he thinks her face is 'gay'," chuckled Alec informatively, leaning against the wall between picture frames. "The bloody great fool..."
"What?" demanded Astoria, unnerved.
"A gay face," repeated Alec almost joyfully.
"She's absolutely sobbing into his Chardonnay," sneered Draco, more annoyed than amused. "Honestly. If I didn't have to look at either of them for the rest of the night, I'd consider it a gift."
"Darling?"
It was George this time, butting his way into their circle, carrying himself with rather less grace than usual. "Darling, could I speak to you for a second?"
Astoria and Élise both turned toward him instinctually, displaying identical expressions of resentment.
"Er—" George extended a hand and patted Astoria on the shoulder, wishing to to subtly clarify himself: this darling.
"Humph!" sniffed Élise, melting sideways into the curve of Luc's elated embrace.
"Ridiculous, HOMOPHOBIC thing to say about a person's face!" stormed Emilie, rushing around the corner at top speed.
"Steady on," muttered Luc awkwardly, and it was mark of how disturbed he was by his cousin's discomfort that he was able to overcome the distraction of Élise's sensuous lean-in.
"It's nothing!" shrilled Emilie, dabbing passively at her face. "I'll be fine—as always."
"What—are—you—doing?" thundered Maudlin furiously, close on her heels. "Don't cry in public—it's embarrassing!"
"Why don't you take a break from it, Maudlin?" suggested Luc sternly, plainly concerned by this turn of events but insufficiently confident enough about his place in the pecking order to actually say so.
"Why?" snarled Maudlin defensively, gesturing toward Emilie. "She's bawling in the middle of a party. It's ridiculous!"
Emilie let out a long-suffering sob. Luc reached forward to brace Maudlin by the arm, and Maudlin—perhaps mistaking Luc's grip for his girlfriend's—yanked free so violently that his arm shot backwards and upwards...
With a sickening crack, his elbow collided with Draco's face. Too stunned to even let loose a stream of obscenities, Draco shocked back a step and sucked in a shuddering gasp of pain.
In matter of seconds, blood was everywhere. Astoria blinked rapidly, hypnotized by the dizzying presence of so much red, still trying to process the chain of events that had lead to its spilling in the first place.
"Hoh!" exclaimed Luc nauseously, jumping out of the way before Draco could stumble into him.
Emilie rounded on Maudlin, who looked just as shocked as Astoria was. "Look what you did!" she screamed. "You broke his nose!"
"—Uhh!" Draco shuddered.
Unlike his forever-bandaged hippogriff arm, it was clear this was no pretend injury. Raising a trembling hand, Draco tried to staunch the flow of blood from his face and gagged, overcome by a sharp spasm of pain and his own bodily fluids.
"Find a sink," commanded Alec, offering up his periwinkle colored pocket square. Even in a daze, Astoria could not help but notice that he seemed queerly unfazed by the mortally worrisome sight of gushing blood.
Draco seized the handkerchief—a dainty, useless thing—and pressed it against his face, shoulder-checking his way past Maudlin. Too surprised to even put up a fight, Maudlin took the blow in stunned silence.
After a stunted pause, Emilie grabbed Maudlin and began to stomp her feet. Astoria could not quite bring herself to pay attention, however, not while there was such a nagging weight crouching in her stomach.
It's nothing. Head wounds always bleed more than they should.
Not that much, they don't.
Part of Astoria desperately wanted to sit down but another, rather Pansy-like, impulse was urging her to follow Draco and make certain he didn't pass out in the bathrooms.
Quietly, before George could remember why he had come over in the first place, Astoria backed up and retreated silently down the hall. It was entirely possible that Draco would not want her help, and even more probable that she would look like a sap for trying. But if that was the case, she would simply swallow her pride and retreat. Better safe than sorry.
Astoria cut around the railing, giving the bar a wide berth, positive that anyone who was bleeding so profusely would try to avoid the crowd. Seeing no other options, she made directly for the staircase.
The golden lobby was entirely empty now. Even the guards had disappeared, leaving behind a vacant, echoey chamber made spicier by a hint of cigar smoke trickling in from the street. There did not appear to be any bathrooms on this level, but Astoria walked all the way to the front doors anyway, determined to make a full circuit. A good thing too, because the moment she pivoted, she spotted him: Draco had ducked off into the coat check to fret in front of its abandoned mirror.
A long bench stood in the middle of the surprisingly cramped room behind him. Three out of the four walls—entirely obscured by overflowing coat racks—bulged inward and cubbies stuffed with ladies shoes spilled out onto the floor like colorful easter-eggs, smelling strongly of dust and leather.
Astoria announced herself in the doorway, afraid of startling him while his hands were near his face. "Are you alright?"
Malfoy jumped anyway, wincing horribly when he jabbed his thumb against his nose.
"I'm fine!" he sneered savagely. "Leave off, Greengrass!"
But he didn't look fine. His breathing was hitched, coming out short and hard like a panicky metronome. If Astoria had to guess why he wanted her to leave so badly, she would have put money on the way his eyelashes were fluttering. It was entirely possible that he was on the verge of becoming teary-eyed.
"Stop," commanded Astoria softly, trying to pull his arm away from his face, "let me look."
"Can you fix it?" Draco muttered, still blinking very fast.
"Maybe..." Astoria trailed off dubiously, afraid of using a healing spell that would leave him with a crooked nose. "Hold on."
In the far corner, partially hidden behind a cramped desk, a bottle of un-opened champagne from the bar sat in a sweating bucket of ice. Assuming that the staff were planning a midnight toast when they got off work, Astoria untied the white napkin wrapped around the bottleneck and scooped up a fistful of ice.
"Keep your chin up," she advised, testing the napkin against his face.
Draco made a horrible noise to match his involuntary grimace, so Astoria lowered the icepack and tried to make an inspection. It was no good. His features were entirely obstructed by blood.
"Fucking wanker!" Draco hissed wrathfully. "He broke my face!"
Breathing through her mouth, Astoria gulped hard and overturned the slushy mixture onto the bench. The napkin was damp all the way through—wet enough to mop up blood...
"Don't," muttered Draco nasally, realizing what she was doing, torn between embarrassment and the crippling inconvenience of a facial wound that really did need attention. "I'm alright—"
"No, you're not, you're wearing a pint of blood!" Astoria snapped, nervous enough to sound annoyed by accident.
Draco squeezed his eyes shut, frozen in a mask of silent pain as she worked. The bruise soon appeared, spanning between his left cheek and his lip: a ghastly lavender crush in the shape of a lopsided circle.
"Shh!" Astoria muttered quickly, trying to quell his quivering limbs as she got closer to the point of impact. "Maybe your father can do something—?"
"And force him to explain to his friends why I look like I've been savaged?" Draco sneered quickly. "I'm a mess—he'll think I got into a fight..."
He was rambling, speaking loosely—thoughtlessly, distracted by his injured face. The suggestion that Draco would willingly suffer in order to spare his father an awkward conversation struck Astoria as being somewhat out of character. But then, when it came to the way that Draco acted around Lucius, who knew?
"Alright, sit," Astoria muttered, going back for more ice.
"I'm not a baby, you don't have to mop me up!" sneered Draco stubbornly, sinking down onto the bench just the same. For all of his macho-posing, it was clear that he would be very down if Astoria abandoned him.
A silence fell. Astoria sunk to her knees, bizarrely conscious of the fact that she was kneeling between his legs.
"Is it crooked?" he finally forced out.
"Is what crooked?" breathed Astoria. "Stop looking down—you'll start bleeding again!"
"My nose," Draco clarified, giving up his protest, focusing instead on trying to resist the urge to glance at her.
"No," Astoria decided, studying his profile carefully. "There's a mark, but it doesn't look broken."
"I guess that means you're off the hook," Draco sneered shakily. "If you see Maudlin before me, feel free to toss an anvil in his face."
Astoria said nothing, unwilling to take the bait.
"He's so happy you're visiting, you know," Draco jeered, working himself up, pain fueling his natural propensity toward anger. "He wouldn't even talk until you showed up earlier. Come to think of it, I don't know why you're here. You're obviously batting for your aunt's team and your father doesn't have time for you anyway."
Astoria went very still, willing herself not break Malfoy's nose in another place, this time on purpose.
"You'll have to spend your whole summer with Maudlin this way!" he finally burst, hurting himself a little in the process.
And there it was: the bug that was eating at him. It was on Astoria mind to suggest that, if Maudlin's proximity to Astoria bothered him so much, Draco might very easily tag along as well, but she couldn't quite bring herself to do it.
When Astoria didn't respond, Draco sank bank against the coat rack, bruised and miserable.
"He's probably a woman beater," he ventured at last, taking a final stab.
"Oh for God's sake!" Astoria breathed exasperatedly, allowing her concentration to shift away from Draco's face and onto his clothes. "You look like an axe murderer."
"Yeah?" Draco snapped bitterly. "Whose fault is that?"
Astoria gently began to unknot his tie, emboldened by wine and the practicality of her purpose. Draco watched her in perfect, trusting silence, worn out entirely. She pulled the slip of fabric free, much more gently than she had managed Maudlin's earlier, shuddering a little at the color: Bloody Baron Silver.
"If you button your coat, you might make it out of here without starting a rumor—black hides the mess better."
Draco winced and leaned forward to do up his buttons. Astoria waited for him to sink back again but he lingered at a tilt, dangerously close to pressing his bloodied face against her shoulder.
A little uncertain of herself, Astoria raised her hand, trying to decide if she should pat him on the back. Between her own penchant for disaster and Draco's uncanny ability to intuit her distress, the two of them had shared many strange moments. But none of them had ever involved Astoria soothing him, and it was clear that she had no idea how it was to be done.
Without really thinking, Astoria leaned forward just a little until their faces were touching. An instinct that turned out to be more intimate than she expected when his vulnerable bruise and her lack of squeamishness were taken into account.
"Your nose isn't broken," she muttered in a tiny voice, speaking directly into his skin, "nothing is really wrong. Stop."
Draco opened his mouth to respond but Alec interrupted him.
"There you two are!" he exclaimed, crossing the empty entrance hall.
"Are we going?" asked Astoria, sinking back onto her feet. Draco, however, remained hunched over with his eyes still closed.
"Naturally," chuckled Alec. "There's blood all over the gallery, Maudlin's sauced and Emilie's trying to pin him for a murder."
"I think I'm going to be sick," muttered Draco, almost incoherently.
"Headache?" guessed Alec. "A blow to the face will do that."
Astoria helped Draco to his feet, conscious of how solidly he was leaning against her. Feeling Alec's eyes on them, she worked quickly, tucking in Draco's collar, yanking fabric until the worst of his ghastly shirt was obscured from sight.
All things considered, he didn't look terrible. Money had the effect of preserving even broken things with a certain kindness and it was amazing what a difference an expensive suit and a recent haircut made. If Astoria been attempting to fix up George Weasley instead, she would have been forced to steal him a trench coat.
Maudlin was waiting on the steps for them, pacing back and forth irritably, but one look at Draco sent a furious blush to his cheeks.
"Oh, what the hell," he muttered to himself. "I really got you—"
"Forget it," snapped Draco, unable to expend precious energy on another fight.
0o0
It was as quiet on the fourth floor of the Mendels apartment as it had been in the museum lobby. Aston was still engaged at the party; Cassandra and Emilie were conspicuously absent. What had become of Luc and Élise, Astoria did not dare guess.
"I don't know," muttered Maudlin, brushing soot off his coat, trying to think of what they could do to employ themselves. "Cards, or...?"
"Bed," Malfoy sneered, officially the color of turned cream beneath his bruise.
"I'll play," ventured Alec and because Astoria could think of no reason to go to sleep before ten o'clock, she watched Malfoy lope off alone. Their game did not last long, however. Maudlin had clearly drank a good deal more than ought to have and the game did not hold his attention. Using the fact that they were traveling the next morning as an excuse, Astoria made her escape just before midnight.
Safely enclosed in her bedroom, she slid out of her weighty, dazzling dress. The fabric fell a dark pool on the floor, where it glistened sinisterly in the moonlight. Stripped down to her slip, Astoria got into bed, shivering a little in the humid air. Finally alone again, her thoughts seemed to grow noisier in the dark.
All of her recollections about the evening were disjointed; a weird storm of anger and blood and wine. She didn't feel at all right about what had happened, but she could not seem to pinpoint where things had started to go wrong.
A moment later, still absorbed by her own musings, the sound of a horrible scream jolted her back to reality. Her head came flying out from underneath the covers. Glancing around in a panic, she could not immediately perceive the source of the yelling. Then, with a tumultuous creak, the mirror on the furthest wall fell off its hook and slammed into the baseboard, trembling with enough force to blow Astoria's nerves clean out of her limbs.
The bloody ghost. She had forgotten that her room was haunted...
Gripping the sheets with shaking fingers, Astoria tried make herself calm down, but it was no use. Every time she came close to dozing off, the ghost would shriek louder, edging closer to her face each time it did so. After an hour-long struggle, Astoria kicked her blankets clean off her bed and vacated the room. Stalking down the hall, she pushed open the door to the next room over as quietly as she could, and padded across the floor on tip-toe.
She could hardly bring herself to crawl into bed with Alec, and if that meant that her choice was between Draco and Maudlin, then Astoria's work was already cut out for her.
"Move over," Astoria whispered, waking Draco from a drowsy, aching slumber.
The twins beds in this room were so small that there was hardly anywhere to move over to, but after a minute of squinting groggily, he did his best to shuffle over.
"S'Alec in here?" he muttered, sounding very stuffed up.
"Not yet," Astoria whispered back, eyeing Alec's un-rumpled covers. "I don't care. The ghost in my room is throwing things."
The moonlight flickered sinisterly over Draco's face as she spoke, throwing his wounds into great illumination. The bruise was beginning to spread, reaching up toward his eye with purpling fingers.
Astoria sunk down, half on top of him, doing her best to avoid hurting anything. He was shirtless and warm—too warm, maybe even feverish and the daze in his expression seemed to hint at a thundering headache.
Draco waited for her to finish moving and then pulled her heavily toward him. The press of his skin against hers had a new sensation to it, however, and it suddenly occurred to Astoria that she had never seen him undressed before. It was a little embarrassing, but mostly very fascinating. Before now, they had only ever shared a bed in awkward, watchful places; Belladonna's house, or—in the case of the World Cup—a tent that also happened to be housing Lucius. As a result, he had always been too well behaved to casually strip naked. A quick peak confirmed that his armpits were just as blonde as his head; a revelation that left her with a strange, juvenile desire to giggle.
Narrowly resisting this urge, Astoria bit down on her own fingers to smother a laugh and wriggled, searching for a comfortable nook underneath Draco's dense limbs. Between the lingering essence of blood and his sweaty hair, it was easily the furthest that she had ever intruded into his personal space. For just a moment, lulled by his snuffly breathing, Astoria let herself give in and belong to it.
The heat was still sweltering, but it was infinitely preferable to a haunting; it seemed to cut right through the fog of her solitary thoughts. The nagging sense that she had acted unkindly all evening evaporated too, leaving nothing behind but the curiously primal safety of a privately inhabited space.
Trying to ignore the obvious—that she clearly did fancy Draco just a little bit, otherwise his smothering proximity would have been thoroughly repugnant—Astoria closed her eyes and breathed out against his arm contentedly: "I Love you."
Huh. Interesting.
Wait. No—not interesting. It wasn't what she had meant to say. In fact, it wasn't what she had meant to say at all. Had that sentence actually left her mouth? It took every bit of self control Astoria possessed to keep her eyes from flying open. God, had he heard her?
Concentrating hard on Draco's injury-obstructed intake of breath, Astoria prayed silently, hoping to hear a snore. Every particle of her being flared to life as she waited, fixated on the body behind her—searching for signs of consciousness.
"Hm?" Malfoy grunted into her hair.
Astoria did not respond, determined to make it look as though her own limbs were loose with slumber. Because if Draco wasn't asleep, she bloody well had to be.
"What?" Draco persisted, more clearly now, fighting through his headache to lift his head up. She could feel him squinting at her face, trying to decide if he had heard her correctly.
Astoria mumbled something unintelligible, imitating the opiated babble of genuine sleep-talk.
Several minutes passed before Draco sank back down into drowsiness. Confused and thoroughly annoyed with herself, it was almost dawn before Astoria could really join him.
0o0
The next morning arrived with a bang—literally.
"Up! Everybody up!" bellowed Maudlin. A door bounced off the wall, punctuating this command like a rough exclamation point.
Startled, Astoria struggled her way back toward consciousness, twitching away from the weight of Draco's shoulder in an attempt to regain the surface. The sun was barely visible... Why was Maudlin screaming?
"Portkey's not till noon," yawned Alec, who must've come in very late if Astoria hadn't heard him enter. "Is there breakfast?"
"I know what time it is, and no, there isn't!" snapped Maudlin shrilly, flying about the room like a whirling dervish in a cashmere robe. "We have to get out before then—there's no time to lose!"
"What's happening?" Astoria stuttered, bleary-eyed and disoriented.
"I've broken up with Emilie, that's what," returned Maudlin swiftly, hunting through the pockets of an antique writing desk in the corner of the room for a spare bit of stationary. "Last night after you went to bed. And now that slag Cassandra's decided to unleash the hounds!"
Astoria blinked in astonishment.
"Wait a minute—what are you doing in here?" demanded Maudlin, caching himself. "I thought you were in the pink room..."
"I was. Until your ghost broke a mirror," Astoria muttered, privately thankful that she had jolted away from Draco during the chaos of Maudlin's wrecking-ball entrance. Her current position was decidedly less comfortably entwined than it had been moments before. Which was just as well, because her presence seemed to have thrown Maudlin off kilter.
"Oh. Right." Maudlin frowned. He hesitated. "There are couches..."
"Bastille day is this weekend," rejoined Alec, stretching out until his feet extended past the end of his undersized mattress. "It doesn't matter how much you're willing to tip. You won't be able to get us all a new portkey without a reservation."
"I'm sorry, he looks naked under there," insisted Maudlin, still off-topic, thoroughly arrested by the sight of Astoria in Draco's bed. "Are you naked under there?"
Clearly, the threat of Astoria turning up nude with one of his guests had never occurred to him. And now that it had, it did not seem to be sitting well.
"No," Astoria grumbled, annoyed.
To her surprise, Draco offered up no reassurances of his own, sagging back against the pillows without word. When the silence continued to drag on, he shrugged and shot Maudlin a smarmy, almost insolent, look from underneath his massive bruise.
"You broke up with Emilie while we were sleeping?" demanded Astoria, anxious to stabilize the topic at hand before Malfoy decided to flip Maudlin a set of middle fingers.
"Yes," Maudlin confirmed distractedly, still staring at Draco, perhaps detecting his first real hint of the hostility that so often flowed from that quarter. "She and Cassandra came over around midnight, kicking up a fuss. They'll be back again today—mark my words."
"So?" sneered Draco.
"So, Cassandra's already asked her cousin to pull me off the museum board!" groused Maudlin, returning to his search for paper and a pen. "Who knows what she'll do next. I got a letter this morning from Old Man Bonaccord 'regretfully' accepting my resignation! What do you make of that, Astoria?"
The fact that he felt the need to finish this complaint by addressing Astoria directly landed with a curious, but unmissable edge.
"What museum board?" Astoria snorted, more puzzled than hostile.
"The museum board, Astoria! It's been one of Father's charities for a decade!" Maudlin ranted, pacing, lost to his own worries again. "He passed it along to me on my seventeenth birthday—what am I going to tell him?"
"Old Man Bonaccord?" Astoria repeated this name, savoring something familiar in the taste. "You don't mean Mr. Bonaccord? The man whose watch you tricked me into stealing when we were little?"
"Of course I do! How many Bonaccords do you know?" sneered Maudlin.
Alec moaned. "If I hear the word 'Bonaccord' one more time, I'm going to shove my arm so far up—"
"Oh!" Astoria exclaimed, securing the top of her flimsy slip as she staggered out of bed. "Please! That tiny man is the greediest weasel in Europe! Write him back and tell him there's been a mix up. Say that you aren't trying to resign—in fact, you and your father were actually just discussing a larger donation."
"You mean bribe him?" Maudlin prompted, seeking clarification.
"Whatever you want to call it," Astoria insisted. "Just throw some money at the problem before Cassandra takes a bite out of you. Give me that parchment. I'll start and you can copy down the letter in your own handwriting."
Draco opened his mouth to say something scathing but Maudlin raised a robed arm, effectively silencing the room.
"That might work," he declared in ponderous triumph.
"Fantastic," drawled Alec. "Now ring for tea."
"No, no. There's no time for that!" Maudlin insisted, bouncing from foot to foot almost shiftily. "If we're not catching the portkey, we're going to have to drive."
"To Monaco?" Alec reiterated flatly, finally perceiving the aggravating chain of events that were about to unfold. "Today?"
"It's only nine hours," breezed Maudlin, waving all complaints aside. "We can take father's car. We'll be there before six."
Alec passed a hand across his bloodshot eyes, thoroughly unamused.
"You might want to see someone about your face, though," continued Maudlin obliviously, gesturing toward Draco. "Otherwise we'll be stopped by the muggles at a check point."
Astoria had not even realized that Draco had been invited to Monaco, and the idea of him tagging along after her midnight slip-up was somewhat stressful.
Perhaps Draco had not realized he was coming either, because he let out a tiny, contemptuous laugh. "Yeah?" he sneered. "Think so?"
"You're not still sore about last night?" pressed Maudlin nervously, taking his best stab a cajoling smile. "I mean, it was an accident. Blame Luc—he's the one who grabbed me."
Astoria stared. This was yet another childhood trait that she hadn't seen Maudlin exhibit so obviously in years: his compulsive fear of being disliked by anybody who actually knew him. Despite Malfoy's glare and the inherent turf invasion that he had committed by somehow inducing Astoria to sleep next to him, Maudlin was still going to do everything he could to get Draco into a car before eight o'clock.
"Where is Luc?" wondered Alec at last, peering around lazily.
"The devil knows," Maudlin sneered. "He's not coming—you can be sure of that. The last thing I need is Emilie's spy eating his way through my father's menu and making a nuisance of himself. His ride is over."
"Ring for the tea," sighed Alec decisively, heaving himself up out of bed. "Draco needs to see his father, anyway. You got too drunk and forgot to properly invite him along yesterday."
This was fully true, and the fact that someone had at least noticed seemed to calm Draco's mounting wrath considerably. His eyes flicked from Maudlin to Astoria, trying to decide if he should hustle and make time for a shower or tell Maudlin to go fuck himself.
"Fine!" Maudlin agreed, adding up this harassed mental math. "Everyone gets thirty minutes, but that's it. Astoria, you come with me. If we're going to outwit Cassandra, we'll need to focus. She's as much your enemy as mine."
"What does that mean?" Astoria snorted, thoroughly surprised that Maudlin had even noticed Astoria and Cassandra's mutual animosity, let alone guessed its depths.
"We wouldn't be in this mess at all if she hadn't made an ultimatum out of it," Maudlin sneered. "She made me choose: you or Emilie."
Astoria looked up from her half-composed note to Mr. Bonaccord, the tip of her quill hovering in midair. Then, with great restraint, she put it down and slowly swiveled about in her chair. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me. Have you ever heard of anything so presumptuous?" exclaimed Maudlin, mistaking Astoria's intensity for shared scorn. "Coming into my own house and telling me who I can and can't have in it—oh, I could just strangle her."
He raised both of his hands to wring an imaginary neck
"But you broke up with Emilie because you're tired of her!" Astoria insisted almost pleadingly. "You told her that you don't want to date her anymore."
Maudlin made a tiny motion of assent but his expression, caught between surprise and guilt, told another story entirely.
"No! You idiot!" Astoria moaned, appalled. "Cassandra is going to think you broke up with Emilie for me!"
"She won't think that," muttered Maudlin evasively.
"Yes, she will!" Astoria yelled, working herself up. "Of course she will. Because you DID!"
"Fine! So what?" Maudlin hissed, cracking under pressure. "You don't like Cassandra anyway, so what difference does it make? You should be happy that I stood up for you!"
"You didn't stand up for me!" Astoria snarled furiously. "You threw me under the bitch bus! Do you even realize what you've done?"
"I can't listen to this," muttered Maudlin. "We don't have time—"
"Draco, go find your father!" Astoria begged. "And come back! Please come back. Nine hours in a car—I'll be a murderer after two, if you don't!"
"We'll meet in my room!" Maudlin bellowed, halfway out the door. "THIRTY minutes!"
0o0
Oh man, this took forever and a day. My summer has been far more hectic than I predicted it would turn out to be. So much moving, so little sanity. Thank you so much for being patient!
However, I'm going to go ahead and admit right now that this whole chapter probably didn't get the loving edit it deserves. I always try to avoid premature updating, but I work tomorrow and I have family coming the day after. At this point, I'm making the executive decision to just post. It's been SO long since I've updated, and the wait feels like it is getting out of hand. If you spot something weirdly italicized or punctuated, try to understand and resist the urge to flog me. I promise to come through and tighten up on Sunday. (Size is the trouble—the longer the chapter, the more times it needs to be checked over. Otherwise I ALWAYS miss something stupid.)
Similarly, there were a bunch questions in the reviews that I'd really like to answer, particularly those concerning The Cursed Child. But at this point, it's almost three in the morning, and I'm truncating so I can catch a fast nap. Remember, I love you and I ALWAYS read your input, so please don't think I'm ignoring you! Maudlin was literally my spirit animal today at the end of this chapter (Time? Tiiimmee. TIME!) but I promise to update the author's note on Sunday.
There's also some super exciting stuff coming up in the next chapter, guys. Hopefully I'll be able get it up in a civilized fashion. I have from Sunday to Sunday off work, so I'm feeling optimistic.
As always, reviews make my day! :)