Draco rushed up the South Tower, which was always empty this time of day, with his heart thundering in his chest. He should have known it wouldn't work—smuggling a dark artefact into the school. And now that idiot Gryffindor girl had gone and gotten herself cursed! He didn't know if she would recover… The necklace had been for Dumbledore, who was most certainly not meant to recover.

If she dies, she deserves it, the stupid girl, he thought, stomping around the landing halfway up the tower. She shouldn't have touched it! What was she thinking?

Draco winced, rubbing his forehead, pacing angrily back and forth. The year wasn't going as planned. When he finally found the vanishing cabinet, it was in such a state of disrepair that he began doubting his ability to fix it. He hadn't stopped trying, of course, but it wasn't working, and now his back-up plan had ended in failure. What if all he did was fail? His mother was in the Manor, surrounded by the Dark Lord's servants… They would kill her and he would be next.

"I won't fail," he snapped, throwing his hands against the wall on either side of an open window. He looked out at the gray sky, relished the cool, October breeze on his face. He took a deep breath and let the frigid air fill his lungs and reinvigorate his mind. "I won't fail," he said again, barely a whisper. He would repair the vanishing cabinet. He would kill Dumbledore. He had to, and he would.

A glittering spark drifted down in front of the window. Draco blinked. A few seconds later, another appeared. He frowned and glanced up. Someone was in the window a few floors up. When a third sparkle fell, he held out his hand and caught what looked to be a tiny star.

Draco pushed away from the wall and quietly climbed up several more flights until he came to the landing where Amaris Grey was leaning in the window, staring out at the horizon and lazily making sparkles with her wand. No, not sparkles. Stars. Before her was a reflection of the night sky, constellations shimmering against the fading light. Every few seconds, a star would fall, only to be replaced a moment later. She likes astronomy, he remembered, his mind instantly wandering to Easter and the conversation they had with his parents on the veranda. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

Draco stared at her. She stood in such a relaxed position, her eyes cast far away. It was a contrast to how straight-backed and alert she usually was. Even when she was laughing comfortably with her friends, she wasn't this unguarded. It was disarming how lovely she looked.

Which only made Draco angrier as he thought of their last encounter. Watching that seventh year Ravenclaw approach her had infuriated him, but when he saw Blaise escorting her to class, sitting beside her, smiling at her…he nearly lost it. Not that he cared who she was with, but it was a distraction he didn't need. He had too many other important things to focus on.

Draco pulled a scowl on his face as he put his hands in his pockets and stepped onto the landing, announcing his presence. She lazily glanced his way. Her eyes widened in shock and she threw her back against the wall. The magic stars exploded outward in a flash of light and were gone.

"Grey," he said, eyeing her in disgust. "What are you doing here?"

"Thinking," she replied in a small voice. With a remorseful lilt, she added, "About Katie."

The last thing Draco wanted to think about was Katie Bell. Guilt that he quickly suppressed stabbed at him. He snorted to gloss over the emotion. "Think any harder and you'll start drooling."

She clenched her jaw before she asked, "What are you doing here?"

"Thinking," he replied mockingly. "Until you appeared." He took a step toward her. "Matched yet?" he asked. "Or are you just flirting with every bloke in school?"

Grey looked away, glaring at the wall. "I'm not flirting."

Draco was impressed by the calm in her voice when he was trying so hard to needle her and was, quite obviously, succeeding. He scoffed. "How do you explain smiling for everyone that approaches you?"

"I'm trying to be polite—"

"Is that what you're calling it? Polite?"

"It's none of your—"

"The hell it isn't. We were to be matched once. I should approve the wizard who will take my place."

Grey moved toward the stairs like she planned to escape, but he stepped in front of her, barring her path. He wasn't ready to let her leave. Seeing her evoked such intense emotions that it was distracting him from his daily misery, his guilt, his fear. He needed her to stay with him a little longer.

"That Ravenclaw comes from good stock, but everyone knows he's dim-witted. Blaise, on the other hand? His name doesn't carry a quarter of the influence Malfoy did," he told her, "but he's intelligent and wealthy. If your uncle's smart, he's already made that match."

Grey looked up at him, her blue eyes like chips of ice. "My uncle can promise me to whoever he wants," she exclaimed, "but he doesn't have the authority to sell me! To anyone!"

The words—and her shouting them at him—took him aback. He stared at her in shock as he processed her meaning. She grimaced and briefly covered her mouth, as though admonishing herself for losing her temper. He snatched her wrist and yanked her hand away from her mouth.

"What are you saying?" he demanded. She tried to jerk free, but he held her fast. "Tell me."

Grey squared her shoulders, chin held high even as it was wrinkled with restrained emotion. "I don't care about Pureblood society. I don't care about wealth or connections. While I do not wish to seem ungrateful for all my uncle has done for me, no one will force me to marry someone that I don't love."

Confusion, elation, and anger popped off inside of him like fireworks. "You were never going to allow yourself to be matched," he surmised. "Then why even pretend?" he hissed, still struggling to accept what she was saying. "Why go through it all?"

"I didn't want to tarnish my uncle's reputation," she answered.

"Really?" he scoffed. "And what exactly did you think would happen the moment someone tried to match with you?"

"I didn't think they would," she confessed, yanking her wrist out of his grasp. "I was sure that no family would look twice at me. My parents are dead and my uncle didn't inherit me, so no one knows if I have land or wealth. None of their sons like me, not the blood traitor. And I'm not—I'm—" She shrugged, taking a few steps away from him, gaze lowered in embarrassment. "I'm Lady Gravefoot. No one was going to look at me." She drew in a shaky breath. "And then you offered me your arm, the Malfoy heir, and made them notice me."

He remembered that look she had given him that day, full of reproach and pain. Now it made sense to him. She had been trying to hide and he was putting her on display.

"So this is my fault?" he balked.

She was right about the mystery surrounding her name's worth and the bit about the Pureblood sons not being interested in a blood traitor, but she was wrong to discount her attractiveness. Did she really believe she was "Lady Gravefoot"? That she wasn't utterly stunning? Oh, yes, they were absolutely going to look at her. Between her physical attractiveness and pretty manners, there would be plenty of traditional families who would believe that her lapse in Pureblood values could be corrected over time. Draco offering his arm had no bearing on that.

"No," she said forcefully, whirling to face him. "No, I'm not blaming you. You didn't know. It's just…people noticed. Your mother noticed."

Draco swallowed the lump in his throat as another key truth became clear to him. "You were never going to accept the match even if my mother offered it."

"You were never going to let that happen."

"But if it did," he insisted, stepping toward her, "you had no intention of going through with it." A maelstrom of rage and hurt swirled inside of him. She likes you, his mother had said. But she hadn't liked him at all. She had been pretending. He had been the only one getting twisted up inside. "That's why you felt guilty about deceiving them!"

"I felt guilty because your mother thought it was real," she fired back. "She thought you were serious about me, that maybe I was the one holding back."

"You? But—" Realization dawned on him. "That day at tea…that's what she said to you…"

Grey nodded. "She said she knew what it was like to be in my position—"

"What are you talking about? What position?"

Grey took a shuddering breath, wringing her hands nervously. When she looked at him, there were tears in her eyes. "To have someone control everything about you—the way you dress, when you speak, what you eat and how much. To believe you will be auctioned off to someone who doesn't love you, who sees you as an amount of money and a vessel for heirs, who will treat you like a doll on a shelf for your entire life."

There were elements to her explanation that Draco had already known, but hearing it framed in such a way was staggering. Grey had seemed to smile so easily… He could scarcely breathe at the idea that his mother had ever gone through the same things. She had never told him, never even hinted that she had once endured such expectations.

"She told me she remembered," Grey went on, "but there was hope. Because she had found a wizard who loved her, cherished her, and saw her as an equal, and she loved him back. And she told me I didn't need to worry, because her son was like his father, and he would treat his witch like an equal, would cherish her, and love her."

He gaped at her as tears slipped down her cheeks. His mother had told her those things. His mother had assured her that he was different. And Grey had written back, I know you're right. His wife will be a lucky woman.

"And was that so bad?" he choked out, feeling rejected for a reason he couldn't quite put his finger on.

"No," she sniffled. "But it wasn't mine. And I knew your mother would come to dislike me—"

"That's what this has been about the entire time, hasn't it? My mother," he sneered, closing the distance between them, that feeling of rejection mounting. Because he didn't want her feelings to have been about his mother. He wanted them to have been about him! "You told me that she reminded you of your mother. You were just trying to stay close to that feeling!"

"No!" she exclaimed. "It wasn't. I swear."

"Well, it wasn't about me!"

"It was about you," she insisted. "It was all just a game to you."

It was and he had said as much to Theo many times, but by the end, it hadn't felt true. "Did I say that?"

"I'm not stupid, Draco."

"You are stupid," he hissed, "thinking we were friends."

She sucked in a sharp breath then nodded, fresh tears spilling over her cheeks. "Yes. Okay. You're right. I'm stupid." She swiped at her eyes, staggering back against the wall. "I knew you didn't like me. I knew you were just having fun. But then," she sniffled, "then we started getting along. We connected. When you smiled, it seemed real. I thought we were friends." She shook her head, staring at her feet as tears dripped off her face. "I'm stupid. I am. I don't understand anything. We have fun at the Manor, but you're mean to me here at Hogwarts. You ignore me for months, then talk to me like nothing happened. You throw away my gift, but the next time I see you, you're wearing it…"

Silence roared between them as she lifted her head to look at him, and asked the question he knew she would ask, the question he did not have an answer for.

"Why did you wear it?"

Draco's eyes roved over her face, from her eyes to her lips and back up, struggling for an excuse, for truth, for anything. "Because I wanted to," he finally managed. "It suits me."

After a moment, she nodded. "It does suit you," she murmured. "It completes your image. A proud Malfoy." She quickly wiped the evidence she'd been crying off her cheeks. When she met his gaze, there was more strength in her eyes. "You should always be proud of who you are, Draco."

All he could do was nod. He had no idea why she was sharing such a sentiment with him. What did it matter to her? The Malfoys were avid Pureblood supremacists and Grey loved half-bloods and Mudbloods alike. Shouldn't she want him to feel ashamed?

Draco remained frozen to the spot as she ducked around him and fled. He didn't understand her at all… He had assumed her lack of self-defense was an inability, not a choice, but clearly, he was wrong. She was both aware of her predicament and the expectations of others, and she had mastered how to navigate them. This should have made her an accomplished manipulator capable of twisting others around her little finger, but instead she exuded sincerity and kindness.

Draco slowly made his way back to the Slytherin dormitory, lost in thought. He ignored his friends in the common area and went straight to his room where he locked the door. He crossed to his dresser, opened up the top drawer, and fingered the jewelry box he had hidden beneath his socks just to make sure it was still there. He wasn't sure why he had brought it from home, but he had.

Draco closed the drawer and went to his desk where he retrieved her letters stashed between stacks of textbooks. Those, he knew exactly why he'd brought—to remove evidence of her in his life from the Manor. He dropped onto his bed and read through them all once more, soaking up the concern and care on every page. He was reminded that her words hadn't just been for his mother… Mostly, they had been for him.

The pages crumpled up as his hands balled into fists that he pressed into his eyes. He had pushed her away that summer to protect her. Why did everything always turn out so wrong?

As the intensity of his argument with Grey faded, he began to feel the pressing weight of the Dark Lord's mission once more. The notching anxiety of repairing the broken vanishing cabinet, his failure to smuggle in the artefact, Katie Bell taking that horrendous curse—it was like a snake wrapping around him, tightening its stranglehold.

A knock sounded on his door.

"Draco, you all right, mate?" Theo asked.

He swallowed to stabilize his voice. "I'm tired," he responded. He listened as his friend's footsteps carried him away from the door. He slowly breathed out.

He knew his friends were worried about him, but he couldn't talk about this. Even with them, he had to maintain a certain façade. He was Draco Malfoy and, disgraced or not, he was a damn good wizard from a long line of impressive witches and wizards. He scoffed at Grey's sentiment to be proud. Of course, he was proud. Pride was all he had left. And to his friends, to even his enemies, he had to be that person.

But not with Grey. With her, for just a moment, he had been able to forget everything else.


Author's Note: I feel like Draco's special talent is being able to pick a fight with anyone at any time.

Also, I was thinking about eventually including Narcissa's conversation with Amaris as a bonus chapter, but maybe it's not necessary now that Amaris has given us a summary.