Chapter 4: I Want This Right Here

A/N- prompt used: [AU] Royalty
Word Count- 814

They managed to only unpack the wine and their books by nightfall… mostly because they drank a lot of wine while they stacked the books.

"To be fair, that's really all one needs in life," quipped Draco.

"Sure," Astoria agreed. "I mean, who needs lanterns, am I right?"

"Exactly. We're wizards," Draco added. "We can make light whenever we want. Lumos."

"If we're wizards, why are we unpacking our lives like common muggles?" Astoria asked for the eighth time that day.

The top half of Draco's face was cast in shadow as he held his wand under his chin. "Ah. We are wizards; that is true. But we are not lazy wizards. Nox."

Astoria rolled her eyes.

"Besides," Draco added as he returned to the bookshelf he had been rearranging, "this way we can put things exactly where we want them. For instance, I want this over here." Draco had plucked one of Astoria's old notebooks from the shelf and had taken it to their new sofa. He flopped down onto the soft leather cushion and began flipping casually through the pages until he found where'd he presumedly left off in her story. He then looked up and winked at her.

Astoria heaved a put-upon sigh, but her fiancee looked so excited to read more of her embarrassing teenage fairytale that she just… "Ugh, fine. I need to grab some more wine, first."

The tide took me out into the ocean. I watched with bated breath in my lungs for my prince to emerge from the black depths of the sea.

His letter said he'd find me. All I had to do was wait.

The sun had nearly set when I saw the first signs of my beloved. As he broke the surface of the water, I felt my breath squeezed from my lungs in a gasp. He was more handsome than I even remembered. His white-blond hair was slicked back with the ocean water, and like an angel's halo around his head he wore a most dazzling silver crown.

And he was shirtless—

"It does not say that!"

"It most certainly does, dear."

"Oh my Gods, I must have been delirious when I wrote this part."

"Yeah, I bet you had spotted me readying for bed or something."

"You're the worst. And I love you. Now, continue…"

"I missed you. How is the kingdom?" I asked.

"The battles have lessoned, but I fear this lull in the fighting is merely a brief respite."

"Oh my. I hope you are staying safe."

He smiled sadly up at me in my little boat. "I try to be safe so I can come home to you, but a man of royal descent should always do what is just and right. Oh how I long to return to our life in that secret cottage in the woods, though. I miss you so."

I placed my fingers over his where they clung to the side of my dinghy. "I will be waiting when the war is won, my brave Prince—"

Draco stopped reading abruptly and it took Astoria a moment for her alcohol-addled brain to realize her fiancee looked upset.

"What's wrong?"

Draco looked up with wide eyes and promptly tried to school his features into something a little less… frowny. He attempted to laugh it off. "I can cope with you making me into some kind of fish monster—"

"Mermaid," Astoria corrected instantly.

"But a prince? I just don't… I just…" His fake smile slipped away in an instant and Draco sighed. "What a foolish child I was, proclaiming myself the Prince of Slytherin." Draco snorted and rolled his eyes. "Merlin, I was such a spoiled little brat of a prince. I hate that word now. Prince," he spat.

Astoria got up from her seat and rounded the coffee table to sit at Draco's side. She laid a comforting hand on Draco's shoulder and immediately felt him unclench.

"I wrote this chapter during my fourth year," Astoria said, her voice calm and unwavering. "That year, you… well, you were different."

Draco stiffened again, but Astoria ran a soothing hand down his back and he gradually returned to normal.

"Yeah, that wasn't a good year for me."

"I know," said Astoria.

They sat in silence for a moment. Astoria continued to rub his back.

"Hey…" It was a long time before Draco continued his thought. "When you wrote this chapter, was it in the hopes that your real-life prince would return to normal?"

Astoria ran her fingernails through his long blond hair.

"There's no returning to normal after you've been to war," she whispered, like it was some ancient proverb passed down from generation to generation.

She saw Draco smile out of the corner of her eye.

"Besides," Astoria added. "I like the version of my prince I got now. He's pretty bloody spectacular."