Needing Is One Thing; Getting? Getting's Another
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Prompt: "You have to continue Hermione Part 2, make it part 3! hahaha (sorry, I'm so excited). A part 3 but in the same scene, in that ball in the Manor. And Astoria should appear again! (for drama, I love drama)."
Astoria: Part 1
Summer 2004
Draco had suddenly and abruptly dropped his hands in the middle of the dance, murmuring, "Excuse me." Then, he was gone, the faint impression of his warmth lingering in her skin. Stunned at being abandoned on the dance floor, Astoria froze where she stood for a second, mid-step. Anger started to boil up in her, and she pivoted to see Draco making a bee-line for the door.
Furious, she weaved through the dancers to follow him and give him a piece of her mind. How dare he?
As she approached, she heard voices from the drawing room. She couldn't make out the individual words, at first, until she was nearly in front of the door. Then she heard Draco say, slowly and carefully, like he was slightly uncertain of the words: "… I'm not too good for you."
Silence met his response, and Astoria stopped just outside the door.
After a beat, he laughed. "I'm not. If anything, you're far too good for me. I should be kissing your feet every day, that you'd condescend to even look at me."
Hermione's voice was low, and Astoria just barely caught it: "Don't be stupid."
As the conversation continued, Draco murmuring sweet endearments that he'd never once uttered around Astoria, she felt her stomach twist a bit with jealousy. It wasn't fair. They'd dated; he'd liked her. She'd kept his attention for nearly half a year, and she was well on her way to getting the ring, she was pretty sure. Then, suddenly and abruptly, it had all ended, just a few weeks after her own sister had taken up with Harry Potter.
Maybe Daphne had trail-blazed the path of dating undesirables and Draco had simply seen his opportunity to go for Hermione after years of quiet pining. Maybe they'd met thanks to Harry and Daphne, and he'd suddenly felt something.
She'd never know. All she knew was that Daphne dating the Boy Who Lived was the beginning of the end.
"I love you," she heard Draco say, and then there was silence, and the faint sounds of snogging. Her face twisted up a bit with disgust; this soppy little man barely resembled the one she'd been dating, and a part of her hated this soft underbelly of him almost as much as it desired him to direct it at her.
The faint kissing sounds stopped. "Let's get out of here," Draco suggested.
"Really? But you were enjoying it," Hermione reminded him, sounding a little guilty beneath the overtones of hope.
"Only because you were there."
She heard the Floo roar to life. Draco had told her that he loved her, and she hadn't even returned the sentiment – for a minute, Astoria was sure he'd demand to know if she loved him back. Instead, his voice remained gentle as he assured her that he was perfectly fine leaving the party. They were both talking normally, as if he hadn't just made the most astonishing confession of all time.
The roaring of the Floo suddenly stopped, the green light of it fading away from where it spilled into the hallway. It left her feeling cold, and insignificant, for the first time in her life.
