Chapter Nineteen: Afternoon

Asteria turned out to be a lot like Hermione, which Draco liked for some reason. She was interested in history, she loved to read...

...and she had a strange way of keeping his attention.

Draco had assumed that Asteria would be a frivolous, mindless girl who would be giggling at everything and ordering a salad for lunch... instead she was quiet and intelligent.

"So this is your last year at Hogwarts coming up?" he asked, folding his arms on the table.

"Yes. I can't wait," she said, twirling her glass of tea around. It was the third time Draco had come to this little restaurant; he was beginning to like it, and thought of it as his go to place for when he wanted to take someone out. That dreadful day, it seemed, was useful for something.

She had a quiet voice, but was not shy; Asteria Greengrass had dark hair, pale skin, and dark green eyes, which reminded him of Harry Potter in a way; her face was long and she had a small, pointy chin under small, puffy lips. Her hair was also braided like Hermione's - a long french braid down her back.

Draco sat up a little straighter in his seat.

"How is your therapy going?" she asked him, looking into his eyes.

"It's better. I'm not a deranged psychopath anymore, I don't think."

She nodded slowly. "That's good," she said, smiling slowly. "I've got nothing to be afraid of then."

Draco was actually surprised by the forwardness of this statement. "No, you don't," he said back.

"Although, explaining how I know you to my parents will be a little hard. Can you imagine that conversation?"

'Where did you meet him?' 'At the shrink's office.' Draco smirked.

"Hopefully they think you are a therapist and not a patient." She shook her head. "Where do you work, anyway?"

"At the Ministry, in the Department of Mysteries."

"So if you told me what you do there, you'd have to kill me."

Draco actually grinned at this - she had a sense of humor. "Yes, I would."

"It's a shame, that."

"But since I am not a deranged psychopath, maybe I can resist the killing. I work in the Hall of Prophecy."

Asteria nodded, leaning back as her plate was placed before her by Derek, the server. He looked between them, probably wondering if Draco had two girlfriends and a boyfriend, before backing off. "That must be interesting."

"It is. I've been doing some research on my own on one big prophecy we got a while back. It is no longer considered valid, but it gives me something to do with my free time."

"Yes, Hermione did tell me about that. You have a NASROP pass and everything." Her eyes sparkled a bit.

Draco quirked his head to the side. She was friends with Granger, and they talk about him? "Yes. Maybe we can go there if you'd like - "

"I'd like that very much, oh would I... what an honor... what was the prophecy about?"

Draco was silent for a second as Asteria looked at him. She shook her head again. "You'd have to kill me," she said, waving her hand lightly. He nodded, smiling.

"At this point, it doesn't matter who knows. The research is getting very in depth now, because of the subject matter - the prophecy actually refers to a future child of someone I know, and how that child and another we don't know the identity of will 'be privy to the voice of a god.' It had the Minister in knots."

"Well, I can see how that could be big. It could mean something having to do with the Bible."

Draco nodded. "But of course, there is the fact that the girl who made the prophecy is now in a coma, in a muggle sanatorium... we believe she is a squib, but she has no last name. They call her Eva."

"Fascinating. How did they obtain it?"

"The prophecy?"

"Yes."

"The Ministry was keeping an eye on her because she seemed to have no magic but had knowledge of the magical world, as in, an in-depth knowledge. That was why she landed there in the first place. The muggles said she was going on about 'parasol tongues' for a while."

Asteria smiled. "She probably is a squib."

Draco nodded. "But anyway, my research has dug up a whole new branch of magic I never knew existed. So it is a great learning experience."

"I'll bet," she said, looking down at her plate and digging up a bite. Draco looked at her plate - she had not ordered a salad. Au contrair.

"Hermione's pregnant, you know," Asteria said.

Draco nodded, covering his sudden frown with his water glass. He did not want to contemplate that, or what that meant or involved... he just wanted to make it through the day without throwing up.

"Apparently she's a month along already and didn't know it."

Draco's eyeballs bulged as some water went down the wrong pipe. He covered this quickly with a cough and looked down at what water had dripped in his lap.

"You... don't seem happy to hear that bit."

Draco shook his head, clearing his throat. "I don't know what to think about it, really. I guess it's just different. Not bad, exactly... just too different."

Asteria nodded, chewing. She stabbed some more food slowly. "Continuity is what keeps some people sane - they cannot handle disorder. Personally, disorder is what keeps me moving."

Draco raised his eyebrows. She's really going to like me then. There's plenty of disorder in my life.

Hermione pulled the blanket from on top of her, feeling her heart speed up.

Everything seemed so wonderful when you saw the result... but she knew that getting there wasn't easy.

Why did she feel so weak all the time now? She covered her face with her hands, feeling them slide across the light sheen on her forehead. Her whole body was in pain, and yet she could not understand why. It was not a muscle pain - it was a pain that came from the inside out, like emotional pain. She wanted to cry but couldn't push out any tears.

It was making her frustrated. And exhausted.

Where were her iron pills? She needed to be taking those. Sitting up slowly, Hermione's head began beating like her heart. The still form of Ron, fast asleep next to her and for once notsnoring, did not move as she lifted herself off the bed quickly to get over her laziness and achiness.

Her head swam suddenly, muddling her brain and blurring her vision to white, and then black. She hit the ground hard.

"Have you made a move towards a date with anyone? Did you ask Asteria out like I told you to?"

Draco looked at the ceiling breifly, and then back at Hermione. "Yes, actually."

There was actually a pause after this, where neither of them moved. Draco studied her expression - her face was blank.

"Last night I went out with her. She's actually a very nice girl, and very intelligent."

Hermione nodded, still not responding, and returned to writing on her parchment almost apologetically.

"She has a quiet voice... but she is very articulate. I like a girl like that. I was thinking of taking her to the NASROP because she wanted to take a look."

"That's great," Hermione said not looking at him and continuing writing on her pad. Draco stared at her, watching her quill make its little movements across the page. The scratchings sounded oddly loud in his ears. The glowing he had noticed the other day was gone - she now looked almost half dead.

"Are... are you okay?"

Hermione looked up from her parchment sharply. There was a few seconds of silence while she stared at him, before looking back down at her parchment and throwing an unconvincing smile on her face. "Of course I'm okay. So what did you talk about on your date?"

Draco narrowed his eyes a bit before saying, "Not much. We talked about the prophecy a bit, and about the NASROP. She told me a little bit about what she is studying in school. That was about it."

Hermione nodded again. "Did you talk about what you found about soulmates?"

Draco was quiet. What would it matter if he had? And why would he tell a girl he was on a date with that he was soulmates with someone else? Certainly that would be an instant mood killer. "No," he said simply. Her brain must not have turned on that morning.

"I found something else. Trust me, I did not like being seen in that section of Flourish and Blotts... but it had to be done."

Draco did not know what to make of this. "What did you find?"

Her eyes never left her paper. "Nothing much more, but in better detail. There are entire books written about the subject - research books and... others." She scratched something out and then continued. "I had to sift through the crap to get to the good stuff."

There was something seriously wrong with her, Draco realized. Her normal manner was completely absent - she was now reminding him very strongly of Pansy and her outfit. All emotion and no intellectual brain activity to sort through it was how he characterized his former girlfriend, and though he would always love the girl, there was in actuality only so much he could take of her. Hermione's ability to be articulate had disappeared, as well as her carefully placed face... Pansy was never good at either of those things.

Draco found himself involuntarily wrinkling his nose.

It made him feel awful.

"And um... I made some notes for you. Completely unnecessary, I know... but still necessary in a way. You can look over them when you have some time." She reached around her desk and pulled out some bits of parchment from her bag.

Draco stared as she closed her eyes for a few seconds before she handed them to him. He took the parchments quietly.

"I really don't have anything to talk to you about today. You are doing very well with the healing process, I think. That's good. The Ministry is sending an official down to oversee your progress next week, so he'll be sitting in with us - I just got the owl this morning. Also, they will be searching your flat as well and asking you some questions."

"Why?" he asked, surprised by this information.

Hermione looked up at him and said, "It's your midpoint."

Oh, the wonderful "midpoint" that was described to him at his release - where he was reminded of his charges and had to live in fear for an entire week while the Ministry picked its way through his life.

At least everything was uphill from there.

"Don't worry, it'll be over before you know it."

There was something in her expression, though, that convinced him that nothing was ever going to end.

"Besides, time moves quickly after the midpoint. You'll be out of here, you'll have your old life back. No stress."

No stress... it sounded wonderful when she put it that way, but there would never be such a thing as "no stress." He was starting to understand that. And what would he do with everything once he did get it back? He hadn't even begun to think about that. His wand, his money, his house, his freedom... no invisible chains, no mistreatment. The sideways looks would never go away... but he'd be less inclined to notice them or let them affect them with the warmth of a wand pressing against his chest, ready to be used for whatever he might need...

It all, however, came back to one question:

What did he really want?

He did not want to feel that people like Ernie MacMillan and Neville Longbottom were going to hex him when they saw him on the street, and yet the feeling of apathy for that situation was brought upon by the absence of the wand as well... his house was like a book he had never read, a book he had only heard about and had never cracked open; his little plain flat was warm, bare, and bright. Like sunlight, his new life was the complete opposite of his stay at Azkaban and everything that had contributed to it.

His old life felt like a colorless midnight... this new life felt like afternoon.

Draco shook his head. "Why would I want to go back?"