And here is the long awaited sequel to Antipathy, and a chapter which has convinced me to continue the story past the three-shot I was planning. I hope you enjoy.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own any aspect of the Harry Potter franchise. I am not J.K. Rowling or Warner Bros. I do not have any claim over the characters, their personalities, or actions. I just like making their personalities bounce off each other in these little tales called fanfiction. So please, don't sue me. I can't afford it right now.
Chapter Two
Dare
After their argument in the Slytherin Common Room, Draco Malfoy made a point of keeping an eye on Astoria Greengrass.
If Pansy knew, she would have thrown a fit, but he didn't much care. Greengrass was dangerous, that much was clear. She had dangerous ideas, followed a dangerous code of honor, and made dangerous choices; danger seemed to cling to her every movement, and that same danger followed her like a trained dog, a shadow of radical liberality in the confines of Slytherin House.
He was a Death Eater as well as the years Head Boy. It made sense for him to keep an eye on her, menacing as she was. He had his own image – that precious, ever-so-delicate shield against the dungeons – to keep up.
He'd been so proud to be chosen as a Death Eater, felt so special. His parents had been less than ecstatic, but he hadn't cared; he had had no reason to. He had heard his father speak of the Dark Lord in loving, whispered ways, secretly pieced together every piece of information the world had about him – and that wasn't much – to learn his secrets. He had studied the Dark Lord's ideas, thought about what it would mean if the purebloods ascended to the place they deserved in society, and the Mudbloods were cast out like the scum they were, and when the Dark Lord had returned, and made him one of the youngest Death Eaters ever to craft a mask, it had been like a dream come true. Who cared if Dumbledore had to die? The old Muggle-lover deserved it.
And then the terror had set in. The whispered threats, the lack of progress, Snape's constant interference. The forced torture, the terror in the faces of his victims – his victims, not the Dark Lord's, haunting his every thought, lurking in his nightmares – the death of Charity Burbage. Ollivander in the basement, hidden where the Dark artifacts had lain, concealed, until the Muggle-lover Arthur Weasley had staged a raid.
He hated them all: the other Death Eaters; the Mudbloods; the rebels, here in the castle and out in the world, fighting; sometimes even the Dark Lord himself – though he never said it aloud, and buried it deep in his mind, throwing everything he had into Occlumency to keep that fact a secret. He was also terrified of them all, and he hated himself for that.
He hated Greengrass most, out of all of them. He hated her for her hatred of him, hated her for her challenge and her disdain, for her bold ideas and grounded defense of them. He hated her for making him think about his actions, hated her for bringing up the slightest amount of doubt in his mind, hated her for saying the things he didn't dare to.
He hated her, and he hated himself, and he simply hated until he had no more energy left.
If he had been searching for a spy for the Gryffindors, he wouldn't have picked Astoria Greengrass. She seemed like nothing but a typical O.W.L. student, except for the fact that she seemed to have no friends at all. She never spoke with her sister, never joined in the conversations at the Slytherin table, never said a word to anyone. She simply read, or pretended to read and listened to every word they were saying. Greengrass had perfected a way of melting into the background, and Draco wondered momentarily exactly how much she knew about any member of Slytherin. If her alliances had been different, he might have mentioned her to the Carrows as a possible agent in Slytherin.
That is, if he had noticed her at all.
He never spoke to her. He simply kept an eye on her, wondering. He didn't tell the Carrows about her, either. He never even thought about it. Greengrass was his investigation, the one thing that sincerely confused him in this perfectly ordered world of hate, so he didn't say a word. Not to anyone.
She – Greengrass – didn't make the slightest bit of sense. She was clearly getting good grades, from the reports from her teachers that he was borrowing. She was the highest student in her Potions, Arithmancy, and Ancient Runes classes – she was getting O's regularly in every single course she took. He learned from Slughorn's notes on her career consultation that she wanted to become a potioneer, and perhaps take a position at Hogwarts to teach it. She spent most of her time in the library working on her homework, but sometimes, usually on weekends, she simply disappeared – she wouldn't show up in the Great Hall in the mornings, wasn't anywhere that he could find in the castle. She vanished, like a ghost, only to reappear at lunchtime as though nothing had happened.
Until he overheard her sister Daphne whispering to Pansy about her 'stupid Quidditch-playing sister' that he understood.
So one chilly Saturday morning, he made his way down to the pitch that he barely visited anymore to watch.
Greengrass looked like a blonde raven in the air, moving like she had been born on a broomstick. He couldn't recognize any of the moves she made, not from any Quidditch volume he had ever read, but they had a strange, ethereal grace all the same. After watching for five minutes, he slipped away again, growing ever more frustrated with the conundrum of Astoria Greengrass.
When he returned to his dormitory that night, he found a sheet of folded parchment on his pillow, with a note scrawled inside in bright green ink.
I saw you in the stands this morning. Stop watching me.
~A.G.
Draco studied the note for a full thirty seconds before crumpling it in his fist, stalking into the common room, and waiting for Astoria Greengrass to finally look up from her homework.
He then took sincere pleasure in throwing the note in the fire, and staring directly at her face as the parchment curled against the coals. The flicker of frustration in her eyes was far more rewarding than any sort of ostentatious revenge he had been planning after the argument of Christmas break.
The next afternoon, she cornered him outside the Great Hall and said, in a clipped, businesslike voice, that she had to speak to him. Ignoring Pansy's raised eyebrows, Draco nodded and followed her into the first year annex.
The moment she shut the door, she turned and put her back against it, crossing her arms defensively over her chest.
"What on earth do you think you're doing, Malfoy?" She asked, without preamble. She didn't look or sound angry; instead, she even looked a little curious. Draco lifted his eyebrows.
"Is that supposed to mean something?"
"Why are you following me?" She sounded accusing.
"You're interesting." Draco said, casting a glance towards the ceiling. "You don't speak to anyone, do you know that?"
"I like it that way." Greengrass narrowed her eyes, hooking a strand of strawberry-blonde hair behind her ears. They weren't pierced. "Stop it now, Malfoy. I don't appreciate having a stalker, especially considering it's you. I could report you, you know."
"As I see it," Draco countered, "you're the one in more danger if I report you. Your beliefs aren't appreciated here."
Her expression didn't change in the slightest. "Do you have any proof?"
"I don't need proof." Draco put his hand on the doorknob. "All I need is my word. The Carrows would believe whatever I told them about you. This is school, Greengrass, not the real world. There are no lawyers and courts here."
She shook her head, ever so slightly. "I don't understand people like you. You thrive off of misery and suffering. You enjoy it. You don't care about what's going on, you don't care that people are dying, as long as you're safe."
"And who says what's right and wrong?" He was getting angry again; Greengrass seemed to have a talent for making him angry. "Potter? The Dark Lord? The Ministry? There is no black and white here, Greengrass. There is no dividing line between good and bad, there is no overwhelming moral center in every human being. This is a grey place, and the only choices that matter are the ones that keep you alive. If you don't get used to that, you're going to get killed."
It seemed very urgent to make her understand this.
"Ideals don't have a place here. There is no hope for help. This isn't going to get any better, Whatever belief you're holding onto, you'd better drop it, and drop it now, because we have nothing left to believe in, and it's pointless to keep thinking otherwise."
Greengrass stared at him for a long moment, her eyes narrowed with thought. Then, carefully she moved away from the door.
"What about friendship and decency and trust?" She said, without taking her eyes off his. "What about innocence, and hope, and love, and family? What about those? Can we not believe in them, Malfoy? Are they pointless? Are they the things you've given up, in your ambition and your lack of caring?" She shook her head. "I can't believe that. I won't believe that. The people who rule our society today are monsters. You must know that much."
His hand slipped from the doorknob. Greengrass frowned.
"I don't know why, but I think you do. I think you hate them as much as the rest of us. I think you hate yourself so much that you can't think of anything else. And that's why I believe that you won't tell the Carrows about me."
"You shouldn't." He shrugged. "As soon as I learn whether you're in collusion with the rebels here, I won't care much what happens to you."
"That's a lie." Greengrass looked a little too shrewd for a girl. "You hate me, I know that. But you're too interested in what I'm going to do to do turn me in. Otherwise I would already be in the dungeons."
She turned the doorknob, and started out the door, but paused halfway over the threshold. Greengrass twisted her head to look back at him, that ironic smile twisting her mouth again.
"I dare you. I dare you to do the right thing for the first time in your selfish life. I dare you to try to imitate half of a decent human being. I dare you to forget all your rigid social codes and all of the absolute muck you call a good upbringing and help someone else, not because there's something in it for you, but because they truly need help." Her eyes were like spears, pinning him to the floor and keeping his mouth shut. They were almost exactly the same height when she drew herself up and put her shoulders back in a challenge.
"I dare you, Draco Malfoy, to do the right thing."
And then she left again, and Draco Malfoy was again forced to contemplate the fact that once again, Astoria Greengrass had won an argument.