It had been one week since Astoria had been found hiding in Markus and Pansy Parkinson's house. Astoria was still being held in the Ministry cells awaiting trial, which would begin in two days. Harry and Ron had been overwhelmed with paperwork once more; there were a lot of statements to take from suspects and witnesses alike. Draco had been coerced into taking personal leave by Gawain, but he knew this was as a result of his actions in his brief reunion with Astoria. He couldn't be trusted to be in the same building as his ex-fiancée.

Draco had spent the last week helping his mother to restore Malfoy Manor and flooing back and forwards with boxes of her belongings. He had made the decision to stay in the flat in Muggle London, much to his mother's horror. He explained to her, in an extremely heated argument, that he was twenty-two years old and it was high time he moved out of his family home, and told her he would visit her regularly. He suspected it was more about the location than the fact he would be leaving her to live alone for the first time in her life, but he kept those thoughts to himself. If he was honest with himself, a big part of his decision was down to his lingering anger with his mother because of her dealings with Markus Parkinson, whom Draco felt was largely at fault for the situation he found himself in.

The morning Narcissa fully moved out was also the morning Draco was due to go into work and give his official statement to Harry. He had given his mother a fleeting hug with a half-sincere promise to see her that weekend, before watching her disappear in a swirl of green flames and black robes. Wanting something to keep himself busy until he had to go into work, he had made himself a cup of coffee and proceeded to pace in his kitchen with the drink going cold clutched in his hands.

His pacing had very little to do with the statement he was about to give, and a lot to do with fears Hermione would still be around in the department tying up the loose ends in the investigation. He bitterly regretted the way he had treated her after his run-in with Astoria; he knew he had taken his frustrations out on the wrong woman. As busy as the last week had been, it hadn't helped take his mind off Hermione at all. Everything reminded him of her, even here in his tiny kitchen he could picture her wild-haired and red-faced with anger as she bound him to his own dining chair after finding the notes from the Knights of Walpurgis.

He chuckled in spite of himself. The girl had barely changed since Hogwarts and yet she was a completely different person to him. There was no denying how much he had enjoyed working alongside her over the last month, she was intelligent and passionate and everything Astoria wasn't and would never be. He didn't need his mother or Harry telling him how they thought he felt about Hermione: he already knew.

But of course he had gone and put his foot in it with her, what was he thinking calling her Granger? The look of shock on her face as the name had escaped his lips told Draco exactly how much he hurt her in that moment, and he had been internally kicking himself ever since.

He glanced at his silver wristwatch which showed five minutes to ten, his meeting with Harry was at ten, so he set his cold untouched coffee on the bench and made his way to the fireplace.

When he arrived at the familiar department, he could feel the eyes of his fellow Aurors who lingered in the corridor on him as he passed, obviously news of his outburst had spread and he had become somewhat of a spectacle to be watched. He lifted his chin up a little; he would not be forced into feeling shame from the colleagues who had mostly ignored him since his first day on the job.

Harry's office door was open when he reached it. He was seated at his desk with a stack of parchment in the tray to his left, furiously scribbling on a piece in front of him. His forehead was lined in concentration, or possibly frustration. Draco cleared his throat and Harry looked up.

"Oh, sorry, Malfoy. Bloody paperwork is never-ending on this case. It's a shame you weren't officially working on it, you owe me and Ron big time from those Knockturn Alley deals we covered for you when you got enga-" he quickly closed his mouth to stop from ending the word.

Draco gave a humourless laugh. "You can say the word, Potter. And I'd have gladly helped with the paperwork if it meant actually being here."

Harry looked as though he wasn't sure how to respond, Draco had made his feelings clear to the whole Department how he felt about Gawain's personal leave suggestion. He opted for a change of subject. "Shall we get on with your statement then? Yours is the last one I need before we go to trial. Gawain reckons it'll be a short one, thankfully. We should just be able to present our case and then Astoria will be charged, she's already given a full confession. That means no need for anyone else to stand in court."

Draco knew by 'anyone else', Harry meant him. He was thankful for the news and for him sharing the information. "That's good," he replied. "How do you want to do my statement then? I can just write the whole thing out to save you asking the questions, then you can get on with that," he gestured towards the stack of parchment.

Harry happily agreed and handed Draco a quill, ink pot, and several blank parchment pages and the two sat scribbling in silence. Draco was careful to include only things in his statement that Harry was aware of, leaving out his deal with Corbin and other transgressions he had made throughout the investigation.

When he finished, he signed his curly signature on the bottom and skim-read it once more before handing it over. Harry thanked him and then returned to his work, though Draco continued to hover in front of him.

"Something wrong?" Harry asked when he finally realised Draco was still there.

Draco took a deep breath before saying, "I want to see Astoria."

"Absolutely not. Out of the question. Not after last time," Harry told him bluntly.

"Potter, please. I'm much calmer now, I know what I did last time was wrong. I need to hear why she did it."

Harry shuffled around in one of the desk drawers by his left leg, pulled out a file and handed it over the desk. "You can read her statement."

Draco pushed it back towards him. "That's not the same. Look, I know fine well if I blow up like last time, I'll be out of a job. I won't make that mistake."

The two men studied each other carefully for a moment, before Harry sighed and his shoulders dropped in defeat. He begrudgingly agreed and gave a final warning to Draco before leaving the room to take Astoria from her holding cell to the interview room. He returned ten minutes later and motioned for Draco to follow him.

"It won't just be your job on the line if you can't control your temper, Malfoy," he said as a final warning before pushing the door open.

Astoria's expression was one of cool boredom when Harry walked into the room, as though she was tired of the routine. It was clear that he hadn't told her why she was being interviewed again because when Draco followed Harry in, she quickly dropped her act and she stared open-mouthed at him.

"Draco? What's happened? What's going on?"

He sat down opposite her and gave Harry a pointedly calm look before speaking. "I need to know why you did it, Astoria."

She cringed at the use of her full name; she had always insisted he called her Tori, particularly in public. Ever conscious of the image they were presenting.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," she said with a shrug.

Draco balled his fists up under the table in frustration. He took a deep, calming breath and tried again. "That act isn't going to work on me. Our relationship might not have been perfect but I at least know when you're bullshitting me."

Astoria gave a sharp, hollow laugh. "Might not have been perfect? What we had was a train wreck from the beginning."

"So, what?" Draco asked. "You faked your own kidnapping to get revenge?"

"I did it to make you finally realise you needed me!" Astoria snapped. "It was never about revenge, Draco. I wanted you to love me the way you acted like you did whenever we were around other people. Don't you see how perfect we could be together?"

It was Draco's turn to laugh now. "This," he gestured to the pair of them, "is anything but perfect. How did you think this little plan of yours was going to play out? I'd hand over all of the information about Harry and then welcome you back with open arms?"

"I thought me being in danger would make you realise that I actually meant something to you." Astoria spoke to her hands in her lap; all signs of her bravado had been dropped. Draco felt a pang of sympathy towards the woman he had spent too long pretending to love.

She continued, "The night this whole thing started…we'd had that big argument about your job, remember? You wanted to celebrate that big arrest you and Potter had made, the one with the muggle kidnappings? You were so pleased. Oh, Astoria, you should have seen Potter duelling those two bastards at once? I'd never say this to him but he's some dueller."

Draco heard Harry chuckling in the corner and silently cursed Astoria; he would never live that one down.

"I couldn't bear listening to you talk about him that way," Astoria went on. "Pureblood habits die hard, I suppose. Then I stupidly made a comment about how embarrassed your father would be if he heard you talking like that, and the next thing I knew you stormed out and in walked Markus. He told me all about his relationship with your mother, and I told him about how frustrated I was with you. How, even though we were engaged, I knew you didn't really love me the way I loved you, and our whole relationship wasn't how I pictured it. We talked for ages, eventually he confided in me about your father not really being in Azkaban and the letters you had been getting from the Knights of Walpurgis. I realised then that I could use their plans to my advantage, and that was when I suggested faking my kidnapping. I didn't care about them getting to Harry, I just wanted you to love me."

Draco sat silently, reeling from the new information. How was he supposed to respond to that? There were so many things he should have said to her; that he wanted to say to her. He wanted to tell her how furious he was with her for not telling him straight away about his mother and Markus, and his father and Stan. He wanted her to know how deluded he thought she was that she ever thought her plan would work. Most of all, he wanted to say that he never had loved her, and that he never would. But he knew that saying that wouldn't make a difference at all. He felt an overwhelming sense of pity for the woman sitting across from him; she was suffering enough already. He stood up out of his seat and looked her straight in the eye, finally knowing what to say to her.

"Goodbye, Astoria."