- Draco & Astoria -

"It's wrong," Draco thinks, "it's all wrong."

He tries it out and says aloud to the empty room, "This is wrong!"

Astoria is sleeping (Draco thinks) in one of the many, many guestrooms the Manor has. He knows she picks a new one every night. Perhaps it's for a change of scenery. Draco doesn't guess the truth. She chooses a new room each night so she won't know he isn't coming to find her.

Luna is holed up in that godforsaken shack with her lunatic father doing Merlin knows what, Draco grouses—probably sleeping Draco is awake and alone, lying in the marital four-poster bed, staring up at the dark green, velvety canopy, talking to himself.

"Wrong," he mutters. What's wrong exactly, he can't say, or rather he won't admit there are two perfectly good sets of arms that could hold him, and neither is. His mind shies away from the selfishness of always having, on some level, assumed if he couldn't have one, he'd have the other.

Draco is wrong. Astoria isn't sleeping. She's counting cracks in the ceiling and caressing her swollen belly. She hasn't yet healed the scratches from the rose thorns. They cover her thin arms in angry red lines.

"No one sees them, anyway," she thinks. And it's a sad thought, a resigned thought. Astoria's is the guestroom closest to hers and Draco's bedroom, yet he hasn't come. He never searches, never comes to find her.

And Luna, Astoria dreams of Luna every night. Luna has kept her silence and turned Astoria away when she comes through the floo.

"It's wrong; it's all gone so terribly wrong." She cries. Tears run from the corners of her eyes, down her cheekbones, and pool in her ears. Her ears have never been so full of tears before.

Luna isn't sleeping, either. She's still lying in the bog, hoping that the monster will come and take her. She figures it won't, though. The sky is dark, and the fog has cleared to reveal the stars. If it hasn't come by now, it never will. Perhaps it's busy. She digs her fingers into the wet earth and makes muddy balls that she throws into the water.

"Splash," the water answers, "splash, splash."

The stars don't hear her sing a song about love gone wrong and lovers forever parted by death.

"It's too damn wet and cold," Luna says and finally gets up.

Astoria runs out of cracks and sighs. She finally gets up and uses the vanity's mirror to heal her cuts.

They think about it hard. They know something has to be done. The whole situation is wrong. How can everyone love and no one be loved? It doesn't make sense. In the end, they both decide to go to Draco first. He is, after all, they both reason, the one most ill-equipped to deal with the situation. They are surprised to meet outside his door, but they enter together.

They sit in the bedroom, the one Draco and Astoria have shared until now, and talk. One at a time, carefully, respectfully, they talk. As if by agreement, each let the other complete everything they have to say, cry all their tears, lobby all their accusations and hurt. When they are sure it's over, that there are no more words to say, they say how sorry they are for everything, for leaving, for being selfish and wanting both.

And they stay there that night. And they return there the next.