Draco yawned looking at his wrist watch, 1:30am, how long he had been in the library he couldn't say. All he knew was when he first set foot in the vast building he began to work tirelessly on his genetics paper. He had written one similar to it last semester but that was just basic genetics now he had to wright 20 pages on how Polyjuice potion temporarily alters the genetics of the user. At first he thought it would be easy, he began by stating what ingredients of the potion effect the DNA and went into detail in how the chemicals in these ingredients alter and replace certain strands of the DNA. But now it proved to be more challenging than originally anticipated, there was so much information that the paper seemed to be dragging on and on. Draco rubbed his eyes, he was almost done just one more page and then he'll never have to look at this damn paper again! Well at least not until his professor hands it back.
An hour later Draco packed his things fully prepared to turn in for the night. His paper was finally finished he began to walk to the stairwell when he heard a familiar voice.
"-how many times do I have to tell you? Get lost?!"
It was Aurora.
"Look, I only want to talk-"
"-well I don't! How many times to I have to tell you I'm not interested. Do I need to send my house-elf to deliver you a formal letter stating how I am not and will never be interested in a foul person such as yourself?! Or should I just brand it on my forehead."
Draco peered through the bookshelves to try and get a better look. There he saw an extremely agitated looking Aurora who was backed into a corner by that Cesare git. A few more angry words were exchanged and Aurora produced her wand, Cesare ceased Aurora's wrist and squeezed it causing her to drop it. He pushed her against the wall, Aurora retaliated in the only way she could, she spit in his face.
"Unhand me you mongrel!" She shouted.
Enraged by her actions Cesare wiped his face and raised his hand in an attempt to hit her, Aurora shut her eyes, but before he could swing he felt someone grab his wrist. Cesare looked up to find Draco glaring at him menacingly.
"Now I know, you were not about to strike a lady." Draco was deathly quiet. Never in his life did he feel this much rage towards a person. The closest he came was when his father was arrested, he recalled being furious with Dumbledore and Potter blaming them for his father's downfall. But this cad-this filth-this excuse of a human being dare put his hands on Aurora, unacceptable!
"I suggest you leave, and if I ever hear that you've gone near her again, I'll make sure that you will regret it."
Cesare scowled and jerked is hand out of Draco's grip. He glared at the pair and then stalked away.
Both Aurora and Draco watched Cesare leave, once he was out of sight Aurora let out gasps of air and slowly sank to the ground. She was pale and looked absolutely terrified.
"Are you okay?" Draco ask crouching down to her level.
"Yeah-yeah-I'm fine…" Aurora stated frantically as she tried to catch her breath.
Draco wasn't convinced. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah…" she gulped rubbing her wrist.
Draco gently reached over and took her wrist in his hands, an ugly bruise was now forming on her soft skin-that beast! How dare he?!
"I-I've never been hit before- I mean nanna would whack us with her cane every once in a while but I've never-"She couldn't continue, her throat shut and she furiously blinked back tears. She refused to cry, she never cried.
Draco opened his mouth to say something but Aurora immediately cut him off.
"I need a cigarette."
Draco nodded. "Yeah, okay. I'll come out with you." He helped her to her feet and collected her things.
It was a beautiful September night, the starts shone brightly and the sound of crickets rang threw the warm air. They sat quietly on the bench as Aurora took a drag from her cigarette. Draco didn't like the smell of smoke, he thought that smoking was a deplorable habit. But who was he to judge? To each their own.
"What are you doing here so late?" Aurora asked as she exhaled from her nose causing smoke to exit her nostrils.
"I was finishing up a paper, you?"
"Same…well I was just studying for physics, our first exam is two days from now, you?" She flicked the tip of the cigarette so that the ashes fell and she lifted it back to her lips and took another drag and orange glow illuminated the tip.
"I was finishing up a paper…How long have you been smoking?" Draco asked curiously, he was actually a bit surprised when he found out that Aurora smoked. Wyatt- no shocker there but Aurora…
"I was 18 when I first started."
"Why?"
She shrugged. "I don't know…it sounds stupid I know, I think it started out as a rebellious thing but now I can't stop."
"Have you ever thought about quitting?"
"Yes, but I've never succeeded." She dropped the cigarettes and stamped it out. "I don't smoke as often as I used to though."
Aurora rubbed her eyes, she was tired and wanted nothing more than to go back to her flat and sleep, but she was too shaken by what had happened earlier she doubted that she would even be able to sleep properly tonight. Draco pulled out his wand and held his hand out to her. Wordlessly Aurora presented her bruised wrist and with a single wave the bruises vanished.
"Thanks." She smiled.
"No problem." Draco stood and took off his cloak. "It's a beautiful night tonight, fancy a walk?" He draped the cloak around Aurora's shoulders.
"Sure." She hooked her arm around his and they both wordlessly walked down the path that led into town.
XXXX
Draco was holding the garment bag that contained his robes over his shoulder, today was the day of the gala and he and Aurora made arrangements to get ready at her place. He knocked on door and waited patiently for her to answer. After a few moments the door opened and Aurora was clad in a silk purple dressing gown, her hair was up in rollers, and she was holding a half-eaten slice of pizza in her hand.
"Hello!" She beamed up at him.
"Hey, yourself," Draco looked her up and down and smirked. "You planning on going like that?"
"Of course not!" Aurora snorted taking a bite out of her pizza, "I've sent Lini to get my dress from my uncle's house."
She moved over to allow Draco in, "make yourself at home, though I don't think I really need to tell you that since you practically live here now." Aurora said as she walked to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water.
"I don't live here." Draco stated as he opened the box of pizza and helped himself to a slice.
"You keep forgetting your belongings here, just yesterday you forgot your jacket. And the old woman in 2B is convinced that you are my boyfriend even though I keep telling her that you're not. She insists that we come over for dinner."
"…okay, fair."
Draco got dressed in one of the guest bedrooms, he made sure everything was in place. His hair was neatly combed and he smoothed out the nonexistent wrinkles in his robes. Despite the fact that he would rather spend the evening home he was actually looking forward to the event, the fact that Aurora had agreed to go with him made it much more bearable. When he finished he waited for Aurora in the living room. Aurora glided down the stairs, dressed in a high collared navy blue dress with lace sleeves. A gold belt sat snugly on her waist, her brown hair sat upon her right shoulder in loose waves.
"So what do you think?" Aurora asked twirling around causing her dress to swirl around her ankles.
Draco looked up at her in awe. "You look beautiful." He said as he walked up to her reaching into his breast pocket and pulled out a rectangular jewelry box.
"What is this?" Aurora asked as Draco pushed the box into her hands.
"Just a little something for my favorite person."
Aurora arched an elegant eyebrow in amusement and opened the box. There sat a bracelet of sapphires encased in diamonds.
"Happy 21st birthday my dear." Draco smiled.
Aurora was at a loss for words, for him to go through the trouble to-
"Draco you shouldn't have." Aurora breathed.
"Nonsense! It's your birthday after all. I should at least be allowed to buy you a gift, I also want to thank you for indulging me tonight. I'm sure this is not how you imagined spending your birthday."
"Are you kidding?" Aurora laughed. "It still beats getting hot soup spilt all over my lap and end up getting covered in mud. All though, I am going to ask you to make sure that I don't fall tonight…you know how uncoordinated I can be, especially in the presence of strangers."
"Not to worry, I'll make sure that you don't fall."
Aurora put on her most charming smile. "Thank you, the bracelet is beautiful." She stood on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. "Can you help me put it on?" Aurora asked playfully.
"Yeah of course!" Draco took the bracelet and wrapped it around her small wrist closing the clasp.
"There you are." Draco said sounding very pleased with himself. "Shall we?" He extended his arm to her and Aurora hooked her arm around his.
"Ready when you are."
The event was lovely, Aurora was enjoying herself; she got to meet a few of Draco's colleagues and professors. She didn't think she'd be learning so much about the human anatomy much less witness Draco argue how sleeping draughts are potentially destructive to one's health. It was all so interesting, nothing like the events the geology department host, she recalled one time in her freshman year some werido brought his favorite rock with him and felt the need to show it off to everyone. Maybe that's why she stopped going to those geo-dinner parties.
There she stood arm in arm with Draco listening to him defend his argument vigorously. She just looked up at him in adoration. He was so handsome and intelligent; despite hearing stories of how he was in his school days and learning of his past affiliations, she knew that regardless of his regrettable life choices he was a good person. He's perfect! But she couldn't commit, not yet at least. Aurora was well aware that she had issues that she needed to sort out and she didn't want to bring that sort of baggage into a relationship, it would ruin them.
"Oi, Malfoy!" a male voice called.
Draco stopped midsentence and let out an irritated sigh. "Fletcher…"
A man Aurora had never seen before walked up to them.
"I don't believe I've met your lady friend." He leered making Aurora uncomfortable causing her to subconsciously take a step back almost hiding behind Draco's frame.
Draco cleared his throat. "Aurora, this is Drexel Fletcher. Drexel this is Aurora Pontellier."
Drexel flashed Aurora a wolfish smile and shook her hand. "Pleasure to meet you miss."
Aurora didn't honor his greeting with a response she merely nodded curtly.
"Tell me, how does a loner like Malfoy get a beauty such as yourself to accompany him to an event like this?" Drexel smirked.
Aurora rolled her eyes, she knew where this was going. Why can't all these men just leave her alone for heaven's sake?! She was sick and tired of being pursued.
"Oh I don't know," Aurora put on her falsest smile, "maybe it's because Draco was more interesting in getting to know me as a human being first instead of shamelessly flirting with me in front of my date." Aurora continued to stare at the young man, making him uncomfortable. "You see, I find that flirting with a young woman, in front of her date no less, before you even get to know her to be absolutely deplorable. And if you think I would fall for such a cheap shot you are sadly mistaken, I am above such a thing."
Draco couldn't help but smirk at Aurora's forwardness, she was so sexy when she tore people apart! Drexel began to stutter, clearly embarrassed that Aurora had just called him out the way that she did. He left as quickly as he came.
"I don't like that guy." Aurora stated plainly turning to Draco. "He reeks of new money."
Draco let out an audible laugh. "And here I was thinking I was the only one who was able to sniff out nouveau riche."
"Oh no darling, you should know that anyone who hails from an old family can sniff out nouveau riche from miles away. They always-hm what's the word I'm looking for? Try? Yes they always try so hard."
"I agree, there's a certain air about them."
The pair exchanged knowing looks and Draco laced his fingers with Aurora's. "Let's get out of here."
"Don't we have to stay here for the whole thing?"
"No, we've been here long enough. Fancy a bottle of wine?"
Aurora smirked. "Let me guess, we're going to drink at my place."
"Naturally!"
XXXX
Aurora and Draco slowly walked down the hallway to Aurora's flat. Draco had placed his arm around her waist as she leaned most of her weight on him. After spending hours in those torture devices Aurora called heels she became unsteady on her feet because of the pain.
"Finally." Aurora sighed as she unlocked the door. The pair stepped into the dark apartment when the lights suddenly flew open.
"SURPRISE!"
Aurora yelped and jumped back covering her mouth in shock. There were several people in her living room. She recognized her geology team members and Wyatt and Ramona were standing at the front of the crowd. Behind them hung a banner that read "Happy 21st Birthday Rory!"
Aurora opened and shut her mouth a few times before looking to Draco for an explanation.
"I wasn't going to let you spend your 21st birthday alone." He shrugged.
"This was all your idea?"
He nodded. Aurora locked him in a bone crashing hug, no one had ever thrown her a surprise party before. Oh Merlin! She couldn't stop thinking it, Draco Malfoy was perfect!
"Come on, get a room you two!" Ramona called out.
Aurora let Draco go and gave Ramona a pointed look, which didn't work because Xavier came up to her and placed a ridiculous looking party hat with pink glitter and feathers that was in a cut out of the number 21 on her head.
"Happy birthday Rory! You're finally legal to drink!" Xavier laughed.
"When are we cutting the cake?!" Malvina called out.
Vinona and Liam both carried a large cake to the center of the room and placed it on the coffee table. They all began to sing and Aurora held her hair as she learned forward to blow out the candles. Ramona cut the cake and served it to the guests because Aurora was hopeless with a knife and it would've been unfortunate if the birthday girl ruined her cake by bleeding all over it.
The gifts were unwrapped, copious amounts of wine as dunk, Wyatt performed his drunken reenactment of Hamlet; Aurora was having the time of her life. Must of the night was spent in glee.
After all the guest had gone it was just Aurora and Draco huddled together on the couch. Draco's head was reclined resting on the back of the couch his eyes dazed in stupor. Aurora rested her head on his shoulder, with her legs tucked underneath her. They were still dressed in their party clothes, Draco's robes were wrinkled and his neatly combed hair fell over his eyes. Aurora's dress had also suffered a few wrinkles, and her hair was disheveled. Both were red in the face covered with a thin sheen of sweat staring stupidly at nothing. How much have they had to drink they couldn't say, but if one of them would have to make a guess they'd say a lot.
"You know-I-I never wanted to go into geology." Aurora began lazily.
"R-Really?" Draco looked down at her.
"Yeah, I wanted to be a dancer!" Aurora let out a small giggle. "But I went and hurt my knee, and Madam Aleksandrov said-I'll tell you what she said- she said…vashe koleno plokho!" Aurora continued now putting on a Russian accent. "She said- Aurora! Your dancing is musor! No good! Bad knee means musor dancing! So I had to pack my bags and come home, and then my father told me to study geology to help with the family business…" Aurora reverted back to her normal voice.
"…That is so sad."
"I know!" Aurora placed her hand over her chest. "It broke my heart." Her eyes began to tear. "I wanted to be the star of Swan Lake!"
"Swan Lake?"
"Yes…but I wanted to be the swan! They're so majestic!"
"What?" Draco was confused, he wasn't able to comprehend what she was saying; his mind was too foggy. She was upset over a swan in Russia? What did swans ever do to her…did Russia even have swans? Was it a Russian swan?
Aurora continued to blubber about swans and Draco nodded pretending to understand what she was blubbering about.
"I wanted to be the Minister of Magic when I was a kid."
"Really?" Aurora looked up at him in intrigued. "Why?" She wrinkled her nose. "That's got to be the shittiest job ever! And it doesn't even pay much! Why be a dirty politician if you don't get paid well for it!"
Draco shrugged. "I don't know, it thought it'd be cool. Either that or a Quidditch pro. In reality I don't even need to work-"
"-Why did you become a Death Eater?" Aurora asked suddenly.
"…what?"
"Sorry! I shouldn't have asked that question-that was very rude of me." Aurora uttered out quickly.
"That's okay…I don't really want to talk about it."
"I understand, there are a lot of things that I don't like to talk about-like how sometimes I really hate my parents…" Aurora perked up and covered her mouth with both hands turning redder than she was before. "I shouldn't have said that, that was wrong of me."
"It's not wrong if that's how you truly feel." Draco soothed.
"They are just so difficult!" Aurora brandished her arms. "I wish they could just be easy." She leaned over so that she was lying flat on her back and her head was resting on Draco's lap. "Being with them is not like being with you, Draco, you are so easy to be around." Aurora reached up to touch is cheek. "I can drop that rigid façade I put on whenever I encounter them, I can just be me." Aurora yawned and Draco took her hand in his, he looked down at her, she was smiling up at him and with another yawn she closed her eyes and fell into a deep sleep. Normally Draco would have moved her to her own bed but he had way too much to drink and he didn't trust himself to stand or carry another human being off to bed.