Chapter 5) Appearances
Selected Listening: When the Day Met the Night- Panic! At the Disco
The next day was a bit brighter. Narcissa took her to tons of shops Anastasia hadn't even known were in the alley, and Anastasia felt like she tried on everything in the store. Finally, when she found a few robes that suited her daily wear, she came out to find Narcissa talking to Minerva.
"It's clear that you can, but you don't," Narcissa said. Minerva's face turned bright red.
"Hi Minnie," Anastasia said nervously. Minerva finished glaring at Narcissa and turned to Anastasia.
"I will see you at school," McGonagall said and walked away.
"What did you say to her?" Anastasia asked Narcissa exhaustedly.
"Nothing that wasn't true. She's a grown witch, she can handle it. Now what did you find?" Narcissa asked, looking through the articles she chose. "These are so plain, are you sure?"
Anastasia nodded, now worried that the conversation that happened between Narcissa and Minerva was mostly about her.
"Yes, but I like this one best," she said, picking up a burgundy one.
"Darling, you need more than one, you've been deprived of fashion your whole life, I'll get you all three."
Anastasia sighed. She thought about telling her godmother what she really thought, that she liked the way she dressed just fine, even if it was mostly muggle clothing, and she didn't think there was anything wrong with it, but she didn't want to insult the woman buying her things, so she kept her mouth shut and walked with her godmother to the register, resigned.
They went to several other shops, and Narcissa bought her several other things, but the last place was a normal dress shop.
"Why are we here?" she asked her godmother.
"Well, you still need a black dress for special occasions. Every witch needs one. Why don't you pick something you like?"
Anastasia looked out at the expanse of clothing racks and found her mind overwhelmed and her aching feet throbbing.
"Can't we stop? I'm tired, and I never attend fancy things. I barely go outside the castle. So, why would I need a dress now?"
Narcissa made a face that said she wouldn't be having it.
"We're going to a special restaurant next week and there's a dress code. Go pick out what you like. Last one, I promise."
Anastasia didn't know how many times she could sigh in one day, but she managed, and then entered the forest of black dresses.
She finally found a solid black, button-down dress with a v-neckline. It fluttered out around her from a belted waist and stopped at her knees. She liked it. It may have been the first thing she really liked all day.
"How about this one? Will it do?" she asked, coming out of the dressing room. Narcissa smiled.
"Oh, that's lovely. Why don't you change back, and we'll have that one wrapped up."
Anastasia arrived back at the manor with her bags, and Mopsy came into her room to help her sort out all the articles and put them into the wardrobe in the corner. There were the robes of course, but also stockings and scarves and hats and sweaters and shoes and items to hold a witch's chest upright, which Mopsy was clever enough to put away first.
"Wow," Draco walked in and leaned against the door frame, eating a green apple, and looking at all the new robes, "mum really went overboard, didn't she?"
Anastasia turned around with a hint of pink in her cheeks.
"Yeah…I don't even think I can wear all this before we go back to school. I'm exhausted from changing all day," she said, falling back to sit on the bed once Mopsy had the last dress in her wardrobe.
"Thanks, Mopsy," she said again.
"You don't have to—" the elf tried.
"I want to." Anastasia clarified. The elf smiled a tad and scurried out of the room. She looked up to Draco and realized he was wearing a playful smirk and staring up off into space.
"What?" she asked. Her question awakened him from his thoughts.
"Uh-it's nothing, I…I should clean up," he said and rushed away. She shook her head…these people were mad.
Anastasia wandered to the library and read until dinner. She put on one of her new robes, hoping it would appease his-bitchiness, and went downstairs when the enchanting smell of Mopsy's cooking wafted over the second-floor banister.
"Oh, you look lovely, dear." Narcissa praised. She smiled. Lucius looked up briefly but did not say anything. Draco stared at her.
"What?" she asked again.
"Nothing…" Draco said and continued eating. Lucius rolled his eyes. Narcissa grinned to herself as if she had won a bet.
Anastasia enjoyed her meal enough, and even made it through coffee and desert in the parlor without a hitch even though they were mostly quiet affairs. She and Draco compared timetables the school had sent that morning. They still had core classes together, but most of their electives were separate. She eventually retired to her room with a stack of books from the library, and grabbed her pajamas to take a shower, but when she opened the door to her room, Draco was standing there, leaning against the door frame again.
"What are you doing?" she asked. "You scared the life out of me." He laughed.
"I was wondering if you'd be up for a game of midnight quidditch?"
"How are we going to play quidditch with two people?" she hesitated.
"Only the snitch. A friendly competition," he offered.
"I don't know. I'm kind of tired," she said nervously.
"What? You scared I'll beat you?" Draco kept his jovial tone, and playful grin, but she wasn't in the mood. She walked back to the bed and sat down, dropping her pajamas beside her. She leaned onto her knees.
"No…I think I need to go home, or I guess I can't go home, but I need to go to the Weasley's early or something…"
His smirk turned into a frown.
"Why would you do that? You just got here," he pointed out.
"If you haven't noticed, your father doesn't exactly like me, and your mother is convinced I need to change everything about myself to be a proper witch, or whatever that is. I'm not interested in being a proper witch, I just want to be myself for the rest of summer break."
Draco folded his arms across his chest and stared at her.
"Sorry to break it to you, princess, but appearances are a part of life. Leaving won't change that."
Anastasia was quiet. She didn't know how to respond. She didn't know there was anything fundamentally wrong with how her father raised her, other than keeping her locked in a tower for eleven years, but she figured she wasn't that bad off until the Malfoys began picking her apart.
"Look, go put on your muggle clothes and we'll have a good time." Draco suggested. She smiled to one side.
"Alright, what gives? Aren't you afraid of what your father will do if he sees us alone together? Don't you think he'll be angry or try to send you to Durmstrang again?"
At this, Draco smirked.
"Oh, trust me, he's not checking my memories any time soon. Not anymore."
"Not anymore?" she clarified.
"The last day of term, I came home, and father tried to check my memory. I still couldn't block much. He saw what happened that afternoon with the boggart—"
"No! Did he see us—?" her jaw dropped, mortified.
Draco shook his head and fought back his laughter.
"He saw the boggart turn into a mime, and he thought I cast it. He was so embarrassed he hasn't tried to use legilimens on me since! Then he gave me free floo privileges all summer."
Anastasia snickered, covering her mouth so the sound wouldn't echo down the hall.
"Okay, fine. Let's go." she said and pushed him out so she could change.
"Best two out of three." Draco said once they were on the pitch, broom-to-broom. "I'll release the snitch this time, we'll count to ten, and then whoever catches it first gets a point."
Draco got the first point. Anastasia, the second. They faced each other for the final round.
"Alright, why don't we sweeten the deal a little bit?" Draco asked.
"What do you mean, like a bet? Or a dare?" she asked. "I don't know…"
"How about…if I catch it first, you have to go with me to Hogsmeade on the first visit of the year," he said.
"That's rubbish!" she protested, thinking of all the time she would lose with friends if she spent it with him. "There's no way. What do I get if I win?"
"Merlin! I didn't know I was that horrible to spend time with."
"Oh…well…um…if I win…you have to buy me ice cream at Florean's," she said, to not completely crush his spirit. He smirked.
"Alright, I'll make that bet. Better fly fast," he said before tossing the snitch into the air.
The two chased after the snitch at an even pace. They reached out for the tiny golden ball at the same time, grabbed it, and spiraled onto the ground. Anastasia laughed.
"Haha, I got it!" she exclaimed, feeling the cool metal on her palm, but when she opened her eyes, she realized the snitch fluttered between their interwoven fingers, and he hovered above her, an entire expanse of stars behind him. They caught each other's gazes for a moment, startled at the closeness. She could feel his breath on her face.
"Well!" Draco exclaimed, getting up and brushing himself off. "Looks like you won this time. Good game, Dumblebrat," he said, facing away from her.
Anastasia clasped her fingers around the snitch, rose from the ground, and handed the golden orb back to him.
"We can call it a tie." she said, and again they caught each other in an intense gaze.
"I'm not one for ties…but I suppose I don't mind, if it's you," he muttered.
A shiver crawled up Anastasia's spine.
"Um, we should be getting in, it's late," she said, turning away from him to hide the red in her cheeks. Although it was so dark, he probably couldn't see it anyway. Why did she feel so disappointed?
"Yeah…I suppose we should."
It was an awkward, silent walk back to the house. Anastasia tried to focus on what they were doing instead of where her mind was wandering. They walked through the dark cluster of vines and tree branches. She tried not to think about how close Draco had been to her, or how much his scent drew her in. Finally, she couldn't take the tension anymore.
"Race you back to the house!" she yelled and pushed him before running down the trail. But as she was running, she felt herself getting dizzy, and she turned to find Draco losing his breath behind her. He fell to his knees in the gravel.
She rushed back to him.
"Your inhaler! Where is it?" she asked. Draco pulled the device out of his pocket. He shook it and took a breath, fear in his eyes.
"There's barely any left," he said, taking shallow breaths.
She knelt beside him and took his shoulders.
"Breathe with me," she said. Draco gripped her wrists and matched her pace. Again, their faces were a bit too close. When she was sure he was back on track she stood and offered him a hand up. He took it but tore his hand away as soon as he was on two feet.
"I thought you were getting better," she admitted. "You haven't had an attack like that in a while."
He rubbed his sternum as they walked. "I thought so too…guess I overdid it."
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have called for a race," she said, now ashamed of herself for not remembering.
"You know, Dumblebrat, when we get a chance…we should probably see about getting this lifeline thing removed. It hasn't helped us much, besides for keeping you alive in the beginning and what not…" he said. She looked at him sadly.
"Yeah…yeah we should."
They were quiet for the rest of the walk. When they walked into the house, the den lamp came on. Anastasia's heart fell to her feet. But it wasn't Lucius waiting for them this time.
"Where were you two?" Narcissa demanded. "You're covered in mud."
"We were playing quidditch, mum." Draco apologized and went to climb up the stairs.
"Not so fast, Draco. You can't just disappear in the middle of the night without telling someone where you're going. I expect better." Anastasia stared at Draco for help, eyes wide.
"Of course, mum. Sorry. We won't do it again." He said in a hoarse voice.
"He had an asthma attack. He needs another inhaler." Anastasia said worriedly. Draco elbowed her in the arm. "What? It's true."
"Okay, stay quiet. I'll pick one up from the muggle pharmacy at some point this week." Cissa said and looked nervously up the stairs towards the master bedroom. She pulled out her wand and waved it, instantly cleaning them both. "Very well, straight to bed. Off with you now."
They crept up the stairs slowly, but when they reached their bedrooms, Anastasia pulled Draco into hers by the arm and slammed the door shut. He stared at her, eyes wide, flustered.
"Is your father still pretending you don't have asthma?" she whispered frantically. "This is ridiculous."
Draco let a breath out, relaxed, and stared across the room at the darkened window.
"…more like ignoring. I ran through the inhalers Madam Pomfrey gave me for summer…used them up on quidditch practice…now mum has to go all the way to the London muggle pharmacy to pick them up. She casts spells to make sure the purchases can't be traced back to Gringotts."
Anastasia released her grip and folded her arms, turning red with anger. She spent an entire year pilfering lost inhalers from the infirmary for Draco until Pomfrey intervened according to her father's instruction. Lucius Malfoy was an evil tyrant. She already knew this, but she thought after his only son nearly died he might stop denying his son's life-threatening illness…she thought wrong.
"That's so unfair."
"Don't worry about me, Dumblebrat," he said with a smirk, lifted his hand, and let his fingers pull through her hair. "I'll be fine by morning."
Draco picked out a blade of grass from her locks and let it go, spiraling to the floor. He turned to leave.
"Goodnight," she said.
"Goodnight," he said with a smirk and closed the door behind him.
The following days passed peacefully, but there was something in the air Anastasia couldn't quite place. She spent most of her time in the library, reading or working on summer homework. Draco sometimes would work beside her, or a few feet away from her. She would look up at him, and then look away as soon as he looked at her or vice versa. She asked him why he didn't floo to a friend's house. He said his friends were all on vacation, so he couldn't go visit them anyway.
Whenever the feeling, whatever it was, became too heavy, they would go play quidditch, of course not as aggressively as they had the first night. Sometimes they went exploring in the forests around the grounds and talk about things. Their favorite bands. Their favorite spells. Best pranks.
"You never told me…and I suppose you still don't have to…but what did the boggart version of me say to you in Lupin's class last year?" Draco asked as they walked through the emerald shade of the pines.
Anastasia sighed, pausing to maneuver over a mossy log.
"You really want to know?" she asked once she'd gotten to the other side.
"Yeah, I do, because the last thing I want is for you to be afraid of me," he said, making his way over the same trunk.
She began walking backwards to face him, reciting.
"We were never friends. The only thing worse than being daughter of that buffoon is being blood traitor filth. You don't belong anywhere, and you never will." The words had carved themselves in the stone of her mind, and inscription that didn't seem to fade no matter how hard she tried to forget.
They stopped and stared at each other.
"I would never say that to you," he said. She gave him a faint smile and looked down.
"It doesn't matter if you said it or someone else. I feared that after lying so long about being a muggle-born, all my friends would abandon me," she turned and kept walking. He followed and grabbed her hand. Her breath hitched as she turned over her shoulder to find him staring back at her desperately.
"But why me? After all these years, we'd barely been friends anyway. Why would you care what I thought?"
Anastasia stared, touched, uncertain of how to respond.
"I-I guess I never told you, but you're the first person my age I ever met. Before you, before that day we met in Diagon Alley, I had no one. Four people knew I existed for ten years. That's it."
"Four? You only had four friends?" Draco let go of her hand in shock.
"Pft, friends. Grandad, McGonagall, Pomfrey, and Hagrid…Occasionally, I would meet one of father's friends. Scamander. Flamel. A woman who owned a unicorn ranch and taught me to ride. All adults, never children."
"Oh," he said, suddenly understanding.
Tears rolled down Anastasia's face. She forged ahead so he wouldn't see.
He pretended not to.
