Chapter 33) Nice

Selected Listening: I'm Expecting Someone- James Newton Howard

Anastasia woke up in the hospital wing. Hermione, Harry, and Ron, along with Ginny and George, waited in chairs around her.

"Dear Merlin," she breathed heavily and looked down the row of cots. Draco sat up in his own cot near the entrance at the same time, being tended to by Pansy. Pansy didn't seem to notice the simultaneous awakening.

"Where-where's Fred?" she asked.

George shook his head.

"He's mad at himself right now…hiding. McGonagall almost expelled him. I've never seen him like this.'

"She can't!" she gasped. "He didn't know—"

"It doesn't even matter that it was you, Anastasia," George corrected with a reproachful gaze, "He doused a student with an experimental potion and Malfoy nearly died. Why didn't you ever say anything about the lifeline?"

"It's not something I want advertised!" she said a little too loudly for the room. Down the way, Draco threw her a pointed glare. She instantly felt horrible.

"Just think," she whispered, "if you were cursed to be attached to someone since birth, and you didn't have any say in it. It's debilitating."

"So, when exactly would you have told Fred about this?" George asked in disbelief.

Anastasia looked away in shame, "I was hoping I wouldn't have to…"

Down the way, Draco began arguing with Pansy.

"Give me space, Parkinson! Please!" he yelled. She looked hurt but backed off. "I'm getting out of this wretched place," he said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed to stand up.

A sense of nausea hit Anastasia immediately. Madame Pomfrey bustled over to Draco, grabbed his shoulders, and forcibly sat him back down in the bed.

"You will not, Mr. Malfoy. Both of you," she said fiercely, turning a pointed gaze at Anastasia, "are staying overnight for observation. We don't know what kind of side effects the spray had, and it may take some time to fully recover—" she glared meaningfully at George.

"Overnight?" Pansy gaped. "Alone? With her?"

Anastasia rolled her eyes.

"Oh please, Miss Parkinson. You act as if I don't monitor my patients. Off with you now. All of you! Visiting time is over."

"This is all your fault!" Pansy yelled across the room at George. "You redheaded twerps better watch yourselves or I'll—urgh!" She stomped out of the room in a huff.

Draco stared off into a corner and said nothing.

That evening, after Madame Pomfrey's final rounds, Draco and Anastasia were left alone in the amber light of the nightstand lamps. Anastasia was still reading from her Hans Christian Anderson book that Hermione had brought her. Unlike in the muggle movie, the prince fell in love with an equivalently ranked princess from the neighboring kingdom and married her instead. Although the little mermaid could have killed the princess, the mermaid instead chose to die a humble and early death and was granted the chance to ascend to the afterlife.

"Do you really like him?" Draco asked hesitantly. He'd been staring at the wall silently ever since Pansy left. "Fred, I mean."

A strained, half-hearted smile came over her.

"Of course, I like him. He's nice."

"Hm," Draco replied.

"And you?" she asked hesitantly. "Do you really like Pansy?"

His glare flashed back to her quickly, and then away again.

"Of course," he said robotically, "she's nice."

"You copied me," she laughed bitterly, "that's not fair."

Draco shot her a scathing glance.

"We're not best buddies at a slumber party, Anastasia. We're in here because your new boyfriend nearly strangled me with magic, and he didn't even know about the lifeline, so he didn't know it would hurt you too."

She couldn't respond. She stared down at her knees in shame, her tears pooling over. Seeing how upset she was, and how he was unable to comfort her without coming off as unproper, he sank back into his headboard and decided to lay the rest on the table.

"And you know what's not fair? You didn't even tell me goodnight at the end of the Yule Ball. You left without saying anything, and then you ripped my heart out in the morning in front of everyone. A day later I catch you snogging with the bookend just as I read your confession of love to me in a bloody magazine? If you were falling for him, you could have broken up with me before the dance, so I could have found another date. You didn't have to make a fool out of me."

Anastasia looked up at him in surprise. He still didn't know. She thought for sure someone would have told him by now, or even that Pansy would have ratted herself out.

"Draco…" she whispered hoarsely. "I left because Pansy poured acid punch all over my dress and ruined it."

"What?" he asked, his eyes fixated on her as he realized his mistake.

"Do you know how much effort that outfit took? Your mum and Minerva each bought me a dress, different house colors—I combined the two in hopes neither would be too angry with me and so your mum wouldn't get in trouble with Madame Zabini or Witch Weekly. And I didn't even care about the dress that much—I just wanted to look beautiful for…for you.

"But I couldn't even do that without Pansy getting jealous and ruining it all, so you know, if you really like her…all the better for you."

Draco had gone quiet and put his face in his hands, brow crushed with anxiety.

"Pansy told me you said you were bored of me, and so you'd gone to bed."

Anastasia balked at the thought of him believing anything Pansy said.

"What? No, of course not. I was having a great time up until that point…but you hadn't come back from whatever bullshit you were doing and my dress was melting…"

"I quit that night," Draco admitted. "I quit the stupid dark arts group…all they wanted to do was to get revenge on people for stupid school stuff using curses that could permanently scar people…I wasn't into it."

Anastasia stared at him sadly, not knowing what to say. Even if he quit, it hadn't been soon enough. He hadn't been truthful with her. If he had told her earlier that they wanted to remanifest her obscurus for their own benefit, she would have understood at least part of the sneaking around and use of cunning appearances.

"If I say that I'm sorry…" he started slowly, "…if I say that I'm sorry for not realizing she tricked me and broke up with Pansy first thing in the morning. Would you forgive me? Would you ditch Weasley and take me back?"

Anastasia stared at him. He already knew the answer. He just had to try.

"I can't do that to Fred," she said honestly. "He's been good to me…good for me, I think. I like being with someone who trusts me enough to tell me what's going on behind my back…someone who notices."

Draco stared at her for a long time with his stormy eyes. Long enough for her to remember one thing.

"Of course, Fred will still have the choice tomorrow, to stay with me or not," she told him, "After I explain the lifeline."

This was the complicated part of their lives that they still hadn't figured out. If the two stayed apart, and fell in love with other people, could they ever truly belong to the ones they loved? Or would they always feel torn back to each other?

"Have you told Pansy yet?" she asked.

"Course not," he scoffed bitterly. "She'd blabber it all over the castle, probably start plotting ways to mess with you without hurting me. Get my family into trouble with the bank for the agreements set aside in the Malfoy family wards."

Agreements set aside…agreements like how Draco could only marry someone in the Sacred 28. How the lifeline was directly opposed to that as long as the Dumbledore bloodline went unverified, a feat that was impossible given how many of their relatives were dead or otherwise in dispose and how little grandad would want the line verified at all. Anastasia's heart stung. She supposed everyone would be happier if they all stayed on their own sides of society.

"What does she think is going on now?"

"She thinks Weasley accidentally sprayed you too. She also finds it unfortunate that Lukov and company didn't complete the ritual to remanifest your obscurus. It would have been the perfect excuse to get you sent away to some institution or worse." Draco's eyes shone with distress by the end of his sentence, imagining all the possible outcomes to Pansy's reign of jealousy.

Anastasia pursed her lips, wondering about the outcomes as well.

"Is it worth it? Dating someone who you can't trust?" she asked.

Draco didn't respond. He simply sunk down in the sheets, turned off his lamp, and pulled the blankets over his head.

"Goodnight," she said softly, "I'm sorry."

But Anastasia didn't know exactly what she was apologizing for. Possibly everything.