Astoria walked shakily down the manor halls, sure she wouldn't be able to find her room again while she was so distracted with thoughts and emotions. She made her way down the steps so she could go to the gardens instead, needing fresh air. Draco's comment about her staying up as late as he pleased floated to the top of her thoughts and she snorted lightly. So he was going to be one of those men. Impossibly difficult and abusive of their power.
Of course he was going to be one of those men.
Why was she caught off guard by the apparent realizations? She knew those things already. She knew how Lucius Malfoy was and she had watched how Draco was for years. She shouldn't have expected him to be halfway decent. No, he would be the average, incredibly sexist and demanding pureblood man. She should have thought about how it would feel to be married to him before. She was taught how to act in response to men like him, and she had encountered men like him and worse. However, it was different to actually be married to one of those men. Her parents' relationship had been a luxury to grow up with. Her mother still knew her place and her father could be cruel but most of the time he was very reasonable and level headed. He was thoughtful towards her mother and he cared for her and her sister. He was not cuddly and over affectionate but she did have some warm memories of him that she was very fond of. She had always just wanted to make him proud.
Becoming betrothed to Draco had made him proud.
She sat down on the cool, marble bench in the gardens and breathed in the scent of all the flowers and earth, attempting to let it soothe her. She thought of her own garden and wondered how her plants were fairing without her, especially since their home was empty by that point. They had house-elves for upkeep of course, but she much preferred her own gardening to the elves. Her parents and sister had left due to the remaining Death Eaters - along with some inspired foreigners - who were attempting to revive themselves. Her father was never a Death Eater, but it had been rumored that they were recruiting pure-bloods especially of high status by force even if they had kept out of the war. Her father had always scoffed at the idea of Voldemort and thought of him and everything he stood for as ridiculous.
"Me, a pure-blood man, bow to a half-blood who supposedly sees me as superior? If he sees me as superior why would I bow to him? I will not and neither will my family," he would drawl, shaking his head in irritation every time a pure-blood family they associated with would fall to worship Voldemort.
Though, of course when it came to the Malfoys her father would overlook their choice to follow Voldemort.
She knew that was why Draco's parents were gone as well. Draco had to stay at the manor of course to hold their name in place, but Lucius had gone quite unhinged during the war and it was best that he and his wife weren't around should the new Death Eaters come looking for them.
Astoria lifted her legs onto the bench and curled to lay on her side on it, her eyes blurring slightly. She had never been away from her sister for very long at all. They may not have had a cuddly relationship, as Daphne tended to take her insecurities out on Astoria and talk down to her, but they had always been together. But then she was alone.
Alone with Draco Malfoy, her new husband who had just informed her that he did not want to have sex with her on their wedding night.
Astoria didn't know what to make of that. He had slept with much more common looking girls than her and he obviously did not care about something as silly as personality, so what was wrong with her that as his wife he did not want to have sex with her? She glanced down at her body. Perhaps she was simply undesirable to him.
Any previous insecurities she held pertaining to her marriage prior to approaching Draco Malfoy for sex only to be rejected were now tripled.
Her tears began again and she cursed quietly. Apparently she hadn't run out of tears. She shivered at the breeze but was too tired to get up from the cold bench she was laying on, so instead she buried her face into her arms and wept softly. She didn't have any close friends of her own. All of the friends she had were Daphne's friends who she tagged herself along with. Though she was terrible at making friends of her own, Astoria needed to be around social interactions. She never had much of a chance to make her own adventures and experience anything worth talking about because she was so focused on keeping herself in line. Her outlet was listening to others go on about their own lives. She loved emotions both good and bad. She loved the hum that was created in a room when too many voices were mixed together at once and she was able to just drown herself in the atmosphere of personalities and feelings. She may not have had many personal experiences, but she knew quite a bit about the consequences of life just by paying attention to everyone around her.
What would she do then? She wouldn't even have her mother-in-law to share the manor with. Draco barely spoke and even if he did he would have no desire to speak to her. What a horrible match they were. Both silent and without personality.
She stiffened. No, that wasn't true. She did have a personality. She did. She had to. She had a brain that she was always using, she was talented, well spoken, she always had amazing marks in school, she was always admired by adults, and she had the Malfoy name. How could she not have a personality to fit in somewhere among all of her attributes?
Boring.
It was something Daphne's friends had called her often as did the stupid boys that tried to manhandle her and get her into bed with them. She never felt bothered by it much before until then, but thinking about it she remembered how they would sneer it at her. If they didn't say it with disgust, it would be in a whine with something along the lines of, "Daphne, she's boring though."
Her body shook and she pressed her face harder into her arms to muffle her cries that had escalated into sobs. She realized then that nobody had ever liked her truly aside from adults who only appreciated how boring she was. It was too late to change that.
Draco sat up in his bed as the sun started to rise and leak through his balcony doors. The brightness irritated his eyes and he got up, aggravated that he hadn't closed his curtains before he had attempted to sleep only about an hour before. He went past the balcony doors as he did most mornings to breathe and take in the endless property around him while feeling imprisoned within his own home. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, squinting at the form of his wife sleeping on the bench in the gardens. He raised an eyebrow and shook his head. She was surprising him still.
Ah, how he wished that his mother was there to see her precious pick sleeping half-naked in the plants like a stray dog. He shook his head for a second time before going back into his room to dress himself, leaving the girl to her slumber in the cold morning. She was more than likely getting eaten alive by the magical pests that lived in those plants.
How unfortunate for her.
Draco made his way downstairs to the study, finding Blaise waiting for him.
"I figured you would be awake. Congratulations on your twelve year old bride. I'm so distraught I've missed the wedding," Blaise told him dully in greeting.
Draco snorted and shut the doors behind him. "Only an apology? You missed the most important day of my life. I at least expected a gift out of your remorse."
Blaise smirked at him and leaned back in the armchair he had been waiting for him in. "So where is the blushing bride? I hope you didn't really fuck an eight year old," he said, wrinkling his nose slightly.
"I believe she is seventeen maybe eighteen-" Blaise snorted loudly at him, "-and she does not have the body of an eight year old according to my assessments last night. But, no, I did not fuck her. She's a rigid thing and forced sex is not really my cup of tea. She's sleeping practically naked in the gardens at the moment."
Blaise raised both eyebrows at him. "So you repulsed the poor toddler so much that she couldn't even stomach to sleep in the same closed space as you?"
Draco gave him a narrowed look though his eyes were filled with amusement. He glanced around the room. "Where is Nott? He's usually tacked on with you."
"He is here. I'm not sure where he went though. He never keeps still," Blaise said, shaking his head. "Perhaps he's gone to find your lovely wife."
"Yes, well, he has always wanted what was mine.
Astoria woke with the feeling of being watched and she froze, her face still buried in her goosebump covered arms. She assumed it was Draco coming to mock her for falling asleep in the gardens in the cold and her face burned hot with embarrassment.
"What are you doing?"
She jumped at the voice that was quite obviously not Draco's and she scrambled to sit up, trying to cover herself with her arms. Her nightgown practically showed everything. "I... just fell asleep," she told him, cringing and squeezing her eyes shut when her arms brushed against her breasts, realizing how much they betrayed how cold it was. She desperately hoped he hadn't seen that.
She felt something warm drape over her shoulders and she opened her eyes to find him giving her his coat. She looked up at him gratefully, recognizing him as Theodore Nott. "Thank you, Theodore. I don't know what has gotten into me," she said slowly, looking away from his eyes. The Notts were close in circle with the families she had grown up around. Perhaps she was lucky her family was nowhere to be found. If Theodore thought this an amusing enough story to tell others her father would be so mortified with her.
Instead she had Draco to mortify by sleeping with her body practically bare to the world outside with the bugs. Fear ran through her and she stood up quickly only to stumble back down as dizziness swept over her.
"You have a few insect bites. They are probably giving you a reaction," he told her, catching her arm to make sure she landed back on her bottom.
She looked at his hand on her arm and nodded slowly, her head spinning. "Ow," she frowned, noticing the little stinging spots that peppered a few different areas of her body.
She listened to him chuckle, though he surprisingly didn't sound mocking. She looked back up at his eyes, noting the kindness within them along with amusement and she tilted her head curiously. She did remember Theodore to be one of Draco's more reserved friends but she still knew he played the same games as they had with girls like her. Then again they weren't at Hogwarts anymore, and he was always polite as a child. She remembered dancing with him more than once at different pure-blood parties. He was quite good. Almost as good as Draco.
"I appreciate your kindness," she said honestly, though she knew she shouldn't be wearing another piece of another man's clothing. She was sure Draco wouldn't care if she froze to death as long as his wife wasn't caught in such an inappropriate situation with another man.
"I'm sure you do, love. I doubt very much your new husband has shown you any. What a shame, treating such an impossibly beautiful woman such as yourself without care is against nature. Were you not married yesterday? Sleeping outside on your wedding night..." he tsked, examining her.
Astoria shifted, pulling the fabric of his coat around her to cover herself better. His scent was warm with traces of cinnamon along with a light, slightly spicy cologne. Pleasant. "It was my fault. I came out here myself and accidentally fell asleep," she murmured, becoming aware of the stickiness of the nearly dried tears on her face.
"Cried yourself to sleep in the gardens, did you?" Theodore helped her up slowly, guiding her into the house.
"Well, I'm just going to miss my family. That's all," she told him, staring at the backdoors to the manor worriedly. She really did not want Draco to catch her coming in that way. With him.
"Ah huh. I see," he told her slowly, obviously communicating that he did not believe that that was all there was to it.
As soon as they were in the doors she slipped away from him quickly, thanking him in a hushed voice. She stumbled up the stairs hurriedly, still dizzy.
Draco glanced up when Nott came in before going back to examining the foreign seal on the letter he had received.
"Done snooping through my home, Nott?"
"Done snooping through your gardens actually," he answered slyly. "Beautiful things to find there."
"And one of the flowers stole some of your clothing, I suppose?" Blaise asked, eyeing the absence of Nott's coat.
"Well, one particular flower was quite cold," Nott responded, his voice cloaked with mocking innocence. "I had to help in some way."
Draco watched Nott, his eyes flashing darkly. "Don't touch," he told him coldly.
The girl had let another man clothe her? Not only another man, but a man who could easily open his mouth and make Draco look like he had no control over his new bride who apparently had wandering eyes for the men in his circle.
"You certainly aren't," Theodore replied, his eyes glowing with infuriating smugness.
"Children do easily get sick from the cold, Draco," Blaise instigated further with a nod.
"Oh, she was definitely not a child," Nott purred, watching Draco, challenging him.
Draco raised an eyebrow back at him and went back to observing the seal, looking unbothered again.
The insolent little bitch. How dare she allow Nott to have something to smirk about at his expense. Again, how was she the girl that his mother thought was best suited for him? It was as if she knew no basics of respect and loyalty or even, at the very least, how not to act like a whore.