TW: Abuse

Astoria was bracing herself against Draco's balcony rails and looking out at the property, her property, when she heard her husband's steps behind her. She stilled, slightly surprised. He had not been gone for as long as she expected him to be. She didn't move as she heard him approach, his steps slow and careful. She frowned and listened for his breathing when she noticed his tense steps. He was angry. Angry at her? What had she done? She tried to think of the possible things he could be upset at her for. He had told her not to leave his room, which she hadn't.

"My father told me something interesting about you today," Draco said behind her, his voice frighteningly normal, as if he was telling a friend about a new interesting fact he had learned about magical creatures. "He told me that you were quite good with memory charms. Is that true?"

She turned around to look at him, crossing her arms over the casual dress she had made his house-elf fetch her. She pressed her fingers into the skin of her arm in anticipation, studying his unreadable grey eyes. "Yes… I suppose I am," she answered, confused by the odd question. Why would Lucius say such a thing? Where had he heard something like that? She was sure he was not looking at her Hogwarts reputation and her teachers' comments on her school records any time as of late. She supposed he was a bit mad…

"That would have come in great use during my sixth year. I had a mission from the Dark Lord, you see. Actually, as you know, I'm sure. I mean, my failure was the top gossip for a while there," he continued as he looked at her with mock thoughtfulness, a light chuckle escaping his mouth.

She pressed her lips together, shaking her head slightly at him to tell him she wasn't following.

"I was constantly paranoid of being seen. It's quite stressful always having to look over your shoulder. Especially when you are in a circumstance that would easily catch someone's attention. The girls' bathroom for instance," he said, looking past her and at the sky behind her, his eyes changing to something colder. "Tell me, Astoria. If you saw me planting something in the girls' bathroom, do you imagine you would make a note of it?"

Astoria's heart sank and she closed her eyes, slowing her breathing as her pulse sped up as she finally understood what he was getting at.

"Draco, I-" she was cut off as flashes of her memories came to the top of her thoughts. Memories of her following him, pressing herself along the corridors so he wouldn't notice her watching him, memories of her writing to her father what she had seen, the memory of her using a memory charm on the young girl who had spotted him in the bathroom. The memories of her duplicating letters from his mother and father that she had taken from him unnoticed to send to her father lingered in the front of her thoughts for a while before dissolving.

Her eyes were squeezed shut when her thoughts had returned to normal and he had exited her mind. She was terrified to look at him, frozen in place. She couldn't feel the ground under her feet in her immense fear.

"So," he began softly, moving closer to her. "You think you can follow me around? Collect secrets for your father to blackmail my family with? Then become my wife as if you weren't sneaking around my coattails for your own gain? All while reaping the benefits of being my wife after having power over my family for so long? Well, I do believe it's only fair to have something over your family as well, no?"

Astoria panicked as he attempted to pull memories of information on the Greengrass family up for show. She blocked him quickly, shutting her mind down to him.

He was quiet for a moment. Deathly quietly. Then he was laughing, laughing so gently it was almost just small puffs of air. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up and an ice cold chill ran down her spine.

He was going to hurt her.

Suddenly, he was lunging at her. She gasped in alarm and stumbled back instinctively, yelping when she hit the railing hard and losing her balance over it.

Draco caught her by the throat, holding her tightly and keeping her from falling over the railing and on to the ground many, many feet below them as he cut off her breathing. She choked and grabbed onto his arms, looking at his eyes pleadingly, terrified.

"Do you think you can keep things from me? Your husband? Your owner?" He snarled, his fist squeezing harder around her neck, causing her hands to slide up to grip his tightening hand desperately as he choked her painfully.

Please, please..

"You are not a Greengrass any longer. Your loyalty is to me and my family. Which means your previous family's secrets are free to me as well. You dare believe you can block me from your mind?"

His hateful voice pounded into her head and her vision blurred and tilted, separating images from each other as he squeezed her neck impossibly hard. She tried incredibly hard to hold her composure as she grabbed more desperately at his hand. It's okay, it's okay. She held her breath all of the time. She could handle this. She just had to stop panicking.

But this was different. He was absolutely crushing her, not just physically, but the complete hatred radiating off of him was suffocating her much faster than having her air supply cut off.

Hatred for her.

"Don't you understand?" He asked, his voice now silken, calm as his eyes still danced with fury and his grip on her didn't loosen. Astoria felt herself being lifted painfully by her neck. She felt as though her head might snap off of her shoulders as her body was lifted so her thighs rested on the top of the rails and the only thing keeping her from falling was his choking hold in only one hand. "Your life belongs to me now."

He dropped her.

Her scream came out as more of a rasp as a result of him crushing her neck so effectively that the sounds she was able to make were seemingly next to none. Her stomach seemed to fall out of her as she fell from the balcony and time seemed to slow as the air both rushed past and filled her ears.

Her body jerked to a halt before she smacked against the stone ground. Her frame shook hard as a sob bubbled out of her burning throat in her relief mixed with her still existing fear. She gasped for breath, her eyes watering at how difficult it was to breath after his strong hand had damaged her neck. When she was completely pulled back up to the balcony with his wand he dropped her in front of him on the marble balcony where she fell at his feet, catching herself with her hands. She was more or less kneeling for him.

"It would be all too easy to let you die. Just another poor, depressed housewife that couldn't take the loneliness of having all of the luxuries in the world without any work to do whatsoever. So she decided to end her own life," Draco cooed in mock pity. "I could kill you so, so easily, love. It would mean absolutely nothing to me. I would get a new wife almost immediately and she would be the same pathetic and useless pretty face that you are. That's how replaceable you are. That is how meaningless you are. You are nothing other than my wife. Your loyalties will only be to me for the rest of your miserable existence, and if I catch you forgetting who you are again you can bet your pretty little head that it will be cracked open against the cold ground below us because the next time I push you off of this balcony you will make the complete fall."

She knelt at his feet, tears streaming down her face as his words cut into her so deeply that she wouldn't be surprised if she was physically bleeding out. "I-I'm s-sorry… Please…" She tried to plead to him, but her voice was mostly just the sound of breathy rasps. She wanted to explain. She needed to explain. She clutched her throat gingerly and looked up at him, trying to study his eyes through her blurry vision.

Astoria felt him attempt to enter her head again and this time she didn't block him, letting him find the magical cloak on her mind that was placed by her father and she moaned in pain as he hit it, clutching her head instead of her throat then. She panted as he backed out only to go back in with full force and she would have screamed if she could have as pain ripped through her scalp, the excruciating pain paralyzing her. She heard his feet move back as the pain of the dark magic hit him slightly as well, but not nearly as much as it had hit her. Tremors shook her whole form as the pain subsided when Draco exited her head, the aftermath leaving her whole body throbbing. She reached for him, grasping at his legs gently, trying to show him she wanted his forgiveness, needed his forgiveness.

"There's nothing," she choked out desperately. "Please, there's nothing that would interest you. It's just basic family information." She was telling the truth. The information he sought was nothing even she could understand the importance of. People who her father had worked with in secret, family numbers, a jumble of uninteresting secrets and numbers and names. Uninteresting, but still secrets nonetheless. Secrets that her father had wanted protected. Information she had to know in case anything had happened to her parents.

"If you knew things he didn't want you or anyone to know then why would he let you know them," Draco hissed, sounding confused and angry at what he had just experienced.

"Because I'm meant to know… As his child... Please, Draco."

"You're a woman."

"He doesn't have a son," she rasped, whimpering again at the pain in her throat. "And Daphne-"

She braced herself as she felt him back in her mind, but this time the pain didn't come. He was after different memories then.

"Astoria, you brat!" Eight year old Daphne Greengrass shrieked as a small Astoria dumped a cup full of pond water on her head, soaking her hair and her formal dress she was wearing for tea.

Astoria's eyes widened innocently but her loud giggle gave away her guilt and she sprinted away towards the trees, her own dress kicking up behind her. She didn't get very far as she was scooped up by a young man with dark hair and similar clear blue eyes to Astoria. He chuckled as she yelped and smacked at him, allowing her to hit him with her small hands. "Let me go! Daphne the Great Pond Monster is coming to kill me, Edric! Put me down at once!" Astoria cried, kicking her arms and legs.

Edric Greengrass walked back towards Daphne who was marching after them soaking wet, her dress now stained and filthy. "And who might have turned Daphne into the Great Pond Monster?" He asked Astoria, his voice filled with amusement.

Astoria giggled loudly again and blinked at him. "It's a secret. I can't tell you!"

"Oh, sure you can. I'm quite good at keeping secrets. It's a Greengrass trait, you know."

"Exactly, so I can't tell you because I'm a Greengrass too!" Astoria exclaimed, beaming at him. She looked at the approaching Daphne and screamed, hiding her face in her brother's chest. "Don't let her eat me, Edric! Oh, look how ugly and scary she is!"

"Let her down so I can have at her, Edric!" Daphne yelled loudly, trying to grab at Astoria's legs.

"You both need to stop torturing each other for at least an hour before our mother murders all of us," he warned.

"I did nothing! She did this to me, the terror! It's always all her fault! Always! Just let me put her out of her misery!"

"Where is the proof!" Astoria yelled, kicking at Daphne's reaching hands.

"Daphne, go ask mother to clean you up before the Malfoys see you. I see them nearly here," he told the angry child, nodding in the direction of the approaching carriage.

"Oooo! The Malfoys are going to see you in a muck, Daph! Whatever will become of you!" Astoria said in mock horror, laughing at Daphne's worried face.

Edric shushed her, snorting as he attempted to hold in his own laughter as Daphne stomped away angrily.

Astoria scowled at the approaching carriage. "I hate when they get here first. Mother is always meaner to us around them."

"Because she wants one of you to marry their son."

"Daphne can! I'd rather die."

"I hope for your sake that's true and Daphne is the one. You have an attitude that will get your little arse beat. You're not cut out to be married to a Malfoy," he scoffed.

"Good! But Daphne might be dead before then. She is really in for it now when mother sees what a mess she is," Astoria said, smirking at her brother, proud of herself.

"Why are you always getting into mischief? How is there so much evil in this teeny little body of yours?!" He asked, grinning at her and hanging her upside down.

Astoria screamed and went into a giggle fit, squirming to get away. "You better let me down! I have to hide before tea starts!"

"Oh, no you do not," Edric snorted, lifting her back right side up and setting her down. "You are not skipping tea."

"I'll die of boredom!" Astoria protested loudly, looking up at him with big eyes as if he'd just betrayed her. "The boys always get to play and I have to sit still and pretend to drink tea! It's not fair!"

"The younger boys get to play," Edric corrected her. "Believe me, I get no play nor do I get cookies and tarts as you do."

"I'm not even allowed to eat the sweets! Mother says they will make me fat. All of the sweets just sit there for no reason because nobody wants to eat them. What's the point!"

Edric chuckled again, but there was a slight sadness in his eyes now at her comment. "If you go to tea and stop making such a show of drama then I will get you some sweets for after, alright?"

She pressed her lips together and looked up at the sky as she considered his offer. "Hot cocoa too. Only if there are marshmallows."

Edric smiled and kissed the top of his little sister's curly head. "Only if there are marshmallows," he agreed.

Draco looked down at Astoria who was shaking with sobs at his feet when he pulled himself from her mind. "Mmm. It seems he does have a son, doesn't he? It seems you are unable to tell the truth," Draco said coldly as he watched her attempt hold in her sobs as she shook her head violently at his words, denying them.

He knew he was being cruel and unfair. Obviously it would be considered that Aldrich did not have a son, as he was disowned. He was also confident she was correct in that he wouldn't be too interested in whatever information was being blocked from him in her head about her family. It was likely to be the same information he possessed regarding his own as his father's heir.

But he didn't care that he wasn't being fair. He was too angry to care.

What was this magic that had attacked both of them when he had tried to gain information on her family? He had never dealt with such a confusing obstacle. What a dangerous thing for Aldrich to do - performing dark, hardly known magic on his youngest daughter's mind.

"What was it," he asked her flatly, pushing her away from him with his foot.

"I-I don't know," she choked out. He could hardly understand her words. "He just… Made it that way. He tried to do it to more of my memories, but that was all he could manage."

"Bit of an odd effect for you to be the one who suffers the most. A bit of a length just to mask some basic information."

She coughed, whimpering and holding her neck again. He watched her flinch in pain as she touched the skin around her throat that was already purpling with the print of his hand.

"You're a stupid girl to think not to tell me these things," he spat, shaking his head at how pathetic she looked.

"I am not stupid," she responded, her voice practically a whisper.

"Excuse me?" He asked, raising his eyebrow slowly, surprised at her attempt to defend herself. "You are what I say you are, and I am saying that you are a stupid girl."

Astoria didn't respond, staring down; defeated. He shook his head and turned to leave her there.

"I am in full loyalty to you. I cannot change what I've done, what my father told me to do. I didn't mean any maliciousness when I watched you. I would never betray you now. I swear to you, Draco. I am a Malfoy and my loyalty is now to my husband first," she told him weakly, her voice mournful. "I don't want you to hate me. I would have told you, but… I just have a hard time keeping all of my thoughts and memories straight. I don't… think about the things I know. I don't care. It's just a habit that was taught to me. To collect information. Believe me, I am yours. I want to be yours. I just want to be a good wife. I don't care about anything else. You can go through my mind as much as you'd like," she told him, her voice breaking and wavering as she tried to talk through her desire to weep.

He listened carefully, his anger fading as her words fell over him and his mother's desperation filled his head. Images of his mother covered in bruises left by his father flashed in his eyes as he stood there with his back to the girl he had just put his hands on.

"Just please no more... not any more... not those again," she begged him desperately.

"Trying to get that information hurt me as well. As if I'd care to harm myself again," he snapped.

"Not that.."

He turned back to look at her. Her hands were clutching her cheeks and her eyes were staring at nothing, broken. She had meant the memories of her brother. The memory had been deep, buried when he had found it, as seemed the rest of the memories of him. He thought of his first impression of Astoria - that her eyes had been filled with hope. Comparing her eyes from when she was a child to her eyes as his wife told a completely different story. There was nothing behind them anymore, only a longing for something.

Draco leaned down to pick her up gently, taking her to his bed and laying her down. An odd and chilled feeling ran through him when she looked up at him with gratefulness in her eyes.

She was thankful that he hadn't just left her own the ground he had dropped her on after choking and degrading her. His wife. His wife who had just begged for forgiveness at his feet like a beaten slave.

Again, he pictured his mother and her words from earlier in the day echoed in his mind as he stared at Astoria's bruised neck and reddened eyes. She hadn't tried to fight back once aside from blocking him from something he couldn't see anyway. His father had demanded that he break her, but there was nothing to break. She was already broken.

Draco sat at the foot of the bed and buried his face in his hands, overwhelmed with his confusing thoughts and emotions. His breathing was ragged and he didn't know where to start in his stream of thoughts, regrets, and conflicting ideas. It was all too much.

Fuck, he didn't know anymore.

He felt the bed move and he wondered if she was leaving, leaving to return to her own room. Away from him. He wouldn't stop her. He didn't want to look at her face. He didn't want to look at what he had done to her. He froze when he felt her fingers rest on his temples lightly.

"Does it still hurt?" She asked softly, concern in her broken speech from her damaged throat. Damage he had inflicted. He realized she was referring to the minor pain he had felt from the dark magic that protected her thoughts. The same dark magic that had hurt her much more than himself.

Draco's mind flashed to when he had watched his mother bandage her father's bloody knuckles gingerly, her eyes filled with genuine concern and love. Lucius's hands had been bloodied from hitting the mirrors in the manor in a fit of rage towards Narcissa, whose nose was broken and her head bleeding from the same hands that she was so carefully helping to heal. She had asked his father if any of the shards of glass had cut him anywhere else. They had cut her, seeing as the side of her neck was bleeding. Lucius never answered his wife's worried question and Draco had been helpless, watching them from the crack of the piano room door. He had been angry and confused at why his mother was helping his father after he had violently attacked her, telling her he would destroy every mirror in the house so that she would see herself as worthless as he saw her once he took away her only asset - her pretty face.

Draco grit his teeth as he pulled away from his own memory, angry at Astoria for asking such nonsense, angry at himself for putting himself in a position he never wanted to be in.

His father's position.

"I can make you something," she said, getting off the bed shakily, using her arms to lean her weight on the bed as she studied the distance from the bed to the door.

"Lay back down, Astoria," he told her, his voice surprisingly level for what he was feeling.

He felt her weight back on his bed and he summoned his house-elf who stared past him and at Astoria for a few moments, its ears flattening.

"I summoned you," Draco snapped, annoyed that the house-elf was pitying his wife that he had marked. Draco sent the servant off to get him his correct potions and he stood up from the bed, walking around to her to examine her neck. He ran his fingers over the bruising lightly, feeling her flesh throb beneath his fingers as she winced but didn't pull away from him. He examined his hand, remembering her hands on it while she had desperately tried to get him to let up on his hold. There were no claw marks on his skin. She hadn't attempted to fight him back in even then.

Only a gentle pleading.

His mother should not have done this. She shouldn't have tried to give him someone so disgustingly innocent and sincere. If he had someone like Parkinson he wouldn't be in this position. She would have stayed out of his way. She would have spent his money and been the shallow, stupid bitch he knew well and was familiar with. He knew his feelings about her. He knew her. He didn't know Astoria.

He yanked the potions from the concerned looking house-elf when it arrived and shooed it off, mixing a few drops of them in some tea. He handed her the cup and helped her sit up, noticing how dizzy she seemed. Her eyes were oddly red as well, and not just from tears, but from being choked mercilessly the way she had been. Choked mercilessly by him. He rested the back of his hand on her forehead as if that would tell him anything about the state her head was in. In that moment he accepted his regret. He wanted to express his regret to her. He wanted to apologize.

He didn't.