Alright, Draco knows! Actually, this chapter is more centered around Astoria's reaction, but hopefully you guys don't mind as it's obviously important!. All of you seem interested in the beginnings of Edric and Ophelia's relationship, and I definitely plan on giving it to you! Stay tuned for that, but you all are awesomely loyal so I know you'll stay tuned anyway. I've been so surprised by the amount of reviews and LENGTH of reviews I've been receiving, oh my goodness! It's beyond amazing! Oh, and oh my God! One hundred thousand words! Damn, have I written that many chapters? Geez, this is a slow moving relationship isn't it? Someone commented about not usually liking memories, and I'm the same, especially when they're written in italics (yes, I have a limit with italics ;)). I take that as a huge compliment that you don't hate them in my story. I know my author's notes are always just a bunch of thanks, but I can't just not thank you. As for Astoria claiming to have some warm memories of Aldrich (wow, throwback to the first chapters!), I'll explore that as well. As for seeing Aldrich in general, you'll see him in memories, but I don't know when he will come in present time as of yet. Not for suspense reasons necessarily, but just because there are other things to get to before that. Please tell me what you think, as your thoughts and support are half of this story! Happy reading! Oh, and those of you rooting for Theo better enjoy this chapter while you can because um.. Ahem. Yeah, sorry 'bout it. ;)

I don't own anything from Harry Potter.

Astoria was frozen when Draco stood to attack Theodore, staring through the violent scene as she struggled to focus her thoughts, confused and shocked by what the Pensieve had shown. She finally cleared her sight to see Draco crash into the coffee table as Theodore cursed him back when she was taken over by a flood of memories that slammed into her mind in a long, fast and overwhelming stream. She choked on a burst of emotion, emotions she didn't have until now and she brought her hands up to her head, her eyes moving wildly as she tried to land her attention on just one thread of memory.

All of them of Theodore.

She had never noticed how much of her fifth year was missing, never noticed because she barely remembered most of her years at Hogwarts. They were all blurs of the happenings and information of others, as that's what she had always focused her attention on.

That year, she had her own happenings.

Her head pounded as the sweet exchanges between her and Theodore from that year echoed in her ears, his reassuring words sincere and penetrating. His lips on her head, his lips on her cheek, his lips at her ear.

Hot and paralyzing anger poured through her as she realized what he had done, what he had stolen from her against her will, against her naive trust.

Oh to trust a man in such a way, her mother would mock her so.

She was so tired of not having her mind to herself, the men in her life had to tarnish every single aspect of it that she couldn't even call it her own, she didn't even belong to herself.

Her ears rung as she registered Theodore scrambling up from the ground, throwing unintelligible curses at her husband who she wasn't looking at, wasn't as angry at.

She was so incredibly angry at Theodore, angry at all of the men who stole her privacy from her, her emotions, her world. She accepted that when her memories meant next to nothing, when all of her thoughts surrounded mundane and impersonal nonsense, could tolerate it when she knew what to expect; knew what to prepare herself for.

She hadn't been prepared for this, hadn't been prepared to feel.

She couldn't tolerate this. This was too much.

And he had taunted her, he had flaunted himself in her face knowing full well of their history, knowing she belonged to another man. He mocked her with his advances, mocked her with his flirting and made her into an object to infuriate Draco.

What was wrong with him, the man who had claimed to love her.

The man she loved.

A numbness crossed her as her anger flashed into a chill, her eyes taking in Blaise shoving Theodore back and Adrian disarming Draco. Both of the men were bloody, both of the men were savagely angry.

Though she doubted them as angry as herself.

Astoria rose slowly, her eyes fixed on Theodore as she drew her wand, stepping towards the men who were not paying attention to her.

Rarely did anyone pay attention to her.

"What right," she began, her voice coming much clearer and colder than she had thought possible in the unstable state she was in. "What right do you believe you had to me, to my mind, to think you could erase my own life from me?"

Theodore stared at her, the fury in his eyes fading to an odd, pained expression as she moved towards him, her wand fixed on him as the room blurred around his form, her target.

She didn't allow him to answer before she cursed him wordlessly, watching him double over in pain, not attempting to defend himself with his own wand.

Of course he wouldn't fight her properly. She was just a fragile woman to him.

"What right," she demanded again, thrusting her wand forward again to throw him back to hit the wall. "You had no right," she hissed, answering her question for him.

If he wanted to abuse her mind, it was only fair if she were allowed to do the same to his. She focused her attention on him as she pointed her wand towards his head, drawing his strongest memories of pain to his attention, watching him intently as he curled in on himself, tortured sounds escaping his lips.

The lips that had claimed hers just before he had obliviated her.

She closed her mouth to cover a cry and she began recklessly throwing any curse she could think of at him, her vision blurring completely now as tears gathered in her eyes, blinding her.

"Let me go!" She cried out angrily, fighting against the arms pulling her back, forcing her wand from her hands and the faint sound of apparition was heard in the room. She turned in Adrian's arms, shoving away from him angrily. "Let me go," she repeated again once released from his grasp, grabbing at her head.

"Astoria," he said cautiously, concern in his tone. "You're alright. They've left. All of them."

All of them.

She felt a pain where her hand had dragged along her temple and into her hair and she pulled her hand down to stare at her bloodied wedding ring that had twisted around so the stones were palm-side up.

Draco.

Draco knew, and he found out just at the same time she did, even though it had happened in her fifth year.

Such intimate memories that he shouldn't know, and memories that she should have known before tonight.

"Astoria," Adrian repeated her name gently. "I think you should come home with me. Draco is very angry, and he's not very rational. I don't want you to suffer his temper."

"No," she told him, shaking her head as she wiped her eyes shakily. "No, I am fine."

She wasn't fine, she had never felt less fine.

Another lie.

Adrian was quiet, and she could feel his eyes on her though she didn't look at him. Why was he still here? Why did he care?

She just wanted to be alone.

"Please come to my home if you need to. There's no shame in it, and Draco won't do anything to me. I want you to be safe, and Daphne wants you to be safe. I don't know if I've ever seen him so angry."

She nodded numbly, wishing for him to let her be, though a part of her latched onto his showing of friendship. She had so little experience with it.

She dully felt Adrian kiss her head and murmur his sympathy to her.

"I'm sorry, love. He's a fucking arsehole." She wasn't sure which arsehole he meant.

When he finally left, the silenced smothered her.

She expected to cry; she needed to cry. The lump in her throat was so incredibly painful that she silently begged herself to cry to relieve it.

But she just stood there, stood there for several minutes as she took in her new reality.

She was in love, and it wasn't with the man she was married to.

She was just beginning to get comfortable as Draco's wife. She was beginning to fall into the role she was meant to play, and she was beginning to have quite the affection for Draco. He was a difficult man to maneuver, but he wasn't horrible. He had been warming up to their relationship, and now she was sure he'd be cold as ice to her once more.

Now she felt what real affection for a man felt like, and it ruined how she was beginning to feel about her husband.

It was all his fault.

She trembled slightly, feeling her malicious feelings for Theodore melting away. She fought to hold onto them, needing to hate him. She couldn't love him, couldn't want him. He had hurt her, he had taken advantage of her, he had treated her in a way he had no right to, he had broken her trust.

But she loved him.

She placed a hand over her mouth, squeezing her eyes shut as her thoughts were at war with each other. She felt nauseated and confused, and worst of all out of control. So out of control.

Love.

Love had come back to mock her again, had come back to be taken from her again.

She breathed unevenly in the silence as it became overbearing in her ears. There was nothing to focus on besides her own mind, which was currently murdering her. She would be fine, she would be fine, she would be fine.

She wasn't fine.

She was wrong, she didn't want to be alone. She hated being alone. She needed a distraction, she needed someone to take her away from her thoughts and creeping heartbreak. As soon as she stopped being furious she knew she would recognize her heartbreak, a faintly familiar feeling. She began to hum in order to fill the silence, a melody that came from her mother, though her voice was wavering and pathetic and the tune came out more strangled than anything musical. These feelings were reminding her of the old. The feelings so buried and left in the back of her heart in hopes to be forgotten and they scalded her as they began their attempts to resurface.

The men in her life all exhausted her in some sort of way. They all hurt her, took from her, or abandoned her. No matter what she did or how hard she tried to please them, she just couldn't win.

They always won.

She was beginning to understand her mother's bitterness and advices, though she had never wanted to before.

Astoria stood there for a long time. She wasn't sure how long, but when she moved to look at the clock it was well past the late hours. She was still humming, and her tune was much more level now. She had settled her thoughts enough to be in control again, but unfortunately her anger had faded next to nothing, and only her hopeless love remained.

Draco wasn't back, and she wasn't sure at which point he had left when she had been attacking Theodore. She was sure he was angry with her, though it was not her fault. It was not as if she had lied to him, but then again men had a way of making it the woman's fault. Perhaps he'd be angry at her for attacking him. That was not proper of her one bit, and she had made more than one scene of anger in front of his friends already, and she had been warned.

Perhaps he'd think her a slut for simply kissing the man. Kissing him right next to his bed, seemingly willing to give him anything he wanted. She had been willing to give him anything and everything he wanted. She had trusted him.

She was stupid.

She was so stupid, so naive. How could she be so naive? She had not been raised to be naive. What if she had had sex with him and had been falsely pure? Then Draco would truly have a wounded pride.

"Men want their women as pure and innocent as possible so they can wipe their filthy hands on us and feel cleansed," her mother would always say.

Filthy, filthy hands they had.

Her stinging eyes settled on the Pensieve, quiet and calm in the dark and mess of a room now that the men had torn it up in their feud. She grit her teeth, raising her wand to move it back to the corner of the room, charming it to appear as nothing, wishing away its existence. She had to leave, she had to get out of this cold place.

Though when she left, she didn't go to the Pucey's.

The Nott house-elf allowed her in, informing her that Mrs. Nott was not at home, but that she was welcome to wait for Joseph Nott to come down if she'd like. She shook her head, asking to be directed to Theodore's bedroom and the house-elf blinked at her, a look of judgement coming into the creature's eyes.

"Right this way, Mrs. Malfoy," the elf said, sneering the last bit.

Nasty thing.

Astoria followed the house-elf up to the doors of Theodore's bedroom and she waved her hand dismissively at it, watching it snort and walk away, grumbling about her marriage status and how with it she was coming to another man's bedroom.

Astoria opened his door without knocking, entering his bedroom and closing the door behind her before slowly looking up to find him getting up from his bed, looking at her with both surprise and caution.

He was a mess, and she couldn't tell which injuries were from her and which injuries were from Draco. She was sure Draco was in a similar state, as she knew neither of them had won the fight seeing as they had been broken up before it could be finished. She could see why it had been broken apart by Blaise and Adrian based on the state Theodore was in. She felt her face soften immediately at his appearance, guilt stabbing at her for this wounded man she unfortunately had feelings for.

Her Theo.

She swallowed and forced her face to harden again, but quickly noticed from the expression on Theodore's face that he had caught her look of sympathy for him.

"Astoria," he started, stepping towards her.

She held up her hands, not wanting him to come to close to her. "Don't. Just explain yourself, Theodore," she said quietly, looking away from his eyes, those eyes that brought memories she wasn't used to having.

He stopped, nodding slowly. "I.. I loved you," he said, looking from her as he thought of what to say. "I love you. You have to know that."

Astoria bit into her tongue painfully, her chest physically in pain at his words. She remembered him now as a younger boy, her childhood friend, memories that were less clear to before were fresh and vivid to her now.

This was already too much.

"My mother is.. A bit stuck in the past. She's not as horrible about that when she's sober, which is rare, but as you know my parents have a past with your mother. She wanted revenge, and I just wanted her to finally be done with it. I was also a bit cross with you at the time, as you seemed to have forgotten that we had been friends and you were different, focused on other things. Focused on Malfoy, sixth year especially. I was bitter after sixth year, and going into seventh I had convinced myself I was fine with seducing you.. Ruining you. I was wrong of course, as I had always cared about you too much to wish such humiliation upon you. I was only jealous of the fact you never paid much attention to me after we were kids. So I fell for my own seduction. I couldn't have done that to you, Astoria. I couldn't have broken you that way, disrespected you that way, and I knew I would have been able to. I knew you would have given me what I wanted, and fuck I wanted it." His eyes darkened at his own words at the end. "I definitely wanted it."

Astoria was silent, slowly picking apart the details of his story, ignoring the stirring in her at his last statement.

"You asked me if it bothered me," she said finally, watching his eyes.

He shook his head slowly, indicating that he wasn't following.

"If it bothered me that people had a habit of underestimating me."

"Ah," he said, his eyebrows coming together. "Yes, I remember."

"I didn't think it did, but now," she broke off, taking a breath to steady her voice. "Now that you underestimating me has resulted in this: I'd like to change my answer."

"I didn't-"

"You did," she cut him off, gritting out her words. "Do you believe I didn't know of your family's distaste for me? I know our women. I know how to read them, and I can see through the false niceties we all put on for each other. You didn't attempt to tell me the truth, and you continued to lie to me and tell me your parents liked me just fine. Which was alright with me, it let me pretend longer, but I never imagined you'd just.. Steal us from me. You didn't give me a choice, Theodore. You didn't let me choose what I wanted to do. You took a part of me with you when you erased my memories. You did that because you thought you knew what was best and that I was just too precious and incapable to handle things for myself, or at the very least handle them with you. Do you think I'm stupid, Theo?"

"Of course I don't think you're stupid, Astoria," he told her, his voice weak now at her words. "I just-"

"You must think so, and it's alright. I am. I was stupid for letting myself fall in love with you, and stupid for trusting you not to hurt me."

"I'm sorry, Tori," he said, his voice shaky now.

"It's not okay." Tears were filling her eyes now, and she looked away from his that were too sincere, too caring for her to handle. "It's not okay. I'm not okay, and It hurts. It hurts. I love you now and it hurts so terribly because I'm not yours, and now I never will be. Yet still, you took a piece of my life from me and you still make advances, you still taunt my husband, you still mess with our marriage. You have absolutely no right to do that."

"I never claimed nobility."

"Never claimed nobility," she repeated slowly, scoffing. "Wasn't this whole act meant to be noble?"

"It's fucking torture to see you with him," he ground out. "It fucking kills me to know you have his name, sleep in his bed, touch him. It fucking murders me to know how he mistreats you."

"It's all mistreatment from men. It just comes in different forms," she replied coldly.

Ah, she wasn't sure if she ever felt more like her mother.

He paused, searching her eyes. "Are you going to attack me again, Tori?" He asked, an odd amusement filling his futures.

She scowled in confusion at his change of tone. "I won't apologize for that. I'm sorry I displayed something different from the girl you fell in love with, but I won't apologize for hurting you." Yet, she did feel sorry for hurting him, for making him bleed. So many lies tonight.

"You're wrong," he said simply.

"What?"

"You're wrong. It's the same girl, it's all the same girl," he murmured, shaking his head as his gaze became unfocused.

Suddenly, all she wanted to do was go to him. Go to him and bury herself in him, rest in his arms, bury her face in his chest, and inhale his now familiar warm scent. She was crumbling, and crumbling fast. "Did I hurt you very badly?"

"I thought you didn't care about that." His tone was smug now, and she regretted her question.

"I said that I wouldn't apologize, not that I didn't care."

"So you do care."

"Of course I care," she told him, glaring at him in frustration. "I love you."

"You love me," he confirmed, nodding. "Good."

"No, it's not good. It's terrible, and it ruins everything in my life. I was just beginning to truly care for Draco-"

"No," he cut her off, his tone firm and icy. "No you don't truly care for Draco."

"You stole my contentment! You stole my chance at being okay in my marriage."

"Settling."

"I have to settle. We all settle. That's what we do, Theo. You know that by now, and the evidence is in almost every single relationship around us."

He said nothing, because he knew she was right.

"And now it's so much harder. It's so much harder because I love you, but I belong to another man," she choked out, wiping her eyes roughly before her tears fell.

"You're wrong again, Tori," he said, his eyes glinting with a cold humor. "You're mine, and you have always been mine."

Astoria's shoulders fell, defeated at his words as they burned her, making her body aware of just how much she wished she was with him and not her husband, wished she were truly his. "Why are you doing this to me?"

He sighed, giving her a tired look. "Because I'm a fucking arsehole, Astoria."

She had to laugh at his confirmation of Adrian's words, and she wondered how crazy she must look as she laughed in the emotional state she was in.

"We have to say goodbye," she said after a while of silence between them.

"Indeed," he agreed solemnly.

"This time I'd like my memory to remain intact."

"No worries as the scene is not quite the same"

She took a deep breath, making what was most likely the wrong decision. "I was getting to that."

His head turned slightly and his eyes flashed with something animalistic. "Oh? I'm not sure what you mean."

"I want.." She started before frowning, feeling silly now; shy. "I want you to kiss me goodbye."

A slow, triumphant smirk spread over his face and he began to move towards her, his body language predatory. She took a step back, her heart pounding now. She had not suspected this reaction as he had been sweet with her the first time, had always been sweet with her.

"Are you honestly smirking at a time like this?" She spluttered out, her demanding tone weak.

He ignored her, grabbing her face in his hands as he eyed her mouth hungrily. "You shouldn't allow me to do this, love. This was a mistake," he purred before his eyes flicked up to look into hers. "Because I'm going to make it so every time he touches you now you'll only ever be able to think of me."

He kissed her then, his lips hard and bruising against hers. She struggled for a moment, caught off guard by the intensity.

This was not the goodbye she had meant.

But she kissed him back just as hard, all thoughts of sanity falling away as she felt the raw passion for the man she loved pounding in her head. She didn't remember anything then, not her husband, not her duties, not her morals. She only remembered this man and her feelings for him, her needs for him.

She cried out in surprise and slight pain when she was picked up and slammed against his bedroom door, his hands pushing up her body as he touched her, claimed her. She felt her magic pulsate in alarm, warning her that this was not who she was magically bound to, that this was not her husband.

Draco would definitely know now if he didn't already.

His hands were not careful like Draco's, not nearly as calculated. They were messy and harsh as they dragged against her body over her clothing, only barely avoiding her most intimate places that he somehow had enough respect and control to not go near.

Though her body certainly wished him to.

Which he both knew and wanted, which was why his touches were so merciless. As he said: he never claimed nobility. He wanted her to ache for him, and he wanted her to ache for him long after their goodbye.

His mouth broke from hers to drag down her neck and she gathered in some needed air that his relentless mouth had been denying her. She had to end this. She had to stop this before it went much too far.

It had already gone much too far.

He seemed to sense her limits and he set her down gently, bringing her away from the door. Her body whined at her, begging her to push herself back against him and have him take her to his bed.

Absolutely not, she was not that out of control.

His face was different now. Sad and gentle. He took her face in his hands again, gently now to cup it lightly. He kissed her again softly, his lips sweet and apologetic and he ended the kiss much quicker than the first.

"Goodbye, Astoria."

She felt the emotion in her building again, nearly feeling her heart tear at his words, the finality of their exchange sinking into her.

"Goodbye, Theodore."