Momentous

-Draco/Astoria-

It all starts when Draco Malfoy makes a momentous decision. For most people, it would take a split second to decide whether or not to dance, especially when the girl in question has silvery blonde hair and a pretty smile with nice plump lips and a good-looking arse that he notices even from over here.

But Draco is not the dancing type, especially not at these high society balls with suffocating tuxedoes and the smell of too-strong champagne, and in the end it's pure boredom that nudges him in the direction of Astoria Greengrass. Maybe she'll be alright for a cheap feel or a drink or two, but he's certainly not expecting anything major that'll last beyond fulfilling his night.

They do the traditional thing – Draco just knows that his mother is watching him, wondering if this girl will be the one and scrutinising her family with her wide, heavy lidded eyes – bowing and introducing themselves before beginning to sway in time to the music. It's pretty crappy, Draco thinks, a big band swing with no big feeling, but he sways along anyway, wondering if he should say something to this girl with her hand on his waist and her eyes on his face.

"You were in the same year as my sister," Astoria says finally; her voice is ethereal as though it's just an observation – which for her, it probably is – and then she stares at him as he mumbles, "oh shit."

Draco Malfoy has screwed up several times before, but this is probably the most monumental fuck up in the history of… well everything really.

"What?" Her face changes just as much as his, while he closes down, avoids letting his cold grey eyes connect with hers, she opens up, and her heart shaped face becomes kinder and kinder, as though it is undergoing metamorphosis before his very eyes. "I know you dated my sister, so if that's all you're panicking about… and I thought Slytherins were supposed to be brave."

Draco still thinks she's hot – because there's no denying it, she is – but to be quite honest, her sharp tongue scares him, and he thinks that those blood red lips might just be able to inflict more pain than they're really worth. They're bright and plump and for a split second he wonders what it would be like to kiss her, and then he stops, because that's not the attitude of a conqueror –

(oh how Blaise would laugh at Draco the Fickle Shrew, sleeping around because he can't deal with the aftermath of everything that's happened in the past year).

Instead, he just says, "you knew?"

"Of course. She's my sister, we tell each other everything. She's happy with Theodore Nott, anyway, and she doesn't think twice about you and your stupid mistake." Astoria does this annoying thing where she taps her teeth together and looks at him in mock disgust. "How could you dump her arse for Pansy Parkinson anyway?"

"Yeah well… look how that turned out."

They say no more, because this is a ball and Draco's mother has a beady eye on them, and instead they dance around some more. Neither of them is particularly coordinated, but both were forced to ballroom lessons by their mothers at the age of ten – eight years ago that is, and Draco's been through so much, and yet he can still do the tango with all the skill of a bumbling ten-year old sulking about not being allowed a broom.

They waltz around, his stupid too-tight dancing shoes scraping against the cool tiles and their hands intertwined. The conversation flickers between the new elections for Minister of Magic and Quidditch, and neither of them find common ground in sports or politics, despite the fact that their families supposedly spent fifteen years on the same side of the war and life and everything.

Astoria smells like flowers - roses mostly - an exquisite fragrance that's making Draco want to do things to her neck that are probably illegal in several Eastern European countries and definitely prohibited here on the dance floor under the gaze of his mother; Narcissa is sipping sparkling wine and trying to act like her husband is simply in the Men's Room, and it's not fooling anyone.

He wants to pass this off as simply lust, but he's experienced a lot of that in the last year and this isn't it. So he suggests that they take a walk out into the garden, and Astoria agrees, and they both wonder why, because it isn't exactly like they've hit it off or anything.

"You like reading Pride and Prejudice?" Draco asks in disbelief, swinging his legs back and forth in time to the music that resounds from inside. "Didn't your parents kill you?"

"They would have if they'd found out."

"Oh." Draco is nonchalant as they sit on this wall in the moonlight, swinging their limbs and talking about whatever comes to mind, because they've exhausted Hogwarts (or at least what they'll discuss about it without fidgeting nervously and making a hasty subject change), and neither of them really care for Granger's new bill on House Elf Rights. "I think it's your turn to ask me a question?"

"Sure, although I don't know -" Astoria stops halfway through her sentence, and she glows with the power of a revelation, or at least a good idea. "You have to be honest, too. Are the rumours true?"

"Which rumours?" Draco asks in reply, smoothing over that mask of indifference and misunderstanding that he's worn so often lately. He doesn't know if she's worth the boredom that's dissipated, but she's obviously worth something, so he waits anxiously for him to answer him.

"The ones about you and… well… half the female population of Britain, I suppose. Although I certainly hope you didn't shag McGonagall."

They both shudder, and remember back to a world of ringing bells and flashes of tartan and having to turn a mouse into a rabbit (Draco's bit him). He quickly changes the subject, asking what Astoria thinks of Fleur Weasley's dress and if it's revealing enough. They both know he's changed the subject and they both know that it will come up again one day, but for now, they've come to an agreement on something other than that Ministry parties should be banned and that they don't really hate each other, no matter what went on with various other family members months ago, and that's the most momentous decision of them all.

I don't know what to make of this, to be honest. It's a lot like I imagine Draco and Astoria working (and it's given me a greater insight into his character, because as many of you know I can't stand him, and this has made me a little more sympathetic), but I don't know... I just think I can write better than this. This is what my muse demanded that I spit out, at any rate, and seeing as he (I've named him Caspian) is my best friend right now, I'm going with it. This was written for Pinky Green's Ten Things Challenge at the Harry Potter Fanfiction Challlenges Forum. The ten prompts I used were dancing shoes, kiss, red, moonlight, fragrance, intertwine(d), lust, bells, music and flowers. Have fun trying to spot all ten words, at any rate.