Chapter Sixty Seven

Downpours and Departures

AN: The following post contains sections that have not received a final edit—and for that I am endlessly sorry. But it's been five months since since the last update and I'm making the executive decision to just upload this before it ends up languishing forever in the half-finished purgatory that is my Documents folder. I'll be going through and doing some polishing throughout the week. My apologies if there are more than the average number of typos until I do.

0o0

The threat of a storm—little more than a distant, purple horizon at dawn—came to full fruition at noon, when the sky opened up and perilous sheets of water came crashing down like canon fire. It was the type of rain that knew no peace: immediately, it established a temporary but violent dominance over nature, gouging craters in the red-clay hillside and slithering across the sea in rowdy green curlicues. Outside the Mendels' first floor drawing room, even the meticulously tended lavender and palm gardens were quickly reduced to weeping clusters of hunchbacked weeds.

Meanwhile, inside the same garden-adjacent room, the atmosphere hung heavy with the promise of human drama. Cooped up and restless (Maudlin's plans for an outing on his father's boat officially dashed) there was nothing else to do but sit around behind the water-laced french doors and wait. This was a plan that went against Astoria's wishes in every way—forcing most of the company together (Luc and Élise remained mercifully preoccupied upstairs) but providing them with nothing to do by way of a distraction. The resulting tension—partly an invention of Astoria's imagination and partly a byproduct of boredom—was soon so strong that it waxed palpable; a thunderous white noise of irritability.

Wanting to keep busy, Astoria begrudgingly spread out the pile of donation forms that Cassandra had dropped off before breakfast and pushed aside another bouquet of tea roses. Without further ado, she began to compose rough drafts, pausing only to check the bruised sky for signs of sunshine.

"Why do people live in the country?" demanded Maudlin for the fourth or fifth time. "All it does is rain here."

Hunched low in his seat, he looked every bit the part of a petulant child. From where Astoria was sitting, she could make out nothing more than top of his wavy hair and the soles of his velvet day-shoes. For the first time in her life, she almost wished he would drink something.

"Your father expects it'll pass before sundown," returned Alec mechanically, making no secret of the fact that he already anticipated having to repeat himself.

Roused by Astoria's state of protracted silence, Maudlin's tone suddenly took on a hint of nosy irritation.

"What are you doing, Astoria?" he complained."Writing a novel?"

"Letters," Astoria murmured vaguely, keen to remain focused on her work—or, at the very least, to appear to be.

"What did Cassandra want earlier?" he pressed, heedless of the comically industrious frown she'd put on to deter him. "Did she ask you about that elf again?"

"No," huffed Astoria, finally peering over the tip of her quill. "She asked me to do chores for her—to write thank you notes—which I am now doing. Obviously."

This was enough to shut Maudlin up, but only for a minute.

"Thank you notes?" he repeated dubiously. "To who—half the western world?"

This was not so very far off the mark, but it goaded her just the same.

"To every person who's donated so much as a Knut to the Sisters of the Eastern Star this year," she admitted, massaging her eyes.

"Don't do them," Maudlin sneered. "Skip off. Play cards with me instead."

Nobody was actually playing cards, but Astoria understood his motive to start up a game. Her preoccupation, although tedious, gave her purpose, thereby separating her from the rest of the group.

"She'll just come back again," Astoria sighed. "Better to finish up now and be done with them."

"Copy out a template," insisted Maudlin, finally sitting up straight. "I'll magic them for you. She won't notice—she's not going to read them all."

This was a very tempting offer, but it rankled just the same. If Astoria produced notes that did not appear to be handwritten (and individually worded), then Cassandra would know that she had cheated; a prospect she found even more irritating than the work itself. Sure enough, just like a sore tooth or a hangnail, her nerves responded with a thunderous roll of discomfort the minute she applied any pressure to the idea.

"No," Astoria grunted willfully. "She will read them because she knows that I'm underage. That's the point."

"Why you?" This from Draco, who was slouching contentedly in the corner and projecting an attitude that was at once more smug and powerfully superior than Astoria had witnessed in a good long while. The quality of his eye-contact, however, was something altogether new—shuttered and private, more like a message passed between co-conspirators than a threat.

"Because she loathes me," Astoria muttered, biting her tongue. Draco's nosy method of questioning her was almost as annoying as Maudlin's whiny one, but the memory of his very recent touch (to say nothing of the expectation in his gaze) was enough to soften her aggravation into silence. She resisted the urge to add: "and because Maudlin made it sound like I was shagging him."

"Well, I think she's obsessed with you," returned Draco. "She never misses an opportunity to talk about you."

A sly excitement seemed to underscore this pronouncement, giving Astoria the impression that Draco was voicing aloud an idea that he'd been working on for quite some time.

"Pfft," Astoria scoffed. "She's obsessed with Roland Yaxley. I'm just the nasty diversion she saves for when he's already got a lunch date."

"Hah!" chuckled Maudlin bitterly. "Poor bloke. If he knew what was good for him, he'd have dumped her already. Isn't Yaxley your cousin, though? Couldn't you just have a word with him?"

Astoria tensed.

"You should warn him!" Maudlin persisted. "Tell him what Cassandra's really like..."

Out of nowhere, a phantom-like replica of Belladonna Lestrange's voice went off between Astoria's ears like an alarm bell: 'Don't you dare!'

Astoria recognized this imaginary tone at once and placed it; it was not Belladonna's usual air of haughty amusement, nor one of her exasperated sighs. It was a clipped, authoritative command—the sharp order of a debutante who had never learned to tolerate hearing the word 'no': expectant, utterly cross and calculated to make her feel guilty. The voice was not real—in fact, it was little more than a concerning figment of her imagination—but it was altogether impossible to ignore. Even in absence, Belladonna always found a way to have the final word.

"Don't be stupid," Astoria muttered.

Truth be told, Maudlin's idea (or some vengeful, half-formed version of it) had already occurred to her months ago, during one of Cassandra's Sisters of the Eastern Star meetings. But just as she had then, Astoria immediately dismissed it as folly. After all, when it came right down to it, what did she actually have on Roland Yaxley? The fact that he was related to Astoria was already common knowledge; the fact that he was only nice to her (if one counted his clipped and formal addresses as 'nice') because of a potential inheritance dispute was not—but just how much did that amount to, really? Almost nothing. He had never put a hand on Astoria, had never even attempted to discuss their confusing family dynamics with her alone. He wasn't guilty of anything but omission and, for all she knew, he wasn't even guilty of that: perhaps he had already confided the truth about the Yaxley-Lestrange inheritance squabble to Cassandra in private?

No, encouraging any drama in that quarter only raised the chances that her own private affairs would be made public—and probably in the most embarrassing way, too. She did not want that to happen. She'd rather write a million letters than let that happen...

"It's not stupid if it saves a man from drowning," scoffed Maudlin, clearly thrown by her hard stance on the matter. "Since when are you afraid of Cassandra?"

"I'm not—" Astoria huffed, cutting herself off before she said something stupid.

Sloppy, she realized, you're being sloppy.

Draco inclined his head toward her, his arrogant expression suddenly off-set by a flicker of subdued curiosity. Astoria did not much like this look. Personality-wise, Draco could be just as self-involved as Maudlin, but unlike Maudlin, he occasionally had the capacity to really notice things; to patch together pieces of a larger suspicion and store them away for later use. Observation was one of the foundation stones of his arsenal and Astoria rarely stuttered or floundered mid-sentence. She could tell that he had noticed.

"Fine. Maybe," she relented, positive that she would do no such thing. "Let's play cards."

Maudlin let out a pleased puff of breath and bent over to withdraw a deck from the side table. At the same moment, a crack of lightning filled the room, illuminating his elegant but haughty profile from the side like a Victorian cameo. Behind him, perfectly captured by the electric brilliance of the temporary lighting, Alec unfolded himself from his armchair and wandered off to claim a seat behind the piano.

"Missing two queens and an ace," Maudlin declared, counting out the deck. "What about a game of backgammon, then? I know there's a board and some pieces in the library—father hates cards, but he does love dice..."

Astoria shrugged. Alec removed his jacket with a twitch of brooding indifference and plunked a piano key—a nervy, high-pitched note from the treble cleft that made her hair stand on end.

"Draco, you come with me," Maudlin continued, mentally calculating a plan. "Alec's busy and Astoria's employed. Maybe we can rustle up some scotch from the globe bar..."

Astoria watched Draco stand, wishing she had an excuse to keep him in the room with her. She did not really believe that he would betray her to Maudlin, but the idea of the two of them spending any time alone together made her feel more tense than Alec's ominous piano rift did.

"Nervous?"

Astoria blinked; her gaze withdrew from the living room door and snapped toward Alec.

"Sorry?" she chattered loosely, jolted. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Alec shrugged, but a coy and controlled smile was toying with the hard line of his mouth. Calm, blond and frightfully monotone: it was hard to know what, if anything, he was insinuating.

"Have you ever see someone so determined to drive himself to a poetic death?" Alec continued, deftly clarifying his subject.

"Maudlin?" Astoria snorted, relieved. She'd though he meant Draco. "He's just been blue lately, that's all. He'll sort himself out."

Alec began to play a short piece. Astoria watched his hands; his fingers moved deftly—almost lazily—producing lovely music full of trembling peaks and mournful lows that ran together like water tumbling over rocks.

"There's nothing poetic about being miserable," Astoria challenged.

"Of course there is," Alec rebutted and his self-assurance immediately called on her to agree with him. "Melancholy is sensual because it's a choice."

"Being sad isn't a choice," Astoria scoffed. "What about when someone dies? You call that poetry?"

"Different," Alec shook his head, betraying just a trace of the Russian accent he'd mostly outgrown. "That's grief. Maudlin isn't grieving—he's indulging himself."

Astoria ran a hand over her forehead and resisted the impulse to smile. Alec's assessment was utterly correct: Maudlin was doing everything in his power to make himself more miserable. And for what?

"Maybe," she allowed, "but he doesn't seem to know any better."

"Therein lies the irony," agreed Alec. His smile tightened into something more conspiratorial. "He's a poet and he doesn't even know it."

In Alec's hands, the traditional sing-song of this old rhyme took on a darker, mocking context.

"You're his best friend," Astoria insinuated. "You tell him he's being ridiculous."

"He never listens to me," Alec chuckled. "Why should he? I'm the problem child—he's the prodigal son."

This was an odd way of putting things and the comment immediately struck her as being unusually revealing on Alec's part.

"You think you're the problem child?" Astoria wondered, amused by the thought. Surely, between Alec and Maudlin, there could be no question about which of the two was more in control of his own actions and emotions?

"Of course I am." Alec's song tapered off, became experimental, uncertain. "In all of the public ways, at least. And those are the ones that matter—at least to people like Maudlin."

Astoria contemplated this.

"He always listens to you," she decided.

"In matters practical," agreed Alec rather wryly. "But he thinks I ought to have respected my Father more or, at the very least, that I ought to return home more often. To say nothing of the fact that I was expelled from Beauxbatons before I was sixteen. Maudlin would have me plan a war for him but, as far as he's concerned, I'm in no position to offer any advice on dignity and decorum."

"You really think he's heading for some kind of meltdown?" Astoria asked, no longer even pretending to be thinking about her paperwork.

"Assuredly," Alec smirked. "But perhaps something of the kind is overdue. Poor Maudlin has never fallen out of line in his life—and stopping him now would be like trying to reverse the direction of a stream, wouldn't it?"

"Are we just making conversation or are you actually asking me to do something about it?" Astoria finally wondered, deciding to adopt Alec's tone of direct but careless confidence. In the back of her mind, however, she could not help but wonder if the question she should have asked was: 'Are you warning me?'

Alec shrugged and a clatter in the hall indicated that Maudlin and Draco were returning with the dice.

0o0

Backgammon proved disastrous, mostly because it was a game that Maudlin (whose luck at cards verged on the occult) had no natural skill for. Far from keeping the peace, it merely encouraged a more open form of hostility. Still busy with her letters, Astoria watched uncomfortably as Draco and Alec took turns ruling the board, leaving Maudlin at first to sulk, and then—eventually—to heckle them without notice. When Maudlin finally cracked and tossed a book at the couch (blindly—it skimmed past Astoria's ear by less than an inch, its picture inhabitants hollering nosily) she retired the letters completely. The party broke up early to prepare for lunch, so Astoria wasted no time in fleeing back to her room (ignoring Maudlin's continuing profusion of bashful apologies behind her).

The pattering cacophony of rain was even louder in her suite on the second floor. For the first time since leaving home, a distinct chill pervaded Astoria's limbs; her fingers felt dumb, her skin prickly and exposed. Anxious to change into something warmer, she shoved open her suitcase and surveyed her options: sundresses in cotton and linen; shorts; a single silky evening gown. Nothing capable of withstanding the cold.

Settling for a sundress with sleeves, Astoria ran hot water from bathroom tap until heady steam rose up around her in vaporous curlicues. When she judged that the water was hot enough, she held her hands under the spray until they regained some of their usual dexterity and then, without further ado, exited back into the hall.

The sound of the storm was curiously muffled in this part of the house—a tempest held at bay by the sheer height of the corridor and its runner-carpeted interior. After so much noise, the sleepy and lonely silence was so distracting that it was a moment before she noticed Draco. He was alone, propped up on a small couch at the furthest end of the hall with his head bent over a series of slim letter packets.

For the briefest of moments, Astoria hesitated. A month ago, she would have left him to it—surely the majority of his post had come from his father and was therefore private?—but at the last second, realizing that she had nothing else to do until their meal was served, she swerved away from the staircase and continued walking until she'd cleared the guest wing and started along the north facing corridor. Removed from the vaulted catacombs of the main hall once more, the rain resumed its rhythmic drum beat.

"You're getting mail?" Astoria asked, drawing a bit closer. "I haven't had anything since we got here..."

"Then nobody told you, either," snarked Draco, flipping an envelope over. "Apparently the elves have been holding our letters—we were supposed to ask for them."

Astoria's thoughts flashed briefly back to the strange dinner encounter she'd had with Vincent on her first night in Monaco. At the time, he'd seemed desperate to put her in touch with Giambattista Valli—an impossible dream! Since then, she'd begun to assume that he'd drunk too much wine before dessert, but who knew? Perhaps he had written to her after all? Theodore, too, she considered—an account of his summer so far? And Belladonna...

"That's a lot of post," Astoria smirked, taking in the fat pile of letters and manila envelopes. "Didn't you just see your parents last night?"

"Most of it's been sent along from home," Draco muttered, tugging open the parcel he'd been working on to reveal a broomstick catalog and two or three other glossy-faced magazines. "Our elves forward the post."

Astoria's smirk deepened but a swift recollection of Lavender the house-elf (who'd done such a lovely a job on her hair that morning) prevented her from chiming in about the help. By comparison, Bonky would have left her scalp bleeding...

"Father is pushing to leave for Italy early, you know," continued Draco in an irritable undertone. "Suppose I'd never complained? They'd have been circulating my mail around Europe all summer..."

It was all Astoria could do to prevent herself from reacting to this news. In truth, the idea that Draco would have to leave (and soon) made her chest feel tight. But what was she supposed to do about it? Beg him to stay? He might, but at what cost?

Mutely, Astoria directed her gaze toward the nearest windows and let out a jittery sigh. There was nothing to see there: the usual view of the cliffs had been obstructed by a boring wall of blurry, grape-slashed darkness. Instinctively, she folded her arms across her chest, trying to trap whatever heat she'd managed to coax out of the bath tap.

"I don't know why you aren't coming," continued Draco irritably. "It's not like you have anything to do here."

Astoria let out scoff and shot Draco an incredulous look. What on Earth could he mean by that? The day Lucius Malfoy invited her on vacation would be the day she gave up on logic entirely.

"Your father is," Draco clarified sharply. "Coming with us, I mean. He's leaving for Positano two hours after we do. Aren't you mad that he's ditching you?"

Astoria bit her lip and shrugged, hesitant to reveal the fact that she had not known this. Truthfully, George hadn't dropped so much as a hint that he'd be travelling. But then again, nothing about a spontaneous exit surprised her. She supposed her father would go wherever the Malfoys went for the rest of their vacation. They'd all be moving along together...

Draco continued to watch her expectantly. Sensing that he was looking for an opportunity to complain more, Astoria continued to stare out the darkened windows.

After a lengthy silence Draco gave up, opened the topmost catalog and began to leaf through its pages distractedly. His silence struck her as odd, possibly even forced. Sometimes—particularly around Crabbe and Goyle—he had a bothersome way of approximating conversation by spouting out an inexhaustible train of opinions that never seemed to coalesce into real stories. He showed no sign of this habit now. Astoria allowed herself to knock her hips and let out a soft, preoccupied hum. Behind her, Draco glanced up again. She studied his reflection in the storm-murky window glass.

A new and much less gloomy use of energy suddenly occurred to her—one ruled by an inappropriate but irresistible desire to pester.

"I'm sorry," she apologized slyly. "Am I bothering you?"

Draco raised an eyebrow but shook his head. Astoria sunk down onto the couch next to him.

As her best friend, it was usually Theodore who suffered the brunt of her boredom-giddy moods—but, in a somewhat ionic twist of fate, he was also a very dull victim. Too level-headed, too capable of self-employment. Draco, on the other hand...

Well, he was positively made of violent energy, wasn't he? All self-important postures and easily affronted outbursts; suspicious nerves tightly strung below thin skin. It would not take a very personal jab to wind him up, to say nothing of the fact that was also much better at indulging irrational needs than Theodore was—at least, when he felt like it. Perhaps that was what she wanted—to be noticed without being berated? What a pathetic thought.

Feeling odd and slant-headed, it was suddenly all Astoria could do to keep her hands in her lap.

Draco turned another page. Grinning, Astoria turned it back again.

"What are you doing?" he scoffed. "There's nothing in the front but junk brooms..."

Delighted that he could have possibly mistaken her rudeness for an interest in quidditch supplies, Astoria blew in his ear.

"Seriously?" Draco drawled, looking confused and—was it possible?—just a little bit flattered. For a moment, his eyes brightened almost charmingly. Then he squinted them again. "Are you drunk?"

Maudlin had found a bottle of something, but it was the same poisonous Scotch that he'd brought on their car journey to Monaco. She hadn't touched a drop of it.

"No," answered Astoria. She gave up on his ear and attempted to probe his canine tooth with her pointer finger. Draco squirmed and made a face but begrudgingly opened his mouth to permit her puzzling assault.

"You know," he snorted gracelessly, plainly self-conscious of that fact that he was speaking through an unnecessary mouthful of hand, "for a person who's so good at self manipulation, you've really got the worst impulse control."

Astoria laughed openly, delighted by this assessment. Schooling his face into a condescending smirk, Draco promptly seized the opportunity to snatch her hand away from his face. She allowed him to lower it again by slow inches before leaning in toward his neck.

It wasn't a kiss so much as a pointed nibble in the general vicinity of his jaw—not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to draw a sharp breath. In an instant, she had his full and incredulous attention: pink cheeked and haughty as always, but also (and this time there could be no mistaking it) definitely pleased to be the object of her obscure fixation.

Draco let out a soft scoff under his breath. Slowly, and with almost comical flare, he lowered the magazine and tossed it onto the table with the rest of his mail.

"There," he drawled accusingly. "Happy?"

Truthfully, she was, and not just because she'd won her foolish game—there were several psychological factors that pleased her more. Draco, she knew, had a bothersome way of expressing his need for something by attempting to own or control it. Real emotional attachment, however, was better judged by his level of willingness to submit, comply or indulge. It was a minor thing, but he'd still done exactly what she'd wanted him to do. She couldn't help but savor the taste of victory in her mouth.

She pressed her lips against the exact place she'd bit him to indicate her approval. "Yes."

He swallowed. Hard.

"Don't you already own a broom?" she finally taunted, settling back into a more casual slump against his shoulder. Surprised to find that his presence had the delightful effect of pushing the miserable weather out of mind, she scooted a little bit closer.

Propping his feet up on the table, Draco subtly angled his leg so that her knees would fall against him. Then, looking uncommonly pleased with himself, he nodded toward the magazine. "Statistic listings."

"You don't know how fast your own broomstick is?" Astoria snorted doubtfully.

Draco shot her a withering look. For a moment, she half-expected him to snap at her. But then, with a swift intake of breath, he plucked the magazine back up and flipped to the very last page: it depicted a marked-out diagram of a miniature quidditch arena.

"Brooms depreciate," he explained, and Astoria could not help noticing that the lazy pitch of his voice—a tone she'd so frequently found infuriating—seemed to posses a very different power when it was conveyed directly and privately into her ear, "but they're regulated, which means that average speed and degree of coordination are still relatively calculable. Pick a broomstick."

Put on the spot, Astoria blanched: the only model that sprang to mind was the Firebolt, but she was afraid to run the risk of reminding him of Harry Potter. Certain that she would only expose her ignorance by making something up, however, she chose the safest route forward.

"Use yours."

"Alright," Draco flipped back several pages, "Nimbus 2001, purchase date: 1992." He ran his finger down the listing and indicated several abbreviations and numbers. "Speed," he tapped the page to indicate a number, "coordination," he tapped again, "factor in the weight of an average player, say—" he paused, "—fourteen stone, or so..."

"On the Slytherin team, maybe!" Astoria objected, thinking of the adult-bodied and exclusively male crew that made up the bulk of Draco's teammates.

"Professional league," he clarified loftily. "No children. The Seeker is always odd man out—probably closer to twelve stone, maybe even less for speed's sake. But don't forget that the Seeker is also a target. They always take the worst beating."

Astoria partially suspected that Draco was exaggerating the dangers of his own position to set a mood, but she allowed him to continue unchallenged.

"Factor in three years of depreciation," he muttered, indicating another formula, "and general upkeep..."

After years of book-keeping, Astoria was entirely familiar with the sight of a bothersome calculation. She waited patiently for Draco to pluck up a quill to check his math (as she'd have done) but he didn't seem to need to.

"Assuming clear weather conditions, a player using my broom could be expected to accelerate at one hundred and two feet per second if they had to—roughly a fifth of a standard sized quidditch pitch. To move from starting position," he pointed to the center line on the diagram, "to the goal posts, about two seconds. But that's flat out, head down flying—very little control."

"How big is a quidditch pitch?" Astoria wondered, endeavoring to keep up with his math.

Draco narrowed his eyes and shot her a surprised look. "Five hundred feet."

Ignoring the insinuation that she ought to have known better, Astoria added up what this amounted to so far: they were talking about flying seventy miles per hour, in the air, without protective gear. Exactly how fast was a Firebolt?

"Three chasers, right," Draco continued contentedly, on a roll, "playing in position," he indicated a 'V' shape on the field. "You want the fastest player here—" he pointed toward the middle-most player in back, "—but that doesn't always happen, depending on the position the player has been trained for. Which is why mixed-broom teams are nonsense, really. Throw the fast man here," he pointed toward the left flank, "and you have your men out of order."

"What does any of that mean?" Astoria frowned, lost at last.

"It means," continued Draco smugly, "that unless the players are very good, they're probably going to bungle a play."

Astoria stared at him.

"They're going to drop the quaffle," Draco clarified. "No point."

Astoria stared at the miniature pitch and chewed on the inside of her cheek. She'd always known that the finer points of quidditch eluded her, but the idea that she was woefully uneducated on the subject as a whole had never crossed her mind. Did Fred and George know all of this? She certainly hoped they did. In the face of such orderly math, the fact that they had been betting real gold on the outcome of matches almost seemed like a form of madness.

Gradually, she began to feel Draco's gaze on the side of her face; warm and incredulous. Astoria forced herself to alter her worried expression into something less emotionally revealing.

"This is how people predict the outcome of quidditch matches, you know," he drawled, beyond amused by her lack of know-how. "What kind of formula have you been using?"

Astoria's mind immediately supplied her with the surprising (and somewhat frightening) answer: Blind luck.

"Of course, it matters less when all the brooms are slow," Draco allowed contemptuously. "Potter's got a good broom—and Lord knows he doesn't let anybody forget it for fifteen bloody seconds—but the rest of the Gryffindors fly on rubbish."

"Don't be nasty about it," Astoria muttered. She was half on his lap and very comfortable; she didn't want him to give her a reason to pull away.

"I'm not," Draco scoffed, hesitating. "You read the backstory Rita Skeeter fabricated when Potter forced his way into the Tournament, didn't you? The one were she claimed the whole Gryffindor team plays on Comet 260's? Probably the nicest thing she's ever written." He flipped several magazine pages back and brandished a section dedicated to a line of Cleensweeps. "This is what Gryffindor plays on," he sneered meaningfully. "Two and two equals four."

"How did Rita Skeeter sneak onto the grounds?" asked Astoria, keen to change the subject (and, for that matter, privately a little curious). "You figured it out—I know you did. You and half of Slytherin house were reporting to her at one point..."

"You really never knew?" scoffed Draco. His grey eyes lingered intently on her face. "I was sure Theodore told you."

"Theodore knew?" demanded Astoria, hardly able to believe such an accusation. How many times had she complained about Rita Skeeter in front of Theodore? Was it possible that he had actually been holding out on her all along—perhaps afraid that she would use the information in an irrational manner?

"Well, I don't know—maybe not," Draco backtracked, obviously pleased to have planted a seed of doubt, "but the rest of us certainly talked about it in front of him enough. You're always saying how clever he is—you'd think he'd have picked it up..."

Astoria bit back a retort and forced herself to remember who she was talking to. Theodore frequently ignored Astoria in favor of his books—surely he was even more capable of tuning out the common room chatter of people he liked much less?

"How'd she do it, then?" Astoria repeated, pushing down the first stirrings of a real irritation. The more she thought about it, the only reason she hadn't asked Draco sooner was because he'd gone out of his way to tell Pansy the secret first—a nasty maneuver on his part in the days following their squabble at the Second Task...

"Wouldn't you like to know," Draco drawled, missing her reactionary fist clench. He caught her eye and his smugness withered. "Animagus," he shrugged at once, trying not to lose face. "Isn't that how they all do it?"

"Like Black?" Astoria wondered, trying the idea on for size. "What was she—a wasp? A rottweiler?"

"A beetle." Draco's look of distaste suddenly incorporated his nose.

Astoria let out a long, hard laugh. Still trying to shake the foul mood that the memory of Rita Skeeter had re-conjured, she tried for something more lighthearted. "You could be an Animagus," she decided.

"Yeah?" scoffed Draco warmly. "I suppose you think I'd be something nasty, do you? Scales, talons—that sort of thing?"

"No." Astoria allowed herself a private grin. "Maybe a cat."

"Sorry?" Draco jeered, but Astoria's unusually close proximity was just intoxicating enough to keep him from taking offence—especially over something so trifling. After all, she might easily have said 'ferret'.

"Mhmm," Astoria confirmed, lightly tapping his wrist. "Maudlin would be a peacock—a female, of course—they're the ones with the fancy purple plumage, right?"

Draco indulged this theory with a rather scornful snort.

"Your father might be a peacock, too," Astoria reasoned cautiously. "Only he'd be a male, wouldn't he? The aggressive, turfy kind that attack people. Don't they do that? Like swans?"

Draco's lips twitched oddly. For a shocking second, Astoria almost thought he was going to laugh.

"Albino..." he muttered repressively.

"What?" leered Astoria, certain she had heard him wrong. Surely Draco, of all people, wasn't about to go in for an Albino joke?

"Albino peacocks," Draco clarified, already regretting what he was about to say. "He breeds them."

Astoria let out a delighted gust of laughter that she promptly covered with her hand.

"Yeah?" drawled Draco doubtfully, thoroughly distracted by the way that she was leaning against him. "That's the best thing you've heard today, is it—that my father keeps birds?"

"Girly birds," Astoria choked pleasantly, aware that she was being rude but beyond the point of caring.

Draco's annoyance was underwhelming at best: in fact, she wasn't even certain that he had heard her. Without any warning, he broke his casual stance and leaned forward to kiss her neck. Astoria's body responded with a honey-slick surge of excitement, but her eyes immediately swiveled to search the opposite end of the corridor.

There was nobody watching; no sign to indicate that she ought to pull away, no ghostly specter blowing a referee's whistle for a time-out.

Still.

"Do his friends know?" Astoria warbled, unable to resist the barrage of fanciful notions that such an odd hobby inspired.

"What do you mean?" Draco murmured, eyes trained on her mouth.

"I mean what does he do with them?" Astoria continued irresistibly. "Produce them at dinner parties? Turn them loose and demand that his guests catch them for sport?"

"What kind of nonsense is that?" snorted Draco, but he was repressing a smirk. "Although if he did, they'd play chase the bird, sure enough. My father makes it his business to terrify people—they always do what he says."

For the second time that morning, Astoria felt as though she'd spotted a rare and simplified truth in the middle of a more complicated sentence: no descriptions of a 'well respected' or 'well-heeled' citizen here. No, Lucius Malfoy's son thought that he made it his business to terrify people.

"I would never do anything that stupid," Astoria babbled foolishly.

"You might," Draco scoffed, cocking an eyebrow. "My father is basically the king of every room he walks into—or haven't you noticed?"

"No he isn't," mouthed Astoria smugly, certain that she must be reaching the edge of what was already an uncommonly lenient tolerance.

Sure enough, Draco's tone was strained—although not yet strained enough to be considered hostile. "Think so?"

"Mhmm," Astoria nodded gleefully, plucking at one of the buttons on his shirt. "I like you better."

Just as she'd suspected, Draco had no ready-made retort for this. In fact, in the space of less than two seconds, he seemed to have taken on a quality of almost unnerving stillness. Even his casual sneer had abandoned ship.

"Why's that?" he finally muttered—compulsively, as though unable to stop himself.

In a flash, Astoria's mind caught up with what her intuition had already sussed out for her: speaking about Lucius in anything less than a reverent manner was likely to either frustrate or infuriate Draco. But, if presented very carefully—especially if she managed a sexual spin—she suspected that the concept of being able to one-up his father actually had the power to really do something for him.

The fact that this vague hunch was correct—and she could tell that it was by Draco's rigid, almost guilty stance—was almost too much to absorb with a straight face. Thinking fast, she coaxed her nose up against his jaw before allowing so much as a trace of her stunted glee to show.

Actually, the more she thought about it, despite the naked inferiority complex that this desire hinted at, she was surprised to find that she felt hardly any desire to mock him at all. If anything, it rather evened the playing field a bit. Hadn't Draco caught her baiting her own father with a Veela for sport? What was the word he'd used to describe her motive—Freudian? The truth of the matter was, Astoria understood repressed urges and guilty half-thoughts. How could she not, living a life that necessitated a continual balancing act between two philosophies: the standard morality of gryffindor tower—so second nature it was nearly a given—and the darker, less clear pull of her family loyalty? Whatever this was, it was a game that Astoria might easily master: the Personality Disorder and the Inferiority Complex. And where was the harm in it, really? It didn't hurt anyone. Why not play it?

"There's nothing I don't like better," she confessed. A devious addition occurred to her so she murmured, lower still and somewhat goadingly: "I'll let you be my king, if you want."

Draco lips parted on a shivery gust of breath. "Hmg," he said rather nasally, and because Astoria was not entirely positive that this was English, she found herself waiting for more.

"I mean—" he croaked irritably, trying to pull up out of his slump, "—is that supposed to be a joke..."

Astoria nudged him back against the sofa again. Draco let out shivery, uncertain hiss.

"Right," he managed breathlessly. "What would that entail, then?"

"The first thing you thought of when I said it," Astoria smirked.

A door slammed shut. Pulsing with the thrill of an unexpected adrenaline rush, Astoria found herself back on her own side of the couch before her ears had even processed the sound.

It was Maudlin, dressed all in black and scowling purposefully. For a second, Astoria wondered if he'd seen more than he should have—that she had not been quick enough to prevent him from noticing her position on Malfoy's knees. But then, with a forced shrug, Maudlin shook his head, looked up, spotted them and called over cheerfully: "Lunch!"

Astoria stood, disappointed but also somewhat grateful—she suspected his distraction had prevented some really terrible sentences from slipping out of her mouth. Draco, on the other hand, looked nothing short of robbed. It was a full and very nearly awkward thirty seconds before he brushed down his shirt and got to his feet and another half an hour entirely before he really rejoined their conversation.

0o0

Over the course of the afternoon, Draco's warning about his father's interest in leaving the country early ceased to be a matter of gossip and began to be looked on as an absolute fact. Although Maudlin had been hoping to hold onto Draco until Saturday, the entire Malfoy party (including both Yaxleys and George) would be departing the following morning on Thursday. This news was met with a smattering of vague, halfhearted protests on Maudlin's part and a surge of frenzied energy on behalf of the household and staff. It seemed that, once again, Aston would be obligated to throw open his doors—this time to serve the visiting English a formal going away dinner.

The evening itself passed in a state of moody, delirious darkness. No matter how many fireplaces Aston stoked or candelabras he ordered to be lit, the damp atmosphere of the storm could not be entirely dispelled. Astoria's head swam with the effort of remaining alert in the flickering light of so many candles; her cheeks took on a heady, inner flush in rooms where multiple hearths blazed. She turned down glass after glass of the red wine Maudlin pressed on her, preferring instead to suffer sullenly but clear-headedly.

The cause of her un-assuaged dissatisfaction, of course, had little to do with the suffocating heat and much more to do with anticipated loss. Astoria had known since the beginning that Draco would have to go—at times she had even considered the certainty of his departure to be heartening. No good could come of keeping up a secret affair with a boy who worshiped Voldemort. And yet...

And yet. What would she be left with once he was gone? She'd been alone since the moment she'd arrived, had perhaps never been so alone in her life. Belladonna was an ocean away, George was far too absorbed with the intricacies of his job (to say nothing of his sexual conquests) to pay her much mind, and Maudlin, living up to his namesake at long last, had embraced an anxious, alcoholic oblivion. Even Aston—who she had long counted on to ensure normalcy in a crisis—had been behaving in a horribly aloof manner lately. In fact, his odd behavior was so pronounced that it had even drawn the notice of his son (a rare enough feat these days). Maudlin himself seemed to view his father's uncharacteristic distance as a symptom of dissatisfaction—that Aston had found something wanting in their behavior—and that, consequently, his good favor would need to be won back through charm. But Astoria was far less sure of this. Nor, for that matter, was she prepared to dismiss Lucius's presence as a coincidence. Although it was not a topic she felt any inclination to introduce to the group, she was reasonably certain she had true make of it: that Aston's state of prolonged tension had nothing to do with the children in his house and everything to do with the fact that he was busy confronting the real threat of a returned Dark Lord overseas.

This idea depressed Astoria beyond measure, but it did help to explain her heightened (and surprisingly desperate) feelings about Draco's departure. At first, her decision to start sleeping with him had struck her as manic—even insane. But now, viewed through the clarifying lens of hindsight, it made the most natural sense in the world. Over the course of history, desperate people had done much stranger things. Maudlin would still be able to drink himself foolish tomorrow, but Astoria's fix was about to dry up. In terms of vulnerability—and for Astoria that always meant shared secrets—she doubted she'd ever been closer to anyone. If her current situation was lonely now, how bad would it be when he left?

Dinner itself was served late—just after ten o'clock—and the fare was too rich for her upset stomach: poached pears, wine braised beef, a salad of picked mushrooms and a turnip puree that she could hardly bring herself to even touch—all served and then swept out from under her nose by cadre of rotating house elves. Astoria forced herself to eat as much of it as she could and to content herself to take a small measure of pride in holding any of it down.

A smarter host might have had the sense to serve simpler fare, she reflected quietly—soup, maybe. But even this sensible thought was enough to make her uncomfortable because, correct or not, it was first time time she'd ever had the courage (even subconsciously) to catch herself questioning Aston's taste. By way of response, she turned to gaze at Aston almost pleadingly.

For a moment or two she studied his face; dark, frank and always just a little sarcastic. He was sitting in his usual seat—at the end of the table next to Lucius. Glumly, she wondered what his taste would reflect there. It was plain that Lucius wanted something from him—some kind of support, most likely. After all, Mr. Malfoy would want to know that the Death Eaters had important friends in distant places. Would Aston offer him that kind of support? Probably—if he had any sense of self preservation, at least.

A balloon of panic contracted and expanded in Astoria's chest. Hardly aware of what she was doing, her eyes whipped into a kind of reactionary skitter, this time toward Draco. They found him holding a glass of the same red wine that she had boycotted earlier and listening idly to the tail-end of his father's story about a long dead sea captain.

Not at all consoled by the sight, Astoria finally squeezed her eyes shut. Through darkness of her shuttered eyelids, Theodore's disgusted words (spoken months before) reached up and found her: "Don't be another Malfoy goon—another Pansy!"

She'd never been closer in her life. For the first time ever, Astoria felt as though she understood Pansy: Draco himself was only a boy, but his family name made him a life-raft. In Pansy's case, the allure was gold and influence; in Astoria's it was stability and safety. The well-appointed dining room she was sitting in, the expensive food she was eating—it was all just the feast before the battle. She and her loved ones were on the brink of war and, glancing around the table, it was suddenly obvious that there wasn't a person present who would not manage to survive and profit from it. Nobody except, perhaps, herself.

If she wanted to take action, now was the time. If Aston thought an alliance was inevitable, then perhaps she too ought to see it that way? She had never doubted him before—and Belladonna had an odd habit of making enemies when she ought to be making friends. Perhaps the best thing was simply to let him set the course? Astoria reflected on this idea, shamefully drawn to the way that it washed her hands of any real responsibility. For the first time ever, she found herself considering ideas that she'd long dismissed as impossible. Impossible because they were weak.

If Aston never said a word about Lucius, then that would be the end of it. She'd accept his silence and never look back. If, on the other hand, signs of a continued (or heightened) friendship started to become evident over the next few days, then she would allow herself to contemplate making a move of her own.

That Malfoy liked her was a given. That his interest was bone-deep enough to be considered real devotion (she couldn't bring herself to even think the word 'love') was even possible; she'd certainly done everything in her power to test the reliability of it. And this was her one great advantage over Pansy: if she wanted to latch on to keep from drowning, Draco would probably let her. She doubted he'd even resent her for it. The question was how.

Tagging along to Italy seemed like the most natural option. Easily achieved: if she asked her father to take her, Draco would probably use any influence that he had to help. At that point, George wouldn't have much of a choice. And clearly Aston wouldn't begrudge her for leaving early—he'd barely spoken more than ten consecutive words to anyone but Lucius for four days.

Astoria passed the rest of the evening this way; blinded by a haze of self-doubt and paralyzed by her conflicting emotions. She sat in the library with the rest after dinner and said nothing; moody and desperate—consumed by thoughts of surrender. After bluffing her way through several parlor games (and doing her best to mask the force of her unrealized yawns) she finally judged that nobody was paying her a lick of mind. Pushing the unwanted glass of port she'd been holding behind a potted palm, she got up and slipped out into the hall.

The air was mercifully cooler here; the stone quiet and chilly. Without really thinking, Astoria pressed her face against one of the white marble door fixture and attempted to get a hold of herself. Her state of forced silence had prevented her from looking ridiculous in front of company, but she felt like a hot mess. For a while, she couldn't find the energy to do anything more than listen to the boisterous chatter still emanating from the library. Roland Yaxley was attempting to start up a game of charades: how awful.

Gradually, however, it began to occur to her that she could hear another set of voices—and that these were hushed and coming from an entirely different room.

Emboldened by her current state of disassociation (the idea of the being punished struck her as both improbable and amusing) Astoria pushed away from the wall. The voices grew louder as she ventured toward the formal living room and the tone of the conversation became clearer: politely tense.

"You cannot be serious?" drawled Lucius Malfoy and Astoria came to an abrupt stop. She had not noticed Lucius slip out of the library, but experience had taught her that his was not a voice that carried easily through walls (she hadn't been able to make heads or tails out of the hushed conversation she'd overheard in his tent after the quidditch world cup). Stock still in the middle of the hallway, Astoria considered her options: the dinning room or the music room?

"Of course I am," returned Aston, amicably but firmly.

The music room. Astoria angled herself appropriately, struck by the uncanny stroke of luck (fate?) that had brought her out into the hall at the exactly the right time.

"Do you imagine the rest of your country agrees with you?" sneered Lucius and Astoria could tell by his tone that he was not at all pleased. "You think you're doing them a favor? You're not. You're making a mistake and you know it—eventually, your hand will be forced and at that point it will be too late to expect any show of preference on my end. You're damning yourself and every fool who lacks the spine to strike out instead of following your lead."

"My country!" scoffed Aston. "We live in two very different countries, Lucius!"

"I see," returned Lucius curtly. "You think that the French are too vain to cater to the whims of a dictator!" He laughed unpleasantly. "I ought to have spared myself some effort and bought you a history book."

A silence descended. Astoria imagined Aston's face: taut and marred by the lines of a serious frown.

Lucius seized the empty air: "You needn't do anything directly, you know—very little will be expected of you. I'm only asking that you mend your fences—prune any stubborn weeds. You know better than I do do how it ought to be attempted. The fate of the world has been always been decided in civilized living rooms—pick the right one and start planting seeds."

"I say, what a frightful hodge-podge of metaphors, Lucius!" snapped Aston. "Am I supposed to be pushing your political agenda or starting a farm?"

At this point, Astoria could imagine Lucius's expression easily enough, too: eyelashes fluttering to conceal a mighty desire for an undignified eye-roll, legs crossed at the knee. He'd look perfectly at ease save, perhaps, for one irritably bouncing foot...

"What do you think will happen if you refuse?" countered Lucius. "War is inevitable—even you can't escape it."

"Escape! What I'm hoping to escape are the political ramifications of suggesting to my countrymen—my peers—that they ought to toss out their mistresses, their shopkeepers, their Veela and their love of equality! All in the name of what? A mad wizard who isn't even knocking at their door yet!"

"A heavy emphasis on the word 'yet'," returned Mr. Malfoy silkily. "The French are not unfamiliar with the concept of a class system, I trust? And I assure you, the presence of one has never prevented the English from keeping mistresses or employing shopkeepers."

Aston did not respond.

"At the end of the day, equality is really only an appealing concept to the sort of people who already have nothing," continued Lucius. "Your life, I daresay, needn't change in the slightest."

"It's not—" Aston floundered and Astoria had the distinct impression that he was choosing his words very carefully. "That is to say, it's a different climate! The same rules simply cannot apply here. The French aren't proud in the same way that the English are—our system isn't always bending this way and that to suit the whims of the old blood lines—it bends according to what's fashionable. Perhaps the old set does keep its distance—that is to say, they do very little mingling with Muggles. But giving up any form of entertainment or ease is not fashionable. I assure you, I'd be laughed out of any room I suggested it in!"

Astoria let out a gust of breath. Clearly she had misjudged Aston's gumption. She'd assumed that he would be wary of Lucius's scheme, but also resigned to it. A play of outright resistance hadn't even occurred to her—only he clearly was resisting. .

"I suppose you already know that I don't believe you?" quirked Lucius, and there was a nugget of something sly and amused buried in his tone. "You're not the first person I've consulted on the matter this week—or even today. Your opinion—although eloquently argued, I'll grant you—is entirely singular. These peers you speak of would not make war against a superior force. Quite a few of them even seem to agree with my line entirely. One might begin to suspect your motives, Aston—it's a bad time to be coming down soft on muggles, you know..."

"If that's your opinion, then why argue with me?" shot Aston, dropping his last pretense of civility. "At present, I'm of absolutely no use to your cause—and, quite frankly, I'm getting tried of feeding you!"

"Because I was asked to bring you this proposal," explained Lucius calmly, apparently impervious to petty insults. "I suppose you know by whom? By all means, feel free to throw a few demands of your own onto the table before we negotiate. I'm certainly not opposed to discussing them, if they'll help convince you to see reason..."

"They won't."

Astoria had finally heard enough—and what she had heard was a good deal better than what she had expected. Restored to some semblance of sanity, she began to feel all the awkwardness of being caught listening at the keyhole. Silently, she made for the stairs, feeling lighter than air.

'And, quite frankly, I'm getting tried of feeding you.' A hiss of a laugh slipped between her teeth. What could she have been thinking? Of course Aston wouldn't want anything to do with a second wave of Death Eater supremacy—he hadn't even wanted to be involved with the first. Unless she was very much mistaken, his friendship with her own mother (his friend of several decades) had fallen apart because of it—why would he change his mind now? And for what?

Distracted and giddy, Astoria was surprised to find her bedroom door slightly ajar at the end of the hall and her room lit from within. Fully expecting to discover Maudlin (in the middle of an unreasonable search for some old trinket) she pushed open the door and prepared herself to evict him. Only it wasn't Maudlin: it was Draco and he hadn't heard her come in behind him. Leaning against the side of her bed, he was reading the label on a pot of lotion and smirking delightedly.

Astoria pushed the door behind her with just enough force to make it click. Draco jumped, visibly startled, but he recovered quickly.

"Oh," he drawled. "It's you. You were gone so long I came looking—it's just Maudlin and the Yaxleys left downstairs. Even Alec went to bed. Do you realize that this lotion is called 'Filthy'? Can that possibly be a scent?"

"I suspect it's meant as a tongue in cheek sort of thing," explained Astoria wryly, holding her out hand for it. She hated it when he fiddled aimlessly with her things.

"Still," Draco jeered, amused, "seems a bit counter-intuitive, doesn't it? What with the common-sense expectation being that a product is meant to make you smell better..."

Astoria tugged the lotion out of his hand and replaced it on her bedside table. Draco's face re-arranged itself into an irritating smirk. He leaned back and sprawled out on her bedspread.

"Where were you?" he demanded. "I didn't see you leave."

"I got up when Roland suggested charades," Astoria answered, unable to focus on anything but Draco's lazy posture. She'd certainly spent enough time lurking about in his sleeping space—she didn't really have a right to be annoyed. But the idea that invasion worked both ways—and that he now felt himself at liberty to occupy her space at his leisure (by comparison, she usually spent several minutes feeling him out before so much as sitting on his bed)—was actually a little startling.

"What's with the deal with him, anyway?" persisted Draco slyly, confirming Astoria's mounting fear that he suspected there was more to her relationship with the Yaxleys than what strictly met the eye. "Aren't you supposed to be feuding with him over something? I can't remember."

"It's nothing," Astoria sighed. "A Belladonna thing—she and Alistair have been at each other's throats for ages."

Draco scoffed and raised a meaningful eyebrow. "Honestly, are you on good terms with anyone in your family?"

"Not really," Astoria conceded, wishing he'd drop it.

"What reason does she have to hate him, though?" sneered Draco, failing to hide his undertone of nosy frustration. "You can't be more than fifth cousins—I've checked."

This revelation did not surprise Astoria any more than it pleased her.

"Seriously," Draco went on, ignoring her look of dissatisfaction, "you've hardly got any English relatives left. Why should she care so much about Alistair and Roland Yaxley?"

"She doesn't," Astoria snapped. "She hates everyone—surely you've noticed?"

"I'm not fishing for my father," Draco argued, flushing slightly. "If it's a matter of family history, he probably knows it already. I was only curious."

A tense silence fell. Astoria let out a weary breath.

"Inheritance," she offered up begrudgingly, determined to be as vague as possible about the details. "They'll all be squabbling over the same will when my uncles die."

"Oh yeah?" Perceptive keenness put an edge to his voice again. "How does that work out?"

"Leave it, will you?" Astoria muttered. "I don't know the specifics, I've never asked."

Draco shrugged, but it was obvious that he did not believe her. In his mind, people rarely ever regarded large sums of gold with ambivalence—particularly their own.

"What time are you leaving tomorrow?" Astoria asked, eager to re-direct the flow of their conversation.

"After breakfast, I suppose." Draco hesitated, carefully resisting the urge to look as aggravated as he obviously felt. "I still don't see why you can't just ask your father to take you. I'll say something to him, if you want..."

Astoria blushed and looked away, shamefully reminded of the desperation she'd felt earlier and the way that it had briefly caused her think. Clearly she needn't have wasted her time plotting; Draco would have helped her along voluntarily and without encouragement. But the idea was once again wretched: Draco wasn't an object, he was a person. A person she liked too much to willfully use. Aston had found his footing—he'd faced down Lucius and, by extension, Voldemort. Surely that meant that Astoria was just as capable of confronting her own loneliness? Draco would have to go and she'd have to let him.

"He doesn't want to take me," Astoria demurred. "If he did, he'd have asked me. I'd rather stay here than spend all my time chasing him around, anyway."

Flat on the bed, Draco scoffed his displeasure. He tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. "Cassandra's staying with her aunt—something about elderly bronchitis? It'll be just you and her and Maudlin when I'm gone. You're better off out of it."

"Probably," Astoria laughed hollowly, more than a little sobered by the prospect.

"And I'll be bored to death," concluded Draco petulantly. "Father will be caught up in meetings the whole time. I won't have anything to do but sit around alone all day."

Hiding her surprise, Astoria considered this: the idea that Draco wasn't looking forward to his own vacation was a novel one, but it did not entirely bother her. Surely it was better for him to sulk about by himself then to be surrounded by a cadre of rich and interesting Italian witches?

"You'll have your mother with you," Astoria reminded him, taking care not to sound overly pleased.

Draco sneered, plainly nettled by the assumption that he had nothing better to do than help his mother plan out Witches' Auxiliary luncheons.

"You know what's worse?" he continued irresistibly, swinging out a restless knee until it brushed against hers. "They'll all be talking about Potter. Potter this and Potter that—everywhere I look, there he'll bloody well be..."

"Ignore it, then," Astoria frowned.

"I can't, can I?" sneered Draco. "Half of them think he's special, you know. Some kind of dark wizard: The Boy Who Escaped The Dark Lord. Again. I mean, how in the fuck don't they see it...?"

Astoria settled down on the bed next to him. She had made up her mind to stay in Monaco—to see the game through, as it were. But surely that didn't mean she had to kick Draco out on his last night in the country? No, she'd let him stay if he wanted to.

"It was a wand malfunction, you know," Draco continued, sneering. "That's how he got out of the graveyard—it wasn't anything special Potter did..."

Not wanting to provoke a fight, Astoria shrugged and toyed with the edge of her pillowcase. It was a moment before Draco's words really sank in. What graveyard?

"After the task, you mean?" she asked stiffly, suddenly understanding what it was that they were talking about. Draco was referring to Harry's escape from Voldemort at the end of the year. How would he know about that? Intuition supplied the awful answer: he knew because Lucius was there.

"Yeah," Draco grunted. "I'm only saying—it's not like Potter won him in a duel..."

The room was suddenly too quiet. The lull struck Astoria as terrible, but Draco appeared reflectively unaware of it.

"I do like you, you know," he suddenly scoffed, and the words tumbled out hard, laced with a curious mixture of agitation and self-consciousness. "Whatever that means. You obviously wanted me to say it yesterday..."

Astoria stared at him, struck dry-mouthed and dumb. In the moment, she had wanted him to say it. Even now, on the tale end of an accidental confession about Voldemort, it still had the embarrassing power to turn her insides into lava.

"You like me better than Maudlin, too," he continued, more to himself than to her. "I don't know why you'd want me to say it if you didn't. He doesn't know you like I do, either. It'd be a bad swap..."

Astoria head twitched into a single nod; an odd, puzzled instinct, but he wasn't really looking at her. He was looking up at the ceiling, perhaps to hide whatever expression might naturally have formed if he'd forced himself to make eye contact.

"I'll be home by August," he mumbled awkwardly. "That's not that long—two and a half weeks maybe. It's not like you have to find somebody else if you don't want to."

This was hardly a declaration for the ages, but Astoria knew Draco well enough to understand what he was getting at. Cool-Guy Careless was not an act the he affected half as well as he'd like to think. If she snubbed him, the cut would go deep.

"Yeah," Astoria muttered, determined to reassure him without actually having to define the perimeters of their relationship. After all, how could she do that when she hardly knew what to think of it herself? "That's when I go back, too. It's not that long."

A promise? Or a vague confirmation of her travelling dates? Either or both—she'd let him make of it what he wanted to. It wasn't as though she had any intention of hitting on Maudlin, so it hardly mattered anyway.

Draco sat up. For a moment, he seemed on the verge of saying something—something that required an upright position—but at the last second he chickened out and let a grunt.

"I'll write if you want," he muttered, concluding his one-way exchange with a furtive but oddly stalwart glance.

It was this promise that cracked it. Draco never volunteered for extra work. Even though she suspected he'd probably forget to actually write her (she'd never had a single letter from him in the five years that she'd known him) the idea that he felt as though he should at least offer to struck her as oddly endearing.

"Sure," Astoria murmured cautiously, afraid of coming off rather Pansy-ish. "Alright."

0o0

To her great surprise (and even greater embarrassment), she found herself repeating this wish in the foyer after breakfast the next day.

Everyone was awake and clustered around the living room fireplace—presumably to send Draco off, but it was Alec (rather than Maudlin) who seemed to be doing the host's share of the talking. Astoria attributed her own silence to the fact that she had once again woken up underneath Draco's limbs and therefore did not entirely trust herself to sound causal; Maudlin was simply hungover—twice she'd caught his gaze drifting wistfully toward the stairs.

Finally, Maudlin roused himself enough to step forward and shake Draco's hand, dull with fatigue and clearly ruled by his desire for formalities to be dispensed with so that he could crawl back into bed

"Don't be a stranger," he insisted, stifling a yawn. "We'd be happy to have you any time. Just say the word. My home is your home, et cetera."

Draco cocked an eyebrow and accepted a back lap from Luc. Then, with a furtive glance at Astoria, was just about to turn when she called after him: "Write to us!"

It was a cheery, false-sounding thing—even to her own ears it was positively steeped in desperation and she cringed to think about what Alec would make of it. But Maudlin, oblivious as always, thought the idea was delightful. He demanded a full account of Italy and the Malfoys doings there and then toppled Draco through the fireplace before he could so much as shoot Astoria a confirming look.

The minute the flames swept him away to his father, Astoria let her shoulders slump.

"Well, that's that," Maudlin sighed, patting down his robes. "Another one bites the dust. It's just us now."

Astoria let out an immense breath (it felt as though she'd been holding it for a week) and made up her mind to hunt down one of the elves while the others napped. Time to tend her her own post: she'd kept Belladonna waiting long enough.

0o0

WELL. This took too long, amiright?

Seriously, guys, I'm so sorry that the space between this and the last update stretched into months. That's such a ridiculous length of time to expect anybody to wait for anything, let along a chapter length installment. My only excuse is that this post was dastardly. And by that, I mean that it was super hard to write. Essentially, Malfoy's departure and the various other Monaco-related plots couldn't really be handled in one installment together (not without going over twenty thousand words, at least—and trust me, I tried) so the next chapter will have to tidy up the rest of what's going on. The only (somewhat awkward) upswing to this predicament is that I ended up having to remove large chunks of the next chapter from this one, which means that a hefty portion of the next post is already completed. It's even got a name: Ink Pots and Parcels, and I suspect it's going to be a delight (indeed, quite a bit more fun than this one was). I'm bringing back Giambattista, Cassandra gets her moment to shine, there's going to be post correspondence between Astoria and Draco, and (because some of you really like to know the schedule) I'm planning to upload it a some point during the week before Christmas. Available on a web browser near you this holiday season—I effing promise. (Additionally, I'm going to start using my profile page to keep everyone abreast of planned update times—so check there if you're ever curious about when the next upload will be.)

In other news: it occurred to me at some point during the last month that large portions of MANY chapters end up getting cut before posting. Which I know might seem ridiculous (this story is already insanely long) but it's true. Sometimes the problem is length (Astoria and Draco's conversation about quidditch is a good example of this. Under normal circumstances, if I wasn't about to send him away for a whole chapter, that scene would probably have been trimmed up. Lengthy dialogue that does nothing to advance the plot is always the first to go). Sometimes an idea just doesn't seem to fit in with the general context or theme of what's currently happening in the story (although I usually try to find a way to use these pieces later). And sometimes I just feel like a section DOESN'T have enough strong character writing to merit inclusion. Bottom line: I've literally got a ton of 'deleted scenes' dating as far back as second year that never got to see the light of day. Which sort of begs the question—would anyone be interested in reading those forgotten tid-bits? Because I kind of feel like I could post a few of them as a series of short stories (which would all be canon compliant with this story). If so, that might also open up the door for other options that haven't been available to me here—different POV posts for instance. I talked about doing those a while ago, but at this point I feel like alternating view chapters would ultimately harm the flow and degrade the emotional consistency of the story overall. BUT, served up as short stories, I'm all for it. (It might also be a nice way to fill the gap if there's ever a long wait between posts like this again.) So, like, if any of this sounds appealing, you guys should holler at me. I'll get the ball rolling.

Side Note: if the general consensus is actually more like, "You cut that crap for a reason, don't force your B-roll on me," then that is ALSO valid and no harm done. :)

As always, reviews are a mighty treat! (And, contrary to popular opinion, I really do read all of them. Is it wrong that I think it's actually kind of sweet when you guys start predicting my death between long waits? Heh. Probably.)