3rd July 2004, 5:00PM

'Blaise Zabini announced the end of his yearlong engagement to Miss Daphne Greengrass last night, citing familial differences. Since Mrs. Zabini is known to have been residing in Austria since she was widowed for the seventh time two years ago, the problem it seems must lie with the relations of the jilted bride. One can only wonder what could possibly have gone wrong for this young couple, a match seemingly made in heaven, (cont on page 5) -R. Skeeter.'

It takes a week for the gossip columns to get their teeth into the very public break-up of two of societies most bright and beautiful, another two days before the rumour mill really starts to grind.

The paper lies open on Draco's desk next to an owl from the man himself, asking to meet for drinks later. Zabini isn't usually one for sharing but Draco supposes recent events call for special measures. And after all, perhaps it will do him some good to listen to a rant about the shortcomings of the Greengrass family. Merlin knows he could do with a little perspective on that front right now.

There is no mention of Astoria in the article but he knows this is about her, somehow, because isn't everything? At least it certainly seems that way to him these days. He's taken to buying the same brand of cigarettes he knows she likes, drinking the same wine as he saw in her fridge that night (which incidentally tastes like vinegar and leaves you feeling as rough as a Hippogriff's arse the next morning) and frequenting various shops in Notting Hill he has no reason to go to.

He has become a man obsessed.

He has tried to see her, even turned up at her flat heavily inebriated one night. Luckily she wasn't home and was therefore unable to witness his reckless apparition which sent him stumbling backwards down her front steps till his chin smacked the pavement. Nor is she at her parents' house, which he knows courtesy of Daphne's rather brusque reply to his multitude of owls telling him, in no uncertain terms that no, she hasn't seen her fool of a sister and to bugger off and leave her family alone.

It would seem, for all intents and purposes, that Astoria has gone underground. Either that or simply vanished off the face of the Earth and Draco is struck once again by just how very little he knows about her. He has no idea where she may have gone or who she may be with or, indeed, why she would choose to simply disappear at a time such as this. He would hazard a guess that neither does her family. The girl is a shadow, impossible to hold on to.

Glancing at his watch, Draco grabs for his coat and the black umbrella and heads down the hallway to the lift. Two young women join him at the second floor, interns from the Trading department, clutching a copy of this morning's Daily Prophet between them.

"You know they say it's something to do with the younger sister," one of them whispers excitedly.

"I didn't even know there was a younger sister,"

"Well exactly! They sent her abroad years ago, it's all very suspicious."

The lift doors open with a musical chime and they rush out, leaving Draco to stare after them, stricken.

Someone calls the lift from a floor above and he must rouse himself quickly, slipping out through the doors before they close around him. He shakes his head, this is too much. His reflection agrees, looking back at him from the glass plate in front of the cashier desks, sallow and thin and badly in need of a shave.

This drink cannot come soon enough.

He meets Blaise two hours later in a muggle bar on Clapham High Street. It is dark and the air is thick with cigarette smoke. The place is borderline seedy actually and he struggles to imagine why his friend would ever have wanted to meet here. But then again, he supposes, if it were his marital disaster splashed all over the wizarding news, he doubts he'd be going anywhere near the Three Broomsticks right now either.

They sit in a booth by the back wall, nursing two glasses full of something dark and undoubtedly toxic. Blaise, it seems, did not ask Draco here to unburden himself but rather as a distraction, the topics of conversation ranging from work to old school companions to Quidditch. But there is a proverbial troll in the room, the one thing that Draco is so desperate to hear about and the one thing that Blaise is so reluctant to discuss.

They are halfway through a debate about the Wimborne Wasps new away strip when their illusion of normalcy is finally shattered. Zabini abruptly falls silent, staring aghast over Draco's shoulder, the colour draining from his face as his hand clenches around his glass. It takes Draco half a second to understand why.

A small crowd is piling in through the doorway, laughing and chatting animatedly with one another as they make their collective way over to the bar. For the briefest second, the group parts and she is there: Astoria. In all her splendour.

Her hair is wild, falling in cascades down the back of her blood red dress that sits a little too high on the leg. Her face is flushed (she has had one too many perhaps) and she is laughing- head tilting back and eyes bright.

One of her friends spots the two men staring from a corner and gestures toward them. Astoria turns and it is as if someone has snuffed out her light. She freezes, laughter dying instantly in her throat, until her expression matches Zabini's look of horror. The next second she is moving, grabbing one of her friends and pulling them back outside.

Draco is practically on his feet, sights set on the door she has just disappeared through, when Zabini slams his drink down on the table.

"Stupid bint," he snarls. Draco whips round, fist almost raised, but Blaise's expression stops him dead in his tracks.

"You know, Daphne didn't even tell me about her until the night of the fucking rehearsal." His lip is curling, he looks positively disgusted. "Thought I wouldn't even care, if you can believe that. That whole family is a disgrace."

Draco sinks back into his chair.

"Although," Blaise smirks bitterly, "you have to give them some credit I suppose. Keeping something like that covered up for all these years must take an awful lot of effort."

"I don't understand," Draco's voice is gravelly, his mouth suddenly and inexplicably dry.

Blaise looks up, incredulous, and barks out a cruel laugh. "You mean you haven't figured it out yet?"

3rd July 2004, 11:00PM

Astoria sits in darkness at the kitchen table. She is staring at her hands, wringing them tightly together as she waits in silence. It won't be long now.

She has spent the past two weeks in hiding, staying with friends and visiting little-known bars each night until she can't remember why her life is ending. (She's also discovered she has a taste for the dramatic.) And it had been working until tonight.

There is a sharp crack from outside. Astoria sits up, eyes wide and alert. She can feel her heart thundering beneath her ribs and knows that, even though the alcohol has numbed the sensation, she is afraid.

Then comes the hammering on the front door. She stays rooted in her chair, staring out down the hallway to the door which is visibly shaking in its frame. Her blood begins to rush to her head- she isn't ready yet.

"Damn it, Greengrass!"

She hears his voice and suddenly she is on two feet, fumbling with the keys in the lock. The door is flung wide open and he is upon her. He grabs her by the throat and slams her back against the wall, furious steel grey eyes burning with every bit of fury she can feel in his tight grip.

"Is it true?" Draco shouts, pushing against her till she is completely pinned beneath him. She says nothing but attempts to raise her chin defiantly. Her efforts do not go unnoticed and he tightens his grasp.

"Is it true?" he roars again, pale blonde hair shaken loose over his forehead, "I swear, woman, if you don't tell me-,"

"Yes. It's true," she manages, voice strained, and immediately he buckles as if struck with an electrical charge. Astoria seizes her chance and pushes against him, breaking free. She steps back behind the table, putting distance between them, as he stands in the dark hallway- still reeling.

"That's why I'd never heard of you," he sounds dazed now, as if his whole perspective is readjusting and he has to give it time to do so.

Astoria grips the back of the chair to stop her hands from shaking. "No one had heard of me," she mutters.

"Well they fucking have done now!" Suddenly he snaps back to life and lashes out in frustration, kicking a hole in the plaster wall.

"Draco!"

"No!" he shouts, turning on her and storming into the kitchen. "You don't get to speak. Not anymore."

And so she was right, as she knew she would be. Now everything will be different. She stares at him; he does not meet her gaze.

"You are a liar," he says at last, his voice calmer but full of the same contempt.

"I never lied."

He scoffs angrily. "You certainly didn't tell the truth."

"And when would you have liked for me to tell you, Draco? In the middle of my sister's engagement party? Or maybe when we were fucking on this very table?"

"Oh, I'm so terribly sorry I never gave you opportunity to admit your dirty little secret!" he snarls.

Astoria's fear is rapidly diffusing into an all out fury. "Well at least if I'd ever had a wand, I know I would have been able to keep it in one piece."

Draco visibly blanches at her words and a highly charged silence falls over the room. Both their chests are heaving with an intoxicating mixture of anger and adrenaline. A car alarm begins to blare somewhere out in the street and it keeps time with the ringing in their ears.

"And what would you know about that?" he says after a moment, the ferocity gone, replaced instead by an ice-cold indifference. "After all, you're nothing more than a filthy Squib."

"And you're just a Death-eater with nothing to show for it but an ugly tattoo."

The house watches them, holds its breath whilst they take each other's words and enslave them to memory, because this moment will never come again.

Draco's lip is curling but he does not speak. He is on the brink of coming undone. The shock, the rage and the desperation are like nothing he has ever felt before and he has been exposed to more of each in his few years than many will feel in a lifetime.

And then there is Astoria, who is staring at him with a contempt that makes him sick to his stomach. (Is he not the wronged one here?) And, as ever, she is glorious in her fury- cheeks flushed and eyes blazing, and he is revolted by the reactions that she can still invoke in him. Because there is no denying he still wants her, even though every inch of his upbringing cannot bear such a notion.

A Malfoy and a Squib.; the thought leaves him with a wretched aftertaste.

And yet the thought is there none the less.

He turns without a word and walks back through the hall. She catches him at the door and he hesitates a moment before he pulls free of her grasp.

"Will you tell anyone?" she asks simply and without emotion.

He knows the answer already, knew it the instant Blaise had told him the truth about her.

"And be shamed by association? Not bloody likely."

Except that is not true. He will keep her secret but not for selfish reasons. He will keep her secret to protect her and he thinks, from the look on her face, that she knows this.

And so when he returns to her flat in the early hours of the morning, worse for wear for all the soul-searching liquor, she will let him in without a word. And when he tells her that he loathes her before smothering her in a violent kiss, as if trying to force the magic out of her, she will thread her fingers through his and lead him upstairs.

Because they both know there is no escaping this, their unfathomable need for one another. They know the very worst thing about each other and still they cannot keep their distance. It will be the death and the making of them both.

2nd January 2005

'The Greengrass family were the subject of further scandal today when Draco Malfoy, former Death-eater and known member of Lord Voldemort's inner circle, announced he and the younger Miss Greengrass had married in secret over the weekend, somewhere in the Scottish highlands. Mrs Astoria Malfoy (nee Greengrass), who herself caused a stir last summer when she was implicated in the disintegration of her elder sisters engagement to Mr Blaise Zabini, declined to make an official comment but added that we were all welcome to "mind our own b*****ing business for once." This reporter is sure that the pair will be very happy together – '

xx