Disclaimer: As usual, Harry Potter doesn't belong to me.
A/N: This is for Maggie (mollywolly) for her birthday, which was ages ago, and because she's lovely and kind and wonderful. Happy birthday! Hope you like this!
Also, thanks to Ela for the prompts. (I got them all in except for revising. Which just wouldn't fit.)

It's empty in the valley of your heart
The sun, it rises slowly as you walk
Away from all the fears
And all the faults you've left behind
Mumford & Sons – "The Cave"

Astoria Greengrass's wand buzzed at 6:17 every weekday. 6:15 was too early, and 6:30 would have guaranteed that she'd be late. 6:17 seemed like a nice number – a perfectionist's ideal nonconforming time. She got up immediately; there was no sense in snoozing when she wouldn't have been able to fall back asleep, anyway.

Every morning she spelled her skin flawless, charmed her hair into a single sunny braid down her back, and tied a wrap dress around her skinny frame while slipping her feet into black or forest green pumps, depending on which day of the week it was. Black for Monday through Thursday, green for Friday, which was how Astoria interpreted "casual day" at the Prophet.

She always made her bed herself, tugging her plum colored comforter straight and plumping her single pillow against the headboard, and then she grabbed a banana, an apple, or an orange, depending on which season it was, from the kitchen, where she flicked the burner on beneath the tea kettle and organized her bag for the day. She was always sure to pour the hot water into her mug over an Earl Grey teabag before the steam triggered the tea kettle's scream, in order to avoid waking her flat-mate.

Monday through Friday, she was hurrying along the London sidewalk by 7:00, ready for another day of sorting through article after article and moving photograph after moving photograph, figuring out which stories on which exotic location would feature in the travel section of each weekend's Daily Prophet.

It was a cycle. And after the tragedies of her fifth year at Hogwarts, Astoria had grown to appreciate the cyclical nature of her life in the post-War world.

Her flat-mate had several names for her, ranging from anal-Astoria to grumpy-Greengrass, with a variety of more obscene and less alliterative ones in between, but he could afford to be flippant. He didn't need to be up before ten, if he didn't want to. He didn't even need to work, if he didn't want to. His parents hadn't cut him off when he refused to get married straight out of Hogwarts. He did work, though, which meant that Astoria couldn't detest him the way she wanted to. Of course, his position as a broomstick repairman – specializing in Firebolts and Nimbuses – in the back of Quality Quidditch Supplies was not exactly the prestigious career he had once imagined for himself. But at least, as he told Astoria at their nightly dinner, he was not stuck in Malfoy Manor, married to some rich, ignorant priss who did her best to spend his father's fortune.

And she always nodded along with him, because that was how she saw her own life. Her fingers were permanently stained with newsprint and she had to wear thick lensed reading glasses, her mother would despair of her fingernails – cut short and lacking the professional shine of polish – if she ever saw her. But at least Astoria was not married to Adrian Pucey. At least she did not have six children – one for every year since her seventeenth birthday, when her father had hoped to finalize her engagement to the pureblood prick. Who cared that her older sister, happily married and with three children, would receive both Astoria's and her own inheritance? At least Astoria had escaped the web that her blood had woven for her long before her birth.

Astoria went to work every day because she wanted to, and she kept to her pattern because she had to. Muggles passing her on the street saw her as a busy twenty-something with a determined set to her shiny lips; witches and wizards passing her in Diagon Alley saw her as the disowned pureblood who had all-but disappeared from the social scene. And when Astoria checked her reflection in her bedroom mirror at 6:35, in the Prophet's washroom mirror at 2:15, and in the reflective surface of her refrigerator at 19:12, she saw a woman with a career and cold eyes, who was maybe missing something vital.

The first time Astoria broke from her pattern, she stayed late at work. Astoria's writers had sent in their articles and photographs for the Christmas edition of the Prophet by Wednesday evening, and Astoria found herself sitting at her desk long after the rest of her coworkers had called goodbyes and waved over the tops of their cubicles. She had several sheets of paper spread before her, and she was trying to decide whether her readers would rather learn about Christmas traditions near the Great Barrier Reef, or how Muggles at Disney World over in the States celebrated. The photographs for both pieces were stunning, and Astoria could not make up her mind. They'd print both articles, of course, but only one of them would be in full color on the front of the travel section.

Astoria waved her wand to brighten the lights in the room when the sky outside began to darken, not immediately recognizing that that meant it was getting later. In fact, she didn't notice how late it was until she heard a series of crashes from near the front of her department and raised her head, realizing that the hall beyond her cubicle was dim. She gripped her wand, glancing at the clock above the chairs that sat opposite her desk and biting back a surprised gasp when she realized that she had stayed two hours later than she ever had before.

Astoria pushed back from her desk and crossed her cramped cubicle to the opening; she peeked around its gray corner and could just make out a tall figure coming her way in the hall. She raised her wand and cast a quick lumos charm, just as the shadow did the same.

He blew a piece of white-blond hair out of his eyes and she jumped when she recognized him. "Draco? What the hell are you doing here?"

"Astoria, thank Merlin." He walked past her into the cubicle and collapsed in one of the two cushioned chairs that took up most of the space.

"What are you doing here?" Astoria repeated, turning to stand behind her desk, shuffling her papers together into a pile and slipping them into the oversized manila folder labeled "Christmas Issue 2010" in her neat script.

"I came to rescue you." Draco stretched his long legs out, crossing them at the ankles and drawing Astoria's attention to the Slytherin green socks peeking out in the gap between his trousers and the tops of his converses.

"Oh?" Astoria grinned at him, slipping the folder into the filing cabinet beside her desk before kneeling to lock it. "And why did you think I needed rescuing?"

"Well, it's blizzarding out there. I thought you might have gotten lost, seeing as how you weren't home when I got back. And you're always home when I get there."

Astoria had long ago given up trying to disguise her compulsive tendencies. Draco was more familiar with her schedule than he was with his own; his sense of time depended on where Astoria was whenever he had to be somewhere.

"Really?" Astoria stood and stood on tiptoe to see into her neighbor's cubicle – this woman, the editor of the food section, had bribed the editor in chief for the cubicle with the window. The air outside looked mostly clear; a few flakes spiraled down.

"Oh, yes." Astoria nodded, dropping back and turning to face Draco. "It certainly looks dangerous out there – you can barely see out the window. I probably would have gotten lost. Thank you for rescuing me, kind sir."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Enough with the sarcasm. I was just wondering why you weren't home yet, especially considering that it's your turn to make dinner, and I figured I'd apparate here quicker than an owl could fly here and back with a note."

"Well, obviously." Astoria grabbed her wool coat from the coat rack and buttoned it quickly. "You ready to go home? We can grab some takeaway on the way over, if you don't mind. I hadn't really thought about what I was going to make tonight."

"Why don't we just go out, then? I'll buy, this time, since you seem to have forgotten your entire life today."

"Sure, eating out sounds good. I do have my purse, though. I can pay."

"Come on, Greengrass. I don't mind." He didn't say what he must have known they both were thinking: that she needed her money, whereas he could have been volunteering at Quality Quidditch Supplies and still have more than enough to live on.

She didn't say anything as she followed him from the office and down the stairs, out into Diagon Alley. The snow had stopped entirely, and they walked through the few centimeters that coated the cobblestone path, watching as Draco's converses and Astoria's heels left gray colored marks on the snowy ground.

"What do you want to eat? Indian? Chinese? Italian?" Draco asked, when they pushed out of the Leaky Cauldron and onto the Muggle street. A few people shot them curious glances as they passed, and Astoria stuffed her wand in her jacket pocket.

"Whatever's closest. Indian, right?" The snow had begun to sink through the satin coverings of her shoes, and Astoria was certain that if they didn't make it to a restaurant in the next five minutes, she'd lose the ability to move her toes.

Draco nodded at the door two doors down from the Leaky Cauldron. The windows were hung with deep orange and red curtains, and the gold lettering on the glass read Finnegan's Indian Cuisine. "It's closest."

"Do you mind? Or did you want to get something else?"

"Indian's good." Draco held the door open for her and followed her into the nearly-empty, spice-scented restaurant. They seated themselves, and Draco skimmed the menu while Astoria slid the edge of her knife in between the tines of her fork, flinching whenever the metal scraped in a particularly unpleasant way.

"What's going on, Ria?" Draco only used her nickname – what she had been called among their group of pureblood friends until they all grew up and went off to Hogwarts and faked maturity – when he was worried about her, and she knew by now that it took quite a lot to get Draco worried. He had been worried after the War, when he thought she and Daphne and Theodore might blame him for everything that had happened – they had been Ria and Daph and Teddy then. He had been worried when she showed up on the doorstep of his parents' home the night her parents dropped their ultimatum. And he had been worried when he first realized how stringently she followed her schedule.

"Nothing," she responded, "Why?"

"Because," Draco cut off when the waiter appeared at the table, and Astoria asked for her usual while Draco babbled out about seven different unusual dishes that Astoria was certain he'd never tried before in his life. When the waiter left, Draco turned his full attention to Astoria, and she suddenly regretted not getting takeaway. They could both be locked away in their bedrooms at that moment. Or she could have been locked away in her bedroom and Draco could have been out at one of his favorite pubs, picking up a girl to lock himself in his bedroom with.

But, no. Here they were, sitting across from each other in an uncomfortably empty and hot Indian restaurant, and Draco was on the edge of a full-blown psychoanalysis.

"Because?" she prompted, although she really just wanted to change the subject.

"Because you're off today. And you're never off. We've been living together for six years, Ria, and you've never once messed with your schedule. Not even when you had that miserable stomach bug, or after Damon and you split up."

"I think…I think I might be getting better. I mean, I think I might be transitioning, sort of. Like, maybe staying late at work isn't a big deal. And maybe next week I'll sleep in a little later."

Draco didn't respond for a moment. It had been a long time – a very long time – since Astoria Greengrass had done anything that was not plotted out on a physical or mental schedule. He could barely remember what she had been like in school, and the burning, fiery girl from his childhood was a misty memory.

"Or maybe," Astoria said, when he remained silent, "Maybe today was just a fluke and I'll be back to my usual anal self by morning."

"You can try," Draco suggested, venturing into a topic they hadn't mentioned since the first few years after they'd moved in together, when this whole thing was new and Draco believed that Astoria was choosing to follow her compulsions. "If you think you're getting better, I mean. You can try to break away. Like, maybe set your alarm for 6:20 tomorrow, or come out with me some night."

The laugh that sprung from Astoria's lips at that was bitter, and Draco tried not to feel offended. "What?" he pouted. "You don't want to come out with me?"

"Oh, Draco." Astoria shook her head as their waiter approached with their food. "I don't think I'd be any fun. I'd probably just sneak behind the bar and reorganize the bottles according to size, or something."

"You never know, some bartender might appreciate that."

Astoria rolled her eyes. "Maybe some day, Draco, but not anytime soon."

"All right." Draco dipped some naan into his chicken curry and smiled at her. "What about waking up later?"

"That, I might try."

"Good. So, are you still planning on going over to Daphne and Theo's on Christmas?"

"I was." Astoria swirled her plum wine in her glass and tapped against her ceramic plate with a fork. "But Daphne owled me yesterday to tell me that Mother and Father have canceled their plans to go to Austria for Christmas, so they're going to Daphne's. I'll probably just stay in the flat."

"You can't do that!" Draco stared at her. "Just go to Daphne's. You were invited first, after all, and you know Daph and Theo and the kids would rather have you there than your parents, if it came down to it."

"They've disowned me, Draco. I am not allowed to see them again. I'm not about to force my way in and ruin everyone's Christmas with a huge family row."

"They haven't seen you in years, Astoria. They might be regretting how they treated you. They might be hoping that you're at Daphne's, so you lot can make up."

Astoria shook her head. "Daph told me that Mother asked her to please let me know that they would be there, so I'd have time to make other arrangements." She raised her eyes to his gray ones and sighed. "I broke our family. I'm not saying that to be overdramatic or because I expect pity. I'm just saying it because I did, and I don't think that it will ever be fixed."

"Okay." Draco nodded. "Well, you're always welcome at the Manor, you know. Come with me. Mum and Father might give you a hard time at first, but once they figure out we're not dating it'll be fine."

"Except that your family always has the entire group over, and I'm really not interested in running into everyone who's judged me since my parents kicked me out. It is fine, Draco. I'll just stay home. I don't mind."

He stared at her for one long moment, then shrugged. "Fine. But if you change your mind, let me know."

"Sure," she promised, although both of them knew she wouldn't. Astoria never changed her mind.

The next morning she woke up at 6:17, but she forced herself to remain curled beneath her covers until her wand buzzed at 6:20, one hand gripping her sheets as if they could anchor her to her mattress. She got to work two minutes later than usual, and she could feel people staring at her, as if waiting for her to have some sort of breakdown now that she'd started to let go a little bit.

She didn't say anything, and refused to respond to their curious glances. People could wonder about her all they wanted; the society pages had been full of stories about her fall from grace just after the war, and she still made good fodder whenever they were having a down day and Harry Potter and his glorious friends hadn't done anything worth reporting. She always ignored them, their whispers, and their speculation.

She drafted the layout for that weekend's Prophet, and when she slid a black and white photograph of St. Petersburg into a black frame on what would become the third page of the travel section, she felt a sudden rush of longing. She could go there. She could lose herself between the spires of the palace and the frozen Neva and she could listen to rumors of Russian royalty that had nothing to do with a pureblood girl refusing to fulfill her duties in repopulating high society.

She stopped and pressed her hands down, flat, on the pages in front of her. She had been working at the Daily Prophet for six years; she had been editor of the travel segment for four years; she had put together two-hundred and eight travel pages. She had looked at countless photographs of countless places around the world. And never before, not in any of those thousands of photographs or five thousand articles, had she felt any desire to go to any of the places they documented. Never. But now her mind was thousands of kilometers away, trapped somewhere between the romance of ancient architecture and the loneliness of snowy steppes.

Without thinking, she scribbled a note on a slip of the scrap paper that she always kept in a wire mesh basket in her top desk drawer.
Draco – I want to go to Russia for Christmas. Yes? – Astoria
But she incinerated it with her wand before she could send it. Draco had plans for Christmas and besides, Astoria didn't do things on the spur of the moment. A trip to Russia would require months of preparation.

She managed to keep her impulses to a minimum as she sorted through the rest of the photographs and finished setting the layout for the paper. She left four minutes earlier than usual that afternoon, once again ignoring the stares and the shocked whispers that trailed her to the door. Christmas was on a Saturday this year, so they were given the Friday before off, and Astoria handed her section in to the editor in chief before leaving.

The editor in chief stared at her for a long moment. "Everything all right, Astoria?"

She smiled at him, brightly, the way she hadn't in years, and he blinked. "Everything's brilliant, Dennis, thank you."

"Sure. Sure." He skimmed through the papers she had handed him and nodded. "I've been really impressed with the travel section lately. You're doing good work."

Astoria shrugged. "My writers are wonderful. I don't do much. Happy Christmas, Dennis." She turned and left the office, biting down on the tongue that was suddenly longing to spew hateful, hurtful words at the young man. She wanted to tell him that he really ought to have been complimenting her when it was clear that she was struggling. She wanted to tell him that she was finished working for him. She wanted to apparate straight from his office to St. Petersburg, with a brief stop in Quality Quidditch Supplies to grab a handful of Draco's robes and drag him along with her.

But she didn't. Not because she didn't want to or because she didn't do those sorts of things, but because she was terrified of the suddenness of this surge of emotions. Astoria didn't feel or want or need this much. She existed. Feeling, wanting, needing – all of that was foreign to her.

She walked to Quality Quidditch Supplies and slipped in the front door. The man behind the counter – Brad, she thought, judging from Draco's stories – glanced up at her and then away, as if something about her hurt his eyes. But maybe she was just exaggerating, picking up on little cues because everything felt out of place to her, like everything in her life had moved three centimeters to the left and four centimeters forward.

"Is Draco in the back?" she asked, her hand tugging at her braid and begging the man to face her.

"Yeah. I'll get him for you." Brad's eyes caught hers then, and he stared at her for a long moment. "Are you Astoria?"

She nodded.

"Really?" He shook his head. "I thought you'd look more rebellious, judging from what I've heard about you."

"I've been considering dyeing my hair magenta," she replied, faking a smile that the man might have believed was genuine. "Would that help?"

He considered her and nodded. "It really would. My little sister goes to a great salon, I could get the name for you, if you'd like."

"Thanks, I'll manage. Can you get Draco, please?" She dropped all pretense of humor and the man nodded, straightening his back and whirling away from the counter in an instant.

"Right, sorry." He shoved his head through the curtain that separated the front of the shop from the back and shouted, "Oi, Malfoy, your lady friend is here to see you!"

When he turned back to the front Astoria pinned him with a fierce glare. "Lady friend?" she asked coolly.

Before Brad could respond, Draco had burst from the back of the shop, his hands caught in a white, oil-stained towel and his jeans marked with broom-shine.

"Astoria? Is everything okay?"

She transferred her glare to Draco. "Lady friend?" she said.

"Oh, he's just being an ignorant arse." Draco punched Brad in the arm and continued, "But why are you here? Are you all right?"

"Yeah. I'm fine." She couldn't say any of the things that she had wanted to say, about how she was scared of feeling at all, about how raw emotions felt when they were new. About how looking at him now sent strange sensations up and down her spine, about the squirming, twitching feeling in her limbs and her stomach. About how her lungs seemed to have grown seven times smaller and her heart seven times bigger, and about how incredible he had been over the last six years.

She couldn't say any of that, so she lied instead, in a way she hadn't since she was a fourth year in Slytherin and lies were her language. "I was just heading home and I wanted to see whether you wanted chicken or fish for dinner."

He scanned her face before responding. She wasn't sure whether or not he believed her, but then, what did it really matter? "Chicken sounds good. I'll be home a little later than usual tonight, I need to stop and pick something up, all right?"

"Okay." She turned to leave, feeling Brad's and Draco's curious gazes on her back.

"Are you sure that was it, Astoria?"

"Yes." She didn't turn back around, just sent the word spiraling into the shop as she pushed out into the cold evening air.

Draco got home thirty-nine minutes later than usual that night, not that Astoria was counting. He disappeared into his bedroom for a few minutes and returned dressed in sweatpants and slippers, tugging a green jumper over his head. His white blond hair hung in a static halo around his face as he emerged from the top of the jumper, and he grinned at Astoria. "All right?"

"Fine." She could feel all those annoying emotions blistering beneath her skin, and she was still not okay with them. "Here." She handed him a plate full of roast chicken and chips.

"Thanks, Astoria."

They sat at the dinner table and Draco watched her as she ate, tracking each mouthful as she chewed. Finally she snapped, "What? Do I have something on my face?"

"Something's wrong." He finally cut into his own meat. "And I have no idea what it is, but I can tell it's serious. So. What is it?"

"Salazar," she hissed, "There is nothing wrong. I'm perfectly fine. I got up late this morning, and I left work early this afternoon. Maybe you're just weirded out by how bloody spontaneous I'm being."

He snorted, then said in an exasperated tone, "Spontaneous? You mean anal in a different way, right?" He hadn't spoken to her like that in a while. Astoria looked at him. He pushed back from the table, holding his half-full plate and turning to the sink. "Look, Astoria." He spoke with his back to her, as if he couldn't bear to say this to her face. "It's just, it makes me sad that you get so excited about the difference three minutes makes. That it makes you so happy. And it makes me happy, too, don't get me wrong. I mean, I get it – it's one day, one step at a time, and after six years three minutes is a big deal. But...I wish you could be you again, instantly. I wish…I wish you had never changed."

She picked at a loose thread in her jumper and examined the shine of the table's wood surface. "Today I thought about going to Russia," before she had even considered the words they had fallen from her mouth and pulled Draco's attention to her. "Today I wanted to go to Russia. I also wanted to go to Martinique and Morocco. I wanted to quit my job and I almost told my boss he had been a bastard. I wanted to ask you if I could go out with you tomorrow night. I wanted to ask you if you'd go with me to Russia on Christmas. It was too much. I can't jump to spontaneity immediately. I can't go back to myself immediately. If I do that, I might lose everything I've learned in the last six years. And they must have had some purpose, or else I'll really go insane."

She didn't dare look at him. She had come too close to spinning off a web of untrustworthy truths? She had come too close to saying, And when I see you I feel like maybe there's hope for me and that terrifies me because I've never been the hopeful sort. And I'm wondering if this is what love is like and if it is then that's even more terrifying because I rejected love a long time ago but I could never bring myself to reject you. Too close to being completely honest.

He was quiet a long time. Maybe he was waiting for her to raise her eyes to his; she could feel his gaze on her. But she refused. She could avoid looking at him, she could. Finally he said, "You can come out with me tomorrow night. I'm just going to Jeremiah's Pub. They've got a Christmas Eve party there. It'll be fun." When she didn't say anything he added, "And I'll warn the bartender that you'll be itching to rearrange his bottles. He'll be prepared."

"All right," she said softly to the table. "Thank you."

"It'll be fun," he repeated, although even Draco couldn't have been so idiotically hopeful.

But it astonished Astoria that her second thought, after agreeing to go, was, what the hell will I wear?

She locked herself in her bedroom that night, the way she always did. But instead of reading through the journals she had kept through the first four years of Hogwarts, rather than drafting new plans for her future, she tore through her wardrobe, searching for something appropriately pub-like. But she found dull wrap dress after dull wrap dress, boring heels after boring heels.

She woke up late the next morning – her day off – and left her flat without eating breakfast for the first time in years. Astoria arrived in a Muggle shop twenty minutes later, and found herself lost among the patterns and colors and lengths and fabrics. Were people really wearing faux fur vests? Was that actually a thing? Because it seemed downright tacky to her.

"Can I help you?" A woman appeared by Astoria's side. She looked a few years younger than Astoria, and her hair was bright pink.

"Yes, actually." Astoria dropped the leopard print jumper she had just been looking at and turned to face the woman, trying to keep her eyes away from the shock of bright hair. "I just need something…different…to wear to a party tomorrow night. I don't like animal prints," she added, as the woman reached for the jumper.

"Right, then. Let's see," the woman looked Astoria up and down, and then shrugged. "You definitely do need something different. Come with me."

Astoria left the store two hours later, carrying three oversized bags and considerably fewer galleons. She got back to her flat to find Draco pacing in the kitchen, glaring at the steaming tea kettle and muttering to himself. She dropped the bags in the entranceway and said, "Morning."

"Astoria! Merlin, where the fuck were you?"

"I just had to grab some stuff, sorry." She stared at him. "Were you actually worried about me?"

"Of course I was. You never just leave."

"Sorry. I'll leave a note next time."

"You'd better." He sounded angrier than she'd expected him to, but then, she wasn't the only one dealing with the oddness that was her sudden ability to change her schedule.

They didn't speak the rest of the day, and when he knocked at her bedroom door at 22:30, she took one last hesitant glance in the mirror and suddenly considered telling him that she had changed her mind. He could go without her, she'd spend Christmas Eve alone. It was fine. She was Astoria Greengrass, dammit, and this is what she did with her life – she spent hours in her room. And that had been okay for the last six years so why was it suddenly not okay now?

But she didn't say any of those things because in that one last glance in the mirror she saw something burning in her eyes; something that didn't look like she was lacking anything, but like she might actually be all there.

So she straightened her shoulders, grabbed her bag and her coat, and opened the door. "Ready?" she asked Draco.

He didn't answer. Of course he didn't answer, the poor thing was probably in shock. He hadn't seen her in anything less casual than work clothes in what probably seemed like decades to him. She looked up at him, "Draco? Are you ready?"

But he still didn't respond. "Draco?" She glanced down at herself. She didn't think she looked that different. Sure, the skinny jeans she was wearing hugged a little tighter than her dresses normally did. And all right, the silver jumper had a v-neck that was a little lower than her usual, but the green wool scarf she had looped around her neck covered that up. And the dark heels were inches higher than her usual pumps. But still. Draco had certainly seen girls who looked a lot better in similar – or identical – outfits.

And then he spoke. His voice was rough, and he was turning away as he said it, but she could still make it out. "Your hair looks nice."

It hung well past her shoulders, nearly to her waist, in a sheet of yellow. She hadn't worn it down since before the War. "Thanks."

They didn't talk on their way to the pub, and Astoria found herself examining Draco. He kept his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans, and his shoulders were straight and hi s hair was just a little bit messy and she wanted to smooth it out but she fought that urge because it really looked good like that. Not everything needed to be orderly.

They shoved into the heat of the pub to find that it was already beyond crowded. Astoria tried to avoid touching the sweaty bodies as they maneuvered their way to the bar, but it useless. She felt hands tug at her fingers, her waist, the belt loops of her jeans, her scarf from the minute she entered the hot room, and she soon gave up avoiding them.

Draco ordered two drinks and they both forced back the stiff liquor. Astoria grinned up at him, pretending to feel like she was open to any situation that might throw itself her way, but Draco's eyes were already somewhere over her shoulder and she turned to see a girl beckoning to him. Astoria fought down the revulsion that rose in her chest at the sight and shoved Draco lightly. "Go ahead," she shouted. He glanced at her.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, yeah." She shoved his shoulder again and he grinned, joining the crowd in an instant. But he hadn't disappeared, and she wished he had, because she could watch Draco and that girl grind against each other and she didn't let herself turn away until she was entirely certain that the emotion she felt was jealousy.

"All right?" A hand slipping around her waist accompanied the soft voice in her ear, and she turned to see a dark haired man grinning down at her, his eyes heavy with lust and his lips centimeters from hers. "Care to dance?"

"Sure," she smiled brightly up at him. The jealousy had done more to loosen her up than the burning liquor, and she wasn't thinking about Draco when she allowed this nameless man to guide her onto the dance floor, except she was, and so she wasn't really surprised when she felt a more familiar hand grab at her shoulder and saw a pale hand push the man away from her. .

"Excuse me." Draco's tone of voice negated the politeness of the expression, and the nameless man looked about ready to curse him. Astoria smiled brightly at him and mouthed, "Sorry" as she followed Draco through the crowd.

He kept his hand around Astoria's wrist and led her outside. The silence of the cool night air was shocking after the overwhelming noise in the pub, and Astoria took a moment or two to regain her senses as she leaned against the concrete side of the building, waiting for Draco to say something.

"This was a bad idea," he told her. "I shouldn't have taken you here."

"Oh?" Astoria glanced at him before turning her gaze back to the sidewalk. His shirt was mostly untucked, and his lips were red. What a hypocrite.

"You're not ready."

"Draco, I'm twenty-three years old. I'm not exactly innocent."

"I know. I know. It's just, I'd rather not...watch you get hurt again."

"What the bloody fuck are you talking about? I was just dancing with him. We weren't about to have sex, or even snog, or anything." She left off the "which is more than I can say for you" that was burning the tip of her tongue.

"You might not have been thinking about snogging or sex, but I guarantee he was."

"And what's so wrong about that? Merlin, Draco, what did you think was going to happen if you took me out? I'd just stand by the bar all night and become pals with the bartender? He'd solve all my problems and you'd come back from whoring on the dance floor to find me back to the way I was fifth year, except older and a little more fuckable?" She pushed forward, and her hands fisted in his shirt, pulling it all the way from his trousers as her lips pressed close to his face and she hissed, "What did you want Draco?"

He stared down at her, and then he closed his eyes and she closed hers and his lips were on hers and his hands had found her waist, and hers were locked around his. They stayed like that, with only their lips and their tongues and their hands moving, for a long time, and when they finally pulled away she couldn't look at him. Her hair swung forward to cover her face and she slowly, slowly let go of him and he murmured, "Astoria?" but she couldn't respond.

She was through with people being possessive of her.

"Astoria," he repeated, his voice stronger. His hand caught at hers and he gripped tightly, so she couldn't disappear into the crowd passing on the sidewalk the way she wanted to. "Astoria."

"Draco," she said steadily. "What?"

"I meant to wait."

"You meant to wait." She turned around and glared at him. She could feel horrendous, embarrassing tears clouding her eyes, but she couldn't face away from him. She had to know if he was lying. She had to see him. "What the fuck does that mean?"

"Are you – are you crying?" He stared. "I haven't seen you cry since – "

"Who cares if I'm crying? Get on with whatever the fuck you were saying so I can get out of here."

"I care!" He pulled her closer, his hands seeking her waist again. "I care, Astoria, because you're feeling again. Even if it's awful, at least you're feeling!"

"Seriously, Draco, they're just tears. Get over it."

"No." He wiped away the few tears that had overflowed her lashes with his thumb and he smiled. "No. I was saying that I was going to wait until I knew you weren't numb anymore. I didn't want to force this on you. I wanted to make sure that you could love me back when I finally told you, because it wouldn't have been fair to you to force you into anything when you couldn't feel anything at all."

"Love you back?" Astoria stared at him. "This kiss – it wasn't just from jealousy?"

"No, Ria, no."

She moved forward and pressed her hands against his shoulders, and then they found their way into his hair and pulled his face down to hers and she really didn't care that his hair didn't lay smooth and that her hair was a whirlwind of sun around them because they had made the mess.

And she found that there was nothing quite as peaceful as the messes that she and Draco made together.