Loveless

Green flames soar up in the fireplace the second before Draco steps into it. He freezes as he was — foot on the fire grate, fistful of Floo powder in hand. 'Good morning, Draco,' says Mr Greengrass and shakes his free hand a bit too eagerly for Draco’s taste. Mrs Greengrass smiles and greets him with a small nod. 'Nothing is good about this morning, Bellerophontes,' drawls Lucius Malfoy loudly enough for everyone to hear from the other side of the hall, but not too loud, so that nobody suspects him of putting in an effort. Actually, it’s the first time Draco has agreed with his father since Merlin knows when. The morning is a disaster. 'Lucius, what a nice surprise!' Another lie. Draco is perfectly aware of Mr Greengrass' thoughts on Malfoy Senior. He deems Lucius too weak to aid the Dark Lord. Bold words from someone who hasn’t moved a finger to help either side. As much as Draco loathes his father these days, at least the man is acting on his beliefs. 'I fail to see how me dwelling in my estate may be a surprise. Your visit is quite surprising, though. One would think you should be with your poor daughter, no?' Father is gaining points at an astounding rate today. Draco, too, is outraged to see the Greengrasses anywhere but at the hospital. 'I asked them to pay us a visit, Lucius.' Narcissa explains, leisurely descending from the gallery to join what is promising to become a giant row. 'The girl is in good hands in Mungo’s and probably haven’t even regained consciousness yet. And we have things to discuss.' The girl. Is this how she is going to call her only son’s bride now, when only yesterday it was Tori, dear? Draco thrusts both hands in his pockets and curses when he realises he’s just stained the right one with the Floo powder he’s still clenching. 'Narcissa, we came as soon as we could!' Mrs Greengrass states, smiling at his mother radiantly. Narcissa smiles back with abandon, which always means trouble. 'So thoughtful of you, Epponina. Would have been truly splendid, if you also informed your future relatives of a blood curse running in your family.' And there it goes. 'Your son has known everything from the start and he assured us it was fine,' Mr Greengrass exclaims, clutching at his heart in impeccably feigned dismay. What he said is true, but throwing Draco under the Knight Bus as the first line of defence is commendable, no doubt. 'Enlighten me, Bellerophontes, since when do you bargain with children?' Lucius inquires, radiating sheer boredom, as if there is a single person in this room that doesn’t know the whole range of his impressive conversational tricks. 'It’s my marriage, so I hope I get a say, Father,' Draco says, losing all hope to stay out of this farce. 'And you are a Malfoy heir and my son, which brings more important things than fancying young witches to the table-' 'I’m no heir, Father. Or do I need to remind you that the person who owns all Malfoy properties, enterprises, and assets now is me? I am the head of this house!' he lashes back, which means he fails miserably in this stupid high-society game of saying shit in your opponent’s face without raising your voice. 'The house you intend to ruin, I presume?!' Since the game is over, Lucius immediately indulges in screaming. Draco’s head aches so much a clicking noise starts in his ears from all the tension. 'Lucius, he is not the one to be-' Mother tries to interfere, but there’s no way of stopping this anymore. 'I don’t need to ruin anything, you’re already thriving in that department!' 'My, so this wreckage is a family we’ve almost let our daughter into?' Mrs Greengrass murmurs to her husband, but everyone hears each word, and the shouting spirals out of control. Draco clenches the Floo powder in his hand to the point where his fingernails dig into his palm painfully. Suddenly he recognises the annoying clicks in his brain to be an actual sound, resonating from the marble walls. Something is tapping on the window. An owl. Draco rushes to get the letter it brought before others take a break from bickering and notice the bird. 'It’s from Mungo’s. She’s awakened,' he croaks and, not bothered if they even heard, strides to the fireplace. 'Draco, wait, we still haven’t-' 'St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, Janus Thickey Ward,' Draco chants, clutching the letter tighter. She is so weak now she can’t even write them herself. And she woke up in that horrible, depressive ward, all alone, while they were screaming themselves hoarse at each other. He should have been by her side when she opened her eyes, should have held her hand. When nobody is there for her, he must. *** Draco stopped abruptly on the Owlery doorstep. All his way up the stairs he had been growing more and more certain (and relieved) that he was alone in the tower. Yet here she was, some apparently very stealthy girl. It took a certain effort to suppress an immediate urge to vanish: to leave, to hide, to mutter a notice-me-not… He tended to act a wallflower these days. Even though coming back to Hogwarts had been a statement: he’s still here, he’s not holing up in his rich pureblood bubble, for the first time he’s ready to do something useful with his life. But of course, everyone had only laughed at him. He’d lost all his Slytherin friends for being 'a wimp' and hadn’t gained any others, since everyone was sure Malfoys had bought their pardon with gold. Not that Father wouldn’t, if need be, and not that Draco would decline or fight it in any way, but they hadn’t spent a Knut on their freedom. Well, who in the world would listen to him nagging that they’d earned it… They hadn’t earned a right for private correspondence, though. That’s why instead of sending his personal owl from the comfort of his dorm room he had to climb all the way to the Owlery. Draco stepped through the door, gripping the handle of his wand tighter. He wasn’t planning to land spells on the girl, and wasn’t really afraid of her trying any on him — students weren’t kind to him, but usually not to the extent of violence — just that the feeling of holding a wand was soothing by itself. If he was lucky, the girl wouldn’t even notice. The owls were quite noisy, and he only needed to tie his message to one’s foot and send the bird away. 'Oh! Hello, Draco. Didn’t hear you coming.' So much for being discreet. The voice was familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. Well, at least she greeted him properly, so maybe this could go tolerably. Draco sighed and turned around… to see Astoria Greengrass. 'Greengrass,' he said absently, his brain rushing about in search for an excuse to escape this conversation. Early into the year, he had a spectacular squabble with Daphne, and facing her sister was awkward at best. 'Hiding here, like me?' 'Hiding? No, I- I simply need an owl.' He waved a letter at her. 'Wait, why are you hiding?' A humourless chuckle escaped her lips. 'I was also sending a letter. Initially. I’m just taking my time with it… You know, you aren’t the only lucky pureblood to receive all those hisses behind your back. Or in your face.' He knew damn well he wasn’t the only one; he had eyes and ears, after all. Goyle hadn’t even come back to school. Zabini was mocked simply for being Draco’s friend. Pancy turned her life into a sex crusade where each person lured to her bed was apparently meant to spontaneously combust from shame the next morning. Even Nott got his share of disgust for his dad’s schemes. But Astoria? Her family wasn’t associated with Voldemort in any way, she’d never done a single thing wrong, hell, she wasn’t even a Slytherin… Being a pureblood wasn’t a crime by itself last time he checked. 'What are they saying to you?' he whispered, not entirely aware that the words escaped his mouth. 'Oh, nothing new, it’s just- I happen to be a textbook example of pureblood degeneracy. I’m sure you know the drill: squib birth rates and all that.' Draco opened his mouth to protest, but she didn’t let him squeeze one word in. 'No, I’m not a squib, as you probably wanted to point out, but my weak health is enough to brand me a freak.' It flashed before Draco’s eyes: a dimly-lit corridor and a pale girl sitting on the floor, her fists clenched. She wanted to stay at Hogwarts more than anything, and that’s how it payed her back. He opened his mouth to try and comfort her, but she didn’t need pity. And Draco wasn’t good at it anyway. But he had been good at berating others once. 'Health? They are trashing you for a lack of health? What about other glaring signs of the hideous inbreeding? I mean, the Weasley oafs don’t have a single brain cell between all dozen of them — and nobody bats an eye!' She snorted and then burst with laughter. 'So you really are that savage bully people tend to paint you,' she finally managed to say, still snickering. He scoffed. It was nice to elicit something other than disdain from a schoolmate. Especially laughter. It hadn’t been a thing since Merlin knows when… He tried to build on the success, while it lasted: 'Yeah, nice to meet you, I’m Draco Malfoy: a savage bully, an honorary Death Eater and a disgusting inbred. Stinking rich, too, so I can’t possibly be bothered. All in all, you wouldn’t want to stand near me.' It was pathetic in every way, but it still worked: she smiled, and not out of courtesy. Draco felt like winning a Quidditch match: someone laughed at his jokes again. 'Well, if you say so! I’ll go and send my letter to Daphne, like a good sister I am.' He must have misheard. 'To Daphne? Why would you write to her? Are you on the outs?' Astoria’s eyes widened as if he said something blasphemous, but she collected herself right away. 'Oh, it’s- No-no, we’re fine, let’s just say it’s my whim. I’m writing to her often.' 'Never took Daph for a correspondence fan,' he pointed out, recalling numerous times when Daphne Greengrass had whined about Self-Writing Quills being too short-lived, which made her “write with her own two hands like a barbarian”. Astoria snorted and tsked. Both of which weren’t ladylike in the slightest. 'She isn’t. Still, she was kind enough to answer all of my letters while I’d been homeschooled. It turned into a habit for me, so I do it even at Hogwarts. She complains all the time and rarely writes back, but I just can’t stop.' She shrugged with an apologetic smile and turned to the first owl at hand. Draco watched her for a couple moments, but then got back to his own postal duties. Those were not endearing, like Astoria’s little “dear diary” routine with her sister. He didn’t have friends out of school and as for parents — they tried to contact as rarely as possible. The Ministry read all their letters, and even though none of them contained anything out of the ordinary, the invasion of privacy was offensive by itself. No, his letter was addressed straight to the DMLE. A bloody weekly report on his activities. He only hoped that an unlucky Auror bestowed with the fantastic honour of reading those got bored no less than Draco himself while transferring his uneventful school life to paper. 'If somebody wrote to me every day, I’d dance a fucking jig upon receiving each letter,' he mumbled, shoving his envelope into the owl’s claws. The next morning Draco was poking at his fried eggs, royally impassive to the usual stir that mailing owls caused in the Great Hall, when a letter dropped straight to his knees. He tensed up immediately. The envelope was unremarkable, the penmanship unfamiliar. Who could have sent it? Draco glanced around as discreetly as he could: nobody seemed interested in his reaction either at the Slytherin table or at others. He cast a couple of detecting charms — they revealed nothing. The only thing left was to actually open the suspicious letter. 'Hello, Draco! I’m not sure what to write to you, since we aren’t friends at all — let alone close ones. Yet, my encounters with you have always been pleasant, which I hope is mutual. You’re not obliged to answer — even my own sister doesn’t! — but if you do, I’ll be glad to discuss anything. Yours sincerely, Astoria Greengrass P.S.: Looking forward to see you dance that fucking jig.' He snorted and shot a look at the Ravenclaw table. Spotting Astoria wasn’t that easy, and when he did, she paid him no attention at all, engaged in a lively chatter with three housemates sitting around her. She was smiling and nodding eagerly and even flourishing her arms, which was highly, offensively inappropriate for a young lady of her position. Of course he wasn’t going to perform a jig. Even more so — to answer her. This girl had it hard enough without a Death Eater pen pal. And no, Draco wasn’t desperate to that extent yet. Well… Maybe just this once. Since she was so sad that her sister abandoned their tradition. And, more importantly, since Draco replacing her in that tradition would piss Daph into oblivion.