Loveless

'Asta!' he breathes out after the door finally closes behind the nurses. He’s welcomed by a forced smile on her lips. 'My knight in shining armour,' she says, her voice as weak as her smile. 'Don’t speak, don’t, just- Rest, Asta. You need to rest.' He sits down by the bedside and snatches her hand, fumbling with her thin, ice-cold fingers. A ring on one of them, his betrothal ring, is barely holding in place. 'They know. My parents. Mother, she-' Astoria chuckles and twists her hand out of his grip. 'Did they forbid you to marry me?' He makes a face and grabs her hand again, this time with both of his. 'Forbid? I am not twelve, Asta, I’m marrying whoever I’ve chosen. Thought you already understood that much.' They fall silent for a while. Her eyes follow Draco’s thumbs massaging the back of her hand. 'So… What did she say?' she asks quietly, but Draco still flinches. 'Mother?' She rolls her eyes — a habit she’s got from him in the last months. 'Yes. What your father said is quite obvious.' 'She said your parents deceived us. Said she cannot have her son married to a cursed witch, even though the witch in question has perfect manners and a lovely face.' He doesn’t know why he tries to turn this into a joke. Walking in here, he was determined to gen her up properly. 'Very sweet of Narcissa to call my face lovely.' She readily joins in on his tomfoolery, but then averts her eyes with a sigh. 'I’m not sure I’ve ever heard this kind of praise, because of- Well, you know.' He leans forward and kisses her temple. She just looked too hurt and too lost. 'I’ve already told you, but I can repeat it,' he murmurs in her ear. 'Daphne’s face is too much of… Everything, to be honest.' He isn’t lying. Astoria may not be a striking beauty, but something about her face always calms him. He can recall several moments when simply seeing her has made him remember how to breathe properly. 'I should have told them,' Draco hears her painful whisper and a shaky breath. When a moment later his cheek gets suspiciously wet, he shuts his eyes and just squeezes her hand tighter. Astoria hates when anybody sees her cry. 'It’s not my parents you’re marrying, is it?' Her head under his lips shakes. 'We could have eloped or something, so they should be grateful we’ve gone through with a proper betrothal and courtship.' He feels her nod now. 'I don’t care what anyone says about you, alright?' This time her head stays still. He waits for a nod, but hears only a hard swallow. 'Asta.' 'You promised you wouldn’t lie to me, ' she croaks, and her fingers start trembling again. He pulls her hand to his lips and kisses her knuckles. 'It’s not a lie.' She snickers and heaves a sigh. 'I know how fond you are of your mother. You may rebel all you wish, but never try to convince me that you don’t want to hear she’s proud of you.' 'Asta, stop trying to Freud me,' he says, his lips still pressed to her fingers. 'Ooh, reading Muggle books, are we! Scandalous!' Draco releases her hand and takes a deep breath. This isn’t anything new; she tends to become edgy and unpleasant after her seizures. But he knows this is only fear. Not that he himself is any good at Freuding people, but this fear is too familiar… Fear of death, plain and simple. 'Fine. Of course I want her to be proud of me. Key word being “me”. Proud of my choices, my deeds, my life. I’m not going to mindlessly do Father’s bidding anymore just for them to smile and pat me on the head.' She doesn’t look at him anymore, her head turned to the window. 'So you’ll do whatever you want? ' 'Preferably.' 'And what you want is to marry me? ' 'It is.' 'Because you love me.' 'Asta…' 'Please, leave.' Now, this is new. She’s never rejected him before. He doesn’t move, his gaze fixed on her gaunt wrist. 'Asta, enough. We’ve been through this, and you said specifically-' 'Not now, Draco. I’m not in my right mind to do this, ' she utters and adds after a heavy pause, 'Maybe I was wrong.' It wasn’t supposed to go like this. They talked everything through, they did, and she agreed they weren’t about love. Her and him against everyone and everything — that was their agreement. 'So, now you’re saying people only marry for love?' Draco wonders, looking up at the ceiling. 'Well, if they don’t, how is that any different from our parents?!' He hears her tearful voice clearly but when his eyes dart to hers, rimmed with these tears, he gets utterly speechless. She means what she’s saying with finality that frightens him. 'It’s- I-' He throws his hands in the air and walks out of the room. After all, she did ask him to leave. And he’s not made of stone either. *** 'Oh, if it isn’t Draco Malfoy! A savage bully, an honorary Death Eater and a stinking rich inbred!' He turned on a dime and saw Astoria Greengrass, smiling like someone genuinely happy to see him would. 'You forgot to mention how terribly skilled I am with a broom,' he drawled, trying to fight a smile of his own. Last time he saw Astoria was back at Hogwarts, almost two years ago. She hadn’t changed much since then, just grew less sickly and let her ever braided hair loose. It suited her, if anyone was asking him. 'Whatever are you doing here?' 'Escorting Mother, of course. And you?' 'Honestly? No idea. Daphne assumed parents dragged me with them to find a fool that would wish to marry me. But in the whole hour that we’re here — and of course we were fashionably late — you are the only peer I’ve met.' Draco squinted with suspicion. He wouldn’t put it past his Mother to blackmail him into coming to the most boring soiree ever for a marriage contract. He also wouldn’t put it past the Greengrasses to try and marry their daughter to someone much older. Neither of those options would be Astoria’s fault, so he took a deep breath and forced a smile. 'Champagne?' Her lips widened in a charming but suspicious smile. 'I think I’ve already drunk half of their supply, but absolutely fucking yes.' Astoria Greengrass' alcohol intake was not his concern. He swept two flutes from a nearby tray and offered one to her. 'Well, what have you been up to?' she asked after an awkward pause. Draco shrugged. 'Mostly nothing. Had two tryouts for Quidditch teams, but you can probably guess the outcome.' 'No one wants Voldemort’s ally?' The rim of the glass hit Draco’s teeth with a nasty sound. 'Don’t believe anybody has been this straightforward about it yet,' he muttered, looking away. 'My parents say I’ve become a prat.' She laughed quietly. 'Anyway, those teams don’t know their loss. I’ve seen only one of your matches, but you were like a green bolt of lightning.' Astoria’s compliment hit hard. This wound still hadn’t fully healed. Quidditch had been the only thing he’d ever wanted for himself. Not for Father’s approval, not for prestige, and not for Malfoy legacy. He just loved flying and the rush of the game. 'Care for a smoke?' she offered probably because he stayed silent for too long. 'Do you even smoke, I don’t know.' 'Of course I do.' He didn’t. They walked out into the garden. The air was fresh with the recent rain. Draco gladly got a lungful. 'Here, ' Astoria said, shoving a cigarette at him. He took it, but didn’t light it. 'I hate our posh conventions,' she breathed out with the smoke. 'How are these creme de la creme wankers not sick of the same conversations, same topics…' Draco scoffed. As a child, he’d dreamt of the moment he would be old enough to attend all the pureblood social events. But when it finally came, the idea of mingling with the most distinguished arseholes didn’t excite him anymore. Not that Astoria could have known that, since he’d always kept his face in public. 'Saying such things to someone at one of said conventions is a bold choice.' 'I may not know you well, but I know you enough,' she said. 'You mean, from two encounters and — what? — Three? Four letters?' He raised his eyebrow and looked at her out of the corner of his eye. An enigmatic smile wandered across her lips. 'What’s so funny?' 'Nothing. Just that your pokerface is not that unreadable.' She snorted and blew a puff of smoke up to the skies. Draco sipped his champagne and smiled into the glass, Merlin knows why. Astoria didn’t look at him, so she couldn’t catch him staring. Because he did. There was an inexplicable enticing edge to her profile. He started and turned away only when she flicked her dog-end into the perfectly clipped hedge. 'Wait, what about your smoke?' she asked, her right foot already back on the front stairs. Draco glanced at the cigarette he’d totally forgotten about. 'Oh, I- I couldn’t light it.' She frowned. 'Cigs are tricky to me, I usually burn half of it with my Incendio.' He wasn’t exactly lying, Incendio really was too much for a thing as small as a cigarette tip. 'I’m not the Blast King Finnegan, obviously, but-' 'Oh, I never use magic on cigarettes.' She struck a match and held it out in front of her face. Draco leaned to the small flame in her cupped hands, but his gaze fixed on her face, her dark doe eyes, her slightly parted lips… When she hissed quietly and dropped the burnt match, his barely lit cig was sent flying too, and its glary tip vanished in the wet grass. She tasted of nothing but cigarette smoke. Draco hated the taste since his very first kiss with Pansy, but it didn’t mean a thing now. He didn’t want their lips to part for a second. Astoria was somehow precious. With this feverish blush on her pale face, this endearing adolescent mutiny… With everything, to be honest. Oh, maybe he was simply drunk! Draco wouldn’t be able to tell how they ended up in a gazebo, even if someone knocked him up with Veritaserum. Astoria was probably just as clueless. Not that it mattered in the least, though. Her fingers clutching his hair mattered. His hand trailing the nape of her neck and lower with each neverending second mattered. So did an airy breath that stuck in her throat when his teeth grazed her earlobe gently… 'Draco,' she whispered with a degree of desperation he couldn’t ignore. She wanted him — now, right here, on a bloody gazebo bench in the middle of a charity soiree. He hoicked up her dress, and she bit his lower lip with a little more force than before. After a brief duel for the leading role in this kiss, which Astoria lost eagerly, Draco grabbed her by the hips and swept her onto the table. The white marble was cold, but she didn’t seem to notice, spreading her legs in a welcoming gesture. He canted his hips forward on an instinct, and his gaze darted down to the waistband of his trousers. Draco hated fumbling with the fly buttons like a bloody innocent, so he always looked where his fingers went, no matter how engaged in snogging he may be. This time his eyes stopped midway, stumbling upon the view of Astoria’s thighs. Her skin was light, almost blending in with the marble of the table, but warmer in tone, inviting, mouth-watering like a scoop of whipped cream. As if confunded, Draco bent a knee and pressed his lips to her inner thigh. 'No- Wait, wha-' her baffled protest died out when he stroked his tongue up her leg and silently vanished her knickers. 'Not your favourite?' he asked matter-of-factly, halting so close that Astoria probably felt his breath on her cunt. 'Guide me then.' She inhaled sharply, with a hiss, and her hips bucked, her clit slotting perfectly between his lips. Draco sucked it lightly and recognised her moan even though his hearing had become seriously hindered after she hugged his head with her thighs. A rapturous prison, no doubt, yet he helped himself out, placing hands on either of her knees and pulling her legs apart. What went next he’d replay in his mind every day ever since. With each smallest movement of his mouth, Astoria’s thighs tensed up and trembled and made every effort to clamp, but Draco held them in place. The sounds she made — of surprise turning into pleasure and then impatience — were divine. He’d never been much of a women-pleaser — mostly the opposite — but this was inexplicably gratifying — feeling how much his actions get to her with all five of his senses. As soon as he felt her leg muscles finally relax, Draco stood up and replaced his tongue with a finger; Astoria almost mounted herself on it. He secured his grip, pressing his thumb over her clit, and the very first motion of his hand elicited such an honest yelp that Draco shuddered just from that. 'Draco…' she breathed out and touched his cheek, luring him in for a kiss. It was full of her moaning into his mouth, perfectly in tune with every movement of his hand. Her fingers trembled, fighting with his collar button, but she won at last, and the crisp snow-white collar fell to the ground. He didn’t care in the least, but Astoria gave him an apologetic glance nevertheless, and to top that off, she licked his lips which was honestly as lewd as it gets. He wanted her immensely, wanted to caress every inch of her body, to kiss her creamy skin and learn how it would feel to be inside of her. Right now Astoria Greengrass was the only thing that mattered. His heart skipped a beat. 'Draco,' she whispered, and his name sounded too urgent on her lips. Something didn’t feel right about that. He lost his breath and straightened, drawing his hand away. She tore her eyes open, a painful mix of protest and confusion in them. Giving Astoria up right now was torture, but he… He couldn’t do this to her. She wasn’t a pleasure maniac Pansy Parkinson, or the inept gold-digger Alannis Shepley, or those two Muggle girls he hooked up with purely as a statement. She deserved better than a drunk shag at a boring fundraiser. This — all this — mattered too much. And he wouldn’t want to cause her pain. 'What’s wrong, Draco?' she asked with genuine worry, when he made another step back. 'I’m sorry. I- I cannot do it. Not to you.’ He turned away, grabbed his dress robe from the bench and ran down the stairs. Once there Draco glanced behind his shoulder, and his heart clenched: Astoria was still sitting on the table, her dress tousled, and her face buried in her palms. Her lean shoulders were heaving and falling in that distinct pattern of crying.