when they became villains [draco malfoy] {book 2}

Summer 1997 - 180

It was raining again. A heavy storm beat against the windows of her room loudly, making the headache she was having all the more unbearable. No lights had been lit around the bed she laid in, and when she got cold, Astrid hadn't the power to crawl out of her bed to light the small fireplace. Astrid laid unmovingly, turned on her left side, as her stomach spun nearly just as much as did her mind, her nausea rendering her unable to move.

A house-elf showed up time from time but he didn't say much. Neither did Astrid have the strength to say anything much back. The elf merely walked over, looked at her face for a second and then disappeared with a puff, making Astrid laugh out loud every time he did. Almost as if the little blighter had been ordered to just make sure whether she had died already or not.

Because the state she was in felt very much like dying.

It felt even worse than when she had her usual doubts about her past - whether the things he remembered had or had not really happened. Now she actually could not remember anything of what had happened. All the girl remembered was waking up one morning and then all of a sudden it being noon three days later. That was how much time Narcissa had told her had passed at least when the woman had visited her room once. Though Astrid didn't really know if she should believe that. It made no sense.

Astrid could barely move. Curled up in a ball she had not been fed the entire day and for once she thought it a good thing for she knew if she had eaten anything at all, she would've instantly thrown it all up. Never before had the girl gotten blackout drunk and she wondered if that was what had happened. Though being drunk for three days without remembering a thing felt highly illogical, too. 

Minutes stretched into hours, and as she laid, by the time afternoon came Astrid had already counted all of the stones of the left wall of her room. There were exactly 1287 stones. Sleep never came to her and by the time it was 8 pm she had concluded the wall held 358 larger stones, 239 medium-sized ones, 689 small ones and one that looked very much like a galleon.

Hours had passed and she felt no better, eventually leading Astrid to the conclusion she had caught some deadly virus that caused amnesia. Perhaps that's why nobody ever came to check on her. Though that version fell flat when she recalled Narcissa coming in right before lunch to call on her and also yell at her for something she hadn't quite understood.

It was now, all alone, that Astrid got overtaken by all kinds of thoughts she was usually too angry to consider. Her head pounded and at times she could not make sense if it was her coming up with the concepts or some other outer force.

What if she had been polite towards the Malfoys at the beginning? Would she have felt more welcome?

Even if she had been nicer, calmer, more obedient, would anyone have cared? Would Narcissa ever have shown any of the warmth she had shown that day in the dressing room? 

Did her real mother even care? 

Surely the woman had hated Astrid ever since she became a witch. A "competition" was what her mother had thought of her - something Eric had so suddenly gotten invested in - something unnatural. Laura had not once written to check on Astrid. There was no such thing as an inability to write to the Malfoy Manor, it was only Astrid who was prohibited exchange. Astrid saw letters coming in day and night, so why wasn't her mum writing? 

Would have Astrid been happier under a mother's care?

Ungrateful brat.

One father dead, she had been put under her biological one's care, pulled out of the abusive household. Astrid should've been grateful yet somehow it still felt wrong.

What if her dad had lived?

Then you would still be living with Laura.

And my life wouldn't have been any better, would it?