Chapter Six: Draco
November 1996
October went by as fast as the first month back to Hogwarts. Two months have passed and Draco still didn't have any luck with the mission that the Dark Lord entrusted. Most people would consider him to be at one with the Dark Arts, but the last thing he wanted to do was murder somebody. He couldn't possibly do it – it was a violation of nature's law and not only that, but he couldn't bear to be the person to have to do it, that is, to kill Albus Dumbledore.
He used to be proud of the opportunity of course. He acted around his friends as though he was still upbeat about it, ready to perform it at any given moment. But deep down, behind the sneering pride, was the feeling of guilt—in spite of not having done anything remotely close to what he was supposed to... yet.
And thus, his stagnant progression in the matter had resolved to desperate measures. An attempt, being, to have a cursed necklace sent to Dumbledore second-handedly.
During his visits at Hogsmeade to practice Occlumency with his aunt, he had put Madam Rosmerta under the Imperius curse and cast a Protean charm on two coins, giving one to her, so that it'd be easier for them to communicate. He set the witch to give a cursed necklace to an unknowing Hogwarts student three days prior to Hogsmeade weekend, considering that he was stuck in detention with McGonagall that very day. In that instance, he knew it would work – for who could have guessed that the great Dumbledore's downfall would be that of a necklace cursed with the darkest magic? But when the student that was supposed to deliver the necklace – Katie Bell – touched a bit of it, everything went to hell. This depressed him in more ways than one, and had him spend three sleepless nights wondering what else could have gone wrong.
If he hadn't had any luck with that one mission, he hadn't had one with the case of mending the Vanishing Cabinet. He'd been going there every night since the start of the school year, having great difficulty every time he had come close to doing it. The books in the library have taught him that it takes several numbers of great concentrations to pursue the fixing of the Vanishing Cabinet, and despite his own version of "focus", he was unfortunately none the wiser.
Today was one of the biggest Quidditch matches to grace the school, Slytherin VS. Gryffindor. As Seeker, and perhaps had it been a normal school year, he would have had the heart to play for his team and beat those blundering Gryffindors while also watching Weasley make a fool of himself. He's seen the red headed moron play Keeper and he was the worst he'd seen in the history of the game. But as much as his ego wanted to play a big part in the game, he took this opportunity of free time to fix the Vanishing Cabinet. Hence, he paid someone else to take his place in the match.
"Malfoy, this is ridiculous. I'm not drinking this bloody thing." Crabbe complained as he threw in a bit of Flora Carrow's hair into the bubbling green goo of the Polyjuice potion. "It's repulsive."
"And why turn us into girls? Do you know how weird that would feel?" Vincent agreed just as he too put in a bit of Hestia Carrow's hair into his own bottle of the potion.
"If you two don't stop complaining, I'll have you both eating slugs for the rest of the week, you hear?" Draco told them tartly as he looked out towards the corridor, checking to see if anyone was with them there. The seventh floor was always quite abandoned, having little to no significance except of course for the location of the Room of Requirement and the stairs leading up to the Astronomy Tower. "Now drink those bloody potions down to the last drop or I'll have you both hexed with boils this instant!"
This seemed to have triggered their fear and with the two chugging down the disgusting potions, their bodies began to lurch and twist in odd angles. What was once Crabbe and Goyle, tall and tough in figure; turned into the small, petite forms of the Carrow twins. They examined themselves in disgust before laughing like a bunch of idiots.
"Thick heads," Draco muttered under his breath as he beckoned them to follow him down towards the end of the corridor near a set of stairs leading upwards.
As soon as he was face to face with the brick wall, he turned towards the two with a blight sneer. "You know the drill. Keep an eye out for anyone coming about, hex them for all I care and if there's any danger – use the coins I gave you. Don't follow me inside if you still want to see the light of tomorrow, you hear?"
As usual, the two exchanged confused looks the way they have been for the past two months now in taking guard. Perhaps they've grown out of the habit of questioning him because they both nodded their approval and turned their backs on him, taking out their wands as they did so.
Draco wordlessly turned his back on them and began to concentrate on what he wanted. I need the room where the Vanishing Cabinet resides. I need to mend it. I need no one else to get in there right now except for me. He repeated this mantra three times as he had done for so long, and with a slight woosh of a sound; two rusted double doors appeared before him. With a wave of his wand, one of the doors opened and he slipped through it.
Shutting the door behind him, he examined his surroundings. It looked exactly like an attic full of random things – bookshelves, cupboards, boxes, dusty sofas and materials of all kinds. He navigated through them with ease before arriving in the middle of the room where a tall cabinet stood covered by a red duvet. With a swish of his wand, the duvet slipped off the cabinet and landed on the floor with a soft thud.
He opened the door of the rickety cabinet, seeing nothing but an endlessly dark void in it. One of his hands reached for his pockets, took out a galleon and placed it inside. He shut the door with his free hand and pointed his wand before the cabinet as he started to chant the needed charm.
"Harmonia Nectere Passus." He chanted eerily as he closed his eyes. The sound of the cabinet trembling resounded throughout the quiet room. During the first two months, he had considered this a sign of progress – but by the time that that was all it had done since then; he hardly believed it was doing any good.
"Harmonia Nectere Passus." He said a little louder now, pinching his eyes harder this time. A part of his mind traveled into a space of just him and the cabinet and his intentions to mend it. He focused on fixing it like he would fix a broken wooden box or healing it like he would a harmless creature. The trembling stopped.
Draco opened his eyes before swinging the cabinet's door open, disappointed and fretted to find that the galleon was still there. The Vanishing Cabinet was supposed to transport the galleon into cabinet's twin in Borgin and Burke's or at least stay in limbo. Frustrated, he slammed the door's cabinet once more and concentrated further.
"Harmonia Nectere Passus."
He continued focusing on parallels of fixing the cabinet. But for some reason, his mind drifted elsewhere – out of the space and purpose of his coming here. Suddenly, an image of Astoria Greengrass in her jammies came to view. It was the day that he had gone up to the Astronomy Tower with her after not being able to see her for over a week then. As much as he hated to admit it to himself, she looked beautiful. Disheveled with her hair all over the place and her green eyes so tired they threatened to close; she was practically a walking siren. He remembered feeling her hand on his arm, and not just any arm, but the arm where the dark mark was imprinted. He felt a sense of calmness, almost at peace for the first time in months, at her touch.
Then the scene shifted to the moments when they started doing hands-on potion making. It was one of those tutoring sessions for the past few weeks. He would, of course unintentionally, mistake one ingredient from another causing several potion blowups that ultimately ended up in laughter. Astoria's laugh was like hearing a symphony, a nearly perfect crescendo. Her face was covered in soot and her hair had essence of revolting goo, but she didn't seem to care about it.
"That's the fifth time today, Draco." She would say between relentless giggles as she tried to recover his potion by diluting it with common ingredients. "One more mistake like that and we might just blow up all of Scotland."
"It's not like I actually meant to do it." He would tell her crassly at first, but her laugh was far too contagious that he couldn't help but chortle at his own failure. It was the first time he ever laughed at failing at anything. "You do it, then, if you're so clever!"
Astoria shakes her head in delight as she handed him bits of powdered unicorn horn. "Just add them gently, one pinch at a time. You can't expect to learn if you just keep watching. Some things you have to do on your own."
He rolled his eyes at this, but did as he was told. When the potion they'd been brewing finally turned to its supposed color, he and Astoria released sighs of relief.
"See?" Astoria grinned at him, her green eyes never leaving his grey ones as she stepped closer next to him, the scent of vanilla and roses – he realized lately was actually her perfume – growing stronger. "You just have to keep trying. I know you think you're a hopeless case now, but I believe in you. I'll always believe in you."
Draco's lips tugged at the memory and was snapped out of it when he felt his left pocket sear painfully. He took out the coin that was in there and saw a message conveyed in it: Blaise and Pansy. He cursed under his breath before hurrying towards the double doors, hardly giving the Vanishing Cabinet any thought. If he was discovered, everything could all go to hell – as if it hadn't already.
As soon as he left the room, he saw Flora Carrow – or Crabbe – trying to block Blaise and Pansy from their view. The two Slytherins was finally able to push past him when they saw him with Goyle, or Hestia.
"Draco, mate!" Blaise said as he and Pansy trudged towards him. "Where have you been? Are you bloody mad? We lost the damn match to Gryffindor, again."
"Oh, Draco, honestly, you've been acting really odd these past few months." Pansy continued for Blaise as she was the first to reach him from where he was. Her face had contorted into sheer worry as it always had when she suspected something off about him.
It's not that he didn't admire the attention or anything but he really was starting to get annoyed of her constant questioning that rivaled Blaise's. He had been acting odd, but it was mostly out of his confusion and need to tell them what was really going on. Honestly, he just couldn't bear to tell them even if he wanted to. If he did, Merlin knows what the Dark Lord might have done. He was forbidden to speak of it. It was better they didn't know, and better that he would distance himself from them. If anything, he was doing his friends a favor.
"It's nothing, the both of you," He told them heatedly as he began to shove past them. No matter how much he hated not talking to them, it pained him just a bit to see the look on their faces. "I've told you a thousand times, I just haven't been feeling well."
"Mate, we're your friends." Blaise suddenly said, and this caused Draco to look up to him in surprise. "I know it hasn't been the most obvious word to put out there, but we are. And you've been completely out of it these past few months. We're just worried, mate. We care about you."
"We do." Pansy agreed, her blue eyes softening as she said this. It surprised him just as well to see this kind of vulnerability in Pansy. He had fancied her at one point, and he would be an idiot to say he didn't still fancy her now. After all, they had been in this warped and unadulterated, though not official, relationship for nearly two years. He had told her things he wouldn't say out loud and she's seen through him, but never has he seen her drop the cold, ugly façade of being mean-spirited till' now. "Draco, please."
Draco felt as though he was swallowing rough sand. He wanted to tell them. He wanted to say help me. He couldn't do this. He couldn't possibly do what he was asked to do. But then he's reminded of his father in Azkaban. He's reminded of his mother, and the loving look she often gave him as she dotted on him. He couldn't lose them – if he did, he wouldn't forgive himself. And at this point, he'd rather lose his friends than his family.
Blaise and Pansy, as well as Crabbe and Goyle still in the forms of Flora and Hestia Carrow, seemed to have been silenced by his sudden show of vulnerability. At this, he cleared his throat and tried to suppress the tears that threatened to brim his eyes.
"It's like I said for the thousandth bloody time," Draco said coldly as he shot daggers at them, though he didn't feel it had the same effect that it usually did. "It's nothing."
And as he walked away from them, he could hear Blaise and Pansy's calls – but he blocked them out, just as well as he should soon block out Astoria Greengrass. Draco didn't need any more liabilities, especially now that the weight of his mission was starting to grow harsher and harsher by the days.
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Draco skipped his entire afternoon classes the next day thanks to, dare he say it, the Weasleys' puking pastilles. He ate the orange end and began puking enough for some of his Slytherin classmates to see as they headed for their Transfiguration class. Some of them offered to take him to the hospital wing, but they waved them off before sneaking away up to the seventh floor, eating the purple side in the process to stop his malignant puking. It was three hours' worth of trying to fix the Vanishing Cabinet and, though not surprised, yet again to no avail.
Deciding that tomorrow was another day, he headed down towards the dungeons where he would be meeting Astoria for their tutoring session. While he had been up all night planning other ways to get smuggled dark artifacts to Dumbledore for his mission, he was also thinking of ways to stop his tutoring with little Greengrass. He pestered Slughorn all morning about it, but he tatted and reminded him of their agreement so many times that he was this close to smacking the potions master with his own cauldron.
The minute he found out that he had harmed Katie Bell, he knew that the assassination attempt was a failure at most. He realized then that he needed to keep his distance away from Astoria. He had tried so many times to piss her off, almost most of the time succeeding and the other fifty half or so of her trying to lighten the mood despite his attempts at a cold and distant tutoring session. At this, he had hoped that he'd drive her up the wall so much that she'd be the one to give up and tell Slughorn herself that she didn't want to go on. But the bloody little Greengrass just had her ways, and it both frustrated and amused him. He was starting to hate himself for it.
As soon as he arrived in the potions classroom, he was surprised to see that she was already there. Usually he arrived earlier than her, but he must have missed the time being stuck in the Room of Requirement. Astoria looked up when he closed the door behind him and he saw her grace him that ridiculously adorable smile of hers.
"You're late, you know?" She asked him playfully as she jotted down something on her parchment. The witch was standing behind one of the tables where two pewter cauldrons were heating up, a number of ingredients splayed before her. "And I thought I was the one with terrible pure-blood manners."
"You still are." He jabbed at her as he put his bag down on one of the chairs and walked up to where she stood. "If I remember correctly, you still associate with mudbloods."
Astoria was dressed in her uniform, though she didn't have her robes and her grey sweater vest on. Her Slytherin necktie was askew, as if it had been tugged on carelessly. But her hair was tied up in a neat, elegant ponytail. A strand or two of her hair was out of the way and it took most of his self-control not to push it gently behind her ear.
The witch met his eye and she glared at him. "Stop saying that word, for goodness' sake. It's offensive and crass, and I am damn tired of wanting to clean that mouth of yours with soap."
"I could think of other things you can help clean my mouth with, little Greengrass." Draco teased, disregarding her lecture on mudbloods. He felt a certain satisfaction upon seeing her blush at his regard, her green eyes widening briefly before she cleared her throat and tried to look away.
"So, Merlin help me, what are we about to brew today?" Draco went on regardless.
Astoria's recovery seemed fatal when he saw that her hands clumsily reached for some of the ingredients. Her two octaves too high voice confirmed his assumptions. "We're brewing two potions, one of each for Felix Felicis and Amortentia. I know it's technically a bit illegal, but Professor Slughorn's given me permission to teach you how to make them. And we are to discard the Felix Felicis once it's finished. We can't have people letting that stew for six months, or the Ministry will have our heads."
Draco scoffed. That is if he can even brew it properly, then letting it stew for six months wouldn't have mattered.
"Brilliant," He replied with fake enthusiasm as he looked down at the parchments before him, seeing the ingredients listed down for both potions. "It's got literally the same instructions, but different ingredients."
"Exactly," She said after clearing her throat, her voice back to normal. He shook his head amusedly at this. "But brewing Amortentia is a bit tricky. In fact, it's the hardest potion I've ever seen brewed next to Polyjuice. Then again, Polyjuice could take months. Amortentia on the other hand... it's fair tricky, but quick to whip up. Do you want to start working on that, then?"
"Me? On Amortentia? I wouldn't touch its ingredients with a ten foot pole, let alone brew it." He told her dubiously as he took the parchment with the Felix Felicis ingredients. "I'd rather work on Felix. I trust my luck on it, if you know what I mean."
Astoria rolled her eyes at him, but he saw her lip twitch a bit. "Fine, then. You work on Felix, but I want you to watch just as closely while I'm working on the Amortentia; agreed?"
"Little Greengrass, you wound me." He shook his head disappointedly as he took an Ashwinder egg and plopped it onto his cauldron, adding horseradish right after before boiling them. "You act as if I'm incapable of common instructions."
"Well, you're awfully stubborn and remarkably arrogant. So, forgive me if I have to act like the leader around here." She fired back at him nonchalantly as she too added Ashwinder egg to her own cauldron, but instead of additional horseradish, she put in three rose thorns. Her eyes shifted towards his cauldron before nodding. "You're doing great so far."
"Oh, shove off, will you?" Draco told her off as he started to press the juice out of a squill bulb.
Astoria snorted softly before turning back to her own potion. They worked in silence for at least five minutes before, though not surprisingly; Draco forgot to grind the Occamy shell and added it straight into his potion. His mixture turned into a sickly shade of green as it began to bubble over and leak out of his cauldron.
Suddenly, the bubbles started bursting like pusses and its contents slathered onto him and Astoria with a repulsive slush. You'd think that by now, after reading about Felix Felicis so much due to his wanting to have his own, that he would remember the diluting solution. But when he finally remembered that that particular solution was to add more juices of squill bulb, Astoria had already done it for him. She pressed the juices straight out of the bulb and into the cauldron and as expected, the concoction stopped bubbling and had returned to its supposed near-golden color.
"That could have been a disaster." Astoria breathed out in relief, shoving goo off of her which surprisingly came off easily as she looked up to him. "You look absolutely horrifying."
"Excuse me? Have you seen your hair? It's ghastly." Draco said right back, pointing at the lot of green goo on her now ruined hair.
"At least I know how to remember Felix's diluting solution." She stuck her tongue out at him as he cleaned himself off with a wave of his wand, using the Scourgify spell. "Merlin's pants, you're a menace in potions. Perhaps we should make a game out of this, just to motivate you. You do like games now, don't you, Draco?"
"What are we? Five?" He cocked a brow at her, though he was definitely considering her proposal. "What have you got, little Greengrass?"
"If you can't succeed in brewing an Exceeds Expectations Felix Felicis by the end of the day, you have to let me ride your broom." Astoria said cockily. When Draco couldn't help but smirk at what she just said, her cheeks flushed almost immediately before she smacked his arm harshly. "Don't get any ideas, Malfoy. I meant, your Nimbus 2001."
At this, Draco's face fell. "Not a bloody chance! Are you mad? I'd rather drink an entire bottle of Draught of the Living Dead before I could even give you the chance to ride my Nimbus 2001."
"Then if you don't want that to happen, then I suggest you get on with properly brewing Felix." She said with a hint of arrogance as she went back to brewing her potion, a number of scents already wafting out of her cauldron.
He would never let anyone touch that broom of his. It was his one of his prized possessions, having to have won a number of games against other houses with it and actually winning. Hell, he wouldn't even let Pansy ride it no matter how much she begged, let alone allow little Greengrass to be on it. It was a morbid deal, and he knew he had to match it off with a just as insane one of his own.
"Fine," Draco huffed indignantly as he focused on actually giving his potion a tad bit of effort. "But if I do succeed in brewing an Outstanding Felix, you have to go on the next Hogsmeade weekend with me."
"I have to what?" Astoria looked at him bewildered, her cheeks now matching the color of tomatoes; her attention astray from her potion.
"You heard me." He said lowly as he too ignored working on his potion, drawing closer towards the witch before him. "If Felix turns out to be just as Outstanding as you'd hoped, you, little Greengrass, have to go with me. Let's call it a... date."
Astoria's mouth was slightly agape now, and he basked at the sight of her rendered completely speechless. He hadn't rendered her that in a while now, and it stroked his sleeping ego how he'd been able to finally do it. Suddenly, their little tirade was interrupted by the sound of Astoria's potion bubbling. His nose was hit by the scent of vanilla and roses, soft and pleasant at first – but now it had dawned stronger, almost palpable.
"You're mad." Astoria finally said in a small voice, her green eyes hardly looking away from his grey ones. "I would never go out with you, Malfoy. My parents would kill me before I could say Nox."
Draco initially wanted to sneer at her, but the actions that followed surprised him. One of his arms slid its way around Astoria's waist, pulling her close to him. The sweet smell of vanilla and roses growing stronger – passionate, if there was ever a word to describe a scent. His heart rate quickened and he was astounded when the witch before him placed one of her well-manicured hands on his chest.
"Do you want me to bet on that as well, Astoria?" He asked lowly, testing her name on his lips. As he tightened his grip on her waist, his head swam in an almost trance-like state. She was a lot smaller than he could have imagined, her head barely reaching the height of his nose. It occurred to him just how remarkably beautiful she was up close and how right it felt being this close to her.
Astoria whimpered and his eyes trailed languidly towards her lips. He wondered what they would feel like, what they would taste like. They were small, but readily plump; ripe for the picking. If he could only draw closer... just a little closer... He rested his forehead against hers, breathing in the intoxicating scent that was vanilla and roses, the stirring scent that was Astoria Greengrass.
"Draco..." His name left her sweet lips and just as he was about to swoop in to feel them on his, the sound of a door loudly opening made him jump. In fact he jumped up so hard that he nearly fell over and took Astoria with him.
"Merlin's beard, will you look at the time?" The sound of Professor Slughorn's voice resounded throughout the classroom. He felt Astoria slither away from his arms as she stood upright, and he tried his best to follow her lead.
The professor looked at them curiously now. "What happened to you two?"
Draco opened his mouth, but hardly a word came out of it. Astoria spoke for the both of them.
"Just a little potion conundrum, Professor," She tried to smile at the old man, and he couldn't help but notice that just seconds ago he was damn near close to kissing those sweet lips of hers. "Draco and I are almost done."
"Ah, perhaps I should take a look then!" Professor Slughorn declared, causing Draco to groan in frustration. Honestly, there's a word for people like him who ruin perfectly good moments that were just about to transpire. He just couldn't quite remember it.
The professor looked over their potions earnestly; complimenting Astoria's Amortentia with great pride and considering Draco's Felix Felicis just "passable". He urged them to finish brewing the potions, and with much reluctant, they did as they were told. As Slughorn went on and on about some story of his adventures with one of his own Slub Club alumni, Draco kept eyeing Astoria and her brewing process. She seemed to have recovered from their little moment far quicker than he had.
Still, his actions were seemingly questionable. He knew he was attracted to her physically at one point, but never has he felt any of that attraction go a few degrees up than it had today. It only, then, occurred to Draco why that had been so.
The Amortentia that Astoria was brewing had released what could have possibly been a scent that attracted him. If he remembered correctly, the first time he took a whiff of the love potion – he smelled fresh forest air and apples. That was perhaps a few months ago when he sneaked into the Weasley joke shop to buy some, admittedly, useful skiving snack boxes. He'd passed by the love potion section and was able to identify those three scents. And now... the scent that wafted, and still did, from Astoria's cauldron was the smell of vanilla and roses. The smell of the very witch that he nearly kissed minutes ago.
When he and Astoria had finally finished brewing their potions, Slughorn began to examine them.
"Mint, fresh sprigs of basil and a touch of lilac," Professor Slughorn drawled on admirably as he inhaled the scent of the Amortentia potion. "Well done, Ms. Greengrass. Surely Draco's been keeping an eye out?"
"What?" Draco asked distractedly.
"Keeping an eye out, young Draco. Watching Ms. Greengrass here brew the potion. I certainly hope you have. I might just have you individually tested by the end of November to brew your own love potion." The professor said as he moved on to his Felix Felicis. He dropped a white feather into his transparent potion now, and the feather immediately turned a shade of light yellow. "Merlin's beard, you've done well! Not outstanding, but well above what you normally brew. I'd give it an Acceptable. Well done, Mr. Malfoy. Well done indeed! Yes, well, now off you two go then. It's quite late already, you see? You'll miss dessert if you don't go into the Great Hall now."
Heand Astoria shared a look before they thanked the professor and left theclassroom in haste just as Slughorn cast discarded the Felix Felicis Dracobrewed earlier. They walked together up the steps, making their way towards the Great Hall. There was a pregnant, almost awkward silence between them as they walked. It was Astoria that broke that little barrier.
"I guess I'll have to ride your broom, then." She said a little cheerfully. "I did say Exceeds Expectations?"
"I've exceeded Slughorn's expectations, haven't I?" Draco argued before looking down at her to find that she was grinning widely now, and he couldn't help but laugh at the sight of her ridiculous smile. However, he silently mourned the idea of someone else being able to use his broom now. "Why do you even want to ride my broom anyway?"
"Because I know you'd never let anyone get at least a foot near it." Astoria told him as a matter of fact. "Plus, I've always wanted to ride a Nimbus 2001. I'm not a very good flyer, you see. A Firebolt would kill me. But your broom's model is agile but not dangerously fast enough to have me hurtled into the Whomping Willow."
"If you're not a good flyer, then why on earth have I just agreed to let you ride my broom?" He looked at her incredulously. Suddenly, everything that had just happened in the potions classroom slipped off his mind. "You're not riding that broom, little Greengrass."
"Oh, come on! We had a deal!" She stopped in her tracks before stomping her foot on the ground. It took most of his self-control not to laugh at her childishness. "I will ride that broom, Draco Malfoy, if it's the last thing I do. And if you're so insistent on not having a non-expert flyer on your broom, then by all means, teach me."
Draco shook his head in amusement at her last request. "This is really defeating the purpose of our little game, you know?"
"Whatever do you mean?" Astoria arched a brow at him now, fuming as she crossed her arms on her chest.
He walked up to her before stopping just a few inches from her. "Teach you, you say? I consider that a date and you have just about agreed to it. So, really, at the end of the day, I won your little game."
"It is not a date! Y-you said go out with you to Hogsmeade, that's clearly not—" She shrieked at him disbelievingly but her blushing cheeks told him otherwise. "You're twisting this around, Draco, and I won't have it."
"Then you won't have a ride at my broom. Shame, really. I heard they don't sell Nimbus 2001's these days. Guess you'll have to settle for the ol' Comet or that menace of a Firebolt, then." Draco grinned at her before leaning back and walking away from her. It was after trotting five steps away that he heard her follow him down the corridor.
"Fine!" Astoria yelled exasperatedly, and he turned around to smirk at her. Her cheeks were still flushed, but her green eyes looked up to him angrily. "But it's not a date! Merlin forbid my mum hears the word Draco, Astoria and date in one sentence. But I will have my way with that broom, you hear? I still win the game even if you so twisted it around in your own Malfoy way."
Draco's lips curled teasingly at this before saying, "Saturday, then?"
Astoria shook her head at him; her blush couldn't possibly get any redder than they already are as she met his gaze. "Saturday, 1 o'clock near the Black Lake and don't be late."
Draco couldn't possibly deny it now. He wanted Astoria Greengrass.
And it was, to say, a more dangerous task than anything he's ever been given; including what the Dark Lord had.
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