THREE. ❝ LIKE YOUR FATHER ❞
Hogwarts, 1995
AURORA WALKED, lantern in hand, making her way past the moving staircases alongside her fellow housemate and prefect Anthony Goldstein, as they led first years to their tower for bed. She had been talking for quite some time with some other Ravenclaws around her as they ranted to each other about the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Dolores Umbridge, who delivered this whole speech about education and preservation and limited progress that had irritated everyone in the room, but made the Ravenclaws furious on a whole other level. If there was one thing they took very seriously, it was their education, no matter how many times they joked about how much they procrastinated and how if they took any more classes, they just might give up at school and end up like the poor squibs (bless their souls though— last year, Aurora joined an organization some Hufflepuff started to get them fair treatment).
"'The ministry has always considered the education of young witches and wizards to be of vital importance, blah blah blah,'" Aurora had been mimicking her posh accent, animating her hand motions as she spoke. Anthony was snickering at this impression. "I mean, if that's true, then why don't you, uh— oh, I don't know— educate me?!"
"It's outrageous," He said, shaking her head. "The ministry finds more ways to crack down on Dumbledore more and more every year!"
"I know!" Aurora exclaimed, and stopped in her tracks for a moment as she looked around her unfamiliar surroundings. "Just kidding, wrong way. We have to go to the fourth level," She smiled sheepishly at the kids behind her who groaned. She turned through another corridor before continuing her rant. "Fudge is a bloke, that's what he is. A corrupt politician! That man only cares about himself."
Another Ravenclaw, Edward Stuyvesant, pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with a scowl. "It's all bullocks— it's just because of the whole thing with he-who-must-not-be-named. They want to downplay it and make it look like they have everything under control when what we should be doing, is accepting that shit is about to hit the fan and preparing ourselves for when that happens."
Aurora huffed. "You can say that again. Shit is truly about the hit the fan," She spoke, annoyed, and as she glanced off to the side, saw Draco taunting a small Slytherin first year who looked ready to cry further down an intersecting corridor. When they made eye contact, he appeared as if he were a deer caught in headlights and placed his hands behind his back before continuing on. Aurora sighed at this, shaking her head to herself.
Eventually, they made their way to the tower, Aurora giving some pointers about Hogwarts on the way like the best pathway to get to potions on time, how to stay out of Filch's hair, and how to steer clear of her boyfriend and other hot-headed Slytherins. By the time she reached the end of the staircase and approached the eagle door-knocker, shining like silver before them, she let out a loud yawn and daydreamed about the bed waiting for her inside her dorm.
"Good evening," The eagle crowed. "Do you wish to enter my quarters?"
"Yes, indeed, Iago," Aurora answered. During her first year, some of the Ravenclaws were extremely tired and couldn't figure out the answer to a riddle for the life of them when all they wanted was to go to bed. They ended up staying up all night outside the dormitories, and in a fit of exhaustion and quite possibly, delusion, one of the muggle-borns decided to name the door-knocker Iago after the bird in Aladdin simply because they had 'felt bad that he didn't have a name'. Somehow, it just stuck with all the Ravenclaws.
"You must answer a riddle first," He said and Aurora sighed deeply.
"Go on, then," She pressed her lips together, tapping her foot impatiently on the floor.
"I'll go easy, seeing as you have first years with you," He said and then began his riddle. "I can travel around the world while staying in a corner. What am—"
"A stamp!" Aurora cut him off and the door clicked open while the door-knocker grumbled. "Thanks again, Iago!"
She pushed it open for everyone and let them file in before her, Anthony leading them to get them to their dorms. After the last of them, she was about to follow in suit with a loud yawn, but as she took one step, she was pulled backwards in one swoop, the heels of her shoes dragging against the ground.
"Hey!" She yelled, as she already knew who it was. Draco Malfoy turned her around with a lousy grin and she glared at him. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be patrolling the dungeons or something?"
"Yeah, probably," He shrugged nonchalantly.
"Then... why are you..." She trailed off, as her mind had wandered, not really caring about the task at hand and more focused on finally being able to sleep. "Nevermind. I'm going to bed. I'm tired."
She turned to go when Draco caught her wrist. "Come on, Aurora, we have duties to this school, remember?" He said pointedly and she nearly laughed, dramatically rolling her eyes at his words.
"'Duties to this school' my arse, Draco Malfoy, you shouldn't even be here right now!" She said, bewildered by him and his arrogance while he pulled her toward him.
"I can be wherever I want," He said as a matter-of-factly, placing a hand on the small of her back and using the other to push her hair back behind her ear. "I'm a prefect."
"And I'm going to bed," She mocked his complacent tone, holding a hand to her heart. "I'm exhausted and angry and you're annoying."
As she turned to leave again, he pulled her back toward him. "Hold on then, why are you angry? Again?" He asked, concern making its way onto his face with etched brows. "Let me fix it."
"You can't," Aurora sighed in defeat and went forward to wrap her arms around Draco, leaning into him. He immediately responded by holding her too, stroking his hand over her hair and down her back to comfort her. "It's just... all these things happening around here. I don't like it," She said into his shoulder, the fabric of his robe muffling her words.
"You mean Umbridge?" Draco questioned and she pulled back to look at him.
"Yes, Umbridge!" She nodded in disbelief. "She's a lousy, pathetic excuse for a teacher— I doubt she has any experience, or even likes kids." She scoffed at such a thought, shaking her head toward the floor. "It's all part of the ministry's agenda."
"Now, now, don't get riled up, Aurora," He used his finger to tip her chin up so that she would look at him. "I'm sure everything will be fine."
Aurora looked at him for a moment, a tired, blank expression on her face. "You sound like your father," She began to smile, and then stifled a chuckle.
"No I don't," Draco scowled, but pulled her closer to him.
"Agree to disagree," She stood there limply, just letting him hold her as she could feel herself falling asleep. They were there together, Draco Malfoy not speaking for once as he ran his hands through her hair and felt her heart beat against his chest while she breathed in and out slowly, enjoying the feeling of being held and admiring the way the moonlight spilled through the windows and danced upon their skin. Draco thought about how odd it still felt to him to be held so tightly by another person that loved him while she thought hard about how content her heart felt and how much she loved him.
"He hates me doesn't he?" She suddenly broke their comfortable silence, and Draco was taken by surprise.
"Who?" He questioned.
"Your father," Aurora said.
"My father?" Draco's face scrunched up at these words. He felt as if he were beginning to choke. "No. He doesn't... he— he's just—"
"He just hates that I'm not a pure blood," Aurora finished, pressing her lips together firmly as every memory of Lucius Malfoy passed her by in her brain, every scowl, every bitter wrinkle of the nose, and backhanded comment about her background. From the moment Draco had introduced Aurora to his father, she knew something was very off about him, and it only worsened when she found out from Arthur that he was once a death eater. When she asked Draco about it though, he told her he had been under the Imperius curse, so she had concluded that he was not that evil.
"Well... you know how my father is," Draco tried to carefully choose his words. "Great man, but with very... refined taste, I guess."
Aurora turned over what he had just said in her mind. It was no secret that Draco thought of his father as some hero or role-model to look up to. After all, he was a wealthy pure-blood, influential, and very powerful. Yet after so many years, she couldn't understand how he hadn't caught on about the fact that these things did not make Lucius Malfoy a good man— let alone a great man.
"It's no matter though," He reassured her, unsettled by her silence. He stroked her hair again and held her close to him. "He's accepted that we're together for the most part now."
Aurora didn't feel much better about this, but she didn't say so. There were now a million thoughts circling her head as she thought about Draco and how she loved him and his idolization of his father and how he hated her.
"Would we still be dating if he didn't?" She asked suddenly, pulling away to look him in the eye. It had just sort of slipped out, but it was an honest and valid question nonetheless. Lucius Malfoy exercised a considerable amount of control over whatever Draco did and said.
Draco didn't answer for a moment. He looked at her, studied the floor, then looked back with a rather stern look on his face. "Yes. We would be. How could we not?"
"I don't know," She shrugged, not sure that he was completely honest with his answer in spite of his firm tone. Feeling that she didn't believe him, he glanced outside the window, a faraway look on his face. Aurora immediately felt bad because it really wasn't his fault for the way his father felt about her. He was just a boy.
"You could've ended up dating Pansy," She said to try to lighten the mood, straying away from the topic of his father.
"Pansy?" Draco questioned with a rather perturbed look on his face.
"I mean, yeah," Aurora nodded, looking toward the ceiling as if imagining a life where Draco was dating Pansy rather than her. "You already did for a little while. You'd be a terrific match."
During third year, there was a shortlived period of time when Draco had started dating Pansy Parkinson in attempt to rid of his feelings for Aurora Hampshire. It was very necessary for him at the time, considering that Lucius held an immense amount of disappointment in his son's choice to befriend a half-blood which tainted the family's good name and reputation— as he had explained it to Draco. Pansy was quite happy to be asked out by Draco, but they didn't last very long as Draco Malfoy, surprisingly, could not simply shut off his feelings like he usually did. In fact, he swore that his attempt to avoid Aurora Hampshire only made him grow even fonder of her.
"Christ, Aurora," He pinched the bridge of his nose, not even wanting to imagine a life where he was still stupidly with Pansy and not Aurora. He did not want to imagine a life where he was with anyone other than Aurora.
She gasped loudly in excitement, a stark contrast to her previously tired state. "You used a muggle swear!"
"Oh please," He scoffed with an eyeroll. "It's just that I spend too much time around the likes of you."
"Hey," She held her hands up in defense. "you act like it's a muggle thing but there's a lot of signs pointing toward Jesus Christ being a wizard."
"Jesus is a wizard?" He asked, amused.
"Yeah, a pretty powerful one I would think," She went to lean against the wall, crossing her arms over her chest as she pondered. "Defies the laws of physics, special healing powers, does some transfiguration— rose from the goddamn dead."
Draco laughed, shaking his head. "You could be right."
"Could be?" She snorted at this. "I am. I'm a Ravenclaw, for God's sake."
He had looked at her then and the amusement written on her beautiful face, and he felt it hit him again like it always did. He shook his head to himself, smiling softly. "You are truly something else, Aurora," He had said and she had smiled too.
Diagon Alley, 1992
"HE'S A JOKE, AN ABSOLUTE GIT," Ron complained on and on all about Gilderoy Lockhart as he, Aurora, Harry, and Ginny made their way to the front of the store. "I don't understand why all you girls fancy him!"
They had just watched all the girls in the Flourish and Botts swoon over Gilderoy Lockhart during his book signing— including Ron's mother. For this, Ron had been whispering the entire time about how much he didn't understand girls and the way they worked because if you asked him, the guy seemed like a slimey-headed git.
Aurora shrugged. "Not all girls, Ron," She said and then looked over her shoulder as she realized her mother was missing by her side and scanned the room to find her. As she did, she made eye contact with none other than Draco Malfoy across the bookstore, looking down upon her over the bannister from upstairs. He was standing by alone, staring at her, and once their eyes met, that stupid little smirk of his that Aurora had seen all summer grew on his lips. Aurora blushed at this and went off to find her mother, leaving Ron and Harry ranting to each other.
Aurora and Draco had become very good friends over the last school year. Ever since they chose to befriend each other in the library, it seemed as if Draco Malfoy always found some sort of way to be right beside Aurora Hampshire. She didn't mind it that much though. She particularly enjoyed spending time with Draco, although she had to scold him sometimes for his snarky attitude and rude comments about other students at Hogwarts he thought lesser of— and there were a lot of them, Aurora had grown to learn.
It seemed as if Draco taken quite a liking towards having Aurora around. The very day school got out, he invited her to spend the evening at his home and have dinner with his family. Aurora's mother was reluctant, as she did not quite trust Lucius Malfoy or his family, given that he was once a death eater and she knew how death eaters held the potential responsibility for the devastation of their family. But eventually, Aurora broke her down by going on and on about how much she liked her friend Draco and he was her best friend.
After that evening, when she returned home with wildflowers in her hair and dirt in her shoes, she immediately received yet another letter from Draco, telling her to visit again the very next day. From then on that summer, it was as if she spent every waking moment at Malfoy Manor, aside from periods of time when Aurora would start to feel guilty and want to spend time with her beloved family and her friends, prompting Malfoy to fill that gap of time by spending it with his other cronies.
Nonetheless, Aurora and Draco had grown very close together that summer, yet that moment, Aurora couldn't bring herself to even face him in the bookstore.
"Hi mum," She went up to Vesta, who was lowering her glasses to read the back cover of Lockhart's book, frowning. As she realized her daughter had joined, she put the book down.
"Hi love. You have everything you need?" She asked her, setting her hand on her shoulder. Aurora's attention was focused elsewhere though. She felt almost sick in the pit of her stomach as she glanced over to look at him. She rolled her eyes as she saw he was taunting Harry again— she could tell by the way he had a scrunched up look of disgust on his face. It was then that she realized how much Draco had grown now that she was looking at him from a distance. He was a bit taller, his jawline a little more profound. Her eyes followed up the stairs to his father who was looking at Aurora quite coldly. He made his way down, setting his walking stick upon Draco as he scolded him right in front of Harry and the others. After a quick exchange, they pulled away and Lucius grabbed Draco by the ear and whispered firmly to him. As this occurred, both pairs of eyes flickered toward Aurora and her mother.
Aurora watched in horror as Draco's fear of his father quickly dissolved into some sort of sickening dismay. He quickly turned away, seeming a bit distraught before he and his father left the bookstore together, walking out the door without another look back.